Spring Tide

There are a lot of things I don’t like. Most of it I’ll put up with, like the way I put up with clichés in Matt Damon movies, people who wear those thin headbands around their foreheads, and walnuts. But there are some things I have to pretend to like around certain people. I like to think it’s because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but what it really comes down to is patriotism. This is America, son, and we love romcoms. Deal with it!

1. Pool Parties

When you accept an invitation to a pool party, people usually expect you to get in the pool. To make it worse, people who have pools are apparently required to sign an agreement promising to keep extra swimsuits lying around just in case a guest “forgets” to bring one. That’s fine, I get it—you wouldn’t want to make a person feel uncomfortable by not offering the use of your ratty old swim trunks.

2. Complaining about the government

Complaining about the government is like complaining about the weather. You’re so sure you’ve never been this hot in your life and the sun is probably about to explode when some smart-aleck pulls out a Farmer’s Almanac and shows you what the temperatures were around this time last year. I know, you clearly remember The Day After Tomorrow promising global warming in the form of an ice age. Where’s our frozen tundra now, Dennis Quaid?

3. Babies

Yes, your baby is adorable. You know what I like the most about him? I can admire that adorability from over here. Do I want to hold him? Uh…can you promise me he won’t throw up or poop or strangle me with my own necklace? No? Nah, I’m good, thanks.

4. American Idol

It’s hard for me to admit I dislike a show with the word “American” in the title, so I try to overhear the name of one contestant that will probably make it far. That way, I can offer an opinion when people who know I like to sing assume I’m obsessed with a show that has produced as many successful artists as happy couples from The Bachelor.

5. Team sports

You know that guy who has the worst record ever, yet makes millions of dollars a year and the entire team gets blamed for its failures? What’s up with that guy? That’s why I like singles tennis. It’s one on one so there’s no one to bring you down, and instead of an entire team ganging up on the referee, you’ve only got the one guy verbally abusing the line judge. The result is just as pathetic, but at least in tennis it seems way more personal and therefore, exciting.

6. Romantic comedies

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy and girl publicly air their grievances to a confused yet concerned roomful of strangers. Everyone starts dancing.

7. Saying “Cheese”

There’s nothing like posing too long in a public place and trying to keep a natural smile on your face while yelling a random word through your teeth to create that perfect Kodak moment. The sheer concentration required results in a picture that is so awkward, someone is sure to tag you in it as soon as you accept their friend request.

8. Alcohol

Like yogurt, bleu cheese and sushi, alcohol is essentially made out of food that has either sat out too long or has not been properly cooked. In other words, it’s disgusting. I didn’t make this connection until I ordered a margarita once and realized it was good, but it could be great if only it was a strawberry smoothie instead. Which is three dollars cheaper.

9. Restaurants

They’re either so loud you have to yell or so quiet you have to whisper, the waiter is constantly pretending to be your best friend to trick you into tipping better, and the more expensive the place, the more silverware they give you. Thanks, but the only utensil I need is a plastic spork to double for my salad and milkshake to get that practical yet fun dining experience.

10. Catching up with old acquaintances

Step 1: Pretend like it was a tragedy you lost touch in the first place. Step 2: Bait them into saying their name. Step 3: Silently celebrate your awesome memory skills. Step 4: Make vague plans to stay in touch. Or, skip all four steps and follow the Law of Relationship Atrophy instead. After a while, a friend becomes an acquaintance, an acquaintance a stranger, and the girl who made your nonfat vanilla lattes every morning until you moved to college and found a new Starbucks doesn’t exist anymore. It’s the circle of life.

I love movies. I love watching them, thinking about them, talking about them, I love everything about them. I say I love God, but I feel awkward spending time with him, I feel too guilty to think about him and foolish talking about him. And the more I realize how unloving I act toward God, the worse I feel and the more I push away. So tonight he used jet lag, a horrible disaster of a midnight showing and a woman in desperate need of a cell phone to show me I still have an identity with him and I still have a story I can tell.

First of all, I just came back from Australia and New Zealand this week. Awesome? Yes. And beautiful and inspiring and exciting…all things that should have reminded me how great God is. It should have left me thanking him for all his gifts. It should have given me stories to bring back about his faithfulness. Mostly I got jet lag. I’ve stayed up until 3 the last two nights for no reason at all. I just wasn’t tired. I didn’t even have the desire to try to go to bed. It was as if I didn’t want to be rid of the jet lag. Maybe I couldn’t face the fact that my adventures “down under” were over. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Whatever the case, it has made getting up for work very interesting every morning.

Here’s the thing. I misplace everything. On my trip I actually managed to lose my camera. For good. I’m pretty sensitive about my inability to move my things from one place to another without accidentally dropping them somewhere, so when I couldn’t find my cell phone tonight, I may have overreacted. There was yelling and cursing and a tossing of papers, pens, pillows and sheets…anything within reach. You see, I was meeting friends to go to a midnight showing of a movie that I was really excited to see. And they had my ticket. And I was running late. As I stomped down the stairs and jumped in my car, I couldn’t help but think about how much I hated my life.

And the movie was terrible. I mean, it was really bad. It was so bad I seriously wonder if anyone actually viewed the movie before sending it off to crush the innocent, blissful enthusiasm of millions of fans. I couldn’t help staying afterward to tear it apart with my friends. I mean really, these people have seen movies before, right? Good ones?

I was just pulling into my apartment complex and thinking about how 2:30 a.m. feels just like 9:30 p.m. when you’re jet lagged and laughing to myself about how ridiculously awful that movie was, when a desperate woman flagged me down. She had already tried several apartments, but no one in their right mind opens their door to frantic knocking at 2 in the morning. Her boyfriend had beat her, stolen her phone and wallet and locked her out of the apartment where her baby was still sleeping. She just needed to use my phone to call 911. My first thought was, “My phone, really? Good one, God. Now you’re just mocking me. Is this payback for the cussing? Because I’m always so good about that in public…”

There are few things more awkward than walking toward your apartment with a wounded, hysterical stranger, knowing you’re about to try to find a phone under the pile of rubble that is your room. Figuring out how to verify their story without upsetting them so much they pass out is a big part of that. The key is small talk. “So, um, what’s your uh, what’s your baby’s name? Really? That’s so cool! Yeah. Uh…how-how old, uh, how old is she—ohthankgoodnesswe’rehere.”

Thanks to my wonderful, understanding roommate, once we got there I was able to borrow her phone and get back outside to help the woman my front step. But after calling 911 and sitting silently sympathetic as she cried, “I just don’t know what to do” over and over, I still couldn’t muster the courage to pray with her or share the message of Christ at a time she most needed him.

As the officers spoke with her to verify her story and get all of the facts straight, I couldn’t stop apologizing to the sky for inadequate, faithless little me. He had set it up perfectly: The jet lag that made me feel wide awake and ready for anything at 2:30 in the morning, the lost phone to get us out of the street and my roommate awake for support, and the midnight movie flop to get me in the parking lot at exactly the right time. But I didn’t have what my bible study had just challenged me to have ready at all times: my story. The basic facts on how I became a Christian, how I’ve grown, what God means to me and what he could mean for her. They called it our 2-minute Testament. And I didn’t even try to figure it out, because I knew God wouldn’t send someone to me to be saved and even if he did, I would just freeze up like I always do.

And then somehow I knew. God didn’t line up all of these amazing things to pile on more guilt. He didn’t use me to help a stranger so he could shine a glaring light on my failures. He gave me a gift. I may not have said his name out loud to this poor, broken woman, but I found her a phone. I got her a glass of water. I brought her an icepack for her aching jaw. Maybe she saw God in that. And even if she didn’t, she had a need that I met. A real, practical need. God didn’t send this woman to me to kick me while I’m down, he wanted to lift me up. And what he gave me was exactly what I needed: A story.

I couldn’t resist re-posting this find. I mean, the entire Super Mario Bros. game recreated with crossover characters, and you can play it all for free online? Yes, please! Go to this site, play this awesome game, and thank Jay Pavlina for his huge gift to the world. Dooo it!

Hamlet and Doctor Who just saved my entire day. Only hours ago, I fully intended to write a snarky post complaining about demanding thoughtless people, officially labeling Wednesday “The Bane of My Existence,” and bemoaning the fate of all mankind, when a centuries-old Dane and a 900 year-old Time Lord flipped my attitude upside down.

It started with a text: “David Tennant is scary in Hamlet.” If you don’t know David Tennant, you are sadly behind on your quirky British sci-fi. I’m talking about the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who (AKA THE Doctor in my stubborn opinion): the Scottish-born genius who somehow played crazy, sincere, dashing, dorky, scary and downright adorable - and did it brilliantly - all in the span of 60 minutes. If you still don’t know who I’m talking about, drop your copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into the nearest DVD player, laptop, or Xbox 360 and look for this darling man:

Yes, I’m talking about ol’ Chapped Lips himself, Barty Crouch Jr.

All this to say, I could not be more thrilled to come to two brilliant realizations. One: An actor I am moderately enthralled with played a character I am utterly obsessed with in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s modern-dress adaptation of Hamlet alongside Patrick Stewart (AKA Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard) in 2008. Two: A made-for-television version of this stage play aired on PBS tonight. Of course, I was not so happy to find I was unaware of this fantastic event and I had missed all but the last 45 minutes of it, but not to worry, the Internet prevailed again. A frenzied search brought me to PBS’ website and a promise that the entire show would be uploaded immediately after airing. Whoosh. All is right with the world.

So, thank you, Hamlet. And thank you, David Tennant, for saving my life once again.

One of my favorite pictures of my grandpa and grandma, taken in their first year of marriage in 1954. And yes, they’re wearing a matching skirt and shirt that she sewed. :)

There is something that has been on my mind for the past few weeks that’s very close to my heart. Today I want to write all about my sweet, amazing, beautiful grandmother - something I should have done a long time ago. Her name is Anita Mae, and she died on April 14, 2010.

She was soft-spoken, kind and proper, but she knew how to have fun. She could play Life, Payday, Rook, Rummy, Scrabble, Dutch Bliss and Hungry Hungry Hippo for hours. When she laughed her face lit up, her eyes twinkled and you knew it was 100% real. She cooked, baked and made sure we were never in need of anything - especially Tootsie Pops.

My grandma remembered things my parents couldn’t keep straight. She remembered that I was the one who hated corn and my brother was the one who couldn’t stand peas. And when she read in the paper about the death of a girl around my age who happened to have the same name as a friend I had mentioned one or two times, she called me to make sure I was okay. She loved to read everything from romances to mysteries and thrillers, and she loved movies. She was the queen of the DVR. She loved God, and somewhere between the uncertainty of her rapid illness and the knowledge that she would never recover, she found the answers she needed to be able to say with confidence, “Oh yes, I am at peace.” The last thing she said to me and my mom as we stood over her hospital bed was, “I love you both so much.”

I love you too, Grandma, more than you could ever know, and I’m so happy you can walk, run, talk and laugh again. And I know without a doubt that those words you said the last time I held your hand are true: it’s only “goodbye for now.”

But I’m still going to miss you like crazy.

spring tide /spriŋ taɪd/
noun
A tide just after a new or full moon, when there is the greatest difference between high and low water.
(Oxford American Dictionary)

I’ve been curious about the world of blogging, but it wasn’t until a friend encouraged me to try it that I decided to take the leap. I thought long and hard about the perfect name and found it hinged on so many things: my purpose, the content, and the things in life I find the most important - it needed to mean something. Then I realized all I’ve ever wanted to do is tell stories. Everything is a narrative to me. It’s how I speak, how I think, how I understand society. I can’t even tell a friend what I want for dinner without setting up historical background, pulling in supporting characters and weaving in a few conflicts. Every moment has a beginning, middle and end; every experience is important. And life is awesome.

So, what is a spring tide? It’s a phenomenon of creation. It’s a moment when the moon is full or new, when its gravitational pull combines with the sun to create the highest and lowest tides. In this moment the sun, moon and Earth are all aligned and the tides are at their strongest. And there’s just something about that that is crazy awesome.