Outta my mind on Monday moanin'

Well, it's been a busy weekend in the Windy City, my hometown...and a busy week. I have been moving so fast, recently, it's seemed hard to just sit down and write. So this week's goal is to slow down some, and spend a little time each day getting reconnected - with what's happening with me, and around me in the bigger world. A sampling for this issue of Monday moanin' -

The apartment is getting both worse and better, thank you very much. I spent a bunch of time unpacking stuff, which was good - but not necessarily finding final-resting-places for all of it, so the effect is that the mess (temporarily, at least) looks worse than it was on Friday. But I've managed to find some critical pieces, like the lamp harps (bet you didn't know that's what the things that hold up lamp shades are called!), and the glass carousel for the microwave. So the level of civilization is improving, even if the general chaos is still a little severe.

Metrosexual matrimony is the title of an article in the October 3rd issue of Time magazine. A sample is worthy of note:

By the time Pasquale Pignatelli visited luxury clothier Hickey Freeman for the final fitting of an $1,800 custom-made worsted-wool suit, he had devoted as much time perfecting his wedding outfit as his fiancee' had spent selecting her bridal gown. Pignatelli, 29, a cargo salesman, also carefully chose his groomsmen's and ushers' outfits and bought white-gold bracelets to accessorize them. He arranged for them to get eyebrow waxings and manicures on the day before his September 18th wedding. "It's not about what's superficial," says Pignatelli of his fastidiousness. "It's about making this artistic."

The article goes on to describe how "bridezillas" (women who obsess about every detail of a wedding) are being joined by "groomzillas," who go about hiring "engagement consultants," and having $30,000 fantasy bachelor-parties.

I just have to ask: is this consumerist crap really what James Dobson and his homies are trying to preserve from the deadly devastations of same-sex unions? Seems straight folks have done a pretty good job of trivializing their marriage ceremonies into a first-run spectacle that has less than a 50% chance of succeeding, long-term.

The Judith Miller affair got me a little more than annoyed over the weekend, as a number of media spokespeople tried hard to paint her as her own worst enemy as she was released from jail and testified on Friday. I'm sorry, but I'm old enough to remember that it was only the media in the early 70's that was the primary savior of democracy back in the Nixon/Watergate affairs, so I tend to cut the media more slack than others would. The president is backing away from his earlier claims that law-breakers would be punished - now that they're all from his own camp. So far, the only one who has gone to jail did so for protecting someone's identity - not for revealing it illegally. Why aren't more people screaming about this?

Topics for this week:
- a great article about "barren prayer"
- Rosh Hashanah, and why Christians and non-Christians alike could benefit from observing it
- what we are "called to do" for a living, and how often we miss it
- hiding out in the digital wasteland.

That's all for now!