(I was going to title this ‘Late night observations’…but I guess 9:30 isn’t really late for most folks.)
I’m a morning person. This is to say that most mornings I’m up a bit before six and I’m most awake and active in the morning and early afternoon hours. Once the sun has set, I’m usually about ready to shut down for the day. An implication of this is that I do almost all of my errands before about two or three in the afternoon. I can count on one hand – indeed I bet I can count on about three fingers – how many times I’ve gone into a grocery store after about 8 pm. Tonight, however, I was working at a coffee shop until around 9 and then ran to the store down the street to grab a few things I’d run out of.
That’s a lot of setup to say that grocery stores in the morning are entirely different things than grocery stores at night. There’s a completely different vibe, a completely different set of people. It’s strange. Eery, even. (You night people…you’re a strange, strange lot.)
(I said these were observations. I didn’t say they were interesting or informative observations!)
Second: I’ve come up with an interpretation of a difficult passage that I absolutely love. It’s straightforward, informative, has a lot of explanatory power, has cross-dialogue support, and so forth. Problem is, about three out of every four times I really sit down and think about it, I come to the conclusion that it can’t be right. Or at least can’t be mostly (or partly, if I’m feeling particularly optimistic) right.1 And this is frustrating. Because I love the explanation and I think think that it should be right. Indeed, a very respected and excellent scholar has proposed an interpretation very much like the one that I’m so attached to…so it isn’t even a crazy interpretation2. It just isn’t, I fear (dread, mourn) the right one. So I’m a bit stuck — in a Buridan’s Ass sort of way — between wanting to find a way to get this interpretation to work, doing some gymnastics with the text and being mighty creative on the one hand and wanting to cut my losses and start looking for a more plausible interpretation on the other.
---- Because while it offers an explanation of about half of the passage (and one that is absolutely kick ass and fantastic and! and! and!), it doesn’t really offer any explanation at all of the other half of the passage. And clearly an interpretation that ignores half of the passage it’s purporting to interpret has issues. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.↩
- do you like how I just made the inference from ‘a well respected and excellent scholar thinks something similar’ to ‘therefore it isn’t crazy’? Yeah, I like it too.↩
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Shelli, I’ve gotta say, we “night owls” think you morning folks are very, very strange. I’m just sayin’! *wink* Seriously though, the best time to hit the grocery store around here is between 10 am and 12 noon. After that, teenage kids abound, mom’s with annoying young children intent on screaming and pushing the carts for their moms…. Yes, I AM completely aware that at one point _I_ was the mom with an annoying, screaming young child intent on pushing the cart around by herself. Doesn’t mean I find other peoples children any less annoying. *wink*) Yeah, night-folks are different from morning folks, but at least we know what you’re ACTUALLY supposed to be doing at 6 am……. SLEEPING! *wink* Night time is when the fun happens……. *BWG*