As I said earlier, I spent a lot of time walking around and photographing the ruins of St. John’s Episcopal Church at Harpers Ferry.

The church was used as a barracks and a hospital during the Civil War, and was damaged at that time. Although the church was rebuilt, it was soon abandoned after a new church was built, leaving these remains on the hill.

Facing north, from below the ruins. ^

Facing WSW, looking in through one of the doors. ^

Facing ENE, taken from the hill behind the ruins. ^

Facing east, looking into the ruins from behind. ^

Facing southwest, from inside the ruins. ^

I took a lot more pictures, many of which are on my Flickr stream.

I realized that it’s been ten years since I started keeping a blog. (Obviously, I realized this in the past, and am writing it for the future, but not too far in the past.)

I can’t claim that I’ve been diligent and written every day, but I do believe that for the most part (once I really started it) I’ve posted at least once a week for the entire time.

Yeah, some of the most recent posts are pictures and not writing, which is perhaps not quite right for what was supposed to be a writing exercise, but this turned into something very different from how it started, which was simply for a place to me to record my thoughts.

The first post I wrote was primarily about the courses I was taking at the time: The Faiths of Abraham and Women in Islam. Both classes were fantastic and also educational in many different ways.

At this point, Michael and I had been home owners for about six months, and were regularly doing a lot of work on the house. It had been almost three years since my Dad’s cancer diagnosis, and Grandmom was still in Baltimore.

Please note that when I started, I was simply writing in basic HTML, and adding new thoughts to the top of the page as they came to me. No indexes or even individual posts at that point.

Obviously, this changed within a year or so.

February to April 2002
May to June 2002

New short story.
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Yesterday I wrote my first short short in years. Today, I wrote another.

Click through at your own risk.
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When I was nine or ten, the older brother of a friend of mine–our parents were friends so we spent time together because of that–was killed in an accident. After the funeral, there was a small gathering at their home, and my friend and I wandered off to her room. I do not recollect what we did there; what I remember is the alarm clock in her brother’s room going off.

It was a buzzer alarm and was set piercingly loud. We were startled by the noise and ran into the hall only to stand outside the door of her brother’s room. I remember quite clearly, standing there, stock-still, not knowing what to do. The buzzer was blaring and we just stood in the hall, afraid to enter his room. Our fear was not of ghosts or any such thing, but because it felt so terribly wrong.

After an eternity that probably lasted only a minute or two her father came down the hall, went into his room, and turned off the alarm. I do not remember if he said anything to us, and I do not remember what we did after, I simply remember standing in the dark hallway, listening to the blaring terrible noise, and feeling the noise in the same way I felt the death–something jarring and unexpected and horrible.

This week Eric is playing the oracle (or is it 20 questions?) and one of my off the cuff questions to him reminded me of something I read about a couple years ago.

The devil comes to you and says he can make a simple change that will spark your creativity and suddenly you’ll paint or write or create music with a skill you never had before. You do not have to sell your soul for this (but remember, this is the devil we’re talking about).

You can ask questions, but not unlimited questions. After all, he’s a busy nefarious individual and needs to get back to acquiring souls for eternal torment.

Do you take the deal?

ADDENDUM the First:
To clarify, it’s something specific I once ran across while perusing the medical literature.

Here you go Nathan:

Goody Two-Shoes noun
A smugly virtuous person.

Etymology
After the title character in The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, a children’s book believed to have been written by Oliver Goldsmith

In this moralistic nursery tale, Margery is an orphan who has only one shoe. One day, when she gets the full pair, she runs about shouting, “Two shoes!” Eventually she becomes rich and educated through her virtue and hard work.

The word Goody was a polite term of address for a woman of humble social status. It’s a contraction of the word goodwife and was formerly used as a title in a manner similar to the current Mrs.

There was a small boy who liked pastries entirely too much.

The lock of hair lay in the precise center of floor.

Below the neat cut, a blue ribbon tied with a bow held the lock together; the remainder of the lock curled upon itself into a loose circle, the uncut end wisping out.

It was the only thing in the room.

The wooden floors were bare. Even the dust had been swept up and taken away.

He knelt down on the floor and stared at the curl–the only thing remaining of their years together. But as soon as he reached out to touch the ribbon, it all disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The name was nice for a short story, but not really appropriate now that the tale has evolved. Need to do something about that.

Don’t Yawn with your Mouth Open Part I
Don’t Yawn with your Mouth Open Part II
Don’t Yawn with Your Mouth Open Part III
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NOTE: When the story first started to evolve in my mind, the angels were sitting on clouds. But I wanted them to be further back, which is when the bit about the stars came to me. The title was the last thing I wrote.

———————

We humans see stars as things way up out in space, objects far far away from where we are.

But there’s another way of seeing the stars, a way that we yet lack the ability to see. If you could see the stars that way, they’d be more like nails in the sky from which you could hang things like swings if you wanted.

And if there were swings hanging from the stars, then there might be a being sitting in a swing.

Perhaps even two beings, swinging and having a conversation.

“I kinda miss the old days, back when we had fiery swords and such,” the first being said.

“You just liked the fact they all walked around naked,” the second being replied.

The first being shrugged, “That’s true as well. I sometimes wonder why we didn’t get gender. You look at the planet, and most everything down there has gender.”

“Bacteria don’t. Viruses don’t. Amoeba don’t”

“You’re not helping,” said the first being. “You’re just making my point. Only lower creatures got made without gender! What does that say about us?”

“Why do you insist they’re lower creatures?” the second being asked.

“Because they evolved first!” The first being was starting to get indignant. The swing started moving faster.

“But there are many more bacteria and amoeba and genderless creatures than there are gendered beings. Sexual breeding has advantages and disadvantages. We were made without gender, humans evolved with gender.”

“Even a plague of locusts has gender,” muttered the first being.

“The Maker doesn’t have gender,” pointed out the second being. “So we are more like the Maker in that way than the humans.”

“Yet the humans insist on giving the Maker a gender! And even worse, they insist that the Maker is male! Why would the creator of all things that gave birth to the world be male?” the first being shifted back to being indignant.

“Well, if the humans who call themselves Christian thought the Maker was female, that would make her a lesbian, right? Didn’t I read that the Christians had something against lesbians?”

“That’s ALSO stupid!,” the first being was starting to get irate. The swing started moving higher and faster. It was quite possible that if the first being continued to get upset, the swing would eventually rotate completely around the star. “Why would the Maker create a creature and not allow it to be itself?”

“No one ever claimed humans were smart,” said the second being. “Or even rational.”

“You can say THAT again!” said the first being.

“But then it’s not as if humans have the corner on irrationality.”

The first being looked at the second suspiciously, “what specifically are you thinking of?”

“Well, there’s the platypus.”

“Oh the platypus,” the first being said dismissively. “Why does everyone pick on the platypus?”

“What about the ostrich? Or the sea cucumber?”

“They’re different,” the first being said, “that’s not the same as irrational.”

“Dinosaurs.”

The first being stopped staring angrily into space and turned to look at the second. “Dinosaurs? How so?”

“You think it’s rational that dinosaurs were allowed to evolve to become masters of the Earth and were then completely wiped out?”

“Well…”

“It’s not like they did anything to deserve it,” the second being said.

“Well… If the dinosaurs had lived, the humans would never have evolved,”

“And that’s fair to the dinosaurs how?”

“Well…”

“My point is that the world isn’t rational. Isn’t very fair either. But on the bright side, we got free will.”

“True.”

“Thank you. Now stop swinging so fast, you’re making me sick.”

I have no idea where this is going. Thought I was done with it, until the first sentence hit me while I was showering.

Don’t Yawn with your Mouth Open Part I
Don’t Yawn with your Mouth Open Part II
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Don’t Yawn with your Mouth Open, Part 1

Nothing extremely disturbing today. Thank goodness.
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This story is going behind the cut because it’s extremely disturbing.

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