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May. 3rd, 2004 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanaiseBah. It's a cloudy grey day, and even the internet seems grumpy.
Yesterday it was beautiful and really a little too warm. I got up bright and spanking early (for a weekend, at least), and caught the commuter rail into Boston. Relatively painless other than the fact that the train car I was on just smelled nasty. blech. Walked from North Station to the meeting house. Walked longer than I should have, thanks to the quaint habit of not actually labeling streets, or at least not all of them. But it was okay, as I still found the meeting house with little trouble.
The meeting.... Well, it's a very pretty room for the meeting, with a two story window looking out on a courtyard. It's got a little balcony type thing around the first story, and a cluster of benches on the ground floor. But it's tiny--maybe 30-50 people there, and the membership list looks like it's not more than 100 people. In DC my meeting was usually 80-100 people each week, and there were some weeks it had to have been twice that (the first week I went after I got back from England, for example, it was packed, and the week before, which would have been the first weekend after 9/11, I can't imagine how full it must have been). But first meetings at new places often make me nervous, and this time I was also hot and a little tired, and very very anxious not to fall asleep in the meeting (it's just that bad first impression thing), and I never got properly settled down. I was nearly settled down at one point--I'd been sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and I was like, "well, it must be nearly over by now." and then the kids got up and left. which meant really, it was 10:45. So I figited for another 45 minutes--and it wasn't just me. The benches creaked, and no one else seemed calmed down either. I like people watching at meetings. There's always some person who can sit down, calm down, center down, and not even move for an hour. This meeting, there wasn't. Everyone kept shifting position (hey! they didn't shake hands with the kids when they left! Bad meeting.), the benches kept creaking, and someone would cough or sniffle or sneeze every few minutes, and all in all it was the longest meeting I've ever gone to. And then all the various messages, and everyone introduced themselves, and we broke for refreshments. And I fled. Well, I stopped and talked to a dog tied up outside. He was a sweetie. I hope there are more people my age in the meeting usually, cause there was only one boy who seemed to be near my age and a regular attender (and no girls, just some visiting from other meetings or trying it out for the first time), and he seemed to have a 5 or 6 yr old boy, so he may be a much different age than I was guessing.
So they've got the standard, 'this is a meeting' info sheet at the door, and then a little more detailed one on the back of the benches, which I read during meeting. And this is where I got cranky. Quakerism, historically, is Christian. But these days the deal is more that it's not exclusionary. And the wording on this sheet drove me crazy. Now, I know that Philadelphia, the meeting I grew up attending is a liberal meeting. But it's also pretty much the mother church over here--it's the oldest yearly meeting in the US, and it's something like...325 years old, if I remember correctly. And glancing at the Friends General Conference page, which is the oversight group of the unprogrammed meetings, I see the careful use of 'light' and such. See, I don't care what anyone else reads the word 'light' as. What bothers me is that if the meeting doesn't say 'light' or 'divine' or anything like that, it excludes. And it's not supposed to be exclusionary, and it hurts, and it upsets me, which isn't how I'm supposed to feel at meeting. And if I go to the meeting regularly, I will complain about those flyers. Our quarterly meeting had christians, yes. But what you believed in was never discussed because we also had Jewish members, and a lot of the younger members (ie, the kids around my age) had more of an animistic/pagan type belief system (mine is sort of a cross between that and just a pure quaker type thing, for those who are curious), and one of the monthly meetings in our quarter had a group of Zen Buddhists who frequently attended, and I know that had a large part to do with the careful wording in the Faith and Practice and in general things. But I liked that because it made me feel like I did belong there. And I know I do belong, that I've been going to meetings for 21 years or more, that I try to be a good quaker, and that I should not feel intentionally excluded at meetings. It's just a bit of a big thing, so I'm thinking I'll ease into throwing a fit about it.
And then I walked over to the library, and then back up along...huh. I don'tknow what it's called. between downtown crossing and state, pretty much, with all sorts of reasonable shops. And I went to Barnes and Nobles and finished reading Bet Me! And made note of two other books I want to read (the new Susan Elizabeth Phillips and the new Mary Balough), and one that I need to buy, but not in hardback because I hate hardbacks and all the rest of my books of hers are british trade paper. but that'll have to wait until I get some work.
I did find some jobs to apply to, one with a temp agency Nate told me to look up, so that's all well and good. And I can't remember where I used to look at Quaker jobs, and I don't even know if the page is still there because that was 5 years ago. Ooh. Maybe it was the Quaker Infomation Center Yes! Victory dance in honor of me! Alas, no jobs around here.
Oh, my rejection from Say came on friday. My mom read it to me. It's a step up from the last rejection (hand written note on the form), to a personal note from Gwenda, but not as high a step as I was hoping. Alas. Though, it's hard to feel really sad about it because much as I love the story I sent them, I know it's not as good as it should be, it's just as good as it can be. So, I'll just have to think about something new to write for them.
Oh, and andrea? I'm reading Girls' Poker Night right now, and it reminds me so much of you.
Yesterday it was beautiful and really a little too warm. I got up bright and spanking early (for a weekend, at least), and caught the commuter rail into Boston. Relatively painless other than the fact that the train car I was on just smelled nasty. blech. Walked from North Station to the meeting house. Walked longer than I should have, thanks to the quaint habit of not actually labeling streets, or at least not all of them. But it was okay, as I still found the meeting house with little trouble.
The meeting.... Well, it's a very pretty room for the meeting, with a two story window looking out on a courtyard. It's got a little balcony type thing around the first story, and a cluster of benches on the ground floor. But it's tiny--maybe 30-50 people there, and the membership list looks like it's not more than 100 people. In DC my meeting was usually 80-100 people each week, and there were some weeks it had to have been twice that (the first week I went after I got back from England, for example, it was packed, and the week before, which would have been the first weekend after 9/11, I can't imagine how full it must have been). But first meetings at new places often make me nervous, and this time I was also hot and a little tired, and very very anxious not to fall asleep in the meeting (it's just that bad first impression thing), and I never got properly settled down. I was nearly settled down at one point--I'd been sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and I was like, "well, it must be nearly over by now." and then the kids got up and left. which meant really, it was 10:45. So I figited for another 45 minutes--and it wasn't just me. The benches creaked, and no one else seemed calmed down either. I like people watching at meetings. There's always some person who can sit down, calm down, center down, and not even move for an hour. This meeting, there wasn't. Everyone kept shifting position (hey! they didn't shake hands with the kids when they left! Bad meeting.), the benches kept creaking, and someone would cough or sniffle or sneeze every few minutes, and all in all it was the longest meeting I've ever gone to. And then all the various messages, and everyone introduced themselves, and we broke for refreshments. And I fled. Well, I stopped and talked to a dog tied up outside. He was a sweetie. I hope there are more people my age in the meeting usually, cause there was only one boy who seemed to be near my age and a regular attender (and no girls, just some visiting from other meetings or trying it out for the first time), and he seemed to have a 5 or 6 yr old boy, so he may be a much different age than I was guessing.
So they've got the standard, 'this is a meeting' info sheet at the door, and then a little more detailed one on the back of the benches, which I read during meeting. And this is where I got cranky. Quakerism, historically, is Christian. But these days the deal is more that it's not exclusionary. And the wording on this sheet drove me crazy. Now, I know that Philadelphia, the meeting I grew up attending is a liberal meeting. But it's also pretty much the mother church over here--it's the oldest yearly meeting in the US, and it's something like...325 years old, if I remember correctly. And glancing at the Friends General Conference page, which is the oversight group of the unprogrammed meetings, I see the careful use of 'light' and such. See, I don't care what anyone else reads the word 'light' as. What bothers me is that if the meeting doesn't say 'light' or 'divine' or anything like that, it excludes. And it's not supposed to be exclusionary, and it hurts, and it upsets me, which isn't how I'm supposed to feel at meeting. And if I go to the meeting regularly, I will complain about those flyers. Our quarterly meeting had christians, yes. But what you believed in was never discussed because we also had Jewish members, and a lot of the younger members (ie, the kids around my age) had more of an animistic/pagan type belief system (mine is sort of a cross between that and just a pure quaker type thing, for those who are curious), and one of the monthly meetings in our quarter had a group of Zen Buddhists who frequently attended, and I know that had a large part to do with the careful wording in the Faith and Practice and in general things. But I liked that because it made me feel like I did belong there. And I know I do belong, that I've been going to meetings for 21 years or more, that I try to be a good quaker, and that I should not feel intentionally excluded at meetings. It's just a bit of a big thing, so I'm thinking I'll ease into throwing a fit about it.
And then I walked over to the library, and then back up along...huh. I don'tknow what it's called. between downtown crossing and state, pretty much, with all sorts of reasonable shops. And I went to Barnes and Nobles and finished reading Bet Me! And made note of two other books I want to read (the new Susan Elizabeth Phillips and the new Mary Balough), and one that I need to buy, but not in hardback because I hate hardbacks and all the rest of my books of hers are british trade paper. but that'll have to wait until I get some work.
I did find some jobs to apply to, one with a temp agency Nate told me to look up, so that's all well and good. And I can't remember where I used to look at Quaker jobs, and I don't even know if the page is still there because that was 5 years ago. Ooh. Maybe it was the Quaker Infomation Center Yes! Victory dance in honor of me! Alas, no jobs around here.
Oh, my rejection from Say came on friday. My mom read it to me. It's a step up from the last rejection (hand written note on the form), to a personal note from Gwenda, but not as high a step as I was hoping. Alas. Though, it's hard to feel really sad about it because much as I love the story I sent them, I know it's not as good as it should be, it's just as good as it can be. So, I'll just have to think about something new to write for them.
Oh, and andrea? I'm reading Girls' Poker Night right now, and it reminds me so much of you.
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Date: 2004-05-03 09:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 02:29 pm (UTC)