ambiguous ironic hilarity

I have a high appreciate for ambiguous language, especially when it's ambiguity tends to be ironic. For me, ambiguous irony is hilarious, or, for the scientific among us: Ambiguity + Irony = Hilarity.

So, you can imagine my joy at finding this gem on a walk this afternoon...


Please clarify Knights of Columbus...

are you selling a large amount of children Thursday through Saturday?

or

merely large children?

or

items for the large children among us (x-large youth t-shirts)?


(also, for the record, i don't like the changes to the look of my blog. i made the mistake of messing with it a couple months back when i needed a "change." subconsciously, i think i believed if i changed the face of my blog, i would get back into the habit of blogging. i found, in fact, that by making my blog lame, my desire to blog has only decreased.

perfect.

so, if you want to design my blog for me, i'll probably let you. and if you design it well, i'll probably blog more. or at least brag about how sexy my blog is.)

I've been digging this song by the Airborne Toxic Event of late. I'm sure my coworkers are tired of hearing it.

Unfortunately, I am not.

Anyone interested in going to see them Wednesday, February 25th @ the Jackpot? $10. 8p. We can even do dinner beforehand.

25 years young... update

Yesterday I had a high of 11 revolutions while jump roping (jumping rope? rope jumping?).

Today: 27.


For those non-engineers/math majors/accountants & poor standardized test takers*, that's a 245% increase!

someone buy me a beer.


* please note: I myself am a poor standardized test taker. I, in no way, intend any sort of offense by singling out those who happen to perform less than their best on any form of standardized testing. I had absolutely no one in mind when I wrote those words.

25 years young.

Yesterday was a good day. Of course, I saw the aforementioned Slumdog Millionaire. Beforehand, I had dinner at my favorite latin american restaurant with one of my favorite Lawrence people. I mean, a good day so far, right.

BUT, what made my day...

Up until yesterday, there were two staple childhood activities that were my shame; no matter how hard I tried, I just did not seem to have the physical capability to accomplish them. And, I will say, my inability was not from lack of trying. Every six months or so, the dream would reawaken, and I would give another attempt at accomplishing what every 6-year-old can do. But time and time again, I failed; somehow, in the midst of all my mental preparation, miming all the steps, and then finally executing... it just wouldn't come together.

And yet, I am pleased to announce that yesterday, at approximately 1:45p in the Yards gym in great city of Kansas City, Missouri, I crossed "jump roping" off that list!

Yes, it took my 15 minutes of looking very, very uncoordinated & foolish. Yes, I still could only do 11 revolutions of the rope. But back off, this was 25 years in the making!


I am amazing.

Slumdog

This evening I saw Slumdog Millionaire. I'm sure you've already seen it. I'm always the last to see things. If you haven't, first feel very ashamed that I saw an artsy, profound movie before you. Second, go see it!!


What ran through my head during the last 3 or 4 minutes...

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART; FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD.

more Buechner

Who better to speak into the question and idea of vocation than Frederick Buechner? I continue to read his silly and profound book Wishful Thinking. I read this entry and have been chewing on it for days. Or, rather, it has been chewing on me.

Vocation
It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God.

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, or the Super-Ego, or Self-Interest.

By and large a good rule for find out is this: The kind of work God usually call you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

(emphasis mine)

no blogs...

to name the obvious: i've stopped blogging.

life got hectic and scattered, and somehow it was the first to slip. or maybe the 2nd. or 16th. either way, it stopped.


on a side note: i've stopped reading blogs as well [nothing personal]. i think yall are writing wonderfully insightful things, and having great conversations. honestly, i blame this 95% on luke overwhelming the blogging world with 15 posts a day in September/October and then only sticking to his blogging fast for an hour [i get overwhelmed when my RSS reader tells me i have 10+ unread blogs. currently: 81]. the other 5% is that i spend 6+ hours a day with a computer at work. when i get home what i really want is to sit in front of a person and not a screen.

i'll try to pick things up as my life gets better margins.


but for now, i've been reading Buechner's Wishful Thinking. It's simple and refreshing. thoughtful. All things i need right now...

Lying
There is perhaps nothing that so marks us as human as the gift of speech. Who knows to what degree and in what ways animals have the power to communicate with each other, but to all appearances it is only a shadow of ours. By speaking, we can reveal the hiddenness of thought, we can express the subtlest as well as the most devastating of emotions, we can heal, we can make poems, we can pray. All of which is to say we can speak truth - the truth of what it is to be ourselves, to be with each other, to be in the world - and such speaking as that is close to what being human is all about. What makes lying an evil is less that the world is mischievously deceived by it than that we are sorely dehumanized by it.

[and luke... blog as much as you're able. what the world needs is more of your thoughtful love, not less!]