I Ran Cemetery on New Year's Eve

I ran cross-country at Katy High, and Cemetery was one of several training routes. Other routes: Pin Oak, Stadium, Morton, and Peek.

Most were named for the road on the turning point. Stadium, for example, meant leave the field house, run to Rhodes Stadium and come back. Every morning as we dressed out, Coach Carswell would walk in the locker room and give us the assignment. Cemetery was a 3.6 mile route that turned at the cememetery just northwest of town; once you turned off Avenue D and past Green Meadows golf course, for about half a mile, the course felt pretty remote.

I took the boys to Uncle Sam's house to work on their Pinewood Derby cars (Uncle Sam teaches physics and has a devastating recipe for Pinewood speed). While they were in the woodshop, I drove to Katy High School, parked my car, crossed Highway 90 on foot, and started my stopwatch at the railroad tracks on Bartlett. I'm not going to tell you how long it actually took to run the course. What matters is that I'm still alive.

Decembe 24, 2009

We buried Grandma today.

Definitions

More about those words.

Simplicity: As in "simple--a person of humble origins...a commoner." A commoner typically lacks the resources to live an elaborated lifestyle. The commoner's few resources are allocated for and consumed by necessities. Thus, the necessities are the consumer, and the commoner is not. I've engaged in a chronic pattern of a) maximizing my resources so I could b) elaborate my lifestyle. My friend, Brock, offered an excellent teaching Sunday out of the book of Hosea. I am Gomer.

Discipline: To bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control. At face value, this should be easier for me than it is. I get the "training" part of that. I trained as a cross country runner in high school. I trained for six thousand years to be able to call myself a psychologist and take people's money for it. I even get the "control" part of it: usually, when I decide I want something, I take control to make it happen. But there's the glitch--when I want something. If it happens to be something I don't necessarily want (neutrality) or don't want (opposition), I exercize less control. And/or I avoid. And/or I hide. And/or I rationalize. And/or I deny. And/or I blame. And/or I distort. I do just about anything but exercise training and control. (I can never remember how to spell exercize/exersize/exercise).

Quiet brokennes: Just shut up and do what you're told. Meekness is probably a good word for it.

Chautauqua 2010

The only new year's resolution I ever really kept was the one I made January 1, 1993: No more new year's resolutions. It was reminiscent of the time I gave up meaningless religious tradition for Lent when I was 16. Ever the wise ass.

Here are the words that keep coming up: 1) simplicity, 2) discipline, and 3) quiet brokennes.

An SAT analogy would look like this:

Simplicity, discipline, quite brokennes : Adam as snow is to:

a) The North Pole

b) cold

c) white

d) the climate of the Rio Grande Valley

The correct answer would be "D".

Yep, those are the words: simplicity, discipline, and quiet brokenness. I don't like any of them. They are unnatural. These words I like: loud, unyeilding, lacking in self-control and complex. They are natural.

I get it, though--loud, unyeilding, lacking in self-control and complex ain't workin' for me. Not anymore, anyway. Yes, they paid certain dividends through my twenties and early thirties, but at forty-three, they're taking more than they're giving.

Feels like the Lord has quietly slipped these words deep in my spirit, kinda the way my grandmother would slip a $20 in my back pocket on my way out her front door because she new I was broke and going to need gas money to get home. So, simplicity, discipline and quiet brokenness have been echoing back and forth between my mind and heart for about the past four weeks.

As best as I can figure, I'm going to need the quiet brokenness piece to embrace the simplicity and discipline pieces.

Blogging from my iPhone.

You Wanted the Best and You Got It. The Hottest Band in the Land. Kiss.

There are two types of people in this world: 1) People Who Have Been to a Kiss Concert and Worn Kiss Makeup, and 2) People Who Have Been to a Kiss Concert and Never Worn Makeup. What about people who have never been to a Kiss concert? They're not people. They're just a large group of miscellaneous persons who haven't yet found an adolescent musical theatrical around which to build an identity. Again, persons, not people.

Among the afore described two groups of people (Makeup-Wearers and Non-Makeup-Wearers), there are two types of Makeup Wearers: 1) Those Who Know How, and 2) Those Who Should Be Non-Makeup-Wearers But Haven't Yet Figured It Out. Here are examples of how one identifies the TWSBNMWBHYFI crowd: The Catman (originally Peter Criss) with four or five whiskers; The Spaceman (originally Ace Frehley) with whiskers; The Demon (Gene Simmons) with two or fewer black spikes around the eyes; The Starchild (Paul Stanley) with the star on the left eye; any character with white makeup weak enough to reveal skin tone anywhere; any character with blurred makeup where the white and black meet.

As of last night at the Toyota center, Kim and I became part of the NMW. Sure, our family dressed up as Kiss once, but it was only for Halloween, so it didn't really count.

What a show.

During the drive back to College Station, Kim asked if it was me that delivered the fart she smelled right after Kiss took the stage. I told her no, I didn't fart, but the guy standing next to me fired up some skunk weed, and skunk weed is called skunk weed for a reason.

Looking forward to Garrison Keillor next week at MCS Opas. There are two types of people in this world with regard to Garrison Keillor. After next Tuesday night, I'll let you know whom they are.

Thought for the Past Several Days

Stages tend to begin and end in crisis. Renewal is typically preceeded by brokennes.