The Rape of the Lock and other stories

I'm dashing off to the Middle East again; this time for a much-needed and anticipated vacation. Much has happened since I last blogged, including the theft of my sister's Christmas present, the rape of my locks, and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto (just to put things into perspective).

After many a long thought, I finally decided to buy my sister and new brother-in-law a yearlong membership to Costco. I figure that with a baby on the way, such a present could be well-used. Unfortunately, when the envelope finally arrived at my house via the trusty UPS man, it was empty! The ill-fated present was nowhere to be found and it took me weeks to get through to Costco to sort it all out.

As for the rape of my locks, Alexander Pope himself would have been sniggering in the background. I foolishly agreed to pay a visit to my mother's hair stylist in Houston -- I figured a women trained in China ought to know something about Asian hair. True though that may be, she sadly knew very little about listening to her client. I asked for the same cut, just two inches off. She lopped off FIVE inches and gave me a brand new style. It was like my own episode of What Not to Wear with Nick Arrojo - I couldn't see what she was doing and when it was finally over, my hair littered the ground and I was left with something about which I had not been consulted. I felt like a shorn sheep. (Which, by the way, is an actual sport in Australia. They compete to see who can shear the most sheep in a given amount of time. Amazing the things that are on late-night television).

The most interesting thing that I've learned through this harrowing hair happening is that people love misery. Everyone who hears the story immediately requests a picture. WHY?! I am grieving and they want to see pictures?! If I loved the cut, trust me, you'd see pictures all over my Facebook page. But I am in mourning. Pictures only serve to salt the painful wounds.

But in all seriousness, we humans do have a morbidly curious nature when it comes to devastation, tragedy and all manner of icky, do we not? I've been struck lately by the overflow of images from Pakistan regarding the ghastly Bhutto murder. The debates about whether she was shot or blown up first, whether that smudged image was a gun or not, etc., aren't in themselves inappropriate ... but I might take issue with the hungry way we (and the media) prowl the Internet and news networks for images, feeding this nasty habit of wanting to know every single little detail regardless of whether it illuminates what happened or helps a wounded nation heal. Can't say I know what direction this bit of rambling is heading in, but there's my thought for the day.

Farewell for now -- I'm off to Israel and Jordan, to walk the ancient lands of civilization, to see and experience (and blog) the places of the Bible firsthand. I shall keep you updated! Happy New Year!