mccarthyism

been living stubbornly in the past, and a little bit in the future, reluctant to live in the moment out of impatience and boredom. i'm tired of it. i really don't want to go on this way. i am frustrated, though, with people, with circumstances, and especially with that ever-present divide between life as i've idealized it and life as it persistently is. tired of that, too. that is a selfish thing to think and a selfish thing to write. i do long for the kingdom of our Lord in the flesh. i long for what i don't understand. dear Christ, grant me courage, persistence and eyes to see. amen.

dean and i went fishing this afternoon on a little river behind the property of some friends at crestmont. a beautiful place. clear brown water full of bass, the dense green of late summer. a couple of cokes and deep quiet. dean caught one sizable bass, while i came up empty as usual. thoroughly enjoyable, though. as enjoyable a time as i've had this summer. i'm going to really miss that kid.

another chill evening in aliquippa, keeping tally with the braves via MLB gameday and reading a little bit of solzhenitsyn on the side. still no score in the third, with jurrjens on the mound for atlanta. his control is a tad shaky this evening which worries me. he needs to settle down and give us a good chance. and on our side we've got to give him a little run support.

the solzhenitsyn ("the first circle") is good but slow to start. he is always worth the effort once you get a hundred pages in or so, but as a russian he is bound by some national agreement to write only long novels with slow starts. his characterization is lights out as a rule. it's thoughtful fiction; you always get a lot to take with you. he doesn't so much create as show you a very real world, intricate and believable. it takes a fair amount of work, of self-investment, but it rewards you richly. i was surprised when i read "cancer ward" by how touching the ending was, with kostoglotov in the town, and then on the train. so perfectly handled. i think of that when i think of real aesthetic experience - the emotional impact is really almost incidental to the action, to what solzhenitsyn is trying to accomplish. it is a byproduct of how real the story is, and how much he has invested in it all along. nothing the least bit artificial. so i will stick with "the first circle" in spite of the difficulty of all those russian names and complicated politics.

it always feels good to be at the end of a camp day. camp days kick my butt. i wake up on mornings that we have camp with a nervous hollow in my chest. i'm going to stick it out this summer but i won't lie, i don't much enjoy it. working with headstrong, smartass junior highers. it's because i don't enjoy it that i've been forced to get out of myself a little bit, to be a person i'm not accustomed to being. i still couldn't say just how much i've learned but it has been a great thing, i know, and i'm very grateful. just terribly stressful at times.

a lovely 3-RBI double for escobar in the fifth gives jurrjens a little cushion. now we'll just follow our noses home.

good night, campers, see you in the morning. i might put another 20 pages or so of solzhenitsyn behind me before i check out.