Cutting myself.

Hot right now in my four layers: t-shirt, plaid cowboyish shirt, old-school pullover sweater, tweed jacket. Taking off the tweed jacket (took off the comfy scarf when first getting here).

The weather is my lover. Fifties (low tens celsius), drizzle, balmy, clean-smelling. Vancouverites know what I'm talking about (guess what I'm missing?). I was carrying Jude's bright yellow shield and scabbard (both homemade) while chaperoning the trick-or-treaters, and some mom's thought I was dressed up like Harry Potter.

I ditched The Blank Slate and A People's History of the United States and The Immortal Profession at the library tonight. I had been reading all three at once. I stopped reading Moby-Dick two weeks ago. Why do I choose to read four books at once? And then not finish them? Does this say something deep and profound about me? All of the books were incredible and educational books. But it is nearly impossible to read four books at once (especially of such disparate material and writing style).

My new readings will be along the more religious and spiritual: The Gospel in Dostoevsky (with wood-cuttings of beautiful anguish my Eichenberg) and Schmemann's For the Life of the World.

One question, before I close: why do I feel the need to publish this personal imformation on the internet? I wish I knew.

Notes (3).

1. See August 28 (a kind of pre-entry). It is from my at-home e-journal that I'm going to gradually merge into this blog. It is called "Clement's Resolve," a vignette, albeit a fairly sloppy one. I was inspired one day and wrote it. Let me know what you think.

2. See October 8 for my 25 best albums list. Ask me about any of the albums. I might tell you why I like them.

3. Changed the Elise pic.

Hot Off the Digital Files.

Kids first. Esmé. Jude & Esmé. Jude.

A Perfect Day Elise.

Woman.

Me.

Look Right.

I have added a few links to my blog. They take you to the blogsites of various friends of mine. I have not done this so much to expand the blogging community, or to give others free access of invasion into these friends' lives (blogging or otherwise). This is so that I can easily access their blogs. Why should I expect others to read my blog (because I do have this expectation) while not taking time to read theirs?

One more thing: please let me know if you would like me to take your bloglink off my blog. Thank you.

Potty mouth and grin my eyes.

Today for the 7th graders silent reading session I read aloud from two favorite passages of mine. First was chapter 5 from Frank McCourt's 'Tis. It is about him attempting to smuggle and eat a lemon meringue pie and bottle of ginger ale into a theatre showing Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. I simply love his writing, and this chapter is so colorful and descriptive of his situation as an Irish immigrant in New York in the fifties. The kids liked it too. They laughed nervously at all the goddam's and hell's and ass's. I hope I don't get in trouble for that. Shouldn't.

It is funny how kids can watch movies with all kinds of colorful language, graphic sexual situations and gratuitous violence -- on TV, the movies, video games -- and still get a little weird about what I read (which wasn't so bad). But maybe I was the one with the weird attitude, and they were picking up on it. Still, I read. I love Frank McCourt, and though I would have been scandalized at the time, no doubt, I could have used writing like his in my life, read by a caring and thoughtful teacher (or substitute in my case).

All for now.

Thoughts on blogging.

The wave of the future? a rising new form of communication? an exercise in practical narcissism?

(I owe my friend Mark for the last question.)

I hope I don't become obsessed. And if I do? it will die away and I will stumble upon some new obsession.

My beauties.

There is no way to describe the kind of emotion I have for Jude and Esme'. To begin with, they are both super-intelligent and obnoxiously beautiful. This is perhaps what causes the original stir in my heart. But is their whole persona, experienced only in their constant presence that causes me to be overcome with utmost love for them.

Esme' doesn't crawl or walk yet. Instead she sits on the kitchen floor scissoring her legs in such a fashion as to spin around and around on her bum. Once I watched her spin herself around completely three times. Whenever I look at her, smile, talk in my silly voice to her, she smiles this amazing squinty-eyed, chubby-cheeked, gummy expression. Amazing.

Jude can almost best me in chess. He prays before every meal, faithfully crosses himself "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit," and prays for everyone present, and if Esme' is sleeping he prays "that Ezzy will wake up." Jude can already basically read, count to 120, add and subtract. His drawings and paintings are always breathtaking. He is independent but always wants to build duplos with him or play uno (which is successfully better at than us) or play dice. He likes to listen to rock'n'roll at high volumes while driving in the car. His favorite album is Weezer, "the one with the blue cover." Sometimes I have to be stern with him, such as when he ran off in the library last night, but then that "scares" him and breaks his heart and it breaks my heart too. He is too beautiful. Ezzy too.

You might have noticed.

The lovely picture of my family was removed. I do apologize for this. But I will be shortly putting up another of my wife (some real model pix), as well as a more recent -- and flattering -- picture of myself, and also some more of Jude and Esme' (the lovely little ones!).

More on the Orthodox Faith.

I have an icon of Jesus, a beautiful depiction of the risen Christ, the Son of God, one of the Holy Trinity on the top shelf of our current bookshelf. It sits with several other icons we have collected. I view this "window into heaven" every single day. It is simply beautiful and sometimes I pray and light a candle in front of it and kiss it, and I am kissing Him for why would I not want to kiss the risen Christ?

Another question, then: Is Jesus' beautiful depiction burning an impression upon me? This is what I desire and what I must pray for.

The Orthodox Faith.

Here I am back from a long hiatus. I'll admit that this blog started out highly experimental and mostly sarcastic. But my distaste for sarcasm is growing. I am now taking it semi-seriously, however, and might continue to become more serious from here on out.

A little history. There is the usual blah-blah about the need to journal starting from when our grade school teachers forced this task upon us. Most recently I've been keeping a journal on my eMac at home which I might some day soon transfer to this blogspot. "Golightly" itself was originally a joke and cover up for my true self. And what a joke! for don't I long to be my true self? No, but lately I've attempted to be something else, something that falls more in line with this rat-race called Chicagoland.

Look at my profile: everything is true, except one thing: my name. But I liked that piece of pure fabrication so much that I decided to keep it.

Now, what about the title? Victoria, if you are reading this right now, thank you. I appreciate her unabashed proclamation that she's an Orthodox Christian. So why do I hold back? Because all that defined me until I was 24 and a half was derived from and summarized in one word: Evangelicalism.

My wife put it beautifully: she said something like, "I've got a lot of evangelized skeletons in my closet." And I would desire to exorcise them. But is this the best idea? Whatever the case may be, I am a Christian, though I don't know if I live up to that title meaning "little Christ," and I am Orthodox, though I have long way to go because worship and believe rightly.

More later on the Orthodox faith.

A picture of Elise, Jude and Esmé.

[This picture removed at request of Elise due to her not granting permission to display a photograph of herself. Thank you for understanding.]

A picture of me and Esmé.

Still trying to figure this out.

Why does the music of PJ Harvey connect with my soul so much?

Speaking of souls, I've been reading this book called "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" by the world's leading expert on language and the mind, Steven Pinker. His studies and conclusions reject these three notions that have developed over the past four hundred years (post-Renaissance/Enlightenment and forward): The Blank Slate (the notion that the mind is a "tabla rasa", a scraped tablet, that is entirely formed and conditioned by the experiences of life), the Noble Savage (that pre-civilized man was a more decent creature before the affects of civilization and [to a greater degree] industrialization/modernization/Westernization), and the Ghost in the Machine (essentially, the fact that we have a soul).

What he says is amazingly convincing and well-thought out. But the idea that we don't have a soul, something part of us that lives on after the body is dead, as has been believed for milllenia by traditional cultures and even by our modern cultures, is a rather depressing and troubling thought for me. But I reject it roundly. Not simply because I've always believed we have souls and just could never imagine thinking otherwise, or even that it destroys everything I believe in terms of my Christian faith, but mostly because I don't see how the belief in an afterlife and a non-material, immortal part of our being--something that has been believed, as I have said, for millenia--could be so easily proven "wrong" by current scientific understanding of how the mind works. So that is my statement.

PJ Harvey, you touch my soul. More importantly, I still believe in Jesus.

Boob.

"This country's going down the tubes." My dad grieves out the words as he reclines on the couch in front of the HDTV showing FoxNews and the report of the recent earthquake in Pakistan and India.
"Why do you say that?" comes my question.
"Because everybody is in debt and spending money like crazy; there are no morals anymore; everything has become so political."
"Hm," I think, "I guess my dad and I do agree on something."

List.

Compiled a list of albums I’d likely bring with me to a desert island. I know, it is a cliched exercise, but here goes. (Perhaps someday I’ll give my reasons why I chose each album, but by then, it will be different):

( ) Sigur Rós
After the Goldrush Neil Young
At Folsom Prison Johnny Cash
Blood on the Tracks Bob Dylan
Bringing It All Back Home Bob Dylan
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road Lucinda Williams
Chronicle, Vol. 1 Creedence Clearwater Revival
Egypt Youssou N’Dour
Elephant The White Stripes
Ella & Louis Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
Funeral The Arcade Fire
Gold Ryan Adams
Homogenic Björk
Is This Desire? PJ Harvey
IV Led Zeppelin
Kid A Radiohead
Kind of Blue Miles Davis
Pink Moon Nick Drake
Revolver The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band The Beatles
Star Time James Brown
Summer Sun Yo La Tengo
The Basement Tapes Bob Dylan & The Band
The Joshua Tree U2
The Milk-Eyed Mender Joanna Newsom

Thank God I'm Immortal

Hard to be young and be mistaken for much younger (than I am) while teaching those who are in actuality as old as most think I look all under the guise of professionalism which I have a hard time taking seriously in the first place. Sometimes I don't shave on purpose. But neither that nor the tweed jacket help me look much older. Perhaps I should be sporting a pipe? Perhaps a beard and I don't care how ridiculous I would look in it. Then there is this: I feel I have more in common with those under my charge than with those called colleagues. This is today's recursive thoughts.