The things that have happened

In no particular order…

• I have another new job… well a seventeen month old new job
• My sister and I went on a road trip
• and we went to Epcot Food and Wine
• and I went to visit her again at her new house
• I barely did any theater
• I took a seminary class
• I preached one of the last nights of our departed Evening Vespers service
• I had minor surgery
• that let me gain back most of the weight
• Ryan Bradley won the US Championship
• Many hours of “So You Think You Can Dance” were watched
• More youth got confirmed
• I agreed to help with Youth Sunday School
• so I am going regularly to the contemporary service at church
• I cut my hair short
• I cried my eyes out too many times
• I took a 12 week Biblical Greek class
• I put up a half done online dating profile… then took it down
• I applied for about 20 jobs… got one phone interview and no jobs
• I finally turned some acquaintances into real friends
• Visited Lakeland to go to FTC see old friends, waive at FSC, and see my beloved drama teacher get a distinguished career award
• I got lots of books
• I nominated myself to be a delegate to General Conference and did not win the vote
• I saw the first national tour of the Hair revival
• I spent holidays at home
• I picked up a bad YouTube watching habit
• I got asked to speak at next year’s Women’s Retreat
• I rode lots of roller coasters
• I went to the PCC reunion
• I went to my ten year HS reunion
• I help organize an emergency cold weather shelter for homeless people
• I got a new car
• I had a Seder meal at my house
• and more… can’t decide if that’s a lot or a little

He’s a lion… who can talk

Krinkles “Joyful Lion”
If you’re a good enough student he’ll let you ride around on his back.

I hear you do an impression of a goat

Check out my friend Tyler on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Love the Lion King T-shirt.  I think that this was his senior trip.  Not bad, huh?

When did I become a music snob?

This is old news I know, but I was bummed that Adam Lambert did not win American Idol.  I could be influence by my love of tenors and or the fact that he was a professional theatre actor before coming on the show.  But the weeks that have followed have got me thinking.  Kris is completely my type of artist… my taste, you know? Singer, acoustic guitar the whole bit… and he did the song from “Once”, great stuff.  So why did I find him so boring, never bad just dull?

This and I’ve been using my iPod as intended lately (for music, as opposed to just podcasts) and so I decided I’d listen to the whole Tyrone Wells (singer songwriter, former “Christian” artist) CD on my car trip home for memorial day weekend.  And I have to say that it moved down a few pegs in my esteem.  I bought the CD in iTunes late one night about a year ago after hearing some songs (“Wondering Where You Are” rocks my socks)… and “Dream Like New York” and “Sea Breeze” and “What are We Fighting For” are awesome.  That first listen through the whole thing, I thought “this is going to be one of those CD’s that I love every song.” I was lying in bed smiling the whole time.  But this time I found myself scoffing at some of the lyrics’ predictable metaphors and slant rhyme.  It bummed me out.  When did I get so hypercritical?

Could be the hipster music on TBTL, my newest podcast/ something to do at work.  And I would not even know what a slant rhyme was had in not been for Musicaltalk… my first podcast/ still something to do at work, (besides write blog posts.)  My iPod is at war… the podcasts against the music.  The music is holding ground, no Sondhiem or She & Him yet. But who knows what tonight will bring.

Stay tuned

Oh my poor neglected blog! I have so much to tell you. Two shows in a row is a bit much.

Rally, if you can

It’s Rally and Action time again for TEAM. Which means Erin is living outside of her comfort zone. Monday’s Rally brought a whole new set of challenges because now besides just worrying about bringing a bunch of folks, I was all of the sudden part of the program. First I got delegated to speak for my research committee. I am one of three who’s been active with them for the last few months and of the other two one is the chair who’s been giving the talks every time for two years and one of our clergy who happens to work for the City of Tallahassee in the planning department, so he always bows out. So I got to be the one.

I did have the advantage that Gloria (the lead organizer) pretty much wrote my speech. I did tweak it a bit, including rewriting an entire section that I did not think was saying what I wanted it to say. I also had a problem about what our issue actually was, since I was at all those meetings I know that it was thrown together really just to have something to present. The purpose of the rally is to get everyone excited about the issue, and our issue is just frankly not that exciting. I really pushed my committee to work on asking the city to fund a housing advocate, but it just didn’t get off the ground fast enough. And all the stuff that I was working on did not make the cut anyway. So are you ready… it might just be too thrilling for you to handle. We want the city to put out an RFP in order for a CDC to run the Rental Rehabilitation Loan Program. And if you don’t already know what those acronyms are, well it’s too boring to care.

Let me just say that no one was thrilled. It was fine, and I think I did the best that I could but I don’t know how you can really fire people up about grant procedures and contract writing. It’s long been a criticism of our organization that we don’t work on things that are exciting enough, that actually meet our own criteria for what makes a good issue. There’s work to be done there for sure.

We did have the Marching 100 (or 30 of them at least) play some music for us that included a drum roll before I got up to speak. But I think it may have had the opposite effect that they were intending, well on me. The opening speaker was talked about Les Mis, and I know what happens after drum rolls during the French Revolution. Gulp.

She’s so nice

I’ve always thought of myself as a nice person.  But I have subjected myself to some introspection recently and I have cast some doubt.  Now I am fairly sure that I do plenty of acts of kindness, so that maybe enough in the truest sense but I’m talking here about people’s perceptions.  See I’m quite shy so I mainly have two ways that I relate to people.  One in a socially awkward, quiet…”shy” kind of way and the other is with confidence and even aggression maybe?  See I’m also a performer.  It makes for a weird mix.  I have no problems with public speaking or leading a group, but put me in a cocktail party and I’m like a different person.  But I think ultimately both of those ways are pretty cold.

When I was in tenth grade, my English teacher told me that I ought to smile more on the first day of class.  Like from the front of the room, in the presents of all my classmates.  It was harsh.  Hear that teachers?  Don’t do that.  I do find myself scowling occasionally when I’m thinking but I don’t mean to.

In college one of my best friends told me that one of her friends who had become a mutual acquaintance found me intimidating.  That’s really the first time I thought about that I could intimidate anyone (well except maybe a second grader.)    And speaking of that, I don’t have that “kids-want-to-sit-on-my-lap” thing anymore.  My VBS kids loved my high school co-teacher, but not me so much.  And when I’ve worked wit the youth they just don’t think I’m as cool as some of the other helpers.

And I even got in trouble when I was working on “Once on this Island” for being too mean to the cast.  I told them in notes one night that I was going to come hit them if they did not stay quiet backstage.  Of course I was joking, I mean that’s not a hard one to figure out.  But on the other hand I was basicly left to be the long arm of the law, with the director whinning about behavior but not setting any standards or doing things like start rehearsals late.  But the one good thing that came of that was I may not have made any best friends, I came out the end with everyone still respecting me (something the other staff couldn’t say.)  The good word from that whole fiasco (the show was great somehow, I mean the offstage drama) traveled far and wide I’m sure and it makes me wonder if that’s some of the reason that I’m having issues with the directors selection commitee and the excutive director.  One would hope that they’d give me a chance to tell my side of things.

So I guess that’s it; I’m not a warm and fuzzy person. I’m not so nice.  But I try to be good…sincere, friendly, loyal, loving. And I try to think about smiling more.  That’ll have to be enough.

Olympic Thoughts

The Olympics are over and I’m sad. What will keep me up until all hours now; I’ll have to find something else. So I thought I’d wrap up with a few thoughts and observations before we forget about it. It’s like Erin’s closing ceremonies.

• The Olympics used to be only for amateur athletes. But as professional sports grew in popularity it became obvious that the Olympians were not the best in the world anymore. Now almost all sports are open to professionals. One notable exception is figure skating in the winter Olympics. I think that they keep it that way because professional (what is popular for people to pay to go see) and amateur figure skating have two different goals. The former is purely to be entertaining while the later is to be as technically and aesthetically proficient as possible. In fact while the main focus of amateur skating is better and more difficult jumping, professional skaters remove difficult jumps they may fail to execute in favor of crowd pleasing dance movement. So the best skater is not always the most entertaining. That’s not the case in other sports. The better technically skilled a basketball player or a swimmer, or even a gymnast is the more likely they are to have professional success.
• Two of Michael Phelps’s gold medals were won by relay teams. Including the second one when there was an amazing come from behind by the anchor swimmer, Jason Lezak, and the final record breaking eighth gold was the medley relay. It takes a team to be the best.
• Jackie Chan was just singing in the closing ceremonies. I wonder if they’ll get Pierce Brosnan to sing at the London Olympics. (Wait I think he’s Irish… but he went to school in London does that count?)
• In synchronized swimming, they do this thing called “deck maneuvers.” They are like dance moves that the teams do before they dive into the water. They are only allowed to spend ten seconds on them and they are not counted in the scoring at all. They kind of remind me of the way we used to do load in for theater competition in high school. We’d practice enough so that we could do it in silence and we’d enter and leave in a single file line. (People thought we were unbelievable pretentious, but I think that they were just jealous.) That certainly was not required and load in was only scored if you took longer than the allowed time and got points deducted. It’s all about making a good impression. If you have it together in the little things you’ll be more likely to have it together in the things that count.
• I have one more but I think I’ll save it for it’s own special post. Let’s keep the party going.

Ug… An Afternoon Photo Essay

The fruit growing on the world's tallest weed

The kudzu covering the world's tallest weed

The phone that did not ring to tell me I got cast in the show

The gray, gray sky that caused the pool party to be cancelled