Category: etc.

Megen at On the Thames shares this whimsical, new idea: BookCrossing.

What is that, you wonder? Well, here:

bookcrossing
n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

Megen describes it for us’un:

Here’s what it is in a nutshell: People leave books all over the place for others to enjoy. There two roles- Releasers and Finders. A Releaser registers a book, stamps or labels it inside that it is a BookCrossing book, and then “releases it into the wild”. Anywhere, although you note on the site where-about you released it.

Then you wait. Until a Finder finds it and goes online to note it’s been found. A Finder probably isn’t a BookCrosser, but someone who just stumbled upon it (and is able to follow directions to log on and keep the fun going). A BookCrosser can also “go hunting” by checking on local cities where books were released.

I went virtual hunting in CA. There was a book left in the surgery waiting room at Mission Hospital, in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton in Dana Point, and in the pay phone in front of Mervyns off Alicia Parkway. Here in England, most are left on trains. And they show up all over the world! English language books that started in Canada end up in South Africa.

Sounds fun! All right, peeps. Go to the BookCrossing website linked above for more details. And let’s start planning to release some creativity back into the wild!

H/T: Jeannine

I’ll be posting Part 2 of “curtain calls/curtain cries” tomorrow, most likely. But I had to write this wee post about a book I have only just started and am loving: “ManAlive” by G.K. Chesterton. (Okay. The name’s not great. Move past it.)

The book tells the tales of one Innocent Smith, rather a strange, unconventional sort, thus far, but a captivating one nonetheless.

I mean, how can you not like a fellow who literally BLOWS upon the scene during a Great Wind?

How can you not want to root for a fellow described thusly:

“He had bright blonde hair that the wind brushed back like a German’s, a flushed eager face like a cherub’s and a prominent pointing nose, a little like a dog’s. His head, however, was by no means cherubic in the sense of being without a body. On the contrary, on his vast shoulders and shape, generally gigantesque, his head looked oddly and unnaturally small. This gave rise to a scientific theory (which his conduct full supported) that he was an idiot.”

AND thusly:

“He had the sensualities of innocence; he loved the stickiness of gum and he cut white wood greedily as if he were cutting a cake. To this man wine was not a doubtful thing to be defended or denounced; it was a quaintly-colored syrup, such as a child sees in a shop window. He talked dominantly and rushed the social situation; but he was not asserting himself, like a superman in a modern play. He was simply forgetting himself, like a little boy at a party. He had somehow made a giant stride from babyhood to manhood, and missed that crisis in youth when most of us grow old.”

Ah. Brilliant.

Can’t wait to keep reading.

I love, love, love this website.

Makes you want to be really nice to waiters. Just really very nice.

You know how sometimes you’re in the park watching “Macbeth” at the Shakespeare Festival? You’re outside. It’s just a lovely evening. Someone has thoughtfully procured tickets to the theatre as a birthday present for you. And you know how you sit in your seat, tapping your toe, waiting impatiently for the show to start? Never mind that the old man next to you is really very large and apparently sleepy and starting to snore before the show even begins. You wish him sweet dreams, poppy, as long as he doesn’t topple over onto you.

Because you are laser focused on that stage.

And then you know how the show finally starts, with a thrill, with a rush? You’re engrossed. Nothing can distract you. Not even that vague smell of pastrami or some other cured meat wafting from the general direction of Sleepy Old Man.

And you know how the story unfolds and Macbeth murders Duncan, the king, and is plagued by memories of the ghastly deed and mocked by his horrible shrew wife and it’s all very intense and you’re rapt with attention, even though people around you are reciting the lines along with the actors, which you’re only doing in your head, thinking this somehow makes you the better person?

Minor irritations, truly. You are edge-of-your-seat enthralled.

And then you know how sometimes ALL the seals at the nearby zoo start barking and bellowing in dreadful, insistent unison?

Oh, you know how it goes. Macbeth is wigging out:

“How is’t with me, when every noise appalls me?”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARR ARR!!!

Macbeth sees blood, only blood:

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARR AR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARRR!!!

“No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red!”

ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARRR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRRRRRRRRRR!!!

And you know how you’re trying to stifle the rising waves of laughter, because the juxtaposition is just too much, but this is the Old Globe Theatre, after all, and you’re allegedly an adult and someone was brave enough to risk taking you out in public and you’re still allegedly an adult — you’re a year older, for Pete’s sake — and you owe it to him to behave like one?

Then you glance at him and he is shaking, head bowed. Laughing. And you, grownup that you are, poke him and he looks at you, helpless to stop, and you’re toast. You’re gone. Laughing. Trying to be quiet, but laughing, nonetheless.

And you hear the ripples spreading across the ampitheatre, joining with Macbeth and that mighty marine chorus until the sound is simultaneously thus:

“WAKE DUNCAN WITH THY KNOCKING! I WOULD THOU COULDST!”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR!!!

TEE HEE TEE HEE TEE HEE HEE HEE TEE HEE TEE HEE HEE TEE HEE HEE!!!

So there you are, giggling with the other grownups, watching Macbeth’s tragedy become Macbeth’s comedy — if just for a moment — and you chuckle even more because it IS the thinnest of lines separating those two sides of the mask and isn’t that why you love the theatre, after all?

That crazy, sublime, maddening, transcendent theatre.

Okay. It’s the birthday today. I’m writing this quick note while My Beloved is taking a shower. I don’t know what he has planned for today. I only know a few birthdays ago, he tried to kill me with a glider ride. 😉

Pray for me.

Hey, Wonder Woman — aka She Who Makes Everything Work ‘Round Here — has told me that the “Contact” link above is working! So shoot me an email whenever you like. And if you’d like to help me test it out “for reals,” send me one posthaste.

In it, you may, if you’d like, discuss my upcoming birthday — July 31st. And yes, it’s Harry Potter’s birthday too, and such. And yes, it’s funny because of the whole demon thing. And yes, some people have a distinct, Snape-like hate for me.

And yet, some people find me magical.

I don’t actually know any of these people, but … 😉

Honestly, I’m not trying to be coy. I do plan on giving a full report about the meeting. My mind is still too boggled. And then there’s this:

The drama camp I run each summer starts in a week. In addition to director, I am also playwright.

So I guess it’s time to start writing that play ….

(All right! It’s true! I’m a flagrant procrastinator and now I’m done for because writing schlock takes time! Time I don’t have!! Oh, I’ve an idea that I don’t like, but now I’m committed to it, like some drugstore shopper on Christmas eve, frantic for that perfect gift, forced to buy a nose hair clipper for grandma.)

So while the souls of Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Williams squall in protest, I calmly smush in my ear plugs, down some Junior Caramels,* and await the muse.

Lateness is so rude, don’t you agree?

(*Like Milk Duds, but edible and chewy and good, so good.)

Well, I’m off to the meeting.

Here’s truth: God is sovereign.

UPDATE, 2:45 p.m.: Hmmmm. Well ………

Hmmmm.

And God is still sovereign.

But ….. hmmmmmmmmm …..

How’s that for a summary?

I’m afraid this week’s blogging is going to be more journal-ish than usual.

By that I mean, you’ll likely be treated to a steady stream of posts that bear witness to my churning insides, my clamoring thoughts, my unassuaged fears about Friday’s meeting with my one-time best friend, Joey.

Clarity is elusive here; wisdom more so. There’s how my flesh wants to handle it — for instance, in one message she suggested that we meet near a particular pond at a particular park; I demurred, not from a dislike of ponds, mind you, but from an awareness that I was relishing the mental picture of her in the pond a little too much.

And then there’s how the Lord wants me to handle it. Somehow, I don’t think that involves my secret, coddled equation of:

Pond + Joey = Tracey’s inner delight and the solution to everything!

So we’re not meeting by the pond.

In a recent phone conversation, my sister said:

“Don’t underestimate what God is capable of.”

To which I countered:

“Yeah, but I don’t want to overestimate what I’m capable of.”

She sighed, wondering, I’m sure, why she was paying for such long-distance aggravation.

I know — how I know! — the scales of my heart must tip in the balance towards God, towards His way — love, forgiveness, humility. The problem is that sinner’s heart inside each of us that naturally tips its balance towards the flesh, towards our way, the bottom of that pond. And right now, I can feel, unmistakably, that inner see-saw, tilting this way, then that, and back again, in wobbly rhythm.

No wonder I feel sick.

Oh, please. Puh-leaze. Spindly, three-legged aliens of vastly superior intelligence attack earth for no discernable reason. They’re winning, decimating us. Then …. they suddenly become delicate flowers dropping dead across the landscape?!

Because of a weakened immune system!!??

Guess they missed ol’ Tom’s recent railings that vitamins cure everything.

Sheesh.