Email Address

I just found out my site email address is not working. I don't know why or how long it's been not working. My apologies to anyone who has tried to send me email. If you need to email me, please use this Gmail address for the time being:

Update (6:30pm): The problem with my site email has been resolved and it should be working again. To make a long story short, it was all my fault -- I was supposed to change a setting or else create a forward on my email because my host was turning the "catch-all" feature off by default. They sent an email about this, but I just plain forgot. Oops! **blush** So I created a forward so that susan -at- lilacrose-dot-nu would work again. I'm very sorry about this...my sincere apologies to anyone whose email bounced because of my lack of attention.

My Blog Rating

From the site:

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* pain (4x)
* hell (1x)

Just think, four years ago I was G-rated. Where did I go wrong, or right...depending on how you look at it?

(Via the ever-provocative Rachel Lucas.)

G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday

I had listened to this book on my iPod as an audiobook and thought it was really good. I admit that I didn't fully understand some parts because this is a complex book that really challenges you to think. And audiobooks are sometimes lacking when it comes to books like this. You end up backing up and listening to certain parts over and over again. Don't get me wrong -- I love audiobooks and they are a great time saver. Also, sometimes I am just not in the mood for music (for instance, when I'm depressed) so being able to listen to a book is a godsend. However, I ended up buying a printed copy of The Man Who Was Thursday, because this is one of those books you need to read, not just listen to.

It was Dawn Eden* who got me interested in this book and in Chesterton's work. I have long been an admirer of C.S. Lewis and knew that Chesterton had a lot of influence on Lewis. But I had never gotten around to really delving into Chesterton's work. But knowing that this book started Dawn on a path that would lead her to where she is today made me interested. I have been reading Dawn's book as well, but I wanted to finish the Chesterton book first because I thought that it would help me understand her journey more completely. (Perhaps if Dawn's detractors put aside their preconceived assumptions, read The Man Who Was Thursday with an open mind and tried to understand it, they would get where Dawn is coming from a lot better. I assure them that it would be worth it.)

What this book does is that it completely turns the idea of rebellion on its head. The book's protagonist, Gabriel Syme, is a rebel against rebellion. He became this way because he was raised by a family that would be comparable to today's hippies and punks. Rebellion is seen as sort of a mindless game of trying to see how outrageous you can be...how much you can shock "the establishment". Rebellion such as this means nothing and amounts to nothing -- it is just nihilism.

I would like to quote one particular passage of the book that struck me. It is sort of a spoiler, so if you haven't read the book, would like to, and are annoyed by spoilers, skip the block-quoted part:

"Who and what are you?"

"I am the Sabbath," said the other without moving. "I am the peace of God."

The Secretary started up, and stood crushing his costly robe in his hand.

"I know what you mean," he cried, "and it is exactly that that I cannot forgive you. I know you are contentment, optimism, what so they call the thing, an ultimate reconciliation. Well, I am not reconciled. If you were the man in the dark room, why were you also Sunday, an offence to the sunlight? If you were from the first our father and our friend, why were you also our greatest enemy? We wept, we fled in terror; the iron entered into our souls -- and you are the peace of God! Oh, I can forgive God His anger, though it destroyed nations; but I cannot forgive Him His peace."

This struck me because I have often felt this way. The peace of God does seem like an offense at times. You have your own suffering and you see the suffering of others. You see loved ones and friends waste away and die of disease. You helplessly see unspeakable horrors unfold before you, like 9/11. You see those you love trapped in suffocating, miserable circumstances, not able to do a damned thing to help them. You see people who do their best and try their hardest to serve and do their duty and do what is right, only to be snarled at and spat upon by know-nothings. The "peace of God" seems almost like a mockery in the face of all these things.

Whenever my Pastor, during one of our services, prays for a family that has lost a loved one, he prays that God gives them "the peace that goes beyond all understanding". This sort of peace eludes me, because I don't understand it and I can't figure out how to find a place beyond understanding. I realize this is my flaw...my failing. Perhaps someday I will feel that peace and not resent it as the Secretary does.

* I have to also thank Dawn for leading me to discover a great band. Dawn has said that she first heard of Chesterton and The Man Who Was Thursday when interviewing Ben Eshbach of The Sugarplastic. I went to iTunes, listened to some stuff from this band, loved what I heard, and bought all of the available albums. I have also bought some older, out-of-print CDs by them. I still have some songs from them in my Radio Blog on the sidebar, which I have not bothered to change for about a year. Take a listen, because I may soon get around to changing the Radio Blog.

The Craft Show

I did alright with the craft show Saturday. I sold a few things and brought a lot home. However, the other people who were there did about the same. I got a lot of complements and one lady who bought a bar of soap from me (she was also participating in the show and was the only other woman close to my age -- just about all the other women were senior citizens) told me that I needed to sell my stuff on the Internet. I told her that I plan to do that eventually. In fact, I signed up with Etsy.com a few weeks ago. (Etsy is a site where you can buy and sell handmade crafts.) I haven't set up a shop yet, but I plan to in the (hopefully) near future.

I managed to sell most of the Christmas soap I had left. Strangely enough, I didn't sell any of the Oatmeal, Milk and Honey soap I recently made, and that is usually the most popular soap. Perhaps this is because it's not "summery". I had planned on making some more soap and other bath things with summer/tropical themed scents, but as you know from the previous post, I just wasn't able to do it.

Last Week Was Rough

When I last posted eleven days ago, I wrote that I was having a bad bout of insomnia and depression. Well, it only got worse, with anxiety added to the mix. By Wednesday of last week, I was a wreck. I could not sleep, I could barely eat, I could not function and I constantly felt like I was on the edge of a panic attack. (In fact, I did have a couple of brief panic attacks.) I stayed home from work and went to the Urgent Care doctor to get something to help me calm down and sleep. (My regular doctor's office was closed and, due to miscommunication, they never called anything in to help me sleep like I asked them to earlier that week.)

During this time, thoughts were bouncing around in my head like ping-pong balls. I felt crazy and I felt a sense of doom. The craft fair thing was adding to the anxiety and I came very close to canceling the whole thing because I was feeling like I couldn't handle it. (Fortunately, after getting some rest and calming down, I was able to gain some perspective and I realized canceling would have been a mistake.) I felt guilty for missing work.

The Urgent Care doctor thought, as I did, that this was all brought on by Paxil withdrawal. This all happened during the third week of taking 2.5 mg a day. I'm wondering if I should delay reducing my dosage again by a couple of weeks. I have just a few more days at the current dosage.

I prayed to God for strength and comfort a lot last week. My mother prayed for me, too. (She was very worried about me.) I don't know what I would have done without God giving me His strength, since I certainly had none of my own.

Notice on Comments

I want to apologize in advance if anyone posts a comment that does not show up right away. Two times within about a week, the spam plugin on MT -- SpamLookup -- put legitimate comments in the junk folder. Fortunately, I caught both comments before they were deleted -- I try to check the junk folder at least once a day. I don't know why this is suddenly happening. I upgraded to the latest MT a couple of weeks ago...don't know if that has anything to with it.

Meanwhile, posting will probably be light. Insomnia and depression are kicking my butt right now. And this is the worst time for it, too. (Is there ever a good time, though?)

I've Gone and Done It...

I rented a table to participate in a local craft fair in a couple of weeks so that I can sell my soap and some other bath things I've been making. If you're interested in my adventures in all that bubbles, you can check out my Vox blog Wrapped in Bubbles. Lately, I've been making things like shower gel and bath butter as well as soap. I've also experimented with making foaming bath bombs (I never got a chance to post about that over at the Vox blog, but I will eventually.) I need to make decent looking labels if my main PC will hold up long enough. (I've been having some problems with it.) I made some lip balm too, and while it turned out okay, I don't think I will do it again. All that wax is so messy to clean up.

Anyway, I'm going to be busy. I'll write about my progress on the Vox blog when it comes to making stuff to sell.

What on Earth Would We Do without Celebrities?

I mean, they're so smart and stuff. They can tell us how to get by with only using "two or three" squares of toilet paper. They tell us amazing facts about 9/11, revealing that fire can't melt steel. They can get out of serving time in jail because they're just really stressed out. They can teach us to be a size zero by a combination of cocaine, cigarettes and ipecacs. They teach us that underwear and hygiene are purely optional. And now a supermodel, with her expansive knowledge and intellect, challenges the dumb old Pope and his outdated ideas about sexual morality.

When Gisele Bundchen says that "no one is a virgin" and "no one waits until they're married", by God, she must be right. After all, she doesn't know any virgins and she doesn't know anybody who would be so square as to wait until marriage, so she must be right and Pope Benedict must be wrong. I haven't seen such brilliant insight since the time Marie Antoinette was told the peasants had no bread to eat, so she pointed out that surely they must have some cake around to eat instead.* Gisele even challenged the Pope to "show [her] someone who's a virgin on their wedding night." I'll tell you, she has him backed into a corner now!

The Church Fathers, The Theology of the Body, Pope Benedict XVI, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton...all of these men and ideas crumble at the well-pedicured feet of the great moral theologian Gisele Bundchen.

*Yes, I know that that Marie Antoinette story is probably a myth. Actually, Marie Antoinette probably had more sense and a better moral compass than Gisele Bundchen.

The Mirror Lies

There is something about looking at yourself in the mirror. You have a tendency to not see yourself as you really are. I used to wonder why anorexics -- people who starve themselves to look like skeletons -- look in the mirror and see themselves as fat. Now I think I understand. Except I have the opposite problem. I look in the mirror and see myself as being thinner than I really am. I know I'm overweight, but I think, "I'm not that bad...I could be worse." (Perhaps that was the problem with the woman I was laughing about here. Well, it looks like the joke's on me...)

My Mom's birthday was Sunday and my sister and I posed for a few pictures with her. Whenever I see pictures of myself when I'm overweight, I'm always horrified to see how much extra weight I'm carrying. It is always shocking. These latest pictures have left me particularly horrified. And I want to cry when I remember about three years ago, when I was going to Weight Watchers and was fifty pounds lighter, that I said I would never let myself get that way again.

Well, seeing those pictures -- and then seeing some pictures of myself when I was thin -- I realize I have to do something very soon. I have to do it for my health and yes I have to do it for plain old vanity, too. I'm going to try and lose weight again -- exercise (that's the big issue) and watch what I eat. My feet are about healed up so I should be able to do some walking and stepper exercises. As far as eating goes, if I can stick to a diet, the weight just falls off. But I get bored with it or I lose my motivation and I slip back into my old habits.

I may or may not go back to Weight Watchers -- I don't know yet. So wish me luck and say a prayer for me.