Filed under: lists, updates | Tags: answers, children, faq, funny things, questions
Q: [after a haircut] Do you brush your hair? It doesn’t look like you do. Maybe that’s why you don’t have a wife. Don’t you want to date? Don’t you want a son?
A: [squelch tears, weakly smile, wait til I get home to throw myself onto my bed and listen to savage garden on repeat]
Filed under: lists, updates | Tags: answers, children, faq, funny things, kids, questions
as unpredictable and erratic as individual children between the ages of 6 and 12 can be, as a whole, they are amazingly consistent. somehow, they all prescribe to the same sense of fairness (i.e. things must be made fair when it affects me negatively and damn you to playground hell otherwise), hold the same loathing for adult authority, and find something redeeming (if not downright amazing) about High School Musical.
they also all ask the same questions.
I guess part of the fun in working with kids – especially the ones that I work with – is that they speak without filters. tact doesn’t exactly appear early on in the list of developmental traits. I mean, this is kinda what youtube was made for, isn’t it? lots of people enjoy watching NASCAR for the potential of a flaming wreck; I enjoy talking with kids for the potential of them saying something crazy.
of course, as some unfortunate people who attend NASCAR races know, waiting for a crash can also mean that a piece of wreckage could fly at your face and break your jaw. similarly, waiting for kids to say funny things can lead to hearing really hilarious, sometimes mean, and always puzzling questions… about you.
so, in reaction, here’s a FAQ to provide answers the kids so desperately seek.
Q: Are you Chinese or Mexican?
A: Neither. Guess what I am and I’ll give you a prize.
note: only one kid has guessed correctly, and he was Korean.
Q: Why is your hair so crazy?
A: Because it is. I don’t know what else to do with it short of cutting it all off, and you don’t want to see that. My head is uuuuuh-gly. And also because you keep touching it, so stop.
Q: What language do you speak?
A: English, por que? I also speak un poco espanol.
note: Jaws tend to drop due to my impeccable spanish accent, especially when it’s limited to use in five words. Also, the kids are obviously looking for an answer like “vietnamese” or “chinese,” but I’m not going to give that up so easily.
Q: Why don’t you take off a few pounds?
A: Why don’t you?
note: I’ve never actually said this, though there are some kids I could easily say this to and be justified in doing so.
Q: Why are you a jerk?
A: I know.
note: this usually gets a pretty good laugh.
Q: Why is [place of my employment/their membership] so boring?
A: Well, for what you’re paying, I’d say it’s pretty awesome. I understand that losing to me in ping pong every day might get kinda boring, but to be honest with you, for me the thrill of victory knows no minimum age. Here, let’s play connect 4. At least you haven’t lost to me already. Or, you can fill out some grant paperwork and tell me how that feels.
Q: Why do you sag your pants?
A: It’s really a combination of things. First, you have no idea how much I used to sag when I was a little older than you are now. Back then, we had something called JNCO jeans and miller’s outpost super baggy jeans, and you don’t have nothing on those now. Secondly, I have oddly proportioned waist, hips, and butt, so that kinda makes the pants hang a bit more than I’d like them to. Lastly, I’m trying to relate to you in any way I can. This is why you actually saw me do the stanky leg once a few months ago.
Q: Are you rich?
A: [uncontrollable laughter]
Filed under: jesus, music | Tags: american flag umbrella, derek webb, hope, redemption
Derek Webb – American Flag Umbrella
I’m building a house on the limb
I need something that could stop a war
but I’m going to sit on all sides by extremists with eyes on my heart, so I lied to everyone
and I’ve lied to so many lovers
and I’ve gotten away with it, too
but if God is against us then who can be for us, my friends, there’s justice for everyone
and please take your hands off my brother
please take your laws off my lover
the agents of love should always be blind and on time, ’til there’s freedom for everyone
and where are your American brothers?
American before they were named
they’re a huddling mass with no oceans to cross for our shores, where there’s fortune for everyone
oppression is always oppression
no matter the reasons or means
for skin or for sex, by stares or by fist, it’s the same, there’s blinders on everyone
I’ve looked through the eyes of my father
and I’ve walked through Lincoln’s backyard
and there’s still a backseat when you ride on the bus through this town, there’s color on everyone
so we lie beneath the tree of no color
we get an American flag umbrella
keeps the elements out and it’s stuck to the ground in this place, but there’s room for everyone
oh, I know a way out of hell
we raise all our enemies children
after they’ve murdered ours, we affix all their scars to our walls, there’s heartbreak for everyone
and in the end it will all be okay
that’s what the wise men tell us
so if it’s not okay, then it’s not the end, oh my friends, there’s hope for everyone
Filed under: lists, music | Tags: beirut, carousel, iron and wine, mewithoutyou, music, nicole atkins, paper route, videos
once in a while, i’ll become more or less fixated on an image. when some particular imagery burrows itself into my mind, my thoughts become tethered to it. I try to find real-life, tangible replications of the image and, if I don’t see it, I find it in more abstract representations.
right now, the image occupying my brain is that of a carousel. I think I saw a picture of one in a magazine a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to shake it since. they’re as beautiful as they are haunting, and its unending rotations provide so much fodder for drawing parallels to young adulthood, aimlessness, and futility.
but that’s besides the point. I just wanted to provide some context to a post featuring five videos of songs titled “carousel” (or some derivation of it), each a song I appreciate in its own right.
Iron & Wine – Carousel
Paper Route – Carousel
Nicole Atkins – Carouselle
Beirut – Carousels
mewithoutYou – Carousels
Filed under: reflection | Tags: chris abani, community, compassion, inspiration, speech, ted talks
from the “about this video” section on the TED talk website:
“Chris Abani tells stories of people: People standing up to soldiers. People being compassionate. People being human and reclaiming their humanity.”
the spectrum of emotions through which his speech takes you is rivaled only by the depths of humanity he explores. he touches on compassion, community, courage, tragedy, maturation, equality, history, darkness, and hope. his storytelling is potent for his honesty, underscored by his brevity, and carried on the backs of rhythm and pace. even a cursory reading of his biography before listening to him speak, I think, provides enough context for anyone to conclude that Chris Abani is speaking of and from conviction born of experience, not fluffy ideas grown from let’s-all-just-get-along rhetoric.
a few hours have passed since my initial viewing, and i’ve watched this three times and read the transcript of the speech twice since, gleaning something new and left with more to think about each time. there’s a lot to process, and I feel like even the stories that I first thought were speech equivalents of throwaway jokes have something to teach.
accordingly, it is way too early to even try to write down my thoughts and reactions. rather, here are two selections that continue to echo in my mind.
In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me. But if you’re like me, my humanity is more like a window. I don’t really see it, I don’t pay attention to it until there’s a, you know, like a bug that’s dead on the window. Then suddenly I see it, and usually, it’s never good. It’s usually when I’m cussing in traffic at someone who is trying to drive their car and drink coffee and send emails and make notes. So what ubuntu really says is that there is no way for us to be human without other people. It’s really very simple, but really very complicated.
and
The Igbo used to say that they built their own gods. They would come together as a community, and they would express a wish. And their wish would then be brought to a priest who would find a ritual object, and the appropriate sacrifices would be made, and the shrine would be built for the god. But if the god became unruly and began to ask for human sacrifice, the Igbos would destroy the god. They would knock down the shrine, and they would stop saying the God’s name. This is how they came to reclaim their humanity. Every day, all of us here, we’re building gods that have gone rampant, and it’s time we started knocking them down and forgetting their names.
if you have the time, watch or listen. what do you think?
Filed under: jesus, rationalization, reflection | Tags: animal collective, jesus, lent, taste
Am I really all the things that are outside of me?
Would I complete myself without the things I like around?
these are the first two official lines of a song called “taste” from animal collective’s latest album, merriweather post pavilion. my overarching thought about this widely praised album is basically that it’s as musically brilliant as it is lyrically vague. then again, maybe I’m just too obtuse to cut through the fancy words and seemingly profound lines.
but these two lines jumped out at me, partly because of how straightforward they were (especially in light of lines like Only Ma’d pretend to like the clothes you showed to me / Something in my heart can tell me it’s a weakness), but also because of their resonance with my thoughts going into the Lenten season.
my history with Lent is both long and simple: for 24 years , I haven’t participated. I knew that it was related to Easter. on Ash Wednesday, my catholic friends would show up to school with ash marks on their foreheads, followed inevitably by a few weeks of complaining about how much they missed chocolate, soda, or whatever else they had decided to give up (this was also a great chance to be an ass and eat whatever they sacrificed in front of them. the looks of jealousy while I bit into a kit-kat bar are priceless). there were no deep discussions about the meaning behind their Lent sacrifices or how it related to their faith, and from the brief conversations I had with some of them, I really didn’t get/hear anything beyond Lent simply being a time to give something up until Easter – like a condensed new year’s resolution with an expiration date. add on top of that the fact that my church never really explored this season, and you can see how Lent passed before me like a confusing and vaguely purposeful 40-day parade of mostly dietary sacrifices.
but this year’s a bit different. as someone who became particularly cynical about traditions and rituals during the college years, I threw Lent into the “religious things for show” pile. but then I read the year of living biblically, written by a.j. jacobs. I perhaps took more from the book than the author imagined anyone would, but the book, at the very least, rekindled in me an acknowledgment of traditions and rituals as not being all bad.
all this brings me to Lent ‘09. though I’d been thinking about it since, like, the beginning of february, I remained undecided til I heard six words on sunday at church that threw me for a loop.
jesus did indeed die for something.
to me, that was both truth and challenge. that something is me, but who (or what) exactly am I? and that question right there is what made those lines from “taste” so provocative.
am I the product of the things with which I surround myself? who do I become without those things? when all that’s stripped away, who (or what) is left? I suspect I’ll discover overdependence on some things, underdependence on others, wasted hours, exercises in vanity, subconscious good habits and some bad ones, and so on.
so that’s what I plan on finding out during Lent as I take a break from different things through the season. in the end, I hope to understand better what the “something” in “jesus did indeed die for something” is, and further, the magnitude of that act in light of “something” is. this might not be the conventional reason for doing Lent, but I think Easter will serve as the perfect culmination of these discoveries anyway.
Filed under: lists, reflection | Tags: bullet points, coffee, life, new, portland, unemployment
at muddy waters coffeehouse, sitting at the table on the mini-stage next to the window wall. I guess the novelty of portland’s weirdness hasn’t worn off yet, so staring out onto the street is still really fun. distractions are everywhere – counting the ever-increasing number of cigarette butts in the ashtray outside, trying to figure out why this guy has been standing in the middle of the coffeehouse for the past 20 minutes, enjoying my coffee – so here’s some short-attention span writing.
on portland:
- people wear those beanies with ear flaps often. and without a sense of irony.
- most people I’ve met came to portland from elsewhere. I may have met one or two native portlanders.out of eight people hanging at the Horse Brass on tuesday night, seven were from other states – maryland, new york, alabama, kansas, california, and arizona – and all pretty recent transplants at that. definitely makes for some great “back in my state..” stories.
- the weather, I’ve been told, has been uncharacteristically dry. although I was mentally prepared for the rain, I count myself fortunate to have avoided much of the rain. of course, the NWS predicts rain for tonight and tomorrow.
- oh yeah, I moved into a more permanent living situation. the 100-year-old house is located right between hawthorne and belmont and is pretty much the type of house I had hoped to move into. my two roommates are great, and a fat, fluffy cat named Edie rules the household.
- smokers. many.
- I’m regaining my walking legs. the walkability of the city is no joke. according to walkscore.com, Portland is the 10th most walkable city in the country.
- everyday is still an adventure.
on unemployment:
- my more general thoughts on this time in my life have already been laid out.
- I’ve had two interviews with the Boys & Girls Club of Portland. though I don’t want to get too ahead of myself (and trust me, I’m trying really hard not to), I keep thinking how thankful I would be to work at such a wonderful place. to be a part of an organization that meets the needs of kids in a practical, everyday way… wow, that would be great. anyway, fingers crossed, but fists unclenched.
- trust. in these times, who or what do I trust? my resume and cover letters? the people who are reading them? my unmatched charm? (gag). don’t, can’t, and come on, respectively. I am small, but my God is not. fingers cross, fists unclenched.
- in going through unemployment, I think I feel an extra surge of joy for friends who find jobs. sharing frustrations and misery is good, but sharing in happiness and thankfulness is better.
- budget budget budget.
on making a new life:
- being able to navigate myself to a previously unknown location without the help of google maps was a breakthrough moment. it helps that a lot of the streets here are numbered and attached with intermediate directions.
- I’m slowly making new friends, and I am thankful for each one of them. they bring stories, laughter, lessons, and a willingness to love. at the same time, this makes me extra thankful for the friends I have back at home.
- the lack of a routine, I think, has been a minor hurdle toward full acceptance of this new life in this new place. at the same time, routines tend to choke away newness. hm.
alright, time to go pick up an end table. woot.
frighteningly reminiscent of those chain e-mails I used to get when I used AOL in middle school, but there’s no thinking involved, so why not?
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Put your music player on shuffle (ALL MUSIC).
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag friends who might enjoy doing the game as well as the person you got the game from.
________________________
IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OK?” YOU SAY:
hold your breath – the acorn
WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
you’re no god – laura marling
WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
this time is the last time (live) – mae
HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us – sufjan stevens
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
plans – grizzly bear
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
tout doucement – feist
WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
all our summer songs – saturday looks good to me
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
all you have to do – jet
WHAT IS 2 + 2?
i thought i saw your face today – she & him
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
the dirtiest queen – lovedrug (hahahah)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
you can bring me flowers – ray lamontagne
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
the people – common
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
i shot william h. macy – head automatica
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
the weight of glory – thrice
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
pure trash – dosh (uhoh, this is unfortunate)
WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
the radiator hums – cursive
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
firey crash – andrew bird (note to self: avoid planes)
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
welcome to the working week – elvis costello
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
ask the lonely – journey
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
simple economics – pedro the lion (this.. wow.. this is sad)
WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
diamonds on the inside – ben harper (that sounds like a weird disease)
HOW WILL YOU DIE?
time to dance – panic! at the disco (i’m okay with this)
WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
time stops – explosions in the sky
WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
a clean shot – the myriad
WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
2nd ave., 11 a.m. – ted leo and the harmacists
WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
golly sandra – eisley
DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
white tooth man – iron & wine (whaaaat….)
IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
haiti – the arcade fire
WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
what wills stay? – denison witmer
WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
i want a warning – idlewild
