my fantasy team is better than yours
(and some of it is my fault)


ok. this one's just for me. sorry. i've said this before, but i am fully aware that no one cares about my fantasy football exploits. and yet, i insist on writing about them. oh well. if this is my only display of narcissism today, you can consider it a victory.

i played the humble card less than a month ago when i was championing having clinched my fantasy football league title with three weeks remaining in the regular season. i said things like, "your (fantasy) fortunes come down to a whole lot of luck." and there is some truth to that. there is also some truth in saying that good luck played a role in my, now, having run the table completely and finished the regular season unde-freaking-feated!!! luck played a role, but so did i. let's take a look.

in my november 12th post, i pointed out how "lucky" i was for the depth on my team, good depth being the primary foundation for any solid team, fantasy or real. if you are only as good as your best player, you are bound to fail. this is no different in fantasy. i pointed to, as examples of my depth, my three first-year running backs i drafted late, all of whom have had stellar seasons for ball-carriers period, much less for rookie ones. here's the deal, though. i drafted them. and again, i drafted them all late. forte in round seven (reasonable). chris johnson of the titans in round 12 (the only player drafted in that round making any sort of fantasy impact). and steve slaton? i got him in round 16 (16 of 18!)!!! some people might call that luck. today, i will call it foresight and proof that i am better at this than you. and you. and you. and you. and you. and you. and you. and you. and you. is that nine "you"'s? i think so. so, to the nine of you that were drafting team defenses and kickers anywhere before the last five rounds of the draft, let this be a lesson to you. undefeated seasons are built on rookie running backs, not kickers. not this year.

second point. in head-to-head fantasy leagues, bad luck will usually slap you in the face a couple times a year with regards to your team's output versus the rest of the league. what i mean is, inevitably, you will post the second-highest point total in the league one or two weeks but just so happen to be playing the dude (or dudette...no girl has ever graced our league) with the highest-point total. this makes you want to scoop your eyes out of your head with a spoon. for days after that game is over, you will be telling yourself and everyone that will listen that you "would have beat EVERY other team in the league. this is so unfair!" and then your friend will either hang up on you or not respond to your email because this has already happened to him twice this year and he could give a shit about your fantasy team even though he's playing with you. this always happens. well, not always. it didn't happen to me this year. have i mentioned i went 13-0 yet?

as an addendum to the last point, i will also make this one. the best measure you have in fantasy is your total rotisserie points, the points your team has accumulated over the course of the season. this stat doesn't take into account what team you were lucky or unlucky enough to be playing and how many points they did or did not score. it just keeps a running total of your starter's points for the entire season. most of the time, this one stat will tell you how "lucky" you've actually been. if, through ten games, you have, let's say, the 6th highest rotisserie total in the league but the second or third best record, chances are you've been pretty lucky. you are playing bad teams at the right time or playing good teams having bad weeks and you are winning against the percentages. with a full season now to look at, i can see what teams in my league should have been good and which teams should not have. in this crucial stat, i was the best team in the league. and it wasn't even that close. my lowest point total of the year? 123.5. the lowest total in the league this year? 67. my team didn't have an "off" week, relative to the other teams. not one. suck it.

lastly, individual roster moves on any given week will rarely make the difference in an outcome. fantasy players may tell you that they had joe so-and-so on their bench and "if i had only played them" over joe superstar, they would have beat you. whatever. the truth of the matter is that no one sits their joe superstar. it just doesn't happen. that's why they are superstars. you draft them specifically so you never have to question them being in your line-up. their real-life opponent shouldn't make a difference. they will produce for you. maybe not monster numbers every week. but you will be happy having them on your team and in your line-up. the individual roster moves that drive fantasy guys (and girls?....again, iv'e never met one. i do hear they exist.) crazy are usually the ones of very little consequence. which tight end should i start? which kicker? which third wide receiver? who cares? they are all going to score 6 points for you anyway. don't worry about it! just stick someone in. oh, if i could only practice what i preach here. quarterbacks taken in the first four rounds of the draft fall underneath the category of joe superstars. i took mine (donovan mcnabb) in round three. it doesn't change your thinking even if they are playing a stellar defense. you drafted them this high. unless they are hurt or on their bye week, you play them. right? well, the one exception i made to this rule allowed me to remain undefeated. coming off a piss-poor performance in week eleven and facing the ravens in week 12, i benched my joe superstar quarterback. i was certain this move would backfire. it didn't. i replaced him with kerry collins. collins scored 18 points for me. mcnabb that week? negative 6. a 24 point swing. i won the week by two points, by far my most narrow margin of victory of the season. it. was. brilliant.

i could give you more examples of my domination. but i won't. the case is clear. all evidence for a proper verdict has been presented. i have just completed the fantasy football regular season that any man (or woman) geek enough to brag about it dreams of. undefeated. and proud of it. and a lot of it was my fault. so, there.

one thought of mine has not changed since november 12. i still fully expect to be bounced out of the playoffs. my braggadocio will receive it's karmic payback in full. i am aware of this. and i am ok with that. a fantasy playoff champion happens every year. undefeated regular seasons do not. i will take this to my grave with me, folks. you can count on that. and you can call me whatever word that comes to your mind right now combining the sentiments of "nerd" and "douchebag" into one fabulous utterance of disdain. i am immune to your words and thoughts. i am undefeated. i am 13-0.

good day.

36-0

i've been sitting on this for several months now, keeping it in my pocket (courtesy of the great barstoolio) for just the right time. well, if tonight isn't the right time, then when would be?

you heard me mention his name over fifteen months ago. andy and kiker being the exceptions, i may have even introduced him to you. he wasn't the mvp of the game tonight. that honor goes to glen coffee and mark ingram and one of the best offensive lines in the country. but his presence as metaphor and actuality combined with the mentality of this alabama team that has completely bought what nick saban is selling made "the leap" tonight. not that the eleven wins of 2008 prior to this day were not important. each was a step in the journey. but it was tonight that exposed their in-state rival's six game winning streak as being flawed, at best, and, at worst, meaningless. it was tonight that alabama re-arrived on the national stage as a worthy opponent to the mighty tim tebow and his army of really fast guys. it was tonight that alabama became alabama again. because "being alabama" means controlling, no, dominating your rival in such a way that hindsight proves them to be no more significant a blip on your season's radar than any other victim.

julio didn't win this game by himself. he wasn't even the catalyst for the change (see: saban) that has now come to those that see through crimson colored glasses. maybe he was wise enough to see what was coming before the rest of us. maybe he was just lucky to be along for the ride. he will be the one player above all others that will represent this season of transition and looking ahead to looking back fifteen years from now, that'll be a pretty cool place to be for him i would think.

i am glad i was among my 'bama friends and family tonight. i am glad that i didn't have to swallow my enthusiasm out of respect for "the other side." whatever happens next week, you can watch alabama in a bcs game at my house. a bcs game. in year two. wow. if tebow and co. do stem the tide (pun intended), temporarily, when they (and stafford and moreno) have departed for the nfl in 2009 and left star jackson and julio to rule the sec without them next year, there will be nothing and no team remaining to prevent alabama from ascending to the top of college football once again.

roll. freaking. tide.

thanksgiving is not supposed to be this hard
(part two)


i felt mine looming last evening. that beginning of a cold that i can feel coming a mile away. my throat starts to get itchy, but it's a different kind of itchy than something brought on by a simple allergy or the changing of the seasons. something has been stuck in your throat for a day or so now. you just didn't know it. and now, you know it because your throat is being rubbed raw. as we speak. as i type. snot. the kind of snot-induced raw that makes it feel like i am swallowing tiny, little razorblades each time the spit accumulates to the point in my mouth that i have to get rid of it. two options. spit it out (which doesn't work out too well in bed or in the car.). or swallow. owwwww!!! the razorblades! a cold is coming. a cold has come.

mine turned out to be the lesser of two evils. you can follow the above link if you want to remember my thanksgiving experience from a year ago. the short version...i threw up. a lot. it sucked. sarah woke this morning feeling nauseous. not a good sign. by the time i woke up, her stomach was full-blown upset and we were questioning whether or not the trip was worth taking. it was a heartbreaking decision. i could tell from her face. you could see that she worried about the car ride to georgia the same as i did the car ride home last year. but she didn't want to pass up the company. she didn't want to disappoint her mom and that mom's 24 hour-plus effort (that doesn't include time spent gathering groceries) to produce a feast equal to that of feasts from years past. she didn't want to miss her family. she doesn't get to see them often enough as it is. she didn't want to miss anything. and so, we went.

the car ride was fine. no stops after the gas station to fill up and collect ice. the girls were good. nothing significant to complain about if you don't count the want to complain about the ever-increasing need to throw up. she was a trooper. but the ride took it all out of her. and most of her precious family time was spent huddled up on the couch and hoping that the feeling would go away. she took a break from the couch a few times to travel to the bathroom or eat some of the feast (a move she now regrets). she did visit a little, but i bet it felt like much more of a chore than she envisioned this time last night. i empathize. thanksgiving is not supposed to be this hard. for sarah, this year and, for me, last.

my selfish self is almost angry at sarah's plight. i want to be sick, to embrace my cold, but i can't give in to it yet. not while hannah is still up. my night will be spent tossing and turning and being mad at the world, but, right now, hannah is asking me to come and sit with her for a few minutes before she goes to bed. she's been a big girl today.

tuesday, at work, i screwed my back up something fierce. i aggravated it swimming earlier in the summer and reaggravated it towards the end of the softball season. tuesday, while helping my stocker sling cat litter, my lower back locked up out of nowhere. i wanted to drop to a knee when the pain took my breath away, but my pride wouldn't let me. later that night, in spite of my being aware that basketball would only exacerbate the problem, i played anyway. my back repaid me by making it very hard to tie my shoes without crying yesterday morning. this thanksgiving day, i spent a collective four hours sitting in a car. my back repaid me by making it very hard to walk without a limp for the first half-hour or so after getting out of the driver's seat both in rome and birmingham. tomorrow, i should just rest. let the sick take me over. lay on a heating pad as much as the girls will allow. be lazy. then again, i am due to exercise tomorrow. and, then again, the girls don't give a shit that my back hurts and that sarah wants to throw up all over their sweet faces. so, those two things (the sick and the pad) will have to wait, most likely.

now comes the part where you tire of my complaining (or, where i do). i know it could be worse. i know i still have way more to "be thankful" about than i deserve. there is just a part of me that is a little pissed. the kind of pissed i am any time i anxiously await something because of how awesome it could be, but the event or occasion is prevented somehow from reaching it's full potential. i'll get over it. tomorrow morning, i'll re-read this post and the one from last year and feel pretty silly and fairly petty.

right now, i hope sarah feels better in the morning. and i hope that i don't feel considerably worse. and i hope that we can have a relatively happy next couple days home.

this is a picture. see it as a such. a polaroid of sorts. a moment in time. tomorrow will be different, because i will be different. but there will still be a picture that documents this moment in time. that picture is this blog. this post. it doesn't capture me. it captures a picture of me. it captures a moment. it just did. get it?

say, "cheese"!

i'll be there in spirit


i am about thirty pages from finishing men with balls by drew magary of kissing suzy kolber and deadspin. it's flipping hilarious, and the only reason i am not too broken up about finishing it is that the new freedarko book will brace my fall.

while reading today, drew treated me to this quote from retired major leaguer, carl everett. it made me laugh out loud today like it made me laugh out loud a few years ago when the wise professional dispenser of knowledge baseball player uttered these words:

"they (dinosaurs) didn't exist. god created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made adam and eve. the bible never says anything about dinosaurs. you can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. someone actually saw adam and eve. no one ever saw a tyrannosaurus rex."

classic.

anyway, i thought this would be an appropriate homage to rev. short and his sermon that i hate i'll miss in the morning due to being at the store.

hope you smile too. if not, say "hi" to adam and eve for me.

maybe i didn't realize what was coming out
(but, what if i did?)


there is something dreadfully wrong with me and i am not sure what to do about it. wednesday afternoon, i was sitting on my couch watching the movie, speed racer. i was about fifteen minutes from the end of the big race, just shortly after speed tells a rival driver to "get that weak shit off my track." should have been a funny and/or compelling moment. speed was finding his inner neo. everything was making sense. everything had slowed down. degree of difficulty as compared to his fellow fictional racers no longer existed in his world. he was becoming the best. all that was left was to finish the race, collect the trophy and kiss his girl. before all of that happened (and it did happen), i felt a rush of emotion come over me.

my eyes began to well up. had i not contained myself, i could have out and out bawled all over myself right there, all alone, in my living room with no one but the cats to console me. i thought to myself, "what the crap is this??? what is going on with me. i am watching speed racer for christ's sake! get a hold of yourself, man!" and i did. i got a hold of myself. but as the end credits rolled, it wasn't celebrating speed's victory that was forefront in my mind. it was my almost becoming a blubbering chim-chim while watching an escapist, family/action movie meant to entertain, not to pull at heartstrings.

or was it?

i doubt the wachowski's overarching goal for the movie was to make 32 year-old men weep, but there are certainly familial themes that drive the plot that might speak to all of us on some level. maybe on wednesday, i was just on that level.

i've been walking around in a haze for a few weeks now. few things are bringing me joy and that's just a crying shame. i look forward to getting away from the store and being at home, and then the burden of "doing my share" around the house makes me mope-y. i dreaded heading to the gym to play basketball all afternoon on tuesday. it took me getting there, breaking a good sweat and looking around to see me and one other guy were the only white guys out of our eleven man collective. i thought, then, to myself, "this is what you've been dreading? this wonderful metaphor of what our church could look like if we could ever focus on filling needs versus shifting that focus to stupid blogs (figuratively speaking, of course.)?" it wasn't just the black/white ratio that jumped out at me. it was a young thing. a fun thing. a, man, we picked to be here tonight rather than somewhere else thing. it was a beautiful thing, and i came within a hair of calling everyone and calling the night off. i am having a hard time, still, finding what's worth smiling about in my life, because something seems to be stuck in the way. or a lot of things. if i figure it out, you'll be one of the first to know.

"i always kind of, sort of, wished i was someone else", you know? that's part of it. i wished i was that guy that didn't get hung up on why people won't return e-mails in a timely matter when i am that guy that couldn't return a phone call in a timely matter if his life depended on it. i wish i could corner the market in my mind where i am always optimistic and never cynical or skeptical. i wish that i could find better ways to tell sarah that hindsight shouldn't be an excuse for saying what a good idea our family pictures turned out to be. you can take me out of them. that would probably up the quality, but we never would have had the images of our girls that we just can't take our eyes off of since last night. i wish that i wouldn't be so disappointed in people that i care for and about that my thoughts breed "contempt"uous language that those same people could use to misconstrue and mismanage my message to those beautiful little girls. i wish that i was the type of person that could see the good in everyone more than skip directly to the bad. i wish, much of the time, for a fresh start. somewhere away where the history of my name and old title and my cuss words and my lack of time spent currently with my parents weren't as much as my (your) definition as they've become. suitcase in my hand, "i always kind of, sort of, wished i looked like elvis."

but that wouldn't be fun, right? not that being sad or frustrated or annoyed is fun. not all the time anyway. but running wouldn't be fun. running from what? running from where? whom?

it's probably ok for me to cry at speed racer as long as i come out of the funk as focused as i went in. i am ready to get out of the funk. maybe acknowledging the funk is the first step in recovering from it. we'll see.

the shame of this is that, in a lot of ways, i've been a runner all my life. running away from the things that are hard. from the things that make me uncomfortable. from the things that i can't completely control. from my mom ('til recently). from my dad (still jogging kind of). from my brother (found him again). from my church (um, yeah. i am back.). i guess it's just too bad for my church that i drew my line at her. it's too bad that the evolution of me (what? people can evolve?) came at a time when huffman had become important to me again. when running was no longer an option. it's too bad. or it's too good. depends on how you're willing to feel about her.

as soon as i shake out of this funk, you'll see me smiling again. to you, it could be a genuine smile or a sinister and miscalculated one. but it won't change the message behind the smile.

think.

the week the blog stood still


it's been a while since i let a week pass between posts. i've missed being here. i don't know or think that it has been a lack of time, necessarily, to blame. maybe just a lack of computer time. yeah, we'll go with that.

whatever the case, nothing too revolutionary has happened in this world of mine between my boasting about something that no reader gives a crap about and this morning. i'm on a ridiculously long streak of consecutive days that i've had to go to the store. i know, i know. cry me a river. most of my extra attention has been pointed toward the arrival of our new point-of-sale system. we are only nine years late, but, as of monday, pet supplies "plus" roebuck has reached a 21st-century level of technology. the new stuff is fun. we have all been excited about it. it's felt a little like an early christmas present. as with any change, there have been headaches accompanied by the usual anxiety. that said, so far, so good. all signs point toward me not having to be present at all on saturday. that makes me happy. too bad there isn't a meaningful football game on 'til 700 that night. that's ok. maybe the family and i can do something fun.

let's see. what else? the church task force met again this past sunday. we actually took our first productive step after three meetings of brainstorming/discussion/conversation and have decided to ask the church, corporate, if they'd be interested in having a hispanic mission located on our grounds. what's that you ask??? you thought we already had a hispanic ministry/mission/whatever located on our grounds? well, technically, you are correct. we have. for a number of years. crazy thing, though. the church was never really asked about it. it just, kind of, happened. and for months on top of months, the church has been asked to take on a "support the troops, not the war" mentality with the whole thing. so, we came to a novel and consensus place. why don't we ask the church if this is something that we really want to do? sounds like a good place to start. or re-start. i don't know if we can, realistically, find our way back to the ground floor of this matter. there has been too much confusion and too many hurt feelings for biases and subjectivity to be left at the door. but, at least, the church will have her say. personally, i think it will be a fascinating conversation. one that i think will depend too much on the current financial standing of the church. but i do hope we are able to have an intelligent conversation about it and leave with a better understanding of where we, as a church, want to head.

hey? have y'all tackled that whole "communications"/structure/lack of vision thing that you've been pounding away at here for three years now?

um, not yet, but i hope that's coming next. so, that is kind of new and interesting.

let's see. what else? alabama won (and one) again. auburn lost. yada, yada, yada. my heart wants to explode thinking about a week from saturday.

hannah and mommy went to see high school musical 3 without me. don't tell anyone, but i am a little torn up about it.

sarah is finally licensed. thank. freaking. christ. oh yeah, and congratulations!!!

thanksgiving is nigh. dressing and coca-cola salad is too. god, i can't wait. i do get a teaser trailer to the big event tonight at church. that's pretty rad.

i guess that's about it for right now. sorry for the diary-ish entry. i might have more to say later. may be friday. either way, i am sure your day or week will be wrecked with anticipation.

my fantasy team is better than yours
(i wish i could say that it was my fault)


i haven't said anything about it to this point in the season because i didn't want to jinx anything. i hope you'll forgive me for letting my geek flag fly for just a couple minutes. as of yesterday morning, i won my fantasy football league's regular season crown. woohoo!!! for real. you can check out the proof right here. there i am. the proud alabama asianmen. 10-0. just like some other team i am fond of...hmm. we won't bring them up just yet. obviously, i have now jinxed myself. but that's ok. i couldn't contain myself any longer. and considering i could lose my last three regular season games and still win it all (due to head-to-head beat downs of the two current 7-3 teams), i say screw it. why not gloat, right?

for the uninitiated, fantasy football is fairly simple (in theory). you and your buddies draft teams made of real nfl players. their real stats are then manipulated into a fantasy format that allows for you to be completely disappointed when your favorite real team wins (i am looking at you, dog whisperers) but one of your fantasy wideouts (i am looking at you, roddy white) doesn't put up 100 receiving yards and a touchdown along the way. it's awesome.

i wish i could tell you that there was some serious strategy aspect to it that i have mastered over the years. something that i do better than everyone else. something more than coincidence that proves why i seem to have consistent success in this entirely trivial world of competition. i don't know that i can. sure, i watch enough espn and read enough that i know who should be good and who might not. but there is not as much science to it as i wish or as fantasy "experts" would tell you. as a matter a fact, most of the time, your fortunes come down to a whole lot of luck (or lack thereof).

case in point, the key to a good fantasy team is to have good depth. why is that, you ask? (or, you don't ask, because you don't care about my fantasy football team.) well, i'll tell you. in the nfl, beginning around week 4 and ending week ten, four teams each week have byes. that means you are going to have guys on your roster unavailable to accumulate fantasy stats for you one week out of the season (unless they get hurt and are out for longer. then you hate that they exist.). therefore, you will need to have guys on your bench that you can plug in during the bye weeks and hope to god that they can be half as productive as your starters. well, my team has quality depth this year, but isn't really because i knew any more than the other guys in my league. in the late rounds of my draft, i took fliers on three rookie running backs that just so happen to have turned in solid to really good years. all of a sudden, i look brilliant for picking them. all of a sudden, i am killing guys during the bye-week match-ups because my team isn't losing points when i am not playing my starters. all of a sudden, i am 10-0 and guaranteed the first seed in the playoffs with three weeks to go in the regular season. and all of a sudden, i can be obnoxious about it for a good month before my inevitable and tragic fall from grace in the post-season.

we all have things in life that we are good at. we all have things in life that we seem to be lucky at. sometimes, the stars align, lucky and good meet to hold hands, and little things in life such as fantasy football regular season titles present themselves and make us smile.

this morning, i am happy with my little thing. and i'll be happy to wear my meaningless victory like bad axe body spray and walk around the room to let my buddies smell me. smell me and like it. because you like bad axe body spray, don't you? don't you???

ah, sweet victory. i love 10-0.

hey? who else is 10-0?

you're funny


when you peddle pet supplies for a living, there is a higher than your average chance that you'll run into the occasional person that takes the ownership of their pet(s) a little too seriously. the same can be said in every walk of life i guess. people take work too seriously, burning the midnight oil and staying in the office ungodly amounts of hours 'til their eyelids' war with the part of the brain that reminds you of your actual need for sleep is lost. 'til their significant other gives up on yet another night of watching the month-old episode of fringe that "i really want to watch with you...it's just...work. i've got so much to do."some people might call this productivity at it's finest. some might argue that it's stupid. kiker and i have joked for years about the guys like "takes softball way too seriously guy". you know the guys. they wear baseball pants to play softball. they grunt when they hit the slowly pitched, size of a grapefuit ball as if they have just slayed a dragon. they don't shower. some people might call this competitive fire. some might argue that it's stupid. people take church too seriously. praying all the time. reading the bible. helping people. totally assessing what it really means to be a christian. wearing wwjd bracelets. some people might call this holiness. some might call it stupid. it's all relative.

relative to what?

exactly. now, we're getting somewhere.

pet ownership is no different. i am reminded of this every day i happen into the store. a woman came in yesterday to pick up millions (or so it seemed) of cans of cat food that i had special-ordered for her. as i was loading them into her truck for her, she talked to me of her disappointment in the results of tuesday night's presidential election. this lady has long been retired, and over the course of her retirement, she has inherited, taken in or rescued hundreds of cats. her current count stands at 77 (she thinks). a great cause is this if you are into cats. and she is into cats.

she told me that she felt ashamed to live in this country as of wednesday. she felt like all of her years of hard work had now been wasted. she told me a story of working 80 hours a week (doing godknowswhat) for two straight years before her husband had his second heart attack. she told me that after his heart attack, she retired and took to volunteering at her church (across the street from mine). she told me of how she prayed for her country's forgiveness after tuesday night and hoped that "when we were attacked", those that didn't vote for "the black man" would be removed from harm's way. i told her that i hoped she was right and that i hoped she didn't worry about such things too much. we then started talking about her cats again, and i found it fascinating the lengths to which she would go, from time to time, to find homes for her cats with elderly persons in our shared community that she thought "could just use a little company". i wished her luck in her efforts and told her i would see her next month. next month, we'll have the same general conversation. we have it every month.

her political views didn't and don't bother me. she, more or less, just summed up (i assume) the talking points she heard on fox and friends. her theology didn't and doesn't bother me. to each their own, you know? her story about working eighty hours a week didn't bother me, but it did make me sad. that's just too much, right? her passion for her cats didn't bother me. hell, through those cats she was enacting her own sort of ministry. i am sure she didn't see it that way. it's a fact that we all could just use a little company.

when you peddle pet supplies, there's a higher than your average chance that you'll run into a person that takes the ownership of their pet(s) a little too seriously. when we find those persons, we literally try and exploit that weakness. sell them dog cologne. a wicked automatic litter pan. a bandana. sell. sell. sell.

this little old lady wasn't one of those people. she took it just serious enough. she had found a balance. and a cause. and time to watch tv. she loved her husband. and she loves white people. maybe she winces at the idea of a black man being president. maybe that black man will make her life better. maybe she'll change her mind. and maybe that would change her mind about other black men (and women). one can hope, right?

i take alabama football way too seriously. i am a tightly wound ball of nerves about tomorrow. i didn't go to alabama. why do i take it so seriously? do you want to know?

or is it easier to just label me crazy? or stupid. or angry. or misinformed. or misunderstood. or eccentric. or pointed. or dramatic. or sincere. or respectful. or determined. or loving. or kind.

where is he going with this?

now, we are getting somewhere.

62,509,207
(i was one)


"how do you feel..."
"i feel like hope won." - oprah

for someone that blogs and waxes incessantly about how great "hope" is, i figure i'd do myself and my girls a disservice if i don't share a few thoughts here about the election last night.

due to his insanely brilliant work for baseball prospectus, i worship nate silver and would trust any of his thoughtful and calculated projections enough to bet my house on them. i wasn't wary of my candidate not winning last night. nate's other passion, politics, led him to start the now famous projection blog, fivethirtyeight. that site, among others, has been projecting obama as the easy winner based on polling data for weeks. now, obviously, people still had to go out and vote (and, wow! did they ever?), but if the polling numbers were even close to accurate, it was obama's night to lose. he didn't.

and do let me say, i think it's awesome. i think obama is intelligent. thoughtful. respectful. he plays basketball well. i want to believe he reads freedarko in all of that spare time of his. he talks of an america that i would like to believe in. he speaks with a genuine sparkle in his eye that seems lost in the world of robotic political candidates. he talks of change. i think he wants what is best for his country and for it's citizens, and i get the feeling he's willing to have a conversation with folks that don't see things his way before he presses forward any sort of "agenda". seems novel.

yeah? but what about the issues? eh, they are what they are. he's a democrat. i'm a democrat. we agree on most things political. whatdoyouwantmetosay?

and, of course, he talks of hope.

according to the results, fivethiryeight was right on when projecting mccain to win my state by over twenty points. i can, at least, lay claim that i was on the winning side of my county, the first time in my electing history that has been the case concerning the president. what does that say about my immediate surroundings and how i play into them? that's for another post, but it is a good step forward. a very good and hopeful step. for me.

if i am lucky enough to grow so old, one day i will talk to hannah and caroline's children about the historic nature of yesterday's election. the next four to eight years we'll have to wait to see if it was a truly transformative one. in the meantime, for the next two and half months, i look forward to all the water-cooler and talk-radio and 24-hour news and sunday school and church-wide discussions on how obama and we can turn hope into momentum into change. how does that happen? where is the handbook? what does that mean for me? do i really have to do something? well, yeah, probably. if not, all of this hope talk just turns into more cliche'.

there are a lot of things in the world that we do not have a handbook at our disposal to help us "fix". that doesn't, necessarily, mean it can't happen. it just means that the rhetoric and politics and good intentions eventually have to give way to honest discourse and action plans.

and that's where things get tricky. messy. painful. and personal. to lay a new and "hopeful" action plan will mean admitting that the one we are currently following is not working. to be honest and constructive will mean that some people's protected feelings may be bruised. if we are fortunate, the bruises will just toughen us up and prepare us to punch back. to take back the idea and ideals that we believe in but for too long we've been willing to sit back and let inertia be our guide.

snowballs heading downhill can be stopped, but not by wishful thinking. not by taking credit for someone's poor decisions and spinning them positive. not by holding grudges. not by huffing and puffing. not by claiming something that's just not there.

hope wins battles. a battle was won last night.

change wins wars. change stops snowballs. change means you have to do something. be pissed. be happy. know why you're either. be something. do something.

um..., is he still talking about obama?

no.

32


"you get me slapped with a fine, you argue with the customers and i have to patch everything up, you get us thrown out of a funeral by violating the corpse, and then to top it off, you ruin my relationship. i mean, what's your encore? do you, like, anally rape my mother while pouring sugar in my gas tank?" - dante, clerks (1994)

that clerks is 14 years old (two weeks ago) makes me feel old. that kevin o'kelley is 32 makes me feel really freaking old. 32. it's the first number that i've reached where i thought to myself, "jesus. you are that guy now. you are old." and i get it. i know that there are people out there older than me. there will always be people out there that are older than me. i am not looking for sympathy. you certainly have my permission to roll your eyes at me and tell me that i am ridiculous, but this is my birthday. and i will celebrate it the way i wish. by being miserable.

so, what are your plans for today, the day you begin your 33rd year?

my plans? ok. here's what i have on my agenda. i am currently washing clothes. i am going to cut the grass. i have an errand to run. and i'll exercise at some point. that's it. that's pretty much the list. but again, don't feel sorry for me. i don't want that. that's the day that i've chosen for myself. sarah has already given me permission to be a lazy slob and not do anything productive with my off day, and i do appreciate it. but these are things that i have to do, right?

it's my birthday, but it's just like any off day. and even on my off days, i have to feel productive. it's like i am trying to convince some higher power that my worth here on this earth has not dried up.

look down there. yes. that's kevin o'kelley washing and folding those two loads of clothes. he is quite domesticated and determined.

and look, there. his grass stopped growing two weeks ago, and yet he marches outside with long pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt on to manicure his yard. impressive.

there he goes again. he still has the ability to drive a car. what a human!

unbelievable! he is doing way too many push-ups for a man of his age. i suppose we will let him live. at least one more year. keep an eye on his body-mass index, though. if he slips past "fat", give him the heart attack that he's been dreading for ten years.

i do appreciate the powers-that-be for giving me another birthday. as dramatic and loathsome as i am being, i am a lucky guy. for, in spite of all my ignorance and stupidity, i have a family that loves me very much. i have a precious almost-five year-old that took time out of her morning routine to draw me a picture.

i have more family that has already bought me many bottles of beer (thanks, mom-in-law. i will begin drowning my sorrow before noon, surely. ;) ). others that have sent cards filled with money that can be conditionally spent however i choose (roll tide, bill). i have friends that have gone out of their way to say "happy birthday" to me already. more that will later on this day.

i don't deserve such charity. i can be quite horrible to be around when i am self-loathing. maybe they see something i don't. maybe that higher power is just that good.

whatever the case may be, i love you all, those of you that choose to make me feel special. i don't deserve your attention, and i don't deserve your time.

i do hope that before the heart attack happens, i can return the favor. i hope i can make you feel just as special in some small way. i will try. i promise.

time to put the clothes in the dryer.

microcosmic
(return from oz)


after posting on october 10, i looked for feedback in a lot of different places. the "comments" section, itself, served as a magnificently vivid portrait of everything that had led up to that stand-alone post, so i chose not to add anything further myself in that particular forum. before sitting down to write that morning (and i've shared this with a couple of people), i had made the intentional decision that one respective chapter of the blog would be closing. in no way did that mean i would no longer share my point of view on all things my church, but the perspective was getting ready to change. if this whole lay leader thing was something that i didn't want to walk away from out of respect to those that thought it was a bad idea to begin with, then, beginning in a couple months, i would no longer be "on the outside".

in a way, for close to three years with the humc-tinged posts on this site, i was acting out a role of my own, an unsolicited ombudsman of sorts. i wasn't reporting to a body or a board, necessarily. i was only reporting to the central focus of HACAM and those casual to vested observers i was accruing along the way. the interest or lack thereof of said observers never directly influenced what was posted and what was not, but it was interesting (sometimes fascinating) to me to see other people react in their own way to my personal reactions and reflections.

the culmination of that role came on october 10, and, boy, did quite the celebration ensue. the following monday, just hours after the "celebration" reached it's zenith, i was no longer on the outside looking in. i had been nominated as a throw-in to the group that was appointed at the "meeting to end all meetings" to serve humc as a church task force. the task force's role was, and in some ways still is, undefined prior to our first meeting, but the group was assigned to address important (and sensitive) issues the congregation (and not just this stupid blog) had raised. we would inventory the "concerns", point ourself in some direction, have constructive conversation, prayerfully consider productive action, make suggestions to the greater church, corporate, and hopefully show ourselves as a symbol of hope that our dear church has been lacking for quite some time.

two weeks and two meetings in, there is already turnover. two weeks and two meetings in, there has already been turmoil. some of it unexpected. some of it predictable. two weeks and two meetings in, we are beginning to understand just how much needs to be "fixed". two weeks and two meetings in, i feel pretty good about the process.

what??? what about the turmoil? the turnover?

great questions, both. but beside the point. to answer these is to get lost behind the gorilla that has so easily distracted us for so long. the gorilla has been so big and so scary. that's how gorillas are. so, we hid.

and let me say, hiding isn't always the worst option. sometimes, gorillas get bored in one room and decide to move on to another, thus removing our own accountability from the equation. we can move right along as if nothing has happened. we can smile and pretend that everything is ok. and in those instances, we should consider ourselves lucky.

our gorilla, though, outgrew our doors. and he was stuck. and so we are stuck with him. removing the king of the mountain with diplomacy and bananas will no longer work.

so, we must fight.

with words. with rolling eyes. with things that should have been said out loud months, if not years, ago. with hugs. with love. with compassion. with empathy (because lord knows, we are all in this together). with barbs. with sarcasm. with hurtful and well-intended honesty. with one goal. and one mind. and one united purpose.

we must fight for our church. because the gorilla is not going away.

through two weeks and two meetings, it is now a certainty to the group now officially known as the humc task force that we can not beat the beast down on our own. we will need a congregation to win this back. our purpose, that is. one purpose that will be our rallying cry. a unified mission. a unified vision. a unified goal. something that we can cling to. something that when the going gets tough, the hurt feelings can hold onto and understand that there is reason and method to this madness.

whether i deserve it or not is up for debate. but the fact remains i am no longer merely commenting here on the "idea" of huffman umc that i believe in. i am no longer theorizing or speculating or second-guessing. i am now moving in a different direction, one that dictates we all begin a new chapter.

what is it that you feel?

what is it that got you fired up?

why do you feel differently about your church, our church, now versus then?

what are you going to do about it?

who are you mad at? why?

what brought you (us) here?

if you care about our church, i hope you can ask yourself these questions and not just acknowledge that they've presented themselves on your mind.

through two weeks and two meetings, the task force has identified problems on top of problems. and by problems, i mean discussions worth having. and it is no longer acceptable, in my mind, to let the problems define our future.

it is the discussions, the "why do we feel this way"s and the "what are we going to to about it"s that will now steer us.

problems turn into dead weight and big, scary gorillas. discussions turn into answers.

it's time to talk.

just so you know
(i still plan to rain on your parade)
((hannah and caroline and me, part nineteen))


i am about to tell you something that is going to either sound completely weird or completely understood. you can let me know where you stand.

one of my favorite smells in the whole wide world is...

drumroll please...

the smell of hannah sweating as she is taking a nap on the couch. does that make me gross? or does it just make me a parent? i am ok either way. it is unmistakable. and in the last almost five years, it has jumped into my top three of all smells. the other two? marie's dressing (surely no surprise there for those that know me) and the smell of my own mom's chili. and i will say, the smell of my own mother's chili only grows more and more romantic and wonderful in my mind and senses every passing day considering it's probably been ten-plus years since i've tasted it. there is no way the actual smell could live up to the smell in my head if i came home to it today. it's not just the smell of the chili. it's the smell of her chili after i mix up so much shredded cheese and soup crackers with it that it has the most perfect paste feel to it. like i could spackle with it (not that i would ever spackle anything.). but mom's chili is one of those things that i have built up to such a degree in my head that i may as well never have it again. it would completely ruin it. and i am ok with that. i think she would be happy to know that it left such an impact. oh well. i digress.

back to hannah sweat. hannah and i had our first daddy/daughter day in quite some time tuesday. i accompanied her class to the hargis pumpkin patch. from what i could tell, all the kids, minus maybe cameron, had a grand 'ole time. hannah was no exception. she was an absolute trooper from the word "go". i am sure it helped that she was carrying along the only daddy in the group.

i intentionally wore a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to look the part of a "dad". i still had my blue tennis shoes on, so i wasn't quite "outdoorsman dad", but it was just a pumpkin patch, right? had we been going camping, those moms and those teachers and those kids would have been screwed.

when we arrived at the camp, we listened to our instructions and then hit the beaten path. i had my girl, other girls and one boy using me as mr. swing the entire way, which i was fine with. even though i was breaking a sweat in the quite cool weather, i told myself i needed the exercise and sucked it up. it tickled the kids, so it tickled me. we did the hay ride. i played the role of "dad" again and roasted most of the hot dogs and marshmallows. just to illustrate how foreign this should seem, our children's place director placed a call to ms. ellen in the kitchen back at the church and they had a wonderful laugh at my expense. "kevin's cooking the hot dogs??? bwabwabwa!!!" laugh it up, ladies. laugh it up. it's fine. i deserve it. we learned about the life-cycle of pumpkins. we petted a goat and very small horses (kind of random, i know). we marched through a living, breathing pumpkin patch. we listened to a story in an "indian tent". we picked out our pumpkins. and that was the day. a full day, indeed. and a fun one at that.

by the time we got back to our cars/bus, the kids were spent, but hannah held it together. we recounted our day on the way back to town and finally made it home after a stop at sonic for a slush. hannah lives a very hard life, don't you know? when we got to the house hannah had a difficult time completely winding down from the day, but as i kicked it into high gear with my rocky training montage exercise routine, she fell asleep.

and about thirty minutes later, there it was. that beautiful smell. fast asleep. body temperature naturally rising to keep her cozy and peaceful, the aroma, to her daddy, is nothing short of what heaven should smell like. every time i inhale, it reminds me that i have a beautiful baby girl close to me dreaming of princesses and barbie dolls and wizards of waverly place. it reminds me of how lucky she is that she is unaware of the world that has been swirling around her daddy for the last month. it reminds me that when she is old enough to be aware, i won't give a crap about it any more other than the story that i can tell her about that one time when "we" all thought the church was going to explode except that it never really was because humc was and is always going to be bigger than "we".

the smell of hannah's sweat will one day be a lot like that smell of mom's chili. i won't get it anymore. and i will romanticize it. and i will dream about it. and i will tell stories about it. and it will become much better than the real sweat ever was. and it will transform into a metaphor the way all things eventually do.

life can get pretty effed up if and when we don't take the time to smell our children's sweat (or the roses. to each their own.) for almost five years, i've had a precious little girl to remind me of that from time to time. now, i even have two!!! i should never slip into "life sucks. i wanna punch somebody!" mode. but i do.

because i am stupid.

aren't we all.

why?
(this will likely ruin alabama's season)
((welcome back to oz))


it was cute, sure. had i been in the stadium and witnessed firsthand the mountain of a man that is terrence cody boom, boom, booming onto the field for an offensive snap, i would have gone nuts with the rest of the crowd. there is no doubt in my mind. what makes this situation worse is that it worked. the novelty that is. the novelty of bringing in your potential first team all-sec (and american) nosetackle to plow the way for mark ingram resulted in a touchdown. roll tide. go bama. dear christ.

why the glum, son?

because i am a firm believer of karma on the football field and what went around saturday afternoon will eventually come around to this charmed and different tuscaloosa football team. it may already have.

alabama has two "difference makers". players that other teams have no answer for. julio will be one, but he is serving his role of stretching the field and decoy quite nicely this season. check back on him again as a sophomore and he's going to be unstoppable. this year, though? this year, alabama has two. on offense? andre smith. you know on big plays alabama is going to go left. i know it. opposing coaches know it. it doesn't matter. 90 percent of the time, if alabama needs one or two big yards, running behind their future first round left-tackle works. it's just a fact. on defense? it's cody. he's big and nimble and not just nimble for a big man. but a true athlete packaged in 365 pounds of fat on top of muscle that makes him the most dominant defensive lineman (sorry, glenn dorsey) that the sec has seen since richard seymour went to the pats.

he's the sun when on the field. two, sometimes three offensive lineman are forced to orbit around him in the hopes that they can distract him long enough for the other team's running back to find his way to the positive side of the line of scrimmage.

so, what does bama choose to do with this treasure? they tugged on superman's cape. they spit into the wind. they put him in on offense. and in the moment, it worked.

in god's time? well, terrence, meet field-cart. see you in the locker room. as of sunday afternoon, everyone is grinning with their teeth clenched. cody, himself, says he'll be fine. saban says that he might miss a game or two, but he won't need surgery. he better not, because if he does, saban, the architect of this beautiful season to this point, will have paid his due to the football gods with the blood of every bama fan that has spent the last two months telling themselves that their team is the second best in the country.

me? i am not sold yet. the second best team in the country doesn't not score a point in the second half against a middling to decent 3-3 (at the time) team. the second best team doesn't struggle with kentucky. the second best team does beat the crap out of then number one georgia at georgia, but we haven't seen that team in a few weeks. where did they go?

well, maybe they got too cute in practice and spent valuable prep. time putting in plays for a nosetackle to play fullback. maybe they think they are the second best team in the country when, really, they are only the second ranked team. HUGE difference.

second best teams don't need gimmicks. second best teams just play. here's hoping that alabama can learn this lesson with cody on the field in a couple of weeks and not with him in street clothes. if the latter finds it's way to be true, "we" only have ourselves to blame.

hey. where have i heard that before?

"ode to the north american snake oil distributor"


on this the day of my purchasing the just-released yesterday album from my favorite active (again) band, i am choosing to let HACAM breathe for just a little bit longer.

we (and by "we", i mean i) are all going to take a step away from what has become our (and by "our", i mean my) daily obsession with checking this site to see what person has flailed themself into our world.

i am going to take a few days and evaluate in what direction HACAM will now stroll. i am going to dust off the keypad sometime over the weekend and see where my fingers take me. hopefully to oz and not to huffman.

it wasn't fair to her. no, it wasn't. she's been manipulated. violated. truncated. and suffocated. but she breathes still. her heart knows her way. she just can't stand the thought of being alone.

once we come back into the open, the new and improved version of her will be as feisty as ever. pointed as always. and cautious of no human thing. she is a snake that waits in the grass, wanting... no, needing to strike at a moments notice.

but she loves.

and she loves music. dillinger four she will have as her date tonight. d4 will dress her up nicely. wine. dine. who knows what may happen when the door closes.

here's looking at you, "kid". the one in the corner with the paintbrush and the funny look on your face. here's looking at you, indeed. just go ahead and step this way. the paint's feelings won't be hurt. the footprints will add to your story.

i see your quotation marks. i raise you a comma and an exclamation point.

let's look at the facts, jack. you too, queen. the king is waiting.

play me a merry-go-round, mister.

if you were johnny-five, wouldn't your feelings be hurt too? of course they would.

check it out, dude. daddy's lost his mind.

no, he hasn't.

are you sure?

yes, he thinks he's clever, but he's really just stupid.

what do you mean?

he's blowing smoke. it's a cloud. a diversion. something to take away your attention from the 500 lb. gorilla behind you.

there's a gorilla behind me?

yep.

well, hopefully he's nice.

word.

19-14
(how the west was won)
((and why i wished that brian was in town))


there is a vindictive side of me that's been waiting to get out. waiting to strike since the blog hit the fan two weeks ago. and that vindictive side still waits on her orders, for i am not letting her out today. not just yet.

i've thought about today's post since monday night. what did i want to say? how did i want to say it? who do i want to hear it? and my thoughts have evolved, especially after wednesday night came and went without incident. it also came without repair, but that is for another day. when i left the house monday night, i figured that today's post would be a chronicled (as far as i know) detailing of every shenanigan that led to and past the events of sunday morning (oct. 5). secret meetings. passed out copies of who-knows-which-posts from HACAM to members of sprc and others in our church. a senior pastor that publicly campaigned against my being recommended for a position of leadership at humc. two members pitted against each other in an active election just two hours prior to us all "coming together" in the sanctuary for a world communion sunday service. as of this morning, i've decided that "the devil" is in the details. and you can take that statement and run with it in any direction you would like.

here's the short version for my not-in-the-thick-of-this-crap readers. we have a committee on lay leadership at our church. they are a consensus-building group and their responsibility is fairly simple but also very powerful. sit down with each other, figuratively throw playing cards with the names of members of the church on them on the table and, if not otherwise committed, nominate those names/persons for roles within the church that the committee feels as if they have the gifts and talents to bring something substantial to the role. as an example, if joe or jane q. public shows a talent for working with children and lay leadership agrees that it would be a good idea, they may be nominated for a role on the children, youth and families committee. it is then up to that person nominated to accept or decline the nomination. that's it. that's what they do. they meet for several weeks until they finish their process or until they are up against a deadline and they have to finish whether they are ready or not. during this process, there is obviously room for debate and disagreement on the merits of certain persons being nominated for certain roles. again, this a consensus-building group. many times in any walk of life, consensus may not be reached without a healthy debate. as it affected me personally, i was told by a member of this committee that i had been nominated for the role of lay leader of our church. who knows what sort of debate, if any, went on when my name was brought up. considering everything i know now, i wouldn't want to know. long story short, i told this representative of lay leadership that i would be honored to take on the role. as far as i knew, that was that. decision was made. consensus reached.

'til the blog hit the fan. (cue rending of garments and teeth-gnashing)

without falling prey to "the devil", i'll fast forward to the relevant part. sometime between lay leadership adjourning it's final session and this past sunday morning, select members of that committee along with the senior pastor (who, you may remember, found us at least two weeks ago) of my church stumbled upon my blog and decided that my "bad" words and oppositional stances towards the leadership of our church deemed me unfit to carry forth the torch of lay leader at humc. during the called disciples council meeting sunday morning (at which most of the council/board was there to formalize and approve lay leadership's recommendations), a new name was nominated to replace mine as lay leader. a vote was taken and, in spite of the back-alley efforts of certain members of humc and it's senior pastor, the integrity of lay-leadership's process was ultimately upheld. i won the vote 19-14 (unofficial tally). hooray for me, right???

right?

anyone?

yeah, me either. if just those couple of paragraphs make you sick at your stomach, well, join the crowd. you don't know the half of it. you don't really need to. "the devil" would just make your heart race faster than it already is. since "the devil" reared its head to me, though, i have wanted nothing more than to withdraw into the arms of those that i knew cared for me. accepted me for who i am. understood the context and meaning behind every humc-tinged post in the last three years and "got it". i've been called "inappropriate" in different ways. i've had my priorities questioned. i've been pointed at. i've been whispered about. and that's just the tip of a pretty skeevy iceberg. but all of that is cool.

what's led me to this morning is something sarah said as we left the church. i don't think that i knew i was feeling it, but her saying it out loud made me sure that i did. i have looked for support. not support in the way of finding people that think like me or are "on my side" or hope for the same things out of humc that i do. but maybe just a pat on the back. someone to come around and say, "you're gonna be alright." and i have found that in my sunday school class (and, of course, sarah and my friends that are "in the know.") that probably didn't know what they were getting into when they extended a warm and welcoming hand to me and sarah a couple years ago. and i have told them in emails and in person, but i will tell them here too. i can't express how much you guys mean to me. i just can't.

but i've also been pining for, of all people, my brother to be around. it probably seems off the subject and i can't really put my finger on why he keeps popping into my head. i think it goes back to something that has made his last couple of visits so special. since we've both reached a place in our adult lives that we are comfortable in our own skin, we have spent a grand total of about two weeks together. in spite of that lack of time, though, in something like what we've been going through the last couple weeks, he would be the ultimate ally in every sense of the word. he'd have my back. he'd make threatening gestures. he knock people's lunchroom trays out of their hands. he'd talk to me. make me feel less like an anti-hero and more like someone that's on the right side of a wrong fight. at least, that's what i tell myself he'd do, because that's what i do for him. because i love him. and that's all that really matters, right?

silly church. don't "you" get it? i say what i say and i do what i do because i love you!!! do you really want to keep going down the path that we've been on? really? you want to just fade away into the future remembering what the "good 'ole days" were like and resting on those laurels? that's what you want? you don't want me to question "you" (and me for god's sake!) in the most open forum possible? why the hell not? what are you afraid of? why are you afraid? if this is what "you" want, you don't have to try and freaking vote me down. all you have to do is ask. because i don't want to do that. i don't want to pretend like everything is ok when it's not. that's not how life and church is to be led. in my opinion and in my motivation, i don't get the message out of "your" bible that god intended it to be that way either!!! jesus christ! remember him??? i don't bring him up much here. i'd rather Him be an understood. but if that's the way you want things to be, why don't "you" scripture-rip me a passage that shows me that jesus was cool with resting on the laurels of the good 'ole days. i'll be in the corner holding my breath.

if that's the way "you" want it, just ask me and i'll go. if you want what's best for humc, though, you want me on your team, because you are not going to find someone that wants what's best for her any more than i do. i don't always have to be a lay leader. i'll be happy locking up the church and turning your microphone on, but you want me on your team. whether you like my methods or not, that is just your opinion.

what went down in response to this blog last week and leading up to it makes me sick. sick at "you" and sick with "you". but i love you anyway.

i'll be waiting for "your" comment, your email, your phone call and i'll damn sure wait for you face to face. based on what i've "heard" the last couple of weeks, i should open my door to a long line of folks dying for that opportunity. you want me to leave? i'll leave. just ask.

i am waiting.

let me introduce to you the town fool
(hannah and caroline and me, part eighteen)


wait just a darn second. did someone just jump this blog's shark for me?

we're not quite to this site's third blog-iversary, but we're close. what started off as a (public) note to my daughter has now evolved into something much more devious. much more maligned. much more...oh, who am i kidding? it's only evolved into a note to my daughters. it feels the same today, because it is the same.

hello, dear reader. welcome, and welcome back. to those of you that have been around for the context, you are the (un)lucky ones. to those of you that have found us in the last week or through copies handed out to you, well, here you are!

it's less than exciting, isn't it? it's just a blog. what's a blog? some pictures. some words. some subjective moan-ings and groan-ings of someone no more or less important than yourself.

i heard he says "bad" words.

you heard right.

i heard he says things about his church that aren't always friendly, sometimes pointed, sometimes even downright mean.

you heard right.

i heard he's sarcastic.

as hell.

i heard that one time he called a baptist preacher a dick.

what, you didn't get a copy of that one? oh well, you heard right. search hopewell baptist. it's around here somewhere.

i heard that he and his dad don't get along.

correct. well, we're working on it.

i heard that he says "bad" words.

we've covered that.

i've heard that he hates people in his church.

uh-oh.

i've heard that his mission of all missions is to get his senior pastor to leave.

did you hear that from him?

i've heard that one time he punched one of his youth in the face.

he sounds like a bastard.

i've heard worse.

here we go again.

i've heard that what he's doing with that blog of his is harmful to his church.

well, at least that one is worth talking about.

i've heard that he hates the bible.

dear christ.

i think if we let "this" happen, he'll tear the church apart.

i am taking names. will you help?

welcome (back) to this waste of time that you may or may not have been told is important for you to know (it's not.) welcome (back) to what will prove to be an ever-disappointing look into the mind of someone you may or may not care to know. good-bye to those that know what's good for them.

welcome (back) in. in this world of hannah and caroline and me, we love huffman united methodist church. you can post-rip just like "you" can scripture-rip. you can badmouth. you can accuse. and you can lie. but you cannot search "humc" at the top of this site and tell me that you are not involved in the ravings of someone passionately in love with a church that has found her way astray. you can try. i'll prove you wrong.

next time we'll take a look at back-alley politics, church style.

hope to see you soon.

p.s. - why does this remind me so much of grey's anatomy.

because you are in the middle of a soap-opera. a diversion. a cloud. something meant to distract you from the gorilla right behind you.

there's a gorilla behind me?

figuratively speaking.

crap.

"say it ain't so, joe."


ugh.

this cute little quip came from sarah palin last night towards the end of the vice-presidential debate. the comment preceded her taking joe biden to task for the second or third time about "looking backwards" instead of to the future and the change that he and his principle were campaigning on. the comment and the sentiment struck me a couple different ways.

the first way was, "she has been sitting on that all night. good for you, finding a way to use it. now, how about answering a question directly for a change instead of asking your own questions and redirecting the conversation to the talking points you are comfortable with." the debate sucked anyway. both candidates were guilty of skirting "difficult" questions from the moderator and refocusing them on what they were there to say. that's how most debates of this type play out, so i won't hold that against either. but the fact that palin took the senator to task for looking back on the failures of the last eight years more than once alarmed me.

look, i am no political expert. far from it. i don't feel comfortable even throwing my hat in the ring to be a pundit. but i do know this. how in the world are you supposed to offer change of any sort if you are hell-bent on refusing to acknowledge what you are changing from? that being said, the most palin would offer were that there were obvious missteps with the bush administration just as there are with any administration. yeah, great. thanks for that bit of wisdom. oh, and also thanks for saying "doggone it." several times too. call me stupid, but i am in line with jon stewart when he's claimed several times, and i am paraphrasing, "i don't want a president that reminds me of me. i don't want a vice-president that says, "doggone it." i want a president that is intelligent and uses words that i don't understand and makes me feel like he is capable of making big decisions because he understands the best way to use that intelligence is to let those around him challenge it." and i don't think you can challenge yourself for a better tomorrow if you are unwilling to take into account what happened yesterday.

i, then, of course, thought about my church. some notes (out of context, admittedly) from the meeting monday night.

"it's time we come together."
"it thrills me...to feel like we are on the same page again."
"we have committed to love one another...to realize this means more than about us."
"i'm hispanic." (is this necessary?)

sorry, dude. i had mexican last night. that does not make me hispanic. my last name is o'kelley. that doesn't make me irish. that just gives me a pretty rockin' last name. i don't understand the plight of being irish. i know where the last name came from. i know my heritage. but i am still not irish. i digress.

as a congregation, it feels like we are being urged forward without taking into account what has brought us to where we are today. without holding accountable the poor decisions that have been made by leaders in our church that are still attempting to lead today. and, in my opinion, doing so feels dangerous.

please know this. i get it. i want our church to get better and move forward and be healthy and relevant and vital and exciting and fun and all of those good things. but i can't imagine any of those things happening without us first acknowledging, as a group, that we are the ones that screwed it up in the first place.

and maybe that's beginning to happen. i hope for it. at some point of the corporate meeting monday night, a task force was nominated to help the congregation define ( or redefine) itself again. there are names included that would have never even been considered back in may of 2007. in may of 2007, sprc drafted a joke of "leadership characteristics" to give to our incoming senior pastor that, even in it's absolute vagueness, forgot to mention children (AT ALL) or the children's place, the only ministry now and then that has any sort of roots placed in the non-spanish speaking part of our local community. now that is forward thinking! not that i should bring that up. that's all in the past, right?

maybe it is. maybe it's not. i don't know. i am conflicted. there's a definite part of sarah palin in me that wants to ignore the crud of the last few years and march blindly toward wherever it is that our church is headed in the next few. but there's a bigger part that feels that, for us to know who we want to be, we need to own the part of our history that suggests who we don't want to be.