Yesterday I chaired my last Gesu Church Peace & Justice Committee meeting. With the close of 2009, I finish my two-year term as co-chair of the group. We've done various fundraisers for advocacy projects, organized education programs at our church, brought in speakers to give talks on justice-related topics, and tried to contribute to the spirit of Gesu. I continue to be thankful to have a group like P&J who makes me feel at home within the Catholic Church, which of course can too often persist in its hierarchical ways. Last major function as co-chair: host our annual Christmas party this coming weekend. I'll make tamale pie and hopefully Nicole and I will have made more of our cookies by then. So far, we're finished with the butterscotch chip and that's it. Way behind.
Also yesterday I enjoyed the documentary "One Fast Move Or I'm Gone," a vivid look at a period of Jack Kerouac's life wherein he escaped (from alcoholism, New York, sudden fame, all the trappings he allegedly hated) to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin in Big Sur and had a nervous breakdown. The film celebrates the melancholy, using Kerouac's words liberally and assembling friends and fans of his to talk about the "novel" that grew out of Kerouac's experiences at the cabin. "One Fast Move" serves as a love letter to the great book _Big Sur_ but also a kind of catharsis for the odd and absurd assemblage of Kerouac devotees--writers, scholars, celebrities, that scruffy guy from Death Cab for Cutie--who know a great deal about this period in Kerouac's life. Essential viewing.
Today, I'm marking student papers, watching the snow fall, and heading to the gym for a much-needed (see: paragraph on cookies above) workout.
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