This things I believe.

I know. There is a blatant grammatical error in the title of this post. I actually did it on purpose for humorous effect. It's from that Simpsons episode where Homer stays home from church and calls in to that radio station... you know, the one... ergh, never mind.*

This post is a departure from the usual tangential, ridiculous, humorous-if-you-like-reading-about-housecats-and-shameful-admissions ramblings in this thing I call a "blog." This post is simply a reflection on a few things I've learned as of late. Nothing too profound. If you're looking for something with great profundity, I'd suggest looking elsewhere on The Internets for such things. (The same goes for great meatloaf recipes. You will not find those here, either. Nor will you find anything having to do with Meatloaf the musician guy, or cooking meatloaf with Meatloaf the musician guy.) Nonetheless, I am simply sharing some realizations. This is a more serious post of a spiritual nature that may or may not be rife with cliche. But I'm okay with that. Sometimes I am just one big, walking cliche. Sometimes you just have to own it. So, here it goes. You've been warned.

I've learned that God has a funny/interesting/what-the-what?! way of teaching us things. A way that sometimes makes us shake our heads and say, "Really?? Really?!!" or just give a big thumbs-up to the sky and smile and say, "You got it, dude," like that horrible catch phrase Michelle from Full House used to say. (Remember Full House, you guys? I liked Who's The Boss better.)

With that said, it's funny how it so often takes the hardest of times to make us turn to spirituality. To open that portal that has been completely boarded with "caution" tape for too long. I can't deny the difference between a life void of spirituality and one that is spiritually fulfilled. And I choose the latter. (The former is like trying to ride a bicycle with no seat. It's difficult and doesn't really make a lot of sense. And it probably hurts your posterior regions a lot more.) Life just makes more sense that way. And is infinitely greater that way.

And while we're speaking of the Powers That Be (is that supposed to be capitalized? I feel weird!), I've decided I simply cannot deny divine inspiration/intervention in my life. It's just too coincidental to be chalked up to, well, coincidence. I believe in it, and that is that. Take it as you will. (I'd recommend taking it with a large grain of salt if this is too preachy for you.)

I've realized I love music more than any non-living thing. Okay, most non-living things. (And maybe more than some living things?) I love making it, sharing it, nerding-out about it, just being part of it in any way possible. It's not like this is any kind of new discovery, but I just keep loving it more and more. There's just no way around it.

On that note, there is nothing better than discovering music that awakens you, that revives you from trudging through a wandering slumber of life. Music that leaves you shaken and stirred. There's something to be said when a syncopated bass surprises you and melts your insides a little. Or when that siren guitar solo punches you in the gut (in a good way) and tells you that there is a god and the world is a magnificent little place.

To Adrianne: I've finally learned to love like you do--fiercely, unabashedly, unconditionally. I understand what life is about, and I understand what you were all about more than I ever have before. And I wish you were here so I could tell you all of this.

As with most things in life, becoming an excellent pie-maker requires time, patience and practice. And the wherewithall not to throw the balled-up pie crust at your mom and run away screaming.** One should not invest their ego in their pie-making, at least until they've honed their craft.

Finding peace with yourself and your surroundings is sometimes a tall order. Nonetheless, it is always my goal.

Life is funny, incredibly hard and beautiful, all in one neat little package. It is enchanting, and I adore it, quite. Don't you?






*Okay, fine. Season 3, episode: "Homer the Heretic."
**This didn't happen. Okay, maybe it happened a little.

Dignity, awash in chocolate.

Chocolate in the bathtub.

Don't knock it until you've tried it.

I realize that I am likely revealing too much about myself on the ever-precarious interwebs by admitting to such a lackadaisical, indulgent practice, and more importantly, a private one that occurs in the sanctity of one's bathroom. I realize it is also rather embarassing and self-indulgent. But I feel that way about every blog entry I publish. I don't really know why I do it, but I feel compelled to prattle on about (somewhat pointless) things. I am the embodiment of a dissonant duality--the private person versus the blathering, verbose, wandering writer.

But back to chocolate in the bathtub! Why yes, good sir or madam, it is an ideal situation. Unless, of course, you happen to drop your chocolate into the bathtub, creating all sorts of trouble for you and your bathing self. Do you try to fish it out with the loofah? Do you just let it melt and thank the heavens that no one is watching your embarrassing and unfortunate predicament (that you know of)? And then proceed to dump upwards of several oversized chocolate bars so that you are a big, goopy, dark, melty...delicious...rich... (*ahem*) mess whilst simultaneously fulfilling your most morbid and magical dreams all at once, in the sanctity of the unsuspecting porcelain cistern?

Is it really that unfortunate of a situation? I can think of much worse ideas than taking a chocolate bath. Many of them. (I'm sure you can, too. Here, I will think of one for you: eating a bowlful of staples. That is a much worse idea.) Yes, before judging my practices, I encourage you to again refer to the above statement--the part where I tell you not to knock it until you've tried it.

Blathering Writer: 1, Private Person: 0.

The trouble with hiccups, or, how I learned to stop worrying and be okay with writing pointless diatribes.

Hiccups are simply the worst. This is no recent discovery of mine, but I've a mind to share with the world the pure injustice of their existence. They are, by far, my least-favorite bodily function. Not that I sit around rating my affection for bodily functions on a daily basis. Or on an ever-basis. "Let's see, sneezing ranks #1..." (Though I do rather enjoy a good sneeze.) Nonetheless, hiccups are a never-splendored thing. I am always rudely surprised by how truly unpleasant they are when they creep up into my life and up into my throat like a confused baby bee who is trying to escape from Hell. Every time, I feel as though I'm an infant who is having them for the first time, and I become shocked, perplexed and amazed. I may even cry a little. But if getting hiccups alone isn't bad enough, getting them at inopportune moments just compounds your miserable state of hiccupitude and leaves you whimpering softly, wondering if anyone will ever love you with your stupid, stupid body and its inability to stifle these ugly, unwanted esophogeal anomalies. Obviously, this thought gives me no choice but to drum up a list of the top inopportune moments to have hiccups. Are you ready? Let us begin!



1. The shower. Have you ever had hiccups in the shower? What is normally a wonderful sound studio for singing that makes you start seriously considering your career in singing, it does not bode well for the hiccuper. Adding insult to injury, it relentlessly magnifies the sound so that it reverberates across town, leaving bystanders to wonder if you need medical assistance or if you've just been eating the soap. Though if you have bystanders surrounding you during your shower, you should probably figure out why that is.


2. In class. Ah, college! Trying to find onesself, grappling with one's supposed adulthood, etc. It would be in your best interest to focus in class and maybe even try to get asked out on a date like you promised your mom you would because you said you would try harder to be more pleasant and less obscure and all the things that "college girls" are supposed to be. But these dreams are squashed when madness erupts in anthropology, and all you can focus on is stifling your hiccups and trying not to explode and spray green tea all over your classmates as the clock ticks by in slow motion to the tune of the ancient professor discussing with glee mating rituals of the Yanomamo in Venezuela. Speaking of mating rituals...


3. While "making out" (or whatever you kids are calling it these days!) The unpleasantness of this one should be pretty obvious. It has not happened to me, thankfully. And as a person of singlitude, I will have to trust that it would, in fact, make for an awkward moment. What would one do in this situation? "Pardon me a moment, darling, for I must hold my breath for a short while until I pass out on the coffee table. May we please resume our activity when my unbecoming inner turbulence has subsided forthwith?"


4. On that note, any kind of romance-y times. Here is some possible dialogue:

"Hey, baby, I'ma get all up in your grill with the romance and stuff. You dig? Let me put on my sexy pants and we'll go out to Burger King."

"Oh, Jerome, you know I love when you talk Burger King!! I would love to go on a fancy date with you. I'll wear all the latest styles! Your braces are so sexy, they make me want to dance. I'ma go get ready and -HICCUP!!"

----Romantic moment ruined; Jerome leaves, never to return.----


5. While eating. You instantly feel like a drunken, buffoonish glutton when you start hiccuping in the middle of eating something. You could be eating a single lettuce leaf, but you instantly feel like the most slovenly, piggish person in the world and begin to immediately reconsider your dietary habits. "Maybe I should eat half a lettuce leaf next time? Maybe just stick to water from now on? Maybe I shouldn't eat while hanging upside-down off the couch? I dunno."


6. Have you ever yawned and hiccuped at the same time? It is pure insanity. It's like your throat is trying to swallow your brain. It's like your esophagus and uvula are trying to simultaneously strangle and marry eachother in a waltz/battle of throat-related body parts. No one is winning, and you are the battlefield. (Unrelated: love is a battlefield, so says Pat Benatar.)


7. Bedtime. You just want to sleep. That's all you ask. But instead, you just lie there, hic'ing into a dark void of despair. "No, you cannot sleep! I'm going to send your body into awkward gyrations instead and make you dream that your cat is your boyfriend/grandmother!" say the hiccups. "Sleep is naught but a myth! Feel my wrath, peasant!"


8. Trying to sing. As a bashful singer who relishes any bit of precious alone-time to be used for clandestine singing, such an unwelcome interruption is infuriating. Especially if you have the temperament of a classically-trained soprano. Not that I do. (Okay, I do.)


9. In church, on the job, or at a funeral. During: Prayer. Meditation. Litany. Important business meeting with Distinguished Business Man. Heartfelt eulogies. These just go without saying. Mostly because I'm too lazy to keep writing. (I think my verbosity has met its match for the day.)

The end.

Break it to them gently.

I always thought encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses were a thing of the movies or myth. Something that people told exaggerated tales of but that actually never happened.

But... I was accosted today, and now these kind folks exist in the reality part of my brain, instead of being resigned to the fantasy/myth-based part, alongside fish who use wheelchairs and cloudmonsters who hover over you in your sleep and try to steal your dreams. It actually felt kind of cool, like I had joined the ranks of some elite group. But I was not interested in the least, and letting these folks down easy soon proved to be a trying, near-impossible feat. This was unfortunate, because letting people down easy, if I have to let them down, is usually my modus operandi. My brain doesn't really know how to operate outside of that and be forceful or even mean. But I was rushing to get out the door, so I was armed with an excuse. The man began his shpiel. I listened with a polite nervousness. He didn't even say he was with the Jehovah's Witnesses. He just assumed I knew.

"Okay. Well, actually, I'm in a hurry to get out the door," I interjected as nicely as I could. He ignored me.

"Oh, okay. Well, here in Matthew 4:19, Jesus said..." he continued. I listened again.

"I'm sorry, I really am in a big hurry to get to the doctor," I said. "Who are you with, exactly? Can I take a pamphlet or something?" That was the most forcefulness I can muster, which was basically non-existent.

"Oh sure! Here, this one's wonderful ..." he continued on until he heard my dad's booming voice telling him to get on his way. He promptly packed up, said goodbye and skiddaddled, as one might do upon being chided by a voice as deep as my father's (slightly wetting one's pants might be another option). This led me to postulate. Deep-voiced, mustachioed fathers can't always do our bidding for us, so I began to think of what one might do to firmly decline Jehovah's Witnesses' persistent efforts (or anyone's efforts) when you are simply not interested. Here is a top-ten list. Feel free to use them.


10) Act crazy. But really crazy. Some possible dialogue (coupled with erratic, flailing limbs and clapping of hands): "HEY! I'm so glad you're here! I'm in the middle of making a bird house!! I'm thinking of adding a west wing where the Bird President can live. Ha, get it! West Wing?! --The president is great, don't you think? I don't think he's actually a bird, though. He seems like more of a sea dweller!-- But I've drawn the blueprints, it's just a matter of getting them to that darn contractor. Do you know how hard it is to work with a bird-house contractor? Impossible. Hey, how do you feel about cold gravy? LOVE IT, right?!! Am I right?!"

9) Tell them you're Mormon. No wait, that will make them try even harder. Hmm....

8) Tell them you actually belong to a nudist colony and that you're late for an appointment. Then begin unbuttoning things. (The level of discomfort is up to you.)

7) Act crazier. Begin dancing around back and forth in a semi-circle while simultaneously chanting to the Big Rabbit in the ceiling. Then run to protect your cubic zirconia and missile supply.

6) Tell them you're flattered, but spoken for.

5) And if that doesn't work, six simple words: I'm not gay, but I'll learn.*

4) Offer them a tray of cupcakes/other baked goods, licking every single one passionately in the process.

3) Look at your cat instead of them, as if your cat were the one talking. Then only converse with your cat the entire time.

2) Tell them you think you took some kind of pill and that you're pretty sure your legs are made of paper mache, the walls are melting and that you can only hear the sound of tin and foghorns.

1) Tell them you already had a great conversation with Jesus earlier that week, so you're all set.





*Courtesy of Homer Simpson.

A house made of stone

I recently realized something. Something about being human.

We face the inevitable-- death of loved ones, dissolved relationships, unexplained heartache, illness, accidentally turning the TV channel to a reality show, etc. And I realized that we have to arm ourselves--or at least I need to, given the fragile mass that I so often prove to be. It's merely requisite for survival. How else can we cope if we don't make ourselves of stone just a little bit? How else can we protect ourselves if we're not just slightly armed to the teeth? Often I've tried to make myself of stone. But it has just ended up being that paste of mud and sand that collapses--crumbles--dissolves--when any kind of rain falls. (In this case, metaphorical rain is an unfortunate thing. I love real rain, however.)

To say "make ourselves of stone" is not to suggest being an insensitive mongrel who is an emotion-starved brick wall with a tough-guy creed. It is simply the suggestion to deal with life like a rock star. Not the Kurt Cobain-fated rock star. And not a meteoroid kind of rock star that is hurtling toward Earth at an alarming speed. But the rock star who suits up in leather (or pleather) pants and counts the band off--1, 2, 3!--and deals with life as it comes because they're just a little bit tough inside and they know how to rock the metaphorical pants off of things. That's all.

But though we may need to build a wall or two for protection, we can't be too guarded. We have to let people in whilst being strong, all at the same time. A challenge, no? At the risk of sounding like a Dungeons and Dragons nerd or the lyrics to a cheesy Peter Cetera** song, humans need to build and maintain their own personal fortresses, all while letting their guard down at the same time. Our walls need to have doors, in other words. And... I just visualized a castle with a drawbridge for some reason. Wow, that IS nerdy.

So, perhaps I'll drink some metaphorical hard cider (because I've heard the real kind is gross) and start rocking the pants off things. Metaphorically, of course. Hear, hear.




**Peter Cetera is synonymous with cheesy. So I guess that was redundant.