Category: Writing

Parochial Loneliness

Pray for Allie Hathaway, then click the picture for more quick takes at ConversionDiary.com

1.

Sarah Reinhard wrote about being welcoming over at New Evangelizers the other day. Posts like hers always make me cry.  The reason is because if I who should feel totally at home in a Catholic parish feel so utterly isolated . . . how on earth does everyone else feel?

2.

Yeah.  I just said that.

3.

It’s not about the people.  To a man my fellow parishioners, and everyone I’ve met in my diocese and anywhere I’ve traveled (except that one cranky priest one time, but come on, everybody has bad days) — everyone is really very nice.  Kind, caring people.  No complaints.  None.

Still, it’s lonely.

4.

And it isn’t a strictly Catholic problem.  I’ve had multiple Evangelical friends — and if Catholics are a little shy and reserved, trust me, Evangelicals are not — I’ve had a number of non-Catholic friends wander from congregation to congregation in search of companionship.  Someone to notice them.  To care about them.  To view them as something other than a potential nursery worker, or those people you smile at in the pews but really if they fell into a crevasse tomorrow, no one would much realize.

5.

Part of the problem is geographic.  I see church people on Sunday, but the rest of the week we retreat to our different neighborhoods spread throughout the city.  I can distinctly remember the last time I ran into an acquaintance from church outside of Mass — it was several months ago, at Publix — and interestingly, the time before that was maybe six months prior, same lady, at the library.  But they just moved to Seattle, so that’s over.  Oh wait — and I ran into the dad of one of my students at McDonald’s this winter — I had turned to look because I was struck at how polite he was, the way he spoke to the counter lady.

Part of it is structural.  Our parish has five masses in a weekend — if someone’s missing, for all you know they just slept in an hour, or decided they like the 8:00 AM organist better.  You might see an announcement in the parish bulletin if someone’s dead or nearly dead, if the next of kin notified the parish office. For all I know, I run into fellow parishioners everywhere, and never even know it, because we aren’t at the same Mass.

Part of it is architectural. You want to say to hello someone after Mass, but they slip out the other door.  I used to go down to coffee and donuts, but the room is acoustically alive — too loud and you can’t hear anyone, so conversation is strained.

–> Something my parish does right: We have a fabulous playground right next to the church building.  So the parents of young children do have a natural way to meet up and chat after Mass.  Which I love, and have made many friends that way.

Part of it is economic.  I keep befriending people who move away.  I’m sure it’s not me.  Sometimes I when I introduce myself to someone, I feel like saying, “Are you going to move or drop dead* in the next two years?  Because I’d sure like some friends that stick around.”

Part of it is personality and state of life.  I’m an introvert. I want one-on-one conversations about substantial topics.  Just throwing us all into the gym for a giant spaghetti supper or pancake breakfast, and calling it parish-togetherness because we’re all in the same room?  No thanks.  But I’m not at a stage in my life when it’s easy to get out for a small-group bible study, or meet someone for coffee, or pick up the phone and talk for ten minutes without having to break up three fights and answer seven urgent questions, two of which really were urgent, and one of which involved the dog throwing up.

6.

Loneliness is no reason to leave the Church.  It’s not a social club. It’s a place to worship the one true God, to prepare your soul for Heaven, to gear yourself up for serving others here on earth.  The little Christs come to serve, not to be served.

And this is why I’m such a thorn in everyone’s flesh about solid theology programs.  Because my goodness, I don’t care how wonderful your youth program is, or how great your ladies’ monthly luncheon is at making lonely widows feel at home, sooner or later as a Catholic you’re going to be in the pit.  You’ll be the odd person out, the one nobody remembers to call, the one for whom there is no parish ministry that fits your life and your abilities.

Faith formation can’t be all about relationships and togetherness, or there’s no reason to stick around when the group doesn’t meet spec.  If there’s one question religious ed needs to answer, it is: “Why should I bother coming to Mass when my parish is horrible?”

[My parish is not horrible.  Far from it.  I am usually so happy to be home after having to go visit some other place.  Like the church with the horrid dentist-office decor, or the one with the oppressively low ceilings, or the one with no vacant seats up front . . . but I do kinda like the neon lights in the ceiling that change to match the colors of the liturgical season, out at my Dad’s parish in Las Vegas . . . though their traffic pattern for the communion line is inscrutable.]

7.

Solutions, anyone?

I do feel an amazing kinship with the lady I always see at adoration and who I run into other places around the parish, even though we rarely get to talk to each other, but you can just tell she’s your friend, and she has masses said for everyone including my grandfather when he died, even though she’d never met or even heard of him before it was listed in the parish bulletin.  Most of the time it is enough to just see familiar people, to have that sense of home, even if you don’t really know them.

But sometimes you want more.  Real live friends that you see outside of Mass.

I know the playground-after-Mass method works.  And I’ve made friends teaching religious ed, volunteering is good that way.  Haunting the local Catholic bookstore will make you at least be friends with the owner there (they go to another parish). Slowly, slowly, we build up friendships with other families through trying to set up dinner together this week, a park date that week . . . but it’s long work, and we’re all so busy, and our lives so separate that every get-together has to be planned, and often the effort evaporates when some small thing throws a wrench in the works.

***

Anyhow, all that to say, that if we aren’t welcoming to our members — really welcoming, not just smile-smile handshake-handshake — how exactly are we perceived by outsiders?  As with catechesis, so with relationships: The new evangelization starts in the pews.

*Pleasantly few people I know actually drop dead after meeting me.  God bless modern medicine.

3.5 Time Outs: Awestruck

Thanks once again to our host, Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy.

Click and be amazed.

1.

This week I learned that someone was in awe of me. I advised her to seek counseling.

Not actually.  I did tell her she has a vivid imagination. That explanation makes it a reasonable mistake – imagine you knew me only on the internet, and furthermore had seen pictures of my home when it wasn’t that terribly terribly out of control — it could happen.  You’d be deluded.  But an honest mistake.

2.

I saw the most amazing floors this weekend.  Clean.  You’re chuckling now, thinking you’ve seen such a thing before.  No.  Quite possibly you have not. I hadn’t. These were VERY VERY clean floors.  They shined.  They were smooth underfoot.  No tiny grains of sand (of course we removed our shoes at the door).  No coarse edges.  No lint.  No crayons.  Clean.  And my daughter who babysits for this family reports these floors are always this clean.  Always.

Now to my knowledge, this family has no cleaning help.  They do have a new baby, a preschool boy of the usual energy level of preschool boys, and a homeschooled rising kindergartner.  Yes, this family does crafts.  Yes, this family eats dinner.  Yes, the children are home all day. And no, the mom is not a powerhouse of non-stop energy.  She is just a very, very, clean person.

This is what she loves.  I think she spends as many minutes cleaning as I spend writing, and as many minutes decluttering as I spend reading, and those two facts explain her home, my home, and our respective literary outputs.

Other than that, we’re both normal people.

3.

Now if you have spent an evening in one of these homes, it is truly a marvel.  It was relaxed and comfortable — the furniture was simple and unpretentious, the food was home-cooking, the children chased each other in loops through the kitchen, changed into 70 different dress-up outfits (actually just three, rotated), and there was the rhythmic thud of a boy jumping off his toddler slide onto a pile of cushions into what would have been the dining room, if these were the sort of people who were interested in impressing rather than welcoming.

Instead it was just luxurious.  So clean.  So peaceful (to someone used to preschoolers). Plus: Jello-Whip Cream Salad, green.  And I did marvel.  Wow.  God made a person who loves cleaning this much.  It is truly a work of art.  A gift to the world, however small and humble.

But because I’ve known Mrs. E all these years, I wasn’t intimidated.  She’s a normal person who happens to have this one gift.

So that was great, and now I remind myself when I’m intimidated by someone, that it’s because I’m only seeing some small side, and not the whole picture. And when I’m unimpressed by someone — same story.  You know there’s another side that tells much more.  Just have to dig for it.

3.5

Chickens.  Just two.  Strictly as pets.

Pets you can eat.

***

Well that’s all for today.  Tuesday is Link Day for all topics, help yourself if you are so inclined.   Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.  Have a great week!

3.5 Time Outs: Busy Beavers

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is also taking it easy today.  Post-holiday light blogging.  But scroll down he’s got some interesting stuff there — Where is the Daddy War? caught my attention.  I’ll come back to serious topics a different week.

Click and be amazed.

1.

This morning I emerged from the bedroom, and found an assortment of children in PJ’s huddled around Sesame Street.  Not surprising.  An odd collection of blankets and pillows and trash paper spread about the coffee table.  Not surprising.  My five-year-old sitting there with paper in her mouth.  *That*  I had never seen before.

2.

“Why do you have paper in your mouth?” I inquired.

“We’re beavers.”

Ah.  Beaver teeth. I had heard rumors of bunny teeth being made last week; after a weekend playing at the river, beaver teeth is the next logical thing.

I looked again at the coffee table.  Everything covering the table was brown.  Around it on the floor?  Blue. And the bits of crumpled up tissue paper were either rocks or whitewater, depending on who you ask.  The kindergartener crawled over to a length of 4″ PVC pipe with a green t-shirt top, made a buzzing noise as she chewed with her paper beaver teeth, and felled the tree.  They only have one tree to chew, so they re-erect it after each meal.

3.

This is why I homeschool*.  Because every now and then I can borrow Rocky Mountain Beaver Pond from the library, and all the kids abandon their regular school work in order to watch, even though they saw it already when they were in K5 or 1st or 2nd grade and in theory the big guys should find it boring by now, but they don’t.

And then instead of telling thirty kids, “Make a diorama about Beavers,” my kids build a live-action diorama in the living room when I thought they were just goofing off being edu-tained.

3.5

What is the proper place for the pink bunny and the purple hippos and the real live family cat, in a living room Beaver pond?  The negotiations are fascinating.

 

***

Well that’s all for today.   I’m catching up on the plugged-in life after the long weekend, so be patient with me as I work through the inbox.  I noticed over at CWG there’s a nice set of Memorial Day posts from today on back through Saturday, go take a look.

Tuesday is Link Day for all topics, not beavers only.  Help yourself if you are so inclined.   Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.  Have a great week!

 

*Other people have more impressive reasons for their educational choices.  But seriously.  I’m in it for the beaver pond.

7 Quick Takes: Girl Topics

1.

An internet friend pointed me to Ova Ova, a fertility awareness site.

It’s sleek, modern, and explains the basics of NFP.  In addition to the usual caution that FAM is secular-feminist amoral NFP with all the completely different set of issues that surround that world (and much that is good and true as well), let me also say quite vigorously . . .

2.

Please do not use condoms during your fertile time.

3.

Unless you’re trying to conceive, that is.  Recall that 100% of condom failures occur during that one week of your cycle when you are actually fertile.  Which means the condom effectiveness rates are massively overstated — 75% of the time, the condom isn’t doing anything at all, it’s just a decoration.

I completely understand that couples who don’t have moral objections to NFP might be tempted to use a condom during the non-fertile time of FAM, as “back-up”.  Sure, whatever, this is not the place to lay into someone who’s willing to try NFP, or something like it, but is not 100% on board.

But listen: When you know you’re fertile, if you have a serious reason to avoid?  Avoid.  Maybe you could watch cable or something.  Not that channel.  A different one.  Or how about hard physical labor?  And separate bedrooms states.  That works great.

4.

Okay, backing up a decade or three and completely changing topic, my daughter loves PrincessHairstyles.com.  The YouTube channel is hair4myprincess. Given too much time on the internet, very little competition for the hall bathroom, and two younger sisters as willing victims, a girl can get pretty good at this stuff.

Weirdly, although this is the same child who is also the junior photographer, I can find no pictures of her handiwork on the PC.  Sorry.

5.

I’ve got a couple of trips planned this summer, including the Catholic Writer’s Guild conference, where of course I’ll want to take lots of photos.

Small hitch: I own no camera.

Ellen Gable, Sarah Reinhard, and an empty space waiting for . . .

Solution: I’m renting the 10 y.o.’s camera – 25 cents a day. It’s a good deal all around.  I need a few lessons in how to use it first.

6.

Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.  Thanks!

7.1

I am so tempted to just leave the review for le Papillon here from last week.  It doesn’t seem to be generating sufficient enthusiasm, so I persist in my mission.   Here’s the picture to remind you that you should watch this film next time you get the chance:

7.2

Back on Tuesday (aka: Man Day), I posted part two of my Teen Boys and Chastity Bleg.  If you are visiting here from Conversion Diary, might I ask you to take a look?  You might know a gentleman who has a few ideas to add.

7.3

The difference between Catholic blogs and Evangelical blogs is not the statues or the rosaries.  It’s the liquor*.  If you didn’t see it already, visit Darwin’s Give That Woman a Drink.  You can count on the Darwins for good Catholic drinking posts.  My grandmother always had an old fashioned at the family get-togethers.   Now I know what’s in them.

*Kids: Drunkeness is a sin.  So is disobeying legitimate civil authorities.

World Communication Day & Promote Catholicism Day, part 2

Time for part 2 of the  Catholic media fest:

Then, on Thursday, May 24, please share the fruit of that day of prayer and silence with everyone, by posting your answer to the question: “What in Catholic Media has had an impact on me during the past year?” Share it on the New Evangelizers website at: http://newevangelizers.com/forums/topic/catholic-media-promotion-day-2012/

Half of you may have noticed, my efforts at internet silence were not so successful.  So this will be fruit-of-the-noise as well.

1.  Have I mentioned how much I love the printing press?

I’ve got an old version of one of these guys, not the hardback, and the spine’s peeling away.  I think most of my friends who do book repair are also solidly anti-Catholic, which makes it awkward to ask for advice.

2. SuperHusband swears by the iBreviary. It is indeed super cool.  I mean, yes, wow.  But I still prefer paper.

3. Review Books.  Yesterday in my failure to sit on my hands, I stumbled on RAnn’s list of Top Ten Sources for Review Books.  My current title from The Catholic Company is Benedict of Bavaria.  I picked it because that little voice told me I should, and my brain informed me that it was time I made myself read something substantial for a change, and this looked like it.  Ha!  I love being wrong.

“Substantial” is my code word for “thick” and “slog through long paragraphs written by people who need to get re-acquainted with the period key, and also not use the word ontological quite so much”.  Not so.  Eminentally readable, and super interesting — quite the departure from my usual association of Pope Topics = Too Smart for Me.  I love the printing press.  Love it.

4. Local Catholic Bookstores.  OSV Weekly has this cute little sidebar about “How to Read More.”  It’s like telling someone on a diet How to Eat More.  No, really, I read enough already.  If the meat thing doesn’t work out, Not Reading is my most painful alternate penance.

But the pleasure of the review programs sponsored by the big guys is that a) It supports the bookstores who provide for those who don’t have local bookstores b) sometimes I find a great book my local store doesn’t know about, and then I can pass it on, and c) I still have my book money left to spend with the local guys.

Support your local Catholic bookstore.  If you don’t have one, and your parish has a spare coat closet they can spare, consider starting one.  Nothing beats being able to browse in person, especially for kids.

5. A great book my local bookstore is about to find out about.  One of the tremendous pleasures of Catholic New Media has been getting to know other writers online.  Which is how I ended up with the announcement of this book in my inbox yesterday:

I can’t wait to the see the inside.

Another great moment in New Media e-mails yesterday . . . Julie Davis let me look at a sneak preview of a project she’s working on.  That’s all I can say right now.  But listen: There is a super-awesome, unbelievably gorgeous book in the works.  When the time comes, I will so tell the world it’s gonna be sort of annoying.  If your name is SuperMother-in-Law, I’m getting you one for Christmas.  (Not this Christmas.  You have to wait until it meets the printing press, which is still a ways off.)  With my own money.

6.  And that’s something I love about the Catholic new media: Catholic writers being able to connect with one another and collaborate on projects.  Writers in general can be a little paranoid.  What if someone else writes my book before I do?  In the Catholic world, yes that fear can be there.  But when your mission is  to evangelize, most of all there’s a tremendous sense of relief: Thank goodness someone wrote that book so I don’t have to.

When you’re still in that long aspiring-writer time of life, with 10,000 book ideas swirling in your head and a powerful desire to write them all, you don’t feel that way so much.  But once you actually go to write a whole book and make it see light of day, and you’ve gotten past the about the 4th draft of a completed manuscript, and discover how much work is required to write anything halfway decent . . . yeah, please.  Thank you all seventy-bazillion Catholic writers for being on the job.  You are so desperately needed.

7.  Um, there’s not much money in it.   Just so you know.  But listen, accounting is a great.  Engineering?  Janitorial work?  Lots of ways to support that writing habit.  And it’s all Catholic.

***

When I was first staying home to raise kids, I’d listen to Focus on the Family, and there was often mention of the incredible loneliness of the stay-at-home mom.  The internet has eased that isolation, especially for those of us introverts who would rather read and write than chit-chat at one of those mingle-y things.

Whenever you get to know somebody, no matter how, you only get to know part of them.  You never know the whole person. And at first, you only know a very small slice of the person.  The internet is only different in which slice you meet.

I love, LOVE, having a way to meet people from the inside out.  To not be distracted by their clothes or their accent or their weird habits or lack of weird habits.  To cut out the small talk and go straight to the issues . . . it takes so long at Donut Hour to find someone willing and able to hold a substantial conversation.  I love small blogs because you can have real conversation.  Yes, I’m like a moth to flame, leaving comments at Jen Fulwiler’s and Simcha’s and Msgr. Pope’s blogs.  But I always go to Darwin’s personal site, and not The American Catholic, because it’s small enough you can actually exchange ideas, and not just shout to the stadium.

So to you who write only very small blogs, let me say THANK YOU.   The big guys are doing an important work, and I’m grateful for them.  But small blogs fill a spot no one else can fill.  Keep going.

***

Also I beg you.  If it is at all within your power, please change your blog settings to allow the “subscribe to comments” feature.  Thank you.

World Communication Day & Promote Catholicism Day

Via Sarah R. via Lisa Hendey via I’m not sure who, but I finally got the memo.  How to join in the annual Catholic new media blog-love-a-thon:

This year, in keeping with the theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s message for World Communications Day 2012 — Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization — we’re asking you to do something different.

On Wednesday, May 23, we’re asking you to take a one-day break from posting on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, etc… and use that day to reflect on the Pope’s words about the role of silence in communication and evangelization.

Then, on Thursday, May 24, please share the fruit of that day of prayer and silence with everyone, by posting your answer to the question: “What in Catholic Media has had an impact on me during the past year?” Share it on the New Evangelizers website at: http://newevangelizers.com/forums/topic/catholic-media-promotion-day-2012/

Because I totally needed an excuse to:

a) not post anything

and

b) write about the Catholic Media.

You too, huh?

7 Quick Takes: Mother’s Day. Liquor Store Edition.

1.

In my family growing up we had a set of Mother’s Day rituals — taking Mom out to breakfast, going to the garden center to buy flowers to plant for her, sometimes even exchanging of gifts and cards.  When the Boy was born, I expected SuperHusband to just know what to do.  After all, my family’s traditions were hardly secret — you see that kind of stuff on TV.  I assumed everyone just knew.

Except that he didn’t.  Tears ensued.  Until I discovered one year that actually, there is a much, much better way:

2.

Making my own breakfast.  Why not have a day a year devoted to eating exactly what I want, prepared the way I like it, and you other people please just stay in bed and give the mother an hour of quiet to enjoy it?  It really is better.

3.

But I did tell the poor man what I wanted this year:  For him to please get repaired the watch he gave me a different year.  It needs a new battery and a new clasp, and yes I could take it to be repaired myself, but you know, he’s a mechanical engineer.  What a great way to show his love, driving to the store himself to oversee the repair of a tiny metal mechanical device?

Luckily there’s no deadline, except that I’d really love for it to be fixed by the end of August, when I go to the Catholic Blogger Foretaste of Heaven Conference.  Where our lovely 7-takes hostess will be speaking, no less.  I am wildly excited.

4.

Last year for Mother’s day, SuperHusband gave me a reprint of this book:


Which taught me how to make my own vinegar.  Seriously easy and you feel so crunchy-granola, and also it uses up wine ends.  And it is better than anything you can buy.

Small hitch: The cloth-covered Famous Grouse bottle serving as miniature vinegar barrel reminded the SuperHusband he wanted to resume homebrewing.  He’d been on a long toddler-rearing hiatus.  So he did.  Causing us to stop buying wine.  But I did the calculation, and it is cheaper to buy a bottle of Aldi wine and make vinegar out of it, than it is to buy Publix-brand red wine vinegar.  So that’s what I do.

5.

Speaking of famous grice: The SuperHusband was in the doghouse the other week, and to demonstrate the sincerity of his love, he came home with a bottle of Laphroaig for me.  Which was a tiny bit strange, because I had not been grousing about a lack of single-malt.  And the stuff is expensive.  But in a moment of virtually Therese-like holiness, I figured: Hey, this is good!  Might as well enjoy it!

He really does love me, you know.

6.

A prayer for Allie Hathaway is prayer for her mom, too.  You can’t go wrong.

7.

The American Frugal Housewife was not the first historic housekeeping title on my shelves.  The previous Christmas the SuperMother-In-Law, who knows me well, gave me this one:

Mrs. Beeton’s is much heftier than the Frugal Housewife, and addressed more towards homes with servants, and our servants are mostly the electric type anymore.  But I came across this eminently reassuring and useful* bit of advice about the rigors of breastfeeding and the avoidance of colic:

The nine or twelve months a woman usually suckles must be, to some extent, to most mothers, a period of privation and penance, and unless she is deaf to the cries of her baby, and insensible to its kicks and plunges, and will not see in such muscular evidences the griping pains that rack her child, she will avoid every article that can remotely affect the little being who draws its sustenance from her.  She will see that the babe is acutely affected by all that in any way influences her, and willingly curtail her own enjoyments, rather than see her infant rendered feverish, irritable, and uncomfortable.  As the best tonic, then, and the most efficacious indirect stimulant that a mother can take at such times, there is no potation equal to porter and stout, or what is better still, and equal part of porter and stout.

And with that, I bid you a Happy Mother’s Day.

*Do not use this advice. Or if you do and then need sue someone, sue Mrs. Beeton.  Her idea not mine.

3.5 Time Outs: The Plague-Ridden Lifestyle

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is nothing if not good for Death Star-themed humor.

TV is my friend.

1.

SuperHusband took the relatively healthy contingent to the family reunion [Bethune Homesteaders spared infection — castle residents went straight to our ancestral family’s farm, Curley family kept safe] and I stayed home with the weekend’s victims.  Got a lot of writing done, that’s nice.  But look, Barbecue!

2.

Having spent a weekend holed up in quarantine with an iPod, the Boy returned to the land of the living in order to show me this:

3.

And also this:

3.5

Not half a take, but themed on the halves: You’ll be pleased to know that while I learn slowly, I do eventually learn.  Monday I promised my would-be publisher I could have the manuscript on the new, expanded, book-length version of the catechist booklet done by  June 30th — and assured her that I what meant was “I plan to have it done by the 15th, so there’s two weeks of padding in there.”  Which I felt pretty good about saying, because I know I could get it done by the 1st.

See?  Take the estimated time to completion and double it — twice.  My operations management professor would be so proud.

Curiously, in checking those dates for the writing of this post, I accidentally set my computer’s clock ahead to June 29th.  Don’t worry, I put it back.

***

PS: Link day.  Help yourself if you are so inclined.  Though I can’t imagine there’s anything on the internet to top Barbecue-Zombie-Stormtrooper Day.  Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.

3.5 Time Outs: Plague Journal

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who’s got a time machine of his own going on this week.

One day is like 30 years, 30 years is like one day.

1.

I finished reading Eric Sammons’ new book, and hey, it’s pretty good. A lot good, in fact, and a review is forthcoming.  But today let me caution you: There’s a humility component to this holiness business.

Exhibit A:

Why do my renewed efforts at holiness always coincide with the arrival of a nasty evil throat-lung-stomach virus in our home?  Doesn’t our Lord know I have important holiness work to do?

Exhibit B:

Why does a resolution to be more Therese-like and offer up little annoyances for some general heavenly purpose get transformed into:

1.  A multiplication of petty annoyances, and a sudden intolerance for them?

2. A friend suddenly coming down with a horrid affliction (probable bone cancer — femur — please pray for Mrs. P) for which to offer all these things?

3. Thus destroying any sense of virtue I might have otherwise relished, and instead leaving me with a crotchety personality and the knowledge of just how petty it is?

 

So don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Good book otherwise, though.  Great book.

 

2.

I’m going to Dallas!!!!!!!  Yes, all those exclamation points truly are needed.  Because look, it’s like a giant crack convention:

A.  The Catholic Writer’s Conference, which means meeting in person all the people I get to work with on the CWG blog, which really is that exciting because when you get to know these people . . . you want to get to know these people.

B. The Catholic Marketing Network Conference, which is code for “Catholic Bookstores”.  Enough said.

C. And then in case I just wanted to be near the superstars of Catholic internet, there’s the Catholic New Media Conference right there as well.

Quadruple bonus:  I double-checked the back cover of my copy of Happy Catholic, and sure enough, Julie Davis lives in Dallas.  It says so right there.  (I knew it was some place in Texas, but I can never keep Dallas and Houston straight, except to know that confusing the two means wow, a lot of driving time.)  So maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to live out my dream of one day buying the woman a cup of coffee.  Or something.

3.

So here’s the thing: What’s the etiquette on bringing books to be signed at these events?  Because I don’t think I can carry that many books to Texas, and yet it would pain me, just pain me, to miss my chance to get some autographs.  I’m so conflicted.

3.5

Because I met the guy — that’s why.  Neat person.

***

PS: Link day.  Help yourself if you are so inclined.  Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.

PPS: Thus far I myself appear to be spared the evil thing — I thought I was coming down with it last night, but this morning I’m good.  So here’s your mission:  Imagine you’ve already finished praying for Mrs. P and your other serious concerns . . . Would you consider offering up a little prayer for our family, that my other dream of seeing the Bethune Catholic homestead is not thwarted by more plague later in the week?  I so want to go.  I pass the place every non-plague  year on the way to the family reunion, and I totally want to get a child to bake some brownies, and a different child to pack some airsoft guns, and stop in for an hour or two.  Goodness I might even mix up the brownies myself.

I was about to ask that we’d also be miraculously able to attend religious ed tonight (last night of the year), but #2 came staggering into the study with glazed eyes and feverish misery, so I don’t think the virtue of prudence will let us get away with that, even if there were miraculous recoveries in the next six hours.