Things I've Read

There are books I like because, despite the fact that they aren't well written, they contain a certain amount of truth that I found intriguing. Such was my experience with Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.

Then there are books that are so full of truth that I can't bare to read them. I pick them up... and put them down. When I pick it up again I skip ahead a few chapters, but soon after down it goes. Up. Down. Up. Down. Until I give up and throw it across the room. Honestly, if I had known what Nick Hornby's book Slam was about when I first saw it, I never would have checked it out of the library. The jacket described it as "a coming of age story". In retrospect I should of been more suspicious of such a broad description. Every book in the Young Adult section is a "coming of age story" isn't it? Isn't that what young adults do? To Hornby's credit, it wasn't just the truth in his story that made me not want to finish it. It was how well written, how excruciatingly real his characters were that made me literally throw the thing. Can I give high marks to a book I didn't really finish and don't ever want to see again?

The thing I keep learning about endings is that they aren't a long time
coming, and they don't sneak up on you either, because endings just don't happen.

Julie Powell - from Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

Age isn't like a fixed thing. You can tell yourself that you're seventeen or fifteen or whatever, and that might be true, according to your birth certificate. But birth certificate truth is only part of it. You slide around, in my
experience. You can seventeen and fifteen and nine and one hundred all in the
same day.

Sam Jones - from Nick Hornby's Slam

I feel like I have been hit over the head....

This morning I started by picking up a book and opening it. Page 171.

Idle Questions
RUMI

A person hit a Worker a good strong blow from behind.
The Worker swung around to return it; and the man said:
"Before you hit me, I have a question for you.
Not this is it: that sound: was it made by my hand or your neck?"
"The pain I am feeling does not give me leave for speculation.
These things are all right to worry about if you're feeling no pain."

This story made me remember another one, told my Mandy Patinken in a documentary I saw last night about Hal Prince, the great director of musical theater. Now, this isn't exactly what Patinken said, but its how I remember it.

"I was in the middle of doing a scene in rehearsals for a show and Hal interrupted me. 'I need you to be over there [pointing to the opposite side of the stage].' I was young, just out of acting school and all concerned about my character's motivations so I asked, 'Why would my character go over there? What could possibly motivate him to want to be there? What is he doing over there?' Hal's response was simply 'I don't care. I just know I need you to be there.'"

So I thought both of these things over and over in my head while we got ready for the day. It was on the bus, as I was still thinking these two stories over and over again in my brain this line came to me from a great movie. Tremors. Kevin Bacon's character says, "Yeah. See, we plan ahead that way we don't do anything right now."

Isn't that what I always do? Worry about where the pain is coming from and not dealing with the pain. Worried about why I like going to artificial world made by an evil corporation instead of just excepting that that is where I need to be. Being so worried about the next thing on my list that I don't hold what I have right now. I'm so worried about doing the wrong thing, that most of the time, I just don't do anything.

So then, I got to work and read this from Collin Beaven, the No Impact Man. He basically says what I just said only more coherently.

So yeah, I get it. Stop checking to make sure I'm always right. Stop worrying about why I am going somewhere and just make the journey and be in that spot in that moment. Stop analyzing the cause of pain and just hold the fact of pain.

First Day of Autumn

I'm not one who normally marks the change of seasons. The seasons in Texas hardly ever change with the calender. Today was different. It was dark when I took Gryffindor out for his walk this morning, which was odd, and it was also chilly. I wanted a sweater. That doesn't often happen here in September. But it happened today. "Oh fun," I thought. "It actually feels like autumn on Autumn day."

Of course, the cool was just a prelude to a rain storm. It poured this morning. Buckets. My fun was washed away when I found myself standing on a flooded sidewalk, clutching my $5 umbrella and waiting for the bus to come by. Still, it was something very autumnish.

Disney Recap!

We did a lot last week. I can't hit all of the highlights, and I won't bore you will a blow by blow of every little thing. I'm just going to tell you about my "firsts". For as many times as I have been to Disney World with my family, there are always first. This trip, there were a lot.


Alex and I rode the Astro Orbiter and went to Tom Sawyer's Island for the first time. I had honestly never given a second thought about riding the Orbiter. We did it though, on Alex's suggestion. Its a spinning ride a la Dumbo, only you have to take a non-air condition elevator up to a non-shaded platform with 30 of your newest, closet friends. It wasn't horrible, and if you want a good aerial view of the new DVC tower and a hefty whiff of BO, I would highly recommend it. Tom Sawyer was a different animal. I had been wanting to go to the Island for years, I just never have. It seemed like great fun and I expected something in the vein of The Swiss Family Robinson's Tree house, only more. If I had never been in any actual caves, or hiked through actually back woods by real rivers, I might have been more impressed. All and all it was pretty anti-climatic and HOT. Very Hot. I will probably have to let my memory fade before I revisit either of these attractions, but at least I can now say I have done everything in the Magic Kingdom.

It was my first time in Disney World with a Brother-in-Law. Jason was a good one to experience Disney with because he is a geek who appreciates things on a geek level. Also he is organized and appreciates that you have to be organized if you are going to get anything out of a Disney vacation. So that was fun and I would go with him again. I just hope he learns the true meaning of free day is ... "free to do whatever you want." Not, "free to call me and ask what I think you should do."


First time to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, along with my mother, sister Jill and Alex. The lodge is beautiful. It was really awe-inspiring. To sit on our balcony in the morning and see the animals slowly coming out to eat was amazing. I don't know how Disney managed it, but I saw some of the most colorful and beautiful sun rises I have ever witness during my stay at the Lodge.


Unfortunately, it was also the first time I have ever had to wait for over an hour and half to catch a bus back to the hotel after the Magic Kingdom closed. I give major props to the people I stood in line with because no one over the age of 3 had a total break down or even really complained that much. Still... that night lead to another first.

It was the first time I have ever had to complain to a manager at Disney about something. The morning after we left the Magic Kingdom at 10:30pm and didn't get back to our room until 1:30am, I went to the desk and asked to change hotels. They were very nice about it and found us a room at the Polynesian where we have stayed many times before. It has bigger rooms, and more importantly, the monorail.

It was also the first time we ate at Jiko. Its a fine dinning restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge that has a full South African wine list. The wine was awesome. The food was great. (I had the vegetarian maize pudding). It was the perfect way to spend our last night in the World.

So that was it for first. I'll post some pictures once I have time to go through them.

Blessing of the Beatitudes

I wish I could take credit for it, but in all honestly I was in such a "why the fuck am I teaching Sunday School when my plane landed at 10:00 last night" haze that the only thing I clearly remember saying yesterday was "....Beatitudes is a fancy name for Blessings. This is part of Moses' Sermon on the Mount. No, not Moses, God... no wait.... it was Jesus." Yeah, I was with it.

But somehow, through my cleaver use of bubble gum and remote control cars, at the end of the lesson, when I gathered the screaming monkey children in a circle and asked them what they learned, one of them said this... "That there are road blocks in life and you have to decide what you are going to do." Then another one said this... "Sometimes what you do might help or hurt someone else. And you should try to help other people and not hurt them." Then another said... "If everyone tries to do the best thing for everyone and not just them, everyone can be happier." The heavens were parting. I could hear the course of angels singing sweetly in the background. Just when I was starting to think I was hallucinating one very sweet, hyperactive boy just had to add... "I learned that crashing a remote control car into the wall is fun." Thanks for pinching me kid.

I'm on vacation...

The Cinderella Castle

Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World

photo by Katy 2007

... and I can already hear those magic words:

Please Stand Clear of the Doors. Por Favor Mantenganse Alejado de las Puertas.

Eight years later

I remember where I was. I was in my freshman year of college and I was getting ready to leave the house for orchestra practice. I came in from putting my bass in the car and my mom told me a plane had just flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I don't remember where Alex was. I don't remember what I said to my mom. I just remember getting into the car with the distent impression that the whole thing was a bizarre accident.

I listened to the BBC World News report as I drove. As I did every Tuesday morning. Another plane hit. This was something weird. Bizarre. Everyone was searching for explanations.

As I approached the rehearsal hall I didn't hear anything. Bizarre. The mix of violin and woodwinds with a blast of brass was missing. I was only 15 minutes early, but the hall was empty. I put my things away and walked down to the student center. There they were. The orchestra was not playing music. It was watching TV. I didn't see the tower fall. Someone whispered that to me. Rehearsal was canceled.

And now, today as I drove my daughter to school we listened to NPR.
A reporter said, "September 11, eight years later..."
Alex asked, "How can today be eight years later?"

Eight years later and its already happened. September 11, 2001 will never mean the same to her as it does to those who were old enough to remember. Just as I don't even know, off the top of my head, what day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Vice President is speaking at Ground Zero today. The President will speak in New York next week, to commemorate and remember the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehmon Brothers.

How quickly things change. How fast we move on. How soon we turn our back on our past.

Disney's Animal Kingdom,
Walt Disney World
photo by Katy 2008

I can't believe we leave on Saturday for our next trip to the World. I went through my pictures this morning, looking for a great shot of Cinderella's Castle and I found this one. Disney is one of the few places (if not only) where I carry my camera around. Its out and ready at all times. I'm not a picture taker... most of the time, because it brings you out of the experience and narrows your focus. Most of the time, that is a bad thing.

Be honest, this picture looks like something out of National Geographic. I could probably change the caption to say this was taken in Nepal and no one would be the wiser. But I can tell you where I was when I took this. I was standing outside a restaurant waiting for them to call our names to be seated. I was right next to a middle age women in a hot pink tank top, white shorts, and a purple fanny pack. There were people, not five yards away waiting at to order food from a quick service counter and just across the path, there was a retired couple chatting with a Cast Member who was manning her little stand that sold spray bottle fans.

I don't know why, but the fact that all these people can exist in a place that, when the picture is taken right, can be mistaken for Nepal makes me chuckle. The fact that so much has gone into creating this illusion and that I go there for no other reason than to just have fun, makes me smile. And now the day of departure is so close I can feel the anticipation flowing through my veins.

Detroit Annie, Hitchhiking

by Judy Grahn

Her words pour out as if her throat were a broken
artery and her mind were cut-glass, carelessly handled.
You imagine her in a huge velvet hat with great
dangling black feathers,
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
Sometimes she goes down to the dock and dances
off the end of it, simply to prove her belief
that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies, or dead.
When she is cruel, she is very, very
cool and when she is kind she is lavish.
Fisherman think perhaps she's a fish, but they're all
fools. She figured out that the only way
to keep from being frozen was to
stay in motion, and long ago converted
most of her flesh into liquid. Now when she
smells danger, she spills herself all over,
like gasoline, and lights it.
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but you don't mind.
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine.

Ani Difranco read this poem in her 2002 Carnigie Hall concert. I have the CD. These words have been flowing through my mind this morning. Not sure why.

I park at my church every morning to catch the bus to work. I get to see a lot of the same cars everyday. There is a truck in the parking lot that has this bumper sticker on it... or one just like it. When I first saw the sticker, over a year ago, it bothered me.

Its a joke. I get it. Ha, ha. My tendency is to hate bumper stickers like this. To make up stories about what the person inside that truck must be like. I don't have to make up any stories behind the guy in this truck. I know him. I have known him since we were both in elementary school. I know he means this joke. To him the joke is funny because of the truth he sees in its words. That bothers me.

Its gotten to the point where every time I see him I want to say ... "Hey! How are you? Mind taking that bumper sticker off your car?" I don't say it because I know it would open a theological can or warms that I don't want to get into. He has a very clear view of Christianity and all its rules. To him its all written down in stone. He just has to pull the bible verses out of his ass to prove it all to you.

I never know what to say to that. So I just leave it alone. Sometimes I wish my view of the world was that clear. I wish everything didn't just seem like one big blur. All I know is that I don't think God waits for us to ask before he forgives us for being assholes. I look at my own life and know that I have forgiven people. People who will never ask me to forgive them. People who in turn, will never forgive me.

I'm not saying that I am God. I'm far from being perfect. I'm far from being God. So if humans can forgive people who haven't asked for forgiveness... why can't God? Is there really some sort of mystical code of ethics that rules the universe? A code so binding that it binds the actions of God? Is our world just one long... really bad... sci-fi novel? I just don't buy it. It just seems to me that the bumper sticker has a tone of vindictiveness to it. Just the image of the Christian fish chasing down and destroying the Darwin fish seems cruel. It seems like its miles away from the love Jesus talks about all the time. If the sticker is right. If this really is just all about the survival of the forgiven, I'd rather not be a part of it.

Disclaimer: I am still recovering from a long weekend in a beach house with 15 people. It was really really fun. But I got sunburned and I haven't been able to sleep since Saturday. I say this now so if nothing I said makes since you know why.

Indoctranation....

I've been weighing the idea of quiting my job and going to seminary. WhenI tell people that, they want to know if you plan on getting ordained. I guess its the logical conclusstion. I just don't see it. I can't invistion myself as an ordained minister. I don't like instatutions that much. I don't like people that much.

Why I would never want to work for the church:

I think it is safe to look at the church (post Constantine) as a bastion of superstition, corruption, and reaction. The traditional language of religion is now forever broken, this new world of modernity has no reliable precedents to guide it; institutional religion is too busy preserving its identity to have anything meaningful to say.

Why I would never leave the church:

I have a real desire for a new expression of our faith that can only be dreamed of by new voices as they begin to work within the church and within the community. Yet, to be authentic, new expression is never entirely new. It is my belief that one cannot legitimately speak of the Christian faith without echoing the language and traditions of those who have came before.
Still, only a person who is dissatisfied with not only the language of the church, but also the path of the church itself, can alter that church. On the one hand moving towards something new and opposing the continuation of that which is dangerous, painful, and inhuman in the church and its language, and on the other hand repeating what already exists. New meaning must evolve out of language and traditions that are familiar. Transformation only occurs in the politics of the church through the evolution of its own understanding. When the doctrines and traditions of the historical church are allowed to evolve to their logical conclusions, the true love of Christ is freed from the bounds of religion and allowed to transform our understanding of the world.

I still don't like the way that reads. Its too obtuse. I just can't think of a better way to say that and not get off on a tangent.

Still Not Fall...

Main Street Confectionery
Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World

Photo by Katy, 2008

I was going to do a photo easy on Disney World, but then I decided that I will probably want to do another string of Disney photos when I get back. So I picked just one.

I'm ready to go home, make some pumpkin bread and brew some apple cider...

Not Musings on Fall

I really am trying not to rejoice that Fall is here. Its not. We still have another 21 days until we can cross the first day of Fall off our calenders. It isn't even time to stop wearing white. Still, as I have walked Gryffindor the past two mornings and felt that slight chill in the air, I can't help but get excited.

I'm not a gardener. I don't have a yard and even if I did I can't pretend that I would spend much time in it. So I feel the change in seasons not in what I plant, but in temperature. That's hard to do in Houston. We have hot summers and mild winters. The differences between the temperatures of spring and fall are negligible and usually only last a week or two. Yesterday's high was 91. A cool front.

One of the best things I have done for my soul has been to turn up my A/C and turn down my heater. When I spend all day in a 75 degree climate controlled room its hard to remember that life is happening outside. So even though its not yet fall. I celebrate. I celebrate that I have turned the ceiling fan in my living room off. I celebrate that I have moved my couch back. I celebrate that I have opened up my windows. Its not Fall, but I can feel it coming.