On Our Way To Crazy

I read a lot when I was a kid. Babysitter’s Club, Sleepover Friends, Sweet Valley High, the Wayside School books. But somehow I missed the Anne of Green Gables series. I don’t know how, but I did. And I am kind of mad at everyone I knew in the 80’s for not giving it to me.

I’ve had a copy on my shelf for a while that I picked up at the library sale, an I finally read it a couple of weeks ago. Then I immediately ordered a box set of the first three books on Amazon. I finished those in about five seconds and ordered the rest of them. They are so wonderful. I wish so much that I had known Anne as a child.

I got to spend a few days last week at a youth pastor workshop in Georgia. It was totally free and totally last minute, and it was awesome. Three days at a beautiful retreat center with my own huge room, fancy bathroom, and hours in the evenings with no technology but lots of books. I sat with 40 other people (all guys, of course) who do the same thing I do every day and we talked programming, lesson writing, parent struggles and long-term planning. We ate delicious food and did not judge each other for taking seconds on the apple pie. It was a great, much much needed break and I am so thankful I got to go.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself on a ‘thank you’ kick. I sent notes to people who have gone out of their way for me or the kids recently, I emailed authors of books that touched me, I wrote to a guy who has been really helpful to Aaron lately. Responses have started to trickle in, and it totally makes my day every time. It’s amazing what paying a little attention will do for you.

I don’t want to go to Bonnaroo. I don’t. I know I would be miserable. But it’s hard to see that when I’m looking at a lineup that includes: The Avett Brothers, The Dead Weather, Conan (!), Weezer, Phoenix, LCD Soundsystem, Aziz Ansari, Brandi Carlile, The Punch Brothers, Miranda Lambert, OK Go and Kings of Leon. Seriously, y’all. SERIOUSLY.

Yesterday we took our kids to work on a neighborhood revitalization project near where a lot of them live. It was a really run down part of town that most of them didn’t even know existed. They got to meet the people who live there and do some construction work on a house for a family who is crammed into a one-bedroom apartment right now. They painted, scrubbed, sawed, crawled under the basement, sheetrocked and caulked. I was so impressed by them, as usual.

The other day I was talking to a group of people and I mentioned that, when I eat M&Ms or Skittles, I pour the whole bag out and separate them into colors. THEY FREAKED OUT. Is that really so weird? The separating part? I hadn’t even gotten to the part where I count them and make sure I have the same amount of each color, then eat the extras, then arrange them into some kind of aesthetically-pleasing pattern. I decided to spare them those details for fear they would never speak to me again.

I totally forgot to blog about this! Last month we got to go see Jennifer Knapp open for Todd Snider. JENNIFER KNAPP. TODD SNIDER. Are you familiar with Todd Snider? I had forgotten how awesome he is. It was a great show… he played for a couple of hours and I could have easily listened for a couple more. It was awesome.

My love for Waterdeep is well-documented on this site. I have seen them countless times, all over the country. We had their song in our wedding, my blog title came from another of their songs, etc etc, whatever and ever amen. You would think I would be out of words to say about them, right? How many more ways can I express my love for them? How many times can I write the same blog post?

At least one more, apparently. Because they played a full band show last weekend that BLEW MY MIND. Literally. It’s gone. It was that amazing.

They just keep getting cooler. A lot of the music I loved a decade ago hasn’t held up… I listen to it now and I just don’t see what I saw back then. Or, I go see those bands play their new music and just leave disappointed. Their place for me is in the past. But Waterdeep? Not only could I listen to the old records over and over, but their style and my taste have kept up with each other. I could have walked into that show or listened to the new records with no prior history and fell completely in love. (Sidenote: we brought a friend with us who knew nothing about them and she has not shut up about the awesome for four days.)

It was just a great, straight-up rock show. Loud and big, with massive guitar solos and weird percussion and tracked loops and yelling and a pink glittery guitar. It completely ruled.

They played a lot of new stuff, which I loved, but they also played a ton of old songs. It was like they looked at a list of my favorite Waterdeep tracks and just turned it into the set list. Take a look at this, music fans:

• Everyone’s Beautiful (!)
• I Know the Plans (!!)
• Both Of Us’ll Feel the Blast (Our wedding song! That I requested via twitter!)
• 18 Bullet Holes
• Almost Gone (!!!)
• Wicked Web
• Good Good End
• Sweet River Roll

And then, you guys. THEN. The band left the stage and they did one more as kind of an acoustic encore thing. They were kind of going back and forth about what to play, and I said to our table, “If they play Everybody’s Guilty I am going to have a heart attack right here in this club.” And what did they do? THEY PLAYED EVERYBODY’S GUILTY. Shut the front door.

It was an amazing, amazing show. I was beyond thrilled to be there.

And then it got even more awesome.

A guy we are friends with used to be Waterdeep’s manager a long time ago. He’s a guy Aaron knows through work, and he has been one of my favorite people ever since we met at an industry party and then sat at a table for two hours talking about them. He comes up to us after the show, takes my arm, and says, “Ready?” And drags me over to meet them. I was so excited and so afraid I would so thoroughly embarrass myself that I couldn’t show my face around town anymore.

So we walk up to Lori, he introduces us and we talk for a couple of minutes about the show and the songs they played. And then he told her about how I accidentally stalked them at an open house. She remembered me, thankfully, and even thanked me for saying something because they never get recognized and it makes her happy when people talk to them about their music. So that was good. But I was horrified.

We then met Don and talked to him for a while about the Khrusty Brothers and Remedy Drive. (He writes with them sometimes.) I tried so hard to be cool, y’all. I really did. I just don’t think I have it in me. But even without my complete and total lameness, it was a great night.

The Ballad of Love and Hate by The Avett Brothers

Love writes a letter and sends it to hate.
My vacations ending. I’m coming home late.
The weather was fine and the ocean was great
and I can’t wait to see you again.

Hate reads the letter and throws it away.
“No one here cares if you go or you stay.
I barely even noticed that you were away.
I’ll see you or I won’t, whatever.”

Love sings a song as she sails through the sky.
The water looks bluer through her pretty eyes.
And everyone knows it whenever she flies,
and also when she comes down.

Hate keeps his head up and walks through the street.
Every stranger and drifter he greets.
And shakes hands with every loner he meets
with a serious look on his face.

Love arrives safely with suitcase in tow.
Carrying with her the good things we know.
A reason to live and a reason to grow.
To trust. To hope. To care.

Hate sits alone on the hood of his car.
Without much regard to the moon or the stars.
Lazily killing the last of a jar
of the strongest stuff you can drink.

Love takes a taxi, a young man drives.
As soon as he sees her, hope fills his eyes.
But tears follow after, at the end of the ride,
cause he might never see her again.

Hate gets home lucky to still be alive.
He screams o’er the sidewalk and into the drive.
The clock in the kitchen says 2:55,
And the clock in the kitchen is slow.

Love has been waiting, patient and kind.
Just wanting a phone call or some kind of sign,
That the one that she cares for, who’s out of his mind,
Will make it back safe to her arms.

Hate stumbles forward and leans in the door.
Weary head hung, eyes to the floor.
He says “Love, I’m sorry”, and she says, “What for?
I’m your and that’s it, Whatever.
I should not have been gone for so long.
I’m your’s and that’s it, forever.”

You’re mine and that’s it, forever.

I have never been much of a Bruce Springsteen fan. He wasn’t a big player in the music of my childhood, and I don’t really connect to his working man Jersey persona. I don’t think those things are the problem, though.

I didn’t watch a lot about Sesame Street from when I was a kid. I think I was more of a Mr. Rogers kind of girl. But I do have a very clear memory of the Muppets singing a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”. They had changed the title to “Born to Add”, and the verses were about adding one trashcan to two to get three trashcans, then one policeman to three to get four policemen. Groundbreaking stuff.

My parents weren’t big Springsteen fans, so I don’t think I knew the song outside of it’s math-centric version. And now, anytime I hear Bruce Springsteen’s voice, I see a Muppet and hear the addition lyrics. Which is pretty awesome. But it makes it really difficult for me to take him seriously.

Remedy Drive has a song on an Olympics commercial! Aaron knew it was a possibility, but we didn’t know for sure that it was happening until last night when it aired during Saturday Night Live and his phone started blowing up.

So if you see a Budweiser-sponsored ad for the Olympics, probably airing during late night TV, pay special attention. The very first shot is four beers clinking, and the lyrics are “Hope’s not giving up.” SO AWESOME.

We live two blocks from an elementary school. It has a great playground and park area behind it that we have sadly underutilized. But yesterday, on the first nice-ish day we’ve had in ten thousand years, Aaron and I decided it was time to play basketball. OH MY GOSH. It was so much fun. We played all the games and drills we could remember from our high school days – Knockout, Horse, layup and free throw and three-pointer drills. It completely wiped me out but was awesomely fun. We will definitely be back.

Are you guys on the Avett Brothers bandwagon? I have known for a while that it was my kind of thing, but for whatever reason just never took the plunge. Then we had a week full of grey rainy days and I needed new music that was also moody and mellow-ish. Something with feeling. ENTER AVETT BROTHERS. I am now completely obsessed with them. They are just a perfect little band. I love their voices, love their lyrics, love their sound.

They were on Austin City Limits last night. After it was over I rewound it and immediately watched the show again. They are fantastic.

Let’s talk about Parks and Recreation. It is easily my favorite Thursday night show. It has been exponentially more funny than The Office and 30 Rock this season.

We love us some Tom Haverford in this house, so when we saw that Aziz Ansari was doing a comedy special, we immediately set the DVR. That is one funny kid. This clip is from Jimmy Kimmel, but it’s pretty much exactly the way he told the story on the show. It makes me hurt from laughing. Also, slightly dirty. Just FYI.

I know I say this all the time, but I really really really love my job. Church politics and staff stress and personal issues aside, it is outside the scope of my comprehension that I get to do what I do every day. This weekend I got to hang out with college girls who I’ve known since they were in junior high, and with junior highers who say awesome things like “Make peace, don’t, like, not make peace” and who bring their Harry Potter sorting hat pillowcases to class so we can split up into the appropriate teams. Amazing.

Greek starts back up tomorrow! I love my teeny-bopper TV shows.

In my post earlier this week about Jesus Girls, I mentioned briefly that we had to define a spiritual metaphor for our lives in my ordination class. I meant to wind my way back to mine in the context of that post, I really did, but it was getting super wordy and I just couldn’t get there. But I wanted to write it out here, both for you guys and for myself. It always helps to write this stuff down.

The metaphor I used in class was a song. While I have no discernible musical talent of any kind, music has always been a big part of my life. I really like the idea of our faith being a song. It works on several levels: the individual as the songs, unique unto ourselves but also part of a genre or style of music as well as music as a whole; parts of a song like parts of a body, each playing it’s individual role but adding up to something bigger and more beautiful than it can be on it’s own; there is a basic theory and structure to music but within that functionality the form can be whatever you want it to be. Clearly I am feeling the idea that faith is personal and that there’s not one way to do it and if you don’t get it right you are out.

But the concept I like the best is the idea of Jesus being a song to be in tune with. I got the idea from Rob Bell’s Nooma video called “Rhythm”. (You can watch it here.) Here are some key quotes:

“An infinite, massive, kind of invisible God, that’s hard to get our minds around. But truth, mercy, love, grace, justice, compassion – the way Jesus lived… I can see that. I can understand that. I can relate to that. I can play that song.”

“Jesus is like God in taking on flesh and blood, and so in his generosity. In his compassion, that’s what God’s like. In his telling of the truth, that’s what God’s like. In his love, and forgiveness, and sacrifice, that’s what God’s like. That’s who God is. That’s how the song goes.”

I love the idea that when we are truly following Jesus, when our lives most closely resemble his, that we are in tune with the song. It just makes sense to me. It’s the kind of faith I can get behind, the kind I am comfortable teaching my kids to have.

Sorry to be so quote happy today, but I wanted to close this post out with a quote from Sin Boldly, one of my favorite books from last year:

“I have a favorite t-shirt that reads, “Jesus is my mixtape.” When I bought it, I thought its slogan was charmingly quirky, but over time it has acquired this transcendent quality, a motto that sums up my belief that everything – everything – is spiritual. At the center of that everythingness, as a pastor friend of mine likes to describe it, is a universal rhythm, a song we all play, like a giant, motley orchestra. Sometimes in tune, sometimes off-key. We call it by different names. Still, it remains – if only we have ears to hear it – the eternal soundtrack that plays in the background of our lives.”

I like it.

Happy New Year’s Eve, friends! What are you doing tonight? Got big plans? We bailed on all party plans and are instead grilling fajitas and drinking both the champagne of beers and actual champagne. Should be a good time. I made guacamole.

Was 2009 good to you? Does anyone else feel like it was about three seconds long? We had a pretty good one. A lot happened. Lots of stress. Lots of fun. Lots of taco salads from Baja Burrito.

I was trying to decide what kind of post to write on the last day of the year – introspective? Celebratory? Thought-provoking? (Ha!) I had a whole mess of stuff I wanted to mention, so I decided to go with the old standby. The list.

Things I Loved In 2009

• Twitter. Are you twittering? You should be twittering. It is the best, even though I’m pretty sure it’s to blame for my weak posting action this year. All the little thoughts I would usually try to stretch into an actual cohesive post are instead dumped into twitter where all my random friends can see them. Do they care? I don’t know. But I enjoy reading their little thoughts a lot. Also, Amazon mp3.
• Service projects with the kids. After a rough start, 2009 kicked into high gear for GPYG at MFuge. They spent the week working hard and serving people, and came back with a strong sense of purpose that it didn’t have to end there. Based on that, we started a program called Second Saturday, where we take the second Saturday of each month and use it to serve the community. This fall we packed thousands of food boxes, served food and washed mountains of dishes in a soup kitchen, helped 300 needy families find gifts for their kids and wrapped gifts for the angel tree. I am so proud that the spirit of service has become one of the defining characteristics of our group, and I can’t wait to see where they take it in 2010.
• Switchfoot’s Hello Hurricane. I mentioned this one yesterday in our best songs of 2009 list, but I want to make sure I am getting my feelings across here. THIS RECORD IS AMAZING. Easily the best Switchfoot record. It has a great mix of rock songs (like real actual rock songs, not the Christian music lite-rock version) and mellow ones, and lyrically they completely knock it out of the park. I could, and have, listen to it over and over and over again. I love it so much.
• Sin Boldly by Cathleen Falsani. I read this way back in January, and it stuck with me all year. I don’t do a lot of rereading (says the girl who read all of the Harry Potter books this year, AGAIN), but I think this one might be an annual read for me.
• Glee. The most fun TV show there is. I love Puck, I love Sue, I love Mr. Shue. But most of all, I love the way they portray the kids. It’s fantastical, sure, and you have to suspend pretty much all of your disbelief. But the kids nail it. You really care about them. And the singing is awesome. Plus, it’s influence brought us the Sing-off, and that brought me the Beelzebubs. And they are awesome. (Watch this. And this. And this.)
• My Blackberry. Don’t judge me, y’all. This stupid little thing changed my life. I had a smartphone before, but it totally sucked. The Blackberry doesn’t freeze up on me, the battery lasts forever, my church email pushes through onto it and it has GPS. I know you think your iphone is cooler, and you’re probably right. But my Blackberry keeps me from getting lost, keeps me from being chained to my computer and NEVER DIES.
• The Youth Room. 2008 ended up being kind of a tough one for my GPYG-ers. We lost our meeting space last August and worked really hard to hold ourselves together until we built our building, only to end up with no youth space then, either. At the end of the summer I talked the board into letting us take over part of the church office building so the kids could have ownership over something. It’s not ideal, but it’s ours. We took a boring brown conference room and youthed it up good, and now we have a space that is ours for the first time ever. It’s too small, it doesn’t have heat and if the weather is bad we are crammed in there tight, but our name is on the door. And that is good.
• Shows – Andrew Peterson, Waterdeep, Jennifer Knapp, Counting Crows, Ben Folds, Over the Rhine, Wicked, a ton of youth productions, a thousand Remedy Drive shows, Chris Thile, Andy and the Andys, and a million more I can’t even remember. It was a good year to buy a ticket and see a show.
• My girlfriends. This is kind of a new one for me. I’ve always had friends, and my job comes with kind of a built-in social circle. But I’ve never been that great at letting people in. This year was different, though. I had a lot going on, and I needed to talk about it. So I did. I let my walls down and really talked to my friends. And they talked to me. And we assured each other that the things we were saying weren’t crazy, and that we weren’t horrible people even though we really felt like we were, and that we could get through it and it was okay if we had to have the same conversation a million times. I would have gone crazy this year without them.

This year was a mixed bag for me, but overall, I think it was a success. The good outweighed the bad, and I am thankful.

(Sorry for the lack of capital letters in this list. I typed them in correctly, but they came out lowercase and I don’t know how to fix it. I promise I have better typing etiquette than that.)

As part of our Christmas gifts to our families Aaron and I have started making a mix CD every year. I don’t think I ever posted about last year’s offering, which is sad for you because it completely ruled. This year we decided to make a “Best of 2009″ album with fifteen of our favorite tracks from the year. As Aaron and I have fairly divergent tastes in music, it was a bit difficult, but I am happy with the result. As with any “best of” list, as soon we finalized it we thought of about ten more songs we’d have liked to add. Here is what we came up with:

1. 1901 – Phoenix (from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)
I know it’s obvious to choose this song off this album, but it was everywhere for a reason. Super high energy, really catchy, totally fun.
2. Your Love Is a Song – Switchfoot (from Hello Hurricane)
A lot of great albums came out in 2009, but this one is my favorite, and this is my favorite track. I love everything about it – the feel, the sound, the line ‘I’ve been keeping my hopes unbroken’. It’s beautiful. (We argued about which track to include from this record. I barely won out, Aaron wanted to use one of the rockier songs. Which are also great. Seriously. Buy this record.)
3. Chasing Pirates – Norah Jones (from The Fall)
I wrote about this record earlier this year, and while this isn’t one of my favorite tracks (it’s an Aaron pick), it’s a great example of the turn her music took with this album.
4. Even If It Breaks Your Heart – Will Hoge (from The Wreckage)
Another Aaron pick, and a great one. We’ve been Will Hoge fans for a while now, and this album has that Americana rootsy feel we totally agree on. This song would not be out of place on a Tom Petty record.
5. Stars – Barcelona (from Absolutes)
Another one I wrote about earlier this year. This album fits into that atmospheric piano-driven style that I love, and while this is my absolute favorite song of theirs the whole album is strong. They also make a great Pandora station.
6. Honey, Let Me Sing You a Song – Matt Hires (from Take Us To the Start)
I first heard this one on the acoustic XM station we play pretty much 24 hours a day in our house. I didn’t realize when I downloaded it that the studio version would have a lot more going on (being, you know, not acoustic at all). Aaron love the studio version, I miss the stripped down version I heard originally. And there you have our fundamental musical difference.
7. Mr. Pitiful – Matt Costa (from Unfamiliar Faces)
This is a record I bought because it was $2.99 on AmazonMp3 one day. I am such a sucker, but I was right on with this one. This song in particular is really fun – it sounds a lot like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”.
8. (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To), I Want You To – Weezer (from Ratitude)
I will love Weezer until the day I die, but this record was a pretty big disappointment. One big exception – this track. Kind of quirky, really upbeat, a big chorus you can yell along with. All the best things about Weezer.
9. This Tornado Loves You – Neko Case (from Middle Cyclone)
Neko Case is so freaking cool, y’all. Her voice is amazing – sexy and tough at the same time. I love listening to her records, and this new one is really great. (This was definitely a Brandi pick.)
10. The Nerve – MuteMath (from Armistice)
Aaron again. The verses feel like U2 to me, and the chorus is really cool. I never really got on the MuteMath train, but this is a pretty awesome song.
11. Greyhound Station – Ben Kweller (from Changing Horses)
Oh my gosh, y’all, Ben Kweller is so cool. His sound changes quite a bit from record to record, and this one is pretty twangy. It completely rules. This song brings me so much joy.
12. Draw the Line – David Gray (from Draw the Line)
David Gray is a Manes family all-time favorite, but I am not in love with this record. Aaron chose this song, which I do agree is the best on the album. It has a good feel and it is still David Gray, who is awesome even when his records are not.
13. Bohemia – Lyle Lovett (from Natural Forces)
Another Manes family favorite. This is a great record, very straight-up Lyle. I like it when an artist’s albums just make sense. This one makes sense. It’s kind of bluesy and gets almost gospely in the end. So good.
14. Maybe – Ingrid Michaelson (from Everybody)
This one, shockingly, was an Aaron pick. It’s so far outside of his usual taste that I kind of think he was messing with me. Good song, though.
15. We’ll Be Fine – Matt Pryor (from Confidence Man)
I really like the message of this song, and I thought the idea would be a good ending. Don’t worry about us, y’all. We’ll be fine.

1. Take Us To the Start – Matt Hires

As past of our Directv package, we have a bunch of XM stations available to us. My favorite is called The Coffee House. They play a lot of singer-songwriter-y stuff… lots of acoustic live tracks and covers and stuff like that. They don’t play a ton of new stuff, but every now and then something comes along that is new to me. Like Matt Hires. This kid is awesome. His voice is a teensy bit Adam Duritzish, which I love, and his songs have kind of a classic folk feel, like The Band or Neil Young. The whole record is really good, but the single is definitely the standout track.

Download: “Honey Let Me Sing You a Song”

2. The Chess Hotel – The Elms

I know, I know. I am about a thousand years late on The Elms. I can’t be on time to every party. A friend of mine gave me this record over a year ago, but for some reason I didn’t give it much of a listen until recently. It is so, so cool. It’s just a great rock record. I don’t know why I waited so long to check these guys out. I have no idea what the rest of their music sounds like… they were on a Christian label for a while before putting this one out on, weirdly, a country imprint. But if you like blues-y rock music, you will love this.

Download: “The Way I Will”

3. The Fall – Norah Jones

Oh my gosh, you guys. NORAH JONES. You remember her, right? She won a thousand Grammys, then made a gorgeous second record, then a third record that was also great but no one bought. Then she made this record. And it is fabulous. It’s a big step away from the jazzy bluesy stuff she used to do… it has more of a roots-rock feel that suits her voice perfectly. It’s really moody and mellow. So good.

Download: “It’s Gonna Be”

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.