The Sunday Salon: So Much Stuff I Can't Express

Whitney Houston

I wasn't ever really a...fan of Whitney Houston though I did love many of her popular songs. But like the rest of the world, I felt the weight and sadness of her premature death, a death most likely the result of some of the most vicious and unrelenting personal demons a person can face.

My own personal Whitney Houston memory I suppose is learning "The Greatest Love of All" in elementary school choir. The funny thing about it is that it has this message about truly loving yourself as the greatest love of all, which the little evangelically minded girl in me took issue with. The greatest love of course is God's love for us and our love for him and each other. It could never be that we should love ourselves. Sometimes I look back on those years, as a child, as a teen where I thought loving yourself or talking about self-esteem were ridiculous humanist, selfish ideas and I never realized that my own self esteem was non-existent. The concept of loving myself was never valid to me. It took a series of destructive relationships and some counseling in my early twenties to even begin to embrace the idea. I will never forget the breakthrough I had when I was sitting in counseling one day and my counselor told me it was okay to love myself. I left and literally wept on the drive home because it was like seeing the world in a whole new way. And you know strangely this song came back to me, this song I'd sung against my better conscience as a child, as an adult I was able to see it in a new way. (btw I know this song was originally recorded by George Benson but I only knew of it because of Whitney) I don't have much else to say about Whitney Houston besides that, but I'm sure a lot of other people have much better tributes. For me, I have only this full circle story of originally rejecting the ideas her music brought into my life and later embracing their truth.

Here's a vid of it for your enjoyment.

Twitter

I considered writing a whole post about this but instead I think I will just vent a little bit today. I recognize that everyone uses Twitter differently, but a huge pet peeve of mine is when Twitter users think it's appropriate to talk about how many people they follow, unfollowing a lot of people, and other things related to making people feel like they aren't quite good enough. To be clear, I'm not saying anything about the number of people you follow--that's entirely up to you, and regulating that makes a lot of sense due to DM privileges. I just think it's really tacky to tweet about how you are going to stop following mass numbers of people or how you only follow a few. It reeks of self-importance and it's just..not polite? I've seen all kinds of people do this by the way, from the CEO of a major publishing company to just your average blogger. I think it's just better Twitter etiquette to unfollow those people by mass QUIETLY and not say anything. Otherwise you are just calling attention to the fact that you no longer deem your followers as important enough to keep up with. It's all about perception!

TV this week

Strangely I don't have much to say. I liked The River but it's going to mainly just be a fun show I think? I really liked Alcatraz as well, but that's because I'm not expecting big answers anytime soon. Also it was kind of interesting to see a victim of the...whatever happened to them, lol. I haven't watched Switched at Birth yet and I really liked Revenge when I watched but I can't remember exactly why except that I felt more for the characters than normal? And I really liked seeing a soft side to Emily as well, the chink in her armor.

Film Club yes/no?

So this idea has been lingering forever about choosing movies to watch and discuss together but I keep not doing it despite positive feedback! But then I was looking up some director and realized his film was on Amazon Prime streaming and I thought, surely I need to watch this meaty discussion worthy thing knowing others are watching it too so we can discuss! So here's a form for you to fill out if you are interested..I figured we could do one a month and choose movies that are somehow available easily for the most part. And then I'll host a discussion post but you can also post on your blogs and it will be fun and we will learn a lot and become smarter. Or not. I mean I recognize that there are probably some other blogs doing this and I certainly know there are some Twitter nights but I'm not sure any of them fit the exact sort of thing I'm looking for. Also, I'd love a co-host. So if anyone wants to co-host please let me know in the notes on the form!



New Host Needed!

Speaking of things I host, you may have noticed that Faith and Fiction Saturday has disappeared. I no longer really have an interest in hosting this as a weekly meme. The only thing I'm still interested in is the round table discussion. Part of the problem is that Christian fiction as a whole is losing some of its allure to me, I feel like I've discussed the issues to death and nothing really changes. I mean this press release from Thomas Nelson (HT: Hannah) based on what the most passionate fans of Christian fiction want reflect NOTHING that I want so I think it's time to just let it go? I will keep reading the authors that I already know are wonderful and just leave it at that. Anyway all that to say, if you are interested in taking over Faith and Fiction Saturday, please email me! mypalamyATgmail.com Or if you just want more info on what it was, etc. I will still host the round table, though! Just so that's clear.

I guess that's it for this week, I'd love to hear your thoughts on any and all of the above. Are you watching the Grammys? Did you watch The River? Do you still curse Twitter and everything it stands for? Do you have special Valentine's Day plans?