***This post was written a good while back at the beginning of summer. I don't think I actually finished it, which is why it wasn't posted, but I'll put it up here. The language seems a little over the top at points, but it's pretty much what it felt like, and still feels like occasionally.***
Sunlight rises over the hills of winter, creeps in from the corners of spring, and people start driving around with their windows open and short sleeves on. In my life, key people like Daniel, Justin and Betsy come back home to stay for a few months, and the world is once again as it should be. My text messaging has increased dramatically as I try to coordinate with a bunch of fun people looking to spend time. My "want to do" list is longer than ever before: Go out in the woods, camp, jam with Steve Gole, jam with Justin and Daniel, record the soundtrack for Nathaniel Taylor's movie, record some songs with Pure Boss, record my own songs, go to Akron several times, go to Washington DC, play lots of basketball, keep lifting weights, maybe get a digital SLR and take some cool pictures, go to Pirates games, play frisbee after church every week, and pretty much do anything outside of the self-imposed confines of my stupid little life.
My "want to do" list is long. My "have to do" list is short. And powerful. Like a mad rip 5-foot UFC fighter. Go to work every weekday (not too bad), be alert and energetic at work (the killer), and the trump card: plan and execute youth camp. I'm currently gasping for air under the torrent of youth camp stuff that needs to be done. So the WTD list will mostly have to wait until after June 22nd-25th.
Aside from that, I'm still straddling both worlds, trying to be a bona fide engineer and employee during the day, and hanging out with carefree people 4+ years younger than me afterwards. I'm in tension between the demands of and engineering career and the cries of the undercurrent of music that keeps wanting to suck my feet out from under me. I straddle the line between saved and unsaved, boiling over sin constantly in myself, but continuing to seek God in different ways, when I can, and going to church and doing church stuff. I stand on a windblown peak, with two faces of a cliff at my feet. One is an engineering job, which has stability and money for a wife and family down at the bottom. The other is a wild ride that lives in the moment, ventures out into new things, walks down unknown paths, makes the most of these priceless years of youth, leaves me some stories to tell, but doesn't guarantee anything 10 years later at the bottom. I've been climbing for the engineering suburbanite cliff all my life, but I can't get the siren call of the other road out of my head or my gut. I'm ready to fight my laziness, kick my craving for stability and sameness in the gut, and throw myself into the big wide world and see what I can do. But I have no direction, no certainty, no peace, and no real prospects in that direction. It's the idle dreams of a lame kid sitting on his bed whining about his life but not doing anything about it. But the engineering path is kicking me in the stomach as well, as I meet baffling resistance within and without to "clicking" here, drinking it in, pushing through the difficulty of learning, and excelling like I did in college.
Mom had a picture that sums it up well: I'm surrounded by goads. Sharp points at every turn. Every direction I try to go jabs me and sends me right back. I'm at an impasse, and the only way out is up. Nice cliched ending to the analogy, right? Well I'm still waiting to see if that actually happens. I try occasionally, I have brief moments of positive feelings towards God, briefer moments of fragmentary hope, but mostly I'm sitting here looking at sharp spikes staring me in the face from every direction, hating where I'm at, where I'm headed, and myself, the creator of all these goads. I've heard stories all my life about people who excelled, who accomplished, who performed, who did things. I have the bug for that, but I can't seem to carry it out, and I'm wondering if there's any place, any mercy, for someone who sees greatness, has the kernel for it, but lets it slip through his unwilling hands. I'm to blame, but I feel helpless at the same time. I can't just shrug my shoulders and make my deepest motivations change in the twinkle of an eye! I'm to blame, but I feel like a prisoner all the same. I'm despicable, I want to be pitied, and I hate myself for wanting to be pitied.
Will this ever change? I know full well that the only true solution to this impasse IS up. God. Surrender of my "pride of life," desire to make something of myself, be impressive, be impressed with myself. SEEING that I am hell-bound and needing mercy, and therefore sincerely clinging to Jesus Christ, crucified for my sins and risen again, throwing the doors open to Him and following His voice with childlike submission, faith, and sweet gratefulness, love and joy.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Like the Good Old Days
This past weekend I went on a great trip to Akron. Kinda just happened when plans for Philly fell through, and seemed to have the ring of God's blessing about it. Here's the low-down:
Left work Friday. Made good time up 51 and through downtown.
Steve still at work, so I walk into "La Puente" and crash the Refine dinner :-)
Meet Joel Putnam, who turns out to be an amazingly cool guy.
Abandoned mall with Nick, Brian and Jenica.
Iron Man. We are entertained.
"The engineer in me cries out!"
Joy! Steve is still up when I get home, and there's stuff for burritos!
Hanging around the kitchen like the old days. Long time talking and praying out on the front porch.
Sleep till 2 with a break to play with Lizabeff.
Steve back. Taco Bell, Guitar Center, and Walmart for the afternoon.
Enchilada Cheetos!
$1200 Rhodes. I WANT IT. Holy smokes.
No show for the CoG Academy drama. Instead, really good time hanging out with Mike.
Walked down to the Duchess and bought pop and chips, just like the old days! *sniff*
Seriously.
Brian, Nick and Dave Potter come over and we burn wood from the old stage.
Talking about eating Kosher for hours.
Truly good time with those guys!
3:30? Hmm.
Church *mostly* on time.
Baja fresh with Jess and Jen.
That would be Jess Arlia and Jenica. Hah! Gotcha, eh? *poke poke*
Met Solomon. Hah! Someone else is awkward!
Say what? Some party event thingey for Will Paradis and some Rutkowski? Sure, I'll go!
Seems to be lame for a brief period, then I get in on a basketball game, and 7 hours later it's like, man, this was an awesome day!
Sorta kept up with a college-level bballer (who was also a really nice girl)
Experienced Mr. Paradis's home-made audiophile speaker system. My life is changed.
Not joking at all.
It's one of the best-sounding systems in the world.
Like, whaaaat? {:-0
Also got to know Adam Hanes and his sweet sweet outdoor job.
Finally met Amanda Rutkowski!
Good times with more people. Jon Fleck, John Roberts, Brian came by, played catch with Jenica, basketball with Justin Work & others, caught up with Rick Matzek, met the whole Paradis family.
It was a good day. I shot well.
Awkwardly standing there through the tearful goodbyes of the Rutkowskis and Digneys, who are like Will's family. (He was going off to the Air Force the next day. Turns out this was a send-off party for him and Rick Rutkowski.)
Home with Steve-O. Jon Lavery is there!
Freaking genius.
SECOND 2-liter bottle of Diet Dr.Pepper.
"Hey Jon, is this your week to not sleep?"
". . . yeah . ."
GAH it's 12:53am and I'm in Akron!
And of course I didn't remember till 10 o'clock, AT the Paradises, that tomorrow I get up extra early to do extra hard work.
Prayer, Vault, and some rockin' music get me home no problem. It was a good drive.
It was a good weekend.
Like, really good.
My efforts to be more friendly and outward-, people-focused were blessed! Kinda leaves me standing in the dust saying "Did that just happen? Duuude!"
Left work Friday. Made good time up 51 and through downtown.
Steve still at work, so I walk into "La Puente" and crash the Refine dinner :-)
Meet Joel Putnam, who turns out to be an amazingly cool guy.
Abandoned mall with Nick, Brian and Jenica.
Iron Man. We are entertained.
"The engineer in me cries out!"
Joy! Steve is still up when I get home, and there's stuff for burritos!
Hanging around the kitchen like the old days. Long time talking and praying out on the front porch.
Sleep till 2 with a break to play with Lizabeff.
Steve back. Taco Bell, Guitar Center, and Walmart for the afternoon.
Enchilada Cheetos!
$1200 Rhodes. I WANT IT. Holy smokes.
No show for the CoG Academy drama. Instead, really good time hanging out with Mike.
Walked down to the Duchess and bought pop and chips, just like the old days! *sniff*
Seriously.
Brian, Nick and Dave Potter come over and we burn wood from the old stage.
Talking about eating Kosher for hours.
Truly good time with those guys!
3:30? Hmm.
Church *mostly* on time.
Baja fresh with Jess and Jen.
That would be Jess Arlia and Jenica. Hah! Gotcha, eh? *poke poke*
Met Solomon. Hah! Someone else is awkward!
Say what? Some party event thingey for Will Paradis and some Rutkowski? Sure, I'll go!
Seems to be lame for a brief period, then I get in on a basketball game, and 7 hours later it's like, man, this was an awesome day!
Sorta kept up with a college-level bballer (who was also a really nice girl)
Experienced Mr. Paradis's home-made audiophile speaker system. My life is changed.
Not joking at all.
It's one of the best-sounding systems in the world.
Like, whaaaat? {:-0
Also got to know Adam Hanes and his sweet sweet outdoor job.
Finally met Amanda Rutkowski!
Good times with more people. Jon Fleck, John Roberts, Brian came by, played catch with Jenica, basketball with Justin Work & others, caught up with Rick Matzek, met the whole Paradis family.
It was a good day. I shot well.
Awkwardly standing there through the tearful goodbyes of the Rutkowskis and Digneys, who are like Will's family. (He was going off to the Air Force the next day. Turns out this was a send-off party for him and Rick Rutkowski.)
Home with Steve-O. Jon Lavery is there!
Freaking genius.
SECOND 2-liter bottle of Diet Dr.Pepper.
"Hey Jon, is this your week to not sleep?"
". . . yeah . ."
GAH it's 12:53am and I'm in Akron!
And of course I didn't remember till 10 o'clock, AT the Paradises, that tomorrow I get up extra early to do extra hard work.
Prayer, Vault, and some rockin' music get me home no problem. It was a good drive.
It was a good weekend.
Like, really good.
My efforts to be more friendly and outward-, people-focused were blessed! Kinda leaves me standing in the dust saying "Did that just happen? Duuude!"
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
I'd better document last week, 'cause if I don't remember it, then it was of almost no value. Even though I *did* a lot (meeting one of my current personal goals), it was of a consumptive, rather than productive nature, leaving nothing for me to show but a few souvenirs and less money.
But it was not ill-spent.
Except Tuesday. I worked, and stayed up late watching TV because it was easy. Hateful.
Wednesday, after some internal debate, I agreed to go with Steve Gole to Cleveland to see his friends' band State Fair play. They didn't even start till 10pm, so it was a late night. But Steve drove so I could sleep, and musically it was worth the trip. State Fair crosses the line from "good band.. for friends of mine" to "good band. Period", and even got into "I don't care about the band, I'm immersed in a highly enjoyable sea of sound at the moment." Really something for some guys playing in "The Grog Shop!"
Thursday Steve, his friend Rachel, and myself met up at the Strip District, grabbed some dinner, and went to see Eisely play at Club Stratus. We ate at this cool "island cuisine" place. Shwanky. Not cheap. But delicious, and I felt cool being there :-) The concert was small, personal, good sound quality, and yieldinous of a new band. "The Myriad" was opening when we got there, and they grabbed our attention even before we got into the building. Bought a CD, talked to their bass player, and rocked it out in the car on the way home. Great stuff. Cool "night on the town."
[This is all I can remember. I didn't finish this post, and now I have forgotten that which I sought to preserve :-( This illustrates the reason I want to write in this blog. Somewhat of a negative motivation, but so are a lot of things in life.]
But it was not ill-spent.
Except Tuesday. I worked, and stayed up late watching TV because it was easy. Hateful.
Wednesday, after some internal debate, I agreed to go with Steve Gole to Cleveland to see his friends' band State Fair play. They didn't even start till 10pm, so it was a late night. But Steve drove so I could sleep, and musically it was worth the trip. State Fair crosses the line from "good band.. for friends of mine" to "good band. Period", and even got into "I don't care about the band, I'm immersed in a highly enjoyable sea of sound at the moment." Really something for some guys playing in "The Grog Shop!"
Thursday Steve, his friend Rachel, and myself met up at the Strip District, grabbed some dinner, and went to see Eisely play at Club Stratus. We ate at this cool "island cuisine" place. Shwanky. Not cheap. But delicious, and I felt cool being there :-) The concert was small, personal, good sound quality, and yieldinous of a new band. "The Myriad" was opening when we got there, and they grabbed our attention even before we got into the building. Bought a CD, talked to their bass player, and rocked it out in the car on the way home. Great stuff. Cool "night on the town."
[This is all I can remember. I didn't finish this post, and now I have forgotten that which I sought to preserve :-( This illustrates the reason I want to write in this blog. Somewhat of a negative motivation, but so are a lot of things in life.]
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Caution: Discouragement below
Today I met one of those people who makes me feel like the most unaccomplished, wasted, insignificant and lowly person walking this globe. I saw a Behringer headphone amp on craigslist, emailed the seller, and ended up driving out to Greentree to pick it up at his office this afternoon. Garry had long enough hair to be a tried and true music guy, but short and neat enough to be very professional. He had mentioned his studio on the phone, so I asked him about it as we stood in the stark lunchroom (straight out of The Office!) and he hooked up the unit so I could test it. Turns out he ran a studio all the way from a four track tape rig in the 80's to a full-blown 32-channel board with all kinds of gear and people working there... while playing in bands himself and working as a software engineer. He's finally knocking the studio down to a home rig since the crazy amount of work and time and lack of sleep was getting to be too much. I use Cakewalk Sonar 2.0 as my recording software. Turns out he was on the beta testing team for Cakewalk for years, and he wrote some of the code that they use in Sonar. He spoke about mics and boards and gear and bands and musicians with the ease of immense familiarity.
I drove away from the gleaming office building despising my pitiful, introverted, connection-less, lackadaisical, unfocused, unmotivated, unproductive little suburban life. Hearing about Ken's accomplishments in Africa hasn't helped either. Leading tours, hanging out with a multimillionaire client, setting records in Ethiopia, working on writing a field guide, posting 100% professional-looking pictures of vistas that make me almost wet my pants, planning and working to break the North American record for the most bird species seen in 1 day (which he's got sponsors to pay for, by the way)...
While here I sit in my colossally tiny world of church friends (Whom I love, don't get me wrong! You guys are.. far better than most of the world even knows can be), a few work friends (with whom I have no connection outside of work), and... what is it 1? maybe 2 friends from college? I roll through this life safe in my car, paying for everything I do and everywhere I go, talking pleasantly with strangers behind counters whom I'll never see again, and holding unrelentingly onto my time and activities. I find myself waiting to end conversations with people! Just because.. it's less effort to not talk! The thought of making my life, my evenings, my hours, my meals, my time, my effort, part of something other than church, work and the occasional trip to Akron or elsewhere is inconceivable.
That is the functional reality I am faced with in those moments when I crave being accomplished in real-life, professional-level fields. I am so far from real music people, people running studios, the actual livings and breathings of professional musicians and studios that it makes me snort a despising laugh at myself. And the thing that kills is that I can't kid myself that I'll start making those kind of connections. My life isn't going to change that drastically! If it was, it would have by now! I have never done my recording at the level of fierce seriousness that gets you moving up and into professional (or even just freakin' serious hobby) circles. And though I hurt inside for the lack of accomplishment, I know that that is not the same as a motivation that will begin to generate that kind of productivity.
So I sit in our kitchen with a knot in my stomach, hatred for myself, and thick chains of laziness, personality and years past and gone locking me down. There is no one to blame but myself.
You may protest - oh! You go to Akron! You travel around! You're a better guitar player than me! You have a studio in your basement and you've made two albums and like 70 songs!
All that is is a pitifully small pond in which I might look like a big fish. Any kind of respectable, real-world pond leaves me a bacteria floating in the water, worth nothing to anyone.
When (please Lord) God saves and changes me, I think I will look back on this post as the wretched misery of a person trying to live for himself and being resisted in his pride. I can't just snap my finger and make that change, though. And right now, I'm in the valley of despair--at least in the moments like today when I look at my life and compare it to lives of actual accomplishment in the world.
Here again is a poem I wrote awhile ago and posted. It gives a bit of emotion to the content of the paragraphs above:
Your wings have feathers and here you sit
Watching them folded at your side
You didn't know which way to fly
And so you never tried
You write the songs but never make a sound
You'll spend the rest of your life on the ground
A couple things I'm happy with:
- Basketball. I'm exercising myself, hitting shots, and getting outside.
- Jamming with Steve Gole. So much fun, and some pretty cool music!
- This post. At least I was non-lazy enough to exercise the creative energy necessary to type this up and work it over.
- My music collection. It's huge, I know almost all of it, and it's recently been expanded by another 7 CD's.
I don't know what that's worth. Documenting this period, I suppose. Pretty dinky stuff I guess, but at least it's not depressing, and I enjoy those things. I don't want to be ungrateful or unreasonable.
--JPB
I drove away from the gleaming office building despising my pitiful, introverted, connection-less, lackadaisical, unfocused, unmotivated, unproductive little suburban life. Hearing about Ken's accomplishments in Africa hasn't helped either. Leading tours, hanging out with a multimillionaire client, setting records in Ethiopia, working on writing a field guide, posting 100% professional-looking pictures of vistas that make me almost wet my pants, planning and working to break the North American record for the most bird species seen in 1 day (which he's got sponsors to pay for, by the way)...
While here I sit in my colossally tiny world of church friends (Whom I love, don't get me wrong! You guys are.. far better than most of the world even knows can be), a few work friends (with whom I have no connection outside of work), and... what is it 1? maybe 2 friends from college? I roll through this life safe in my car, paying for everything I do and everywhere I go, talking pleasantly with strangers behind counters whom I'll never see again, and holding unrelentingly onto my time and activities. I find myself waiting to end conversations with people! Just because.. it's less effort to not talk! The thought of making my life, my evenings, my hours, my meals, my time, my effort, part of something other than church, work and the occasional trip to Akron or elsewhere is inconceivable.
That is the functional reality I am faced with in those moments when I crave being accomplished in real-life, professional-level fields. I am so far from real music people, people running studios, the actual livings and breathings of professional musicians and studios that it makes me snort a despising laugh at myself. And the thing that kills is that I can't kid myself that I'll start making those kind of connections. My life isn't going to change that drastically! If it was, it would have by now! I have never done my recording at the level of fierce seriousness that gets you moving up and into professional (or even just freakin' serious hobby) circles. And though I hurt inside for the lack of accomplishment, I know that that is not the same as a motivation that will begin to generate that kind of productivity.
So I sit in our kitchen with a knot in my stomach, hatred for myself, and thick chains of laziness, personality and years past and gone locking me down. There is no one to blame but myself.
You may protest - oh! You go to Akron! You travel around! You're a better guitar player than me! You have a studio in your basement and you've made two albums and like 70 songs!
All that is is a pitifully small pond in which I might look like a big fish. Any kind of respectable, real-world pond leaves me a bacteria floating in the water, worth nothing to anyone.
When (please Lord) God saves and changes me, I think I will look back on this post as the wretched misery of a person trying to live for himself and being resisted in his pride. I can't just snap my finger and make that change, though. And right now, I'm in the valley of despair--at least in the moments like today when I look at my life and compare it to lives of actual accomplishment in the world.
Here again is a poem I wrote awhile ago and posted. It gives a bit of emotion to the content of the paragraphs above:
Your wings have feathers and here you sit
Watching them folded at your side
You didn't know which way to fly
And so you never tried
You write the songs but never make a sound
You'll spend the rest of your life on the ground
A couple things I'm happy with:
- Basketball. I'm exercising myself, hitting shots, and getting outside.
- Jamming with Steve Gole. So much fun, and some pretty cool music!
- This post. At least I was non-lazy enough to exercise the creative energy necessary to type this up and work it over.
- My music collection. It's huge, I know almost all of it, and it's recently been expanded by another 7 CD's.
I don't know what that's worth. Documenting this period, I suppose. Pretty dinky stuff I guess, but at least it's not depressing, and I enjoy those things. I don't want to be ungrateful or unreasonable.
--JPB
Monday, April 14, 2008
Killing some time at work
I'm sitting at work icing my ankle, with a few minutes to kill, so I have the luxury of writing whatever I want in here! I'm ignoring the burden of past experiences that I haven't yet documented.
My left ankle is pressed up against a stiff ice pack that's pressed up against my man boot that's pressed up against my desk. I'm hunched over to reach the keyboard, backing up every minute or two to fork off another piece of enchilada, or take a sip of the SoBe Essential juice+energy Berry Pomegranate flavored energy juice drink. Nobody else is around, so I'm playing The Strokes comfortably loud through my desktop speakers. Since mowing the lawn last week, I've gotten to like them a good bit. More British stuff from Craig.
XM47, "Lucy," plays at volume notch 1 in the speaker above me. It's just on so I can hear a page if one comes through. Gotta pause the iPod quick and try to catch the repeat. "JAWN BAREIN, WUN SEVINDY FOWR.. JON BARIN, WUNSEVINDYFOR PLEEZ." And since it's night turn, you never know when you might get a whoop in the background as they're hanging up the phone, or maybe some intentional clatter of the receiver, or best yet, a multi-syllabic mispronounciation of Frank Fronzaglio's name :-)
My hot end is in good order. Dale didn't show up, so I've been hauling cullet most of the night (which is why I'm icing my ankle), but I've got 7 truckloads, and we use about 9 per shift, so I'm close to even. The sand car is done unloading and I pushed it down the tracks to the other empties. The tin bath is running well and we've got two of the most experienced operators there right now. Frankie is learning the furnace from Josh, and they've got some hot & dusty cleaning yet to do. We may not get the debris cleaned out from under 3 port left and right... we'll see. Roy Hi-vac'd all 3 levels of the batch house, so I'm waiting awhile before I ask him to clean up the busted glass in the casting hall. QC tests show that the glass color is holding steady, and the last defect sampling didn't have any bottom tin pickup, so we seem to have licked that. There's not much I can do about the tab alumina or chromite, and the seeds & bubbles aren't bad enough to warrant action. Joe has been cleaning up around the tin bath, and that's one of the main things remaining for the last 3 hours of the night: cleaning up the place for all the daylight folks coming in in a few hours. I try to leave them as few things to complain about as possible.
It's been a very relaxed weekend, which is welcome after the HELLACIOUS day last Tuesday. I messed up, we went out of spec, lost a lot of glass, and didn't have a very good reason for it. Bleah. I learned my lesson, though.
Enough sitting around. I could do this all night, but I gotta always light a fire under my own rear and get out there, look around, think, take a step back mentally, scout around for anything left untended, anything that should be done, anything that somebody could give me a hard time for not doing or fixing or addressing or noticing. If somebody walked in right now and looked around, what would they see? What would they ask me about? Would I have a good answer? Could anybody look in on me right now and say I'm being lazy? Would they be right?
That's what these weeks as a supervisor-in-training have been like. On good days, I love it. On the bad days I want to bash my head into an I-beam.
There have been many more good days than bad.
Ahhhh. Good song just came on :-)
Hope this was somewhat profitable, or at least mildly entertaining to read!
--JPB
My left ankle is pressed up against a stiff ice pack that's pressed up against my man boot that's pressed up against my desk. I'm hunched over to reach the keyboard, backing up every minute or two to fork off another piece of enchilada, or take a sip of the SoBe Essential juice+energy Berry Pomegranate flavored energy juice drink. Nobody else is around, so I'm playing The Strokes comfortably loud through my desktop speakers. Since mowing the lawn last week, I've gotten to like them a good bit. More British stuff from Craig.
XM47, "Lucy," plays at volume notch 1 in the speaker above me. It's just on so I can hear a page if one comes through. Gotta pause the iPod quick and try to catch the repeat. "JAWN BAREIN, WUN SEVINDY FOWR.. JON BARIN, WUNSEVINDYFOR PLEEZ." And since it's night turn, you never know when you might get a whoop in the background as they're hanging up the phone, or maybe some intentional clatter of the receiver, or best yet, a multi-syllabic mispronounciation of Frank Fronzaglio's name :-)
My hot end is in good order. Dale didn't show up, so I've been hauling cullet most of the night (which is why I'm icing my ankle), but I've got 7 truckloads, and we use about 9 per shift, so I'm close to even. The sand car is done unloading and I pushed it down the tracks to the other empties. The tin bath is running well and we've got two of the most experienced operators there right now. Frankie is learning the furnace from Josh, and they've got some hot & dusty cleaning yet to do. We may not get the debris cleaned out from under 3 port left and right... we'll see. Roy Hi-vac'd all 3 levels of the batch house, so I'm waiting awhile before I ask him to clean up the busted glass in the casting hall. QC tests show that the glass color is holding steady, and the last defect sampling didn't have any bottom tin pickup, so we seem to have licked that. There's not much I can do about the tab alumina or chromite, and the seeds & bubbles aren't bad enough to warrant action. Joe has been cleaning up around the tin bath, and that's one of the main things remaining for the last 3 hours of the night: cleaning up the place for all the daylight folks coming in in a few hours. I try to leave them as few things to complain about as possible.
It's been a very relaxed weekend, which is welcome after the HELLACIOUS day last Tuesday. I messed up, we went out of spec, lost a lot of glass, and didn't have a very good reason for it. Bleah. I learned my lesson, though.
Enough sitting around. I could do this all night, but I gotta always light a fire under my own rear and get out there, look around, think, take a step back mentally, scout around for anything left untended, anything that should be done, anything that somebody could give me a hard time for not doing or fixing or addressing or noticing. If somebody walked in right now and looked around, what would they see? What would they ask me about? Would I have a good answer? Could anybody look in on me right now and say I'm being lazy? Would they be right?
That's what these weeks as a supervisor-in-training have been like. On good days, I love it. On the bad days I want to bash my head into an I-beam.
There have been many more good days than bad.
Ahhhh. Good song just came on :-)
Hope this was somewhat profitable, or at least mildly entertaining to read!
--JPB
Friday, April 11, 2008
Buffet
I had a thought awhile ago. A creep-out, actually. A being-creeped-out that there are days when I never get my heart rate up or use my muscles for anything but walking, sitting, standing, walking again.. laying down... Augh! Jibbly jibbly jibbly.
Sitting there stagnating when I'm 23 years old!
So Sunday was a good day for buffeting of the body, and I went for it headlong.
A group from church--the elder 4(!) Calvettis, Taylor boys, Graham guys, elder 2 Q's, Kevin, Dad and myself--convened in the sunshine and breeze at Quinlisk Park eager to get the disc flyin' in a Providence Church ultimate frisbee game. We putzed around at first, and took a break to drive to Wendy's after an hour, but we still logged plenty of foot-pounding, lung-pounding action over the grass and through the sky.
I tell you what - football could never compare to frisbee. You can't bend a football throw around three people and have it lift up higher, hang in the air, and float down to a receiver right in the middle of defenders.
Round about 4 o'clock my legs were starting to tell me I couldn't go on much longer, and I was relieved to find that that was the general feeling. So a couple more goals, and we were done. With frisbee, that is. I've been itching to play basketball, and I had Mike Q bring a ball from the Q's house, so I headed right over to the hoops. An over-inflated ball with double rims makes for tough shots, but Brian, Mitchel and I still got some good 21 action in. Then the Hetricks came, Mrs. Bodine picked up Brian, and the games continued. Till I rolled my ankle. Not good. It hurt so much at first I didn't think about much but getting through it, but pretty soon I saw the weeks ahead looming with ace bandages, ice packs, limping all over work for 12 hours.. just like the last time this happened.
But this time I knew without question that we should pray for it. God is stirring things up here at Providence, and moving, and I could totally see Him healing this and having mercy on the consequences. So Jeremy prayed, and from then on it has seemed like a one-fourth as serious accident. It calmed down greatly, and I walked around a bit, although I could tell it would get jazzed up if I did much. I drove home with the stick shift, took a shower, and pretty much went on with my life! It's been a bit sensitive, and now it's mildly sore.
...after playing basketball for two and a half hours yesterday! So praise and thanks are due to God for straight-up mercy on my weak joint, making it heal way faster than is normal for me.
That was an abrupt end of the action Sunday (for me), but yesterday (Thursday) was an off day on my shift schedule, and I met Jeremy at the BP community center at noon for some more Bball, which was sweet. It was a great day off. Basketball at the cool new community center gym, then a big lunch at Chick-fil-A sitting out side, then a stop at the church office for some youth camp stuff, and lastly, another hour of basketball at Quinlisk Park. Running around dribbling and sinking shots, with Good Charlotte pumping out of my car and the warm air and occasional sun breaking through... it felt good, man.
I like Bethel Park, I like basketball, I like days off on the shift schedule, I like spring weather turning warm, I like exercise, I like my subwoofer and sound system, I like Chick-fil-A, and I liked Thursday. It was a good gift from God, and I'm grateful, and I don't deserve it.
May the body buffeting continue.
--JPB
Sitting there stagnating when I'm 23 years old!
So Sunday was a good day for buffeting of the body, and I went for it headlong.
A group from church--the elder 4(!) Calvettis, Taylor boys, Graham guys, elder 2 Q's, Kevin, Dad and myself--convened in the sunshine and breeze at Quinlisk Park eager to get the disc flyin' in a Providence Church ultimate frisbee game. We putzed around at first, and took a break to drive to Wendy's after an hour, but we still logged plenty of foot-pounding, lung-pounding action over the grass and through the sky.
I tell you what - football could never compare to frisbee. You can't bend a football throw around three people and have it lift up higher, hang in the air, and float down to a receiver right in the middle of defenders.
Round about 4 o'clock my legs were starting to tell me I couldn't go on much longer, and I was relieved to find that that was the general feeling. So a couple more goals, and we were done. With frisbee, that is. I've been itching to play basketball, and I had Mike Q bring a ball from the Q's house, so I headed right over to the hoops. An over-inflated ball with double rims makes for tough shots, but Brian, Mitchel and I still got some good 21 action in. Then the Hetricks came, Mrs. Bodine picked up Brian, and the games continued. Till I rolled my ankle. Not good. It hurt so much at first I didn't think about much but getting through it, but pretty soon I saw the weeks ahead looming with ace bandages, ice packs, limping all over work for 12 hours.. just like the last time this happened.
But this time I knew without question that we should pray for it. God is stirring things up here at Providence, and moving, and I could totally see Him healing this and having mercy on the consequences. So Jeremy prayed, and from then on it has seemed like a one-fourth as serious accident. It calmed down greatly, and I walked around a bit, although I could tell it would get jazzed up if I did much. I drove home with the stick shift, took a shower, and pretty much went on with my life! It's been a bit sensitive, and now it's mildly sore.
...after playing basketball for two and a half hours yesterday! So praise and thanks are due to God for straight-up mercy on my weak joint, making it heal way faster than is normal for me.
That was an abrupt end of the action Sunday (for me), but yesterday (Thursday) was an off day on my shift schedule, and I met Jeremy at the BP community center at noon for some more Bball, which was sweet. It was a great day off. Basketball at the cool new community center gym, then a big lunch at Chick-fil-A sitting out side, then a stop at the church office for some youth camp stuff, and lastly, another hour of basketball at Quinlisk Park. Running around dribbling and sinking shots, with Good Charlotte pumping out of my car and the warm air and occasional sun breaking through... it felt good, man.
I like Bethel Park, I like basketball, I like days off on the shift schedule, I like spring weather turning warm, I like exercise, I like my subwoofer and sound system, I like Chick-fil-A, and I liked Thursday. It was a good gift from God, and I'm grateful, and I don't deserve it.
May the body buffeting continue.
--JPB
Monday, March 17, 2008
tisk tisk
Four thirty? *tsk* ugh John, you did it again - stayed up till some ungodly hour and now your day tomorrow will be all messed up, and the time's gone, and you're just so irresponsible.
HAH.
Not tonight.
I'm on night shift, baby!
Yeppersindeed. I'm on temporary assignment as quasi hot end supervisor for A crew. My boss brought up the idea, for me to solidly learn the basics of the process without paperwork distractions, and to get to know the shift schedule first hand.
We started on nights last Monday, working 6pm to 6am. Monday night, Tuesday night, then Wednesday and Thursday off, except we had offsite training 8am - 2pm Thursday, so that sorta killed one of the days off. Now I'm wrapping up the 3-day weekend, which is pretty much the longest stretch on the schedule. Monday and Tuesday are off, then we're in Wednesday and Thursday nights, and off for a 3-day weekend.
Most people gag when I tell them the night shift hours. Six to six, pm to am, sounds hellacious, but so far I'm a big fan. First-off, to make the switch to that schedule, you have to stay up as late as possible the night before, then sleep as late as possible the day you go on, so you can get up and go right in to work at 6. Stay up and sleep in? Aww, do I have to? Secondly, anything at night is fundamentally cooler. Which is more memorable - driving a big run-down dump truck across concrete pads by piles of broken glass in grey daylight at 11:30am, or driving through the shadows and stark lights at 3am with a translucent black void overhead and the rest of the world asleep and quiet? Thirdly, I have to agree with what everyone's been saying: it's more peaceful on night turn. None of the daylight people are here changing things, looking things over, and creating more action. Not that any of that is bad, but there doth be a pleasant peace in their absence.
What have I been doing? A few days were spent basically as a tin bath operator, which was highly needed to get me familiar with that key key area of the process. I'm not proficient, by a long shot, but I at least know what's going on now. Then Dale, the process tech / effective hot end supervisor, was off Saturday, so the game was all on me. I made sure I understood the thickness and size changes coming up, and spent a lot of time hauling cullent (in the dump truck under inky black void). It was also totally on me to know, to KNOW, that the process wasn't falling apart, heading for disaster, head out of spec, or any other deleterious and undesirable direction. It's easy to sit back and figure everything's running like it should, but I always think, what if my boss came in and prowled over the whole process? What would he find? What if he asks me what something is doing? Could I say from first-hand knowledge, or would it be some mushy "I think it's OK." You gotta be there, and you gotta know. And I was and I did, and I do right now, and it's sweet. God has been answering prayers for better comprehension and retention of process info, which has been driving me crazy lately.
Hopefully that was meaningful. I always wonder what people actually DOOOO at their jobs, so that's what I do. That, plus spend about a third of my time hanging around at the tin bath control room, chatting, writing the hourly numbers, asking questions, giving breaks, going out on headsets if things get squirrely.. whatever's needed. I really like the people on this crew, so those hang out times are nice.
So yes, I am up at 4:30, and I'll be up for another couple hours. The Vault I drank at 1:30 is still coursing through my veins, staving off the ravenous tiredness that I know is actually there. Getting up after 2 hours and going to church this morning (last morning, that is) was ROUGH. Rough in a way that basically powned me.
So far we're packin' about 92.5%. 2.5 over target! w00t for that. Hopefully Earl and Bob and the guys will find the place in good order when they come in in a couple hours. My goal is that they will have no fodder for complaint as they sip their coffees this morning. We'll see.
--JPB
A-Crew hot end supervisor
HAH.
Not tonight.
I'm on night shift, baby!
Yeppersindeed. I'm on temporary assignment as quasi hot end supervisor for A crew. My boss brought up the idea, for me to solidly learn the basics of the process without paperwork distractions, and to get to know the shift schedule first hand.
We started on nights last Monday, working 6pm to 6am. Monday night, Tuesday night, then Wednesday and Thursday off, except we had offsite training 8am - 2pm Thursday, so that sorta killed one of the days off. Now I'm wrapping up the 3-day weekend, which is pretty much the longest stretch on the schedule. Monday and Tuesday are off, then we're in Wednesday and Thursday nights, and off for a 3-day weekend.
Most people gag when I tell them the night shift hours. Six to six, pm to am, sounds hellacious, but so far I'm a big fan. First-off, to make the switch to that schedule, you have to stay up as late as possible the night before, then sleep as late as possible the day you go on, so you can get up and go right in to work at 6. Stay up and sleep in? Aww, do I have to? Secondly, anything at night is fundamentally cooler. Which is more memorable - driving a big run-down dump truck across concrete pads by piles of broken glass in grey daylight at 11:30am, or driving through the shadows and stark lights at 3am with a translucent black void overhead and the rest of the world asleep and quiet? Thirdly, I have to agree with what everyone's been saying: it's more peaceful on night turn. None of the daylight people are here changing things, looking things over, and creating more action. Not that any of that is bad, but there doth be a pleasant peace in their absence.
What have I been doing? A few days were spent basically as a tin bath operator, which was highly needed to get me familiar with that key key area of the process. I'm not proficient, by a long shot, but I at least know what's going on now. Then Dale, the process tech / effective hot end supervisor, was off Saturday, so the game was all on me. I made sure I understood the thickness and size changes coming up, and spent a lot of time hauling cullent (in the dump truck under inky black void). It was also totally on me to know, to KNOW, that the process wasn't falling apart, heading for disaster, head out of spec, or any other deleterious and undesirable direction. It's easy to sit back and figure everything's running like it should, but I always think, what if my boss came in and prowled over the whole process? What would he find? What if he asks me what something is doing? Could I say from first-hand knowledge, or would it be some mushy "I think it's OK." You gotta be there, and you gotta know. And I was and I did, and I do right now, and it's sweet. God has been answering prayers for better comprehension and retention of process info, which has been driving me crazy lately.
Hopefully that was meaningful. I always wonder what people actually DOOOO at their jobs, so that's what I do. That, plus spend about a third of my time hanging around at the tin bath control room, chatting, writing the hourly numbers, asking questions, giving breaks, going out on headsets if things get squirrely.. whatever's needed. I really like the people on this crew, so those hang out times are nice.
So yes, I am up at 4:30, and I'll be up for another couple hours. The Vault I drank at 1:30 is still coursing through my veins, staving off the ravenous tiredness that I know is actually there. Getting up after 2 hours and going to church this morning (last morning, that is) was ROUGH. Rough in a way that basically powned me.
So far we're packin' about 92.5%. 2.5 over target! w00t for that. Hopefully Earl and Bob and the guys will find the place in good order when they come in in a couple hours. My goal is that they will have no fodder for complaint as they sip their coffees this morning. We'll see.
--JPB
A-Crew hot end supervisor
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Made For
"Well Greg, I can honestly say that a couple hours with your family is enough to make me feel at peace with my 'life direction' of heading towards getting married and having a family," I said with a smile.
It was true!
Life exudes from every pore of the Calvetti house. LIFE! From every marker on the school room table, from every crowded cabinet, from the drums by the piano and the little voices singing along to the songs I played.
"The guys at work were talking about how much money kids cost, and I certainly enjoy being able to save and buy stuff right now.. but what is a microphone, compared to Timothy? It's ridiculous to even make that comparison."
Yes, it's not all fun and games, and not always peaceful, but the energy and reality and life pouring out of those kids, from Benjamin and Timothy bounding around the floor to Sarah bundling up to go babysit Andrew and Peggy's girl... that trumps delay pedals and meals out at Ethiopian restaurants and me sitting here staying up late because the only one who will be affected is myself.
Like Dad says, it's what we men were made for.
--Clear Ambassador
It was true!
Life exudes from every pore of the Calvetti house. LIFE! From every marker on the school room table, from every crowded cabinet, from the drums by the piano and the little voices singing along to the songs I played.
"The guys at work were talking about how much money kids cost, and I certainly enjoy being able to save and buy stuff right now.. but what is a microphone, compared to Timothy? It's ridiculous to even make that comparison."
Yes, it's not all fun and games, and not always peaceful, but the energy and reality and life pouring out of those kids, from Benjamin and Timothy bounding around the floor to Sarah bundling up to go babysit Andrew and Peggy's girl... that trumps delay pedals and meals out at Ethiopian restaurants and me sitting here staying up late because the only one who will be affected is myself.
Like Dad says, it's what we men were made for.
--Clear Ambassador
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
This is how it happens
Tonight I sent 5 emails about youth camp stuff, three of them large, long-thought-out ones thick with non-simple questions and items requiring action.
You may wonder, like I did years ago, what *planning youth camp* actually involved (or planning any big event, for that matter). The answer is mostly stuff like this. A lot of other people do things like making specific lists, buying actual items, printing signs, etc., but my role is more looking over it all and figuring out what needs to be decided (and by whom), what needs to be delegated (and to whom), who needs to be involved, and what needs to be communicated to them. This mostly takes place via the thinking involved in writing documents or emails, or in talking to someone on the phone or in person.
Perhaps this level of abstraction isn't interesting to you, but it certainly would have been to me back 5 years ago, as I stood and clapped for Steve Murphy and his mysterious work for youth camp.
You may wonder, like I did years ago, what *planning youth camp* actually involved (or planning any big event, for that matter). The answer is mostly stuff like this. A lot of other people do things like making specific lists, buying actual items, printing signs, etc., but my role is more looking over it all and figuring out what needs to be decided (and by whom), what needs to be delegated (and to whom), who needs to be involved, and what needs to be communicated to them. This mostly takes place via the thinking involved in writing documents or emails, or in talking to someone on the phone or in person.
Perhaps this level of abstraction isn't interesting to you, but it certainly would have been to me back 5 years ago, as I stood and clapped for Steve Murphy and his mysterious work for youth camp.
Monday, February 25, 2008
If I were an Ohioan...
Hee hee hee hee heeeee :-D
*************************************
Justin, Daniel, if either of you are seeing this right now and getting it... this one was for you :-)
*************************************
PS folks, I'm eating corn.
P.P.S. It's the hair.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Open Issues / Report from the Crew
While I eat my massively greasy JPB-style Steak n Cheese sandwich and listen to Bloc Party thump in the family room, let me give you a similar update to what I gave the fine folks of our care group earlier this evening. (Last night, actually)
As some of you may know or remember, I had rough time with my job last year, feeling (and being) useless, excluded, and awkward all day every day, and being quite miserably unhappy many times.
It would be a disservice to let anyone keep thinking that is the case, and it would rob God of praise and appreciation that is due Him. I had a flash of realization as I walked toward the cullet silo this afternoon, striding by the furnace, pulling my gloves out: Here I am, DOING something! And not because someone told me to or I'm bored and wandering, but because I know what's going on, what needs to happen, and I need to know if the cullet getting run to the silo is wet or not.
I never have nothing to do, and haven't for a long time. I'm staying later and later, more oftener (for better or worse :-/), not because *that's what you do for your career*, but because there's stuff to do! I need to get caught up on the furnace, figure out where they should keep the refiner optical for the night, get the vibe at the tin bath, and finish my email to everybody summing up the day and instructing the night shift. There are days I walk around feeling like a million bucks, with a little inkling of thinking that maybe I'm a for-real working man, to stand next to people like Al and Earl and K-dog.
The coexistant flipside is the days like Wednesday, when I left the tin bath control room spewing violent frustration under my breath all the way to and around the furnace. That crew makes me feel like I'm being constantly mocked and laughed at by everyone, and I'm helplessly oblivious, with no respect and probably some animosity. Grates like fingernails on a chalkboard every second I'm around a certain group of the guys. And you know why they mock and ignore and discount me? Because I stink at this job! I can't make a single freaking decision on my own! Every step I think to take is wrong, and I just trip over myself again and dig myself deeper and miss some OTHER obvious thing. For the love of goodness, I can look at the furnace sheet for 30 minutes and turn away and not remember a single number! Bumbling over myself trying to report to superiors in the morning meeting, missing key factors in decisions, and utterly being NOT EARL. (My boss)
There is always at least a lurking fraction of that feeling during the days, but it is solidly overshadowed by the business and occasional satisfaction I described above it. Praise the Lord, even after a big Akron weekend flush with musical success, there was not one shred of unhappiness in going to work Monday morning. I didn't realize the degree of this blessing 'till I said it at care group. I can't remember the last time I didn't want to come to work, or not even mind or think about it. It's a real environment to me--alive with people, a dynamic & intriguing process, things to do, places to be, and good times to be had.
Now if I could just suck in a bunch of experience, flush out my brain's circuitry with contact cleaner, and be genuinely able to run the hot end! Untill I'm there, I am ill at ease.
That sandwich was SO GOOD ! I can feel the grease coming out of my pores already, but it was worth it. Mmmm. Yes, while everyone at work weighs in for the "Biggest Loser" competition, I'm running my own personal "Biggest Winner" campaign :-) So far I'm losing.
The second part of my update concerned the continuing drama of my spiritual quest.
Right now I'm in a good time. The best since last spring. So I don't want to recount and write down all the doubts, unanswered questions, self pity, victimization, sin, despair, dryness, deadness, and hopelessness I have been wading around in. Sometimes they have climbed up and ruled my day, but more often I walk about happily, even forgetting that at the end of the day, in the great gaping solitude of night, I have no real sureness that God actually exists, and the objective measures of my spiritual life are a thin film of oil on the dirty rainy ground... if you could even call it a spiritual life.
Dad reminds me that, be that all as it may, I am doing many objectively valuable and spiritually right things: serving a lot at church, not rebelling against home or parents or Christian friends, and not ditching the deep wisdom and provision of a solid job and chasing the fleeting fancies that get me all in a tizzy sometimes. At times I wrench at that very unchangingness, but in the end I suppose it's better to err on this side. ?. ??. I suppose. Dang folks, that one is hard.
But oh yeah -- this is a good time :-) It is! It started with a message about God's Word by Mike Pierson, from which God gave me a frank, "oh yeah.. let's do this" attitude that has resulted in reading Proverbs almost every night, genuinely poring down the pages for that great lady Wisdom that God extolls. I finally (i.e. God's inexplicable and independent grace) implemented the nagging feeling that I'm filling my head with music every spare moment, and not-God-things input = not-God-things mind and output. I've been listening to John Piper sermons to and from work, and they have been a key, humanly-persuasive (oh so persuasive!) voice inspiring me and making me feel like God is actually >real<. Struck with simple inspiration from a message on prayer, I have been getting together with Mike Q once a week to pray. To agree on earth concerning things, and change the world. Yeah! God has dropped frank faith on me for this, and looking at Jeremiah 39:12-14, I get a wisp of delicious hope that maybe things will actually change someday, and God "will be found by me." The jury is still out, and time will tell.
For now, I'm happy to be in a good time, and I'm ok with the unanswered questions hanging out there, and the lack of experience waiting to be resolved.
Now I have the microwaved rice bag sitting on my feet to try to keep them warm as cold air gradually fills the house. It's 2 am, and the heat kicks back to 50-something degrees way before then. Fingers cold, fleece zipped up to my chin... I'm flirting with sickness again, which apparently is nothing trite for my non-hardy body. Sucks to be someone like that.
Lastly, lest I forget such a great trip, here's the past weekend in Akron:
Earl let me go at noon Friday. I'm still surprised at how giddily good it felt to just DRIVE AWAY, halfway through the day!
We worked in the Chima's basement, which was lovely. I'll forever savor the mental image of the wood on the walls, the carpets on the floor-- couches on the far side, drums in the foreground, computer on the side ledge, cables and bags and pedals clogging the floor, long shadows in the darkness from the yellow lights across the room, the creeping seeping cold as the day got old, and the minutes of glorious warmth when the heater came on.
It was a weekend of low lows and dizzy highs. The lows are when limited time is already too much past, the part you're working on bears down on your shoulders with the weight of all the work it will still take to get it right, and the performance factor eats at your heart with fear since you could spend forever and even drive yourself further from actually playing it right in real time, when the record button is down. Oh that kills like little else. Just sucks you away on every level. But then I'd try the metronome in my headphones and suddenly KNOW that I could play those drums perfectly, perfectly on beat; and sit down there and beat them out and look at those six tracks on the computer and know that we had those drums! There, down for good, every time we play them back. I'm still dumbstruck by Brian's FLAWLESS and seamless double-tracking of his rhythm guitar (recording the same part over again on top of itself, exactly the same as he played it before. EXACTLY.), and I still relish the sweetness of those solid drums, bass and guitars together at the end of Saturday night. Sunday we finished the arrangement and recorded the last half of the song, which evolved through the entire weekend into something that has been stirring me almost to tears every time I listen to it. More travail, more crushing despair, and more exhilirating highs, ending with a movie-like scene where Steve sang out a flawless, perfect-pitch vocal track down in the dim basement as I sat in the chair and listened in increasing excitement and awe. As far as I'm concerned, this song blows away all of our previous material in terms of musical unity and vibrancy, and emotional depth and power.
Uh, other small details, we watched a stirring movie Friday night at the cheap theater with some folks, and Sunday I got up at 8:30 and had the first relaxed, pleasant Sunday morning in the past... 2 years? At least that I can remember. Long shower, non-stressed getting dressed and out the door, Starbucks, and time to talk at church. Wow!
Oh, and the weekend ended with the worst drive home ever. There is no reason I did not crash many times, and I never ever want to be that miserable and deathly sleepy and helpless again. I had to get home, I had to work the next day, I had to drive. Ugh, recounting it is unpleasant. Was it worth it for the song? I would not do it differently. Given another similar situation, I will cut the fun, pack it up, and head home. May 4:30 endure as the latest I ever get back home from Akron.
Ohh, the song has been delighting my heart! It's called "Sweeping Me," and I rescued it from being another stupid girl song and spurred us to these lyrics, with which I will end this post. I wrote most of the verses, which completed the preexisting chorus and bridge. It's basically an honest song about the tentative bud of love in our real Christian lives.
V1
How alike, how alone
How much longer, I want to know
Down in my heart, tucked away
Maybe we're meant for each other some day
But it's
CH
Sweeping me and sweeping you too
Hold on tight as I hold on too
'Cause the lights are singing, singing in you
The night it wonders, would you, could you?
Sweeping me and sweeping you too
Hold on tight as I hold on too
'Cause the lights are singing, singing in you
And the night it wonders would you?
Would you?
Would you?
Would you.
V2
You don't see, you don't know
What I wish, I could show
Wait and see, what might be
Falling for me as I've fallen for you
'Cause it's (CH)
Bridge
So this is how
The stars in the sky are shining like I feel now
So this is how
The clouds in the sky are drifting like I feel now
Because of this post I will have to sleep in very long tomorrow and will not get much done before Fuse fun night. But it's worth it, because somehow expression like this gives me great peace as life passes on and by. Seasons like this, weekends like this, little things like making myself a cool philly steak sandwich at midnight after care group and listening to new music while Daisy sleeps on the couch and the fire flickers away are not lost once I get these words down. The memory is stored to revisit and relive and benefit from in the future, and I can relax and know it's here.
It's a crazy game we play, this game that we call life.
We sit and speculate, as the days go by, the days go by
--JPB
As some of you may know or remember, I had rough time with my job last year, feeling (and being) useless, excluded, and awkward all day every day, and being quite miserably unhappy many times.
It would be a disservice to let anyone keep thinking that is the case, and it would rob God of praise and appreciation that is due Him. I had a flash of realization as I walked toward the cullet silo this afternoon, striding by the furnace, pulling my gloves out: Here I am, DOING something! And not because someone told me to or I'm bored and wandering, but because I know what's going on, what needs to happen, and I need to know if the cullet getting run to the silo is wet or not.
I never have nothing to do, and haven't for a long time. I'm staying later and later, more oftener (for better or worse :-/), not because *that's what you do for your career*, but because there's stuff to do! I need to get caught up on the furnace, figure out where they should keep the refiner optical for the night, get the vibe at the tin bath, and finish my email to everybody summing up the day and instructing the night shift. There are days I walk around feeling like a million bucks, with a little inkling of thinking that maybe I'm a for-real working man, to stand next to people like Al and Earl and K-dog.
The coexistant flipside is the days like Wednesday, when I left the tin bath control room spewing violent frustration under my breath all the way to and around the furnace. That crew makes me feel like I'm being constantly mocked and laughed at by everyone, and I'm helplessly oblivious, with no respect and probably some animosity. Grates like fingernails on a chalkboard every second I'm around a certain group of the guys. And you know why they mock and ignore and discount me? Because I stink at this job! I can't make a single freaking decision on my own! Every step I think to take is wrong, and I just trip over myself again and dig myself deeper and miss some OTHER obvious thing. For the love of goodness, I can look at the furnace sheet for 30 minutes and turn away and not remember a single number! Bumbling over myself trying to report to superiors in the morning meeting, missing key factors in decisions, and utterly being NOT EARL. (My boss)
There is always at least a lurking fraction of that feeling during the days, but it is solidly overshadowed by the business and occasional satisfaction I described above it. Praise the Lord, even after a big Akron weekend flush with musical success, there was not one shred of unhappiness in going to work Monday morning. I didn't realize the degree of this blessing 'till I said it at care group. I can't remember the last time I didn't want to come to work, or not even mind or think about it. It's a real environment to me--alive with people, a dynamic & intriguing process, things to do, places to be, and good times to be had.
Now if I could just suck in a bunch of experience, flush out my brain's circuitry with contact cleaner, and be genuinely able to run the hot end! Untill I'm there, I am ill at ease.
That sandwich was SO GOOD ! I can feel the grease coming out of my pores already, but it was worth it. Mmmm. Yes, while everyone at work weighs in for the "Biggest Loser" competition, I'm running my own personal "Biggest Winner" campaign :-) So far I'm losing.
The second part of my update concerned the continuing drama of my spiritual quest.
Right now I'm in a good time. The best since last spring. So I don't want to recount and write down all the doubts, unanswered questions, self pity, victimization, sin, despair, dryness, deadness, and hopelessness I have been wading around in. Sometimes they have climbed up and ruled my day, but more often I walk about happily, even forgetting that at the end of the day, in the great gaping solitude of night, I have no real sureness that God actually exists, and the objective measures of my spiritual life are a thin film of oil on the dirty rainy ground... if you could even call it a spiritual life.
Dad reminds me that, be that all as it may, I am doing many objectively valuable and spiritually right things: serving a lot at church, not rebelling against home or parents or Christian friends, and not ditching the deep wisdom and provision of a solid job and chasing the fleeting fancies that get me all in a tizzy sometimes. At times I wrench at that very unchangingness, but in the end I suppose it's better to err on this side. ?. ??. I suppose. Dang folks, that one is hard.
But oh yeah -- this is a good time :-) It is! It started with a message about God's Word by Mike Pierson, from which God gave me a frank, "oh yeah.. let's do this" attitude that has resulted in reading Proverbs almost every night, genuinely poring down the pages for that great lady Wisdom that God extolls. I finally (i.e. God's inexplicable and independent grace) implemented the nagging feeling that I'm filling my head with music every spare moment, and not-God-things input = not-God-things mind and output. I've been listening to John Piper sermons to and from work, and they have been a key, humanly-persuasive (oh so persuasive!) voice inspiring me and making me feel like God is actually >real<. Struck with simple inspiration from a message on prayer, I have been getting together with Mike Q once a week to pray. To agree on earth concerning things, and change the world. Yeah! God has dropped frank faith on me for this, and looking at Jeremiah 39:12-14, I get a wisp of delicious hope that maybe things will actually change someday, and God "will be found by me." The jury is still out, and time will tell.
For now, I'm happy to be in a good time, and I'm ok with the unanswered questions hanging out there, and the lack of experience waiting to be resolved.
Now I have the microwaved rice bag sitting on my feet to try to keep them warm as cold air gradually fills the house. It's 2 am, and the heat kicks back to 50-something degrees way before then. Fingers cold, fleece zipped up to my chin... I'm flirting with sickness again, which apparently is nothing trite for my non-hardy body. Sucks to be someone like that.
Lastly, lest I forget such a great trip, here's the past weekend in Akron:
Earl let me go at noon Friday. I'm still surprised at how giddily good it felt to just DRIVE AWAY, halfway through the day!
We worked in the Chima's basement, which was lovely. I'll forever savor the mental image of the wood on the walls, the carpets on the floor-- couches on the far side, drums in the foreground, computer on the side ledge, cables and bags and pedals clogging the floor, long shadows in the darkness from the yellow lights across the room, the creeping seeping cold as the day got old, and the minutes of glorious warmth when the heater came on.
It was a weekend of low lows and dizzy highs. The lows are when limited time is already too much past, the part you're working on bears down on your shoulders with the weight of all the work it will still take to get it right, and the performance factor eats at your heart with fear since you could spend forever and even drive yourself further from actually playing it right in real time, when the record button is down. Oh that kills like little else. Just sucks you away on every level. But then I'd try the metronome in my headphones and suddenly KNOW that I could play those drums perfectly, perfectly on beat; and sit down there and beat them out and look at those six tracks on the computer and know that we had those drums! There, down for good, every time we play them back. I'm still dumbstruck by Brian's FLAWLESS and seamless double-tracking of his rhythm guitar (recording the same part over again on top of itself, exactly the same as he played it before. EXACTLY.), and I still relish the sweetness of those solid drums, bass and guitars together at the end of Saturday night. Sunday we finished the arrangement and recorded the last half of the song, which evolved through the entire weekend into something that has been stirring me almost to tears every time I listen to it. More travail, more crushing despair, and more exhilirating highs, ending with a movie-like scene where Steve sang out a flawless, perfect-pitch vocal track down in the dim basement as I sat in the chair and listened in increasing excitement and awe. As far as I'm concerned, this song blows away all of our previous material in terms of musical unity and vibrancy, and emotional depth and power.
Uh, other small details, we watched a stirring movie Friday night at the cheap theater with some folks, and Sunday I got up at 8:30 and had the first relaxed, pleasant Sunday morning in the past... 2 years? At least that I can remember. Long shower, non-stressed getting dressed and out the door, Starbucks, and time to talk at church. Wow!
Oh, and the weekend ended with the worst drive home ever. There is no reason I did not crash many times, and I never ever want to be that miserable and deathly sleepy and helpless again. I had to get home, I had to work the next day, I had to drive. Ugh, recounting it is unpleasant. Was it worth it for the song? I would not do it differently. Given another similar situation, I will cut the fun, pack it up, and head home. May 4:30 endure as the latest I ever get back home from Akron.
Ohh, the song has been delighting my heart! It's called "Sweeping Me," and I rescued it from being another stupid girl song and spurred us to these lyrics, with which I will end this post. I wrote most of the verses, which completed the preexisting chorus and bridge. It's basically an honest song about the tentative bud of love in our real Christian lives.
V1
How alike, how alone
How much longer, I want to know
Down in my heart, tucked away
Maybe we're meant for each other some day
But it's
CH
Sweeping me and sweeping you too
Hold on tight as I hold on too
'Cause the lights are singing, singing in you
The night it wonders, would you, could you?
Sweeping me and sweeping you too
Hold on tight as I hold on too
'Cause the lights are singing, singing in you
And the night it wonders would you?
Would you?
Would you?
Would you.
V2
You don't see, you don't know
What I wish, I could show
Wait and see, what might be
Falling for me as I've fallen for you
'Cause it's (CH)
Bridge
So this is how
The stars in the sky are shining like I feel now
So this is how
The clouds in the sky are drifting like I feel now
Because of this post I will have to sleep in very long tomorrow and will not get much done before Fuse fun night. But it's worth it, because somehow expression like this gives me great peace as life passes on and by. Seasons like this, weekends like this, little things like making myself a cool philly steak sandwich at midnight after care group and listening to new music while Daisy sleeps on the couch and the fire flickers away are not lost once I get these words down. The memory is stored to revisit and relive and benefit from in the future, and I can relax and know it's here.
It's a crazy game we play, this game that we call life.
We sit and speculate, as the days go by, the days go by
--JPB
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
What kind of friend is Mike Q?
I just spent the last two fifths of the day with Mike Q. I went to his apartment straight from work and we went out to dinner and talked and came back and hung out some more and then prayed together to change the world (as we want to do every week).
It was a great night, on many levels.
One of which was what a good friend Mike is.
So what kind of friend is he?
The best I can do is give an example:
He's the one I think about texting when I put the stuff away that I got at Walgreens, stuff up the bag in my hand and stick it out in the holder in the garage, close the door.. then open it back up and get the bag out of the holder and put it in the kitchen garbage can, which I just emptied and should have known needed a new bag.
So pointless. (Dumb, as Mike would say). but really funny in an odd, small sort of way.
Almost anybody I can think of would either try to *thinkit'sfunny* and make too much of it, or else notthinkit'sfunny and either ignore it, or do some uncomfortable sort of laugh, or some other unpleasing thing.
And I think that's what sets Mike apart amongst my friends: I know how he will respond, and I can pretty much tell him anything, and not worry about it. From the smallest of the small, to the biggest of the big, to the weirdest bits of humor; it all goes out and I have no concern for whether he will think bad of me, or be awkward, or make me feel awkward, or whatever.
It's pretty cool, and I'm pretty glad to have that!
******************************
Tonight was sweet. And I say that with emphasis and triumph. I was the kind of person I wish I could be sometimes ... meeting a friend for dinner at a super-culturey-cool Ethiopian restaurant in a collegy-type chic area [The kind of place where I feel I fit in when I wear my scarf]..
sitting and talking for ages about characteristics of our jobs and sharing stories to demonstrate them..
eating FANTASTIC food, then stopping at Walgreens and finding the most amazing candy ever (SweetTarts jelly beans. It's the dextrose.) plus other things of an exciting, "oh man I found this!" nature..
listening to the new Pure Boss song again and having Mike appreciate it at a level similar to my own,
then talking to Steve-O for a long time on the phone bantering about band stuff and such, then talking more with Mike, and ending with heartfelt prayer for several major, pointed items...
agreeing on Earth concerning things so they will be done for us by our Father in Heaven (Matthew 18:19). Prayers that can change the world. Inspired by John Piper.
I wish there was a punctuation mark for putting your fist down on the table in emphasis. It would be a useful add-on to the exclamation point. 'Cause I would use it to put my fist down and say this night was SWEET!
Perhaps we could call it a "stoked mark."
--JPB
P.S. The best I've found is an underline behind and before. Please to observe....
When small groups of Christians get together and pray to God for things, they.change.the ._world_. Exclamation point.
It was a great night, on many levels.
One of which was what a good friend Mike is.
So what kind of friend is he?
The best I can do is give an example:
He's the one I think about texting when I put the stuff away that I got at Walgreens, stuff up the bag in my hand and stick it out in the holder in the garage, close the door.. then open it back up and get the bag out of the holder and put it in the kitchen garbage can, which I just emptied and should have known needed a new bag.
So pointless. (Dumb, as Mike would say). but really funny in an odd, small sort of way.
Almost anybody I can think of would either try to *thinkit'sfunny* and make too much of it, or else notthinkit'sfunny and either ignore it, or do some uncomfortable sort of laugh, or some other unpleasing thing.
And I think that's what sets Mike apart amongst my friends: I know how he will respond, and I can pretty much tell him anything, and not worry about it. From the smallest of the small, to the biggest of the big, to the weirdest bits of humor; it all goes out and I have no concern for whether he will think bad of me, or be awkward, or make me feel awkward, or whatever.
It's pretty cool, and I'm pretty glad to have that!
******************************
Tonight was sweet. And I say that with emphasis and triumph. I was the kind of person I wish I could be sometimes ... meeting a friend for dinner at a super-culturey-cool Ethiopian restaurant in a collegy-type chic area [The kind of place where I feel I fit in when I wear my scarf]..
sitting and talking for ages about characteristics of our jobs and sharing stories to demonstrate them..
eating FANTASTIC food, then stopping at Walgreens and finding the most amazing candy ever (SweetTarts jelly beans. It's the dextrose.) plus other things of an exciting, "oh man I found this!" nature..
listening to the new Pure Boss song again and having Mike appreciate it at a level similar to my own,
then talking to Steve-O for a long time on the phone bantering about band stuff and such, then talking more with Mike, and ending with heartfelt prayer for several major, pointed items...
agreeing on Earth concerning things so they will be done for us by our Father in Heaven (Matthew 18:19). Prayers that can change the world. Inspired by John Piper.
I wish there was a punctuation mark for putting your fist down on the table in emphasis. It would be a useful add-on to the exclamation point. 'Cause I would use it to put my fist down and say this night was SWEET!
Perhaps we could call it a "stoked mark."
--JPB
P.S. The best I've found is an underline behind and before. Please to observe....
When small groups of Christians get together and pray to God for things, they.change.the ._world_. Exclamation point.
Monday, February 11, 2008
This is how time goes by
Every day begins the same: I wake up at 7am (or 6:30 if I have to take a shower), dress, pack food, and leave too long after 7:30 to feel comfortable. I roll into work about 8, and don't leave until 5 or 5:30 most days. That part is always the same. Now to look back and answer the question "What happens to all these days??"
Here is the recent past and upcoming future:
Here is the recent past and upcoming future:
- Wednesday and Thursday (2 weeks ago) - worked night shift, 6pm to 6am. Got up at 3:30pm both days, hit Chick-Fil-A for... "meal".. (brunchinner?) and quiet time, and went to work. Great days. Other than the mad back pain. The night is MY TIME baby!
- Friday - I planned to go to Grove City for the night, but the timing wasn't working out, and my back was getting impossible to ignore or "push through." So I laid around and rested and wasted time. Bleah.
- Saturday - College Night. Which takes up basically the whole day by the time I sleep in, get some food, shower, and pack up what I'm bringing. Wrote and recorded a pretty good demo of "Hey Girls" that night.. up till 3:30am.
- Sunday - Church, then Grove City students over for a long lunch. Much-needed nap, then to the Calanos for the Super Bowl. Yay Giants!
- Monday - Doctor's appointment for my back at 3:45. Got home past dinnertime, ate some, then hit the couch with the hot rice bag, a blanket, a beagle, my good headphones, and 12GB of music. Fell asleep sometime around 9 o'clock and slept through till morning.
- Tuesday - Went to the Piersons after work for dinner and the first YC08 meeting with Mr. Pierson. Kick-off drum lesson with Mitch. Got home around 11.
- Wednesday - Dinner at home, and prayer with Mike at his place at 8:30. Something kept me from leaving on time for that, but I can't remember. Something like folding laundry. It was a fractional night.
- Thursday - Met Nate Dogg at Taco Bell for dinner, then back home to jam with him and Steve Gole.
- Friday - Erin's party! Went to the Piersons from work, showered and dressed up, hit the party, then Mikey came home with me, but we were too tired to do much. Good dancing.
- Saturday - Up at noon, which left 4 hours before Fuse after lunch was said and done. I did everything I wanted to in that time except starting to catalog my wild greasy-haired collection of recordings. I did make and pack my dinner for the night, which I was proud of. Yay for not caving in to paying for fast food! I left at 4. Lawrence Music to pick up my amp, church office for YC planning, Fuse, home, writing and demo-ing a song about the ridiculous profusion of cameras amongst teens. Bed at 3:30am.
- Sunday (today) - Drums, church, then to Lynn Noll's for a care group fellowship. It was a great time getting to know folks, and Lynn's house and pets are great. Home at 5:15. Steve Gole came for dinner, and we jammed till 10:30. Came up with a sweet 3-layer synth loop, which we played for 37 minutes straight. Poor Mom and Dad.
- Monday - Prayer here w/ Mikey and maybe Nate.
- Tuesday - YC07 review meeting at 6 with MP, Miikey Q and Katie Calano.
- Wednesday - Basketball after work. We'll see how my back's doing.
- Thursday - Looks free at the moment. Probably jam with Golinski.
- Friday - **Hopefully** leave work early and go to AKRON!! for a full weekend of recording.
And thusly flyeth by three weeks of life.
So where does the time go? Scanning the outline above, it looks like my priorities are church life and music. I also fill many hours' worth of "in-between" time with familyness. -- being down in the family room doing computer stuff, laying down on the couch, playing with Daisy, playing piano, and occasionally reading or folding laundry. It's not really *doing* anything per se, but I do not believe it is wasted time, and I do not choose to isolate myself from our family, which would be the effective result if I spent every bit of time on music (or something else). I'm also happy to have a night or two per week dedicated to jamming or recording, which has not always been the case, and which is yielding solid benefits musically.
Should I, will I, "make something of myself" musically? The prospect of making a full-fledged album of my songs is colossally daunting, and I almost fear the huge fraction of time and effort it would necessarily demand from my life. I think I will do it eventually, though, and I'd better do it before I marry and settle down (if that's God's will). I could play coffeehouses and the like, but that requires much focused practice, and I'm spending my musical time on free creativity: recording demos to get the songs in my head onto hard disk, and stretching my limits on synth and electric guitar with Steve. I consider creative generation a more mystical, uncontrollable and elusive thing than practiced performace, so I am taking every moment of the former that I can get. I feel that the latter may come down the road, depending on how my life changes in the coming years.
This "aerial view" of my time expenditure serves to clarify what I've been feeling recently: peace with my choices. The part of me that is dying to DO something--make something of myself--is subdued, and a calculation of what I would have to dispense of to fit more music or more travel in leaves me pretty happy with the balance I'm striking right now.
So, I guess I should say that I have peace right now.
!
My prayer of a month ago is answered (at the moment). Nice!
--JPB
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Looking Forward
There are two things I'm impatiently anticipating right now. One is unusual for me to look forward to, and the other I'm looking forward to for an unusual reason.
Exercising
It has now been more than 6 weeks since I have been able to work out in any manner. I had a cold leading into New Years, then I got bronchitis at work, which lasted well into January. Right as that was clearing up, I began to get an odd knot in my back, between my spine and right shoulder blade. It started out feeling like a marble stuck in there, and it kept not going away. Then I did some heavy lifting and took a few shifts on grinders at work, and that threw my back into orbit. I dealt with pretty bad pain that weekend--it hurt every time I breathed in or moved--, and went to the doctor on Monday. The X-rays didn't show any misalignment, and the Doc prescibed a muscle relaxant and hardcore antiinflammatory to address what she thought was a muscle contusion. I wasn't thrilled, but it turns out she was right, and the next day I felt 50% better. A couple days into the pills and I was effectively back to normal! Plus I'd get a nice, chill, almost-dizzy buzz after each meal's dose :-)
I feel like a pale, sickly shrunken noodle, and I can't wait to ease back into walking on the treadmill and pumping some IRON. I hope this desire stays with me, 'cause that would really help in doing it consistently. For now, I'm cautiously doing some pushups, and we'll go from there.
Summer
Of course.
Duh.
But this year it's different, and a lot stronger than the years when I looked forward to school being over. I've been wishing to >>do<< different things when I hang out with people, rather than sit in a house or a restaurant and chit chat or entertain ourselves with media. Influenced by Ken's example and a deep desire to see the sky, I keep wanting to do things outside. Got a free Saturday morning/afternoon? Let's drive to Raccoon Creek State Park and hike around! Drive out an hour into the country and explore! Got an hour after dinner? Walk around some old stately neighborhoods around Squirrel Hill! Sit outside in some secret vantage point perched on a Pittsburgh hillside!
But all of this doesn't work too well when it's grey, wet and cold outside. Hence my pacing at the gate, waiting for spring to show up.
I hope both these desires remain when they're able to be fulfilled. If they do, I could do some really worthwhile things in the coming months.
Just . . . get here summer!
--JPB
Exercising
It has now been more than 6 weeks since I have been able to work out in any manner. I had a cold leading into New Years, then I got bronchitis at work, which lasted well into January. Right as that was clearing up, I began to get an odd knot in my back, between my spine and right shoulder blade. It started out feeling like a marble stuck in there, and it kept not going away. Then I did some heavy lifting and took a few shifts on grinders at work, and that threw my back into orbit. I dealt with pretty bad pain that weekend--it hurt every time I breathed in or moved--, and went to the doctor on Monday. The X-rays didn't show any misalignment, and the Doc prescibed a muscle relaxant and hardcore antiinflammatory to address what she thought was a muscle contusion. I wasn't thrilled, but it turns out she was right, and the next day I felt 50% better. A couple days into the pills and I was effectively back to normal! Plus I'd get a nice, chill, almost-dizzy buzz after each meal's dose :-)
I feel like a pale, sickly shrunken noodle, and I can't wait to ease back into walking on the treadmill and pumping some IRON. I hope this desire stays with me, 'cause that would really help in doing it consistently. For now, I'm cautiously doing some pushups, and we'll go from there.
Summer
Of course.
Duh.
But this year it's different, and a lot stronger than the years when I looked forward to school being over. I've been wishing to >>do<< different things when I hang out with people, rather than sit in a house or a restaurant and chit chat or entertain ourselves with media. Influenced by Ken's example and a deep desire to see the sky, I keep wanting to do things outside. Got a free Saturday morning/afternoon? Let's drive to Raccoon Creek State Park and hike around! Drive out an hour into the country and explore! Got an hour after dinner? Walk around some old stately neighborhoods around Squirrel Hill! Sit outside in some secret vantage point perched on a Pittsburgh hillside!
But all of this doesn't work too well when it's grey, wet and cold outside. Hence my pacing at the gate, waiting for spring to show up.
I hope both these desires remain when they're able to be fulfilled. If they do, I could do some really worthwhile things in the coming months.
Just . . . get here summer!
--JPB
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Artificial Colon-induced Importance
Triumph:
Paging through screen after screen after screen of emails till I found the ONE spam message that was preventing me from have a clean inbox. Ahhhhh. Unread? zero.
Triumph:
Stevie Ray Vaughn turns out to be the perfect music for right now. Shawn McDonald sang to us for 2.7 hours as I drifted through dim consciousness on the couch and Mom and Dad discussed every inch of the house plans on the computer screen, and I was looking for something quiet to follow him up. Quiet but not melancholy... quiet and happy or interesting and not sensitive acoustic.. but Stevie took things in a little different direction, and it's PERFECT. Thusly is the point of having 5247 songs to choose from.
Frustration:
Still unable to log in to my artistcollaboration ftp sites to upload new recordings.
Possibility:
Yahoo! domains for a few bucks a year. My own whole website? Hmm...
Resolve:
My savings keeps going up (I set it up to put half my net paycheck in there every week), but my checking account has trickled down. I need to spend less money. Small things, smart things, recognizing that this isn't as special of a case as it feels, but rather it's another $27 subtraction that I have a chance to cut out of my next bank statement. It's good to look over my account activity and see my spendings add up.
Discomfort:
The weird knot of pain between my right shoulder blade and backbone. For two weeks now it's been taking my breath away when I turn or move certain directions. Shannon and Dad's best efforts at pounding it out haven't helped, and it's sitting back there, a quiet little ache. It's like somebody implanted a marble back there and forgot to take it out.
Warm:
The fire behind me, the light oak cabinets and table and chairs, golden floor, golden brown couches, yellow light, soft shadows, sleeping beagle, carpet, blankets, brown bricks.
--JPB
Update:
Triumph:
Recording one of the songs that I sang into my cell phone memo recorder awhile ago. Many other songs still lay in there conceived yet unborn, but this one at least is out in the air, screaming a little bit, but kinda good looking. Looks a little like his daddy.
Helplessness:
It's late. Work is immovable. Nothing in the world can change the hours gone and the fewness of the ones that remain before then. I have rolled my dice.
Paging through screen after screen after screen of emails till I found the ONE spam message that was preventing me from have a clean inbox. Ahhhhh. Unread? zero.
Triumph:
Stevie Ray Vaughn turns out to be the perfect music for right now. Shawn McDonald sang to us for 2.7 hours as I drifted through dim consciousness on the couch and Mom and Dad discussed every inch of the house plans on the computer screen, and I was looking for something quiet to follow him up. Quiet but not melancholy... quiet and happy or interesting and not sensitive acoustic.. but Stevie took things in a little different direction, and it's PERFECT. Thusly is the point of having 5247 songs to choose from.
Frustration:
Still unable to log in to my artistcollaboration ftp sites to upload new recordings.
Possibility:
Yahoo! domains for a few bucks a year. My own whole website? Hmm...
Resolve:
My savings keeps going up (I set it up to put half my net paycheck in there every week), but my checking account has trickled down. I need to spend less money. Small things, smart things, recognizing that this isn't as special of a case as it feels, but rather it's another $27 subtraction that I have a chance to cut out of my next bank statement. It's good to look over my account activity and see my spendings add up.
Discomfort:
The weird knot of pain between my right shoulder blade and backbone. For two weeks now it's been taking my breath away when I turn or move certain directions. Shannon and Dad's best efforts at pounding it out haven't helped, and it's sitting back there, a quiet little ache. It's like somebody implanted a marble back there and forgot to take it out.
Warm:
The fire behind me, the light oak cabinets and table and chairs, golden floor, golden brown couches, yellow light, soft shadows, sleeping beagle, carpet, blankets, brown bricks.
--JPB
Update:
Triumph:
Recording one of the songs that I sang into my cell phone memo recorder awhile ago. Many other songs still lay in there conceived yet unborn, but this one at least is out in the air, screaming a little bit, but kinda good looking. Looks a little like his daddy.
Helplessness:
It's late. Work is immovable. Nothing in the world can change the hours gone and the fewness of the ones that remain before then. I have rolled my dice.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
A Survey of 2007
Inspired by Jason's enjoyable post.
Most unexpected event:
Doubting every single thing about my life and being further from God and more miserable than I ever thought I would be.
Hardest thing (other than above):
Battling and being drowned by my laziness.
- Struggling to do a good job at work and not being able to easily change that
- Letting my musical potential slip away mostly unrealized
- Letting almost everything I want to do slip away undone
Best new addition:
I'll pick two:
1) Pure Boss practice room up in the loft of the Chima's barn. It's like something in a movie - warm wood sloped ceiling, thick green carpet, drums and amps packed in tight.. we can do whatever we want up there, and when we're tired, there's a pool table and couches down below!
2) The Piersons! I started hanging out with their family this year, and now I try to go over there for dinner and hanging out every couple weeks. I love being around younger kids and experiencing the richness and fun of a well-run family. I'm so grateful for their openness!
Best new music:
Oooh baby. Probably Mae. They have become a staple of my heart and subwoofer right next to Switchfoot. I also got into The Who. Don't listen to them much right now, but they affected my music a good bit.
I've been sucking in new music like a feind, though - just most of it not as deeply as Mae.
Biggest change:
Getting a job.
I am challenged. Hard.
I am paid.
I am tied-down.
I am being forced to conform and suck up like most people are in their first year of public school. Which is good for me.
It's an amazing blessing and a grating frustration.
Biggest thing that didn't turn out to be big:
For those of you who don't know, I had a "relationship" (we called it a purposeful friendship, since that's what it was) in the spring. I've never sought God and been met by Him so intensely than in the month preceding that. It went about a month, and then we both agreed that it wasn't really clicking, and so it ended, as well and as painlessly as I think something like that possibly could. I won't say who here, but if you want, feel free to ask me about it.
Biggest thing that did turn out to be big:
Youth Camp! I still don't really feel like I'm the person who organized and led THE youth camp. Which is good, 'cause that would fill me with pride, and it's not really true.
Planning was a beautiful, intense, focused haze, and camp was a slow-motion paradise, personally (for myself) and spiritually (for everyone else). Could not have gone better.
Best memories from an event:
Probably the Pirates game/fireworks show/Styx concert with Daniel, Justin, Betsy and other church folks. A multiplicitly delightful and wondrous night.
Thing I most respect about myself from the year:
Probably... my burgeoning music collection and appreciation.
Next is maybe my skill at driving my car.
There's some brutal honesty for you.
Those may seem trivial, but I can't think of anything else I respect about myself. Everything else sucks.
Thing others probably respect most about me:
The stuff I do with church: worship team, care group worship, college night, Fuse I-team.
I put this in, at the risk of seeming prideful (I'm not proud about this stuff), because it illustrates the dichotomy of who I want to be and who I am. The frustration I feel with my life vs. the value other people see in what I do do. Maybe I am actually living my life OK, but I have no peace right now.
Well, this is an odd mix of really depressing and then pretty happy stuff. For future reference, I am in a lonely and depressed mood right now with people leaving for college, Daniel and Ken in Utah where I would kill to be, and myself torn and shredded with doubt, frustration, hopelessness and self loathing. Those are all honest feelings, but they come and go, so there is only limited value in expressing them. And FYI, expressing them intensifies them. Literally, speaking words of doubt solidifies that doubt in your mind. So really watch what you say, and hold your tongue more than you let it go. Our words ring like a judge's gavel, and come back to speak to our heart later, so don't put a bunch of junk out there that will make it harder to turn to God with childlike faith and gratefulness.
I want to end with a flurry of things that I've remembered as I've searched my memory to come up with this post. Just indulge my desire to preserve the past:
- Nate and Sarah's wedding. I was a groomsman, which was sweet.
- Getting a new laptop
- We're going to build and move to a new house, for crying out loud! At this moment Dad is sitting at the computer working away on the plans. It is filling his life right now, and he's doing a masterful job at it.
- We got Alex in the band for awhile, and I played guitar, but it didn't work out so we're back to 3.
- We got a new kitchen table and a couch in the basement, so two main areas of the house look a lot better.
- The great Harrisburg trip with Shannon, Mike and Kayte.
- The free period in the spring after graduating and before getting my job
- I've become pretty good friends with Craig Tumino and Betsy Caprio. Nick Shuch continues to be a strangely good friend, too.
- I don't really stay at the Hoffman's much anymore in Akron. Pure Boss is more centered on the Chimas now.
- My gosh, the Rishels left and Jeremy Hetrick is our new assistant pastor! He and his family have been a joy and delight in many many ways.
- I don't enjoy food as recklessly as I used to, and I don't always want to talk about stuff like I used to.
- I started the year as a person who grew facial hair and didn't wear glasses. Now I've ditched the contacts and beardtee and am a cleanshaven person with glasses.
- Genesis series at church, and lately the Philippians series.
- Oooh man, the Dispatch concert trip! Steph's glorious glorious beach house in the idyllic Stone Harbor beach town, tons of driving, and really really enjoying the concert. Quite a trip.
- Kennywood with Steve Hoffman, Rachel and Betsy. Great time with an unusual mix of people.
I think 2007 was in 3 distinct phases - semesters actually. Spring was no-work, no-school, ending with the golden month. That phase was ended viciously with my job starting, and the summer was the newbie phase of my job, which, looking back, was very very different from how it is now. Youth Camp totally occupied the first part of the summer. The fall was settling in to my real job as it is now, sprinkled with really good times with friends - Pittsburgh, Grove City, Messiah, Villanova and Akron. The year ended with a glorious stretch of vacation - family in Chicago, then Tuminos in Akron, then Akronites here, centered around the Harvey's basement. A larger-than-life time whose memories still leave a sad sweet tinge.
OK, that wraps it up. I pray to God that 2008 has me finding God and peace and direction, be it in the job-wife-family direction or the music-craziness-doingstuff direction. Mostly I need my hard cold heart softened and Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross made real to me in an abiding way.
Thanks for reading! Future self, I bet you treasure this post.
--JPB
Most unexpected event:
Doubting every single thing about my life and being further from God and more miserable than I ever thought I would be.
Hardest thing (other than above):
Battling and being drowned by my laziness.
- Struggling to do a good job at work and not being able to easily change that
- Letting my musical potential slip away mostly unrealized
- Letting almost everything I want to do slip away undone
Best new addition:
I'll pick two:
1) Pure Boss practice room up in the loft of the Chima's barn. It's like something in a movie - warm wood sloped ceiling, thick green carpet, drums and amps packed in tight.. we can do whatever we want up there, and when we're tired, there's a pool table and couches down below!
2) The Piersons! I started hanging out with their family this year, and now I try to go over there for dinner and hanging out every couple weeks. I love being around younger kids and experiencing the richness and fun of a well-run family. I'm so grateful for their openness!
Best new music:
Oooh baby. Probably Mae. They have become a staple of my heart and subwoofer right next to Switchfoot. I also got into The Who. Don't listen to them much right now, but they affected my music a good bit.
I've been sucking in new music like a feind, though - just most of it not as deeply as Mae.
Biggest change:
Getting a job.
I am challenged. Hard.
I am paid.
I am tied-down.
I am being forced to conform and suck up like most people are in their first year of public school. Which is good for me.
It's an amazing blessing and a grating frustration.
Biggest thing that didn't turn out to be big:
For those of you who don't know, I had a "relationship" (we called it a purposeful friendship, since that's what it was) in the spring. I've never sought God and been met by Him so intensely than in the month preceding that. It went about a month, and then we both agreed that it wasn't really clicking, and so it ended, as well and as painlessly as I think something like that possibly could. I won't say who here, but if you want, feel free to ask me about it.
Biggest thing that did turn out to be big:
Youth Camp! I still don't really feel like I'm the person who organized and led THE youth camp. Which is good, 'cause that would fill me with pride, and it's not really true.
Planning was a beautiful, intense, focused haze, and camp was a slow-motion paradise, personally (for myself) and spiritually (for everyone else). Could not have gone better.
Best memories from an event:
Probably the Pirates game/fireworks show/Styx concert with Daniel, Justin, Betsy and other church folks. A multiplicitly delightful and wondrous night.
Thing I most respect about myself from the year:
Probably... my burgeoning music collection and appreciation.
Next is maybe my skill at driving my car.
There's some brutal honesty for you.
Those may seem trivial, but I can't think of anything else I respect about myself. Everything else sucks.
Thing others probably respect most about me:
The stuff I do with church: worship team, care group worship, college night, Fuse I-team.
I put this in, at the risk of seeming prideful (I'm not proud about this stuff), because it illustrates the dichotomy of who I want to be and who I am. The frustration I feel with my life vs. the value other people see in what I do do. Maybe I am actually living my life OK, but I have no peace right now.
Well, this is an odd mix of really depressing and then pretty happy stuff. For future reference, I am in a lonely and depressed mood right now with people leaving for college, Daniel and Ken in Utah where I would kill to be, and myself torn and shredded with doubt, frustration, hopelessness and self loathing. Those are all honest feelings, but they come and go, so there is only limited value in expressing them. And FYI, expressing them intensifies them. Literally, speaking words of doubt solidifies that doubt in your mind. So really watch what you say, and hold your tongue more than you let it go. Our words ring like a judge's gavel, and come back to speak to our heart later, so don't put a bunch of junk out there that will make it harder to turn to God with childlike faith and gratefulness.
I want to end with a flurry of things that I've remembered as I've searched my memory to come up with this post. Just indulge my desire to preserve the past:
- Nate and Sarah's wedding. I was a groomsman, which was sweet.
- Getting a new laptop
- We're going to build and move to a new house, for crying out loud! At this moment Dad is sitting at the computer working away on the plans. It is filling his life right now, and he's doing a masterful job at it.
- We got Alex in the band for awhile, and I played guitar, but it didn't work out so we're back to 3.
- We got a new kitchen table and a couch in the basement, so two main areas of the house look a lot better.
- The great Harrisburg trip with Shannon, Mike and Kayte.
- The free period in the spring after graduating and before getting my job
- I've become pretty good friends with Craig Tumino and Betsy Caprio. Nick Shuch continues to be a strangely good friend, too.
- I don't really stay at the Hoffman's much anymore in Akron. Pure Boss is more centered on the Chimas now.
- My gosh, the Rishels left and Jeremy Hetrick is our new assistant pastor! He and his family have been a joy and delight in many many ways.
- I don't enjoy food as recklessly as I used to, and I don't always want to talk about stuff like I used to.
- I started the year as a person who grew facial hair and didn't wear glasses. Now I've ditched the contacts and beardtee and am a cleanshaven person with glasses.
- Genesis series at church, and lately the Philippians series.
- Oooh man, the Dispatch concert trip! Steph's glorious glorious beach house in the idyllic Stone Harbor beach town, tons of driving, and really really enjoying the concert. Quite a trip.
- Kennywood with Steve Hoffman, Rachel and Betsy. Great time with an unusual mix of people.
I think 2007 was in 3 distinct phases - semesters actually. Spring was no-work, no-school, ending with the golden month. That phase was ended viciously with my job starting, and the summer was the newbie phase of my job, which, looking back, was very very different from how it is now. Youth Camp totally occupied the first part of the summer. The fall was settling in to my real job as it is now, sprinkled with really good times with friends - Pittsburgh, Grove City, Messiah, Villanova and Akron. The year ended with a glorious stretch of vacation - family in Chicago, then Tuminos in Akron, then Akronites here, centered around the Harvey's basement. A larger-than-life time whose memories still leave a sad sweet tinge.
OK, that wraps it up. I pray to God that 2008 has me finding God and peace and direction, be it in the job-wife-family direction or the music-craziness-doingstuff direction. Mostly I need my hard cold heart softened and Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross made real to me in an abiding way.
Thanks for reading! Future self, I bet you treasure this post.
--JPB
For all you car owners and want-to-be car owners
Two facts.
The first: My insurance for the last 12 months was $1806.
The second: My insurance for the next 12 months will be $1056.
Two messages:
The first: Cars are EXPENSIVE! Hold out as long as you can before getting one! Don't get one unless you're sure you'll be able to pay for it (and I'm not talking the one-time cost of purchasing the vehicle). They drain precious twenties and hundreds from your pocket like nobody's business.
The second: My rate is dropping by $750 because my three accidents are finally off my record . . . three years after they happened. When you have a car, don't be stupid with it. I don't mind accelerating fast sometimes or taking turns harder than most people know you can take them, but when it comes to serious risks like the distance between you and the car in front of you, rainy conditions, stopping time... it's no joke. If you mess up once, you'll be paying for it for years.
You can buy cheaper cars than mine and get less insurance than I have, but these messages still stand in principle. It behooves us to have a sober view of owning and operating a car.
--JPB
The first: My insurance for the last 12 months was $1806.
The second: My insurance for the next 12 months will be $1056.
Two messages:
The first: Cars are EXPENSIVE! Hold out as long as you can before getting one! Don't get one unless you're sure you'll be able to pay for it (and I'm not talking the one-time cost of purchasing the vehicle). They drain precious twenties and hundreds from your pocket like nobody's business.
The second: My rate is dropping by $750 because my three accidents are finally off my record . . . three years after they happened. When you have a car, don't be stupid with it. I don't mind accelerating fast sometimes or taking turns harder than most people know you can take them, but when it comes to serious risks like the distance between you and the car in front of you, rainy conditions, stopping time... it's no joke. If you mess up once, you'll be paying for it for years.
You can buy cheaper cars than mine and get less insurance than I have, but these messages still stand in principle. It behooves us to have a sober view of owning and operating a car.
--JPB
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Snapshot
Woke up this morning and felt a lot better than I expected - the top of my mouth wasn't swollen, my lungs weren't quite clogged with congestion, and I didn't ache anymore (hooray).
Random thought: Think about PR. Public Relations. Like for a politician or celebrity. Now, what is the "public" with which the relations must be managed? Why is PR necessary? I think the "public" in this case is defined by being essentially ignorant about that for which PR is being managed. If they really knew this politician, he wouldn't need a PR guy to make sure every statement coming out of his mouth can't possibly be taken wrongly. If they really knew circumstances, personalities, contexts, we wouldn't need PR. The pervasive availability of news has made everyone "partial-knowers" - ignorant "public" who need to be managed. This thought isn't intended to be snotty like that last statement sounded, rather, just to sit back and ponder on the nature of PR and why we need it. An overinformed public. Which is why I don't watch news or read newspapers or hardly ever check online news. Most of it is none of my business.
Active playlist setup: Playcounts > 0. Results: 4213 items. 11.8 days of audio material. All of which I have listened to at least once.
Well, most of that's probably just one listen, right? Playcounts >1. 3483 items. 9.1 days.
>4? 1987. 5.1 days.
>9? 852. 2.1 days.
Thats a lot of hours and days and weeks and months of music that has gone into my brain.
Something I am intensely proud of, for some strange reason that is probably inscrutable to many. One of the few ways that I am a type of person I respect. Probably an idol that God will tear down or wear down through the future. Certainly something that has greatly benefitted all aspects of my musical creativity.
Chick-Fil-A for lunch tomorrow! Hearty beef & veggie soup for breakfast.
Tonight was a nearly unique night, and very satisfying. I stayed home while Mom and Dad went to prayer meeting and Daniel went off to the Shuchs' to hang out and play games. I sat in the huggle chair and ate large amounts of the oriental snacks I bought Saturday and read large amounts of "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook." I like my EQ style, but my gain staging sucks and I need to leave headroom when I record and mix. And--probably with youthful bravado and arrogance--I think my monitor setup is just fine and I can make fine mixes with it, all else being equal.
Wednesday is over. Over the hump for another week! Now it's just "tomorrowisFriday" and "todayisFriday!", and another weekend is here. Funny how the precious and irrepeatable weeks rush by.
Time to obey what I said 30 minutes ago: "I'm tired, and I'm going to go to bed."
Which brought exclamations of joy from Mom :-P
--JPB
Oh, and I most definitely, indubitably and irrevocably . . . . put my boxers on backwards this morning.
Random thought: Think about PR. Public Relations. Like for a politician or celebrity. Now, what is the "public" with which the relations must be managed? Why is PR necessary? I think the "public" in this case is defined by being essentially ignorant about that for which PR is being managed. If they really knew this politician, he wouldn't need a PR guy to make sure every statement coming out of his mouth can't possibly be taken wrongly. If they really knew circumstances, personalities, contexts, we wouldn't need PR. The pervasive availability of news has made everyone "partial-knowers" - ignorant "public" who need to be managed. This thought isn't intended to be snotty like that last statement sounded, rather, just to sit back and ponder on the nature of PR and why we need it. An overinformed public. Which is why I don't watch news or read newspapers or hardly ever check online news. Most of it is none of my business.
Active playlist setup: Playcounts > 0. Results: 4213 items. 11.8 days of audio material. All of which I have listened to at least once.
Well, most of that's probably just one listen, right? Playcounts >1. 3483 items. 9.1 days.
>4? 1987. 5.1 days.
>9? 852. 2.1 days.
Thats a lot of hours and days and weeks and months of music that has gone into my brain.
Something I am intensely proud of, for some strange reason that is probably inscrutable to many. One of the few ways that I am a type of person I respect. Probably an idol that God will tear down or wear down through the future. Certainly something that has greatly benefitted all aspects of my musical creativity.
Chick-Fil-A for lunch tomorrow! Hearty beef & veggie soup for breakfast.
Tonight was a nearly unique night, and very satisfying. I stayed home while Mom and Dad went to prayer meeting and Daniel went off to the Shuchs' to hang out and play games. I sat in the huggle chair and ate large amounts of the oriental snacks I bought Saturday and read large amounts of "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook." I like my EQ style, but my gain staging sucks and I need to leave headroom when I record and mix. And--probably with youthful bravado and arrogance--I think my monitor setup is just fine and I can make fine mixes with it, all else being equal.
Wednesday is over. Over the hump for another week! Now it's just "tomorrowisFriday" and "todayisFriday!", and another weekend is here. Funny how the precious and irrepeatable weeks rush by.
Time to obey what I said 30 minutes ago: "I'm tired, and I'm going to go to bed."
Which brought exclamations of joy from Mom :-P
--JPB
Oh, and I most definitely, indubitably and irrevocably . . . . put my boxers on backwards this morning.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
A couple clarifications
Dear blog,
I don't want you to feel unloved or un-thought-of because of my neglect of you for the past few months. Truth is, I've thought of you many times. A lot of cool things have happened, and I wanted to write about them so I could remember them later. I've had a lot of deep and emotional thoughts, experiences and realizations, and even some random and interesting insights into life, both trivial and technical. But here's the deal: one of the changes I've been undergoing--call it a low-level emotional motivation change--is that I no longer feel like there's inherent value in expressing myself. In fact, I've come to really despise talking about something and then never doing anything about it. I feel the pettiness and arrogance of so much of my own musings and other peoples', and work has beat into my head the truth that no one cares what you say, they care what you DO. Do I want to make an album of my solo songs? Don't frikkin' write a long blog post about it! You can write that post when you have the CD in your hand and can include a link to the website selling it!
So when I would be in the shower or on the road or at work and think of some nifty principle upon which the world operates, or some clever thought that sums up part of what I've been going through, it was quick to lose its appeal and drop to a dull unimportance, and your screen never saw its life. And all those trips to Akron and fun times here? Sorry blog, I just didn't want to jump into the long ordeal of writing them out, writing way too much, trying to hack down the length, then hating myself for not being a clever and concise writer like Kayte Bell, and grinding my teeth at yet another fate sealed by the late hour I'd stayed up till.
So, that's where I've been, and that's who I've been lately. Maybe I'll have a spurt of writing more for awhile, I don't know. I wrote these two posts because Megan Chima told me at church last Sunday that she somehow read my blog, and she thought it was clever, and that I was a good writer. That was cool to hear, and made me think maybe it's nice for people to have interesting things to read here and maybe I'm not as completely stupid and poor a writer as I feel like I am.
OK, that's it. Take-home point? I no longer place paramount and self-evident value on pure self expression. Often times I think of something I could say in a conversation, and then think why? To what end? And let it go and never say a word. I'm getting older, blog, and I don't like it. It's nice not to regret impetuosity so much and to feel sorta better than others sometimes, but I place a high value on the heedlessness of youth, and wish I wasn't so shackled by the analytical predictions that limit my actions before I every actually TAKE them and see what happens.
Oh and lastly, just so you don't run wild with speculation, when I said in my last post that within a year I probably wouldn't be a single man, that was a un-backed-up impression I've had, not a secret relationship I'm not telling anyone about. :-P
Yeah. Trying not to use so many smiley faces either.
--JPB
I don't want you to feel unloved or un-thought-of because of my neglect of you for the past few months. Truth is, I've thought of you many times. A lot of cool things have happened, and I wanted to write about them so I could remember them later. I've had a lot of deep and emotional thoughts, experiences and realizations, and even some random and interesting insights into life, both trivial and technical. But here's the deal: one of the changes I've been undergoing--call it a low-level emotional motivation change--is that I no longer feel like there's inherent value in expressing myself. In fact, I've come to really despise talking about something and then never doing anything about it. I feel the pettiness and arrogance of so much of my own musings and other peoples', and work has beat into my head the truth that no one cares what you say, they care what you DO. Do I want to make an album of my solo songs? Don't frikkin' write a long blog post about it! You can write that post when you have the CD in your hand and can include a link to the website selling it!
So when I would be in the shower or on the road or at work and think of some nifty principle upon which the world operates, or some clever thought that sums up part of what I've been going through, it was quick to lose its appeal and drop to a dull unimportance, and your screen never saw its life. And all those trips to Akron and fun times here? Sorry blog, I just didn't want to jump into the long ordeal of writing them out, writing way too much, trying to hack down the length, then hating myself for not being a clever and concise writer like Kayte Bell, and grinding my teeth at yet another fate sealed by the late hour I'd stayed up till.
So, that's where I've been, and that's who I've been lately. Maybe I'll have a spurt of writing more for awhile, I don't know. I wrote these two posts because Megan Chima told me at church last Sunday that she somehow read my blog, and she thought it was clever, and that I was a good writer. That was cool to hear, and made me think maybe it's nice for people to have interesting things to read here and maybe I'm not as completely stupid and poor a writer as I feel like I am.
OK, that's it. Take-home point? I no longer place paramount and self-evident value on pure self expression. Often times I think of something I could say in a conversation, and then think why? To what end? And let it go and never say a word. I'm getting older, blog, and I don't like it. It's nice not to regret impetuosity so much and to feel sorta better than others sometimes, but I place a high value on the heedlessness of youth, and wish I wasn't so shackled by the analytical predictions that limit my actions before I every actually TAKE them and see what happens.
Oh and lastly, just so you don't run wild with speculation, when I said in my last post that within a year I probably wouldn't be a single man, that was a un-backed-up impression I've had, not a secret relationship I'm not telling anyone about. :-P
Yeah. Trying not to use so many smiley faces either.
--JPB
I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!
But soon enough I'll probably be taking antibiotic pills. [I may have bronchitis. More on that in 2 paragraphs.]
I've been hanging out like there's no tomorrow for several weeks, ever since friends started coming back from college for Christmas break. There were a couple days with Daniel, Justin and Betsy, then the wild Friday night care-group-party-and-beyond, crashing at the airport at 5:30am and flying to Chicago for Christmas. The night I flew back from Chicago Justin and I were out till 4am, I had one evening Thursday to catch up, and then Friday it was out till 2 or so at Betsy's, then Akron Saturday afternoon, and the fun really began!
I had a realization tonight as I finally got a shower, feeling almost like a stranger in my home, where I've been but a ghost of a resident for days. It was more than the warning thought that's been wagging its finger at me every time I stop to take a glance backwards: "You can't keep doing this! You can't work in a no-mercy real world job and keep your foot in the heedless college crowd that stays up like there's no tomorrow because there hardly because they sleep till 3pm the next day!" That thought has been amply realized in the continued worsening of my throat and voice, and the deathly weight of tiredness that leaded my limbs and dragged my eyelids shut on Thursday, literally while standing up.
The realization was not that I *can't* be doing this forever, but that I *won't* be doing it forever. At some point, probably within a year, I will not be a single man anymore. Certainly in five years (if the good Lord's willin' and creek don't rise) it would be strange, and not too great, if I was still hanging out all night entertaining myself with movies and games and young unattached friends.
I went out to lunch Friday with my boss and a sand salesman, and they were talking at length about their lives - being married, kids, watching the money slip away, watching the years slip by. I do not believe that life has to be a hopeless and nearly joyless trap like it is for them, and I do not believe that my life will be like that, but it did slap a vivid picture of real life right in my face. Things do actually change from how they've been, and it actually is possible (and will happen) that I'll be the guy who goes home early and leaves the laughter behind to go sleep and be responsible. That I will go home and eat sandwiches because I shouldn't pay $12 for a restaurant meal.
What's the application of this? Well, to put it starkly, it means these past weeks are probably one of the last times I will be hanging out so crazily. [And by crazy I mean skipping by home at 11:46pm after work, care group and Fuel 'n' Fuddle, stuffing my backpack with clothes and some deodorant, hopping in somebody's car back to the Harvey's, playing pool, watching The Godfather II till 4am, waking up, eating pancakes, driving a vanfull of chattering people to a museum, wandering around, swinging by the oriental drug store to buy shrimp crackers, hitting up Chick-Fil-A with a group of 17, jumping over to the thrift store, and returning again to the Harvey's house for pool, music, the Steelers game and more entertainment of myself by and with others.] I may have a few of these carefree periods left, but their days are numbered, mark my words. And yours are too, if you hope to be anything but a petty and self-serving child all your life.
What's the point? I'm not sure, honestly. I wanted to write this post to break my spell of not blogging, to write down this realization, and to try to convey the finality and real-ness of its emotional impact. I'm still going to dead fish-it tomorrow -- drive to church and go from there, not knowing wherest and whenst I will go, flitting from person to person, group to group, conversation to conversation, joke to joke, activity to activity. A life full of failures has dulled any recognizable motivation to be all responsible and think ahead and cut everything out now so that at some magical point in the future everything'll be great, which would be a natural action point from what I've just written.
Somehow, it feels like there is value in realizing that our youthful days are numbered, and that the adults who are asleep right now will inevitably be us.
Enjoy it now! And don't be surprised at the future.
--JPB
I've been hanging out like there's no tomorrow for several weeks, ever since friends started coming back from college for Christmas break. There were a couple days with Daniel, Justin and Betsy, then the wild Friday night care-group-party-and-beyond, crashing at the airport at 5:30am and flying to Chicago for Christmas. The night I flew back from Chicago Justin and I were out till 4am, I had one evening Thursday to catch up, and then Friday it was out till 2 or so at Betsy's, then Akron Saturday afternoon, and the fun really began!
I had a realization tonight as I finally got a shower, feeling almost like a stranger in my home, where I've been but a ghost of a resident for days. It was more than the warning thought that's been wagging its finger at me every time I stop to take a glance backwards: "You can't keep doing this! You can't work in a no-mercy real world job and keep your foot in the heedless college crowd that stays up like there's no tomorrow because there hardly because they sleep till 3pm the next day!" That thought has been amply realized in the continued worsening of my throat and voice, and the deathly weight of tiredness that leaded my limbs and dragged my eyelids shut on Thursday, literally while standing up.
The realization was not that I *can't* be doing this forever, but that I *won't* be doing it forever. At some point, probably within a year, I will not be a single man anymore. Certainly in five years (if the good Lord's willin' and creek don't rise) it would be strange, and not too great, if I was still hanging out all night entertaining myself with movies and games and young unattached friends.
I went out to lunch Friday with my boss and a sand salesman, and they were talking at length about their lives - being married, kids, watching the money slip away, watching the years slip by. I do not believe that life has to be a hopeless and nearly joyless trap like it is for them, and I do not believe that my life will be like that, but it did slap a vivid picture of real life right in my face. Things do actually change from how they've been, and it actually is possible (and will happen) that I'll be the guy who goes home early and leaves the laughter behind to go sleep and be responsible. That I will go home and eat sandwiches because I shouldn't pay $12 for a restaurant meal.
What's the application of this? Well, to put it starkly, it means these past weeks are probably one of the last times I will be hanging out so crazily. [And by crazy I mean skipping by home at 11:46pm after work, care group and Fuel 'n' Fuddle, stuffing my backpack with clothes and some deodorant, hopping in somebody's car back to the Harvey's, playing pool, watching The Godfather II till 4am, waking up, eating pancakes, driving a vanfull of chattering people to a museum, wandering around, swinging by the oriental drug store to buy shrimp crackers, hitting up Chick-Fil-A with a group of 17, jumping over to the thrift store, and returning again to the Harvey's house for pool, music, the Steelers game and more entertainment of myself by and with others.] I may have a few of these carefree periods left, but their days are numbered, mark my words. And yours are too, if you hope to be anything but a petty and self-serving child all your life.
What's the point? I'm not sure, honestly. I wanted to write this post to break my spell of not blogging, to write down this realization, and to try to convey the finality and real-ness of its emotional impact. I'm still going to dead fish-it tomorrow -- drive to church and go from there, not knowing wherest and whenst I will go, flitting from person to person, group to group, conversation to conversation, joke to joke, activity to activity. A life full of failures has dulled any recognizable motivation to be all responsible and think ahead and cut everything out now so that at some magical point in the future everything'll be great, which would be a natural action point from what I've just written.
Somehow, it feels like there is value in realizing that our youthful days are numbered, and that the adults who are asleep right now will inevitably be us.
Enjoy it now! And don't be surprised at the future.
--JPB
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