My fascination started early on in elementary school (as recounted here), and it has managed not only to hang on but intensify over the many years since then. I so very nearly went that route for undergrad; I was even accepted to my dream school. But the combination of a better financial aid offer elsewhere, a fear of losing all social skills if I retreated into obsessive academia, and a frightening dream in which, believe it or not, the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses warned me that the Egyptian deities were evil, kept me from following that path right out of high school.

My interests have barely strayed, however, even through French and medieval distractions and eventual acquiescence to "practical" thinking. As a testament, even in my current number crunching corporate snooze job that I have conformed to for the last four years, I have had a picture of E.A. Wallis Budge hanging in my cubicle like the icon of a patron saint. If that weren't enough, I had a card reading this weekend that solidified it for me. The signs were all favorable and eerily apt: a theme of transitions and transformations, a time of inner strength and conviction, a personal position of goal-oriented, linear development, the power of my instincts and passions, a drifting away from the status quo, and the draw to and greater calling of words and higher learning.

I have tentative but high hopes, and I am leaning on AW as a support to remind me why this is the right decision. Because my greatest endeavor will be to preserve and promote access to the invaluable ancient texts that have seduced and haunted me for the last two decades, and potentially for the last several lifetimes.

I must be crazy.

The board came with some reconstructed rules for the classic two player game, but I would be curious to know what the rules were for the more religiously significant solitaire version often shown in tombs. Or perhaps that was still a two-player game, with the opponent being fate, the gods, or your own demons? If you have any thoughts on this, or any helpful links to ideas on the funerary significance of the Senet game, please send me a message! I did find an article by Peter Piccione that I intend to read that maybe will shed some light on the matter.

I am still indulgently re-reading the Lord Meren mystery series, as I mentioned earlier. As a testament to my slow reading pace, I am now beginning book five, although I had already started book one some five months ago! My reading progress slowed significantly now that I can no longer tolerate reading on the bus, so I have to divert the time of my daily commute to work with such other activities as knitting, which are less prone to inducing motion sickness.

I am now on Drinker of Blood, the second book of the trilogy devoted to the mystery of Nefertiti's disappearance from history (in Robinson's imagining, through untimely death, although I prefer the theory that she succeeded Akhenaten in the guise of pharaoh Smenkhare). I daresay I will be reluctant to leave the sumptuous world of Thebes and Memphis when I finally finish all six books of the series. I would almost be inclined to continue reading them over and over forever, but there are so many other books to draw me away, and I suppose I will be equally diverted and entertained by them once I give them a chance. I have stubbornly decided (and accordingly informed my mate) that our bedroom ceiling will henceforth be tented in light orange silk, and our walls decorated with elaborate ostrich and peacock feather fans. Scoff if you will, adult world of the frozen Midwest, but if I can build a paradise of the orient in my boudoir, nothing you say can stop me! (I will post pictures if the endeavor is successful.)

I did finish reading A Reliable Wife over the holiday, a dark psychological hot-dish of Edwardian Wisconsin. Racy and disturbing. Next on the list is American Eve. I plan to enjoy the latter while reclining in my newly acquired, 1940s-Hollywood gauzy full-length peignoir. The one redemption to a frigid, ice-clad winter is a neighborhood of fine, affordable vintage clothing stores; wouldn't you agree?

According to a book on daily life in the Ramessid period I recently finished, although the Egyptians were skilled at making sandals from palm fiber, papyrus, leather, and even gold, most Egyptians, if they had sandals, would carry them while they walked barefoot, and put the sandals on only once they reached their destination. One indicator for this is a text referring to thieves on the roadways stealing travelers' sandals "out of their hands" rather than off their feet.

This custom seems to imply that sandals, to a certain extent, were luxury items, in that they were worn to impress a sense of formality, and not necessarily for the practical purpose for which we now know them.

Not a day has passed since I read this that I haven't spent at least a few minutes contemplating this fact. To compound the fixation, I have now spent the last several days spending additional time contemplating why I keep thinking about this. It is a fairly banal thing to know, but for whatever reason it has touched me deeply. Maybe it's because I have found a point in common with my own life -- I am one to carry my heels on my way to/from work, after all. Maybe because it would seem to have no political significance, but, knowing it, I hold the secret of an unspoken cultural tendency that would allow me to blend in were I to be miraculously whisked back in time.

If only...

On a related note, I got permission from the authors of How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs to post excerpts on Ancient Expressions, and heard back from the UC press, but have not had much luck contacting the folks at the British Museum press, who apparently hold the electronic rights. I really should have just barged into their offices when I was in London last week, but I was too sheepish. :) I haven't given up entirely, though, so maybe soon you'll see some exercises show up on the AE boards.

Behind Closed Eyes by Kasia Szpakowska (non-fiction)
I'm really loving this book so far, and I've emailed Ms. Szpakowska to request full transliterated copies of the source materials. We'll see what I hear back...

Dreams of Isis by Normandi Ellis (other)
I've actually attempted to read this book many times, and have been going about it very slowly. It's a spiritual journey book that relates Egyptian theology to the personal experience in thought-provoking ways.