The first week of class is essentially over for me, as I've none on Friday (or Monday) and Writing Center hours don't start until next week, so since dinner tonight I've been burning a candle (which has occasionally meant messing about a little pyromaniacally with said candle, especially after I accidentally broke its wick) and reading more Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis. It makes me wish I were in Alfred with my best friends. Or even in Ninth Hour with last fall's crowd. And that it were spring instead of the coldest part of winter. ("Stay Warm on the Links," says weather.com, linking to a page it's created that provides tips for wintertime golfers...in places without any snow, clearly.) At least it's still a little bit light out at five PM these days.
My MA study, like my BA study, will close out with my writing poetry. My last semester in Alfred brought me Dr. Gray's form class, which I loved; last night I switched out of "Dryden and Pope," which looked promising but overburdening (lots of homework and an eventual research paper, compared to writing and revising ten poems over fifteen weeks), into Joe Weil's poetry workshop after a little convincing from him and Natasha. I'd been a little afraid of being as out of my league in this workshop as I was last fall in creative nonfiction, but about half of us (haha, 'cause three conveniently makes half in a class of only six!) haven't written poetry regularly for years now, so I'm behind only in the fact that I haven't read as many poets as the others, at least not in any depth or with good retention.
Maybe I should start taking bets on when Micah will start bugging me, once he knows I'm in Weil's class, to come to readings at the Belmar. Which is a bar, by the way. Help me out: are there a lot of bars that host poetry readings? I don't really expect that there are, but I'm open to correction here if I'm mistaken.
So my weekend, which will eventually have to be work-filled, currently spreads out deliciously before me. I'm tired, but also hungry, and as I've nowhere to be tomorrow until InterVarsity in the evening, I think I'm going to keep reading, and eventually fade into sleep.
1.29.2009
1.25.2009
In Brief
Today we had church at the building we're trying to buy. The service was great. And it's beautiful in there. We'll see what happens.
1.20.2009
On the Brink, On the Brim, On the Cusp
Not to pull out a blatant buzzword, though today is the day to use it, but I've been thinking about change this week.
It started, really, last Saturday night, not long after Joe's wedding, when I found that my church was going to have to move out of its building to...well, we didn't (and don't) yet know where. It's a long story and not all of it's worth telling, but the short version is, my church switched denominations last year (from Episcopal to Anglican, for anyone keeping score at home), so, according to recent state-law ruling, that means that we Anglicans have to give over our entire church property--furniture, Bibles, pastors' house, and all--to the Episcopal diocese we've just left (a diocese is just a word for a group of churches in a certain geographical area--we were part of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York), which can do whatever it wants with the building.
When we first decided to become Anglican, the ruling hadn't yet come down on what would happen to the property, so the whole thing has been very uncertain for a while. Besides that, some of our church members have been attending there with their families for many, many years, so it has been difficult for us that we can't just buy the building and stay (though we've tried...again, it's kind of a complicated story).
Like I said, we don't yet know where our new church will be. Because the law ruled that everything that was ours is now diocese property, the money that we would normally have used to buy a new church is gone--it too belongs to the Episcopalians. I mean, we do have some money because, knowing that this sort of thing was at least possible, we've been setting some funds aside for a while (yes, there is a legal way to do that), something to exist on until we were up and running again. But it's not enough for us to be able to buy a church and rectory (that's the word for a pastor's house), of course. It's not like we can't go into debt to buy a place--ultimately, we'll probably have to--but because there aren't any churches for sale in the same neighborhood as us, we're going to have to figure out the logistics of moving to a new area before we do anything.
So, to recap: as yet no church, rectory (though right now the Kennedys do have a good temporary place in which to live, the rectory of the closed Catholic church that we're thinking of buying), supplies, or certainty. Plenty of God's grace, but we're not perfect, so sometimes we have a little trouble getting enough perspective to trust in it.
Late on the night of Joe and Andrea's wedding, I found out over e-mail about our having to leave, so I found myself, the very next day, celebrating Good Shepherd's last-ever Sunday. It's true that it was like something out of a nice dream to have Maggie, Albert, Maggie's-Tim, and Tom all in a row beside me during the service, but it seemed surreal to have them there instead of Tuttle, Christina, Katy, and Christine, to whom it would have meant a lot more.
I spent Monday and Tuesday helping to pack Good Shepherd's rectory; on Wednesday I went to our last morning prayer service, which was almost Christmasy and powder-blue in the wintry light. The service was quiet, poignant, a soft goodbye.
This May, I'll graduate from Binghamton. I've picked, unintentionally, an awful economy to graduate into, but I just can't stomach the idea of a PhD right now; I want to get out of school. I don't know where I'll end up living. I don't know who'll be around. I don't even know whether I'll be able to find an adjunct job. I'll turn twenty-four just two weeks before my graduation.
And before that, hurtling toward me, comes a final semester I'm not ready for. I have a lot to learn before I'm any good as a composition teacher, a lot to do before my conference paper is ready, but I don't know in what time I'll do anything. I know I've had the break, but so much of that was spent doing family things (Christmas, the curling tournament, the rest of the week or more that Mom and Dad had off) and wedding things and just trying to get the torpid glazed look out of my eyes. And, yeah, I've procrastinated as badly as ever, too.
So it wasn't really in the greatest frame of mind that I drove on Wednesday afternoon down Vestal Parkway--windy-cold and streaked everywhere with dirty road salt--to detour past my church building (in its last hours of being partly mine) before crossing the Exchange Street bridge to I-81. What drew me out of myself, surprisingly, was David Crowder Band. I do tend to assign songs to certain life events, so for the loss of Good Shepherd I'd been defaulting to the song I'd assigned to the suspenseful waiting, Jars of Clay's "Tonight." But in my CD player as the trip started was DCB's Remedy, and I found myself driving along to "The Glory of it All."
At the start
He was there
He was there
In the end
He'll be there
He'll be there
I find these days that I want what's hard to have. I don't like melodrama and I'm suspicious, as so many academics are (perhaps especially those of WASP-y British blood?), of movie-style emotions and sobs and high-flown tribute. At the same time, it's frustrating that the only strong emotions I ever seem to feel anymore are anger and fear. I want the kind of tingling wonder that things gave me when I was fourteen, the sense that I was breathing spring air deeply, the feeling that I pulsed with power and the amazing could be real. That doesn't happen easily for the uncertain.
But as my church rose up big and white to my right at the stoplight, the song swelled behind its final lines, the background accented by a Coldplay-esque waterfall of piano, everything sincere and deliberate and assuring.
It's a new day
Oh, and everything will change
Things will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
I turned left, crossed the bridge, and was stopped by the red light. Idling there, I looked back over my shoulder. Framed in my driver's-side window was Good Shepherd, in the distance, still white and beautiful.
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
With cinematic perfection, the song's final notes fell while I was looking back, and I turned my head forward just as the light changed. I turned right. I got on the highway. I didn't look back again.
*
I had forgotten how many things have happy endings. Not permanent ones, necessarily, but at least all's-well-for-now ones. Reverend Matt preached an excellent sermon about leavings and comings...and reminded us of our responsibilities to leave peacefully and with love and to pray for the Episcopal church. Parishioners turned out to pack up the rectory together and move all those boxes, even in the single-digit cold.
My church met this past Sunday in a Baptist church's gym. The local news covered it--gosh, such beautiful camera shots of the service; I've never been so struck by such a thing in a small-time news report.
The longtimers of my church, the ones who took leaving hard and got the most stressed, went up solemnly for communion, got quoted saying serious and self-aware and hopeful things (and Carrie got quoted sounding, to my amusement as well as affection, exactly like the InterVarsity staff member she is, explaining perkily and intelligently that churches are never defined by buildings, but by their commitment to follow Christ together).
The uncertainty has been hard. But since we found we definitely had to move, people have spoken and acted differently. It's all so...Good Shepherd. My church at its best.
And more than that. I know that maybe this sounds obvious from where some outside readers stand (and for others, I haven't told the story well enough to show what all the fuss is about), but I think that, even though we've still got so much to do, this move will end up being the best thing for us.
I came to Binghamton last year and fell in love with Good Shepherd's people--Matt's teaching, the new converts' changed lives, the longtimers' love for what they've seen come to pass. But I think I'll leave Binghamton, when I leave it, in love with what God's done in us. Your love is surprising, we always sang in Alfred. And so it is.
*
Four-and-a-half years ago, I, a college not-quite-sophomore, was trying to fend off pessimism by posting a good news story to this blog every day...a project that led to a starry-eyed post on Barack Obama, whose name I'd never heard before his speech at the DNC.
Four years later, a certain amount of cynicism has won: idealism from politicians puts me on the defensive more than anything else. And, because I am a prolifer, Obama's not being one has always really bothered me (though political affiliations based on one issue really bother me, too, so I'm still stubbornly moderate and am therefore in for political guilt no matter what I do). I like everyone better when they're not running for president, so it wasn't with perfect confidence, though it was with some excitement and pleasure, that I watched this year's election.
But I liked the inauguration a lot and will say this about it: it's one of the first times since early college that I have felt so much possibility before me, believed that somehow storybook endings still exist. Yes, I know that government is about more than one figure, but it's nice to have an inspiring figure. And think of the changes and teamwork and attempts at unity during World War II--in war-torn England especially, but even in America: victory gardens and citizen-built infrastructure and all the stuff that fascinated me when I was Malia Obama's age. Once in a while we, on a large scale, try to get outside ourselves. Maybe we will again.
If I may make so bold as to order you around, and in a cheesy sort of way at that, I think that you should pick someone to lift up soon, and then lift them up. Shovel someone else's driveway. Write a thank-you to the author of the book that's inspired you most recently. Take someone out for a milkshake. Whatever you don't do often enough. If we ride the new-year, new-and-historic-First-Family glow by serving each other, we might back it with something solid and longer-lasting than fine words and songs in a beautiful city...as good as such things are.
As for change: it's January, and my church is still intact, and my country welcomes the Obamas. Today I am willing to expect--not just wish for--happy endings. Wherever I land next year, whoever I'm with, whoever I have to leave, if I remember what I've seen and Who brings all goodness about, if I remember to follow, everything will be okay.
It started, really, last Saturday night, not long after Joe's wedding, when I found that my church was going to have to move out of its building to...well, we didn't (and don't) yet know where. It's a long story and not all of it's worth telling, but the short version is, my church switched denominations last year (from Episcopal to Anglican, for anyone keeping score at home), so, according to recent state-law ruling, that means that we Anglicans have to give over our entire church property--furniture, Bibles, pastors' house, and all--to the Episcopal diocese we've just left (a diocese is just a word for a group of churches in a certain geographical area--we were part of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York), which can do whatever it wants with the building.
When we first decided to become Anglican, the ruling hadn't yet come down on what would happen to the property, so the whole thing has been very uncertain for a while. Besides that, some of our church members have been attending there with their families for many, many years, so it has been difficult for us that we can't just buy the building and stay (though we've tried...again, it's kind of a complicated story).
Like I said, we don't yet know where our new church will be. Because the law ruled that everything that was ours is now diocese property, the money that we would normally have used to buy a new church is gone--it too belongs to the Episcopalians. I mean, we do have some money because, knowing that this sort of thing was at least possible, we've been setting some funds aside for a while (yes, there is a legal way to do that), something to exist on until we were up and running again. But it's not enough for us to be able to buy a church and rectory (that's the word for a pastor's house), of course. It's not like we can't go into debt to buy a place--ultimately, we'll probably have to--but because there aren't any churches for sale in the same neighborhood as us, we're going to have to figure out the logistics of moving to a new area before we do anything.
So, to recap: as yet no church, rectory (though right now the Kennedys do have a good temporary place in which to live, the rectory of the closed Catholic church that we're thinking of buying), supplies, or certainty. Plenty of God's grace, but we're not perfect, so sometimes we have a little trouble getting enough perspective to trust in it.
Late on the night of Joe and Andrea's wedding, I found out over e-mail about our having to leave, so I found myself, the very next day, celebrating Good Shepherd's last-ever Sunday. It's true that it was like something out of a nice dream to have Maggie, Albert, Maggie's-Tim, and Tom all in a row beside me during the service, but it seemed surreal to have them there instead of Tuttle, Christina, Katy, and Christine, to whom it would have meant a lot more.
I spent Monday and Tuesday helping to pack Good Shepherd's rectory; on Wednesday I went to our last morning prayer service, which was almost Christmasy and powder-blue in the wintry light. The service was quiet, poignant, a soft goodbye.
This May, I'll graduate from Binghamton. I've picked, unintentionally, an awful economy to graduate into, but I just can't stomach the idea of a PhD right now; I want to get out of school. I don't know where I'll end up living. I don't know who'll be around. I don't even know whether I'll be able to find an adjunct job. I'll turn twenty-four just two weeks before my graduation.
And before that, hurtling toward me, comes a final semester I'm not ready for. I have a lot to learn before I'm any good as a composition teacher, a lot to do before my conference paper is ready, but I don't know in what time I'll do anything. I know I've had the break, but so much of that was spent doing family things (Christmas, the curling tournament, the rest of the week or more that Mom and Dad had off) and wedding things and just trying to get the torpid glazed look out of my eyes. And, yeah, I've procrastinated as badly as ever, too.
So it wasn't really in the greatest frame of mind that I drove on Wednesday afternoon down Vestal Parkway--windy-cold and streaked everywhere with dirty road salt--to detour past my church building (in its last hours of being partly mine) before crossing the Exchange Street bridge to I-81. What drew me out of myself, surprisingly, was David Crowder Band. I do tend to assign songs to certain life events, so for the loss of Good Shepherd I'd been defaulting to the song I'd assigned to the suspenseful waiting, Jars of Clay's "Tonight." But in my CD player as the trip started was DCB's Remedy, and I found myself driving along to "The Glory of it All."
At the start
He was there
He was there
In the end
He'll be there
He'll be there
I find these days that I want what's hard to have. I don't like melodrama and I'm suspicious, as so many academics are (perhaps especially those of WASP-y British blood?), of movie-style emotions and sobs and high-flown tribute. At the same time, it's frustrating that the only strong emotions I ever seem to feel anymore are anger and fear. I want the kind of tingling wonder that things gave me when I was fourteen, the sense that I was breathing spring air deeply, the feeling that I pulsed with power and the amazing could be real. That doesn't happen easily for the uncertain.
But as my church rose up big and white to my right at the stoplight, the song swelled behind its final lines, the background accented by a Coldplay-esque waterfall of piano, everything sincere and deliberate and assuring.
It's a new day
Oh, and everything will change
Things will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
I turned left, crossed the bridge, and was stopped by the red light. Idling there, I looked back over my shoulder. Framed in my driver's-side window was Good Shepherd, in the distance, still white and beautiful.
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
With cinematic perfection, the song's final notes fell while I was looking back, and I turned my head forward just as the light changed. I turned right. I got on the highway. I didn't look back again.
*
I had forgotten how many things have happy endings. Not permanent ones, necessarily, but at least all's-well-for-now ones. Reverend Matt preached an excellent sermon about leavings and comings...and reminded us of our responsibilities to leave peacefully and with love and to pray for the Episcopal church. Parishioners turned out to pack up the rectory together and move all those boxes, even in the single-digit cold.
My church met this past Sunday in a Baptist church's gym. The local news covered it--gosh, such beautiful camera shots of the service; I've never been so struck by such a thing in a small-time news report.
The longtimers of my church, the ones who took leaving hard and got the most stressed, went up solemnly for communion, got quoted saying serious and self-aware and hopeful things (and Carrie got quoted sounding, to my amusement as well as affection, exactly like the InterVarsity staff member she is, explaining perkily and intelligently that churches are never defined by buildings, but by their commitment to follow Christ together).
The uncertainty has been hard. But since we found we definitely had to move, people have spoken and acted differently. It's all so...Good Shepherd. My church at its best.
And more than that. I know that maybe this sounds obvious from where some outside readers stand (and for others, I haven't told the story well enough to show what all the fuss is about), but I think that, even though we've still got so much to do, this move will end up being the best thing for us.
I came to Binghamton last year and fell in love with Good Shepherd's people--Matt's teaching, the new converts' changed lives, the longtimers' love for what they've seen come to pass. But I think I'll leave Binghamton, when I leave it, in love with what God's done in us. Your love is surprising, we always sang in Alfred. And so it is.
*
Four-and-a-half years ago, I, a college not-quite-sophomore, was trying to fend off pessimism by posting a good news story to this blog every day...a project that led to a starry-eyed post on Barack Obama, whose name I'd never heard before his speech at the DNC.
Four years later, a certain amount of cynicism has won: idealism from politicians puts me on the defensive more than anything else. And, because I am a prolifer, Obama's not being one has always really bothered me (though political affiliations based on one issue really bother me, too, so I'm still stubbornly moderate and am therefore in for political guilt no matter what I do). I like everyone better when they're not running for president, so it wasn't with perfect confidence, though it was with some excitement and pleasure, that I watched this year's election.
But I liked the inauguration a lot and will say this about it: it's one of the first times since early college that I have felt so much possibility before me, believed that somehow storybook endings still exist. Yes, I know that government is about more than one figure, but it's nice to have an inspiring figure. And think of the changes and teamwork and attempts at unity during World War II--in war-torn England especially, but even in America: victory gardens and citizen-built infrastructure and all the stuff that fascinated me when I was Malia Obama's age. Once in a while we, on a large scale, try to get outside ourselves. Maybe we will again.
If I may make so bold as to order you around, and in a cheesy sort of way at that, I think that you should pick someone to lift up soon, and then lift them up. Shovel someone else's driveway. Write a thank-you to the author of the book that's inspired you most recently. Take someone out for a milkshake. Whatever you don't do often enough. If we ride the new-year, new-and-historic-First-Family glow by serving each other, we might back it with something solid and longer-lasting than fine words and songs in a beautiful city...as good as such things are.
As for change: it's January, and my church is still intact, and my country welcomes the Obamas. Today I am willing to expect--not just wish for--happy endings. Wherever I land next year, whoever I'm with, whoever I have to leave, if I remember what I've seen and Who brings all goodness about, if I remember to follow, everything will be okay.
1.11.2009
> >
A lot happened all at once this weekend, some of it mundane, some of it relentless, some of it profound.
I will probably not write much about any of it, at least not here, or at least not now.
It's very late on Sunday night. My room is clean and dimly-lit. I'm tired and filled, stomach to heart to throat, with things I can't put into words.
I will probably not write much about any of it, at least not here, or at least not now.
It's very late on Sunday night. My room is clean and dimly-lit. I'm tired and filled, stomach to heart to throat, with things I can't put into words.
1.06.2009
Stalker! Stalker of the Dead!
I had forgotten how intensely lazy I typically am during Christmas break. You'd think I'd at least get a bunch of reading done, but in Syracuse I don't even do enough of that because I'm distracted by ESPN, Food Network, and who knows what else. My mom and I watched shows about doughnuts and I forget what else last Saturday instead of doing all the things we were supposed to be doing.
And here I am on Tuesday evening, t-minus less than three full days (maybe as few as two, depending on when Jess's planning to come down) before the arrival of guests for Joe and Andrea's wedding, and I have cleaned only one room of this apartment to my satisfaction: the upstairs bathroom. Granted, I have since Saturday run a series of errands, cooked (courtesy of having borrowed Sujin's big stockpot) a double batch of chicken stock, gone briefly to campus to take back an ILL lending and collect a paycheck, done laundry, played a good bit of DDR by way of exercise, etc. But I have not done what I should most do, which is clean my room in depth (and then clean the kitchen in as much depth as I can).
So...pretty much the same slothful tactic I take during the semester.
Anyway, as for this entry's title: every year for Christmas I get a Barnes & Noble gift card from Aunt Lisa and Uncle Paul, but never manage to wait very long before going online and spending it. This year, thanks to the economy tanking, B&N was running pretty much the most awesome post-Christmas sales ever, including a really major markdown on what I wanted most.
Or so I understood myself to want it. It's not like I need more C.S. Lewis books, in all likelihood, but he's sort of like a water-soluble vitamin, in the sense that it's pretty hard to overdose in any way that actually does harm, right? So, having borrowed it from church this summer (fall?) but returned it before Christmas, I decided that one thing I wanted to get with said giftcard was a copy of Letters of C.S. Lewis, as compiled by Lewis's brother back in the 1960s. Or, if possible, the updated version of the same, from fifteen or twenty years ago.
What was available on the website (and marked, as mentioned, waaaayyy down, with a little note saying "quantities limited--order now!") had a different editor's name listed--a Walter Hooper rather than W.H. Lewis. I figured that this Hooper was the guy who'd updated the collection (Warren Lewis being, by then, long since dead), so, though it sort of irked me that now the thing was split into volumes, I ordered it (after all, quantities were limited, right?) when I made my final picks.
In my defense, the picture on the site was not very good and was not clickable, and the regular book I wanted was not available through B&N, didn't even come up as an option. Maybe I did have some idea that I was actually getting something different from the original Letters, though I don't remember clearly at the moment. But what I got was The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, which is, well, exhaustive. Right now I'm on Volume 1, which across literally almost a thousand pages (footnoted and at times briefly annotated) only spans the letters of 1905-1931--that is, from him at age seven to his conversion to Christianity. And the print's not real big, either.
It's not that I'm not pleased to have so much C.S. Lewis to read, don't get me wrong. But I was startled by anyone publishing that many of anyone's letters (since Vol. 2 is just as long, and I don't even own Vol. 3, which covers the last fifteenish years of his life). Owning that many pages' worth of his personal writing makes me feel, to be honest, like a fangirl dweeb at best and a bit of a stalker at worst (though the line between those, of course, is often very thin to begin with).
Though, you know, I'm sure I'll get over it. In fact, I've discovered since yesterday or so just how nice it is to light a small candle (Ananda had painted, herself, the glass it came in...it's from at least a couple of years ago, but I'm not sure how many) downstairs at the common room table, stretch out along the couch, and read the letters. (I've gotten to the beginning of 1916 but am only around page 150!) So things are blissful here in Binghamton, soon to become flat-out thrilling.
On the other hand, it's not like I needed another distraction from cleaning.
And here I am on Tuesday evening, t-minus less than three full days (maybe as few as two, depending on when Jess's planning to come down) before the arrival of guests for Joe and Andrea's wedding, and I have cleaned only one room of this apartment to my satisfaction: the upstairs bathroom. Granted, I have since Saturday run a series of errands, cooked (courtesy of having borrowed Sujin's big stockpot) a double batch of chicken stock, gone briefly to campus to take back an ILL lending and collect a paycheck, done laundry, played a good bit of DDR by way of exercise, etc. But I have not done what I should most do, which is clean my room in depth (and then clean the kitchen in as much depth as I can).
So...pretty much the same slothful tactic I take during the semester.
Anyway, as for this entry's title: every year for Christmas I get a Barnes & Noble gift card from Aunt Lisa and Uncle Paul, but never manage to wait very long before going online and spending it. This year, thanks to the economy tanking, B&N was running pretty much the most awesome post-Christmas sales ever, including a really major markdown on what I wanted most.
Or so I understood myself to want it. It's not like I need more C.S. Lewis books, in all likelihood, but he's sort of like a water-soluble vitamin, in the sense that it's pretty hard to overdose in any way that actually does harm, right? So, having borrowed it from church this summer (fall?) but returned it before Christmas, I decided that one thing I wanted to get with said giftcard was a copy of Letters of C.S. Lewis, as compiled by Lewis's brother back in the 1960s. Or, if possible, the updated version of the same, from fifteen or twenty years ago.
What was available on the website (and marked, as mentioned, waaaayyy down, with a little note saying "quantities limited--order now!") had a different editor's name listed--a Walter Hooper rather than W.H. Lewis. I figured that this Hooper was the guy who'd updated the collection (Warren Lewis being, by then, long since dead), so, though it sort of irked me that now the thing was split into volumes, I ordered it (after all, quantities were limited, right?) when I made my final picks.
In my defense, the picture on the site was not very good and was not clickable, and the regular book I wanted was not available through B&N, didn't even come up as an option. Maybe I did have some idea that I was actually getting something different from the original Letters, though I don't remember clearly at the moment. But what I got was The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, which is, well, exhaustive. Right now I'm on Volume 1, which across literally almost a thousand pages (footnoted and at times briefly annotated) only spans the letters of 1905-1931--that is, from him at age seven to his conversion to Christianity. And the print's not real big, either.
It's not that I'm not pleased to have so much C.S. Lewis to read, don't get me wrong. But I was startled by anyone publishing that many of anyone's letters (since Vol. 2 is just as long, and I don't even own Vol. 3, which covers the last fifteenish years of his life). Owning that many pages' worth of his personal writing makes me feel, to be honest, like a fangirl dweeb at best and a bit of a stalker at worst (though the line between those, of course, is often very thin to begin with).
Though, you know, I'm sure I'll get over it. In fact, I've discovered since yesterday or so just how nice it is to light a small candle (Ananda had painted, herself, the glass it came in...it's from at least a couple of years ago, but I'm not sure how many) downstairs at the common room table, stretch out along the couch, and read the letters. (I've gotten to the beginning of 1916 but am only around page 150!) So things are blissful here in Binghamton, soon to become flat-out thrilling.
On the other hand, it's not like I needed another distraction from cleaning.