Blasting Atomics

I bought a new watch the other day. Turns out the six dollar stopwatch I bought a few months ago doesn't appreciate being bent sharply backwards twice a day, as evidenced by its split band. After learning that all but one of the replacement bands available cost more than the whole watch originally did, I surmised that watch-buying season was nigh. Goodbye, old friend.

Now, on to the new stuff. As I peruse my choices, I'm immediately tempted by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle watches on the display by the shoe department (where I work, if I haven't mentioned that trivia nugget yet). There are two kinds, which pose a problem. One has a cool dial, but the band looks like it's made of the same material as my old watch. The other one has what looks to be a durable band, but the dial is so-so. Resisting the urge to strip them apart and reassemble them to my liking, I put them down and continue my search.

What I am looking for is just a plain old watch with a white face and black numbers, but alas, they can't make simple things anymore. I skim past the Fossil knockoffs, the calculator watches, the hopeless let's-stuff-ourselves-with-chronometers-and-compasses-and-the-like watches, and the pseudo-trendy asymmetrical watches (I am, with pride, a symmetry freak). I finally decide upon a nice black faced Armitron watch with Indiglo. I'm a little hesitant about the velcro closure system, but it was either that, more cracking rubber, or a heavy Chinese Fossil clone. Plus, this way, if I get ravaged by killer bees and my left wrist swells to the size of a small canteloupe, I might still be able to note the timeliness of the ambulance.

As I haul my find out of the jewelry department, I stop to look at a new display. Eighty-six dollars? For a watch? In Wal-Mart? Looking closer, though, I see why they're so proud of it. It's not just a watch. It's not even just a solar watch. It's an atomic solar watch.

Now, I've got nothing against atoms, or their constituent parts, for that matter. They're to be commended for their...being in stuff. But do I really need to be informed as to what time it is, exactly? Right down to the millionth of a second? Do I need my watch to pick up radio waves that inform it of its miscalculations and inconsistencies? When did quartz become insufficient?!?

Now, atomic timekeeping devices have their place. I lobbied for atomic clocks at the college I used to go to, because the clocks scattered around campus were ridiculously misaligned - sometimes by as much as ten minutes, which forces students to memorize the clocks in between four and six classrooms if they don't want tardies to pile up. But on your wrist? Denying yourself the ability to set your watch five minutes fast to keep yourself from being late? Or setting it five minutes slow after you're already late to give yourself an alibi?

No, no, thirty-seven times no. I like being able to manipulate time. I mean, who's to say that time is standardized? Why is there no metric expression of time? There is really no way to stop me from inventing a new standard. So I will. My new basis of time measurement is the time it takes for a sixty watt lightbulb to drop one foot in Earth's gravity: one bulbdrop. Opening a book takes about one bulbdrop; writing a sentence takes about twelve bulbdrops. I can make watches that tick on bulbdrops. I could probably get the United Arab Emirates or the Azores to standardize to bulbdrops if I was really nice. Before you say it, yes, I do have better things to do than standardize marginal countries to a new time format. But you can't make me swallow your preciously precise seconds.

Not that I'm an anti or a disestablishment crusader - I just don't like having to map time out. I like living life at life's pace, instead of a project's pace, a deadline's pace, or a clock's pace, for that matter. I like sitting down and eating slowly, savoring the compliments and contrasts between flavors before washing them down with a good, full bodied tea (I like Earl Grey and Darjeeling, personally). I like sitting down with someone and playing a leisurely game of chess (so few chess players...everybody's thumbing around on their stupid PlayStations all the time). Or really absorbing a good book (or three - Brian Herbert's Dune prequel trilogy is breathtakingly lush). Or literally kneeling and taking in an orchid's scent. Or throwing some smooth, classic jazz on the turntable (yeah, mp3's work, but it's just not the same).

Now, I know you're saying to yourself, "No time for that fluffy bunk - got stuff to do." Maybe. There is a real difference between frenzy and productivity - in fact, half of the time you would class under "busyness" is probably just you carrying your frenetic pace into time that should be set aside for leisure. So stop. Relax. Drop the needle on some Nat King Cole. Grab a book and a cup of tea. And take that blasted atomic watch off of your wrist, for crying out loud.

It'll only take you a few bulbdrops.

Hyperbolic Excesses, and Other Torments

I actually got a bonus check from Wal-Mart yesterday. Not that it amounted to anything - about half of a normal paycheck - but I certainly didn't wad it up and chuck it back at them. Which would have been impossible anyway, because I had to talk through a sliding drawer to a disembodied voice to get it. That was before I accepted a clipboard from a disembodied hand and initialed that I received it. The whole process was too stupid to tolerate for very long, so I scribbled and briskly walked away. I'm lucky to have had about four inches of wall between me and the Wal-Mart Fiscal Wizard of Oz - otherwise she would have gotten two sockets full of the most obnoxious eye roll ever produced by anyone over the age of fifteen. I remember walking away thinking, 'You know, I understand the need to keep thieves, hobos, and riff-raff out of the Waltons' Monetary Panic Room, but would it kill anybody to slap a square foot of plexiglas in the wall so I don't have to stand behind the customer service desk and talk to a drawer like a moron?

The need for security? Acknowledged. Talking drawer in the wall? Hyperbolic excess.

Since they refused to Direct Deposit my bonus check (thereby necessitating what I call the Drawer Debacle), I then had to go to the bank. Walking under the awning covering the approach to the door, I heard something akin to a cross between techno and jazz being piped out of an overhead speaker. Puzzled, I paused for a moment. What is being conveyed here? Are the tellers and loan officers inside trying to get me to believe that there's a party inside? That the sign proclaiming the building to be a "BANK", the drive-thru lanes, and the ATM are all just a con to keep schmuck losers out of the hippest club in town?

Whatever the case, I don't get my hopes up - which is good, because once I'm inside the interesting music mix fades in favor of ink jet printers, keyboards furiously clicking under the rhythmic taps of fingertips, and conversations muffled by either distance or glass. Maybe the whole scheme isn't designed for people like me who actually think - maybe it's designed for emotion-driven automatons. You know, the guy (we'll call him Mortimer) who's hacked off and ready to tell Hillary the teller that she needs to either dump a lot of money into something portable, or face the wrath of his index finger, which he hopes will be mistaken for a .45 when he pokes it through the fabric of his jacket pocket. As Mortimer walks up, though, he hears that music mix with a funky beat, stops and says, "Hey, I'm happy," and opens a checking account instead. Maybe that was the plan.

The need to defuse Mortimer before he savages the tellers? Acknowledged. Piping club music to the bank porch? Hyperbolic excess.

Walking up to the desk, I'm frightened by a secretary in her mid-twenties wearing a fire engine red business suit. Noting my entry, she flashed at least 23 teeth and said, "Good MORNING!" with such enthusiasm that you'd think we'd slept together the night before. I tried to reply with like enthusiasm, but I failed. I knew it was a con, too. One, she couldn't be happy to see me as a customer (or client, or whatever they refer to me as in their banker meetings), because I'm just a poor college student who produces little to no income for them. Two, she couldn't be happy to see me as a person, because I was wearing a grungy gray Hanes pocket tee, beat down blue jeans, and my five year old New Balance sneakers that reveal a good square inch of sock through their many holes. Plus, I hadn't showered or shaved for the day. She wanted me to think that seeing me made her day. But I know that a black mood equals a pink slip for my would-be mistress.

The need to welcome me? Acknowledged. Making me wonder whether I'd cheated on my wife the night before? Hyperbolic excess.

As I filled out my deposit slip (yes, people, I actually deposit money when I go to the bank, as opposed to getting cash for fireworks and cigarettes), I noticed that there is a forty-some-odd inch plasma television bolted to the wall about twelve feet up, pointed at the floor where a gathering line would be, but wasn't at 8:30 in the morning (yes, people, I get up before noon). I guess it's there to keep Mortimer from changing his mind while he's standing in line.

The odd thing, though, was the fact that it wasn't turned on. Two thousand dollars of television, impotent to televise. It's usually tuned to some news station or another, complete with a scrolling ticker telling me horrible things that I really could have gone without knowing. As I stifled an urge to make a running jump and push the power button (I could have gotten it, I swear), I wondered if it wouldn't have been easier to have someone at the door handing out yo-yo's and superballs to line-dwellers, and collecting them as they exited. They could even yo and bounce to the beat of that funky music that was playing on the porch. But no. They opted for the screen that cost two grand and is too much of a hassle to turn on. Maybe they carpeted over the remote.

The need for technology? Acknowledged. Turning into some hipster-doofus of a bank with a blank plasma screen? Hyperbolic excess.

Then, as I left, I passed the bank's popcorn stand. Yes, that kind, complete with the wagon wheels and the Westward Expansion-era lettering. (Did any of the oxen on the Oregon Trail pull popcorn machines? I bet there's a popcorn machine somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas that the Donners had to abandon.) I quietly chuckle at the accompanying signage: "Please ask bank associate for assistance with the popcorn." Yeah. I'm going to walk thirty feet out of my way, tap a loan officer who's on the phone with someone on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me, but I'd like a tub of popcorn. Oh, and extra butter, please." I know, I know, appease the kids - but if they're too young for the yo-yo's and the superballs, give the guy at the door pacifiers, too.

The need to satisfy children? Acknowledged. Making parents curse you and your institution as they vacuum popcorn kernels out of the crevices in the backseat of their car? Hyperbolic excess.

As you go through life, you will occasionally be blessed (or cursed) with some sort of power (Yes, you will. Yes, you will. (yesyouwill)*(∞!) [ask your local math whiz - he or she will laugh, and then tell you why]). Just remember that there comes a point when practicality is saturated and excess leaks out. Take care that you don't unleash a dragon when a salamander would have done the job. Then irritated college students, not unlike myself, won't have to vent about your overambition on their blogs. I thank you. Mortimer thanks you. And society at large thanks you, too.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
--Abraham Lincoln

A Turtle's Consent

As I write, I sit in my decently comfortable office chair, working on my laptop, which rests on my massive, five foot wide, solid wood teacher's desk that I stole for $20 at Goodwill (quick plug: thrift stores rock). Many memories rest upon this desk. Sitting about a foot away from me is Harold, my pet turtle. Okay, so he's not a real turtle...well, scratch that, he is real, he's just not biological. Well, scratch that, too, because I think his shell is made of some kind of nut shell...let's just suffice it to say that he's not breathing.

Harold is one of those handpainted bobble-head turtles you might find in a street market in the Caribbean. A dear friend of mine, who lives in Canada, of all places, gave him to me as a gift. For months, he's been riding shotgun with me in my Cavalier, nodding his head along with the beat of my music. Well, maybe more in tune with the potholes and speed bumps than the music, but his consent was unquestioned.

Harold suffered a rather grievous injury recently, when an enterprising thief (previous post) cracked his shell as he plucked my in-dash CD player out of its nest (more prying and ripping than plucking, actually, but I digress). You know what, though? Harold is still nodding. Sure, there's a crater in the back of his shell and cracks in two other places, but he's still optimistic. And the paint he has left is still pretty.

I've had my shell cracked a few times. Death, illness, rejection, failure, and pain have all taken swipes at me, making their cracks and craters and fissures. And, oh, how often I've wanted to buckle, wanted to submit and give up. What I try to remember is, like Harold, the paint I've got left is still pretty - and I've got to keep bobbing my head, nodding along whether life throws me a pothole or a song.

Four drops of superglue, and Harold will be back in my Cavalier, riding shotgun once again, nodding in tune with my thoughts in the absence of music. He's had a few knocks, but he'll be all right.

We'll both be all right.

I Never Saw the Shadow

Believe it or not, I own an old boxed, variable speed record player (that's right, folks) that my grandparents got each other for their first Christmas. It still spins them like a pro - it recently crackled out Gerry Rafferty's City to City LP for me. I've got all the good stuff - Seals and Crofts, Sheena Easton, Jim Croce, Chicago, Air Supply, Christopher Cross, and a gob of old 45's that I haven't even gotten around to listening to yet (except for the Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole records - those got fished out first). I wonder about every little nick and scratch on the thing, trying to envision the circumstances that brought them about.

Now, I might let you talk me out of one of the records (most people reading weblogs would probably prefer my keeping them, though). But the player's a no-go. It brims with the presence of my grandfather. The box is replete with his trademark: embossed labelmaker stickers, proudly declaring "This Side Up," "Our 1st Christmas," and "40 Years," though that mark has long since passed. It still smells sweetly of old dust and vinyl, taking me back to childhood days spent playing Chinese Checkers with my grandfather and tooling around in his 1964 Ford Fairlane - sea foam green, with vinyl covered seats, the occasional errant hammer, screwdriver, or fistful of napkins, and a small oscillating fan on the dashboard (I kid you not).

He and Grandma and I would sit and speculate about how big the raindrops were that day, how people could possibly bring themselves to spend $100 on a pair of rollerblades, how tart cranberry juice can be, how you get used to the trains at night when you live nearby, how front-wheel drive cars are inherently evil ("Wouldn't give fifteen cents for a front wheel drive car," he'd always say), and how computers could never replace marbles, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and pogo sticks.

But never Korea. In so many hours, so many discussions, so many subjects, he never breathed a word about being in the Korean War. After he died of a heart attack in July of 2000, his obituary emotionlessly informed me that he had served on an aircraft carrier during the war. I had mixed emotions at the time. At first, I felt a little miffed, feeling as though I'd been left out of the loop. I felt as though I'd had the wool pulled over my eyes for so many years. I think I know better now, though.

I realize now that he (and everybody else, for that matter) was not concerned with deceiving me - he never would have done that. What he did have was the wisdom to know that I needed a childhood as free from worry and anxiety as possible - the wisdom to know that his grandson, even as a teenager, needed to be able to spend time not with Grandpa the seafaring warrior, but with Grandpa the Grandpa. The Grandpa who sat and listened to swap and trade shows on AM radio every morning. The Grandpa who took an ill-advised turn or two in a Chinese Checkers game just to see me beam with pride in my victory. The Grandpa who took pleasure in spinning Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole 45's, exposing me to a style of music that I'd never heard before, and that still influences me to this day.

To this minute. Leaving the others to lie in their neglect, I feather through my pillar of dusty vinyl and slide a Sinatra out. As it crackles and hisses before giving way to a rich melody, I'm back on their deep scarlet carpet, bunched and beaten by time, jamming Tinkertoys together and dreaming of saving the world.

Little did I know that, in more ways than one, my Grandpa had already saved it for me.

Blessed Be the Name of the Lord

So I got my CD player jacked out of my car this afternoon. Probably not what you expected to read after taking in my post title. Understandable...but I'll get there.

I walked out of Wal-Mart after my 3 pm - 11pm shift...wait, scratch that. I walked out at 11:35. It's funny when you think about it...if I clock in at eight minutes after three o'clock, I get a citation on my file. If they keep me a half hour late, though, that's no big deal. I guess I forget that my time is worth bunk compared to everyone else's.

Anyway...I walk up to my car, and I notice that my one inch ventilation crack has turned into a gaping five inch opening. Then I notice smudged fingerprints on the top of the window, right before seeing the crater in my dashboard. Now, first off, the schmucks cheated and used a screwdriver. I spent over four hours over the course of two days putting that player in, and by George, that sucker was in there tight. I remember saying to myself, "Self, the only way anybody's getting that sucker out is tearing out the dashboard." Well, I jinxed myself, because they did. It was a nice player, too. Sony CD-MPX40, blue LCD screen, 210 watts with ID3 tag reader and mp3 capability. Probably getting pawned as I write. Complete with my Jimmy Eat World CD inside.

So after filing a report with a surprisingly half-interested police officer and a security guard who admitted that mine was the second burgulary committed on his watch today, I started my first drive home in a long while unaccompanied by Chevelle, Jimmy Eat World, Yellowcard, or something similar. And as I drove in silence (actually, as I drove and talked to myself, but that's assuredly going to come up later), I started thinking. As I was in our biweekly chapel service at college today, the worship leader told us the story of how he went to the funeral of his friend's mother, and saw the most amazing thing: toward the end of the service, his friend slowly stood, walked to the front of the sanctuary, and sang "Blessed Be Your Name." For the probably most of you who don't know how the song goes:

Blessed Be Your Name / In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow / Blessed be Your name
Blessed Be Your name / When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness / Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll / turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord / Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord / Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord / Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name / When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be' / Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name / On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering / Blessed be Your name

(Bridge) / (Chorus 2x)

You give and take away / You give and take away
My heart will choose to say / Lord, blessed be Your name

This is no morbid dirge. This song is up tempo - 123 tempo in 4/4 time. I remember thinking at the time, what a thought. To be standing within feet of your lifeless mother, lying chilly in a casket, and singing such a sincere, loving praise to God. What faith. All of this flashed through my mind, and then I looked at the crater in my dashboard, and I laughed.

You know what? If that friend of a friend of mine can summon the strength to give praise to God in the face of so much real tragedy, what am I to do in the loss of my preh-shush CD player? Should I spit on the rather ineffective security guy circling the Wal-Mart parking lot? Should I whine to the police officer when he tells me that he can't call out a crime unit for a $200 CD player and one maybe-usable print? Should I curse God for His injustice?

"While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you." Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD." Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God." Job 1:18-22

I've got tons to be thankful for...and it's not even November. I've got a beautiful wife who loves me, a steady job, a solid college career, a loving family, a host of friends who would be here in a second if they knew I needed them, and a litany of other things I could cram Google's servers with. I say this with humility, certain in my knowledge that you, sitting before your own glass screen, may not have as much as I do - but I would like to think that I've got my priorities straight.

And do I think that God tapped someone with nothing better to do on the shoulder and told him or her to pluck my CD player out of my dashboard? Of course not. I'm still developing my theology on the tension between human free agency and divine providence, but I'm not so naive as to think that God targeted me because of something I did (some people have an element of karma in their Christian theology, reasoning that bad things in their lives must have come from bad things they have done, which isn't necessarily true). Things happen...life is a dynamic flow of events. Some we label as positive, some we label as negative, and some we shrug at and label as, "Oh, well." I choose to shrug. And if you happen to have let yourself into a red 1990 Cavalier in Oklahoma City today and helped yourself to my CD player, I forgive you. My only regret is not having a Christian CD in the player so that you might hear the message of hope that has fundamentally changed my life. Pawn it off and feed your family for a couple of weeks. I pray you might find the Hope I have found.

"You give and take away...You give and take away..."

An Introduction and Disclaimer

For those of you who read my first post, you more than likely ascertained that I am a Christian. This, unfortunately, requires some explanation. I am not any of the televangelists you briefly see on the channels you probably skip over. I am not the crisply dressed person who knocks on your door at nine in the morning on Saturday and wants to discuss the content of their handy-dandy pamphlets. In fact, I'm currently wearing a sleeveless promo shirt for a hometown rock band, Arizona blue jeans, and flip flops, and, frankly, pamphlets usually irritate me, too.

Not to demean the televangelists or the pamphlet discussers. I'm certain that they're good people with the best of intentions. Even so, I distance myself. I don't know if this will be a news flash to any of you, but that's not what we all look like. Now, granted, that's what some of us look like. But, contrary to what often seems to be popular opinion, we are not hopelessly naive, thoroughly bigoted crackpots who watch reruns of The 700 Club all day.

Now, to be fair, I'm sure that there are all of seven people who actually do that. But the media would often have you believe that 98% of us do. Unfair and patently incorrect, but without something to judge it against, who's to call, say, Matt Groening out on his portrayal?

I mean, think about it. Who's the most boring character on The Simpsons? Reverend Timothy Lovejoy. Oh, but it goes on. Who is the dorkiest, most dimwitted character on M*A*S*H, with the possible exception of Klinger? Father Mulcahy. Who were the villains in the movie Stigmata? Cardinals in the Catholic Church. Who was shown as morally weak in that same movie? The priest involved with the main character. The elements of Holy Communion are flushed down a toilet on the February 22 episode of "Committed" on NBC. Jesus Christ wears a diaper in the Jerry Springer opera and claims that he's "a bit gay." And on and on it goes. Mock Christians, get a raise. Mock Muslims, or sexual preference, or women, or race, and chase your decapitated head out the office door.

All I know to say is that I'm me. I'm not 72, I don't chuck Bibles at people, I don't shoot abortionists. I do think we are called to more than we can give ourselves. I do think you can have a dozen piercings, or a dozen tattoos, and still be a Christian. And I do know that I have been called and commissioned to a purpose that transcends my personal desires. So please don't backbite me for living in line with my convictions - after all, don't you do the same thing?

Initial Splotches of Digital Ink

Ah, my initial foray. I'm hoping that this will evolve into a weekly digest of my ruminations, but between a full time Bachelor's program and a full time job hawking shoes at a certain Arkansas-based retailer (I know, I know, screw me for supporting the evil empire), let's just say we'll just see how it goes.

Microbio(-graphy, not -logical): Born in Missouri, grew up on a farm, graduated from high school in a class of twenty, was initially headed for the Air Force, felt called into ministry, moved to Oklahoma City and started a Bachelor's program in Pastoral Ministry, got married. I realize that it sounds like I'm just generally sold out, but the truth will soon spill from my digital quill. (Did I mention my dabbles in poetry? :) )

You're probably wondering about the name. A victim of my own nitpickiness, I mulled about 487 different names in my head (okay, more like thirteen) before settling on Scarlet Over Jade. As I thought about it, I thought about the dichotomy one can often see in life between power and powerlessness, substance and shadow, scarlet and jade. In my mind, jade represents those things which are of marginal consequence, at best. Jade is money. Jade is this earth. Jade is that collection of petty things we chuck into the storage shed of our lives. Of course, much like jade, they might often look very tantalizing - yet that glitter is a fraud.

Scarlet, on the other hand, is sacrifice. Scarlet is life. Scarlet is the shedding of blood for a cause that transcends the self, physically or otherwise. Scarlet is meaning. Scarlet is truth.

Hence the name. :)