F You, Regression

"I've sought so hard to sustain this gain/Now watch me give this ground away/What can i do but admit I'm in over my head?/Colors fade from blue to dark red."

"My exit unobserved/And my homesickness absurd.../I said "water" expecting the Word would satisfy my thirst/Talking all about the second and third/When I haven't understood the first."

Tears stand ready in the ranks, awaiting an order never given, in keeping with their training.

But these songs have happy endings.

Lucky for you, Regression, it isn't Wednesday.

My MLA Handbook (5th Edition) Smells Like Fetal Pig

Thanks, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, for smelling like fetal pig in formaldehyde. Extra special thanks to Human Biology and Bioethics for teaching me what that smells like.

Assuming Honesty is the Best Policy

I am tired of being alone in my head. I don’t know if there is a cure for that or not. I think it might be prayer, but I am not sure. Sometimes prayer makes me feel like I am alone in my head, like my prayers are just bouncing off the inside of my skull. There are a lot of questions that I cannot ask anyone because no one has the answers… or at least there is no safe way for me to get them. I feel like all I can do is mess up because I do not recall having been pleasantly surprised when I go out on a limb and do something crazy like tell a girl I like her.

Sometimes I Wonder

Isn't that weird? I wonder why that is. Weird.

Yeah, I hate it when people are condescending. Now, bring me another brandy.

Still Taking Notes for My Best-Selling Memoir

I have always been a know-it-all. I could have published a book of my whole theory on life at age 10, and it would have been a very long book with not a lot of pictures.

I knew where to draw the line between good and evil; I knew roughly how old the universe was; I knew how the dinosaurs died; I knew what the perfect economic system was; I knew why there was poverty and hunger in the world; I knew why there were mosquitoes… In short, I understood the mysteries of God entirely.

Then something rather ordinary happened to me at the end of my junior year of high school. My friend, who not unlike myself was a socially awkward and nerdy fellow, asked the hottest girl at school how her weekend had been. I was highly disappointed, and a little indignant, as I watched them politely chat.

Due to my vast understanding of the inner workings of the universe, it took me a whopping three seconds to arrive at my conclusion: My friend was completely selling out by talking to this girl.

I understood girls like her. They were selfish, dim-witted and shallow. My friend was obviously giving in. He was tired of being a real person. For me, striving to be a real human being––to attain personhood––was a call to an honest, genuine lifestyle in which I had to sacrifice hanging out with people who walked around wearing masks all day trying to get people to like them for who they wished they were.

But this was really no sacrifice at all. The only challenge was resisting my desire to be accepted by the crowd. My friend had given up. He had exchanged personhood for acceptance.

It took me another four seconds to become completely floored. Thank God I was shorter then.

Somehow my eyes were opened to what was actually in front of me, and what I saw was two people talking. Two people. Talking. Being human with one another.

In that moment, standing in Mr. Thomas’ classroom during lunch  period on a rainy day, I realized that I was wrong. Not that I had been wrong, but that I was wrong. I realized that I had closed my book about life too early.

Last summer I read “Blue Like Jazz,” by Donald Miller. If you have already read it, it is one of the greatest books you have ever read--I assure you. In it I think Donald Miller spells out exactly what I have been learning for the past four years:

“The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me… No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.”

I do not hold the keys to all knowledge and truth. People are people in process. They are not who they were or who they will be, ever. I might disagree with what people say about how the world works, about what is and is not important, but I can’t say for sure who people are or what drives them just from reading one thing they write or hearing one thing they say.

People are people, not the masks they wear.

Sixth Part of a Twenty-Six Part Series

Part Six*:

F

"F" stands for Freudian slip, which means "a mistake made in speaking that inadvertently reveals unconscious motives, etc." However, it sounds a lot like... well, actually I guess I don't know sexactly what it sounds like. I suppose there really isn't any confusion with this one.

*6

Working Title

I am pulling on a door
That will not open,
Trying desperately to get in
Or out...
All I know is
The door says push.

What Are You Eating Under There?

Under where?
Ahh shoot.
I got me.

Fifth Part of a Twenty-Six Part Series

Part Five*:

E

"E" stands for Erstwhile, which means "formerly" or "former." However, it sounds a lot like "burst whale," which means "to suddenly and violently vent a large, warm-blooded sea mammal." Therefore, to prevent an unnecessary mess, it is best to just say "formerly," or "former," respectively.

*nevermind, it wasn't that important anyway

Myspace Hecka Sucks

I hate myspace. Myspace is nothing but a whole bunch of insecurity plastered all over the World Wide Web. I mean... really. I don't even go there ever.

You Are Exactly Where You Are

You are above below you and below above you, this much is true, but who can be sure you are beside beside you?
It's deeper than you think, I assure ewe.

Hurricane Katrina Calls Us Into Action

I seem to have missed something in the news.

About a week ago I heard some passing comment, like “I think there is a hurricane headed toward Florida, or something.” A hurricane in Florida is nothing new; it is unfortunate, but nothing new. For a journalism major, I don’t read the newspaper a lot. And while Google news is my homepage, I usually go straight to my e-mail before the page finishes loading, so I somehow missed Hurricane Katrina entirely.

That is until I read the front page of the Union-Tribune last Thursday. “Crisis deepens in the Gulf,” “Looters run wild as rule of law fails,” “Thousands feared dead as New Orleans is to be abandoned”: it was a lot to take in on one page.

In the following days I devoured the front page articles. A picture in Friday’s paper showed three children standing in eight inches of dirty water as they waited to board a Greyhound bus headed for Houston. Something about the barrel of an assult rifle framing the shot burned the image into my mind. Armed guards are the last thing I thought rescue crews would need, but apparently some members of society saw this as a good time to steal guns and start shooting people.

The stories and images draw me into philosophical, social, and political ranting. But then I am reminded, this isn’t a life lesson; this is people hurting. Hurricane Katrina is not a philosophical question, or a political platform, not yet. Hurricane Katrina isn’t a historic event, it just happened, and people are still dying as a result. People are still trapped, still hurt, still hungry. People are still heartbroken, wondering if there is a reason to keep living.

Now is not a time to sit around reflecting on the grand questions of the human condition. Now is a time to act. But what can I do? I want to be there, be amongst the hurting. I want to help. Can my sympathy comfort a 12-year-old girl who has just lost her home, not just her house, but her home—her yard, her school, her best friend’s front porch, her cat, the cereal section with the toys at the end? Can I tell her that there is more to life than things? Is now a good time to tell her that Jesus died for her sins? Maybe I should have done that a week ago.

So what can we do?

“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8.

We can start caring. We can let ourselves be affected. Read the paper and watch the news and realize that there is more happening here than rising gas prices. Find out what you can do, and do it.

Most of all, pray. Pray hard, pray sincerely, and pray a lot.

Pouring Out My Heart

Some say poetry isn't my "strong point."
I reply, "Oh yeah, well, you are!"
And then I throw rocks at them,
Or pieces of food, whatever's handy.

TGIS

NOT my favorite restaurant. Typing of which, last night/this morning I went to Denny's restaurant of the same name and thought to myself that I myself would like to get myself a milk "shake" of the chocolate flavor variety. However, my mind went on to myself, would not peanut butter (better) make your (my) "shake" oh so much better (butter)? Asked I therefore not of myself but to the mistress in waiting "Do you "guys" have peanut butter?"

"No," replied her reply.

And presently I ran to yon Vons and purchased about 35 servings per container. Upon returning, there finding a chocolate treat in waiting from the maiden of the same, mixed I some of said butter therewithin. Did I then partook.

And it was good.

Just Breath

That is from a song. I remember it from a commercial about cameras that take polaroid sticker pictures of guys you like, and they make you giggle in that special "commercial girl giggle" sort of way, kind of like those commercials where (in which) girls are just cracking up about how many blackheads they just suctioned out of their nose pores. I think a better title for this blog would have been nose pores. Then again, if the title was nose pores then I would have to restrict my entry to the topic of nose pores, and who really wants to type or read a blog about nose pores? I know I do and probably will someday, but not this day. No, this day I fight! That was, ironically, a somewhat nasely line from a movie, which is sort of like a commercial, only in the movie it is guys who giggle, and they are named Merry and Pippin. I should have titled this blog giggle. That would have been funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but funny-on-the-inside funny, like when someone says "Do you remember when we had nap time in school? We should have that in college too," but no one goes any farther with the conversation so no one laughs out loud, but most of the people who heard the comment still think it was a funny little thing to say and they quietly appreciate what was said. I agree, that was pretty funny. Yeah, s/he is a funny person. You wouldn't guess it, but after you have been around her/him for awhile, you start to notice. I submit that this has taken you longer to read than it took me to write. I win infinity.

Speaking of Being Bored

Yes, indeed, that is what I am doing... in one form or another. No... just in one form. This will be my fourth blog contribution of the night, so I believe that I am officially bored out of my mind. If I was a genious I would probably have cut my ear off by now. if I was ingenious I would have found something to do. I am neither, er... neither, no... I think I got it right the first time. You say tomato, I say tomato... eh? I guess that song doesn't translate well into print. What we need is a pronounciation key, or some popcorn chicken. Mmmm... free-flow stream of conciousness writing... and poor punctuation, and alliteration... and grammar puns... yeah, as I was saying. I believe it was Homestar Runner who first posed the question: is there ice cream yet?

speaking of severely handicapped...

The boat docks in London have special entrances for the severely handicapped. Thank God there weren't any on our boat... that would have been messy.

This dog is a goof, I thought you should know. Also, I think this picture will match my blog. We shall see.