Baby, it's cold outside...AND

SNOWING! Yes, we had 75 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday and right now as I look out our picture window from the Children's Dept, cars are going a little faster than they were an hour ago (when they were inching.)

My car was covered in a thin layer of ice this morning, but the roads weren't so bad until I got to our own library parking lot.

My social calendar is just brimming over: I had two events, no, one more was just emailed to me FOR THIS EVENING. I decided that I'll go briefly [update: she stayed two hours. Briefly, my eye!] to the one where I know some folks.

Tomorrow I have TWO EVENTS too. I'm only going to one, the Women's Gathering for the OD.

I think I will make it to 7 hrs today!! [update: I DID, woo hoo!] I was late (but it was the weather's fault--it took 15 min to clean off the car) (I know, I could have planned ahead...) Well, and it took me an extra 10 minutes to get to work...but I took a short lunch...

Lunch was a feast. Is there an Irish word for that? Because the employee lounge was decked in green, the two Irish librarians (Irish descendants) were fighting in "Who can wear more green?" which they've done the past three years or so, and though there was no soda bread, the foodstuffs were great and there was even green (non-alcoholic) beer.

Okay, the real reason I was late today: I'm reading The thrill of the chaste by Dawn Eden. (She's also a blogger, hence all the links.) It's pretty captivating. Eden is a Jewish convert to Christianity and her book talks about how she realized she had to change her attitudes and actions about sexuality when she changed her beliefs. She deeply criticizes the world-view put forth by Sex and the City. (I've written on this before--it's a theme here at PS n'at, but the jury's out on whether I reject the show as far as she does*). The book is reminiscent of Lauren Winner's books Girl Meets God and Real Sex: the naked truth about chastity. Lauren has a review in Christianity Today, which speaks to some of my issues with the book, but overall, Eden's tome is a page-turner.

I guess my main beef with Eden's book is that she assumes there is one person for one person. Um, if free will is in play, then I guess I'm toast if he decided to marry someone else. And she's convinced that just because she wants to get married, she will be someday.

But other than that, she writes really well on the issue of women, sex, singleness, and Christianity and how the four come together.

I love the chapter titles, which play with words in a similar way to the (sometimes annoying) way Carrie plays with words in SATC. My copy is inaccessible at the moment, maybe I'll come back to this later. [Sex and the witty, "Meet" market, The Iniquity of My Heels: A Sole in Danger, Clothes Encounters...] One point that she made that had NEVER occured to me: if she sins in having pre-marital sex, she can ask forgiveness of God, but what of the man, if he is not a Christian. She has lured him into sin. (One of her former lovers died of cancer, unrepentant of pretty much everything.) We're so personal about sin--it's my sin, but sexual/relationship sins can bring another person down with you. Hmmm.

It's interesting reading these "I'm single and in my 30's, Christian and haven't found Mr. Right yet" books. I've read about three or four by now.

Maybe I'll write a post about how they all compare to each other. And why aren't men writing about these issues? (Have you noticed that it's not very often a single guy is moaning, "Well, I sure hope I meet Ms. Right...")

Okay, gotta go clean off my car. This post was written on Friday night and edited/added to Saturday morning, and the sky decided to dump more snow on my car overnight...

*Yes, my cell phone now rings to the "SATC" theme.