April 25: Glazed Eyes, Still Punky, Final Exam

To sit, staring at those fixed, glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him.  There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own.  Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.

The reason this description of Jacob Marley's ghost appeals to me this morning is simple:  I still feel half-dead.  The punky exhaustion I had yesterday continues to hang on.  I haven't thrown up.  I haven't taken my temperature, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had a low-grade, malarial fever.  I did take another Motrin when I got out of bed to get ready for work, but even my hair was hurting when I took my shower.  I'm not sure how hair can hurt, but it did.

Therefore, I feel like Jacob Marley.  Dead and miserable.  Thank God all I have to do in class today is administer my final exam.  If I actually had to teach, I'm not sure I could do it.  However, I do have the energy to sit in front of the classroom and watch my students struggle with some multiple choice questions.  If I sit perfectly motionless, maybe I will create some hot vapour of my own, agitate a few things.

That's all Saint Marty's got this morning, folks.  And his hair still hurts.

I'm not feeling quite this punky

April 5: Rolling Year, Wise Men, Keeping Focused

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "I suffer most.  Why did I walk through crowds of fellow beings with eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"

The spectre in question is Jacob Marley, and, in this passage,  he is lamenting his eternal fate of wandering through the world, witnessing its needs and sufferings.  Marley is a victim of his own trivial concerns and selfishness.  Just like Scrooge.  Just like most of us.

I know, when I woke up this morning, my first thought wasn't about poverty or famine.  My first thought was more like, "I am so freakin' tired.  I wish I could just go back to bed and skip work."  Very rarely do I contemplate how lucky/blessed I really am to have jobs to go to, breakfast to eat, hot water to shower with.  No, I pretty much go through my life with blinders on, thinking about the things I don't have.  In some ways, it's a lot easier to be unsatisfied with life.  Think about it.  It's much easier to be envious of a person (of his job, her car, his home, her family, his this, her that) than to be happy with your job or home or car.  Gratitude is difficult to cultivate.

Modern society and culture foster an attitude of want.  I just got an iPad 2 for Christmas.  Apple just released the next generation iPad last month, and it's selling like crazy.  It's the newest "something better" every person wants.  I want a full-time teaching job at the university.  I want a bigger house.  I want to write a bestselling book.  (I wanted to win the lottery last Friday.)  We all suffer the same affliction as Marley--walking through life with our eyes down, focused only on our path.  Our journey.

I don't often think of the bigger picture.  For instance, I don't think of my neighbors across the street very much.  They're an elderly couple.  The husband is very ill.  I haven't seen him out much at all this winter.  The last time I said anything to his wife was last fall.  I had a box of blueberry doughnuts left over from a church function.  I gave them to the wife, mainly because I didn't want the temptation in my house.  The wife was thrilled with the pastry.  She kept saying, "Are you sure you don't want these?  Are you sure?"  It was a tiny gesture, made more out of selfishness (wanting to watch my weight) than anything else.  Yet, it made a difference in that couple's lives.

For a couple minutes, my eyes weren't focused down.  They were focused upward, toward that Star.

For a couple of minutes, Saint Marty was a wise man.

Just as good as gold, frankincense, or myrrh

February 26: Speak Comfort, Lost Work, Oscars, New Cartoon

"Jacob," he said imploringly.  "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more.  Speak comfort to me, Jacob."

I need some words of comfort right now.  Scrooge is begging Marley's ghost to give him some kind words, some hope.  I have no ghost to beg for help. 

I just tried to open the file that contained the pages of memoir I'd finished for today's post.  The file is empty, and I have no hard copy of the "Preface" on which I'd been working.  Eight or nine hours of writing is down the drain.  I can't find the work anywhere.  I have to start all over again.

Usually, I don't work on a computer first.  I write drafts of everything in my journal, and then I do the keyboarding.  I even followed this practice when I started blogging.  For the first year of my blogging life, I wrote each post in my journal, edited it, and then typed and posted it.  I don't do this anymore.  I just sit down a see what comes out of my fingers.

That's why I decided to work on my laptop for Project Memoir.  I wanted to see if I could actually write something completely on my computer.  Look where it got me.  I have no first chapter of my memoir to post, and I have to reconstruct all of my work from memory.  I'm pissed.

So, this first week of Lent, I'm a big Lenten loser.  I have a shit-load of catch-up to do because I trusted technology.  That won't be happening ever again.   From now on, I will be working primarily in my journal.

The Oscars are on tonight.  People are coming to my house to watch the show.  I have Scoop Fritos and cheese dip, Red Vines, and Diet Mountain Dew.  My sister-in law is bringing her artichoke dip.  My poet friend is bringing fruit salad.  I guess we have to have something to eat that's a little bit healthy.  We'll see by the end of the evening if I win my family's traveling Oscar trophy.  (Yes, folks, we take this crap seriously.)

I don't have much else to talk about this evening.  I'm pissed.  I'm a Lenten loser.  I will be stuffing my face with lots of unhealthy snacks and cheering for Billy Crystal tonight.

Saint Marty needs get to work in his journal now.

Confessions of Saint Marty

February 4: Speaking Comfort, Weary Journeys, New Cartoon

"Jacob," he said, imploringly.  "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more.  Speak comfort to me, Jacob."

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied.  "It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men.  Nor can I tell you what I would.  A very little more, is all permitted to me.  I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.  My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house--mark me!--in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!"

Marley paints a pretty dreary picture of the afterlife in this passage.  Endless wandering.  Weary journeys.  No comfort.  It's an eternal fate nobody would want.  It certainly shakes Scrooge, considering the fact that Marley intimates Scrooge's punishment will be much worse.

No one likes to think of death or what comes after death.  It's not a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.  When I was young, I once saw my mother reading a book about Purgatory.  If I remember correctly, the book consisted of visions of Purgatory that various Catholic saints and holy people had described.  It was pretty horrific.  Lakes of fire.  Molten lead being poured into mouths.  Dante didn't have anything on these visions.

I guess not too many people like to think of an afterlife that includes any kind of punishment.  It doesn't go along with the idea of a loving and forgiving Supreme Being.  I will admit that I don't care much for the thought of swimming through lava or eating cotton balls (I hate the way they squeak against my teeth!).  However, the images and stories of punishment in the afterlife have persisted throughout history.

Maybe the reason for Purgatory and Hell, eternal punishment, is to frighten human beings into being better people.  It seems to work for Scrooge.  Whether you subscribe to these beliefs or not,  you have to admit that the situation Jacob Marley's ghost describes is pretty terrifying.  It's enough to scare the shit out of me.  I know I'm not sticking to the narrow limits of my money-changing hole, or any of my holes, for that matter.  Chains and weary journeys are not for me.

Saint Marty's not speaking of comfort today.  He's speaking of avoiding lava and chains and cotton balls.

Confessions of Saint Marty

January 22: Carol Dipping, Augusten Burroughs, New Cartoon

In his memoir Running With Scissors. Augusten Burroughs writes about Bible dipping.  Basically, the crazy family he lived with would ask the Bible a question, flip through the pages, and stop on a random passage.  That passage would be the answer to the question.  Basically, it's using the Bible like a Magic 8 Ball.

There's a long history of people using books like this.  In Italy around Dante's time, citizens used Virgil's Aeneid like a sacred text, as well.  Now, I sort of can understand Bible dipping.  (I've done it myself, just for fun.  Really.)  But
Aeneid dipping is just plain nuts.  At least the Bible has divinely inspired text.  It's not a slot machine.  You can't drop in a question, pull a lever, and have it spit out the correct answer.  However, my experience with Bible dipping allowed me to view my problem in a different light.  There's some benefit to that.

Therefore, I've decided to Carol dip.  Yes, I'm going to ask a question about my life, flip through my copy of A Christmas Carol, and put my finger on a page.  Whatever passage my finger lands on will provide my answer.

Here goes.

My question is:  Will I get a full-time teaching job at the university this year?

And my answer is...

"Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them.  A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats.  You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.  There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

Now, I just have to decipher the answer from that passage.

The passage concerns Jacob Marley's visit to Scrooge, and how Scrooge doubts the reality of Jacob's presence.  Scrooge is doubting himself.  He's using every excuse in the book to dismiss the truth of the ghost's appearance.  And, of course, Jacob Marley's ghost is standing before him, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with Scrooge's senses.

So, basically, the book is telling me to not doubt myself.  To trust that that full-time teaching job at the university is coming my way.  Believe in myself, and all will work out.

Saint Marty will take that answer.  God bless us , everyone!

Confessions of Saint Marty

January 12: Snow, Another Car Appointment, Drop of Water

Snow.  We have snow this morning.  When I went to bed last night, I was expecting to wake up to a full-blown blizzard.  The weather reports were predicting over a foot of thick rain.  I woke to a couple of inches on the ground, and the wind was non-existent.  I was shocked.  Instead of a white-knuckle drive to work, I had a mildly slower drive than usual down the highway.  Not too bad.

I drove my wife's Subaru to work this morning.  I dropped it off at the garage for an oil change.  We'll see what catastrophic repair the mechanic says we need this time.  Each time I've dropped off one of our cars for an oil change in the last year, the mechanic has called to tell me of some major problem with the vehicle.  I'm not buying what the garage is selling any more.  I'm a big believer in second opinions now.

This early a.m., I opened my copy of A Christmas Carol randomly to this famous speech from Jacob Marley:



Preach, Jacob

 "Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.  "Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolance, were, all, my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

The reason this passage spoke to me was because I was listening to my local public radio station.  It was a news report about the contenders for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you already know I like Republicans about as much as I like ingrown hairs on my ass.  However, this news report irritated me more than usual.

Coming off the New Hampshire Republican primary, with Mitt Romney pretty much stomping his competition, blood is in the political air.  All the Republicans are going into a feeding frenzy on each other.  Usually, I wouldn't have a problem with Republicans tearing each other apart.  I actually enjoy it.  But these guys, instead of focusing on unemployment, hunger, poverty, foreclosure, bankruptcy--you know, all the things that normal people are worried about--are talking about each other's shady business dealings.  They're talking about what a shitty job President Obama has done.  They're talking about the "drop of water" instead of the real business of humankind.

What a different country we would live in if the people in charge made "mankind" their business.  What a different world we would live in if everybody made charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence our business.  Jacob Marley had it right.  Charles Dickens had it right.

Saint Marty wishes all human beings (and Republicans, which is a stretch) would get it right, too.