The High and the Low

It is Easter and it is raining in an all-day sort of way. The sort of way that makes me want to stay inside and do nice things. But instead, I will probably stay inside and mope around doing a smidgeon of work and a smidgeon of laundry and some cooking. I did my nails, and I fear that there are nail bits all around my living room. I'm usually very careful with my nail bits, but I trimmed with abandon this morning, and things flew. Disturbing. There are good arguments for trimming your nails outside, where your nail bits can be left to rot (if that ever happens). But there are even better arguments for trimming your nails in private (probably inside), because no one really wants to be around other people's nail bits, especially when they are flying. During my epic journey to Maryland on Christmas, I was sitting fairly peacefully at the Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight (cancelled, no surprise), when the middle-aged couple sitting near me decided that it was a good time and place to floss their teeth and trim their nails. Finger nails, thankfully, but still. I felt like asking them if they also wanted to clean the grit out of their bellybuttons, and if they would like some privacy for that particular ablution. But I didn't. I glared instead, in a passive aggressive sort of way. It was a long day.

I'm glad to see that the captain of the Maersk Alabama has been rescued. I was worried. I hope that he and his family will be okay. I'm sorry the pirates were killed. It feels a little naive to worry about them and their families, but it feels closed-minded, arrogant, and cruel not to. Where do we draw the line between loving our fellow man and condoning really bad things? What is the difference between the person and the act? What if you want to forgive someone, but they don't acknowledge a fault? It's probably a good thing to learn to forgive anyway, but it's not always easy. I have forgiven the couple in the airport, but if they sat near me on the ferry and did the same thing, I would have a hard time. It's true, I don't know their story or the pirates' stories, and public nail-trimming is a far cry from piracy, but there are standards of behavior to be observed. Also, the sounds of the nail clippers really annoyed me.

In theory, I am full of tolerance. In practice, not so much.

It's About Time

As usual, it is Sunday. Always Sunday here at the FFP. It is a short Sunday, with one hour missing. This is just cruel. Sunday is a day crammed with things to do, so why must it be the day that gets shorter? What should I not do because of that missing hour? Sleep? Laundry? Clean? Cook? Surf the Web and Post on my Neglected Blog? Talk to my Neighbor? Walk? Obsess about MS/Gluten Intolerance/Celiac Disease/Body-on-own-Body Attacks That May Continue Until I can Eat Nothing AT ALL? Read? Work? I vote for cleaning, as I usually do on Sundays, even those of normal length. But this place really needs cleaning. And work really needs to be done, along with the laundry and the cooking and the neighboring and the walking. The obsessing just comes along for the ride. I plan to obsess about gluten as I eat the remaining Girl Scout cookies. After all, I have to get them out of the house, right? They haven't been here long.

I have made progress on my book problem: I have finished two books, and now have only 6 to read before I can get any more. It has taken me a long time to finish these books, partly because of work and partly because I keep trying to read too many at once. For one thing, it's hard to hold them all. Weight Watchers has an article about how to save time, and talks about learning to speed-read. My reading of their article slowed down considerably on those 3 sentences about speed-reading. I don't think I am made for that. Also, even though I would like to not be buried under a pile of unread books, and I like buying new books, I don't want to just get through the books I have as fast as possible. Why bother reading them if you don't plan to enjoy them? I like reading slowly. But it does make it hard to stay up-to-date with the current crop of books, let along catch up to the rest of the reading population. I will never catch up, and will never be up-to-date. But I don't really want to be. For one thing, it's more expensive. If you keep buying books when they first come out, then you spend extra money on hardbacks and extra money on the extra bookshelves needed to house the hardbacks. If you wait a few years or decades, then the books come out in paperback, and they are smaller and easier to store. And if they don't ever come out in paperback, then maybe they weren't worth reading in the first place. But you will be out of touch. Not necessarily a bad thing.