So tired. This is almost entirely my fault. I started the Left Behind series a week or so ago. I was right at the end of book 6 last night, and stayed up too till 1:00 AM finishing it. This is bad when you have a baby who is generally awake by 7:30.

I've always had a fascination with Revelations, which presumably is related to my fascination with disaster/apocalypse literature in general. Perhaps it's even the source of this fascination. Either way, I spent a lot of time in church as a kid reading Revelations, and not because I went to a particularly end-times centered church. I just found it more interesting than any of the other available distractions.

In any case, when the books first came out, I decided that I was going to wait until they were all released before giving it a shot. Now they've all been released (Not counting the spin-offs, which will presumably continue to be released until the Rapture really does occur and all of Tyndale Press is taken away to heaven), so I did.

They're not great literature, but absorbing and fun. Quick reads - I've gotten through 6.5 of them in a week or so, and I don't have all that much time to spend reading. It usually takes me ages to finish a book these days.

They do provide a view of Christianity that, for all that I grew up immersed in various forms of Christianity, I was never really exposed to. I find the idea that a non-Christian would convert to Christianity through reading these books kind of implausible - the books focus on God providing proof that he exists through events that have not happened in real life. I can, however, understand someone from a more mainstream denomination becoming evangelical after reading them.

One of the news magazines currently has an article about the books. I thought it was Newsweek, but can't see anything about it on the website. Anyone know which one it is?

I have a box of old notebooks full of freewriting from high school/college, combined with random schoolwork that I'm throwing away.

I used to have three file boxes full of this stuff. I got rid of all but one box when we moved last year, primarily by weeding out the majority of the non-literary schoolwork.

I decided today that I'm never actually going to use any of this stuff for anything except reminiscing. I'm not sure it's worth shipping it back and forth across the country an indeterminate number of times just for that.

A lot of it I can't read. It's too painful. Interpret "painful" whatever way you want, and you'll be right.

The random snippets of fiction are interesting, though. In many ways, I feel like I was a better writer back then than I am now. I found one bit that I don't remember writing at all - a feud between a six year old boy and his female cousin who suddenly decide they can't play together due to cooties. The boy is named Allen.

The next page is a letter to an internet friend, also named Allen. Obviously not a coincidence, but I don't remember having any particular feelings for this person beyond friendship. Was it just a convenient boy's name, or am I not remembering something?

I'm afraid I'll regret throwing them away. Who says that in 15 years I won't want to remember exactly how it felt to be in high school? I already see the past with glasses that are, if not rose, at least slightly pink.

On the other hand, I really don't want anyone else ever reading my angstbunny writing. I sound completely bugnuts in most of it.

Perhaps I'll go through and sort out some of the less embarrasing stuff. I am keeping the notebooks I wrote in when I was actively journaling (as opposed to freewriting to pass time in class) during middle school - they're small and generally more sane. The Aristocat stuff too, though I can't find it with a quick glance through the box, which worries me a little, since it isn't exactly a big box.

Leif has figured out how to open the screen door on his own. He just ("just" meaning two hours ago, when I actually wrote this post...) crawled outside and is now sitting on the porch. He's fenced in by the pouring rain, at least (not that he's unsupervised, but it makes it easier when he doesn't actually want to leave the porch).

He just fell over backwards into a puddle of water on the grass. He was a little shocked to suddenly be soaking, but wouldn't let me bring him back inside.