It's A Wrap

After 151 posts and over 100,000 words, Delia's humble blogger is taking off until spring. Or when I get a tiny portion of my dignity back. Whichever comes first, if at all. I will explain later.

For now, let me share with you what I got from Santa: a Delia RoadMate 300

Now I can never get lost again with my Delia 300 guiding me, giving me directions, or just basically winking at me from my windshield. This special edition GPS model says a Hail Mary and reminds me to make the sign of the cross everytime I drive by a Catholic Church, and says the Act of Contrition whenever I make a wrong turn. It also reminds me of mass schedules, Holy Days of Obligations, and during those long, interstate trips, recites the Rosary, although a bug in the system causes it to say only the Sorrowful Mysteries. (Kinda like my mother!)

Actually, it's a Magellan RoadMate, but I really did name it Delia. Although it's got a much more soothing voice than its namesake, the unit is awesome, especially when it finally located me. For the longest time, the GPS thought I was in California whenever I asked it for my location... another sign that maybe, just maybe, I really did get a Delia 300 GPS....

Now, for the WRAP - I have alluded before to keeping a Delia blog as a Sisyphusian task. Σίσυφος's job for all eternity was to push a big rock up a mountain until it reaches the top, afterwhich the damn rock rolls back down again. Sounds totally cruel, eh? But Albert Camus, in his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus", concluded that maybe, Sisyphus wasn't a miserable little bugger after all:

"All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that silent pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

So yes, blogging Delia Gallagher, Sisyphusian as it has been, has also been its own reward - it has been fun and sad and sometimes painful and maddening... but unlike Sisyphus, I DO have a choice, I have not been comdemned to a seemingly fruitless task. I have another world, a real one, that I need to tend to.

Fantasy. Definitely Fantasy.

Now for my objective take minus the rose-colored glasses: Delia Gallagher as a reporter is still bordering on mediocrity (but nonetheless getting high marks on the hotness factor, except for those J-Lo hoop earrings which I and a few others find utterly unappealing) - maybe it is a function of her packages, maybe because CNN hasn't really trusted her with the job, I don't really know. But case in point: just look at all the religious packages that CNN put out the last week - except for a brief appearance on Anderson Cooper's JP2 retrospective - Delia has been absent... CNN's FAV Correspondent was nowhere to be found!

Delia hasn't really done DEEP. I don't know whose bright idea it was for her to hammer on the ID thing, simply because it is one of those divisive, controversial issues, but really, are you freakin' kidding me? In her Christmas nativity scene package, Delia almost channeled Jeanne Moos as she described, tongue-in-cheek, TWC's holiday lobby display. The Narnia report was just plain pandering - to whom wasn't really clear, though - with no intellectual discussion at all of the literature behind the movie. Right now, right-wing religious nutjobs from the Bible Belt and Catholic Apologetics from the Midwest are all hailing Delia as their new spokesperson. Or maybe not, I don't know. But moderating a roundtable discussion on how religious groups can bilke the Federal government of Katrina money? That's why they are called charities in the first place - they do NOT get paid! Why not just kiss Jim Towey's ring now and call him Uncle?

CNN & JON KLEIN & NS BIENSTOCK- please trust Delia with things she knows best - like Vaticanology and Theology and Dead Sea Scroll-ogy - and you can have a Bettany Hughes in the making. If you haven't seen any of Bettany's work, you're missing out BIGTIME. Not only is she smart (and another Oxonian) and very erudite, she is also heartbreakingly HOT!

I wish Delia the best, as I always have. If you are new to the Delia Gallagher world, please know that Delia is a beautiful person inside out. She is nice and humble and gracious - and definitely deserves the admiration that her Society has showered on her.

Thanks to all the folks who have faithfully visited this site - the one from Australia especially - Hiya, Mate! Send me a line, will ya? When I find the time, I still intend to post new screencaps and transcripts of Delia's future appearances / packages.

It's a wrap. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Delia, you had me at "Conclave"