stream of consciousness
so today i was working at the lovely establishment of potbelly's and i got to experience the american corporate machine first hand in the most pleasant task of taking out the trash. my potbelly's is in a huge high rise that is on wacker. wacker has a lower level that is just for fun things like trash. cory and i took two huge garbage cans down the elevator to the lower level, through dark hallways and finally into the lodaing station (translated: trash town). here we encountered four garbage men that are employed to take garbage from all the different levels of the building and bring it here, to the basement.
in our inexperience, we did not immediately begin throwing trash places as we entered the lodaing dock. instead we stood still, cocked our heads to the side a bit and assumed a confused expression. of course, we did this in the way of the garbage men. from behind us, they yelled little tidbits of encouragement to speed up the process. cory replied that we were tired and had been working since 11 am. To this, one particularly large garbage man replied:
"i've been working since 6 this morning on another job, and i'm working tonight until 1. then i have to get up again to work at 6 tomorrow."
to this, i replied in my infinite brilliance, "why?" this question had no tint to it, no "why, dumbass?", no "why, fatty?", just plain and simple wondering why this man works 19 hour days. to this he replied:
"because i got a wife at home like you who writes the checks." again, in a stunning display of my intellect, i replied, "oh, i am not a wife." this is what came out when what i intended to communicate was, "what?!" he replied once more:
"well then we got girlfriends at home like you that write the checks." er, what again? thinking better of really engaging this surly man in a discourse on women, i just nodded and rolled my little trash can away. five minutes later after cory and i had ventured out into the cold to finish our task, we returned and as we made our way back into the building, the aforementioned garbage man of said spendy wife said to me, "smile."
#9?!
In the morning
After taking a cold shower
-----what a mistake-----
I look at the mirror.
There, a funny guy,
Grey hair, white beard, wrinkled skin,
-----what a pity-----
Poor, dirty, old man!
He is not me, absolutely not.
Land and life
Fishing in the ocean
Sleeping in the desert with stars
Building a shelter in the mountains
Farming the ancient way
Singing with coyotes
Singing against the nuclear war-
I'll never be tired of life.
Now I'm seventeen years old,
Very charming young man.
I sit down quietly in lotus position,
Meditating, meditating for nothing.
Suddenly a voice comes to me:
"To stay young,
To save the world,
Break the mirror."
Nanao Sakaki
fishies!
Today my little brother Peter and I went to the aquarium. In case you didn’t know I was a dolphin previously and am desperately in love with basically any non-pokey marine life.
We went to the oceanarium (did they make up that word?) for the dolphin show right when we got there. Everybody was oohs and aahs for the entire half an hour. The way that they jump out of the water looks so effortless; I was ready to jump in with them. I love how dolphins make everyone act like five year olds again. They’re just plain cool.
So is every other living thing at the aquarium. You see people at the aquarium that you would think wouldn’t be interested in “nature”. But no one can help but love the Nemos swimming around everywhere. I saw a girl with fake horns in her hair taking pictures of sea dragons.
My brother and I took a picture of a turtle that looked like it was always smiling at you. Too bad hugging turtles is illegal because I would have if not for the glass in between me and our new friend, Happy the turtle.
The last thing that we saw before leaving was an old woman with all white hair and leathery hands giving a presentation from inside a tank, as she was scuba diving and feeding stingrays. Grandma!? It was bizarre seeing a woman that age stroke stingrays on the tummy as she shoveled meat out of her little bag. She also slightly resembled an alien with her mask on and her white hair all floating straight up. I can say to you right now that that is exactly what I want to be doing when I am 70. Exactly.
Lastly, I had to share the spoonerism that came to me on the way into the aquarium: Foosh pip. Try to figure that one out. First say it out loud five times fast, though, that’s the best part.
Magazine
Today I was at the grocery store and saw this headline on a magazine:
"Is Your Family Normal? Look on page 206 to find out...."
I didn't look because I already know the answer but I really hope all it says on page 206 is NO.
Hehe.
#8
Life is not a list of propositions, it is a series of dramatic scenes. As Eugene Peterson said, We live in narrative, we live in story. Existence has a stroy shape to it. We have a beginning and an end, we have plot, we have characters." Story is the language of the heart. Our souls speak not in the naked facts of mathematics or the abstract propositions of systematic theology; they speak the images and emotions of stroy... Elie Wiesel suggests that "God created man because he loves stories." So if we're going to find the answer to the riddle of the earth- and of our own existence- we'll find it in story.
From
The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, pp. 39-40
Lyrics to MX Missiles by Andrew Bird
And now as I would judge and say you're aloof
but you know the truth is a seed
you know what you need is a conflagration
cause when i see the blood
and the bits of your broken tooth
it gives me the proof that i need
it's the proof that you bleed
it's a revelation
yeah it's a revelation, it's a revelation
I thought you were a life-sized paper doll
propped up in the hardware store
propped up on the front lawn watching the parade
of those legionnaires with two-by-four's
as they're marching off to war
yeah they're marching off to war
I didn't know what you were made of
the colour of your blood, what you're afraid of
are you made of calcium or are you carbon-based
and if you're made of calcium i'll have to take a taste
cause, listen, calcium is deadly tender to the tooth
and it's one sure-fire way to know if you're
MX-missile-proof, oh no, or if you're just aloof
You were in the ground in late november
when the leaves in earth are down
did you, did you think they would remember
how you almost made stage-out
cause when you're running for the game against alfonso
and you fell upon the ground and chipped a tooth
oh no, listen, i really have surprised her
to learn that you are really MX-missile-proof
Oh, i thought you were a life-sized paper doll
and you're propped up in the hardware store
you were propped up on the front lawn watching the parade of those legionnaires with two-by-four's
as they're marching off to war
yeah they're marching off to war
oh they're marching
Chicago
Can we talk about weather really quick? Thanks.
It's supposed to snow here on Thursday. Snow. It was cold this past week. In the low forties overnight.
Sweet home Chicago. I'd like North Carolina seventies and some hush puppies right about now.
#7
*Warning* If you don’t want to know what happens in
A Farewell to Arms don’t read these passages. (But actually, they’re really good so read them anyways.)
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
XXXIV
I sat down on the chair in front of a table where there were nurses’ reports hung on clips at the side and looked out of the window. I could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light from the window. So that was it. The baby was dead. That was why the doctor had looked so tired. But why had they acted the way they did in the room with him? They supposed he would come around and start breathing probably. I had no religion but I knew he ought to have been baptized. But what if he never breathed at all. He hadn’t. He had never been alive. Except in Catherine. I’d felt him kick there often enough. But I hadn’t for a week. Maybe he was choked all the time. Poor little kid. I wished the hell I’d been choked like that. No I didn’t. Still there would not be all this dying to go through. Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.
XLI
From
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
a poem my sister mary ellen wrote for me.
lonelylonely isn't easy
it's not truly just a word
and it's not something you can
will away
you can pray to god
that it might go away
but it won't
not without help
So you fight your lonely
with people and alcohol and touch
and go back for more when
lonely still haunts you
and cry when somehow
it isn't enough
and deny it, try and forget it
try and bury the lonely away
Or you simply survive,
knowing you're lonely,
shedding your tears,
but unwilling to cave in.
Simply wait for it to go
wait for the times when
lonely abates
and you don't hurt anymore
they tell you you're supposed to thrive
don't just survive, they say,
and you are ashamed that you are lonely
being told it's all your fault,
that it's your choice to be lonely
telling you you could be happy
if you would just try
but that's not true, not real, not now
don't tell yourself it's all your fault
because it isn't, not really
it simply is
and you can't forget that
that it will go away
it will leave you and let you go
you won't always be gripped
with this lonely that holds you now
#6
"Did you do anything heroic?"
"No," I said, "I was blown up while we were eating cheese."
From
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Also, I heard today about a song that has the following lyrics, which made me laugh out loud for quite some time.
Jesus, drop kick me through the goal posts of life.
Elizabeth
I love crying when I'm cold. The tears aren't just wet, they're hot. You can feel them run down your rosy cheeks, evaporating quickly, leaving you colder than when you began. The real physical sense of loss comes closer to the deeper sense inside you.
This is Elizabeth, one of the best friends I made in Kenya. She is about to start taking her national examination to get into college. She is not very good at reading English. English is her fourth or fifth language.
