Posts from — October 2007

Maybe this post is coming from left field, but at this point I’m thinking you guys will take anything so long as it isn’t more poetry. (What’s wrong with you, you uncultured illiterates?!)

Ten things that I find comforting (order is inconsequential):

1. Snacks/food… I seem to have an endless love for popcorn (in a pot, I can never go back to the bag, baby) with lots of olive oil and nutritional yeast all over it; edamame (soybeans in the pod, steamed and served up with some sea salt), avocado and tomato salad (a little cajun seasoning on it), Beecher’s flagship cheese, peanut butter balls… (my husband would think it important to note here that my WAY of eating drives him up the wall and down the block. Whether my lips are smacking, he can hear the crunching, or I’m licking up yeast at the bottom of the bowl, apparently I eat like a stark raving animal. I more or less dismiss his complaints because I was raised with only a dad and brother, both of whom are the social counter of a metro-sexual man. They have hair on their chests, and its a wonder I even know how to paint my toenails, okay?)

2. Movies- as I’ve already shared, I just love movies, talking about them, watching them, whatever. I hate, however, watching movies with some one who does not share my love for movies, who sits there with that -”I don’t get it… they just had no dialog for all of 3 minutes therefore this can’t possibly be a ‘good’ movie”- blank stare. But this is about things that comfort me, not things that irk me, I so digress.

3. Reading. Currently digging through Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, which is quite possibly the funniest book I’ve ever read. Excerpt below:

“I realize there is a whole generation of adults born in the seventies who currently play Sega and Nintendo as much as they banged on their Atari 5200 and their George Plimpton- endorsed Intellivision in 1982. I am not one of them. I agree with Media Virus author Douglas Rushkoff’s theory that home video game consoles are the reason kids raised in the 1980s so naturally embraced the virtual mentality- we never thought it seemed strange to be able to manipulate what we saw on a video screen – but I’ll never accept pixels killing other pixels as an art form (or a sport, or even a pastime). A homeless man once told me that dancing to rap music is the cultural equivalent to masturbating, and I’d sort of feel the same way about playing John Madden Football immediately after filing my income tax: It’s fun, but- somehow- vaguely pathetic.”

4. Beverages… teas, espresso drinks, wine. I used to drink only water because I didn’t want to waste my caloric intake on a beverage that wouldn’t fill me up. Stop and think about that truth, roll it around in your head. Caloric intake… that was a logical and substantial reason to avoid flavored beverages completely. If you do not see something oddly self-oppressive about that line of thinking, go have yourself a beer. Have a few beers, what do I care. Who am I the police? (ah, that “Bronx Beat” is a pretty funny SNL skit)

5.  Walking. I love to walk and wish there was more time for it. When you take the time to walk somewhere (or just “take a walk, which I’m less likely to do because of the lack of an end result), you smell things in the air and look around to locate the herbs or tree nearby… you see interesting aspects of people’s backyards or window panes… you have time for acorns to hit you on the head; drizzle to dampen your hair down. This may not seem like an appealing description, all things considered… but when are all things ever really considered?

6. Music. God is currently in the process of redeeming my relationship with music. This is a statement some one came up with in a theology class assignment tonight. There was a period of time in my life when music I could listen to was limited to only that which was not “secular” in origin or nature. I would have burned my classical CD’s had I been told they too were part of Satan’s plan to take down humanity. A whole half decade of my life was sucked dry of pop culture, for better or for worse. With it were many potential relationships, as any one who listened to secular music could not be a regular companion of mine lest they tempt me with their luring beat. I’m finally rediscovering genre’s and artists I used to resonate with, as well as new voices and tempos that communicate something to me, and I’m intently focused on music that does not traditionally “belong” in church because I’m fairly certain that there is no such thing as “secular” (without God, completely worldly), or if there is, there are much fewer things that truly fit in that category than most people think. Because God has a habit/characteristic of imparting Himself in the most unlikely places via these annoying little creative creatures called human beings.

7.  Poetry. I realize this closely resembles reading, but I place it in a category all its own because I also like to write poetry, and because I see poetry in things that aren’t necessary known as poetry. In an argument with Hubby, I pointed out once that the difference between us is that “my world is written in poetry, where as yours is written like a manual.” So, yeah, let that marinate a while, ya big meany, while I pat myself on the back for coming up with something so inherently witty.

8. Painting- ah yes, the one thing that can so zone me out that you’ll wonder where I have been for the last 8 hours. Playing Tetris had this effect on my one time, but more consistently, its painting.

9. Practicing conversations. You know the kind I’m talking about. Those times of intense communication where Person A and B are played by leading lady, moi? Usually in whispers in the bathroom, where the two characters will surface and it will take my 2 year old son’s bewildered look to make me realize I was playing out this conversation out loud. However, for some reason these little times of practice are fairly useful in gathering my thoughts, preparing me for the time when I might have some one talking back.

10. Large natural phenomena. This is a little cliche, but just because something is cliche doesn’t mean it can’t be true too. Whether I’m in a great big field, standing on the shore of a large body of water, or looking up at a massive mountain, the sheer size swallows up whatever I deemed substantial about my life thus far and spits them back out into pea-sized Vivian staring out in awe.

P.S. It was no accident that I failed to include things like prayer here- I left that sort of thing off the list because I think it goes without saying and I would have little to add about the subject anyway.

With some nostalgia, I’m here to report that according to The Lost Blog:

“Numerous sites are speculating that the premiere of Lost will be Monday, February 4th, at 8 PM. Though this has not been confirmed, obviously the 8 PM Monday night timeslot should draw much larger non-DVR viewership than Wednesday at 10, which is great for the show.”

I’ll be so glad to watch a bit earlier, but for the last couple years Wednesday night was Lost night, darn it! This will take some getting used to…

And will determine my involvement in Monday night Home Community… yes, that’s sad, I know, but this is a long running hobby/addiction. Don’t worry, Lost will stop airing in 2010- there’s still plenty of time to get into God after that. (please catch the humor in that statement.)

I’ve been reading more poetry lately (thank you, Multnomah County library!), so you’ll probably see more posts with poems that struck me. The following should be thought provoking for most of you…

What We Believe
Charles Harper Webb

Jesus was not the Son of God. He was a yogi
who tranced out on the cross– a fanatic like Jim
Jones or David Koresch, with better publicity.

President Kennedy was killed by the Cubans,
the Russians, the C.I.A.; Lee Harvey Oswald
was paid to take the fall. A group of evil

scientists created AIDS to wipe out Blacks,
dope addicts, homosexuals. Drug companies
quash cures to keep their profits high.

God is a Big Man with a white beard who sees us
when we’re sleeping, who knows when we’re awake.
There is no God; There’s just Physics, which couldn’t

care less if a sparrow falls. Ours is the greatest,
best-governed country in the world, and needs
a top-to-bottom overhaul. Rodney King was high

on angel dust when the cops beat him.
He’d learned, in jail, a way to leap up
from the ground and break a cop’s neck instantly.

O.J. Simpson was framed by the L.A.P.D.
Laws are made to keep the powerful that way.
Religions are all superstition except ours.

Democracies and dictatorships, coups and counter-
coups are smoke-screens. Corporations rule.
The letters in our names control our lives.

A New Mexico army base hides the remains
of crashed space aliens. They have large heads,
small bodies, glowing eyes. They’re linked

to human evolution, ancient Egypt, the Flood,
Easter Island, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, and the Deficit.
Their ship is made of silvery metal impervious

to any force on earth. They want either to save us
from ourselves, or to destroy us utterly.
Everything worked better in the Golden Age.

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I love movies… it would take me a long time to sit down and write a list of all the movies I’ve enjoyed in the last two decades. Films can at once portray a starking reflection of our own humanity and the altitude for humanity’s most incredible gift: creativity.

The more I watch films that are slightly less Hollywood, with atypical characters, imaginative settings, brilliant writing both poetic and absurd, the more enamored I am with films.

So I’d like to try something new by making Saturday a day I post about movies I have watched in the previous week, if I can even remember them all. If I have seen the movie before, but not posted about it, I will still include it in my synopsis each week, but with an * noting that it was not my first time (so you’ll know I might or might not have enjoyed its subsequent viewing, which is sometimes an entirely different experience.)

This week:

I welcome suggestions! More next Saturday…

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Heart of Autumn, by Robert Penn Warren

Wind finds the northwest gap, fall comes.
Today, under gray cloud-scud over gray
Wind-flicker of forest, in perfect formation, wild geese
Head for a land of warm water, the boom, the lead pellet.

Some crumple in air, fall. Some stagger, recover control,
Then take the last glide for a far glint of water. None
Knows what has happened. Now, today, watching
How tirelessly V upon V arrows the season’s logic,

Do I know my own story? At least, they know
When the hour comes for the great wing-beat. Sky-strider,
Star-strider- they rise, and the imperial utterance,
Which cries out for distance, quivers in the wheeling sky.

That much they know, and their nature know
The path of pathlessness, with all the joy
Of destiny fulfilling its own name.
I have known time and distance, but not why I am here.

Path of logic, path of folly, all
The same–and I stand, my face lifted now skyward,
Hearing the high beat, my arms outstretched in the tingling
Process of transformation, and soon tough legs,

With folded feet, trail in the sounding vacuum of passage,
And my heart is impacted with a fierce impulse
To unwordable utterance –
Toward sunset, at a great height.

e.e.cummings
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