Maybe I'm a Weenie, but...

I heard "Beautiful in My Eyes" by Joshua Kadison today at work and it made me all teary. Not the Greatest Love Song ever, but it's the last verse that gets me--the one about, "when the times come to embrace for one long last while." I don't like being reminded that the odds are very good that one day Ruthie and I will have to say goodbye for the last time. I'm selfish enough to hope that I die before she does. I can't imagine even trying to go on without her. Makes me think of the scene in Signs where Mel Gibson's character realizes that the conversation he's about to have with his wife will be their last. You should see me bawl. Anyway, the pain then is part of the joy now. And if the music starts before I get there, dance without me. Love you Pocahontas.

An Old Dan Fogelberg Line

"Love when you can, cry when you have to."

Just to Clarify

My claiming to have the actual correct answer to the Love Song question was just a pot shot at people who say things like that and mean them. I do have an opinion, but until I perfect the mind-control device I've been working on in the basement...

Jewel Keeps Reminding Me

"No longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from."

Let's Play a Game

Click on the "Comment" thing just down and to the left from here and give me your nominations and rationale for Greatest Love Song of All Time. (I believe there's a correct answer, but I'm open to discussion.)

Looks Like We Made It

The Yankees are playing the Devil Rays on my television right now (6:30 Tuesday morning) and it counts. Baseball season is here!

Something Michael Said

"A prayer is a toast without a drink."

Coolest Thing Ever

I just heard our friends on the radio.

Work Stuff

Several of you have asked lately so here’s the poop regarding me and The Depot. I’ve known for months that I can’t keep mailing broken things to people for a living for very much longer. I’ve looked a little, but there don’t seem to be very many jobs out there for which I’m qualified that would be enough of an improvement to justify starting over. I’ve lived with that dissatisfaction long enough that it’s become like a stone in my shoe that I’ve gotten used to. Anyway, a couple Wednesdays ago, about halfway down the stairs, it occurred to me out of the blue that changing departments at The Depot might at least buy me some time, if not be a solution in and of itself. I presented it to my boss and he was surprised, but excited to have me at the front desk (which is where I’ll be going). So I’ll spend the first two weeks in April training my replacement (her name is Jack) and then it’s on to bigger and more terrifying things. My biggest fear is that by giving up my cushy schedule (no nights, no weekends, no holidays) I’ve severely altered the lifestyle that Ruthie and I have gotten so used to and enjoy so much. Fact is something had to give and I was out of ideas. We’ll see what happens. Leaving Lonesome Dove involves some risk.

Brian McLaren

This is good.

Oh...ok.

Scott's son is going to come work with us at The Depot, and I like Scott, so I said to him, "I've never met your son--is he as nifty as you?" And Scott said, "No, he mumbles."

14 Days

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na

We'd never been to Columbus, so we didn't realize that they were playing Tournament games right across the street from Promowest Pavilion where the concert was. As we stood in line on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open I wondered if I'd be distracted enough during the concert to wonder all night how the Cards were doing. Should've known better. While I did worry about them from time to time (and appropriately so, as they ended up losing to Xavier) nothing could have distracted me for very long from What Was Going On. This was our second Indigo Girls show and if you've never seen them (or--gasp!--don't appreciate them) you can't imagine what their whole concert scene is like.

Promowest only holds about three thousand people which makes for a nice, intimate group of friends. The fact that the majority of these particular friends were lesbians wasn't as much a distraction as it was Part of the Atmosphere. In fact two of our new friends, Jolly and Amber, who were most certainly Together, even commented on how apparent the whole thing was, and seemed way more grossed out than Ruthie and I were by the couple in front of us who spent the whole time behaving in ways that in the Before Times I blamed on testosterone. I think that maybe the reason the crowd last night was so overtly Who They Were at that concert is that a setting like that is one of the rare places where they're safe. I'm trying to not be such a fatass so I don't allow myself to eat lots of burgers and fries, which I adore. Consequently, when I do allow myself to have a hamburger I have like fifty of them. Maybe it's like that for these women. Maybe I'm talking out of my ass.

Getting to know Jolly and Amber was fun--it was nice to have someone to talk to and sit with. We liked them. They were nice. Jolly works for a University and Amber is working on her Master's degree in physics. They'd just been to D.C. on a little mini-vacation. We also discovered that Jolly had been at the Indigo Girls concert that Ruthie and I had caught in Dayton last year. We waited in line with them a long time and talked and then we sat with them and talked more while we waited for the show to start. Then we talked through Shawn Mullins (except for "Rockabye") and then we soaked in the Girls together. In another life I might have been tempted to pat myself on the back for my tolerance and refer to these ladies as "My New Lesbian Friends." Instead though I call them "My New Friends" and I am aware that love is love whether or not I point out to anyone that it's done in the name of Jesus, and I‘m tempted to pat myself on the back for seeing not Lesbians, but People (and nice ones at that). I was very Grateful, when Jolly asked my what I did for a living, that I could answer her with something that wouldn’t create in her presuppositions that would have killed our friendship before it got started.

The concert itself was, of course, wonderful. For the first time in my life I was In The Same Room As Emily (the previous concert having been out of doors) and I was duly awestruck. They played a bit more of the edgy, electric stuff than I'd have preferred and did neither "The Wood Song," " Watershed," nor "Ghost," but they sounded great and the new stuff is fun. I can't imagine what it must feel like to step away from your microphone mid-song and have three thousand of your closest friends carry on with out you, word-for-word, pitch-for-pitch. (Indigo Girls fans can sing!) Sitting there between The Best Wife Anyone Ever Had and My New Friends, working on a Merlot (why can you never get a Cabernet at these things?!) watching Amy and Emily grin at each other while a Great Multitude finished "Least Complicated" for them--It doesn’t get much better.

If only the Cards had won…

In case anyone’s interested, here’s the set they played:

Tether
Fill it Up Again
Tried to be True
Power of Two (during which I called Justin)
Perfect World
Something Real
Shame on You
Get out the Map
Heartache for Everyone
Least Complicated
Ozilline
Free in You
Go (during which I took a leak)
Collecting You
Dairy Queen
All That We Let In
Yield
Closer to Fine
Kid Fears
(encores)
Trouble
Galileo

(Yes, I take notes at concerts.)

Peace, love and incredibly tight vocal harmonies,
ben

Stoked

Indigo Girls in Columbus tomorrow night. Can't wait.

19 Days

A Light Shines

There may be some respite from my occupational angst coming soon. And from an unexpected source.

Thanks for the Heads-up, Kevin

nice.

A Bit of Catch-Up

Wow. It’s been a while. Life does get busy from time to time. Since last I blogged Ruthie and I have been to Pittsburgh (we like to go to Pittsburgh, okay?) to see our friends the Gills. It was a good visit. We don’t see nearly enough of them and it was good to be away for a bit. Plus we ate at a place called The Church Brew Works which is a very old Catholic Church that has been converted to a microbrew where they make very good beer. Best use for a church building I've seen so far.

Then Thursday of last week I met Josh and Jared in Newport and we talked a while. These are two more of the people in my life of whom I don't see nearly enough. I miss them.

Spent the weekend with my parents-in-law observing birthdays and watching Ruthie's dad install our dishwasher. For someone like me with no doing-stuff-around-the-house skills at all, watching an artist like Larry Legend is a treat. In all these years I’ve never seen him come across a problem that could keep him from imposing his will on a house. It really is incredible.

Hmm, what else? They’re still letting me get up and blabber at church every few weeks and this past Sunday it was my turn again. For some reason I still dig doing that. It’s ironic, I think, that the thing I seem to be better at than lots of other stuff is one of the things that would go away if I ran the world. Eh, what’re ya gonna do? At any rate I got way more positive feedback from folk over this particular bit of blabber than I have before, so I guess they’ll let me do it again.

Real people will come to my house tonight and that’s fun. There aren’t enough of them in my life. Tonight we’re watching The Fisher King and eating pizza. Good ideas both.

I guess that’s enough catch-up for now, except to say that Bob Dylan is cool.

Peace.

Read this.

From the Book I'm Reading:

"All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, if you care to."

busy