5:47 R8 to Chestnut Hill West

originally written 11/12/04

The gentleman across from me, in his 50s perhaps, reads the Inquirer. He’s gray, balding, with a goatee and mustache. His face is thin, and he looks mentally active. He wears thin-rimmed silver spectacles. Like some absent-minded professor, his weekly train pass is wedged between the side of his head and glasses frame. The card is at a jaunty angle. In a hat band it might look rakish instead of pragmatically dorky. Another good argument for the return of the hat, I suppose.

The poignant part of this—don’t miss it!—is that I have seriously considered doing the same thing. I only abstained because I thought, “I bet that looks dorky.”

Turns out, I was right. But twenty years on, that is so me.

8 Crimes

Here's a game* I made up to pass time at the game table when it's not your turn.

Get a bunch of 8-sided dice. Divide them into teams by color. Roll them all in a contained area.

Treat the faces of the dice as arrows pointing in the direction that the number is most easily read. Starting with 2s and working your way up, a higher number "kills" the closest lower number it's pointing at. Equal numbers kill each other. Higher numbers are unharmed. Remove killed dice from the area immediately.

Once the killing ends, count up remaining number values. Highest team value wins.

It's almost like fun!


*not really a game

Does It Include, Like, Taft?

I'm not going to work tomorrow, and I was lying in bed this morning thinking about that. About Presidents Day. Or Presidents' Day. Or President's Day.

Lots of people get off work, and it's a great time to buy a mattress. But what's the deal behind this holiday? When I was a kid, there was Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday, and around the time we decided to start honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. with his own holiday, one of these Rushmoric figures in the American pantheon got the boot. Is that fair?

Like I know anything about fair. But I have research, which is more interesting than fairness. The rest of this post is a synopsis of Wikipedia and Snopes, so pretend that I cited accurately. I've tried to avoid pure plagiarism.

Attempts to combine George and Abe's cake days started in the early '50s, well before MLK's martyrdom. Nixon is also said to have issued a proclamation to combine the two during his administration, but no one has found any record of it.

Instead, in 1971, a law was passed designating the third Monday in February as "Washington's Birthday," a holiday for federal employees. Apparently, the draft of the bill that became this particular law never got around to being changed from "Washington's Birthday" to "Presidents Day." Lincoln just gets the shaft.

But wait! Dig deeper, and you learn that Lincoln's birthday has never been a federally recognized holiday. It was a state recognized holiday in many states, which accounts for my stacatto Februaries in Tennessee.

But Congress could not have been moved to pass a bill to care less, and with the rising popularity of MLK in the 80s and 90s, most states ditched our grandest Civil Rights proponent for our sexiest.

Furthermore, since Washington was actually born on February 11 (1732), his birthdate can never be celebrated by the date formally set by the federal government (which falls somewhere between the 15th and the 21st). So, suck it George! Neither of you gets his birthday celebrated!

Finally, only the calendar makers call it Presidents Day, because no official source does. And none of the Hallmarkers can figure out if or where an apostrophe goes, so pick one you like and use it with impunity, because there's no standard!

As an occasional copy editor, I recommend no apostrophe. Because it's shorter.

Quitting My Job Again

Sometimes I wonder if there's something horribly broken in me that keeps me from settling into a job. I'm in good company for pinballing through the first half of my adult life -- lots of interesting people go down this road. But nobody, I think, does it because it seems like a good idea. You just do it when you don't know a better way.

A friend offered me a job at a game company in San Diego last month, and for the first time as an adult, when I had an opportunity to jump off into a new, weird life, I didn't. Because I'd have to move.

I'm not in love with this town. I give Philly a 6. But it's an okay place to stop for a while. Maybe... maybe some things can catch up with me.

A Story: I was driving across country a few years ago and stopped to hike in the Grand Canyon. I didn't bring sunscreen, but at a rest point, a young married couple let me use theirs. We swapped Cliff's Notes life stories. When I said I was just driving around, doing whatever seemed like a good idea, the husband said, "You are so lucky. Man, I envy you."

I didn't have a good response. Later, on the road, I thought:

"I am lucky. But so are you. If I had a pretty young wife to go on vacation with into the Grand Canyon, and if I was talking seriously about a baby on the way... I don't think I'd envy me. I'm only here because I can't figure out where else to be. If I had a clear mission, I'd be doing that."

Five years on, I still don't know what my mission is. But lemme tellya Houston, as of next week, it won't involve Vanguard no more.

Turn-Offs, Part 1

Girls who say "can't" when they mean "won't."

I Totally Skipped Church Tonight

I got an enormous box of books from Amazon for Christmas courtesy of my generous mother. One of the books is Life of the Beloved by Henry Nouwen, subtitled, "Spiritual Living in a Secular World."

When Xians talk about sacred versus secular, I always sort of quietly root for secular. Sacred seems pretty well covered.

I've at very least wanted to be a Christian for most of my life. But I've never felt a part of most Christians I've known. I feel more kin to nonbelievers, because what I believe is hard for me to believe. I believe Jesus is the son of God, and he saves me from meaninglessness and separation from God. But I can totally see why people wouldn't believe. Seems like plenty of reasons not to, or at least to hang back and see what happens.

My brother recently asked me why I was still a Christian. He's not. He doesn't get why I am. The answer is because I believe. I know that's a circular, nonrational answer. I know it doesn't explain anything to you if you don't believe. I'm not satisfied with it either. But it's the answer.

===

In college, I had been reading Franky Schaeffer books, notably Sham Pearls for Real Swine, and was struck by his idea that Christians needed to be out in the middle of media instead of hand wringing over its worldliness. I had been fiddling with the idea of being some sort of minister, but after reading that, I realized that we've got plenty of people who sit in church buildings and mouth pleasant words all day. I wanted to go be a guy with a job and a guy who also loves Jesus at that job.

Fitfully, I have followed that call since. I'm not really good at it. But I wonder why this isn't SOP among American Christians. Why do we have to have so many ministers and our own little music industry and our own special crappy TV shows and networks?

When I wrote that, I meant it as a rhetorical question. But now I don't know the answer.

Once I was out there in that Secular World, I discovered that nonbelievers were great people and I liked being around them. So I'm very interested in a book that talks about spiritual living in a secular world. Because man, sign me up for secularity, and for spiritual living in it, yo.

My South

Found this idea on another blog, Loriloo. She describes My South.

My personal South is mainly a childhood thing. My grade school pal, Paul Huffington, used to live on an honest-to-murgatroid farm. During high school the Huffingtons sold it, and the new owners turned the land into a couple dozen condos. Much of My South appears pre-condos.

However, I also went to college in Birmingham, Alabama, so I know there's still plenty South up for grabs.

My South involves:

• Cutting through other people’s back yards when you walk somewhere, and sometimes the people who own those yards stop you just to talk.
• Getting into a short conversation with the person behind the counter at the fast food joint.
• A constant, seductive mix of graciousness and passive-aggression.
• Talking about church and not feeling everyone in the room shift one millimeter away.
• A basic assumption that the weather will be nice.
• Allergies.
• Relaxing a little because people tend to take it easy on you.
• When you step on other peoples’ feet, they apologize too.
• Beat-up cars in people’s yards.
• Occasionally deciding to use simpler words.
• Great barbecue.
• Long drives through grassy land.
• Riding in the back of the pick-up because it’s fun, and no one wastes air telling you how unsafe that is.
• Lovely women everywhere, especially at college. Not plastic-surgery pretty like in California. Just lovely.
  
• People who know local history. Like, seriously. It’s important.
• Looking strangers in the eye and smiling at each other.
  

Dangerous Several Decades Ago

I said to my friend, Jon, a couple weeks ago that D&D is a great way to love people. I wound up repeating that line to other people, and now that I’ve heard myself say it out loud a few times, I’m absolutely sure of it.

I don’t know how D&D ever got a bad rap, because getting a bunch of teenagers to sit in the house stone cold sober and talk on a Saturday night is just about every parent’s impossible dream.

We’re not teenagers, but that’s totally what we did last Saturday. My Sunless Citadel game is so popular, at last count, 11 people wanted to play. We had seven on Saturday, and everyone had a good time, even though Borag the half-orc barbarian died a horrible, icy death. Oh, sweet Borag.

Apparently, like comic books, I'm attracted to anything that was irrationally considered dangerous several decades ago.

Straight-up proselytization via D&D is out. But, you know, good riddance. Instead, Jesus-worshippers get an opportunity to hang out with non-Jesus-worshippers and deal with all sorts of moral and ethical situations from this fantastic angle, with zero "witnessing" heebie-jeebies.

No one has to say "Jesus." It would be embarrassingly redundant. He's obviously there in the way his followers act and interact. And since the whole game is about interaction, there's plenty of opportunity for him to show up.

Look, this isn't Narnia. There's no Christian "theme" to the game any more than there is in real life.* There's just you and me making choices and loving our neighbors. And killing monsters and taking their stuff.


*Of course, real life is entirely Christian themed, but that forest is so very big, it's understandable that you'd see only trees.

Movies 2005, Part 5 of 5

Here's the last of the flick list. Me = indiscriminate spoiler:

Lost, season 1
I watched damn near the whole thing in a weekend. It was worth it. I don’t think watching future episodes in chunks will be acceptable after this.

The Royal Tenenbaums
This is probably the fifth time I’ve watched this movie, and it’s still got charm, but the honeymoon is over. Assuming my future wife is tall and slender though, she is welcome to slink around in those weird polo dresses that Gwyneth Paltrow’s character wears all the time. Not that short, stocky future wives would not also be welcome to wear them, but the horizontal stripes wouldn’t flatter, I imagine.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Hmmm. Hm.

Freaks & Geeks
I haven’t watched all of these, but I watched several episodes with B&J, and man, this show kicks everything’s butt. It is so good. I want to watch it more some time.

Smallville
I’ve watched a handful of season 4 episodes when Brian had them on. This show sux. But I still like looking at Kristin Kreuk.

Mirrormask
This was Dream Country: The Movie. But it was okay, for what it was.

When Harry Met Sally
Watched it twice, without and then with commentary, and boy, does Rob Reiner not have much to say about this movie. Still, it was good for BGCD research, which was why I watched it. Also, still a funny, charming movie.

Constantine
This movie had a couple of good moments, and Djimon Hounsou. But it also had dumb parts. They weren’t flamingly dumb, but just characters making poorly explained choices and the loss of a minor character for most of the movie with no explanation. “Shia LeBouf, your death scene is ready.” And some other dumb stuff. But the climax was clever.

Battlefield Baseball
A low-budget Japanese spoof/action movie with a couple of funny parts. It was clearly just done by a guy and his friends.

Ong-Bak
Good news!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Because the new movie’s coming out and you have to review the literature.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Good enough.

House of Flying Daggers
I watched this again, sort of, except for the parts where I fell asleep because I was tired.

Versus
Brian informed me after the fact that I was supposed to think this was funny. I’m conflicted whether that’s an oops.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Did I like it? Yes. But I didn’t love it. Tilda Swinton was the best thing about it. (No offense, Jesus.)

Strings
A Danish movie starring marionnettes. You probably already know whether you’re interested in seeing this movie right now. But let me also tell you that it’s slow like a Germantown pedestrian.

Movies 2005, Part 4 of 5

Batman Begins
I guess... you know, don’t tell anybody, but I didn’t really like this movie so much. It was okay. Okay enough.

Fong Sai Yuk
Jet Li and a lot of silly kung fu, including two kung fu moms. It’s partly because I’m about to break up with my girlfriend and a goofball kung fu movie is the exact opposite of the heaviness that I feel right now, but I love this movie. It’s one of my favorite movies I’ve seen this month, possibly this year.

The Island
That had license to suck more than it did, but I hate praising a movie because it defied rock bottom expectations. Scarlet Johannsen is pretty to look at in that movie-made-up-no- human-woman-looks-like-this way. It was a grab bag of dystopian rip-offs. The product placement was obtuse. I’m not even an evil genius and I can plan a more secure containment facility. But, you know, I stayed with it, and didn’t get distracted much. Plus, Djimon Hounsou played unexpected dignity in a movie where he didn’t have to act.

Broken Flowers
Just fine!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Pretty fun. Not a super-dee-dooper movie, but fun enough. Johnny Depp brought a little depth to the part, which was nice.

Murderball
Everybody said this was great, but I’m gonna be the dissenter. It was okay. It dragged in places.

Elektra
Man, that stank.

Enter the Dragon
Had never seen this before. It was actually pretty good. I was sort of confused about the martial arts aspect of it. Three people to fight in a tournament? Well, the tournament was just a front, but still… you’re not even trying to make it look like a real tournament if you only invite three people. And if it’s such a secret, why are you even bothering with the tournament charade? Clearly some holes. But I stayed interested, and there was some great action -– and not just the martial arts. Bruce Lee sneaking around in his black spy gear looked coo-ello.

Shaun of the Dead
Not as ROFLMAO as I had been led to believe, but it had some larfs, a decent flick. The characters stayed believeable. I totally thought Liz was going to kick the farm and Yvonne and Shaun would be together at the end tho.

Serenity
As a pestering-friends-to-watch-the-DVDs Firefly fan, I was all systems go to love this movie. But somehow, I don’t. I don’t dislike it, I just don’t love it. Wash’s death was nakedly contrived. Mal’s turning point was unconvincing. And Book, an otherwise well-portrayed (theoretically) Christian character, died without significantly addressing his faith. Disappointing.

Fog of War
Look, I slept through most of this. I’m counting it anyway.

Edward Scissorhands
Never seen it before. A bit thin. Probably would have liked it more as a teenager.

The Corpse Bride
Just makes me wish it was Nightmare Before Christmas II. I know, I’d rather weigh it on its own merits too. But if I was thinking that way, I’d be handing out demerits instead.

Horse Feathers
Marx Brothers. Not one of the best, but worth the time spent watching.

Alien3
Ugh.