Well, I spent the past few days in LR, like I said, and the air conditioning was nice. The house only partly felt like a home; as my folks move their stuff out and into storage, the memories get packed away as well, and that's the way of things.

Quite a few things came out of the excursion, though: for one, I now have clothes I can wear in public (I'm down to six shirts that don't have paint on them) and my first suit (mom cried -- well, almost). I also received the boon of three boxes of my grandfather's old books, which he no longer even acknowledges exist, and probably would have shipped off to St Michael's like the rest of the library. The sad thing is that, going through his library, I realised that my grandfather was a very intelligent man -- I emphasise the was, for although he isn't dead, he's certainly given up on thinking. It is frightening to think that I never met the compassionate, liberal vicar he revealed himself to be in his writings, that such a person, turned from forestry to God's work, LIVED the way of Christ, the loving truth, and then... poof. One anyerism, and he disappates into slovenly madness. tis de bios, ti de terpnon -- and what if that happens to me?

*sigh* Now I'm all depressed.

On the other hand, I've been reading Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and between that and the Gender Troublesit's had a profound effect, let me tell yow. Listen to this:

Gender does not imply desire. One can be 'male' without desiring 'female' or 'male'; thus, simply because the gender one carries assumes a cupidious gaze does not mean there is copulation behind it. One can desire Christ, desire to be penetrated by Christ, and mean it a metaphysical, spiritual way. By expressing agape with the terms of eros, bishops and other fathers are subverting the norm, and 'elevating baser desires'. As my father always said, 'Get your Mind out of the Gutter!' -- and it is no different here. Deisire is in the lexicon of both eros and agape, and it is use by both indpendent of either gender of sex of the subject or object.

Pretty nice, eh? That's probably going into the thesis.

I just realised (heh) that tomorrow is July 4, which means that a) the Writing Centre will be closed, and b) the Library will be closed, so I have to stay indoors and find a way to drink gin quietly without quinine. ('quietly without quinine' is (tm) and (c) Jacob Lewis, 2003).