ghost tour

well...as to my last post... despite saying that i wasn't over reacting...with a little distance i think i may have been. so...i'll just not worry about it...and not do/say anything needlessly "odd" around them.

just got back from edinburgh. that place is amazing. if i believed in past lives...which i don't...i would say i have been there before. lived there. i felt so comfortable. at peace. i thought i would get that from dublin. while i really liked dublin and want to go back i didn't feel like i connected with it in any way other than the way one connects with any cool city. edinburgh....yes you should all go.

anyway. back now. lisa's here. i'm not sure how i'm going to get any work done at all but i'm going to try.

despite the fun of the last few days i now find myself relatively with little to say.

we did go on a ghost tour...not the one with "mckenzie's poltergeist" for anyone that might know what i'm talking about. we did go to where that is supposedly on our own. well not inside you can't get inside the moselum (sp) unless you've got approval from the city counsel (like tour guides) but we do go up and look in. and yes...it's creepy. blah... really odd. the tour we went on went under the city into some vaults. i don't want to come out and say this because it makes me sound like a nutcase. but we all heard someone scream. this was a legit tour group made up of univeristy historians so they did not plant anything down there. and the tour only takes one group down there at a time. one an hour. they lock they door behind them when they leave. there was no one else down there. so disbelieve me as you will. but we all heard it, clear as day. and it was creepy as hell.

jesse (because it's jesse) still doesn't believe it. but well....that's just him.

-sarah

my brother

the other night i was talking to jesse about posting pictures on my photobucket account and that we needed to send charlie and april the links to the ireland pictures. then i realized we've given them links in the past and they can access anything in there. which means i have to be careful what i put in there. not those sorts of pictures. you all have seen my photobucket.

i was surprised after sending him a link last time to get a email asking why jesse was blowing fireballs. and if he was going to continue to do that there was no way he and april would trust us with rachel. then a quick "just kidding". but that's the thing...

i mean i don't really think he's that concerned about jesse blowing fireballs and igniting his child. but i realized that there are things that would freak them out about us. and i know i'm walking a thin line. and that makes me really angry.

for instance april told her aunt (who is gay) that after april had a baby she was no longer allowed to bring her partner with her to family gatherings. and if she was planning to bring her partner then she needed to alert april so that april would not come with her children. needless to see they have declined the invitation to rebecca and meliha's commiment ceremony in october.

i remember once getting into a conversation with my mother about religion at the dinner table. now my mother is a minister and i've taken lots of religion classes and enjoy reading about religion in general. so this is really pretty normal. i mean i don't tell my mother really personal things about my own religious beliefs but we do talk about things. i mentioned that the gospels were not written by their namesakes because i needed to say that to move on to something else...now my mom already knew that but april just about had a fit. "really? sarah, you're rocking my world!"

anyway. they are what i would call "fundi-s". and while they haven't given me much grief in general before the baby i'm wondering what they'll do now. my political beliefs are the exact opposite of theirs. i jokked that jesse and i had to vote to cancel out charlie and april's votes for bush. it's frustrating. but i can deal with that i know not everyone is going to agree with me about everything. it's the idea they might tell me i don't have privledges with rachel -- that gets under my skin.

just telling them i'm not a christian would probably do it. them coming across some of the pictures of when jesse and i go clubbing wouldn't help. and throw in telling them i've kissed a girl and enjoyed it...well... that would be the end of that.

my parents are remarkably supportive of me. in fact i've watched them change their own political beliefs to be more in keeping with mine as the years have gone by. i can talk to them without worrying about them getting freaked out though they may not always agree with me. if i locked you in a room for a few hours with charlie and april you would believe me. i mean i know i sound like i'm making a big deal out of this...but i really don't think i am.

jesse and i have talked about what we plan on doing when she asks us questions that we know we would answer differently than her parents. i don't want to challange how they're going to raise their kids (well...i kinda want to) but i won't. but somehow i want her to know that we would be there for her if she did any of the long list of things that would astonish and enrage her parents. being a parent changed things. shows people that there is so much more "grey" that everything isn't black and white. i hope the same will happen for them.

and i really care about my brother and his wife. i've never had a bid sister and sometimes it's kinda neat. i really want to feel like i can be myself around them. and in the past i have said things i know they don't believe or want to hear. but i think i'm going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut.

it makes me sad.

there are two vege spring rolls waiting for the oven to heat and after 20 min they are then waiting for immediate consumption.

i don't need to tell you that i feel completely overcome with my research responsibilites right now. because that's all i've been talking about lately. i thought taking off in the middle of it to go to scotland was going to majorly stress me out (and it is) but i'm really looking forward to it. because i am completely wearing myself out here. i guess going to scotland is the reason i've been working so hard to begin with. and i'm probably further along than i think..but maybe not. thta's what wakes me up in the middle of the night. or more appropriately makes it impossible for me to get to sleep on some nights.

well i'm done with the first of the hempton books. he's one of THE scholars right now on methodism. and i think he's a self-important bore...not to mention he thinks it's his job to fix change all the negative stereotypes about methodism...which by the way...some of them are true... or were true. methodism current isn't a damn thing like it used to be. wesley wouldn't even recognize it. it's too touchy-feely. wesley was a hard-ass. like kids weren't allowed to play games at his schools. but they could chop wood and things like that. blah.

anyway. that is not what i want to talk about. this is funny though. got this out of T. E. Hulme's book Specultaions : ‘You don’t believe in a God, so you begin to believe that man is a god. You don’t believe in Heaven so you begin to believe in a heaven on earth. In other words, you get romanticism. The concepts that are right and proper in their own sphere are spread over, and so mess up, falsify and blur the clear outlines of human experience. It is like pouring a pot of treacle over the dinner table. Romanticism then, and this is the best definition I can give of it, is spilt religion’ (Hulme 118).

i laughed so hard...ah yes...that probably should have been a key that i needed to go take a walk.

whatever. oooo! the oven is warm...

-sarah

i didn't get nearly enough done last night. which is a problem. my head is slowing down. i don't read as fast as i used to. blah...off to tackle leigh hunt. no..really...i'm getting to the point i actually want to tackle him.

nectar of the gods

well it's about two days before lisa shows up. which means the countdown of time to work on this paper is officially on. i'm trying to get as much research as done before she gets here so i can relax and have fun while she's here. but shit you should see the pile of books i have.

i need to make a pilgrimage to hunt's grave. it's somewhere in london. i have spent so much time researching this chap. i know more about him than many of my family members. though i still maintain that he looks like he could be my mother's brother. that's it...i'm distantly related...and i somehow know this and this, this, is why i'm putting myself through this ordeal. to try to get back to my roots. yes! no...

oh well. when my parents came to visit last month they brought me some flavoured coffee. and despite my vow to only buy fairtrade coffee...i didn't buy this it was a gift... and... this is pecan torte flavoured... and it smells like pancakes with syrup... and it's the one thing keeping me going... sweet nectar of the gods...

onto the next book. "Relgion and Society in England 1790-1850" by... who cares... it's old and a tad out of date but i have to give it a nod. farewell cruel world...

-sarah

childhood

this one is samantha's fault.

the five things i miss about childhood.

1. knowing what/who god is. i remember a time when i knew exactly what god was and that he was taking care of me. i don't know what/who god is anymore or if he/it/she exists really. i really like the many of the things that jesus seemed to say (seemed...as in the bible has to be taken with a grain of salt to compensate for the writers's own lenses and motives plus it contradicts itself all over the place). but what christianity is now (particularly Protestantism) is soccer-moms and race-car-dads, two cars, three tvs....blah blah... that is not what he was going for. but doesn't matter, that's what it is. and identifying with the guy that kicked all this off doesn't make me a christian. (well, unless my mother or brother ask you...and then yes i'm a christian... especially my brother sheesh) i don't know what it makes me really. i'm starting to sympathize with the nineteenth conception of what a deist was. who knows. i think i can sense the ineffable though. in some way... i do believe in a god...i'm just not real sure what he is. and that's kinda unsettling...well at least when comparing it to my younger self. but i guess one of the things i dislike the most about many people adhereing to one religion or another is their inability to listen and question. but sometimes at night i still miss the certaninty.

2. i miss thinking i would live forever. i mean i understood death and what it was. but it didn't have anything to do with me. i remember thinking that because of time zones if you could get on a plane and keep going you could live forever.

3. i miss school papers that were written on that blue and red lined paper. there were only about 5 lines right? yeah... i miss papers like that. one's that don't make me feel like i've sold my soul when they're over.

4. i miss the ability to sit on my floor and endless organize and reoragnize my rock collection and my plastic jewlery into differnt boxes that i would acquire from all over. because, what the hell was more important than organizing rocks?

5. i miss thinking that i would always have the ones i loved. the first realtive that died (when i was old enough to know what was going on) was when i was 12. that's a long time without any first hand knowledge of death. my parents also never moved after i was born. so i never had to go to a completely new town and make new friends. i remember at some point though having one of those thoughts that makes you sit straight up in bed and stare. (for me it was at the little red light on my tape deck). i was going to be the last one left. i'm the youngest by nine years. that was creepy. now it's not as big a deal. and i don't remember how old i was. young...

anyway. that's that. strangely personal.

-sarah

ireland

so much fun. the people we great. there was an old man singing a pub song while waiting for a bus. he was in his 80s or 90s and just blaring away wearing a grey sportscoat and grey trousers.

then there was the old man in guiness brewery gift store. he was also in his 80s or 90s and staggering a bit. we bumped into eachother
he said: hello
i said: hi
he: oh, a red head!
i: (because my hair is red now) yes
he: i'm getting old
i: really?

this whole time he was smiling and laughing a bit and so was i.

i figured the irish would be like the british. which is great...but a little cold. but no, not at all. they were super warm and wanted to talk.

jesse and i had a blast.

-sarah

why do i let people treat me like shit? and when will i learn how to say, "hey, you're being a dick, quit it" this is a lesson i need to learn. because i'm getting tired of putting up with this kind of crap. but hell i've gotten to 22 and haven't picked it up this far...it'll probably be years before i figure it out. and another ten or so after that until i'm able to mix it up a bit. substitute bitch for dick. yeah... i need to be more confident.

shit...

m & m

oh yes. you want some. you know it. oh yes

hunt annie dilliard

leigh hunt and i are becoming good friends. well he might not agree...but it would be difficult to solicit his opinion. but i've been reading so much about him lately and so much that he's read. he is one of those poor guys that if he had died when he was young he might have been famous. he was a mentor to keats, a best friend to shelley and occasionally friends but generally hust borrowing money off of byron. he out lived all of them. in fact he outlived most of the romantics. including hazlitt and lamb. wordsworth and coleridge obviously but hunt was one of the second generation and W & C were the first.

it's got to be wierd watching all your friends get picked off like that.

but anyway. alongside hunt, when i can't read him anymore (and this does happen) i've been rereading for the time being by annie dilliard. she makes me introspective at the same time she makes me want to go be useful. she's amazing. and most of the stuff she writes is true. which is unusual.

library

god, is there no end to this? there is way too much scholarship on methodism. i'll never read it all. i wanted to get all my research done by the 23rd of june. there is no way. i am afraid i will not finish this paper before i leave to go home. there is just too much going on and not enough time. i'm going to have to start investing in more coffee.

i'm off to the library in an hour or so to get MORE books and bury myself with them. this paper really excites me. for the first time at the presentation of topics meeting my profs were tearing down the rest of my classmates but telling me this was original and an area that should be explored. i was shocked. in a class full of brits i'm usually the one that sticks out as the odd one who has no idea what's going on. but...for once...and i still feel like i have a chance with this one. if only i had more time before people started showing up. i think i can do this. i've got about 20 days.

now i'm just babeling. must eat lunch.

last night...

last night i drank too much wine which is always the drink that conquers me if one is going to.
last night i showed off my scars. the one from the tube with absolutely no prompting or any reason to do it. also the one from the amnioscentisis way up on my thigh. but only after hugo dropped his pants to show his machetti scar.
last night i asked ezra several personal questions. will he and his girlfriend try to stay together (because i've never seen a couple more suited for each other) even though he'll be in scotland and she in southeast england for their phds? yes. why he half of his eye brow white? it happened last christmas and he's not really sure.
last night i passed out in bed before half the guests left.
last night i threw up.
last night i was reminded how much i need jesse to take care of me sometimes.
last night...well...that's about all i remember about last night.

jesse assures me i didn't really embaress myself and i will call ezra later and apologize for asking random personal questions. though i know he was two drinks away from being as drunk as i was so i'm sure he didn't care. and now it's 2 30 and i should try to eat something.