Empedocles who?

We watched a travel video of Paris, Normandy and Brittany in my French class on Friday. It was an early '90s discourse in public awkwardness. Complete with a kid running around a castle sporting a mullet. A blond, spiky mullet. Before, during and after the mullet the host used his four words of francais to stiff smiles and lots of head shaking. I was glad when it was over. But boy, did I learn some nifty travel hints.

Not having insurance makes for very expensive doctor's visits. I have to get poked and prodded all over before gaining clearance for this gig I want to do for two years in Africa and geeeeeeze, you'd think I wanted to go to the moon or something. Because it's about that expensive and intensive.

I like looking back over life and seeing how it's all been working together to prepare me for this moment right now. 99.9% of the time I never see it, but lately all sorts of things have been aligning in my mind to let me see how the good, the bad and the not-so-good looking are benefiting me. It's like some sort of rare reward for half-way decent behavior. (Because, let's be honest, I'll never get caught on good behavior.)

I was reading a good book last week (or was it last month?) whatever, this good book had a good quote and I wrote it down. Would you like to see it? OKay, here it is: "Empedocles said that God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."That's pretty exciting, isn't it? It's a new spin on an old idea. Or perhaps a really old spin on a not yet born idea... Seeing as how Empedocles lived about 400 years before Christ... but about 1600 years after the Jewish faith was established... hmmmm, which hair to split, which hair will it be?

I like the imagery in the quote that at first attempts to define God and make him a containable entity (by likening him to a cirlce), but then blows that out of the water completely by acknowledging that there is no place he isn't and no border he hasn't crossed. But my favorite is that his "centre is everywhere". Which means he is inside me, he his beside me, he is across the room, he is in all things, he is all things.

And I think when we see it like that, we start treating things differently. I wonder if religion is an opportunity to have a different perspective. Not just one perspective, but different ones that help us see. Because just one perspective isn't going to show us much. As they say, 'there's more than one way to skin a cat.'

Precocious and my work rant.

I just learned the definition for precocious today... I thought I knew what it meant, but I think I was wrong... I'm still not sure. I get a word from Merriam-Webster's online dictionary everyday (because there is no boundary to my nerdiness) and today's was precocious. Apparently it means "exhibiting mature qualities at an unusually early age" and for some reason I always associated it with a negative connotation. Like "uh, that child is so precocious - what a pain!"But it sounds to me like precocious is a good thing. Until it irritates the nearest adult, I suppose. Then like all good things, it becomes a bad thing when it puts someone out.

Funny story:

I was ringing this lady's books up at the store the other day and she blurts out: "when it comes your time, go get your mammograms done." Then she reaches up to her collar and pulls down her shirt to show me where someone has drawn geometric shapes on her skin and proceeds to tell me that she's just been to radiation therapy. And if she hadn't gotten her mammogram, she'd probably be dying of breast cancer instead of being treated for it.

I love it when people tell me intimate details of their health, love life, personal life, (basically anything I didn't ask about and have no wish to know about) and then look at me. What!? What am I supposed to say?! Uh... thanks for sharing? It is lame, but I have a hard time coming up with responses to things like that. Am I supposed to sympathize with their plight? Talk about people I know who are going through / have gone through the same thing? I pretty much end up looking like a deer in the headlights and gasping for air like a deer hit by the headlights.

It catches me off guard every time. One minute I'm telling you your total is $18.49 and the next your detailing the trials and tribulations of the labor of your first born which ultimately ended up as a cesarean birth. And I'm thinking.... just because my name is on my shirt and you might have read it, meaning that you might know it, does not mean we're friends!! Strangers talk about bland things like the weather, hopes that you'll have a nice day, and how lame gas prices are. Save all your talk relating to bodily functions, bodily fluids and bodily break-downs for friends and family. Strangers are much less vested in you and tend to care a lot less. If you have no friends or family, then go and make some strangers your friends. But start out slow by talking about the weather, hopes for having a nice day and the ridiculous price of gas that we all pay because we're too lazy to take the bus and walk.

Now, leave me be, I have to go and study French.