Tuesday 21 December 2010

Lord Willin

As a man was leaving the office, a girl I work with said "Merry Christmas".
He turned around and said, "The same to ya'll too, Happy New Year!"
To which she replied, "See you next year!" Laughter was exchanged and general good vibes spread through the office.
As he walked out the door, the gentleman (who was wearing a Gator hat, by the way) said, "Lord willin, I'll be here!"
And I knew he was right, and thought of all the vain things I make plans about and was reminded of this passage from James 4:

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”


Monday 13 December 2010

Is That What It Is?

Artemis is the Greek goddess of hunting, wild animals, virginity and the moon, twin sister of Apollo. This guy asked for my phone number over the weekend and it made me think of this story (and wonder why it's been 2.5 years since the last time that happened, what is it about me? I've been told I'm intimidating, being a referee of men's rugby (and women's), tall and not ugly and all). Anyway this is the story:

Artemis was once bathing in a vale on Mount Cithaeron, when the Theban hunter Actaeon stumbled across her. Enraged, Artemis turned him into a stag and, not knowing their own owner, Actaeon's own dogs killed him.

I mean she was pissed he saw her naked. She couldn't have him going around saying, "Yo I saw that virgin goddess Artemis naked!" BUT, I think it's significant that she turned him into a stag (deer), allowing him to live in the form of an animal she held sacred. Hmmmm. Then again she probably knew his dogs would attack him if he were a deer.

Infinite Jest, an amazing book I just read and highly recommend, had a character named Joelle/Madame Psychosis who was beautiful (the former love of her life, Orin would continue to refer to her as the "P.G.O.A.T.", as in Prettiest Girl Of All Time). Her father warned her about men who were only attracted to her looks, ("The sweetest syrup attracts the nastiest flies.") so she was paranoid about that. But the author called it "Actaeon Complex", ("deep phylogenic fear of transhuman beauty"), which is what men get around women who are so intimidatingly beautiful they're actually repelled by them and can't bring themselves to even talk to her. I can't say this is my problem (I'm actually quite awkward and get this same Actaeon Complex around good-looking dudes as I go around looking like an unmade bed) but it makes me feel better to blame it on this. Maybe I should be asking "What's wrong with this kid who wants my phone number!?!?" (just teasing - I know that a girl's phone number is like a trophy for a guy)

*(Ultimately, at Thanksgiving dinner at Joelle's parents' house (with Orin at the table) her father revealed some gross crap about him being in love with her so the mother freaked out and went down to the basement where the father had his lab (he was a low pH chemist) and threw a beaker of acid at the father, who ducked, so it ended up breaking on Joelle's face, which made her deformed and un-look-at-able, so she joined the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed and took an oath to always wear a veil to cover her face. And obviously Orin dumped her soon thereafter. At least she didn't have to worry if men were just interested in her physical appearance anymore.)

From wikipedia, other reasons I identify with Artemis' story:
The childhood of Artemis is not fully related in any surviving myth. The Iliad reduced the figure of the dread goddess to that of a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus.[17] A poem of Callimachus to the goddess "who amuses herself on mountains with archery" imagines some charming vignettes: according to Callimachus, at three years old, Artemis, while sitting on the knee of her father, Zeus, asked him to grant her six wishes: to remain always a virgin; to have many names to set her apart from her brother Apollo; to be the Phaesporia or Light Bringer; to have a bow and arrow and a knee-length tunic so that she could hunt; to have sixty "daughters of Okeanos", all nine years of age, to be her choir; and for twenty Amnisides Nymphs as handmaidens to watch her dogs and bow while she rested. She wished for no city dedicated to her, but to rule the mountains, and for the ability to help women in the pains of childbirth.[18]
Artemis believed that she had been chosen by the Fates to be a midwife, particularly since she had assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin brother, Apollo.[19] All of her companions remained virgins and Artemis guarded her own chastity closely. Her symbols included the golden bow and arrow, the hunting dog, the stag, and the moon.

"She wished for no city dedicated to her..."
"...Guarded her own chastity closely."

And she killed Adonis, the guy everyone thought was so hot. (Also from wikipedia):
In some versions of the story of Adonis, who was a late addition to Greek mythology during the Hellenistic period, Artemis sent a wild boar to kill Adonis as punishment for his hubristic boast that he was a better hunter than she.

So, Artemis is one of my favorite mythological figures. There was a point but I forgot it.

Sunday 12 December 2010

You Know Who You Are

Thank you for bein a friend
Travel down the road and back again
Your heart is true
You're a pal and a confidant

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see
The biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say

Thank you for bein a friend.