Jenny and Megan both made spiffy posts along this vein for some of their characters, so I thought I'd pull a copycat stunt and try the same. Remind me never to go into casting; This. Is. Tough. o.O

Please note that I've just pulled random pictures of random actors/actresses (most of whom you will find rather 'typical,' if you know me) and touched them up a wee bit. This is purely for my own recreational purposes and not intended for profit in any way.

(By way of editing a Threatening Caveat interspersed with Redundancy into this post: these folk-peeps iz MINE.  Allamine. Oui-oui. So no stealing, borrowing, raiding, or going through their pockets for loose change. May all your muffins be turned to leather should you fail to heed this warning. Just ask Armitage.)


Miss Brewster. Transcriber and typist for the Steeple Investigative Office. Blunt, plain, and quiet, though not without her own streak of imaginative spirit.

 "After all, places were for pottery and paintings."

She is the childhood friend of her current employer, and strongly dislikes being known as his secretary. She writes stories in her spare time - and uses the government's typewriter for it, much to her secret shame...



 Darjeeling Falcon. That's Inspector Falcon, thank you! Head of investigative operations at Steeple, he flaunts his own tattered style of brilliance - and the dramatic handle the wide-eyed masses gave him: The Falcon.

"...you just trust the old Falcon to know what he's about."

He likes to assume an air of one vastly older and wiser than his typist, which vexes her exceedingly (that is probably why he does it).



Lady Jane. The somewhat elusive leading lady of Steeple, nobody really knows who she is or where she came from. Rumor has it that she has connections to an Earl  - some even say she is the King's sister herself!

"I am, of course, prepared to be perfectly agreeable; I only fear I am better prepared to be even more perfectly independent."

Her disappearance at the outset of the story gives Falcon some "real work" - and also ensures the further involvement of Falcon's unwanted boss...



William Taylor. Chief Commissioner of HQ in Harrowgate, he is Falcon's nemesis and Lady Jane's disappointed lover.

"I have on more than one occasion received the disgusting impression that my work is Falcon's joke." 

It is his heightened concern for Lady Jane's safety that sparks a massive investigation into her disappearance, and if it shakes the comfortable spires of Falcon's domain - well, then, so be it.



Edgar Ceylon. After The Falcon's rise to infamy, the inspired press dubbed this inspector The Hound. Where Falcon is given to circumspection, Ceylon is more detail-oriented.

"My nose is equal to any conundrum, given time and enough pipe-tobacco."

He possesses more polish and dignity than Falcon. Some describe him accurately as a homebody - but his waistcoat has been known to house more than one handgun...


The Outlaw. He haunts the forests of the nation with his band of followers. Little is known about the purpose of this group; they are certainly Idle and Slovenly, and probably notorious criminals besides.

"Some people call me an outlaw. Well! I'll take that over an in-law any day."

He favors mystery, yet indulges in dramatic performance as well. Perhaps he is a herald of the Old Ways of crime - the dashing, chivalrous days... perhaps he truly does deserve his title: The Stallion.

These are the fabulous tales of the Wide, Wide World...

Christian music scares me.

No, really. I'm not talking about being scared by the badness or mediocrity of some of the stuff. I'm talking about good songs - or at least decent ones - that are full of sincere ideas, right ideas, good ideas, sound theology...

Here's why it scares me.

I finished up my clinical journal assignment for the weekend at the breakfast table. Sanctus Real accompanied me through it, because they have the perfect sort of tempo/sound which pushes along without distracting. I ran upstairs to restart my computer so the printer would work after I type it up, and that was when I noticed that it was my laundry basket was full-to-the-brimming, it was eleven o'clock, and I meant to wash clothes today. So I trotted downstairs, basket and all, and set to sorting the stuff out in the laundry room. Sanctus Real played on, and I found myself mentally singing along... really just anticipating the lyrics and saying them in my mind almost before the singer voiced them.

And then, all of a sudden, the singing-along stopped being an automatic response, and I realized what I was singing:




At that moment, I had a tingly, impending-sensation which pushed me back to last fall. At the Jars of Clay concert, Dan Haseltine warned the crowd before he sang 'Worlds Apart' to consider the song's plea as their own, and to take the implications of that seriously. "You'd better be ready to hear this song," he said, "Because I believe when we sing 'take my world apart' to God, he doesn't take that lightly."
It was in that moment that I realized how much Christian music scares me. The things I ask for when I aimlessly 'sing along' - even if it's something as stupid as a biddly-bop 'God is wonderful and I'm gonna be all about him' song that I don't even really like... by participating in those lyrics to some extent, I make them my own. I absorb them into my mind and heart before I spit them out again, mentally or outright singing, and they become a request... a cry from my heart... spread out before the face of God. And I believe Dan Haseltine is right; he doesn't take those requests lightly. When we ask God to break us down and make us completely his, he wants to do that. So when I ask God to burn away my pride, to expose my weakness, to make me nothing so everyone will know more completely that he is everything - that's something he will do, and delight to do!

But - oh, that terrifies me, because do you know what it means? Ow... that's what it means. Things like humility and brokenness don't come without pain and Yeah. I thought I was just singing along to Sanctus Real. But somehow, that singing sums up... my heart? Things I need - I want - things that are terrifying because they are so good - come from my mouth in requests that I never intended. It's awesome. It's beautiful. It scares me, because I might actually get them.

I'm not going to stop singing along.

I shall not protest the existence of the holiday by putting SINGLE'S AWARENESS DAY in all caps and refusing to acknowledge a love-and-relationships-themed holiday. (To my mind, all that calling the day SAD does is broadcast a belief that being a single is sad and full of fail, and more people should pity us. I disagree.)

I got angry on Monday. I can pride myself on not getting angry very much. I'm more prone to fearfulness, apathy, sulking... pride... but not arm-flailing rage. But for about thirty minutes - I was mad. Granted, they were thirty very frustrating minutes - and for a Monday morning with many things going on, it was "understandable." But if such moments were tests of moral fibre or the caliber of my patience (and I think they are, in a sense), I failed. In the negatives. No grade recovery from that.

What's more humbling than the fact that I failed is the fact that I needed those thirty minutes. I needed to be knocked down and find myself with skinned knees and a bruised chin, so desperately needy and out of control, and realize that even there I don't have much sense to me. I needed to be wildly shaken out of my state of everything-is-fine because when I cruise on through, I forget that I need Jesus. I forget the person I've been saved from being.

Perhaps even more humbling still is the realization that Jesus saw that moment coming. He knew I would spend half an hour on Monday, February 7th, 2011 throwing frustration and rage his way instead of trust and submission. He knew I would spend many such half hours before and after Monday, February 7th, 2011 doing that and worse. He knew that he would die for me, and change my heart, and go to the cross for me, and shed his love abroad in my heart - and then I would turn around and say right back, 'I wish you were still on that cross.' Again and again and again. And... he loved me. I didn't throw him for a loop with my behavior; he didn't have to rethink things and decide if he was going to let that one slide. The love that I have was given from all eternity in spite of and because of it. When I sin, I surprise only myself - and that surprise admits to yet another sin which was never hidden from the face of God: pride.

For half an hour on Monday, February 7th, 2011, I was angry. Those thirty minutes stand as a reminder to me: that's not who I am. That's why I need Jesus. He loved me while I still hated him. Sometimes I fumble - and sometimes I seem to fall headlong - into sin, but that's not who I am. My goodness is Christ; no goodness have I beyond you... The rest is playacting, pretending a dead ugliness is the living me.

I'm back up - not to my feet, but to my knees. I wish I hadn't had those thirty minutes; I wish I hadn't fallen. But... discipline, though painful for a little while, brings sweet fruit of repentance and godliness. Even my ugly sin is turned to a beautiful purpose; it pushes me fall on my skinned knees (ow!) and forces my stubborn, bruised chin to turn my silly face toward Christ. And if God is a God who makes ugly things beautiful, I guess that means there's hope for me too, huh?

Yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us...

I don't really feel like writing a proper blogpost right now. Usually I have some spark of an Idea, a stirring image or compelling climax or... usually it isn't Really All That, but it starts that way in my mind. Tonight, I have nothing. All my edges and in-betweens seem to be worn down and fraying. My physical joints are aching and screwed up; even sitting still hurts them. And that's the state of my soul: falling apart at all the places where I really need to hold together. I don't know what's wrong with me, except... me.

I really need my Jesus right now.

Anna does almost no school, but that's okay because she has another snow day tomorrow to make up for it, right?

Anna writes two letters. Anna feels very proud of this particular accomplishment and would like to Highlight it Especially.

Anna straightens up her room. Surely a valid and worthwhile pursuit. Noteworthy also.

Anna watches an episode of Foyle. Not so highlightable, but more enjoyable than straightening the room and executed concurrently with one of those letters, and increased in Worthwhileness by the latter fact.

Anna gets some money back for a doctor visit last October. Not exactly enough to pay the tuition bills, but one of God's little mercies that reminds Anna that it's not about what she anticipates.

Anna drinks a lot of coffee. Anna is now a little tired of coffee, and will probably consume large quantities of tea tomorrow, since somehow we managed to get snowed in without any cream and tea is better with milk than coffee anyway.

Anna talks to both parents. She needed to talk to one of them again, but forgot in between all the naps and meals and... full schedule.

Anna is very silly. Can we just say that?

Anna also got some good advice on her first few pages of the Currently Writing, which basically means everything that I've written and so proudly advertised in the right hand column needs to be rewritten. I've made a note of the fact and am temporarily ignoring it in favor of not spending six months rewriting the same five pages, which is what I've spent the last six months doing so it's a bit late to prevent it but... another six months shall not go down the drain, at least not on the same five pages. Let's be bold and adventurous, people.

Anna does not go anywhere. The first few twinges of cabin fever are setting in, but hopefully she will at least toddle out to the mailbox tomorrow (overachievement, right?) and maybe around the proverbial block (there aren't actually blocks in this neighborhood, but that's what that word 'proverbial' is there for) and that will be enough for her in the high of fourteen degrees, or whatever great heights the temperatures are supposed to attain tomorrow.

Anna is vaguely funny with a touch of cynicism. See last paragraph.

Anna would write more, but it is now a snow night. Anna goes to bed. G'night.