Babble

Today was my 72nd birthday. I had a Finance Committee meeting at St. Mary’s at 10 AM. Then Liz and I went to the 1 PM showing of Body of War in Greenwich Village. That was the extent of the celebration.

It’s been a while since I posted anything here. Just for my own sake, I’ve decided to try to account for that.

The first and short answer is that I have been filling my free time reading – and doing light reading at that. I have just finished rereading most of the Orson Scott Card’s Ender and Ender Universe stories – I lost my copy of Children of the Mind in a copy store last week and have ordered a used copy from BetterWorld.com. Now I am reading Martha Gtrimes’ latest, Dakota. And still waiting is Robert B. Parker’s Stranger in Paradise. I’ll soon be saturated and sated with light fiction.

A good deal of my attention has been devoted to matters here at Morningside Gardens where I live. We are preparing for a vote in May as to whether we will cease being a voluntarily limited equity cooperative and simply go to open market pricing. My own position is complicated – I don’t want to go to open market, but I have worked hard on the required amendments to our bylaws and lease to bring us to open market. At the same time, Liz is actively campaigning for a NO vote.

I am also running for the board of directors here. If I am elected it will be the sixth time I have served on the board. There are ten candidates for four spots and I have no idea what my chances are.

So Morningside Gardens and light fiction have occupied far too much of my attention recently. And if I am elected to the board, Morningside Gardens will continue to occupy much of my attention. Many people want me to be president of the coop again – I have already been president twice before. I have said – and I mean it – that I am not running to be president. We have a president who has strengths that I do not have and I am not going to challenge her. But if a sufficient number of board members want to replace her, and if I am indeed elected to the board, then it’s possible that I will be “drafted.” I have no idea whether that is likely or not. I do know that if the board does elect me as president, then I will have to devote a lot of time to the job. Last time I was president I carried much of the burden alone and made some decisions that I later regretted – but I’ve already said enough about Morningside Gardens.

Late last summer I decided to publish on the web my Master’s Essay on Alexander Pope’s 1728 Dunciad. I have moved that project to a back burner for a number of reasons, but it is still bubbling along quietly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been steadily reading the major works of John Dominic Crossan. Here at last I have found a way to read scripture that is both intelligent and faithful. Right now I am somewhere in The Birth of Christianity. It’s slow going, because Crossan makes his argument both carefully and thoroughly.

So for all of these reasons and maybe more I’ve slacked off on blog reading, and on blog posting. I’ll get back to it though.