Last night, when I got home from work just past 11:00, I turned on the television in my bedroom before getting into bed for what I had hoped would be a long night's sleep, or at least as close to seven hours as possible before my alarm was to wake me at 6:00 the next morning.
Unfortunately, the fates had different plans for me and I could not fall asleep. (Before you even think it, turning the TV off doesn't help -- I've tried it. It's harder for me to fall asleep without noise to distract me.) At 12:00 I tuned my television to WGN to watch "Will and Grace," and was pleasantly surprised to see that one of my favorite episodes was getting ready to air. (Okay, so I like W&G. I am that gay. I do not, however, like "Sex and the City." No one should be that gay.)
In this episode, Grace has just been dumped by her boyfriend Nathan (played winningly by Mr. Woody Harrelson) at a point in their relationship where Grace assumed marriage was the next, nearly immediate step. Understandably, this puts Grace in a depressed state as manifested by her lying in bed for days on end without any -- ANY -- attention to personal grooming. Although Will, Jack and Karen are successful in arousing Grace from her Boudoire of Sadness one time, she retreats there immediately upon hearing a travel agent on the answering machine asking Nathan for the correct spelling of his travel companion, Suzie's, last name. Apparently this eager-beaver travel agent has worked extra hard for her commission by booking Nathan and Suzie in the most romantic accomodations possible on the cruise ship where they have booked passage. Devastated by the realization that Nathan has found himself another girlfriend in the time it took her to sleep that man right outta her hair, Grace sinks even deeper into depression.
Her friends (well, Will's her friend; I think Jack sees her as a non-returnable gift-with-purchase that came with Will, and I believe Karen thinks of Grace as something akin to a pet) try to arouse her by placing her -- still clothed in what I can only imagine to be the funkiest smelling pajamas in the western hemisphere -- into a cold shower. While trying to soap her down, an act they must have done as much for their own olfaction as for her sanity, Grace finally snaps. She then reads each of them in turn, Will for having lost his lover of seven years, Karen for losing her husband to the penitentiary, and Jack for being content to flit from one relationship to another without any emotional investment whatsoever. Imploring them to let her handle her situation in her own way, Grace stumbles back to her bedrom, soaked head to toe. Will, Jack and Karen realize that Grace is right, and that maybe they too should be in bed, sleeping off the pain and disappointment in their own lives. So, dripping wet, the three of them in turn get into Grace's bed and fall asleep together, one big old wet dogpile of misery loving company. While these shenanigans will undoubtedly lead to premature mattress rot, they seem not to have been in vain. When Grace awakes the next morning in the embrace of her friend(s), the sun is shining brightly through her window (eastern exposure in Manhattan? Yuck!), and the dulcent tones of Annie Lennox's "Seventeen Again" begin to play. She arises almost majestically from her catatonic catacomb, depression over, end scene.
Wow! is television ballsy to put shit like that on the air.
I know, I know, I said it's one of my favorite episodes, and it is. The idea is utterly intoxicating -- sleep away your blues surrounded by friends (I could do without the wetness), awake refreshed and revived. Maybe that happens in the real world, but I tend to doubt it. Just as I had to realize that, in actual prisons, most of the prisoners are not nearly as hot as Mr. Chris Meloni was on "Oz," resolutions on television shows like "Will and Grace" don't reflect the intricate realities of day-to-day living. Situation comedies are able to solve everyone's problems in 30 minutes or less because they only have 22 minutes to tie everything up into a nice package. Once you've been on for a few seasons, you might get an occasional one hour special because the new series they slipped in after your time slot has tanked in the ratings and more people are watching Golf TV in that half-hour so the network is desperate.
By and large, television makes us want to believe in the fiction it presents. We may not really buy into the notion that depression goes away after sleep, or that putting your down-in-the-dumps friend bodily into the bathtub is a good idea, but we want to believe that it could work, perhaps if more of us tried it. The cold hard reality of life is that it's not a cakewalk. Eventually, people whom you adore will treat you like used Kleenex. Your boss will overwork and underpay you and dare you to find something better to do with your life, like anyone else would have you. Friends you thought were your closest confidantes will betray every ounce of trust you've invested in them, with interest.
The great reality of life is that every morning the sun will come through the eastern sky and life will begin again. That sun may be blocked by clouds, tall buildings, trees, or any variety of physical non-translucent objects, but it's still there. I think one of the goals of everyone's life should be to remember that the sun is there, even if it can't reach you. The luckiest among us, myself included, have people in the world sending us love that is just as constant. That love stretches out to reach us even if we can't feel the embrace or hear the words. Remembering that love, strong and fierce as the sun, exists is what helps me to feel safe when I'm alone, scared and hurting. That love gets me out of bed in the morning.
Of course, having Annie Lennox in my bedroom to herald the day and get me to my feet would be pretty sweet, too.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Friday, October 28, 2005
In the News
Unlike 99.756% of the rest of the blogosphere, I'm not going to go on and on about today's indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff. I only want to say this.
HA HA HA HAAA! HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!
Okay, good, I think I got it out of my syst . . .
HA HA HA HA HA HAAA!!! HEEE HEEE HEE HA HA HA HAAA! *snort*
(Oh, I hate it when I snort.)
Now back to our usual ruminations.
PS -- Karl Rove, I think you may have a problem . . .
HA HA HA HAAA! HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!
Okay, good, I think I got it out of my syst . . .
HA HA HA HA HA HAAA!!! HEEE HEEE HEE HA HA HA HAAA! *snort*
(Oh, I hate it when I snort.)
Now back to our usual ruminations.
PS -- Karl Rove, I think you may have a problem . . .
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Singing
If I'm going to be completely honest, I must admit that I've been a bit in a funk for the past couple of weeks. I wouldn't say I was depressed; I've been depressed and it's a lot uglier than what I've been experiencing of late.
Today, as I was finishing up at work, I was listening to my iPod, like I often do when I'm alone in the lab. Lately I've been playing recordings of music for the Chicago Chamber Choir fall concerts coming up next month. Some songs I've been playing to help with memorization or to become more confident with notes; others have been looping because they've fit my mood or my craving for rich, delicious, velvety harmony. When others haven't been around, I've been singing along with my iPod, primarily to improve my muscle memory and pitch. This is nothing unusual for me when learning new music. In the past few years, my life has become so busy that I often resort to learning music from recordings, something I used to abhor doing.
About 15 minutes before I left the lab this evening, as I was wrapping things up and writing up my day's work, I took off my iPod so that I could put it away. Oddly, I felt like continuing to sing, and I did. And I wasn't singing music to learn it; I was singing music to enjoy the act of singing. To my amazement, I was even singing music out loud, sotto voce, mind you, but still audible to the couple of people who were still around.
I believe that this signaled the end of my funk. And it couldn't have come a minute too soon.
Too much is going too well in my life for the "other things" in my life to put me into a funk. In times like these, when I feel I'm juggling about as many things as I possibly can, it should be the easiest call in the world to put the "other things" into God's hands. I have faith that all the "other things" will fall into place, but it's hard for me to live into that faith. I cannot know what will happen tomorrow, but part of faith is believing that tomorrow will be better than today.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I just hope I'll still be singing.
Today, as I was finishing up at work, I was listening to my iPod, like I often do when I'm alone in the lab. Lately I've been playing recordings of music for the Chicago Chamber Choir fall concerts coming up next month. Some songs I've been playing to help with memorization or to become more confident with notes; others have been looping because they've fit my mood or my craving for rich, delicious, velvety harmony. When others haven't been around, I've been singing along with my iPod, primarily to improve my muscle memory and pitch. This is nothing unusual for me when learning new music. In the past few years, my life has become so busy that I often resort to learning music from recordings, something I used to abhor doing.
About 15 minutes before I left the lab this evening, as I was wrapping things up and writing up my day's work, I took off my iPod so that I could put it away. Oddly, I felt like continuing to sing, and I did. And I wasn't singing music to learn it; I was singing music to enjoy the act of singing. To my amazement, I was even singing music out loud, sotto voce, mind you, but still audible to the couple of people who were still around.
I believe that this signaled the end of my funk. And it couldn't have come a minute too soon.
Too much is going too well in my life for the "other things" in my life to put me into a funk. In times like these, when I feel I'm juggling about as many things as I possibly can, it should be the easiest call in the world to put the "other things" into God's hands. I have faith that all the "other things" will fall into place, but it's hard for me to live into that faith. I cannot know what will happen tomorrow, but part of faith is believing that tomorrow will be better than today.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I just hope I'll still be singing.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Sad Inheritance
People in the United States born into what is often called "Generation X" -- generally speaking, folks born in the 60s and early 70s -- are poised to take the reins of leadership from our forebears. Folks in their late 20s to early 40s are well ensconced in the shrines of power, serving government, business and academia. Soon, my contemporaries will be winning seats in legislatures, receiving offers for top executive positions at major corporations and, in the not too distant future, we will have a President who was born after 1959. (Per the Constitution, only those of us born before 1974 would be eligible to run for President in 2008).
Generation X stands at the precipice. Soon, the direction of this nation, and by natural extension, the entire world, will depend on our decisions, our actions, our values and our morals.
May God have mercy on us all.
I don't say this because I think GenXers, as we are affectionately (or derisively) called, are incapable of making good decisions or amoral. Instead, I think that we are ill prepared to inherit the United States we're being given by our forebears.
For the first time in our 229 year history, we are seeing consistent declines in the ability of our nation to compete in the global marketplace. We may have "won" the Cold War, but we have fallen far short in so many other areas. Our entire economy floats on a cushion of foreign investment dollars. We spend so much more than we save, so much more than we earn, that we have become one of the world's biggest debtors. Our ability to do science and lead industry has been undercut by ill-advised tax cuts and a continual outsourcing of jobs to cheaper labor markets overseas. We buy goods that we deem are too expensive to manufacture in this country from foreign countries, turning a blind eye to the often inhumane conditions to which these foreign manufacturers subject their workers. So long as they keep turning out the cheap clothing, electronics and toys for which we seem to have insatiable appetites, we are happy.
Materialism is killing the soul of America.
I know I sound like a tree-hugging granola type. Anyone who knows me would tell you that's not what I am. I admit that I like buying cheap clothing. I'm using my own personal computer to write this treatise. I have a cell phone, an iPod (2 actually, but one was a freebie) and all the other urban trappings. Perhaps then I'm standing inside a humongous glass McMansion hurling boulders against my walls trying to assail the evils I see outside.
At least I recognize that there is a problem. I don't look at the earth's dwindling oil reserves and the warming of the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and figure that these are only temporary issues that some genius will resolve through some new-fangled technology. I recognize that I can use less gas, and keep my apartment a little cooler in the winter and a little warmer in the summer, and use the train and the bus (or, God forbid, walk!) to get around the city. It sounds hokie, but it's true -- every little bit helps. I don't have any of them in front of me, but I've read so many interesting statistics recently regarding little things we could all do to decrease our collective energy demand. Driving 55MPH, swapping 2 or 3 incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, turning the thermostat to 64 degrees during winter. It's incredible how many millions of barrels we could save each year by doing these things. In a nation that goes through multiple millions of barrels of oil a day, it doesn't seem like a big difference. And maybe that's why so few people are willing to change how they use energy -- it doesn't seem like it will buy us more than a few extra days of oil.
I wonder what it will be like in those last days of oil. Will we still think those few extra days weren't worth it?
Generation X stands at the precipice. Soon, the direction of this nation, and by natural extension, the entire world, will depend on our decisions, our actions, our values and our morals.
May God have mercy on us all.
I don't say this because I think GenXers, as we are affectionately (or derisively) called, are incapable of making good decisions or amoral. Instead, I think that we are ill prepared to inherit the United States we're being given by our forebears.
For the first time in our 229 year history, we are seeing consistent declines in the ability of our nation to compete in the global marketplace. We may have "won" the Cold War, but we have fallen far short in so many other areas. Our entire economy floats on a cushion of foreign investment dollars. We spend so much more than we save, so much more than we earn, that we have become one of the world's biggest debtors. Our ability to do science and lead industry has been undercut by ill-advised tax cuts and a continual outsourcing of jobs to cheaper labor markets overseas. We buy goods that we deem are too expensive to manufacture in this country from foreign countries, turning a blind eye to the often inhumane conditions to which these foreign manufacturers subject their workers. So long as they keep turning out the cheap clothing, electronics and toys for which we seem to have insatiable appetites, we are happy.
Materialism is killing the soul of America.
I know I sound like a tree-hugging granola type. Anyone who knows me would tell you that's not what I am. I admit that I like buying cheap clothing. I'm using my own personal computer to write this treatise. I have a cell phone, an iPod (2 actually, but one was a freebie) and all the other urban trappings. Perhaps then I'm standing inside a humongous glass McMansion hurling boulders against my walls trying to assail the evils I see outside.
At least I recognize that there is a problem. I don't look at the earth's dwindling oil reserves and the warming of the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and figure that these are only temporary issues that some genius will resolve through some new-fangled technology. I recognize that I can use less gas, and keep my apartment a little cooler in the winter and a little warmer in the summer, and use the train and the bus (or, God forbid, walk!) to get around the city. It sounds hokie, but it's true -- every little bit helps. I don't have any of them in front of me, but I've read so many interesting statistics recently regarding little things we could all do to decrease our collective energy demand. Driving 55MPH, swapping 2 or 3 incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, turning the thermostat to 64 degrees during winter. It's incredible how many millions of barrels we could save each year by doing these things. In a nation that goes through multiple millions of barrels of oil a day, it doesn't seem like a big difference. And maybe that's why so few people are willing to change how they use energy -- it doesn't seem like it will buy us more than a few extra days of oil.
I wonder what it will be like in those last days of oil. Will we still think those few extra days weren't worth it?
Monday, October 24, 2005
Bright Lights, Big City
One of the nice things about my apartment is the view I take in walking home from the train station. I can see the entire skyline, writ large. It's especially striking at night when all the buildings are lit up. Right now, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, many of the more prominent buildings have pink accent lights. The CNA Building, using lit office windows as gigantic pixels, has alternated between displaying a memory ribbon (like the pink ones honoring breast cancer survivors and victims) and the words "Go Sox" in honor of our South Side heroes' fantastic showing in the post-season.
Walking home earlier this evening, I noticed something very disturbing in the normally tranquil skyline. The newly minted Chase building (known until the recent merger as the Bank One building) was being used as a projection screen to advertise -- what else -- Chase's banking products.
As striking as the Chicago skyline is, and as much as it is a shrine to capitalism and commerce, I was a little dumbfounded by this latest crass advertising display. Clearly, Chase has the right to use their building for any legal activity they deem fit. But, come on, must we now be subjected to advertisements in multiple-story high lettering when taking in the awesome beauty of downtown Chicago at night? Is this really the impression we want to give visitors to the Windy City?
But what about Times Square, you might say. It's a huge, brightly lit advertisement that spreads its commercial messages 24/7 all year long. Despite its neverending neon/plasma screen incandescence, Times Square is hardly visible at street level once you've gone more than a few blocks up- or downtown. In contrast, the Chase building advertisement was easily visible to me on the street some twenty blocks away. Twenty blocks!!
I can't think of any place in Chicago that compares to Times Square, and frankly, I'm glad that I can't. Part of the charm of this city is its relative lack of glitz compared to cities like New York, Las Vegas, or Los Angeles. Tall buildings we have in abundance, and the Magnificent Mile certainly shines both day and night, from the gleaming marble of the Wrigley Building to the more muted but almost equally well lit Water Tower. But we're mercifully lacking in streetside Jumbotron TVs, and outside of the theater district there's precious little neon that isn't perched atop very high buildings.
So, if you're an advertising/PR person who works at Chase, and you're reading this, I implore you to put an end to this nonsense. Give me back my beautiful downtown view, senza your company tagline. Turn off the airplane search lights perched atop your building. You've spent a lot of money putting your company logo on the top of that building. Let it work its magic to sell your brand. I bet it will attract more customers than turning your upper floor facade into a marquee will.
Walking home earlier this evening, I noticed something very disturbing in the normally tranquil skyline. The newly minted Chase building (known until the recent merger as the Bank One building) was being used as a projection screen to advertise -- what else -- Chase's banking products.
As striking as the Chicago skyline is, and as much as it is a shrine to capitalism and commerce, I was a little dumbfounded by this latest crass advertising display. Clearly, Chase has the right to use their building for any legal activity they deem fit. But, come on, must we now be subjected to advertisements in multiple-story high lettering when taking in the awesome beauty of downtown Chicago at night? Is this really the impression we want to give visitors to the Windy City?
But what about Times Square, you might say. It's a huge, brightly lit advertisement that spreads its commercial messages 24/7 all year long. Despite its neverending neon/plasma screen incandescence, Times Square is hardly visible at street level once you've gone more than a few blocks up- or downtown. In contrast, the Chase building advertisement was easily visible to me on the street some twenty blocks away. Twenty blocks!!
I can't think of any place in Chicago that compares to Times Square, and frankly, I'm glad that I can't. Part of the charm of this city is its relative lack of glitz compared to cities like New York, Las Vegas, or Los Angeles. Tall buildings we have in abundance, and the Magnificent Mile certainly shines both day and night, from the gleaming marble of the Wrigley Building to the more muted but almost equally well lit Water Tower. But we're mercifully lacking in streetside Jumbotron TVs, and outside of the theater district there's precious little neon that isn't perched atop very high buildings.
So, if you're an advertising/PR person who works at Chase, and you're reading this, I implore you to put an end to this nonsense. Give me back my beautiful downtown view, senza your company tagline. Turn off the airplane search lights perched atop your building. You've spent a lot of money putting your company logo on the top of that building. Let it work its magic to sell your brand. I bet it will attract more customers than turning your upper floor facade into a marquee will.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Love Thy Neighbor . . . Or Else
Today's gospel passage, for those of us who use the BCP lectionary, was from the Gospel according to Matthew. One of the lines from that passage was the following:
`You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
This passage describes when Jesus was quizzed by the Pharisees in one of their attempts to trap him into betraying himself as a false prophet or an enemy of the state. They had asked Jesus what is the greatest of the commandments. In response, Jesus names two commandments, equating the commandment admonishing folks to love their neighbors to the commandment to love God with one's whole heart, mind and soul.
This is (I believe) a fairly well known passage from the New Testament, and I'm sure I've read and heard it read many times. What struck me today, as this lesson was being preached on by Sarah+, the assistant rector at my parish, was the tidbit of linguistic information she shared with those of us in th pews. In this passage, the word for love that Matthew uses is the Greek word "agapo," which describes the love a human would feel for God. This is opposed to the Greek "philos," a word for love more akin to human-human neighborly or brotherly love.
Think about this for a second. Jesus is telling us that the greatest commandments are, essentially, to love God and our neighbors in the same way. I don't know that I'm capable of such an undertaking.
I mean, it's easy to love God, right? God sits somewhere upon high, being all majestic and omniscient. God doesn't sit next to me on the train and talk too loudly on a cell phone, or cut me off in traffic, or take too long at the automated check-out line at the grocery store (like it's so complicated to use!) Sure, there's the little things, like everything I every prayed for that never happened, or all the things I prayed against that did happen (2004 NCSU vs. Vanderbilt NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Second Round game? Ring a bell up there? HMM???) But I understand that the point of prayer is not to get things or to change the natural course of events. I'm therefore not so much annoyed with God as much as I am left wondering how the eventualities unfolding around me relate to God's master plan for the world, which I am not supposed to understand anyway.
Right now, right here, I'm left with this dilemma of trying to love all the annoying people around me with the same sort of love I feel towards God. Maybe the secret to living into this calling is to accept that people around me are going to do things I don't want them to do, and will fail to do things I want them to do. Perhaps this ties in to God's master plan out of whose loop I am blissfully kept. Maybe when my neighbor steals my newspaper, he or she is protecting me from seeing some bit of discomfiting news. That guy who crossed the street against the light in front of me and made me slam on my brakes to avoid hitting him? A neccessary stimulus to test my brakes and ensure my continued safety (they felt not at all mushy, thank you very much.)
Don't get me wrong. I love lots of people. There are some people I even love in a similar way as I love God. But there are some people I decidedly do not love. I can only name a few people I actively HATE, but there's a pretty wide gulf between agapo love and bitter hatred. (The divide between hate and passionate love, as we all know, is much more like a hairline fracture.) That means there's a whole bunch of people who lie somewhere in that chasm between me loving them to pieces and just wishing they would spontaneously combust, and now I have to move them all into the agapo love column, just like that.
The good news is this -- it takes too much energy to dislike people, far more energy than I have and more time than I am willing to invest. Keeping that in mind, and with the awareness that the stress of actively disliking people invariably leads to wrinkles, my course is clear. Look for a newer, happier, more agapo-crazy Harold to hit the mean streets of Chicago in the very near future.
Just try not to piss me off.
`You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
This passage describes when Jesus was quizzed by the Pharisees in one of their attempts to trap him into betraying himself as a false prophet or an enemy of the state. They had asked Jesus what is the greatest of the commandments. In response, Jesus names two commandments, equating the commandment admonishing folks to love their neighbors to the commandment to love God with one's whole heart, mind and soul.
This is (I believe) a fairly well known passage from the New Testament, and I'm sure I've read and heard it read many times. What struck me today, as this lesson was being preached on by Sarah+, the assistant rector at my parish, was the tidbit of linguistic information she shared with those of us in th pews. In this passage, the word for love that Matthew uses is the Greek word "agapo," which describes the love a human would feel for God. This is opposed to the Greek "philos," a word for love more akin to human-human neighborly or brotherly love.
Think about this for a second. Jesus is telling us that the greatest commandments are, essentially, to love God and our neighbors in the same way. I don't know that I'm capable of such an undertaking.
I mean, it's easy to love God, right? God sits somewhere upon high, being all majestic and omniscient. God doesn't sit next to me on the train and talk too loudly on a cell phone, or cut me off in traffic, or take too long at the automated check-out line at the grocery store (like it's so complicated to use!) Sure, there's the little things, like everything I every prayed for that never happened, or all the things I prayed against that did happen (2004 NCSU vs. Vanderbilt NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Second Round game? Ring a bell up there? HMM???) But I understand that the point of prayer is not to get things or to change the natural course of events. I'm therefore not so much annoyed with God as much as I am left wondering how the eventualities unfolding around me relate to God's master plan for the world, which I am not supposed to understand anyway.
Right now, right here, I'm left with this dilemma of trying to love all the annoying people around me with the same sort of love I feel towards God. Maybe the secret to living into this calling is to accept that people around me are going to do things I don't want them to do, and will fail to do things I want them to do. Perhaps this ties in to God's master plan out of whose loop I am blissfully kept. Maybe when my neighbor steals my newspaper, he or she is protecting me from seeing some bit of discomfiting news. That guy who crossed the street against the light in front of me and made me slam on my brakes to avoid hitting him? A neccessary stimulus to test my brakes and ensure my continued safety (they felt not at all mushy, thank you very much.)
Don't get me wrong. I love lots of people. There are some people I even love in a similar way as I love God. But there are some people I decidedly do not love. I can only name a few people I actively HATE, but there's a pretty wide gulf between agapo love and bitter hatred. (The divide between hate and passionate love, as we all know, is much more like a hairline fracture.) That means there's a whole bunch of people who lie somewhere in that chasm between me loving them to pieces and just wishing they would spontaneously combust, and now I have to move them all into the agapo love column, just like that.
The good news is this -- it takes too much energy to dislike people, far more energy than I have and more time than I am willing to invest. Keeping that in mind, and with the awareness that the stress of actively disliking people invariably leads to wrinkles, my course is clear. Look for a newer, happier, more agapo-crazy Harold to hit the mean streets of Chicago in the very near future.
Just try not to piss me off.
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