I've just realized that Pride and Prejudice is a 19th century version of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Alliteration and everything.
Lately, I seem to be writing more in Ron's blog than in my own. Check it out.
Jason thinks Julia Stiles is good-looking. I think she looks like a domo-kun.
Agree or disagree?
"Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the seven deadly sins."
- via Yuriy
The Way I See It #141
I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stumped by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, "Hi."* They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.
- Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors
*Or in my case, "So, what are you reading?"
Whenever people meeting me for the first time find out that I am a speech-language pathology student, they are immediately concerned that I am inwardly evaluating their deficient grammar. That is so not the case. I'm not keeping a running tally of everyone's dangling participles and subject-verb disagreements. Occasionally, however, certain agrammaticalities do stand out to me by the sheer frequency of their misuse. And so, every now and then, I feel it is my civic duty to raise public awareness about the mistreatment of countless words. Pay close attention.
The thing is, is that...
Did anyone else notice an extraneous is? This is the El Camino of sentence starters. It took two perfectly good constructions and fused them together into some warped, mutant clause-thing. It's not pretty. The key issue is that... What you need to understand is that... Each of those is fine. Or simply, The thing is... (pause) [start your sentence]. I'm convinced that the latter is really what everyone wants to say, but it makes people uncomfortable because of its sparsity. We feel it needs some cushioning, so we throw that extra is that in there. Don't do it.
He/she is the kind of person that...
I'm going to start this paragraph with a shockingly liberal idea: people are not things. I know, it's radical. But the guys who wrote the English language were progressive like that, and built in a way to tell the difference between people and things. It's called the relative pronoun. For things, we use the word that; for people, wait for it... who. It was the kind of thing that made me question my choice of career. He was the kind of person who never accepted defeat. If you have trouble keeping it straight, just remember: four legs, that; two legs, who.
And that concludes our tutorial for today. Until next time, read over last time. Only YOU can prevent bad grammar.
Who on earth could I possibly send this to? I mean, seriously! Or—good Lord!—this?
(And if it's you, let me know cuz I am dying for an excuse to buy them.)
So I recently saw a commercial for a GPS device for your car with a map and soothing female voice feeding you directions as you drive. And I thought, Wow, that's pretty cool. You don't ever have to be lost; you can see everything around you. I wonder how long it will be before technology I marvel at becomes ordinary. I thought about cell phones and how they have become ubiquitous and universal. If someone is not reachable anywhere anytime, it is seen as a great inconvenience. Sometimes I think about what it must have been like before, when people had plans to meet, but couldn't let each other know when they were late or lost or not coming. We are evolving as a species by virtue of technology, becoming omniocular and omniaural. Is our children's generation going to look back on our parents' generation as walking the earth blind and deaf?
I have learned that you can decide how you are going to love people, but you have absolutely no control over how people are going to love you. And thinking you have uncovered the most excellent way makes it that much more frustrating when those around you don't follow it.
I promise never to become set in my ways.
Unless they're good ways.
Love is not trying to change people.
Love is affording them the freedom to change.
What does it mean to love?
The best I can come up with is that love is equal parts grace and truth. I heard a speaker once say that truth without grace is legalism, and grace without truth is license. If our love is going to do anybody any good, we have to strike a balance between the two.
Love is not rejection. That sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it is something I have been discovering little by little as of late. Not that I previously thought love was rejection. What has dawned on me recently is that if something can get in the way of love, then that love is flawed. And can it even be called love after that? Our love for others should be tenacious, especially if it is modeled after God's own love for us. Paul said, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). And I am convinced that our love should take after His.
Sin makes it hard to love people sometimes. We live in a fallen creation; sin is everywhere. Humanity lies rotting all around us. We know we are supposed to avoid sin, to repent of it, to rebuke it. But what happens when the object of our rebuke and the object of our love take up residence in the same soul? Once I thought to myself that God was a master at taking the bad with the good. Then I realized it was the opposite: God is a master at separating out the bad, even to the subatomic level, and dying for it.
But the redemption of creation is a process not yet complete. And so we find ourselves in lives that will never be completely perfect, with people who will never be completely perfect. Perfection, or holiness, is the goal, but our Christian lives trace a parabolic curve. We could go on for infinity, coming ever closer, and never touch that line. Knowing this, shouldn't our aim be to get, and help others to get, as close as we can? I am less concerned that my loved ones live sinless lives as I am that they meet Jesus before they die.
Homosexuality does not send people to hell. Overindulgence in alcohol does not send people to hell. Murder does not even send people to hell. The only sin by which people relegate themselves to eternal damnation is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31), in other words, rejection of Jesus Christ as Savior. Everyone begins spiritual life in a state of rejection against God. We have to choose, each of us as individuals, to cross over into a relationship with Him. What precipitates this choice? People catch a glimpse of something attractive about God. His love. The Holy Spirit is a free agent, without need of help from believers, but He allows us to share in the process by being conduits of that love.
For a conduit to work it has to be open on both ends. We miss the extraordinary opportunity to see God work through us when we let our actions be dictated by the faults of others. Jesus loved the sinners, and rebuked the ones who thought they were doing everything right.
My interpretation of the Bible describes homosexuality as contrary to God's intention for human relationships. As, to be blunt, sin. I believe the Bible to be true in its entirety. Therefore, I cannot condone the practice of homosexuality and still maintain integrity in what I believe.
But many people, including homosexuals, don't share this interpretation of Scripture. Some even believe God made them that way.
I don't know what causes homosexuality. I don't know if God wove it into certain people's makeup, or if it is a repercussion of the fall of mankind. Since I don't know, I feel I need to err on the side of caution, to take a conservative stance, to align myself with what I believe God says rather than what I know the world says. I have to proceed on the premise that homosexuality is sin.
But sin is sin. The Bible teaches that no sin is any worse or better than another.
True. But there is a difference between incidental and habitual sin. Between the sins committed unintentionally, confessed immediately, and those that pervade our thoughts and actions and become lifestyle. The difference is willfulness.
Even so, no sin—incidental or habitual—is outside God's redemptive power. The tide of Jesus' blood does not stop short of willful disobedience. And He is the only One who can effect change within a person. Not the church.
Ah, the church. Failing to minister to homosexuals everyday. The church's message seems to be, "You are welcome within our walls. But you are not welcome to remain homosexual." With that caveat, how can the first statement be true? If we as a church don't welcome people as Jesus did—just as they are—then what are we saying about Christ? That you have to get your life straight before He will accept you? If He is the only One who can effect change, then that implied message is completely backward. You can't get your life straight until He's in it. So first things first. If the church believes homosexuality is sin, and that Jesus is the only cure for sin, then the church should be in the business of introducing homosexuals to Jesus, not standing in the way of that meeting. As it is now, the greatest barrier to homosexuals coming to know God is not their homosexuality, but judgmentalism on the part of the church.
What if the church were to take this kind of stance on other lifestyle sins like gossip, or gluttony, or pride? Churches would split over whether to allow someone who was overweight to take a position of leadership. If homosexuality is a sin, it is a sin like every other sin in every other person's life.
God responded to sin with mercy; He came to earth Himself to accept the punishment every person deserves. And He is still in the business of setting people free from sin. We as the church think this responsibility falls on our shoulders, but it doesn't. Jesus says in John 13:35, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" not "...if you take a hard line on homosexuality."
And what if homosexuality is not a sin?
In either case, love is the only correct response.
I made a new friend this weekend. A gay friend. A Christian friend. A totally awesome gay Christian friend. And I realized that I will never again feel like I have everything figured out.
I may blog about this topic some more, the likelihood to be determined by the number of comments. ;)
Here I go.
Reading about the execution of Dexter Lee Vinson, I kept seeing the movie Dead Man Walking superimposed on the story. The soundtrack played in my head as I took on the perspective of the accused, the victim, their families, the prison officials, and the governor in turn. It was an uncomfortable exercise in empathy. I would not have wanted to be any of them.
Gov. Tim Kaine has made known his personal feelings regarding the death penalty. He is against it based on the convictions of his Catholic faith. Yet he went against those convictions to uphold a decision made by the people of Virginia. And I commend him for that. Not for denying his conscience, but for making the more difficult choice.
Either choice would have been right. Both staying the execution and refusing to stay, in a metaphysical sense, defend life. That, I assume, is the Catholic precept: to preserve the sanctity of human life. But we as humans did not start out exalting our existence; God had to teach us to value life. And He did that by instituting the death penalty.
When Noah stepped off the ark, it was onto a different world. The entire population had been wiped out in God's judgment, and now the rules were different. Genesis 9:3-6 records God's new mandate:
"But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man."
To overturn a decision of the courts—and in doing so nullify a 9-year legal process—in order to pardon a convicted murderer would have been a statement affirming life. But allowing justice to take its course, demanding an account from Dexter Lee Vinson for the life of Angela Felton, makes a stronger statement. It carries the notion that human life is so weighty, so important, that we as a society will not shrink from whatever means necessary to protect and champion it. Even to the point of death.
Execution is messy. It leaves a dead body, images that witnesses probably wish they could erase, grief that family members did not deserve, antipathy on the part of many peace-loving citizens. But the governor was willing to accept all of these in his affirmation of the state's decision. He could have prevented this particular mess, and pacified those committed to his own stance on capital punishment, with one telephone call. Only the most cynical of critics would have characterized it as cowardice. I am sure there are many, however, including the family of Angela Felton, who were heartened by his courage.
Here I go.
Reading about the execution of Dexter Lee Vinson, I kept seeing the movie Dead Man Walking superimposed on the story. The soundtrack played in my head as I took on the perspective of the accused, the victim, their families, the prison officials, and the governor in turn. It was an uncomfortable exercise in empathy. I would not have wanted to be any of them.
Gov. Tim Kaine has made known his personal feelings regarding the death penalty. He is against it based on the convictions of his Catholic faith. Yet he went against those convictions to uphold a decision made by the people of Virginia. And I commend him for that. Not for denying his conscience, but for making the more difficult choice.
Either choice would have been right. Both staying the execution and refusing to stay, in a metaphysical sense, defend life. That, I assume, is the Catholic precept: to preserve the sanctity of human life. But we as humans did not start out exalting our existence; God had to teach us to value life. And He did that by instituting the death penalty.
When Noah stepped off the ark, it was onto a different world. The entire population had been wiped out in God's judgment, and now the rules were different. Genesis 9:3-6 records God's new mandate:
"But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man."
To overturn a decision of the courts—and in doing so nullify a 9-year legal process—in order to pardon a convicted murderer would have been a statement affirming life. But allowing justice to take its course, demanding an account from Dexter Lee Vinson for the life of Angela Felton, makes a stronger statement. It carries the notion that human life is so weighty, so important, that we as a society will not shrink from whatever means necessary to protect and champion it. Even to the point of death.
Execution is messy. It leaves a dead body, images that witnesses probably wish they could erase, grief that family members did not deserve, antipathy on the part of many peace-loving citizens. But the governor was willing to accept all of these in his affirmation of the state's decision. He could have prevented this particular mess, and pacified those committed to his own stance on capital punishment, with one telephone call. Only the most cynical of critics would have characterized it as cowardice. I am sure there are many, however, including the family of Angela Felton, who were heartened by his courage.
And now for something completely different...
The Advertising Slogan Generator
Just fill in your name and watch your ad campaign take shape. Keep hitting refresh and it's just like being in an actual brainstorming session. Here are a few of my favorites:
An Army of Meredith
Don't be vague. Ask for Meredith.
Only Meredith has the answer.
So have fun and don't forget to leave me comments with your new slogans!
Happy Boxing Day, everyone! And no, it's not the day you put stuff back in the box to return it. Boxing Day is actually a national holiday in Britain and Canada, stemming from the tradition of filling boxes with gifts and money for the poor.
In honor of Boxing Day, our friends invited us over for tea. It was lovely. We each had a cracker (2c) on our plates, which produced a paper crown for each of us, a little prize, and delightfully cheesy Christmas riddles. What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire? Frostbite. Why does Santa have three gardens? So that he can "hoe, hoe, hoe!" We donned our paper crowns, ate cucumber sandwiches and mincemeat tarts, and, of course, drank lots of tea.
I seriously got the dry heaves in the middle of the Hallmark store today. There's not a whole lot of selection when it comes to birthday cards for mom. They all have pretty much the same sickening sentiment inside. It goes something like this:
I'm sorry I don't
appreciate you.
As I get older,
I realize what a terrible,
ungrateful person I am.
But it's your birthday,
so here's a card.
All I was looking for was a Happy Birthday, possibly even an I love you, not, Sorry for all the years I mistreated you. If the greeting card industry is to be believed, no one is capable of uttering, "I love you, Mom," and only ever thinks about the nice, mothery stuff she's done once a year. Well, I, for one, have thought about it at least twice.
by Yours Truly
Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Thanksgiving
It's here again
It comes every year
This is about when
Turkey in the oven
Football on TV
Relatives in guest rooms
Get to eat for free
Government-mandated gratefulness
It's a beautiful thing
Hearkens back to our founders
Let the oven timer ring!
What are you thankful for?
Everything and not enough
Family, friends, health
And all the incidental stuff
Thanksgiving's here again
Time to loosen your pants
Eat yourself into a stupor
And don't forget to say thanks
What image conveys a universal welcome to all trick-or-treaters? Which iconic symbol reaches children tall and small? Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SpongeBob SquarePants!
I am so proud of this carving job. If I couldn't be home on Halloween night, at least my pumpkin could.
"Take your ear plugs out
Hear what the birds have to say" - Fruit Bats
Everybody's talking/writing about Hurricane Katrina at the present time, and you may or may not be tired of hearing about it. However, I can guarantee, in all the conversation there is on the subject, you haven't heard what I'm about to say:
I don't care.
I want to care. I really do. I just don't. And it's not because it's far away. Not because it doesn't affect me. Not because I'm racist and all the people suffering are black (please, note sarcasm). Generally, when some significant event or situation arises requiring a emotional response, that's when my faculties fail me. I don't seem to have such a problem caring about insignificant stuff. Perhaps I have a neuronal defect: if an emotion is too big or too strong, it can't get through. A survival mechanism for the 21st century.
In any case, I don't want to you to think that I use my failure to feel as an excuse not to help. I did my part and gave to the relief effort. I donated out of apathy.
To the author of the anonymous comment that I accidentally despammed:
Sorry, dude. By the time I saw it, I had already hit the button.
And who are you anyway? Are you all one person or is there a whole segment of society leaving nuggets of wisdom on websites, but no names? Do I know you? Are you too bashful to want me to know that you read my site? One word comes to mind, and I have a difficult time dismissing it. It starts with "ch" and ends with "icken." So if anyone would like to offer a plausible reason why anonymous commentators are not feathery barnyard animals, I am eager to hear it.
In the meantime, leave a name! It doesn't even have to be your real name; any name will do.
Ok, I've gotta start this thing up again. Two years ago, I had plenty of material to write about and nobody to read it. Now I have regular readers and nothing to write. I keep waiting for inspiration, but it's getting to the point where I think I'm gonna hafta make my own.
Hmmm... What inspires me?
My latest Netflix rental. American Splendor. That was a cool movie. I was completely fascinated, mostly because the story had been going on under my nose for 20-odd years and I had no idea.
Camping. Communing with nature. And screaming babies. And barking dogs. And nazi park rangers.
School? No. In fact, I find school definitively uninspiring. Summer classes, being condensed, last approximately 3 hours each. My attention span for articulation disorders and cleft palate, respectively, is about 1 hour each. That leaves two hours, 3 times a week, of me wanting to poke my eyes out.
The boy. Yes, he is a significant source of my inspiration these days, but not the kind of inspiration that makes me want to run home and fire up the laptop. Rather, it's the kind that makes me want to plan the rest of our lives together and then hurry up and start living it.
There's something very romantic about a secret wedding. Y'know, the one you hear about like this:
"Oh, by the way, everybody, Jason got married last night."
I'm a fan. :)
Being smart does not make life easier. It makes standardized tests easier, but it does not make life easier.
From Patrick:
"I kissed I Kissed Dating Goodbye goodbye."
Usually I try to write, in the grand tradition of Seinfeld, about nothing. However, in the next few paragraphs, I will wander into the realm of something.
I have noticed things. Things taking place in our world. Things out of the ordinary. I have noticed things, and perhaps you have, too.
A lot of people in America hate President Bush. And when I say "hate," it is not because I am too lazy to find a better synonym. They hate him. Viscerally. Irrationally. They don't merely disagree with his policies or disapprove of his actions while in office; they hate him as a person. With all the thinking people in America (and I consider most of the Bush-detractors to be thinking people) I would expect arguments against the president to be more logical and less emotion-driven. This, to me, is strange. Along with the most outspoken segment of America, the Rest-of-the-World seems to hate Bush, too. This is also strange, and yet makes perfect sense, as I will attempt to demonstrate in a moment.
Intersecting anti-Bush sentiment in the fabric of history is the simultaneous surfacing of a number of life-or-death issues: abortion; terrorism; cloning; war in the Middle East; embrionic stem cell research; gay marriage (as for why I consider gay marriage a life-or-death issue, that is a subject for another post). Some of these came to the forefront years ago and are still with us. Others are more recent developments, brought about by the courses that technology and our cultural sensibilities have followed. Some I never expected to see in my lifetime.
These issues, among others, have contributed to the political polarization of our country. The conflict has been heated, as evident in this most recent election. Much was at stake, and everyone felt it. It was as if events were coming to a boil around us, accelerating toward a focal point. But it was not the election. The anticipated focal point is on a much grander scale.
What is obvious to me, and yet remains hidden from the general populus, is that the conflict raging around us is predominantly spiritual. We perceive echoes and outgrowths of it in the physical realm, but the corpus of it lies entirely in the spiritual dimension.
The reason so many are at odds with President Bush is that he and they are on opposite sides of God's law. Romans 8:5-7 elucidates this principle (emphasis mine):
Those without the Spirit are hostile to God and therefore hostile to God's people, who are indwelled by His Spirit. Jesus foretold the world's attitude toward Christians when he spoke about the end times: "You will be hated by all nations because of me" (Matthew 24:9b). How very accurate.
We, dear readers, are living in the end times. I can't say exactly where in the end times timetable we find ourselves, but we are assuredly here. And if I know it, then it is certain that satan knows it. Hence the mad rush to negate as much life as possible; he knows his time is short. If he can keep abortion legal, establish terrorism as an accepted negotiation tool, and devalue human life to the point of its being created for spare parts, he will have erected a system of evil capable of perpetuating itself. The reelection of a godly president over a world superpower is just a minor setback. The return of the Kings of Kings will put him decidedly out of business.
Growing up with reddish hair and fair skin, there are certain characters who become a part of your pop culture matrix. Anne of Green Gables. Pippi Longstocking. Strawberry Shortcake. I had always thought these archetypal characters were universally known and understood. However, it appears that in their passing through the human throng that is our society (or at least my immediate social circle), these entities have adhered to my person alone. This will I remember the next time I consider busting out the gravity-defying pigtails and striped stockings.
After a lazy morning of long-overdue blogbrowsing, I came to a startling conclusion:
I am not a geek.
For the first time in my life, I felt some shame about this fact. I am not a geek; instead, I am a geek-poser attempting to infiltrate the geek world. I mooch all the geek knowledge I need off my geek friends, so that I can get by without actually having to learn the geek ways.
I'm a fan of LoTR, HP, Star Wars, but I'd flunk a trivia test in a second and it wouldn't really phase me. I have a blog that I designed and maintain, but--here it comes--I know nothing about computers. Nothing. It's shameful.
Why do I do this? Why do I tread so close to the boundary of geekdom without crossing over? Maybe I'm just afraid. What if I go geek and I can't ever go back?
Don't get me wrong; I am a great fan of the geek population. I prefer, however, not to be assimilated.
As a trained linguist, I feel I am beholden to use my expertise for the betterment of society. In this vein, I bring you my first installment of Making the World a Better Place Through Grammar.
Every day I run across language that has been misused and abused. I can no longer sit idly by while I have the tools at my fingertips to get the word out, so to speak. The following are just a few of the many misapplied figures of speech that cry out to be understood.
oxymoron:
An oxymoron is a literary device that follows a specific formula: two words, a modifier paired with a contradictory noun. Loving hate. Military intelligence. If the phrase in question does not fit this pattern, it is probably better described as a contradiction in terms.
concerted effort:
A concerted effort is one that is executed in concert, or together. It denotes a group working toward a single goal. One person can not act in concert with himself. An individual may make a deliberate effort or a concentrated effort, but not a concerted effort.
heighth:
The word is height, HEIGHT! Length; width; height. It rhymes with kite, and flight, and fight, which is what I am liable to do if I hear one more person add that obtrusive "th."
That's it for today. Stay tuned for more important messages from a committed advocate for those little guys we call words.
Porn makes me angry. I don't even have to see it. The fact that it is an unwelcome intruder in the cyberspaces I call my own is reason enough for ire. You would think that the pornmongers of the internet would receive enough traffic from the actual perverts and frat guys of the world to keep their children in shoes. But that's not enough to satisfy them; they have to send out their links like swarms of locusts to pollute and devour. Perhaps they think that if someone sees porn ads in great enough number, eventually he will click on one. I can't imagine that happens enough to make the bombardment worthwhile. I can only speak for myself, but repeated nuisance doesn't miraculously spark desire. It makes me angry.
Everybody go see Strong Bad's email... and stop staring at me, like you're waiting for me to say something.
So after multiple requests, I finally broke down and joined Friendster. I found I have a personal network (people who are connected to me by 3 degrees or less) of over 34,000 people, I'd say probably 80% of whom are gay men. That should shake up some stereotypes.
As my senses are lately bombarded with attacks on Christianity, whether in reference to "anti-gay" legislation or The Passion movie, I am reminded of two sayings:
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom." - Proverbs 9:10
and
"A fool is born every minute." - P.T. Barnum
I see this over and over. One person, entering or exiting a public establishment, holds the door for another, then gets offended if there is no display of gratitude. A sarcastic you're welcome (or something more explicit) from the first party punctuates the encounter. I watch, stunned, as the courteous gesture is nullified by the discourteous comment. I like to think that people hold doors because they are the kind of people who hold doors, not because they expect recognition for it. Conversely, I try to be the kind of person who always says thank you, because you never know who you're gonna get.
In an email from my friend Patrick:
So I finally saw this Mel Gibson movie everyone is talking about.
As someone with English parents, I'm disgusted that he would show William Wallace's death at the hands of the English.
He clearly must be an anti-Anglo.
I just finished watching Seven Samurai. That was the best 4 hours of Japanese cinema I've ever seen. Also the only 4 hours, but I am making progress. Aaron, I now understand why it is your favorite film. I have to say, I am also a fan.
I love this. I absolutely love it. What an amazing thing, to have access to a piece, an entry, a post made available for the whole of the earth to read, and then write back! Whole conversations, brilliant beyond expectation, are possible, unhampered by distance, time, prejudice. How did I find myself here, with the means to engage the world at large? To be awestruck by the beauty and creativity revealed in words and images? What an extraordinary privilege I have only just stumbled upon...
Newsboys in concert. Third row seats. Very choice.
Look at my pictures.
Did I go to a Superbowl party? Yes.
Did I watch the Superbowl? No.
Is that weird?
"I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
"If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."
Lesson learned: If you're going to steal money from the church offering, don't let three old ladies see you do it.
I penned this poem a few years ago and I thought it was dumb. What do you think? (Only constructive comments, please.)
Read it in your best Louis Armstrong voice.
___
Jazz
There's a real place in my heart for jazz music.
I'm not talking about this smooth jazz crap
where they take all the soul out of it
put it through a blender
and spoon-feed it to you.
I'm talking about real jazz, raw jazz,
the kind with rough edges that
stick out and poke you, make you
sit up and take notice, make you
ask, was it talking to me?
And the answer, my friend, is yes.
Yes, I got to hab' me some o' dat jazz.
Does it bother you that your brother hasn't married/won't marry/has no intention of marrying his long-time girlfriend?
If the answer is yes, then no big deal--we agree. We can dissect the situation and lament it as one mind.
But if the answer is no... Don't I sound holier than thou! Who am I to impose my morals on other people? I'm not perfect myself, as you know all too well. Maybe I view dating indefinitely with no thought given to marriage misogynistic; that doesn't mean other people see it that way. Who am I to judge your family?
As much I wanted to know where you stand, I couldn't bear to let it come between us.
I saw a commercial for a new reality show. I forget the name of it, but it's along the lines of EdTV, where a guy turns his whole life over to the cameras and that's the show. After my initial groan, another reality show reaction, I got to thinking how appealing it might be to star in a show like that, to have instant fame and innumerable devoted fans for nothing more than living my everyday life. Parts of it would be really boring, though. Me reading a book. Me staring at a television. Me hunched over my computer. Regardless, I'm sure I would be a big hit.
Then it dawned on me--what I have here is far better than my own reality TV show! I have complete creative control, so I can leave out all the boring stuff. My faithful fans, few though they may be, tune in and read all about me, thereby perpetuating the exhibitionist/voyeur symbiosis behind every good reality show.
"Beannachtaí na Nollag," says my Christmas card from Ireland. "Christmas blessings." How cool is that! This little card made it all the way across the Atlantic from my outstanding Irish pen-friend. I feel blessed already.
I love trying new things. I got to experience a true Kentucky meal tonight at my friends' house: chili with spaghetti noodles in it and Ale-8 fruity ginger ale. It's like observing another culture without leaving home.
My favorite radio station was hijacked today. No notice. Just oppressive country music where my beautiful eclectic sound used to be. And the weird part was they kept playing the same song over and over (I checked back every couple minutes to see if it was a joke): "Gone Country." Yes, I get it--my radio station has "gone country." Now put it back the way you found it and nobody gets hurt.
We had an interesting conversation at my uncle's house last night. He and his wife are self-proclaimed atheist-leaning agnostics; my parents are clergy and devout layperson. Not having been privy to one of these controversial discussions before, I took the role of observer and tried to bridge the gap whenever possible. Even though I whole-heartedly agree with and support my parents on spiritual matters, the last thing I wanted to do was to set myself up as another spiritual antagonist to my aunt and uncle. Not that my parents have done that, but I have a feeling that's how they are viewed.
The conversation veered toward the dreaded topic of <shudder> God when my uncle expressed his discomfort about all the Christian influences in His environment: "It's like it's not politically correct to not be religious these days." We thought that was pretty interesting, since we find exactly the opposite to be true. Everybody in the room felt like he or she was in the minority of society, being careful not to offend anyone and seeking not to be offended in the process. The shared experience of feeling outnumbered opened the door to a very candid discussion about many things faith-related.
I don't think it's a quirk of fate that my aunt and uncle find themselves lately inundated by Christianity, nor that my parents and I were available to talk about it, when they felt prohibited from bringing it up to anyone else. Something is happening over there, and I just hope I will get to see it come to fruition.
I used to think Thanksgiving was a stupid holiday, but that was only because in preschool, my mother made me wear a construction paper pilgrim costume. Hat, collar, cuffs--the whole deal. It took me a while to get over that.
When I truly began to ponder the significance of Thanksgiving, I realized that it is the only uniquely American holiday dedicated to honoring God. Though we may be the most decadent nation on earth, I find it reassuring that we continue to acknowledge our Provider and who we are in relation to Him: the recipients of His blessings.
What am I thankful for this year? For the privilege of knowing my Creator. For Jesus Christ, who made that possible. That I have everything I need. And that I don't have to wear a construction paper pilgrim costume ever again.
For some reason, I woke up this morning carrying a mental relic from 2nd grade. I don't think I've thought about this since it happened.
Back then, some of my classmates had taken to saying "cinchy" instead of "easy." It's a logical derivation: "That's a cinch." => "cinchy." I don't know where we picked it up. Perhaps it's just one more instance of children being creative with language.
My second-grade math teacher, Mrs. Roland*, however, put a stop to that. Apparently, the word cinchy had become her pet peeve. We were no longer allowed to use it anymore. Ever. Of course I bowed to her imposing authority (I don't think I had ever said the word anyway) without giving a thought to the injustice of it. I figured cinchy must really be a bad word if a teacher wouldn't let us say it.
If I were a 2nd grade teacher and my kids came up with a variation like that, I'd be thrilled! But maybe that's just the linguist in me. Come to think of it, they probably wouldn't let me near a class of second-graders; I'm not a big enough proponent of censorship.
I usually try to stay away from politics as much as possible because it just irritates me. Today, however, I will get my hands dirty.
I caught part of an interview with the Dixie Chicks on the Today Show this morning. They were upset about some comments by the president following their little debacle. He said, "The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out. You know, freedom is a two-way street." I thought to myself: how true, and what a generous position for him to take in the face of personal insult! The Dixie Chicks, on the other hand, felt that it was just an attempt to shut them up, and that it belied the ideals of our country's founders. I've got news for you, girls, our founders believed that freedom came with responsibility, that one must accept the consequences of one's free choices. What could President Bush have said that would have made you happy? "You know, I'm ashamed that I'm from Texas, too. I think every American should be sure to pick up a copy of the Dixie Chicks' music, so they'll know that you want them to make disparaging remarks about their president in foreign countries during wartime. Because that's what makes you an ideal American."
I am amazed at how popular is this particular form of self-inflicted torture. Masochism for the masses! You don't even need to leave the comfort of your computer chair! The truth is, I'm secretly jealous. I'm jealous of all the born-novelists out there who have innumerable stories welling up in their psyches just waiting to burst forth and bless the reading population. I'm jealous of those literary voices who just need an excuse and an incentive to put it all down on paper, who have to do it fast or won't do it at all.
I, in contrast, have nothing to say.
I am reminded of Meg Ryan's character in You've Got Mail, who can't even think of a synonym for blank. This is why I blog. Inspiration comes to me in little spurts, and I have to grab it while I can because if I try to save it all up for one month out of the year, I'll find that it doesn't keep that long. Like manna: here today; stale tomorrow. Maybe someday the events and observations of my life will add up to something that needs written. Until then, I will gaze longingly from the sidelines.
I popped in my old Counting Crows cd (Recovering the Satellites) cuz I hadn't listened to it in forever and I wanted to see if it was still as good as before. It is.
So I'm singing my soul out with Adam and all of a sudden it hits me... I sound awesome! I sound like my voice is coming out of the stereo. Then I realized it was just my comp. The LCD on my laptop created a little echo chamber when I sang in front of it. There goes my dream of being a rockstar.
Two years in college time = an epoch
Two years in real world time = 5 minutes
Therefore, if you go back and visit people who are still in college, while it seems like just seconds ago that you were their peer, they will think you are OLD.
An intern in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's office was sacked because of an email he wrote. It's always sad when an elitist upbringing rears its ugly head. Click here to read the Washington Post account of the scandal, and see below for the original message. I censored one word and removed line breaks for the sake of space, but other than that, it is exactly how I received it. In the Post, the author of the email is quoted as saying that he "wrote that letter in under 15 minutes." I'm surprised he admitted it took that long.
>
>From: Kelly Tripplehorn [mailto: tripplehorny@hotmail.com
>
>
>Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 2:11 PM
>
>To: cheezygrl@aol.com
>
>Subject: you suck
>
>Well, as of this afternoon, I was planning on ruining your career by making phone calls to all of my parents friends and have you blackballed from the workplace as well as every prestigous law school in the country, but then (lucky for you) I decided not to do that because you are a sad sad person and I will just let your life self destruct right before my eyes....
Michele I am sorry, I don't care how big of sadistic
f[***]ed up crush you have on me but people like me simple don't date people like you. You are too competitive with me and you just simply will never be better than me. I will always have more friends than you just because I don't care about beating people and lying to get to the top. (You are an absolute hipocrit in everything that you do, I am not going to go into details why you are because that would be a waste of my time and yours but I can assure you if you were to ever meet yourself you would hate your twin) I have told most all of the staff about our situation now and they already knew you were really messed you. They said when you were talking to them about me, they all told me you had "serious issues" and that every word you said sounded scripted and they knew without a doubt that you were lying. I have noticed that people who you think are your good friends actually really dislike you but unlik! e me, they will not tell you to your face because they would rather be fake nice to you than be your enemy. .... Now talking about how I am obsessed with money, I simply am not. You are. You always are trying to impress me by how much money you have and I don't care. The difference is though I talk about it but it is never about bragging and it is never directly about money, it is always directly about the conversation. Forinstance, someone will ask, what are you doing for july 4rth. And then I will say I am going to aspen. It is a simple fact that I am but since you don't have a house in aspen, you get offended because of your competitive nature. When you talk about money you will say something like UT's tuition is 5% of your family's income, thus my tuition would be 125,000. Yea, Michele you are right, I brag too much about what I have.... Well I am just going to stop writing because you are just absolutely beneath me. I have heard that you try to undermine people all t! he time that are better than you and everysingle time it does not work because people can see through such shallowness and that is why as I have heard so many times, Most "everyone at UT absolutely hates you." For instance even the people that you thought were your friends Mellissa Mahaffey or that girl you met at espn, they hate you, they just never say anything. Everyone knows you are a pathetic social climber who will go to any discusting means to move up the ladder. But guess what Michele, you will never move up the ladder because I am at the top and people like me hate people like you. You might be able to trick people like me for maybe a month or so but your true personality comes through after a while and it is vile, if that. You have sooooo many people that absolutely hate you and you will never know it because they will never say anything to your face. You will not succeed in life and even the staff thinks that also, after I told them about the things that you do. You suck! and good luck being miserable for the rest of your life. I do not even know why I wasted my time typing this for suck slime. Everyone tells me that you are so beneath me (which you are) and I should not get worked up over suck trifles. By the end of the day if I wanted to, I could make a phone call and have your life absolutely ruined but there is no need because you are falling fast enough towards failure without me. In the end, all I can say is that people love me and people hate you. You should observe me and take a few notes on how to make real friends. Other than you tieing this one other person, I have never had such little respect for a human being in my life. I don't even have to tell you why because in my very accurate analysis that most everyone else agrees with, if you were to agree with my analyis about your character than my whole entire analysis would be wrong. Your inflamed ego has left you so blind and so impotent that you can nto even recognize the most o! bvious flaws in yourself. All your old roommates absolutely hated you and you still think the problem is with them, not you. Well I talked to your roommates and I thought they nice normal girls. So naturally, you would not fit in with them because you are so intellectually above them all. Right? You suck at life and you need to figure out why or you will be miserable for the rest of your life.
>
>Once again from your intellectual, moral, social, and emotional superior,
>Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr.
>
The friends who were down at the Mall came and joined us when they had fought their way back from the District. They were sunburned, exhausted, and covered in ash like in Armageddon. To each his own, I guess.
After perusing a number of other people's blogs this week, I have come to the conclusion that I hate the Friday Five. It just doesn't agree with me. If I don't have any ideas for an entry, I just won't write one, thank you. Please don't make me answer dull, trite questions. Please.
You're not as unique as you think you are--think you are.
My friends and I decided to have a girls' night on Friday, and go to dinner and a movie (along the lines of a chick-flick). We emailed everybody and who should show up to dinner but Jennifer, Jennifer, Meredith, Meredith, Melissa, and Melissa.
The movie was ok. It was a good thing we didn't bring any guys along, because I don't think they would have forgiven us. We saw Alex & Emma. Not the best effort from Rob Reiner, sad to say. But it had its moments. Watching my friend Meredith laugh at the funny parts, though, was funnier than the movie itself. :)
Finding (someone to keep your obnoxious children who are too young to sit through a full-length picture even if it is animated while you watch a movie about a fish named after Captain) Nemo
That's what it should be called. I am continually amazed at the collective lack of sense in a movie theater filled with children who can't handle the movie and parents who don't seem to notice. Dude, Finding Nemo has some scary parts. Those children are probably going to have nightmares about sharks and other fish with teeth, and will end up seeing a therapist as an adult because they have an irrational fear of aquariums and don't know why.
Anyway, it's a really cute movie, and we figured it was guy-safe, so we brought them along on Saturday. Yes, with all the beautiful weather and fun things to do in DC, I spent the bulk of my weekend in a dark room.
I am somewhere in the sea of heads to the right.
Our fellow sardines at the ceremony were some Mormons from Chevy Chase. They were really nice. One of them had saved my friend Joanna from being man-handled by a creepy guy in the rush to find a good standing spot. So we all went out to lunch together (us and the Mormons, that is, not the creepy guy). Why do Mormon boys have to be cute? That doesn't help me out at all. Anyway, they invited us to a dance in two weeks, but I'll be playing the harp in Alabama right around then. Darn.
"Did you go see that movie... what is it... Remax?"
Oh, Mom. (sigh)
Whew, I'm back. After much angst, stress, and IT nonsense, I have moved my site to a different server: ipowerweb.com. I was just fed up with the needless downtime on my old server, and I'm sure you were, too. Hopefully now we can all be happy again. :)
It's Aslan!
#5 Milton Reyes
Over 5,000 people attend the Easter Sunrise Service in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
My good buddy Alex was in Classical Ballet Theatre's Cinderella last night, so we all went to see him perform and be a righteous cheering section. He did a fantastic job; the whole ballet was danced very well. But, being the cultured bunch that we are, we were left with a number of burning questions at the end of the performance:
- What do you call a male ballerina?
- Would it really have hurt them to add some speaking parts?
- Isn't Cinderella's father supposed to be dead at the beginning of the story?
- I don't remember the woodland scene from the cartoon. (Ok, that's not a question, granted, but it was the source of moderate confusion.)
- Why does the prince have to wear tights (and several other more personal questions regarding the prince's undergarments that I don't care to repeat here)? Alex did a very good job of explaining the reasoning behind this one, but not to the satisfaction of some who were sitting in the 2nd row and saw more than they wanted to.
All in all, I learned that you can't take the average 23-year-old boy to the ballet, and that we seem to get all our shared cultural knowledge from Disney cartoons.
Went to see Carbon Leaf in concert last night. How much do I love them? Yeah, a lot. I braved the 9:30 Club, weighed down by the fatigue of the work week, and fighting a killer stomach ache, but Carbon Leaf did not disappoint. Every sound they create resonates on my auditory nerve, so that it's hard to tell whether the vibration is going in to my brain or coming out from my soul. If I had an inner soundtrack, I think it would resemble Carbon Leaf.
Jump Little Children opened for them. Can't leave them out. Also a very cool band.
How? How how how? How can people--actual people--carry out this kind of torture on other people? (If you can handle graphic depictions, read about atrocities here, here, and here.) Unlike those forced to watch loved ones being tortured, all I have to see are words on a page, and it still makes me want to cry and/or throw up.
I suppose I can rationalize why the torturers do it: if they don't, they themselves will be killed. And I can articulate why leaders order it done: they are sick, evil, and power-hungry, seeking to secure their status by the use of fear. But I can not hope to grasp why other world leaders, when made of aware of such practices, would not campaign to put an end to it immediately. To me, it makes them just like the torture-masters: able to look on and feel no visceral reaction. France, China, and Russia, what is your deal?
It's really war. And it's really in my lifetime. I guess I had this view of war as something that had been eradicated before I was born. Sure, there was the Gulf War, but that didn't seem real. Just missiles firing on other missiles. Then again, my little 11-year-old mind was probably pretty sheltered at that point. I thought that war was something my world had outgrown, like colic or acne.
But here we are again, once more into the fray. Our advocacy of freedom is put to the highest test. Is it worth dying for? For someone else? I suppose there lies the chasm between honor and cowardice. Do soldiers in battle even have time to contemplate the ethereal philosophy of what they defend? Or is it the one thing that is foremost on their minds--their driving force?
If we have learned anything by the history of our country, our struggles and triumphs, it is that freedom comes at a price. And that it's worth it.
But it's kinda weird coming in on the end of his career. I wish I had been a fan (i.e. aware of basketball) when he was in his prime. Even though he played the whole game last night, he didn't really do anything that impressive that set him apart from the other players. All of his mystique lies in what people remember about him, it seems. That being said, the atmosphere of the arena did give the feeling that you were in the presence of greatness.
I liked it. I think I'll go again. :)