A picture consists of 242 words

I wish I could draw. My mom thinks I can, but then again, she thinks I can do anything. (Thanks Mom!) I think her unwavering faith in her son, in this case, comes from drawings of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I used to make in junior high. In no way were the drawings even close to the same level of skill of that guy's, or even my friend Matt's - whose "works" I was copying. But apparently beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What can you say but... Turtle Power! (Seriously, now I can't remember if this is just the first time I've blog-linked that song - sad, right?)

Anyways, the draw to draw that inspired this post in the first place came as I was reading this about the lending crisis and why banks won't or can't lend money right now. About the time the article mentions the Obama administration's efforts to "jump-start [the] crucial machinery" of the banks and markets to get the economy chugging along again, I began assembling this mental picture:

A small group of people in suits, all looking grave, yet resolute, addressing a crowd. One man (probably Obama) among those in suits, speaking to the crowd in grave, yet resolute tones. Behind the suited group addressing the crowd, another small group of suited people, bent-over examining the gears and guts of a ginormous, ridiculous-looking machine (approximately the size of a decently large sports stadium), scratching their heads, puzzling anxiously about how to get the thing running again. I imagine some in the crowd of observers are watching the speakers, and others are watching the group of people scrambling to fix the machine - in either case, watching expectantly. Somehow (this is why I'm not an artist - I have no visual imagination), whether with labels or through some slick, subtle artistry, the viewer realizes this is some kind of massive deep-fryer. Pan out (again, if this is a picture, I realize there's no such thing - but I bet good artists can attract your focus to parts of the picture in stages) and you see a massive farm and garden, bursting with all kinds of delicious food, ready to be harvested and possibly even plucked off the branch or vine and eaten. You look again at the crowd and realize that everyone looks kind of hungry and irritiable, as if they've forgotten how to eat (the master artist has rendered the crowd with a dazzling feat of complexity, of course).

I am enough of an artist to know that this is the point where I sit back and let you savor the rich irony of the picture I've just painted. Go on, savor it.

Thumbs for the road: life is like a (fill in the blank)

So my post title is probably a bit confusing. Here's what I'm trying to accomplish in the following few moments of your time:

-Give a "thumb report" for something crazy that happened yesterday, and

-Make some deep, I'm talking real deep observations about what life is like (I'll explain more about the "thumbs" theme tie-in when I get there).

Thumbs way down

So, apparently I'm terrified of mice. Last night I was working in our extra bathroom to start pulling up the floor (we're prepping it for a plumber who can go in and move some pipes so we can put the toilet in a location that makes more sense than the one it's currently in). This involved taking screws out from the hardibacker board I'd so carefully put down a few months ago, as well as starting to saw through the plywood subfloor (I know, boring details, but I promise it gets good). All of this must have been quite unsettling to the poor mouse who'd made his home in the area recently, because seconds after I hear some kind of pitter-pattering sound behind me, I see THE STREAK. (At this point, I feel it necessary to point out that the animal was still a rat rather than a "mouse on steroids" as Kathryn later put it.) THE STREAK evokes THE SCREAM. THE SCREAM is immediately followed by THE FLIGHT. During THE FLIGHT there is somehow THE SECOND SCREAM. Soon enough I'm in the same room with Kathryn, which upon entering earns me THE LOOK and THE PUNCH.

Here's the same story, this time told from Kathryn's perspective (this portion of our program is brought to you by Vantage Point - own it on DVD and Blu-Ray now!). "I was in the kitchen making a pizza. In the other room I could hear the sound of the drill, which had been going, off and on, for a while. One of the times when it stopped it was immediately followed by Joe screaming. Over the course of the next 2 seconds, here's what ran through my mind: Oh my gosh! How many appendages did Joe just cut off? Can I find a container to put ice in? Will I be able to find the severed parts? Where will we go? Is St. Joseph's the closest hospital? What's the quickest way there? About this time Joe comes in and I do a quick scan - he doesn't appear to have any bloody stumps anywhere." At this point both stories converge with THE LOOK and THE PUNCH.

In my defense, that mouse came out of nowhere. Seriously, it's like he materialized right through the wall of the bathroom vanity and charged right through my line of vision. Also, this mouse was in no way "mousy" - the thing was big enough to be a small rat. And I have seen mice on the run before. They look like little blurs. Not large, ravenous rat-mammal uber-blurs. I swear the thing was ravenous.

Anyways, since my wife works with lab-mice on a daily basis, I went ahead and let her take a look in the bathroom to see if she could spot it. (I figure since I'd led the charge on the roach wars I could take a more cautious approach this time.) Later on I put my adrenaline-induced frenzy aside and placed a baited trap in the area where we saw some mouse droppings. Nothing yet, but I think we'll get the beast in due time.

Thumbing a Ride on the Road of Life

I've had some thoughts stewing around in my head for a few days about what life is like. (You know - life is like... "a journey" or "a box of chocolates" or "it is what it is" - those types of things.) The impetus for these thoughts have been life circumstances that have forced me to become more comfortable living with unfinished things. Goals not yet accomplished. Tasks sidetracked. Sidetracked sub-tasks sidetracking other sidetracked sub-tasks. Those types of things.

Buying a house that was so much further from being done than I realized when I bought it is one of the things that's got me on this train of thought. Another is a project I may soon take on at work (which would involve slowly redoing a large database and website) that could drag on for months or years. Paying off debt and getting financially stable is another fun one.

And then there are things people start that they don't even get to see finished. Like people who already have kids. They know that at some point they'll die and the life they helped start will continue on after they're gone (what a horrible thing that sometimes it happens the other way around). Who are we to think we can accomplish anything? What do we know about finality and worth?

I know people who are addicted to "getting things done" because "it feels good to". I'm not going to lie - I've got a pretty long list of things I'd really like to get done - not necessarily because I'm eager for that sense of accomplishment, but because I'm tired of having things on my list. But lists never clear and stay cleared - we know that, right? I don't know, maybe there are some super-nazis out there who push through and get stuff done on schedule despite the odds and challenges, but I certainly don't operate that way.

Really, I think this is the kind of thing that leads people to say things like, "Life is a journey, not a destination." (Or Ralph Waldo Emerson - whatever.) I guess maybe people who buy into that would see the value in challenges being character-making, and they would rank that above personal achievement. Or maybe they'd take a balanced stance and say personal achievement (arriving at your destination) only gains its value when it's viewed holistically, together with the character-making process of facing challenges (being on the journey).

I looked around a little bit to see some people who have been quoted with thoughts on the subject. (Note: I wouldn't necessarily trust that this guy got his sources right, since apparently Emerson ripped his quote off of Steven Tyler.)

I like the Martin Buber quote because he mentions the secret destinations. It's hard to think of a journey, much less a destination, when most undertakings involve so many detours that you go from "we'll get there when we get there" to "by the time we get there, we'll already need to be somewhere else."

By the time you settle into a new technology, a newer is already taking its place, making it obsolete. By the time you finish the house, you're moving to a bigger one or taking a job in another town. By the time you pay off debt, something (or someone) breaks and you're scrambling to pay for repairs.

That's why when Jesus says, "It is finished", that has to be a really big deal. He's either full of total bull crap or he's totally the man who succeeded in something we've all been failing at all along.

It's nice to know that, in this world, at least somebody is getting something done.

Ride on, King Jesus, ride on. Just as long as I can hitch.

Daily Thumbs Report - February 4, 2009

Thumbs Down

Finding a roach on the curtain behind our heads, above our bed, first thing in the morning.  BLECH.  Thankfully, it was on the other side of the curtain.  But I think it'd been there most of the night, because I remember looking up at one point and noticing some kind of blob above my head.  Not cool.

Thumbs Up

Store-brand Irish Creme non-dairy creamer.  Pick any store-brand, they're all pretty consistently good.  I wouldn't try applying the up-thumb to other types of non-dairy creamer; many of them are so fake they're nasty.  And this one's probably fake too, but somehow it just works anyways (enough for me to buy a thing of it to keep in my desk at work).

Thumbs Down

Weak coffee.  So we have two types of coffee in the office, one generic (it's actually pretty good, though I don't think it's your typical Folgers or Maxwell House or any of those) and also Starbucks Verona - very nice.  Except when people think that since it's bold they can only use part of the packet for a whole pot of coffee.  At that point it's not real coffee, at least not any more than Pierce Brosnan is a real singer.

Thumbs Up

Martin's Barbeque.  Sausage wrap, fries, tea with free refills, and a 24% tip: $5.10.

Thumbs Up

Navasota Theatre Alliance.  Kathryn's involved in a play called George Washington Slept Here.  Last night I went to watch them rehearse.  Fun stuff!  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.  Teaser: Kathryn will be showing off her Lamplighter barnyard skills...

Thumbs Down

More roaches.  We got home and I got to clean up the carcasses of five dead roaches from around the house since I sprayed strategically all over the house before we left for Kathryn's rehearsal.

Thumbs Up

Dead roaches.  The best kind, of course.  If nothing else, the sheer number of dead ones tells me that my strategy of spraying this stuff in strategic locations paid off.

Thumbs Up

I don't intend to end this blog post on a gross note.  So I'll leave you with a positive, warmly happy story:  

A family was sitting around their living room one sunny afternoon, enjoying life and each other, laughing at the antics of their crazy, but lovable ham of an uncle.  Suddenly, their new puppy, recently rescued from the animal shelter, scampered into the room happily, sliding on the floor and into a fluffy bean bag chair.  Promptly, the too-cute puppy turned its head to the side and made a quizzical face.  The beautiful family in their sunlit living room all burst into laughter at the utter adorableness of the puppy and enjoyed a moment they will cherish forever.

LL Cute Joe

If you think the title is awkward enough (as in, some kind of self-proclaimed title), then get ready for the hot scoop of awkward that I'm about to dish up.

If you didn't quite get the cultural reference, I'm referring to this guy, whose alias, if you weren't already knowledgabizzle, stands for 'Ladies Love Cool James'.

If only I could (or was at least attempting to) make such a claim. No, unfortunately, after the events that just transpired about 20 minutes ago, here's the sad state of things: Ladyboys Love Cute Joe. More on that first part of the title a little later...

Tonight's occasion was made possible by a couple of gender-confused individuals who were leaving the video store at the same time that I was returning a DVD. The transcript is as follows:

Ladyboys: (waving and batting some fake eyelashes - well, at least they were enhanced in some form or fashion) "Hey Sexy..."
Me: (muttering indistinctly and avoiding eye contact) "Hi"
Ladyboys: (walking towards their car, which was also in my general direction) "Merry Christmas..."
Me: (maintaining the initial sense of distance) "Thanks"
Ladyboys: (now at their car) [Waving and batting eyelashes again]
Me: (in my car again about to drive off) [Noticing the waving out of the corner of my eye, I drive away with a the kind of quick wave and sideways glance usually reserved for newspaper salesmen.]

I'd love to say this kind of thing hasn't ever happened before, but it has. Kathryn and I were in Thailand on a mission trip the summer before we got married. We decided to get photos done, because Thai people get wedding pictures done before they get married as opposed to after, and we could get a great deal on some really nice pictures. So we drove an hour and a half across Bangkok to the shopping mall where the photo place was. The place was run by gay Thai guys, who Thai people call "ladyboys" (hence the alias and title for this post). We started getting ready. They spent over an hour on Kathryn's makeup (later, her mom didn't even recognize her in the pictures), and at least twenty minutes on my hair. At some point while they were either fixing my hair or taking the pictures, one of our Thai friends comes and tells us there are some more ladyboys outside the place, watching me through the glass (so maybe it was while we were taking pictures), talking about how cute I was. Brilliant. Of course, Kathryn and our Thai friend enjoy a plentiful handful of snickers at my situation.

Does this make me feel awkward? Yeah, a little bit, but nothing near the level of awkward experienced by a friend of mine when a Brazilian woman offered to have his baby for him (she had to say it through a translator) after a concert in Brazil (he was on tour with a musical group). Great story - maybe I can get him to blog about it.

Looking on the bright side, at least the ladyboys aren't offering to have my baby. Maybe I should ask next time.

Cruelty Free: No Bunnies Were Harmed in the Making of This Lotion

You may or may not be familiar with this logo:

While it's not exactly the same as the one on my lotion, it's close enough to provide me the reassurance that I can enjoy the softness of my hands without the nagging of my conscience that it came at the expense of cute bunnies.

Stuff and In-Between-ness

Stuff
Everybody's got their stuff. I've got mine, you've got yours, we've all got ours. And I'm not just saying 'stuff' because I'm afraid of saying 'sh*t' - everybody's got their 'sh*t' too, but that means something different that what I'm meaning here. People try to hide their 'sh*t' in the closet and not let anyone know they wear it; people like to wear their 'stuff' out in the open and show it off because they're proud of it.

So that's crystal-clear. Our stuff is what engages us, what we enjoy doing, what receives our energies. Like a guy with a couple of cars out in the yard he's always fixing up. Or a girl who's always trendy and fashionable and knowledgeable about clothes. The football fanatic. The amateur gourmet. (Sure, these are a little stereotypical, but you get the idea.)

The thing about stuff is that it's not our life. Life doesn't consist of stuff. Life has to be somewhere else, something else. I find it extremely freeing to think about the things I think cause people to think of me (Joe, the guy who does this, Joe, the guy who's into that) and say, "that's my stuff". It's not my life, it's my stuff. Very freeing.

I have to be reminded of this frequently or I start to believe otherwise. Life quickly becomes suffocating when it starts to consist of stuff. Unfortunately, I think this cuts both ways. Do you feel suffocated when you get around certain people? It's not that you don't like the person, it's that they pull out their stuff and hold it up as though their life consisted of it. It can also be such that they measure your life as if it ought to consist of it as well. This is even more suffocating. Either that, or just saddening. What a sad little person, they can't see beyond their stuff.

Thank God for seasons and growth and for him being sovereign and owning everything.  He'll grow me and free me out of these obsessions.  Otherwise life would be a perpetual "bleak midwinter", wouldn't it?

In-Between-ness
I'm 28 years old. To some this probably sounds pretty old (probably to most in a college town), and to some pretty young.  So while I can play a game of soccer without being sore for the entire week following, I think you can spot some of the gray in my hair from across the room.  Weird.

Feels pretty in-between to me. And that's just the physical aspect. I haven't even gotten into the maturity part yet. That's the real kicker. Feeling like I can see pretty clearly how immature I am, yet lacking in resources to do much about it decisively. This is where the connection to the 'stuff' thoughts come in (for those of you who were hoping there was some continuity to this post): shouldn't I be old enough to not keep falling for the lie that my life doesn't consist of stuff? I think Kathryn made a comment the other day that maturity and age don't necessarily accrue at the same rate (I've lost the exact context and also her exact words, and possibly also the gist of what she was saying, but obviously this is what I took away from the conversation). I think that must be true.  I've met some pretty immature old people.  Oh for grace to not become one.  (Or to bear it with good humor...)

I'm guessing other young adults would feel similarly. (Or whatever label or category you'd put to us.) The feeling that you ought to be capable of so much more sanity, stability, responsibility and such, but really you're barely taller than knee-high to a grasshopper when you use the adulthood-measuring-stick.

I certainly feel it today.  It feels like irony: at times when I take more responsibility, the blindness is removed from my eyes to how much more is waiting to be took.  As if the purpose of responsibility is to alert me to how much I'd been fooling myself.  Again, without good humor, I think I'd be likely here to want to "curse God and die" - but it's much healthier to have a laugh even though the joke's on me.

Oh, and faith.  In those moments when all that I'm called to do and be seems way past my ability to time-manage or deal with maturely or accomplish while 'doing it justice', I need to have a way of pushing beyond despair and trusting God for more than I'm able to accomplish.

It seems then that faith bridges the age-gap and makes it okay to be in-between. 

Spirit and Mind?

It's always nice to wake up and find something like this in your inbox:

Apparently, this guy is the poster-child (to whatever extent) for the A&M Foundation's new Spirit and Mind fundraising initiative.  Oddly enough, seeing this doesn't really say either "spirit" or "mind" to me.