Random Fragments from My Fractured Mind

I flunked algebra. Twice. So is it any wonder I've forgotten how we were taught to do long division back in the '60s and '70s? That I forgot we used the decimal point method in long division? A Facebook friend shared this video illustrating how to do it the way he teaches it, using a "rounding up" method:

 

 

I like it this way a whole lot better than the old way. Maybe I would have even passed algebra the first time, had I had this foundation going in.

 

There's something invigorating and uplifting about stepping outside first thing to crisp, cool air and that peculiarly slanted light of an autumn morning. It's certainly a relief and welcome change after so many months of stepping outside at 8 a. m. and already feeling beaten by the oppressive heat and humidity.

 

Will I ever tire of Honey Nut Cheerios in the morning? Or Trader Joe's Granola with 3 Berries mixed into their vanilla bean Greek yogurt in the evening? I doubt it.

 

The two small dogs next door are prodigious barkers; they bark at every sound and every passing creature, human or non-. While it was annoying at first, it has become white noise to me, even at night, and I'm actually grateful to have such alert watchdogs next door.

 

One thing I deeply miss about monastic life is being able to talk about my Catholic faith with people who automatically understand what I'm talking about. While I love and cherish all my Protestant friends, my atheist friends, and my friends who are indifferent to religious matters, I so long to talk in depth about my love and thoughts of the Eucharist, Mary, the Saints, etc. This is not to say that I don't share my general faith with them; I have absolutely no qualms about that, as my Facebook friends can testify! But I long to discuss specific points in the Catechism, the papal encyclicals, and the documents of Vatican II—everything. In many ways I feel isolated and alone, though I love this semi-reclusive life I live now. As you know, I serve as organist and cantor at a small chapel in a retirement village, and I love the elderly people who attend Mass there; but I have yet to find someone with whom I can sit and have a really good chin-wag about doctrine and dogma. There's my family, of course, but sometimes you need a friend.

 

I'm losing my Italian. My own fault; I'm a lazy bum. I really should rouse myself off my big fat duff and dust off my grammar books.

 

See, this is why I've never been any good on Twitter: even in writing these so-called "fragments," I just can't seem to limit myself to 140 characters. So now my Twitter activity is limited to following a handful of people and checking my handful of regular searches.

 

I still have my Tumblr blog, but I mostly reblog art and photography I like, and post random Niles Crane quotes. Guess what gets the most "likes" and "reblogs"—yup, that's right; the Niles Crane quotes. Just like on this blog.

 

By the way, one of my posts here recently reached over 1000 hits, and you know which one it is? Wrong! It's "Regret"! And I still have no earthly idea why!



Sunday Scrapbag

Reading: Oh, several things. In the Office of Readings (Liturgy of the Hours), lately I've been substituting the prescribed second readings with passages from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's encyclical Spe Salvi. I'm ashamed to say that this will be the first papal encyclical I will have read straight through, all the way through. Always before, I've only read excerpts of various encyclicals through the Liturgy of the Hours, or in articles and blogs.

     I'm also still reading bits and pieces of Robert Gibbings' books and have begun re-reading Elizabeth Taylor's The Sleeping Beauty which I read many years ago and have completely forgotten. I'm very bad about remembering the plots of books. So if I recommend a novel to someone and they ask me what it's about, I always say, "I forget—but I do remember I absolutely loved it."

     Also, I'm reading through all my journals in search of material for new poems. An enlightening experience.

Watching: I seem to have lost interest temporarily in movies. I own on DVD all the movies I like to watch (the most recent being Quartet, that lovely little film starring Maggie Smith and directed by Dustin Hoffmann). Sometimes (not often, admittedly) I regret having such limited tastes in film; were my tastes broader and more varied, I could watch and enjoy so many more things. But what I don't like in films is pretty much identical to what I don't like in books, which I wrote about in this post. 

     The cheesy part of me is psyched that the new season of Dancing with the Stars is in full swing. Can I just say that, though he seems like a very nice guy, I'm not sorry to see the football player go? I'm so tired of football players winning the DWTS mirror ball trophy! I haven't picked a favorite yet.

Writing: Lately, prose poems. I've written two posts in this past week alone about this new venture in Poetry Land (new for me, that is), this form that I used to despise as being fancified prose or free verse bound up in paragraph form. Now I see its merits as well as its many difficulties. But other than my prose poem experiments and this blog, I haven't been writing anything, not even my journal. Bad, bad girl!

Listening: To the wonderful Romanian pianist Clara Haskil (d. 1960). I tend to go through phases with pianists, concentrating on one for a few weeks, then going back to others before fixating on a "new" one. Haskil is my fixation at the moment. Her Mozart is impeccable in both style and technique. It's the kind of Mozart I myself always wanted to play, the kind I think is "true" Mozart. Poetic, profound, yet not over-sentimentalized as so many contemporary pianists are wont to do. Playful when playfulness is called for, but not overly so. Of course, she played many other composers brilliantly as well.

 

Considering: Cancelling my Tumblr account. I very much enjoy following art and photography blogs, and I enjoy following Catholic blogs on Tumblr. But I got a huge dose of disillusionment and disgust yesterday, when one of the Catholic blogs I follow got hacked and I found a number of pornographic posts on my dashboard. I realize hacking goes on everywhere, but Tumblr seems to be particularly susceptible. Plus which, there's no way (at least that I can find) to delete or hide posts you don't want to see on your dashboard; on Facebook, you can do this, which I really appreciate. When I saw those porn posts on my Tumblr dashboard, all I could do was "unfollow" that particular blogger until he realized he'd been hacked and cleaned out all those offensive images. But I think I will leave Tumblr altogether. I already follow a lot of Catholic blogs on Blogger and Wordpress anyway, and I follow many art and photography pages on Facebook.