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Sep. 29th, 2002 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7This mouse is royally screwed up, and the computer keeps making the noise it makes when it launches a program. I don't know why, no programs are launching...
i still don't have the scanner working, and I am at a loss as to how to get it to do so.
But.
I had a lovely day today anyhow. Spent it away from the computer.
Wasn't particularly lovely in any one sense, but it wasn't unlovely either.
Went to church with family this am-- very nice. Church is fun, but only at the one I went to as a kid. I just don't care about church anywhere else. I'm not at home there. Church is a place to feel enclosed by one's community. You know who they all are, they all know who you are (and your family), you know all the songs, you know what's going to happen next, and you can freely sit, stand, kneel, and repeat all the words safe in the knowledge that with your brain on auto-pilot nobody cares whether you're thinking of what Mom's going to cook for dinner or wondering what happens after you die. It's ok. You're free to ruminate upon thoughts of the beyond without being distracted by all the fuss and bother going on around you, because you know what it all is. I've gotten some of my best thinking done in church. And I also learned to sing there, which is something I won't soon forget. We have an amazing band.
I've also got some of my best plain zoning-out done in church, which is what I did today from the Gospel reading right up to the Communion, emerging only briefly for a shellshocked Our Father (why are we standing up? Why are we holding hands? That's still a new one on me, as they started that making-everyone-hold-hands bullshit after I stopped being home enough to attend regularly). It was nice; that's the part of Mass where it really starts to get to you, and I have pretty poor circulation I think so I have trouble sitting still that long and rising, kneeling, sitting on command.
Anyhow, the Gospel reading was about hypocrisy-- Matthew 21:28 and some change-- Jesus telling a parable of a man who tells his son to go work in the vineyards today, and the son says "No, I got better things to do," but then later changing his mind and figuring what the heck, he'd better go do what his dad asked him to do. Meanwhile the old man goes to his other son and says to go work in the vineyard. The second son eagerly agrees, assuring his father he certainly will, and as soon as the old man's gone he goes back to whatever he was doing and never bothers going at all. Jesus asks, "Which of the two sons did his father's will?" Naturally, being evildoers but not morons, his audience answers "the first." Jesus pats them on the head, and agrees. "And so it is with the Lord. Pretty words don't fool him; it's what you do that gets you in his good books. And so in this way tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into heaven ahead of you."
I liked that last line, which I don't remember the exact wording of; it's all a paraphrase because, humorously enough, I am inundated with books but I cannot find a Bible in the house of my father, to whom I owe most of my spirituality and religious education. (Mostly I didn't want to ask him where one was. I own two copies but I dunno where they got packed, and think I gave one away. I didn't want to say "I thought today's reading was funny and wanted to repeat it to my friends"... though my Dad wouldn't mind.)
I want to make that a bumper sticker. "Tax collectors and prostitutes will get into Heaven before you."
Hee!
In the meantime, Uncley Pete's cats are psychos but easy to care for. An hour of driving and an hour of cat-tidying and scritching gets me $15 a day-- or was it $10? Either way. I feel constructively employed. Good ol' Petey. His house is an absolute tip. Ridiculous. But, his business, not mine. [Must... fight... urge... to... tidy! Funny how I want to clean other people's disorder but feel no inclination to tame my own.]
I'm growing increasingly un-fond of cuts, but will cut here:
I inadvertently picked up Mom's book (a mystery novel by Barbara Vine that I find distastefully given to crude attempts at generating suspense by deliberately keeping mundane things mysterious-- it's in flashback form, but I notice the character never says her present-day husband's name, but refers repeatedly to how she met him. In the flashback she has a lover, and we are obviously to assume that he becomes her husband. But, why not say his name? Obviously, he is NOT the man she marries. And so, the surprise by its very existence invalidates itself. D'oh! Frustrating. Grasshopper is the book's title. Feel free to give it a miss.) today to read, and in response to my sulky protestations that I'd read everything else and she'd just left it lying there, Dad went and dug me up an entire stack of books on Vietnam that he thought I ought to have a look at, seeing as how I'd been so interested in his story. (I still am.) The first one I read, Platoon Leader by James McDonough (Presidio Press, 1985, with a touching inscription from my mother on the fly leaf-- "to my husband on our 9th anniversary. I didn't know you then but I've tried to understand"), whose tour was 1970-71, was the book Dad says he'd been meaning to write but this guy did it first and so well that there's no need for Dad to do it himself. It's a gripping book, and well-written, and very levelheaded, and indeed the man's philosophy is very close to dad's. They did the same job, only at different times and in different places-- McDonough was in Truong Lam in Tam Quon district, and Dad was right near Pleiku in I think Kontum (or was that t'other way round? I'm rusty on my Vietnamese geography, though i've posted about it before and don't feel like looking it up-- this isn't my computer). Both felt it was their duty to do the best job possible, to hinder the enemy in every way possible but to keep as many of their own men from harm as possible at the same time. Both had somewhat cynical views of the politics behind their missions, and had the very well-grounded belief that from their immediate superiors on up, almost nobody had a damn clue what they were doing. But both felt it their duty to be in all ways professional, to do what they were told as well as they could, and to never openly let the men know that their assignments were quite possibly meaningless.
After all, they were making the world safe for democracy, even if they had to shoot children to do it. (McDonough deals with this, I think, with particular honesty and sensitivity in several very raw passages. Not sensationally, but very honestly. As one of his anguished soldiers puts it, "What do you say to a girl whose arm you shot off?")
So Dad's right; a very vivid book has already been written that's quite similar to what he would write.
I still feel that it's a story that deserves to be told. I want more than anything to get Prove back online. I can't afford the webspace... if only my parents were within range of cable, RoadRunner's having a sale and I'm sure I could talk them into the service (mom would love cable so she could tape Univision for her classes, and watch the Mexican soaps to pick up new slang words)-- there's webspace with that, that'd be just enough to get Prove online (i might have to streamline it)...
unfortunately, believe it or not, in 2002, in New York State, my parents live in too rural a district, and cable's not available here.
Funny, huh?
Anyhow. Perhaps I'll resume working with Dad on something. I don't know what. He really is interested in telling his story, but he's too modest to set about it himself for his own sake. I think this is a particularly important time in history for something like this; there are a lot of people who it would do good to hear about something like that. I wish I could mail it to G.W.B. with a note, and be sure that he'd read it, along with Cheney and the cronies-- the most terrible thing when you think about it is how one-sided these men's loyalty to their government is. They will dutifully give their lives. The government will thoughtlessly take them, with an eye only on the god damn pork barrel. The longer I'm a citizen the more I feel that this is the case. Our government is full of too many people unworthy of the power given them. But... sigh. If I felt I were able to serve my country best by donning a uniform, I would, and if I were called upon to risk my life I could only hope that I were brave enough to answer as I should. Flawed as it is, it's still my country, and I owe my people my life in return for their making it possible. It's the only system that can work. Still, it wouldn't be the politicians I'd die for-- only the people, who are at once the bravest and most cowardly, the most enlightened and benighted, the cleverest and most obtuse, the brightest, dumbest, dorkiest, coolest, most brilliant dull people on earth. My people.
Anyhow. That's probably enough ranting for tonight. I'm not going to attempt the drivers again. I just can't get them to work.
i still don't have the scanner working, and I am at a loss as to how to get it to do so.
But.
I had a lovely day today anyhow. Spent it away from the computer.
Wasn't particularly lovely in any one sense, but it wasn't unlovely either.
Went to church with family this am-- very nice. Church is fun, but only at the one I went to as a kid. I just don't care about church anywhere else. I'm not at home there. Church is a place to feel enclosed by one's community. You know who they all are, they all know who you are (and your family), you know all the songs, you know what's going to happen next, and you can freely sit, stand, kneel, and repeat all the words safe in the knowledge that with your brain on auto-pilot nobody cares whether you're thinking of what Mom's going to cook for dinner or wondering what happens after you die. It's ok. You're free to ruminate upon thoughts of the beyond without being distracted by all the fuss and bother going on around you, because you know what it all is. I've gotten some of my best thinking done in church. And I also learned to sing there, which is something I won't soon forget. We have an amazing band.
I've also got some of my best plain zoning-out done in church, which is what I did today from the Gospel reading right up to the Communion, emerging only briefly for a shellshocked Our Father (why are we standing up? Why are we holding hands? That's still a new one on me, as they started that making-everyone-hold-hands bullshit after I stopped being home enough to attend regularly). It was nice; that's the part of Mass where it really starts to get to you, and I have pretty poor circulation I think so I have trouble sitting still that long and rising, kneeling, sitting on command.
Anyhow, the Gospel reading was about hypocrisy-- Matthew 21:28 and some change-- Jesus telling a parable of a man who tells his son to go work in the vineyards today, and the son says "No, I got better things to do," but then later changing his mind and figuring what the heck, he'd better go do what his dad asked him to do. Meanwhile the old man goes to his other son and says to go work in the vineyard. The second son eagerly agrees, assuring his father he certainly will, and as soon as the old man's gone he goes back to whatever he was doing and never bothers going at all. Jesus asks, "Which of the two sons did his father's will?" Naturally, being evildoers but not morons, his audience answers "the first." Jesus pats them on the head, and agrees. "And so it is with the Lord. Pretty words don't fool him; it's what you do that gets you in his good books. And so in this way tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into heaven ahead of you."
I liked that last line, which I don't remember the exact wording of; it's all a paraphrase because, humorously enough, I am inundated with books but I cannot find a Bible in the house of my father, to whom I owe most of my spirituality and religious education. (Mostly I didn't want to ask him where one was. I own two copies but I dunno where they got packed, and think I gave one away. I didn't want to say "I thought today's reading was funny and wanted to repeat it to my friends"... though my Dad wouldn't mind.)
I want to make that a bumper sticker. "Tax collectors and prostitutes will get into Heaven before you."
Hee!
In the meantime, Uncley Pete's cats are psychos but easy to care for. An hour of driving and an hour of cat-tidying and scritching gets me $15 a day-- or was it $10? Either way. I feel constructively employed. Good ol' Petey. His house is an absolute tip. Ridiculous. But, his business, not mine. [Must... fight... urge... to... tidy! Funny how I want to clean other people's disorder but feel no inclination to tame my own.]
I'm growing increasingly un-fond of cuts, but will cut here:
I inadvertently picked up Mom's book (a mystery novel by Barbara Vine that I find distastefully given to crude attempts at generating suspense by deliberately keeping mundane things mysterious-- it's in flashback form, but I notice the character never says her present-day husband's name, but refers repeatedly to how she met him. In the flashback she has a lover, and we are obviously to assume that he becomes her husband. But, why not say his name? Obviously, he is NOT the man she marries. And so, the surprise by its very existence invalidates itself. D'oh! Frustrating. Grasshopper is the book's title. Feel free to give it a miss.) today to read, and in response to my sulky protestations that I'd read everything else and she'd just left it lying there, Dad went and dug me up an entire stack of books on Vietnam that he thought I ought to have a look at, seeing as how I'd been so interested in his story. (I still am.) The first one I read, Platoon Leader by James McDonough (Presidio Press, 1985, with a touching inscription from my mother on the fly leaf-- "to my husband on our 9th anniversary. I didn't know you then but I've tried to understand"), whose tour was 1970-71, was the book Dad says he'd been meaning to write but this guy did it first and so well that there's no need for Dad to do it himself. It's a gripping book, and well-written, and very levelheaded, and indeed the man's philosophy is very close to dad's. They did the same job, only at different times and in different places-- McDonough was in Truong Lam in Tam Quon district, and Dad was right near Pleiku in I think Kontum (or was that t'other way round? I'm rusty on my Vietnamese geography, though i've posted about it before and don't feel like looking it up-- this isn't my computer). Both felt it was their duty to do the best job possible, to hinder the enemy in every way possible but to keep as many of their own men from harm as possible at the same time. Both had somewhat cynical views of the politics behind their missions, and had the very well-grounded belief that from their immediate superiors on up, almost nobody had a damn clue what they were doing. But both felt it their duty to be in all ways professional, to do what they were told as well as they could, and to never openly let the men know that their assignments were quite possibly meaningless.
After all, they were making the world safe for democracy, even if they had to shoot children to do it. (McDonough deals with this, I think, with particular honesty and sensitivity in several very raw passages. Not sensationally, but very honestly. As one of his anguished soldiers puts it, "What do you say to a girl whose arm you shot off?")
So Dad's right; a very vivid book has already been written that's quite similar to what he would write.
I still feel that it's a story that deserves to be told. I want more than anything to get Prove back online. I can't afford the webspace... if only my parents were within range of cable, RoadRunner's having a sale and I'm sure I could talk them into the service (mom would love cable so she could tape Univision for her classes, and watch the Mexican soaps to pick up new slang words)-- there's webspace with that, that'd be just enough to get Prove online (i might have to streamline it)...
unfortunately, believe it or not, in 2002, in New York State, my parents live in too rural a district, and cable's not available here.
Funny, huh?
Anyhow. Perhaps I'll resume working with Dad on something. I don't know what. He really is interested in telling his story, but he's too modest to set about it himself for his own sake. I think this is a particularly important time in history for something like this; there are a lot of people who it would do good to hear about something like that. I wish I could mail it to G.W.B. with a note, and be sure that he'd read it, along with Cheney and the cronies-- the most terrible thing when you think about it is how one-sided these men's loyalty to their government is. They will dutifully give their lives. The government will thoughtlessly take them, with an eye only on the god damn pork barrel. The longer I'm a citizen the more I feel that this is the case. Our government is full of too many people unworthy of the power given them. But... sigh. If I felt I were able to serve my country best by donning a uniform, I would, and if I were called upon to risk my life I could only hope that I were brave enough to answer as I should. Flawed as it is, it's still my country, and I owe my people my life in return for their making it possible. It's the only system that can work. Still, it wouldn't be the politicians I'd die for-- only the people, who are at once the bravest and most cowardly, the most enlightened and benighted, the cleverest and most obtuse, the brightest, dumbest, dorkiest, coolest, most brilliant dull people on earth. My people.
Anyhow. That's probably enough ranting for tonight. I'm not going to attempt the drivers again. I just can't get them to work.
