Planet RMFO Blog

Last Wednesday I went to see John Mayer. I’ve seen JM a few times over the past 8 years. I was not really impressed with the latest album, but the main reason I still care about him is that he can still play the guitar live and make me forget that he has stupid songs like “Say”. Maybe he’s gone over the top with this heart throb image he’s trying to project now, and maybe his stage looks like a curtain draped bed, but he can still impress me with the guitar playing.

After having seen Jay-Z at the same arena a couple of weeks before, I noticed and mentioned to friends at the JM show “if Jay-Z was the show where black people get dressed up, John Mayer is the show where white people get dressed up”. It was striking how true that statement was. More tight clothes, more of it all. On the way to get a bloody mary, I stopped off in the restroom. I’m standing at the urinal when I hear a liquid hit the floor behind me, and the cleaning guy on the other side of the room say “what are you doing man? get IN the bathroom!” I completed my task, and turned around to see some dude had thrown up in the doorway of the restroom. He made it all the way from his seat to the doorway and couldn’t make it the extra 10 feet. Pathetic. I went and got my bloody mary thinking “this may be my last John Mayer show, this crowd has changed over the years to something I’m not a part of anymore.”

I took my seat on the front of the upper deck. Michael Franti was still playing, so we watched him. All his songs sounded the same, and I guess I’ve had less patience for opening acts lately. He came out into the crowd to perform a couple of times, including one time where he started playing in the aisle right below us on the lower level, but sadly I lost that picture in the transfer from camera to computer.

John Mayer finally hit the stage and led off with Heartbreak Warfare. It is one of the few songs I like off the new album, partly because of the cool video he did to go along with it. No Such Thing came 2nd, which I thought was weird. They rolled through some good songs, including I Don’t Trust Myself With Loving You. One of the things I liked so much about Continuum, was the guitar solos. They are amazing to hear live. They’re the reason I go to the live shows. This solo did not disappoint. Before the next song stared, there was an electric guitar malfunction, so he called an audible and did two songs acoustic, by himself. The first was Comfortable, which was the favorite song of my friend TH way back when he was telling me about this new guy John Mayer in 2001 or 2002. I had never heard it live, so it was cool to finally hear it. After Neon (another golden oldie), the technical problem was fixed so the band came back out.

Even the songs that I think were stupid before sounded and looked good live, including Who Says. He finished up with his cover version of Crossroads, so he ended up playing the 3 songs on the new album that I think are the only good ones. It was one of the better shows I’ve seen him play. I would go see him again, despite the immature crowds and the stupid marketing. I get it, I get the big production and the fancy band, but at the heart of it is still that guy who I admire playing smooth guitar solos, and that’s enough for me.

• Someone brought in Donut World donuts to work. The love from Donut World runs deep and I am happy with a donut in my tummy. #
• I think there was a goat in Target #
• Coffee with Seth. Well, tea for me and a smoothie for him but in a coffee shop, catching up. #

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Yesterday, I told my counselor I feel empty. Depleted. I have poured forth so much grief and sadness over the past several weeks, that I just feel drained.

And she told me that was okay. That it was okay to pour it all out. That now I’m in a place where I can refill.

Grieving, for me, is a dark, barren, sad place. I’ve used this analogy before, but I often equate grieving to wrapping myself in a heavy, scratchy blanket. And at some point, that damned blanket is just too much.

But I’ve never been one to just throw the blanket off. I peel back one corner and poke out my hand–praying that someone will be there to grab it. Push back a little more, and the whole arm is out.

And eventually, I push my face out into the light. And I blink in the sunlight. My eyes ache. Everything looks fuzzy. My head hurts.

But the sun. It feels so good on my face.

So, in the words of The Urban Sophisticates let’s “take it back like Cosby sweaters” and start with the very first Cornerstone Festival in 1984. A Chicago-based organization called Jesus People USA put on a music festival at the Lake County Fairgrounds in suburban Chicago. Resurrection Band (called REZ in the 80’s) was one of the musical outgrowths of the organization and JPUSA sought to bring together like-minded artists for a summer festival. Cornerstone was not the first Christian music festival, but it did take a little different approach than many festivals, selecting from a wider variety of artists including a growing nucleus of New Wave artists from southern California to complement some of JPUSA’s own musicians. Cornerstone’s coup in the very first year was getting Kansas guitarist Kerry Livgren, who had just left Kansas and was starting his own band. Livgren’s negotiations with his label and the festival were such that even up to the festival Cornerstone had him billed as a very special surprise artist.

One of the other artists booked for the first Cornerstone was a new musician named Steve Taylor:

Steve Taylor gained a reputation of a satirical wit where he showed no fear of attacking Christianity’s sacred cows, while drawing from such 80’s musical influences as David Bowie and The Talking Heads. Here’s a clip of his performance of his early signature song “I Want To Be A Clone” Later in this performance, Taylor decided to jump off the stage into the crowd but ended up breaking his ankle in the process. “The show must go on” and Taylor, in great pain yet unaware that he had broken his ankle, dragged himself back up on stage and finished the show hopping on one leg. The rest of his band, thinking he was starting some sort of new dance move, imitated him. Taylor finished the rest of his tour performing from an electric wheelchair which sometimes malfunctioned which Taylor recalled as “Dr. Strangelove”-like performances.

Taylor’s sharp wit would not fail. At Cornerstone Festival next year, he sold t-shirts that said “Did he fall? Or was he pushed?”

You can purchase an mp3 of “I Want To Be A Clone” from amazon.com

• Oliver is in the doghouse #
• I am now on words with friends. I only want to play people who don't judge my lame words. #

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• Oliver is in the doghouse #
• I am now on words with friends. I only want to play people who don't judge my lame words. #

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Sorry I haven’t updated in a while, folks. I’ve been busy living the high life.

Also, I’ve been wearing sweatpants since my spring break started last week. I’m in no mood to exert myself. I’m more likely to lean back on the couch, grab a spoon and crack open another half gallon of ice cream.

See you you jerks next week.

On Sunday I took advantage of the final day of Gap’s Denim Exchange. It had been months since I had bought any new clothes, so this exchange thing where I could get rid of old jeans was able to draw me out. I also hit up the sale rack while I was there and bought two new pair of pants and a dress shirt. One pair of pants was $6. The other pair was a style called Cadet, and they’re khakis. I looked at the label and they were described just like a pair of jeans I had tried on that I really liked, so I bought them. I put them on this morning to wear to work and found out they were button fly. BUTTON FLY! Who wears button flies anymore? Incidentally, when discussing this at work today, I told my cubicle neighbor Kenny about the $5 shirt I tried on that had two buttoned down breast pockets (that I noticed after I tried it on). That jackass designer probably was the one that thought putting a button fly on khakis was a good idea. Anyway, after a couple of minutes this morning I decided to cut off the tags and keep the pants. I like the feel and the fit and the color. I can deal with a button fly, even though I think it’s completely stupid.

Also this afternoon, I got Lady Gaga stuck in my head. I blame the article on CNN about some new video of her’s and how music videos are changing. I don’t really listen to the radio, so I’m behind the curve when it comes to pop music, much to the chagrin of my sister. I heard Poker Face in the gym a few weeks ago, and it was the first time I had heard a LG song knowing it was her. They have video screens now sometimes showing videos, but always telling you what song is playing. Anyway, I liked it, and then later I was able to ID her as the person who sings that song “blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah” or whatever. Today at work those two songs kept getting stuck in my head. I can’t help but like them. I hope that doesn’t lose me any music elitist cred. (I won’t tell you how I now have a couple of Katy Perry songs on my iPod)

(Title quote from Northern Exposure.)

A few years ago, Mike and I had a weekend in Asheville. We had planned on going to the Biltmore, but ended up just hanging out in the downtown area, shopping and visiting some art galleries. Now, when it comes to art, Mike and I will be the first to admit that we are not the most knowledgeable individuals. I wouldn’t say we’re Philistines, though. Except maybe when it comes to modern art. When we went to the MOMA last fall, there was an unfortunate giggling incident when it came to some artwork that featured a dead rabbit. (That’s not our photo. And I can’t find what that art is called. But you see the dead rabbit there, right? Big Bunny was most seriously displeased.) Sometimes modern art is just a little bit too much for us.

When we were in Asheville, one of the pieces of art that we found particularly memorable was a birdcage filled with paper airplanes. Now, I know it’s terrible to say, “I could make that myself,” but, y’all. I could totally fill a birdcage with paper airplanes. It might not have meaning or purpose, but I could do it. Ever since then, every time we have seen a birdcage for sale or at someone’s house, Mike has leaned over and said, “That would look better if it had some paper airplanes in it.” Let’s just say we had an unfortunate giggling incident that day as well. (This is why we cannot go to nice places or have nice things. We are terrible disrespectful people who don’t understand art.)

We have some new shelves in our kitchen, and I have been trying to find things to fill them. I went to Marshall’s and bought a little lantern that I thought would look nice. Mike also liked it, but he pointed out that it would be better (and more like art) if I took the glass out and filled it with paper airplanes.

So on Saturday, I did.

If you are interested in my lantern/airplane art, I would be happy to discuss pricing with you. Please keep in mind, though, that something this meaningful would be worth every penny.

• And now day light savings time kicks in to my body. #
• Fun full day with @katiejanelewis #
• Anyone else as excitied about filling out the census as I am? #

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I haven’t been reading a whole lot in March. For various reasons, I have had trouble finding something that would keep my attention. On Saturday, though, I read Vintage Veronica, a new YA book that I enjoyed very much. Veronica is an overweight teenager who struggles with her relationship with her yoga-instructor mom and her absent dad. She loves old clothes and even works in a vintage clothing store. Though she claims that she is used to being ignored, she gets caught up in several things that are happening at the store over the summer. One is a relationship with a boy she has never paid much attention to before. The other is that some of the girls who work downstairs have decided to start paying attention to her.

I thought Veronica’s inability to stand up to the “mean girls” she works with was incredibly realistic. Veronica was both sure of herself and afraid to get too close to anyone. She was skeptical of the girls’ motives and wanted to believe the best of them. She couldn’t stop herself from wanting to be included. I have been in that situation myself, and acted (much to my shame) just as Veronica did. When you are a teenager (and beyond), it can be hard to stand up for what is right when there are friendships on the line, when you could be part of what is going on.

This is a book that felt true to me. Veronica makes mistakes, and so do the people around her. I enjoyed the people who worked with her at the store and the ways that she began to learn what it means to carve out your own life and interests. I’m going to pass this on to the librarian at the high school that is next to the middle school where I work – I think it would be a great choice for high school collections.

Random House provided me with a copy of this book to review.

• A man asked me to pour an inch of coffee in a cup then let him smell it before filling it up. This isn't a wine bar, sir. #
• Lighting up in the middle of a turning lane. Oh that's a brillant idea. #
• And not in a car. Just standing in the turn lane!! #

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I recently read on an inspiring blog, Absolute Surrender, that the relationship between a woman and her family can be compared to that of a protractor. According to Melissa, “When you use a protractor, the center (or the mother) stays steady in one place while the pencil (her family) moves around her.” Just let that resonate for a minute.

Who I am and how I act determines by family’s place in things. If I am a wobbly, undependable center, my family is constantly having to readjust and compensate for my lack of stability. I have seen the reality of this analogy play out in so many ways in our family. And it is radically changing how I behave. God’s given me more patience, more follow-through and consistency. And the grace to press on even when I mess up.

At the end of her post, Melissa asks some hard but pointed questions.

What is the focus of your home right now?
How does this line up with God’s agenda for your home?
In what ways have you sought God’s knowledge on knowing how to reach the heart of each person (individually) in whom He has asked you to invest your time?
What kind of legacy do you desire to build and leave?

If I’m being honest, the focus in our home is fairly non-existent. We’re just going through the motions and trying to get in a financially secure place. Spiritual growth and direction are way down on the priority list, but they should be at the heart of why – and how – we do life. Today, I am convicted by my lack of direction and instability. But I am thankful to have been given every tool necessary to turn it all around.

Title from lyrics by Needtobreathe, “These Hard Times.”

1) Your choices determine your destiny. That is to say your choices resonate through time, both now and for eternity. Your destiny in this sense is both your subjective temporal condition and your objective eternal condition.

2) Choices, when examined from a collective perspective as opposed to an individual perspective, exist as a chaotic system (if you plot choice, you can find topological mixing and dense periodic orbits).

3) Chaotic systems are sensitive to initial conditions. This isn’t to say a chaotic choice system is deterministic. That is to say, a chaotic choice system doesn’t exclude free will, but also doesn’t exclude predestination.

4) God determines initial conditions. God created the universe and breathed his breath into the first man. He set the system in motion and as such determined its initial conditions.

5) Your choices are (at very least) strongly influenced by God.

This is a terribly deist way of looking at things and probably abuses the idea of chaotic systems past its breaking point. But it’s at least some cool sophistry, right?

Your Choices Determine Your Destiny originally appeared on Elsewhere in Dreams on 2010-03-15.

• It's always strange for me to go to the church I work at on Sunday morning. It's as if I don't believe the amount of people till I see it. #
• Missed the battle of Guildford courthouse. Sad. #
• Okay are they selling Duke car flags on the street corner cause I know you all didn't own them before today. They all match. #
• Waiting for the first guest to stay in out guestroom, the lovely @katiejanelewis to arrive from Ttown! #

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When I was almost five, my parents celebrated their tenth anniversary. My dad gave my mom a ring with nine diamonds on it. I asked him why it wasn’t a ring with ten diamonds (I was very proud of myself for figuring out the flaw in his plan), and he told me that he had already given her one when they got engaged. This was logic that even a four-year-old could not argue with.

Mike has told me for many years that he would like to get me another ring for our upcoming tenth anniversary. I have had mixed feelings about it – I do enjoy shiny things that sparkle, but I probably enjoy them less than the average girl. We replaced my engagement ring a couple of years ago when the one he bought originally gave up the ghost. Besides, what I really wanted was my mom’s ring.

I learned a lot about being married by watching my parents. I watched them love, honor, and cherish each other. I grew up knowing my dad would do anything, anything, anything in his power to make my mom happy. I watched my mom trust my dad to make the right decisions for our family, and I watched them make those decisions together. I knew they disagreed sometimes, but they presented to us a united front. They were not perfect together, but I did not have trouble understanding what Ephesians 5 could look like. I saw it. Every day.

The very last thing that my dad told me and Mike was to take care of each other. That was certainly what my parents did, through richer and poorer, sickness and health. They took care of each other for 32 years before he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. Mike and I have only experienced a small portion of that, but we have learned some things about sacrifice and commitment and the profound mystery of two becoming one.

For Valentine’s Day, my mom gave me the ring. I am proud and thankful to be able to wear it as a reminder of where I have come from and the commitment that Mike and I continue to make to each other every day.

Return, my estranged readers! Gather round for an opulent supper feast!

A fourteen course meal indulging every perverse, insatiable lusting of your craven flesh has been prepared! Seat yourselves around my table and prepare yourselves. Make certain that the waistbands of your pants are fashioned from the finest elastic, because the gratification we are about to partake in will be an affront to the natural order!

My servants, dressed uniformily in indigo silk gilded with pearls and shoes of the pointy-toed variety will now parade before us the dishes of our imminent feast. Salted cod! Wild boar slowly roasted over a flaming spit! Iberian peacock boiled in cherry preserves and stuffed with rose petals! Cheese quesadillas!

Now my dancers will gyrate about us as we lift high our goblets of reasonably-priced red wine! Imbibe deeply, my readers! See how my dancers are plumpened slightly, according to midcentury fashion. See how they undulate their hips toward you in a sensuous manner while maintaining a professionally provacative eye contact. All this according to my instruction, and aimed toward your pleasure!

Let us conclude our evening by watching the Detroit Pistons battle the Orlando Magic in a relatively meaningless Eastern Conference matchup! My team of technically-proficient eunuchs will prepare the home theater system! 5.1 Surround Sound for all!

Lean back, my supplicants, and savor the pleasures I have brought you tonight. I have lavished you with the luxurious indulgences of the Orient at great personal expense. No doubt these fleeting moments are the greatest you will ever experience. Never forget that it was I who brought them to you. Without my generosity, you would be desperately sucking the marrow from the bones of stray dogs.

Now, who will accompany me and the cats to my silken-pillowed bedchamber for dessert?

• Homemade Sausage egg and cheese English muffin sandwhich. Yum. #
• Spring cleaning to 90s music. Feels great to get rid of the old and tidy up the good. #
• So this came today: http://yfrog.com/2mlc5hj #
• Just finished editing my first photo session in… I cant even remember how long. I still do enjoy this work #

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• listening to NPR – 20100205_tmm_03 http://bit.ly/ayRkTn #
• listening to The Walkmen – Canadian Girl http://bit.ly/baFYht #
• listening to Okkervil River – Title Track http://bit.ly/9NCN4e #
• @derekwebb see you at the Birchmere tonight! in reply to derekwebb #
• @derekwebb nice show tonight, Derek! hope you enjoy the cupcake if Jenn shares… in reply to derekwebb #
• @derekwebb Yes, Nashville has been in my dreams these days & I'd love to make it down there! I'm (actively) waiting on the Lord 4 wisdom. in reply to derekwebb #
• listening to Broken Bells – The High Road http://bit.ly/6j7RTH #
• listening to Umphrey's McGee – Memories of Home http://bit.ly/bCBeIV #
• Going to see "Under Great White Northern Lights" White Stripes Rock-Doc @AFISilver tonight! #
• listening to Victor Wooten – The Lesson http://bit.ly/aMlffI #
• listening to Jordin Sparks – This Is My Now http://bit.ly/rZ9aU #
• listening to Tyler James – Nothing Will Last http://bit.ly/cYeNlb #
• listening to Broken Bells – Your Head Is On Fire http://bit.ly/a1ppnO #

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I told you a while back about how I was going to see Jay-Z. A couple of weeks ago, that show happened. At work on the day of the show, I listened to three albums on shuffle. I emailed my sister the lyrics to the chorus of Hard Knock Life. I was telling people “Jay-Z is a big deal”. He is, he’s one of the biggest artists on the planet. I’ve seen 50 Cent and Ludacris (not together, and both were at a festival) live and they were HORRIBLE. Jay-Z is AWESOME. I thought this show would be better than any other rap show I’d ever seen.

We got there during the opening act, and he was okay. He had some song with lyrics that sounded like he wanted to sleep with a girl, but not want her to tell anyone, which made me ask “is this song about Tiger Woods?” We saw Mos Def and Spike Lee (really). We saw people dressed up way better than the standard concert, lots of tight dresses and big sunglasses. Then we saw the man himself emerge from below the stage.

One of the things I noticed about the other two artists who performed other than Jay-Z, was that they needed guys on stage who would go “give it up for so and so! Yeah! Make some noise!” Jay-Z did not need that, he’s a big deal. When the lights went down and the clock countdown got closer and closer to 0:00, the crowd knew who was coming. The curtain fell with 20 seconds to go, and the band is out on stage, and then Jay-Z rose from the depths of the stage and had the crowd in the palm of his hand. It was awesome. The entire crowd had their arms up bouncing along to Run This Town. It was everything I had imagined.

I thought the setlist lost some steam when he veered away from the big hits early. The other songs were hits too, but Run This Town and 99 Problems are just bigger songs that everyone can get into. I just thought one or two more of the bigger songs would have been better. The not so good songs weren’t made better live. I did really like the live band though. And his ability to spit out raps with such ease was amazing. I don’t think I could talk that fast and that smooth. I had read something earlier in the week that one of the things that sets him apart is he can command flow. I definitely agree. The midset handoff to Young Jeezy was alright (Jay-Z left the stage, and YJ did a mini-set), but it drained some of the life from the crowd. Though, YJ did manage to encourage us with sayings like “if you can dream it, you can motherf****** do it!” Right on. Jay-Z came back out and finished the show strong.

I thought one of the highlights was the girl that he pulled up on stage who sang a verse of Song Cry. The Unplugged is one of my favorite albums ever, and Song Cry is on there. It is one of my favorites. The chick managed to do really well, so well that I think Jay-Z was impressed, and teamed up with her for a couple of lines. She didn’t get to finish though, some excuses like “we gotta go” or something. Still though, I’m sure that’s one of the highlights of her life.

Overall, I would have made a couple of setlist changes (no Can’t Knock the Hustle or What We Talkin’ About) and eliminated the midset handoff, but other than that the show was one of those “quest realm” types that didn’t disappoint.

• My husband left for work this morning before I did. That NEVER happens. #
• I'm moving back to Cali if nothing else to get away from all the crazy, bad drivers here. Come on people! #

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When it snowed last week (I am desperate for it to stop snowing), Mike took this picture of one of the first signs of spring covered in ice. To him, it was just a picture. I saw an image that represents so many of my own struggles: I begin to trust and allow my heart to grow, and then something happens and I am frozen again, afraid to move.

When that happens to me, I cry a lot. When it happened to Susan Isaacs, she took God to couples counseling.

“Susan,” Martha declared, “our relationship with God is nothing short of a marriage.”

“Well, in that case,” I replied, “God and I need to go to couples counseling. Because we’re not getting along.”

The Sacred Romance wasn’t the first book foisted on me. Someone else told me to read Conversations With God, that new age piffle where God is like the Big Lebowski, telling you to “just follow your truth, dude.”

Who on earth had conversations with God like that? If I wrote my conversations with God into a book, they’d be very angry conversations. They’d go more like:

SUSAN: What the —-, God? Are you trying to kill me?
GOD: Shut the —- up or I will!

And that would be the end of the book.

(I think I have had that conversation with God myself.)

To our great good fortune, that was NOT the end of the book. Susan Isaacs did, in fact, talk through her relationship with God with a couples counselor, a former pastor who both let her be honest and challenged how she represented God in their sessions. (Her version of God was sarcastic and a little bit mean.) As she worked through her issues, I recognized myself in her questions and experiences. This is a passage that comes close to the end of the book that sums up a lot of her journey.

When I think of the people whose character I admire, they’ve all walked through deserts or hells far worse than mine. And when they got to the other side–the ones who did get to the other side–they always said God got them through it. They have a peace and a friendship with God that I want. But the problem is, the man who’s stuck in the desert because God put him there looks exactly like the man who’s stuck in the desert because he’s lost. And I don’t know which one I am. I don’t know if I’m here to find friendship with God or if I’ve been left to die.

My ex used to get angry when I said that. He would say, “God isn’t personal. God isn’t good or bad. God is like science. God just is.” But even with science . . . Look at the stars. You see such beauty and order, and you sense the Thought that went into their making. But if that thoughtfulness is not extended to me, then all that order and beauty is merely cold and sterile space that mocks me because I’ve been excluded from it.

If God wants to burn up everything useless in my life, amen to that. But I want to know whether or not this sorrow has an end. Do these longings in my heart for love and purpose mean anything? I say yes. Is my need for God just misplaced longing that has no place to be satisfied? I say no. The body thirsts because it needs water and water exists. The soul longs for purpose because it needs it, and because it exists. And I wouldn’t long for God if he didn’t exist. I am taking this personally because I am personal. And I don’t think that an impersonal God could create humans to be personal. So I’m taking this personally from a personal God.

A sixteenth-century monk wrote a treatise called Dark Night of the Soul. When we first know God, he lavishes us with blessings and signs of his love, the way you do with your children when they’re small. But God wants us to grow up. So he removes his blessings. The sense of his presence. And even signs of love. Because he wants us to trust when we can’t see, to believe we’re loved even if we can’t feel it, to walk by faith and not by sight. And maybe he wants me to love him for himself, not for what I can get out of him.

Well, if that’s where I am, that’s okay. I can be here. I’m in my own Dark Night of the Soul. And I’m just waiting for my sun to come up.

I have said before that one of my main definitions of myself is that God is busy taking care of other people and that he’ll get around to me if he’s got time. It is very easy to see things through that paradigm. Any challenge, any adversity is just God looking away, taking a nap, worrying about people who have much bigger problems. It is much harder to believe that a personal God wants me to be a better person and to take up the challenge and accept that becoming a better person is part of why we are here and what we should be about.

The best thing about this book is that, while Susan talked about her struggles in a way that I could relate to, the book was also wickedly funny. Here was a conversation with God that I particularly enjoyed. (Rudy is the counselor.)

RUDY: Last question. Let’s talk about creativity. No one in Susan’s family “got” her. Doesn’t sound like the church did either. Why is that, God? Do you not like art?

SUSAN: Only if it ends in an altar call.

GOD: Come on. I love art. The Sistine Chapel, the Bach B Minor Mass. A Man for All Seasons. Love that stuff.

SUSAN: You didn’t like my kind of art. Show me one joke in the Bible.

GOD: The hill of foreskins.

God snickered and Jesus joined him. Well, that’s how I saw it.

(That’s how I see it, too.)

That’s on page 58, and by that point, Mike was already tired of me reading stuff from the book to him. But he had to admit that that one was pretty much awesome. And written just for this family, yes?

I loved this book. It balances a lot of my favorite things very well: faith, questions, humor, personal stories. Even more than that, it showed how Susan pushed for real answers and had to change her thoughts and actions because of them. Susan’s tenacity and desire to work through a relationship with God resonated with me, as did her frustrations with how a relationship with God is so different than our ideals. And I laughed. A lot. I’d recommend it for fans of Don Miller (she toured with him), Anne Lamott (of course), and Sara Miles. Also recommended for friends and family who would like to understand me a little bit better.

A week after Akouvi died, I emailed Dela in Togo and asked her for the names of a few children from Akouvi’s project who needed a sponsor. I wanted to honor Akouvi’s memory by sponsoring another child. And I think I also wanted to fill that gaping hole she had left.

The list came quickly. Three little girls. I was drawn to one of their pictures. I don’t know why—just like I don’t know why I was drawn to Akouvi. But then I read the short description Dela had sent. Nadege has health problems. She’s spent her life in and out of the hospital.

And I felt my throat close up.

I don’t want to do it again. I don’t want to invest and love and then hurt and grieve. I poured out my fears to a friend, and she urged me to wait, to pray. It had only been a week.

So I did. I waited, but didn’t really expect any kind of confirmation. I felt alone and angry and confused.

But today, in a devotion time at work, God spoke. He spoke through a random parable about a fig tree. A tree that had produced no fruit in years. The owner of the vineyard was ready to chop it down. The tender of the vineyard urged him to wait. Let me nurture the tree for a year, he implored. And then, if there is still no fruit, do with it what you will.

And there the parable ended. Where was the next verse. The verse saying that the next year the tree produced fruit. That it grew and flourished and the master was pleased?

It wasn’t there.

The tender of the tree would spend the next year nurturing and pruning and fertilizing the tree. But the thing is, he had no guarantees.

And when I began sponsoring Akouvi, I had no guarantees. God called me to do it—God showed her to me, softened my heart to her. And in less than a year, she was gone. There were fruits of our relationship, but the harvest was gone much faster than I had ever imagined.

God calls me to relationship—but without guarantees. I thought Akouvi would grow up, graduate, and change her country.

Akouvi died at 8-years-old in the first grade. And she changed my life.

So today, I said that I was willing to sponsor Nedege. If she’s still available, I will form a new relationship with another little girl in a small dusty town in Togo. I will pray for her health. But I will have no guarantees.

It’s terrifying.

• Cats really don't understand early. They just understand awake and a sleep. And man Oliver is AWAKE. #
• Learned a very valueable lesson about backing my iPhone up. Learn from me, back it up. A lot. #
• Have a guest coming which means we finally unpack the guestroom. Glad people come over forcing us to do things we should of done months ago #
• Lately, when judging famous people, usual my only comment is "Come on, brush your hair." #

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Spring break!

Turn off your space heaters, take off your shirts, and grab the garden hose! It’s time to suck on some spring break until we puke!

The next ten days will be the most sun-soaked, fun-filled, foul-mouthed days of our lives! We’re going to live like 13th century Mongol chieftans, except without all the rape! Spring break is on!

Every other week of the year we wake up early, meet our professional responsibilities, and refrain from microwaving cats. Spring break is different. This is the week where we indulge our sublimated impulses and scream obscenities while running on treadmills. This is our week to be alive! This is a week where shame knows no bounds and the police hold no jurisdiction. Let our bellies hang free and our opinions on everybody be made known!

It is good that spring break is only ten days. Were it to be any longer, I would engorge myself until I was bloated beyond recognition like Luke Wilson in those AT&T ads. In my fattened, lethargic state I would hoist myself onto my side and lay in the gutter moaning for help until a hunter showed pity on me and blew my head clean off with a shotgun. That’s exactly what would happen if spring break lasted eleven days.

Just about done with my preparations here. The moment I finish this post I’m going to stare into a strobe light and hold my breath until I start seeing unnatural things. I figure that should get things off to a solid start. After that, I’ll improvise and do whatever flows. Maybe I’ll huff a few permanent markers, maybe I’ll poop into a box of Rice Krispies, I don’t know. I’m just going to ride the emotion and let the authorities sort things out on the other end. The important thing is that this is a terrible idea.

See you folks on the other side, at least if I’m not in county jail on charges of forced entry and indecent exposure! Happy spring break, everybody!

I’ve been really struggling to figure out what to talk about on this poor blog. I don’t really want to post about how frustrating work is or how difficult it is to raise twin toddlers. I get tired of reading people’s complaints online so I don’t want to be just another complaining over-worked parent. Whatever the case, work and child-raising are the bulk of my life right now, so that doesn’t leave much else to talk about.

So… it’s time to force myself to post other stuff by going with a new theme for a while. About this time of year, when I’m really over winter, I spend a lot of time thinking about summer. When I think of summer, I start thinking about Cornerstone Festival. Even in years when I’m not going, I follow along with my friends via e-mail, twitter, and photos and experience the buildup and the festival with them. I’m hopeful about attending again this year and it’s still more than three months away, but the excitement is starting ignite, like a tiny spark at the bottom of a pyre.

In the buildup and anticipation, I’ve decided to post every couple of days some of my favorite videos from Cornerstones past on youtube here and talk about them a little bit. One of the great things about Cornerstone is the laissez-faire attitude the festival takes towards audio and video recording. (Um, festival organizer friends, let’s pretend you didn’t see that last sentence. Okay? Okay.) Record labels may not like it, but what it means is that Cornerstone is one of the best documented Christian festivals out there, with plenty of material out on the Internet. I did some extensive searching and I’ve narrowed it down to 35 (yes 35!) videos. I’ll be posting them in chronological order from the first festival in 1984 up to last year’s festival every couple of days from next week up to the week before the festival. Please note, these aren’t all the *best* performances at Cornerstone. Some of those are sadly, not documented, or not online. These also are not the best quality videos. Some are barely listenable, barely visible recordings done with amateur equipment, but I hope they catch the energy of the performance. Some of the shows I was at, many I was not at. I’ll discuss a little bit of context around the video and I’d love to have some discussion about the bands and performances in the comments.

I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did selecting the videos and hopefully they will all embed with no problems and such.

• It's a bit windy to sit outside so I have taken the window seat to soak in the sun. #
• Holy moly there was a lot of coupons to cut this week. Thankfully I have my new desk to do it all at! #
• Off to hang out with my preggo friend. Might be the last before Baby Leeland arrives! #

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• I could go for a steak and baked potatoe right about now. #
• Reading responses from a dating poll we took on Sunday night. Some things don't change. Other things change a lot. #
• tellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhattellpeoplewhat #HIMYM #
• Finally got the moneys all saved up for our wedding album! Time to pick out the photos (probably should ofdone that before I started saving) #
• Got 57 photos picked out. And we are not even to the ceremony. And I have a max of 75 for my book. #aiaiai #

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Now that I am old, 7:00 sounds like a perfectly reasonable time for a concert. Getting home by 10:00 PM sounds even better. I don’t know when I turned into an old man, but here we are. Aging was on the mind of Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler, too. The two artists, accompanied by Jake Bradley and Kenny Hutson on a bevy of guitars, slide guitar, mandolin, and upright bass brought out new songs for the crowd at Eddie’s Attic. At least two of the songs, if not more, focus on the inevitable march of time.

The new songs are so new they haven’t even really been formally recorded yet. One was still pre-lyrics as Karin just wordlessly rang out the notes. Their parents were on their minds as Linford mused about the death of his father and how a man’s perspective changes when he buries his father. His thoughts coalesced into a song with lyrics about how their love should be like Johnny and June Carter Cash and “Who Will Bury Who.” Karin also had a song about her mother who currently resides in assisted living after a stroke and about how the whole place is a “collision of comedy and tragedy” in her song “Only God Can Save Us Now.”

The night wasn’t all maudlin, though. Linford was amused by a woman who requested a song “about a satellite.” He couldn’t immediately figure out what song she was talking about, but quickly realized she meant “I Radio Heaven.” He proceeded to entertain us with a spoken word version of the song. Karin introduced us to two new songs both tangentially related to her dogs. There was some fun pickin’ and grinnin’ as Jake Bradley led the band in a rousing version of “You Don’t Know My Mind.”

The band also put a couple changes are what are now old standards. Karin’s song “Ohio” was given some musical depth with Linford on bass and Jake on guitar. I always associate “Who Am I Kidding?” with Mickey Grimm and his frantic drum solo, but with his absence Kenny explored the song a little more on guitar. “Professional Daydreamer” was also given a nice full-band treatment.

There aren’t many bands out there brave enough to try out new material on their audiences before it’s been polished to a sheen and put out on CD, but part of the fun of following Over the Rhine is following the development of their music and how some songs start out as one idea, but in a couple of years end up sounding totally different. At this stage, it appears that Karin and Linford are at only the beginning of another song writing cycle and we are in for another chapter in the story of Over the Rhine.

Set list (* – new songs are guesses on my part.)
I Want You To Be My Love
Etc. Whatever
Trouble
I’m On A Roll
C’mon Boy *
Who Will Bury Who *
Only God Can Save Us Now *
Who Am I Kidding
Ohio
Professional Daydreamer
What a Waste *
Trumpet Child
-Q & A- (I Radio Heaven by Linford)
Soon (no words) *
All I Need Is Everything
—
No Kill Shelter *
You Don’t Know My Mind (Jimmy Martin cover)

• I've noticed that when I eat, and not spivey food (as in this AM: melon) my nose starts to be runny. Why is this? I must know. #
• "I cut my finger for you." -@jasonwindsor #
• MY COMPUTER IS HOME! HOORAY! #
• Uhm, Ted's "Super Date" song is one of the best things ever on HIMYM. #

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Im a little late on my good things for February. But this will be the last time since my computer has come home fixed! Hooray!

1- Another off at 1030 shift at Starbucks. Had a nice day with Jason running errands out in the snow.
2- Got very far in crocheting a soap bag. It’s the only project that seemed doable to me. Totally random but fun.
3- My first time at Jury Duty! As boring as it was, I still was so excitied to do it and really bummed when we didn’t get called to anything.
4- Jason filled my car up with gas. My hero.
5- Both works told me not to come in- that meant two days off in a week! That never happens. I love snow.
6- Hosted a baby shower during the day and hung out with Jason’s band to celebrate the new CD at night
7- brunch at our house with some of our favorite people.
8- Jason had dinner cooking for me when I got home from a long shift
9- Lunch with a friend who let me have the leftover lettuce wraps
10- I made asparagus cooked in lime zest and red pepper flake infused olive oil. And there was much rejoicing.
11- Conversation with an old high schooler over red tea lattes
12- Olympics started!
13- Spent the day with Jace in Durham. Then crocheting with Sarah while watching ‘Emma’
14- Good Will Party at the Core and lots of Olympic watching.
15- morning off, felt very productive
16- Lunch with a friend with a coupon. Cheap food just taste better
17- Ash Wed – start of the season of Lent. And more Olympics.
18- Jason got me flowers
19- More Olympics, even if I lose a little bit of sleep staying up way past my bedtime
20- 60 degree day. Perfectly delightful.
21-It was my friend at work birthday. We made sure everyone knew it
22- Jason took care of Oliver being sick. He might be on super friendly terms with our vet now.
23- talked to my mom for an hour. Always helps to talk to my mom
24- homemade tacos
25- Oliver felt much more himself since his night in the kitty ER on Monday
26- found an English breakfast tea bag in my desk when all I thought I had was mint
27- Jason and I went to the store with my crazy coupon game and didn’t hate each other after leaving.
28-Two girls did a dance at the Core that they created themselves with a friend on piano. One of the most beautiful 3 mintues in that youth
room.

After many months of oft-inturrupted reading, I finally finished up Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

I was a huge fan of Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, & Steel; it has influenced my world history and geography classes significantly (I like to have my students consider to what degree societies are bound to environmental determinism). Collapse, on the other hand, sometimes left me cold. By the end, I felt like I was taking my medicine, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stop reading a book once I’m 400 pages in.

The best stretches of the book are detailed historical accounts of the collapse of ancient societies like the Maya, the Greenland Norse, and the inhabitants of Easter Island. I was totally engrossed in these sections and haunted by his accounts of their demise. However, I felt that the constructs Diamond used to analyze these collapses were usually too complex to be very insightful – a 12-part inventory here, a 9-catagory breakdown there, etc. Somewhat less interesting, but still worthwhile were sections devoted to contemporary failings in Rwanda (overpopulation leading to genocide), China (overpopulation leading to environmental crises) and Australia and Haiti (deforestation and alien species leading to near ecological collapse). In the end, the most compelling issue to me was that those societies failed to recognize the limitations of their circumstances and adjust their lifestyles and values accordingly. Diamond concludes by attempting to connect the (overly complex) lessons of these collapses and crises with the environmental and demographic issues across the planet today with varying degrees of success.

Here are some other noteworthy tidbits about and from the book:

-One of the things I appreciate about Diamond’s work is that he is an environmental and philosophical realist (unlike the insufferable true-believer, environmental idealists suckling at Al Gore’s bloated paunch). His breakdown of the environmental issues surrounding the logging, mining, and oil drilling industries was refreshing in that he understood that businesses exist in order to create a profit for their shareholders. What’s more, he didn’t write as if to do so is somehow immoral. Diamond laid out how future of the logging, mining, and fishing industries must rely on models that allow sustainable use of natural resources while maintaining or increasing business profits. These rely in large part on the mechanism of an environmentally-engaged buying public.

-Prior to their society’s collapse, the Mayas built enormous pyramids, developed a written language and some fairly sophisticated mathematics. They also predicted, with eerie accuracy, the arrival of a truly terrible disaster film in the fall of 2009. They even carved the name “Danny Glover” onto one of their human sacrifice altars.

-It was Diamond’s contention that much of the logging and oil drilling in the modern first world in the last several decades has been done responsibly (this contention has angered many of his admirers on the left) but pointed to various reasons why companies operating in the third world continue to take a short-sighted, destructive approach. Particularly facinating to me was his analysis about why the convoluted business and distribution model of the mining industry tends to prevent market pressure for responsible practices from reaching the companies. Think about it, do you have any idea where the copper in your car or cell phone came from? Do you have any reasonable way of sending a message to that supplier with your money?

-Do you remember that movie “The Postman” starring Kevin Costner, about a reluctant mail carrier in a post-apocalyptic society who brings salvation to a desperate band of refugees? Well, turns out it will soon prove to be 100% accurate, right down to Kevin Costner’s hair plugs.

-Diamond’s section on the collapse of Greenland’s Norse colony around the year 1400 after over 500 years of existence is wonderful and haunting. He paints a vivid, grim picture of Norse life in Greenland, as they did their best to transpose their European style of life onto their frozen, tenuous environment. Here’s a photo I reflected on for along time of the largest building on their colony – the Hvalsey stone church:

-The Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035, unless they don’t. Either way, anthropogenic global warming is irrefutable, and every weather phenomenon of any sort proves this. On an unrelated note, this Kool-Aid is green flavored!

-There were numerous reasons for the collapse of the Norse Greenland society. One of them is the fact that they were unable or unwilling to adjust their European values and lifestyles to suit a vastly different set of circumstances. Whereas the values and hierarchy of the Catholic church and European society served them well in Scandanavia, they proved destructive on Greenland. Large areas of premium (and scarce) land, crops and resources were collected as tithes and sent back to the archbishop on the European mainland. They immediately seem to have had an antagonistic relationship with the pagan Inuit (whom the Norse referred to as “skraelings”, or wretches). Either out of a desire to separate themselves from the Inuit or to cling to their Europeanness, they did not adjust their diet to what was sustainably available (i.e. fish, seal, and walrus), and continued to graze sheep and other livestock. This grazing eventually led to catastrophic soil erosion as the vegetation was eaten away. In the end, the Inuit outlasted the Norse on Greenland, mostly thanks to the fact that their lifestyle matched their environment.

-The Norse settlement on Iceland proved far more successful than their Greenland counterparts. This was the result of Iceland’s less severe environment, the lack of an outside enemy to compete for resources, and Icelanders greater willingness to drop economic activities and values that didn’t prove tenable. Not to be discounted are the sweet, sustaining refrains of Sororicide, Iceland’s favorite Satanic black metal band.

-The mysterious collapse of the Easter Island society is another facinating section of the book. Diamond traces how the inhabitants of the island gradually deforested the entire island until their own survival was doomed. Their society was divided into warring clans led by chiefs and priests who practiced a primitive form of conspicuous consumption. The famous stone heads found on the island are one result of this gaudy competition, as enormous amounts of energy and resources were put into the carving and transportation of these heads, believed to represent an appeal to the gods to save them. Slowly but surely, as the trees were removed, their ecosystem collapsed to the point where the island was nearly uninhabitable. When they were discovered by Europeans in the 1770s, the inhabitants were a lean, miserable people relying on fish that could be caught from shoreand cannibalism to stay alive.

-In an attempt to make their unfamiliar surroundings resemble home, short-sighted British colonists actually tried and failed to introduce rabbits to Australia’s ecosystem 5 times before finally succeeding with a different breed of hare from Spain. These rabbits then proceeded to overpopulate and infest the Australian countryside and remain a menace. Australians have since attempted to exact revenge by stealthily introducing kangaroos to the British Isles, but the wretched beasts are invariably trampled to death by mobs of soccer hooligans.

It comes out stilted
filtered & scripted
when I love you
when I’m happy.

I’m tempted to
borrow tragedy;
the red wall,
the long fall.

The long haul &
the don’t look back
are needle to the
plow to the groove:

peculiar music
of the pastoral
neatly tailored
plot I chose.

Plot originally appeared on Elsewhere in Dreams on 2010-03-08.

An update on my recent pity party. In order for anything to change, I had to take the first step in confessing resentment and bitterness. God has been gracious in softening this heart of stone, and in the process, I’ve found that really the issue was with me all along. If I’m not actively pursuing life within a church body, relationships with people in the church just aren’t going to happen. And so I have a renewed perspective and am finding that I’m ready to put myself out there, even if it might seem a little risky (fear of rejection, etc.). Our first meeting with our new small group is Sunday. :)

This gorgeous weather has lifted my spirits. The warmer, sunny weather yesterday made me feel like a new woman. I’ve always said a few hours in the sunshine is the best anti-depressant ever.

A few recipes and photos to come this week, so stay tuned. :)

I doubt anyone is still waiting for the big bathroom reveal. You will have to forgive me . . . it takes me a while to settle in and get pictures hung and figure out where our things are going to go. But we hung pictures this weekend, so I am going to show you everything . . . except the shower. Mike wasn’t here when I took the pictures of the bathroom, so you’ll have to wait because I want to recreate this shot. Shower to come in the next week or so. I hope. I make no promises. But here is the actual bathroom!

Laundry room! (I love my new washer and dryer and want to have their babies.)

Our closet and my half of the closet (it is really hard to show closet size in a picture).

This is what our bedroom looks like now. Not that I ever showed you what it looked like before. Because it wasn’t as bright. But now it makes me really happy.

And we’ve got the kitchen all figured out now, too. If you look here, you’ll see where the fridge used to be. This is what everything looks like now.

And remember the door to nowhere behind our TV? Check it out now.

Mostly we’re just sitting around and listening to the quiet these days. It’s the greatest sound I hadn’t heard in a while.

• I have the song that Rory and Dean listen to right after they sleep together. This is a terriable thing! #
• Iced Venti 2 pump Vinilla non fat light ice Chai sort of an afternoon. #
• Looking forward to all the Oscar play by plays in the morning. Way too tired to stay up to watch them, which makes me lame and old. #

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Winners!
(* for each I guessed correctly, ** for each I supported, but didn’t predict – see previous Predictions post)

Best Leading Actor:
*Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)

Best Supporting Actor:
*Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Best Leading Actress:
Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.)

Best Supporting Actress:
*Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)

Best Animated Feature Film:
*“Up” (Walt Disney) Pete Docter

Art Direction:
*“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) Art Direction: Rick Carter & Robert Stromberg & Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair

Best Cinematography:
*“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) Mauro Fiore

Costume Design:
*“The Young Victoria” (Apparition) Sandy Powell

Best Directing: Academy Award History Maker!
*“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Kathryn Bigelow

Best Documentary Feature:
*“The Cove” (Roadside Attractions) An Oceanic Preservation Society Production

Best Documentary Short Subject:
“Music by Prudence” – An iThemba Production Dir. Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

Film Editing:
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Bob Murawski and Chris Innis

Best Foreign Language Film:
“El Secreto de Sus Ojos” (Sony Pictures Classics) A Haddock Films Production- Argentina

Makeup:
*“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment) Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow

Best Original Film Score:
**”Up” (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino

Best Original Song:
*“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Best Motion Picture:
**”The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) A Voltage Pictures

Best Animated Short Film:
**”Logorama” (Autour de Minuit) An Autour de Minuit Production-Nicolas Schmerkin

Best Live Action Short Film:
*“The New Tenants” A Park Pictures and M & M Production Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

Best Sound Editing:
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Paul N.J. Ottosson

Best Sound Mixing:
**“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett

Best Visual Effects:
*“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones

Best Adapted Screenplay:
**“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate) Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher

Best Original Screenplay:
**”The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Written by Mark Boal

13/24 predicted; 19/24 overall.

Best moments of the night:
- Mo’Nique acceptance speech
- Oprah giving Gabby her “toast”
- Up Director’s wife’s reaction to his win
- Jeff Bridge’s acceptance speech (calling everyone “man”)
- Sandra Bullock’s acceptance speech (thanking unrecognized mothers)
- Kathryn Bigalow making history & acceptance speech (thanking men & women in service… including fire-fighters)

An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible by Walter Brueggemann

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Brueggemann forces us to unblinkingly confront the God actually presented in the Old Testament, not the God we wish was there via the colored glasses of our Western rationalistic theology. He shows us that the Israelite conception of YHWH was as a god known only in relationship, an “unsettling” god, who while in some way “sovereign,” could also be capricious, irrationally angry or generous, and who could be changed by relationship with covenantal partners, even as they were indeed changed by their relationship to YHWH.

Brueggemann explores this relationship through each of YHWH’s four main “partners”: Israel, the human person, nations, and creation. In a final chapter, he issues the challenge that only an embracing of this unsettling God of abundance, suffering, and hope can provide a counter to the Enlightenment’s assumptions of scarcity, denial of brokenness, and ultimately despair. Israel in the Old Testament never concerned itself with an apologetical need to try to prove that YHWH exists, nor did they try to arrive at some kind of exhaustive definition of YHWH (both high concerns in Western Christian theology). Rather for them YHWH is the god who fits with “the way things are” in their experience of abundance / the Pit / restoration. So Brueggemann does not bother with such apologetics. Rather his interest is in how this very Jewish way of looking at existence might provide a pattern of counter-cultural living for those of us disillusioned with what our Enlightenment-Western culture has come to.

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• People who want to see me & @alisawindsor on the Greensboro version of The Amazing Race, here you go! http://bit.ly/c9SO3h (via @masterkari) #
• I may need a cup of coffee before my tea out. Oliver does not understand the concept of sleeping in. #
• Wonderf Tea time with Westover ladies. House errands with Jace. And now amused by Oliver running after a lazer pointer. #
• And because I love my husband, this is for dinner: http://yfrog.com/6z4yaj #
• And because he loves me, he built me this: http://yfrog.com/0vvoxhj #

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• listening to Brandi Carlile – Throw It All Away http://bit.ly/b06OkP #
• NPR [&I] wish a Happy 200th B-day Chopin! http://bit.ly/a0lRUR I miss hearing REAL piano in the AM- now it's Z & N playin Iyaz 'Replay' #fb #
• listening to Andrew Belle – Make It Without You http://tinyurl.com/ykq6hrs #
• listening to Lightspeed Champion – Marlene http://bit.ly/8pPoMq #
• listening to Max McLean – Hebrews 5 http://bit.ly/cSnWPr #
• listening to Derek Webb – This Too Shall Be Made Right http://bit.ly/c00wU #
• listening to Matthew Perryman Jones – Waiting on the Light to Change http://bit.ly/1eGF4b #
• listening to Jennifer Knapp With Mac Powell & Nichole Nordeman – Sing Alleluia http://bit.ly/dCZnqX #
• @allsongs can't wait for the SXSW songs! in reply to allsongs #
• @alexbeh best song of 2009? I think yes. in reply to alexbeh #
• @RaeWhitlock I'm gearing up for the J-Knapp show next week! in reply to RaeWhitlock #
• listening to Josh Ritter – Thin Blue Flame http://bit.ly/9Oa0Xm #
• listening to Madi Diaz – I Am Not Sad At All http://bit.ly/9Xi6ZS #
• listening to Madi Diaz – Here I Go Again (Whitesnake) http://bit.ly/aYPMLH #
• listening to The Beatles – That Means a Lot http://bit.ly/11lJFn #
• @katieherzig wishing you a very happy & wonderful Birthday! Eat some cake! <3 #
• listening to The Avett Brothers – The Ballad Of Love And Hate http://bit.ly/10qao3 #
• @jennifer_knapp hey Jenn! I'm super excited to see you & Derek on Monday! btw, your new photos look a.mazing. who took them? #

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When I found out about the Around Downtown in 80 Minutes competition that Triad Stage was putting on, I immediately asked Mike to compete with me. He declined. Politely, of course, saying that he’d do it if I couldn’t find someone else. So I called Alisa, who agreed right away. With Scott and Brandi’s help, we decided to name our team after a favorite wedding-related anecdote, WATCH THIS HAPPEN. Alisa made a nifty Google map and I made t-shirts, and we were ready!

It worked essentially like you’d expect – we had to race to destinations and get our “passport” stamped. At a few locations, we did have to answer trivia questions, but there were no tasks. Alisa and I did not come anywhere close to winning, but that is okay. Because before the race started, we saw the Fox 8 guys standing around, and we asked them if they were going to follow a team. They said yes, and we convinced them to follow us! So we got the real Amazing Race experience (except that we felt bad about talking so much about The Amazing Race because it’s on another network. Also I kept talking about Michael Scott. Still the wrong network, nitwit. Finally we remembered to talk about Glee). We even tried to hit all the Amazing Race cliches: we called each other “baby” and discussed whether it was God’s will for us to win. (I guess he was busy with other things.)

(The video works for me but sometimes I have to refresh the page first. So try that OR you can just click here to watch it.)

Here we are afterwards with our cameramen. Special thanks to them for editing out the part where we climbed the back hill to the Blandwood Mansion in the dark when the clue was, you know, at the front. As we were doing that, I thought, “Here’s where we get the dumb girl edit.” But, no. They were lovely. And we definitely owe them beer for making them run so much.

Sometimes nice, fun things just happen. I am usually the person who would watch the cameraman choose someone else, so I am thankful to have a friend like Alisa, who gives me the courage to try new things and be bold. I am so happy that we spoke up! We could not have had more fun than we did, and we would do it again, even without cameramen. Many thanks to Triad Stage for hosting such a great event. Mike and I went and saw the play a few weeks ago, and it’s very funny. I would recommend that you go see it, but I believe they said last night that they are all sold out except for the weekend matinees today and tomorrow. (I am not sure what they said – I was too busy getting my microphone put on. hee hee hee.)

• Out of splenda. Searched my purse and found two. Perfect. I can enjoy my last tea bag of Joy tea (Starbucks holiday tea) properly. #
• And where did my morning go? #
• Getting pumped for the race I'm around to be in. #watchthishappen #
• http://yfrog.com/6lf26mj #watchthishappen #
• In a race arounddowntowngreensboro, 80 teams set off on adventure…#watchthishappen #
• Fox 8 needs to video two racers. Guess who they picked?! #watchthishappen #

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Are they geeks who are rock stars or rock stars who moonlight as geeks? Whichever is the chicken or the egg, the members of the rock band OK Go got their geek on once again and produced the most talked about music video since…well, since their last homemade music video, the justifiably famous treadmill video.

I speak, of course, of the “official” video for their song “This Too Shall Pass,” which involves a jimongous Rube Goldberg machine that fills an entire multi-story warehouse. Better yet, the machine coordinates exactly with the song (and even plays a small segment of the song at one point), and was shot in one take with one steadycam. OK Go enlisted the help of Los Angeles nerd collective Syyn Labs to build the machine over two months in an abandoned warehouse.

If you are one of the six people on the planet who haven’t seen this mindblowing trip, here it is:

Now let’s take a peek behind the scenes to see how this amazing machine was conceived and built.

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“Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man!” – Jean Shepherd as “Ralphie” in the film A Christmas Story

Recently an illness kept me confined to the bed for a couple of weeks. During that time, podcasts on my iPhone were my friend and companion. I have a number of favorites that I’ll be writing about in the weeks to come, but at some point I got to pondering: why do I like podcasts so much? There are probably a number of contributing factors. My father was in radio and podcasts are the closest thing we have to the way radio sounded in his day. I like good stories and conversation creatively presented. I can grow and learn (and laugh!) while doing other things (such as lying in bed sick). But at the very root, the foundation, the cornerstone of my love for podcasts is one name:

Jean Shepherd.

These days most people, if they know his name at all, know Jean Shepherd as the narrator of A Christmas Story, a movie now widely considered a Christmas classic for the ages. Fewer may know (unless they pay scrupulous attention to opening credits), that A Christmas Story is based on Shepherd’s written stories, mostly from his first novel, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. Fewer still today would know of Jean Shepherd the actor, the novelist, the comedian, television presenter, writer for major magazines (Playboy, Car & Driver). But my connection with Shepherd (or Shep as we fans called him) was with his most long-lived medium: radio.

For 21 years, beginning in 1956, Jean Shepherd held sway for 45 minutes a night on WOR radio in New York. If you listen to any of the podcast rebroadcasts of these shows that I’ll link below, you’ll understand why I think of him as the Father of Podcasting (though he did not live to see the coining of the word). No music (other than his own collection of zany tunes he’d play the kazoo or Jew’s harp with). No guests. No interviews. No phone calls. Just 45 minutes of Shep spinning stories and whatever else came to his fertile mind. Jean Shepherd was the consummate raconteur and monologist of his time.

There were basically two kinds of Shepherd shows: the story shows and the social commentary shows. Although it was the former for which he was most beloved, the social commentary episodes could be just as entertaining. Don’t let my label of “social commentary” lead you to think these were dry, dusty analysis pieces. Shep had an eye for the offbeat and unusual, and could reveal what they said about us and our culture. Only Shep could explain how the old Flagship Furniture Store on Route 22 in New Jersey (a store that was a life-size model of a navy battleship) was a metaphor for the human condition.

But it was his storytelling which one him legions of religiously dedicated fans. Viewers of A Christmas Story got a taste of Shep’s yarn spinning skills, but only a taste. From 10 to 10:45 each evening my brother and I would put the radio between our beds, trying to keep the volume low enough so our mom wouldn’t come in and switch it off. But that wasn’t the only battle each night. We also had to fight to stay awake to the end of the program, because Shep was famous for drawing out a story across a whole 45 minutes. He would go off on dozens of rabbit trails, and you’d be sure that this time he wasn’t going to finish the story in time. But somehow, every single time, he would miraculously get to the payoff of the story just in the last few seconds as his familiar theme song would reach its last crashing chords.

Jean Shepherd’s stories could be about almost anything, but most were in the form of recollections about his life. I say “in the form of” because, when pressed, Shep was always clear that he was in the STORYtelling business. Fans who dug too deeply into his past were in for many disappointments. But Shep was the first to teach me that the power of stories is that the best ones are always true, even if they aren’t “true” in the historiographical sense.

These stories tended to be about either his childhood in an Indiana steel mill town (a la A Christmas Story), his army days, or his various pre-WOR days on several radio and TV stations around the country. While his stories were not “laugh out loud” funny, they were indeed humorous, in the style of Mark Twain or George Aide. Most centered around a profound sense of irony, and the vague angst we all have that somehow life is a conspiracy against us. Shep’s humor always teetered on the precipice of cynical, but whenever it seemed that he might tumble over, he’d be sure to whip out his kazoo and a scratchy recording of “The Sheik of Araby” or “The Bear Missed the Train” (a satire of an Andrews Sisters German-language hit).

If I’ve made you want to hear some of Shep, the original podcaster, thanks to the miracle of podcasting, you can! There are at least two podcasts that put out daily replays of Shepherd’s old radio shows. The Brass Figlagee recently completed its four-year mission to podcast every available recording of Jean Shepherd’s shows. The owner of that podcast, however, graciously did the hard work of uploading all those files to archive.org (Jean Shepherd on Achive.org). Also, Max Schmid’s Mass Backwards program on WBAI radio broadcasts a Shepherd episode each week. You can find the podcast version by searching “Mass Backwards” in the iTunes store.

Excelsior, you fatheads!

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• The man who told A Christmas Story. (slate.com)

But I haven’t.

I was supposed to post a funny post today.

But I can’t.

My heart shouldn’t clench every time I see Akouvi’s name.

But it does.

So, you get to see some more processing today. Don’t feel like you have to read this. I know that grieving with me is not a fun process. But I appreciate it that you do.

A lot of people have asked how Akouvi died, and what happened. A poor friend asked in an email today, and she was greeted with this word spew of a response. I thought I would just repost it on here for those of you who have asked.

When I first met Akouvi, I was captivated by more than her eyes and her smile. At lunchtime, the photographer on the trip and I noticed that this adorable little girl with the too-big dress was sitting alone, crying, while everyone else ate their plates of chicken and rice. Our interpreter was occupied, and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. So the photographer got Akouvi a plate and handed it to her. She put it down next to her, and continued to cry. In a few minutes, an adult whisked the still-full plate away.

Finally we found out that Akouvi can’t have salt. We were told she was “allergic” to it, but I assumed it was more of a situation where her body, specifically her kidneys, can’t properly process sodium. And in their effort to keep Akouvi healthy, when they had food which contained salt, she couldn’t have any. I completely understand that they were trying to help, but we talked to them about the fact that they could take some food out for her before it was seasoned. I actually found out, after I began sponsoring her, that they began doing that.

About a week before Akouvi died (gosh, it’s seriously still hard to write that), I received word from my friend, Dela, who works in the Compassion Togo office, that Akouvi was in the hospital. Dela had gone to visit her, and said that they thought she was getting better. As late as the Saturday before she died, they were talking about when they would discharge her. Apparently, her health declined rapidly, and her body was retaining more and more fluid. She was also being treated for malaria, and I think her body just gave out. The official cause of her death, as far as I know, is kidney failure.

You know, I think I sometimes lose sight of how powerful an enemy poverty is. I was lulled into this false security that, because Akouvi was in Compassion, and because she was being treated in the hospital, she would be okay. Forgetting that she was in a hospital in a third-world country. Losing sight of how serious her sickness was. I’ve even thought lately about Akouvi versus a child here. Children here know what they’re allergic to, know what foods they can’t eat, and they will refuse those foods when they’re offered.

But a child like Akouvi? If you were starving, if you hadn’t eaten in days, would you refuse food because it had salt? Because you knew it would make you sick? Would sickness be an easier choice than starvation? I can’t imagine what that choice must have been like for her.

And I hate that she ever had to make it.

(Just one final note–I’ve let a lot of you know this, but for those who don’t, I am collecting money to give Akouvi’s family a financial gift through Compassion. More than likely, this gift will be used to defray her medical and funeral costs. If you’re interested in giving, you can do so through paypal.com, by making a payment to bcgal80@yahoo.com.)

Hey guys, it’s me, the Jack of Diamonds.

I know it isn’t customary for your average playing card to speak up, but it’s time. I’m tired of getting overlooked by those other fancy face cards and your aces and whatnot. Seriously, if you guys knew what a total a-holes the jokers are, there’s no way you’d be excited to draw them. I feel like saying, “Hey jerks, I’m still a jack! In the medieval hierarchy, I’m like a duke or something!”

Sometimes it sucks to be the Jack of Diamonds. Look at me. Do I look happy to you? No, I look like some effemenate dude in an awful jacket who spent too long brushing my hair. Anyone suppose I’m a happy Jack when I look in the mirror? Anyone care to guess how many times I’ve contemplated plunging this ceremonial sword into my guts?

I suppose I’ve said my part now. I’ll go back to being quiet, unappreciated Jack of Diamonds. I don’t care if nobody gives a crap about me. I’ll show them all what they missed out on. Someday they’ll be sorry they ignored me. I’ll get a hot girlfriend and grow a beard to cover my weak chin and drive a Ford Contour.

Then everyone will say, “Hey, when did the Jack of Diamonds get so cool? I’m going to invent a game where whoever draws the Jack of Diamonds immediately wins.” Then I’ll be happy and my hot girlfriend will agree to wear Princes Leia’s metal bikini from Return of the Jedi.

So here’s your last chance, America. It’s your last chance to buy stock in the Jack of Diamonds before I become awesome and everyboy loves me. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.

• Look, @kingbanjo hard at work http://yfrog.com/1xtfej #
• Do I feel warmth?! #
• I could go for some donut world donuts. Alton is eatting donuts. Lots of them. It's taunting me. Or is that Donut World calling my name? #
• http://yfrog.com/0mynqj What? #

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In spacetime you’re a four-
dimensioned dimple.
Quite a lot of maths,
but still quite simple.

Haloes when you grin,
there’s no denial.
Two worlds define the
edges of your smile.

Smile originally appeared on Elsewhere in Dreams on 2010-03-04.

The bird bursting from your chest
is a crow, is a dove;
to escape the amniotic cul-de-sac
you go widdershins:
anti-magic engine thrumming:
impossible gravitas.

The beam bursting from your head
is a particle, is a wave;
you are the collapsing form
I cannot unsee;
the antibody lives on:
unapproachable parallel.

Bird originally appeared on Elsewhere in Dreams on 2010-03-04.

• Tea cups turned into pendant lighting- http://bit.ly/H4D6g #diy #remake #recycle #upcycle (via @cacophonyart) #
• Oliver must know when I'm about to leave him. He rolls on his back all cute and gives me those sad eyes. #
• I've been given the gift of time, I don't go in for another hour. #
• Between the guy in the bathroom on his phone and my unprofessional coworkers, this is going to be long evening. Send help. #
• Just went to the store. Never go this late but people we were out of basics and I certainly wasn't going the day before the snow. #
• Watching Feasting on Asphalt before bed only makes me want to eat not sleep. I heart Alton Brown. #

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In this Year in Which I Kick My Cancer’s Ass, I’ve finally found my theme song (lyrics below video):

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE: I wouldn’t have thought the wonderfulness of the video above could be surpassed, but OK GO has just issued the “official” video for this song, which may feature the greatest Rube Goldberg machine of all time:

This Too Shall Pass by OK Go

You know you can’t keep lettin’ it get you down
And you can’t keep draggin’ that dead weight around.
If there ain’t all that much to lug around,
Better run like hell when you hit the ground.

When the morning comes.
When the morning comes.

You can’t stop these kids from dancin’.
Why would you want to?
Especially when your already gettin’ yours.
‘Cause if your mind don’t move and your knees don’t bend,
well don’t go blamin’ the kids again.

When the morning comes.
When the morning comes.

Let it go, this too shall pass
When the morning comes.

Bonus! Let’s not forget that these were the lads who brought us one of the most viral music videos of all time:

OK Go – Here It Goes Again from OK Go on Vimeo.

One thing I’m becoming increasingly aware of is a “grass is greener” complex I’ve had since I can remember. Instead of being content with what God has blessed me with, I am constantly looking for the next best thing. In high school, this meant that relationships with men (or, more appropriately boys) were short-lived, had very little depth, and were emotionally intense… until I got bored or distracted by another boy sitting two rows over in Honors English. Thankfully, none of those relationships scarred me for life, but I’m sure I hurt a lot of people, and that grieves me. Because I do care about others and the last thing I would want to do is make someone uncomfortable or hurt. Alas, mistakes of my teenage years that I can only realize and learn from.

Now that I am grown with a family of my own, this greener-grass complex works its way out in different ways. I don’t like living in an old apartment, so we move to a newer one. But wait. Why live in a cramped apartment when we could rent a HOUSE?! And a year later, we are “wasting our money” on rent and REALLY REALLY need to be homeowners. And so I find myself browsing real estate listings in my down time. When we’re not even in a place (financially or otherwise) to buy a home right now. We might be in a year. But we might not. And so what the hell am I doing to myself?

I’m coming to terms with this nasty part of myself. It’s not fun to face the ugliness about one’s character. But it’s necessary. Because I’m hurting others in the process – my husband and two beautiful babies. And these three men in my life mean far more to me than any old high school flame ever could. I do not want to make the same mistake twice.

So, I’m learning to not only protect myself from my ugliness, but learning that in turn, I’m protecting my family, too. Truth is, God has blessed us far more than we could have imagined even a year ago. The kids were locked up in daycare for close to 12 hours a day, and I was lost in a stressful, demanding job. Fast forward a year, and we are renting a beautiful, perfectly-sized home in a safe neighborhood and I am at home with the boys. While I do spend my time looking for a job and networking, I am able to be with them and love them like no one else can.

Sometimes it takes wading through one’s own cesspool of depression and angst to realize that it’s really not that bad at all. In fact, right now, I’m living the life I always dreamed I would have. It might not be picture perfect, but whose life is, you know?

(Title from Patty Griffin’s “Blue Sky.”)

• I see snow! #
• Oh this snow is staying awhile. #
• Makin' this for dinner from stuff we already had. Snow day food: http://tiny.cc/WEgEW #
• Don't tell Jillian, I cheated a little. My tummy wasn't up for all those jumping jacks. Kept moving, just not in the form of a jumping jack. #

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We’ve been eating more natural, whole foods for the past couple of years, and I just cooked up one of the most easy, delicious, and well-balanced meals with only about 10 minutes of prep time. Since chicken is one of the least inexpensive protein sources out there, our freezer is overflowing with bags of skinless, boneless chicken breasts. And the whole grilled chicken with a veggie is honestly getting old. So, today, I decided to change things up a bit by slow roasting chicken with some mixed veggies, which produces a depth of flavor one can’t achieve on a stove griddle. If you’re looking for a healthy, inexpensive way to feed your fam, you might wanna try this one out.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 potato, cubed
3 cups of broccoli florets
2 T. evoo
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350, rack in the middle. Coat an 8×8 glass baking dish with non-stick spray.
2. Combine chicken, potato, and broccoli in glass dish. Drizzle evoo over top and stir to coat chicken and veggies.
3. Sprinkle herbs and salt and pepper on top, mixing again to make sure they’re evenly distributed.
4. Bake for 60-75 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serves 4 as a main dish. Add another vegetable or starch and it’ll serve 6.