So it's been a week

I've had in-laws in, a job interview that never materialized, and all kinds of other reasons not to write here. Or read, for that matter. I'm making my way through Barth, but not nearly as quickly as I'd hoped.

Tuesday is my next "interview" with EC, and I imagine I'm going to turn down the job--the long commute and low pay just aren't the things I need right now. So be it.

Marlowe, Wrestlemania, and Derivative Calculus

Okay, last night's dream was so bizarre that I can't even begin to interpret it. I was a student on a college campus built on a series of terraces on a steep hill. To get from a high point to a low point, there were no stairs, so everyone, from eighteen-year-old students to sixty-year-old professors, would put one foot on the steep slope between two terraces, lift the other one off the ground, and slide down the slope, taking a short hop at the bottom and continuing on his or her way. And I don't remember having to re-ascend the slope.

I was on my way to a psychology exam for a class taught by Dr. Teague, who taught Renaissance Drama when I was doing my MA in English. And Brad Warfield, a friend from college and seminary, was there in the class with us. To study for the test, we had been watching old Wrestlemania tapes, the ones featuring Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. And before I entered the classroom, Dr. Teague was sure to ask me whether I'd been studying my WWF tapes. But when I sat down, the first three pages were full of problems in which I had to give the derivative of various calculus... things (can't even remember the terminology, much less how to do them). I woke up feeling betrayed by the world and by the college system.

Speaking of college systems, I've got an interview Tuesday morning for a possible spot teaching English at Emmanuel College for a semester. I'm quite excited, really. While I don't hate substitute teaching, I'd much prefer being in charge of my own classroom and teaching my own class. Mary has said that it would be alright so long as it's not a money-losing proposition. Cool.

I played Madden instead of reading philosophy yesterday, so no interesting notes from books. But I traded a tight end and a draft pick for a hot shot rookie defensive lineman, and the Colts defense that was porous in the first two games picked off three Tom Brady passes in week three, taking the already invincible Colts offense to a 30-point rout of the once-mighty Superbowl champs. But today, I've got Nietzsche and Barth with me, and they'll be traveling along with me to Appalachee High this morning. I hope I've got third or fourth period planning--it seems like every other class I sub for has second period, the positive worst time to have planning. Oh well. Have to see when I get there.

Nietzsche makes sense now

I forget whether it did back in college or whether I was just too sleep-deprived to maintain attention, but at this point, I'm about twenty pages into The Birth of Tragedy, and I'm actually getting out of it what people say is in there. I'm also chugging through Barth's Dogmatics in Outline. If I've got some time today, I might also start Robert MacAfee Brown's Saying Yes, Saying No or a reread of Milton's "A Masque." Underemployed ain't great financially, but I sure am getting some hardcore reading done.

It's now been since Thursday that I got a sub call. I turned that one down because I was studying for the GRE, and now I'm paying the price karmically. (Not sure if that's a word.) I've got the phone next to me as I type this, and I'm really hoping to get called. No matter, though--next week I've got five, eight-hour days lined up at the library, each of which pays more than an eight-hour day of subbing. And once January comes, I'll be applying for real jobs anyway.

Micah is as active as ever, though he always stops kicking when I put my hand on Mary's belly. A little less than four months from now, he's going to be breathing air and shared much more evenly between Mary and me. Ph.D applications are in the mail; now I've got to concentrate on applying to churches. More on that later.

Heavy Hitters and Silly Reads

I've finished up the Papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae, and I've started Karl Barth's Dogmatics in Outline. I've also picked up Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, a British humor book about punctuation, from the public library, so I'm not completely devoting myself to hard-hitting theology.

No real recollection of the content of my dream last night, but I do remember that it involved an indestructible devil-figure. He actually loaned me an anti-tank rocket launcher and let me fire it at his body at about five hundred yards. Didn't even wrinkle his thousand dollar suit. I forget exactly what the devil wanted of me, but I'm sure I would have turned the gig down. Unless, of course, he just wanted to tempt me into firing a shoulder-launched antitank round. Then I'm screwed.

This will be my last week of subbing before six working days off from the kids--I'm taking over many of Cynthia's hours at the library, and I'm looking forward to it. I'd trade thirty-student classes and bad videos for ignorant computer questions and parents who do their kids' homework any old day of the week. But right now, it's time to shower just in case a thirty-student class lacks an idjit to play the video tape.

Talking mice?

I had a full-fledged comic book ripoff dream last night. In the dream I was a talking mouse. By whatever means (I remember more towards the end of the dream), I had been changed into a talking mouse, and by exposure to a failed MiracleGro experiment, I had grown to thirty feet tall. I had made myself useful around Washington, D.C. by helping construction crews to lift heavy things, but one day, George W. Bush gave orders that, since he thought I was a French mouse, I must be destroyed. So all of a sudden, tanks are shooting at me. So I dove into the Potomac, where I found a secret underwater door. When I opened it, I partially blacked out, but all of a sudden I was talking to a Jedi who was part of the insurrection against the Galactic Empire. She told me that the others wanted to execute me as an imperial spy, but she decided that I couldn't have been because I had a French accent. Then the alarm went off.

I finished both Evangelium Vitae and Paradise Lost in the last couple days, and now I'm looking for a new project. Oh, yeah... I probably need to study some more for Saturday's English subject area GRE. With Mary unsure whether she wants to keep working after Micah's born, I'm not sure how much of myself I can sink into this test--even if I make it into a program, there's no guarantee that I'll be accepting the invite. But I can't blow it off either, because she's still unsure whether she wants to work or to stay home. Oy. To be continued...

Lawsuit Baseball

I dreamed last night that I was playing third base on some kind of baseball team. The thing is, the batter was in a horserace-style gate that would open just before the pitcher delivered. Beyond that, I fielded a couple choppers down the line, but when I threw the runners out, after the first one the other team started threatening lawsuits. And after the second one, my own team started threatening lawsuits! Come on, guys... I was just playing the game!

I finished Torture and Eucharist this weekend, and my review is on amazon.com. I suppose Wes Arblaster is working at a church, so in theory it should be possible for me to land something, but I fear that questions are going to come up, and I'm going to have to choose between another year of unemployment and selling out what I believe. I suppose those fears won't come to a head until I'm in my first interview.

Another buggered election

When I went to sleep last night, they were just beginning their all-night marathon. This morning, it looks like like Pennsylvania went Kerry, Florida went Bush, and Ohio is going to be the new legal battleground. Unless one believes Fox News, which has Ohio already in the Bush column. I suppose Fox News, if nothing else, was an accurate predictor of the 2000 Florida results.

More importantly, the anti-gay amendment passed in Georgia yesterday. The courts are already challenging it, but I don't anticipate any great overturnings. I only know a handful of gay Georgians, but my instincts tell me that this could well cause an exodus from "red" states into "blue" states over the next few years. What it will do economically and culturally, I can only speculate. But I wonder what sort of neighbors the Georgia Protestants are being seen as right now.

Mary had the day off yesterday, and I was sick part of the day, so I didn't get a ton of reading done. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be able to say more about what we Christians can do to oppose the state.

Fascist Time Change

All this baloney about "gaining an hour..." whole lot of good it does when it's pitch dark at seven o'clock and I'm getting tired at eight! I think all of us from Indiana who have landed in states that capitulated to the totalitarian "let Uncle Sam tell you when the day starts and stops" plot get at least a little depressed on the day after Daylight Savings Time starts in the fall. No government should have that kind of power, but I don't suppose any military in the world is powerful enough right now to liberate us from the state's control even over the hours of the day...

Torture and Eucharist has bogged down a little, but I understand why. Cavanaugh wants to give a detailed treatment of Jacques Maritain's political theology because it had such a profound influence on the Chilean hierarchy and because it serves as an example of bad ecclesiology. But since I've never read a paragraph of Maritain, the commentary ain't doing much for me. I'm looking forward to clearing this chapter and getting on to Cavanaugh's chapters on resistance.