I was reading at a coffee shop when I heard a mother say this to her child, who had just come out of the restroom.
“Ian. Ian. Did you get your ass cleaned?”
What?
She repeated,
“Did you get you ass cleaned?”
Really? How weirdly crass and grossly over-mothering are you?
She turned to her husband and said,
“Yeah, he got his ice cream.”
Oh. That makes more sense.
Do you ever get so laden with thoughts, feelings, and intentions that you shut down, shut down creative output, even thinking in general? Last week was one of the most laden weeks of my life, and yet it was one of the most productive. This week is a breeze comparatively, and yet I couldn’t write yesterday.
Yesterday I sought mindless tasks like making copies and paying invoices and sending out postcards instead of the easier, although more mind-intensive task of writing a new post on my blog. Three o’clock rolled around and I had nothing so I said,
“Screw it! I’m over you BLOG!”
Stupid blog, what does the word blog even mean anyway?
Today, though, I’m repentant. I approach my blog with a rose and a Hallmark card and apologize profusely. “Take me back bloggie. I’m sorry. I’ll never say those words again.”
And like any addict or alcoholic trying to open the door to a home that’s shut him out, I’ll pretend every thing’s all better… at least for a little while.
Today we’ll have 2 posts to make up for it.
On Tuesday we moved to a new 3 bedroom apartment in Santa Barbara. The place is clean and, after a year of housesitting and subletting, completely ours. The only problem is, I have no furniture. Last night I slept on the floor with only a 3 inch pad and the beige carpet for comfort.
My books, clothes, and electronics only have their separate piles on the floor to organize them. I have no dresser or bookscase or drawers to put them in. At about 6 last night, I flipped the light switch several times in vain, wondering why the lights weren’t turning on, only to discover we didn’t have any, and I needed to buy a floor lamp.
So I’ve been spending some time looking at furniture on ikea.com.
Have you ever seen Fight Club? I can’t help but think about it as I try to get myself and my stuff off the floor and into some “solutions for modern living.” Jack was a big fan of IKEA.
Tyler says, “Do you know what a duvet it?”
Jack, who’s house just exploded into a mess of furniture and condiments, says, “Comforter.”
“It’s a blanket, just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and I know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival? In the hunter-gathered sense of the word? No. What are we then?”
“You know, consumers.”
“Right. We’re consumers. We’re by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty–these things don’t concern me. What concerns me is celebrity magazines, television with five hundred channels, some guy’s name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.”
“Martha Stewart.”
“Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha’s polish on the brass of the Titanic. It’s all going down, man! So fuck off, with your sofa units and your green stripe patterns. I say never be complete. I say stop being perfect. I say let’s evolve and let the chips fall where they may. But that’s me, I could be wrong, maybe it’s a terrible tragedy.”
“No, it’s just stuff.”
“Well, you did lose a lot of versatile solutions for modern living.”
That last part was the sarcastic funny part, if you didn’t pick up on it.
It really all boils down to this question, and be honest with me:
Does this bookshelf define me as a person?
Today is Friday, and here at joebunting.com, we dedicate Friday’s to helpful exclusion.
At Lauds today, like every Friday, we gathered in a circle around the host. Bread was turned into body, wine into blood, and one after another came to receive, with bowed heads, the sacrifice.
All but one. Her head bowed lower than the rest, she received a few words of blessing instead of God. A dear friend, being Orthodox, could not receive the host without breaking an obligation to her tradition. I watched as she passed the blood, brow creased and eyes misty but not raining. Rain threatened to mar my own face.
Because even though my head had not bowed quite so low, I had no such obligation, and the blessing that I received was already beginning to slide through my veins.
I love conflict, but the I can’t say we Christians do it well. How we managed to turn a table serving unity and forgiveness into a place of division is beyond me. I know all the arguments. I even agree with some of them, but they are insufficient. There is no excuse for thise crime we have committed.
My teacher, Telford Work, once said to me, “At this table, the problem that he has against us is much greater than the problem we have with each other.”
Worse yet, there is no one to be angry with. The Orthodox institution is a faceless beauracracy. The Catholic institution has a face, but he hides behind bullet proof glass and under the skirts of cardinals and other sentinels of tradition. The Protestant insanity is a mob of chaos.
Today is Friday, and here at joebunting.com, we dedicate Friday’s to helpful exclusion, but I don’t know who to ask to leave today? Luther? Calvin? The fools responsible for 1054? Or the greatest fool of all, myself?
No, today we will break tradition, because it’s a bad tradition that needs to be broken. “Peace I leave to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.”
I loooove conflict. I swear it’s saved my life more than once. Just yesterday I came out on the backside of a big conflict with some of my roommates. It was over something small, but the implications of the small thing were huge. My friends’ willingness to confront me helped me see things in a very different light, and it wasn’t pretty.
Why do I love conflict though? It hurts; it’s lonely; it forces us to confront things in ourselves that we would rather ignore. What’s so great about it?
Well because I’m not perfect, but I want to be (I’ll get there too). The harder the conversation, the more it hurts to confront something in myself, the bigger chunk that I’m asked to give, the closer I am to that goal. Most of the time, it’s baby steps. During conflict, it’s giant leaps.
And you? Do you need to get into a fight with someone? Are you holding anger in and not confronting people that have hurt or annoyed you?
Well, what are you waiting for?! Get after it. For your sake and theirs. I promise you, you will learn more in those painful minutes and in the (often devestating) aftermath than you will in a year of playing it safe. Even if you fall on your face, at least it will be because of a fight. At least you’ll go down in glory and honor.
Here’s how Shakespeare put it:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
My friend Sarah told me she was on here the other day and was disappointed because she couldn’t find any songs to listen to. It’s true, I don’t have nearly enough music on here (especially since I’m supposed to be a musician). I can only apologize and try to get more up.
Here are some reasons (not excuses) why there isn’t that much music on this blog:
There are other reasons, but I don’t want to sound like I’m whining.
Anyway, don’t worry friends, we’ll get some more songs up soon. In the meantime, enjoy the one song I do have here.
See Customer Service Part I below.
I got the info and called customer service. 10 minutes later (half of that on hold) I found out I needed one more piece of info from him. I had to call him back for the second time. Brisk. Business. A-friendly.
10 minutes of customer service. Finally, I get a copy of the doc mailed to him. I also have a copy faxed to our office so he can pick it up right away if he wants. Plus, I get the tax info that he needed and to give it to him over the phone.
Do everything as if you are doing it for me.
“You’ve done a very good deed today Joe,” he said. I know, I thought. “You’re welcome, sir,” I said.
I wasn’t done yet though. I got the fax and called him back.
“Can you mail that to me?” he asked. I finally had an attitude adjustment. “I’d be happy to, sir, but are you sure you wouldn’t rather pick it up yourself? Will your accountant need it for the 15th?”
“No, I have everything I need. Thank you very much for your help, Joe.”
“You’re welcome, sir. And please don’t hesitate to call again.”
And sir, I apologize for not helping you whole-heartedly earlier. You’re time is important too, and I should have been more eager to help.
