Sushi tomorrow!

True Story

Cecil: What happened to your hand?

Dan: Remember that wart I had?

Cecil: Yeah.

Dan: I ate it off.

A Prayer

"How very happily we live,
free from busyness
among those who are busy.
Among busy people,
free from busyness we dwell."
--Dhammapada

More From the Book

Next page begins with me questioning a couple pieces of Evangelical Conventional Wisdom (go figure), the second of which is the bit in the New Testament (Philippians?) where St. Paul says to dwell on good things. You know the line, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, etc." Dawned on me one day that all my life I'd heard that fragment used to justify all kinds of witch hunts in search of all the things (and people) that are wrong in the world. Seems ironic now. Paul seems to have been encouraging his audience to see the good in the world, but all these years later that passage has become a weapon. One of the things I'm most grateful for these days is a group of friends who are intent on seeing the beauty in the world and the people around them. It's there if you're not afraid of it.

There's one man in particular who's been especially helpful in this area. I won't embarass him by naming him here, but to see the world through his eyes, to enjoy a restaurant with him and his family, to watch him listen to music -- these experiences have, and continue to affect the way I, and a dozen people I could name off the top of my head, dwell on the things that are good in this world. It's already influencing the way Ruthie and I are rearing Little G., and it can't help but color the way he'll relate to the people around him as he grows. It never ends -- we really are all a part of one another.

The next jotting was a big one:

This is so far removed from the reality of my life that I don't know what I'm doing here.

I'll never forget that morning. I was sitting in a setting I used to refer to as "in church" for approximately the four thousand thirtieth time and I finally snapped. I remember the details of that particular meeting vividly, but won't harp on there here because of the kind of thing I've alluded to in the previous couple of paragraphs.

It was a Superbowl Sunday a couple years ago and I was so worked up that I typed furioulsy enough through halftime show to miss the Janet Jackson boob incident completely. That led to this.

And the next thing in the book says,

I have been approaching church the way I've been approaching my job.

Which led to this.

Incidentally, I'm still with The Home Depot and am having an absolute blast lately.

This Little Black Book where I sort through my Issues is also the place where I record bumper-stickers that amuse me. For example:

If we quit voting will they go away?

Don't have an answer to that yet, but I'm holding up my end of the bargain.

And then there's the title of a song I wanted to track down (and did):

Yesterday When I Was Young

by Roy Clark. He sang it at Mickey Mantle's funeral and broke my heart. Might be worth a listen. Speaking of Songs I Like A Lot, Toni Braxton is on the iTunes right now begging me to Unbreak Her Heart -- wish I could help her.

Still can't spell-check.

She's a Funny Lady

Ruthie likes me to sit in the bathroom and talk to her while she showers. Works for me, and as I was sitting there tonight I started leafing through The Little Zen Companion that lives on the toilet tank. I don't really get the whole Zen thing, and don't much care to, (being an American I'm not sure I'm capable anyway,) but I dig books like this because they say things like,

Zen is the unsymbolization of the world.

So I'm sitting there flipping and I find another one I like and read it aloud to the Ruth:

If you cannot find the truth where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

And she, without missing a beat, says, "In your butt. Ask me another one." And I'm imagining the two of us chewing through this little book like a workbook, flippantly penciling in answers to timeless Zen koans until we're done and need a new one.

Search back into your own vision -- think back to the mind that thinks. Who is it?

And again, without any hesitation she says, "Your mom. That one's easy." (Ma, I'll explain that particular bit of vernacular tomorrow.) "Go again."

When the Many are reduced to the One, to what is the One reduced?

And this time she pauses for a half a second to think before she answers, "Your butt again."

Happy Thanksgiving

"It is not for us to fortell the day, but the day will come when people will be called to utter the word of God in such a way that the world is changed and renewed. There will be a new language, perhaps, quite unreligious, but liberating and saving, like the language of Jesus, so that people are horrified at it, and yet conquered by its power."

--Bonhoeffer

Snappy Title

So I'm standing at my Special Services desk (which is really a counter) doing a return for a customer -- I've got his $5.35 refund in my hand -- when I hear the Sensormatic alarm go off, which indicates nine times out of ten that either a cashier has failed to deactivate purchased mercandise or that a customer has become very confused and is trying to take merchandise to the Returns register for purchase there. That tenth time though...

They've erected a barricade along the chainlink fence that separates the Returns/Special Services area from the rest of the store, (these sorts of visibility-infringing displays are the result of the fact that people in suits in Atlanta, most of whom have apparently ever actually worked in a store, dictate where stuff goes -- they think it's a good idea to have a wall of hand-tools that prevents me from seeing would-be theives and who am I to argue? anyway...) so that I'm flying blind when I cut behind the Returns register to intercept whoever has tripped the alarm and find out what's up.

Now, again, nine times out of ten when you stop someone who's sounded the bell, they're embarassed or confused or inconvienieced or something, but it's rarely a big deal. This morning, however, as I make the sweep toward the exit, I'm met by a shady character straight out of central casting walking with purpose toward the door -- head down, hands in the pocket of his hooded sweawtshirt. His hood's up and he's got a flannel on over the hoody. He's also got a ball-cap pulled down low over his scraggly face and dude is walking fast.

"Sir," I say, pleasant as punch. He stops and turns toward me.

"I need you to walk back this way for please." I've said that a hundred times, but I knew this one was going to be different. He started back toward the sensor with me and then suddenly threw two pieces of merchandise to the floor and turned and sprinted hard out the door.

We've got an absolutley brilliant Loss Prevention Manager in our Cincinnati District -- she's good at her job like Michael Wilson is good at his -- and she's told us a million times not to be heroes when something like this happens. Bad things can happen -- a friend who left The Depot to do Loss Prevention at a neighboring Sears nearly died last year when a would-be thief knifed him like you wouldn't believe -- and Janet is adamant that nothing like that happen to us, so I can hear her voice as this dude's almost-plunder hits the floor at my feet,

"We just want our stuff back," she's forever saying.

Nuts to that.

And I take off running.

Dude's got a pretty good jump on me, he's way more motivated than I, (and come on, do I look like a sprinter to you?) so I know I'm not going to catch him, and this takes all of the fear out of whatever I feel like I want to do (gosh!). I decide I'll try for a liscense plate number -- that'd be helpful - but he runs into the parking lot and gets far enough out that I know that not even my LASIK-enhanced laser vision is going to read any digits. I figure I can at least get a description of his vehicle but he just keeps running toward the back of the parking lot.

Funny thing is, every twenty feet or so he turns to look over his shoulder to see if I'm still follwing. I'm not -- I've just stopped to watch by now -- but when he looks over his shoulder I wave like a long lost friend, give him my biggest shit-eating smile, and holler, "Buh-bye!" He turns to run again and when he looks back again, I repeat my smile & wave bit. He flips me the bird without breaking stride and cuts across the back of the parking lot, parallel with the front of the store. I mirror his direction and as he crosses the aisle, he looks, again, I smile real big and wave and he flips me off.

At this point, I'm having entirely too much fun. We do it one more time and he disappears over a hill at the back of the lot toward Media Play. They can have him too -- those guys are the absolute worst for not deactivating their Sensormatic tags when you buy stuff there -- and I make my way back into the store, where our conscientious Returns cashiers are filling out Janet's beloved Sensormatic Log (we have a binder for everything).

"Did you get him?" one of them asks me.

"No, but he did flip me off several times."

Back to Special Services now, where I realize for the first time since the alarm sounded that I still have my customer's $5.35 and refund receipt in my hand. He's just standing there waiting patiently and I smile and hand it over.

"Thank you sir, have a great Thanksgiving."

Gift Idea (Seriously)

I don't know what you're into, but these are spectacular.

Right Where I Live

I love stuff like this.

My Latest Fortune Cookie

"You are a bundle of energy, always on the go."

Wyatt, I am Rolling

Spent the morning with Ruthie and Little G, hit the Goodwill for some shirts, picked up Ruthie's car from the shop (it cost us $35 instead of the $750 they'd quoted us). Finished our Christmas shopping via Amazon.com. Had lunch with Tom & Ken, which was nothing but good, (and a reminder that Love is the antithesis of Fear,) and included a cameo appearance by Justin. Soon it'll be off to Randy's for pizza.

Plus, Ruthie and I have signed up for Netflix, and we partook of our first selection last night. The Human Stain stars three people we like alot, (Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinise & Ed Harris,) as well as the greatest film actor of all time. Good show. (It also happens to be based on a novel by one of my Pulitzer authors, Philip Roth.)

And now, back to my Little Black Book...

First thing atop today's page is a question:

Does forgiveness demand vulnerability?

And unfortunately I can remember exactly the circumstances that prompted the question. I'd been attacked (not physically) by a coworker and although I was determined to make myself forgive him, (he didn't give a rat's ass -- still doesn't,) I wasn't sure whether or not that demanded that I put myself in a position for the whole episode to repeat itself.

Next is a list of four albums recommended to me by my friend Mark as we sat at Friday's drinking pints to commemorate his leaving town for Virginia (or some such state). I'd met Mark in passing each morning for a year or so -- he worked overnights and was leaving as I was coming in around 5:30 AM -- but we never discovered that he'd done time at the Biblical School and in fact, knew Justin, until that afternoon at the bar. We also discovered that we liked lots of the same music, and he made these reommendations as he left:

Jeff Buckley -- Grace & Letters from my Sweetheart
Ryan Adams -- Heartbreaker
Damien Rice -- O

True to form, I followed up on none of them and therefore spent about a year of my Life without the Damien Rice record, which (most days) is now my favorite in the world. Still haven't gotten to the others though. Wonder how Mark's doing...

Then another recommendation from a friend who has moved away (Jason went to Scotland, wonder how he's doing).

Rick Steves writes books about going places...

...is what I wrote, though (you guessed it) I never did track down any of his stuff.

The next note:

Bill -- paypal.com -- "shops"

is related to yet another friend whom I've lost track of. Bill was looking into setting up a website to sell tatoo designs (Bill draws) and I was trying to be helpful. He finally, and without my helf, got the site up and it looks great. Bill was cool -- you'd have dug him. (Wonder how he's doing...)

Then I quote Joey:

"Stupid closet full of bugs!"

And either you're down with that or you're not.

(Oh -- Rufus Wainwright just came up on the random iTunes -- another friend I've lost touch with. Love his stuff.)

The next two were business to conduct:

Contact Heather about Sunday

Have Holly get the U2 books from the bookstore

And then a name, the significance of which I do not remember:

Mark Anthony?

Could as easily have been the singer of a song I was trying to track down or somebody who'd called needing something. There's no telling.

That seems to me like a lame page, but in looking ahead, I've noticed that the next one marks a pretty significant date in my Life.

But I still can't spell-check.

Apprehensive

I'm in the process of updating my iTunes on the lappy. They don't erase all your songs and make you start over, do they?

By the Way

Jiggle Billy!

Deconstructing Me?

Back to the Little Black Book.

By now, the "100 Things About Me" is winding down. Interestingly, I used a different #31 when I published the list. There are also more notes from the McLaren weekend I mentioned before, which I'm remembering now they called, "Project Mayhem," in a tasty Fight Club homage. Fight Club was another one that helped give a vocabulary to What Was Going On and convince us that we weren't alone or (ironically) crazy. Apparently McLaren quoted three people whose names I wrote down and then never came back to:

Wendell Berry

Os Guinness

Joe Meyer

Some of you will have heard of those people -- Guinness means something else entirely around here, and I'm guessing by now we were creeping up on the time in my Life when I took a break/walked away forever from "Christian non-fiction," (which is such an F'd up description that it'd take all day to take it apart and put it back correctly).

Here we find the line I quoted at the time where McLaren compared what he called the "Christian Public," which I took to mean "media," to the dome in The Truman Show. I still like that -- surprised? He also described something (probably he was referring to what he calls the Emerging Church) as, "Monastic," "Missional," "Urban," "Catholic," and "Communal," using none of those words the way I'm used to hearing them used. Okay.

The List continues to wind down. Numbers 20-11 follow the Project Mayhem notes and #14 is probably my favorite in the page. (Hi Mom!) Still a pig (20). Still don't like to drive (17). Still just the one tat (13). Still love my dad (18).

Facing that page is a list of the Lectionary Readings for a talk I was supposed to give -- I can't find anything on file for that Gospel reading, so maybe we rescheduled or something. My approach at the time, (I was "preaching" about once a month, give or take,) was to take the Gospel reading for the Sunday in question and handle that, rather than pull something out of my butt, which had always been stressful, (what do I pick?) and lent itself to my talking about the same thing every time (which I think ended up happening anyway). My approach now is to stay home and have conversations with people.

Next is a wine we'd had at the Macaroni Grill (we like it there) and had liked:

Coppola Diamond Series Claret

Caberet Sauvignon

No telling if we'd like it now -- our tastes have changed significantly.

And then the title of a book which caught my eye in a Barnes & Noble:

Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

Which (witch?) has since been turned into a hit Broadway musical. I still hope to get around to reading it one of these days.

Of the next five List entries, only 7 & 8 seem interesting. I used to tell people all the time that I wanted what came after house churches, and maybe we've found it. It all still feels more like a journey than a destination, but I've found something I can Live with after nearly thirty years of balled-up frustration. For the record, (some of you seem interested,) our official group (a concept that feels hypocritical to me but only bothers me when I talk about it -- something about a label...) continues to meet officially on Tuesdays and Sundays and unofficially nearly daily in one combination or another, (though it's been entirely too long since the members of our Sushi Ministry had a meeting *ahem.*) We eat each other's food, dig each other's music, drive each other's trucks, move each other's stuff, buy each other's groceries, love each other's children (okay, so far just Mr. Hoo-Hoo,) feel each other's pain, gawk at each other's pictures. We do what we can and we don't generally feel compelled to call It anything. We're good for each other. Tasha said it better than I, (go figure).

Regarding #6, Ruthie and I have reached a compromise and we enjoy it very much. :)

Turn the page and we conclude the List with numbers 5-1. #2 reminds me of this, which still kills me (no pun intended). After that, there a phone number of a guy we may or may not have bought firewood from, and a question,

What would it look like in a world w/o clearly defined "small groups"?

(This progression of ideas from thoughts and scribblings in notebooks to the Reality of my Life is fascinating to review. Oh...this is why people journal.)

And something I heard that a woman had told the man she wanted to marry:

Find your place in this world and take me with you.

Liked that.

I was tempted to write until Little G. awoke from his nap, but this is getting lenghty and really I should put some laundry, and that seems like a good place to quit.

More later.

Quick Catch-Up on My Reading List Since July

Harry Potter VI -- Loved it.

1776, by David McCollough -- Pulitzer winning birthday present from hannaH & Dale. McCollough's good. The American Revolution fascinates me. I remember reading this one while on the commode in a hotel in Toronto.

The Princess Bride, by S. Morgenstern -- Borrowed it from Laura. It's perfect. Read it while in Southern Illinios for my grandmother's funeral.

The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash, by Dave Urbanski -- From Michael and I'm still not clear on whether it was a loan or for-keeps. Johnny Cash was cool.

The Fourth Hand, by John Irving -- Ah...here's the John Irving disappointment that was so inevitable. Just awful.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder -- Reread it in anticipation of the movie. Book's still great, the movie sucked.

The World According to Garp, by John Irving -- We've covered this one.

Lennon, by Ray Coleman -- One day when I was eight, my mom and I were in the car in the parking lot of the toy store and she said, "John Lennon got plugged last night." That's how I found out he'd been killed. I'll never forget it.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris -- Didn't enjoy it as much as I did listening to Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim on cassette, but that's not a fair comparison. Sedaris is great.

Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris -- Downright disappointing. A few of the essays were okay, a couple were terrible. I've come to expect better from him.

Next up: Independence Day, by Richard Ford -- Back to the Pulitzer Project. Haven't read one from my list since May (Martin Dressler). Started Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men back in the summer and never got into it. Hope this one's better.

G'night.

P.S. My computer thinks Blogger's spell-check is an unauthorized cookie. Any suggestions? (And don't say proof-reading.)

Wouldn't You Say...

Woke up with Over the Rhine's "Bothered" in my head and was, through the magic of iTunes, able to satisfy that particular craving several times. It's grey and autumnal out the window, the baby's asleep, my wife loves me and as soon as Mr. Hoo-Hoo wakes up we're hitting the Cracker Barrel. Football later, and this is my third day in a row off of work.

Life is beautiful.

Now This...

...This is intriguing.

Ted & Justin

Please check out "Fountains of Wayne Hotline" by Robbie Fulks!

End of an Amusing Conversation I had at Work Yesterday

Me: Why are you being so evasive?

Amy: I don't know.

Feel Free to Skip this Stuff

Something compels me to continue my trip through this little black book that I carry with me, which has also turned into a review of a project we called "100 Things About Me." Several of us partook -- Ruthie, for example, began hers in purple crayon on a paper tablecloth over a large bottle of Chianti at the Macaroni Grill one night -- and it was more difficult than I expected it to be. The pressure to sound interesting can be a pain.

At any rate, one page in my book ends with Thing About Me, # 32:

I believe I've met more interesting people in the last year than in the entire rest of my life.

There's an ambiguity about whether "more" is qualitative or quantitative here that I left unresolved intentionally because I couldn't make up my mind, and looking back, "interesting" wasn't the right word to use anyway. Comparisons to the first thirty or so years of my Life aside, (what's that about comparison, TG?) I am surrounded these days by people trying hard to Live with open eyes, and for whom people are more important than ideas. A long time ago someone said that, "God hates ideas," and while I'm hesitant to speak on God's behalf, that sounds about right.

At the top of the facing page are a couple phone numbers -- one of a lady a mutual friend thought might be able to fix my back (see # 67) and one of one of those people that #32 refers to. I don't think I've ever called either of them. I'm horrible about calling people. I've owed my friend Rob a phone call for months and just can't seem to do it (see # 60).

As evidence of this "interesting people," (or whatever you want to call it,) phenomenon, my Interesting Friend Kevin knows Brian McLaren, an author who was very helpful for lots of my people and me a couple years back when I had nearly decided that I was just a bitter old crank. Kevin had McLaren in to speak at a weekend gathering which Ruthie and I attended, and I took some notes.

I'm trying to reach myself for Christ.

That was McLaren's line, but I feel like he was quoting someone else. It also looks like the extent of my note-taking for that weekend (I've always been more of a doodler -- you should see my college notebooks).

The next line makes me wish I dated these entries -- had to be January of '04 anyway -- because this is the page on which, for the first time, I documented a big part of my dissatisfaction with the culture I was a part of:

Stop labeling.

Another short phrase that says a mouthful about the person I'm becoming. I won't rant on about it here -- that conversation works better when it occurs naturally (most do) -- but my opinion is that labels are almost never helpful. I had (another) great talk with Randy (see also here) yesterday over some bad beer and ended up talking about a mutual friend who's had some DUI-related difficulties. Everyone I've talked to who's been through the DUI punishment program says that the whole time you're going through it the System tries to convince you that you're an alcoholic. I asked Randy if the friend in question was and he pointed out to my blind eyes that, "'Alcoholic' is a made up word," (read, "label"). "If you're gonna make up a word," he said, "you can make it mean anything you want." So two years later, I'm still not quite awake. I am, however, surrounded by people who continue to gently shake me and whisper, "Ben...time to wake up," (or else just put on some bacon and let the aroma do the trick).

The next entry in the little black book says:

permanently & totally divorced from "inside talk."

And that may well have also sprung from the McLaren weekend. I suppose that many of these little phrases are lines in the sand for me, or notches on my Ratchet, if you've been around long enough to remember when that was the dominant metaphor in my Life. (Matt, I think we could safely call them "Baby Steps"). There's no dramatic conversion in this Story, just a gradually brightening light slowly waking me up.

Another quote from McLaren -- apparently I took two notes:

If Christians are jerks it's bad for everybody.

Simple enough to sound comical, but so many of them still haven't caught on, (except that "Christian" is a label, which makes my use of the word "them" tricky).

A big part of my oft-repeated dissatisfaction with organized religion (at least the brand that I was associated with for so long) was the angst that the meetings created. The compulsion to have a good meeting (however that's defined group to group) seems to me to do more damage than good, and that's reflected in the last two little scribblings on the page. The first is something a friend said to me as we reflected on the pressure of Leading a Group. I'm better in front of a bunch of people than he is (which is, as far as I'm concerned, a compliment to his character) and he related the feeling that had him, as a leader, dreading his own meetings:

I'm unprepared again and all these people are looking at me.

If he was ever unprepared, it was to give a snappy talk or lesson or force an inorganic conversation. I've never been around him that he didn't contribute something of beauty -- a metaphor, an image, a song, a kick in the pants. But the Idolatry of the Meeting devalued all of that Reality and made him feel insufficient and guilty. To Hell With That. I will say it again: To Hell With That.

The next line was a note I made to remind myself that we should watch more movies with our people and that The Fisher King would be an excellent selection.

Mr. Hoo-Hoo has been asleep for over an hour now, and I don't know how much more peace I can expect from him, so I'm going to try to clean up a bit around the house. More later.

Ah, Retail

Our Regional President is expected to visit our little store today, which means that at 5:23 AM on what had been my day off I'm sucking on an espresso instead of sleeping and will be off to work in just a minute. Today's Ruthie's day off too and we were supposed to visit the Gills at their New Kentucky Home. That's off now, and instead I get to go wallow in second-hand stress until released by The Boss.

Woo-Hoo!

(I think they want me there 'cause I'm pretty good with a bow-staff.)

Drat

Mr. Hoo-Hoo has the croup.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Numbers 41-32 all fall onto one page in the little book. Interestingly, 41 follows all the stuff with which the last post ended and goes like this:

I'm not convinced that God micro-manages like we think he does.

Haven't changed my mind either, which sets 41 in contrast to a couple others on that page, which have changed to one degree or another, to wit: I no longer believe that my wife's stroganoff is the best food in the world (39), I think her chicken/onion/mushroom thing is. I've eschewed black coffee (38) for espresso when it's available. (Not a big change for sure, but it did require acquiring some of those tiny cups.) Also, I've found contentment again at work and wouldn't walk away as easily as I was ready to back then (36).

Still love Barry Bonds though.

Page Two

So then turn the page and there's my "100 Things About Me" pretty much the way it appeared here. Except that in the book there are notes woven through the draft, like this one sandwiched between 86 & 85 where I was trying to plan a trip to Pittsburgh to visit the Gills:

Pittsburgh: avoid 3/7 & 13 & 1st wknd in April

And this cluster between 54 & 53:

The Blind Lemon (good coffee)

No idea what any of that's about. And then, (not in my handwriting):

Playing the guitar sometimes feels like Jacob wrestling w/the angel...

I remember who wrote that and when and it reminds me that I've not picked up a guitar in over a year and, curiously, I don't miss it at all.

There's a note that's been lined-out:

Holly Friday 1/30 supper

Apparently Berno and I have always had a difficult time getting together. Then:

Welcome to the Symphony

A line from one of Cameron's songs that caught my attention that night at Rohs Street. Looks like I wrote some of my List during that concert. (For the record, the song's called "Bienvenidos," and I still like it.)

Between 48 & 47 is a quote -- something Pete Rose (see # 23) said on TV the night he admitted that he'd bet on baseball (as if we didn't all know that already):

Seats are for asses.

You're right Pete. Pull up a chair.

And then, between 42 & 41 we find the kind of stuff that may get downright interesting before we're done. Apparently my turn to "give a talk" was coming up, or something and I was stewing on something.

*Did Eve know that a lie was possible?

Lot -- Gen 19, Judges 19, 2 Peter 2:7

No idea what became of that, but the next thing on the page is a couple Scotch recommendations from Michael:

*Scotch: Laphroig (Le Froyg)

Lagavullin (Lag-a-voolin)

Never did follow up on that. I'm guessing that this was right about the same time as The Great Bourbon Experiment of 2004. Seemed like a nifty thing to have around the house -- nurse a couple fingers on the rocks in the evenings. Thing is, I didn't like it. (see #47) Tried for a while before giving up and surrendering what was left in the bottle to Cameron. He liked it.

"communication" is the new Sunday School word: "God," "Jesus," "Pray"

The Church does not exist to provide people w/a place to use their gifts.

Not sure what that first bit was about -- the "communication" thing --I'm sure it was brilliant at the time, but that second still sounds about right, though it illustrates how much my vocabulary has changed in the time since my escape from The Machine.

Next was a reminder to look for some "A Prairie Home Companion" tapes to listen to in the car -- mission accomplished. And then something that had to have been a response to something someone (I could guess who) had said or written:

What is overtly Christian?

Cue Peter Gabriel singing, "Here Comes the Flood." There's more about me in those four words than in the whole list of 100 things. If you've been around for it, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, I could only explain what I mean in Realtime -- it'd take another two years.

Gotta go to work.

Mr. Hoo-Hoo Had His First Skyline Today

Loved it.

OK, One More

Ruthie Took These

By Request

Playin' it Loud

Shawn Mullins/"Lullaby"

Price Tag

Further Proof that I don't do this to be Entertaining

I have this little notebook that I carry in my back pocket nearly wherever I go. I tote a little book in case I want to write down something interesting. It's got a black cover trimmed with red duct tape (Matt will appreciate that). I have this particular kind of notebook because Michael Wilson does, (or at least he used to -- he stopped carrying his and switched to a $.59 spiral drugstore model when all of us MW Wannabe's bought Moleskines. Anyway...). So the date inside the cover tells me that I got it in January of '04, and golly, has there been lots of water under the bridge since then. I'm running out of pages and have ordered and received a replacement book, so for my own amusement, I thought I'd review the last couple years according to my little black book.

Sticker inside the front cover says, "Wine me, dine me, Over the Rhine me." Based on dates I'd guess that I bought the sticker at their '03 Christmas Concert, which I think I attended with Justin. I remember that it was extra cold and we parked on Fountain Square, ate at the Rock Bottom and then I nearly peed myself walking to the Taft.

Also inside the front are my work locker combination and a pink Post-It that says, "Canon i560" for when I'm picking out printer ink. Another pink Post-It has some numbers that might be a phone number and might not -- I have no idea why it's there. Next page has a couple stickers -- one peeled from the cover of something I spent $4.95 on @ Barnes & Noble (I think it was Dracula) and one stripped from a bottle of Bacardi Silver, which I don't drink, (although Bacardi Rum was one of the very first things I got hammered on when I was a kid). No idea whose that was.

Facing those two stickers:

**the title of a book whose author I'd heard interviewed on NPR. The book was (and remains) called Touching the Void. I made that note and read the book before later watching the movie with our friends Michael and Rebecca. Nearly peed myself that night too. (Also happened to be the first night I ever ordered calamari at a restaurant (it was great).

**the address, phone number and directions to (directions will become a theme at some point here) to the Rohs Street Cafe where we caught our friends Justin & Tasha and Cameron. Cam gave me a couple CDs that night -- Bjork's Vespertine and Calexico's Feast of Wire. I've paid more attention to the Bjork record, but they're both great.

**the title of a .38 Special record: Best of the A & M Years, which must have been recommended to me by Brian at work and which I did not buy. Feel free.

Gotta go -- more later.

For the Record

This is Sam.

He's three now.

We like him.