Just for the record . . .

Some folks seem to have gotten the impression that I have a big mouth. My dentist will assure you that I do not - I have had a total of 9 teeth pulled, including all four wisdom teeth. Only my closest friends get to hear the story of the 9th tooth, so don't ask.

It seems I have a reputation

I will admit to having one or two bugaboos about things. Toilet seats AND lids must be put down before flushing. In a word - aerosols. I think smokers have been unduly demonized, I'll even admit to enjoying catching a whiff of good pipe or cigar smoke from time to time - but don't you dare smoke near my food. Don't chew your gum with your mouth open unless you want to hear my elbow crack (there's catch in my left elbow that cracks from time to time and has been known to create the same sensation as fingernails on chalkboard for those within a mile or so of the sound).

But here's one thing I really don't understand. Why travel if you have to bring everything, including the kitchen sink, with you? Me, I've had perfectly good soft side luggage ripped to shreds in the dim, dark underbelly of one of America's finer airports so I have an additional phobia about checking luggage. But really - you're only going for five days, do you really need to pack five pairs of jeans? Do you really need a 16 ounce bottle of shampoo?

I've been know to travel across the Atlantic to spend two and half weeks on that sceptered Isle of poetic fame with only my carry on and a shoulder tote. Honey, I can pack. Roll something into a little nook or cranny? Haven't you ever heard of rinsing things out in sinks? You do know that you can buy Shampoo and deodorant in other countries, don't you? Did you know that you can probably pack two skirts in the luggage space of one pair of blue jeans, and you don't need to launder the skirt as you would want to launder your jeans after only a day of wear.

I've recently threatened to help a friend pack for a 30-day study trip to Europe this winter - I say only threaten as I don't think she can psychologically bear the trauma of not having 67 pairs of her most treasured socks with her (you get the idea, right?). But I also don't think she can afford the financial trauma of the inevitable extra luggage fees. So, who knows if she will take me up on my mercenary threat or not?

I also have an aversion to seeing people struggle through airports with too many pieces of luggage to keep easily in tow -- or watch them waiting forlornly to see if their bags will be regurgitated in one piece, sometimes not regurgitated at all.

So tonight, I had to laugh when a co-worker told me she intends to pack for her next trip --------






------the "Kamilla way"

HA!

Mrs. Gaskell and her purposefully transgressive younger sisters

This is just one of those things that comes to puzzle my brain from time to time. If Elizabeth Gaskell could be a successful novelist, writing under her own name and frequently being known only as "Mrs. Gaskell" -- why did her two successors, Marianne Evans and Aurore Dupin, need to take on the name of "George" in order to succeed as novelists. You will know the former better as George Eliot and the latter as George Sand. I wonder about that.

What you should not wonder about, however, is whether or not to read Eliot's Middlemarch. That is a given -- if you want to understand how women think and feel about men.

Just call me Dorothea.

What price equality?

Jesus paid the same price for us all - every man, every woman. There was no discount for any woman because she counts less than a man. Christ paid no premium for any man because men are "dominant".

Each and every one of us cost what we all cost - the sort of death reserved for only the worst of criminals. He was beaten and bruised, pierced and nailed to a couple chunks of wood. And then he was hauled upright on that wooden cross until he suffocated to death.

Give me inequality, please! I don't want to know I cost that much.

Life is Good!

Ah, some days life is just good. Last night, I closed out a very minor chapter in my life. It should have been nothing to speak of, but made me a bit sad. The end of a dream always does, even if it is a very small dream unlikely to ever see reality. Almost immediately, however, it seemed as if God gave me a present in place of the dream. My favorite philosopher will be in town speaking at a conference in three weeks - and I can still register.