The continuing chronicle of Wesley's quest to be published; plus comments on popular culture, family life, and whatever else falls out of his head.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Miscommunication

Okay, so tonight I organized a meeting for all the laypeople on the Core LEadership Team. Outside of the guys I personally know, there wasn't much of a turnout at all. But one person who did show up was Dan Custer, the son of the Head Pastor, Jim. He said that one of the reasons he showed up was because of the way I worded the e-mail invitation it gave the impression that we couldn't talk in front of the pastors, like we were going to be tearing into them. Of course, that wasn't my intention, but now I'm fretting about it, because of the low turnout. If he showed up to confront it, how many others DIDN'T show up because they didn't want to deal with it?

So now, in my intent to be a leader, may I have cost our respect from the others by appearing that I am on a witch hunt. And how is this going to affect how people perceive our presentation, especially if we have to talk about the negative aspects of the staff? Or will I have to couch my comments so softly as to be completely ineffective?

And the worst part is that Carrie agreed with him, that my e-mail was worded poorly. Not that she was any better. She went out of her way weeks ago that our presentation shouldn't be like, "Randy's a jerk, and here's why," and yet tonight, when talking about response times from the staff, she mentioned Dr. Glen by name, so now how do we deal with the fact that most of the other pastors we've spoken with think he sows disunity in the church without looking we have an axe to grind.

It's frustrating, is all.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Let There Be Light

So, I'm doing light for the Easter program again this year. New lightboard, more switches, fewer lighting cues.

The program itself (I'm trying hard to not call it a 'show'--that term bugs me in reference to a church ministry)is okay. Technically, I think it's better than it was last year, but the people participating in it are less enthusiastic than they were last year, probably because they've been in four major productions in the past two years. They're tired. It's hard to build up enthusiasm for this project. The music is okay, and the cast is trying hard, but, of course, the choir is raising a stink about everything they can.

I also think this is emblematic for many of the issues the church is currently facing, but that is another rant for another day.

Carrie's doing to final monologue in modern dress, and I'm pushing buttons, so neither one of us has a whole lot to do, but we have to be there because we have to be there.

Tonight's opening night. The church has put up curtains in front of the overhang to make the room seem smaller, since we haven't sold any seats past that point.

Somebody asked us last night if we wanted to do anything after the program. At this point, I think we're probably going to say no, but I'm withholding judgment until this evening to see how we feel at the moment.

The House of Mouse

So Carrie found a dead mouse when she got home yesterday, but it was okay because it was a FIELD mouse, not a HOUSE mouse. The cats had grown tired of it when it stopped moving, but even then, she said they would walk by it every once in a while and whap it with their paw.

Evidently a field mouse is a different species than a house mouse. A field mouse is small and lean and gray, while a house mouse is fat and brown. A field mouse will move into a house during the winter to keep warm, but move back outside in the spring. They don't take up residence. A house mouse will move in and breed and infest. Of course, my question is, if a field mouse moves in and breeds during the winter, what kinds of kids will it have? And where do house mice come from, if not from outside. She said they came from other houses, but that doesn't make much sense to me.

I try not to think about it too much.

Shrug.

Mogollon

I am really loving National Geographic. I've been getting NG Adventure and NG Traveller for years now, and when my wife had the opportunity to get a discounted subcription to the flagship title for me, she did.

Boy am I happy she did, too. This is just one great magazine. I never really realized that the quality of the writing and the stories would be so high.

And it's a GREAT place to come up with ideas for stories. They explore so many different cultures and ideas every month that can be altered or used for fantasy or sci-fi. And little things that can be used for individual characters that I would never come up with on my own with my provincial, US mindset.

Sometimes it's just a word, like 'Mogollon.' I found that while reading a profile of an archeologist who believes that the Anasazi were actually the Aztecs migrating north. Mogollon was made in an off-hand reference to a small pre-historic society, but to me, that sounds like the perfect name for a barbarian king, a la Conan.

I just wish I had more time to read it. Too busy working around the house. But that's another rant for another time.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Desperate Housewives vs. Law & Order

In a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, I saw an article profiling the different Law and Order shows. One of the points that it made is that maybe the current era of the police/legal drama is winding down, with all the L&O and CSI franchises being beating by light soaps like Desperate Housewives.They didn't take into consideration that these light soaps slip into self-parody and lose their luster after about 4 seasons. Can't keep up the momentum. The original Law & Order is on its 14th season, I think, and if you rolled all the L&O series into a syndicated ball, you'd already have more than 20 seasons of procedural drama. They're not all burning up the ratings anymore, but they are all very solid performers, the workhorses of the NBC schedule. Desperate Housewives is the current darling of primetime, but I doubt very seriously that they'll be able to keep it up more than a couple of years before they either run out of ideas or the backstage politics take precedence over the on-camera performances.

Minutae

This morning I skipped my morning workout, and then accidently brought my gym bag into work instead of my backpack. Freud much?

***

Ohio University, my alma mater, even though I didn't graduate, one the MAC Tournament and got a bid for the NCAA Tourny.

***

Got drafted into working JFY (Just for You) Easter concert, although Dave O'Roark didn't actually notify me or anything. He told my wife that I'm going to be running lights for the program. That means I have to be there starting tomorrow night, through Sunday. Fun fun fun.

***

I'm feeling the itch to write. Don't have the time to dedicate, but definitely the itch. Gotta see what I can do about that.

***

Even though I skipped out on the morning workout, I feel a lot better emontionally/motivationally than I did last week. The sun is shining, and I 'discovered' a new station on XM that really elevates my mood--The Blend. It's the 'easy hits of the 80s, 90s and today' channel. Just a lot of light, upbeat hits that I really need when I'm down.

It didn't hurt that yesterday was the first Sunday in a while that I actually got to relax for an extended period. I know I harp on this a lot, but, for me, it's important to really not plan anything for Sundays, even if it's visiting family or going to a movie or something. I enjoy not doing anything, and I got to do that yesterday. I read, I listened to some music, and basically just got to chill out. Very enjoyable Sunday, and that is helping me to get stuff done today.

***

Speaking of which, I gotta get back to work.

Friday, March 11, 2005

Inertia

Inertia is defined by Webster's New College Dictionary as: "1. The tendency of a body to resist acceleration, as the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless disturbed by an external force. 2. Resistance to change or motion."

In this day and age where everybody comes from a dysfunctional family and all our kids are ADD, I won't admit I 'suffer' from depression, but I will say that I get depressed every once and a while (usually on days like I've had this past week, where the weather is just gray and gloomy), but what I really suffer from is inertia, in the emotional sense. When I'm not doing anything productive, I tend to want to stay that way. I've been noticing on Sundays, especially, when I sit down in front of the TV, I don't move for a couple of hours.

I said all that to say this: My inertia has been really bad this week. At work I've pretty much done absolutely nothing for the past week, maybe two. Haven't done my Bible reading, and I'm slow around the house, having difficulty focusing on anything.

At work it's been the most noticeable, because I'm spending all day playing on message boards and avoiding my bankers, but I don't think I've done more than maybe an hour of real work all week.

I haven't posted here or in my other blogs in several weeks. Just too bored, you know.

And at home, all we ever seem to do is work on the library. The strain is really beginning to show on both of us. Carrie is snappish and I'm sullen. We're both cranky. Last night was especially frustrating as we re-drywalled one wall, and had to deal with all sorts of complications due to poor planning and rushing through. But we finished what we needed to finish, and hopefully, prayerfully, we'll be over the hump and looking at the backside of our construction. We better be, because once the weather's nice enough to go outside, Carrie's going to go ballistic if she can't play in her gardens.

As for me, I'm moving, slowly, just trying to catch up the old things I promised myself I would do: Bible reading and memorization every day, working out twice a day, journalling or writing when I can. But it's tough. What I really want to do is sit in a comfy chair and not do anything: no writing, no reading, no TV; just sit and stare and wish I had the energy to do something else.

Monday, March 07, 2005

There are only two things I hate: Those who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch.

Been really extraordinarily busy this past week. No time to post at all. Don't really even have time now, but I thought I would because of THIS jackass. Gotta eat up some more bandwidth, dontcha know. Yummers!

Saw Austin Powers on TBS this weekend. They played it three times, but I never got to watch the whole thing. Saw most of it, except the opening sequence. It is by no means a good movie, but some of the individual lines and scenes in it are hilarious. And it plays much better on a Sunday afternoon with commercials than it did when I had to pay $7.50 for it in the theatre.