2010 reflection i

2010 has started.

In case you didn’t know that.

I’ve found that I’m approaching this year a little differently than I think I’ve approached any others.  Maybe it’s being older, maybe it’s looking at life from the perspective of events, and less by dates.  Or maybe it’s just simply that the events of 2009 were in no way what I expected.  To be honest, I’m glad it’s gone.  For a recap:

• January-March: Pretty standard insofar as life goes
• March: Melissa and I have a break.  Also known as the slow-leak breakup.
• April: Melissa moves to Columbus.  That brought me so much hope and joy for the future.
• June: Melissa and I break it off.  My decision, and built around a lot of stress, and hurt.  It may have been the right thing, but certainly in the wrong way.  Later that month, she leaves Columbus.  I feel the weight of that each time I think of it.  Takeaway: if you have any hint of something significantly wrong in a relationship, don’t encourage a move one way or another.  I think this was akin to trying to save a relationship by extending yourself physically… it just hides deeper things.
• July: I break my ankle, subsequently ending my summer.
• October: Fender Bender
• November 29: Speeding Ticket and Fender Bender II.  I now have 6 points on my driving record.
• December: A bill that I didn’t know about went into collections without any warning and dropped my credit score 50 points.  I’m still waiting for Mount Carmel to rectify the situation.

I’m not writing this for your pity, but rather I’m writing this as a reminder to myself that no one said life would always be easy or fun, and sometimes you have a crap year.  I’m still blessed beyond what I deserve – I have family, friends, work, and grace.  I’m not saying God and I were always best friends in 2009, but I always knew if I called He’d be on the other line.

So 2010 comes around.  And so far I feel peace.  Part of the problem of having so much happening over and over was that there wasn’t a chance for me to reconcile myself to the events in my life.  A chance to pray.  A chance to not think.  A chance to disappear.  I took Christmas to do that.

And then I remembered so many good things.  Visiting Minneapolis.  Visiting Boston.  Taking an impromptu trip to Manhattan to just grab dinner.  Skiing on ground more than on skis.  Asking 10-year-olds what they want in their neighborhood to which they replied “not a f—ing German Village”.  New Salem Baptist Church.  The OHFA conference.  Starting Public Policy courses.

Here I am.

I am alive.

I am loved.

I am running 3 miles in 30 minutes, and know I can do better.

I am looking forward to holding hands and kissing in ways that cause silly grins and stumbled words.

End of January.  I’m applying to the PhD program in Public Policy.  I’m laughing with new friends about new things.  I wake up with the belief that today is worth the best effort I can muster, and then trusting the Holy Spirit will get me out of bed and bring me to the places where I need to be.

Everyone needs a 2009.  2009 makes 2010 worth something.

jack’s manifesto, or adam’s first short story pt i

Note: This is a work-in-progress.  All comments are solicited and appreciated.  I’ll have 8 other vignettes before the story is through.

MANIFESTO, n, \ˌma-nə-ˈfes-(ˌ)tō\: a written statement declaring

publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer

Jack stood atop the roof of his apartment building an looked straight down from the edge.  When you pay only $375 (gas, electric included!) for a one bedroom, you find that people fix just enough that you have a good chance of not killing yourself.  This, apparently, did not include closing the roof access.

Jack was about eighty-percent sure he was going to kill himself that night.  He did not like the thought of suicide, because it always insinuated that the cause of death was self-inflicted.  In Jack’s case, it was everyone else.  Just simple cause and effect.  The remaining twenty-percent, he figured, was his desire to prove everyone wrong.

“Prove Everyone Wrong” was printed in a stout font at the bottom of a piece of paper folded into nine symmetrical rectangles, worn by multiple openings and closings.  This was Jack’s Manifesto.  He took the folded paper and held it like a gun.  This was his weapon of choice.  Nine phrases, locked in the chamber.  Each one was guaranteed to pierce the skin the second he fired.  He only needed to pull the trigger.

Jack slowly began to reopen the paper and let the bullets fly.

1. FIND SOMEONE TO LOVE

“If there’s one thing I’ve always spotted in a man, it’s bull.” Veronica often began her alcohol-induced tirades this way. Her friends, while often supportive, listened just enough to make the expected nods of affirmation.

“Yeah, all of ‘em. You remember that one boy I had a year ago? What the hell was his name? Oh yeah… Ty’ree. Ty’ree – who did he think he was, all with that splittin’ his name in half like it was some contraction or somethin’. Stupid, stupid, stupid… all men… stupid, stupid, stupid…”

Nod, and a lazy stir of their drinks.

“I could tell he was full of bull, too, ol’ Ty’ree. Talks to me like he knows me. Sends me a text message at work, tells me he’s gonna take care of me and love me and three weeks later he’s asking me for cash like I owe it to him because he cooked me dinner once…”

Nod again. At this point one could listen to Veronica every third phrase and still ascertain what she was saying:

“Lair… Ty’ree… money… money… not-on-my-couch-you-don’t… your mama don’t like me?… waste of time, that’s what he was… I’d had better…”

Twenty minutes pass by and a brand new song blasts through the club, the bass easily shaking the rest of the audience away from the table and Veronica on the dance floor.  Jack doesn’t dance.  Jack’s a dance virgin.  He just hadn’t found the right song he wanted to give my pride and self-esteem away to. These are precious things not given away lightly.

Veronica, however, continued to whore his listening skills.  He’d give in and listen, but only for ascetic reasons.  Everywhere he looked, he saw pairs.  Speakers were always in pairs: left-right, left-right, front-back, top-bottom.  Dancers were in conglomerations of pairs, lovers were in pairs.  And here he was, Veronica’s pairing.  And while she continued to accost his airspace, Jack saw no alternatives, and instead joined in the fray.

“Well, Veronica, Ty’ree just wasn’t your pairing,” he said, but had forgotten the pair idea was just something in his head, and not common knowledge.

“What the hell are you talking about?  Have you been listening to me?  I don’t even know what you’re saying.  Pairing?”

Jack tried to explain, but to no avail. In the end, sometimes it’s better to be the puzzle piece that doesn’t really fit than be the piece that doesn’t connect anywhere at all.

After throwing his arms and legs around, and finding ways to touch as much of his body to Veronica’s while avoiding an erection (thinking about his mother’s general disapproval of his choices tended to work most effectively), Jack asked Veronica to come home with him for the night.  The sex they engaged in that night reminded him of the way he scanned his groceries at the self-checkout line, or received money from the ATM.  As morning broke, he watched her, and decided she was a girl who must love pancakes.  He set about making the best damn pancakes this woman had ever tasted.

Jack brought the three blueberry pancakes adorned with Vermont “the-real-kind-that-you-pay-$30-for-a-tiny-bottle” maple syrup with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice back to an empty bedroom.

Jack was a breakfast sandwich guy, anyway.

2. FIND A JOB YOU CARE ABOUT

boston dreaming

Going to Boston right before the school year started was about the best thing I could do for myself beginning year two of my academic career at Ohio State, trying to figure out why planning and policy matter to God, and hell, anyone else for that matter.

It’s interesting how if you listen for it enough, you being to see how God answers questions for you – some that you didn’t even know you we asking until the lines of logic run themselves in a way that God reminds you He’s sovereign, and well, you’re not.

Two in particular things I’ve reflected on the last couple weeks that got some more clarity through the wonderful conversations of Chris, Hans, Rachel, Taroon, Jake, and all the other random people here I had the pleasure of meeting, spending time with, and asking them if they could have sex with any Hollywood actor or actress who it would be (Mr. Depp is in the lead).

One was a feeling that I was warring with for awhile was a feeling that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be friends with everyone.  In fact, I was beginning to feel I didn’t want to be friends with most people.  It’s not that they’re bad people, or that I’m all of the sudden super anti-social.  No, it’s just that I’ve found that I don’t have time in my life anymore for people that aren’t interesting in some way.

I know that as soon as I write it that sounds elitist.  Ironically, I don’t mean it to, because by interesting, I don’t mean they have to be what one would expect interesting to be, because to tell you the truth I think I’d grow bored of the kid who lived in Africa hunting on daddy’s money and is at Cambridge studying Philosophy because “I wanted to find something that really spoke to me”.

…okay, so maybe that might be interesting.  And maybe I’m defining it improperly, but my buddy Chris and I really talked about this at length with each other, and it happened to find its way into other conversations.  Other friends of mine agreed – they just didn’t hang out with people they didn’t find interesting.

As I’ve thought about it since then, I think I’ve realized what it is.  It’s not I don’t want to deal with uninteresting people.  The uninteresting part is just  a byproduct of something else.  Instead, I don’t really want to spend time with inauthentic people. 

I’m tired of spending time with people that haven’t spent any time figuring out themselves and being that person.  This is why I don’t feel like hob-nobing with the top 1% would solve my dilemma.  People who are authentic, I think, are people who have seen all their good, all their bad, and take it.  It’s not that authentic people are perfect, they’re just aware of their imperfection, and are probably enough at ease with it that it doesn’t get to them too much.

I know one of the counterarguments to what I’m saying is often “well, you just have to get more comfortable with them”.  I call crap on that.  While every sane person will withhold certain things for more intimate locales and bedfellows, they won’t leave conversation to simple self-absorbed small talk.  With so many great, deep topics to concern yourself with, why not?  At the very minimum, shouldn’t someone be able to say what they what they’re about?  Can you, for instance, tell me what you do for a living?  Can you tell me what you think about what I do (for goodness sakes, I work with cities, we live in them… not that hard), and add an anecdote to it from your own experience?  Do you like… stuff?   Can you quote that Simpsons episode – any episode?

The reason why I think it’s being inauthentic as well, is that I think it’s reversible in both directions.  People can become more authentic, people can become less.  You can hear it in their conversations.  In the way they lead their lives. 

Not for just themselves.

The biggest hallmark of authenticity in my mind is a life lived for something outside yourself.  Think about the people you respect.  Why?  What did they do?  Now think about a bunch of people you don’t care about all that much.  What do they do?

You see?

I give slack to some people within my generation, because we still are trying to figure things out.  One should never expect an 18 year old to be authentic – most of them don’t even know much outside themselves and their world.  But after college, I don’t know if you have much excuse.  By then you choose to live for yourself or something else.  And even in the midst of the most altruistic things lie people who are in it for #1.

We’re even encouraged by Jesus (the most interesting man ever to live… I mean, polish of a couple Guiness with a dude who’s all man and all God and you tell me how that’s not interesting) that if we want a life worth living, we need to surrender the one we’ve got.  The thing is that I don’t think that’s just a Jesus thing.  There are plenty of non-Christians that I think are authentic.  They found something more important than themselves to live for.  They listen to things more important than them, they seek out things more interesting than themselves.

God help me to everyday be authentic.  To be more interesting in You and the world and less in myself.

God help me to be interesting.

thebestthingisayaboutsomething, i

So how’s this for a new idea: repackage Head, Heart, Hands and put it on the blog once a week.  I miss being able to do HHH because it gave me an opportunity to look at the world around me and attempt on the good and bad about it, and try to provide alternatives.  So, here I sit at the Grandview Ave Caribou Coffee with my little Netbook.

Recently on Facebook, I had posted an article from Ad Busters magazine about Hipsters, and their place in culture by Andrew Haddow.  In particular, one part struck me:

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

As an optimist, as a Christian who is aligned with a redemptive worldview and celebrates Christ’s work in this world, and as someone who tries to give people the benefit of the doubt, I still can’t help but agree with the sentiment. 

I’ve said before that I’ve secretly wanted to be hipster.  I own an American Apparel jacket and some t-shirts (I like fair labor), the last 12-pack I bought was PBR (cheap + not completely swill = bought), and I have an appreciation for indie music, because while sometimes it simply sucks, I’m glad there are still enough people who are willing to attempt creativity without completely giving in corporately. 

However, the malady of the Hipster (counter?)culture is that I think it lacks a (the) capability/desire/recognition to answer the “why” question of their life any deeper that what’s immediately in front of the screen or phone or glossy ad in front of them.

Haddow speaks to this a little more earlier in the article:

Hipsterdom is the first "counterculture" to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

I would go so far as to say this is not limited to Hipsters, but just about every classification of people that an agency is capable of producing an ad for.  And my generation specifically (Millennials or whatever crap you want to call us) continues to allow itself to be vulnerable to this.  This is easily found when you ask someone in their mid born between 1978-1985 why are there doing anything.  Ask the guy next to you why he rides the bus.  Ask the kid why he goes to the parties.  Ask the senior getting her engineering degree why she’s doing that.  I get shrugged shoulders more often than not, and certainly more often than I wished.

I’m sure this is not a problem endemic to just my peoples, but I am sure it is exacerbated amongst them.  And it concerns me as we are in the very early stages of asserting ourselves in someway as leaders in this society that the balance of us are going to become completely irrelevant because we’re chasing the scene.

The best immunization against irrelevancy, I believe, is a deeper sense of purpose – knowing the “why”.  Living in a larger why helps in maintaining integrity, and I think staves of deeper insecurities.  People obviously feel this is important, or none of us would have ever heard of Rick Warren.  In this leading edge group of peers I have, however, I fear our purpose is encapsulated in consumerism, which is personified at its worst in the Hipster subculture.

In other words, I’m pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg now owns the majority of my peer’s souls, who in turns sells it to whomever dictates cool.  Hipsters at the very least recognize the irony in others (while perhaps not in themselves).

I don’t think most of the rest of us ever will.

kinda like the old american standard days…

When I used to work at American Standard, I would leave the blog website up all day and would come to it whenever I couldn’t deal with my work for awhile.  I’d type progressive through an idea and by the end of the day would have a nice entry for public consumption.  It kept my mind sharp amid the deluge of statistics, and I found I actually did both jobs better.  This has been proven now on shop floors, and I’m sure will apply to rendering site plans.

I’ve been motivated to write again, mostly because I sat down and read through my blog again and thought “hey, this isn’t all that bad!”  Furthermore, I like the ability to go back through my life since 2001 and know what I was thinking at the time.  And to tell you the truth, I miss things like “head, heart, and hands” which gave me a chance to talk about very simple things that meant something to me in my heart.

So I don’t think I’ll be a every day blogger.  I doubt I’ll ever make money off the deal, but at least I’ll write more.

Be looking.  I have a lot on my plate to get out.

planning is a waste of time?

My life has changed a little bit since the last time I posted, and I have bit more free time to dedicate to thinking and understanding why I do the things I do.  It’s something we should all repetitively take stalk in.  It’s not to say I don’t know what I want out of my life, but rather I want to continue to check and recheck my motives, and as the trajectory of my life continues to launch, I’m adjusting rightly.

So, as many of you know, I’m still doing the City and Regional Planning schtick.  For my first year I did well grade-wise, and I enjoy my internship.  But as the year progressed I began to think to myself “why is it that I do this work?”  I started to really dig into the question as a result of my Planning Theory class, and just my own rumination on the topic.

After watching plenty of college students languish in the “why-am-I-here-why-do-I-need-to-care-about-college” thing (which, for the record, I think at 18 is okay), I think coming to graduate school I should know.  After all, I have $40,000+ riding on it, and don’t want to waste my money.

I want to start posting these thoughts online because I’m hoping some of you that:

1. Do the Jesus thing
2. Do the Planning thing
3. Do both
4. Do neither

may have some insight into these things.  So I’ll throw some ideas out there, I’ll hope for some feedback, and I’ll keep moving on.  Let me say that I’m trying on some levels to be critical so that in the next year when I walk away I have a powerful reason why CRP is important, and why I should always be doing the work.  Furthermore, I’m also try to throw out as many ideas.  Those of you who may read this, please don’t take offence to what I’m saying.  I guess the bigger issue of that is if you take offense to this, you need to maybe grow some thicker skin because a planning board will probably eat you alive.

Here’s the first thing I’ve come to realize:

I think most of the reasons why Planning is worth anything are lousy.  I think 75% they don’t hold water.  For instance, there’s an aesthetic argument (Planners exist to make things look nice).  I think this is not a great argument for a couple reasons:

1. Post-Modernity: How, in our current culture, can I say one development is nicer than another?  How does it look better?  Relativism makes it substantially harder for me as a planner to say “density is great” and for you to agree.
2. Free Market forces: If the free market is left unabated, won’t it eventually make the right decsion?  People won’t buy houses they don’t want.  This should, as resources become more scarce and people begin to not afford certain housing types, lead to quality affordable housing.
3. Value Added: This is something I mentioned in an essay I wrote for class, that Planning is at worst simply Value Added work.  We do nothing necessary to life.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs would seem to put planning as a “Self-Actualization” activity… if we are an aesthetic profession, we make things nicer.  People will being to secure themselves (ie posit #2).

At the worst, I think planners are the plastic surgeons of the policy/design world: we know the things that make us good doctors – hell, we went to the school and got the degree – but we’re more concerned about vanity most of the time, excluding that feel-good junket we take for people that are poorer than us and fix their housing version of cleft palates.

So that’s all I got time for right now, but I welcome all the comments and criticisms of this idea.

I’m going to be updating soon…

I need to update.

Not really for anyone but myself.

Over the 8(!) years I’ve had this thing, I’ve used it to think through my world, figure things out, and figure if someone wondered by, they’d read it, and if they wanted to let me know what they’re thinking and figuring out, great.

Deep down, more than ever in my life, I feel like I want to do something big… take all the great ideas I think about for 30 seconds right before I completely fall asleep and actually make them real and damn all the naysayers… I want to be the thing I get behind, not getting behind someone else’s thing.

I keep thinking “I want to shake foundations…”, and I believe more and more that God’s going to use me in a real and powerful way.  At least I keep praying to that end.

And right now, awashed in ennui (as is my custom in May and June), I need to believe it more than ever.

20 at 10; 10 at 20: Me and Support Raising 2008-2010

So I think this is the very first time I’ve ever put anything down about Support Raising in my blog, which you think would be something that I’d talk about because it’s been a major part of my life for the last 3 years, and will be for the next 2 years, but I thought I’d let my blogging community aware of my needs as I get started in Columbus.

Currently my support needs have changed, and if everything else stays the same, I need $2,361.50 over the course of the year, or roughly $20 a month from 10 people, or $10 a month from 20 people.  The way my support works is that I get a lot of support annually in August, and then progressively use that up.  So I’m making a personal goal of finding 10 people that could support my ministry to architecture students at Ohio State.  I’m excited for the possibilities, as it’s a place where there isn’t any serious campus ministry, and a chance to try something new in a place that has no restrictions.  I have some ideas I’d love to share with you if you’re interested.

Anyway, maybe you, oh dear blog reader, have thought to yourself maybe you’d like to support some cause, and maybe have it be something close to you.  This is a chance to change the lives of hundreds of people, and to be a part of God’s miraculous transformative work.  $20 a month is a small amount, and $10 a month is even smaller.

If this is something you are interested in doing, check out the website below… periodically I’m going to keep all of you updated on what’s going on, and hopefully soon have the 20 new people on my team!

Thanks.

This is the direct webpage, if you click “A CCO Staff Member” and select Adam Anderson, the money will go to me.

Or, if you want to check out more options, click here

back-to-back… that might be too much…

But man, have I got something for you!

I was thinking of this issue anyway, and it came up as I was looking on Facebook (new wedding photos.  There is no man that looks bad in a tuxedo).

This was the advertisement I saw:

Alright, there are a couple things about this:

1. If being lazy and rich would require me to look like that guy, I’m out.  I’ll take hard-working and poor.
2. $1000 a day, for filling out surveys?  We all know that’s obviously the catch, and hence why this is RIDICULOUS.
3. But yet it finds airtime on Facebook, which, relatively of course, is reputable?

something of an update

So yeah.  Sorry about my extended absence.  It’s not that I haven’t thought about blogging or anything.  It’s that this hasn’t been a priority of late.  Which it should be, mostly because it helps me think in a more stripped down sort of way.

And if what I’ve seen in culture is any example, people for some reason love hearing other people’s thoughts.

So, the 10 of you who still read my blog, let me “drop some knowledge” if you will.

1. I am going to Ohio State in the fall to pursue Urban Planning: I was accepted to Penn and OSU, and chose OSU on account it’s $40,000 cheaper and encourages internships (theoretical knowledge + pragmatic experience = best learning in my opinion), but it’s for some reason this move is more daunting than any other.  I think because I’ve been in Columbus a grand total of, oh, 48 hours, and to commit to being someplace for 2 years seems daunting.  But it isn’t much different than Erie, three years ago.  It just all feels different.  There’s something about not being thrusted out of something that makes it harder to go.   I didn’t have to leave Gannon.  No one else is.  It’s just me.  But I know, to the best of my knowledge, that this is what I’m supposed to do, what God wants.  And I have to do what I’ve done before – take a few steps in faithful service every day, and I will be fine.
2. Phil Kondas is married.  Wow.
3. I have a Master’s Degree in Higher Education (almost): I’ve completed all the requirements save about 12 pages of work.  I’ve never struggled with something more in my life.  A few pages on my thesis and a paper about worldview.  How about that.  I’ve already written better than 500 words of junk on my blog, which would easily fill a page two pages in an essay.  Which leads me to believe that I’m being lame, and should be writing my thesis.  Instead I’m writing here.
4. I still think about subjects.  I’ll start writing about those again soon.
5. Head, heart, hands was one of the most enjoyable things I did at Gannon.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now.  I’ll write my Methodology and some of my Findings tonight.  Let’s say I won’t wait multiple months before putting something on here again, ok?

head, heart, hands: american slavery

27,000,000 people right now as we speak are slaves in the world.

27,000,000. That’s a lot. Texas has somewhere around 23,000,000 people. That means that the entirety of Texas plus Kentucky are enslaved somewhere around the world. They’re enslaved in the sex trade, they’re enslaved in the fields, and they’re enslaved in restaurants all over, and in fact right in front of us.

This is something that shocks me. To live in 2008 and to have all of the gifts and benefits that we have, and there’s people right next to me that very well might be unable to be free. That’s wild.

It begins to make me wonder about my freedom. I think that I’m free. I woke up this morning, got breakfast, wrote this article, went to lunch, did some more work, met with some people, and later I’ll do more work and go to bed. This is my decision; I could do nothing today if I wanted to, and it’s my choice.

And I suppose it’s become my choice to sell myself, too. This morning, when I had coffee, it was Starbucks coffee. I went to lunch at Bob Evans. I’m wearing an Old Navy Sweater and Jeans. I’m addicted to selling myself to things that I want and I like.

This is not to minimize the current amount of slavery, but I really wonder if, ultimately, any of us are really free. How many of us aren’t bonded by something else.

I graduated from Grove City College with a degree with Marketing, and if there’s something I remember most in our discussions there about being a good marketer, it was that if we kept going, we’d be given a lot of power. We’d have a power of influence in people’s lives. An influence in a part of people’s lives that’s particularly important – your money and what you want. The average American is bombarded by 3,000 advertisements a day, or roughly one every 20 waking seconds. My job, as a marketer, is to make my 20 seconds stand out in your mind the most. If you want my product, you’ll buy it, and I’ll make money, find products I want and buy them from another marketer.

What enslaves us to this system, I think, is that we really don’t need half of the stuff we have, we just think we do. I know this to be true on a personal level, as my emergency food supply also known as my love handles are testament to. Marketers, as part of the equation, make me believe my wants are absolute needs, and I, like lamb to the slaughter, gladly put my money down to take what they’re selling. I even know they’re doing this, yet if it’s sexy and sleek and makes me feel better, I’ll take it.

This last week I just got back from New York City, and Times Square. Over and over again, the people with me commented on how what a den of consumerism it is. So many towering, luminous lights telling me I need WaMu, CNN, and Avenue Q. Meanwhile, there’s 27,000,000 people enslaved. I wonder if one of those pre-teen girls enslaved right now in Indonesia in the sex trade were brought to Times Square if she’d be so impressed with Washington Mutual, or if she’d just be happy that she was standing on 46th and Broadway free.

In my mind, the saddest state of slavery are those who are enslaved and don’t even know it.

the God sessions, vol i

Head, Heart, Hands: God

So for the last semester and the beginning of the semester, I’m written about a lot of different things. I like that. There’s a lot of things worth talking about. Whether we talk about riding a bus, dating someone, breaking up with someone, getting mad about laundry, it’s all about life, and the pursuit of living it well. In fact, there’s isn’t much I haven’t talked about, except perhaps one thing you’d expect me to talk about: God.

This was intentional. It wasn’t like I left my Jesus bias at home when I wrote to you. In fact, I think I wrote about God each time I wrote in the Knight, but I didn’t feel it necessary to make mention of Him. That’s one of my favorite things about God, actually, that I think He’s just as obvious in the times you don’t see Him – but that’s another article, and I don’t want to give any of you too much.

Anyway, so I made the decision over the next few weeks to talk about God a little more overtly. But, before I get into some of things I want to talk about, I want to make some ground rules.

First, by and large, when I write to you, I’m not going to try to “convert” you to or from anything. If you are going to choose to make some drastic lifestyle change from a few hundred words in a University newspaper, I’d rather it not be mine. Instead, I’m going try to give you some perspective.

Some of you have been doing the Jesus thing for many years, and that’s great. I can give you perspective from someone who’s right there with you. Maybe you’ve started to wonder how God fits into your daily purchases: does God care about your toilet paper purchase, for instance. Important, I know.

Some of you have been doing the Jesus thing for just a little, and that’s great, too. I can give you some perspective from someone who’s been doing this a little longer, and maybe took the same path you did. Maybe you’ve started to wonder how God fits into your daily purchases, too: does God really care about whether I get five or fifteen beers, for instances. Also important.

Finally, someone of you aren’t doing the Jesus thing. Sometimes it doesn’t fit your worldview, sometimes you were really hurt from someone who said they loved God, but it didn’t seem to add up in their actions. I can give you some perspective from someone who really does love this God person, but loves you too, and would love nothing more than just sit and talk to you about what you think about God. You might not wonder how God fits in your daily purchases, but at least maybe you wonder why it matters to someone else. This is also important.

If you have been hurt by someone who a Christian, let me say I’m sorry, too. Christians can be hurtful and petty and silly. It’s part of being human, unfortunately.

Finally, let me say that I’m not here to necessarily to say what you want to hear. I hope you’re happy after reading what I said, but ultimately I don’t have the time or energy to placate you. Nor do I want to. So it’s possible you love God, too, and still be mad at me. That’s fine. Facebook me and let me know. I’ll buy you a coffee and we’ll talk. I guarantee it.

riding the bus

I like to ride the bus. Erie, for a mid-sized city, does a good job creating bus routes that go to important places. The M buses, for example, all go to the mall from Perry Square, and the 30 bus goes from Perry Square to Giant Eagle on 12^th Street. Often, if I’m not on a schedule, I like to take the bus to get my groceries and relax at Panera when I need to read.

When I ride the bus, I don’t see many of you. In fact, I hardly see anyone like me on the bus, either. It turns out most white guys in their mid-20s with a car don’t choose to ride the bus. Inevitably, then, the people who ride the bus in Erie are those who ride it out of necessity. Maybe the person in the first seat doesn’t have a car. The woman in the back can’t afford the car she has, and the guy next to you only has one car and his wife is using it. In any of those cases, something makes it impossible for them to use anything else but their car.

That doesn’t mean they’re poor, though. Right? I mean, many of you don’t have cars, and college students in America have the most expendable income of just about anyone in the world. I’m not poor, either. I own a car, a laptop, a TV, a fancy cell phone, and I have a good job that pays for all of it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was coming back from Giant Eagle on the 30 bus. The bus was turning off of 10^th Street onto State Street, and looked to my right and saw the new Erie Bank. Inside was a party celebrating the opening, and the individuals inside were the type of folks you’d expect to be at a grand opening of a bank: older gentleman in nice suits with pretty wives with champagne flutes in their hands. They stood in circles of three or four, and seemed politely interested in each other’s conversations, although not completely engrossed, either. Other people were walking around with hors d’oeuvres, doing their jobs and diligently as possible. As I sat in the bus, however, I noticed that not one of those guests looked outside. They didn’t need care about the world outside of their bank party: everything they needed was right there.

Then I looked to the people I was riding with. Each one of them had their eyes affixed on the bank scene. Sure, it could have been the thing to look at and a stop light, but the stares were deeper than that. Less of a desire of wanting to be in the bank, but more of wanting the ability to be in that bank in they choose to. Yet, they were separated, and sitting on the bus, it was pronounced. Between me and a man in the bank were the bus window, a good 10 feet of space outside, and another large window. So many barriers to people just like me, but totally different from me as well.

In just a few seconds the bus turned, and everyone went back to looking at what they were looking at before.

on ben folds, travis stevens, and their last legacy in my life

Travis introduced me to this album.  I’m a big Ben Folds fan, but at the time had never heard about his album Fear of Pop, Vol. 1.  It’s this side project he made in the 90s while starting out with the 5 (I think their self titled had just been released… maybe Naked Baby Photos too… I’m not too sure).  Anyway, it was as if Ben had a month and nothing to do, and made one gem of an album.

My favorite song?  A William Shatner/BF collaboration.  So priceless.  Here are the lyrics:

In Love

Original Artist: Ben Folds

I remember the night we met,
That night we sat entwined,
Under summer skies,
I looked into your eyes,
And you looked into mine.

You said “You’re not like the rest”,
And I nodded.
“No one understands me” you said,
And I nodded once again as if to agree,
That all men are indeed the same,
Somehow, you say, I was different.

For months on end I maintained a veneer of sincere interest,
As if I was listening as you relived every page of self-help and new age that you’d read,
And I went in for the kill,
I’d read the same books,
I learned to ape the motions of a sensitive human being,
And we were oh so happy,
But you found things to fix,
And I knew it was time to move on.

So now you have me completely figured out,
You feel sorry for me,
I can’t express my feelings,
I can’t tell the truth,
We are all alike,
At puberty I was sworn to secrecy by the international brotherhood of lying fickle males,
I can’t tell you anything,
And I can’t commit,
You’re right,
I can’t commit to you.

I will always treasure our time together,
I don’t feel enough of anything to harbour the kind of disdain that you’ll maintain,
You painted me into what you wanted to see,
That’s fine,
But you will never know me.

well, i’m not sure who i’m going to vote for yet…

…but I’m sure it won’t be Rudy Giuliani. Not only did I not like him in the debates after Iowa, but this might have done it:

Really? I mean, REALLY? You could have said “Yeah, when I divorced my wife that was hard”, but instead it was 9/11.

I’m getting more and more frustrated at the fact that the whole 9/11 thing has become nothing but parody. It’s one half Rudy’s fault and one half ours. First, Rudy has become a caricature. He’s playing the same thing over and over and over, showing that he’s the man who helped NYC through 9/11. Don’t get me wrong, he did a fine job, but consider all the help he had. Ray Nagin won’t be saying “Katrina, Katrina, Katrina”, and here’s the reason in his own words:

We authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq, lickity split. After 9/11, we gave the President unlimited powers, lickity split, to take care of New York and other places.

You mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place so unique that when you mention “New Orleans” anywhere around the world, everybody’s eyes light up. You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people who have died and thousands more are dying every day, we can’t get figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need.

I mean, I’m not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly. And I don’t know whose problem it is; I don’t know if it’s the governor’s problem or if it’s the President’s problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down the two of them and figure this thing out right now.

Exactly. Rudy was given so many opportunities that he could have done nothing and still have been proclaimed as a hero. As a result, he’s running on that alone.

The worst part, though, is that we, as Americans have given him to think that’s a good idea. We want that caricature. Have we really slipped so far as to say “well, Mayor of NYC during 9/11 = good president”?

As I think about it, there seems to be two diverging cultures: the one that refuses to think, and the one that is cynical… I think the natural reactions from the last 6 years of 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Anyway, before this becomes rambling, one more thing. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert may be the best they’ve ever been right now, because it’s them. What I love most about Jon Stewart (if you’ve ever read this blog before, you know I love the guy), are the things he says outside of his show. Now, it’s just him, and he’s downright sardonic. Angry in the best way possible.

As much as I love the message of hope and change that Obama Obama and Edwards Democrats everyone is giving now, I think I still need to have someone who tells me that this world is still a little ridiculous.

Put another way, I love God a lot a lot a lot… but have you seen the platypus? Freaking crazy!

I’m going to try to write twice a week.

peace,

a

things seen and heard while working on a paper at starbucks, volume i

• Woman who had moon boots on walking as though there were six inches of snow at every step
• Child who exclaimed “that fire alarm!  It’s the same we have at our school!”
• A woman walk past me with a stroller, and then come back past me on the street without a stroller.
• Businessmen with audacious hats, including a Santa cap (who I just saw walk past me twice) as well as a really tacky wool cap.
• One of my students connecting with one of the older men I always see in here (Phil is his name).  It’s really loving, and not in a way that would creep you out.  Sort of like a grandfather to a granddaughter.
• A guy attempting to be flirtatious with the barista with a santa’s cap up.  It was a miserable attempt.
• The student mentioned didn’t recognize me.  I think it’s the facial hair.
• Phil saw someone else, and it turns out this other guy has a wife. Phil was overjoyed by it, because the man who was married didn’t seem like someone who would readily be married.

i hate ipods, vol ii

So last week, for what it probably the first time, I kind of got mean. Well, maybe not mean, I suppose. More like I just say as many sweet, inspirational things as I usually try to. When you open up to page 5 or 6, I want you to feel like every week there’s a guy there who is going to help you see things a little more brightly, a little more healthy, and maybe you become a little better as a result.

Last week, however, sparked something in me that I want to talk about for one more week, and then I’ll probably get back to more appealing topics, like finishing what I was going to talk about regarding grad schools.

We live in one of the most connected societies ever. If I had to get a hold of you for whatever reason, I have all sorts of options: I could write you here in the Knight, I could Facebook you, I could blog you, I could text you, I could email you, I could even send you a letter (but who does that any more).

Ironically, none of these require any sort of physical contact, which then makes me think that while we’re the most connected societies ever, we’re also one of the least connected. Which then makes me think about the iPod problem.

When I see more ears plugged with iPod than not, I can’t help but feel we’re destroying the last real places where we can contact each other: when we’re literally face to face. Again, this is not to say that I don’t love what any MP3 player can offer its owner. In an ironic twist of fate, I thought I had lost my iPod coming home from Philadelphia, but it turned out that it was just in my luggage. But still, I was a little sad. After all, I spent almost $200 on that device, and I have a hard time running without it.

It’s just at times I wonder if the one thing we want is the one thing we run away from. When I talk to my residents, my friends, and some of you folks out there, I sense the one thing you’re looking for is someone to listen to you. A friend. Someone to play racquetball with on Sunday afternoons, and maybe grab a beer and talk about life with. If I had a dollar for each person who has confided in my they’d like to get married sooner rather than later in order to share special moments and intimacy with I could retire now. That’s not even a joke.

People want to feel valued. Special. Last I knew, however, that meant actually talking to people. Not Facebooking them. Not blogging with them. It means face-to-face conversation beyond last weekend’s party.

These people are walking past you every day. Real connections are slipping by our hands because we’d rather draw into ourselves, disappearing from the world, when deep down, if we were honest, we rather talk to someone about how our day is going.

So I’ll make you all a deal. Next Tuesday, December 11^th, I’ll be sitting in Waldron at noon. Talk to me. I will ask you how your day is. I will find out something I don’t know about you. And I’ll connect with you. After all, I asked you to connect with someone instead of your iPod this Christmas. I’m making it easy on you.

i hate ipods, vol i

Welcome back my friends. As you’re getting settled again, for the second article in a row I’m writing from a train, going to a grad school, this time it’s the University of Pennsylvania and Ohio State back to back. I’m enjoying the scenery of industrial Pennsylvania, one coal field at a time.

And at times, that’s all I want to do. Just enjoy the scenery. But there are so many people. I decided for some reason (I blame it on having to board the train at 7:20 in the morning) to sit with in a four person area, meaning the two seats in my row face the people in front of me, which ultimately means instead of one person I now have to contend with three people, sitting no more than three feet away from me. Believe me when I say it doesn’t do much for the intimacy thing.

So right now, at two in the afternoon on Monday, I have three people around me: NYU journalism girl, Miami man, and Richmond. NYU journalism girl’s name is Amanda, but that’s the best I can remember.

Right now, if I were not writing this article about what I’m writing about, I’m fairly sure I’d love my headphones in, and draw into myself. There’s something much more secure and less vulnerable in putting my headphones in and being by myself. And that seems to be more and more what our culture wants from us, isn’t it? We should be more secure. We should be less vulnerable. The more we’re able to close up into ourselves, the better we are.

I see us doing that all the time at Gannon. Last week, when I was sitting on AJ’s Way as part of Box City, more people than I can remember navigated their way through the walkway via their iPods. It was as though they were ghosts, floating through the boxes as if they didn’t exist.

I find myself more frustrated by this day by day. And the reason why is seated around me. In the half hour I’ve been pecking away at this article, I’ve shared moments that I couldn’t have shared alone. I made eye contact with Amanda as Miami man asked Richmond man about his guitar, and if he had calluses on his hands. Miami man also glues his CDs together, making two-sided CDs in his player. Amanda went to Seton Hill and finds the transition to NYU difficult at times. Richmond wants to see his favorite band, Disco Biscuits, in Philadelphia but doesn’t have a car. It broke down in Maryland, and now he’s on the train.

I only have fifty minutes with these people, but I shared something with them. I lived life together with them and feel I’ve made 3 new friends, even if they are only single-serving friends.

You, my friends, have four years here, and yet many of you find it more worth your time to engage with pieces of silicon and aluminum than even so much as comment regarding the weather to the people you are paying to live with.

Try, as we approach Christmas, to talk to someone new. Take out your earbuds. There’s a world that is waiting for your ears. One that is more satisfying and real than the latest Radiohead album, and one that will mean more to you that the status your Nano brings.

And I promise that your iPod will be there. What I can’t promise is whether the people you choose to pass by will be.

thoughtful next steps

Usually when I write these articles, they’re idealistic and theoretical. Very rarely do I talk about pragmatic issues. This is for a purpose. While I’ve done plenty of things in my life and am always willing to give you advice, your situation is different than mine. I don’t know where you’ve come from, what you’re doing, and where you’re going. We all have similar ideals, however, and all deal with similar theories – the idea of growing through college, the theory of proper partying. However, I’m going to depart from that this week.

As I write this, I’m on a train between Boston and Albany, after being at Harvard for their Urban Planning open house. First, for those of you who may accuse me of being pretentious, let me assuage your concerns by saying I wasn’t more impressed than I think I should have been at the very first college in America. It looked like buildings, students, and professors. People were in sweatpants, going to class. While I may have seen a little more Burberry and Prada, I think that’s just part of being on the East Coast.

This whole grad school selection thing is a pain, let me tell you. First, I have to go to four schools because it’s good to diversify your options. Then I have to take the nigh-$200 GRE which I might bomb and then feel like an idiot over, and then applications at $75 a pop when hey, I don’t even spend $75 on groceries on a regular basis. Which means I’m going to eat more rice because I want to go to a school for urban planning.

I still find it worthwhile though, because it’s helping me take reasonable and thoughtful steps about my future. Last week I talked about struggle, and this grad school selection on top of work on top of another master’s degree is a struggle. If I’m being consistent with my convictions, then I’m making some sort of worthwhile progress as a result of my struggles. I think this hard work sets me up to do something that I’m supposed to be doing later. While I can’t assume that I have any right to control the complete trajectory of my life, I also can’t assume that my trajectory is just going to aim itself.

So I went to Harvard, and I liked it. It’s my far reach school of the four, and I think if accepted I could actually thrive there. I don’t think I’ve wasted any money on the train ride (as an aside, if you have the option to take a train somewhere, do it. It’s worth every penny, and the country side at ground level at 80mph is much more gratifying that 35,000 ft at Mach 1), and certainly not in networking and understanding my process more.

I’ll get into more of the pragmatic information for you next week, but I want to leave you with something, especially for those of you in this same hunt I am: this is worth your time. The search means something, the work is worth something. These processes have a way of refining us and helping us make meaning of our aforementioned trajectories. Even if I don’t go to Harvard, I’ve provided my life a better set of coordinates. This trip may have been the difference between landing softly or violently. In my mind, a soft landing is worth a 13 hour train ride.

you gannon people will laugh

Jesse and Ricardo are in Starbucks with me right now (and I think I’m hijacking someone’s wireless connection right now…) and arguing about Sacred Scripture work.   David, Elijah, Ahab, Jezebel… just arguing.

Is that all they do?  I feel like it is.

Anyway, they always make me smile.

much peace.

i became a little emotional over this one

I always enjoy posting PostSecret cards, and this one made me really happy:

I’m more and more convinced that if I don’t live my life serving people, I’m going to feel empty.  That’s melodramatic, but y’know, I have a gift at melodramaticism.

 

peace.

for the loyalists

So lately all I’ve been posting are my head, heart, and hands articles, which is a marked improvement from what I was doing, but I’ve been extremely inconsistent (or, if you look over the course of my blog, really consistent) in posting, and I’m sorry.  I had a gilded age there for awhile.

So this is for you who actually read this because you want to, not because it’s in a newspaper.

Gregg wanted to me journal about my life right now in my private journal, and each time I tried I felt nothing worth writing down.  This is usually the case when I have to write somewhere outside of my blog when it comes to me.  Ironically, I feel more comfortable speaking my life into the anonymity of the Internet rather than the privacy of my own journal… perhaps I missed my calling to journalism?

Here’s how I sum up where I am right now: I’m a senior in college all over again, but I feel like the stakes are 100 times higher.  When I decided on the CCO and Gannon, I had no fear of the next year.  I just assumed things would get worked out, and the did.  This time around, however, I have fear of things: what happens if I bomb the GRE?  What happens if I don’t get accepted into any of the schools I’m applying to?  How will I pay for it?  What am I going to do from May to August?

I don’t want to live a boring life.  As I’ve sat here and thought and prayed and reflected all week, there’s the answer.  I don’t want to live a podunk’d life.  It’s not that I’m craving to become extreme, but I fight so hard against my life becoming suburban tranquility, which in my mind is really just numbing oneself from the world even merely outside ones house (this, by the way, is not meant to be taken personally, lest you find it describes you).

I’ve also been thinking a lot about the way God loves us and how we should love ourselves that way.  And I wonder how much these two things become related.  As in, I wonder how much do I not want a podunk’d life because it gives me identity which I could get from God if I let Him.  That’s not a complete explanation though, because I’ve been thinking about many of the ideas I have now that I want to do for years.

I guess I don’t want to screw up and be wrong.  I don’t want to fail, and I certainly don’t want to be told that I’m a failure.  I’m coming at my life right now like I have something to prove to everyone.  How much am I going to miss if I keep trying to prove something?  How much am I going to not enjoy because I’m defending myself to myself?

I want to take steps with God and allow Him to put me faithfully in a position to serve.  I want to serve the poor in the city.  There are moments I see that being done with a Degree in Urban Planning.  At times I see that being done with a Seminary Degree and a church in the inner city.  At times I see a year doing Mission Year.  At times I see Teach for America.

Okay.  That’s enough for tonight.  Suffice it to say for the rest of my CCO buddies who are on the threshold of being done, I understand.

head, heart, hands: the price of illegal parking

So I would say almost the entire time I’ve been writing to you this year, I’ve tried to be as honest with you as possible. If I’m not, I will at some point expose myself as a liar, and you’ll end up not reading, and then I’m wasting a good hour of my life doing something that no one will see. I’ll write in my journal or play guitar or practice my interpretative dance moves instead. My hope is authenticity will keep you reading.

All of this to say that I have a doozie for you this week.

Walker Apartments were I am the RD is on the corner of 7th and Peach Streets, and right across from me is a parking deck. Now, I already have parking on 5th street, but days like we had last week with driving rain make the deck significantly more appealing. So usually I pick the deck over my own spot. While this seems like a perfect solution, as it normally is with life, there is a catch – to not have to pay, I can only leave the deck at night, typically past 9, and on the weekends. Most of the time that’s not a problem, but this Friday I needed to leave to get something at the mall and then some lunch.

For each day I’m in there, I am supposed to pay $10, unless I don’t have a ticket, then in which case it’s only $10 maximum. Most of the time (and here’s where the transparency and honesty comes in) I just never seem to be able to find my ticket. Sure, occasionally I may find it in a cup holder 10 seconds after I leave, but how awkward is it to go back and say you found it?

Friday was different though. I felt guilty. I have one of those consciences that will wake me up in the middle of the night. There were nights when I was younger that I would wake up my parents to tell them something I’d done that day that I completely got away with. Weird, I know.

So on this Friday, I decided to give $20. I couldn’t remember if it was quite the full amount, but hey, $20 and I have a clear conscience and I don’t have to think another thing of it. As I approached the man at the gate I felt nervous. No joke. As if he was going to yell at me for giving him what I was supposed to. Well, I explained my dilemma:

“Good morning sir. Oh, I’m doing well! Yes, see, here’s the problem: I looked all over for my card, and I just couldn’t find it. I know I’ve been in here for two days, so here’s $20 dollars.”

The man looked at me strangely, as if it was going to be a problem to do, which he assured me it wouldn’t be. Soon, he looks at me and says “well, hey, I’ll let you out for $5”, gives me $15 dollars change, and manually lets me out.

I win.

Oh no. I lost. I lost so badly. I looked up to Heaven and said “Okay, God, you win”, especially after the man in the booth then said to me “Remember that I let you out of here for $5”. Nothing perpetuates a guilty feeling quite so well as getting away with a scheme better than you thought. I thought I was doing the right thing and had no satisfaction.

Nothing perpetuates a guilty feeling quite so well as trying just to eliminate a guilty feeling.

head, heart, hands: the answers to love

For the past two weeks I’ve been forcing down your throat a steady diet of everything I’ve ever thought about relationships, and so far no one’s complained (or maybe you have complained a lot, but I haven’t heard it yet).

But I realized there’s no resolution.  There’s nothing that leaves you something worth writing anyone home to.  In fact, when I read back to my last two editorials, the summaries could be “our relationships are lousy” and “I dated some bullet-points last semester”.

Let me try to assuage your concerns.  I do have some resolution this week.

At the same time I debuted my Love List, I also tried to figure out what made a good relationship work.  To that end, I came down with three characteristics.

First, I think personalities play a lot into things.  Two people need to have personalities that are similar enough to agree on foundations, and different enough to be interesting.  I couldn’t deal with dating another Adam Anderson.  I’m enough for myself.  I don’t think I could deal with the “Anti-Adam Anderson”, either.  A 25-75% Adam Anderson would be nice.

Secondly, chemistry is important, too.  I’d like to enjoy the person I’m with for some reason that’s beyond explanation.  People have a sense we’re together regardless of the personal displays of affection.  You all know what I’m talking about.  It’s the mysterious “X-Factor”.

Finally, I think timing matters.  Dating someone while they’re dating someone else?  Cheating.  Dating right after they broke up with someone?  Rebound.  Try dating someone you’ve known for while?  Oh, dear friend, chances are you will be banished into the Friend Zone, never to return.  There is a window that makes relationships blossom.

So that’s it right?  Personality, Chemistry, Timing.

Ready, Set, Go.

Well, no.  Otherwise we’d all be married by now.

Over the last two weeks, as I’ve been writing this, I’ve been reminded of my lack of ability to control life.  I don’t have any control over the cars speeding down Peach Street, the cranes working on Beyer, the Police next door and a wild shootout that could happen, global warming, or Iran’s nuclear stockpile.  I could die the second I walk out of the door.

How did I ever think I could control relationships, then?  As much as I’d like to from time to time, I can’t make you into someone I want you to be.  I’m stuck with you as you are.  As evidenced by the whole death trap outside my apartment, I can’t control timing, and I can’t even explain chemistry well, let alone control it.

You and I, dear people of Gannon University, will never be able to control a relationship.  The best we can do is put ourselves in places that will allow the right thing to happen at the right time.  I can only be myself and figure everything will get worked out, because I really don’t have the time to stress over things I can’t do anything about.

I feel like you don’t have the time either.  So stop worrying.  You’re great right now.  We all have to walk out of our rooms and face potential doom.  In two years, I’ve made it wherever I’ve needed to go. 

You will, too.

head, heart, hands: the unfulfilled love list

In June of 2006, I debuted “The List”. What’s “The List”?

I don’t mean to be stereotypical, but I’ve noticed girls will have about 15-20 things (I think my girlfriend in college had 20 or so) that they need in a guy, and guys will basically say “human and female”.

That being said, I really tried to come up with a decent list. I had five things that had to do with faith, a little something about NPR, and probably something about at least liking how they looked a little bit.

Then about six months later I met Jean. She was a sweetheart, and laughed when I told a joke, even when I knew it was bad. We went to church together, and I can remember at least one good debate about Darfur, and another about the long term implications of the war in Iraq on the economy. Hot, I know. She owned an exercise bike and used it periodically. She also owned her own duplex in Cleveland, and had a good paying job as a Hospice Nurse. She was five-for-five on “The List” for those of you keeping score at home.

The past tense of the previous paragraphs is a clear foreshadow, however. Six months after meeting Jean, we broke up. The girl who batted a perfect 1.000 eventually struck out. She blamed it on stress, on not being ready for a relationship.

The worse part was it was a good relationship. We didn’t fight, we didn’t have sex, and I made her parents laugh.

I even made mixtapes for her brother. Yeah. Mixtapes.

You have a Jean too. You also have your list. Maybe he has to be at least 6’1”. Maybe she needs to run a mile under 7:30. Maybe you’ve got to be able to read Russian Orthodox theology in its native tongue. And then someone comes and its as if he or she already had your list memorized.

Then before you know it, somehow you’re talking about lack of trust, some stupid thing you said that you know you didn’t mean and it still somehow came out of your mouth, and probably forgetting some semi-important date like her mom’s birthday, and it’s over.

But it was “The List”. The perfect-10 list.

In the couple months after the breakup, if there’s something I’ve learned is that the worst thing I could have done is have that list. What good person has ever been reduced to five qualities? What good relationship has ever been built around five paltry characteristics?

In my more honest moments, I wonder whether I wanted my 5-for-5 Jean so badly that I might not have even met the real Jean. Maybe the real Jean did compliment me well. Maybe she was the worst thing that could have happened to me. I’ll never know.

I think I’ve got one more week of relationship talk in me, but in the meantime, you know that notebook that you have? Yeah. That one. Tear out that page – the one in the front. I can’t help but think the person you’ve wanted is going to be much bigger than that page.