Fat Cigars and Bass Guitars

One morning not too long ago, on the way to drop my kids at daycare, I was waiting at a red light when what should pass before me but a perfectly fine excellent example of a quintessential old man. He navigated his shiny gold Chrysler slowly through the intersection. Funny, though it was a newer model, it still seemed to float with the boatlike grace of a much older vehicle. Fedora on his head, suit on his back, big fat cigar nestled between a smile that told me there just had to be music in that car. Something big-bandy and jazzy. 

After dropping the boys off, I found myself waiting at yet another red light because that’s just the kind of luck I have. Walking through a parking lot next to me was a boy of about  sixteen. He wore those tight jeans that all the kids are so fond of these days and a Batman tee-shirt of the style that was so popular around the time that Tim Burton’s take on the Caped Crusader hit theaters. But the detail most compelling about this lad was the black bass guitar he carried. He had it slung over his shoulder as if it were a literal axe. No case, no amp, just the instrument itself, as if he’d just gotten his hands on it, perhaps borrowed or purchased after scrimping and saving for months so he could finally take that first step from just listening to music to making it. I hoped he wasn’t headed to a pawn shop.

I saved an entire summer to buy my first guitar. I know it sounds like a fucking Bryan Adams song, but it’s true. It was a black Ibanez and it had a whammy bar. Nobody should die without striking a power chord at least once in their life.

Have you ever had a thought just pop into your head? Of course you have. I might as well ask if you’ve ever farted at an inopportune moment. As I pulled away from that intersection, it occurred to me, “I bet that kid is that old guy’s grandson.” Why in the world I thought it, why it should be so, I can’t tell you. But I liked the idea. I liked the thought of this cigar-chomping old man and his teenage grandson riding around in that gold Chrysler, each trying to impress upon the other an appreciation for the music that they loved. Like maybe after a few of Benny Goodman’s greatest hits, the old fellow would let the boy pop in his band’s CD. And even if it’s not his cup of tea, which of course it won’t be because nothing compares to the music of one’s youth, the old man will glow with pride that his grandchild is doing his part to organize sound and noise into something recognizable as music.

It’s true, no music touches us as deeply as the music of our formative years. All the same, I hate it when people bitch that there hasn’t been any good music created in X number of years where X = Bitching Person’s Current Age - Bitching Person’s Most Recent Formative Age (typically somewhere between 18 and 23). 

The old man pulls up to a house, the house of his grandson’s friend, the friend whose dad has a bunch of old musical equipment in the garage that he lets the kids use, even though he hates their sound. They sit for a moment, letting the song finish. The old man has softened a bit with age, and finds it easier to express to his grandson the kind of praise that he wishes he had lauded more freely upon his own children. He was always proud of them, sure, but for whatever reason, he was never able to muster the kind of enthusiasm for his children’s pursuits that he feels for this boy’s first foray into making music. The boy gets his bass out of the back seat and goes to band practice smelling like cigar smoke.

At least that’s the way I imagined it.

Messiah Bling and other Religious Hilarity

The seminary that I've been attending for the last couple of years must be peddling student contact info. How else to explain how I got on the mailing list of the people trying to sell this shit:

That's right y'all, 24 karat gold diamond* encrusted sandals, just like the Son of God wore back in the day. Motherfucker walked on water in those things. Maybe you can too!

Oh, and I've been meaning to post this one for a while. Remember back in high school when military recruiters seemed to be coming out of the woodwork trying to get you to sign up to do your duty to God and country? Did you think that all ended after you graduated? Well guess again. Check out what I found in my campus mailbox my first semester:

I had no idea that the military's marketing and recruitment budget included an allotment for the chaplaincy corps, but apparently it does. My brain is coming up with all manner of snarky commentary to type here, but I feel like the picture kind of speaks for itself. What do you see? Some pretty flowers.

So speaking of seminary......I don't know that I'm going to continue my studies with them. I'm realizing more and more that I simply don't belong there. I've written here before about why I chose to attend there, one of which was to grapple with some of my Big Questions about God, religion, the whole bag. And it seems that in that grappling, a few things have happened.

1. It's all started feeling more and more like a house of cards. It seems that the more we delved into topics like the origins of scripture and the beginnings of Christianity, the less divine the whole picture appeared. At every step of the way it seems, there's someone, some group, with an agenda, one which they promote by means of imbuing events and people with divine status, fitting events of their present into prophecies of their past. And it's not like we were studying anti-religious texts, and it's not as if I stepped onto campus thinking that the Bible was the literal word of God, but I didn't quite expect to find out just how much politics went into the creation of the text we now have, even before King James got his royal hands on it.
   
2. I grew tired of it. The whole thing. I'm just sick to death of all the questions, the seeking, the wondering, the quest for meaning, trying to be close to a God that, if he does exist, doesn't really seem to want to be found. I can't live like that. I just want to live my life, be myself, be happy, love my family and friends, write, create, and do the right things because they're the right things to do. I'm tired of putting so much effort into trying to feel IT. Time was I did feel it. I felt something anyway. I don't know if it was a delusion or if it was real but fleeting, but whatever it was, I'm sick of trying to get it back at the expense of the now, the moment. The meaning is right here. I just want to be.
   
3. And ya know, let's face it. I suck at being religious. I can't go to church. I've got a foul mouth, a sick sense of humor, and a taste for beer. Personally, I believe that if there is an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-loving God out there, then he, she, or it loves all this stuff about me. But I'm tired of thinking about it.
   

So that's me, that's where I'm at. I think I fall under the heading of an agnostic, but honestly, I don't even fucking care. I'm not mad at God or the church or whatever, I'm just kinda done. For now anyway.

Anyway, uh, Happy Easter?

* Yes, I know it says they're crystals and not diamonds, but "diamond encrusted" just sounds better.

Failure to pinpoint

There is an annoyance buzzing around inside of me that I can't quite put my finger on...actually, that's not entirely true. I can put my finger on it. I can get a whole goddamn hand on it, in fact. I can see it resting there on one of my ribs, third from the bottom on the right, and I can deftly bring my hand around in a sweeping arc and !POW! catch that pesky little fucker under my encupped palm.

I am speaking, of course, of the G.I. Joe movie that's coming out this summer.

The problem, of course, is that once I've caught the idea of the G.I. Joe movie under my great big man hand and pinned it against my rib, the annoyance that it creates for me doesn't just go away. Wouldn't it be awesome if problems just went away once you isolated them? Because I can still feel it buzzing around under my hand, and it kind of tickles. And I swear I can hear...it sounds like...oh my fuck, am I hearing words? Is the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that's coming out this summer trying to say something to me? I lean my head down closer, as close as I can possible get it to my third rib on the right, and open my palm just a tiny crack.

"What is it, idea of the G.I. Joe movie that's coming out this summer?"

And it says to me, "Hey, what's your problem, man?"

So I says to it, "Hey, you're my problem, buddy. You bug me. You rub me the wrong way. I don't like the cut of your jib."

And I think that's the end of it, but before I can seal his prison again, he asks the question: "But why?"

And I scoff, of course, because that is what I do when asked questions that have answers that I think should be obvious, except that it is in that very moment of scoffitude that I realize that I don't have a good answer on the ready set, so my scoff rings false in my ears, and I am certain that the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that is coming out this summer can hear the fake and the phony in my scoff, and it knows that I have no real case against it. And in this moment of doubt, the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that is coming out this summer slips between my fingers and continues buzzing around my innards.

Before we continue this nonsense, how about a trailer:



Must all action movie trailers have that vaguely Limp Bizkit-esque rap-metalish soundtrack thing going on? Must the world continue to provide sustenance to the makers of such music? At this point, isn't it just some bored hipster with a Macbook Pro?

But back to the question posed to me by the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that is coming out this summer. Why does it annoy me so? Did I not play with G.I. Joe toys when I was a wee lad? And have I not found great excitement at the prospect of the moviefication of so many other staples of my youth? Have I not welcomed with open arms the film adaptations of so many other comic franchises? What exactly is it about the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that is coming out this summer that has me so perturbed? Why do I shake and shudder with rage every time I think about it?

Because there is just something about it that screams BAD IDEA to me. Not bad idea in that it won't make an assload of money, because it probably will. Not bad idea in that the world doesn't need to see two ninjas battling it out, because it does, it absolutely does. Just bad idea in that...AAGGHH there's that goddamn wall again.

Allow me to articulate further: I can't articulate it. I can't quite figure out why the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that is coming out this summer pisses me off so. I can't just say "because it's violent" because there are plenty of violent movies that I dig. In fact, there are plenty of movies that I dig precisely because of their artfully done violence. The sauna fight scene in "Eastern Promises" goes down in my book as one of the most ass-kickin'est bits of ass kicking I've ever seen. What would "Fight Club" be without all them busted-up faces? Would "The Matrix" be any fun without all those guns? Would "Million Dollar Baby" be nearly as interesting if you didn't get to watch Hillary Swank beat so much ass? Oh, and of course, every John Woo film ever fucking made.

So it eludes me. Did I use that word right? There's elude and allude...yeah, I think that's right. Anyhow. Here's a bullet point list of the things related to my annoyance with the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that's coming out this summer. Somewhere in here is a single sentence that ties it all together.

- The United States has had a significant percentage of its armed forces deployed in war zones for almost six years now. Said deployment has incurred many costs to our nation, among them thousands of lives, millions of dollars, the physical and mental health of I-don't-know-how-many soldiers, the stability of numerous military families, and on and on.
- The G.I. Joe unit portrayed in the idea of the G.I. Joe movie that is coming out this summer is some kind of covert answer-to-nobody unit. This somehow adds to their badass mystique. The previous administration liked to hire outfits like this to handle various security tasks. I don't know if they had any ninjas, but they sounded like bigtime fuckups from all the news I heard.
- From the look of the trailer, it looks like France is the primary target of a terrorist attack, an attack which is responded to by covert U.S. forces. To my knowledge, my bloodline is not significantly French, but I still get annoyed when the French are portrayed as pansies, for the fuck-you-ity of the French simply cannot be denied.
- There is a chance that this film is using the G.I. Joe characters and backstory to create a covert-ops movie for 2009, one that is fully aware of everything I've said above, and will tell a story that is brilliant and captivating, which has no real good or bad guys, but still has several very hot women and two very awesome ninjas. In that case, I'm even further annoyed because I got all worked up.

I have a feeling I will end up seeing the G.I. Joe movie that is coming out this summer. But only at a theater that serves alcohol and chicken wings. Because that is the only way to watch G.I. Joe, or any other movie. And now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Its Own Reward

I've had this here trusty Macbook now for a little under two years. I bought it for myself as a going-back-to-school present after my first semester at the seminary, and it was a purchase over which I agonized because I do not spend large sums of money lightly. That final mouse click to submit my order did not come easily, but I fought my way through.

One of the items I was most excited to find on my new toy was a program called Comic Life that lets you make your own comics. A little drag, a little drop, a wee tad of cleverness, and vwalla. So the half dozen or so of you that have been reading here for a while know that I've taken advantage of this little program and its functionalities to create a few of my own masterpieces. I've enjoyed doing these, but you see, there's this one particular story that I've been wanting to tell in its entirety for a while. I've written about it in bits and pieces here, but I've never told the whole thing from start to finish. And I started thinking that maybe the story would work well in a graphic format. I knew it'd be a bit more of a challenge than any of the other comics I'd created, but I figured it would come out to 2, 3, maybe 5 pages tops. I kicked the idea around for a while, but then I finally stopped kicking and started writing.

Well, I'm waaaaay past that 5 page ceiling that I didn't think I would reach, and the end is still nowhere in sight. It would seem that I have gotten myself into a full-blown project. How'd that happen? Oh right, see above.

The thing is, I'm not sure what the hell I'm going to do with it when I'm done. All of my other major writing projects up to this point have been plays, and I always knew that they were headed for a stage. There was a purpose to them. But with this, I just don't know. It seems too large a thing to just throw up on my blog. At this point, I'm working with no end goal beyond getting this story out of me. And maybe that's enough. In fact, maybe that's for the best. Maybe the telling of the story is the most important thing, and all else is mere distraction. I read an interesting article a while back which I can't seem to find at the moment am too lazy to go hunt down. It was about writing in this age of computers, how even when a writer is disciplined enough to shut down everything on their computer but their word processing program, they still face all the distractions presented by the program itself, what with all the formatting options available to them. The article went on to point out that writing and formatting are two separate tasks, to be dealt with at different times in the process. So maybe what I'm doing is like that. The writing is the task now, the thing that matters. The finished product, assuming I finish it, is the only goal, the reward. What comes next will just have to, uh, come next.

Naked Protest

I had the boys all dressed and ready to go this morning. Henry was in a bad mood, but it was improving. I went downstairs to finish making myself reasonably presentable. When I came back up, I found my eldest sitting on the stairs completely naked, his clothes piled in a heap in front of him. I shrieked in disbelief. What are you doing?! He looked up at me with the expression of a protester coming face to face with riot police for the first time, that moment when The Man arrives and you have to stand behind whatever it is you're standing up against. That makes me The Man, which isn't such a great notion, but I can live with it. His cause? Choice. I had made the fatal mistake of choosing his shirt for him instead of letting him choose. The kid's learning to make his own choices. He's learning which choices are his to make and which will still be decided for him. And he's realizing that the choices that belong to him are precious few, and he's just not going to let them be taken away just because it's more convenient for somebody else, like The Man. He didn't want the striped shirt, goddammit. He wanted the froggy shirt.

Coming up next

It seems like the sentiments expressed at the end of every year sound pretty much the same. Thank God it's over, good fucking riddance, hope the next one's better, it couldn't be much worse. Much more rare is it to hear something to the effect of, wow, what a great year that was, I hope this next one is half as good. I haven't done any comprehensive research or anything, but from what I've seen, the emotions expressed over the passing of this latest 12 month go-round – the joy, the relief, the cautious optimism – were particularly strong everywhere I looked. From the sound of things, 2008 conducted itself in such a way as to suggest that it was putting its every last minute into becoming the archetypal shitty year.

Today we hosted a birthday party for our one year old son, Simon. His actual birthday was New Year's Eve day, which he spent mostly writhing in teething pain, the poor kid. We had some folks over, some family, some friends, and their kids. We let the little guy bury his face in some icing so as to make it look like he snorted a smurf. We got everybody nice and sugared up. We let the kids go wild on the playset that I busted ass all last week to get built. All in all, a nice way to spend an 80+ degree January afternoon. Somehow, the fact that we've actually now celebrated our New Year's Eve baby's birthday makes the old year feel truly past. Gladness.

The Ash and I closed out 07 by adding a new member to our family, which meant we spent 08 facing all the challenges that come with a new baby. On top of that, it's not like Henry just stopped needing us constantly, but his needs became much harder to meet now that that there was someone even more helpless than him under our roof. Overjoyed, overwhelmed, and overworked, that describes us pretty well. It was not an easy year for us. I dare say it's been the toughest one we've yet faced together. It wasn't all horrible, but it felt like even the good parts were difficult.

I'm glad we've made it to this point, and by this point I mean that I'm sitting on the couch next to my wife while both of our kids are nestled asleep in their beds. At this moment, things are easy. A lot of the aforementioned hard shit is still with us. That never goes away, that's just life. But there were moments over the past year that were unbelievably dark, ones that I wasn't sure we would see the other side of. And here we are. It's all too much to go into in one stupid post, and it's too late at night for me to expect my brain to hold out much longer. I'd just like to add mine to the chorus of voices bidding 08 goodbye, albeit belatedly, and welcoming 09 to the party. Let's hope you dance a bit more gracefully than your predecessor.

Me and Religion: A Post in Two Parts

So a bit of background first: I wrote the first part of this post back around September or October, several weeks into my most recent semester at the seminary. I set it aside, fully intending to finish it, but never got around to it. Honestly, I think I've been avoiding it. I've opened it up a few times over the last couple of months and thought to myself, "you know, Holmes, you really ought to finish that." And then I'd close it. I wrote it during a time when I was pretty depressed, which is perhaps another post all on its own. But now the semester is over, and I think it's time to revisit it, if for no other purpose than as an exercise in self-exploration. Having said that, this might be kind of long, sooo, yeah, do as you will. I'll indicate where the old text ends and the new text begins.

So I don't really know if this is "ha ha" funny or "oh hey what a surprise" funny or "I think I'll go be a super villain now" funny. But in whatever sense, it's funny. To me anyway. So to recap, I'm in my third semester at seminary, the goal of which is to move into the counseling field. I chose the seminary for several really good reasons:

1. I fully believe that the spiritual side of the self is of great importance to many people's mental health and well-being, and so I wanted to be able to at least talk about it when and if it ever comes up. Not that everyone in the world is Christian, but rather that Christianity is one vehicle, a language, a symbology, through which to try and make sense of the divine. And it's a vehicle whose language I am somewhat familiar with. So it's a place to start.
2. The decision to move into this field had a lot to do with something of a spiritual renewal of my own, though it was one that was fraught with questions. Thus, I wanted to put myself in an environment where I could grapple with these questions. I wasn't looking to be spoonfed easy answers - I just wanted a place where I could struggle with the questions, hopefully with other strugglers.
3. It's cheaper than UT or St. Ed's.

But now, here I am in my third semester at this place, and while I can definitely say I've learned a great deal about the theory and practice of the field that I intend to go into, I also find myself realizing that any and all concepts of an interventionist God that cares one iota about the human condition simply doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me anymore. I've held off on writing about this because I've been trying to identify a narrative to plot how I got from wherever I was to where ever I am. But I can't quite see it. It's like a book with a bunch of the pages ripped out.

So that was sort of unexpected.

I have made one decision though: I'm not going to run from this.

And with that, I stopped writing and the post sat idle. What follows picks up where it left off.

The questions are big, and not easily answered, perhaps not even answerable at all. Which then begs the question, do they even matter? Which, of course, is just yet another goddamn question. But I don't feel as if just walking off in disgust is quite the way for me to go. It's not as if the questions will just go away. I don't think humans are wired that way. And to stick with the metaphor, I have to wonder if much of the discomfort and unease that I feel is a result of the process of tearing out some of my old faulty wiring and looking for new ways to hook things up, a process that's been going on for a number of years now, and will probably continue for years to come, perhaps even until the day I die. Maybe that's life. Maybe that's the journey. Maybe it never makes sense, and we simply make peace with the fact that we just don't know, and that any one of us is just as likely to be as full of shit as the next person. To me, this inspires a sense of humility. Why doesn't it do that for everybody? Argh, more questions!

Maybe my problem is my perspective. I see a question, I feel the need to find its answer. If the answer is not forthcoming, then harumph and argh and well fuckall, etc. Sometimes, that is. Other times, I'm perfectly laid back enough to accept whatever. It could be, however, that the shift I'm making is larger and in a different direction than I expected. I definitely didn't plan to somehow become "more Christian." In a lot of ways, I haven't really felt Christian for quite a while, and that's only become more solidified over the past few months. But I've never before seriously considered that maybe, just maybe, This Is All There Is. But now I am. I'm not making that as a declaration. In fact, I'm running pretty short on anything much that I can declare. Instead, it's a new question, another one to toss in the old thought grinder for some mulling over for the next few...however long. Just another thing I just don't know.

In talking to a friend of mine about all this, she suggested an exercise to try to get at the heart of it, and it goes something like this: Ignoring external influences as much as possible, including other people's opinions, political leanings, religious background, etc, write down the things that you truly, deep down in your core, believe to be true. It'll probably only be a few things. Maybe even just one. You don't have to prove it, just state it. So here's mine, in no particular order:

1. Everyone who has ever lived and ever will live is capable of great good, unthinkable evil, and everything in between.
   
2. We are not the sole architects of our lives. We are born into situations with people and certain inheritances, and given certain advantages and disadvantages. Still, we encounter choices that are ours and ours alone to make.
   
3. Our lives and our decisions affect other people. Ignoring this fact causes harm.
   
4. The human race has discovered so much in its time, yet there is still so much we do not know and cannot presently explain. This fact should humble us each enough to treat others with respect.

So that's all for now. I imagine this list will evolve over the years. Perhaps it will grow. Maybe I'll find better ways to state things. Maybe some things will be shrugged off entirely.

And with that, I'm off to live life some more.

Loved Despite of Great Faults

In my quest for a title, I typed the world "fault" into the search bar of my iTunes, and only three songs came up, the first of which became the title of the post you see before you. I'd like to say it sums up the remainder of this post, but that would be a stretch. Still, I like it. Because really, any one who is loved by another is loved in spite of their faults, yeah?

I've figured a little something out about myself. I'm not a sports guy by any means, but I'm familiar with a superstition apparently common among baseball pitchers wherein if it looks like they may have a no-hitter in their immediate future, they won't talk about it, and they don't want their teammates to talk about it to them, a communal silence held intact by fear of The Mighty Jinx. As if giving breath to the looming possibility of something great is to ensure its certain demise. In some cases, I'm sure it's just an issue of maintaining focus and concentration, but come on; we all know sports are as riddled with superstitions as a back-porch conversation between old southerners.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think I carry something akin to this sort of jinx-based superstition deep within me. I am afraid to talk very much about a good thing that looks like it might happen, for fear that it won't. But it's not so much that I'm afraid of jinxing it. It's more that I dread the idea of getting my hopes up, of exciting others with my news, only to have to come back later with a disappointing update. And to dig a bit deeper than that, it's not the sharing of bad news that makes me cringe, but rather the thought of how that bad news reflects back upon me.

I absolutely do not believe that the only reason bad things happen to people is because they somehow deserve it. Sure, sometimes people bring shit on themselves, but when you start saying things like, oh I don't know, that an entire city was leveled by a hurricane because the people who live there were BAD, well then you're an idiot. And you're stupid. A stupid idiot. Oh, and mean. A mean stupid idiot bad person. Who will be punished! Oh wait, uh...

But all that aside, it seems that somewhere along the way, probably very early on, I internalized the idea that bad things happen to people solely as a result, be it direct or indirect, of their own moral wrongdoings. I don't believe it consciously, but below the surface, there it is, a completely unfounded unfair untrue wrong hateful judgmental proven-wrong-a-billion-times-over idea. Perhaps it was some of the hellfire and brimstone brand of religion that I was exposed to as a boy, the kind that sees sin and damnation in even the most beautiful that life has to offer. Plus I grew up in a family that routinely discussed a variety of superstitions, most of which seemed to call out strange events as the results of even stranger, seemingly unlinked actions. Like for example, if both of your shoes were untied, it meant that you'd either been telling lies or peeing in the road.

Whatever the cause, it seems that I have become a person who is hesitant to discuss good things that might happen, things that might go my way for fear that, if they don't, that if the scales tip the other way, then it will become apparent to all that I must have failed somehow. Whatever bad news I have will be a great big giant banner proclaiming to the world that I must have done something wrong to place myself in a position out of favor with the cosmos.

Which is just fucking stupid.

So in a challenge to these foolish little superstitions of mine, and in an attempt to pry them loose from that which makes up myself, I'm going to talk about the good news that just might happen for us. It's actually a pretty certain thing at this point, but the final bits of paperwork haven't been signed yet. I'm referring, of course, to the house we're buying. The link is to my wife's blog where she posted about this a few days ago. Even though the news has been out there for a little while, and many of you who know us in the flesh are already aware of this, I still get this giddy risk-taking feeling by putting this out there. Which is okay with me. But yes, we're buying a house, one that we've fallen absolutely in love with, one which meets all of our requirements, and falls well within our budget.

Like I said, it's a pretty certain thing at this point. But more importantly, it feels good to challenge this notion of mine that when things don't go my way, it's some indicator that I'm a failure and now everybody knows so cue the pointing and laughing. If you must point and laugh, do so because my fly is open, which of course is a sure sign that I've either been stealing fruit out of the farmer's orchard or playing with matches.

Some thoughts over morning coffee

Click for larger view.

It's coming back around again

So it would seem that Mr. Boy is clued in to the fact that there is this thing called Christmas coming down the pipe pretty soon. About a week ago, I started asking him if he wanted to get a Christmas tree, and his response has evolved from a suspicious nod of the head to an excitedly whispered "yeah!", delivered with that tone that's reserved for children who are on to something magical and big that promises to blow open the boundaries of their reality.

So tonight we went down to the tree lot and picked out a suitable specimen. "Pick me" said this one tree. "I'll hold your lights and your little baubles with dignity." And so we did. As I tied the tree to the top of our wagon, I felt that familiar twinge of anxiety I get every time I tie something down for transport. See, I'm only good at like 2.5 things, and knot-tying accounts for 1.2 of those, so if my knots fail, if word gets out that an Eagle Scout couldn't even secure a Christmas tree to the top of a car, well the ramifications make my stomach go gurgle. But I got the tree home, in spite of the fact that we had to go to four different stores before we found one that had any tree stands in stock.

With the tree safely secured, it was dinner time at Ashley's folks' place. We've spent a fair amount of time over there lately since The Ash's uncle has moved in with them to spend his last days. I don't know her Uncle Richie all that well since he's been a recluse for most of the years of our relationship, but from what little time I've spent around him, I know that I like him and wish I knew him better. Over these last few days, even with the pain of terminal cancer, he's shown the intellect and spark of a man who is still, in some ways, very much alive.

The after-dinner portion of this evening was somewhat surreal. I played sudoku, Henry played with his grandma and great aunt, and Richie placed his signature in all the necessary places in the document containing his last will and testament. The Ash, her sister, and her dad also affixed their signatures as witnesses. I suppose it should have been a morbid moment, and perhaps from a different perspective it could be viewed as such, but it didn't feel quite so to me. More like family doing what family has to do when presented with painful reality. It was very quiet except for Henry, who wasn't falling for that "let's play 'The Quiet Game'" nonsense.

I was thinking about Richie as I drove home from the semester's very last class period today. It hasn't escaped anyone's notice that this family is about to experience both a death and a birth any day now. And even though this is a Texas December and I was wearing shorts today, it's still the end of the year, and there's still that sense of the world settling down and waiting to be reborn into a new year. And perhaps it was because I was coming home from theology class and my mind was especially open to the beauty of the stories and metaphors that we all live and walk through every day, and perhaps, yes, maybe there was a song playing on the radio that I like in spite of myself, but I got hit with one of those blessed moments of beautiful Melancholy where everything in the world feels intensely connected. Yeah, there may have been a few tears.

Our tree is now standing in the corner of the living room of our little house, waiting for tomorrow when it will be adorned with lights, decor, perhaps the odd action figure. It will be the first Christmas that my eldest son starts to "get it", and my youngest's very first Christmas at all. Maybe we can make ourselves a few memories for keeps.

Flower Child

He did this himself. For real real.

The boy has discovered the joy of plastering stickers all over everything. Y'oughtta see The Ash's pregnant belly. Covered in stickers! Maybe she'll post 'em.

This is perhaps a rather unceremonious way of bringing an end to a lengthy blogging hiatus, but ceremony is often a rather rotten plank to stand on. Suffice it to say that I've been busy. Not just the writing, but the blog reading and commenting has waned. Which is kinda sad seeing as how it was NaBloPoMo and all. I've decided that since participation in NaBloPoMo was a non-possibility for me, I'm going to make January into Holmes Blog Posting Month, or HoBloPoMo for short. It ain't my fault how dirty that sounds. Why January, you ask? For one, we'll have a new baby, which is sure to provide fodder for at least one, maybe two whole posts. Secondly, my birthday happens in January, which makes for at least one post where you can all leave comments of a happy birthday nature. Third, um, yeah. January is HoBloPoMo. If any o' y'all got any free time on your hands and want to design a HoBloPoMo logo for me (that is not completely X-rated), I'll be your best friend.

I don't mind telling you, this has been a challenging semester. Not only has the coursework been challenging, there was also this interesting interplay between the two different disciplines, the strictly secular psychology on the one hand, and the theology on the other. They pulled my brain in different directions...which is not to say that they conflicted, but rather that they inspired and required very different types of thinking, both in form and content. But interestingly enough, they intersected in some unexpected ways. They both ask questions about concepts like "natural" and "freedom." They both ask questions about how we can help those in need. And arriving at an absolute in either one is a sure sign that there is something you're probably missing.

But I finished my last paper about thirty minutes ago. The shit ain't spellchecked, maybe I'll remember to do so before I print it out, maybe not. I'm just sitting here enjoying my Anchor Steam Christmas (thanks again, Whit) and relishing the fact that I'm about to hit the Publish Post button for the first time in weeks.

Seven + Seven

Sometimes you're just walking down the street minding your own business when POW! some dirty ninja jumps out from behind a dumpster and zings you with a damn ninja star. And then, as if you weren't already bleeding all over the pavement, another ninja swoops down from above an awning and pops you with yet another ninja star.

So it was that I got tagged not once, but twice for the same meme by two different people, Cami and Sybil. It's that seven things meme where I'm supposed to tell you seven random facts about myself, and seeing as how I get dosed twice, it appears that I have to come up with seven + seven things to share with you. Since I've been letting the old blog get cold with neglect, I'm going to cheat a little bit and use some of those seven + seven things for updates on the latest in the wide world of the Holmes.

1) For those of you who don't read my wife's blog, first of all, shame on you, and second of all, it looks very much like we will be moving in a couple of weeks. No, you didn't miss anything, our place has been off the market for a while now, but that didn't stop it from getting an offer. Here's hoping it all goes through.

2) Clrly i neds mor lernings:

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3) Speaking of which, I have to pat myself on the back just a wee tiny bit because I realized that this time around on the higher education trip, I'm taking the whole thing much more seriously. Part of it, of course, is that I'm paying for it myself, along with all the support I get from my wife in giving me time to go to class and do the work I need to do. Plus the fact that I feel pretty compelled to move towards this line of work. They say you get out of education what you put into it, and I have to confess, I slacked a lot on the putting in part when I was in college. I got decent grades, sure, but there's more I could have done. But I had a great time.

4) My son is crazy. Or rather, he's cwazy. No really, he'll tell you so himself. One of his latest things to inform us is "Henry cwazy! CWAAAZZY!" Then he'll run real fast, fall down, lift up his adorable little head, and say, "Cwaaazy! CWAAAAZY!"

5) I crave real true community, the kind where people know and care for each other. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this means to me, and how to find it, but I sometimes feel really disconnected from my fellow earth dwellers.

6) The Catcher In The Rye was the first book to change my life.

7) Between getting sick a few weeks ago and the demands of school, I haven't done anything resembling exercise in about a month. My clothes still fit, so I can't complain too much, but I find that with decreased physical demands being placed on my body, I'm more susceptible to eating sweets, particularly donuts. I asked my friend Brandon about this, and he filled me in on the fact that as you lower your amount of exercise, your body actually starts to smell like a donut, leaving you more vulnerable when actual donuts are available. Who knew?

8) I mentioned my wife's Hollywood crush a while back, which prompted her to ask if had any such crushes, which made me realize I sorta don't. My only famous-person crush would have to be Liz Phair since she sings dirty songs about love and pain and is hot while doing so, though I don't think she counts as a celebrity since I've never seen her on Famecrawler.

9) My wife sometimes accuses me of being ghetto because I'll do things like eat a half-piece of toast that's been sitting on the counter for a few hours, but she's the one who wants to keep chickens in the back yard at our new place. Chickens. In the middle of the city. Now who's ghetto?

10) I don't know all that much about Scotch, but I know enough about it to know that if you want to buy me a bottle of liquor for a gift, a bottle of something single-malt would be well-received and shared.

11) I'll spend a lot of time thinking about trying to accept people as they are, faults and all, without judging or stereotyping or hating, and I'll think about how people are the way they are for a reason, and people each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and how even though somebody might do or think something that I absolutely loathe, I might very well be just like them had I walked in their shoes, and I'll get to thinking about all this stuff and get this warm fuzzy love the world vibe going, and then some jackass in a Beemer will cut me off or tailgate me and I'll instantly shove that person into the profile of someone I hate.

12) I made up a playlist of all my favorite heavy music to listen to when I'm by myself, but I find that on the rare occasion I am by myself, I rarely listen to it. Kids are loud enough.

13) As regular readers of this blog know, I started a masters program in counseling at a seminary last spring. As the first class day was approaching, I pulled out the pink sheet of paper with the schedule printed on it to get some piece of info, and realized that I had missed the first class day! Holy shit! Not how I wanted to start out my graduate career! Frantic, I looked up the professor's email address in the school directory and went to email him, though I don't recall what I was planning to say. But when I pulled up my email, there was a message from the director of my program stating that the first day of class had been cancelled due to the sudden death of the professor's mother. So you can imagine the series of emotions that hit me in the next split second. I started to blog about it back then, but just felt too, I don't know, too weird about it.

14) I dislike dancing, so don't ask.

I'm supposed to tag seven people now, but there's no way that's happening. I'll just tag Ashley since she needs a good taggin.