signs i have a writing deadline: my bathroom gleams with such cleanliness it can't be viewed with natural eyes, i decide to organize my finances for the first time in a year, and a gnawing anxiety in my intestines that causes rapid blinking and a mild case of turrets. so why, i ask myself, am i writing words here on my blog rather than adding some words to the empty word document that my boss expects tomorrow chock full of words? good question. the answer: the bathroom is already clean. ok. it's more than that...i just can't face that insufferably helpful animated paperclip that shames me with his observations that it looks i'm writing a letter, do i need his help? does it look like i need help? i'm doing just fine here on my own, living it up on the shores of procrasti-nation, the opposite pole of the seldom visited dedication nation.
please forward job openings my way? i might need 'em.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
goodbye
This week I bid sad farewell to two men who wouldn't appear to have anything in common.
President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away last Sunday night, in his home probably just blocks away from where I was having dinner. After receiving the sad news of his passing, my first feeling was actually happiness for Pres. Hinckley – I imagine Sunday night was a joyful time of reunion. And how sweet is death when you did the living part right? He really wasted and wore out his life in the service of God and man. This week, a feeling of loss has been sinking in – and an awareness of the impact the prophet had on the church, his community and me.
I saw a documentary about Hinckley’s life the other night. He was positive, brave, audacious, adventurous and knew how to make people feel loved and good. He opened up our community, encouraging members to step outside their circle of comfort. It’s easy to be Christian in a congregation of like-minded folks, but Hinckley wanted to us to get out of our congregations and get out in the world. He certainly did. He popped the world’s klieg lights on our faith and invited “outsiders” in – without judgment.
Hinckley fell into the work with the church (instead of his first career ambition to be a journalist) because he was bold enough to tell his church leaders when he thought something could be improved. Post-mission he went to the prophet and gave his two cents about the missionary teaching materials, and he was asked to take a job with the church and dream up other improvements. He was a man of deep faith and a man of action. My favorite quote of his: “When there’s a job to be done, get on your knees and ask the Lord’s help, then get on your feet and go to work.”
And I love his relationship with his wife. Hinckley has said that he and Majorie had never had a fight in 60 years of marriage. Majorie once quipped in response, “I wonder where he was for the last 60 years?” My bet is that Hinckley really couldn’t recall a fight – it was his nature to see things positively. I also liked one other comment Majorie gave about marriage. When asked about the secret to a happy marriage, her response: lower your expectations. They both kept it real and I’m motivated by their honesty and energetic lives of righteousness without a trace of self-righteousness.
This week another man known and loved in much smaller circles passed away. I admit I was a bit afraid of Ron Horton at our first meeting. All I knew was that he was once a hard-partying biker who frequented casinos and bars and his friends included ex-cons and a serial killer. Our first interview was at a seedy bar and Ron rolled up on his chopper, long hair flying. But I wasn’t concerned after he took of his glasses and I saw his eyes. Ron was a good man.
Yes he partied pretty hard at one point and his cast of friends was a collection of the handicapped, the foolhardy and the down on their luck. But he was the shepherd of this little flock of misfits. I went to Biker Church with him one Sunday (his biker gang would congregate at a bar in fellowship over too much alcohol). I watched him circulate through the crowd, checking in on folks, caring for a baby (that the parents brought to a bar!) chastising people for making poor decisions and encouraging better things from people.
The story I wrote about Ron described how he tracked one of his friends he suspected of being a serial killer, working hand in glove with police to bring him to justice. Some of his friends turned on him after he did this; some folks aren’t fans of law enforcement, but he did what was right rather than what was easy. And upon his friend’s capture, Ron gave the significant reward money to families of the victims. This is a guy who is raising three boys in a modest home and could certainly have used the money. I know how much of his day was spent in the care and service of others. I called him many times while writing my story and he was inevitably caring for a sick friend, buying groceries for someone down on their luck, taking in another kid or friend or animal. He didn’t look the part of a do-gooder and would’ve been out of place in our meeting house, but he did the living part right too. He wasted and wore out his life in the service of his fellow man, quietly doing what was right without a trace of self-righteousness, without looking for anything in return and without fear of judgment.
My dad once told me that the mark of a great man is how YOU feel when you leave his presence. If you feel good about yourself and inspired to be better, that’s a great person. So this is my tribute to Gordon B. Hinckley and Ron Horton – two great, inspiring men who have made the world a poorer place by taking their leave.
ps: the Ron Horton article here: http://www.rd.com/stories/true-crime/sniper-targets-phoenix/article.html
President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away last Sunday night, in his home probably just blocks away from where I was having dinner. After receiving the sad news of his passing, my first feeling was actually happiness for Pres. Hinckley – I imagine Sunday night was a joyful time of reunion. And how sweet is death when you did the living part right? He really wasted and wore out his life in the service of God and man. This week, a feeling of loss has been sinking in – and an awareness of the impact the prophet had on the church, his community and me.
I saw a documentary about Hinckley’s life the other night. He was positive, brave, audacious, adventurous and knew how to make people feel loved and good. He opened up our community, encouraging members to step outside their circle of comfort. It’s easy to be Christian in a congregation of like-minded folks, but Hinckley wanted to us to get out of our congregations and get out in the world. He certainly did. He popped the world’s klieg lights on our faith and invited “outsiders” in – without judgment.
Hinckley fell into the work with the church (instead of his first career ambition to be a journalist) because he was bold enough to tell his church leaders when he thought something could be improved. Post-mission he went to the prophet and gave his two cents about the missionary teaching materials, and he was asked to take a job with the church and dream up other improvements. He was a man of deep faith and a man of action. My favorite quote of his: “When there’s a job to be done, get on your knees and ask the Lord’s help, then get on your feet and go to work.”
And I love his relationship with his wife. Hinckley has said that he and Majorie had never had a fight in 60 years of marriage. Majorie once quipped in response, “I wonder where he was for the last 60 years?” My bet is that Hinckley really couldn’t recall a fight – it was his nature to see things positively. I also liked one other comment Majorie gave about marriage. When asked about the secret to a happy marriage, her response: lower your expectations. They both kept it real and I’m motivated by their honesty and energetic lives of righteousness without a trace of self-righteousness.
This week another man known and loved in much smaller circles passed away. I admit I was a bit afraid of Ron Horton at our first meeting. All I knew was that he was once a hard-partying biker who frequented casinos and bars and his friends included ex-cons and a serial killer. Our first interview was at a seedy bar and Ron rolled up on his chopper, long hair flying. But I wasn’t concerned after he took of his glasses and I saw his eyes. Ron was a good man.
Yes he partied pretty hard at one point and his cast of friends was a collection of the handicapped, the foolhardy and the down on their luck. But he was the shepherd of this little flock of misfits. I went to Biker Church with him one Sunday (his biker gang would congregate at a bar in fellowship over too much alcohol). I watched him circulate through the crowd, checking in on folks, caring for a baby (that the parents brought to a bar!) chastising people for making poor decisions and encouraging better things from people.
The story I wrote about Ron described how he tracked one of his friends he suspected of being a serial killer, working hand in glove with police to bring him to justice. Some of his friends turned on him after he did this; some folks aren’t fans of law enforcement, but he did what was right rather than what was easy. And upon his friend’s capture, Ron gave the significant reward money to families of the victims. This is a guy who is raising three boys in a modest home and could certainly have used the money. I know how much of his day was spent in the care and service of others. I called him many times while writing my story and he was inevitably caring for a sick friend, buying groceries for someone down on their luck, taking in another kid or friend or animal. He didn’t look the part of a do-gooder and would’ve been out of place in our meeting house, but he did the living part right too. He wasted and wore out his life in the service of his fellow man, quietly doing what was right without a trace of self-righteousness, without looking for anything in return and without fear of judgment.
My dad once told me that the mark of a great man is how YOU feel when you leave his presence. If you feel good about yourself and inspired to be better, that’s a great person. So this is my tribute to Gordon B. Hinckley and Ron Horton – two great, inspiring men who have made the world a poorer place by taking their leave.
ps: the Ron Horton article here: http://www.rd.com/stories/true-crime/sniper-targets-phoenix/article.html
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
two winners and absolutely no losers
polls closed late last night in this hotly contested race for the fattest wallace offspring -- a race marred by negative campaigning, election fraud and ballot irregularities. chocolate baby took an early lead until a wellspring of beefy voters, including unregistered international voters from brazil -- GARY -- put their ginormous candidate in the jumbo-sized spotlight big enough to accommodate his large hindquarters and thighs. candidates traded soft dimple-fisted jabs. chocolate baby thundered that beefy's jaba the hut-like tongue was winning intimidation votes, beefy's camp countered with a comparison of chocolate baby's cake-soaked pony tails to devil's horns while reminding voters that his fluffiness was accumulated in just 3 short months of life on breast milk while it took chocolate baby a full year AND solid foods to gain those jowls. when chads were found both in the fleshy folds of will's floatation-device arms and partially digested in eliza's chocolatey diaper, election officials demanded a recount... that just made the results more confusing. follow this math: 68 votes, 36 per candidate, giving both candidates 52 percent of the vote. that's right. both fatties have more than half of the popular vote. in a race that flies in the face of simple math, the people have spoken: both babies are the winner.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
quien es mas gordo?
we all know there's nothing so cute as a fat baby. may i present two of the fattest babies i know: my niece, eliza bell wallace (the chocolate-covered baby suffering from dunlap's disease, as in her gut "done lapped" her diaper waistband) and right below her you'll find my nephew, will, whose man breasts are literally pouring through my sister's fingers. obviously we wallaces have a healthy respect for food, even early on. don't you just want to bite their cute little segmented bodies?
Monday, January 7, 2008
a wee bit o social commentary
I don’t find much occasion to frequent the suburban shopping carnival that is Costco… seeing that I’m normally a good thousand miles from my address and I’m shopping for one, I both don’t need that 250 ounce jar of peanut butter, I wouldn’t know where to put it.
I know Costco has groceries from my annual duck beach shop-a-thon. (And I have to stop here and give pause for the PMS-addled Costco run of a few years back with Jamie. Almost as people friendly as the Halloween we dressed up like mimes so we wouldn’t have to talk to anybody.) But who knew that Costco had books? Clothing? Furniture? Electronics?! Free samples of food!! I went this weekend with my sister seeking a late Christmas present for a niece, a gallon of milk and an Ipod. Pish posh, I thought. Not in one stop, I was so wrong. There is a whole convenient world of shopping in that concrete warehouse of cheap and various goods. I found myself exclaiming: I love America! No where, in all my travels have I seen something so conveniently miraculous (and thrifty!) as this indoor shopping bizarre.
And then I noticed something. I noticed China. It was freaking everywhere. EVERYTHING WAS MADE IN CHINA. Toys, clothes, furniture and for dang sure the electronics and the plasma tvs. I just wanted to find ONE made in the USA label. I was a searcher – up one aisle, down the other. Past the miles of linens and fields of kitchen appliances, the legions of games and yard ornaments, on to the tubs of jeans and jackets, around the corner to the prairie land of furnishings. I found a few Canada labels and a handful of Made in México’s but not one American flag staking claim of workmanship. I’m no John Bircher but can I get a witness on this? This ain’t good. We want industry and manufacturing jobs with benefits but we don’t want to pay anymore than a buck fifty for a bedroom suite. Costco is the microcosm – or the microCostcoism – of all that is wrong with America and our economy. That’s what I’m going to call it and see if that’s a word we Americans can rally around. End microCostcoism today, I say! Catchy? Anyone? Is this mic on?
And ps – I finally broke free of the gravitational pull that is Yorktown last night. Yes. That’s a two-week (unpaid) Christmas vacation for me. And I’m not saying leaving is a good thing. I hate hate hate to leave my family. I’m so lucky that my family rocks and they also just happen to be my BFFs. I’m feeling the bagpipes tonight. Love you guys.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
merry christmas
In Hoc Anno Domini
December 24, 2007; Page A10
When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.
Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.
But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression -- for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?
There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?
Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.
And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.
So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.
But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.
Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.
And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.
December 24, 2007; Page A10
When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.
Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.
But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression -- for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?
There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?
Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.
And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.
So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.
But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.
Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.
And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
a mighty kerfuffle: a PSA
the how-to on avoiding time in the slammer or unwanted spam in your inbox:
1. never trust a 15 year-old when he promises he's run something by his guardian. one of my sweet lost boys hitched a ride with me back to colorado city yesterday -- the polygamist city in southern utah where he lived for the first 14 years of his life. he assured me he'd cleared it with the powers that be. and so we happily went to the compound and off the grid as far as cell phones go. by the time i got back into cell phone service i had 7 voicemails from the aforementioned guardian. they started out nice enough with gentle yet worried inquiries... then turned fearful and downright menacing. the word "kidnap" might have been mentioned. after a long drawn-out peace process, we're cool and i don't expect to spend time in the slammer THIS trip to utah. still. lesson learned.
2. you know those "free offers" that come to your email inbox? turns out they are not free. you are not going to get a free mac laptop or a camera or a lifetime supply of groceries for filling out a survey. i know they SAY you will but they lie.
1. never trust a 15 year-old when he promises he's run something by his guardian. one of my sweet lost boys hitched a ride with me back to colorado city yesterday -- the polygamist city in southern utah where he lived for the first 14 years of his life. he assured me he'd cleared it with the powers that be. and so we happily went to the compound and off the grid as far as cell phones go. by the time i got back into cell phone service i had 7 voicemails from the aforementioned guardian. they started out nice enough with gentle yet worried inquiries... then turned fearful and downright menacing. the word "kidnap" might have been mentioned. after a long drawn-out peace process, we're cool and i don't expect to spend time in the slammer THIS trip to utah. still. lesson learned.
2. you know those "free offers" that come to your email inbox? turns out they are not free. you are not going to get a free mac laptop or a camera or a lifetime supply of groceries for filling out a survey. i know they SAY you will but they lie.
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