united, we stand. divided, we blog.

Okay, so I updated the layout so there's less interminable scrolling-down to be done. Also, I like this sort of Prussian Blue color better for the post titles. This has nothing to do with Prussians. Whom I often confuse with Hessians. And Cossacks. I really have to read more.

The last few days, I've been reading up on the Siege of Leningrad (about which: there is no way I would have survived such a thing. I get cranky when I can't have a Nilla Wafer or two after supper. I never cease to be amazed at the sort of thing that people manage to endure) and am, as a result, into stripping down the fancy and keeping to the essential. Hence -- the more minimalist layout. I am a true daughter of my generation: in keeping solidarity with the survivors of the privations of war, I am...*streamlining the design of my blog.* I'm an idiot. It's like that story I always wanted to write where I'd have these guys sitting around watching "Apocalypse Now" over and over again with the heater turned up to 90 degrees and vaporizers running so they'd feel more "in-touch" with the Vietnam experience...I sit, reading, in my house with the windows open and fans trained directly on me so that it's freezing cold, resisting the urge to go get a snack. Puts me more in touch with what I'm reading about. Did I mention that I'm an idiot? Oh, I did? Okay, then.

Other things being read and re-read, with less of the urge to create environmental verisimilitude:

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Auerbach)
The Ecclesiastical History of England (The Venerable Bede, whose name I just love)
Epictetus: The Discourses (Oldfather)
On War (Clausewitz) (hence, the obsession with Prussian Blue, hee)
The Holy Rule of St. Benedict (Verheyen)
Christian Iconography (Grabar)
American Tabloid (Ellroy)
The Great Deluge (Brinkley)
Murder Must Advertise (Sayers) (and might I add, this is just swell, just like eating a box of chocolates that turns out to consist only of your favorite kinds, which in my case would be dark chocolate buttercreams)

Surely everyone else in the world is reading something much more useful, or challenging. I despair of my chances at ever getting serious about learning anything. Anyway, the thing I'm getting at here is that while I'm doing a lot of reading (and not nearly enough real writing), what I'm really enjoying these days is taking a few minutes here and there to read these little snapshot bulletin-boards of my and my friends' lives, because it's this kind of interesting way to have a certain kind of conversation, without us being on a conference call or in the same room. It's from looking at these other discussions that I feel like I'm actually learning something useful, more than anything I read or see in other kinds of media. And so, for this, I thank you kindly, and beg your indulgence as I try to figure out what it's going to take for me to feel engaged in something meaningful, for the first time in a long time.