KM and Tam have tagged me.

The rules are:

• We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I love drinking out of measuring glasses. They’re nice at wide so that I can’t spill anything when I’m pouring the drink in and I can’t really knock it over. Plus, I know exactly how much I just drank.

2. I was chosen by my kindergarten teacher to provide the first-ever show-and-tell for my class. I chose to bring in the little card from which I had learned all of the U.S. Presidents, and recite the presidents to the class. Then, I told the class which presidents had been assassinated, and I said that somebody had tried to assassinate Reagan (who was the current president). My teacher misunderstood me (thinking that I’d said he had been killed), and she told the class that I was wrong about Reagan. It’s sort of difficult, as a kindergartner, to argue such matters with your teacher, so I just let it go…

3. I never won the most popular student in my class award. Go figure.

4. My greatest fear…..babies. I’m scared to hold them. Or, more precisely, I’m scared to drop them. That would suck.

5. I’m not scared of spiders. At all. For some reason, my bedroom back home always had some sort of bug infestation that the rest of the house never had. Recently, it’s been wasps and ladybugs. They’ll be in my room, everywhere, but nowhere else. Anyway, growing up, my room was usually totally covered in spiders. They would just line the edge where the ceiling met the walls, and even when we cleaned them up (which was often), they’d come back immediately. I remember laying in bed at night, reading by my night-light with my book laying on the bed, and spiders would just be running over the pages, and I’d pretty much be oblivious to them. You get used to them after a while.

6. I think I’ve always been sort of a pacifist. Growing up, my favorite game was “Pecan Wars” (there were several kinds of pecan wars, as my sister could tell you). The pecans in my yard had been ruled by the rocks for decades (until I showed up). One day, they decided to not take it anymore, and so they revolted. The problem: rocks can destroy pecans, but pecans can’t destroy rocks. So, the pecans had to learn to capture the rocks and hold them secure. They fought a war this way that lasted about twelve years. The pecans won.

7. My current favorite tv show is The Fairly Odd Parents. It has now officially replaced Sponge-Bob.

8. I once lived for a month off of canned biscuits and cheese. This experience taught me that it’s almost impossible to make me constipated.

Let’s see. I’ll tag Kalyn, Will, Em, Em, ‘Mira, Kayla, and anyone else who happens along. Enjoy.

My Over-the-Top and Silly Harry Potter Review

I read a lot. A whole lot. A slow year of reading for me is about eighty books. And I'm really good about picking out the books I'll like. So, I read a whole lot of books that I really enjoy.

There are different kinds and levels of enjoyment though. I've read a lot of fantasy and swashbuckling adventure sorts of books, and I'm always amused by the brief escape they offer. They're like the old college buddies who you don't talk to much, but when they're in town, you have a good weekend. Then, you go back to your normal life a little more capable of handling it.

I read quite a few literary novels, too, and I usually end up feeling appreciation toward them. They taught me something, and I'm grateful for it, even though I'll never read any of them again if I can help it. It's sort of like those old friends from your hometown, I guess, who you love but also avoid when you go back home to visit.

Then there are those books that have provided me with a little of everything--the adventure and the laughs and the intellectual stimulation that have sustained me this far. Those, of course, are like the friends and family that are always there. I enjoy seeing these books on the shelves around me the moment I wake up or walk through my apartment door.

There's some other level though, too, I've noticed, which is more rare to find. Even having read as many books as I've read, I can only think of a handful of books that have provided such an experience. These books, I think, have offered me every gift those other books have and something a little more. They've touched my imagination in such a way so as to spark some senses of meaning and of communion with the rest of the world. Discovering "cosmos within chaos," I think Madeleine L'Engle once called this feeling. I'm not sure if that's exactly the right way to describe it. What I do know is that having finished such a book, I feel the profound urge (this sounds stupid) to hug people. And that is precisely what I feel, having finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I guess this should be a warning to J.K. Rowling. Having finished the final Harry Potter book, I'm overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude. If, by chance, I were to ever run into Mrs. Rowling, I would have difficulty fighting the urge to give her a Hagrid-sized hug.

"There is no way to peace along the way of safety. Peace is the great adventure. It has to be dared." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It scares me that I think Bonhoeffer's right.

A Rather Pointless Post

I was hungry. I’d just gotten out of work, and I wanted a grilled chicken sandwich. It was 10:56, and I pulled into McDonald’s. They have good grilled chicken sandwiches there.

I pulled up to the menu thingy and ordered the sandwich. Simple really.

“We are only serving breakfast right now,” the voice said.

“Oh….When do you start serving your lunch menu?” I queried.

“11:00.”

I looked at my watch. It was 10:58-and-a-half.

“Ok.”

So I sat there for two minutes (nobody was behind me).

At 11:00, I ordered the sandwich. It was surprisingly cold.