How are you?
This question stumps me, unless I have a ready "clever"* response.
Other people answer with "fine." I am trying to work on that, but years and years of having my father come up with "clever" answers has demolished the normalcy from my repertoire. (Just look at the previous sentence! I write like this because I'm tired! It's easier! Nobody writes like this! And has long, parenthetical, hyper-exclamatory asides!)
*"Sedentary" is the only one I can think of now.
I analyze things. When I worked at Blockbuster, I looked at the best way for a customer to receive a pen: on the counter this way, that way, held in a particular way, on the receipt or next to (it's handing it, tip angled down and away from the signer). I try to keep my office supplies where they will be most useful (not easy, since I have a short-in-depth desk so far), and the phone where it is natural for me to reach for it. When I'm in the office kitchen, I place the coffee supplies strategically: creamer here, sugar-types here, stirrers here; decaf on the top shelf because only guests use it.
What are your favorite words starting with "non-"? I just thought of two and decided to ask. I like nonage and nonce.
Yesterday morning I chanted with the women's choir at Orthros and Liturgy. I read a psalm; Mary Beth asked me to chant a verse of the Tes presvies, and I looked at it, and it sunk in that I had no idea how the melody went, and I thought it stayed the same, but maybe it went up or down and aaaaaa, so I shook my head 'no' and she did it. Mary made fun of me, but I read the third psalm somewhere (stupid fingers! stop typing 'pslam'! It is not a word! You lose!) at Fr. Seraphim's request and after that I was pointed to keep going with the Alleluia stuff and at Peabody they sing in the middle (between psalms 3 and 4), and at all the normal places they only sing at the end, so I started singing (because I didn't know this until my husband pointed it out to me) and was hushed. And yes, I did cry, and I'm ashamed of that, too, but it was for Fr. Seraphim and I wanted to do it right and I didn't, and that hurt. So I'd rather be made fun of for not doing something than be pitied for doing it wrong. At least in this case. Eleni balked at intoning something, and Mary teased her, calling her a chicken. I told Peterbird about this and he pondered whether Mary meant it as a pun, as 'Poulos' is close to the Greek word for 'chicken.' Don't worry. I smacked him with a pillow.
Note to self: do not accept NFL tickets because you will regret going to the game when you could have accepted the luncheon invitation of MB's parents.
Yesterday afternoon, we went to see the Patriots and the Saints in Gilette Stadium, thanks to my job. It was eerie: the first football game I've been to that didn't have a marching band. The dancing girls were the only entertainment, but after making the observation that their tiny shorts seemed ridiculous in conjunction with their giant pouffy jackets, the blinking displays of advertising seemed more interesting. We watched the first half, and it was exciting and fun. It was sunny, but the sun wasn't in our eyes; it was windy, but it mostly died down. On the other hand, we were at the very top and it seemed like the only way to get there was this long long ramp which reminded me of UT fencing drills.
We had entered at the not-so-close gate, so it was a lovely walk just to get to the ramp, weaving through people carrying very spillable glasses of beer. Around halftime, I realized that there wasn't going to be any sort of halftime show (even the dancing girls had disappeared), and I asked Peterbird if he wanted to get a shirt from the Pro Shop (we had a soccer shirt coupon, also from my work, that I hadn't yet redeemed) during halftime or the third quarter (being the traditional band resting time, so that seemed natural). We went down the ramp and around about a quarter of the stadium before losing all track of any signs saying 'Pro Shop,' so we asked a yellow-jacketed group of people, one of whom pointed us to keep going another quarter-turn around the stadium (opposite corner from our seats, on the very lowest level).
We got to the Pro Shop and everything there was Patriots gear, nothing for the Revolution (coupon for a particular Revolution shirt), so we asked for help and they went in the back and gave us a shirt. So that's one Christmas present down. Everyone else to go. Peterbird asked if we could just go home, as we were well into the third quarter by then, and this would help beat the traffic. So we went home and watched NFL on tv as long as it was on (as we do most other Sunday afternoons while we take our PLN*) and played Uno.
*Post-Liturgical Nap.
Yesterday evening, Peterbird went to the vigil and I settled down for a solid four-and-a-half-(and then some)-hour stint at the computer: transcribed another talk for L, and commented on each of Peterbird's papers. Most of my comments at that hour were: "I DON'T GET THIS PLEASE EXPLAIN," so I don't know how helpful I was.
So I didn't exactly mean for this entry to be this long, detailed, or involved, but I'm a sucker for external validation, and yeah. Oh, and I liked L's idea of the Liturgy being a respiration process. Disjointed disjointed disjointed. I give myself an A+ because I can. I will stop now. I think I am tired and none of these papers have gotten off of my desk just because I don't like them.
Other people answer with "fine." I am trying to work on that, but years and years of having my father come up with "clever" answers has demolished the normalcy from my repertoire. (Just look at the previous sentence! I write like this because I'm tired! It's easier! Nobody writes like this! And has long, parenthetical, hyper-exclamatory asides!)
*"Sedentary" is the only one I can think of now.
I analyze things. When I worked at Blockbuster, I looked at the best way for a customer to receive a pen: on the counter this way, that way, held in a particular way, on the receipt or next to (it's handing it, tip angled down and away from the signer). I try to keep my office supplies where they will be most useful (not easy, since I have a short-in-depth desk so far), and the phone where it is natural for me to reach for it. When I'm in the office kitchen, I place the coffee supplies strategically: creamer here, sugar-types here, stirrers here; decaf on the top shelf because only guests use it.
What are your favorite words starting with "non-"? I just thought of two and decided to ask. I like nonage and nonce.
Yesterday morning I chanted with the women's choir at Orthros and Liturgy. I read a psalm; Mary Beth asked me to chant a verse of the Tes presvies, and I looked at it, and it sunk in that I had no idea how the melody went, and I thought it stayed the same, but maybe it went up or down and aaaaaa, so I shook my head 'no' and she did it. Mary made fun of me, but I read the third psalm somewhere (stupid fingers! stop typing 'pslam'! It is not a word! You lose!) at Fr. Seraphim's request and after that I was pointed to keep going with the Alleluia stuff and at Peabody they sing in the middle (between psalms 3 and 4), and at all the normal places they only sing at the end, so I started singing (because I didn't know this until my husband pointed it out to me) and was hushed. And yes, I did cry, and I'm ashamed of that, too, but it was for Fr. Seraphim and I wanted to do it right and I didn't, and that hurt. So I'd rather be made fun of for not doing something than be pitied for doing it wrong. At least in this case. Eleni balked at intoning something, and Mary teased her, calling her a chicken. I told Peterbird about this and he pondered whether Mary meant it as a pun, as 'Poulos' is close to the Greek word for 'chicken.' Don't worry. I smacked him with a pillow.
Note to self: do not accept NFL tickets because you will regret going to the game when you could have accepted the luncheon invitation of MB's parents.
Yesterday afternoon, we went to see the Patriots and the Saints in Gilette Stadium, thanks to my job. It was eerie: the first football game I've been to that didn't have a marching band. The dancing girls were the only entertainment, but after making the observation that their tiny shorts seemed ridiculous in conjunction with their giant pouffy jackets, the blinking displays of advertising seemed more interesting. We watched the first half, and it was exciting and fun. It was sunny, but the sun wasn't in our eyes; it was windy, but it mostly died down. On the other hand, we were at the very top and it seemed like the only way to get there was this long long ramp which reminded me of UT fencing drills.
We had entered at the not-so-close gate, so it was a lovely walk just to get to the ramp, weaving through people carrying very spillable glasses of beer. Around halftime, I realized that there wasn't going to be any sort of halftime show (even the dancing girls had disappeared), and I asked Peterbird if he wanted to get a shirt from the Pro Shop (we had a soccer shirt coupon, also from my work, that I hadn't yet redeemed) during halftime or the third quarter (being the traditional band resting time, so that seemed natural). We went down the ramp and around about a quarter of the stadium before losing all track of any signs saying 'Pro Shop,' so we asked a yellow-jacketed group of people, one of whom pointed us to keep going another quarter-turn around the stadium (opposite corner from our seats, on the very lowest level).
We got to the Pro Shop and everything there was Patriots gear, nothing for the Revolution (coupon for a particular Revolution shirt), so we asked for help and they went in the back and gave us a shirt. So that's one Christmas present down. Everyone else to go. Peterbird asked if we could just go home, as we were well into the third quarter by then, and this would help beat the traffic. So we went home and watched NFL on tv as long as it was on (as we do most other Sunday afternoons while we take our PLN*) and played Uno.
*Post-Liturgical Nap.
Yesterday evening, Peterbird went to the vigil and I settled down for a solid four-and-a-half-(and then some)-hour stint at the computer: transcribed another talk for L, and commented on each of Peterbird's papers. Most of my comments at that hour were: "I DON'T GET THIS PLEASE EXPLAIN," so I don't know how helpful I was.
So I didn't exactly mean for this entry to be this long, detailed, or involved, but I'm a sucker for external validation, and yeah. Oh, and I liked L's idea of the Liturgy being a respiration process. Disjointed disjointed disjointed. I give myself an A+ because I can. I will stop now. I think I am tired and none of these papers have gotten off of my desk just because I don't like them.
posted by magda at 10:40 AM
3 Comments:
Two quick notes:
1. At Peabody there isn't really a 'between psalms 3 and 4,' because they usually only do the first and sixth psalms. It seems like it's between psalms three and four because there should be more coming. For whatever it's worth I used to sing between the third and fourth psalms for a while, too... you may even have heard me to it at some point.
2. "I DON'T GET THIS. PLEASE EXPLAIN" is one of the most helpful things someone can tell me. When I think of things for a while, they sort of become self-evident and I will lose track of the fact that I've gone through a complex process of thinking before they became self-evident/clear (and, consequently, that people who can't see the inside of my head don't know why I think they are self-evident/clear)
Sounds like a busy weekend!
Laughing at wanting to always have the perfect rejoiner to "How are you?"
When I was an undergraduate, a friend of mine whom I highly respect raked me across the carpet for responding with "fine" when she asked how I was.
She justifiably argued that I was being dishonest and disrespectful for not providing an answer to her serious and compassionate question that involved even a semblance of thought or consideration, nor provided any useful information to her.
I suppose if we Christians are to commune with each other, we at least have to be vaguely willing to begin to be transparent.
So...a test: how are you? :)
Actually..."sedentary" is a pretty good answer!
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