"Mortal lock"

I was having a misguided conversation with a friend the other day. They weren't misguided, I was. I said, in effect, that I despise seeing the seams. I don't wanna see the quirky girl with the big headphones try to be Natalie Portman in Garden State. I don't like it when guys ceaselessly quote cartoons and pass it off as wit. I said we're looking at the wrong things. And then I bemoaned anyone who would model themselves off of anybody. That's where the misguided comes in. That's such an idiotic thought. Of course we're gonna model ourselves out of people we want to be. There are people worth modeling ourselves after, we just have to find them and trust their goodness. Christ, for example. If I see you and I can see the seams of your efforts to model yourself after Jesus Christ, I'm not gonna mind. John Spencer's voice is crisp. That's the word I was looking for. It's not gravelly or hazy, it's crisp like autumn leaves. I sincerely wish for him to tell me a story sometime.

"Can I have this muffin?"

My mom was a George Carlin fan. I didn't know anybody's mom was a George Carlin fan. Irregardless of the 10-page behemoth that lay before me, I'm at a very good place in my life right now. Just days ago I found out that my apartment number is #135. Building 1, floor 3. I won't have anyone above me, but those two days moving in and moving out will most assuredly be a pain in the hindquarters. Now this is just one of those things where I pretend that people care to read "Dear diary, today I woke up and had a bagel. It was good. I like bagels. Then I went to school. I was bored during class and my mind drifted" Out of the thirty some books on my bookshelf, I've completely read less than five of them. This is nothing but shameful on my part. I kinda want to read "The Audacity of Hope" to gear up for what the next eight years is gonna look like. The Presidential campaign of Barack Obama is the most brilliantly run campaign in the last 25 years of American politics. He'll win, but I would rather he not. Not because he's a secret Muslim negro or because he didn't put his hand over his heart one time or because his wife hates white people or because he doesn't wear a flag lapel pin or because he didn't serve in the military. I'd rather him not because I, along with several other people, like money and would like to keep the money I earn and spend it, save it, tithe it, and donate it as I see fit. Barack Obama thinks me having more money than somebody else is bad. Barack Obama wants the guy who doesn't have as much money as I do to have as much as I do. This will be another Presidency of gross imcompetence but this time it's gonna be bathed in the sheen of mass media skeet-juice and the reflexive racial gestapo and ther American public, ill-informed as they are, will buy into the idea that a ham sandwich would be a more worthy successor to the office than Cowboy George. I say the last eight years and the next eight years are gonna be neck and neck.

"You bought their love"

I don't get couples who watch movies together. I mean I get it, but I don't really get it. I think it's just the easiest segway between "You look nice tonight" and "Let's get on a couch get our limbs and legs entangled with one another in the dark" It's the effortless reason to turn the lights off and have no obligation to talk. You don't want the entree, the movie, you just want the dessert. And for the movie's duration, you don't have to look at your other, but you can certainly touch them. That's what the movie's for. Paul Thomas Anderson who? Die Hard which? No honey, let my hands talk to your's for 120 minutes because this is the peak of our communication abilities. And this, friends, is physicality at its meekest. Cheap and pitiable. I was watching a thing last night and the mom was mad at the father for giving the children sweets against her wishes. They weren't young but they were flirtacious and peppy, a real banterful couple. The mom said "You bought their love" and the father replied "Well, it was for sale and I wanted it" I wonder how many writers spend their entire lives trying to write an exchange like that. I watched Dan in Real Life last night. It was pretty bleak for a mainstream thing. His kids hate him, he's a whiny loser, his family's fun and great but he's not. My favorite scene is that, after some amount of time in the movie with unrequited love for this woman, Dan and Marie sneak off and go bowling together. The old lady working the desk sees the lovely couple and switches off the house lights and switches on the party lights. So it's kinda cheap but beautiful in a way. You can see their silhouettes as light dances on the walls above the lanes. After kidding around for a while they hug each other and then, so very naturally, start kissing. Then it turns into a big one and it's a beautiful frame. Juliette Binoche is beautiful and Carell, well, he can be beautiful too. So it's a great little mini-fantasy moment. Then Dan's family comes in and starts yelling at them. That was my favorite scene in the movie.

"I mind you doing it out loud"

I want a Joey Lucas. Or maybe skip the "A" part, maybe I actually just want a hearing-impaired pollster cutie. We certainly won't talk each other's ears off, but there's other parts of the body that speak more articulately than those often painful noises that come out of one's mouth anyway. We'd make it alright. I don't who she is or where she is or the color of her hair. Maybe I'll just shack up with Kenny. I've been comparing a lot of things in life to getting aroused, which is not for the sake of vulgarity but for the sake of comparison. You get an idea or an impetus for something that might be worth talking about you better get it down and get it done before it eludes you. They don't make pills that warn to call your doctor if you have an idea that lasts four hours or longer. Maybe that pill is actually LSD. I should try it sometime. A huge tree fell in a neighbor's yard, so all day long you can look out our living room window and see cars going in reverse, pulling into our driveway and going the other way, forced to change direction. I wonder what everyone's inital reactions are. Is it annoyance, like a mosquito bite you didn't know you had? Is it anger at not being able to go the way you imagined? It's easy to make a person cry for the wrong reasons but I deeply cover the rare moments when you can do it for the right ones.

"Front row, on your right"

I am humbled by the ceaseless grace that seems to find me. I am floored by the magnificent beauty all around. I laugh and I weep when confronted with the inarguable evidence of God's face. I just don't see how it's possible sometimes. I don't see who saw fit to give a person like me all the things I've been allowed to know in this life. One of my favorite convictions is conviction of greatness, of the near-perfection of a moment. And in that moment is when I surrender to the truth of truth, self-evident in all that heaven will allow, I can feel God's hand in this life. I touch it. And in that moment my praise is his. I think this is how I worship.