fireside chats

i don't have a tv at my new place. i have one back in danville, but i haven't been particularly motivated to bring it over.

since the baseball season started, i've been listening to the baseball game most nights. switching between the a's and giants. it's been fun.  i putter around and make dinner with the game in the background. good times. feels very 1940's.

it's saturday night, i'm listening to the livestream of Coachella on Youtube (Bon Iver! Radiohead!), and i'm finishing up my notes for teaching at high school youth group tomorrow. this is an optimistic estimation. i will probably be up for a while still mulling things over.

writing an essay or story makes me commit words to a page and i stick by them; rather, it is that i can just put the paper down, walk off and not have to be there when someone reads it. my notes for public speaking are like an early draft of a story; and i always think of other things to say or add while i'm actually teaching and people are looking at me, i can't just stick to what i have done on the page, and that's when i start sweating profusely, if i haven't already been doing so. good times.

so it's about doubt, and wondering why God is silent with us sometimes, basically. it is infuriating when that happens, yes? among other feelings/adjectives. i have to say though, even though sometimes i wish otherwise, that i love following a God that is mysterious, one that i can't figure out or outgrow, than one that has just laid out everything for me in a checklist, so to speak. man, sometimes i'd really love a checklist, rather than feeling like i'm stumbling around in the dark. but where is the faith in that? i've got most of my notes, and who knows what i'll add in when it comes to me (hopefully not much) but this quote from anne lamott (who i think i love, among many reasons, because she writes about how bad she is at being a christian and i'm like, amen, sister)will make it in there somewhere:

"I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”

i saw and heard anne lamott read from her newest book tonight, Some Assembly Required, a memoir of her grandson's first year. she remains the only writer who has made me laugh out loud when i read her words.

as wonderful and inspiring as it is to hear her, which i have done so a few times now - it's great to be in the same area as her - i also leave feeling pretty chickenshit about my lack of writing practice. which sucks - i have only myself to blame for that.

life just seems to get in the way. not even good stuff like traveling, or like a really good date, or hell, i don't know, wrestling an alligator. it's getting home after work and being tired even though you sat in a chair all day. or paying the bills and fretting over debt. or freakin' facebook sucking you in and then suddenly it's super late and you need to get up way too soon to go sit in a chair again all day. it's numbing and hard to pay attention to what is going on around you - the ordinary and extraordinary that provide the material to write.

lately

not much to report. i got a cat. keep your cat lady jokes to yourself. seriously. not appreciated. also not true.

i named her rhubarb because i like both the word and the vegetable itself. especially in pies. anyway, she is super cute and it's nice to have some interaction when i get home to my place. i was sick with a bad cold early in march, and there's only so much netflix you can watch when you are laid up. seriously. also having this little creature keeps me from being too slobby. not just because i clean up after her, but i also can't leave a pile of clothes on the floor of my closet because she'd probably burrow right in and make herself at home. rhubarb is 2 years old and she came from a hoarder situation apparently, that's what they told me at the spca. and she was at the shelter for 2 months and then another month at the spca while they treated her being malnourished and an ear infection. she's had a hard go of it so far. it's been cool to see her relax more into the space here. the first night, she wouldn't leave the box and now she sleeps at the foot of my bed.

what you expected me to talk about work and other life details? i have to tell you, it's not that exciting. and who wants to hear me complain. rhubarb is way more fun.

i also got this sweet bike with this cool green paint job. my friend suggested that i name it chard, in keeping with leafy vegetables. chard... sounds like it would be a boys name. like one of sarah palin's children. ha! rhubarb and chard. together they are also known as 'tax refund'.