I could tell you about how moved I was by the long-anticipated wedding of a friend on a sweltering afternoon in Livermore.

I could write about how I learned that I had misremembered a quote by Albert Einstein in a way that says more about myself than anything about the great scientist.

Instead, I'll just scribble down that because I didn't want to miss a blogging day, I am writing trivia from my wireless phone while lying in my bed. I will also commend to my gentle readers a profile about Ang Lee in the June 30 issue of The New Yorker. Tomorrow, I'll say why specifically I am intrigued by the piece.

I found The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators to be incredibly helpful in my choice of books for my housemate Bori, a soon to be six-year old girl.

MovableTypeTrickle: "Trickle allows automated posting of deferred Movable Type entries. To use, create a category called 'Deferred', place entries in 'Draft' status, add them to the 'Deferred' category, and set the created date to the date when the item should be posted."

This script should be very handy when I go on vacation but have a series of posts written ahead of time that I wanted posted. I'm not sufficiently organized in my blogging to be in need of such a facility yet. But one day....

I just have to get this down.

As I walked towards my usual lunch-time haunts on Telegraph Avenue, I was approached by two girls and a boy in their early teen years. One girl, who held a piece of paper, seemed to be the leader and asked me whether I was willing to answer some questions. They happen to be well-groomed, well-spoken white kids. However, I immediately knew what they were probably about.

I said, "Sure, why don't you tell me who you are and where you're from." I don't remember the exact exchange of words, save that they were from a Baptist church and had been sent by their youth pastor to ask these questions. They asked me one question -- which I can't remember exactly, except maybe it was about what my purpose in life was. I immediately asked them for the other questions. The kids obliged me and read off all the questions to me. They were predictable ones and went something like: Do you know where you going in life? What do you think is important? What do you think will happen to you when you die? The last question was "What do you think of Jesus?"

I didn't answer any of the questions. I didn't feel like submitting to a regimen of deep, engaging, powerful and potentially highly personal and charged questions submitted by a group of kids that I knew for 10 seconds, who probably had only the foggiest as to what they were actually asking. Instead, I turned the game around, asking the teens what they were hoping to accomplish through asking me these questions. They said that they didn't know, that they would be informed of the purpose after they finished the exercise. I told them that people don't usually talk about deep stuff like what they are asking, especially to strangers. I asked them how they would feel if they were to ask their friends these exact questions. I thought I saw some squirming.

They thanked me and I told them that I myself was a Christian, a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley. I mentioned that I would hope that people would be won to Jesus. But I didn't think that this exercise was terribly helpful.

Now at a moment when I should be sleeping, I ponder what that whole exchange was about. Why was I so adamant in responding to the kids the way that I did? Did I actually perform a service of love to them by sharing my perspective? Or was it an ill-considered deconstruction of some possibly useful but poorly constructed exercise? What was the point of sending kids to ask such deep questions of strangers? Why weren't they told about what they were doing?

Now I wish I had taken down the name of the church and gotten the name of the youth pastor. I'm curious about the motivation. If I were teaching teens, would I do the same? As the creator of The Nexus of Newton and Nietzsche, I was hardly against people talking about deep things. But the evangelistic hook as the last question made me unhappy. (But was my own course evangelistic?)

If I could put in words -- exactly -- what is in my heart of hearts, then I would do so with alacrity. But rarely is such the case. Most of the time, I fear. Scared that my words would lie. Uncertain of what would happen if I could speak of love. Frightened by being swept away, losing all perspective, all logic, all balance. Yet I want to be swept up by something/someone good. Yet I want us to be swept up -- together.

But words fail me. Less talk, perhaps, and more walk?

I am blessed -- and cursed -- by the overabundance of cultural opportunities
in Berkeley (let alone, the surrounding area). Attending readings at Cody's
Bookstore is a favorite opportunity for me to hob-nob with the many famous
authors who pass through this town and renown bookstore. The array of writers
is overwhelming, and I need to be selective in whom I go hear. Why this writer
and not another, I need to ask myself. Otherwise, I try to take in more than
I can absorb.

Last night, Robert MacNeil, known to me and, I suspect to many, primarily as
the broadcaster who retired
after many years at PBS' NewsHour,
spoke about his new book Looking
for My Country: Finding Myself in America. I went to hear MacNeil because
he is a Canadian who in 1997 became an American citizens after many long years
in this country. It was no accident that I learned about the talk from my friend
Peter (and fellow Canadian-living-in-the-US).

MacNeil spoke about his search for self-identity, specifically that part which
resides in nationality. He spoke about things that I understood -- that of being
an outsider/insider. I know a lot about the U.S. -- so it's easy to appear for
me to pretend to be an American. Yet I come from an alternative existence, one
not well-known to most people south of the border but one shared currently by
35 million people ("Canadians"). Although MacNeil came from a Canada
of the 1940s and I, from a Canada of the 1980s, we share, strangely enough,
enough commonalities for me to say, "hey, we're both Canadians -- maybe
all Canadians share these experiences."

I've been in the U.S. for thirteen years with no immediate plans to return.
I am working on getting a green card. I even surprise myself with thoughts of
becoming an American one day (thoughts that are tinged with guilt and intimations
of betrayal). When MacNeil spoke about being torn between being Canadian and
living in the U.S., the conflict that inhabited his body of seventy years is
probably going to be one that sits in my for the rest of my life. There's all
that me that grew up in the north -- and though most of the time these days,
Canada seems remote while I pass my days in northern California, I only have
to let my guard a moment or two, stare out the window at the wrong time to be
transported back to a long lost moment of purity and tranquility that I associate
with childhood or Canada or fantasy. I have no desire to make my residence in
the city I was born -- Timmins -- but there's something there for which I still
long. I can't name it; I don't know what it is. Canada has something to do with
it though, I'm sure.

(FYI and FMI, I've blogged in the past about being Canadian: when troubles
come, the differences
surface; remembering Canada Day through the Maple
Leaf flag; Glenn Gould as an eccentric
Canuck)

I'm trying to develop the habit of posting something (anything) each day. MT allows the timestamp to be entered by the user. Would it be cheating for me to go to sleep right now, wake up, and then backpost an item? Technology -- a new temptation to feed on my weakness!

A blog entry a day keeps the guilt demons away: For fans of self-help books and unexpected self-referentiality, take a look at How to Read How-To and Self-Help Books: Getting Real Results from the Advice You Get

I just got hold of the BAM/PFA calendar for July and August. Coming attractions include CZECH HORROR AND FANTASY ON FILM. It is series like these that used to make me think that "I'm a high-brow person but this is even more high brow than I can ever aspire to!" (I guess times have changed, being a hopeless addict to the wonderful archives that are only hundreds of feet from my office.)

Yesterday, Krista, Don (friends of mine) and I went out on an excursion of the new
BART line that goes out to SFO. It was fun to get out, especially to do so with
friends. I wasn't sure how many would show up for a new BART line -- does one
have to be a BART geek to trek out there? I was pleased to see families do the
BART tour -- I hope that this bodes well for a new generation of BART riders.
(Get them while they are young!)

The central disappointment was the lack of interesting developments around
the new station -- at least the parking lot around the Milbrae station did not
strike me as an attractive destination -- unlike what I understand the Fruitvale
Transit Village to be. Maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense to make the
end of the line a destination spot; it'd have to incredibly hot to get folks
to travel about an hour to reach the station.

At any rate, access to SFO is the main attraction; looking forward to using
it soon (providing the hours are right.) I just downloaded the new Palm-based
BART schedule. I realized yesterday that I didn't have a schedule for the
new station.

See the SF Chronicle coverage of the tour date of BART for something more journalistic. Darn, I missed being on the train with Nancy P.....