Now Where Was I...

Our Gettysburg trip was great -- maybe the best we've taken together. I'm not a Civil War fan (I think you're supposed to call them "buffs") but Gettysburg is compelling to me. Some Serioius Shit went down there and if you've done any homework at all prior to a visit you can feel it. Very Heavy.

The first picture is the cabin that we stayed in (twice now). The fireplace is fun and the porch, which overlooks a wonderfully noisy creek, is a great place for some hookah.

Christmas was nifty too. Christmas Eve with the Gregory side of things, Dana and Holly in between, and Christmas afternoon with the Barnes folk. (We also persuaded one of our many Inferno friends to come with us for that and it was fun.)

Above is a picture of breakfast Christmas morning. It's also a picture of what we do instead of what many people do on any given Sunday morning.

I like it.

This is a picture of Larry B. (Ruthie's dad) taking a Christmas afternoon nap curled up with Pooh Bear. They're so cute at that age.

When I was in the eighth grade John Deiter and I checked twin copies of The Beatles Forever out of our school's library, (I don't think he ever returned his,) made ratty cassette copies of his dad's scratchy vinyl White Album, and embarked on a serious Beatles kick. Now, all these years later, I'm back in the groove -- reassembling the collection (this time on CD and legitimately). Even found The Beatles Forever at Half Price Books (how much do we love that place?). Got three CD's for Christmas from Larry B. -- Sgt. Pepper's, Let it Be, and the aforementioned White Album. Good ones all, but it's that last one that I'm stuck on presently -- puts me right back in the eighth grade, but I like it anyway.

And here's one of the Hoo-Hoo. He's fun. Baby toys are fun to play with and he's a riot to watch. Had to punk him down the other day though. Kept trying to take the Legos.

Hey, I was building a pyramid.

Mr. Hoo-Hoo Says...

...Smile.

Liked this One

"Plunge boldly into the Beyond, then be free wherever you are."

--Shoitsu

This Feels Weird

Johnny Damon is a Yankee.

Off to a Good Start

Tomorrow will mark ten years of the marriage for Ruthie and me -- pretty cool. We're off this afternoon for Gettysburg. Apparently we like it there, so we're going back, (I feel like we got a memo with a typo from all the people here who go to Gatlinburg every year). Ought to be a good time. We'll drop the Hoo-Hoo off at Ruthie's folks' place in Findlay and then it's battlefield fun (read "sleeping in") until Monday.

Our sangha was very sweet Tuesday, presenting us with a bottle of wine, a painting by a very nifty lady who operates down the hall from Rebecca, and some sort of Enjoy the Arts thing that I don't quite know how it works yet -- looks great though. They're wonderful.

Breathing in, I love my people...

Reason I Love My Wife, Number 3822:

We're getting ready for her office Christmas party and the shirt Ruthie wants me to wear is entirely too preppy for my taste -- some Hilfiger thing I got at the Goodwill for four bucks to wear to work. Yeah, picture me all Tommy'd-up -- it's not pretty.

And then she says, "Look on the bright side, I'm not going to iron your pants."

Congratulations Alex!

Dude can play.

Oh, Wow.

My childhood is getting old.

Top Five Best Things About My Evening

5. Ellery was hot. Now they're inside my head.
4. Ashley Peacock is from Another Planet -- absolutely spectacular.
3. Lots of people I love all in one room (yet very little talking).
2. Many of those people took turns loving The Wonton. (Thanks!)
1. Mr. Hoo-Hoo got to rub Ric Hordinski's bald, bald head.

Worth a Look

"Oh no, you do, because it's truth, not fact, and you have to take truth seriously even when it expands beyond the facts."

Ellery Alert!

Ellery!
Tuesday, December 6th
w/the Incredible Ashley Peacock of The Times
at The Library @ Old St. George
42 Calhoun St -- Cincinnati, OH
7:30 PM, $3.00

Currently Rocking My (Expletive Deleted) Face Off:

"The World Can Wait" by Over the Rhine

"I have five senses -- I need thousands more"

Seriously -- my actual face.

Chris Green,

I tried to e-mail you but it bounced back. Where you at?

Tried to Post this Yesterday

Just got back from lunch with Tara & Karis. Crackin' good time. Sushi makes me inordinately gleeful, and those are good folk.

Outside the window it's gushing snow -- Ruthie's in the other room decorating for Christmas. Karin Bergquist is urging me not to be bothered. I couldn't be happier.

Tired of my Little Book Yet?

Four titles I recommended to Bart:

Walk On, by Steve Stockman

The Divine Consipriacy, by Dallas Willard

Telling the Truth, by Buechner

A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren

I wonder, two years later, if Bart's any more likely to follow up on book recommendations then I am. I wonder if I'd recommend any of those if he asked me the same question today. All four were helpful at the time.

Then for some reason I wrote,

2003 Strat-O-Matic

Ruthie and I don't play as much as we used to, (no idea why,) but it's a great game.

And after that, more of me talking ot myself:

You have to kill somthing to dissect it.

I don't want to be reactionary.

I don't think that I was using the word "reactionary" correctly, but what I was trying to get at is the kind of think I alluded to a few days ago about how there's way more to be For in the world than there is to be Against. This particular line was in reference to all of my ecclesiastical angst, and I suppose that some of that negativity was inevitable, (McLaren actually diagrams it on page xi of the introduction to ANKoC,) but I'm largely past that now. I've got too much to be For.

Then two more book titles (we read alot around here):

More Jesus, Less Religion, by Steve Somebody

12 Christian Beliefs That'll Drive You Crazy

And again, I didn't track those down and read them. In fact, I don't even remember who recommended them. Randy maybe? Or Kathi? Someone else's Rafts. It's like that.

There's three names I wrote down and have no idea why:

Clay Patrick McBride

Francis Niehaus

Don Horton

And then something about Norah Jones (we love her,) and a note to track down "Bring me to Life," by Evanesence. Liked that one. Liked "My Immortal" too.

After that, it gets a bit churchy. Questions that other people were trying to get me to answer about what we were, at the time and for lack of a better idea, calling a church plant. They're questions I won't get into here, (because they're creepy,) but I doubt it's a coincidence that they occur at the exact same time I was telling myself things like the dissection line above. Then I wrote:

This won't look like a church plant.

And it doesn't.

A line from the Greatest Film of All Time:

Get busy living or get busy dying.

And another M. Wilson quote. He was describing a guitar player we saw at the Comet who was in from Nashville and sitting in with the band. Michael said,

He plays guitar like he's falling asleep.

Then a line from a Jewel song,

They're not yours, they are my own,

Which was a reminder to myself to write a bit that I never wrote about how my hands look just like my dad's.

After that there's a sticker from the Wine Shop Ruthie and I frequent

Bridgetown Finer Meats/Wine Shop

Good folk there -- they take care of us, (and they adore Mr. Hoo-Hoo).

And then it's back to the churchiness. Again, me talking to myself and reflecting the desire to let the negativity go. We all felt so suddenly free that it was a temptation to dwell on what we'd been freed from when there were (and remain) so many positives to give our energy to. It's just a fragment:

What we're free to do, not just not.

Then this:

"I've got a pretzel bag @ home...these are better than a pretzel bag."

And then something that a little yellow mouse said to me in a dream, which ended up here, and a humorous inside-joke of a note I took at an elders meeting one night:

Putting people third

It's still funny to me. We were talking about priorities and spending money and where the building ranked on the list and how badly we needed new chairs and when we had the list done we realized that people had fallen to third. Those of you who've been around a while know about my issues with church buildings and the irony of that night still makes me smile.

Bored yet? 'Cause I've still got the better part of 200 pages to get through.

Woot!

my kingdom for a spell-check!

Best Part of Working at The Home Depot

When you pee yourself a little, the apron almost always covers it.

Let's See...

Sunday afternoon we saw Over the Rhine play @ Joseph-Beth and it was perfect. Just the two of them -- no band -- and we sat about ten feet from them. Best part: they played "Bothered." Best part for them: getting to meet Mr. Hoo-Hoo afterward.

I've been working on Richard Ford's Independence Day. Anyone read it? 'Cause I'm about to bail -- not doing a thing for me.

Ruthie and I just watched Amelie -- liked it lots.


Back to my Little Black Book


There's a Michael Wilson line I liked alot:

Frozen disbelief thawing into doubt

And then more of me talking to myself:

I don't know what's out there, but I have to find out (Star Trek)

And of course that refers to my whole exodus from the Way Things Were (so does the title of my blog, for the record). My Raft was composed of a million little thoughts like that and it's a bit trippy to be revisiting them having now crossed the River.

Turn the page.

"At Last" Etta James

Another song to track down. Good stuff.

Then the notes that became this. Which also feels very much like a part of the Raft at this point. It's mine...my own...my preciousssss...

A book that David recommended, which I never read:

Jesus Rediscovered, by Malcolm Muggeridge

And an orginization he proposed one night at the Comet:

National Asssociation for Advancement

You had to be there...

Then another piece of my Raft:

Helping people who get it (or want to) find each other

Sounds a bit arrogant at first glance, perhaps, except that I (almost) never intended to imply that whatever we're getting here is the only thing worth getting.

Good enough place to quit -- time to get ready for sushi!