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| I woke up yesterday morning just WRACKED with chills. I could not get warm and my teeth chattered for serveral hours until my brain hurt. I figured that I had a fever but I couldn't check because I don't own a thermometer. Being in college, I would rather invest in a few Charleston Chews than buy a thermometer. So there I was, freezing, until finally the chills let up. After that my head began to hurt and I got sick to my stomach and dizzy. My head would hurt for the rest of the day. All of the holy rollers in my apartment had gone to church so I was left to be alone and scared. Seriously, sitting alone and sick sucks sack. I tried to drink water and eat a little bit but I would get sick and nearly vommit. I never once threw up, but I had to lay in bed for most of the afternoon. Of course, the only thing one can do when laying in bed with an unknown illness is repent of every sin one can think of, and make bargains with God. My bargains with God tend to be somewhat different than other people's. I would never offer to join the peace corp, go on a mission trip, or offer all of my money to the church. My bargains tend to be things like :
"Dear Jesus, if I die, please don't let my drawers be dirty."
"Lord, if some shit goes down and I end up in a serious condition, please don't let it happen at night." (I feel that one should be safe and sound on their bed because the night should be peaceful and not tumultuous.)
"Lord, I don't have insurance, I need this to cost nothing."
The one that really butters up the Alpha and Omega when you feel like you're going to die is begging him to let you lead just one more person to Christ.
So anyway, I had a headache all day. All-day belly aches are normal, but I've never had any sort of an all day headache, particularly one that was preceded by a nasty fever. By the end of yesterday, however, I glommed down some tacos that my roommate fixed, and I had some cheetos, so I was feeling much better. This morning I don't have a headache, perse, I just have a faint whisp of a dull pain when I force a cough. I wonder if having a headache all day can leave the head "sore." I don't know about that, but unless it gets worse I'm not going to worry about it.
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| Few things in this world are as warm and comforting as the affirmation of others. God calls it favor, and to find favor in God is the darndest thing. It's altogether elusive when we love ourselves. My thing is that my form of self-love actually manifests itself as self hate, which I sometimes even relish in. Affiramtion of one's fellows is a real good thing, however, one must not be careless and mistake bullshit for affirmation. Bullshit disguised as affirmation is always positive, whereas affirmation might seem negative, or even caustic. Consider the form of affirmation that manifests itself as "I hate you" or even "you son of a bitch." A man who calls his friend an SOB is actually reffering to pre-established rapport between the two. Nothing wrong with that, and it has a 100% contextual guarantee that there's no balogna in the air. If a guy I know comes up to me and tells me that I brighten his day, I will immediately place my lips over his eye sockets and suck out his eyeballs, substantially nullifying my previous mistake. At the very least I give him an odd look. Truth is, that could mean a lot of different things.
All of this to say that today a guy from my homiletics class last year came up to me and told me that he was still mesmerized by the sermon I preached in class. I thanked him for the affirmation and I proceeded to mesmerize him with another sermon I've been working on and I stole his wallet. Guess who's going out to eat tonight? That's right, me.
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| So I log into facebook this morning to see that they've got a "news feed" feature. Basically, if someone breaks wind, this thing will tell you. That's not so bad for me because I always claim my gaseous publications, but in the end it just looks like a slew of useless information. The real problem is that they've gone and muddied up the profile pages with this same useless information. Perhaps it will redeem itself if and when it points out who is stalking who. That would be great. "Arnold Murphy of glee club fame is obviously stalking Carol Johnson who would never give him the time of day. More as it develops." Then if two people actually end up stalking each other, it would make sure that they both know so that they could hook up. After a few awkward moments they'd thank their lucky stars and give each other eskimo kisses. I would then arrive with a sawed-off and punish them for stalking, which is sad and gross. I should really get into that line of work. After all, all girls have a stalker at some point, if I'm to take them at their word. Pricing of services would vary from a stern warning to scaring to maiming to slaying. I could pay off all my college loans and go to seminary, satisfied that I had made the world a safer place.
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| We went to see snakes on a plane, but since everyone but me is totally inept when it comes to punctuality, we were late. So, almost on a whim I voted for Little Miss Sunshine (from here on in, LMS) when it came time to decide what we were going to do. For once, ineptitude served us because this is a fantastic movie. All at once it is cute, endearing, raunchy, coarse, hilarious, and relevant. It's a movie I would love to show my grandma, and yet there are parts in it that would make her turn it off. Even so, this is a great film for a wide range of people.
LMS starts with a dysfunctional family. The opening scenes are snippets from their less-than-stellar lives. There's a father with dreams to publish a motivational program. He's so wrapped up in his spiel that he forces it upon everyone. It is a so-called inocculation against failure. Actually, he's just taken the path of least resistance by trying to become successful by theorizing success. His wife does her best to stand beside him and reluctantly believes that just maybe they'll make it. She is oftentimes the factor in this family that serves to keep them pointed in the right direction, while not usurping the dreams of her husband. Her brother is a suicidal case who was formally the formost scholar on an obscure French writer. He's also gay, his intended having rejected him, leading him in a round-about way to lose his job and his will to live. He gets thrust upon the family on doctor's orders after failing at his suicide attempt. Grandpa is a an old horny man who dabbles in drug use. As sordid as he is, he's the only character who has perspective on his life. The oldest child in the family is a goofy looking teen with a taste for Nietzche and a goal of becoming a jet fighter pilot. He works out everyday, hardly gaining a pound in muscle. In a weird but disciplined fit of teenage "whatever-you-call-it" he makes a vow of silence until such time as he can get into the air force academy and get out of the house. Finally, Olive is the youngest child whom the movie's title refers directly to. On first inspection she seems to be a little nerd with massive glasses and floor-moppingly long hair. She's absolutely beautiful though, beautiful enough to win a regional beauty pageant and get a chance to win a higher level pageant in Redondo Beach, California.
In in a weird bit of circumstance, the entire family ends up on the road to California from New Mexico in a VW bus with a gimpy clutch. Much of the movie consists of dialogue showing just how "fun" it is to be a part of this family. The dialogue is hilarious and perfectly calculated to deliver. Of course, every bad thing that can happen does, and we see them come to their wit's end in this effort to get Olive to her contest so that at least one person can realize their dreams. Oddly, I would liken this movie to National Lampoon's Vacation with a post-modern twist. In the Chevy Chase comedy, a father who wants nothing but good things for his family takes them on a road trip to California to go to "Wally World" and bad things happen and we laugh at their misfortune. In LMS the whole family goes on the road for an asinine purpose, has no hope for the trip, and has no prospect for enjoyment. Vacation's are the American Dream, but this is just a nightmare. LMS speaks unapologetically to the fact that for most people life just plain sucks most of the time and that the love of family without regard for solving each other's problems is the only way to make it tolerable.
LMS is very honest, and it's very fair, one of my favorite things about the movie. Just when you think that the movie is going to make tiny forays into politics it stops short, turns around, and points back at the family. At one point in the movie the grandfather turns on the tv and the teenage son sees that George W. Bush is giving a speech. Just when I thought that the movie was going to make a stab at conservatives (artsy movies always do) he turns the tv off and listens to his mom and dad tear each other apart in the next room, a wicked smile forming on his face because he thinks he hates them. The focus was shifted right back to the family, which was at the time a sordid ugly thing, but the true emphasis of the movie in the end. Go see this movie.
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| I am now the proud owner of a three dollar Shlitz baseball style cap. I'm so happy. I wore it all day with a BYX shirt. I can't drink with a BYX shirt on (or while being Chaplain), but no one said I couldn't wear a shlitz hat while wearing a BYX shirt.
The second part of my title refers to the fact that I purchased some pipe cleaners today and went to town on my three pipes, two of which I just garnered from my father. I purchased the pipe cleaners from a Brookshire Brothers Tobacco barm which is really just a red neck pit stop for honky tonkers looking for a carton of ciggs, a skoal can dispenser, or a fountain drink so that they'll have something to spit in. The lady in the drive-thru (yes, a drive-thru where you can purchase a carton of Marlboros) said "I don't think we have that brand, 'shug' when my uncle asked if they had any pipe cleaners. After rummaging in the back for a bit she came forward with a package and blew the dust off and rung them up. I followed the cleaners up with a Crown Royal cleaning, courtesy of my uncle. Now my pipes are clean and sweetened, with no tar in the stems and only a healthy cake in the bowls. I am highly pleased. | | |
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