I went to a Starbucks to hang out for the afternoon, and as I stood at the counter waiting for my drink, I noticed that they'd decorated their 4th of July chalk board with Captain America's shield. I made eye contact with my barista and told her that I liked it. She melted a little and admitted I was the first person to realize what it was. She helped someone at the drive through, then came back and said, "I want you to have a free drink for being so observant." She handed me a coupon.
AW YEAH.
It pays to be a friendly geek.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
4th of July
I am celebrating the 4th of July by reading a book. You might think this is a lame way to spend a holiday, but you don't know the book I'm reading. It's I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson, and it is a collection of articles he wrote for a British newspaper after returning to the United States after 20 years of living abroad.
These essays cover everything from the United State's preoccupation with fighting drugs, the incompetence of our federal agencies, the obesity of our citizens, and the lengths to which we will go to remain indoors. The wonder of all this is that Bryson writes with a charming affection so that I finish an article and smile, "We Americans are weird, bless us."
Of course, I cannot argue with the man, since instead of sitting outside in unbearable heat for hours to watch a short colorful extravaganza in the sky, I chose to stay inside, wearing a blanket in air conditioning, reading a book.
Home of the free.
These essays cover everything from the United State's preoccupation with fighting drugs, the incompetence of our federal agencies, the obesity of our citizens, and the lengths to which we will go to remain indoors. The wonder of all this is that Bryson writes with a charming affection so that I finish an article and smile, "We Americans are weird, bless us."
Of course, I cannot argue with the man, since instead of sitting outside in unbearable heat for hours to watch a short colorful extravaganza in the sky, I chose to stay inside, wearing a blanket in air conditioning, reading a book.
Home of the free.
Emptying or Filling Brains
I lent Avatar: The Last Airbender to James, and psychically knew to bring the second season to him just as he finished watching the first. His mother was less than pleased, and she told me, "Can you tell that his head is lighter? All those brains just dribbling away in front of the TV. Now he can lose more!" I laughed along with her, because really, that's a funny (gross) image.
But later I thought about it, and I have to respectfully disagree.
Entertainment can be mind-numbing, for sure. But most of the time people don't engage with media that turns their minds off. At least I don't. I can spend an entire day watching my favorite TV shows, and at the end I don't feel empty. I feel full.
A good book, a good TV show, a good book--they fill my mind with new ideas and complex plots and provoking characters. It's been years since I've watched the season 6 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I can still fall all over myself remembering the Jesus parallels and the power of friendship. It's been even longer since I watched Return of the King for the first time and was so moved that I honestly believed that I could die happy and fulfilled. It hasn't been that long since I've seen The Avengers, but obviously, that movie kept putting thoughts in my head weeks after I'd fallen in love.
Sure, I've spent days in college zoned out in front of an America's Next Top Model marathon, and did I come away fuller? No. Although I did usually spend the next day standing in various poses whenever I found myself in a line.
I hope it is obvious that spending all day every day camped out on a couch is generally not a healthy idea. But I completely disagree with the idea that every once in a while, a full day of story absorption is a bad thing. Learning to lose yourself in someone else's story teaches empathy. Living in another world teaches imagination. There is so much good out there, told through various entertainment mediums. I would hate to lose that, and I would hate not to share it with others.
So, blog readers, go watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. (The TV show, not the movie, oh please.) It's fantastic.
But later I thought about it, and I have to respectfully disagree.
Entertainment can be mind-numbing, for sure. But most of the time people don't engage with media that turns their minds off. At least I don't. I can spend an entire day watching my favorite TV shows, and at the end I don't feel empty. I feel full.
A good book, a good TV show, a good book--they fill my mind with new ideas and complex plots and provoking characters. It's been years since I've watched the season 6 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I can still fall all over myself remembering the Jesus parallels and the power of friendship. It's been even longer since I watched Return of the King for the first time and was so moved that I honestly believed that I could die happy and fulfilled. It hasn't been that long since I've seen The Avengers, but obviously, that movie kept putting thoughts in my head weeks after I'd fallen in love.
Sure, I've spent days in college zoned out in front of an America's Next Top Model marathon, and did I come away fuller? No. Although I did usually spend the next day standing in various poses whenever I found myself in a line.
I hope it is obvious that spending all day every day camped out on a couch is generally not a healthy idea. But I completely disagree with the idea that every once in a while, a full day of story absorption is a bad thing. Learning to lose yourself in someone else's story teaches empathy. Living in another world teaches imagination. There is so much good out there, told through various entertainment mediums. I would hate to lose that, and I would hate not to share it with others.
So, blog readers, go watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. (The TV show, not the movie, oh please.) It's fantastic.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Joplin--Play
If I like working with my church family, I LOVE playing with them.
Decades ago, our church mission trips meant working half the day, then sightseeing and playing throughout the afternoons and evenings. Sometime while I was a child, the workers took over, and the majority of every day was spent working. That is arguably a better way of doing mission trips, but I have to admit I really liked that the extreme heat of Joplin necessitated work being cut off at noon.
This meant longer lunch breaks, hearing stories of adventures that morning and going back for seconds of homemade cookies. It also meant afternoons at the pool with a huge group of Woodlanders. One time I was the first to the pool, and three random teenage boys were there. Didn't they know this was Woodland's pool?, I wondered, before remembering that we were staying at a public motel.
At the pool, I got to take ridiculous pictures with Abby and James, wrestle for control of a hose with David, help Andrew surf on his boogie board, and learn to swim adult-doggy-style with Emily. I could read books on the deck chairs with Stacy and avoid Jeff's massive splashes.
After pooling, we ate. Several evenings almost the entire group (40 of us) arrived en masse at a restaurant. We ate in different combinations, we shared food from each other's plates, and we waved gleefully at people across the room even though we had seen them only an hour before.
We also went to nearby waterfalls, perused used book stores, had evening meetings, and endured a power outage with no A/C.
My church family is just that...a family. I love spending time with them. I love spending ALL the time with them. If I had my way, I would eat every meal surrounded by my church family, and we would all gather for a debriefing at the end of each day. Honestly, I would be quite content if our church was reworked as an apartment building, and we all just lived together for the rest of our lives.
Which is why it's sad that I'm leaving. Sometimes I wonder why I want to move to Dallas, when so much of what I love is here in Peoria. I've got an extended spiritual family who looks out for me, who is invested in my life, and who is kind enough to let me be a part of theirs. I won't have them immediately nearby in just two weeks, so I am extremely grateful that I got an entire week of them, 24/7, in Joplin.
Decades ago, our church mission trips meant working half the day, then sightseeing and playing throughout the afternoons and evenings. Sometime while I was a child, the workers took over, and the majority of every day was spent working. That is arguably a better way of doing mission trips, but I have to admit I really liked that the extreme heat of Joplin necessitated work being cut off at noon.
This meant longer lunch breaks, hearing stories of adventures that morning and going back for seconds of homemade cookies. It also meant afternoons at the pool with a huge group of Woodlanders. One time I was the first to the pool, and three random teenage boys were there. Didn't they know this was Woodland's pool?, I wondered, before remembering that we were staying at a public motel.
At the pool, I got to take ridiculous pictures with Abby and James, wrestle for control of a hose with David, help Andrew surf on his boogie board, and learn to swim adult-doggy-style with Emily. I could read books on the deck chairs with Stacy and avoid Jeff's massive splashes.
After pooling, we ate. Several evenings almost the entire group (40 of us) arrived en masse at a restaurant. We ate in different combinations, we shared food from each other's plates, and we waved gleefully at people across the room even though we had seen them only an hour before.
We also went to nearby waterfalls, perused used book stores, had evening meetings, and endured a power outage with no A/C.
My church family is just that...a family. I love spending time with them. I love spending ALL the time with them. If I had my way, I would eat every meal surrounded by my church family, and we would all gather for a debriefing at the end of each day. Honestly, I would be quite content if our church was reworked as an apartment building, and we all just lived together for the rest of our lives.
Which is why it's sad that I'm leaving. Sometimes I wonder why I want to move to Dallas, when so much of what I love is here in Peoria. I've got an extended spiritual family who looks out for me, who is invested in my life, and who is kind enough to let me be a part of theirs. I won't have them immediately nearby in just two weeks, so I am extremely grateful that I got an entire week of them, 24/7, in Joplin.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Joplin--Work
Woodland has taught me how to roof a house and love doing it. I'm grateful to be part of a church who taught me from a very early age to be a hard physical worker. Sometimes I think I learned this lesson too well.
In Joplin this year, the majority of our team worked at a homeless shelter, continuing work on a second story addition. They were undeniably the cool group. They went to work at 6:00 a.m., sent people home vomiting from the heat, and by the end of the week, the piles of wood actually looked like a building.
I was not on that crew.
With seven(ish) other people, I worked for Americorps, surveying homes throughout Joplin to see which families still had needs. My fellow crew members were self-professed non-construction workers, either always or as a result of age catching up with them. I am by no stretch of the imagination a magnificent construction worker, but I felt a little like I'd been put out to pasture.
This imagined unimportance was the result of my priority-addled mind. And that's too bad, because it took me far too long to realize what a cool job I had.
Four years ago, I survived a tornado that hit my school and wiped out 80% of our dorms, killing no one, thank God. It was the most traumatizing event of my life so far, and the only time I have legitimately thought I was going to die. It's been several years, but still I panic at the sound of tornado sirens, and my fear of tornadoes has morphed into a fear of thunderstorms at night. What I mean is, I'm still affected by it. Living in a town where no one else experienced it, sometimes I feel like I ought to be "over it." People rarely ask me how I'm doing, and I assume that they are right for not bringing it up. But it's something I do want to talk about.
Surveying in Joplin was cathartic for me, not because I told anyone about my experience, but because I got to do for others what I've been wanting people to do for me. I could ask people if they needed help, and I could listen while they repeated the stories they have probably shared over fifty times, and need to share fifty more. I was able to say, "It's been over a year, but this is still a huge deal. Do you want to talk?"
We only worked four hours a day. We wore tank tops and flip flops. We didn't carry hammers or put up walls. But the surveying work we did was valuable. I believe it was helpful to the people we met, and it was definitely helpful for me.
In Joplin this year, the majority of our team worked at a homeless shelter, continuing work on a second story addition. They were undeniably the cool group. They went to work at 6:00 a.m., sent people home vomiting from the heat, and by the end of the week, the piles of wood actually looked like a building.
I was not on that crew.
With seven(ish) other people, I worked for Americorps, surveying homes throughout Joplin to see which families still had needs. My fellow crew members were self-professed non-construction workers, either always or as a result of age catching up with them. I am by no stretch of the imagination a magnificent construction worker, but I felt a little like I'd been put out to pasture.
This imagined unimportance was the result of my priority-addled mind. And that's too bad, because it took me far too long to realize what a cool job I had.
Four years ago, I survived a tornado that hit my school and wiped out 80% of our dorms, killing no one, thank God. It was the most traumatizing event of my life so far, and the only time I have legitimately thought I was going to die. It's been several years, but still I panic at the sound of tornado sirens, and my fear of tornadoes has morphed into a fear of thunderstorms at night. What I mean is, I'm still affected by it. Living in a town where no one else experienced it, sometimes I feel like I ought to be "over it." People rarely ask me how I'm doing, and I assume that they are right for not bringing it up. But it's something I do want to talk about.
Surveying in Joplin was cathartic for me, not because I told anyone about my experience, but because I got to do for others what I've been wanting people to do for me. I could ask people if they needed help, and I could listen while they repeated the stories they have probably shared over fifty times, and need to share fifty more. I was able to say, "It's been over a year, but this is still a huge deal. Do you want to talk?"
We only worked four hours a day. We wore tank tops and flip flops. We didn't carry hammers or put up walls. But the surveying work we did was valuable. I believe it was helpful to the people we met, and it was definitely helpful for me.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Thoughts: Assemble!
The Gestalt Theory says that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and if we ever discuss this in one of my psychology classes, I will use The Avengers as an example. I didn't like Iron Man or Captain America. I never even saw Iron Man 2. Thor was interesting on Asgard, but as soon as it turned into a duck-out-of-water story in New Mexico, I lost interest. I was mostly excited about the upcoming Avengers because it was written by Joss Whedon. And then, of course, I was blown away. Some might say I became a little obsessed. How did these characters that I cared very little about turn into a team that I completely adored? The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Iron Man is generally considered awesome, and I agree. But after seeing The Avengers, my brother and I agreed that he is better in small doses. Regardless, I started watching Iron Man 2 this morning while getting ready. The beginning is centered around him basically giving the middle finger to the government when they try to requisition his Iron Man suit. Which....makes sense? It's a pretty huge weapon. It got me thinking--why do we trust Tony Stark? He's selfish and cocky. What is it about him that causes the viewers to inherently trust him? Must consider further.
I'm liking the movie, but I'm still not sold on Iron Man as his own franchise. I like him interacting with others. I'd go see The Avengers again, but I'm holding out. This is old news by now, but I am so freaking excited at the possibility that The Avengers will be rereleased in movie theaters with an extra 35 minutes of deleted scenes.
You know what else I want to throw my money at? A movie about Black Widow and Hawkeye! I want to see a backstory for these super spies/assassins. I want to see that moment in Budapest. I want more of their BFF relationship of love deeper than romance. And if it trips over into some romance, well, I'm okay with that too. I need more of them in my life!
My undying love for Black Widow makes it very difficult to understand why anyone would dislike her. This is made even harder when the reason I most often get involves her outfit. (I was also told that Wonder Woman shouldn't have her own remake because her outfit is ridiculous.) I'm sorry, but I have never avoided a good story because of what someone was wearing.
I'm assume this is a reaction against the skimpy outfits usually foisted on superheroines. And I'm all for wanting more practical, less male-gazey leotards. But Black Widow is already there. Her outfit is tight, but it's not revealing. For goodness' sake, she's usually covered from neck to toe to wrist. I especially love that she wears flats, because I just can't buy women running around saving the world in 4-inch heels. That seems painful and noisy. And I love even more that the narrative never treats her as eye candy. You know who is treated as sexual eye candy? Captain America.
Because that shot is all about the plot.
I love The Avengers. It makes me happy. It's been over a month since I've seen it and I can't stop thinking about it.
Iron Man is generally considered awesome, and I agree. But after seeing The Avengers, my brother and I agreed that he is better in small doses. Regardless, I started watching Iron Man 2 this morning while getting ready. The beginning is centered around him basically giving the middle finger to the government when they try to requisition his Iron Man suit. Which....makes sense? It's a pretty huge weapon. It got me thinking--why do we trust Tony Stark? He's selfish and cocky. What is it about him that causes the viewers to inherently trust him? Must consider further.
I'm liking the movie, but I'm still not sold on Iron Man as his own franchise. I like him interacting with others. I'd go see The Avengers again, but I'm holding out. This is old news by now, but I am so freaking excited at the possibility that The Avengers will be rereleased in movie theaters with an extra 35 minutes of deleted scenes.
You know what else I want to throw my money at? A movie about Black Widow and Hawkeye! I want to see a backstory for these super spies/assassins. I want to see that moment in Budapest. I want more of their BFF relationship of love deeper than romance. And if it trips over into some romance, well, I'm okay with that too. I need more of them in my life!
My undying love for Black Widow makes it very difficult to understand why anyone would dislike her. This is made even harder when the reason I most often get involves her outfit. (I was also told that Wonder Woman shouldn't have her own remake because her outfit is ridiculous.) I'm sorry, but I have never avoided a good story because of what someone was wearing.
I'm assume this is a reaction against the skimpy outfits usually foisted on superheroines. And I'm all for wanting more practical, less male-gazey leotards. But Black Widow is already there. Her outfit is tight, but it's not revealing. For goodness' sake, she's usually covered from neck to toe to wrist. I especially love that she wears flats, because I just can't buy women running around saving the world in 4-inch heels. That seems painful and noisy. And I love even more that the narrative never treats her as eye candy. You know who is treated as sexual eye candy? Captain America.
Because that shot is all about the plot.
I love The Avengers. It makes me happy. It's been over a month since I've seen it and I can't stop thinking about it.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Kelly Pranked Me
I'm not really sad about leaving the library. It's been great, and I've loved my time there, but I'm ready for something new.
What I will miss is Kelly, my coworker of the last two months, my replacement, and my newest kindred spirit. She's nearly 20 years older than me, married with two kids, but we have so much fun together. We sit back at the SRP table, talking about books and movies and what we did the night before. I told her about my ridiculous crush on Tom Hiddleston, and then we spent the next hour looking up cute guys on the internet.
She's silly, and we laugh a lot, but I also really admire her. I'm so glad to be passing my job onto her--she gets that we're a public library, that it's our duty to provide books of all kinds, not just what we prefer. She tries not to have opinions until she is familiar with the source (which led to a really hilarious and interesting discussion of Fifty Shades of Grey after she read it to see what the fuss was all about). She's awesome.
Today I pulled her into our office to show her this hilarious video that has been cracking me up every time I think about it. She laughed along, and I said I really want to Loki someone with an obnoxious stupid prank.
An hour later, I walked into the office, and she burst out laughing. I was...a little alarmed.
"I Loki'd you!"
"Ack! What!?"
"I Loki'd you, and you don't even know! It's so stupid, but I can't figure out how to get you to realize it." She was cracking up so hard that I burst out laughing too.
She changed my facebook to pirate talk. HAHAHA. Loki'd.
What I will miss is Kelly, my coworker of the last two months, my replacement, and my newest kindred spirit. She's nearly 20 years older than me, married with two kids, but we have so much fun together. We sit back at the SRP table, talking about books and movies and what we did the night before. I told her about my ridiculous crush on Tom Hiddleston, and then we spent the next hour looking up cute guys on the internet.
She's silly, and we laugh a lot, but I also really admire her. I'm so glad to be passing my job onto her--she gets that we're a public library, that it's our duty to provide books of all kinds, not just what we prefer. She tries not to have opinions until she is familiar with the source (which led to a really hilarious and interesting discussion of Fifty Shades of Grey after she read it to see what the fuss was all about). She's awesome.
Today I pulled her into our office to show her this hilarious video that has been cracking me up every time I think about it. She laughed along, and I said I really want to Loki someone with an obnoxious stupid prank.
An hour later, I walked into the office, and she burst out laughing. I was...a little alarmed.
"I Loki'd you!"
"Ack! What!?"
"I Loki'd you, and you don't even know! It's so stupid, but I can't figure out how to get you to realize it." She was cracking up so hard that I burst out laughing too.
She changed my facebook to pirate talk. HAHAHA. Loki'd.
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