In appreciation of life, courtesy of Bok, Muir, and Trickett's Turning Toward the Morning

My life flows on in endless song, above earth's lamentation.
I hear the real, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.
Above the tumult and the strife, I hear its music ringing;
It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest loudly roars, I hear the truth; it liveth.
What though the darkness 'round me close, songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of Heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, and hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile, our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing?

Well, I don't have energy for much of an entry, but I am looking forward to an uninterrupted night's sleep - the children are in Marble Falls - and a big race day tomorrow. Barring disaster, I expect to complete the Capitol of Texas First Tri tomorrow, and I am quite excited at the prospect of concluding six weeks of training that I couldn't have possibly scheduled at a more hectic time. The end of school, the beginning of swim lessons, Mother's day, Will's big birthday and all of the preparations it entailed, flailing attempts to refinance the house, fending off my father's new desperation for me to come visit with the kids, trips for Mother's Day, trips for Grandma's birthday, company for Easter, well, you get the idea. I feel like I have done it all in heels and backwards. And at the culmination of this period, I am going to compete (if only against my own exhaustion) in a small triathlon event that is raising concerns about my health and safety (not to mention my sanity) among my family. Why bother? I've never been an athletic person, and I have rarely understood the "athletic" people I have met, but perhaps that is because I did not have an appropriate definition of "athlete." I have come to look at my workout time as time for me, whether I spend it alone or with others. The money I spend on related gear and activities is money spent on me that is both useful and indulgent. The satisfaction of completing a bike or a walk or a swim that I was not sure I could finish gives me energy rather than tires me out. When Grandmommy asked me this evening if there was any good reason for me to be doing this tomorrow, the only honest answer I could come up with was, "I enjoy it."
I'll be damned. I'm an athlete.

Today's workout could be measured in a variety of ways. I could simply measure in meters and miles (800 meter swim, 12 mile bike), or in the number of efficient swim strokes (precious few), perhaps in the number and kinds of dead animals on the road (two snakes, a fox, a skunk, a possum, and a bird), the number of times I had to get off and walk my bike (3), the number of times I thought to myself, "This has GOT to be the last hill." (4 or 5), the number of times I got to call out "On your left!" (maybe 4), the number of times I slowed down for other people calling "On your left" (probably about 20), the number of times I used my inhaler (1 1/2), or the number of people comisserating and cheering me on (everyone I encountered). After this Herculean effort (for me), I came home and opened my bottom dresser drawer to change clothes and found half a dozen dead rolie polies. You just never know where your day will lead you. I also heard an interview on NPR- my beacon of light in dark places- with Amarillo Slim which was quite entertaining. Go to kut.org and look it up if you have time.

So today, the kid who carried my groceries out to the car asks me if I work. I say, no, not right now, but I was an English teacher. He says, "Why are girls always teachers?" and proceeds to wax prosaic on the inferior nature of women. He actually said, " I mean, they have to be stupid, otherwise we couldn't take advantage of them.(long pause with awkward silence) just kidding." I'm not sure why I was singled out for this pep talk today (or even if I was singled out, perhaps he takes his opportunity as a carryout boy to disseminate his views to every "girl" unfortunate enough to agree to use his help), but it turns out what he's really doing is picking my brain for job possibilities. He concludes that his job is dull and doesn't use enough of his mind. I tell him he could always be a teacher.

As I type, my daughter is manifesting her genetic inheritence from both parents. She is surfing the web, choosing her room design off of the Disney site. She dragged me from the kitchen to come and see a picture of a princess room. Then she turned to Gavin and said, "Do you want to find your room?" To which he nodded vigorously, so she found him a Buzz Lightyear room. I said, "Ok, so what do we need to do to get your room like that?" She replies, "Well, I need drawers at the end of my bed and pretty curtains and pink walls. Oh my gosh there's no boy in there. We have to get the boy out." Do they offer internet safeguards to prevent children from surfing interior design-related sites?

Hello all interested parties. After much peer pressure, I am finally making a (post-midnight) blog entry. If my friends were jumping off cliffs, be assured, I would be right there. Having just read Melissa's blog, Sen Santorum is on my mind, and I can't help admitting that all the meanness over the private lives of others just makes me tired. To liken a gay relationship to bestiality or incest seems (overactively? obsessively?) imaginative at best. (I'd love to see his Rorschach responses.) I am actually interested in the slippery slope the other direction. If we can deny some people the right to public and legal recognition of their adult, consensual relationships, might they also be denied the right to vote? or own property? Can we refuse to recognize their names? How else can we set them apart and criminalize them for choices or genetics that are not like ours? Forgive me for rambling, but it also occurs to me that if we want to be downright religious right about prohibiting homosexual sex, shouldn't we just prohibit any sex that is non-procreational? The Bible takes a dim view of the "spilling of seed" - the Catholics didn't just make that no-birth-control rule up for fun. You know, when the phrase, "the Bible says.." comes up in conversation, my aural inputs immediately fail until that person stops talking. The Bible says so many things that are absolutley insupportable in any society that is ostensibly concerned with freedom and equality that an argument based on religion is a poor argument for government. Might be a great argument to use within your family where everyone subscribes to Biblical law which gives every single woman the reassurance that a person who rapes her HAS to pay her father the bride price of fifty pieces of silver so she can become his wife, and lucky her, he can never divorce her as long as he lives (Deut. 22:28-29)

I don't know. I suppose we can all bandy about quotations until we are blue in the face. I'll just have to wait until everyone on earth has a gay son/daughter/sister/brother/father/mother/ friend and can't afford to persecute a group of people that includes someone they actually know and care about (I'll exclude Newt Gingrich as impervious to caring.)