On Our Way To Crazy

TWO EXCESSIVELY GENIUS IDEAS I HAD TODAY

1. Aaron should only sign and manage bands with guys in them who are brothers. Then, he could change the name of the company to “Hey, Brother!”, and have the receptionist answer the phone a la Buster Bluth.

2. My extended family is very competitive. We have always been game players, for generations. There are legendary stories of games of 42 between my great-grandparents that ended with dominoes being thrown and my sweet little old great grandmother calling someone a HORSE’S ASS.

We’ve been tossing around the idea of having a family tournament of some kind during the Smith Family Christmas Extravaganza. Darts, maybe, or peanut, something fairly simple that kids and adults can play quickly. (There are fifty of us. It will take a while.)

Tonight at dinner we were discussing the logistics of the tournament. We decided there needed to be some kind of trophy that the winner would get custody of for the whole year. But what? What would be the perfect trophy idea, the best name for our tournament and our award?

Then we got it. We are going to find a plastic horse, glue it to a platform, spray paint the whole thing gold and attach a little sign – THE HORSE’S ASS AWARD.

Genius.

Would you like to hear another story about music I loved in college? No? Good. I am tired of telling them.

This one’s not interesting, anyway. Every girl you knew in college loved Jennifer Knapp. LOVED her. We bought that first record and we wore it out. We listened to the second one until the CD broke.

It’s always hard to find good music for girls. In Christian music you get teeny-bopper pop and you get old lady ballads. But for the legions of teenage girls who wanted their music to be, you know, good, there weren’t a lot of options.

Jennifer Knapp came along and sang what we were feeling. Not only that, but she sang it like she meant it. There was emotion. It was real. And we ate it up.

Then she disappeared. And we were depressed. And there were questions and rumors and some drama. But we moved on and she moved on and then I found Brandi Carlile who was like Jennifer Knapp part two.

And then, you guys. She came back. There was a new myspace. A couple of new songs. A tour date or two on the west coast. Then one day a couple of weeks ago I checked the Belourt for movie times, and lo and behold, a Nashville date. November 18.

Y’ALL. She is so amazing. The place was packed. She came out and started immediately with an old one (I can’t remember which one, my short term memory tops out at two hours), and when she finished the whole crowd went crazy.

It was fun to hear the old songs again, for sure. But the new stuff is killer. KILLER. I cannot wait for the new album.

I love living in Nashville for a lot of reasons. Today, it’s the perfect storm of old favorites moving to town and a little extra cash on hand that led to me seeing Waterdeep and Jennifer Knapp in the same week. So awesome.

Well, here we are again. Awesome.

Last time I spoke up. I stood up for myself and my family. And you know what? It sucked. It sucked a lot.

This time my hand is being forced a bit. I am being asked not to get involved, not to participate, not to speak up. So I’m not.

But, oh, how I want to.

It amazes me how easily selfishness comes for you. How you don’t even see what you’re doing or how badly it’s hurting the people who should be closest to you. How those people are cutting their emotional ties to you to keep from being hurt. It amazes me how you can take something that is meant to be sweet and meaningful and fun and make it ugly and awkward and unpleasant.

But this time my attitude is different. If you’re okay with ugly, then so am I. I’m not fighting for peace anymore. I’m not going to be the mediator. I’m not going to work with everyone to make everyone happy and put a ton of stress and pressure on myself. No one else cares. So neither do I.

That’s a lie, of course. I do care. We care. But we have to stop letting you hurt us. The difference between expectations and reality is disappointment, and this time I refuse to be disappointed. So instead I will lower my expectations. To none.

Maybe you will surprise me. But I doubt it.

It’s November 1999. I am a sophomore at UMHB. I wear band tshirts and overalls and part my hair right down the middle. I carry my books in a messenger bag with Christian pins all over it. My dorm room is covered in photographs and fake daisies and has a hot pink inflatable chair (that will meet it’s demise in an unfortunate sandwich-maker accident later that year). I stay up super late with my awesome roommate watching Your Big Break*.

I am obsessed with music. Luckily, I live in Central Texas, where I am within driving distance to several cities where my favorite bands play regularly. One weekend I forced several of my friends to drive to Dallas with me to see a lineup none of them had ever heard of before. We got to the venue early so we could be right up front, and we held strong and kept our places the entire show. It was one of the best nights ever. Who did we see? The Normals and Waterdeep.

Ten years later, I got to repeat the experience. You know, kind of. Because I am an accidental stalker, I knew that Waterdeep had moved to Nashville from Kansas City earlier this year. And last week, thanks to the magic of Twitter, I got wind that they were playing a show with Andy Osenga and his band. Waterdeep and the guy from the Normals, five minutes from my house, for five dollars? I am in.

So. It’s November 2009. I am a grown up. I wear v-neck tshirts and cropped jeans and part my hair slightly left of the middle. I carry my books in a giant gray shoulder bag. My house is covered in Andy Warhol prints and dog hair and has two white IKEA chairs (that met their demise in an unfortunate mint chocolate ice cream accident). I stay up super late with my awesome husband watching West Wing reruns.

I am obsessed with music. Luckily, I live in Nashville where most of my favorite artists also live and regularly play cheap shows around town. Last night I stood in a room with good friends and watched Andy Osenga and his amazing guitar skills play the best solo set I’ve ever seen him play. Then Waterdeep, who sings some of my favorite songs on the planet, stood on stage fifteen feet in front of me and blew my socks right off.

It was one of the best nights ever.

*You guys! Did anyone else watch this show? It was like a precursor to American Idol. People performed cover songs and competed for a record deal… IN COSTUME. If they sang and Elvis song, they dressed like Elvis. AND it was hosted first by Kid of Kid ‘n Play, then by Carlton. Kid and Carlton! It was the best show ever.

I love all the kids in my youth group. I really, really do. But I have to say that the girls in my junior high class are the coolest kids in the world. They are funny and sharp and sweet and totally adorable. Our hour of bible study together is the highlight of my week.

I got in trouble with Aaron today for always falling asleep during the Cowboys games. Apparently it keeps him from fully being able to yell at the TV.

This year is our first Thanksgiving with a real dining room table. We have seven people coming over, and I’m thinking of doing it up all fancy-like with place settings and table decorations and centerpieces and nameplates. Thoughts? I’ve never done a dinner like that before. I think it would be awesome.

Wednesday night in youth group we are making Christmas decorations for the youth room and watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I can’t wait.

This weekend I’ve been taking care of a friend’s two huge labs while she was out of town. I mean HUGE. I was kind of nervous about it, but it has been super fun. They are awesome. Yesterday we spent an hour in the backyard just throwing the ball around. You guys know I love Miles more than my luggage, but he is not very playful. He likes to sleep. A lot. It’s been fun to hang out with more active dogs.

The other day one of my youth group parents brought me a couple of bottles of his HOMEMADE WINE. I love my job. And my church. And that particular parent.

Last week Aaron was watching his idol, Gordon Ramsey, on some food show or another. Apparently on the show he made a ceasar salad. Aaron was inspired. I don’t know what kind of crazy technique he thinks he is using… it just looks like making a ceasar salad to me. But they are delicious ceasar salads. And I would know. We’ve had four since Thursday.

My sad taste in movies has been well-documented on this site. If it involves high school, parties on the last night of high school, music, dancing, or, apparently, Seth Green, I am going to love it. Are they Oscarworthy? Not so much.

Last night Aaron and I went to see Pirate Radio. Based on the previews, we knew it was tailor-made for us. The 60s? Rock music? Phillip Seymour Hoffman? Yes. Yes. Yes.

I expected to like it, I really did. I also expected to be disappointed, in the way that those kinds of movies always disappoint, you know? You want so badly for them to be perfect, to be an addition to your list of favorites. And they so rarely are.

But y’all. Pirate Radio. SO MUCH AWESOME. It was funny and sweet and inappropriate and a little trashy. Full of music and deejays and great lines and really great clothes.

It was dumb, yes, but I love dumb. It was totally unrealistic and the drama was contrived and silly. But it also made me want to live in England in the 60s and stay up late dancing to Radio Rock and wear great boots and tall hair. I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

Is there ever a point in life where you stop second-guessing yourself?

It doesn’t matter how confident I feel in my job, or how comfortable I am with my personality, or how secure I am in my marriage. I always have that little voice in my head, comparing me to that big youth pastor across the street, or that cooler girl at church, or that wife who really has it together.

I’ve been down about those kinds of things lately. We’re having some issues in the youth group that I feel like we wouldn’t have if someone stronger, more capable, more experienced was in charge. I think I know in my head that everyone struggles with self-doubt like that (don’t they?), but I spend an awful lot of time feeling like I’m the only one.

This week I met with my pastor and talked to him about some of these issues. It’s a tricky thing when your pastor is also your boss, and I didn’t want to give him reasons to start doubting my abilities. We had a good conversation about knowing where our strengths lie and focusing on them and how we can best put them to use. And about the opposite – knowing where we are weak and surrounding ourselves with people who can fill in those holes. If you’re an ear, be an ear… just make sure you’ve got some eyes around to do their part, too.

It was helpful to know that I’m not the only one who feels inadequate sometimes. It’s just so easy to get caught up in that idea, though, and convince yourself that you are holding everyone back and it would benefit the whole group if you would just get out of the way. I feel better. A little.

But I am afraid. And unsure. And some days I want to run and hide and quit and find a desk job.

“I’m a reader for lots of reasons. On the whole, I tend to hang out with readers, and I’m scared they wouldn’t want to hang out with me if I stopped. (They’re interesting people, and they know a lot of interesting things. I would miss them.) I’m a writer, and I need to read, for inspiration and education and because I want to get better, and only books can teach me how. Sometimes, yes, I read to find things out – as I get older, I feel my ignorance weighing more heavily on me. I want to know what it’s like to be him or her, to live there or then. I love the detail about the workings of the human heart and mind that only fiction can provide – film can’t get in close enough.

But the most important reason of all, I think, is this. When I was nine years old, I spent a few unhappy months in a church choir. And two or three times a week, I had to sit through a sermon, delivered by an insufferable old windbag of a vicar. I thought it would last forever, and sometimes I thought it would kill me – that I would, quite literally, die of boredom. The only thing we were allowed for diversion was the hymnbook, and I even ended up reading it, sometimes. Books and comics had never seemed so necessary; even though I’d always enjoyed reading before then, I’d never understood it to be so desperately important for my sanity. I’ve never, ever gone anywhere without a book or magazine since. It’s taken me all this time to learn that it doesn’t have to be a boring one, whatever the reviews pages and our cultural commentators tell me.

Please, please: put it down. You’ll never finish it. Start something else.”

Is it cheating to do a meme for NaBloPoMo? This is one that floated around ages ago… I really enjoyed it on other people’s blogs but never did it on mine. Wanna play?

I put my iTunes on shuffle. These are the first lines of the first 25 songs that came up. Can you name them?

1. All of the sudden she disappears, just yesterday she was here
2. All my little plans and schemes, lost like some forgotten dreams
3. You say you’re not from Texas, man, as if I couldn’t tell
4. I want a girl with a mind like a diamond, I want a girl who knows what’s best
5. Sing, muse, of the passion of the pistol/ Sing, muse, of the warning by the whistle
6. I’m in love with you girl ’cause you’re on my mind, you’re the one I think about most every time
7. I was watching with one eye on the other side/ I had fifteen people telling me to move
8. Long is the day, take it away, hold it up and you don’t let it fall
9. Got no place to go but there’s a girl waitin’ for me down in Mexico
10. I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you what you want to see
11. You’re a vision all undone, you are the best kind of dreadful I’ve ever been a part of
12. Turn down the lights, turn down the bed/ turn down these voices inside my head
13. Starting to see just how I get so lost when I’m looking at the book outside the counselor’s door
14. Many’s the time I ran with you down the rainy roads of our old town
15. Chicka-pow! Don’t shoot me down, Oh no, how low can you go
16. Now many many years ago when I was 23, I was married to a widow who was pretty as can be
17. County road 233, under my feet, nothin’ on this white rock but little ole me
18. Gonna close my eyes, girl, and watch you go running through this life darling like a field of snow
19. Kiss me baby on the curb, throw your arms around my waist, send me off with your sweet words
20. I wanna hear some music, now that they’re driving us all underground
21. Looking round the room, I can tell that you are the most beautiful girl in the room
22. The summer air was heavy and sweet, you and I on a crowded street
23. The ice is thin enough for walkin’, the rope is worn enough to climb
24. The Eiffel Tower built to smaller scale, the freshest oxygen I’d ever inhale
25. Please just deliver me peace and a chance to stay

Ready… go! Whatcha got?