Movie Stars!

I found this picture a little bit ago. I spent the evening with a couple of my bestest friends. We go all the way back to elementary school. While we were talking, we got on to the subject of the people we had run into from high school and if it was a) awkward, b) fun, or c) a situation of mutual ignorance. We couldn't all place the names with faces so we busted out the high school year books. It was funny to go through them being nearly a decade removed from the mess that is high school, but that's beside the point.

As I was flipping through the pages I came across the above photo. That's the Middle Brother and his cute wife, high school style. They were pretty much fated to marry each other. The photo proves it. They were both voted future movie stars in high school. What stronger bond is there?

Star Trek

Ma and I have successfully navigated our way through the entire Star Trek original series. I was sure there would be oodles of them based on the following Star Trek has garnered over the past decades. There aren't.

I'm going to miss it. It was refreshing to watch entertainment that also spoke to the political and societal issues of the day, many of which are still pertinent. Each episode was not only a creative look into the possibilities our galaxy offers us, but also a dialogue about freedom, human rights, feminism, religion, humanity, the distribution of labor and wealth, unhealthy pursuits of science, the nature of good vs evil, and most of all, our potential as humans.

Why is this a secret. Do trekkies not see the dialogue? Do they see it but not care? I hadn't the faintest idea that philosophical ideals were so central to Star Trek.

Also, Spock. Love him.

Next up: Star Trek The Next Generation. I don't know if I should allow myself to hope. The title is promising. The original addressed the issues of the sixties. Fingers crossed the next generation refers to the next generation of people in our time as well as the next generation of space travelers.

I also need to rewatch the newer movies. Did they have deeper themes and I missed them? The themes were so obvious in the original series episodes. Maybe they made them more subtle and all I expected to see was an action movie so that's all I saw. I'll need to do some research. It's hard to say this early in my study, but preliminary hypotheses suggest a bowl of popcorn will be essential to my investigation.

PS I still almost can't believe I watched a save the whales movie. Who knew saving the whales and futuristic space travel could be mushed together? That's an impressive bit of creative writing. I highly recommend. It also offered up my favorite line of the original series: "A little too much LDS." I know exactly what that feels like.

PPS It was also a reminder of how quickly our knowledge changes and grows. They travel the galaxy in Star Trek, but they didn't yet know that the center of the galaxy is not where they might potentially find God, but is instead a supermassive black hole. Coming near it would not give them an opportunity to see a before unknown world but would instead cause spaghettification.

PPPS I love that astronomy is so straightforward. Supermassive. Super cluster. Spaghettification. No need for hoity toity, meaningless names here.

PPPPS The very concept of spaghettification blows my mind. Whoever theorized and then proved spaghettification must have been one super cool dude.

Disaster

Somehow, I made it past yesterday.

Yesterday everything was a disaster.

There were no disasters. Everything was
as it always is.

But my mind and my heart said everything is
a disaster.

The world was heavy in my hands. My actions,
small and futile.

Hopes? What are hopes.
Broken pieces of dreams pricking hearts, a
reminder of nothing.

Dreams? What are dreams.
Misguided and empty. Broken promises of a
new tomorrow without disaster.

Yesterday there were no disasters.

Just a mind and a heart struggling against disaster.

Still, I made it past yesterday.

March Books

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan and To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife by Caitlin Flanagan were my two favorite books this month.

The Worst Hard Time, which details the lives of some of the people who stayed behind during the great dustbowl of the thirties, made my heart ache a little for the lost prairie land, plowed under by ignorance and a desire for land. I don't blame the people, but it is very sad. It's also something of a warning. How easy it is to ignore the voice of warning in the name of progress.

To Hell with All That was simply delightful. Flanagan is a talented writer who touches on some of the troubles of today's do-it-all moms. I enjoyed her perspective and found myself agreeing more often than not with her ideas and philosophies.

The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wrecker were all disappointments for me. They each had magical elements, but I wasn't enchanted with any of them in the way I hoped to be.

Cress by Marissa Meyer is the third book after Cinder and Scarlet. I liked it. It was a good continuation of the story. Cinder did more with its base fairy tale than either Scarlet or Cress have done, but that's understandable since those books also have to wrestle with the continuation of events from Cinder. It's too bad there isn't space for a deep focus on the altered fairy tales.

I'm part way through The Grapes of Wrath. I meant for it be a March book. Ah well. I'm loving it. I always forget how much I enjoy truly skillful writing until I stumble on it again. Steinbeck is unquestionably a master.

PS I've moved on to solo keyboard cds containing works of Bach and Debussy and I am much happier. I'm trying to enjoy it and not think too much about what I'll do when I run across some more contemporary classic solo keyboard music.

House Keys

About ten years ago it became clear that the front door was in desperate need of a new handle. The parents had put off acquiring a new one for as long as they could (things like door handles and door keys seem to always be at the bottom of the list). The new handle came with two keys. My father kept one for himself. The other was bestowed upon me.

My dear aunt recently came to visit. When she visits she's here and there and everywhere, visiting other family and friends and taking care of business. To make it easy for her to come and go as she needed, Pa decided to give her a house key for the duration of her visit. Pa's key had long ago been given to a son-in-law. Ma borrowed my key and made six new house keys with it. Making a copy for my aunt gave her the perfect opportunity to make a copy for herself, Pa, the little sister, and the little brother (who will want one when he comes home from his two year sabbatical). While Pa did once have a key, neither Ma nor any of my siblings have ever possessed a house key.

After Ma made copies and returned my key, I wondered aloud how it was that I ended up with a house key. I was in high school when it was given to me, and while I was out late at night on the weekends, I rarely had my keys with me and preferred instead to use the garage. I also spent some time living in Virginia. My trusty house key lived there with me. These days, I often use the house key but that is only because my comings and goings have been shaped by it. Not having one would not have been an inconvenience. So how is it that of all the people in my home at the time, my two parents and five siblings, I ended up with the house key?

Ma was excited to tell me that she knew the reason. I was surprised both by her enthusiasm and by her professed knowledge. It didn't seem like the type of information Ma would have known in the first place, let alone kept in her head all these years.

I was given the key because she deemed me to be the most responsible person in the house. She knew that if she were to give me the key it would be ready and waiting when she found time to make copies. And so I was given the key.

Had I known the reason I was chosen to have a key I likely would have refused to take it. Thank goodness her calculations were correct. I can say with assurance, I have never lost my house key.