Broken Glass, or A Mobile Mosaic

Most likely my last update for a while! Not like I've been updating regularly, but here's what's up:

- I now have a fish named Kato.

- In about an hour, I am going to drive to the airport to pick up Dann.

- Tomorrow, we are going to drive up to Mount Desert Island for the length of a week-ish.

- I may or may not be bouncing around like a rubber ball.

I am probably not bringing the laptop.

Take care, all! See you in a week!

Well, ten-till I have to leave for work. So I don't have time.

But I have this long post I've been meaning to write, about the private "Christian" school I went to (Yes, I will continue to put that word in quotes whenever I refer to that school), an experience I had there, and the book The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom. I'll try and get it down when I come home from work, but in the meantime, it's summed up by one verse of the song "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie.

Catholic school, vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me, Son,
Fear is the heart of love-- so I never went back

Glen Beck is a monster.

I'm not apologizing for that, ever, and I'm not taking it back. I'm ashamed that he's an American.

Here's why.

For the record? A camp to get youth involved in politics and democracy is an awesome thing. I have a friend who went there. This... he's crossed a line. Yes, he crosses lines on a regular basis, but there is no coming back from this.

The man's a monster. Young kids were shot, kids have been killed, a government was bombed, and his reaction is to compare the camp to Naziism. Not the shooter, who was affiliated with NeoNazis, but the victims. And then to warn about the perils of tolerance. Just like the shooter did.

There are truly no words to express my disgust and contempt. Norway, forgive my homeland her snakes and monsters. The rest of our people mourn with you.

kyks, bsicy, my ckyb is bken. i cn ey nyhin b i he mmen, es n ni i cnim he ny. s im s sin n nsceen keyb hich is, he ec, incey sin. my yin hs ne n b... h, i n kn, en s e mine i h

...Yeah. Translated:

Basically, my keyboard is broken. I can't do anything to fix it at the moment, at least not until I find the warranty. So for now, I'm using an onscreen keyboard which is, (?). My typing [speed] has gone (?)...

...I have no idea what the rest of that was saying. This kinda sucks.

I'll be getting a USB keyboard soon, I think.

I wrote an Iroh ficlet! Uncut, it's fairly short. Also findable here.

---

The air hung heavy, and the sky was an unearthly tone. Though to be fair, Iroh reflected, it was only natural that the sky be the opposite of the earth - unless you were contrasting Earth with the Spirit World, 'unearthly' as a tone for the sky was right and proper. Nodding sagely, he revised his thought.

The air hung heavy, and the sky was an unnatural tone.

No, that didn't quite fit either. Unreal? Ah, he'd leave that to the poets. Right now, he just wanted to get through the gardens unseen, and find the shelter he'd built as a boy, down where the beautiful garden sloped into the forest. He'd hidden some things there, against just such a time-- important things, very important. The sort of things you'd want to retrieve on a day like today, when the end of balance and the world itself seemed to be at stake. It was ironic, he thought, that this fateful day brought so much wild energy to his spirit - but that was the problem, wasn't it? This energy which he felt coursing through his veins was the same spiritual boost that his brother was, at this very moment, harnessing in a last-ditch attempt to destroy the remnants of the Earth Kingdom, and with them, truly, the world.

The blossoms draped over the paths, thicker and wilder in these far paths, their fragrance permeating the air all around him. Nearby, on the other side of the hedge, a trickle of water added a musical touch, soft and fragile against the omnipresent thunderous backdrop of fire blasting in the distance. Iroh shook his head, remembering the beautiful lotus blossoms that had floated there in his youth, the quiet, hidden pond beneath the small waterfall. He remembered the stone pai sho board that had been overgrown with vines, until he'd carefully cleared it off one day, curious at the tiles. The feeling of peace that he'd felt once, meditating by that oasis. He remembered, with a thickness in his throat that seemed closer than usual today, the first time he had sat there with Lu Ten, showing his only son the game that he'd come to love so.

He shook his head once again to clear it, hurrying through the little trellis, nearly overgrown with climbing roses by now; the gardeners probably focused on the inner courtyards, these days, if they were still about at all. Under an elder tree that had, by now, become fully grown, he saw the shack, still standing, small and humble and, if he did say so himself, remarkably well-built for a teenager. He quickened his steps; with no knowledge of anything else going on in the Fire Nation capital, there was no way he'd enter the fray without first stopping here. The door creaked as he opened it; the light was slightly musty, as though it had aged with the shack, and his own mind. Smiling, Iroh stepped at long last into his first shelter.

The tea pot was exactly as he'd left it, though rather dustier. The lotus design on the side was bright beneath the dust, though, and as he brushed it away, he cast about for the pump handle - there, in the corner. He was glad, now, that he had slipped through the kitchens on his way through. For a moment, he fiddled with the fireplace, making sure there was a tinder there, and then he carefully cupped his hands and sparked the flame. It lit and held immediately - how could it not, on the return of Sozin's Comet? As it caught, he went to fill the pot with spring water - the same spring that bubbled into the pond, he knew; this caught in his mind, for a moment, and it took him longer than usual to realize there was someone standing behind him. This may also have been accounted for by the lack of footstep on the grassy path, or the silence of tread on the creaking stile. Iroh started for a moment, caught unawares by the stark - could you call it a face?

"Oh-- it's you," he said, after a moment. There was a brief pause. "Would you share a cup with me?"

ARE YOU SURE THERE IS ENOUGH? I DID NOT REALIZE YOU WERE EXPECTING.

The Dragon of the West smiled, pulling the little bundle from where he'd stowed it, beneath his robe. "You can never be too prepared, where tea is concerned," he explained.

Have just put the first chapter review of Atlas Shrugged up, last night/this morning. The journal, which I am in too much of a hurry to link, is Earthling_Rants at Dreamwidth. It occurred to me too late that I should provide more of a synopsis, so the next review will be better on that front.

As per the next chapter: Hank Rearden is like what would happen if an xkcd character got possessed by Ayn Rand's author wraith. He's your classic nerd from various comics, loves his work and doesn't understand why it doesn't matter to anyone else, but then he's got the Ayn Rand issues that don't correspond to ANY OF THAT. Seriously, those two halves of his character just don't match. And his brother is an utter caricature.

ANYWAY. I have more to say, but it is high time to go to work!

He is Risen!

There's a post about self, and religious epiphanies that bloody hurt, but today is not the day.

Here is a comic. A good comic.

And now, family.

The internet is becoming more and more of a tool - well, it's more accurate to say it's becoming more and more widely used. I never saw the potential, as a self-absorbed young teenager, and it is awe-inspiring today to see that force of connection and human potential used in the pursuit of human and civil rights, used by peoples yearning to be free - with or without foreign aid. And I say, power to them. They deserve to be recognized and held aloft, they are taking what the West by and large uses as a toy, or a marketing billboard, and they are lighting it up for freedom.

(Note: I like the Western internetters. I am one. Just sayin'. I'm not sure "1,000,000 strong for the Doctor to carry the Olympic Torch" is as worthy a cause as "Protest against Ghaddafi tomorrow in X location," or the like.)

Anyway, after years of complaining about Livejournal and their marketing, I suddenly find myself cheering for them rather loudly. Because like it or not, they are a voice of free speech, and no one has the right to take that away.

We're standing in the dark, you and I. There's a howling wind, so quiet it fills the background, you have to strain to hear the silence on the surface between us, that still tension of things not said. We're standing in the dark, and I'm still not sure which of us has the light. It's supposed to be you, I want to say. You're supposed to be the light, you're supposed to be all. I'm not responsible for undoing my own shadows...

I'm standing in the dark. I love you won't come to the speaking, won't say itself in my heart. I'm here in the dark, and my arm's too heavy to reach for you, and if I fall, I'll fall away. I'm standing in the dark, and I don't have the light, and I don't have the torch, and I'm full of angry darkness, and I don't know why. You're here in the dark with me, I'm told. You're here, not in the rushing or the howling or the fire but the still, small voice.

You're the one who put these voices into me? I hope not. These are not your voices, they are mine, they are selfishly, angrily, hurtfully mine. You're holding the torch, I'm holding the match, we're at an impasse and no matter how many times I say it's my decision...

Other people go through life pretty happily, or peacefully - at least with you. They have things, and they don't feel guilt weighing them down at every step, and they don't resent the guilt, and they don't resent the quiet understanding that they could be better. I'm straining at the bit again, I'm breaking through the traces, I'm seizing the reins and throwing them to the ground, tangling and tripping and falling to the dust off the side of the track, and not looking up to see if you're amused or disappointed.

We're standing in the dark, and I can't see the stars, the clouds, the ground all shod in broken glass, and mosaics of paving-stones. I told you I'd grope in the mud and crawl in the smoke and seek you in the smog and clouds and darkened alleys of this world, and now the lighter the tower grows around me, the harder it is to see. I'm going blind, I'm losing you in all the space, I'm all alone in the twisting places of the narrowest road, and there is no hope.

I think I'm officially a Fred Clark fangirl.

Team Hell Gets Loud.

I keep trying to find a selection from the post that will do to explain it, but I'd rather just paste the whole thing here. >_> Ah, this will do.

The evangelical blog world seems all atwitter over a forthcoming book by Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. The book's title, "Love Wins," is apparently regarded by many American evangelicals as an astonishingly heretical and controversial claim. Love wins? How dare anyone suggest such a thing?

Even more controversial is the book's subtitle: "Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Has Ever Lived." Bear in mind that the book hasn't hit shelves yet, so nobody's actually read it yet, but that subtitle and this promotional video from Bell were more than enough to prompt Team Hell to spring into action.

I'll say this for Team Hell, they're not afraid of repeating themselves.

Also, I meant to tell Sixwing how awesome her shut-down of Honestwoman was, but forgot. So: Sixwing, you rock!