I'm thinking about the ritual significance of wine. Quick background!

I am working a bit at an Episcopal Church (what's usually called Anglican, outside the US.) And we are really, really focused on the Eucharist, the communion, breaking bread and drinking wine- it's the center of the Sunday service, it's what we do.

Now, we also have Lent, the end of which is marked by Holy Week, including Maundy Thursday. Maundy Thursday celebrates the ritual of Jesus of Nazareth, (or, ya know, Christ, YMMV) taking a servile role towards his disciples by washing their feet. This particular church not only does a quick footwashing service, but also a very very nice free dinner for everyone in the parish, in the sanctuary (our chairs get pulled out, tables put in, the altar stays where it usually does) with a lot of free wine, and then after dinner we all take turns washing each other's feet. Again, the wine is kind of a thing.

(Digression: For anyone who's never seen this, I honestly cannot stress how cool and humanizing and compassionate it can be. Feet are just kind of funny, and it's a moment of careful, respectful physical contact in an act of care for another fragile, ticklish person. It's AMAZING. Don't wear stockings.)

Then, we had this silent auction where we had wine tasting stations set up along the side of the church and a similar-to-Maundy-Thursday table setup and a bunch of cabaret acts from the congregation members, some of which were openly mocking some of our church's traditions (mine act in particular, where we coughed dramatically at the dry-ice "incense" in the thurible) and some kind of risque. (For a church.)

And I'm kind of having to think to myself just a little bit to try and figure out-- where does the worship stop? What's worship? AND WHY IS THE WINE SO IMPORTANT?

Dude, why did I not see this before??

Neil Caffrey, Sentinel and swindler, uses his enhanced senses to forge and fool his way through a life of crime, until he meets a Guide named Peter Burke working for the FBI white collar crimes unit.


Just.... WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THIS BEFORE? IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

Would someone please take this plot bunny and make it happen?

which is just too weird not to preserve.

So, I'd already woken up at around 6am (fairly normal), but it's Saturday so, after reading fanfic for a while, I redraped the Boy's limbs on me and went back to sleep.

In the dream, I was visiting my Boy in a different apartment than he has, but he clearly lived there. The kitchen was HUGE, with one of those islands, but instead of counters, there was a row of machines- an oven, a dishwasher, a washing machine, a dryer, and something else. The Boy was baking (not something he does) and he put a plate of cinnamon buns (pre-iced!) into the oven.

Only, IT WAS NOT THE OVEN. It was the clothes dryer, and I could look into the glass front door and watch these cinnamon buns bouncing around inside the damn thing with the pan in the background- and the Boy did not care, even after I told him that he'd put the buns in the dryer. He thought everything would be fine. But I figured, with dream-logic, that the dryer would clean itself (how??) and I left it alone, puzzled by the whole thing.

Then, we were in the Boy's bedroom, but not his current one. And I was feeling really foggy and confused and I was sitting on the floor wrapped in his big orange-red duvet so that I could only see out through an eyeslit. The Boy was talking about going to a greenhouse, like it was something we had planned on and I should be expecting to do, but I didn't remember it AT ALL. And I was really confused and kind of freaked out, and more freaked out by the fact that the Boy was not noticing my freaked-out state, but I didn't feel like I could say anything about it.

And I eventually start to get my purse together, without leaving the wrapped up comfort of my blanket-fort, but I can't find my wallet. And it is a complete catastrophe that I cannot find my damn wallet, and I cannot make the Boy understand it, because there is something WRONG with my brain and my ability to speak. I'm aware that I'm using the freak-out over the wallet as an excuse (sort of), because I am more freaked-out by the fact that the Boy is NOT NOTICING my brain is broken and how upset I am about, but I'm confused and kind of too embarrassed to tell him that, because a) he might feel hurt that he failed to notice something so upsetting to me (This is an actual real-life reaction to me being upset) or b) he won't care (which is not a real life reaction.)

And I woke up, with my Boy holding my phone, alarm chiming, over my head where I will notice it and make it stop ringing and take my BC before I forget. And it's now 9am.

Dogs have no sense of rhythm.

Among them, this is not counted as a flaw- they are not a People in need of the shared wingbeat or the pulse of a host to pass the time.

Rather, their Music is composed of melody and harmony unconstrained by notions of absolute time. There are songs for the single dog or wolf, songs of hunger and solitude and loneliness and defiance. The packs sing harmonies of hunting, of long mornings dozing and longer nights prowling. There is the opera of the songs for the full moon, but none of these have a fixed duration or standard arrangement. They vary as the seasons and the selfsame song may last a moment or a night without suffering alteration in any way meaningful to the singer. The sun rises, the sun sets, and the song may go on as long as it needs to. The song will tell you when it is through.

At least, this is what they tell me.

I am supposed to be working on a paper that I have taken an incomplete for, but I am so damned sleepy that I am not entirely certain that I can function properly. Thus, the internet will have to accept my random ramblings.

-I have settled on a policy to deal with the LJ/Facebook crossposting PR disaster- I will keep crossposting to LJ but all comments are going to have to show up on DW. Sorry to all my LJ-only friends- I do have invite codes if you are interested in switching over and I am seriously pleased with Dreamwidth. I will still reply to comments on LJ, but I am not going to put things out there that I don't want.

-I have recently watched all three Godfather movies. I have seen at least snippets of all three, by which I mean I walked through the room while my parents were watching these movies, but didn't pay any attention myself. Which was mostly the movie-watching pattern of my high school years- I'd start a movie with my family and then get bored by the first hour mark, go and do something else, and come back for the ending. Maybe. You'd be surprised by how many movies are not damaged at all by missing the middle sections. (Caveat: does not work for anything made in black and white. Dunno why, the plots are predictable enough. It might have something to do with my inability to tell white men apart onscreen.)

-Watching all three Godfather movies ( see, this was the point I meant to get to in the first tangent, but I got distracted!) has made me reconsider my love for all things mafia. I mean, there are SERIOUS PROBLEMS with the Godfather series: women don't show up as anything but honorable and boring wives or bad and boring wives. I think that Kay is probably the hero of the second film, but I didn't see enough of her to really delve into her character arc. I really did love the way Michael came home to find that Kay was at her sewing machine; it's a trope used to show a woman as a virtuous and industrious wife in Rabbinic and Greco-Roman literature, and finding it reused in modern cinema was kind of a kick in the head.
But, there is style. And a kind of penis-havers-only honor to the system, in which everyone else can go fuck themselves but you'll still stand by your don. It's crazy, but it's kind of intriguing. Except for the fact that I CAN'T HAVE IT. Because I have no penis myself, and thus no ability to accrue honor except by marrying well. I can only get secondhand penis-honor. And while I am enthusiastic about having a penis-owner share said penis in a manner beneficial to both parties, I am not so keen on having to share honor. MY HONOR, DAMMIT.

-I am willing to read any AU in which characters are reimagined in a mafia/cosa nostra setting. ANYTHING.

-I am now taking Biblical Greek, which is mostly review for my previous study of Greek, but it's a really useful study. Judging from the problems I'm having reading ahead of the class (which my prior education should leave me easily able to do), I do stand in good need of the review. But dammit! I wanted those class spaces for other things!

-I am trying to fit taking Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian into my class schedule. I dunno if it will happen, but it would make me happy and I'd be able to chat with the Boy in his native tongue. So, yeah.

There now exists on Livejournal an option to post your comments (even comments on entries which are themselves flocked) to Facebook and Twitter. These automatic cross-platform posts also include a link to the original post, even if that post is friends-locked or even private.

So, those of you reading me on Facebook, please do not use that function when commenting on my journal. I do not want my entries to be linked back, by anyone, to my Facebook page, because they are separate for a reason. Please respect my privacy and comment only on LJ when you choose to join the conversation.

For now, I am not disabling comments on my LJ because I don't know how much of an issue this is going to be and I know several people who only read my LJ crossposts and not my DW account at all. I want to keep these people around, but I am not down with this Twitter/Facebook thing, and if it happens, I will probably disable comments on my LJ to keep my profile low.

I have made guacamole according the secret rites and rituals of my family! Tremble in awe of my fearsome 'cado-mashing might!

nom nom nom

So, my life has been a huge lot busy the last two months. FInals were not even over when I started my internship, and while the internship has been incredibly great, the 9-5 hours are more draining for my life than I thought they would be. But I have been reading! Much have I been reading, and I am terribly happy about it.

However, almost none of it has related to the essays I am supposed to be writing now. Sigh.

In other news, I recently got an Important Haircut, in which I cut my hair from shoulder length to about half an inch on the sides about three inches in the longest part on top. I really, really like it. And I don't have to wait an hour for my hair to dry only to put it up in a ponytail. AND I can do a fauxhawk. *nods sagely*

In other other news, I am missing the Boy, who is in a Small European Country with his family for another few week or so, and then will be in a Small New England State with me and my family for a week and a half after that, and then will come home with me.

I'm a white girl vaguely considering shaving my head. Any thoughts?

Edit to clarify my situation and some of my concerns:
( Situation and Concerns- cut for...well, no real reason. )

I watched this a few days ago, and only now realized that because someone else downloaded it acquired it through perfectly legal means, I don't have the chance to watch it again for myself.

( Cut for spoilers )

I want to make a point of something at this moment. And, normally, this is not a journal that's really *about* my personal life in the full details and it's not normally where I talk about that particular manner in which I am a deeply goofy kind of girl, but I want to take moment to say something.


I am so terrifyingly in love right now.

This has not happened to me before. And I'm vividly aware, that I should attempt to retain some distance, that letting myself indulge like this is probably dangerous, that I should stand off a little and make sure that I'm taking good care of myself here.

And in some senses, this is a kind of a stupid thing to let myself do. He's foreign, so travel is hard and heartwrenching and necessary. He's going to be getting his degree in a year, while I still have two years, so he's either going to have to find a job or leave the country or marry me, which is something that I kind of REALLY WANT but I am forcing myself to pace myself on that. Except that I'm not and I'm already researching marriage customs for the wedding ohsweetchrist I've gone ROUND THE BEND.

Which leads to the other stuff, which is that love is TERRIFYING. He could leave. He could change his mind. He could become so central to my world that I allow myself to be warped (and he's atheist and I'm studying Christianity so, hi, issues there!). He could sign up to be a forever kind of guy and then pull the rug out from under me. ALL THIS SHIT COULD HAPPEN. And I know that it's happened to other people.

But. Just for now. I'm going to sit back, stick my nose under his ear, and enjoy how good it feels to be wanted, to be cared for, to be looked after, to have my opinion really matter to someone seriously, to know someone this closely and this well.

So, fear, fuck you and fuck off.

I'm going to bask.