On Our Way To Crazy

Have I told you lately how I love you, library? You bring me so much joy. I particularly love you on the third Saturday of every third month. Why? It’s book sale time, and on Saturdays everything is half price. Oh, yes.

Today I gave you eighteen dollars and you gave me:

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
A Live Coal in the Sea by Madeleine L’Engle
Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska, both by John Green

Yes, library, I love you so much. Buying ten books for eighteen dollars is a great way to make yourself feel better after a hard week. Thank you, library. Thank you for being you.

This? Has not been my best week.

I am in the middle of two fairly serious conflicts at work, both with kids and their parents. This is my first real experience with this kind of thing. I’ve always been a volunteer, so the final resolution always came from the main youth person. Now I am the main youth person. And I am struggling.

I wish I could walk around with a sign around my neck that says, “I REALLY ONLY HALFWAY KNOW WHAT I’M DOING. PLEASE BE PATIENT.”

I’m just overwhelmed. I want to fix the problems and make changes and do it right. But I am struggling with my desires to yell at people and do things my own way just to show them I can. Even though I know it’s got to be a collaboration. Even though I am losing confidence in the idea that I am able to do it at all.

At least when I had crazy stress at Reba, in the back of my head I knew it was over things that didn’t really really matter. But this stuff? Matters. How do I balance the teaching with the logistics with the relationship building with the church politics with the overbearing parents with the event planning with the big issues with the volunteer recruiting with the discipling? I have no idea.

Tuesday night was a good night. A night I really, really needed.

First, my friend Becka and I went to see the movie Once. Have you seen it? You need to. Now. I’ll wait.

Wasn’t it great? It was just the balance of sweet and sad and emotional that I needed. I have been telling everyone about it, but tonight is the last night it’s in Nashville. Did you go buy the soundtrack? You need to. It’s worth it. I haven’t listened to anything else in the last two days.

After the movie we had dinner and drinks on the patio of a restaurant across the street. Becka is one of those friends you can say anything to, and Tuesday was a night when we both had a lot to say. We sat and decompressed a bit over beer and pasta.

So. Movie? Amazing. Dinner? Fabulous. And then the awesome started.

We were walking back to the car when we saw a crowd of people gathered on the sidewalk by the theater. As we got closer, we realized there was a street band playing. It was three guys who call themselves Albania Mania – a banjo player, a trombone/trumpet/kickdrum player, and an accordion/tamborine player. They were playing these loud, crazy, italian/greek/russian sounding songs, with big voices and random tempo changes and funny lyrics. There were probably 30 people standing around them, clapping and dancing and giving them money. We stood there for about five songs before they took a break, claiming that as a street band they really only have five songs and will be starting the same set over in a few minutes if we wanted to stick around.

You want to make some money? Set up as a street musician outside a theater playing Once. Genius.

This week has been a trying one for me. I can’t say it solved my problems, but the combination of a great movie and great food and fun random musicians singing love songs to George Clooney certainly takes a bit of the edge off.

So I’m entering my second week home alone. Aaron’s out on the road with the band, showering every other day and sleeping on a bus and eating a lot of lasagna in church basements.

Things That Are Awesome – Aaron’s Out Of Town Edition

1. Dinners that consist of hummus, olives and wine.
2. Leaving the newspaper all over the house.
3. Miles having enough room in the bed to sleep next to me, not on top of my feet.
4. Sunday afternoon watching movies on ABC Family, not football.
5. Only six more days until he gets home.

… why, no matter what else I’m doing or how often I’ve seen it, I have to stop and watch Bring It On every time I come across it on TV?

These are our friends Brad and Candace.

They are awesome. This is the story of Brad and Candace and the painting.

We had a big fat housewarming party Saturday night. Brad and Candace came to the party. Earlier that day, they had gone to Goodwill to find a funny housewarming gift for us. They couldn’t find anything.

Not wanting to show up empty handed, Brad, a high school art teacher, decided to make something for us. What did he make?

This.

He painted that Saturday afternoon for us. To bring to the party that night. They could have just bought some flowers or something. Instead they did something crazy awesome.

I feel so cool having original art in my house. That was painted just for us.

Five Awesome Things – Music on YouTube Edition

1. Brandi Carlile covers Counting Crows. When I got August and Everything After in 8th grade, Raining In Baltimore was my least favorite song. I got bored listening to it. But now, a million years later, I think it’s one of the best. We all know I love Brandi Carlile, so this is a great cover for me.

2. Flight of the Choncords – Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros. It was really hard to choose a FotC song to include here. I think this one is my favorite. If you don’t get HBO (we don’t), it is worth your time to look them up on YouTube. They are all awesome, but make sure you watch Beautiful Girl. Because you could be a part-time model.

3. Andrew Bird’s Imitosis video. This guy is amazing. End of story.

4. Potter Puppet Pals – The Mysterious Ticking Noise. This counts as music, right? They’re singing. Snape, Snape, Severus Snape.

5. New Kids On The Block performing Funky Funky Christmas on Arsenio Hall. There is so much awesome contained in this video that I don’t even know where to begin. Where is Jonathan? What is Arsenio wearing? Why is there so much skipping? Who told them to rap? Why do they think chest-baring is appropriate for a Christmas song? Why did the let Danny rap? How many times to I have to watch this before I have the dance memorized? I cant stop watching this. I love it so much. This one is for Susan.

This is the tracklist for a mix CD I made. It has no theme at all and is kind of all over the place. I don’t know where it gets that from.

BRANDI’S THEMELESS AND SLIGHTLY SPORADIC MIX CD

1. Keep Your Hands To Yourself – Georgia Satellites
This is one of my all-time favorite songs. It’s a great karaoke song and it reminds me of when I was little and my dad and his friends would have parties at our house and set up a band and do cover songs. I also put this on my CD for the last circle, so sorry, Bethany.

2. Hate – Fiction Plane
The lead singer of Fiction Plane is Sting’s son. I really like this whole album, but this is by far my favorite of their songs. I love the opening lines – we’re cool, we’re different, and we hate things.

3. One More Day – The Wood Brothers
One of the Wood Brothers is in Medeski, Martin and Wood. That doesn’t really mean anything to me, but it might to you. The other brother wrote this song. We saw them live and it was very cool.

4. If You’re Here When I Get Back – John Eddie
I don’t really have anything to say about this song except I like it. Profound, huh?

5. Lifestyle – Daniel Tashian
Google was supposed to help me tell you more about this song, like what rap song the lyrics came from. But I don’t know. I do know that this song makes me laugh, though. Daniel Tashian is the singer of a local band that used to be called The Bees and is now called The Silver Seas, and they make cool music.

6. It Looks Like Love – Josh Rouse
This song comes on the radio kind of a lot, and every time I say, “Who is this? I love this song.” It’s Josh Rouse. He writes good songs.

7. You Were Born For Me – Paul Westerberg
I downloaded this one after I read Nick Hornby’s Songbook. It gets stuck in my head a lot.

8. Polaroids – Slaraffenland
The intro to this song is really cool. It’s kind of long, though, so beware. Sometimes it’s on and I don’t realize it’s a song and then the lyrics kick in and it throws me.

9. Nothin’ No – David Vandervelde
I really like this guy’s voice and how full and messy the guitars in this song sound.

10. Rich Girl – The Virgins
I’ve had this song in my itunes for forever. I don’t know where it came from, and for several months it was just called Track 16. I had googled every single lyric and had no luck. Then I tried it one more time before I wrote this and it came up. So my mystery song is called Rich Girl. Now we all know and can sleep much easier. It is impossible to listen to this song and not bob your head.

11. Look At Little Sister – Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble
If you don’t love Stevie Ray Vaughn, I question your sanity.

12. Why Do I Love You – Holly Williams
Holly Williams has a really good old country voice and makes great records. She is also Hank Williams Jr.’s daughter.

13. Sail Away – David Gray
David Gray is very important in our house. This is my favorite of his songs. I think.

14. Holy Holy Holy – Phil Wickham
I really love Phil Wickham’s voice. His whole album is good, but none of it really sounds like this song does.

15. Center of Attention – Jackson Waters
Jackson Waters is the only band Aaron ever worked on at Word that I liked. He is talking to them about managing them, and I am really excited. It would be worth your while to look them up.

16. King of Failures – Remedy Drive
Remedy is the band Aaron left Gotee to manage. They are pretty straight up Christian pop, but I think they have a good thing going. This is my favorite song of theirs.

17. Beautiful Lord – Leeland
This song is my Desperado. When it comes on in the car I make everyone stop talking so I can focus on it. I don’t usually like to listen to worship music on my own, but this song is seriously beautiful. It moves me, y’all.

18. Did I Ever Become – The Khrusty Brothers
Y’all should really download the Khrusty Brothers. Don Chaffer = awesome.

19. Hallelujah (Live at KCRW) – Brandi Carlile
Do I really need to explain why I included this one? She is amazing.