01/19/2000 Houseguest Alex and I have a houseguest staying with us for a month. His name is Robin, and we met him when we were in France last year. I know I haven't written anything about my two weeks in Europe last September, and I'm grievously sorry about that. Of course, while I was on this vacation with my neighbors to watch Dave and Sabrina get married for the second time, I was the only one who faithfully recorded the trip in a travel journal. One hundred and eighty pages later, I wasn't sure whether I had a Web update or a stage play on my hands. I'm still sorting that one out. Alex kind of killed my urge to Web-purge by looking me dead in the eye and telling me, "I don't want to see my trip on your Web site." Oh well. If my vacation were a play, Robin would have a very large supporting role as the primary French protagonist. Dave and Sabrina were totally stressed out, having just moved to a new apartment when the American contingency arrived en masse. None of us speaks French and only Nik and Thida rented a car. Robin was our savior. A true ambassador, he hosted us in his apartment and in his car and around the beautiful city of Bordeaux. Took two weeks off from work so he could hang out with us and drive us around. His presence diffused the stress of being in a foreign country with people bearing high expectations. A crush developed between Robin and one of the ladies on the trip (not I), which I believe was the primary reason he chose to spend his vacation in California. His insistent manner really scared off the woman in question, though, so I'm not sure this trip is turning into what he thought it would be. It doesn't seem to have bothered him too much, though. Stacia, Alex, John Lewis and I drove to SFO to pick him up nearly two weeks ago. Stacia and Alex ran up to the catwalk to look for him in the pre-customs area. They finally returned after John Lewis retrieved them. "Did you see him?" I asked Stacia. "Yeah. He's talking to some girl." Robin passed through the Customs gate and attempted to sneak up on Alex to wrassle. They caused a bit of a scene at the airport, but I'm accustomed to such things with my exuberant housemate. He shook hands with John Lewis and Stacia gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I'm so happy you're here," I told Robin when it was my turn. Work notwithstanding, it'd been a pretty crappy month and I was looking forward to having a distraction around. We got him to our street and he pretended to go to Nik and Thida's house, which used to be Dave and Sabrina's house and also where he stayed last time he was in California. His previous visit coincided with the visit of his ex-girlfriend and also Sabrina's best friend. That was also right around the time when Sabrina thought she was pregnant. So we all weren't spending much time together. Foolish of us. Robin not only brought us himself, but he brought us a houseguest -- a 25-year old Frenchwoman named Cecile, who was to begin at the California Academy of Arts and Crafts the next week. We hit our first communication snag when trying to determine what exactly he wanted us to do with her. "Robin, do you want her to come to our house?" I finally asked. "Yes, sure, I think it's better," he responded. I called my mom that night. "Our houseguest brought us a houseguest!" She laughed. We drove Cecile to school on Monday, and reveled in the quiet on the drive back. Anyway, his visit has been going really well so far. He's sleeping in the office on the futon I scored from Brandon, so he sleeps when we're not working. He wasn't feeling well last week -- I think he had the flu. The day he had it the worst, he napped on the sofa, then went over to the side window, peered out, and shook a cat toy on the end table. Then he rolled his eyes in disgust. "Lynn. I am the same as the cat." Yes, it's going to be a fun month. ***** 03/20/2000 Lynn's Guide to Grieving Work till your eyes are bleary. Eschew assignments for mp3 hunting. Play the same 10 tracks from your collection of more than 200. Turn up the volume so nobody hears you sniffle at your desk. Sleep incessantly. Watch all the late-late shows that you're usually asleep for. Step over your suitcases rather than unpacking them and putting them back in the closet. Scrub the front door's threshold. Convince your housemate that rearranging the furniture would be a good idea. Wish you could call everyone you know. Opt instead for eating Easter candy. Don't have lunch until 4:00. Instead of eating lunch, go for a run. Lie around the sofa imitating the cat. Breathe. Drop your shoulders down from your ears. You might ache for a while, but it will be all right. Someday.} ***** 03/20/2000 Today is the First Day of Spring Even better, on Ally McBeal tonight, Calista Flockhart looked fat. I'm taking my joy where I can get it these days, thanks. My beloved grandma died on Leap Year's Day. Even now the thought immediately summons congestion to my sinuses. "Hi Grandma!" "Hi Honey!" "I love you." "Love..." "I'm praying for you, Grandma." "Pray..." I looked into her eyes and hugged her. That was Sunday. She died Tuesday. It is a testament to her perpetual ladyhood that her family will only have to commemorate the day of her death every fourth year. Everyone's been really nice about it. I heard from a lot of people in my church. My senior pastor's sister used to live in the same apartment building and it was nice to meet her. With funerals comes family, too. I had the opportunity to acquaint myself with my uncle who works at the Grand Canyon National Park, and a schoolchum of his who now writes for the Oakland Tribune. I even got to celebrate Grandma's remaining living sister's 94th birthday, complete with yum-yum cake and bingo. But oh God, I miss her so much. So much that even my first-serious and only-ever live-in boyfriend sent me a sympathy card that was so sweet, so heartfelt that it made me cry. Crying has been a big theme of this year. D and I no longer speak to each other. Ending our 5-year friendship and most of our professional association left a void, but it was time. Robin's visit coincided with the initial month of separation, which helped immensely. I think I miss the French one more than the American. Whatever. I did have a fun day last Monday, though. My friend Katherine's cousin was in town so the three of us did something I've never done -- we went to Alcatraz! The audio tour was terrific, lots of cell doors clanging shut in your ears as you wander the block. Then after I got home, John drove me to Watercourse Way for a massage. So I'm back. No permanent damage, though I'm still a little tender around the edges and am sniffling a bit more than usual. But that's OK. Winter is gone -- the winter of nature and the winter of spirit and experience. I welcome the spring, with the promise of more guitar playing and sailboat lessons and sun until late in the evening. I sent Virtual Flowers to a few special people today and would like to share the Scripture portion of my messages with you: "for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land." The Song of Solomon 2:11-12 I wish you all a joyful, renewing, song-filled, healthy Springtime.} ***** 04/20/2000 It's weird how people get about religion. I sent an e-mail invitation to my friends today and I would like to extend it to you: **** Hi everybody, Hey, it's nearly Easter! Here's my church schedule in case anyone is interested in joining me for Holy Week services: Tonight (Thursday) at 7:30: Maundy Thursday service at Trinity Presbyterian Church. It's on the corner of Alameda De Las Pulgas and Brittan Ave. in San Carlos. Maundy Thursday is the celebration of the Last Supper. This will not be your standard average church service. Tomorrow (Friday) at 12:00 noon: Good Friday service at St. Matthias Catholic Church on Cordilleras off Edgewood in Redwood City (near where you turn for Edgewood Park). This will be a multi-denominational service with many different priests/pastors presiding. I've never attended a multi-denominational service and think it will be pretty terrific (and probably very intense, as Good Friday is the day Christ was crucified). Trinity's sanctuary will also be open from 12-3 for meditation and reflection on Good Friday. Easter Sunday: Trinity Presbyterian will have Easter services at 9:00 at 10:30 a.m. I have a speaking part at these services, my first time participating in a Sunday-morning worship (woo hoo!). All of the services will last about an hour. My first real church experience was a Good Friday service while I was in high school, and it touched me deeply. You are all welcome to join me in celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus. OK, that's all. Happy almost Easter! Love, Lynn ...who sincerely hopes nobody is offended or put-out by this message. **** Anyway, I would love it if you felt drawn to join me at one of these services. My office will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday. Today is Maundy Thursday. Tonight I went to the World Internet Center, drank a glass of wine, swapped some business cards. After that I drove to church. Maundy means commandment, a fact I didn't know until tonight. This evening signifies the beginning of the end, the night that Jesus was betrayed by Judas and arrested. It's been 2000 years since that happened. I sucked in my breath at Pastor Mary's words. 2000 years and He hasn't come back yet. What is He waiting for? I sat next to a with-it, together young woman (well, she's younger than me). I'd co-advised Quest, Trinity Presbyterian's junior-high youth group, with her for more than two years. We looked at the cross, wrapped in black and purple net, on the altar, especially when Pastor Bob told the congregation to intently focus on its powerful imagery. I leaned in to my friend. "Remember when we each carried it?" She nodded. "I was just thinking about that. Wasn't that weird?" We had used the cross last year as part of a meditative exercise with the Quest kids. You haven't lived until you've done contemplative religion with 10- to 12-year olds. After the kids were gone, she and I had the responsibility of bringing the cross from the fellowship hall up to the sanctuary. I bore it, t-square on my back, my wrists dangling over the horizontal beam. "Oh my... Lynn, that looks so freaky." "It's pretty heavy. And it's only six feet tall. Do you want to try carrying it?" She eagerly affirmed and we switched places. I watched her walk in front of me. "Wow..." I said at the sight. "What do you think?" "It's really something. You're right, it's heavy." "And it's nowhere near as big as Jesus' was. And his back was laid open." We carried it the rest of the way in silence, taking our time to position it in its original spot downstage of the choir, which was both rehearsing and watching us bemusedly. So anyway, I know that religion is a touchy subject. But sometimes you just gotta put something out there when nobody else thinks speaking would be appropriate. Pastor Bob characterized Peter as "the disciple with the foot-shaped mouth," this evening. My friend and I stifled giggles. Last summer I led a Christian leadership camp for incoming sixth-graders. My intentions weren't entirely honorable - I wanted them to get to know me so they'd be more likely to come to Quest. We had a great time talking about everything from how to solve problems to bibliomancy to "The Blair Witch Project." The second-to-last day of camp, I was talking to my group of nine when Pastor Mary (who is a Ph.D. and the senior pastor of my church) entered the youth room and sat down on the floor. I introduced her and went on with my subject. "What can we do when we're facing a problem?" "We can look at the ways it can be an opportunity," Sterling replied. "And why do we have problems sometimes?" "Because we need to look at something a different way." "So who makes all this happen?" "Jesus." "Why???" I asked them, prompting them to call out my favorite Scripture verse: "I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR THOU ART WITH ME!" I took a breath. "Remember what we talked about the other day? About how some people shut Jesus out of their lives? How they build a brick wall around their hearts to keep Him out?" They nodded. "Why is that a stupid thing to do?" I asked them. "Because he's already there." From those words, we launched some other subject, but I couldn't tell you what it was, and I don't recall at what point Pastor Mary left, either. So go to church tomorrow, even if you sit in the back and don't talk to anyone. Just listen to what the priest/pastor/reverend/elder has to say with an open mind. You might be surprised at your reaction to what it is you're hearing. And then come to Trinity Presbyterian Church at 9:00 this Sunday morning to hear me proclaim the good news: Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed. Alleluia! Let the People Rejoice! ***** 08/05/2000 Word Up? Nope. It's true, hating Microsoft Word is kind of like hating your toaster, it's so ubiquitous. But I'm so tired of it trying to second-guess me, an intelligent woman with a college degree, by making its own changes, none of which I was after in the first place and all of which require a Ph.D. in sub-particle C++ to change it back to the way you wanted it in the first place. I remember the glory days of MS-Word: Version 5.1 for the Macintosh. Ahhhh, memories. It allowed you to move paragraphs around but didn't automatically take over your document. It was small and sleek, like my neighbors' Burmese cats. It helped you when you wanted it to and left you alone the rest of the time. Plus, it ran like a demon on my Powerbook Duo 2300c. Dad laughed at me once when I said I'd be happy running Word 5.1 for the rest of my life. Who's laughing now? I'll tell you: Bill Gates, and he's laughing all the way to his underground 10-car garage. Personally, I'd be happy if the only "feature" they kept on the next version was the one that changes "teh" to "the". Of course, I won't be able to purposely misspell that word until I paste it into SimpleText for HTML coding. And when it's not capitalizing letters that you didn't want capitalized or changing *this* into this or turning your emoticon into an actual right-side-up smiley face, that damn paperclip pops up and insinuates that you don't have the faintest idea of what you're doing, that it's smarter than you ever possibly could be and you'd be better off by just going away and letting it finish the job for you, thank you very much. Wirecutters, anyone? And don't even get me _started_ on the grammar check, which underlined the entire above paragraph in green, suggesting that it is a long sentence but offering no suggestions as to how it could be improved. When did my seventh-grade English teacher get a QA job up in Redmond? Apparently the MS engineers aren't satisfied with their jillions of dollars worth of stock options, but prefer to increase their personal satisfaction by making you "ignore" anything they believe is an error again and again and again, which is really starting to have an effect on my internal confidence that my writing is un-ignorable. In the interest of truth-in-advertising, I think we should start a petition to change the name of the program from Microsoft Word to Microsoft Turing. Who's with me here? To the barricades! *****