Today I heard about a youth pastor at another church who had been arrested for sexually assaulting three girls. My heart lurched and my head was in my hands. A few moments later we deduced the "assault" was rape and couldn't find a way to disappear/make the world go away while I processed/didn't process the information.

Also today I overheard a stranger talking about how his foster son had called Children's Aid on him x number of years ago because of how he'd treated the son's siblings....Then he says, "so I took him out to the barn out back and beat the shit out of him. [laughs] Taught him a lesson." I think at that point, I wanted to vomit.

And finally I heard the "Benevolent Fund" at my church referred to as the "poor people's fund" in the same way you might hear "retard" or "fag" slip out while someone searches for the appropriate "PC" term. I shrunk immediately. On any day I would probably take exception to the wording but today was actually the day I was going to apply for help to the Benevolent Fund so... I don't know.


There must be more than this.

à ce moment / au present / maintenant

Right now I feel like I could abandon my blog forever. I feel like this could be my last post (or the previous one could be the final post) and either delete the account or let it rot.

When I put on The Colbert Report an hour ago, I looked at Colbert's face and thought with something almost like an Alzheimer's-induced lack of recognition, "What is this?" I was asking myself, why is this important? Why am I watching this? What am I doing?
All the questions Solomon could have added to Ecclesiastes if he lived in the 21st century were flooding my mind and I was dumbly watching the comedian's lips move while I vacantly tried to calm down and tread that foolish line between neither answering nor ignoring the question(s).

It's like I was saying, "Yes, Holy Spirit -- You've got a valid point there. I'll make a note of it and get back to You tomorrow." AS IF THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS TO WAIT FOR ANYONE. As if His timing isn't perfect and doesn't always demand we stop and listen.

Sigh.

I kept watching the show. I muscled through and I don't know how. I honestly felt something like a revulsion for the program and everything my eyes were taking in during the first segment. But by the time the first commercial break had ended I was back to my usual Report-watching state which includes unflinching and undivided attention, often accompanied by extremely doofy grins or mad scribbling of quotes.

This too is meaningless.

Sitting at a table during a program for our Young Adults Ministry, I'm kinda in awe and thinking three things on a fairly regular rotation:
1) our pastor is fantastic
2) I am a chump for doubting God would work through this ministry and would answer my prayers about it
3) who am I, sitting at this table being friendly and not intimidating; helping the conversation along, not clipping it in the knees every time it tries to take a step?

It's really great. I'm starting to see the ministry take shape a little better now and I think it's going to work. I think I now know better how to complement my counterpart and THAT makes me very happy and more hopeful (read: trusting).
It's a good job I forgot this Luncheon was coming up because then I couldn't think about it or try to prepare/steel myself. It was good. I just went and I fulfilled my responsibilities.

To point 1, I just don't understand. Can't believe I actually hit a new level of respect and appreciation. I thought I had already grasped the situation...I don't even know how to describe it. Anyways, the point is God is good.

triet XV

1 - Horrifying sight: A good actor being made the victim of bad writing.

2 - Chord pattern I am a sucker for: IV-iv-I

3 - Phrase I almost made my FB status today: "What are Thursdays actually for?" with the subtext of >:(

STEPHEN COLBERT IS SO FUNNY.

he's really on fire on this episode.

His guest is the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt.

The CEO of Google. After Colb sits down and say his hello, he announces, "Thank you for coming on..so I could put another notch in my billionaire belt." And what amazes me is that Stephen was able to intimidate this man! Whatever that's about...

Awesome out-of-the-blue question Colbert posed: "At what point will Google's algorithm become self-aware and turn on its masters?"

Fantastic exchange:
Colbert: "Your slogan is... [searching in his cards]"
Schmidt: "Don't be evil."
Colbert: "'Don't be evil', yes. [beat] Google's stock right now is $513.46. [beat] How low do your stock shares have to drop before you say, '...OK, we're goin with evil'?"
Schmidt: "Never. We didn't go with evil when our stock was worth nothing.."
Colbert (overlapping, sounding pious): "All men are sinners..."
Schmidt (finally breaking slightly from the intimidation, with an intensely matter-of-fact tone): "We're a company."
Colbert (immediately): "Companies are people -- welcome to America."


Ahh, fantastic.

triet XIV

Today: my friend called me an idiot without using that word and it was exactly what I needed to hear. It was sharp sarcasm, it served a purpose and the Holy Spirit cuffed me in the back of the head at the exact same moment.

At least three times so far: I have already failed in my attempt at strict mono-communicatiousness.

Recently: the self with friends in group A, self with friends in group B, (and groups C-E), the self with immediate family, the self with extended family, the self at church, the self at work, the self in full all started congealing ..or at least making their way toward the line of best fit. It feels temporary and I'm OK with that because it also feels thrillingly liberating.

yesterday's leftovers

Either Barabbas or Jesus must die; either the one who stands for violent revolution, which Jesus has opposed from the beginning, or the one who has offered and urged the way of peace. Jesus ends up dying the death appropriate for the violent rebel. He predicted that he would be 'reckoned with the lawless' (22.37), and it has happened all too soon (279).

(Something I never thought of before.)

Wright, Tom. Luke for Everyone. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2001. Print.

this post actually wanted to be longer (by TWO more topics).

I was rude today. (I was probably rude on more occasions and levels than I'm aware of but...well I can only wait for someone else to bring those to my attention.) In two retail establishments I was talking on the phone as I spoke with the clerk. Well...I did stand around for about five minutes waiting for an appropriate time to say, "Can you hold on a sec?" at the second place cos I felt bad about the first but it's still the same. I'm telling the clerks that I don't have time to give them my full attention. Or something..it's hard to explain. I don't have any deep investments in my relationship with them and our expectations of one another are QUITE low. But still... I should do them the courtesy of giving them my undivided attention for the forty-five seconds we're interacting. Forty-five seconds isn't long, in the grand scheme of things. It's a long time to hold your breath underwater, sure, and maybe a long time to endure an electric shock but to depart from a non-urgent conversation with a friend..I can do it.

--

Earlier today I decided to embark on a challenge to monocommunicatiousness. I need a better word for it. For a week I'm going to restrict myself to ONE real-time conversation at a time. This means no texting during a coffee date, this means no IMing while on the phone, this means great effort will need to be expended to rise to the challenge. WOW. It just means things will happen more slowly. It means being forced to define priorities that I generally think I shouldn't have to define. I like to use up the little pockets of unnoticed time in Interaction A to briefly nudge along Interaction B (essentially so it's still real-time). I think what's happening here is that I am greedy.

--

Yesterday I finished a fantastic novel called, Me and Orson Welles. It was turned into a film this year or last but I haven't seen it so I can't say which is better. But you know, even if they're different in those typical ways films based on books are, I bet it's still a smashing flick. Lots of good stuff there. Anyways...I recommend it to everyone in life. Not really. But if your name could be translated "Poisson", I'm probably talking to you.

The rate at which I read increased steadily as I neared the end of the book so that now I feel that small pang of loss I always feel after reading a good book cos there's no exciting narrative to pick up in that moment I want my brain to be tantalized. I can't find out "what happens next" cos I'm already at the ending but I do still ask the question, weirdly...

I'm actually going to try to read "1984" next. I've had it on my shelf for a few years (I actually borrowed it from a friend) and I think I'm finally at the point where I'm willing to put in the effort to understand it. We'll see what happens. It's always hard to go back to The Setting after you've just been at the Denoument.

Let me try to sell you on the book -- or at least regale you.

(1) Something I liked about the book was how things like this simply made sense to me:

From a radio somewhere I could hear Rudy Vallee singing "Have You Met Miss Jones?" I thought: This is the song that's going to pin this day inside me forever.
Up in the third-floor dressing room I did stretching exercises. That dressing room--its stink of cigarettes, its signatures on the wall, its water stains--it was somehow all exactly right. (223-4)

This as well:

She had nothing to say--and even as I'd asked the question, its meaninglessness pained me. (250)

(2) And this; though I've never concretely thought it, this is a perfect cross-section or snapshot of what museums (and art galleries) are:

I sat in a quiet corner eating a bag of peanuts and staring at those fragments of ceramic that once had mattered. I liked the soft sounds of the museum, too: the whispering, the footsteps on the stone stairs, the class trip of seven-year-olds giggling and shrieking somewhere just out of sight." (123)

He had another excerpt later on about how the patrons, standing still for long periods, studying the exhibits were like a part of the museum as well; unmoving and watched by other patrons yet. I didn't write down the page number...and I'm not even sure how I feel about it.


(3) I like the borderline-campy author/narrator awareness that Kaplow exposes in a handful of moments and I like that it reminded me of JM Barrie's Peter Pan -- meaning that I actually retained something from a university English course.
For example:

"If you believe in it, then let's do it!" I said, and I ran under the velvet rope and smacked the envelope against a large Greek vase.
"Hey!" called the voice of a guard.
I laughed, grabbed Gretta's hand, and we ran down a staircase and out the entrance, practically falling down the stone steps, and out into the sunshine.
She looked around and said, "Wouldn't this make a great scene in a story?"

There's an even better example but it's on the last page so I'll not be a spoilsport.


(4) The humor was often dark and in some small way reminded me of Gordon Korman's more sarcastic characters, like this lil doozy:

Welles did "Romans, countrymen, and lovers" at the foot of the downstage platform. I smelled hot oil, and I turned to see Ash pumping an atomizer on a smoke machine. As the smoke drifted out to the stage it caught the beams of light in stark, angular planes of shadow.
"Swell effect!" I whispered to Ash. He was dressed in a black overcoat because he was also an extra in the Cinna scene.
"Orson thought of it a half hour ago," he whispered, shaking his head. "Did you ever try to find a smoke machine in half an hour?" (232)

Darker:

"You romanticize everything," said Sonja. "It's odd being around you. It feels as if you belonged to some earlier, nicer time."
"And what time do you belong to?"
"The thoroughly corrupt right-this-second." (116)

Even darker:

Lloyd watched her. "Oh, sweet Jasper, I want to stick my head under her sweater! I swear to you, I dream about that sweater at night. I'd give ten bucks for just one good photograph of her. I tell you, one good picture with a few well-placed shadows would do wonders to ease my nocturnal burden. Sonja! Slake my urge!" He hobbled about between the seats, pretending to be bent double in sexual frustration.
"She's your kind of girl?" I asked.
"If she said to me: 'Norman, I'll let you make love to me, and I'll completely open myself up to you, and then when we're done I'm going to shoot you in the head with a pistol,' I'd say: 'Here's the pistol, baby--now let's get started 'cause my hearse is double-parked.'" (49)

(5) Didn't fully understand this (in the sense that I coulda said, "Oh yeah...yep," if someone I knew were saying it to me..it's quite new) but who doesn't love a good breakdown of a person and their motives? (I just finished watching two and a half episodes of House M.D. so there must be a kind of trend to what fascinates me..)

"The bone-deep understanding that your life is so utterly without meaning that simply to survive you have to reinvent yourself. Because if people can't find you, they can't dislike you. You see, if I can be Brutus for ninety minutes tonight--I mean, really be him from the inside out--then for ninety minutes I get this miraculous reprieve from being myself. That's what you see in every great actor's eyes, you know. You see someone weeping at the broken thing that he knows himself to be: that every gesture is affectation, that ever stirring of the heart is instantly struck dead into the performance book. And I don't mean to insult you with all this--I just sense it inside you, as it's inside me." (213-4)

If you want to borrow it, holla.

Kaplow, Robert. Me and Orson Welles. San Franciso: MacAdam/Cage, 2003. Print.

today is the first day I saw The Colbert Report broadcasted with widescreen dimensions (I don't have a widescreen television).
This seems like a great milestone..it shouldn't really be. He went HD not too long ago and because the picture wasn't formatted I was missing out on quite a bit of the periphery, just like you can miss out on scores or tickers on sports or news channels. there we are.
I didn't like feeling like I was being left in the dust during this technological revolution that seems to be unending, but I was really OK with it because, well, I'm not going to buy a new television and missing out on that 15% isn't that important to me. it made me feel like a dunce is all.

this isn't really a blog post but....the widescreen bit made my day so I'm happy.

this post took me half an hour to compose (allowing time for one short email and one visit to dictionary.com).

New experience:
Wandering back out onto the lawn after I'd just gotten home, phone in hand, waiting for the other party to pick up, I glimpsed an understanding of the concept of neighbours. While approaching my block, I saw a four- or five-year-old on his tricycle in our driveway, his younger brother just further down the sidewalk. As I got closer I expected to see their caregiver at my door, popping something in the mailbox or ringing the doorbell. When I saw they weren't there, I wanted to see the caregiver behind the van or the tree or somewhere in the vicinity. No dice!
I wandered back outside to watch them as they ambled down the sidewalk, hoping the adult would pop out and these kids weren't lost/abandoned/not where they should be. Can't tell you how many times I've stood around waiting for the adult guardian to show up. It bothers me.
By the time I was at the end of my driveway, dad had shown up. I about-faced and went back in. But while I was waiting, NOT creepily staring at them, I was aimlessly looking around the surrounding blocks and I noticed the rowdy & fun kids I always see at a pair of houses because they're on my preferred route home being rowdy and fun as usual. My heart was warmed because of the familiarity. A few houses up, I saw the pre-teen boy who I had noticed sidearming a baseball against the fence, presumably to practice fielding groundballs or squibbers* and this on its own made me smile because, well, it says something about a kid who plays their sport when no one else will play with them. But when I looked back later, I caught the tail end of something that made his older sister squeal and throw up her arms to protect her head. She doesn't like baseball or want to play catch with him. I think this is funny. Siblings!

At the end of this survey which probably took less than thirty seconds, I deeply appreciated the idea of knowing and enjoying the people who live next to you...because they live next to you. It didn't make sense to me before because it seemed too random to warrant a legitimate relationship. It's like carving out a new term for an affectionate relationship for the people in the same subway car as you - a term other than strangers, I mean. (Granted, commuters may have a different experience, if they're spending two hours every day with one another for years upon end. They're practically coworkers.)
Generally, I thought, "I don't know them - why should I expect to be a part of their lives or they of mine?" Even now I'm struggling to wrap my mind around it but what I DECIDED in the driveway twenty minutes ago was that I could easily chuck the logic out the window because human relationships rarely make sense but they ARE precious.

Surprizing experience:
The month-old yoghurt taking up space on the door of my fridge was no closer to Ferngully today than it would have been in June when I gave up on it. PHEW. I actually took a few moments to steady myself, and a few deep breaths to be steeled for the experience. Ahh. So relieving. So worth it for the space!

Past experience:
I once sat at the dining room table with two large speakers from the sound system about four inches from either ear, my head on the table and eyes closed listening to the track I'm listening to now, "Take My Breath Away" from Queen's A Day at the Races. I suppose the idea was that I couldn't get enough of the sound...or something. It's hard to describe. I think I wanted to disappear into the music or soak it up, as one does. Even now, eight years on, I'm finding it hard to focus on typing. No, I didn't own headphones at the time and yes, that might have made more sense.


*Baseball announcers use this term more frequently and meaningfully than I first thought. They're talking about a fair ball that shouldn't be a fair ball - or more important, a base-hit - because it's poorly (or accidentally!) hit and manages to squib past the first or thirdbaseman. I guess you could also call it "flukey".

Oh, September, you crazy rascal.

This evening I was wearing a sweet zip hoodie, a trendy plaid shirt, and one of those simple single-strap canvas side-satchels and when I caught myself making notes in my Orson Welles book, I realized I was someone else today. It's like that one freaky day I had about five years ago when I was wearing a certain combo of a fitted rugby shirt under a trendy ribbed sweater, pencil skirt (all very matching in color and style) and pseudo-dressy shoes and caught myself walking out of one of those big-box store plaza/strip malls - that was newly built at the time - with a crisp paper bag in my hand, newly-bought but not-needed clothing inside. On that day I shuddered and lamented aloud to the siblings I was with. "This isn't me!!" I shrieked. I'm thinking that if a stranger saw me, they'd have me pegged as someone I'm not.
(Then I wonder if the packaging matters.)

I've worn the individual pieces before, in different combos and it's still me-me. But sometimes the wrong combination gives a starkly different impression than everything else in one's repertoire. I suppose it's something like being able to pull a Hallowe'en costume out of your everyday wardrobe: it's about the combination, the accessories and the attitude, really.


I didn't mind being an Orson Welles reader today...But it was weird because I wasn't particularly thinking or feeling that today, I just wanted to read that book and wanted to wear those clothes. I'd have to have different shoes to really be that person I sort of looked like.
And just the other day I was thinking that I might not, for the first time in four years, buy Chuck Taylors as my next pair of shoes. I think this means I'm changing. I suppose that's OK. I'm just surprized...but hey - I'll take it over stagnation any day.
If I change my outer casing and feel MORE like myself and MORE comfortable then I'm game.

three unconnected things.... (a.k.a. triet XIII)

(1) Goodness...
I thought I had only one crippling addiction. Turns out I have three. I've discovered this in the past two weeks. I think only one of them is seriously crippling but what I'm discovering is that the other two don't look so different! (Gross.) I always hate myself after I get a fix.

(2) I can't get over the craziness that is the cycle of popular ringtones in our North American technologish society. The coolest ringtone you could have at present, is a regular old telephone "brrrrrt!" kind of sound. An actual ring. Kinda like the sound you get from the alarm clock (or fire alarm) that has two upturned metal bowls and a small hammer that oscillates between them at break-neck speed.
Aie. I remember when that was all you could get. And then when you could have a melodious ringtone, then when you could get a polyphonic (playing more than one note at the same time) melodic ringtone, and THEN when you could get (download) ringtones that imitated popular songs ...then you could get the ACTUAL song (this is still popular)..Soon you could get the theme from Law & Order, any sound-bite from any recorded, purchasable thing you want and let's not forget that you can record your own ringtone -- and specialize it for different callers or groups of callers.
Ahh. But now, just like Maple Leaf Farms making sliced ham with "all natural" ingredients, cleaning solvents made primarily of vinegar & water, and Subaru suggesting, "Maybe you should get out more," we're flocking toward simpler and less convenient....because it's BETTER. Whose idea was it to put cheese in a can or pre-peeled, -cut, and -washed potatoes in a freezable sac so you can microwave it, add milk, butter and brute force and call it mashed potatoes???
Ugh. Who among us would like to scream, "I told you it was a bad idea.."?? Oh, human nature.

(3) Today I felt the same after the Jays won (well, and over the Yankees) as I did after they lost yesterday. I don't know what that means.

THIS IS SPARTA!!

Today was a funny day. I'd be tearing up my forearms if I tried to squeeze a good blog post out of it -- rather, if I tried to process the day well through a blog post. I won't try too hard.

I'm relieved to find that I can actually handle 300 (2007), which I'm watching at present (and gives context to the post title). It's been a long time coming..I'm enjoying it. I should get back to it.

I enjoyed being able to DO a lot of the things I wanted to do (some of them worked out so perfectly I can't believe it) and being able to check a lot of things of the proverbial "To-Do" list.

Today I was abruptly thrown back into the heart of a faith-sharing conversation. I felt very rusty (that's OK). I was reminded that truth is truth and no one can see it without the Holy Spirit opening their eyes. Really - there are so many intellectual arguments that make sense; there are many religions and much history. But, today I realized that nothing will give you peace, save the Cross. Nothing will stop you searching from x, y, and z except the real person of Christ.

A friendly reminder indeed.

Dr Seuss:
I had one cathartic conversation
I had one out-of-the-blue/informative conversation
I had an encouraging conversation
I had a nonsensical and fascinating conversation

with someone I cherish
with someone I admire
with someone who is kind
with someone I respect

smilingly
silently
unwaveringly
deeply

(they match up in order)
This day had other things but now I'm too tired to write on them.

great part of a great conversation yesterday:

me: listen, before I forget: what position did you play when you were balling?
him: Center Field or Left Field
me: hmm
you spelled "Centre" wrong but that's OK
him: Outfielders aare the power players....infielders are the finess guys
no i didn't
me: hehehehehe
sure did



And the real-life, important-stuff conversation that preceded this blip continues. My friend is American. Without being a total pratt I sometimes like to point out the "differences" between us. Maybe not a pratt but certainly obnoxious am I.

It was actually otherwise a beautiful, wonderful conversation. (76)
At the end he says, "we'll chat again, Lord willing," and in the back of my mind, I gag slightly. It sounded like Christianese; like some religious knee-jerk reaction to something he can't predict (and I get the unpredictability because we talk very sporadically). Then afterward as I was processing parts of the convo - because I had been challenged on many points - I realized that the conversation was indeed a gift from God. It came out of nowhere, it shouldn't have happened, it shouldn't have been so good, and it connected sweetly with something from the day before that gave it a distinct air of providence. Sigh. Just so very nice. God is good. I was encouraged and inspired and blessed and I even ended up in a passage of Scripture on his recommendation that came very much alive to me and gave me that long-lost feeling of enjoying being in the Scriptures and having a definite thirst for more.