Random Run-ins

I have noticed quite the dichotomy in my life lately. Who knows what it really means being that I don't believe in Karma, or a Karma-like thing that makes everything equal out but apparently I may be wrong.
So on Sunday, I went to the Flaming Lips show at Red Rocks. To my knowledge i didn't know anyone else except my friend and I that were going. Hanging out on the steps, I noticed a woman i met a in may at a friend's birthday party. We did the "eye-contact: I know you" type things. And she said "Hey I know you from Jarvis' right!" and that was about the extent of our conversation. Really nothing exciting right? i agree, but the exciting thing is that people do have common courtesy and say hello to aquantencies.
Now here comes the ying-yang opposite. Last night, I was at coopersmiths with a friend who I hadn't seen in years. We were on the patio just hanging out and talking. About an hour into our dinner, this guy comes up, with girlfriend in hand, and just stares at my friend.... Then he says... "Bethany?!? oh wait... your not Bethany." So i try to start a conversation and say hey, yeah Bethany is in Taiwan. But the guy just ran away, and made a really awkward scene.
The odd thing is that I have met this guy at least six times in the past and have been introduced to him, and carried on conversation with him... Yet he never remembers my name.

Well for the few that have been privy to my interactions with this guy, I guess i shouldn't be supprised. But really I find it offensive that I know his full name, where he goes to school, church, and what he is studying, and I really don't like him... But I at least remember him and have civil interactions.
So the dichotomy is, one girl i met months ago and we had a nice stop-n-chat at a concert even though we really know nothing about each other, and on the other hand apparently I am not worth remembering... For some reason this really annoys me that this happens.
I know i may sound a bit out of line, but really, I would have hoped the guy I met a church function would have taken a human interest in me. But really it was the girl who probably has a substance abuse problem and has significant issues that at least cares about people she meets.

How's that for over generalizing.

Links

These are the links that i promised andrew i would leave for him.
http://www.tursiops.cc/idhop/library/kearns/kearns1.htm
http://www.vispo.com/kearns/indexenglish.htm
http://www.michaelshowalter.net/journal
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5241442

People Are Strange

LAst week I went to a great comedy show, and promptly got made fun of by the comedians because I was called on stage and my friends shouted "Danimal" alot. The unfortunate nickname of "danimal" provided fodder for humorous quips and prompt jibbing from the Comedians.
Anyways, the strange thing, is that last night, i was reading Michael Showalter's blog (one of the comedians) and some guy named "Liam" had tried to pass him self off as me in a post.... It is strange when other's want to ride the coat tails of me, and want to bask in the light of being made fun of by comedians at a show....
As a professional counselor, and someone who has a decent grip on human behavior.... I really have no idea why a person would do this... and thus, making the whole experience even more sureal.

How strange.

The Interesting Thing of Evil

Work has been interesting this week, and again reinforces the fact of true evil in the world. I have the (un)fortunate job of working with sex offenders some of the time. The reason there is parentheses is that sometimes i really enjoy the challenge.
However, this is not one of those weeks. I am starting to see how evil the world is, and am being really disturbed by it. Now, some of it is par for the course, but yesterday I heard a client tell me things that creeped me out and made my hair stand on end. Which is odd. I thought i had dulled that down over the last few months. But the thing is, i truely beleive there is levels of how evil people are and sometimes you experience pure evil. I once read a book by Father Malichi Martin. He is one of my heroes. He was the primary exorcist for the vatican in the US for a number of years.
For a long time i did not believe that demon posession was real or what i read about it. But it is, i think some people just chose to give up the struggle and give in. This really messess with my theology, but i know someday it will all make sense. But it really does a number on me. I wonder what role God has me in these moments. I feel a bit lost, but i know it will all work out.
But the whole process is creepy.

Two good movies

Ok, so this is a bit of a lame post, but really these are two really good movies that I have seen recently.
The first one is called "The Second Chance." Now it is probably because i wasn't expecting much and I am really critical of the media that overtly Chirsitan Publications and movie houses put out. But this is a super good movie about the disconnect between the gospel and the suburban church movement. It is amazing that a movie does such a good job looking at the importance of social justice and social gospel issues. Also it has Micheal W. Smith in the movie... and he doesn't even sing "friends are friends forever." Anyways, It is one of the most relevant movies for Christians... and even those who don't hold the same beliefs of me... It is amazing to see not all Christian film makers are making the Left Behind series-type tripe.
The other movie is a documentary called "Cruise." It is a documentary that follows Timothy "Speed" Levowitch as he provides tours on a double decker bus in New York. It is part travelouge and part performance art. I love that the eccentric and the functionally mentally-ill have such a beautiful view of the world around us. I believe that even though they struggle with functioning in the norm, God has blessed these eccentric type people with an amazing perception of the ordinary world that everyone can learn from.
Speed Leveiwitch also was in my favorite movie ever "Waking Life" directed by Richard Linkleter, and in that movie he quoted one of my favorite poets of all time Frederico Garcia Lorca. It's amazing.
You all should check them out, both are avalible on netflix or blockbuster online.

Way cool things

So today i got to see my new nephew again. It was wicked cool. He is really long... I know it sounds odd, but a baby apparently can be really long. The other great thing was that i got to feed him too! Now i know this really doesn't translate to a blog, but iwas amazing. Truely amazing. I can say how it feels to hold another living thing that is wicked small but responds to your voice. And when he was awake, he just looked at me and everything was new and exciting. I cannot image everything being a new experience. One of my favorite things is to go to a new town or place and just experience... For my nephew, that is everytime he opens his eyes.... It is amazing. Someday he will know what an elipcies is and I will have to explain my misues.

I post way too much

So I am about to go to bed, and my dog is asleep on the floor next to me... He snores... and it sounds exactly like Darth Vader.... God must truely have inspired writers with Dogs. The are freakin' amazing.... also make sure to check out the trailer for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie.... I am totally excited.

Funny Funny things and Growing Pains

So i have a really funny story about work, but alas i can't share it on a blog. But for those of you that know me you really must ask me to tell you about Kirk Cameron and his "Way of the Master" program... and funny things ensue. I am glad it just isn't me and my seminary education that makes me really annoyed with Mike Seever...

China's new diorama

This is weird... maybe the Chinese military are in kindergarten or geography... Ohh you bent my wookie... really this is for my brother to see this article.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/19/huangyangtan_mystery/
-Dan

Two unconnected things

So I am really excited by this website because I am giant nerd, and my life has turned to taking care of a puppy instead of having a wicked cool social life on the town during the week nights... Ok well that was never true.
Anyways, I have spent hours learning completely useless things on this site. Tonight I learned that the longest one syllable word was used in a translation of Don Quixote in the 1600's. Anyways, I love the oxford people. Here is the link: http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/?view=uk


So here is number two: President Bush just vetoed a bill concerning stem cell research, and being one that loves being annoyed and not having a large position to triumph have been annoyed by Christians on both sides of the fense. I got an e-mail from a progressive Christian group chiding the president for vetoing the bill and all the people that will die because of the bill, but ignored the fact that the cells are taken from fertalized embryos that could develop into a human.... then a guy who wrote a self-described book on Christian Ethics praised President Bush for the veto.... But then talked about the ethic and goodness of the death penalty... yeah, too bad that a civilized country can't have a consistant ethic of life. I love that i get so annoyed with people who all are validating their positions by invoking Jesus to create views that people supposed cannot argue with it... I think Jesus would just be sad. I know I am, and I don't really know how i feel on the issue.

Horray, and Thanks Bethany for reading my Blog. I believe you might be the only one, but at least it is carthartic.

An embarassing night o' fun

So last night i got to see one of my favorite comedians ever. Eugene Mirman at the bluebird theater in denver. It was an exciting evening of merryment. During the second comedian, I got called to go up on stage and participate in a version of Jeopordy... However, for comic reasons all the questions had to do with poop... or something like it... anyways, as I am on the stage my friends yell out my nom de plume "Danimal" in a racous sort of way.... All was funny and slightly awkward... anyways... The fact that my friends had called out "Danimal" turned into a running joke throughout the show and my comedy hero Eugene then made referance to it and engaged in banter with me and my friends throughout the rest of the show... Now I am sure that they thought that this was annoying and probably think i am somesort of a tool... but hey it's not every day that you get made fun of someone while they are on stage... Also, After the show i got an autograph from eugene that said I (heart) Danimal... Yeah it was funny, and really amusing. ANd all day i have been super psyched.... Anyways, here is a picture of eugene taken by the portiroid people... they are kinda creepy but entertaining. Oh yeah, I also got to meet Zach Oarth, Mike Showalter, and Leo Allen. Someday i will be the darling of the alternative comedy world.

Bored and alter ego

So i am waiting for friends to show to eventually see my favorite comedien. Eugene Mirman. So I pilfered this from my friend/coworkers blog. Horray for pilfering:
1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street name)
Samantha Bobtail
2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your dad's side, your favorite candy)
Stan Barb Sour Ball
3. YOUR "FLY GIRL" NAME: (first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your middle name)
DanJSto
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Green Pigmy Marmoset
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
James Loveland
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.)StoDaJoLov
7. Terrorist Name: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards)
semaj nosnhoj
8. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink)
The Green Rum and Coke... hmmm... maybe the Burnt Sienna 1554.... Or how about the transparent Framboisen.

Amazing things

So there are amazing things that really i just can't get my mind around... so here are a few... I will try to not get depressing but then again it has been a happy and sad season for me.

1. How amazingly soft my nephew's skin was (his name is Stephan [pronounced Stephen] Andrew)

2. How freakin' tiny his nails were too... and they were sharp.

3. How loud he can cry.

4. How much my dog can poop just because he ate alot of stuff he wasn't supposed to

5. Dog poo and dog puke can look alot alike.

6. That I found out about my friends' death in Vancouver from a friend in Rawanda

7. That we landed on the moon

8. Providence... the philosophical and theological concept not the city in Rhode Island.

9. That my dog instinctually does not mouth my hand too hard and limits his bite inhabition because he "knows" people are slow.

10. The amazingly profound thing my clients say at work.

11. That i am able to keep in contact with one of my best friends in Taiwan almost daily when 15 years ago that would be crazy pants.

12. That I have friends in Taiwan and Rawanda.

13. That people think i am smart and value my opinon.

14. I attend managment type meetings and give my companies positoin on things.

15. I am smart enough and dumb enough to be as pretensious as i want to be.

16. Jelly Fish

17. and Finally the Stigmata... well i don't really believe it, but my friend andy is touching Assi's stigmata. (Sorry it is sideways)

more gifts

How ironic, as I wrote the previous blog, my roommate found more little gifts left for me by my dog.... I also learned that a dog cannot process chcolate wrapers, and it goes through all intact. Crazy pants!

Puppies and Babies

So i have a puppy and my brother has a baby. And they are quite simlar except that my puppy knows how to play catch, but someday my brother's baby will have abstract reasoning.
Anyways, So the other night, my puppy ate a whole lota stuff he was not supposed to. Things including macaroni and cheese, raw chashews, half a tin of chai tea mix, a chocolate bar, and probably close to 10 granola bars....
That was thursday night....
All day friday, he seemed okay and did not show any intesnal problems.... I thought i was free and clear... I was so wrong....
This morning (Sat. morning) I wake up at 6 to let my dog out... .and find three mounds of greenish goo on my carpet... (why so many elipcies you ask? Well because it illistrates the horror). I thought maybe it was just throw up (like that would be better), but alas it was not... My dog has had the worst poos ever today. And I have learned that a dog cannot fully diget raw cashews... It really must have hurt... So i had to cancel my plans for the day and hang out with my pooping dog...

However, it give me empathy for my brother, because i know he is going through the same with the little one... but eventually that little one will learn english... So anyways here is a picture of my dog and my nephew... THey both are amazing.

Dichotomy

So today I became an uncle. Which i am super stoked about. It is a boy and his name is Stephen Andrew... I was hoping for Andrew Stephen... Then he would have cool initials, but alas I agree with the name order in all actuallity. He seems to be neat, as I have yet to see him because I had to come home and take care of my puppy when my sister in law was giving birth.
SO here is the dichotomy part... in the waiting room i was checking my e-mail and my friend's sister e-mailed about his memorial and the news story about the Bike accident. So i watched the news clip (yeah i know i'm smart) in the waiting room, and cried a bit. Then I ended up back at my home and my Dad called me when my nephew was born, and for the second time today. What an emotional day. Good and Bad... huh, how sureal with all of this.

Spelling

Wow, re-reading stuff i realize i transpose letters like none other. Huh. I should really spell check, but hey it is so RAW this way... right... that is a good excuse... right... awkward.

Death, I suppose that life is the tense before

This morning I got to work at 7am and was greeted with the most existential e-mail I have had in a while. Actually this ranks up with the most existential call i recieved about 2 years ago at work. Both have to do with the death of a friend at the hands of a freak bicycle accident.
But today i am only really concerned with today's existential experience. So here goes my cyber processing of this event.
I get to work and start the day checking my e-mail. I receieved an e-mail from my friends in Rawanda (yes the country). So usually the e-mail i get them are updates on their none profit that is building schools in Rawanda. However, the subject was omonious. It was simply "Ben." For some reason the period spoke volumes. Thus it was the end of Ben. So it was a short and probably the best way to get the news. Here is what the beginning of the e-mail said:
"This is a very difficult e-mail to write. You may have heard by now but I wanted to make sure you knew that our dear friend and brother in the Lord, Ben Farrant, died at 1:20 pm on Thursday after his bike was hit from behind by a car. He was so special to many of us and I am really struggling to understand God’s purpose right now...."
So this starts a tough day of seeing clients and remembering all the funny and good times that I had shared with Ben. Those of which I may share someday, or just keep to myself and my friends that knew him.
The existential part comes when I realize that he was the same age as I was, and has had a similar experience that I have had, and not that is done for him. It feels like standing at the edge of the beach with open ocean and it scares the shit out of me.
Sure there is the theological comfort of I can say i knwo where he is and all those things people say to comfort you. But really it doesn't help with the loss and realization how life can end so suddenly and in such a messed up way.
To be honnest as a Christian and as a Therapist, I should know how to handle this stuff but really I don't, and to be honnest I don't think at 26, i really should understand this stuff.
All I can pray is "thy will be done." But damn it I just don't get it at the moment... or at all as it has felt lately. But then again I realize is that "all i know is that I don't know"
Wow only two blogs and I have gotten depressing. I thought it would take a week or two.

The Crack of the information age

So i have given in. Just like the guy pushing snapple on the cornor that switches from peach lemonade to peach crack on a thursday. I really thought I wouldn't get into the this whole blog thing, but alas, now the anon masses will read banal things that I write. So now i am part of the gutenburg process of this media transition. Really I have not much else to say and alas i have tried to be as pretensious as possible (please not the obscure references and the poor spelling).
really what got me started was seeing a guy's profile on myspace that was so sad in how pretensious he was about knowing about the mainstream. Under the little "your favorite books" section, he wrote about Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. And then finished it by saying "if you haven't read or heard of these guys you are all just part of the machine and need to get a clue." Yup, he picked two of the most popular revisionist theorists of our time. Not to say they aren't entertaining but they are revisionist and really the John Grishams or Dean Koontz of modern scholarship. So I thought, hey, I can too alienate and puff myself up by writing abuot things i have read or thought. So how about them apples... Yeah that's what i thought, you all still believe the ego is just the mediator between the super and the id. Well yeah you're wrong; it's structured as language. If yuo don't know that you should get a clue and read Lacan. (Ok so that was all making fun. But then again i am probably just as big of a tool writing this and being pretensious.)
But Pretensiousness is sexy. Ya? Because everyone loves to be talked down to... right... why is it so quiet?... (muffled whimper)