Yesterday I was talking to my parents on the phone, and they commented how my essay on Johnson (just finished!) was really something but they couldn't finish it...they like it when I talk a little more about myself. And I thought, "everybody from Los Angeles would probably agree..."
So even though I am going to keep posting my essays and deepest literary thoughts here, the kind which make you want to write something down right away and nearly miss church in the process, and WILL resume Nabokov one of these days, I am going to be devoting a lot more time to sharing the events, triumphs, foibles, and lessons learned in my life here.
"I Am Fifth" is the perspective from which I'm approaching this chronicle, and it comes from, surprise, a book I remember seeing on our little corner shelf in the old Tam-O-Shanter house when I was in elementary school, my father's copy of "I Am Third" by one of Chicago's own, Gale Sayers, who was ranking where he placed himself on the level of importance in his own life.
For me, as I wandered through the moonlit corridors of University Avenue and 55th Street last night, the answers came suddenly and easily...in the way I want to try to be...
God, Christ, and my commitment to a better world for all the children of the kingdom are first.
My family, who gave me life and give me unconditional love, is second.
My friends, including my colleagues in MAPH and my teachers, all the people who have and will wield influence over my temporal existence, are third.
Books, literature, and a commitment to and reverence for the artistic and human world, are fourth.
I am fifth.
(And by the way, knowing where you stand keeps things in perspective...like when handled an attempted break-in at my apartment with equanimity, made easier by considering I have absolutely nothing worth stealing.)
So get ready for adventure, romance, passion, thrills, and lots of books!
(Boy, that sounded like a corny graduate student thing to say, but it's my blog. :)
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