What does your BookTalk.org name mean?

[Saffron]

Anyway, it surely can't hurt: my real name is Shanta, which means "Peaceful One." I've always liked it but I have never liked the feeling of more people looking at me than I can look back at. I like being wrapped up snug and safe. This may be a learned family thing that somehow came to America from India and is still in my bones: being seen isn't safe for women. Being "heard" and understood spiritually, from inside out, in silence is better.

I have an entirely different reason for not wanting to be seen or rather feelings of discomfort about being seen. I like what you have said at the end. I think all I have ever wanted was to be understood spiritually from the inside out.

[Thomas Hood]

I also don't want to compromise other people's confidentiality or reputation by mistake when I talk about my life. Does Thomas' mother want to be widely thought picky and pedantic around the world?

She died two years ago, and redbirds still visit her yard and flatfoot jump. See how well I handle guilt?

[MaryLupin]

I was staying at a friend's house, having been stranded in town by a rather bad snowstorm, and woke in her home's attic apartment from a dream. As I awoke and rather abruptly sat up, I was saying the name "Mary Lupin." In the dream I had just realized, rather ecstatically, that it was my name. So now I use it.

[Penelope]

Frank said:

13 is my lucky number

I hope you're joking Frank! Not that I have anything against the number 13, but isn't your statement a tad irrational?

I like 6 and 12. Because they divide equally into halves or thirds. When I was at school we had twelve pennies to the shilling. Now, we've gone decimal. But although twelve pennies to the shilling took awhile to learn how to multiply and add, not so easy as 10, it was very easy to divide equally, and in shopping terms, it meant in 'real' life, as opposed to academia, one got a better deal at the shops when weighing out and calculating the cost of a bag of cherries, since we then had 16 ounces to the pound, and not kilograms. 16 divides up rather nicely too.

I love all your reasons for your 'chosen' names as opposed to your 'given' names. And I can understand your wishes for a modicum of anonymoty. It is odd though, that once one has become acquainted with a person as named a certain way, it is difficult to adjust to the real name. Like our Ophelia, on here. I know her real name, but she is just always 'Ophelia' to me.

I have been tempted to call myself 'Buggerlugs' but didn't want it to stick!!

Tom said:

See how well I handle guilt?

Nothing to feel guilty about though is there Tom. You obviously loved your Mum, in spite of, and probably because of her irrascibility. That was what was so sweet about the snippet of conversation. We love one another for all sorts of silly reasons, never because we are angelic beings.

And that was what was so nice, because reading your snippet, I could almost love her myself..... :in_love:

[Thomas Hood]

Not that I have anything against the number 13. . .

Frank's rational and informed atheism has converted me to astro-christianity -- at least, I'd convert if there was a church for me to join. Some christians consider 13 to be a lucky number: 12 apostles + Jesus. With my new insights into the real basis of christianity in the Jesus Myth, I now understand that the apostles are really the 12 signs of the zodiac, amid which the Cosmic Man (Jesus) stands:

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/astrology.html

Tom

[Frank 013]

I was not kidding… I really was born on Friday the 13th as was my father before me.

But I do not mean luck in the traditional sense (which I think is what you were getting at). By lucky I really just mean random events that work in my favor… which I in turn take advantage of.

But I think of that as more of a skill than a supernatural force.

But I do often win random drawings…

Later

[Penelope]

Oh, so it's not superstition to believe that 13 can be luckier than any other number? The Romans used to consult the oracle and examine the intestines of birds to foretell the future, and I daresay they convinced themselves that there were good reasons for doing so.

It sounds to me like a retrograde step, back to superstition, in the place of blind faith.

Round in circles we go.

[Thomas Hood]

Mr. Pessimistic is a character I created one day.

Are you sure you made it up? There are Mr. P's pizzerias all over, and Mr. P's frozen pizzas:

They all basically the same except for a few. . . . and the best frozen pizza of all time...the KING of all frozen pizzas Mr.P's! Mr.P's (Score 10/10) is the most fantastic frozen pizza of all time. And it is CHEAP too! Why it hasn't become widely worshipped is something that is beyond me.
http://members.fortunecity.com/gogodncr ... Guide.html

[GentleReader9]

Thomas Hood, who knows I think he rules, wrote:

GentleReader9 wrote:

I also don't want to compromise other people's confidentiality or reputation by mistake when I talk about my life. Does Thomas' mother want to be widely thought picky and pedantic around the world?

She died two years ago, and redbirds still visit her yard and flatfoot jump. See how well I handle guilt?

And Penelope reassured him most graciously anyway; thank you, Penelope. I completely agree with you.

What I was gracelessly and somewhat pusilanimously doing in using Thomas' story as an example, was avoiding putting in an example of my own (of which there are many, in my previous blogs and posts, much more awkward than the example I borrowed from Thomas, and they do not bear repeating nearly so well). I had no intention of causing Thomas any guilt and I'm glad you handle guilt well, Thomas. I knew you would. I would never have offered to elope with a lesser man.

[GentleReader9]

Frank wrote:

I was not kidding… I really was born on Friday the 13th as was my father before me.

But I do not mean luck in the traditional sense (which I think is what you were getting at). By lucky I really just mean random events that work in my favor… which I in turn take advantage of.

But I think of that as more of a skill than a supernatural force.

But I do often win random drawings…

Later

Oh, this is full of yummy little terms and ideas to bite into (Saffron's shout about burned cookies has made me hungry). I assume you don't mean that it was skill that enabled you and your father to be born on Friday the 13th, any more than it enables you to win "often" at random drawings. I suspect that if you mathematically define "often" and then quantify the amount that you win at random drawings, you will discover that the skill is in the way you choose to put your experience into the context of a framing narrative or interpretive outlook. This is what is at the heart of much "supernatural" or "mystical" power: a compelling and attractive way of seeing and expressing what is seen that other people are willing to pay attention to and add the strength of their conviction to your story. You have already converted Penelope and Thomas to aspects of your point of view. Can a following of true believers to your creed be far behind? I also believe Friday the 13th is lucky and that Frank has a skill in making use of random events which translates as luck in the common perception. (Promise me we won't have to drink poisoned Koolaid if we follow you further, Frank).