Bulk Bin Bunhuggers

I was at the superstore Target today, buying jeans today for my younger son. This morning at 5:30, he threw on his pants in splendid fashion, and just as he was about to walk out the door we noticed the rip in the rear end of his pants.  It frankly didn’t look ripped — it seemed as if demon lizards crawled out his butt and used claws and teeth to escape his foul odors, or that a Mad Ass Barber (hyphenate that however you like) went after the seat of his jeans with a pair of scissors.

Brian Jane-ology

I felt a blog coming on all day long, but was really unable to settle on a single topic. Then I read this “survey” my sister posted (almost four years ago) on Facebook. I felt like divulging a little information, so it’s one of those posts.  Ignore this one if it’s not your bag of tea.

A Bunch of Thursday Thoughts… on Friday.

No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to fit your head inside a Pringles can. Unless, of course, you’re this ferret. I may not know many things, but I know that. Something else I know? John C Calhoun was a famous states’ rights advocatin’ pro-slavery pro-secession South Carolinian.

Politically Correct? or Just Correct.

Language, it turns out, is pretty important. After all, how do you complain to tech support, or order fast food, or be sarcastic, if you don’t use language? Language can be used to persuade, inform, convey emotion, and, this is becoming more clear to me every day, hurt people.

WWJB?

What Would Jesus Blog?

Seriously. If he were to blog today, turn off the “Mythbusters” DVD Thomas is watching, shut the office door to wall out the noise of the Sons of Thunder, plunk himself down at a computer, what would he have to say?

Overeating Television

I haven’t blogged the last few days due to a springtime cold, or maybe allergies. It started off as a low-grade fever, and worked its way down to my lungs, where all my illnesses seem to go. I’ve spent a lot of time resting up, then thinking I was better, then being under the weather again. So, it’s not exactly the way I wanted to spend my 3 days off.

I’ve watched a lot of television Saturday and Sunday. A lot of television. I usually limit my TV watching to a few (maybe 4 or 5) hours a week, and even then, I’m often doing something else, like chatting online or writing a blog as I listen halfheartedly to the program (usually facing away from the TV. But I was sick, and it seemed like a good time to allow myself to become a vegetable.

Most of the TV I watch is on my old pal, Netflix. I watch whole series, from beginning to end. Most recently, I discovered Doctor Who, and have watched the run from its 2006 rebirth, to 2012 (it’s all that Netflix has available so far). I finished watching those episodes a few months ago and began watching BBC’s Doctor Who spinoff “Torchwood” (observant readers, and those “in the know,” will notice that Torchwood is an anagram for Doctor Who).  It’s not a great program, but compelling in its own way, especially for sci-fi/fantasy nerds like me. It’s kind of like “X Files” meets “The Mod Squad” (think alien-fighting special ops police).

This is, in itself a fine idea. My problem was (1) I was sick, and (2) I watched about 14 episodes over two days. Have you ever been sick with a fever, and have something imprint itself on your brain? I think even without the fever, this might have happened. It’s like eating donuts. Having a donut or two is fine. But sitting on the couch and eating fourteen donuts? It leaves you feeling just gross, and indigestive, and having irritating dreams of alligator cops fighting the pickle people in the sewers of Cairo, Egypt. The first time I did it, I was about 11 years old, and was reading the novel The Deep (by Jaws author Peter Benchley), right after Christmas. I got the flu, but kept reading. Before long, I dreamt of escaping underwater graves, with little relief, for about 48 hours.

I never knew you could overeat television, but I guess I did that very thing yesterday. All night, I tossed and turned, and was angry with Owen the prickly doctor, and enamored with Tosh the computer geek, and had to keep aliens out of the area. My brain couldn’t resolve the overabundance of “Torchwood,” so it did the next best thing–it forced me to mentally puke it up all night long. Then I dreamed about Don and Mel Martin, old classmates, who were buying llamas to give to their daughters. Whatever.

So, yeah. I overate television. It seemed good at the time. Maybe it wasn’t my wisest choice. Are you what you eat, even when you’re “eating” a bunch of not-very-good TV shows? Maybe you are, in your dreams. Tomorrow I’m going back to work. I don’t feel “hungry” at all today, and I may not even “eat” tomorrow.

An Exaggeration, an explanation, and Two Apologies

I’m sitting at the computer with a plate of salsa, cheese and Triscuits. Dinner has been served, and I was still feeling a bit snacky, so I grabbed a couple snackies. And yes, the autocorrect really wanted to make Triscuits into “tracksuits.”

It’s pretty much a non-blog day. I have little of consequence to share with you. It was a morning-to-mid afternoon workday, where I made drinks, and handed folks sandwiches, and filled the ice bin several times. Iced drinks sold like hotcakes today (it’s my blog – I can use a lousy simile whenever I want!) because it made it to 92°F (33°C) today. We never really got a springtime. It snowed a couple weeks ago, had 14 days of completely inoffensive weather, and yesterday we blasted into the era of Hot Friggin April.

I noticed somebody exaggerating today. They told someone something, and the warm weather stretched the fabric of their facts just a leeeetle bit. I didn’t say anything, just shook my head in resignation. It really annoys me. It’s a pet peeve, if you will, having somebody do that. It seems to just aggrandize their deeds just a little bit, propping up their maybe-fragile ego. Jerks.

Then, I realized, I do the same thing ALL the time. For example, I didn’t wait 2 hours for my kids. I waited 1. But I said 2, because I’m an insecure jerk with a fragile ego. My fragile jerkish ego says I only got 1/4 of the piece of chicken, when really I got a whole piece and I wasn’t really hungry in the first place. But exaggeration makes my story better, see?

I’m a pinhead. I try to avoid it. Before I know it, a lie (let’s call it what it is, folks) slips out, and I try to make myself look a teensy bit better, or more trodden upon, or harried. Maybe it’s to gain sympathy. Maybe it’s to make me seem “special,” if for just a second.

I also exaggerate when I’m joking. For example today, I told a friend that we should buy wax, and teeny combs, and join a Mustache Club together. We’d be mustache twins, I told her! She politely declined, insanity not having eaten away the better part of her judgment apparatus. A stupid joke, to say the least. But my point is, what is a joke, if not an exaggeration? Comics do this all the time. It’s a game of exaggeration, or embellishing the truth the entire time they’re on stage. But somehow it’s different.

The difference is in the verbal contract. All conversation is a “contract” between the speaker, and the recipient of that conversation. In a dialog, people take turns being the speaker, and the listener. Normal places and situations (like work, or church),  we expect truth, or the contract is broken. If the child in the back seat shouts “Mommy! I really have to go potty now!” and forces mother to pull over, the child had better pee (or at least make a good effort of it), or we know what’ll happen next. Broken contract? Bad news.

In comedy, the recipient expects to be fooled. Several times, all night. The funny comes when words are twisted, stories are ludicrous, and situations are untenable. Take, for example, the words of Steve Martin: “I slit this sheet; this sheet I slit / And on this slitted sheet I sit.” Say it five times fast. If you’re not laughing (or at least horrified), then please ask yourself why not? The words are twisted. The story it presents are ludicrous.  The possibilities are untenable.  Comedy gold! And he didn’t even need to wear an arrow through his head.

If I’ve exaggerated to you in the past, I’ve broken contract. I want to apologize to you for it. If I’ve done it while being funny, I hope it didn’t go over like the proverbial lead balloon. If I’ve come down on you when I’ve found you exaggerating, I’m sorry for my hypocritical attitude. I’m a pig. It’s what I’m good at, so I hope you can make allowances.

Nothing too profound today. Just a few exaggerations, an explanation, and an apology. Be well, folks.

First World Christians

SO, First world problems. It’s an Internet meme these days, also known as White Whine. The idea is easier to understand by seeing a few of them, than by explaining it.

“Nothing is worse than too much Splenda in your coffee!”
“My boyfriend wrote “I love you!” on my bathroom mirror, with my $24 tube of lipstick! F*#& my life!”
“My 64-ounce steak was medium rare, and I specifically ordered it medium!”
“Stupid vending machine only had 3 types of diet soda!”
“I’ve had better room service in 3rd world countries than at Disneyland Hotel…”

You get the idea. Take an inconsequential thing that annoys you, and complain about it. Then think about the grander scheme of things. Does it really matter, compared to say, war, rape, or starvation?

Here’s one.

Here’s another.

You get the idea, right?

Anyway, it got me wondering if we live First World Christian lives in our First World Churches, and how?

“Couldn’t get a drummer for Worship this Sunday…”
“The Youth Missions Group could only afford to go to Mexico this year…”
“The Powerpoint Guy isn’t moving the slides in time with Pastor’s sermon!”
“That church baptizes by sprinkling and not by full submersion!”

I’m just making these scenarios up, of course, but in light of the Christian mission to love our neighbors, we do tend to make a barbaric muddle of things.

Now, I don’t evangelize. I don’t often feed the hungry, or even man soup kitchens. I helped the homeless folks in Santa Cruz, and when confronted with a few schizophrenic drug addicts, I’ve never been more terrified in my life. But, we all have our niche, right? Homeless, schizophrenic drug addicts just happens NOT to be mine.

I remember another time when I made an attempt at person-to-person “ministry” (for lack of a better term).

When I was in elementary school, my mother used to take my sister and me to the Curry Good Samaritan Center in Brookings, and we’d visit the old folks. My step great grandfather was there, an old man who had a fairly severe stroke. He cried when we visited. There was Emma, a nice old lady who was mostly addled, but loved holding my hands. She smelled like pee a lot. There was an old man (Frank, I believe his name was…) who was bedridden, and could only say words like “Heyyyyyy!” but he was enthusiastic and loved seeing my sister and me. We’d wheel them into the rec center, and we’d play BINGO. They’d win little trinkets and Lori and I would run between them and help the more infirm folks to black out the numbers on their cards. One by one these people died off, of course. Aunt Edith was the last one I visited at Good Samaritan, when I was maybe seventeen. Once or twice I’d play the organ in the small chapel. The patients loved music. I only knew five or six hymns, but some people who never stopped rocking would look up and smile, and sometimes even hum, when I played.

I dunno if that was my niche either. It certainly wasn’t within my comfort zone. It WAS however in keeping with the Christ’s Most Important Commandment, and not just a fiddling-around with the global injustice that occurs if you buy the wrong brand of grape juice in the communion cups. I’m not saying anyone should actually go out and run a soup kitchen, or cleanse lepers (it couldn’t hurt…) but sometimes stretching yourself, you may find hidden caches of amazing talent.

Maybe I’m making mountains out of molehills. I’m just saying there are battles that as kind, moral folks, we should be fighting. We often choose not to fight them, and tend to prefer the kind of war games that we should set aside, just in case Scrabble gets really, really boring.

I try, every day, to make my relationships better ones. I may not be perfect but at least it’s something I can aspire to. You know? The more I think it over,  I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be known as a First World Christian.

Who’s with me? Against me?

There Are Great Children’s Stories… and Then There’s This

“Dad, there was a book in our cereal” are seven words I haven’t heard in a very long time, at least in that order. But it happened today. They don’t put things in cereal like they did when I was a kid. If you couldn’t dump out your Count Chocula and find the plastic fangs that turn you into a Choc-u-holic vampire, you weren’t going through a normal childhood. Of course, many spankings ensued.

Foreskin-Free and Feelin’ Fine?

For no particular reason, I read the book of Galatians, from the New Testament, today. It’s been years since I’d gone through the book. Using all the skills at my hand from 20+ years of Biblical training, including a close reading of several books of the Bible in the original Greek, I synthesized the message and devised the following hermeneutic for my readers:

Don’t let ANYONE in the Church, for any reason, guilt-trip you into slicing off hunks of your penis.

2000 years ago, a few people from the church, maybe sent from Peter (how ironic would THAT be?) were real dicks and decided to tell the new Turkish Christians that they had to follow, to the letter, the Hebrew laws according to the Bible, or their involvement in the church was invalid. This included dietary laws, and the thing that really got a rise out of Paul, the practice of circumcision.

Paul said he spent over 14 years preaching to the non-Judaean crowd. He’d passed through what is now Turkey at some point and started a church in Galatia. He found out later that the wiener police were cutting in on his territory. This is the basis of Paul’s letter. In this tiny 4-page letter lies the crux of a critical message for Christians. Don’t get all tangled up in the Law. We’re beholden to a bigger power.

So, I have two questions:

How have we allowed the church to cut us, all while simply accepting that it’s the Will of God?

How have we persuaded others to be cut, because it’s the Christian thing to do?

Circumcision is an extremely painful medico-religious procedure that is done to a very intimate part of one’s body. I think it stands as a metaphor for the hundreds of things we’ve let the Church do, or that maybe we’ve done ourselves? Here are a few that I’ve heard:

“You can’t make it to evening services tonight? Well isn’t that special…”
“Of course if you aren’t witnessing with the Evangelism Team, your reward in Heaven will be smaller.”
“If you’re not praying or reading the Bible regularly, you’re just starving yourself. If you’re no good for God, you’re no good for us.”
“We’re not questioning your loyalty to the church; you’re just not faithful enough to be involved.”
“You had wine with your dinner? <dead silence>”

So yeah, Galatians is about spiritual abuse, a term that took over 2 millenia to manifest itself. In that alone, the work is relevant today, especially if you want to remain involved in the church. If you’re not part of the church, I just want to point out that in 60AD, there was already a document written (by an Apostle no less) that tackled church abuse with passion and maybe even outrage. We’re just sometimes not very good at remembering it ourselves.

We grow complacent. We like things to stay the way they were. “Gimme that Old Time Religion,” the old song goes. We just have to remember what’s really important, and what’s worth throwing out.

Also, we need to remember  never, ever to let someone talk us into chopping pieces of our dicks off for Jesus. Don’t be a complete weenie.