I have this worthless habit of checking videogame news. I've been doing it for like a decade - I look at what new games are coming out. Today I had to glance at the new Metroid game, and Fallout 3. I never even played Fallout 1 or 2. Games I will probably be read news and reviews on: Super Mario Galaxy, Bioshock, Crysis, Team Fortress 2, Starcraft 2, maybe others. At least the habit doesn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes these days (once every week or so), but it's so silly. I don't even play video games anymore. I did have a world of warcraft stint a month ago.. A close shave. Today they seem uninteresting but maybe in a week or so...
Where I am, What I'm Doing
Right now I am in Taraccino's coffee using their wireless internet and drinking water. (I haven't had their coffee, and don't recommend their very bitter cappucinos.) My mom is letting me use her laptop for a couple months.
My employment situation is stable - I am working for my uncles, trying to be frugal, zero out my credit card, get organized in paying bills and college loans. The job involves lots of cleaning and sanding, getting very hot, sweaty, and dirty (and this week sunburned), and doing some careful painting (which I enjoy).
Housing has been a little weird - I've slept in several places and houses this week. Right now my coworker and spiritual brother John MacDonald is letting me set up my air mattress in his house. It's a great place. A more permanent housing situation may open up with a brother from Real Life church named James. Either way, I'm very happy and have been getting pretty good rest - enough to do the things that need doing.
Spiritually I am in a place where I am learning how to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. "Faith" can be very abstract, and an excuse for foolish action; so I am praying for humility, wisdom, purity, integrity, and an awareness of my incredible capacity for self-deception. Others are praying as well. The greatest thing is to just reach out for Christ; I don't know what else to do. And when others are reaching out alongside me, in their questions and in their prayers, it brings comfort and a confidence that God is taking care of His children.
My thoughts have been in a story I wrote with a couple people last night that needs to be finished, written down, and polished. It was a heck of a lot of fun; writing a story can be an adventure and a puzzle. At some point John and I may be able to make a movie at a really cool old factory a couple hours from here.
My thoughts are often distracted by questions of the future and my purpose, but at this point it is best not to worry but just to seek God out moment by moment, and spend time in study and contemplation. Right now that means studying scripture, maybe complimented by reading some poetry and doing some writing.
I need to buy some earplugs so I can think a bit more clearly in these coffee shops. Music can be really distracting, particularly if you are as good at getting distracted as I am.
A little more.
I am at a public library and the computer tells me that my session will end in fifteen minutes. So this will be brief! Speaking of briefs, I really don't like them.
To the clan of Camerer skeptics:
(...okay so it's not exactly the same as an official announcement..)
My time at cornerstone was intense. The highlights were listening to Shane Claiborne of "The Irresistable Revolution" speak times or so, and talking with Mike and Aaron Weiss (lead guitar and frontman of mewithoutYou).
A Shane quote: "The real tragedy is not that people don't care about poor people, but that they don't KNOW any poor people." Topic for thought: solidarity with people who are much poorer than anyone we probably know.
An Aaron quote (to me): "I think we don't have to worry about anything, and I mean that completely literally."
10 minutes to try and find a poem by Auden to strengthen my soul a little. I have been working really hard; thank God for my breath and my fingers and every minute of life. For the ones who pray, pray for restful sleep for me, and also for my grandma who has trouble sleeping.
Shalom.
Sleepy from Cornerstone Fest
I'm a little drained. Ever have one of those naps where you wake up all hot and feeling anything but rested?
On Wednesday after work I drove 4 hours to Bushnell, Illinois to Cornerstone Festival. I spent too much time the first night show-hopping so I didn't see any full sets that night. And I really intend to finish this blog but in about 30 seconds I'm going to drift into a state of unconscious something or other. To be continued...
Micah's Fault + Rumfrazzled
This blog entry can be blamed on Micah L., who told me to come back to blogger. No matter how many times I run away from blogger, it always takes me back with arms wide open. .. Thank you blogger. Okay, that's taken care of, see you in two months. (
Just kidding.
News Flash 1: I'm almost addicted to World of Warcraft. Sometimes I'm not, and sometimes I am.
News Flash 2: Emily believes I am becoming a gypsy. She may be right. Tomorrow I leave Florida for Michigan, and thence to Iowa a few days after that. I'm not going to summarize my time in Florida, but I'll offer up a couple of stories.
So here is a story about loving your neighbor. [The rest of this paragraph got really stupid, so I decided to make it optional. If you'd like to read something really stupid, just highlight the rest of this]: (Actually it's about someone else loving their neighbor. Actually it's about my neighbor. Actually it's about me. Technically "Love thy neighbor" implies at least two neighbors, the loving and the loved; in this story you'll find out which one I was.) (If you haven't figured it out yet.) (Do you really think I'm going to write a story about how wonderful I am?) (That pretty much gave away the ending.)
Downstairs lives the evil neighbors. I live upstairs with the good grandmother (who speaks no English.) I've never actually talked to the evil neighbors. Even if they spoke English (which they don't), why would I want to talk to neighbors that are evil? I only know they're evil because they get mad at the good grandmother because we're upstairs and walk around and on occasion that makes noise. I won't deny that it does make noise; just how upset they get about it, I couldn't say. Point is, there's no point in wasting my breath on them. (They also supposedly tried to get me kicked out at one point. Wait a second, maybe it worked....!)
So today I'm on the sidewalk with all my possessions (save my mac) on the sidewalk in front of the apartment. Unsmiling Cuban neighbor walks past with trash bag, disposes of trash bag, returns past me. Five minutes later, I hear some foreign mutterings directed directly at me. Cuban guy (60-ish) hands me a chilly beer, I say thank you, and walk back in.
A moment before he does this, I am complaining in my mind about bad neighbors, and how the bad neighbors downstairs should learn a little about good neighbors from Jesus. Whoa is me.
So I'm trying to drink this beer, feeling just a little ashamed. Generally I hate beer (I eventually poured half of it out he wasn't around), but the point is that the second of my first interaction with him he popped out of his evil neighbor pigeonhole by being neighborly. Five minutes later, he steps out again and asks me, "?Quiere Comida?" I try to say that I have to pack "muy rapido" before it rains (point at sky and say "agua"). He isn't deterred at all but promises "Poquito". So I go inside to eat with them. (The only word to describe what I'm feeling is "rumfrazzled".
The man is Cuban, is 64, has an amazingly jolly face (I'd never noticed before), has lived in florida for 15 years, thinks Castro is bad (there's no comida in Cuba), and went diving and harpooned his own fish the other day. His wife is Dominican, has a son 24 years old, (or maybe a daughter), and cooks amazing food. An hour and a half later I'm still stuffed. (Un poquito indeed.) The table has beautiful roses, they have beautiful plants in general, the wife's stereo was playing wonderful Dominican music (with wonderful guitar) - it was just a wonderful place. Communication was a struggle; I tried to tell them I loved Florida; I think I told them that I wanted Florida. Heaven knows what they thought that meant; maybe they think I want to get into real estate. In that case, why am I driving to Florida? For all I know I've misinterpreted half of what they said.
I finished my meal, said muchas gracias many times, finished packing (it never rained), poured out what remained of the beer, and went inside to cool off.
So then, I look forward to having my assumptions about my neighbors utterly flambazzled.
In the future I may or may not write about post-modern trends in journalism, storks, everglade fires, warcraft, depression, wonder, and idiocy.
Ch-ch-ch-changes!
Well it's time to juggle things up slightly. I owe the color scheme to this wonderful blogspot option called "shuffle colors" (=! I'm starting a new adventure in Florida, so this is sort of my way of celebrating new beginnings. (Together with tacky color schemes. I'm celebrating those as well.) Okay everybody, stay tuned because very soon I will be bringing you my new "Get Powerized!" health and exercise program! By the way, if things don't work out in Florida I have figured out a really exciting plan B, let me know what you think:
In God we trust
"In God We Trust" - by Derek Webb from his Mockingbird album
In God we trust
and the government is on His shoulders
in God we trust
through democracy and tyranny alike
in God we trust
He uses both good and evil men
in God we trust
so we fight for peace and He fights for us
in God we trust
even when He fights us for someone else
in God we trust
even when He looks like the enemy
in God we trust
even though our hearts are bankrupt
in God we trust
for more than just the value of our dollar bills
in God we trust
but there’s no gold behind these notes of reserve
in God we trust
even through our great presumption
in God we trust
even though He favors no nation-state
in God we trust
even when the blessing is a curse
If I had discovered the process of pasteurization...
The process of pasteurization is named after the man who discovered it, Louis Pasteur.
If I had discovered it, it would be called Powerization. Think about that next time you drink milk. "Grade A, Powerized."
If only I'd packed a kitchen sink...
Sorry for the lack of updates - to think, just yesterday I was condemning Derek Webb for not updating his podcast. To me:"Hey wackadoo, Luke 6:41!" And the only reason I'm updating is because it provides a distraction from a more difficult writing task (a resume). Whenever I have something difficult to accomplish, I suddenly get the energy to do all sorts of non-essential very fun creative things, like update my blog or work on my book of mojo. Handy. Alright, on to greasier subjects.
After all these months, I still lack a kitchen. Sort of. The slobs with whom I share this apartment manage to keep the kitchen greasy, filthy, and disgusting at all times. As a rule, I stay far away. I have barely enough courage to walk past the oven to access the microwave. And that's when the heaping kitchen garbage can doesn't scare me away. Reminds me of that early section of pilgrim's progress. You know, the part with the big rock overhang... never mind.
So, here are the (mostly) kitchen-free foods on which I depend: ramen noodles, hormel microwave meals (tasty and they don't require refrigeration), milk and cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bananas, granola bars (for those times I miss breakfast in particular - much better energy sources than donuts), yogurt, and hot pockets. I still have to use the fridge a bit, but the fridge is actually not too bad. When I get an apartment in Tampa, hopefully within a couple weeks, I have but one major requirement: A KITCHEN! It will be a challenge to learn good cooking habits, but it will be fun too. Any low-cost kitchen-free food ideas to get me through the next couple weeks, let me know.
iowa or bust
It's 10:30 PM. The car is full and my room is empty. The boxes are closeted, books are shelved, duffel bags crammed together. Tomorrow I'm going to get in my car, slam the gas pedal down, back out of my driveway at 45 freakin' miles per hour, and blaze like a white hot lightning bolt down 80, watching the ever widening cone of disintegrated car windows blow outward from my car's sonic boom. I'll tear past chicago, stopping at the oasis highway restaurant beyond the city's western suburbs, face my guitar amplifier east, and play my signature megapower chord - the chord of apocalypse, created by inverting the chord of life and adding a flat fifth above it, and when that electricity gets picked up through the guitar and blasted out the amp at ten thousand million percent amplification, people are going to pay attention. [Ya wanna know why? Cuz it's a friggin' tube amplifier, that's why. If you don't know what that means, your have the innate value of a slug.] And that chord is going to blast like a tidal wave of sonic destruction over the windbag city of chicago. It's going to be the sound of ten thousand million unhappy orangutangs that got steroids injected into their vocal cords, screaming after being cut off in the insane chicago traffic for the umpteenth time today. Do you think the engineers in chicago built buildings to withstand that sort of sonic onslaught? Two words: total annihilation. People who tolerate four hours of meaningless bumper to bumper traffic everyday so that they can meander through their braindead jobs don't design buildings that can survive powerchords.
I do not tolerate four hours of bumper to bumper traffic. I do not tolerate four minutes of bumper to bumper traffic. I simply do not tolerate bumper to bumper traffic. And other drivers know that. When people feel my chi energy flowing from my car's front bumper, the vast reservoirs of potential energy created by my infinite impatience and illimatable wrath, they sorta get out of the way. So as Chicago disintegrates behind me, I'll be back in the car, accelerating into greater and greater speeds until time slows down, because I want to eat dinner at grandma's house, and it's a 12 hour drive to Des Moines.
And when I get there, I'm going to get a good nights rest, drink some tea, listen to a little jack johnson on my iPod, and eventually I might read some russian literature. It sounds very peaceful doesn't it? Don't relax; I keep the tubes on my amplifier warm at all times.
Okay well it's my bedtime, fortunately my words will continue to stream around the globe through cyberspace, so I can continue my worldshaking from the confines of my lovesac.
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