the most awkward backdrop to the end of a sermon i have ever seen
(the show must go on)


a day earlier, i commented to my father-in-law that the last thing a person wants during a football game is perspective. that moment after a play when a player doesn't get up. laying there motionless on the ground, something has gone awry that prevents his body and mind to tag-team up and take him back to the huddle. all of a sudden, the spectator is ripped away from his painted face. the obscenities he has yelled in the direction of the field or the television seem really, really trivial and shallow. the fun (for the moment) is gone, and you are slapped in the face with the reality that people can and do get hurt playing a game. a game that, for you, is entertainment. a game that allows a person to take a step away from a busy and stressful and lonely and broken world and yell and scream for a team that you may or may not have a good reason to be invested in. i hate those moments. the last thing you want during a football game is perspective.

fast forward to last sunday morning and toward the end of rick's sermon. a choir member falls out of her chair and onto the floor of the choir loft. the congregation notices the scene moments (although it felt like an hour) before the pastor does and he continues his message. finally, someone (or the murmur from the crowd in front of him) gets his attention and he turns around to check on the fallen choir member. from what i am told, rick is told that janice is ok. she just got hot. or lightheaded. she just needs to lay down. from my seat in the balcony, i do not get this memo. from my seat in the balcony, i wonder what in the world we are waiting on with regards to taking care of our fellow worship leader. rick stops, prays, and then comes the part that i have struggled with for three days. he finishes his sermon.

i am sure it was truncated and amended from his outline. but he finished. if you have any idea of the content of the end of the sermon post-janice falling, then you are a more focused person than i. then we sang a closing hymn? and then we ended the service with a benediction and a final verse as the cross, acolytes, and pastor exited all the while janice is still laying in the choir loft. there has been no announcement that she is ok. i guess it was understood. surely, the service would not have continued to it's routine end if she wasn't. but is that even the point? to me, my family, others in the balcony, and those throughout the church without firsthand knowledge of the goings on in the choir loft, we are left with the impression...the perception...that finishing out the service was more important than the immediate well-being of the choir member laying on the wooden floor at the front of the church.

i've gone back and forth with this. and i know rick was in a tough spot. it's his role to make sure that the congregation stays calm. that he doesn't act in a way that would cause people to panic when, in his heart, he knows there is no reason to. but as much as i understand the decision he made, i still haven't been able to agree with it.

perhaps it played in his favor that it wasn't sarah in the loft that passed out. that janice didn't have someone racing up the aisle that would have, to a greater degree, added to the confusion and awkwardness that was already thick enough that you could feel it sunday morning.

the last thing you want during a football game is perspective. to the contrary, personally, the first thing i look for in and at church is perspective. an environment where perception and reality meet because they are one and the same. that notion is still very much an idealism at huffman (probably every church), but it is something we must strive for. we are there for each other, right? from our pulpit, on many an occasion, we have minimized the importance of worship on sunday morning if it doesn't mean anything the rest of the week. shouldn't that idea ring true even if the "show" is interrupted. right or wrong, shouldn't we have just prayed for janice and for us and said, janice is going to be fine, but for the sake of being sure, we are going to end it here today?

who knows what i would have done had i been in rick's shoes. in the heat of the moment, i don't know. i know what my gut told me at the time what we should've done, but i don't know if i could've acted on those instincts.

i hope so.

happy thanksgiving, everyone
(family is something i am not an expert on)


i just got off the phone with my mom. i have been avoiding her for a month now. why? i have no idea. well, i have an idea, i just don't have a good reason i don't suppose. why not? because when it comes down to it, my mom probably cares for me (i mean, genuinely cares) more than anyone in this world. maybe just as much as sarah and hannah. maybe a couple of others. who knows. but she is right up there in the "i care for kevin" department. you would think that i would want to hold a person like that close. make sure that we talk often. make sure she knows that, on some level, i still care for her as much as she does for me. for the last few years, though, i haven't. my mom has problems. don't we all? for years now she has been locked into a state of mind that i will never be able to understand. depression. it's a tough pill to swallow. for the person that's depressed. maybe just as much for the folks around that person that don't get it. because of this state of mind, my method for resolving my mental fatigue in having to deal with her situation has been to withdraw from her. almost completely. we speak every so often. and when we do, it's fine. better than that. it's nice. but most of the time, all i can think about is her bad choice in men, her struggle to maintain her sanity, and most of all her transformation away from the incredibly strong single-mom that she is and was in my best memories of her. i will not see her or talk to her tomorrow. on thanksgiving.

then there's my dad. his new family is another one that i don't get for the most part. i think my dad cares for me in the same way my mother does. he just doesn't know how to show it anymore. i have a stepbrother that i care deeply about, but as we grow older, it's becoming obvious that we share less and less in common. i think my step-mother likes me most of the time, but to say that we are close would be a drastic overstatement. the rest of that family is indifferent in a very nice way to how i relate to them, and that will, most likely, be the case for as long as we are "family". i will not see or talk to any of these people tomorrow. on thanksgiving.

and then there's brian. my dear brother. who's in florida rehabbing. from drugs. from an unfortunate lot in life. from all sorts of things. from what i hear and heard personally several months ago, he's continually doing "better". we always wanted him to get better. fact was, he was always fine. he just did drugs because they loved him more than he felt like his family did and does. i'll continue to take the "no news is good news" approach with brian. for all we went through and shared together, good and bad, it's a shame i won't talk to him tomorrow. on thanksgiving.

sarah's family. i will see them and talk to them tomorrow. and i'll be totally happy. with them, there isn't anything bad to speak of. they seem to like me and i'll continue to try and not give them good reason not to. i can't wait for tomorrow. my wife. my girl. my family-in-law that treats me like one of their own without my asking. it's really quite cathartic. it's really, really nice.

thanksgiving. the calendar has a very mischievous way of slapping "normal" in your face several times a year. "normal" would be nice. but then again, "normal" would have led me away from the family that i will share turkey and dressing with tomorrow. so, fuck "normal".

this isn't self-pity. it's only the truth. and the truth hurts sometimes. but the truth also helps to define who i am at this very moment. and in this moment, i could not be more content.

happy thanksgiving.

michael vick is a rock star
(why i am not so sure that's a good thing)


it finally happened. i can check this one thing off my list. i got to see one of my most serious man-crushes, michael freakin' vick, in person sunday afternoon. the game set-up to be the kind of dream game that any michael vick or falcons fan would love to see. the lowly cleveland browns were coming to town. other than having a really good tight end, about the best thing you could say about the browns as a football team going into sunday was that they "played hard", they "were a scrappy team", or that they still have some of the most kick-ass uniforms in all of sports.

we got to the dome in plenty of time to see mike make his pre-game entrance. even with less than 10,000 fans in the stadium an hour before kick-off, his applause was different than that directed towards other players coming out as he made his way to perform his passing drills. he looked cool, of course. socks weren't pulled up. chin-strap only half-buckled. just cool. i couldn't take my eyes off of him. i was in awe. nothing i saw in pre-game, though, prepared me for the announcements of the starting line-up when the stadium filled up.

it's tradition for the home team to introduce the offensive starting 11 and let them make their entrance one by one, and the falcons were no different. first the offensive line. then the non-descript wide receivers (who, by the way, could not catch a fucking ball sunday...except for you roddy white. you did uab proud.), and then finally the stars.

first, the tight end..."ALGE CRUMPLER".....the crowd roared.

then, at running back..."WARRICK DUNN"....the crowd roars even louder for mighty, little warrick dunn.

and finally, at quarterback..."MICHAEL (FREAKIN') VICK...i cannot describe to you in words the roar of the crowd following the introduction of their elvis. and vick totally plays to the crowd. all the other players jog out onto the field, maybe waving their arms encouraging the crowd to "get loud", but they all jog out and meet their teammates. not mike. mike walks slowly out of the tunnel. head down. socks still down. chin-strap still only half-buckled. there is absolutely no fucking question he is the coolest cat in the city of atlanta at this very moment. mike walks out slowly. the crowd is eating it up and yelling like this may be their last chance ever to yell. mike stops about ten yards out of the tunnel and raises his arms slowly. the roar, then and there, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. it was insane! and awesome!

a funny thing happened after the game kicked off. michael freakin' vick sucked. i mean, he played really, really bad. 16-40 bad. two interceptions bad. a fumble that appropriately ended the game bad. sure, his wideouts, other than uab, couldn't catch a ball even if the football was velcro and they were wearing two of those velcro-catching mitts like i had back in the day. but, this game was on mike. he had a couple of those michael vick moments where he tears down the field and he is the fastest guy on the field by far and you just know he's going to score, but make no mistake, michael vick lost this game pretty much single-handedly.

as sarah and i made our way back to marta and to our car, i heard voice after voice comment on how bad vick was. how the falcons need to trade him now when they can get something back for him. how he's never going to be consistent enough to take the falcons to a super bowl. all of that may be premature. it may not.

as a rock star, michael vick is an animal. he's david lee roth. axl rose. michael jackson during the thriller years. he's the aforementioned elvis. the only thing about those guys, though, is that the older they got, the more you kind of realized that they all kind of sucked.

michael vick is still my man. i hope to see him again in person soon. and as a rock star, he is an animal. as a super bowl caliber quarterback, well...

the jury is still out.

why andy doesn't write anymore
(appointment surfing)

one of my dearest friends in the world, andy rickles, has not updated his online blog/journal/diary/whathaveyou in working on three months. why is that, i wonder. has he run out of things to say? has the "man" made him weary of expressing his innermost thoughts and ponderings online for fear that the "concerned" might make a stink? has, god forbid, andy had his hands chewed off by an overaggressive or just plain hungry raccoon and therefore lost the ability to type on his own? let's hope not. deep down, i believe the answer may just be that andy has been busy, but his lack of updates make me sad anyway.

why? because andy's journal is part of my everyday online surfing routine. i have noticed that my internet wandering is just about as broad in scope as my musical tastes, which is to say not very. every day or evening that i have some extra time to spend online, i go through pretty much the same routine as far as what i try to accomplish and what sites i try to visit before i call an end to my computer time. check my e-mail. respond to e-mail. write new e-mail. check my journal. check espn.com. check my fantasy site. check si.com. check dan shanoff's blog (you can never have too much opinion on sports, in my opinion.) check ew.com. check my various music websites. look at hannah's website. check andy's journal. check chris perry's journal.

and that's about it. now, certainly, there are other random sites that i will visit depending on what's going on in my day or the world in general. i am a big fan of rottentomatoes. i will check the weather from time to time. check cnn. or msnbc. for a long time, i tried to keep up with folks from huffman's journals to keep up with their away from church lives, but that seems to have almost played itself out. most have transferred their attention to myspace. or facebook. or college. or somewhere else. and i don't have the time or energy to dive into that pool. but for the most part, though, all of my time is focused on the content of the sites in the above paragraph.

it's kind of funny. i don't think i realized until recently how narrow my view of the world wide web was. and honestly, i suppose i don't have enough time to try and find just a lot more that may or may not improve my surfing experience. on a given off day or day that i may be closing the store, i can spend hours on espn alone.

and that brings me back to andy. his journal is one that i look forward to because he is, for one, my dog. but it's also insightful and pointed in the way he feels his life reflects god to others. most of the time, he would write about something that he and i wouldn't necessarily talk about in our own face to face conversations. and that was the fun part. a peek into his soul. i think that's what a good journal is anyway. i read some and think, "yeah, that was a good point, but that's something i can hear you saying anyway." give me something new. something you may be a little anxious for your world to know about you.

this isn't me calling andy out. both of our schedules are busy. and we don't get to do dreamland nearly enough. i guess it was a little easier to bridge the gaps between ribs when i got an occasional taste of the conversation we might have through his journal. hell, i wish i could write everyday, but family and work sometimes have to take priority. probably, more than anything else, this post is a commentary on me feeling like something's been missing from my life for a couple months and me just this morning realizing what it might have been.

as red from shawshank said to himself about his own andy..."i guess i just miss my friend."

the fall season finale?
(what the crap does that mean?)


i read on jacob sutton's journal that this was going to happen, but i didn't want to believe it. that lost was going to air six episodes, then take a huge break, then come back for a run after the new year, but this sucks. i've been happy with four of the five new ones so far, and it really feels like the show is picking up some serious smoke monster. so, what is going to happen on the "MOST...IMPORTANT...LOST...EVER"? Probably nothing huge, but i'll watch and be disappointed next week that i have to wait for months to not have any of the questions answered that i want answered. please, why do i watch this show??? oh, and by the way, do we really need to be introduced to the "new couple"? aren't there enough characters that we don't spend any time with already? oh well.

so, i made it to my 100th post. it took one year and ten days. not too bad. it's been a good year. i want to go back and read all my nonsense again soon, but it all still feels very fresh on my mind as it is. i remember just like it was yesterday the shit storm after my venting about the church not having a halloween carnival. it's sad that, this year, it's a non-issue. it's a thing of the past. something we used to do. RIP box maze. may the happier colors in the newly painted GQ spawn something equally magnificent someday. no, really. i mean it. honestly.

i think i need to fiddle with my journal. change up the color scheme. keep it interesting. for me at the very least. i do like my look, but maybe it's time for a change.

my birthday was a very good day. saw a lot of people that i wanted to see. heard from a lot more. i am happy to report that the sky has yet to fall on my weary shoulders. maybe my shoulders are just getting stronger.

thanksgiving is just around the corner. oh...my...god. i can already taste the dressing. the coca-cola salad. the dressing. the sweet potatoes (with marshmellows on top?). the dressing. oh, sweet november. please move as quickly as did october. i need to start conditioning my body. i am out of practice. one meal a day will not expand my stomach to the extent that it needs to be pulled and stretched to make room for the dressing.

i think it's time to start playing again.

i think i really like heroes.

i think i am going to color a card for both michael vick and lebron james, send them their cards, and hope that they call me.

i think that 30 rock may take lost's slot in my viewing week. i now will need a wednesday show. i haven't been able to give it much of a chance.

i think that i will miss studio 60 after it is yanked.

i think cookie cakes are the bomb.

i think the dick from last thanksgiving really gets on my nerves (cue soundclip in my head from rocky V).

i think it's time for a metaphor. this sunday, perhaps?

then i'll cut the grass for the last time this season.

sweet.