Ran across literary editor Sadie Stein’s amusing Culture Diary on the Paris Review Daily via Poets & Writers. Love her quips. People are sometimes ask me about what exactly it is I do, so taking a cue from Sadie Stein, here’s an inside look into my day.
MONDAY*
7:00 AM: My cell phone alarm goes off, and I blindly fumble for the phone and shut the stupid ringer off. Ten minutes later the second alarm goes off. Forty minutes after that I finally roll out of bed, toward the coffee maker.
8:30 AM: Ooh, such nice comments on last night’s status update from writer friends on Faceback. Maybe I do have something to say that resonates with people. Listen to Mates of State.
10:00 AM: Got to work and found out I had left my card key inside, on my desk. Finally got in and restart my computer at work three times. Ugh, ugh, ugh!! Why isn’t it working? It finally works but then I’m locked out of the server and have to call the home office. It’s definitely a Monday. I feel like Garfield. Complete editing on a book project I’m excited to be working on. Slice my finger open on a stack of paper. Oh the hazards of the publishing business.
12:00 PM: Forgot my homework for my writing workshop at home and now have to use lunch break to run back and get it. Accidentally get off one stop too early, but enjoy the beautiful weather. I love the smell of autumn leaves. Someone follows me into my apartment building. Oh good, he’s just my neighbor. On the subway ride back to the office, I offer my seat to an older woman. Her husband says, “That just got you two points. You’re two steps closer to getting into heaven. The woman sizes me up, “I don’t know about that!”
6:00 PM: The cleaning lady tells me she didn’t throw out the bread in the ‘fridge because she knows it’s mine. Hints that it’s wasteful to throw out food. Oops, I’m one of those people that forgets about the food crammed in the ‘fridge.
8:00 PM: Writing workshop gets emotional. People lay their lives out for us to read. It’s hard to critique work that’s so sensitive. I feel like a jerk afterwards for doing it anyway. Ride the subway home with a classmate, thankful to debrief.
11:00 PM: I don’t care if it’s late; I’m eating a second dinner. And I’m taking a second shower. Watch Prime Suspect. Man, I wish I was as tough as Maria Bello. Watch Community. This show has jumped the shark.
1:00 AM: Conk out.
*November 14
Tags: Community, Culture Diary, Maria Bellow, Mates of State, music, Poets & Writers, Prime Suspect, publishing, Sadie Stein, subway, tv, writing workshop
Jeremy Begbie is the inaugural holder of the Thomas A. Langford Research Professorship in Theology at Duke Divinity School, North Carolina, and founding Director of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts. He teaches systematic theology, and he specializes in the interface between theology and the arts. His particular research interest is the interplay between music and theology. He is also Senior Member at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculties of Divinity and Music at the University of Cambridge. Previously he has been Associate Principal at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews where he directed the research project, Theology Through the Arts at the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts. He is author of a number of books, including Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts (T & T Clark); Theology, Music and Time (CUP), and most recently, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Baker/SPCK) which won the Christianity Today 2008 Book Award in the Theology/Ethics Category. He is a professionally trained and active musician, and has taught widely in the UK, North America and South Africa, specializing in multimedia performance-lectures.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 