Sam Hamill: um. Can’t say I know much about his poetry. I think the one time I saw his work it was a book of essays that I looked over in the Newark Public Library while searching for the Norton Postmodernist poetry collection, whatever it was called. I’m sure he believes he is taking a principled stand; but then again, so did Neville Chamberlain.
11:30:21 PM  #  comment []

Saturday: grieving all day, could hardly stay off the bed. I forced myself to get up and go out. I visited Lola Neary, who had some chest discomfort, but it was apparently nothing.

Sunday: Church. The priest at Mass reminded us that war is always a last, last, last resort. He neglected to mention the conditions under which a war is just. He brought it back to the gospel and Simeon and Anna, but only just: Hope. Quick mention of the Columbia. Letter on the diocesan settlement.

War: What was I saying? Perhaps my soul is disordered. I do not fear for myself, but I feel viscerally convinced that Saddam ought not to be where he is. Can just war theory justify my thinking, in the way that it has clarified Elshtain’s thinking, or would that be casuistry?

In the evening I went down to Old Bridge to visit my goddaughter with her (extremely late) Christmas gifts: a computer game she had picked out before Christmas, and a little remote-controlled car. The game seemed too simplistic once I saw it in action, but she liked it, or professed to. I should ha’ gotten her a book. For her sister Kim, an ivory rose from her godfather (actually, her godfather’s wife, natch) and a little remote-controlled car (on a different frequency, natch) that I am reliably informed is a thing that piques the interest of li’l lizards immensely. I was worried, seeing as how they’re girls and the cars seemed to have been overhyped this season, but they seem to be a hit. Yay me.

While speaking with Tita Marilyn at the dinner table, I watched and listened as the kids buzzed by to pick at the fries and the chicken strips every now and again, or talk about school or the sports (shudder) they are trying out. Kim is learning French, having abandoned Latin; she tried to get highlights today, but got blonded then back again; she was not in any of the camera shots when Walter Annenberg died, managing to have avoided them all.

While at table, Jen wondered how Adam and Eve were married and had children if there was no priest. I told her that Adam was a priest, as a patriarch, and had direct, intimate knowledge of God, and passed what he knew of God to his son, Seth.

She asked why Adam and Eve did not die when they ate the fruit. (Adam is not alive anymore, is he? This is what I should have said, considering my audience. I panicked and said the first things that came out of my head.) I told her that God loved Adam and Eve, and that He commuted the sentence, but that the great rift between God and man continued until Jesus healed that rift.

I almost started to go into the purpose of the divine inspiration and how it is possible to believe in the existence of Adam and Eve and still follow the main tenets of evolutionary science, but I realized she may not have even started learning about evolution. Remember your audience. God protect me in my duties to this child.

Monday: zonked. I can’t believe I made it through the day without sleeping at my desk. I got into a mutual smack-the-other-upside-the-head pact with one of the veterans if we caught the other forehead-to-keyboard. Got loads of work done, though, but mostly drone-type stuff, such as correcting documentation, changing the database pointers, and following test cases. Had I tried to do anything more creative or analytic, I woiuld have probably turned it into a hash. Beautiful day considering, and after lunch, when no one went walking, I went myself to clear my head. Upper forties, yahoo. Did wonders.
11:06:51 PM  #  comment []