I don't know that I've shared before in this forum one other fact about my urban life that surprises most people outside of the Boston area: that the place in which Mr. L and I currently live is, in total, 450 square feet. No, that is not a typo, that is the actual square footage of our condo give or take about 8 feet (we've never been able to tell if that bathroom is part of the calculation). I just wanted to throw this out there in case any of you ever find yourself in a very TINY living situation for a very LONG time (a submarine, prison, Manhattan, for instance) so you will know where to turn for help.
Over the years, Mr. L and I have worked hard to cultivate a lifestyle that we have labeled, "Clutter Free Living." Let me be clear, this is not some values-based idealism ("Oh, we just decided to free ourselves from the constraints of our stuff!" or "You know, we can feel fulfilled by other means and don't feel the need to accumulate material possessions.") No. That's not it at all. It's just that there is literally NO room for clutter, unless we decide to get rid of our dog or, say, all our clothes. In fact, I'm always keeping in the back of my mind a list of material possessions that I will accrue the minute there is more space to be had to put them (1. Couch, 2. Toaster, 3. Cat, etc. etc.) But for now, clutter-free we are and clutter-free we will be.
In case you are interested, some of the policies associated with this lifestyle are the following:
1) Throw away (or recycle more likely, if you care about the earth) ANYTHING that you will not read, or use, or look at again until the next time you move or clean our your closet. This includes old birthday cards or other cards (unless they are filled with lengthy, meaningful and UNIQUE proclamations of love or friendship that you think will be meaningful to read in the future), owners manuals (you must learn to admit early-on that you will never read these or consult them ever again), other benign documentation (this is the paper your new credit-card came glued to in the mail, receipts of any kind and notices of marriages, baby's births, etc.), pet toys your pet has lost interest in and chargers for devices you no longer own.CAST THEM OUT.
2) Throw away (or recycle if possible) anything that is BROKEN. This sounds silly, right? Who would keep things that are broken? You would. And so would I. Because it always starts off so innocently: "I'll get around to fixing that." or "Maybe it can still be useful somehow." No. You won't. And it won't. You'll simply banish said broken item to a distant closet to be consumed in dust and your guilt until you move five years from now and throw it away. Why not do it now?* This includes old computers, sporting equipment, and ceramic products that have not been glued back together within six weeks of being broken. Seriously.
3) BANISH all trinkets. The ceramic alligator you got in the Everglades? The really cute little cardboard box you got at your friend's wedding that was full of candy? The bandana they gave you at that road race that you'll never wear but that you fondly remember? OUT LIKE TROUT. A very limited number of trinkets (think 2-3) may be displayed on book cases or other flat surfaces. But any trinkets that need to be stored away need to be thrown away.**
4) Buy one, set one free. Whenever you buy something, get rid of something else. This way, you will always maintain approximately the same amount of stuff, instead of creeping toward a cluttered life with every nook and cranny full to the brim. (Note: this does not apply to handbags or kitchen gadgets...at least not in our house.)
5) Review your wardrobe every season in search of: items you didn't wear at all this year (why do you think you'll wear them next year if you didn't find cause to this year?), stained items (if it hasn't come out by now, I hate to break it to you, but it ain't comin' out), ripped items (if you didn't sew it up yet, you probably don't care that much), and items that no longer fit you (though some small spectrum of fat to skinny fit items is appropriate for seasonal changes in physical make-up, extreme storage of clothing reminiscent of another body is not a great way to live without clutter....and regret).
6) Limit nostalgia. Nostalgia for stuff usually only comes when you keep it. So unless an item has some great personal meaning to you (it was your grandmother's broken falafel maker, which she bequeathed to you, we just CAN'T give it away), snap a photo if you must and say sayonara. Once it's gone, you'll forget it anyway and move on.
In addition to these helpful guidelines, here are a few indicators you are falling off the bandwagon:
1) You are storing things in the trunk of your car large enough that you must remove them in order to put other things in there. (Guilty.)
2) You are attempting to justify to your partner purchasing some huge item for which there is no room. (Guilty).
3) You are considering moving to a bigger place in order to get a toaster. (Guilty. That's just a really expensive toaster.)
*I should be clear that I AM for fixing things, if they can be fixed. Someday I'll tell you about the wild goose chase I had to go on to get my lamp fixed, one that involved 14 phone calls and a visit to the fairly sketchy apartment of a man named Brian. But seriously if you don't have a real, concrete plan and timeline to fix something (one that includes either hand tools or the cell phone number of a skilled handy-man), axe it. (NOTE: SB and WEB3, if you are reading this, should you ever decide to live in a tiny place, you will be EXEMPT from this category, mostly because you had that broken jukebox in your LIVING ROOM for like 20 years and then fixed it which makes you awesome and probably able to actually fix anything in the world.)
**One helpful thing to do to make this easier is to shift your souvenir buying habits. Instead of trinkets, collect something else on your adventures: Christmas ornaments, place mats, something that will help you remember but also be useful.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Urban Excursion
There are many times (given the incredible human capacity for adjusting one's sense of normal) that I forget that I live in the city. It's not that I'm in denial, it's just that I kind just think of this as my home and forget about other homes I've had that do not have so much concrete, and so little parking and so many other people.
But every now and then, I am reminded of my reality by some hilarious occurrence that could only happen in an urban environment. And thus when I walked into our laundry room/bike storage area the other day and saw this, I laughed aloud:
Now, to someone who has never been in our laundry room before, this might look like an unremarkable scene (other than to note that we are approaching a bike storage crisis). But if you look closely in the bottom left, you will notice what I noticed which is this:
Yes. A tiny pink tricycle locked WITH ITS OWN TINY CABLE LOCK to the bike rack. I don't know why I found this so precious, but I did. Perhaps it was because I envisioned all the other tiny pink tricycles that litter the yards and expansive front porches of families that do not live in the city, that can get left out all night and picked back up whenever the spirit moves. But here is this little one's trike locked up with a cable, amidst a million other salt-encrusted, Kryptonite secured commuter bikes: all of which made me feel compelled to give a shout out to the gritty urban parent that rigged this up so their daughter or son might have the same opportunities for trike riding that those suburbanites have.
God bless the city.
But every now and then, I am reminded of my reality by some hilarious occurrence that could only happen in an urban environment. And thus when I walked into our laundry room/bike storage area the other day and saw this, I laughed aloud:
Now, to someone who has never been in our laundry room before, this might look like an unremarkable scene (other than to note that we are approaching a bike storage crisis). But if you look closely in the bottom left, you will notice what I noticed which is this:
Yes. A tiny pink tricycle locked WITH ITS OWN TINY CABLE LOCK to the bike rack. I don't know why I found this so precious, but I did. Perhaps it was because I envisioned all the other tiny pink tricycles that litter the yards and expansive front porches of families that do not live in the city, that can get left out all night and picked back up whenever the spirit moves. But here is this little one's trike locked up with a cable, amidst a million other salt-encrusted, Kryptonite secured commuter bikes: all of which made me feel compelled to give a shout out to the gritty urban parent that rigged this up so their daughter or son might have the same opportunities for trike riding that those suburbanites have.
God bless the city.
FHH
My sister very often reminds me that when I first moved to Boston, I spent about the first 18 months lovingly referring to it as "This Frozen Hell Hole." For the most part, I have left that agony behind with some key wardrobe additions and the adjustment that comes with doing anything for a while.
But it snowed here last night. On October 28.
I'm just saying, was I that far off?!??!
But it snowed here last night. On October 28.
I'm just saying, was I that far off?!??!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Nostaligia's Here Early This Year
I thought I was too young for nostalgia to have kicked in yet. And then I made my second cousin cry.
It wasn't intentional really. He's only 4.
We were all on vacation together (my cousins that is) and his father asked if I might help out by turning on the TV for the little ones. Hoping to get some gold stars in the cool and collected older-relative-without-kids category, I obliged.
"I want cartoons," Mr. 4 year old demanded.
"No problem." I said and flipped on the set. It was on MSNBC so I pressed the channel up button. That wasn't cartoons either. I thought it was no problem. But it was a BIG problem.
"I want carTOOOONS," he screamed.
"Just a second" and I pressed the channel up button again. And didn't find cartoons there either.
"I WANT TO WATCH CARTOONS," he shrieked bordering on hysteria. And that's when it all went to hell. He continued to disintegrate further and further each time I clicked the button desperately searching for cartoons, as though the actual fact of me pressing the button was existentially tazing him or something. And then he started to cry. "But I wanted the CARTOONS."
Thankfully, this is when his father stepped in.
"Oh, sorry about that. He doesn't understand broadcast television. He only understands things that stream instantly. He thinks you're torturing him by refusing to put on the show he wants."
Oh my Lord, I thought. This was truly the child of another generation, a child who would grow up without many of the formative experiences of my youth. And that was when I fell down the rabbit hole of nostalgia.
He (clearly) will never understand waiting for his favorite TV show to come on. He will simply watch them on Netflix.
He will likely never watch a video tape of something recorded off TV, in which the editing out of commercials meant the first 3 seconds after every break were missing. Instead, he'll log onto Hulu and find it in its entirety.
And he probably will never have to wait up all of Friday night to hear if he favorite song would come on the radio, finger poised over the record button of his tape player the entire time. Instead, he will download things on ITunes.
Actually, come to think of it, he probably will grow up without knowing what a tape is: without the whir of the player, without the loud click of it reaching the end, without the agony of having just spent 8 minutes rewinding the wrong side.
He will probably never spend most of his life singing the entirely wrong lyrics to his favorite songs ("Secret Asian Man" for instance) only to be corrected by a lucky friend who bought the album and can consult the lyrics in the front booklet. He will simply look all these things up on the internet.
Will he ever, I wonder, learn to look things up in an encyclopedia? Hauling the big volume emblazed with the correct letter off the shelf in order to answer some dinner table quarrel? Likely not. Even my father, who is not far from twenty times his age has a Droid for these types of things.
In many ways, he will have a totally different life. Which makes me wonder, is it always like this? What are the things that our parents said of us, 'I can't believe they'll grow up without..." I can think of some, but I wonder if others are lost to us. Lost to the tides of change where changing channels is as foreign as an 8-track.
What a world we live in.
It wasn't intentional really. He's only 4.
We were all on vacation together (my cousins that is) and his father asked if I might help out by turning on the TV for the little ones. Hoping to get some gold stars in the cool and collected older-relative-without-kids category, I obliged.
"I want cartoons," Mr. 4 year old demanded.
"No problem." I said and flipped on the set. It was on MSNBC so I pressed the channel up button. That wasn't cartoons either. I thought it was no problem. But it was a BIG problem.
"I want carTOOOONS," he screamed.
"Just a second" and I pressed the channel up button again. And didn't find cartoons there either.
"I WANT TO WATCH CARTOONS," he shrieked bordering on hysteria. And that's when it all went to hell. He continued to disintegrate further and further each time I clicked the button desperately searching for cartoons, as though the actual fact of me pressing the button was existentially tazing him or something. And then he started to cry. "But I wanted the CARTOONS."
Thankfully, this is when his father stepped in.
"Oh, sorry about that. He doesn't understand broadcast television. He only understands things that stream instantly. He thinks you're torturing him by refusing to put on the show he wants."
Oh my Lord, I thought. This was truly the child of another generation, a child who would grow up without many of the formative experiences of my youth. And that was when I fell down the rabbit hole of nostalgia.
He (clearly) will never understand waiting for his favorite TV show to come on. He will simply watch them on Netflix.
He will likely never watch a video tape of something recorded off TV, in which the editing out of commercials meant the first 3 seconds after every break were missing. Instead, he'll log onto Hulu and find it in its entirety.
And he probably will never have to wait up all of Friday night to hear if he favorite song would come on the radio, finger poised over the record button of his tape player the entire time. Instead, he will download things on ITunes.
Actually, come to think of it, he probably will grow up without knowing what a tape is: without the whir of the player, without the loud click of it reaching the end, without the agony of having just spent 8 minutes rewinding the wrong side.
He will probably never spend most of his life singing the entirely wrong lyrics to his favorite songs ("Secret Asian Man" for instance) only to be corrected by a lucky friend who bought the album and can consult the lyrics in the front booklet. He will simply look all these things up on the internet.
Will he ever, I wonder, learn to look things up in an encyclopedia? Hauling the big volume emblazed with the correct letter off the shelf in order to answer some dinner table quarrel? Likely not. Even my father, who is not far from twenty times his age has a Droid for these types of things.
In many ways, he will have a totally different life. Which makes me wonder, is it always like this? What are the things that our parents said of us, 'I can't believe they'll grow up without..." I can think of some, but I wonder if others are lost to us. Lost to the tides of change where changing channels is as foreign as an 8-track.
What a world we live in.
Bean Town
I never know what to say when people ask me if I love living in Boston. There are things I love about it, sure, and other things I despise about it. But it will always have a special place in my heart. The only salient metaphor that I can find is (probably no surprise to many of you) cooking. If I were, for instance, to write a recipe for the city of Boston, it would go something like this:
Add rugged indigenous peoples. Let sit one thousand years.
Incorporate a good number of self-righteous British Puritans. Stir until sour. Add cranberries, turkeys, fur, and maple syrup. Remove any visible witches.
Let a thick crust of patriotism develop over all.
Set over heat and allow to boil until revolutionary influences begin to thicken. Take off heat. Strain out any British influences with a tea strainer.**
Freeze.
In a separate bowl, place several major educational institutions and allow to rise.
Slowly pour educational mixture into frozen Puritan mixture, and whip until it holds a sense of cultural superiority. Sprinkle with sea salt.
Fold in abolitionist tendencies.
Freeze again.
Add several waves of immigrants. Mix after each addition.
Let mixture ferment in a hot and humid location until you notice that the patriotic strains have lain dormant for long enough to transform into a fanatic sports obsession at least strong enough to support 4 professional sports franchises. Layer with ridiculous product endorsements. Add two tablespoons Dunkin' Donuts coffee.
Simmer with river water for several decades. Slowly pour in 1.5 million aggressive drivers. Make sure not to add any street signs.
Sprinkle with 180,000 college students.
Serve frozen.
*To make completely from scratch, use the "Planet" recipe on page 96,000,000.
** Use one if by land, two by sea.
Boston
Take One established coastal landscape with a relatively extreme climate.*Add rugged indigenous peoples. Let sit one thousand years.
Incorporate a good number of self-righteous British Puritans. Stir until sour. Add cranberries, turkeys, fur, and maple syrup. Remove any visible witches.
Let a thick crust of patriotism develop over all.
Set over heat and allow to boil until revolutionary influences begin to thicken. Take off heat. Strain out any British influences with a tea strainer.**
Freeze.
In a separate bowl, place several major educational institutions and allow to rise.
Slowly pour educational mixture into frozen Puritan mixture, and whip until it holds a sense of cultural superiority. Sprinkle with sea salt.
Fold in abolitionist tendencies.
Freeze again.
Add several waves of immigrants. Mix after each addition.
Let mixture ferment in a hot and humid location until you notice that the patriotic strains have lain dormant for long enough to transform into a fanatic sports obsession at least strong enough to support 4 professional sports franchises. Layer with ridiculous product endorsements. Add two tablespoons Dunkin' Donuts coffee.
Simmer with river water for several decades. Slowly pour in 1.5 million aggressive drivers. Make sure not to add any street signs.
Sprinkle with 180,000 college students.
Serve frozen.
*To make completely from scratch, use the "Planet" recipe on page 96,000,000.
** Use one if by land, two by sea.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
It Just Has to Stop
Okay. That's it. It's time for a little coming-to-Jesus meeting. Not an actual come-over-to-Jesus-camp meeting but a hey-heads-up-folks-this-is-getting-ridiculous meeting. And it goes like this. Non-religios: You MUST must must must must MUST stop being so awkward about me being a minister.
When I became a minister, I was fully aware that talking about my work could be sort of a buzz kill for a lot of folks. And it is. Trust me, I get this. It's not like saying you're a doctor ("Cool! Want to see this rash on my ankle?!") or a teacher ("You are a saint to put up with all those kids!") or any of the numerous vague jobs people have that no one really understands but feels comfortable letting slide by without asking too many questions. But having to say your a minister is just different....in a put down your beer quietly and stop using the f-word from this point forward kind of way. (Ironic, as I have a deep love of both these things.)
For my part, I have attempted to alleviate this by devising numerous strategic responses to the inevitable hard-swallowing, neck-torquing intensity of the moment when the cocktail party conversation turns to me and asks what I do for a living and I have to oblige. Sometimes, I say "I work at a church," which allows a small percentage of people to imagine me as a church secretary or preschool teacher and proceed without another thought. Sometimes I say "I'm a teacher," which is also true but a little bit of a cop-out. I've contemplated many other tongue-in-cheek responses such as "I'm in sales" or "I run a non-profit" or "I do institutional strategy." But truthfully, I've never really had the guts to pull one of them off because I fear the follow-up questions. Actually, my most successful strategy when greeting people I don't yet know is to say, "This is going to be a bit of a buzz kill, but I'm actually a Presbyterian minister." Kill 'em with comedy, I always say. It's awkward. But it's my life. And I knew it would be.
The part of all this that I wasn't prepared to deal with is that while many people will eventually integrate this idea and move on with whatever fun program of drunkenness and debauchery they were on before, there are other people that absolutely CANNOT move beyond this in a reasonable, mature way. Which leads to massive amounts of awkwardness all around.
Case in point: We (as in, Mr. L and I) have a number of sets of friends who, though seemingly interested in me as a person and delighted my general hilarity*, ABSOLUTELY refuse to EVER acknowledge that I am a minister. In fact, they avoid the topic like the plague. They won't ask me about it, won't talk about it, won't EVER let on that they even know (except that I know they do). All this is fairly amazing given that in adult conversation, one has to go pretty far out of the way to avoid asking someone else about their work life, likely the activity that takes up 70% of their waking hours. It is especially awkward when we find ourselves doing the rounds of "Oh, how's your work?" and "Are you still liking your job?" and "How did that interview go?" and when it gets to me, suddenly it morphs into "Oh, but what have you baked these days?"** Or "Anything interesting around the condo building lately?" Some people will go so far--and this is not an exaggeration, but you're going to think it is--as to NOT RESPOND at all if I mention something about my work. I'll say, "Oh, the other day at the church....blah, blah, blah....something hilarious...blah, blah,blah," and they'll simply stare back at me blankly as if I hadn't even said anything at all and then change the topic.***
What's really strikes me as bizarre about all this is that I have been surrounded by people who aren't religious all my life. And somehow many of those people, my closest friends from adolescence and college, especially, have always found ways to ask about my faith and my work and show their interest even if they didn't fully understand it. But now I find myself surrounded by this bizarre subset of folks who act as though me saying I'm a minister is akin to me saying I torture puppies for a living or that I'm a professional Dungeons and Dragons instructor.
I can't tell if this comes from some deep-seated**** fear that somewhere hidden inside me is a crazy fundamentalist Christian just waiting to pop out and tell everyone they are going to hell or perhaps it is simply a complete lack of religious awareness leading to a "File Not Found" pop up in their brains that makes them go totally blank.***** But I tell you what: I can't take too much more of it. This can't be that difficult. I meet people all the time who tell me crazy stuff about themselves that I don't understand at all (like that they are conservative-Tea-Party-Republicans who think we should eliminate all immigration in this country or that they believe in unicorns), and I don't go all black-belt-ninja-of-awkwardness-silent-treatment on their ass. I simply smile and nod and ask some general questions about it as it clearly is important to them and also I'm not a jerk.
What general questions, you say? How about starting it off easy with such as: "So, how are things at the church?" (You can usually continue with: "Oh, it's going bankrupt? I'm so sorry to hear that.") Or you could try something more direct such as: "You know, I have no idea what the heck you do all day." or "It's so strange that you work at a church. I feel like I can't use the f-word around you." At which point I will have the opportunity to tell you a bit about my life, which may be highly entertaining to you, will likely make liberal use of expletives and will definitely help us all feel edified in the end.
I'm not asking you to come to Jesus camp. I'm just asking you not to throw a strip of awkward nails under the bus I'm riding there. Capiche?
*Okay, okay. That's a little self-aggrandizing, I know. But this is a blog about my life, so it sort of fits.
** Some really awesome shit, by the way.
***For those of you concerned about my tendencies toward exaggeration, don't fret. I can verify that this is ACTUALLY HAPPENING because Mr. L also notices and will periodically say, "It's strange that we didn't talk about your work that whole (fill in time period: night, weekend, LIFE, etc.), huh?"
**** Okay, I just typed deep-seeded (which is probably what I've been saying my whole life) and my spell checker caught it. This is like the time I told Mr. L that we had to go see a Notar Republic. How did I make it this far without being exposed as a complete idiot? Yet another mystery to probe in the blog-o-sphere.
***** If the former is what's happening, you're just going to have to get over your religious ignorance and fear. When someone tells me they are a banker, I am not irrationally fearful that they are going to steal all the money in my IRA and invest it in the sub-prime mortgage market. That would be silly.
When I became a minister, I was fully aware that talking about my work could be sort of a buzz kill for a lot of folks. And it is. Trust me, I get this. It's not like saying you're a doctor ("Cool! Want to see this rash on my ankle?!") or a teacher ("You are a saint to put up with all those kids!") or any of the numerous vague jobs people have that no one really understands but feels comfortable letting slide by without asking too many questions. But having to say your a minister is just different....in a put down your beer quietly and stop using the f-word from this point forward kind of way. (Ironic, as I have a deep love of both these things.)
For my part, I have attempted to alleviate this by devising numerous strategic responses to the inevitable hard-swallowing, neck-torquing intensity of the moment when the cocktail party conversation turns to me and asks what I do for a living and I have to oblige. Sometimes, I say "I work at a church," which allows a small percentage of people to imagine me as a church secretary or preschool teacher and proceed without another thought. Sometimes I say "I'm a teacher," which is also true but a little bit of a cop-out. I've contemplated many other tongue-in-cheek responses such as "I'm in sales" or "I run a non-profit" or "I do institutional strategy." But truthfully, I've never really had the guts to pull one of them off because I fear the follow-up questions. Actually, my most successful strategy when greeting people I don't yet know is to say, "This is going to be a bit of a buzz kill, but I'm actually a Presbyterian minister." Kill 'em with comedy, I always say. It's awkward. But it's my life. And I knew it would be.
The part of all this that I wasn't prepared to deal with is that while many people will eventually integrate this idea and move on with whatever fun program of drunkenness and debauchery they were on before, there are other people that absolutely CANNOT move beyond this in a reasonable, mature way. Which leads to massive amounts of awkwardness all around.
Case in point: We (as in, Mr. L and I) have a number of sets of friends who, though seemingly interested in me as a person and delighted my general hilarity*, ABSOLUTELY refuse to EVER acknowledge that I am a minister. In fact, they avoid the topic like the plague. They won't ask me about it, won't talk about it, won't EVER let on that they even know (except that I know they do). All this is fairly amazing given that in adult conversation, one has to go pretty far out of the way to avoid asking someone else about their work life, likely the activity that takes up 70% of their waking hours. It is especially awkward when we find ourselves doing the rounds of "Oh, how's your work?" and "Are you still liking your job?" and "How did that interview go?" and when it gets to me, suddenly it morphs into "Oh, but what have you baked these days?"** Or "Anything interesting around the condo building lately?" Some people will go so far--and this is not an exaggeration, but you're going to think it is--as to NOT RESPOND at all if I mention something about my work. I'll say, "Oh, the other day at the church....blah, blah, blah....something hilarious...blah, blah,blah," and they'll simply stare back at me blankly as if I hadn't even said anything at all and then change the topic.***
What's really strikes me as bizarre about all this is that I have been surrounded by people who aren't religious all my life. And somehow many of those people, my closest friends from adolescence and college, especially, have always found ways to ask about my faith and my work and show their interest even if they didn't fully understand it. But now I find myself surrounded by this bizarre subset of folks who act as though me saying I'm a minister is akin to me saying I torture puppies for a living or that I'm a professional Dungeons and Dragons instructor.
I can't tell if this comes from some deep-seated**** fear that somewhere hidden inside me is a crazy fundamentalist Christian just waiting to pop out and tell everyone they are going to hell or perhaps it is simply a complete lack of religious awareness leading to a "File Not Found" pop up in their brains that makes them go totally blank.***** But I tell you what: I can't take too much more of it. This can't be that difficult. I meet people all the time who tell me crazy stuff about themselves that I don't understand at all (like that they are conservative-Tea-Party-Republicans who think we should eliminate all immigration in this country or that they believe in unicorns), and I don't go all black-belt-ninja-of-awkwardness-silent-treatment on their ass. I simply smile and nod and ask some general questions about it as it clearly is important to them and also I'm not a jerk.
What general questions, you say? How about starting it off easy with such as: "So, how are things at the church?" (You can usually continue with: "Oh, it's going bankrupt? I'm so sorry to hear that.") Or you could try something more direct such as: "You know, I have no idea what the heck you do all day." or "It's so strange that you work at a church. I feel like I can't use the f-word around you." At which point I will have the opportunity to tell you a bit about my life, which may be highly entertaining to you, will likely make liberal use of expletives and will definitely help us all feel edified in the end.
I'm not asking you to come to Jesus camp. I'm just asking you not to throw a strip of awkward nails under the bus I'm riding there. Capiche?
*Okay, okay. That's a little self-aggrandizing, I know. But this is a blog about my life, so it sort of fits.
** Some really awesome shit, by the way.
***For those of you concerned about my tendencies toward exaggeration, don't fret. I can verify that this is ACTUALLY HAPPENING because Mr. L also notices and will periodically say, "It's strange that we didn't talk about your work that whole (fill in time period: night, weekend, LIFE, etc.), huh?"
**** Okay, I just typed deep-seeded (which is probably what I've been saying my whole life) and my spell checker caught it. This is like the time I told Mr. L that we had to go see a Notar Republic. How did I make it this far without being exposed as a complete idiot? Yet another mystery to probe in the blog-o-sphere.
***** If the former is what's happening, you're just going to have to get over your religious ignorance and fear. When someone tells me they are a banker, I am not irrationally fearful that they are going to steal all the money in my IRA and invest it in the sub-prime mortgage market. That would be silly.
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