A maddening habit...

But first, I divulge divers alarums:

Many of you, especially those that attend Eastern with me, know of my love for the common squirrel. It is cute from a distance and up close, as many animals are not (viz. the cow, the deer, the turkey, et cetera). Well, I have learned their method of supreme communication: supersonic screams.

If you enjoy They Might Be Giants (and you should check out their site if you're not, they give away free mp3s), you should enjoy People are Wrong! It's an off-Broadway musical sort of thing several members of the band are working on (free mp3s of the show tunes are at the site there as well).

In my life, I had to butt against one of my key problems with people tonight. I printed off the four pages of my novel I wrote tonight and let my parents read them, as I put a problem with wording to them and they didn't understand what I was looking for until they read it. That wasn't the problem, but it lead to it. I told Dad he ought to read a bit of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He sounded interested a month ago when I described it to him. I found a section that outlined the monomyth and provided some good examples, including the Buddha and the Christ. He obliged me and read it, and I think he did like it. But he had to go and say something. He felt fine with all the other examples, but thought "God" (being the Christian deity, of course) shouldn't be cupped up as the others were. Which frustrates me no end. And I actually just read the section of the book (much further on) that describes the problem succinctly: he claims the problem in religion is the symbols are obscured - that too many mistake the symbol for that which it is symbolizing. Thus, they believe God is the pinnacle of what they must reach toward, when God symbolizes the personal understanding they should be striving for instead. Gah. So my father is essentially, in this situation, a sneering Victorian: all the other myths of the world are fascinating and quaint, but they can't approach the glory and wisdom of Christianity.

This wounds me deep in my compassion place.

Meanwhile, I finished the Pratchett novel Wyrd Sisters, which seems to be the second Granny Weatherwax book, and the first book featuring the strange and rather informal coven.

I find it amusing that I learned, around two weeks ago, what the word "apotheosis" means (through Campbell) and it was today's Webster's Word of the Day. It was also my guest-gift to Superopie and Sageypie when they were visiting - around two weeks ago.