Lent-al stew

So, you know, Lent's coming. (Starting Wednesday, in fact.)

Last year I started a discipline here that I liked, but dropped the ball on.

This year, I'm attempting to improve.

I'm going to highlight 40 good causes — one a day for each of the days of Lent (so, one each day of Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, skipping Sundays) in a weekly roundup post on Sundays.

Here's your chance to influence me.

Share in the comments below (or on Facebook) whatever good causes are your favorites right now — nonprofits especially, but also Kickstarters for people doing good work, etc. Share as many as you like; include a description if you like, include a link if you can. Feel free to share things you're personally connected to, organizations you give money to, groups you serve as a volunteer, groups that have helped you when you needed it, whatever. Secular and religious are equally welcome, and religious certainly includes non-Christian.

Some of your suggestions are likely to get highlighted on CMC between now and Easter.

What's out there?

Dumb, Alec

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I choo-choo-choose you

Today, my dear friend Cal posted on Facebook:

Happy Lupercalia, y'all! Let the wearing of goat skins and the consensual flogging begin!

to which I responded (privately, but not anymore),

You naked kids and your fertility thongs stay far away from me.

Sorry — as I also said to Cal, I haven't said or done anything else remotely funny lately, so that's what you get.

I'm maybe a little goofy today — early morning (5:30), plus dogsitting for my sister, plus my first Valentine's Day with a date in many years (the last Valentine's Day I had a steady, said steady was far away from me, and the last Valentine's date I had before that was in 2006 and I don't remember it). And I don't think Valentine's Day is a huge big deal, but it is nice to go bowling with someone and make them fun surprises (that I can't tell you all about, because RI reads this).

But you know what was also really nice? A pot luck last year with loving friends.

And the running naked and whipping the ladies who choose it sounds pretty good too, if that's your kind of thing.

And another friend is home with her snowbound kids today, giving them a schoolless good time, complete with chocolate and movies.

What's your deal today?

Sigh

I had reason to talk to a friend-of-a-friend about some stuff I'm puzzling over today. She's both very smart and also very educated in helping people think about things.

Sorry, that was weird and vague. She's a life coach, and while I wasn't going to her for coaching, I think she can't totally turn it off.

I wish wish wish I had written down her exact words, but since I didn't, you get the paraphrase:

You should do what makes your body feel good.
When you find the things you should be doing, you'll feel a sense of relief in your body.
Spend the rest of your life chasing that relief.

I suspect not everyone has the exact reaction I did, but memories of times I've done that — chased relief, or attained relief — flooded me.* They were followed fast by awarenesses of where I'm not doing that, where I'm struggling or have struggled.

Mind. Blown.



*Hey, we haven't talked much about RI lately. In case you're curious, that's still going on, still wonderful. And it was the first of those relief moments I thought of. Even our struggles (mostly logistical) contain some element of that. I hope every one of you has something that gives you that, whether it's relationships or life's work or faith or avocation or anything. Because this stuff is for real amazing.

Stormy weather

Today, my workplace was closed due to snow.

The highlights:

• As I am part of the "emergency communications team" at said workplace, I got up at 5:15 a.m. to share the word. Which mostly went fine.
• At about 6:15 a.m., after attempting to record the outgoing message for the switchboard about one million times, I texted my neighbor and subsequently went to her house in my pajamas to try again on her landline. That went better.
• I watched a few episodes of Dexter. Big revelation: A date that is featured sort of casually but repeatedly on that show is my exact date of birth. So that's fun.
• I videochatted with my sister and niece and nephew, which included tours of both houses, a puppet show, and my nephew's enjoyment of a toy drill for just slightly too short a time for me to come up with "that looks boring" as a clever thing to say. Those kids are very very very amused by seeing me upside down or sideways.
• I ventured out to the convenience store .6 miles away from my house on foot, both because I needed the exercise and because my driveway wasn't plowed yet. It took almost an hour round-trip because of the snow.
• My sweet friends had a temperature-solstice pot luck over the weekend that I was very excited about but then was too sick to attend, with the result that I have an excess of my favorite summer dish, which means peach cobbler, which is seriously summer in a bowl and good for the spirits of the snowbound.
• I watched Breaking Away. Golly, that's a good cast and a beautiful movie.

So, pretty much of a win overall.

How's your day going?