More Movie Reviews

The title introduces well enough. So here goes:

• Ray. This movie was phenomenal, and if I watch Million Dollar Baby and am not utterly blown away, I'm going to call foul on its not winning Best Picture. Jamie Foxx steps out of the way and lets Ray's story carry the movie, and for that alone he deserves Best Actor (this is no slam against Jamie Foxx; I don't think many actors could have let Ray come through the way he did). The music, of course, was wonderful, and the sex and drugs were present in the story without dominating the screen. Neither making Ray an idealized racial justice crusader nor an utter jerk, the movie brings across a humanity that only adds to a great musician. It was so good, I can even forgive the sometimes heavy-handed psychoanalytic stuff that creeps into some scenes (I'll let you readers either watch and see or figure it out).
• Closer. Y'know how I liked Ray so much because the sex wasn't all over the screen? Yeah, that's why I didn't much like this one. This movie, from early in the game, dares the viewer to object to the mostly pointless, completely un-erotic sex that is typed into computers, discussed as one might discuss baseball or politics (except with more dirty words), and splayed all over the movie screen for two hours. Alright, I'll take your dare. Most on-screen sex does nothing to enhance a movie's story, and this movie was different only in that it had no story to accompany the on-screen sex. All four major actors are talented folks, but they were straitjacketed by the writers' obsessions with discussing, alluding to, and performing sex. Yeah, I took the dare. Now what?

So there's my movie reviews for today. Mary and I just got Citizen Kane and Sideways in the mail from Blockbuster; if we have a chance to watch them between getting ready for Mom's visit and closing on the house, I might just comment here later.

Micah sleeps well knowing the Colts drafted some defensive help this year

Micah making merry in his bassinet (he's nearly too big for it)

Got milk?

Micah in the bouncy seat (or at least the top half of Micah--it's hard to aim and to amuse a baby)

Micah in his shorts (before an untimely spit-up put an end to that)

Some Movie Reviews

Mary and I, tired of watching the same game show reruns while we fed and napped with Micah, decided to sign up for Blockbuster's online program, and we've enjoyed it so far. The movies get here on time (in general), and we've caught up on some titles we were meaning to see (at some point) but never got to. So here's my uneducated take on a few that we've seen since joining:

• Finding Neverland. Not a bad film--I particularly liked the (relatively) understated blurring between the author's imagination and reality as everyone else sees it. Even better were the blurrings that happened while he was playing with chlidren. The end was pretty standard tear-jerking fare, but the visual and plotline statements about imagination and adulthood make this one worth seeing.
• The Manchurian Candidate. When I see an action movie, I don't want to feel this violated. Instead of the clean-cut international intrigue story I'd hoped for, this movie spent most of its time plumbing the depths of war's scarring of the human mind, the machinations of biotech, and a mother's drive to see her son rule the world that shades (for a scene or two) into the incestuous. Yechh. On the plus side, Denzel just can't seem to do a role halfway, so his portrayal of a psychologically-scarred career soldier is wonderful even as it disturbs.
• Friday Night Lights. Don't try to remake Hoosiers. Coach Carter did somewhat, but the strong pro-education, pro-black overtones made it a movie worth watching beyond the feel-good sports appeal. This one didn't have any such focus. The games that received significant screen time in the first half of the movie were so devastatingly one-sided against Team Mojo (the protagonists of the film) that their meteoric rise to the state championship game (which lasts all of four minutes for five rounds) and subsequent nail-biter championship game with the invincible Dallas high school team (the game's ups and downs seem nothing short of deus ex machina) lack any plausibility. On the other hand, I have to hand it to any script writer who puts this couplet into a movie script: "You want to win? Put Boobie in!"
• I Heart Huckabees. I don't know what I want to think of this one yet. On the one hand, it's a feature-length joke at the expense of philosophy majors. On another, it's a lovely look at intersecting thought-worlds and their inability to reconcile unless the people who think hard also learn to love one another. If you live in any two of the worlds staged in this film (environmentalists, nihilists, idealists, evangelicals, capitalists, and many others) and wonder what would happen if too many of those worlds collided in one room, this is one that will at least give you one possibility of what it might look like.
• The Notebook. Never being one to begrudge my wife a good chick flick, this gem led off our Blockbuster trial period. It was too chick-flicky even for her.
• Garden State This one was genuinely good. J.D. from Scrubs (can't think of the actor's name) tells his story with fairly convincing (though obscenity-laced) dialogue, cinematography that reflects the scene-POV's mental state, an archetypal journey into the underworld set in suburban New Jersey, and a sound track that I've been told is quite hip (I'm a poor judge of that). The ending scene was a hair over-the-top (reminded me of the Friends finale), but that doesn't diminish a really good movie.

My in-laws also purchased Rudy on DVD for me for my birthday--not bad stuff. I can see why Sean Astin got cast as another emotional favorite in the LOTR trilogy.

So there's the movies I've seen since Micah was born. I think Mary and I are going to watch Ray here in the next couple nights--I'm looking forward to seeing Jamie Foxx's continuing emergence as a serious actor. I was impressed enough by Collateral that I go into Ray expecting great things, not waiting for Foxx to redeem himself for Booty Call.

Latest Book Updates

Well, I've been posting pictures so much lately that I haven't put much into writing here. Newborn baby, I say, newborn baby!

But here are a couple reading updates. I finished, not too long ago, N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God, and I feel like I could write a syllabus for and teach a New Testament Introduction course now. Wright carefully set up a framework that takes into acocunt the historical and the literary and the theological, the Jewish and the Greek and the Roman, the preacher and the scholar and the skeptic. And he held it together for four hundred-plus pages.

I've also received a couple books as birthday gifts (I turn 28 tomorrow): The Barbarian Way by Edwin McManus and Overhearing the Gospel by Fred Craddock. I'm probably going to use McManus as a brief break from Wright's dense prose, then read the rest of Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God (just dying to put in a joke about 'rithmetic here), then take on Craddock. All these are books I want to tackle before the summer's out.

In the fall, I'm taking two Shakespeare classes and hopefully working on a "Hebrew Bible and/as Literature" syllabus to present to the English department. Part of my motivation is to get another "classes taught" line on my CV (that list grew this semester at Emmanuel), but I'd also like to teach some Bible, and this seems like a challenging context in which to try it. So I'm off to UGA on Wednesday (probably) to get some paperwork and start writing! Woo hoo!

Micah's livin' large and lovin' it

Micah playing in his bassinet after church

Micah's first bottle (He ate somewhere around three and a half ounces--no wonder he's such a hoss!)

Micah at one month old (April 7, 2005)

More diapers, less despair

Four more weeks. Then the house will be closed, Mary will be back to work, my term at Emmanuel College will be over, Mom will have arrived from Indiana, and I'll be in the process of setting up a new home while taking care of my new son. Four weeks, and everything changes.

Yeah, I know everyone told me that everything would change on March 7, and it did. But for whatever reason, this seems even bigger. Perhaps it's because I read up on that. This, the prospects of taking care of my son without Mary's help all day, the idea that I own (and owe for) a house (the most expensive item I've ever been involved with)--that's spooky.

To return to somewhat normal business for this blog, I've nearly finished the first volume of N.T. Wright's Christian Origins trilogy, and it stands to be one of the theology-changing books in my life. Not that much has changed, necessarily; rather, now I've been given a scholarly vocabulary to articulate what I've wanted to think for so long (at least as long as I've started into the scholarly study of the Scriptures). Wright is at once theologian and scholar, at once faithful and acute. I'm looking forward, once I finish the 470-page volume 1, to digging into the 700-page volume 2. And that's saying something.

Micah relaxing with Mom

Micah playing on his turtle playpen

Micah checking things out

Micah being burped (hey, it's our firstborn--we photograph everything!)

Micah's first Easter, outfit compliments of Grandma Gilmour

Micah after his first bath

Actually going to write one

Don't worry--there'll be more pictures to come, but I'm here alone in the public library, don't feel like grading any more, and have four hours of solitude to overcome.

So I'll write on my blog!

Micah is now nineteen days old. Since nobody in my house gets sick on a weekday, we spent some of the wee hours this morning in the emergency room getting him checked out for pink eye. Mary tells me it'll go away with relatively little pain, but it still pains me to see gunk coming out of my son's eye.

The grand existential shift from "not-father" to "father" hasn't been all that traumatic for me, though I do love my son dearly and know that his presence is redefining my own life. But the day-to-day is actually far more telling than the big-question with regards to having a new son. My body has gotten used to little sleep, but my mind wants to be working on something when I'm home, so the rhythm that a newborn imposes on one's life has been one of those "costly grace" experiences for me--in other words, I'm going nuts. I should be thinking about my next project or spending hours reading important books or at the very least working on my Madden football franchise. But instead I'm waiting for the next poop to come so that I can change the next diaper. I'm waiting for Micah to wake up so that I can take him over to Mary to eat for the tenth time today. My life is not accomplishing anything that will bear recognition or accomplishment or professional advancement, and I just have to keep at it. And I believe that God is shaping me through all of this drudgery. No wonder I've been accused of being a Protestant!

Micah saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa Gilmour

Micah with Bethany

Micah being very good for Grandma Burd

Micah with Pap Pap (I'm sure he'll call him that) Burd

Rotate this one ninety degrees--Micah makes the early mistake of pulling Dad's finger

The newest Grandma Gilmour holding a slightly cranky Micah

Mary welcomes Micah into the guild of the air-breathing mere minutes after his entrance

Hey, do I need a reason to post more pictures? No!

Home again, home again! Mary, Micah, and Nathan arrived home in Bogart, GA on March 9, 2005.

Three generations of Cub fans--you know you're sorry for us! Nathan, Steven, and Micah Gilmour

Micah Patrick Gilmour

Pictures coming soon

I'm a father! Micah was born 7 March 2005 at 1:25 PM. He was seven pounds, four ounces, and twenty-one inches long. If I can get Hello working, there'll be pictures soon.

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Changes coming faster

Starting next week, my blogging should pick up... only to slow down again at any time.

My intensive adult education classes ended Thursday, and I have to have my grades in by next Thursday.

I received my acceptance letter from UGA--I'm going to start doctoral work in August.

Mary's now got less than three weeks' time before the due date.

We now know that we'll be making enough money to consider seriously buying a house in the next six months or so.

Lotsa change, no?

Hopefully I'll have some morning-time in the next few days to reflect on some of this and restore my blog to worth-reading status.

A Month Out

The last lamaze class is over. Two weeks until the intensive courses end. One month and one week until Micah's due date. The good endings and the good beginnings are upon me, and I can't wait. More later...

Six more

After tonight, I have six more harrowing fourteen-hour days. Woo hoo! I'm going to be inundated with papers soon, but no matter... I have a mere three weeks until I can rest... unless, that is, Mary goes into labor that day, which she probably will... no rest, eh? No rest.

I've decided to save Gravity's Rainbow for another day--I'm just too involved right now, and the book doesn't break down well like, say, Ovid does. So I'm reading Ovid again, one episode at a time. The poetic insight of the man is phenomenal--I'd always heard about his influence on later poetry, but his own play with the concepts of identity, form, deity, humanity, and such are wonderful. I'll probably be commenting on Ovid for the next few posts as I did on Malory a while back.

One episode that deserves comment today is that of Echo and Narcissus. I'd always heard the story in outline, and I'd encountered it in Apuleius (I think it's in there, anyway), but Ovid's commentary on the love of self is just great:

...Unwittingly,
He wants himself; he praises, but his praise
Is for himself; he is the seeker and
The sought, the longed-for and the one who longs;
He is the arsonist--and is the scorched.

How many futile kisses did he waste
On the deceptive pool! How often had
He clasped the neck he saw but could not grasp
Within the water, where his arms plunged deep!
He knows not what he sees, but what he sees
Invites him. Even as teh pool deceives
His eyes, it tempts them with delights. But why,
O foolish boy, do you persist? Why try
To grip an image? He does not exist--
The one you love and long for. If you turn
Away, he'll fade; the face you discern
Is but a shadow, your own reflected form.
The shape has nothing of its own: it comes
With you, with you it stays; it will retreat
When you have gone--if you can ever leave!

If there's ever been poetry that begged for Christian allegory, this has to be it. The potential commentary on our own self-fashioned gods is tremendous. And it's got to be an influence on Milton when he narrates Satan's incestuous desire for his daughter Sin--if I remember right, Milton even points out that Satan only loves himself in her.

BTW, this is all from Allen Mandelbaum's translation.

Hard Time Remembering

Okay, so there haven't been many posts lately. I attribute this to two things:

1. Working fifteen-hour days over at EC takes a toll, alright?
2. It's dang hard to remember what one dreamed when the first step on the ground is made towards whatever my soon-to-be-born son and his seven-and-a-half-months-pregnant mother need from me.

That said, I suppose I have been doing some thinking during the day, so there might be some merit to blogging those thoughts.

Were I not so tired, I'd probably be writing on my book in these months--I've been reading some phenomenal books myself, and I've got thoughts to contribute. I wish that I were more employable as a preacher. I think I've got enough to offer a congregation now that I'd be worth hiring, but on my resume, the multiple master's degrees and the years of education make me look not thoughtful but dangerous. And dangerous isn't what many churches want. At least not the ones I'd want to serve. Yes, I've become Groucho Marx--"I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member." (I think that was Groucho Marx, but I suppose it could have been Winston Churchill or any of those old famous dudes who seemed to speak in one-liners.)

But since teaching is wearing me out, I keep returning to my favorite opiate--computer games. I'm in season three of my Madden 2003 (I'm cheap, so no, I'm not buying the new version), and when I get home and know that I only have forty minutes before it's time to start cleaning the house, I don't open Word to write. I pick up the controller and become, for a brief spell, a Peyton Manning who on occassion beats the Patriots.

So now I'm waiting. Waiting for Micah to get born. Waiting on Ph.D stuff to come in. Waiting to see whether Mary can find work anywhere. Waiting to see if any of my resumes will yield fruit at any of the churches I've applied to. Not a great situation, but I suppose that's life. I've got so many horses in this race that I still haven't given any thought to the unhappy possibility that none of them wins. I suppose that will come if it comes as well.

Back... for the moment

The things that have happened... it's been nearly a month, probably more than a month, and once again proof positive comes that life can occur without my blogging it. For the next little while, it's going to have to continue--I've got an unbelievably killer schedule right now, and it's not going to let up until mid-February.

So for now, no thoughts on annihilation, no observations about American Christians, no rants about politics... back to work!

Spiritual Formation

Just because the folks at the Ooze are good folks, here's the Spiritual Formation page at the Ooze that they asked me to link to. It's supposed to get the Ooze up higher on Google searches and such--kinda like "miserable failure" punched into Google yields either Dubya's bio page or Michael Moore's page or Jimmy Carter's page, depending on whether the crazy lib bloggers or the crazy Republican bloggers are winning that little game at the time. But anyway, here it is.

Strange Props

I never used to have dreams about plays, but in the last seven years, since I first read about existentialism, I've had them over and over. One of the existentialists (want to say Sartre, but I'm not sure) called life a play for which we know not the lines but in which we stand center stage. Since I learned that, I've had dreams about being in plays for which I don't know the lines quite frequently.

Last night, in the play, my stage directions (I did know them) said that I was to emerge in the last scene with "signs that represent my plight." I had no idea what they meant, so I began gathering props from backstage. If I remember correctly, I grabbed a couple books (no big surprise), a newspaper with a headline about somebody winning (I suppose that means that my dream-making faculty feels pretty good about my life right now), and a pink flamingo (no idea on that one). As I was about to step onto the stage, the alarm went off.

I finished Barth's Dogmatics in Outline, and although I didn't agree with every one of his points, it's undeniably one of the most powerful works of theology I've ever read. I'm already imagining things in Barthian categories, something that no theologian since Milbank has done to me. Now I'm trying to catch up on my Marva Dawn for Monday and to read a Robert MacAffee Brown book which, although it's very good, just can't measure up to Barth.

Another day of classroom moving and syllabus writing lies before me... bummer. Oh, well--it could be worse. I could still be cleaning toilets in Johnson City.

No Job, No Brakes

I had one of my anxiety dreams last night. Mary and I were sitting in our car overlooking some kind of parade when Cynthia from the library came walking along. Suddenly I realized that I was supposed to be at the library an hour and a half ago to sub for her. She told me that no patrons had come yet, as far as she knew, but that I was actually supposed to be at a much larger library, and there were seven people waiting for me to show up. With this prompting on the brain, I started the car and threw it in reverse. Lacking the power to move backwards, we began rolling forward towards a thirty-foot drop off into the parade route below. I stomped the brakes but got nothing. So I floored the gas in reverse, hoping to save the car. All that happened was a spinning of the front wheels and a plunge as the car began to fall. I woke up in a cold sweat at 3:30 this morning as the car hit the bottom. Not being one afraid to continue such dreams, I made a pit stop and came back to bed and dreamed about being a defensive end for the Indianapolis Colts.

Most of my free time has been wrapped up in planning for next semester's classes, so I still haven't finished Barth. I have, however, decided that the speech class is going to move in a workshop-speech-workshop-speech manner, each Monday being concerned with some teaching of theory and then some time for students to consult with me. Wednesday will begin with speeches and end with whatever teaching I have time left for. I'm not sure whether I have to give a final, but I'll try to avoid that if I can.

Micah has been as active as ever, and we've got less than three months' time until he's due. I've felt like a father for some time already, and I'm ready to try my hand at it in the trenches. March 11, here I come!

Get a Job

I dreamed last night that Richard Gilmore (from the show Gilmore Girls) was my father-in-law and that Mary and I were visiting for a weekend. He kept ranting about how I should get a real job, and I accidentally dropped about eight spoons down the garbage disposal. Details beyond that are fuzzy.

Barth is still coming along, though extensive trips to Mary's school and excessive Madden playing (and enervating Christmas shopping) have kept my reading time to a minimum. I don't know if I'm burnt out or what. Perhaps I can turn that around today and have a dazzling take on Barth's final chapters tomorrow morning. We'll see.

A Voice Crying

No dream recollections from last night; I believe I was just too tired.

Barth's Dogmatics in Outline is almost finished, and I know now why he's such a compelling figure in theology. I also wonder whether I could sustain reading through twenty volumes of his intense prose. On the other hand, he's given my little book a jump start; I started making notes on a chapter for the first time since October yesterday. I don't know whether I'll have the thing rolling by the time Micah arrives, but it'll at least be something that I can tool around with as the months and years pass.

I think I'll try out Robert Macafee Brown's book next--it's also a compact-sized, hundred-and-some-pager. And in the meantime, I've got chapters of Marva Dawn's book to read. Taking it on with a group has proved rewarding; since I've got the strongest cultural conservative/aesthetic elitist tendencies in the group, it's interesting to have to take Dawn's side in matters of church art, pop culture, and such. I think it'll be an interesting read down the road just for that reason, even if for no other.

Way too much Caffeine

In my dream last night (you thought I'd stopped this blogging thing, didn't you?), I was tired, so I found a can of cola to drink. Unfortunately, it was a can of high-octane Jolt Max (I'm not sure whether they actually make such a drink). The result of my ingesting the drink was that I became able to shift up to eight days forward or eight days backward due to the caffeine overdose. Being in a dream, I didn't think to do the obvious sports-betting thing; instead, I was just overcome with anxiety as my life became a sort of digital cable menu, each of seventeen days being just as much an option as any other. Spooky.

Barth is coming along nicely, but I fear that I'm soon going to be overwhelmed with work and nearly unable to finish. I might be teaching as many as four courses with three preps over there next semester, and I'm not sure what's happening as far as textbooks or syllabi go. So I might be in a dead scramble by the time I next enter something on the blog. Or maybe not.

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...