so dad had knee replacement surgery last monday. it went well; he's been doing some walking and isn't in too much pain. I'm totally getting him an oil can for Christmas.

speaking of Christmas, every year I can usually say definitively that I am or am not ready for the holidays. for 2007 I'm not sure. everything seems very neutral. the weather's been cold but not snowy. I'm staying on track doing my shopping--neither ahead nor behind. my mind accepts that Christmas music and lights are everywhere but isn't annoyed by it. it's all very...complacent. I can deal with that.

three homicides in gso over the weekend. significant for a city our size. word is that at least two were gang related. yet there are still bigwigs in this town who deny that we have a gang problem.

when it comes to entertainment, I'm naïve in a lot of ways. no matter how weak a plot twist is in a film, it'll probably take me by surprise. similarly, I have the tendency to read books solely for entertainment value. oh, I'll usually pick up on metaphors and allegories and whatnot. I just overlook them.

take the chronicles of narnia, for example. the Christian references are impossible to miss even as a kid, but they've never had an impact on my relationship to the series. and the great gatsby. despite analyzing it to death in senior english (particularly that damn green light), I managed to love it just the same. it's not that I'm anti-intellectual or boorish about literature, and I could still turn out a decent AP paper with my cliff's notes tied behind my back. it's just my way of doing things, and it's helped me give some of "the great books" a fair shot when I otherwise might not have done.

I ramble like this because I'm tearing through his dark materials, the philip pullman trilogy of which the recently adapted the golden compass is the first. I dig this stuff, and I'm leery of the fantasy genre as a rule. but before I'd read one page I'd heard loads about how anti-Christian pullman's work is; one reviewer said that he "pisses on religion." that's a little strong, but there's no denying the strong opinions voiced in the novels. and unlike narnia, his dark materials doesn't bother to couch them in metaphor--the author deals with Christianity as we know it. rather than say that his work is flatly against religion--although he's a confirmed atheist--it's easier to agree with the archbishop of canterbury, who sees the series as an attack on religious oppression and dogmatism.

and how much does all this matter to me? well, other than giving me an excuse to spout off paragraphs like the previous one here, not at all. I read to be taken out of myself. I read to fuel my own imagination. for a long time now my own worldview has been set enough (perhaps stodgily so) to prevent me from shifting my philosophy based on a work of fiction. reference my earlier spiel on ayn rand, for example. let other people argue about whether it's better to swim in a lake versus an ocean versus a pool versus a river. I just like to jump in and splash around.

now wasn't all that impressive? for someone who hates deconstructing, that is.