Griffin House

Imagine butter.  Then imagine velvety chocolate.  Then imagine the soft feathers of a baby chick.  Then imagine a perfect summer night.  Then imagine a motorcycle ride down a country road.  Then imagine your grandpa telling you a joke.  Then imagine the perfect sized biceps.   

If you have imagined right, you should be thinking of this guy: Griffin House.

Imagine me and Kelly going to see Griffin House in concert at the RamsHead On Stage.  Imagine all the Cosby show episodes that have scenes in colorful, cozy jazz clubs.  Imagine that to be RamsHead Stage.  But imagine it a little drunker.

Imagine Kelly looking hot in her bar clothes.  Imagine Kelly ordering a lemonade that tastes like a sweettart.  Imagine me ordering a tropical sunrise.  Imagine the bartender reading the waitress' note tequila sunrise.  Imagine the nasty nasty nasty surprise.  Imagine the lesson learned.  Imagine the welcome relief of plain old orange juice mixed with sprite.



Now let's imagine the second act.  Imagine a guy named Charlie Mars.  Imagine nothing special, just something okay. 

But imagine the people in the audience starting to loosen up after all their drinks.  Imagine a very inebriated girl yelling loud nonsense words during quiet accoustic songs.  Imagine me trying to take mental notes of the awesome dance moves of two tall stalky black gay men.  Imagine the sixty year old couple across from us gently swaying and smiling and singing along to Charlie Mars' chorus "come and get high with me and we'll listen to the dark side of the moon."  After all that, imagine wanting desparately for Griffin House to come back on the stage.  Imagine him coming back on the stage and trying to take another picture of him.

Imagine someone walking by just as you were snapping the picture.  Imagine looking at your picture and discovering that you only got a picture of his arm.  Then imagine realizing that's probably all you really needed/wanted a picture of.  

Imagine Griffin and Charlie singing some songs together.  Imagine them singing songs that have all the right notes in all the right places with lyrics that fall and twist and hum in just the right way.  Imagine Griffin singing a "murder ballad."  Imagine being charmed by a murder ballad.  Imagine thinking, "What?!  Am I seriously charmed by a murder ballad!?"  Imagine answering, "Yes, you are."   

Imagine me and Kelly having a great time.  Imagine us singing our hearts out.  Well, imagine me singing my heart out.  Imagine Kelly silently singing in her heart because she refuses to sing at a place where she has paid someone else to sing.

Imagine leaving the concert with a happy glow (please imagine no jokes about the tropical sunrise).  Imagine waiting 20 minutes to get out of the parking garage.  Imagine Kelly's "I hate waiting to get out of parking garages" face.  Imagine no further, here is what it looks like:

Imagine a Saturday night well spent in little ol' Annapolis with Griffin House.



My Bagpipe Belle

This is my Marsha Bell.  She is my bagpipe teacher.  

And she is the greatest treasure I have ever found from a google search.

If you ever go to Marsha Bell's house, the first thing you will find is a sign on the door with explicit instructions to not let yourself in (they own a dog whose one ambition in life is to run for freedom).
There's a sign right below that sign that says "Only family, friends, and LDS missionaries welcome."  She's not LDS, but her and her husband have been hanging out with the elders for a couple of years now.  She even advertises for them at her church, begging others to just invite the elders in just to talk for awhile.  She tells me all the time how much she loves them and she can't imagine what her life would be like if she never invited them in.

When you walk into the house, you are greeted by her two birds.  She also has a couple (mean) cats.

She's got style too.  I like the way she decorates.  She stays true to her love of all things Scottish.

Check out this window.

Check it out a little closer.  Isn't that awesome?

She's a Christian woman who truly lives up to the name.  If I cancel my lesson, I don't have to pay her, but I have to donate money to her favorite charity (The Cherokee Nation) or donate some cans to her church's food drive.  She offers to pick me up from the Metro every week.  When my power was out for a few days, she told me if I wanted I could come stay at her place for as long as I needed.

She's a good woman.  And she plays the bagpipes like an angel.

And she tells me I can too.  She also tells me I'm a very "creative" player.  When I play well, she says "That was outstanding!  Play it again so I know it's not a fluke."

(I'm making that face because I'm channeling my inner Pop-eye.  It's an old bagpiping trick.  Also, at the time this picture was taken, I was making noises similar to the squeals of a dying pig.  Sometimes I'm laughing so hard it's difficult to get enough air to go into the chanter.  I think that's when I try to get "creative".)

And when I play bad, she stares at the notes on the page for awhile, blinks a few times, and says, "Well, at least we know you'll never be expected to play at the Glenfiddich."

And sometimes after I play, she says, "The Duke of Atholl is the only citizen in the entire British Empire that has his own private army.  The Queen can call on the army to use if she wants, but it's his and his alone to keep."  She then gives me a five minute discourse on the history of the duke's name, the county where he lives, and the origin of his army.   During the five minute discourse, I sit and try to figure out what about my playing inspired the mini history lesson that has nothing to do with bagpipes.  Or even music.

Like I said, she's the greatest treasure I've ever found from a google search.

All the Pretty Things

Sometimes when I give talks in church, I feel like right after I give it my life is filled with opportunities to live up to what I just preached.  Last month I gave a talk on love and loneliness.  I preached about the power loneliness has to bring us to the love of Christ.  I think it touched a lot of people because...well, because we're all lonely.

Today I thought a lot about an experience I shared in my talk.  Almost ten years ago, I was sitting next to a girl in sacrament who I did not know but I knew of her.  I knew that she was twenty years old and had been married a year previous to that time.  Three weeks after the wedding, her and her husband got in a car accident.  Her husband died and she suffered brain damage that took her over a year to learn how to speak and read and write again.  We sat next to each other during the meeting and listened to a man give a talk about love and miracles.  His wife had been deathly ill and miraculously healed and he knew God had blessed him with a miracle because He loved him.  The girl next to me started crying.  I couldn't help but think that if I was in her shoes, I would be sitting there thinking, to any varying degree, "where was my miracle? doesn't God love me?"  I clumsily put my arm around her and she said, "It's okay, really, I'm okay.  Sometimes it's just hard to believe in all the pretty things, you know?  But then I remind myself to start by believing in Christ, and then everything else is a little easier to believe."

Today was one of those days where it felt really hard to believe in all the pretty things.  Pretty things like love and miracles and hope and healing.  It's okay though - I don't want anyone reading this and making comments to try and cheer me up because honestly, it was just a day and I know tomorrow will be better (or at least that's what my sister promised me).

 I'm not writing this for sympathy or because I need someone to tell me it will be all right, I'm writing this because...well, because it has been a month since I gave that talk and people are still coming up to me and wanting to talk to me about my talk.  People I don't know are sending me emails and notes to talk about my talk.  It seems there are a lot of people who have a hard time believing in all the pretty things.  It seems there are a lot of lonely people.  So I'm just writing this to let anyone out there know that it's okay and today is just a day and tomorrow will be better and it's okay to be lonely and it's okay to believe in pretty things.

I did it.

After 28 years of life, I finally put two and two together.  They are the Beatles with an "a" because music has beats.  Hahaha, I get it.

Another meeting, another doodle.

I used to draw this same doodle on the paper bag covers of all my textbooks when I was in middle school.  I don't know what made me think of it today.

I used to draw it right in front of my first true love, Yukio Sawada.  We loved each other from the 1st grade until the 6th grade.  He would bug me all the time trying to find out who M.F. was.  I never told him that it stood for My Family.  It drove him wild.  Maybe I should try using that trick again.

Valentine's Day

"It's a good excuse, put our love to use."

I love boats. I want to live on a boat. I want to be a boat.

Okay, yes, I went too far.  I don't want to be a boat.  But I kind of do.

I bought this ring the other day.  I love this ring.  I want to be this ring.  Too far?  Just kidding.  But I do love this ring.

Sometimes in the middle of my work day or in the midst of never-ending homework, I'll look down at this ring and I'll feel a very particular type of happiness.  The kind of happiness that I feel when I'm on a boat.  I look at this ring and I can feel the gentle rocking of waves and the extra chill of a water wind.

I look at this ring and I can feel the warmth of Lake Almanor summers, summers spent boating for days with cousins while both our bodies and our memories turned golden with the sun.

I look at my ring and I can feel the excitement of floating in Boston Harbor on the 4th of July, watching fireworks from our MIT sailboat.  I think I was more captivated by the water than the fireworks.

I look at my ring and I can feel the exhiliration of sailing along the Mexican coast.  The thrill of conquering waves and wind until we capsized, then conquered some more, then capsized again, then conquered some more.  And maybe capsized some more (it was an adventurous learning curve).  We layed out on the boats until the distant harbor lights lit up and the sky turned purple.

I feel the peace of a hundred lazy days boating up and down the Williamette River.  Just going up and down and down and up - waving to fellow boaters, stopping to take a cool dip and dry out in the sun, exploring quiet shores, debating about what river front property we would buy, watching for fish and miracle geese that looked like they walked on water, listening to the motor choke up, waiting for half an  hour for the motor to work again, watching sunsets, counting bridges, docking the boat on the shore to build a campfire, spending hours digging the stuck boat out of the shore, sometimes just stopping the boat and taking a nap while the waves rocked and rocked and perhaps occasionally slipping in the ill-advised joke, "Let's rock."

I love boats.  It might be because of all the blessed memories.  Or it might be because I love the feel of the wind coming across the water, making me feel energized and filled with possibilities.  Or it might be because I love the rocking of the waves, because they remind me of my mama and her lullabies. 

I just love boats and if I can't be on one right now, at least I have this ring which brings me there in my heart.  Too far?  Did I stretch that description of my love for boats beyond the lines of cheesiness?  Maybe.  Can I ever go too far in talking about my love for boats?  I don't think that's possible.

Rocks

Last night, my bagpipe teacher told me that the greatest piper in the entire world is currently William McCallum (she refers to him simply as Willie).  She said when he was a wee babe he got bagpipe music for Christmas instead of toys.  She said his uncle would take him out to a field and throw rocks at him while he practiced, just to help with his concentration.

This reminded me of an article I read a couple weeks ago about Jimmer Fredette.  Jimmer is currently one of the greatest college basketball players in the nation.  The article mentioned how his brother used to take him to the church gym and run "The Gauntlet."  They would turn out the lights and a group of friends would think of various obstacles to throw up in Jimmer's way as he worked towards the basket.  It was all to help with his concentration, of course.

I'm beginning to think that this "rock" throwing strategy has something to it.  Perhaps someone should come throw rocks at me while I do my homework, just to help with my concentration.  I can think of a couple people who would love to help me out in this regard, mainly this guy: 

 

Rabbits

I guess the Chinese New Year was on my mind today.  I did some doodling during a meeting.  Unfortunately, I've never been very good at rabbits.

No matter how goofy I try to make them look, they always come out looking a little angry.  And slightly evil.  I tried removing the arched eyebrows, the teeth and the upturned cheeks. 



Well, now he just looks drugged up.  Maybe if I made the rabbit a girl with a big smile...

I have three words for this doodle: creepy, clown, and soul-less.

My sister told me the year of the rabbit is supposed to be "quiet, positive, and inspiring."  If my doodles are any indication, it's going to be anything but.

Happy Chinese New Year!

(I guess this one's not so bad...as long as you keep in mind that those are just hopping marks coming out from behind him, and nothing else.)

Today

Today, I want to live in a world where I never started a masters program.

Today, I want to live in a neighborhood where the power doesn't go out every night.

Today, I want my eyes lasered.

Today, I want a more comfortable office chair.  Actually, I don't want an office chair at all.  I don't even want an office.  But if I did want an office, I would want it to look like this:

Then maybe as I worked I wouldn't be thinking about the pain in my back that never seems to fully go away.  And I wouldn't be thinking about my irritated, infected eyes.  And I certainly wouldn't be thinking about my ever-looming homework and the accompanying tears.  I'd just be thinking about the fish.  Those peaceful, carefree, sleepy fish. 

Today, maybe, I'll go ask my boss if he'll invest in an aquarium cubicle.