The Coffeehouse Journals

Saying Good-bye to the Family on My Shelves?

2012-01-11T10:44:00.001-06:00

For me the question is no longer "to e-reader or not to e-reader?" but rather "which e-reader?" I am sad, morose even, over this reality. I feel forced to euthanize someone I love. Though I am a loyal lover and my affection for books only increases, I am contemplating, even expecting, to become part of their possible printed demise. Instead of killing by pulling the plug, I will be killing by plugging in.

Printed books are alive in a way books on plastic, metal and glass e-readers never can be. A tree’s death for a book’s creation is noble. Like organ donors, once-rooted trees live still, despite being declared clinically dead, providing a platform for the transmission of life-transformation. Via paper they give tangible, three-dimensional life to words, while e-readers flatten words, like museum relics, behind glass.

The e-reader question would not have earned prominence for me if not for an apparent impasse between two life passions I am compelled toward: the writing life, which is also the reading life, butts against my passion for writing from wide-ranging locations. Books are heavy travelers.

In my semi-nomadic existence, home is found in coming back to where my library lives. Sans spouse or progeny, my books are the family that makes each move with me and sends representatives along on all my travels, a family that has expanded exponentially as the years have ticked by. My bookshelves are part personal history and family reunion, a history recounted by which books were added when and which subjects have staying power, and part dream board, featuring books on topics I long to dig into and work by writers I long to emulate.

But books are increasingly impractical, while e-readers are more practical than ever. I can’t afford plane tickets for my whole book family when I travel, but an e-reader offers a way to make my library the equivalent of a ticketless, lap-held child. The impracticality of traveling with printed books becomes even weightier as I begin considering a possible longer-term move abroad. I wonder: Will the new place ever be home if the e-reader goes with me but my books stay behind in storage boxes? Fleshy though they may be, my books won’t be able to alleviate the pain of separation by Skyping me once an ocean stands between us. It’s nearly enough to cause me to call off considering the cross-Atlantic plan at all.

However, unlike my friends with flesh and blood spouses and offspring who rightly redirect their adventures, I am not being asked by my bound and boxable family members to stay put simply because they can’t go with me. In fact, it is contrary to everything they’ve taught about life and learning for me to remain here solely because parting is too hard and I’m afraid we’ll all change into something unrecognizable before we reunite.

But I am afraid. Greater than the sadness over leaving my books for a while is the fear of never coming back, the fear that once I enter the glass and metal and plastic reading world, I’ll never leave it. The warmth of a home decorated with books might become a nostalgic memory of a former life. The living history presently on display for visitors’ perusal and for reminding me of where I’ve been and where I’m going will be reduced to bits and bytes stored out of sight behind glass, untouchable and no longer alive.

I don’t think I want to live in a world like that, but I’m simultaneously aware that reducing baggage usually opens up new worlds and the best families celebrate launching us into new adventures, even if they’ll miss us. Thus, I’m reluctantly asking, “Which e-reader?”

Book Review: The Help

2010-04-20T13:13:00.002-05:00

My apologies for my absence here. Not writing for three months certainly isn't the way to build up blog traffic. As usual when I've not been around these parts for a while, it's because I've been busy writing elsewhere. Visit here to see fruit of my time spent not blogging: My Byline Online.

Writers are often encouraged to write every day, and I sometimes find myself lamenting my inability to do that. Until I realize that I really do write every day. Or nearly. Between my non-stop paid writing assignments, my own I-still-write-it-by-hand journal, emails, my monthly writing group (where I get to do my just-for-fun writing-as-play), and that book proposal I was working on, I write often. So often that as I've become more established as a freelancer my time for blogging has dwindled. Life is a series of exchanges, I suppose. One can never do everything at once. And in this season I'm thankful for work that I love and that grows me as a writer and person.

That said, I've managed enough bits of time away from work this month to read the very delightful The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Over Easter weekend, I decided to give myself a very big treat: I could walk into Borders and buy a book, any book that caught my eye. Typically there's some level of planning around my book purchases. So walking into a bookstore with such freedom is like being a kid in a candy store, as they say, with a $5 dollar bill to spend. In other words, it was heaven. Or was supposed to be. For some reason the tables of books that usually leave me drooling and reconsidering my choice of a low-paying profession that limits my purchases held few drool-worthy options that night. But I picked my way through, hopeful of finding a book that would make my treat to myself a real treat. Time was ticking, as they'd made the announcement that the store was closing in 15 minutes and I still hadn't closed in on a selection.

At the last minute, I committed to The Help. Mostly I wanted a good read that wasn't silly, the kind that's worth losing sleep in order to read, thoughtful but not so thick as to feel like heavy work. I wanted a piece of fiction quality enough that I'd be glad to add it to my library rather than wishing I'd saved the dough and checked it out from the library.

The Help completely fit the bill. It's an enjoyable, interesting, well-written read. I'm from the South but more from the '80s backwoods, mountain south. Not from the moneyed, deep south, though I've encountered more of that South since I arrived in Nashville. So this book about relationships between black maids and their white employers in 1960s Civil Rights era Jackson, Mississippi, was a glimpse into a culture I've grazed against but never lived in. The characters Stockett has created are complex enough to stay interesting throughout as are the relationships between them. While I've read some critiques of the dialects she gave some of her characters, I found them comforting because I've known people who really talk that way. And while I never wanted to acquire the accent and grammar of the place I was raised in, there's a part of me that hears home in those grammatically-incorrect strings of words and sounds.

So there you go. A review in a flash. Get the book. Read it. Add it to your library. Or borrow it from the public one.

literary community wanted

2010-01-26T00:50:00.001-06:00

I wasn't expecting to be so glad I decided to hand-deliver my grant application to the Tennessee Arts Commission today. Paintings I would have been glad for time to gaze at greeted me through TAC's glass doors before I arrived at the front desk just behind another man who had papers in his hands like I did.

He asked me if I was there for the same reason he was. "Are you competition?" he asked affably. ("He" turned out to be Kevin Chopson.)

We worked our way through the options to discover that fortunately we were allowed to talk to each other because he's a poet and I'm a creative non-fiction writer. We could both win a grant. I'm glad we figured that out because it would have been a shame to miss this chance to meet another of Nashville's writers.

You see, we're really quite an under-the-radar bunch it seems. Despite the attention hogged by our cousins gracing the music stages and street corners accompanied by their guitars, there exists a quiet bunch of writers around town who are something more than hobby-ists. We're just either not well-connected to each other, or I'm not connected to the connected ones.

We don't need to rival New York's popularity among the literary crowd; it's nice not to be so crowded (with competition for grants or other attentions) down here in the South. But writing being the often-solitary pursuit that it is, connection with other writers can be life-giving. Which is why my 20 minutes in TAC's office talking with Kevin and Lee, one of the grant coordinators, added some more wind to my writing sails.

In Honor of Winter

2010-01-11T17:36:00.001-06:00

Sometime in December when all of the United States except Nashville was getting snow, I read a little news article that explained via learned scientist that many of the snowflake images that are the stuff of winter decorations get it wrong. REAL snowflakes are six-pointed, no more and no fewer points are possible.

The article mentioned that snowflakes are "famously unique," though scientists can't prove that "no two alike have ever fallen to Earth." This got me thinking about learning this wondrous fact as a child. And then I started thinking about how I don't know that I've ever really looked at snowflakes closely enough to see their supposedly distinctive designs. I've seen pictures, of course, but have I with my naked eye observed their dainty artistry?

Last week when all of the United States was again getting snow, Nashville did muster something akin to a heavy dusting. We also had two days of something akin to heavy flurries. Friday night I exited my friend's house surprised to see a bit of accumulation on my windshield from said heavy flurries. One of the home's outside lights shown right onto the glass, and I realized that these big, fluffy flakes just might be big enough to show me their designs.

So I leaned in closer. And marveled. At really being able to distinguish the lines and angles of the art that was not yet melting from my windshield. When I eventually tore myself away from the outside sights (it was really cold...for Nashville), I realized the gallery wasn't yet closed as I slipped behind the steering wheel. And leaned in closer. Enjoying the underbelly of the beautiful, symmetrical display as much as its top side.

Here's hoping this art show will pass back through Nashville again before the winter's over. I highly recommend it.

So THAT's what freelancing is like?

2009-10-25T23:54:00.004-05:00

I recently posted a little ditty (aka: true story) on MediaBistro's user-generated-content blog We the 'Bistro. In addition to said ditty, you might find there some other entertaining tales of woe, intrigue and, of course, feasting. Or maybe just some tips on how to avoid the first (the woe), enjoy the second (intrigue), and arrive at the third (the feasting). Might just be a blog you should check out in all your spare surfing time.

Until then, enjoy the tale of Where's the Nearest Fire Extinguisher?

To whet your appetite (though I'm confident you actually began salivating when I mentioned the word feasting), here are the opening lines of said ditty:

This afternoon I rushed into the small film production office somewhat late even though the gig’s short hours are very flexible. Currently this particular gig involves mailing out daily orders (calling it “fulfillment” makes it sound more impressive), and the Fed-Ex man who dictates my afternoon deadline was due in about 15 minutes.

“Sorry I’m late,” I explained as I stepped inside. “I was putting out fires.”

“How do you have fires to put out? You’re a writer,” Ian, the production manager guy, quipped a little seriously.

to be continued here

It's All About Family in NOLA

2009-10-22T15:14:00.004-05:00

finally...the last of the New Orleans posts from my July visit there

To meet Chef Leah Chase is to love her. To eat her food is to know she loves those she cooks for.

We first met Leah on Thursday night at a gala in her honor. The Southern Food & Beverage Museum was naming its main gallery after her. As we were each introduced to her, I leaned in to say hello over the sound of the nearby band. Surprising me, she greeted me in grandmotherly fashion with, “You look like a work of art.” It felt like the kind of exchange that could have been followed with her calling some young man over and then shooing us off together, saying, “You kids go have a good time.”

This same gentle yet no-nonsense, welcome-into-the-family quality emanated from her as she welcomed us into the kitchen at Dooky Chase’s on Saturday, greeting us with hugs and kisses before pausing to sign cookbooks for some other guests. Even at 86 and with her 26-year-old grandson, Edgar “Dooky” Chase IV, taking on some of the chef duties, she is clearly the one running the place, as she has been since the ‘40s.

In the steamy kitchen, Dooky, with important input from Grandma Leah (he added more butter to make her happy), prepared shrimp clemenceau, one of the restaurant’s specialty dishes. Though Leah was never classically trained, the current generation is. Dooky recently returned from studying at France’s Le Cordon Bleu. When he added garnish to the finished dish, Leah said that was the Cordon Bleu coming out, improving presentation without changing the traditional food.

After the demonstration we made our way through the buffet that’s used only on especially busy weekends. Of the fare we chowed on while sitting beneath Leah’s saved-from-Katrina art collection (but that’s another story), my favorites were the savory, buttery, perfectly-textured Southern-style mac ‘n cheese; the jambalaya with its spicy tomato flavor; and the fried chicken. It was Creole cuisine at its comfortable, family-flecked best.

Dooky Chase's Shrimp Clemenceau

1 stick butter
2 medium potatoes (peeled and diced small)
2 lb small shrimp (peeled and deveined)
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
1/2 cup button mushrooms
1 cup green peas
1/4 tsp chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup white wine
salt and pepper

Melt butter in 2-quart saucepan. Add potatoes. Cook 5 minutes
Add shrimp, garlic and mushrooms. Cook until shrimp are tender.
Add peas, parsley and wine. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 5 minutes.

Yield: 4 servings.

For your further New Orleans pleasure, here are links to some of the other stories produced by our little troupe of journalists:

Soaking Up the Big Easy by Seanan Forbes
Tales from a Culinary Adventure in the Big Easy by Jeanette Valentine
Where the Eating is Easy by Sonia Alleyne
Heritage and History as the Secret Ingredient by Denise A. Campbell
tour photos by Zave Smith

Voting for Pork Chops

2009-09-15T11:14:00.009-05:00

a retro-post from my New Orleans tour

Willie Mae’s Scotch House is best known for its secret recipe fried chicken but its pork chops might be the real food gem of this Sixth Ward neighborhood restaurant.

Willie Mae Seaton, the restaurant’s founder, still lives next door but finally retired two years ago—at the young age of 92—when the restaurant re-opened post-Katrina. She handed over the reins and the secret recipes to her great-granddaughter, Chef Kerry Seaton, who grew up doing a little bit of everything around the restaurant. Kerry, 29, appears to have inherited some savvy-businesswoman genes in addition to the culinary ones. She’s been confidently improving some of her great-grandma’s business practices, adding to the menu, and dreaming of expanding the restaurant.

We arrived as the lunch crowd was departing (Willie Mae’s only serves lunch), and Kerry invited us to crowd into the small kitchen while she revealed a few tricks of her trade: the secret to good catfish is the cast iron skillet it’s cooked in. After the catfish was done, the rest of the media crew followed the food to the home-spun charm of the dining room, but I hung back in the kitchen while Kerry made more catfish for her grandpa (it’s his favorite).

Tall, slightly-stooped Grandpa Charles Seaton helps out in the kitchen and had been hovering quietly in the background while we all crowded around Kerry. Once the frenzy was gone, he became more vocal, easily confessing that Kerry’s his favorite grandkid and he doesn’t try to hide that.

Once I finally made it to the dining room, I discovered that my favorite is the pork chops. They’re just regular fried pork chops flavored with salt, pepper and Cajun seasoning, but they were delicious. My pork chop meal was rounded out with red beans and rice, green beans, and bread pudding for dessert. It’s a meal that begs me to return to New Orleans again as soon as possible.

Stay tuned for another post from a must-visit New Orleans restaurant.

And while you're waiting, check out my other New Orleans write-ups:
Dinner at Rambla (Nashville Scene, Bites blog, July 9)
Breakfast at Li'l Dizzy's (Bites blog, July 15)
Two Sisters Kitchen's Shrimp & Okra (Bites blog, July 17)
Funk and Flambé at Brennan's Restaurant (Bites blog, July 22)

Meeting with our Congressman

2009-09-05T19:43:00.003-05:00

Last week two friends and I met with our congressman, Jim Cooper, to discuss some questions about the healthcare bills before Congress. He's a nice man, and we were glad to have met him. It was a pleasant experience, but as we walked out of his office, I found myself commenting, "Is it just me or was that thoroughly disappointing?"

You see, I think on one hand we so didn't want to be lumped in with all of the vitriolic voices arguing over this issue that we went too soft. Additionally, we were only notified a day ahead of time that the congressman had an open spot in his schedule, so we didn't have much time to do enough research to be fully prepared.

Most disappointing for me was that I had hoped that by speaking in person we could have a discussion, a conversation, that would shed light on it all in ways that most of the media reports do not. I wasn't there to get soundbites. I can get that from the news. But I also got that in my congressman's office. I got generalities and pleasantries but very little real information. And, maybe he's already listened to a lot of people as he's formed his stance on this issue (maybe he's listened out?), but I didn't really get the impression that he was trying to listen to us in a deep, really listening kind of way.

All that said, the fault isn't only his. It's partly ours. We allowed the conversation to veer off track and struggled to bring it back to the reason we'd taken the time to come to his office in the first place. We weren't prepared with as many specific, direct questions as we should have been. Ben, one of the friends at the meeting, wrote this blog post summarizing some of what we learned about having an effective meeting with an elected official.

Additionally, we learned that Congressman Cooper isn't in favor of the healthcare bill we've heard the most about in the media. Instead, he favors The Healthy Americans Act, HR 1321. He says this bill solves the problem the Democrats say must be solved (providing all Americans with health insurance) the way Republicans say it must be done (via a free market solution). It also does this without all the debt that accompanies HR 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act. However, he says the media hasn't covered this or other alternative bills much. The media person in me finds myself asking why his communications person just now added a section on this bill to the congressman's website, as we were told in our meeting that that portion had just gone live. This issue has been so huge that I'm wondering why they waited until the end of recess to put that up on his website. But that's really neither here nor there.

What is here and there is that it's important to keep trying to engage these issues in ways that are about cooperation instead of anger. At least we succeeded on that point.

blogging fiend

2009-08-27T02:17:00.003-05:00

I get a tiny breather in my writing schedule and apparently turn into a blogging fiend. Not only here but also over on my travel blog. Click here for a beginning conversation on how to tell stories and take photos in developing countries without exploiting the subjects of those stories and photos. I'd be glad to hear your thoughts on this! (That means comments are welcome!)

Here's a teaser:
Sure, writing has limits too. There's never space to tell everything. And some photographers do an amazing job telling stories through their lenses. But though a picture may be worth 1000 words, as the saying goes, there are 1000 other words the picture misses. And I think it's those words, composed thoughtfully, that protect a photo subject's humanity and ward off exploitation of the poor people the world loves to photograph.

Join the discussion today! ;-)

On Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl and other things

2009-08-26T12:32:00.004-05:00

another retro-post is finally making its way to the big screen

August 1, 2009

It's a good sign if a book's preface is inspirational, as this one is, in the makes-me-want-to-play-with-words version of inspiration. There's energy in this preface. That's a very good thing as books go. This is clearly the work of a good writer. If the preface is this good, what wonders can the rest of the book hold?

I sort of won this book. Which is a novel (almost-pun is, of course, fully intended) event in its own right. I'm not one of those people who win things, so doing so merits a blog entry to celebrate. More novel is that I sort-of-won the book via Twitter. That tips my I'm-not-sure-I-love-Twitter meter in the direction of love. Because I do love books and anything that gets me free books claims a rather large corner of my heart.

So, anyway, getting to the real point, the book is called Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl. Good work on the title, Mr. Author (and/or publishing committee). Points for you. Interesting cover. Good work, Graphic Designer/Marketing/Editor People. More points and we haven't even opened the book yet. But now we have: Engaging preface that makes me mostly want to keep reading (except that I'm in the middle--or first fourth, truth be told--of The Count of Monte Cristo, and Dantes has just started treasure hunting on the Isle of Monte Cristo, and I must keep going with him while the momentum is there). More points for Tilt-A-Whirl author guy. So good so far, Mr. N.D. Wilson. You've made me want to read the rest of what you have to say.

Mr. Thomas Nelson CEO (that would be Michael Hyatt) tweeted about how great this author is, how funny he is, and how he compares to Donald Miller. First, to you, Donald Miller, good work for becoming an author who has written something novel enough that people are now compared to you. That's something one could feel smug about if one chose. But you don't seem too smug so you, too, can have some points. Second, alas, it's the whole comparison thing that makes me unsure I want to keep reading past the Tilt-A-Whirl preface, even once Dantes finds his treasure and ties up all his big vengeful loose ends.

The hesitation has nothing to do with Donald Miller and everything to do with the whole find-the-next-Christian-celebrity thing we Christians do. I don't like it. It makes me uneasy and even sometimes angry because it's no good. Pedestals are not helpful for anyone, from the people on them to the people gazing at the people on them. People stop thinking and start admiring when pedestals come into play. Bleck. It's a recipe for downfall for someone or everyone. Or at the very least a recipe for food poisoning or something equally sinister.

The whole celebrity thing is one of those symptoms of human nature, the ones that remind us that the church is peopled by fallen humans just like outside-the-church is. But as true as that is, do we really have to do the celebrity thing? Alas, the necessity of selling products and the current culture of branding and marketing and so on almost certainly require a yes, but perhaps we can do it differently?

As it stands, it seems like we're always looking for the next person who will make us feel less uncool, who will help us feel confident as we walk into a world that supposedly doesn't like us, who will help our still-living-in-insecure-adolescence selves tell ourselves that we're better than all the cool kids say we are. This all begs the question: Is Christian celebrity really about Jesus at all? or just about how we feel about ourselves?

It's one thing to respect a person's use of the giftedness God's wired them with and to appreciate the things they teach or do or create. It's another unhealthier thing to do what we do: pedestalize them and find some shoring up of our identity as we hang on their every word.

Anyway, I hope Mr. N.D. Wilson proves to have written a book that lives up to its preface and all the points I've already given him, whether or not he ever becomes another of our Christian celebrities. And don't hold it against him that his book and the events surrounding my acquiring it just happened to give opportunity for expressing one of my concerns about how we "do" Christianity. Rather, perhaps I'm actually agreeing with what the book's all about. Once Dantes exacts his revenge (instead of letting God do it for him ;-) ) I'm looking forward to jumping past Wilson's entertaining preface and riding the rest of the Tilt-A-Whirl.

switching things up on you

2009-08-26T12:05:00.003-05:00

from June 14, 2009, Flag Day (not that Flag Day has anything to do with this, but details are details), written on the white edges of a GapCard ad that emerged from my friend's purse when I asked if anyone had any paper; after all, art is about improvising, right?

It's a 3rd & Lindsley Night

I'm searching for a metaphor
or maybe it's a simile
whichever way you state your case
some way for rendering a roaring river
a rushing wind
some fleeting moments
of this day's end.
I'm searching for an eddy by the rushing river's edge
searching for a balmy breeze that breaks off from the wind
searching for a way to cling to fleeting flashbulb moments.
Tonight my mind screens images from
another poem another continent another summer.
Briefly was I there
even momentarily
but now I'm here
not there
at 3rd & Lindsley
now only remembering
Kenya
and Haiti
and Italy
and Ghana
and London.
I was there
but now I'm here
searching for an eddy
searching for a simile.

Yum!

2009-08-24T13:06:00.003-05:00

So I'm trying to cook more. I have been for a little while now, inspired by receiving food from kitchens around the world (hmmm, Around the World in 40 Kitchens?). Maybe I've written about that before. Who knows. Either way I'm writing about it now. My real dream is to some day have the time, space, and commitment available for growing a garden, or at least a few edible living things in pots (I've decided fresh basil is at the top of the list since it's ridiculously expensive to buy fresh at grocery stores). Until that day arrives, I'm preparing for it by trying to cook with fresh vegetables more often, trying to cook things I've never cooked before, and learning exactly what words like "mince" mean.

Among the barriers to my current attempts are the realities that I don't go through food very quickly and my schedule is very unpredictable. Last Sunday (not yesterday but the one before) when I made an overdue trip to the local grocery story I decided that my new plan would be to buy ingredients for two healthy, wholesome, fresh-vegetable-using meals per week. Then I would eat leftovers or easy things for the rest of my meals. Sounds good, right? Alas, my grand plan had an ill-timed launch. Last week was a week of deadlines and busyness with supper prep and consumption squashed in between 6 and 6:30 before I dashed out the door again, meaning there was no time for trying out a new recipe (I'm not speedy when it comes to cooking or eating...or nearly anything else in life) or cooking anything that required thought.

In my attempts to manage fresh food purchases, I didn't succeed so well last week. My strawberries started growing mold after only two strawberry, spinach, and walnut salads had been eaten. Bummer. I hate throwing food away.

But things were better yesterday. My green onions were still fine, as was my garlic, and my yellow summer squash. I embarked on a nice little recipe that had caught my eye weeks ago from its perch on the side of the angel hair pasta box (Kroger brand, in case you're curious). It's called something pretty straight-forward like "Tomato-Basil-Angel Hair Pasta" or something like that.

Among the firsts for me with this recipe was using fresh garlic. I've never done that before, though I like garlic, so I'm quite sure that a huge wide world of recipes will be open to me now that I've learned something very important related to garlic. The recipe called for two cloves of fresh garlic, minced. I was about to put two heads of garlic into this recipe when my housemate stopped me. I mean, I thought it seemed like a lot of garlic, but it said to put in two and I had no reason not to trust it. I learned, in the nick of time, mind you, that garlic HEADS are composed of numerous CLOVES. And two CLOVES was just the right amount for creating a very satisfyingly tasty little lunch dish yesterday. Why does no one tell you these important little details when you exit the womb?

I also added to my tasty little meal a side of sauteed yellow summer squash, in an effort to confirm a lesson from a few weeks ago when I sauteed squash and zucchini for the first time. I like it when I've eaten it at other people's houses but had never embarked into squash-cooking-land myself. In an effort to be really adventurous last time (which was also when I belatedly learned that zucchini is a kind of squash), I hit up the trusty internet to find out what kind of spices are good with squash. I found this nice little resource, and of the spices it suggested the ones on hand in the house were parsley, rosemary and cumin. I had plenty of squash and zucchini so I got REALLY adventurous and created a taste test for myself, cooking a third of my squash/zucchini with each spice. I decided I liked parsley and cumin the best. So yesterday I excitedly acted on my taste test results and went for the parsley, figuring it was a better fit with the spices in the angel hair dish (it just makes me feel like I know something to say that).

Perhaps later today I'll add a photo of the resulting dish, until then, enjoy this little episode in "How Kami Learned to Cook Before It Was Too Late." Learning about cooking and this whole world of things that compliment each other is turning into another little outlet for the artist side of my self. Don't worry, though, I still have no plans for really fancy things like de-boning ducks, a la Julie & Julia.

finding medical care when you're the working poor

2009-08-04T14:37:00.003-05:00

I've told a number of people that this year I've felt like a teenager who grew up poor but never really knew the family was poor because she had enough to eat and clothes to wear and somewhere dry to sleep. And tin cans and cardboard boxes to play with. Then at about age 13 the revelation hits.

This spring I've begun to realize exactly how fiscally poor I am. When most people talk about not making much money, they are usually describing an income that's at least two times what I make. That said, my life is good overall. Assuming I don't get sick or my car doesn't need repairs, I get by. Sometimes my parents help a little, by sending a bit of money for a haircut or an oil change; sometimes a friend treats me to lunch. I pray a lot, and by God's grace it mostly works. I'm doing work I enjoy and living the starving artist life without the starving part.

But I'm also in the category of Americans that isn't heard from much but is in the news all the time these days: the ones without insurance. Not the middle class ones without insurance. That's not my peer group. I'm in the "working poor" category of the insuranceless.

I used to have insurance, but then I quit working for Starbucks two years ago. There went that. Last year I found a good policy through an organization for media types. The sales guy assured me that it covered pre-existing conditions as long as you haven't had surgery in the past five years. Good. My thyroid surgery was 16 years ago. I just take some meds and get the hormone level checked every six months. I should be good, right?

Alas, sales guy probably just wanted to make a sale. The policy was a good one and was reasonably priced, and I have no beef with the insurance company. However, it turns out you have to wait a year before pre-existing conditions are covered. I had to drop the policy because I couldn't come anywhere close to affording the monthly premium and still paying full price for my thyroid doc visits for a year.

Back I went to the ranks of the uninsured. But my situation has become much less bleak since this spring. I became a patient at Siloam Family Health Center here in Nashville, and I'm forever indebted to the donors, volunteers and staff who keep that place running. I pay a little for my visits, but I qualified at the lowest payment level on their sliding scale. I'm also now a patient at Interfaith Dental Clinic, which works similarly.

Based on my experience with these clinics, I'm inclined to say that such community-based solutions to the healthcare crisis are much more trustworthy than some of the proposed solutions in the bills before Congress. But in all the NPR-listening and article reading I've done, I don't think I've heard any interviews with people like me, the working poor, about their experience at these clinics. Everyone's talking about what to do about the problem without doing much talking to the people whose problems are supposedly being solved.

And, granted, healthcare isn't only a problem for those of us on the lowest rungs of the income ladder. Middle and even higher income folks are all affected by this. And it's true that even with insurance, healthcare costs can be excessively prohibitive. However, I tend to come down on the side of finding more locally-based solutions than jumping into a behemoth that will be directed from afar and unable to respond to the nuances of people's particular situations. Rates I've seen for the government health insurance option are still prohibitive for the lowest income among us.

weighing in on healthcare

2009-08-04T13:59:00.007-05:00

A couple weeks ago I received a call from the National Association of Professional Women. I'd received a letter from them in the mail describing the great privilege being bestowed upon me with approval of my membership in their organization. I'd agreed to be listed in their directory because it was free and I'm trying to discover new channels of business networking. I had no plans to go any further than that with them.

But then they called. They interviewed me to confirm that I fit whatever criteria it was they were looking for. Then they fed my ego, telling me how wonderful I was and how I would be recommended to the board to be a spotlighted person in one of their newsletters. By now I was guessing that this was going to cost something. Surely this wasn't included in the free listing in the directory that I'd been promised.

Finally 15 minutes or more into the call, after describing all of the amazing benefits of this organization, the woman described the cost for the two membership levels: "six ninety-eight" or "four ninety-eight." Though it sounded like she was describing a cost of $6.98 or $4.98, I was guessing that's not what she meant. "Do you mean six hundred ninety-eight dollars?" I asked. She said yes.

I told her I cannot make that kind of purchase without planning. My business and my income are very, very small. She proceeded to repeat all she'd said about the benefits already. I told her I couldn't do it. She began offering lower rates and repeating all the benefits again. By this time I was standing outside Wendy's where I was meeting my parents for a brief visit (as in less than an hour long) while they passed through town. I told the woman that I had to go. Could she send me information by email as I don't make these kind of decisions over the phone? Oh, no, she said. They're so busy and there are so many people that want in, that they don't have time to call people back and they don't have any marketing materials they can send out.

I'd been smelling scam for a while, but this confirmed it. As did the fact that I told her numerous times that I had to go because I needed to visit with my parents. She never apologized for taking up my time and, 20-30 minutes from the beginning of the call, weakly acquiesced to letting me off the phone.

Now for the point I'm really trying to make.

I've been trying to follow the health care whirlwind that's consuming our attention these days. Of course it's difficult, since, well, people who have all day to commit to understanding it are having trouble staying up to speed. I don't have all day.

But, first, I do agree that some things need to change. And it's human nature to be afraid of change. It's challenging to discern the thoughtful critics of the current proposals from the people who are just afraid of anything new, the same ones who wail and tear their clothes and gnash their teeth when Facebook changes its layout.

Second, my travels abroad have raised my consciousness about how big our country is. This health care question looks different in countries that have much smaller populations than ours. We can consider what works in other countries but must also consider the vastness of our population. A government-run healthcare system in America must necessarily be an even bigger bureaucracy than it is in the U.K., for example. Is that really a good idea?

Third, I've come to realize that President Obama's desire to push this through Congress before their recess deserves some consideration. Akin to my phone call from the National Association of Professional Women, it's troubling. I can fully buy into the desire not to let this problem linger forever and into the mantra that action and change is needed. But what I find more troubling the more I consider it is: why the rush? Something this big and this potentially dramatic in effect on so many people deserves unrushed consideration. I suppose some might say that we've been talking about healthcare change forever, so it's had plenty of time for consideration. But the bills are now written, and they weren't before. They've got to be mulled over. This almost disdainful attitude of "just trust us" is troubling. That's how people get bullied into things. That's what the woman on the phone did to me.

Post-phone call I did some searching and discovered that my instinctual red flags were doing their job: warning me of something that was a real danger. The National Association of Professional Women, according to trustworthy web reports and eye witness accounts, may sort of be a legitimate business but it operates like a scam--misleading people (um, that whole "six ninety-eight" sounding like $6.98 was pretty definitely intentional), not giving refunds, not delivering on the benefits promised.

And, well, the similarities between that phone call and the actions surrounding pushing this huge bill through are disconcerting to say the least.

perhaps it's poetry monday

2009-07-13T12:54:00.002-05:00

Early Summer Moon

pensively, so very pensively,
world weight upon me,
I turned the corner
into the path of a yellow-orange globe
no longer just-rising
but still low and striking,
a pendant with no chain
hovering unnaturally
before me,
understanding the weight
of the world

in the neighborhoods

2009-07-08T12:50:00.011-05:00

Chef Kerry Seaton, great-granddaugther of Willie Mae Seaton, has taken over the kitchen of this 6th ward neighborhood jewel: Willie Mae's Scotch House.

Kerry invited us into her kitchen. Not that we could recreate what she was doing.

Known for its secret recipe fried chicken, the restaurant makes some mighty fine pork chops too.

Saturday morning we made it to Chef Doris' Two Sisters Restaurant, located comfortably in another New Orleans neighborhood. I dream of one day living in a neighborhood with such a place in walking distance from my home. Some day, some day.

In the lower 9th ward that was so hard hit by Katrina, we checked out the Global Green house project. These new homes are LEED platinum certified (that's the highest LEED rating!). There's never an electric bill because they produce more electricity than they use. And why aren't all homes built this way?

I was very excited to see a bit of green roof in action. I've read about the benefits of these but never seen them first-hand.

Saturday at Dooky Chase's

2009-07-07T22:37:00.013-05:00

Dooky Chase's: a storied neighborhood restaurant with institution status. And if you're lucky you'll get to meet its lovely matriarch, Leah Chase.

It may have been grandson Chef Edgar "Dooky" Chase IV doing the cooking demonstration, but 86-year-old Leah still really runs the kitchen.

Recently back from culinary school in Paris, Dooky #4 is inheriting the kitchen reins while twin brothers Trevor and Travis cover the front side of the restaurant. Hang around long enough and you'll meet a lot more of the family.

From the kitchen...

...to the dining room.

Our journalist crew, representing Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, London, Nashville, and New Orleans. What a great time we had together!

And then it was already Friday

2009-07-06T22:55:00.007-05:00

First things first: brunch at oh-so-rightly-famous Brennan's.

Eggs Hussarde and Eggs Sardou. Say that 10 times fast.

Who knew brunch comes with dessert? Bananas Foster where it was born.

Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes introducing us to Louisiana's own zydeco music. I'm now a fan!

Rock 'n' Bowl was the cool location for our zydeco intro. They have live bands and a dance floor every night they're open. And when you're tired of dancing, you can hit the bowling lanes. Something for everyone!

Thursday's adventures in the Big Easy

2009-07-04T03:26:00.013-05:00

Hello, French Quarter. I like your shutters.

What's left of brunch at Li'l Dizzy's Cafe: grits, hot sausage, crab omelet, jambalaya omelet, "lost bread" french toast, among other things. Oh so delicious, all.

Off to learn some history at the Louisiana State Museum.

Jeanette taking instruction from Chef Doris Finister of Two Sisters Kitchen (where we're eating brunch on Saturday morning).

I'm getting in on the action by pouring on the "red gravy" (aka: tomato sauce) under Doris' watchful eye. We're making her shrimp and okra specialty.

It's nearly finished!

Then we learned about gumbo and bread pudding from Chef Kevin Belton of Li'l Dizzy's Cafe.

Enjoying my first taste of gumbo!

don't leave New Orleans without...

2009-07-03T15:30:00.005-05:00

So I'd heard that the famous beignets at Cafe du Monde came with a lot of sugar, but I wasn't prepared for what "a lot" really meant, which is that as much as I like sugar I still left about a cup of it on my plate on Wednesday when the lovely beignets were deposited safely in my stomach.

After a nice afternoon treat in the lovely open-air seating of Cafe du Monde, my tour guide (a photographer who's also on the Creole to Soul media familiarization tour) took me a few feet over to the Mississippi where I had my first ferry ride across to the little town of Algiers.

So far so good in New Orleans! Must dash off for more food eating!

on the u-haul (or borrowed pick-up) road again

2009-06-21T20:20:00.003-05:00

I'm moving again. The circumstances around it are somewhat disheartening. In general, though, I trust God is somewhere in the midst of this mini-crisis and that my new living quarters will prove to be an even better fit for me and those I'll live with.

It has been striking to discover how unexpectedly hard it is to pound the stakes in again once they've been pulled up. I can't say I'm completely surprised, but I did not really anticipate what would be set in motion when I put belongings in storage and headed to Africa in July '07.

I can't say that I chose to become a nomad, only that it has become one of my identities as I have obeyed each next step God has put before me. And as unsettling as it is, its rhythms have become familiar, with that aspect of comfort that accompanies familiar things. It's become so familiar, in fact, that thoughts of re-accumulating belongings or, say, purchasing a home (in the fairy tale world where that's an option) spawn almost panicky feelings of boxed-in-ness. It's not easy business to extricate oneself from a modicum of settled life, and since that break was started two years ago and made more indelible since then, I'm incredibly hesitant to sit down too soon. Still, I was hoping not to have to move again this year.

It feels ironic that home is so important for me -- it's important for all of us, I'm sure, but the stakes on it are raised when it is not only where you sleep and take showers but also where you ply your creative trade and where you try to live out your hospitality commitment to the people surrounding you. But it's ironic that despite this importance, I have been so without a long-term version of it. For two years now I have lived largely on the mercy of other people's good graces and their sharing of their homes. Good guests try not to make too many demands.

God has wired me for this nomad life by giving me a pretty generous helping of adaptability coursing through my veins or snapping between nerve synapses (wherever it is that adaptability actually resides), but still it seems there must be a limit of that dose somewhere. Or I hope for a limit. Just a temporary respite is all. Because adaptability uses up huge amounts of invisible energy. And I'm aching to commit at least some of its energy toward other things than moving boxes and learning new kitchen customs.

Book Review in a Flash

2009-06-03T11:15:00.002-05:00

I've just finished reading My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan. I spied it on the new books shelf at the Nashville Public Library a few weeks ago, thought it looked interesting, and snatched it up to sneak in between book group reading. I finished our April book, Jane Eyre, early and dived into this.

Since my travels of the past couple years have ramped up my interest in people stories that break stereotypes, this book was right up my alley. It turned out to be timely reading, too, as news hit the wires this spring of Congressional resistance to Pres. Obama's plans to close down Guantanamo. I haven't followed that story excessively closely, and while I think I agree that the place needs to be shut down (particularly after reading this book) or at least that things need to be done differently there, perhaps I can also agree that shutting it down should be accompanied by a plan. And it seems that that's the main criticism of Pres. Obama's shut-down goals: that there's not enough accompanying plan for what will be done with the prisoners there.

Anyway, my read of Khan's book is that she did attempt to portray the whole story fairly. She never comes off sounding anti-American. Rather, she's regularly clearly proud of both her birth homeland (America) and her ethnic homeland (Afghanistan....she was born in America to Afghan parents), and the book contains relatively subtle accounts of her attempts to navigate the realities of these sometimes dueling heritages, both of which are part of her composition.

Courtesy of her Afghan parents, her law student status and her persistence, Khan was able to work as a translator for lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees. While she acknowledges that some real criminals were held at Guantanamo, her experience there has led her to confidently surmise that many of the inmates there were never guilty of any crimes against America. And they were never treated fairly by the justice system. Any American should be concerned about this, as it's contrary to the bedrock of who we are as a society. And, I believe, anytime we treat other countries' citizens in this manner, we diminish our ability to protect our own citizens when they are similarly mistreated in justice systems abroad.

Anyway, the book was interesting and thoughtful. It's well-written enough but is clearly informational more than literary. It's a fairly easy and quick read, which is nice to encounter sometimes. On occasion, the storyteller in me wished for better organization of some of the chapters and more narrative. There were glimpses of narrative, but they weren't sustained throughout which, for me, interrupted a story that could have been even more powerfully told.

Still, I recommend the book as it provides helpful insight on an issue that has potentially far-reaching implications for who we are as Americans and what America stands for. The book also humanizes people we've mostly been introduced to in mass, unhuman quantities. It gives voice to the voiceless, which is always significant.

R to the H to the Y to the THM

2009-05-09T11:47:00.003-05:00

Some people have it and some don't. It's true. But I think most everyone needs at least a little bit of it.

rhythm

For starters, it's such a great word: all those consonants and only one vowel, one that's really only a partial, sometimes-vowel at that. It's really quite an accomplishment to do what it does with those letter odds: 5 to sort of 1.

Then there's that oh-so-pleasing humming sound at the end of the word. I mean, you're practically singing by the time you've finished saying it. The word starts all normally with a regular ol' "R," but the mostly-silent "H" beside the "R" makes you begin to suspect--subconsciously, of course--that something either fishy or wonderfully grand is going on here. Whichever it is, it's at least abnormal. After the "H," you know you've got to find a vowel sometime soon. And then along comes the "...and sometimes Y." Just in the nick of time. Just in time to start you humming.

And that's how rhythm is, really. Just like it's spelled. Rhythm gives you some structure and follows some established rules but never so much that it pens you in or makes you too normal. Rhythm follows some patterns but holds surprises too. And rhythm even has the potential to leave you singing in the end.

By contrast chaotic, rhythmless life leaves you wanting to scream. Or cry. Depending on your M.O. On the other side of the pendulum, regimented scheduling does the same thing: leaves you wanting either to scream or cry. It's just out of boredom instead of frenzy.

And so, I think I've effectively proven my case. I need some rhythm in my days. It's time, time for some humming and singing and joyful knee-slapping and foot-stomping. I need some sort of rhythm to build my life around, a rhythm that results in freedom and creativity. And in this freelance, nomad life I've got going on, it seems to be up to me to choose the rhythm since no one's handing any particualr sheet music my way.

waiting out a tornado warning

2009-04-03T01:53:00.004-05:00

I was caught out in the torrential downpour (aka: tornado warning) this afternoon and forced to hole up in a Starbucks to wait out the rush-hour, rain-drenched, sure-to-be-horrific traffic. Fortunately, I'd brought along a book when I headed out the door for a couple hours of work for the production company that's thankfully filling some gaps between writing assignments.

Initially frustrated with not being able to get home as early as I planned, I am now grateful for this regenerative time spent sipping a correctly-stirred hot chocolate and pausing between paragraphs in Jane Eyre to eavesdrop slightly on interesting-but-not-too-distracting conversations and to periodically notice the nice lyrics-centric music coming from somewhere above my head. At the moment of this writing (i.e. which isn't now but was when I originally wrote this on the old grocery list in my purse) I think perhaps I will be able to write again some day, a some day that might even turn out to be sooner than later. My burned-out self has lately been doubting the possibility of ever wanting or being able to write again. I suppose the threshold of "officially burned out" and the malady of "writer's block" must be reached eventually. As as of 2009 they have been. For me. Perhaps that really, really makes me a writer now? Two more stripes earned.

I think marginless life must be the destroyer of creativity. The necessity of margin for warding off creativity's killer is likely true for all humanity but perhaps artist souls feel its truth more keenly. What appears externally as unproductive, and perhaps excessive, leisure isn't really leisure at all. Instead it's the essential seed bed of creation: this time and space for being must be, in order for some new thing to be, to be given life.

Today as I sit curled up in the green Starbucks chair, shoes off and jeans mostly dry, gazing into the slowing rain's scape and remembering how much I enjoyed reading Jane's story as a teenager, I can believe that the pounding pace of life that squeezes away new words might not be the victor after all.

what to do when you should be eating supper

2009-02-19T21:16:00.002-06:00

Contrary to all blog clues, I haven't forgotten about this wee contribution to the mass of words brought to us by The Internet. As I have more and more writing work to do, I'm finding it harder and harder to squeeze out time for my own reflections-in-writing. Once I'm done with my work (though it's never really done), I just need to be away from my computer. Any good relationship still calls for some time apart. I wouldn't want my computer to get tired of me.

Even now I should be eating supper so that I can return to the screen and start whipping out (oh, if only I really could whip things out instead of birthing them with record-breaking lengths of labor) one of the two articles that have reached the top of my to-do list.

But, anyway, to catch you up if you've not visited my travel blog, I'm back in action in the U S of A and planning to be around these parts for a while. A trip to India is brewing for late May and early June, but that'll only be for a month or so and won't require moving out of my Nashville area digs.

Since returning to Music City in January, I've been bus-eeeee, which is a very good thing to be when you aren't employed by a place that pays you whether you're busy or not. For five weeks now I've been digging in, eeking my way through one deadline after another. I've also been learning cool things, courtesy of the varied work I get to do. I always love it when I work on projects that I am impacted by so much that they work their way into my conversations: "I've been working on this story lately about ______________, and one of the people I interviewed said __________________ ." I've worked on a couple of those kind of projects lately. Luckily for you, I'll only tell you about one of them for now.

The assignment was a story for a United Methodist publication, and the topic was what UM churches are doing to help their congregations weather the unhappy economy we've got going on. First, I was encouraged to know that many churches still have the means to help people. That's encouraging and cool. That help takes several forms, from support groups to pastoral and lay counseling, from financial coaching and training to help with car payments and utility bills.

But the biggest take-away for me was comments from a couple of my interviewees to the effect that the problem is spiritual and therefore the solution is spiritual. America is finally being called to account for the great sin of materialism. Interviewees noted that over the years many pastors and churches have tended not to talk much about money to their congregations because their congregations haven't wanted to hear it. Now people are seeing that what they thought they could trust for security isn't working, and they're looking for other solutions and are willing to hear that God is the only solid place to put our trust. Another interviewee referenced Old Testament prophets who called God's people to repentance and encouraged us to call and be called to repentance for the sin that has led to these problems.

It all left me very encouraged and actually excited about what we're going through. I'm hopeful that God is giving us a chance to return to Him, that God is shaking the "Christians" (especially those who live tidy, smug lives in tidy, smug churches with no real willingness to trust God more than money) into real life in Him.

It also left me more pained than ever at the lies that permeate our cultural moment. I didn't get to hear Obama's recent address to the nation, but one article quoted him as saying something along the lines of: the government is the only solution to this problem. I suppose he necessarily must sound confident, but that's ridiculous hubris if I ever heard it. And he's not the only politician to spout such stuff. The solution is people learning that we are not in control. Only God is. And only in Him do we find any kind of security. That doesn't mean we don't seek to operate with wisdom to work our way out of this, but somehow I don't think excessive spending of government (and, therefore, our) money is that wisdom.

eat, pray, love a different book

2008-12-13T10:24:00.003-06:00

A couple weeks ago I finally finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I never expected the book to take me so long to read: a matter of weeks that stretched into a couple months, interrupted by settling into a new continent, but still.

I wanted to like this book. In fact, I was the one who suggested it to my Nashville book group. And they readily agreed to it. We'd all heard much hype about it. And so we were glad to read it. I not only wanted to like this book, I think I expected to like it. And perhaps that was the downfall: expectation.

Whatever it was, though, I struggled to get through the book partly because I couldn't decide whether I liked the narrator (the author). In many ways, she's a lot like me. I should like her, or at least want to hang out with her. She's a writer, a couple years older than me. She's recounting her travels in Italy, India and Indonesia. I've traveled a lot this year. I should be able to relate to her. I should want to swap travel stories. But maybe that's just it. I'm not sure she'd be at all interested in hearing my stories. Only in telling her own.

You see, I could never really connect with her. There were enjoyable moments in her prose but sometimes it felt like she was trying too hard to be pithy and funny (two things that are very hard to do without coming across as trying too hard). It also felt like the book was all about her. Which it was. Which it was intended to be. It was her journey to self-discovery or something. But the narrative almost never really engaged me. Except perhaps in the final third of the book when she had reached Indonesia, the last stop of the three-countries-in-a-year expedition. I think that's partly because it was in Indonesia that I felt like she--and therefore I--most connected with the people she encountered. I wanted to know about the people in the places she lived. While she mentioned people throughout the book, it was mostly in Indonesia, and a little in India, that they became real players in the story. Otherwise, she was mostly only interested in her own story. And it seems to me that you can't live well anywhere unless you engage outside yourself.

Additionally, her version of religion isn't one that's comfortable for me. So while I struggled at times with the descriptions of her religious life, I did appreciate getting to see life through different religious eyes. But that did, admittedly, make the book harder for me to read. I had to think about and weigh and sort through what I was reading more than I might have if the experience was more similar to my own.

So, that's a review in a flash because I must dash off. It's a book worth reading, but I don't necessarily think it deserves all the lavish Oprah-praise it's received.

P.S. I'm adding on a bit more review post-discussion with a friend tonight. My friend liked the book but, like me, didn't like the author because, as she said too, she has no interest in hanging out with her. Of further note, as we discussed (this friend is an American writer type too who's living the poverty-stricken nomad life in London this fall), the fact that Gilbert struck out on this year-long "journey" with a book deal already in hand and enough money and savings or whatever to finance a far-less-than-impoverished version of traveling changes the level of honesty of the book. Sure, Gilbert may have very honestly set out on this journey to find herself and learn things, but the fact that she had the book deal before she had journeyed means that she sold some sort of story, some sort of plan for what would be experienced. Something had to happen or she wouldn't have had a book to write. And maybe that's why the book feels forced and perhaps false in places: because at some level she had already decided what she wanted the story to be before it happened. While life can play out that way and change can happen that way, a book about self-discovery and a journey toward transformation can't honestly be written that way.

more on time

2008-12-13T10:12:00.002-06:00

Greetings! I'll soon be back from my life across the Atlantic and will be returning to this blog more regularly. I bet you can't wait! ;-)

I learned something interesting recently, related to the time-keeping post below. Some of you probably already knew this and just didn't tell me, but I won't hold that against you. I recently meandered through the museum about time-keeping at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. I meandered after I stood for a few moments on the prime meridian, the center of time so to speak. Or one of them anyway.

As I wandered through the exhibit, I learned that I've perhaps taken time for granted. It's really been a relatively recent thing for the world to measure time together, to have a standard time, to synchronize watches from Bali to Madagascar to Timbuktu to London to Fairbanks to Tokyo to Moscow. It became more necessary as our interactions with each other increased (of course, there have always been interactions) and required things like international agreements. Who knew time was such serious business?

Anyway, I also learned that part of the reason for all the clocks on all the public buildings is that that's how people in a town or village or city knew what time it was. The public clocks provided the standard time for the collection of people living there. Clocks on every bedside table and in every pocket holding a cell phone (ahem, mobile phone for any non-Americans reading this) didn't exist. I guess that's why Grandfather's snazzy pocket watch was a big thing to inherit. Watches and clocks were in short supply. I also learned that it took a while for technology to find ways to keep the clocks that did exist accurate. And the sounding of chimes and bells helped out the people who weren't within sight distance of the clock.

Anyway, it was all very interesting. I recommend the exhibit if you ever find yourself standing on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich Park.

keeping time in the UK

2008-09-23T11:26:00.007-05:00

It may be hard to see in these photos, but all these buildings have something in common besides being British. Can you find it??

In February I discovered an architectural trend that suggests the British are or used to be very time conscious. There were clocks everywhere on the buildings, from London landmarks to country castles. I can't tell you whether they all keep correct time, but they're there looming over you regardless. I'm afraid that if the clocks are any indication, I may not fit in so well in Britain this fall. Africa was likely a better fit for my bane-of-my-existence lack of consistency in arriving places on time. Although I really didn't experience that whole "Africa time" cliche: all the Africans who met me for interviews or other things were on time. I was always the one who was late, and disappointed not to be finding the Africa time stereotype holding up.

Next week at this time I'll probably be in my London garrett sleeping off a probably nearly sleepless night on an airplane. I'll be in London until two days before Christmas. I'm excited to live outside the U.S. for at least a little while, in contrast to traveling outside the U.S. as I did last fall. I think I'll mostly chronicle the English journey on what I'm now calling my travel blog. So stayed tuned over there. Now I must dash off because I'm late (surprise, surprise) to pick up my mom at the airport, so she can help me stash my life in boxes again in order to hit the nomad trail.

Infidel

2008-09-23T11:01:00.002-05:00

My book group read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel for our August gathering. It was an excellent read, so I've been trying to find time to mention it here. The book tells Ali's story of growing up in Somalia, then moving on to other countries in Africa. Eventually she made it to Europe, on her way to Canada to join the husband she didn't want but who was chosen for her by her father. She decided to jump ship, if you will, and disappear in the Netherlands. After serving as a member of the Dutch Parliament (obviously she eventually un-disappeared, and in a big way), Ali now works for a DC-based think tank.

I found her story fascinating and well-told. When I left for Africa last year, I searched for books by African authors. These aren't always easy to find, so I appreciated reading a book written by someone with roots outside the West. And I appreciated the opportunity to learn a little more about the fairly recent political events in Somalia that are still having repercussions today, but that I was just a little too young to understand when they were happening. I knew Somalia was in the news but had no real idea what was happening there or why.

I also appreciated the way so many pieces of the book fit with places or activities I've had some exposure to in the past year. A fair portion of the Infidel was set around Nairobi, Kenya, one of the cities on my Africa itinerary last year. It was nice to have some first-hand familiarity with one of the book's settings. Additionally, I've been helping with some ESL classes for Somali Bantu refugees in Nashville this year, so I really appreciated the peek into the culture of the country they come from, though they're from a different tribe from Ali. Some of the names of Ali's friends and acquaintances were familiar because they are the names of the ESL students too. Ali describes the people who helped her learn Dutch after her arrival in the Netherlands, and it was neat to see her appreciation for their help and know that I'm on the other side of that exchange, of doing a small bit to help Bantu folks acclimate to Nashville life.

I found Ali's writing style compelling, readable, thoughtful. I appreciated the window into her eventual decision to abandon Islam because it didn't hold up against her questions. She arrived at that decision honestly. Also, there's never a sense that Ali is using this book to get back at people. She seems very generous in her descriptions of people, even those who were less than kind to her. She exhibits understanding of their motivations and perspectives, while also being adamant in her advocacy for improved treatment of women and children at Islam's hands and in her advocacy that the freedom-of-speech, tolerance-preaching West must recognize the way Islam and the Koran preaches against those very things.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book, particularly as the din of the culture clash between Islam and other world cultures is growing louder and louder.

most popular guy in town

2008-09-23T10:35:00.004-05:00

I think the gas truck delivery guy is enjoying a surge in popularity. I've heard of people finding a truck and following it to a gas station. I don't know if people did that this morning for this BP station on the corner of Wedgewood and 8th Ave, but when I passed by on my way to the bank there were about six cars waiting at the station entrance on 8th while the truck emptied its precious load into the underground tanks. On my way back by after my bank errand, the line had grown a little, and the truck was still emptying.

It must have just arrived when I first passed by because gas station workers were still roping off the Wedgewood entrance (see above) while I waited at the light to turn onto 8th. I've been wondering when/how gas is arriving these days, so I was pretty excited to catch all this in action. I think that might qualify me as a nerd or maybe as a journalist. I don't need gas, so that wasn't the catalyst for my excitement. I've wondered how much madness ensues when a truckload of fuel arrives, so it makes sense that they have to rope off the entrances while the important off-loading deed is done.

Generally, the panic seems to be subsiding a bit here. The lines at stations seem to be a little shorter when gas is available. I think we're learning that you can get gas, you just have to be strategic about it. And perhaps the supplies are slowly improving. Still you never see two stations beside each other that have fuel at the same time. It's still very hit or miss.

After my price gouging gas purchase on Sunday, I filled up the rest of the way at a more reasonable price yesterday. Again, I found a station with barely a line at all while running an errand. My gas gauge hasn't visited the "F" in a while, so I think the needle was a little confused at first to be climbing so high on the gauge, but it worked itself out.

what it's like to live in a gas crisis

2008-09-21T17:50:00.003-05:00

It's like playing whack-a-mole. That's the best analogy I've come up with. You never know which gas station is going to sprout up with gas. And there appears to be no rhyme or reason to it. So it's this surreal existence of watching for the long lines that mean a station has gas. And then judging whether it's worth sitting in the line for the gas. And judging how much longer this silliness is going to last.

Fortunately, I've been fine on my gas supply through this weekend. And I've been determined not to wait in line for an hour for more. But today I was edging nearer the fourth of a tank mark, so I've been keeping my eye open. I figured if I could get some more petrol without waiting forever, I should go ahead, since it may still be a few days before this thing rights itself and I need to be able to pick my mom up at the airport on Tuesday.

Well, this afternoon I scored. Sort of. I passed a gas station on my normal route between where I was coming from and my house and made it to the pump in a reasonable amount of time. However, the price I found at the pump was not reasonable. $4.79 for regular!! Can we say price gouging? I haven't ever seen a price that high in Nashville. When I had to go inside in order to prepay, I asked them who set their prices. One of the workers said they only charge 6 cents over what they pay to get it. The other one said that this gas had to be trucked in from Paducah (KY) instead of coming from the pipeline from Texas.

I wish someone would assign me a story on the whole oil/gas/energy system so I could then justify the time to investigate and follow it. I want to understand how it all works, who really sets what prices, etc. That's for another day, though. And though I bought some gas (only $20 worth, in protest), I am not buying the 6 cents upcharge line, not on this delivery.

living in a gas crisis

2008-09-20T00:34:00.002-05:00

According to The Tennessean's web site, AAA is saying 85% of the gas stations in Middle Tennessee are out of gas. Oddly enough (and tellingly enough about today's lifestyles), I didn't know anything about the problem until I read a friend's Facebook status update that she'd been to 10 different gas stations before finding gas a couple days ago. Hmmm, well, maybe that's just a problem in Franklin?

Yesterday morning I was happy to see that my favorite cheap gas stop near my house had decreased its price by 5 cents. See, nothing to worry about. When I came back by that station on my way home, it was even cheaper, down to $3.93. Great! I guess I'll stop and get some just in case there really is a crisis going on. I still had about 1/4 of a tank left. Hmmm, only premium gas was available. I never buy premium. I'll just wait.

Last night I noticed that a gas station near my house from the other direction appeared to have gas. Might as well stop and get it. I only bought $30 worth though because the credit card machine at the pump wouldn't read my card, so I had to go inside. I wasn't expecting to have to tell them a pre-pay amount, and when they asked, $30 was the first number that came to mind. In hind-sight it would've been better to go all the way. A line started growing while I was pumping my $30-worth, but that happens sometimes. Nothing to panic about. Yet. Right?

Anyway, I'm glad I stopped. Because the gas station picture here is pretty bloomin' bleak today. All those ugly plastic bags over pump handles. Tonight on my way home after 11 pm I passed two stations that apparently had gas (or else someone is playing a very cruel joke) because the VERY long lines around them were completely clogging up traffic on the road.

It's an interesting challenge to choose not to panic in the face of these things, to tell yourself that this won't last forever, yet to realize that you have no idea how long it will last. It's interesting to find that I'm finding comfort in the fact that I don't know anyone who is panicking, even though there are either long gas station lines or ghost town gas stations. So it must not be as bad as it looks, right?

It's sobering to realize that even the things you think you can always count on--gas stations--don't grow gasoline. It has to come from somewhere. And if that somewhere isn't able to sent it, the station can't offer what it doesn't have. Another reminder of the lie we live in so much of the time: believing that we have control of anything.

the proof is in the pictures, of me smiling.

2008-08-28T14:00:00.005-05:00

For all you Alpha-Bits lovers like me, I'm posting some photos of why we have reason to celebrate. The old Alpha-Bits was finally made new again! Whether the quiet movement to bring back the old, surgary Alpha-Bits that emerged on my blog had anything to do with it, we'll never know, which means that we can claim it did. And it only took two to three years! (reports of the new old Alpha-Bits began surfacing a year ago, but I didn't get to enjoy tasty bowls of them until this year, which would suggest that they've managed to stay alive for an entire year, which means there's hope they'll have a long second life. woohoo!)

empty pockets

2008-08-28T12:59:00.004-05:00

Tuesday night I was glad I don't have a lot of money. I am not always glad for this, but Tuesday night I was. If I had more money, I probably would have purchased some of the things I didn't purchase. And two days later I'm not losing any sleep over not having them.

I don't really like shopping. I usually know exactly what I'm looking for when I go to the store, but then I get there and get distracted by all the things I didn't know existed (or by the good deals) or at least didn't think of needing until I saw them. I mean, a cable for locking my laptop to a table is probably a good idea. Is this a good price? And, hey, look, that I Am Sam dvd is only $4.99. I really liked that movie. I bet I'd watch it again sometime. Oh, and those jeans are really cute and they're cheap. I can't remember for sure whether I need jeans or not because I don't wear them a lot in the summer. Hmmm. And so on.

I was particularly struck by this on Tuesday night because I visited several stores in my quest for the few things I was specifically looking for. As I walked from one end of a shopping center to a store on the other end, I passed a lot of shop windows full of stuff. And, well, it's not a new thought for me or almost anyone else, but it was just visceral in that moment: there's a whole lot of stuff for sale in America. It's crazy really. So very much stuff in view in just a handful of stores, a teeny tiny minute percentage of the stories in America.

And yet in all these doom and gloom economic days, there's this sense that we must buy things in order to keep the economy afloat. Someone made that stuff and their job is on the line if we don't fill our houses with it. Such a conundrum. One that's more obvious as I work to shed myself of belongings--since multitudinous belongings and nomadacy are not congruent with each other--and find myself still tempted to pick up new ones.

spider. solitaire style.

2008-08-28T12:38:00.002-05:00

I've taken up spider solitaire over the past few months. I discovered it lurking on my computer and slowly began to figure out how to play it after hitting the "h is for hint" key many times. I'm not a big computer/video games person. But sometimes when I am working on some article and can't figure out what to do next but don't have time to go outside and play a game of basketball, sometimes in that situation I play spider solitaire. I finally got pretty good at winning the one-suite games. So I decided to graduate to two suites. I'm still there. At first I thought it was impossible. I've finally, with lots of "h is for hint"s, made it up to a win percentage of about 24%. It's all about how the cards fall though.

I have a love/hate relationship with spider solitaire. And I finally realized it's the same reason I have a love/hate relationship with writing. Which is why it's either really appropriate or else masochistic that I play it when I'm stumped in my writing. You see it's the whole thing of having masses of anything unorganized that I hate, whether it's interview notes or spades and hearts. I hate that moment of chaos.

But once I push through the paralysis of that moment and begin to create order I start to feel slightly better, whether it's facts and observations that begin to fall into place or aces on top of twos. And when I get to the end and the fireworks go off (if only there was that much celebration every time I finished a writing assignment), I'm in the love part of the relationship.

So there you have it: how spider solitaire is like writing. Burning questions sometimes can be answered. Just stick around this blog for more.

Dog sitting

2008-08-20T10:57:00.002-05:00

So, I've been pretty silent here lately. That's mostly because I've been busy with other writing projects and plans. It's also because I've been dog sitting, for my roommate's dog, but still it's dog sitting...for two whole weeks. And dog sitting has taught me some things.

1-I hate dog sitting. Prior to the past two weeks, I thought this was the case. Now I know it's the case. This is why I never agree when people ask me to dog sit.

2-I hate picking up dog poop. I also was guessing this to be true before my dog sitting venture began. Now after picking up poop at least twice a day for two weeks, there's no doubt. And this dog seems to love to poop. And he's a pretty big dog, which means his excrement is too. And sometimes just for spite, he goes twice on one bathroom break. Of course, I've only brought one bag with me. So I have to just walk away hoping none of the neighbors in the condo complex noticed the dog's second poop stop.

3-I sometimes avoid petting Buddy when I'm not in the mood to wash my hands. This officially kicks me out of dog lover status. As does my avoidance of dog kisses.

4-I am not a good playmate for a dog who really wants to play a lot. From my busy lifestyle to my need to wash my hands every time I pet him, I cannot give him as much attention as he wants.

5-I like dogs okay but only when they belong to other people and I can pet them for a few minutes and then move on.

6-Dogs make a house very dirty. I vacuumed yesterday and within a few hours there were clumps of hair on the floor again. Bleck.

7-This man's best friend thing gets annoying when you are tired of being followed everywhere you go.

8-I don't hate Buddy. He's actually pretty cute and likeable and mostly well-behaved. It's not his fault he's a dog.

9-I'm really glad I'm not a dog. I never before thought to be thankful that I don't have to smell the ground to find my magic pee spot. After watching this little routine MANY times, I now know to be thankful that God didn't wire me to do that.

10-It's very hard to ignore a dog who drops his rope in your bedroom doorway, patiently hoping against hope that you'll play with him. And when that doesn't work he brings his tennis ball, figuring you must have just not been in the mood for tug-of-war.

11-I will never own a dog. I will try not to ever dog sit again.

for fun, some poems

2008-07-14T00:19:00.004-05:00

I've been in a poetry mood lately. Those come and go. See one of the recent products over on my Haiti blog. In honor of poetry mood, here's a poetry post.

An older one:

Muddled Mind of Love

Small brown bird hops
toward me
leaving marks in imaginary snow
as afternoon sun burns
over facing buildings to my patio perch.

I feel as though
we belong to each other
already
But that must never be said
not yet
It’s too
soon
And it’s too—
out there.

But Wendell talks like that
about people belonging to each other
to the community
Do we
or is he a crazy old man
without a computer?

Bird on a rail in emcee’s brown jacket
chirps to me in cliché:
patience is the name of the game
But what does a bird on a rail know
about the ways of man and woman?

What do I know about them?
What do you know about them?

A newer one that may or may not be done being tweaked:

landing

butterfly flitting from flower to flower
testing, tasting
is this the one?
sun is shining
day is nice
but butterfly never lands long
flitting, flying, always floating on
testing, tasting
is this the one?
sun is sinking
afternoon is here
another horizon has been cleared
butterfly is tired of flitting and flying
of testing and tasting
and wants more to land long

Observations about Mark

2008-07-13T17:13:00.003-05:00

I've been reading through the book of Mark, from the Bible, lately. I've discovered some things I never really knew or noticed before.

I. The first is that the word "immediately" appears very often. I guess I knew that this gospel account was known for its activeness, for its sense of action, but I didn't really know how often things immediately happened. It's interesting.

II. A second thing comes from the Mark 5:1-20 account of the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs in the country of the Gerasenes. I found the conversation between Jesus the demon(s), Legion, possessing the man to be very interesting. When I've heard teaching on this passage, which may not really have been very often, it seems the main focus is always on the fact that Jesus told the demons to come out of the man and they obeyed, or perhaps on the fact that the demons immediately knew that Jesus was the Son of God. But, notice this account of the conversation, starting with the fact that there was a conversation between Jesus and Legion.

vv. 6-13: "Seeing Jesus from a distance, he [the demon-possessed man] ran up and bowed down before Him; and shouting with a loud voice, he said, 'What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!' For He had been saying to him, 'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!' And He was asking him, 'What is your name?' and he said to Him, 'My name is Legion; for we are many.' And he began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. The demons implored him saying, 'Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.' Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they were drowned in the sea."

A) I find it interesting that the demon who tortured the man he'd possessed was imploring Jesus not to torment him, the demon. The demon was all big and bad until encountering a power it knew was greater than its own; then it turned into a whimpering, begging thing. And it didn't want what it had dished out and deserved: torment.
B) I find it interesting that names are so important and significant that even the demon(s) has a name, and Jesus knew he had a name. He didn't ask him: Do you have a name? He asked: What is your name?
C) I find it interesting that Jesus gave the demon what he asked for. The demon asked to be sent into the swine. And Jesus gave him permission. I can just see this begging demon in the face of the Son of the Most High God, begging "please, please don't send us too far way," looking around for any desperate option. Oh wait! Those swine over there. Okay, "Jesus, Jesus, please send us into them." It's interesting that the demon had to get permission from Jesus to go into the swine; Jesus' power over the demon was that great. And it's also interesting that Jesus gave him what he asked for. Why would Jesus do that? Though He was clearly the powerful one in the exchange, He still engaged in an exchange with the demon. Is this mercy in action? Giving the demon what he begged for? Is Jesus even merciful toward demons? Was it some sort of reverse psychology? A la, "haha. He thinks he wants to possess those pigs. But that will be his doom. Hahahahaha." What happened to the demons when the pigs died? Did the demons return to hell then? What would have been the alternative if Jesus had just commanded them to leave the man but hadn't offered them another host?

So many questions. I don't know what to make of it all and don't really have any grand conclusions, but I just found these things very interesting. I think they're things worth pondering as I continue reading. What do these things tell us about Jesus?

III) A third thing comes from Mark 5: 21-43, the story of Jesus' healing of Jairus-the-synagogue official's daughter.

A) vs. 35-36: "While He [Jesus] was still speaking, they came from house of the synagogue official, saying, 'Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?' But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue offical, 'Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.'"

What a powerful statement!

B) vs. 39-43: "And entering in, He said to them, 'Why make a commotion and weep? The child has not died, but is asleep.' They began laughing at Him. But putting them all out, he took along the child's father and mother and His own companions, and entered the room where the child was. Taking the child by the hand, he said to her, 'Talitha kum!' (which translated means, 'Little girl, I say to you, get up!') Immediately the girl got up and began to walk, for she was twelve years old. And immediately they were completely astounded. And He gave them strict orders that no one should know about this, and He said that something should be given her to eat."

It's a little funny to me that Jesus would say not to tell anyone about his healing of the girl, as though no one would notice. I guess maybe they would just assume that she really had just been asleep after all. Still how could it all possibly go unnoticed? I know that again and again in the earlier days of his ministry, He told people not to tell what was happening because of the timing of God's plan, etc. But it's still a little funny. I mean, how would people not notice, for example, that a lame guy was now walking. They're sure to ask him what happened. How's he supposed to answer without telling them what Jesus did?

But it also seems important and still applicable today to remember that even Jesus didn't always tell everything that was happening. He didn't always tell people all the details about who He was. If people weren't ready to hear it, hearing it wouldn't do them any good. And that seems like a good reminder not to push Jesus on people, so to speak. A reminder to seek to be attuned enough to the Holy Spirit to know when to tell "everything" about Jesus and when "no one should know about this."

And, finally, from this passage, I just think it's interesting that one of the first things He took care of after healing the girl was to make sure she got something to eat, a very practical, physical thing.

So that's all on that for now. I'm blogging more regularly right now over on my Africa blog, except I'm blogging about Haiti, so now it's really more appropriately referred to as my travel blog.

my first meme

2008-07-02T16:54:00.002-05:00

I've been tagged in a meme on Dave Zimmerman's blog and I don't even really know if that's the right way to say such a thing, and I'm not sure I even really know what a meme is or how it came to be, but I've been hearing of them for a while and decided it's time to break my silence. Plus, I have a couple seconds online before we go to eat Chinese food in Haiti. So I'm playing along. Here goes.

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven Facts
1. I am about to eat Chinese food in Port-au-Prince.
2. I did not sleep last night.
3. I have had too many speeding tickets since moving to Nashville.
4. I've been in 10 different countries this year.
5. I'm not feeling very creative right now.
6. My hair is responding to the humidity.
7. I must go be social now.
8. (just to be an overachiever) I like gerber daisies.

I'll tag people later. Like I said, I must go now. Meming is the best thing ever. Maybe. Maybe not.

traveling again

2008-07-02T05:34:00.001-05:00

You can follow my July travels on my Africa blog! Except this time I'm in Haiti. Explain that to your geography teacher.

of course water comes from pipes

2008-06-15T22:52:00.005-05:00

Weeks ago I watched the very cute, very enjoyable flick Enchanted with a couple friends. A line, or an idea at least, from the film has stayed with me, begging to be blogged about. So I'm finally giving into its wheedling.

It comes in a scene shortly after Giselle, who hails from the animated fairy tale land of Andalasia, arrives in the very real, unanimated world of Manhattan. Robert, a Manhattan lawyer, and his young daughter ended up housing Giselle for her first night in the real world. The next morning, after such activities as singing with the birds and cleaning up the apartment, she takes her first real world shower. Robert, who somehow slept through the cleaning and singing, finds her in the bathroom post-shower, with important parts covered by the towel the flying birds are holding up for her. In her wide-eyed wonder way, she enthuses over the great shower. Where does the water come from, she asks Robert, since she, of course, is used to her fairy land forest home where you bathe in waterfalls or something. Flustered in general, he rushes past the question with a "from the waterpipes" reply.

Whether the script writers were intending to make a statement there, I'll likely never know, but that little exchange grabbed my attention as being all-too-very-true in our world. The little Enchanted line added more marks to the ones already left on me by a couple articles I've worked on over the past couple years. The primary subject of one of these articles was a fundraising hootenanny being hosted by the Harpeth River Watershed Association. And while I think the word "hootenanny" is used way too rarely and have hosted, with roommates, my own hootennany in the past (the Summit Hills Girls July 3rd Fourth of July Hootenanny, or something terrifically catchy like that), the mark on me was actually left by what I learned about water sources while conducting interviews for the article.

For starters, I learned what a watershed is, which is a very good thing to know. I've been excited to see the green signs popping up along Tennessee highways that proclaim that one has entered a particular river's watershed. While writing one article clearly doesn't make me an expert on water systems, one article has made me more aware of the fact that our water does not just come from pipes. It has to come from somewhere, from a somewhere that lives in the same world we humans do and that is affected by our actions in that world. Most of us have no connection to that though. Sometimes it seems like modernity should mean we get our water from H2O labs or something, not from rivers and groundwater and rain. Isn't that a bit archaic?

Also adding to what we might as well call a bruise were the things I learned through my association with some folks here in Nashville who care about things with names like sustainable agriculture, and from reading books by Wendell Berry who cares about lots of similar important things. The association with these sustainable agriculture folks led to going on a little planning retreat with them and to writing a couple articles about related topics. What I learned from these articles and associations was that I, and probably many other people, have been very, very disconnected from where our food comes from. Again, doesn't it just get created and packaged somewhere? Someone says "poof" and it appears? Or throws some things in a pot and out come carrots? Seriously, aren't we beyond all that waiting and nurturing and growing and harvesting stuff from the old days? In the age of high speed internet and overnight delivery, surely we don't have to worry about not enough sun or not enough rain affecting our stomachs.

As I traipse around Nashville during these green days of summer, I find myself noticing the nature around us. At least I think I'm noticing it. But how much of my day is actually spent in it? Touching it. Connecting with it. Learning it. Instead of taking it for granted. Most of my days are spent on something that has concrete or asphalt somewhere at its base. And this is sobering. Somewhat. I think most of us spend so much time controlling green, growing things, that we don't realize that the systems those things are part of still feed and water us.

It seems somehow dangerous for an entire society to be ignorant of how things grow and how we get those eight glasses of water we're supposed to drink every day, of where our carrots come from and how that water gets into our pipes. I'm not sure what to do about these things, but somehow, noticing them seems important. Some day I hope I'll have garden. Perhaps that will be one way to do something about it. I want to really learn where my food comes from, to watch it sprout and then mature. And then to harvest it. Before that perhaps I'll one day be able to buy a share in a community supported agriculture program, so I can learn how to cook with all those freshly grown things. After that maybe I'll live on a farm one day or at least visit one for a week. ;-)

Until life works to allow for any of those options (for now I've started with buying fresh produce from the grocery store more often; who knew I'd like green peppers so much?), I'm having to content myself with watching the plant on my desk sprout new leaves. The last time I blogged about the lovely Peperomia I think it had only three or four leaves. It's now sporting 14 beautiful green adornments! Four of them have burst forth since March. I'm trying to keep a close eye on it in order to catch the very first clues that another leaf is on its way. I want to catch it before it actually looks like a leaf. I want to learn what that looks like. I want to understand its growth. I want to connect with it (which is why I can be caught talking to it soothingly every now and then! ;-) ) Ultimately, I might as well confess, my real goal is to become one with it. I think I'd look very nice in all green. Don't you? ;-)

iris garden - one week ago

2008-06-14T16:02:00.003-05:00

From my journal:

Thank you, Jesus, for this new, nearby place of solace. Fireflies appearing. Quiet. A few birds twittering. Sunset glow, light orange behind the church and trees. Fingernail moon just a little south of west, a few feet above the tallest tree. And as I just read, courtesy of Kathleen Norris, Emily D's description of this moment: "Fairer though fading -- as the Day Into the Darkness dips away." Thank you, Jesus, for the dipping moments that fill up my soul, for a place to watch the Day dip into Darkness, a place for participating in the hand off.

a quote i like

2008-05-18T22:30:00.002-05:00

Once again I've not been giving this bit of blogosphere space the attention it deserves. But for some reason I still haven't managed to figure out how to do everything I want/need to do all at once. Instead, these things-to-do have to form a line (or queue, since some of the things-to-do are British). And "writing on my blog" hasn't managed to bully its way to the front of the line. Until now. Sort of.

I'm still working my way through Kathleen Norris' Cloister Walk. I've been working my way through it for a while. I'm moving slowly because it's work to be savored rather than scarfed down. So I step into it for a little while and then step out, looking forward to the next chance to come back and sit with Kathleen for a spell.

My recent visit with Cloister Walk provided this gem of a quote. Norris leads into it by telling the story of a Russian poet named Anna Akhmatova. "Akhmatova's story suggests that writing is an inexcapably communal act, as it depends on both writer and reader (or listener). The writer must be willing to see, the reader to hear."

And here is purpose for what I do and want to do. I believe strongly that being a writer is as much about how you see as it is about words on paper or screen. And sometimes I feel quite a responsibility to share what I see. Because others might not be able to see it that way. And perhaps that can be my gift to them: to help them see what they cannot see, until they listen. It is humbling to hope for that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Included among the many things I've been doing instead of spending time here has been reading a couple books worth mentioning. I don't have time now to write full-out reviews, but I do heartily recommend Three Cups of Tea. It's nicely written and it's a thoughtful story that just might help you see things as you haven't seen them before, if you're willing to listen. Last week I finished reading Water for Elephants. My book group won't be discussing it until next month, so I have plenty of time either to forget what I read or be fully prepared for an in-depth discussion. :-) It's a good read for a novel.

Last night I watched Charlie Wilson's War. Also an interesting flick. I've never worked in covert operations (as though I could tell you if I had), so I don't know how accurate to life the film is. I have worked on the Hill but not for a congressman who was anything like Charlie Wilson, so who knows how accurate that portrayal is. But regardless of all that, the film is one of those that can make you think about the world, our responsibilities in it, and the way actions have effects on others. And, for me, the film, like Three Cups of Tea or just about anything else I read these days, leaves me pondering again (as though I ever really stop pondering it) my role in the world. What am I to do with what I've been given?

recycle old electronics equipment!

2008-04-30T17:13:00.003-05:00

I think it's worth passing on the word about the upcoming electronics recycling event that Vanderbilt University is hosting at LP Field (Titan's Stadium) May 14-17. It's open to the public on May 17, so that's the only date most of you probably really need to know about.

You may or may not know that you're really not supposed to discard electronics equipment the same way you discard the rest of your trash. But even if you know that and want to be a good citizen, it can be quite difficult to know what to do with it. And, let's be honest, it's pretty much an inconvenience to figure out what to do with it.

So here's your chance to get rid of it properly and easily.

You can find all the details here. The email I received about it says Vanderbilt is partnering with the University of Memphis and East Tennessee State University to host the statewide free electronics recycling event. So if you live in the east or the west of Tennessee, check those schools' web sites for info about the event in your area.

centennial park

2008-04-22T00:02:00.006-05:00

31 March 2008

I just spent a wonderful hour in Centennial Park reading this interesting article from the fresh-from-my-mailbox issue of The New Yorker. I thought about pulling out a blanket and the manuscript I’m copyediting (not written by me, silly) but decided the springtime wind was just strong enough to be dangerous for loose manuscript pages. Instead I enjoyed one of the last sunny hours of this sunny springtime day reading beside the fountained and duck-dotted park pond.

Every time I come here I’m reminded that I should come here more often. Unfortunately, it seems there’s always work to do, work that usually requires a computer with fleeting battery life. So much for the whole romantic notion of freelancing, the notion that says you can do what you want when you want which means you never have to miss a sunny day. Dream on, as with most romantic notions.

One of the things I love about this particular park is the diversity of people it attracts—young and old, rich and poor (judging from external clues, at least), white and black and everything in between, solitary and in groups, purposeful and playful. The park is spacious enough rarely to feel crowded and peopled enough rarely to seem lonely. I always feel this kinship with the people sharing the park with me on any given visit: none of us could stay away from the call of the sun and the grass and Athena ensconced in her gold-coated glory inside the Parthenon. As mild as Nashville’s winters are, we’re still a bunch that’s eager for enough warmth to really enjoy being outside again. Most of the people at the park seem happy, and I think that’s one of the unconscious (until now) reasons I like going there.

Today the grass was tall enough to reach just over my sandal soles and beg my feet to make full contact. I should have given in, but by then my reverie time was over, and I needed to get on with the rest of the day.

21 April 2008

Somehow weeks passed since I wrote those last words and tried to get back to Centennial Park on a sunny day in order to recreate the moment and take some photos to accompany the words. It didn't happen until today.

Today's park hour was nearly a re-creation of that day in all ways, though, so the photos (except perhaps for that guy in the white t-shirt) are appropriate for either day, though they're likely wearing a bit more green than they would have been on March 31. And today instead of worrying about the demise of the newspaper industry courtesy of The New Yorker, I was dreaming of exploring Pakistan and of writing more in-depth stories than the 1000-word fare I'm usually limited to. I have Three Cups of Tea to thank for the April version of The Pleasant Centennial Park Reading Moment.

My reading moment was interrupted now and then by the male mallards out for their evening stroll, er, swim, chatting over the day's helping of interesting park visitors, or maybe chatting about which female mallard had caught their eye with her cute little tailfeathers. Then when the sun began to disappear enough that things were getting chilly, I gave up my perch on the stone pond walls and decided to take the meandering way home. If you define green as the amount of green I saw, then it was also the green way home. If you define green in the terms of Earth Day and carbon-neutralness, I must confess that it was not so green. If you define green as good for the soul, then it was very green.

I avoided all interstates and as many main roads as possible. My route took me down West End to Woodmont, past beautiful homes with large yards. Eventually I reached the slightly smaller pretty homes on the east side of Hillsboro. Then on to Franklin Road and south to Hogan. I made my way through the Agricultural Center, down Edmondson, east on McMurray, south on Nolensville and east on Tusculum.

My meandering way was also memory lane. I drove on roads I've driven on more often during other stretches of my Nashville life. With my Nashville good-bye date looming nearer, my nostalgia mechanism is kicking in these days. So I relived moments of Nashville life yesterday as I drove. From rental houses I almost lived in to book study group meeting places to my road route during Nashville's one big snowstorm these past six years, I remembered and mostly smiled fondly. I'll miss this place. It's held quite an odd collection of moments, with every year here seeming so different from the ones before. To think I only expected to live here for a year or two when I arrived, and this has now been my home longer than any city other than the one that birthed me.

coffeehouse community

2008-04-18T14:19:00.002-05:00

I've just accidentally discovered that one of my coffeehouse acquaintances passed away last year while I was in the throes of last minute Africa preparations. Harmon Wray was a semi-regular at my Starbucks. If I remember correctly he was more of an afternoon visitor and especially in my last months at the ol' 'bucks I worked mostly morning shifts, so I didn't see him often last year.

But we chatted from time to time over the years, and I was quite intrigued as I learned a bit about the work he was involved in, particularly the part about teaching courses for inmates and Vanderbilt students together. I smelled a story that some of the publications I write for might be interested in. Harmon handed me his business card and we exchanged a couple emails about it all, but I never had time to fully follow up then. He and the story connected to him were on my list of stories to come back to some day. Alas, I'll never be able to interview him now.

This is sobering news. While I've been off galavanting around the world, others in my community who knew Harmon better than I did have been grieving.

I suppose this news feels more sobering, too, because since returning from Africa I've been relishing the discovery that my coffeehouse community really does have deeper roots than my employment there. Relationships begun with people because they were customers and I was a barista and we saw each other several times a week have continued though we no longer see each other so often. And though I no longer make lattes for them. Relationships I thought were real have proven to be just that.

grammar lesson

2008-04-01T01:36:00.003-05:00

One of my current freelance gigs has me relearning all the nuances of perfectly written and punctuated English writing. I'm learning some helpful tidbits and wanted to share one of them with you tonight. Alas, I don't have the correct reference source with me, and it's very important to share this lesson with you verbatim. Therefore, I will teach you a different but equally important lesson instead.

Thankfully, the Writer's Digest Grammar Desk Reference cares about us. This must be why it issued this word of caution:

The use of a comma, rather than a semicolon, between independent clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction results in the catastrophic sentence-structure error known as a comma splice.

Catastrophic, I tell you!!!! Whew, I'm so glad I read this tonight, so I can now be vigilant against this catastrophe. Seriously, I've heard horror stories about this happening to people, but until now I didn't know what could be done to stop it. So I quaked in bed at night. Every night. It was awful. I can't begin to express my relief at finally feeling equipped to ward off this evil. Please spread the word far and near so we can force this terrible monster to his death before he claims even one more victim. Hurry!

blast from the past

2008-03-27T13:51:00.002-05:00

I'm purging--my too-large stack of magazines, that is. Before committing them to the recycle pile, I've been flipping through the New Yorkers especially (most of them mostly unread) to see if they contain pieces by any writers I particularly enjoy reading. That process brought me to the August 21, 2006, issue and a poem by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I didn't know Solzhenitsyn wrote poetry. Most of what I do know about Solzhenitsyn came to me via my college philosophy teacher. Now anytime I hear of Solzhenitsyn, I think of Dr. Hamilton. I really liked his class. Once upon a time in my post-college life I purchased one of Solzhenitsyn's novels, First Circle I think it was. I started reading it but didn't get very far. That was back before I started finishing books again. I still have the book, but it's packed away with most of my others, being babysat by friends who are graciously storing my belongings.

Without further ado (so I can add August 21, 2006, to the recycle bin and get it off my desk) for your pondering pleasure here's the poem that prompted thoughts of philosophy class:

PRISONER'S RIGHT

Yoke of years that we lived in a prison
Grants no rights: we're entitled to naught.
Not to pulpits. Nor lecterns. Nor glory.
Nor power. Nor halos of saints.
Nor in memoirs to mix with fatigue
Our colorless ashen complaints,
Nor that armies of youths should now run astride life
By the path that we treaded for them.
All will go as 'twill go. There's no point
To pound out the wheel's rut in advance.
An illumined interior suffering core:
May, for everything, this be our one recompense.
It's the loftiest gem of all earthly gemstones.
And, to carry it home undefiled,
Let, of our phantom rights, then, the very least be:
Our secreted right to an equal revenge.
There's a number. So endlessly long,
Comprehensible just to Chinese and to Russians,
All those fallen, extinguished, without guilt or trace:
In that number we're nil upon nil upon nil....
Our right is but one:
To be rancorless sons
Of our luckless and sad Russian land.
Let our grievances burn, rot, decay deep inside
To the outside we'll spring living shoots: only then,
Looking up, will our Russia's fatigued countryside
See the Sun it awaited so long.

--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Translated, from the Russian, by Ignat Solzhenitsyn.)

what's in a name?

2008-03-23T01:50:00.003-05:00

“Do you consider yourself a subject?” I asked my British friend three-fourths flippantly, one-fourth seriously and all fourths naïve Americanly. We were gazing at Buckingham Palace (which, by the way, looks from the outside more like a semi-attractive yet almost non-descript government building than a palace; the British are quite skilled at making common things special by using particularly nice words to describe them) when the question came to mind and I blurted it out without thinking much first.

“I have to,” he replied. And I felt chastised, though that wasn’t his intent. I also felt very American. I also sent a new wave of gratitude wafting toward George and Ben and John and Patrick and all the other fathers who kept me from having to ever give such a reply to such a question. The difference between subject and citizen seems vast. It’s amazing the difference a word makes, though I suppose it’s actually the mindset that makes the real difference.

I quite enjoyed all the British folk I met during my two weeks of British life. We’re all people. We have much in common. We all live and learn and relate and eat and speak mostly the same language. But, to think of doing all that as a subject, belonging to someone else, sounds awful to my American self.

If you’re going to be subject to someone, Queen Elizabeth II certainly seems like a nice and honorable enough person to subject yourself to. But, the psychological shift in thinking (from citizen to subject) and therefore in being seems severe. I thought she was really just a figurehead, a perpetuation of the romantic notion of royalty, the harmless matriarch of a family that gives hope to young and not-so-young girls praying to marry a prince. But, she’s more than that. Her picture is on the money. Her initials are present on the gates to the royal parks and all kinds of other places. British passports contain a request that her subjects be granted access to the countries they’re entering. (By contrast, the message in American passports is from our Secretary of State, not even from our President.) Her presence and reality is almost unavoidable even in brief visits to Britain. And it's not limited to Britain. While I was in Uganda, there was much buzz about the Queen’s impending visit for the Commonwealth Heads of Government gathering.

I guess we Americans (at least those of us who’ve been here long enough not to be very attached to whichever country our ancestors actually came from) tend to think of the British as our closest cousins in the world, the well-mannered city cousins to our poor uncultured hang-out-with-the-cows country cousin role. (The Brits seem to hang out with sheep more than cows, judging from how many sheep-dotted fields I saw, and, well, as farm-animal as sheep may be, they still manage to have a cleaner image than cows do.) Yet, even a brief lesson in British government revealed that their system is different from ours. More different than it appeared prior to that brief lesson. More different that I’d gleaned from reading the sound bite news from Downing Street (I was glad I at least knew what that was before my English vacation, though it’s a fairly recently acquired bit of knowledge).

These little lessons in citizenship and subjectivity have turned into examples of ways travel expands one’s world. A simple little not-so-serious question asked in front of an historic building turned into a lesson in the way people who are just like me are also just a little different from me. Difference is all well and good and appreciated, but it’s also good to know about.

Since returning home from Africa and from England I’ve worked at trying to see my city and my country and my fellow citizens through the eyes of an outsider. It’s a fun exercise that has me talking on my cell phone less and looking further out the window while I’m driving between Nashville and the home of some relative in the Midwest. It’s an exercise that has me seeing more. It’s an exercise that has me relishing the city I live in and thrilling at new discoveries in it. It’s an exercise that prompts questions: What do people see when they come here from somewhere else and stand in front of some building asking seemingly innocent questions about our lives here? What do they see when they drive along our interstates and our downtown avenues? What do they think of our houses and our stores? What about our cow-dotted fields and our houses of worship? What do they hear when they talk with us?

I can’t tell yet all of what they do hear, but I can tell that they don’t hear words like heath, moor, lorry, queue, garden, fancy, fetch and brilliant used at all or at least not the same way the British use them, which is to make something common sound beautiful just by using a nice word for it. And, truth be told, the practice of finding the beautiful in the common is something I’m fully in favor of embracing.

Meeting England

2008-03-01T15:54:00.004-06:00

One must look up in order to fully appreciate the city of Oxford. From street level, the scenes are interesting enough but, well, seem mostly composed of street level shops--with windows sporting plenty of stylish clothing and numerous eye-catching splashes of my new favorite color, rusty orange--that could, dare I say it, be found in lots of other cities. Look up, though, and the view and vibe change. Look up and your eyes catch the magnetic views of Oxford's famous spires. Look up and you see the old that was surrounding you the whole time you were enjoying that posh-for-the-moment rusty orange color (hmmm, or would that be 'colour'?). Look up and you drink in all the architectural adornments -- whose beauty manages to shine through their mostly soot and exhaust-covered surfaces.

I think the Christ Church meadow has been my favorite Oxford spot so far, particularly on the day it wasn't so full of tourists. Of course, I don't really consider myself to be part of that lot. After all, I came here to reflect and soak in the city, not to gawk. Vastly different vantage points for meadow visits, right?

I've enjoyed this first visit to Europe. I really do like it here. Which is good, since I'm thinking of moving here. I think my impressions of this place are different now than they would have been if I'd come here before spending four months in Africa last fall. For one thing, I feel like I was introduced to Britain while I was there. Since Britain pretty much ran the world at one point (really, the British empire was HUGE! have you ever stopped to take note?), it had an impact on places. I discovered that some of the things that were awkward or surprising to me on my Africa tour were souvenir customs left behind by the British. Who knew that visiting Africa would be an introductory course to all things British.

In addition to spires, Oxford is also full of bikes. Everywhere, bikes. Leaning against stone walls. Piled up along shops or wherever bikes are allowed be parked. More than once while crossing the road I had to call out a warning to the friend I was visiting. A speeding bike was headed her way. Many of the bikes look quite old and have baskets and bells, not like the newest version of something from the REI showroom. I don't know whether they really are old bikes that have been passed along to generations upon generations of Oxford scholars or whether that's what bikes always look like here. I haven't asked that question yet, instead I've asked a million other questions.

While my friend and I were moseying along an Oxford street, we happened to be behind a guy who, as he walked down the sidewalk, reached over and rang the bell of every tenth or so bike he passed. I don't know whether he knew we were watching. I don't think he really cared either way. His technique was good. I'm pretty sure he regularly entertains himself this way. I liked that guy. I think he came out of one of the walled colleges that make Oxford famous. It was nice to see someone who might be a fledgling academic doing something so whimsical, something I would like to do but am too new to Oxford streets to be throw-your-cares-out-the-window enough to try.

I happened to be in the right place at the right time to go to the evening Eucharist at Christ Church Cathedral on Thursday night. What a beautiful place. The service was nice. Though I haven't been to enough highly liturgical services to be thoroughly comfortable with and knowledgeable of what's supposed to happen when, I found the service mostly worshipful. The person leading the service was American, though, so it was this odd partial cross-cultural experience. To be in OXFORD in this ancient storied cathedral hearing my own accent speak the words of the service, yet surrounded by other accents as we congregants said our parts. And odd, too, to know that some of the folks there were simply tourists (there's that disdainful word again) with no knowledge of the One being celebrated in the liturgy.

Oxford hasn't been the only stop on my European vacation. I spent last week in London. While based there, I traveled down for a brief visit to Folkestone on the southeastern coast. I saw the sea there. And heard you can see France from that spot on clear days. Alas, the day of my visit was not one of those days. Therefore, I did not see France. This time.

Just before I left on this trip, I completed an article about the history of relationship between the Church and the arts. It was a really interesting story to work on, one of those stories I learn a lot of interesting history from. Much of the history of the eventual separation between the Church and the arts took place here in Europe. It's been incredibly good timing to come here, to view the art in the architecture of the buildings and, particularly, to spend a bit of time in the National Gallery of Art in London. It was so striking to go from all the religious imagery in the art hanging in the 16th century rooms to the predominantly different subject matter of the paintings in the 1700-1800s rooms. To see the shift so obviously, in a way I never would have if I hadn't had that story assignment, was brilliant (I'm practising my British). It makes all the research I did for that story seem so much more alive and real and rooted in actual lived experience.

Speaking of work, I'm looking forward to getting back to my work. That's a really good feeling. It's been amazingly good to step away from it more fully than I have perhaps ever since taking up freelancing. And it's good to see how energizing the stepping away has been. Two weeks is just long enough. Longer holidaying would be too long right now.

get to know Nashville's homeless community

2008-02-11T23:16:00.000-06:00

I think I'd heard somewhere along the way that this publication existed (though perhaps I'd heard of something else because this seems to be a pretty new enterprise), but I'd never seen a copy of it. Last week in the course of conducting interviews about something mostly unrelated I crossed paths with people connected with The Contributor.

I'm glad I did. I've just spent time reading through the February issue of this new newspaper full of articles, stories and poetry written by homeless or formerly homeless people or inspired by homelessness. I believe in the value of story-telling, of understanding the lives of people who live differently than I do, of giving voice to those who are usually overlooked. The stories I've just read did all of those things.

The newspaper creates income for the homeless persons who are hired as vendors. I think it's mostly being distributed in downtown Nashville right now, but I just wanted to encourage anyone who runs across a chance to purchase it to spend the $1 on it. You'll be getting something worthwhile for your dollar (good reading) and supporting a business worth supporting.

i'm back but i'm still over there

2008-02-04T14:41:00.001-06:00

I figure it's about time to say something new here, even if it's just to say that I'm still blogging over on my Africa blog as I continue to process my time in Africa. Sorry for the lack of new content here. I do still expect to get back here one day!

what are you doing here? i'm over there.

2007-08-19T09:37:00.000-05:00

First, just so you know, I won't be posting here much if at all over the next few months. I'm committing my blogging time to my Africa blog. If you're here, follow this link and go there: www.kami-in-africa.blogspot.com.

Second, another of my articles is available online in case you're interested. I'm actually pretty proud of this story. It was very fun to write. I'm proud of the people I interviewed, and I really enjoyed talking to each of them and then getting to translate our conversations into this story for my college's alumni magazine. So, if you're not already over in Africa via the blog, you can go to Asbury College instead: http://www.asbury.edu/press/features/10yearsimpact07.

My Final Day Wearing the Green Apron

2007-07-11T12:01:00.000-05:00

Here's a little photo essay for you, recording the bittersweet story of Friday, June 29. The day was something like college graduation day without any of the pomp and circumstance. It's been a very long time since I've had one of these transition moments: when something big in life changes and you feel like you should somehow stop and feel the gravity of the moment before you step over the line into the next stretch of life. But, there's really no good way to do that, so, instead, you close your till, punch in your numbers to clock out, take off your apron and walk out the door as you've done a million times before over the past five years. Only this time it's different.

It May Be New But Is It Really Brave?

2007-06-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

Sobering moments are upon us as the identity of humanity--of what is human and what it means to be human--grows increasingly fuzzy:

"Animal Farm: The recombination of man and beast" by William Saletan

In response, "Here Come the Manimals" by Wesley J. Smith

So, is this where PETA and the anti-abortion folks join sides?

Blips

2007-06-26T01:06:00.000-05:00

Over the past 5 days, I've seen 2 good flicks, passed 2 strangely-named fireworks stores, visited with more than 20 old friends, celebrated 10 years of post-college life, composed 4 Coffeehouse Journals posts in my head, crossed approximately 15 things off my to do list, and averaged about 5 hours of sleep per day.

the flicks: The Illusionist and Miss Potter. Both of them very nice.

the fireworks stores: Nervous Charlie's (written in appropriately nervous font) and Sad Sam's (complete with sad-faced clown probably named Sam)

the old friends: too numerous to name (thanks for the good, good times this weekend, fellow Peacemakers!)

the 10 years: what's to be said? they've been good, full, unexpected, painful, joyful, full of growth, refining

the blog posts: 1 out of 4 isn't too bad

the to do list: just trust me on this one, even if it was really only 10 things that I knocked off the list

the sleep: officially not enough!!

Movie Reviews

2007-05-31T00:40:00.001-05:00

I actually had a holiday the same day as everyone else this week, and it was wonderful! I'm usually working one or more of my jobs on federal holidays, so I've mostly forgotten what it's like to anticipate not working on a day you and most other people normally are working. (These days I'm working every day, so even a weekend day off essentially has that effect!) I went back to bed after my weekend guest-friend left early-ish Memorial Day morning, and later I enjoyed a cookout and outdoor games (bocce and mafia) with fun friends. Good times. Then I watched my second movie in two days. More good times.

For whatever reason, I'd not heard anything about The Painted Veil during its theatrical release, but the description on the back of the DVD case sounded interesting. It didn't disappoint on that account. The filmography was nice, with some beautiful scenery shots. The plot was refreshingly redemptive, a film in which you're actually prompted to hope the husband and wife make it rather than rooting for one of them to leave and follow his/her true love (the sympathetic character he/she's already been having an affair with, an affair that's okay because they're soul mates and that clearly trumps things like commitments). I've not read the book the film is based on, so I don't know which elements of the story have been adjusted for the film version, but I was disappointed that in this redemptive story, the husband and wife still don't get to live into their deepened relationship. Really, why do films always have to end when the couple finally gets together? Though The Painted Veil doesn't end with the wedding, it essentially ends in the same spot.

The relationship-on-the-rocks plot ran alongside a culture wars plot, as the Chinese villagers were less than open to the British Dr. Fane, who was there to help them more than conquer them. Still, attempts to end the village's cholera epidemic ran up against cultural practices for respecting the deceased. As I am just a couple months away from my own jaunt into lands that are more susceptible to cholera outbreaks than is my own, I appreciated the cultural challenges portrayed in the film.

Anyway, I recommend the film. It's good enough I'd willingly watch it again. :-)

Wendell Berry Has Lots of Good Things to Say

2007-05-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

Here's one of them (from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry):

THROWING AWAY THE MAIL

Nothing is simple,
not even simplification.

Thus, throwing away
the mail, I exchange
the complexity of duty
for the simplicity of guilt.

It was quite by luck that I discovered this little gem while I was looking up a poem to include with my just-completed (literally!) and surely long-awaited (not so literally!) new column over on FranklinIs.com: "Can't get enough." This particular poem of Berry's is unbelievably relevant to my life right now as I've had "go through mail pile" on my list of things to do for about 5 months now (almost literally!).

If you hop over to my "Can't get enough" column, you'll see why I've been a bit absent here lately and why I haven't even managed to go through my mail in my absence. Visiting my Africa blog might have the same effect. So, take your pick, but make sure you choose one or the other or the forces that follow such things might track you down and shake your liver out (like your mother used to threaten doing. by the way, did you send your mother's day card yet?).

Spam Rant

2007-04-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

Another reason I hate spam (beside the obvious annoyance of its presence in my inbox): The prolific existence of spam has created the necessity of spam filters. Spam filters are getting increasingly stringent. Therefore, more and more often my legitimate messages are not getting through to people. This creates lots of problems. This is why I hate spam.

A Day in the Life of a Freelancer

2007-04-17T00:23:00.000-05:00

8 am - get up and get ready (after going to bed at 2 am the night before)

9:15 am - eat breakfast and drink lots of OJ to take away the sniffles and coughs still remaining after a couple sick days over the weekend

9:30-10:30 am - finally write the first post for my Africa blog

11 am -1:15 pm - office hours for the film production folks

1:30-3:45 pm - copyediting for the society magazine folks

4-6:30 pm - errands, phone calls, email, reading, a Sonic Oreo Blast and a nap to help take away the sniffles and coughs still remaining after a couple sick days over the weekend

6:30-9 pm - email, spraying for ants (they're a little cute when they arrive one at a time; they're very not cute when they arrive en masse), visiting with current and former roommates, petting the roommate's dog and some other stuff which may or may not have included going to the bathroom

9 pm - start making a light supper (vegetables)

9:30-10 pm - phone conversation with the author I'm doing research for

10 pm-12:30 am - plan to go to bed by 11:30 pm, jump into the roommate conversation again, decide not to make more supper (it's now just too late for spaghetti) then decide to eat some yogurt, more email, more blog posts, and probably some other stuff which may or may not have included killing a few poor defenseless yet annoyingly resilient ants

12:30 am - lights off in time for a few hours of sleep (not enough to take away the sniffles and coughs still remaining from a weekend of sick days) before a 5:30 am wake up call

Penance

2007-04-12T11:26:00.000-05:00

I might as well begin with a confession-apology: I've been a negligent blogger lately. I haven't kept up my end of the bargain. For that, I apologize. In my absense, though, I expect you dear readers have had no problem finding other things to read. I hope you've been well taken care of by those other blogger-authors.

To make up for my absense and for my lack of real time for playing with you even now, I'm offering you a small gift as penance: "David Sedaris and His Defenders: I guess it all comes down to what your definition of 'exaggeration' is." It's an exploration of the question that we seem unable to solve in these days of "reality" television: what is truth, what is allowable in the realm of non-fiction, what exactly is creative non-fiction anyway, and does the call to be entertaining trump concern for truth? Weighty questions indeed--for both authors and their audiences.

To Be Seriously Considered

2007-03-21T20:08:00.000-05:00

Global warming has returned to the news with a vengeance in the past few weeks. And, rightfully so, it seems. Accompanying this month's cover story on global warming, The Atlantic printed a thought-provoking piece offering an angle on the chaos in Darfur that I hadn't heard before. The article "The Real Roots of Darfur" with the subhead "The violence in Darfur is usually attributed to ethnic hatred. But global warming may be primarily to blame." offers a believable argument for the possibility that bloodshed in Darfur began because of climate change, climate change resulting from global warming, global warming coming at the hands of our excessive energy use. Unfortunately, you won't be able to see the entire article online unless you're a subscriber to The Atlantic, but here's the closing paragraph (if you're curious enough about the middle part of the article, swing by your local library):

Among the implications arising from the ecological origin of the Darfur crisis, the most significant may be moral. If the region's collapse was in some part caused by the emissions from our factories, power plants, and automobiles, we bear some responsibility for the dying. 'This changes us from the position of Good Samaritans--disinterested, uninvolved people who may feel a moral obligation--to a position where we, unconsciously and without malice, created the conditions that led to this crisis,'says Michael Byers, a political scientist at the University of British Colombia. 'We cannot stand by and look at it as a situation of discretionary involvement. We are already involved.'

Some experts on global warming have predicted that while industrialized nations will continue to contribute most to the problem, developing nations will absorb the worst effects of the resulting climate change. This is very problematic. It is a moral issue. May we look for ways to reduce our energy consumption in order to keep from further harming the least of these. We live in a global community connected by more than World Wide Web.

Observations from a Midnight Drive to Atlanta

2007-03-02T22:49:00.000-06:00

*A license plate that said "TOEJAM 1" - this made me laugh. This also made me want to tell the people in the car that they had a great license plate. This also made me want to ask them who has the "TOEJAM 2" license plate.
*The mountains between Monteagle and Chattanooga are beautiful even in the dark.
*A huge lighted sign advertising the Tennessee Alabama Fireworks Store said "owest prices in the south" in smaller letters. I couldn't figure out what that meant. It definitely didn't say "best" and "Qwest prices in the south" didn't make any sense. Then, I got closer to the sign and saw the burned out "L". I laughed again.
*I was driving faster than a train.
*In the dark, Chattanooga reminded me of Pittsburgh, situated in the midst of the hills with lights sprinkled across its heights. It was a fond memory. I like Pittsburgh, both for the city and for the friends in holds.
*I definitely didn't fit into the semi-party going on on I-75 south of Chattanooga at midnight on Wednesday night. Seriously, there were about 2 cars and about 5,000 tractor trailers. But, they all minded their manners amazingly well and kept the left lane clear for me to zoom by them. If you're ever looking to party with the truckers, that's where you'll find all of them.
*I passed by a lot of people's Fed-Ex packages.

And a final observation, though this one is from the AWP Conference -
*Writers (or at least the academics who talk about writing) seem to really like the word "zeitgeist." So, if you want to sound erudite, particularly where the study of writing is concerned, just throw this word into a sentence. It doesn't matter whether you use it correctly or not. It's such a kooky-sounding word that no one really cares what it means; they just like saying it.

For your reading pleasure

2007-02-23T10:18:00.000-06:00

Just letting you know I've posted a new column over on FranklinIs.com. If you hurry over there, you might be one of the first in all the world to read "Check Mate: How to get really good at chess." You know you enjoy making your friends jealous when you know something they don't. So hurry. Follow that link. And enjoy!

Job (that "o" is a long one)

2007-02-14T01:00:00.000-06:00

So sometime recently I began reading the book of Job (from the Bible). For a very long time, I've known Job's general story, but I don't think I've ever before begun reading his story from the beginning of his book.

Toward the end of the first chapter, I encountered a sentence that did not go the way I expected it to, even though I know that Job stays true to God through the tragedy heaped upon him.

So, there's Job. When we meet him, we immediately learn that he is more than just honorable, he's actually blameless and upright. He also fears God and turns from evil. Sounds like a catch of a man, doesn't it? Job is very successful, "the greatest of all the men of the east," in fact. To have acquired as many sheep, camels, oxen and female donkeys as he had, while still deserving the adjectives "upright and blameless" is impressive, don't you think? Job also had many children. He was successful and he was a family man.

By the end of the chapter, though, things had changed. Swiftly. Read the chapter yourself if you want to find out what precipitated the change. I can't do all the work for you here.

One day Job received a series of messengers, one right after the other with worse and worse news. First, in successive messages he learned that he'd lost, via various methods, all of his livestock and almost all of his servants. Then came worse news: a great wind had come upon the house where his children were together feasting. All of his sons and daughters died when the house collapsed on them.

Then verse 20 (NASB) says, "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and..." What do you think he did when he fell to the ground? I was expecting something along the lines of "cried" or the more poetic "shook with tears" or "wailed in sorrow" or even "rolled in the mud." Anything but "worshiped." But that's what he did. He fell to the ground and worshiped. The Bible I was reading happened to have a line break right at that spot, so "worshiped" is the first word on the next line, which helped with the surprise element.

Like I said before, I knew Job was faithful through the terrible trials, but I didn't know he worshiped through them. I suppose another reason the word stood out to me is that around the time I read the passage I was in the midst of writing an article on a popular Christian band that also leads worship at its church. Among the things we talked about in the interview was the question of "what is worship?" No one answered that it was what Job did after he lost his wealth and his heirs all in one swoop.

May we always echo Job's words (vs. 21): "Blessed be the name of the LORD."

The World Out There

2007-02-13T23:28:00.000-06:00

Last night I started reading A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. Starbucks will be selling the book, so each store received a complimentary copy. I snagged my store's copy before it was lost in the shuffle of daily coffeemaking. It's a hard read; while you know you're reading a real person's account of actual events, it seems so impossible that human beings can do these things to each other. Yet we do. In a land embroiled in civil war, then teenager Beah was picked up by the government army, one of many child soldiers who fought in Sierra Leone's conflict as they do in other country's conflicts. So far the book is very readable. I've reached chapter 6, and I'm mostly eager to continue reading. Any lack of eagerness is linked to the challenging content more than any disappointment with the quality of writing. Beah's description of what he saw, through chapter 6 at least, isn't put forth gratuitously. He doesn't linger unnecessarily on the horrors, but he neither does he gloss over them. That is why this book is hard to read.

I saw Babel over the weekend. It wasn't what I expected. I guess that's partly because I never watched the previews very closely. I knew it had to do with children and some other country and some dire situation, but I think I thought there was some sort of kidnapping or international intrigue or something. The film reminded me a bit of Crash because with both films there's a reminder that our actions do affect others, we're all interconnected. In a world that is increasingly losing its personal touch, what we do still sends shockwaves around us. There are repurcussions for our actions and inactions, whether we ever really know about those repurcussions or not. A Long Way Gone, offers another reminder of the way our ways affect the lot of others.

Among my preparations for my planned big trip this fall, I'm trying to read as much literature as possible by African writers. That's another reason I snagged A Long Way Gone (the fact that at least two more partners at my store are waiting to read the snagged copy will help me finish the book as quickly as I can). I want to know as much as possible about the history and culture of the continent before I encounter it first-hand. I'm also glad for the reason to focus on literature rooted in a culture and experience so different from my own. So, among the other books on my list: Cry, the Beloved Country (which I started longer ago than I really want to admit) by Alan Paton, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (which I've owned for some time but never read), and the new Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. If there are other African writers you recommend, please post a comment and let me know about them, particularly if they're African writers who haven't actually made American best seller lists.

I recently finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible. What an excellent, excellent book. Though she's American, her book was a fitting kick-off for my African literature craze. I've been trying to make myself use the library more often, so I actually read the library's copy of the book. But, I liked it so much and found it to be such an example of good literature, that I wanted to have a copy of it for my shelves, nearby for easy future reference. So much for trying to be frugal. Last Saturday I stopped by BookMan/BookWoman in Hillsboro Village and found a well-worn copy for an almost decent used book price.

Siestas Across America Launches Public Service Campaign!

2007-02-02T23:46:00.000-06:00

This week I discovered that my new friend Jennifer and I both long for the siesta to become a cultural phenomenon in this culture we find ourselves living in for the moment. I told her about my long-standing plan to start a group called Siestas Across America. She liked the idea, so we decided she should be co-leader of the group with me. We also came up with our slogan: "Working for world peace, one siesta at a time." If people are sleeping, they can't very well be warring against each other, can they? And, when they wake up from their cozy naps, they'll be in such good moods that they won't be able to remember what they were so mad at their neighbor about.

We think there's even fodder for a jingle in the slogan. Music seems to be able to sell just about anything (or at least anything that sex hasn't already sold), so a jingle is an important thing for any self-respecting movement to have. While we got a lot of work done this week, there's much more to do, from building the web site to designing the t-shirts to taking naps every day (since it would show quite a lack of integrity if we were out there lobbying for siestas but weren't taking them ourselves), so we think we'll soon be forced to give up our other jobs and commit our lives to this cause. And that, my friends, means that we need donors to fund our co-leader salaries. Check back soon for the Paypal link. Thanks in advance for your support of our new movement! Remember, sleep now and peace may be just around the corner.

History Lesson

2007-01-30T23:48:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend I enjoyed a little jaunt up to Lexington-area. (For the first time in forever, I didn't even get caught in a traffic jam on I-65 north!) As great as Music City is, it's still nice to get away sometimes. I relived the good ol' days with some old college friends, but in keeping with my quest to simplify things (or at least step down one notch from the very complicated way I tend to do everything) I did not make an effort to visit every friend I have in the Lexington, KY, metropolis. Only 6 friends, and 3 of them are one family, so together they were only one stop on the trip. In addition to remembering how cool my friends and I were back when we were still in our 20s, I also saw snow, something I haven't really seen any of in Nashville so far this winter or last winter either, for that matter.

During a bit of time between friends, I enjoyed a nice drive along a country road heading out of Wilmore, my college town. I decided to see if High Bridge was where I thought it was. My parents and I trekked out to the site when I visited Asbury as a high school senior, but I'm not sure I ever went back there during the Wilmore Years, so it seemed like a nice place to check out again for a few minutes. Plus, driving there without knowing for sure that I was on the right road made me feel like an explorer. If you've never felt like an explorer, you should give it a try someday soon. It's an amazing feeling.

So here's your history lesson, straight from the on-site historical marker and complete with the first outdoor pictures my little under-used digital camera has taken:

HIGH BRIDGE First cantilever bridge built on the American continent. Most remarkable bridge in US when constructed in 1876. Marked the beginning of modern scientific bridge building. It was designed by Charles Shaler Smith and built for the Cincinnati Southern Railroad. Bridge replaced in 1911, using same foundations, without stopping rail service.

Lifted from the Headlines

2007-01-23T11:15:00.000-06:00

From the front page of today's New York Times, an awful sentence four paragraphs down in a story about the most recent marketplace bombing in Baghdad: "Elsewhere, Iraqi government officials and members of security forces continued to be shot, blown up and kidnapped." What a terrible way to summarize such significantly life-affecting, life-ending acts. The sentence reads as though we were talking about something as mundane as people who are eating, sleeping and bathing, as though there's no heavier weight to the words "shot," "blown up" and "kidnapped."

And in other front page news, it's estimated that "the total spent on the [next] presidential election could easily exceed $1 billion." Aren't there countries whose economies aren't even that big? And here we spend that much for presidential-wannabe's to launch campaigns of untruth, telling us what they think we want to hear and putting forth commercials and other messaging that often offer straight-up lies. Wow. I really can't think of any better way to spend that much money. Maybe instead of raising the minimum wage, we could invest some of that campaign money to assist the poorest of the poor, the same poor that campaign messages (funded by that campaign money) will effusively, no doubt, declare plans to assist.

Speaking of minimum wage increases, I haven't followed that story at all, really, beyond knowing there's a bill before Congress. In the brief moments I've given to thinking about it, though, I have wondered who will pay for the increase. Minimum wage does not provide a liveable wage, and every effort should be made to offer people liveable wages. Some increase in the minimum wage does seem long overdue. However, as the Guest Commentary, "Minimum wage hike can mean maximum harm for working poor" (by Troy Senik), in today's The City Paper notes, just raising the minimum wage may not be the answer. Someone has to pay for that raise, and the consequences of that may not help the people the raise is intended to help. Something needs to be done, but raising the minimum wage isn't necessarily the magic potion answer. It's when issue like these are on the table that I wish I could become an economist. (I can't find the article on-line, unfortunately, so go out to a newstand near you--if you're in the Midstate--and pick up your free copy of the paper.)

If You're Heading to France, You Need to Know about This

2007-01-18T23:06:00.000-06:00

So, you know that saying about following the local customs when you're abroad, or at least when you're in Rome? Well, if you're headed to France anytime soon, you should check out this site, either to avoid being completely panicked when some stranger, possibly masked, sneaks up and kisses you while you're enjoying a nice view of the Eiffel tower or so that you, too, can participate in the surprisingly well organized, at least in terms of web promotion, Streetkissing craze. At the very least, you should be sure to purchase a t-shirt as a fond memory of your close streetkissing call. You can find your choice of website, blog or myspace link here.

And, don't despair, if you are not traveling to France. You can still check out the web site (and dig way back into the crevices of your brain for the snippets from your high school French classes that haven't yet been replaced by some now more germane factoid) and enjoy some chuckles at the mostly not-quite-over-line, mostly in-good-fun-and-somehow-endearing prank-ish antics of these youngish Frenchmen.

Africa?!

2007-01-14T21:44:00.000-06:00

Last week I had lunch (at Atlanta Bread Company, for those of you who like such details) with a new acquaintance who graduated not so long ago from the same college as me. She's interested in becoming a freelance writer, so she did what I've done and asked to meet up with someone who's doing what she wants to do.

It's a little strange now to be experienced enough at this freelance writing thing to have real advice to offer others considering traipsing into these sometimes pleasant, sometimes not-so-pleasant waters. But, I love telling the story of how I got here and of what I've learned along the way. I love telling that story because whether I always mention it explicitly or not, it's a story that reminds me of God's faithfulness and of the beautiful journey of finding what you're made for, of not always understanding it and how it's going to work, of the freedom that exists in obedience. It's a good story, one I'm so thankful to be part of...even on the days that I'm not actually so sure I'm thankful for what it requires of me.

The story can start any number of places. The audience helps determine how far back I begin and how many times I interrupt myself to insert more backstory. My new friend got a reasonably full version of the story; and in the course of chatting with her, I mentioned a particular experience that I hadn't actually spoken of recently. It's one of those scenes that, in retrospect, feels pivotal, the scene where the lights dim, the music plays that this-is-a-defining-moment tune, and the audience knows this is big whether the characters do or not.

A couple years out of college, when I was still working "real jobs," I advised the Student Activities Board at a college in Pennsylvania. Among other things, my job included booking concerts and helping students wrestle with how Christians can and should or shouldn't engage with pop culture. Those two pieces of my job in particular prodded forth the part of me called to be a writer. When I left that job, I left it with some murky vision of heading into something more creative, though I had no idea what that really meant or how to do it. I felt like my post-college years thus far had mostly only taught me which jobs were not for me. And since I had only tried out a few years worth of jobs, I was looking at a long, long road if the way to the perfect job required the process of elimination.

Since I didn't have a new job yet (the one I thought offered the perfect way from where I was to where I wanted to go fell through at almost the last minute), I moved back home to the mountains of northeastern Tennessee, with no idea how long I'd be living there. Sometime early after my return home, my dad and I were in the car one evening driving on a highway somewhere in those northeastern Tennessee mountains. He asked me what I would do if I could do anything. I said that I would freelance (though I didn't say freelance what) because then, if I wanted to, I'd have the freedom to take time off and go to Africa periodically to do development work or something.

I think that moment now seems so monumental because it occurred during my unplanned transition season from the world of "normal jobs" to the one of self-employment, from the world of everyone-agrees-that-you're-a-responsible-adult to the world of everyone-wonders-if-you're-chasing-some-romantic-bohemian-fairy-tale (and we all know fairy tales don't really come true and usually contain characters that don't exist in real life). I did not proceed from that moment with a plan to become a freelance anything. I didn't even know how true my answer was when I uttered it. But, time has told.

Not long after that, I became a booking agent/manager person for an independent musician. Thus, I also became a self-employed person. Once that leap was made, the eventual progression to self-employed writer was more of an evolution than a dramatic miracle, more one-step-in-front-of-the-other than grand epiphany.

And, now, here I am three and a half years beyond my first paid writing assignments, a freelance writer/consultant seasoned enough to give advice to someone else who's new to freelancing. And I couldn't have planned my way here.

But what I am planning is a trip to Africa this summer. That is what jumped out at me as I told Grace my story. Another piece of my answer to my dad's question may come wonderfully true this summer. A piece that, again, I never planned toward, never planned the steps to get to. It's just that here I am and this trip seems like the thing I'm given to do. And there's beauty in that.

I'm hoping to accompany a group from the Joseph Alliance to Ghana in late July/early August. Last fall I began doing a few hours each month of publicity and development work for the organization. I believe in what they're up to and hope to go with them to Ghana. Then, my hope is to stay in Africa for 3 months or so after that, with the goal of getting to several different countries during that time. I'm trying to line up some writing assignments to do while there. My sense is that time there will be much fuller if I have an excuse to talk to people I wouldn't talk with were I just there as a tourist and if I have a way and a reason to process what I see and learn by I writing it down for others to read. So, perhaps this blog will eventually hold several months worth of dispatches from across the ocean. We shall see. But, I'm praying it'll be so.

Word to the Not-So-Wise, Like Me

2007-01-09T15:23:00.000-06:00

So, I was wondering why NO ONE had visited my blog since I changed over from brown to green, from older and more clunky to newer and less clunky, from sans booklist to with booklist. Even if no one was intentionally visiting my blog to read my beautiful writing and see my healthy green Peperomia, it was highly, highly unusual not to have someone land on my site after searching for the long lost Alpha-Bits. (Seriously, the miniscule traffic on my blog averages at least one visit every day from someone who's googled something about Alpha-Bits.) And, then, moments ago it dawned on me, not quite so beautifully as the rising sun but close: I bet I have to reinstall the little stat counter code in the NEW template in order for my private eye pal, Stat Counter, to follow the footprints and trace the identities of the visitors to my little blog house.

And that, folks, is how mysteries are solved.

The moral of this little who-dun-it is this: When you set out to make your stale old blog new, make sure you cover all your bases with Saran-wrap.

There's Just Nothing Quite Like a New Year, Is There?

2007-01-03T22:32:00.001-06:00

It's a new year (in case you hadn't heard the news yet, I figured it was time to break it to you), so it's time for a new look. It has finally seemed right to try out all these new features Blogger's been boasting about when I sign in. Tonight it was finally time to stop signing in the old way and instead embrace the new way. I still need to play with the page a bit more. It's not quite to my liking yet, but tonight can't be the night for that.

By the way, I've recently learned that my lovely houseplant (the photo of which is set off quite nicely by the new green colors of my blog, don't you think?) is not just any generic "tropical foliage" as its plastic nametag decried. It's actually more specifically one of the 1000 identified species of Peperomia. And, wouldn't you know, there are web pages (yes, that's an "s" on there) dedicated to this fine green specimen. Here's just one of them.

Within the past month, in addition to learning a little about Peperomias, I also visited an organic farm, where I petted some cute goats, observed free range chickens in action, was given some of their eggs, saw a very large pig, and learned a whole lot. The story that was the reason for that visit will be out this month in Southern Exposure Magazine. With all this exposure to agriculture, perhaps I'm ever so slowly on my way to learning how to re-pot a plant, so I can mark that off my Blogger profile "to learn" list.

While you're waiting impatiently for that SEM story to be out, you can hop on over to FranklinIs.com and read my most recent column: "A Highlights Reel: The Last Christmas of 2006."

I hope 2007 is off to a rip-roaring start for you!

Aren't They Cute?

2006-12-14T00:55:00.000-06:00

There you have them, folks. The light green leaves (there are two of them, though it's hard to tell that from this angle) are the babies. They're already a little bigger than they were in this photo. I'm so proud. Yippee! And another yippee for success in getting the baby leaves from the camera to the blog! (Isn't there a saying somewhere? You know it's a slow news month when the reporters start taking daily pictures of their plants? Something like that, I think.)

In more exciting news (if you've already watched all your Christmas movies twice and need something new to occupy your time), I've got a new Coffeehouse Beat column posted over on the FranklinIs site: "'Tis the Season! So why not head to the mall like everyone else."

Speaking of Shorts

2006-12-07T19:09:00.000-06:00

What follows are four short things. Enjoy.

1-I have two plants that have actually been alive in my care for more than three years now. One of the plants has four big leaves. It's had more leaves in the past, but they've fallen off. However, in the past week, two new leaves have emerged! Here's hoping for 6 big leaves by this time next year.

2-I am finally the proud owner of a nice digital camera. (Hooray for after-Thanksgiving sales!) No more cell phone pictures for me. Or at least fewer cell phone pictures. (I will not be carrying my camera around with me like I do my phone.) Maybe after I've one day learned fully how to use my digital camera, including how to download pictures from the camera to my computer, I will brighten your day with a picture of the baby leaves.

3-Last night at writing group we talked about short form poetry-prose. Our example writer was Bernard Cooper. We also played the game 25 Words or Less. Then we each drew a random card from the deck and had about 15 minutes to write something, preferably some poetry-prose, using the five words on our card. My words: eggshell, New Orleans, Galileo, razor and barstool. Here's what 15 minutes produced:

Fragile as an eggshell, that's what New Orleans proved to be. New Orleans, the city of cajuns and jazz, of beads and pride. And of Mardi Gras, the party of all parties. The city that's broken, broken open, yolk running out, running away, away from the razor that exposed it, that slaughtered its innocence, the innocence of every city, the innocence that believes in invincibility. The city is broken but not yet destroyed, according to those old-time philosophers, the indomitable Galileos, who are determined to stand. Even as the razor's season returns, they sing, they tell ancient stories, they sit upon their barstools and stare the razor in the eye. They will put Humpty Dumpty together again.

So, yeah, maybe it's a good thing I usually have more than 15 minutes to write and don't normally have to try to remember what's special about Galileo without any aids like Google or Wikipedia or even dictionary.com. :-)

4-I'm currently reading Tom Wolfe's Hooking Up. Good stuff. I've not read any of his work before. It's always one of those good moments in life when you finally begin reading a book by one of those authors everyone talks about and who's referenced all over the place but whose writing you've never set eyes on. It's even better when you like, or at least respect and appreciate, their work.

Bus Plunges and other Shorts

2006-11-14T14:43:00.000-06:00

In my efforts to be a more committed blogger this month, I've culled the following article from among the millions upon millions out there in cyberspace today or maybe I just found it prominently promoted on Slate's homepage. Either way, I'm calling your attention to it by offering you the link so you don't have to go searching for it. Nice of me, huh?

"The Rise and Fall of the "Bus Plunge" Story: What killed this former New York Times staple?"
By Jack Shafer

Ever wonder why newspaper stories are supposed to be written with the most important info at the top of the story and increasingly less important detail as the story progresses? Other than the problem of readers with short attention spans and even less time, another reason is buried in this piece. Your task is to find that reason. If you do, you may win a prize. Good luck.

Sweet Baby James

2006-11-04T22:58:00.000-06:00

A couple days ago my yourmusic.com selection of the month arrived. I had not listened to it, though. Until now. Finally tonight was the right moment for popping--or "gently placing" (depending on whether you prefer literal language or something else)--it into the stereo in my garret.

***

Quick interruption in my story: I just looked up "garret" on dictionary.com because I can never remember whether it has two "t's" or one. In addition to correcting my spelling, the site offered the most delicious definition: an attic, usually a small, wretched one. "Wretched" seems like such a literary word to be included in a practical, useful definition. But there it is. Nice. Fortunately, my garret is not wretched, though it did play host to a serious roof-leak the first year I lived in the house. I lived downstairs then, though. My songwriter roommate who lived here before me would likely have called this space wretched. Maybe that's why it works as such a great creative space still.

Okay, back to the story...

***

So, tonight I'm finally listening to The Best of James Taylor. Taylor has long been on my CD wishlist, as he's often mentioned on the list of influencers cited by many of my favorite artists. What can I say, my words-bent extends to music. I'm a sucker for the lyrics-showcasing qualities of the folk, acoustic singer-songwriter thing.

The CD insert book begins with a cover picture of the present day James, or at least the James of 2003. Inside are pictures of young adult James and then pictures of older James. When their pictures were frozen, these James' did not yet know today's James. It's interesting to be confronted by that passage of time, told through images that are the same yet are so different. Images we're told are of the same person, though that seems only partly true.

I'm increasingly entering those years of life that are somewhere between young and old. My face is still young, but I'm old enough that watching for wrinkles is no longer a non-occupation. The wrinkles will come some day. I'm now old enough to know that. So, I wonder what my old face will look like. Will I recognize myself? How gradually will the changes come? How gracefully will I accept them?

And who will the me behind my old face be? What life will fill the years while the wrinkles arrive? What internal markings will those years leave behind to tell their stories?

***

I almost had a job on Martha's Vineyard (where James has spent some life) a few years ago. Everything was lining up nicely for it to happen. The oddity of an interview that took place in the Baltimore airport (BWI) where I was meeting with self-described Tiny Tim and Colonel Sanders look-alikes added to the allure of the placement. The job seemed like the perfect way to move from where I'd been to where I was beginning to dream of going. Perhaps it would have been the perfect way it appeared to be, but that's something I'll never know. What I do know is that the way I'm now immersed in is one I didn't plan, one that I would never have expected to be a perfect way from past to future. Whether perfect or not, it has been good and right, after all. So, I am ever less attached to ways that look perfect in the logical sense and am more endeared to the unexpected ways that beckon before they explain why they are good and right. I hope those ways will be the ways to the wrinkles, the ways that take me to the me I don't yet know.

(Here are some garret pictures for those of you who haven't seen a modern day garret recently.)

The Elections are Coming! : The All-Election Post

2006-11-02T09:51:00.000-06:00

Since I didn't do such a great job of posting in October, I've decided I should get started as soon as possible on November's posts. And in honor our impending day at the polls, it seems prudent to offer up at least one day's worth of commentary on that hot Tennessee Senate race, the one the whole world is watching. Yes, that one. Yes, it's the one with all the campaign ads on TV, the ones of questionable integrity. Yes, it's the one that's had my mailbox full of political mail every day for the past 2 weeks. Yes, it's the one where I still haven't decided who to vote for.

Two observations regarding two different campaign commercials:
1--Have you noticed that at the end of Ford's "church pew" commercial he does the Clinton thumb? Has he always done that? Is he a natural with the political thumb? Or was that the one tip Clinton's given him for getting elected? (Clinton: "It's like this, Harold: all you gotta do to win is give them the thumb.")

2--In the Corker commercial touting his Tennessee-ness and Ford's lack of the same, the spot's narrator notes that Ford went to college in Pennsylvania and that Corker went to U of T. U of T?! Isn't that in Texas or somewhere? I wouldn't have known what they were talking about if there hadn't been a little helpful text on the screen to translate U of T into University of Tennessee. Talk about irony. Maybe Corker should've used some of his Tennessee-ness to hire someone from Tennessee to write the campaign ads for his Vols-loving constituency.

An observation on the ridiculousness of this system we have going:
I haven't yet decided who to vote for. Finding good information is almost impossible. And, unfortunately, approaching a candidate's own campaign machinery is one of the worst ways to get the needed information. Because of the unfortunate reality of spin. Almost everything I've received in the mail from both parties is full of loaded language that is disrespectful of the words themselves (an abuse of their meanings; words used cheaply, with no respect for their real meanings and no respect for the gravity of the responsibility of communicators) and an insult to any thoughtful voters out there who recognize the complexities of the issues we're talking about.

Why are politicians never asked the kinds of questions normal people are asked in job interviews? For example, say you want to climb your company's ladder from shift supervisor to assistant manager. You're likely to be asked questions like: Tell me about a time that you had to coach a fellow employee who was resistant to your coaching. Will you describe a time that you had to make a split second decision to deal with a disgruntled customer? Describe a time that you didn't make the right decision and how you'd do it differently now. Describe an area in which you've improved your performance and what it took to get there.

Honestly, I care less about knowing a candidate's plan for solving the problem of illegal immigration and more about the way the candidate makes decisions, what advisors the candidate surrounds him/herself with, what he/she does when he/she makes a mistake, how the candidate evaluates new input and nuances on issues, how well the candidate understands the weighty responsibility of using leadership to serve others rather than him/herself. Things like that. The issues change. Information impacting the nuances of decisions is constantly updated. I haven't had time to delve into the problem of illegal immigration or how proceed in Iraq. Knowing such things is not currently my area of expertise. I don't feel equipped to do all the research really necessary to figure out the best answers to all of these problems and then do all of the research to figure out which candidate espouses those same answers. I want to elect a leader who will delve into those issues, look at them from as many angles as possible, and then make a concerted effort to work with others in power to make the best decision for everyone.

Of course there's always a Starbucks connection:
A couple years ago, I was minding my barista duties at the bar when good ol' Harold (okay, so he's not really that old, but, don't you agree that it's kind of fun to say "good ol' Harold"?) stepped into our line. Our store actually has famous types in line relatively often, though they're usually of the musician variety and I'm generally really awful at ever recognizing any of them. I think it's a sign of how nerdy I am that it's the politicians that I recognize. Anyway, I asked good ol' Harold if he was in fact Harold. He confirmed my suspicion. I explained that I'd worked on the Hill for a short time for Congressman Jenkins from Tennessee's first congressional district. Then good ol' Harold and I chatted for a bit. Before he left, he gave me his business card and told me to call if I ever needed anything. A couple months later I was in the midst of moving and realized what fun it would've been to call his office, ask to talk with good ol' Harold, remind him of his offer, and then explain that I was ready to accept the offer because I needed help moving some furniture.

Walking Around

2006-10-10T12:43:00.000-05:00

Where in the world did the rest of September go? And what's up with October? It's practically half over already. (psssst....by the way, October is the best month in the year because it's the month that gave birth to me! isn't that a great claim to fame for a month? check out Oct. 18th. it's sure to be a special day.....There's nothing quite like trying to find a new way to say, "hey folks, my birthday is next week!" Is there?)

I figure all of my 2 loyal readers would be glad for another week not to go by without something new and interesting in this space. So, I'm offering up another little bit of work from a writing group assignment.

Here's the text of the assignment from the email sent to group members:
This past week we read and talked about the concept of the flaneur (picture that tent-looking French accent over the "a"). We read from a couple books that describe that concept as it is present particularly in Paris: "A flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search of adventure, aesthetic or erotic."

Also, "The flaneur is an observer who wanders the streets of a great city on a mission to notice with childlike enjoyment the smallest events and the obscurest sights he encounters. Baudelaire , a resident 19th century flaneur, observed, 'For the flaneur it's an immense pleasure to take up residence in multiplicity, in whatever is seething, moving, evanescent and infinite. You're not at home but you feel at home everywhere; you see everyone, you're at the center of everything, yet you remain hidden from everybody.' This is one astute definition of the writer: an observer who ventures everywhere while remaining invisible."

So, the assignment is to spend at least 20 minutes out walking around--flaneuring, if you will--whether in town, in your neighborhood, in some other city you're visiting this week. Observe, reflect, take in what you see, and then use that as your writing prompt. The written work can range from a poem to a short story to an essay to simply a list of your observations.

Here's what I did with it:

Flâneur: Nashville Style

Today, I wanted only to stop. Not stroll.

But stroll I did. Because we said we would.

Then, strolling, I did stop:
to touch tree-sized dandelion seeds and wonder where they came from
to smile at a screened-in porch tucked almost out of sight
to look up, up, up through far-away leaves to the sun, my back to cars and people.

I kept strolling, then, longer than I said I would.

I strolled past the house with the secret in plain view (a red door set into rust red brick)
I strolled—and could have stumbled—over sidewalk new and old, lifted by the roots
I strolled through traffic roar and mowing buzz.

Still, I strolled some more and still I did not stop.

I strolled and let my feet go where they would:
past 1908 Elliott, the old mansion I’ve seen before, in an imagined world, when I was a young reader
past 900 Acklen, where Paul Prill evangelizes in an old church on a V-shaped island
past Hub Cap Aanie – what’s an Aanie?

I strolled where I have driven but never walked. I saw what I have never seen.

And then I stopped.

Seriously?

2006-09-21T16:38:00.000-05:00

E. coli is not a laughing matter, but I did chuckle an are-they-serious?! chuckle when I read on an "E.Coli: What you need to know" Web site these recommendations for protecting others from the dreaded bacteria:

Don’t prepare food for others.
Bathe alone.
Don’t swim in public places.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the source for the material. But, seriously, the way to control an outbreak of E. coli is for everyone to prepare their own food?

And in other news, for those of you who follow such things, I'll let you know that there are apparently lots of people out there like me who have been searching for real Alpha-Bits. The most-googled topic that leads people to my little blog is some variation of "looking for Alpha-Bits." I think there's a critical mass out there who long for the return of the real thing, so if anyone's inclined to organize those masses, maybe we could right this terrible social ill. I mean, we might not be able to stop the spread of E. coli and we might not be able to end poverty and we might not be able to stop the bloodshed in Darfur, but if we could bring back Alpha-Bits, at least we'd be doing something.

What She Said

2006-09-19T23:10:00.000-05:00

Anne Applebaum, over on Slate, makes some excellent points about the current uproar over the Pope's comments.

A Sorry Situation: It's time to stop apologizing and start defending freedom of speech

This situation is rife with so many inconsistencies that it's almost mind-boggling. Killing an elderly nun because of comments that would have been obscure if we didn't live in the information age? Lacking the maturity not to get riled up (and "riled up" is a massive understatement) every time someone says something you don't like? It would all just be absurd if it weren't so dangerous. Kids in kindergarten have to be taught not to fight someone over a comment they perceive as mean. But here we have adults participating in and perpetuating such awful behavior.

We live in a world where many people, not just extremist Muslims, walk around just waiting to be offended so that they can have an "excuse" to get angry and put the blame for their anger on someone else. A world like that will not be a happy place to live, as the current events of protest around the world show.

And the effect of these riotous responses is, as Applebaum describes, working to restrict the freedom of speech of the entire world. This must not be allowed. It is wrong. These people wrongly restrict their own people. They must not be allowed to put those same restrictions on the rest of the world.

On a different, yet related, note, on Sunday I attended a screening of Darfur Diaries at the Belcourt Theater here in Nashville. Sobering film. The persecuted people of Darfur are beautiful people. Those interviewed were articulate as they described the horrors of their experiences. The government of Sudan must be pushed to stop their horrific actions in this region. For more info, visit www.savedarfur.org.

Heart-warming Moments

2006-09-08T20:56:00.000-05:00

So today I had a nice little Starbucks moment. Do you want to hear about it? Oh, come on, sure you do. See, two or three years ago I helped this woman with her decision to purchase one of our nice Italia espresso machines. She's a really nice lady and has continued to come into our store "regularly," as in every month or two. At first I would always check in and make sure she was still getting good use out of her machine. It was great to learn that she was someone who actually used her espresso machine regularly, so the purchase was not a waste of money. No need to feel guilty about helping her decide to buy it. :-)

I got the impression that she usually came into our store when she was in the Vanderbilt area for some sort of medical treatment, but I never knew what was wrong with her. I was always glad to see her come in again. Each time I saw her there was increased likelihood that she wasn't being treated for something terminal.

I saw her several times this summer and finally asked her more about her medical condition on one of those occasion. I was glad to learn that, though her condition can't be healed, it is treatable and isn't life-threatening.

On her last visit, prior to today, she brought some Starbucks souvenir from China. Her husband goes there on business regularly, and unfortunately she's not able to travel with him. But, she was so excited to bring the little Starbucks prize to me.

Well, today she came into our store again just to bring me another gift from her husband's China travels: a Shanghai Starbucks city mug!! Her husband had gotten one for her and one for her to give to me. I'm not a big collector of things, but I do have a small collection of Starbucks city mugs now. The beginning of the collection came from another regular customer who's from Puerto Rico. She was there for a visit and brought back mugs for 4 of us who served her regularly in the morning.

Both mugs are now such sentimental, special belongings because they're such a representation of the cool relationships that have emerged over coffee-serving. I'm thankful for the opportunity to connect with and care for so many amazing people.

Good Night and Good Luck

2006-08-29T00:38:00.000-05:00

Tonight my roommate Ciona and I happened both to be home, so we were finally able to watch her NetFlix pick Good Night and Good Luck. It was time well-spent. The film was a thoughtful, nicely done piece of cinematography that is less about politics than it is about journalism done well. I did find the history lesson helpful, as the only thing I've known about McCarthyism is the term, with little knowledge of what transpired during that time period or even when "that time period" was.

I was struck by the corporate portrayal of an issue I face even on the baby freelancer level: the relationship between money and news-telling. Someone must pay for news to be told. What rights does that give the money-provider? How does that affect which stories are told and how they're told? For me, the freelance writer, that struggle comes in the reality of needing to make a living. Do I do any work that comes along, no matter what it is? Do I tell the important stories even when they pay less (and sometimes pay nothing)? Where will my bread come from then?

I encountered that money/news-telling relationship at the very beginning of my paid freelance career three years ago. I was covering several stories for a local publication providing a newcomer's guide to Middle Tennessee. Among the story assignments was one I'd pitched: a story on the international community in Nashville. I was excited that the editor liked my idea. I thought it was time people learned what a sizeable foreign-born population Nashville boasts, a population that makes Nashville a more cosmopolitan Southern city than it is known as being. I was also writing a story on apartment-hunting. I quickly entered the real world realities of the publishing biz when I received word that the international story was being shortened but I could make the apartment-hunting story as long as I wanted. The apartment companies had purchased a lot of ads that year. It seems the international community had not. I did not like the idea of money deeming which story was most important, but that's how things work most of the time.

While there were certainly unseemly actions among the newsgatherers of Murrow's day, I wonder how much today's news-tellers have allowed the respectability their work might hold to be lost at the hands of market pressures. Is there a way around those pressures? I was struck toward the end of the film by the conversations related to news programming being pre-empted by entertainment, game shows; that's what the people want, Murrow and Friendly were told.

Sometimes our democracy allows leaders to hide too much behind public opinion. We must give the people what they want, they say, in government offices, in board rooms, in classrooms, in group meetings. But, sometimes, a true leader must humbly recognize that the people don't always know what's best for them. What they want may not really get them what they want and definitely may not get them what's best for them. Sometimes working for the best interests of the people means not giving them what they ask for. It takes a wise leader, though, to make those calls well and to avoid serving him/herself in the process.

Mother, what are we eating today?

2006-08-24T11:16:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't yet heard the news, we're all going to have to learn a new ditty. No longer does "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles" work. The pickles are no more. Pluto's been demoted. Should we send in a counselor? Poor Pluto. He was already kind of an outcast, hanging out as he does in the far reaches of the solar system, unlike those other planets that are always at the center of the solar system conversations. Now the poor guy's been completely kicked out of the planet club.

This might be a good time to get into the textbook writing biz. Looks like there are going to have to be some revisions. And, wouldn't you know that one of the few things I can still remember from grade school is no longer correct. So much for science being factual and measurable and all black and white and all that. The facts just change every few decades.

Impossible. Or Not.

2006-08-24T11:04:00.000-05:00

"When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said, 'How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.'
Those who heard this asked, 'Who then can be saved?'
Jesus replied, 'What is impossible with men is possible with God.'" (Luke 18: 23-27 NIV)

And then there was hope: what is impossible with men is possible with God. How can anyone be saved? What is impossible with men is possible with God. How hard it is for a rich man to enter God's kingdom. What is impossible with men is possible with God. How will my dear friend ever choose the true kingdom? What is impossible with men is possible with God. How will another friend ever find a way out of the thing that distorts reality and dooms days ahead? My child, I said, what is impossible with men is possible with Me. How will there ever be healing in the warring lands? What is impossible with men is possible with God. How will I ever resist the pride that prowls within my own self? What is impossible with men is possible with God.

Thank you, Father, for loving us into the impossible.

Bonafide NERD

2006-07-31T20:14:00.000-05:00

It's true. I'm official now. I'm a nerd. I know, I know, my family has been calling me on this for a while now, but I've resisted trusting their ability to diagnose my lack of coolness. Until now. Until www.statcounter.com entered my blogging life a few days ago. And, now all those cool numbers and graphs are sucking me in. "NOOOOOoooooooooooo. Resist, Kami, resist," the cool me tries to tell the nerdy me. But, nerdy me is having none of it. So, while you're hanging out here leaving your footprints, know that you're making my nerdy little secretly-wants-to-be-a-detective heart go pitter-pat, and I'm talking literally here: "Pitter-pat. Pitter-pat. Pitter-pat." Can you hear it? It's the sound of contentment. And to all of this, the cool me shakes her head in defeat in the face of so much melodrama.

New Words! New Words!

2006-07-27T11:24:00.000-05:00

To make up for my dearth of July blogging, I figured I should help spread the news that the good folks at Merriam-Webster have added new words to their newest dictionary edition. Check here to find out which words are now officially part of our language.

Perhaps the most burning question to emerge out of these new words is this: is someone with a soul patch or someone with a unibrow better suited for agritourism? Either way, I sure hope they don't come down with avian influenza. And while you're discussing the merits of biodiesel with that mouse potato you're dating, you might also want to make sure he's not a polyamorous mouse potato who has secretly infested your computer with spyware while thinking of his other lovers.

You're welcome to join the fun. Show us your best uses of the new words. Come on, everyone's doing it, whether they admit it or not.

Breaking Independence Day News from Independence, Kansas

2006-07-04T18:44:00.000-05:00

Little tykes in Independence, Kansas, will go to bed disappointed tonight, since their city fireworks display has been cancelled. Details are still murky. The most dependable information seems to be that what was referred to by police as the truck containing the fireworks for tonight's festivities exploded this afternoon. One officer described the events as a bad accident. The town rumor mill spoke of a prankster or worse who exploded the truck containing the fireworks, but the rumor mill went on to say that this prankster was tracked to Kansas City where he was arrested. However, according to a couple guys living across the street from the cemetery, behind which the fireworks display was set up, the explosion happened around 4 pm. Therefore, there's no way the prankster would have had time to drive to KC, be caught and get news back to town, so there's little support for the rumor mill version of the story. Witnesses who drove by the fireworks launching area yesterday said that everything appeared to be set up for tonight's show, yet no one was standing guard around the fireworks. It seems that even in small-ish midwestern towns, you've got to guard your explosives.

This has been Kami Rice reporting live from Independence, Kansas, pretending she was in the Channel 6 news helicopter flying overhead. Man, where's a press pass when you need one?

Here's what Channel 6 (KOTV) has on the story.

Reviews

2006-07-03T10:44:00.000-05:00

First, there's a nice, thoughtful post over on my friend Ciona's blog. You should check it out.

Second, I recently finished reading This Heavy Silence by Nicole Mazzarella. You should also check it out. In honor of full disclosure, Nicole is a college friend of mine, and it's fun to pass on the word of her excellent first novel, but that is not why I liked her book.

I struggle to find good fiction these days. As I read better quality writing and more thought-provoking, idea-thick nonfiction, it's harder and harder for me to find a good book to read when I just want something fun...a break from that thick nonfiction. The books I used to read for fun tend to bore and frustrate me these days; they're just not that smart. They're okay--better than any fiction I could write--but the words, the ideas, the characters tend to be forgettable, lacking those moments of, "wow, what an amazing, beautiful way to say that." These books tend not to be so interesting that I can't put them down. That's true vacation reading for me, getting to immerse myself in a book that I continue reading past the time I'd planned to stop reading. That kind of reading is when I most feel like I'm relaxing.

That said, it was refreshing to find in Nicole's book a book that I didn't want to put down. The characters were not flat; they were not black and white; they were real, full of the mix of good and bad that I'm learning better and better these days is the real truth of humanity, a truth that doesn't always make it into our movies and books (especially the ones made by Christians). Nicole's book contained moments of beautiful, lyrical writing, of wonderful, non-cliched descriptions and combinations of words. This Heavy Silence is a book of smart writing that doesn't drown the reader with its smartness. It's also nice to read a book about a woman that isn't interesting only because it tells the story of how she got the guy. Additionally, this is not a book of neat endings, and that's real life. I found it refreshing to read a book by a Christian publisher that didn't include the "sinner's prayer" moment or the sermons delivered by some Christian character, elements required by some Christian publishers in their fiction as though that's the only way to represent Christ to an audience.

So, I heartily recommend that you go out and snatch up your own copy of Nicole's book. :-) And if you prefer the library over the bookstore (because you're trying to reign in your book budget, as I am), you'll most likely find this title at your local library. It received excellent reviews in one of the publications librarians read, and all of my local libraries had one or more copies in circulation.

Oh, and while I'm at it...our Monday night book study is currently reading Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh. It's another book I'd recommend. So far this book study is turning into one of the best we've had since our Wendell Berry fodder in Spring '05. For a more lengthy review--and an introduction to some thoughtful booklovers, a great bookstore, and a nice review site--check out this review (scroll to the bottom of the article) at Heart and Minds Books (the link to their blog is in my link list to the right).

It's LIVE...as of yesterday!

2006-07-02T17:59:00.000-05:00

During your surfing today, you should hop on over to the now-live Web site: www.FranklinIs.com. It's a new one-stop shop of info for residents of, visitors to and relocators to Williamson County, TN. The site also boasts some pretty cool columnists--yes, including yours truly--who will be out and about recording the goings-on of the area. Here's a link directly to the Street Beat section. My column is, guess what...Coffee and More. Enjoy!

Dropping By

2006-06-27T11:36:00.000-05:00

So, the best moment for telling you about this is past, but is timing really everything as they say? So, just pretend that we've gone back to Sunday night...after a fun evening in the park with my roommies and some others, I've come back home, climbed my stairs, logged into Blogger and begun writing this:

What a nice night. A FREE Sister Hazel concert at Crockett Park. Great weather, not too humid. Good times with the roomies just before one of the Four Girls in a White House moves on to other places. These are the days that I can't ever imagine leaving Nashville, even while the adventure bug bites, refusing to be shut out so easily.

Okay, back to Tuesday. Um, not much to say about Tuesday, except that I have lots of work to do today, and, as usual, it's taking me forever to dive deeply into it. I have to skate around on the surface for a little while usually before getting fully immersed. And, unfortunately, full immersion rarely seems to happen until about half an hour before I have to go somewhere. Is there no end to ways to improve oneself? Okay...off to jump in.

I Found the Strangest Thing in My Pocket the Other Day

2006-06-09T16:34:00.000-05:00

So went one of the writing prompts for the first meeting of our new and improved (in terms of structure, not people :-) ) writing group. And since I haven't had time to be a good (as in active) blogger lately, I'm going to offer you my take on the prompt so that you'll know I'm still alive.

I found the strangest thing in my pocket…the other day. And that’s when I just knew. You see, I didn’t put it in there. What I put into my pocket was a penny. What I pulled out was, well, it was big. I mean, not exactly big in a size kind of way. It wasn’t an elephant or anything. But, trust me, it was BIG. In more of an earth-shattering kind of way. Which is why I have to be careful who I tell about it. These earth-shattering things must be treated with care. I mean, if they fall into the wrong hands, all kinds of awful things can happen. If the wrong people heard about this, they’d be after me. If you were a bad guy and you heard what my pocketed penny had turned into, you’d be after me, too. Because if you didn’t get it away from me, you’d be doomed. And you’d know it, too. So, you’d start tracking me. Watching me. Trying to figure out when you could catch me not paying attention, slip your hand into my pocket, grab it, pull your hand out and make a fast getaway. But, I’m determined not to be an easy target, so I’ve been unstoppably vigilant. And, well, don’t tell anyone, but I managed to put an alarm on my pocket. If anyone reaches in there, BRRRRRINGGGGG/BBBBAAAANNNNNGGGGG/BOINNNNGGGGG/CABOOM. Man, they won’t know what’s happening. I sorta hope one of the bad guys does come around. Just so I can see the look on his face. Oh, man, it’d be so great.

It's Here!

2006-05-16T16:01:00.000-05:00

At long last, Nashville has its very own Starbucks city mug! It's been a long time coming. I've had to tell many a poor tourist over the past four years that no, there is no city mug for Nashville. This lovely little status symbol (we finally have a market big enough to rank our own mug! yippee! ;-) ) arrived with VERY little fanfare. Our summer promotion launched today, and when I went into the store to get my schedule and browse the new products, I happened upon the surprise table of Nashville city mugs. Could it really be true?! And to think that just a couple weeks ago I told some poor customer that we still didn't know when Starbucks would make a mug for Nashville. I guess we now know. Anyway, time to expand your collection. I hear they've already been selling quickly at our store today.

Updated Wildlife List

2006-05-09T11:16:00.000-05:00

As of Saturday, we have an addition to the list* of wildlife alive and thriving on our grounds: snake. The best guess by roommate Tina and me, based on info from this website, is that it was an Eastern Hog-Nosed snake. Don't worry, silly, they're not venomous. He/She (our snake identifying skills definitely aren't developed enough to figure that out yet) was sunning itself on our deck until we created enough ruckus to send it climbing up the side of the house toward a gap in the roof lining, which caused us to create more ruckus as images of snakes in the walls danced in our heads. Fortunately, the snake didn't go there and eventually slithered (those creatures are VERY silent) away. But, not before roving reporter Kami and her handy-dandy newsgathering cell phone camera caught the perpetrator in action.

*Wildlife list: skunk who lives under the rock at the end of the driveway (he does grow on you), 2 cute little cottontail rabbits that hop away in cliched bunny rabbit fashion when you drive down the driveway, 7 or so deer including the lame one (he has one bent leg...a broken leg that had no veterinarian treatment?), coyotes (only spotted once slinking through the yard at dusk, as coyotes are wont to do), numerous birds, Eastern hog-nosed snake.

Green, Green, Everywhere Green

2006-04-25T09:48:00.000-05:00

As I flew into Nashville yesterday morning, I glimpsed green through the half-opened window at the edge of my seat row. The view of Nashville from the air is always quite stunning in its reminder of what a green city we live in. And it's especially green right now. Sometime during the week I was out of town, Nashville's spring shifted from budding and blooming to green and leafy. There's something about that kind of green that's different from summer green, which is still very nice in its own right (wouldn't want summer green thinking I was talking bad about it or anything). This is the kind of green that pulls sighs--the good kind of I'm-relaxing-now sighs--from me as soon as I step outside into it. It's the kind of green that begs you to sit in it for a while, to enjoy it, to receive from the vibrant aliveness it holds while it also offers a moment of pared-downness.

My Chicago days were nice, as was the time at the Festival of Faith and Writing. John Wilson, editor at Books and Culture, offers a nice overview in his already-posted piece "Words Made Flesh." It was especially nice to visit, lament, and brainstorm with others who are doing this work I'm doing. The self-employed writer life can be quite solitary, and it was fun to feel that in many ways the folks I hung out with this weekend are my coworkers. Many of us are wrestling with the same, or similar, questions and are even writing for the same publications or at least writing to similar audiences. So, it was refreshing to be reminded that as lonely as my workplace feels at times, I am not alone in my work.

It was also good to continue thinking and wrestling with some thoughts that have of late pushed themselves to the conscious part of my brain: I want to have purpose to my writing. It's easy to get so caught up in the real necessity of scraping together a living, in doing any writing job that is offered my way, that there is no purposeful selection in accepting work. I've found myself thinking that since I'm just starting out, of necessity, I can't be selective yet. I can't write just the things I want to write. Since my rent needs to be paid, I just have to do whatever work I can. But someday, I tell myself, I'll be established enough as a writer that I'll be able to be choosy in what I write. But, when will I feel like that day has arrived? I'm beginning to sense that, unless I decide, now is that day, it will never arrive.

So, I was glad that John included this exhortation from Walter Wangerin's keynote address (since I missed that session): "Tell the truth! Give voice to the voiceless!" That offers a great starting point for wrestling with what to do with the writing voice that I now have and want to steward well. I don't think that means that every piece I do will right some societal wrong, but I think it's important that each piece tell the truth. As I become more adept at putting words together, it's easy to stop thinking about what they really mean and instead get caught up only in how they sound. I also think that doing the meat and potato pieces along the way does set the stage for having outlets for the pieces that more definitely give voice to the voiceless.

So, as I learn what I'm doing with my life right now, I want to continue to ask the checks-and-balances "why am I doing it?" question.

Grand Rapids or Bust!

2006-04-19T15:11:00.000-05:00

I'm currently in Chicago. I'm now at two years and running for spending a week at the end of April in the Windy City. I imagine the tradition will end soon, but you never know with such things.

Tomorrow I'll head north to the fair state of Michigan, to the city of Grand Rapids to be precise. I'm excited to be participating in my first Festival of Faith and Writing and wondering what epiphanies the rest of the week holds. In an attempt to be a good student and to make up for all the assigned reading I didn't do in college, I dutifully went to the excellent Nashville Public Library a few weeks ago and checked out books by some of the authors who will be speaking at the Festival. I didn't get too far in my reading, but, still, some is better than none, right?

The book I finished was A Bigamist's Daughter by Alice McDermott. It's her first novel. The main character is an editor at a vanity press. I had to chuckle at how times had changed when I began reading what seemed to be a pretty contemporary, modern novel and found myself frustrated at descriptions of the sound of typewriters filling the press offices. Didn't anyone catch (and delete) that nostalgic nod to a sound that used to be associated with writing? But then a quick check of the copyright date corrected me...the book was published in 1982, way back in the dark ages (when I was already seven years old!) before computers were in wide use.

I'm now on to Fury by Salman Rushdie. As the title suggests, it's an intensive reading experience thus far, and I'm only a few chapters in. It's an intelligent read that still feels like popular literature. Good stuff so far. It's nice to read references to true cultural icons, news subjects and events while I still know what's being referenced. Twenty or thirty years from now new readers are as likely to be frustrated at the references to currently common knowledge topics as I am when I read G.K. Chesterton and don't quite know what he's referencing and don't have time to investigate.

Camera Phones are Fun

2006-04-19T14:56:00.000-05:00

I got to take a picture of spring the other day while spending spring outside in the neighborhood of "my" Starbucks. I'm slowly learning to remember that I've now got a camera with me almost at all times, now that I've taken advantage of Verizon's "new every two" and upgraded for the price of two more years of Verizon.

Speaking of spring and a lack of any other appropriate segue, I had supper a few weeks ago with some friends of mine who are older than I am. The husband of the couple said something that's stayed with me, so I'm sharing the wealth with you. The husband is an alchoholic musician who's been sober for over 20 years now. He's still very involved with Alchoholics Anonymous. He commented about the problem of specialness. He noted that doctors and artists especially are in danger of "specialness." He explained that "specialness" is also especially dangerous for alchoholics because it allows them to think they can live above the rules. He talked about an artist/professor he knows from New Orleans who's done well within art circles. This person has made a point of continuing to tie his own shoes, as my friend put it, because he doesn't want ever to think he's too special.

I suppose there are lots of words for a "disease of specialness," but I liked the word Jim used, perhaps because it's a common word. It was good to be reminded of the danger of thinking we're too special, of thinking we're called to something so different from what anyone else is called to, of thinking that we're so special that no one else could possibly understand us, of extracting ourselves too much from commonness. Sometimes in our culture and even in my Christian subculture, we absorb and propagate the value of uniqueness. And while we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, too much uniqueness gives us airs and worse.

My friend Monica just popped her head in here (we're both trying to work today at her house) with a great, relevant quote from Richard Foster's Prayer: "Humility means to live as close to the truth as possible: the truth about ourselves, the truth about others, the truth about the world in which we live."

Welcome to the 21st Century...

2006-04-05T01:05:00.000-05:00

...where everyone has a web site. Yes, folks, that day has finally arrived: the day that I can mark "reserve domain name" off my to-do list. Some day eventually www.kamirice.com will be the web home to one amazing freelance writer. For now, it's home to a blog started only for the sake of telling folks that something else is coming. It seemed better to have that than a nondescript "web site coming soon" page.

Eventually, I'll be able to include samples of my work and all that kind of thing...the kind of thing that makes it even more real and clear that I'm running a business. The kind of thing that ideally will drive in new assignments to fill my to-do list beyond overflowing. We shall see how well the intrepid World Wide Web lives up to its glorious promises.

In other news, I got to help on my first film shoot this weekend. It's just a short 12-minute film...amazing how much work goes into something that short. For some time now I've been interested in film work, but since I'd never officially done it, it wasn't an easy thing to break into. Now that I have my first "production assistant" notation ready to add to my resume, requests for my help should come flooding in. :-)

I really enjoyed the chance to work with a team of folks on Saturday. The down-side of the writing life is that it can be too solitary for a people person like myself. It was neat to see how important each person was to the shoot. No one person needed to be an expert in everything. It was great to see the combination of the technical and the creative come together as everyone worked together on Saturday.

I also met some really interesting folks. It was great to be reminded that there are other self-employed creative types out there plying their trade. It was cool to feel like one of them...in this niche of the work world that doesn't generate resumes that fit a template.

Well, those are all the going's-on in my head for now...well not all of them, but all of them that I'm going to tell you about right now. I imagine you're glad I restrained myself. Nighty-night. ;-)

100 Artists See God

2006-03-25T21:37:00.000-06:00

Today I went to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens & Art Museum with some friends to take in the traveling exhibit that's made a stop there: 100 Artists See God. It was an interesting experience...and a lot of work that left me feeling a bit drained from trying to get my head around what these artists were saying, expressing.

Early on in the exhibit, I realized that with each piece I was trying to connect what I saw and heard with my understanding of God...whether in support of it or opposition to it or some other version...whichever it was I kept trying desperately to fit what I saw into my frame of reference (even including things I've read or heard about what others think/believe or don't think/believe) so that I could somehow understand it. But, many of the pieces just didn't work there.

I found the exhibit troubling and sad and heavy, philosophically and spiritually. As I tried to sort out what I was experiencing, the visual image that came to mind was of a psychedelic tie dyed swirl of bright colors of craziness (ironically, after the exhibit my friends and I ate lunch at Calypso Cafe where the servers wear...bright tie dyed swirl t-shirts emblazoned with "Calypso Cafe" on the front), a sense of searching yet artful uncertainty that feels certain.

I liked that fact that the exhibit felt personal...the pieces felt almost like a journal entry from the artists. While the curators of the exhibit note that the pieces don't all necessarily reflect each artist's own understandings or beliefs about god, it seemed that many of them did at some level. Many of the pieces were accompanied by intriguing statements to explain the piece or explain what it represented and why the artist chose to submit it for this exhibit...so in that way, too, there was a chance to hear the artists' voices.

I also appreciated a chance to experience the edgier, truly multi-media and multi-medium side of our current art culture. I don't get to art exhibits as often as I wish I did, but most of those I've taken in are traditional in form (exhibits I've seen at the Frist Center, for example), where "basic" abstract art seems edgy. Some of the pieces at Cheekwood needed do be displayed near outlets because they incorporated cameras, projectors, speakers or lightbulbs. Yet, others pieces were more traditional forms: photographs, paintings, prints.

As I walked through the exhibit, I noticed how much words were still involved in the exhibition of visual art. Perhaps I noticed that because I'm a writer, but it felt a little like it still comes back to words even in an attempt to communicate and create visually. Also, as I walked, observed, read and tried to understand, I wondered what I would have contributed if asked to represent how I see God. I didn't come up with many ideas, but one thought was along the lines of a picture of someone helping someone, perhaps even a homeless person being served a meal in a homey home...along the lines of the Bible's commands to care for the widow and the poor and care for the stranger..."when I was hungry, you fed me." Another noticeable and ironic-in-it's-flip-floppedness thought that ran throughout the exhibit was the suggestion that we create god...that the artist is creating the One I believe is the Creator.

I forgot to mention this when my friends and I were discussing the exhibit, but one of the pieces that I felt like I got or at least could relate to was a fairly close-up photo of a dog at night in a field with a bright moon rising at the top of the grass above the dog's head. The artist explained that he'd gotten a new puppy and kept trying to take pictures of it, but with its constant movement, the dog managed always to be mostly outside the frame of the picture by the time the shutter captured the image. With this photo the artist happily discovered that he'd actually caught the dog fully in the frame of the picture. I never would have thought about this without knowing the photo's back story, and I'm not sure this reference was the artist's intent, but there is something with this piece that does fit within my frame of reference...the idea that God is mysterious and is at work in ways that we can't often understand or even see, but sometimes we get a glimpse of what God is up to, enough to remind us to trust Him for all that we can't grasp, and when that happens it's such a sweet surprise and gift.

Toward the end of my meanderings through the exhibit I passed through a short hallway connecting two of the exhibit rooms. There were no pieces on display in this space, only a large window framing a view of the Cheekwood grounds and the mountains/hills in the distance, all with trees and vegetation beginning to bud amid the still-naked trees of winter. It was interesting moment to reach that window and feel a sigh of relief, feel that this window should have had curator's and artist's notes in museum-print beside it. Here in this frame I saw God...in the beauty of creation that honestly reflects the sadness of the hard stuff of life while sharing the hope of flowers that come again.

A Post About Gas Stations That Doesn't Mention How Stupid Gas Prices Are Right Now ;-)

2006-03-24T00:49:00.000-06:00

I should be in bed. A few minutes ago one of my roommates and I were downstairs considering the merit of a little nap, just enough nap to give us the energy to get to our beds. I resisted, climbed my stairs, embarked on one last email check, stuck a CD in the player and promptly woke up. And since I've got to redeem my reputation as a serious blogger, this seemed to be a good way to use my woken-upness.

I'm increasingly a part of this Nashville community. Sometimes I can't decide whether I like that or not. This is the first place I've lived post-college that I've really had that feeling. You know, the feeling that you'll start telling people that you're from Nashville, even though it's not where you were born, it's not where you grew up, it's not where your family lives, and it's not actually even your address (I technically live in Brentwood, but just barely...my Brentwood post office is actually in Nashville-Davidson County; I send my Brentwood water bill payment to a Nashville p.o. box; my gas and electric providers have Nashville in their name...go figure). When I lived in Grantham, Pennsylvania and, say, went to some event in Pittsburgh and people asked me where I was from, I was never quite sure whether they wanted to know where I'd traveled from that day or where I was from-from. So, I'd embark on some excessively long explanation that probably included a listing of every address I'd ever had, but in the end at least made certain that they didn't think I was from Pennsylvania.

So, anyway, today I got gas as my favorite gas stop--the Citgo on 8th Ave, just south of Wedgewood (for those Nashville folks reading this). They're usually a penny cheaper than the Exxon and BP (or whatever it is) on the corner of 8th and Wedgewood. That area of town has an interesting mix of folks. I like "my" gas station in particular because it's this place where the cultures kind of mix and seem to mix pleasantly. There's this feeling of almost inner city meets hoity-toity Brentwood.

Because I have a job that involves recognizing regular customers and because I enjoy that, I'm sometimes surprised how long it takes workers at the businesses I frequent to recognize me as a regular. Sometimes they never do. After four years, I have finally worked up a bit of an across-the-counter friendship with one of the workers at the Wendy's down the street from my Starbucks. But, I really only know her name when she has her nametag on.

Several months ago I began getting to know Camellia (I think that's how it's spelled) at "my" gas station. It was one of those moments that humanizes those business exchanges that are part of real life. We somehow got into a conversation about our names. She'd been called Cami by friends before. And we lamented together about gas prices. She told me they're a lot cheaper in east Nashville. I told her that they're not in Brentwood, which is why I stop at her gas station.

Today she greeted me after I handed my $13 in ones to another cashier. She asked where I'd been. It was a nice moment. There's just something communal about knowing your gas station attendant. Something in that exchange warmly flashes the word "community." There's also something communal and human and real in knowing that, judging from outward appearances at least, we come from different worlds, and our experience of life has likely been quite different, yet that doesn't keep us from creating community at a gas station. And it's in these moments that I feel like I'm a part of Nashville now and it's part of me. And it's not just "Nashville," a generic name on a map and random collection of buildings and property lines. It's NASHVILLE, people who live near each other and share life with each other. That's something I'm glad to be part of.