I got this email from him today:

"I got home from more than a week in the hospital Monday. I knew I was getting sicker daily. It turned out I had pneumonia and was seriously anemic. I am getting well and learning to use oxygen at home as I recover.

I'm still pretty weak and homebound. I imagine in the long term I will have to be less involved in some things and drop out of others. I hope to get all my strength back, but have to make adjustments anyhow.

Thanks for all the support and prayers."

I echo his thanks for your prayers and thoughts.

1. Who eats more?
I probably do.

2. Who said "I love you" first?
I think she did.

3. Who is the morning person?
Neither of us, although she has to get up earlier (like, ridiculously early) two times a week.

4. Who sings better?
She does. She has an awesome voice.

5. Who’s older?
She is, by 14 months.

6. Who’s smarter?
We are both really smart, though we have expertise in different areas.

7. Whose temper is worse?
These days, mine. In the past, so I've heard, hers.

8. Who does the laundry?
We usually work on it together.

9. Who does the dishes?
She does. I try to help out some.

10. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?
She does, but I did until my surgery.

11. Whose feet are bigger?
Mine.

12. Whose hair is longer?
Mine

13. Who’s better with the computer?
We both are good, but we are good at different things. I am better at Mac, and she is better at PC.

14. Do you have pets?
Three cats and a gerbil.

15. Who pays the bills?
I pay the bills out of our joint account. We both pay the rent and our own expenses.

16. Who cooks dinner?
She usually does, though I do sometimes. I like it when we work together to make a meal.

17. Who drives when you are together?
She usually does, because she likes driving and I don't really. I drive sometimes when she isn't feeling well.

18. Who pays when you go out to dinner?
We pay out of our joint account mostly.

19. Who’s the most stubborn?
We both are stubborn. She is obstinately stubborn. I may seem to give in, but I just have stopped insisting out loud! :)

20. Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong?
Rarely either of us. It is usually more like, "Well, I could be wrong, but. . ."

21. Whose family do you see more?
Neither very often, but I think mine.

22. Who named your pets?
I named the gerbil, but she had the cats before I got here.

23. Who kissed whom first?
It was at the same time.

24. Who asked whom out?
I didn't really work that way. I guess she asked me to go to the zoo with her first, right after we met, but we usually planned things together. I would say she took more initiative, esp. at first.

25. Who stole question 25?
Spike.

26. Who’s more sensitive?
We both are, but I tend to show it more.

27. Who’s taller?
I am.

28. Who has more friends?
I have more facebook and lj friends :)

29. Who has more siblings?
We both have 2 siblings.

30. Who wears the pants in the relationship?
We both wear pants. I am more likely to wear shorts than she is. Rather rarely, we will wear skirts or dresses.

you are lavender #E6E6FA

Your dominant hue is blue, making you a good friend who people love and trust. You're good in social situations and want to fit in. Just be careful not to compromise who you are to make them happy. Your saturation level is very low - you have better things to do than jump headfirst into every little project. You make sure your actions are going to really accomplish something before you start because you hate wasting energy making everyone else think you're working. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Cool shirts! http://www.emotionalarmor.com/index.shtml

( cuz nobody really cares :) )

For my dad:

He is in the hospital in Chicago with a very contagious type of
pneumonia. The doctors aren't sure how he got it. They have also been giving
him blood transfusions, but they are unable to keep his blood count
up. He had a kidney transplant several years ago, so his immune system
is compromised. Please keep him you your prayers.

My laptop has stopped working correctly (i.e. it randomly shuts down while I am in the middle of things or, when I start it up, the lights and fan come on, but nobody's home). This is an absolute tragedy a bummer, because my life revolves around this laptop I use the laptop frequently. Fortunately it is still on a 6 month warranty, so I am boxing it up and shipping it to California tomorrow and hoping it comes home soon (and without having to wipe the info. off, since I can't get it work long enough to back up my files!). I haven't been using my desktop much lately, because it has been freezing up (GRRRR!!!), and I haven't had the energy to figure out what is wrong with it or haul it in for repair. I am using Molly's PC while she is at work tonight (thanks, Molly!). I was going to use her laptop, when she is at home, but it will only connect to the internet away from home. I tried with the wireless and with the ethernet cable, but no dice. It is insane that we have 4 computers in the house, and only one is working well right now (and, (shh, don't tell), it is a little slow!) Waily! Waily!

Anyway, so I am trying to get some stuff done while Molly is at work. I still want to post an entry or two all about our trip, but it may have to wait for a while. Tonight I am uploading some pictures to my flickr account: pictures from the trip and pictures of the snake hanging out on our patio! And I am trying to wade through my daily internet stuff, but without being able to do my normal things on MY computer. Sigh . . . so sad :)

Tomorrow will be the only day this week that Molly and I can really hang out together (we hope!), because we've had back to back work and class schedules all week. Just makes the week feel longer. We hope to do laundry and go to the movies with the girl who watched the cats for us while we were gone. And veg out! We'll see how that goes, esp. without my veg assistant laptop.

Okay, enough whining from me!

Some quotes:

"…Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Letter from the Birmingham Jail

One kind word can warm three winter months. - Japanese Proverb

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always. -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. - John Lubbock

The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions -- none more so than the most capable. Theodore Dreiser, author (1871-1945)

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. - Rabindranath Tagore

I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me I am invincible. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

"I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within." --Gustav Flaubert

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. The Wonder Years

The concert last night was fabulous! Loreena McKennitt's music is more than the words and music. It is the feeling, the story, the colors, the emotion, the experience. The music paints a soundscape and takes you on a journey. Molly and I enjoyed the eclectic audience and the beautiful old theater. It was a wonderful experience.
(Synesthesia note: The lighting effects for most of the pieces were more red, and most of the time the lighting effects fit the songs. However, for "The Lady of Shalot" I couldn't look at the stage with the red lighting because the song is blue and green with yellow shots of sunlight, not red!! The dissonance was a very strong feeling!)

A quote Loreena McKennitt shared last night at her concert:

“It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As a person deprived of memory becomes disorientated and lost, not knowing where they have been or where they are going , so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future.” Arthur M Schlesinger Jr

Other quotes:( Click here: )

We're are back from our trip around Lake Erie, camping in Ontario. I will post pictures and an account of the trip later, but tonight we are tired and trying to wade through email and such. Maybe tomorrow. So much to say, so little energy!

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Today, I had the sinus headache again. Molly had it yesterday and today. She didn't go to Cleveland, but she did go to class this evening. I had Greek in the morning and Genesis this afternoon. Over lunchtime, we made reservations for two of the three camp grounds we plan to stay at next week. This evening I mapped out roads and routes for us to take. We plan to camp in Ohio the first night, then stay at a B&B in Niagara Falls Saturday night. Then we will be camping in two campgrounds in Canada for a few days, as we work our way around Lake Erie and head back home. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more ambitious and post an itinerary with links. It is too bad that October is too late in the season; otherwise, we could have taken a ferry from Ontario to Pelee Island to Sandusky across Lake Erie instead of going through Windsor and Detroit. Oh well, maybe in the summer time! I hope we both start feeling better soon. We are so very ready for some vacation time. And we'll be reading (it is reading week!).

( More from my collection . . . )

I entered a contest at Young Adult Books Central and wrote an essay about my own experience. Here is my essay:


I grew up in the United Methodist Church (UMC), and both of my parents have been pastors. So I was surprised, but not that surprised, when I recognized a call to ministry when I was in my mid-20s. I felt God was calling me to work with peace and justice issues by working as a pastor in a churches. I spent time in discernment and headed off to seminary a few years later.

At seminary I started learning lots of new things and meeting interesting people. As the first months passed by, I was spending more and more time with Molly, another seminary student. Since she had been at the seminary a few years already, she showed me around the area. We would study at her apartment off campus with her cats. Early on Molly told me that she was a lesbian. That was fine with me. I have a gay uncle. I believe God loves everyone, gay, straight, bi, trans, whatever. Molly had told me that she had come to seminary as a United Methodist, but because the UMC does not allow LGBT persons to be ordained, she had joined the United Church of Christ (UCC) which would ordain her. It had been a very painful decision for her to make, but she still felt that God was calling her to be a pastor. I commiserated with her, because the UMC's stance that homosexuality is "incompatible" with Christian teachings and their denial of ordination for LGBT pastors were some of the things that bothered me most about the UMC.

Mid-way through the first semester I realized that I had feelings for Molly were beyond friendship. Fortunately Molly had feelings for me as well, and had since the day she met me. She had been waiting to see how I felt. Falling in love with Molly was much more than deepening a relationship with her. I had to come out to myself (and family and friends). I had to decide about my future. If I am in love with Molly, who is a woman, does that make me a lesbian? If I am a lesbian, I can't be a pastor in the UMC! This painful struggle between my call (and my dreams for my future) and the policies of the the UMC (and many other Christian churches) is still one I am trying to work through. It still hurts me to think about leaving the church I grew up in to find a more tolerant one. I am still in seminary, but no longer working toward ordination. I am approaching my graduation with very few ideas about what to do next.

I think churches are one of the places that LGBT persons find the most discrimination. Many religious people use sacred texts like the Bible to condemn LGBT people, but the Bible does not have to be interpreted that way. The world would be a much better place if religious people realized that the Christian message is about love, not hate. I urge people to study the texts used to condemn as well as those about love and get to know LGBT people as people and not as issues.

Here are the results of the contests. You can also read some of the winning entries.

The prizes are books :)

So, we survived another weekend of class (Friday 7-9 pm, Saturday 9-4) - guh. So, of course, since we were gone all day and took all the pictures off the wall (so they wouldn't vibrate off), the roofers did not work on the roof today, despite the perfect weather and telling us that they would. Grrr! Who knows when they will be back to annoy us finish the re-roofing process?

( Anyway . . .  )