I'm an alien

I feel a little alien.

I’ve been back in the states from my honeymoon now 5 days and I just don’t feel right. Like part of me was left behind in Dublin.

Walking Grafton street.

Lurking through Temple Bar.

Eating a boxty at Gallagher’s.

Sitting on the couch with Gina in our apartment overlooking the Liffey.

Walking up Dame street towards Christ’s Church.

Perusing the shops at Jervis center.

Somewhere there is part of my soul still out there, still having not arrived with the plane. It leaves me with an odd sensation. I am home, but I am not. Everything is familiar but I am left with this lingering feeling of not quite fitting in to my life here.

Maybe I’m just not letting go of a great honeymoon.

Or maybe I just miss Dublin.

I miss the friendly people. I miss the politically incorrect humor and wit. I miss the accent.

My wife and I were at a local restaurant the other day and when the waitress came up to take our order. She started to speak and I looked at her like she was from another planet. The american accent sounds so odd to me now.

I miss the nativity scenes in the pubs and town squares.

I miss the Dublin monument nicknames: "The Tart with the Cart”, “The Hags with the Bags”, “The Stiletto in the Ghetto” and my personal favorite, “The Fag on the Crag” (I hope Oscar Wilde has a good sense of humor...).

It was a wonderful 2 weeks, and I guess the part of me that is still there is the part that still wants to be wandering Dublin with my wife. Walking those wonderfully old, familiar streets. Eating at the local pubs, watching our nightly dose of celebrity big brother then blissfully heading off to bed with another day of Ireland and honeymoon ahead.

My Shining Wife

My wife and I were married less than 5 days ago on December 17th. Gina is everything that any man could ever want. Beautiful, smart, sexy, godly, a woman of character and conviction. Kind, loving, compassionate. She is my best friend, hardest critic, and intoxicating lover. She is the woman I have always dreamed of being with. The one that I want to be the right kind of man for.

She is also a shining example of Gods love. I can truly say that God shines through her and shows me the kind of love He has for me.

And how would that be?

I’m glad you asked.

She believes in me. Whenever I feel less than christian. Or feeling like cutting corners spiritually. Or feel like being impatient, or unkind, or just a plain jerk, I often think: “Gina thinks I’m better than that...”. Her belief in the good in me helps me to be the man I should be. Without that belief, I don’t know where I would be in life.

God does thinks the same of us. He believes in us. He believes in the good that we can do, the good that He has instilled in us. He trusts we will do right. No dark angry god looking over our shoulder waiting for us to screw up. A lack of belief like that would drive us all to despair. The fact that we have a Father above that believes in us makes all the difference in the world in our daily lives.

She loves me. This is easy, especially if you believe the person whom you bestow your love on is perfect.

So let me expound on this point.

She loves me, warts and all. She’s seen me at my best, worse, and everywhere inbetween. She doesn’t see me through rose colored glasses. She sees me as I truly am. A very flawed human being who loves her. Yet she loves me anyway. She smiles, puts her arms around me and loves me.

God, more than anyone, knows how and who we truly are. He sees into our hearts and knows how extensively screwed up we can be.

Yet He loves us. He preemptively sent His son to die for us as a symbol of that love and acceptance. More than that, He continues to love us everyday. The days we do good. The days we do wrong. The days we’re not sure what we’ve done. He is there for all of them, loving us despite our faults and sin.

It’s one thing to read about Gods love. It is entirely another thing to see it played out through someone you love. Through my wife. Thank you my darling! I thank God for you everyday. Not only for showing me Him through you, but for the joy and love and magic you have brought into my life. You are my Anam Cara.

Here’s looking forward to a lifetime of magic for us both.

Lessons I've learned from Keith Richards

I was perusing the official Keith Richards site a few days ago and came across the Q&A section. I’ve always been a Stones fan and have been fascinated by the well worn and near incoherent guitar legend that is Keith. As it turns out, there’s some things one can learn from the man. So without any further ado, these are the lessons I learned from Keith Richards.

Lesson #1: Be yourself. Holy hell! Has anyone seen or heard Keith lately? His wardrobe is a fanfare of odd leopard patterns, loud colors, and crappy jeans or leather pants! It looks like he shut his eyes, grabbed some things out of the closet, then dressed with the lights out. Add to this the odd rainbow colored headband and you have an ensemble only a drunken circus clown could love.
Then there’s the practically untranslatable mumbling brought on by decades of substance abuse. I think Keith actually has his own language! Keith speak! I saw a Stones concert on HBO where Keith took over the stage for about 20 minutes. Aside from when he was singing, I didn’t understand a bloody word! Not one!
And you know what? It works! He’s Keith and there’s no two ways about it. No padding, no spinning, no dolling it up for public consumption. He’s 100% himself and damn proud of it, thank you very much!
As we should all be. How many times do we water ourselves down to fit in? Probably more than we’d like to admit. By doing this, we become sellouts. Be yourself! Unashamed, unabashed. Be like Keith!

Lesson#2: Don’t care what others think.
Seriously, if Keith cared about what others thought for one nano second do you think he would be like he is? If anyone's opinion mattered don’t you think he’d look in the mirror and think “(insert favorite expletive)...I’m a bloody freak!” and immediately hire a fashion consultant and speech therapist? Fact is, he doesn’t care. Not one bit. He’s 100% Keith. Imagine a world where we all allowed ourselves this freedom? How colorful and wonderfully weird life would be!

Lesson #3: Do your thing, do it well, do it with passion. As I’m reading this Q&A with Keith (or “Keef” as the web page says) I got a real sense that Keith loves, cares, and is truly passionate about what he does. It’s not just rock and roll on auto pilot for him. H e loves playing guitar and writing music. He does it all the time. Guitars are scattered about his home in case inspiration hits. He wanders around carrying a guitar so he can plop down when the mood hits him and start to play. It’s not about writing the next radio friendly Stones hit. It’s not about making enough money to buy the next mansion. It’s about the passion and joy of the pursuit of writing and performing great music.
Day to day we all get bored with our jobs. I bet even Keith has days like that. I’m lucky in that I’ve got a great job that I love. I get to create and teach art for a living. But even my passion for it sometimes wanes, making it easy to drift into drudgery. We all need to sustain that passion to do what we do and do it well. It may not even be work! It may be a hobby. Whatever it is, we need to pursue it with all our might! Damn the torpedos and full speed ahead! Don’t just do to get by! Do to make something great!
Just like Keith...

Lesson #4, the last and greatest: No regrets! Keith, for all of us that have followed the career of the Stones know, has had an interesting and wild life. He’s ingested more drugs and alcohol than the population of a small country. He’s been arrested, sent to jail, and done a host of really stupid things. When asked if he had any regrets he said...
“None.”
He admitted to making mistakes but it was all just part of the journey. "What’s done is done, get over it, learn, move on." is the Keith way. I tend to beat myself up over the asinine things I’ve done in my past. What has all this angst done for me? Nothing. Make amends where we wrong others, realize our stupidity, learn from it, then cast it to the winds and move on. Never to look back. Never again to regret. Just like Keith.

It’s amazing what you can learn from a weather rock star, isn't’ it? Thanks for the lessons Keith!

Oil Execs and the fiasco in congress

It's that time of year again. The time where big oil makes record profits, the people get outraged and congress, in feigned concern, hauls the big oil executives to the capitol for answers.

Let the dog and pony show commence! Way to go Senator Boxer! That Kinkos created graphic will really show them who's boss! I can see them cowering in fear over the might of the "urgings" made by other congressional members! I'm sure the multi-billionaire oil executives will take your advice to heart senators!

Big oil defends its profits, congressional members make recommendations, and everybody leaves with nothing accomplished and nothing changed.

It's all just a lot of PR and posturing for the next election anyway, isn't it? It's a useless exercise where the democrats and republicans grandstand to impress their constituents. This constituent isn't impressed. Not one bit.

The problem of big oil uber profits and the gouging of the public won't be solved by an impotent congressional meeting. Bottom line is that the questions the congress should be asking (see CNN article here: http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/07/news/economy/oil_questions/index.htm ) wont' get asked. Nothing significant will be done for fear of rocking the boat and taking unpopular stances that the senator's latest polls indicate won't get them re-elected.

I'm all for companies making profits. I'm a capitalist at heart and see nothing wrong with a company making money off of a good product. Like the Apple iPod. It's a bit pricey compared to other music players ($300 for the new 30gb model). It's also packed full of more features and bells and whistles than the average player plus it's got a superior interface and design. The quality of the product makes the extra money spent worth it to me. Imagine if iPods were the only music players out there! It might be complete crap and the price could still be astronomical!

As we all know by now the problem with big oil is choice. As the public we have no real choice. Gas prices are consistently high no matter what station we go to. We buy gas because we have to. We have to get to work. We have to run errands. We have to live our lives.

With no real choice, what are we going to do when gas goes up to $4 a gallon or more? Nothing. Just continue to buy gas and watch the executives get richer and richer on our dime. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the oil companies know this. We will continue to be gouged, and they will continue to be rich.

Chick and the god of Fear

I passed up a small office front today titled "Chick Publications". The text was in a simple white serif typeface.

Innocent enough.

But the name brought back black and white visions of a bloody apocalypse, fear, and a sinking dread of the Almighty.
I "grew up" in the church and was both sickly fascinated and terrified by the "Reverend Chick" tracts. Someone always died at the end and went to a fiery hell full of sarcastically cruel demons who tormented their guests for all eternity. Sometimes even professed Christians went to hell! And let's not even start about what happened to the deceived Catholics!

I'm sure somewhere in the wide world, Chicks tracts have done some good, I'd be a narrow minded fool to deny that. However, one has to question Reverend Chicks view of God as well as his idea of what it means to be a Christian.

God is shown as a emotionless judge casting people into hell on a whim. I wish Reverend Chick would actually READ his Bible. Over and over and over in the Bible God comes to people in love. There is judgment, to be sure. However, it is always Gods last resort. Read the books of the prophets! God warned the Israelites for years on end and tried to turn them back to Him through his love long before He unleashed judgment on them.

Another thing I got as a kid from his tracts was that your life had to conform to some narrow ideal to make it into
Reverend Chicks heaven. You had to think, act, react, listen, not listen and have the same theological views as he or else you were doomed to an eternal fiery hell. All you Catholics! All you non-King James bible readers (including myself!) BE WARNED! REVEREND CHICK HAS SPOKEN!

Fear mongers like the "Reverend" Chick (or whatever his real name is...) do nothing more than turn a compassionate God into a fierce and angry being to be dreaded. One bent on sending us to hell if we dare step an iota out of line. No permanent, healthy relationship can ever be based on fear. Not a friendship. Not a marriage. Not a parent and child. And certainly not one between God and man. It's about time people like the "Reverend" figure this out and stop spreading the gospel of the god of fear.

a "Critical Incident"

Words. Words can turn something ugly and painful and just plain bad into a homogenized event meant to be "debriefed" from and "coped" with.

My friend and work colleuge was killed in an auto accident on her way to work Tuesday night. All of the people at my work were close to her, sometimes among us it feels more like a family. We have lost a dear sister. This is the second friend of mine who has died far too young and tragically, I can only hope and pray that the rest of my friends live to be a ripe old age and we drop dead over a card game at the retirment home.

In responce to what has been a shock for all of us, the higher ups handed out a flyer today in an attempt to help us deal with things. Don't get me wrong, the gesture is genuine and I believe the higher ups really do want to help us all.

But the wording of the memo is like a gust of frosty air to the soul. The session we were invited to to share our feelings about our friends death is a "Critical Incident Stress Debriefing".

What the hell?! A WHAT???

The cold hand of icy corporate american has managed to infilitrate our most sacred places, even the death of a friend. A horrible event fraught with pain and human emotion has been worded and categorized into a sensless numb oblivion. Into a report. Into an "incident". As if the lack of the words "death" and "gone" or "killed" or "missed" will somehow strip the pain and emotion from a very horrible thing.

I don't want a damn debriefing. I don't want to talk about the "stress" of the "critical incident".

I want to talk about my friend. How we will all miss her. How we will miss her laugh, her smile, her biting wit and humor. No memo, no session, no corporate sponsored BS talking group will erase the pain and hurt mixed with the bitter sweet memories of a good friend.

Nor should it.

Why?

Why create my own blog? It's not like I don't have anything better to do! However, I think a lot of it has to do with my work schedule and an inherent need to write my thoughts down before they melt away forever.
As mentioned, I've got a pretty full schedule lately and don't have the time I used to to sit down, drink some coffee, and write in my pen and ink journal. This seemed like a great alternative.
So for those of you who visit this lone blog floating in a sea of millions of other choices, welcome and thank you.