Currently Listening Live Songs & Stories By David Wilcox see related

This one goes out to "The Project Man", that selfless guy (and it's always a guy) who lets the rest of us suggest how we might improve him. You need to quit smoking, you need to get a girlfriend, etc. It's just easier, you know, when there's somebody else to worry about. We as a group are relentless, risky, quick to rebound from failures that we certainly don't have to pay for.

And then there's you, the life we pull back and forth through countless half-brained schemes, putting up with our bad advice coated in good intentions. Please know that we love you exactly the way you are. We just want you to be happy... it makes for a better story all around.

Going to Wicked on Thursday - psyched.

Currently Gaming Final Fantasy 7 Platinum Edition By Eidos Interactive see related

God is good; I just got dealt a helper's hand.

Pioneer Clubs hired me to do some data entry for two months. Nothing permanent, no guarantees this will lead to a writing/editing job, but hey, it's a foot in the door. For two months, I get to audition as a hard worker, familiarize myself with their product line, get noticed by important faces. And if that doesn't pan out, my semi-secretarial skills will be honed enough to pick up temp work somewhere else.

Their office is five miles away; I walk for now.

Currently Reading Searching for God Knows What By Donald Miller see related

A few summers back, I did a stint as a camp counselor. Fun, fun work if you can get it.

As part of our chapel-time arsenal, we had a puppet named Lorenzo. Old guy with a mangy beard, a prospector's cap and cartoonish glasses, Lorenzo would captivate a room of six years old with every sentence. To be honest, I don't think the puppet spoke a word of sense, but the kids loved to see him dash across his stage and holler incomprehensibly. We had other puppets for story-telling and memory verses, but Lorenzo was pure crowd control.

I was cool with Lorenzo until the last week of camp, when he suddenly became a liability. Fire swept through the valley and the park service ordered an evacuation. No big deal, happens all the time when you work in the woods - you jump into a bus, leave everything behind, and hope your life's still there when you return. Thing is, kids were seriously worried about Lorenzo... couple of them even threatened not to get on the bus until they knew he was safe. They were risking their lives for a puppet, people. I have never been more terrified of my own work.

Thankfully, the guy who voiced Lorenzo dashed up to the chapel and somehow managed to make it look like he and Lorenzo were sharing a jacket. He rode like that all the way to the emergency center, with old Lorenzo hollering to the utter delight of the kids. They slept well that night, away from everything familiar except that stupid puppet.

The memory always gets me nervous. We create these silly things that people can relate to, that simplify the story, give it a face. But when they cling to the puppet, insist that we account for him, who has the heart to confess it was cheap plastic and an artful hand?

Sometimes I wish I wasn't good at this.

Currently Watching The West Wing - The Complete First Season By Martin Sheen, Stockard Channing, Allison Janney, Moira Kelly, Rob Lowe see related

Let's talk about what I can control...

I can control the kitchen of the apartment where I'm crashing in Wheaton. As long as I'm here, the vegetables will be fresh and finely sliced, the presentation appetizing, and the frying pan unwashed.

I can control my exposure, by applying for nearby jobs or ministry jobs or writing jobs. I can keep the phone clutched in my hand, and I can rewrite my resume everyday.

I can control how far the dollars in my pocket stretch, how long the last pair of clothes stay clean, how faithfully I bang out two pages a day.

The rest is up to him.

Currently Listening Two Lefts Don't Make a Right.. But Three Do By Relient K Mood Rings see related

This week, my little brother is running triage in Senegal, sleeping in the dirt and playing soccer with AIDS victims in his spare time. Meanwhile, my father was flown into Budapest as an international fundraising consultant. I am so proud of them both, saving the world in their own way.

I write sketches. Getting pretty good at it too. I wrote a five minute farce for the youth at my church and this woman commissioned a forty-minute play on the spot. And yet, I can't escape the echoes of vanity, vanity...

I don't want to save the world; I just want to cook for the people who do.

P.S. Moving soon, don't know where. Chicago is the current front-runner.