It isn't Christmas without a fire. 

Christmas inventory

• Playing of Messiah: several times on CD, several times (extracts) live, courtesy of the Family Chamber Consort, known far and wide for their enthusiasm, and perhaps someday to be known far and wide for their skill.
• Crackling wood fire: one. ... Well, okay, it was on TV: the local cable channel broadcast a video of a fire with stockings hanging beside it.
• Christmas crackers: eight. Five for us, and three for the girls down the street who shovelled our driveway while we were eating dinner.
• Jokes in the Christmas crackers: 48, including the ones in French and Spanish.
• Funny jokes in the Christmas crackers: zero.
• but!!! paper crowns that fit: all of them, pretty much--a first, since most of us have enormous noggins.
• Loaves of banana bread made to give to various aunts and church members: twelve.
• Loaves of banana bread that came out of the pan intact: three.
• Standard-issue Christmas trees: zero. We didn't bother to get a cut-down evergreen this year, opting instead to load as many ornaments as possible onto my parents little potted fig tree. It actually looked entirely charming.
• Family members: five.
• Healthy family members: one. (What with my mother's chronic sinus infection and my brother's resurgent malaria and such like, I was the only really able-bodied one in the house today.)
• Family members that joined the family in the past three years: one. (Begüm, my parents' former exchange student from Turkey, is their new daughter. My parents have taught her a lot of English, with the result that she is constantly convulsing me by using one of my father's characteristic expressions with his exact intonation. She's going to school in Canada now, and this is the third Christmas she's spent with my family. Since this is only her third Christmas ever (she's a good Muslim herself), she's endearingly enthusiastic about decorating the Christmas (fig) tree and opening presents...I had to scold her several times for trying to peek under the wrapping paper of the gifts that were under the tree.)
• Amount of food eaten: too much.
• Number of dishes washed: ten thousand (approximately).
• Amount of love present: incalculable.

theories

I haven't been posting here much recently. I've been getting all of my brilliant observations off my chest in real-life conversations with my real-life parents, in the past few days, and before that in Instant Message sessions with various dear friends I've never met. But I do want to share my Theory of Friendship, recently formulated by me:

A friendship consists of forbearance, compassion, and animal noises.

It's true. You can be nice to anyone; in a pinch you can even take care of anyone; but if you can sit on their floor making barnyard sounds with them, they're a real friend.

and on that note, *hsqueeEEEagh!* I'm going to bed

'Tis, as they say, the season

for unrestrained greed. In that spirit, I've been assembling wishlists--but somehow I can't get into it. I look at these lists of material things and think, oh boy, another piece of cargo.

What I really want, more than the most fabulous gift, more than having people I care about shower me with attention (whether in the form of trinkets or of stroking my hair and telling me I'm fabulous), more even than Twoo Wuv, is to finish this gosh-darned dissertation. I want to be done with this long slog. I want to be standing in front of my committee on feet that seem to be at a great distance from the rest of me, waiting for the question that's going to make me bite my lip and look at the ceiling and count backwards from ten before trying to answer, my voice coming out as an embarassing girlish squeak. And then I want to be finished. I want to stop struggling and pushing, just for a little bit. I want to stop comparing myself to people who seem to fly through this process so effortlessly. I keep reminding myself that when you get to the top of the mountain nobody's going to ask if you strode up in energetic bounds or if you crawled and tore your hands to shreds grasping at rocks and sometimes found yourself dangling over an abyss hanging on with your teeth--that the getting there is the key, not the grace or even the speed with which you travel. But I'd like in any case to be done with the climbing, just for a little while.

I'd also like a really big pastrami-on-rye sandwich. Fortunately I'm in Manhattan right now where such things are easy to come by.

fun fact for today

Many grad students become excellent cooks.

It's true. Cooking is a pretty easy procrastination technique to rationalize--"well, I have to eat anyway, so I might as well make something good." Before you know it, you're throwing dinner parties for your twenty closest friends.

Or so I've heard. I wouldn't know anything about procrastination myself.

It's funny, though. Some procrastinators go so far as to start blogs and record CDs in their effort to avoid their stated goals. Could you imagine?

Now, should I put chocolate chips in this banana bread, or would that be overkill since it's already got walnuts and coconut?

done!

Finished the cover art for The CD today. Mateusz is such an artist. Everything took a ridiculously long time, but the results make me squeal with glee. (Neill Cumpston would probably put my feelings into slightly different words.) All I can say is, if you're lucky enough to get one of these things, your head will explode.

bach

Doing a bit of the B- mass tomorrow (the benedictus) with my friend Kendra the kick-ass violinist. We're taking it at what seems to me to be a perilously slow tempo--but I think it's going to be tear- rather than yawn-inducing...or at least I hope so. Going back to that piece made me want to listen to the whole mass again--something I haven't done in ages. I'd try to say something about the music, but the only thing that comes to mind just now is, "Yep, that Bach guy did write some pretty nifty tunes."

and now, a moment of silence

As of (three...two...one...) now, one of the three men I've ever met and considered to be husband material, and the only one who was single when I met him, is married.

He is quite possibly the perfect man--except for the fact that he never seemed to notice my attempts to flirt with him.

Naturally, I wish him all possible happiness...and his wife a particularly nasty case of shingles.

song texts

These are the songs from my recording session, described here. Some of the songs are here.

Looys Zuvart

Alleluia. Looys zuvart sourp parats anmahi,
Hor yergnavori, Hisous Krisdos.

Alleluia. O joyous light of the holy immortal glory of the heavenly Father,
the holy giver of life, Jesus Christ.

text:1st century Greek hymn
music: 5th century Armenian

---

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy pow'rful hand.
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
bid my anxious fears subside.
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side,
Songs of praises I will ever give to thee.

text: William Williams; translation from the Welsh by Peter Williams
music: Appalachian hymn tune

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Mary had a baby

Mary had a baby—Sweet Lamb

Where did she lay him?—manger

What did she call him?—Jesus; everlasting Counsellor; mighty Prince of Peace.

traditional African-American spiritual

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I wonder as I wander

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus our Saviour did come for to die
For poor orn’ry creatures like you and like I
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus ‘twas in a cow’s stall
With farmers and shepherds and wise men and all
And far in the heavens a star’s light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star from the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of the angels in heaven to sing
He surely could have it for he was the King.

J. J. Niles, based on a traditional melody

---

Deeramayren hanteb vortvouyn ee khacheen, gayr derdmakeen,
Yev leselov uzdzaraveen, harachmamp layr tsavakeen.
Ee poosh besagen teedelov, voghp, godz, vay dayr your antsin:
“Atchatses louys, vortyag eem heesoos, voh yes unt kes meraneem.”

Facing her Son on the cross, the Mother of the Lord stood sadly,
and hearing Him cry out from thirst, she lamented in suffering.
Looking at the crown of thorns, she mourned and wailed:
“Woe is me! O Jesus, my child, the light of my eye, if only I could die for you!”

anonymous Armenian, late middle ages.

---

Calvary

Every time I think about Jesus
Surely he died on Calvary.

Can’t you hear those hammers ringing?
Surely he died on Calvary.

Can’t you hear him calling his father?
Surely he died on Calvary.

traditional African-American spiritual

---

Patz mez, Der
Uztoren voghormootyan
Vor voghpalov gartamk ar kez.

Open for us, Lord,
The gate of your mercy
We beseech you imploringly.

anonymous Armenian, late middle ages.

---

I love the name

There is a name I love to hear
It soothes my doubts and it calms my fears
As I journey too and fro
I’ll take the name wherever I go
I love the name Jesus,
Every day the same, Jesus.
O how sweet is the precious name, Jesus.

When I have spoken my last word
And when my voice shall not be heard
Yes, death’s pains I’ll gladly bear
For I can read his name up there.

traditional African-American spiritual

---

I believe I'll go back home

I believe I'll go back home
And acknowledge there that I done wrong.

When I was in my Father’s house
I was well supplied.
I made a mistake in doing well,
Now I’m dissatisfied.

When I was in my Father’s house
I had bread enough to spare,
But now I sick and I hungry too
And ashamed to go back there.

traditional African-American spiritual

---

Confitebor Tibi

O Lord, I will praise Thee, though Thou wast angry with me,
Thine anger is turned away:
and Thou comfortedst me.

Behold, God is my salvation:
I will trust, and not be afraid.

For the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song:
He is also become my salvation.

Therefore with joy shall ye draw water:
out of the wells of salvation.

And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His Name:
Declare his doings among the people, make mention that His Name is exalted.

Sing unto the Lord, for He hath done excellent things:
this is known in all the earth.

Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion:
for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.

text: Isaiah 12
music: Ned Rorem: from Canticles

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Over my head

Over my head I hear music in the air
There must be a God somewhere.

traditional African-American spiritual

---

My lord, what a morning

My lord, what a morning
When the stars begin to fall.

You’ll hear the trumpet sound
To wake the nations underground.
Looking to my God’s right hand,
When the stars begin to fall.

You’ll hear the sinners mourn
To wake the nations underground.
Looking to my God’s right hand,
When the stars begin to fall.

You’ll hear the Christians shout
To wake the nations underground.
Looking to my God’s right hand,
When the stars begin to fall.

traditional African-American spiritual

Does this look familiar, Dad?