Just another writer
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: St Thomas of Villanova
St Thomas of Villanova is one of those saints that people would have to look up to know anything about. To me, the name Villanova will always be connected to the pizzeria of my childhood, owned by the uncle of the kid who lived on the corner, said uncle, I was later to learn, was…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: St Matthew (a day late)
(I forgot to do this yesterday.) I arrived at the grounds of St Matthew church in Schaumburg right at the start time of the Mass and saw a large group of people gathered around a cross outside along with a pair of priests, an altar boy or two and a bunch of men in Knights…
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A visit with my younger self: 12 November 1988
This entry marks a breaking point in my mental and emotional health as a young man. This was the point where I decided that I could not continue at Harvey Mudd College and I would try transferring to one of the other Claremont Colleges as an English major (I had hoped to end up at…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Robert Bellarmine
As an undergrad, I was fascinated by the English recusants so I ended up reading nearly everything by and about them and became deeply immersed in a lot of the politics and arguments around the counter-reformation vs the English reformation and the Catholic missionary movement to England at the time so as a consequence, Robert…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Cyprian
I often wonder what led to the choices for some of the more obscurely named parishes. From reading parish histories on their websites, I’ve found that occasionally, a parish might be nominally named for a saint but in reality the name was chosen because it was the name of the mother or some other relative…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Holy Cross Monastery
Holy Cross Monastery isn’t on the list of archdiocesan churches, which kind of makes me wonder if there are other monasteries “missing” from the list. There are two Franciscan convents that I’m aware of that are on the list, but I guess that’s because they offer something approaching a traditional parish, although Holy Cross is…
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A visit with my younger self: 23 October 1988
Another stunning display of youthful insipidness masquerading as depth this week. When I interpret someone’s actions, I tend to interpret them in the manner most favorable to me. Does this apply to literature? Perhaps a story is here to be found (BusSongs?). I do wonder if there was something in my life that triggered this…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Holy Name Cathedral
Today is the feast of the Holy Name of Mary. In addition to the cathedral, there is also a parish with that name but they don’t do Friday Mass. It’s also the feast of Saint Ailbe but the parish of that name also doesn’t do Friday Mass. So the cathedral it is. I sang in…
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New poem: Parrotland
My poem Parrotland was just published at Dodging the Rain. Inspired by this Dinosaur Comics, I found myself wondering what America would be like if it were Parrotland and came up with the poem that I wrote.