I Promise

Tags

Bob Dylan, marriage, materialism, promises, women

So, I’m reading about Bob Dylan out of a big book that claims to be the bio of all Bob Dylan bios.  Maybe it is, I’m yet impartial to its ranking (and also have little base for comparison).  But the pictures told a whole lot in all of about eight pages.  After I had the refresher of Dylan’s time line, I flipped to a chapter in the latter half called “Faith”. 

Terms like ‘faith’ tend to be ambiguous these days, especially with New Age-type movements employing Christian and Biblical language with brand new, man-made definitions.  It’s almost trendy to redefine like that (but so out of line) and to use familiar language to say something fresh.  So, ‘faith’ can probably mean just about anything in this case.  Turns out, it basically means ‘women’ so far. 

At the point in his life where this chapter picks up, he’s already sickeningly famous, living on a 2.5 million dollar estate that is one of four or five.  He’s gone through the intro-rocker stage, where his immaculate talent was egregiously overlooked and now in super-stardom he’s already annoyed with his obsessive fan base.  And with all that money and fame can buy, he’s nothing but unsatisfied and desperate.  He seems to be in at least a fistful of relationships on the emotional level at any given time (one is usually, but not necessarily, his current wife).  And that’s not to say he’s deeply emotionally involved either, but that the unsatisfied, seeking attitude sees temporary relief in the next woman that walks in his door (often, literally). 

I’ve talked about covenant and vows in marriage a few times this week, resolving that those promises are meant to keep.  And in light of said discussions, Bob Dylan breaks my heart.  He has everything that any materialistic American (is it redundant to say both?) could ever want and yet he runs around taking more from this wretched world than his fame can even buy him; woman after woman after woman.  I know words aren’t worth a dime when the actions don’t back them up, but what is it that gives folks the idea that “I do and I will forever…” means “I’ll try as long as I don’t get bored”, or “Until I change my mind”?

I want to say it’s ignorant.  I want to condemn the single-minded selfish who parade their right to divorce and remarry, and do it again, leaving shrapnel of broken families, children, and friends…and promises, scattered all over “the house that she got”.  I want to read them their vows and make them stand true to their word.  But, I can’t.  I can’t say “Look, I’ve done it!”, and if I could they wouldn’t care.  I can only try to separate the talent and thrill in the Bob Dylan’s from the choice that mars a man’s word.  I can only say that I’ll be true, true to a promise I’ll maybe never make – but those are all just words, too.

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Hope

Tags

Christ, fear, guilt, hope, suicide

It seems so obvious.  So clear cut black and white plain English where hope dwells.  Even on the day when it hurts the most, the image behind my eyelids can’t be void of everything.  If I close my eyes right now, it’s even black, the graying moving kind.  It’s something better than nothing.  I would even live for black for a time, the deeper stiller version, if that’s all I could hope in.  But when the black turns to emptiness, I find that life ends.  If hope is real, if there’s a plan at all, then that void will never come; it can’t break through the black canvas.

 

How many days of black canvas cloud out hope?  And how many days without hope can a life sustain?  Maybe three.  That’s days or years or lifetimes, not sure.

 

David Foster Wallace said months before his, that suicide was a clean-up of a mess made some time before, maybe long before.  That death had long since been rotting inside a living breathing skin, and that the death that makes the papers is required to be orderly.  You know, just following up. 

 

I can’t agree.  No one who trusts in the Son of God is ever cleaning up.  Christ did the brutal clean up a while back, and all we do when we try to do His job all over again is dishonor everything He stands for.  Hope is within reach even in this wretched life.  Even when, day after day, there’s nothing but black canvas behind closed eyes.

 

Today I’m angry with ignorance.  And wondering why I never said this straight.  Still fearing another day of why because of something I didn’t say.

Numb and Love

I get numb when I don’t know what to say or feel.  I just loved her so hard…and I never actually thought…

so much love

The Bears Lost a Game I Didn’t Know They’d Played

Tags

Bears, Chicago, football

Yep, 37-3 to the Green Bay Packers [sans the ever-present Brett Fav-ray]. I don’t much care for or about the Bears.  I suppose I engage superficially in football, though I’m adamantly against superficial involvement in most other things.  My preference in the sports arena is bent hard towards soccer or hockey, but I don’t even profess my love for those choices with much fervor.  [I’ll go to my first hockey game in February, split between cheering for both teams in contention.]

Normally, though, when things around this house are the way they should be, even with just a shred of normalcy – I would know of a historical-ish game between these ever-rivaled teams.  The Green Bay Packers – of course!  But I don’t know a thing if my Dad isn’t at home.

He’s not making piles of dirty, color-same clothes that the dog likes to lay in on Sundays.  When he does, the TV’s turned to the Bears in HD and from the porch or my room I would know if “we” scored.  Cheers and reflexive jumps up from the couch equal good.  Disgust and feigned conversations with the referees usually equal bad.  Yelling, of course, is bad.   

But – no Dad, no Sunday football for me.  It’s not fun to watch without someone who cares, about the pigskin or me.  Someone who knows the answers to my questions about the yellow line and the hand signals for penalties.  Who laughs as I go on about uniform colors and player names, or arena’s with closing roofs.

One and a half parents makes football more out-of-touch, makes it almost inaccessible to me.

Bears t-shirt 1/34

Starbucks Partial Fast

Tags

coffee, fasting, Starbucks

One of a litany of frequented Starbucks,

Today is November 17th, in the early minutes of the 18th by now.  It’s a Monday-turned-Tuesday.  No different of a day than any other Monday where each hour ticks by on the stovetop clock in wastefulness or laziness, always on the brink of something and never resting.  I mulled around in my house after I couldn’t get the lawn mower started this morning to cut the frosted grass.  I remembered how weak I felt when I first started mowing and my dad had to pull the cord because the cord pulled all 90 pounds of me. 

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I finally made it out of the house by 2:30 and had dinner with a friend who prays like Scripture sounds.  I learned more in 3 hours than some people will learn all year.  But something in the mix was off, not right for me.  It was a tall cup of coffee.

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I dropped off toys at the missionary thrift store and ordered tall-soy-no-whip-peppermint-white-mocha with a smile at the drive through like it was routine.  I’d never been to this Starbucks before, and the drive-thru’s brand new.  It wasn’t until Joel [his nametag read] handed me a Christmas-y cup and a receipt for a free drink that I realized how I’d vowed not to be here.  Not from November 1st until 30 days later.

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I hadn’t spent a dime this month on Starbucks as a financial remodeling of sorts and a committment to the Lord.  Not a dime until I handed Mister Joel a twenty and he returned fifteen.

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No one knew I was fasting, or would see my if I drank.  But I didn’t have the heart to throw it out and the five dollars we already corporate property. 

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I just forgot.  Other things were on my mind, I guess.  Funny how that happens – the forgetting – with things unseen.  Congrats, Satan, now I have to start all over again.  I’ll fast from tomorrow…this time, just try me.   

Where Are Your Restrooms?

Tags

Berghoff, customers, restaurant, waiting tables

The most frequently asked question at the restaurant has to be “where are your restrooms?”, or some variety of the same inquiry.  Even those who don’t ask an employee make their perceived destination clear as they walk slowly and curiously around the bar tables, confidently into the kitchen, or get frustrated after trying to pull open a series of locked doors.

And it’s not simple either.  There’s a men’s restroom in the corner of the bar, near the front door – but only a men’s, and only the availability to stand up.  I will say that seeing a man wander back onto the floor, embarrassed, after having been sent to the nearest bathroom that apparently did not meet his needs, this creates a highlight for the week.  But the women have to walk through the main dining room to the host stand, at which point they turn to leave the restaurant, but duck down the staircase to find the restrooms.   It takes a long time to explain this whole adventure, and make a joke about it all in one breath.

But there’s one man I never did meet, only saw through the bar mirror, who didn’t need directions anywhere.  He’d come in early, before the lunch rush and sit at the end of the bar, not too far from the door.  Ordered a beer or two and left.  But he only left after he had [and I’m not kidding] peed all over the floor and on the barstool.  He never made a big scene about it, just half-sat, half-stood on the stool and peed right down his pants and everything.  Then he paid and walked out.

Can’t be?  I didn’t think so either.  He must have had a problem, right?  You can’t be a grown man and just walk into a bar day after weekday and pee on the stool and think that it’s okay!  Can you?  Maybe a little drip, I could see –  if it was his 5th amber ale and the line for the bathroom was twelve people long.  But not a whole bladder’s worth, twice the size of his beer, in puddles on the floor at 11:45 in the morning. 

Next time, I’ll give restroom directions as quickly as possible – so they don’t get any ideas.

Gallons of Milk

Tags

God, hindu, hinduism, milk, offering, puja, shri ganesa, temple

Haven’t picked up a homework-bound pen yet today, which marks this Sunday’s failure.  But my room is clean.  That’s good.  I’m about to watch a borrowed dvd about the music industry – very excited.  And I spent the past 2 hours without uttering a word, surrounded by rituals I cannot seem to reconcile. 

 

There are things that just aren’t right, some of which everyone realizes [praise the Lord for conscience] and some that only those who live for the Lord are going to care about, and even the latter to varying degrees.  But then there are things that fall under “common sense”, which seem to be the easiest to find universal agreement on.  They’re not moral issues, or matters of the heart, they’re things that won’t get you killed, and follow logically. 

 

Don’t cross the street when a car’s coming.  Don’t run with scissors.  Don’t play rough with children just after they’ve eaten.  Put your towel somewhere outside the shower where you can reach it when you’re done.  Make sure there’s toilet paper in the bathroom before you take a seat.  Don’t lock your house keys in the house or your car keys in the car.  Don’t forget your wallet.

 

Tonight, I was thinking of don’t waste your food when the swamis at the Hindu Temple were pouring gallon after gallon of milk over a black statue of an elephant.  Bottles of honey, cartons of apple juice, huge steel pots of thick creamy soups.  Each item covered the face, trunk, ears, and Buddha-like belly of the elephant statue.  And, to put it simply, it’s because Hindu’s think that hunk of metal is the house for one of the gods.  And it only follows that the god appreciates the outside of his house sticky and smelling like yesterday’s leftovers. 

 

Beliefs of a doctrinal nature aside, I cannot reconcile pouring my groceries over a statue, where they land unusable in a pool of mush under the statue.  Sure, things about Jesus Christ are unbelievable, even defying logic – but the absurdity of this ritual of waste repeatedly struck me as strange as I became ever-bored under hours of recitation and chanting in a language that sounds like mumbling to me. 

At the very least, I’m motivated to consider how I can better give my first-fruits to the Lord, without being foolish.  What can I do to honor the One and Only God that is also practical and pleasing to Him?  There must be more important displays of my love for Him, rather than pouring out an entire carton of rice milk without drinking a sip.      

Hiawatha Short

a.) this is the youth camp that stole my heart 5 years ago

b.) that’s my camper

c.) i’m in charge of that blob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bgjiB0cHDo

Persona

The persona a writer [or a musician, poet, playwright] projects on the page isn’t the one who makes phone calls, waits tables, sings in the shower and the car, and studies some Saturday nights.  She’s not the one who comes when you call, cries when you hurt her, or laughs at your joke that isn’t funny – that just isn’t her at all. 

When I forget that the girl who is me on the page isn’t all of me and is more than me at the same time, I slip into vulnerability.  Sometimes she’s exactly who I want to be, or who I was years-months-weeks ago.  Or yesterday.  She’s strong when I break down, and calm when I lose my mind.  At times, she wants what I want, but it never works out for one of us. 

Phrases swam in my head while I filled in crossword boxes on the train tonight, long alliterations like 7down and two short staccato thrusts like 1 and 14across.  But I couldn’t put them together into prose or even finish the crossword.  My pen stuck to the page because I thought for a moment that she was me, and all of me on the page is too much to share. 

She hasn’t woken up on the couch in that home in East Grand Rapids, or danced with Morgan in the Maple Ridge when it was the Arctic Inn.  She can only do what I make her.  And I can’t make her do those things just yet.  You see, she’s only ever been to Michigan City in a rough draft and she’s never been –

Some things are yet too deep.  She can’t go there without me, and I’m not taking her today.  Just so you know that we’re not the same.

On Blogging

Tags

thisisby.us, tibu, writing

You know, I probably should’ve had a blog since I started writing.  I tend to be against the things that rise up as the latest trends, and vehemently so.  Like facebook [bleh], blogs were one of those things.  Thus, my blog is first created in 2008 to be an archive for my writing-site pieces as the site crashes and burns. 

It had it’s up’s and down’s.  The pennies were not an up, and the people of out-of-line opinion weren’t necessarily a downeither.  It very certainly was not what I had expected, to somewhat of my disappointment.  But online writing is what it is.  Some of the new literary mags are going online and it’s not so bad.  Diagram here. 

I wonder what the real writers, in their eclectic office spaces in the corner of their solitary cabin in the woods think of online writing.  I wonder how the internet connection is out there.