Teenagers are lame

Top and boots - Simply Be, Leggings - Walmart.

I had an all day class yesterday on effective communication, so I didn't have a chance to put up a post with pictures. (I keep my camera cable in my desk at work.) Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a lovely Catholic feast. I'm Baptist, so I don't celebrate it. (Imagine someone in the past snootily looking down their nose and saying "I don't think we'll do that!" about all Catholic holidays and you have Protestant religions.) But, my favorite T. S. Eliot poem is "Ash Wednesday"! Now you need to imagine an overly bookish, nerdy high school junior who decides that she'll recite this poem for forensics. If I wasn't so self-conscious, it might have been great, but I just ended up sounding stuffy and never winning anything. Still, I love the poem. For a taste of how very Anglo-uptight the poem is, here's the opening verse:

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

It's very recursive and full of odd imagery. It's not exactly cheery either. Of course, not much of Eliot's work is, except for "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", which is the basis of the musical "Cats".