Anyway, I had a crush on Sam.  He was older, had a girlfriend, and you can be more than sure that he was not at all interested in me.  He suffered my presence.  But I was convinced that he would fall in love with me and we would be married.  CONVINCED.  In a very creepy way.  I journaled about him.  I wrote him letters I never gave him.  I planned my walking schedule to each class based on where I might see him.  I was a creepy, creepy 6th grader.

The fact that Sam did not love me back was heartbreaking to me.  I neglected my personal appearance (as if it could be more neglected).  I refused to brush my hair.  I walked the halls in a coma, drawing on the walls with my finger.  I kept my head down, looking at my Birkenstocks wondering what I could do to make Sam love me.  I mean, life got weird.

During this time of introspection, I attended a Math and Science Meet for 6th graders.  This is laughable to most, because it for sure took me four tries to pass Algebra 099 in college.  How I got signed up for this trip, I have no idea.  Either way, the trip insured that we would get to eat at either McDonald’s or Pizza Hut.  I was (and still am) a fast food guilty pleasurer, so as the prospect of McDonald’s was, quite frankly, too good of a deal to pass up.  My friends, who had every right to be on this trip, chose Pizza Hut.  Just another in the long line of poor decisions I would make during the course of my young life.

I wore a large coat, more than likely my father’s, and started out to Mickey Dee’s.  I’m sure I purchased a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal (including Dr. Pepper), because that is the only thing I ever get at McDonald’s.  I started back, planning to meet my friends at Pizza Hut and eat with them.  It was cold.  I had on denim shorts and a huge jacket.  I had poor posture, which is to say, Quasimodo taught me how to sit in a chair.  As I schlumped past the Pizza Hut, readying myself to cross the street, I was oblivious to the compassionate stares of my friends as they surveyed me walking towards Pizza Hut.  I was later told that the conversation went something like this:

Meaghan: Oh my gosh.  Is that a homeless person?

Jennifer: Oh my gosh.

Terra: Yeah.

Jennifer: Should we give him some food.

Terra: I think he’s got a McDonald’s bag.

Meaghan: Oh yeah.  I see it now.

Jennifer: Wait, he’s coming in here.

Erin: Hey guys.

Terra: Holy crap.  We thought you were a homeless guy.

Meaghan: We almost gave you pizza.

*****

This has been installment 1 of “Awkward Stories from My Childhood.”

On November 27th, StoryCorps is hosting their 2nd annual National Day of Listening.  You can learn more here, but basically, you pick an interview subject and ask them questions about their life.  I’ve decided to do three subjects: my Nene, my Papa Hicks, and my Mama.  These are my three living grandparents and I am excited about learning more about their lives.

The National Day of Listening website has a DIY guide that tells you everything you need to get started, as well as a question generator, which is helpful.  There are some really good questions on there, but feel free to make up your own.

I’m doing this because I don’t want the stories of my grandparents to be lost to time.  I want to know them in my heart, so I can pass them on to Holland and our other kids.

So, if you decide to participate, let me know and we can all share our stories!

Here’s a quick confession: I’m one of those people who goes ape for Don Miller. I think he’s a smash-up writer, very witty and charming and he puts words together in a way that makes me want to sing about rainbows and clap his hand in a mousetrap at the same time. I’m “one of those people” about Don Miller. Unfortunately, I’m also “one of those people” about Zac Efron, movie musicals, this ice cream I’m currently enjoying the heck out of, and Harry Potter. So, this is a strike against Don, I’m sure. But I like him. I liked Blue Like Jazz a lot. The statement in BLJ that the Bible is more of a chocolate book than a salad book was so revelatory to me, as a little college kid, I thought I was on the road to transcendence. NO ONE IS AS ENLIGHTENED ABOUT GOD AS I. Which is a foolish thing all college kids think, but no one says aloud.

Either way, Kinsley accidentally got an extra copy, and he let me have it, which was awful nice, Kins, and I hope I said thank you. I’m pretty sure I finished the book within the next couple of days, and I really liked it. First of all, it’s Don (I’m gonna call him Don because he once replied to a tweet I sent him [on his PUBLIC timeline] and because it’s better than writing out “Don Miller” every 5 seconds) best book so far. He is an excellent writer, and he’s just gotten better. I don’t know if it was the Robert McKee seminar or the exercises in writing different mediums or just a maturing, but it’s extremely well-written.

So there’s that. Also, it’s a pretty genius premise. I get paid to write at work, which is great. I’ve been learning about the working parts of story ever since high school. I was a theater major in college. I’ve heard the words “inciting event” and “character development” a lot in my life. Which is not to say I know a whole lot about the concept of story(telling), but at least I’ve been exposed to it. And I don’t think it would have ever occured to me that these parts of story could be used in real life. Don does a real good job of not making you feel stupid that you didn’t come up with this yourself, as it’s such a glaringly obvious thing that writers in general should recognize. You get to go along on his journey of discovery, which is really neat.

I don’t want to give the book away, but it stirred some things in me. One, I’m not living a story that means much. I spend a lot of time on the computer, a lot of time on my phone, and a lot of time watching episodes of ‘30 Rock.’ When I think about the moment right before I die, and in that moment, I look back at all the moments that have made up my life, I don’t want to remember a montage of Tracy Jordan taking his shirt off.

Two, I’m obsessed with things. Don talks about how he bought a Roomba vacuum and how stupid that is. He says,

“The ambitions we have will become the stories we live.  If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want.  If we don’t want anything, we are living boring stories, and if we want a Roomba vacuum cleaner, we are living stupid stories.  If it won’t work in a story, it won’t work in real life.”

This is how I am.  I want a lot of stupid things.  I wanted an iPhone when they came out and spent a truly disgusting amount of money on one and I loved it and thought I was the bee’s knees.  And then, the new iPhone came out with 3G.  And then the NEWER iPhone came out with video and it was white.  And the white was so cool.  And I told myself I needed that phone, if I could just get that phone, my life would be good and all the stupid things people say to themselves when they want stupid things.  And there’s really nothing wrong with having an iPhone, but I made it such a big deal.  And I do that with other things.  If I could just get a cool haircut, if I could just lose some weight, if only I had a bigger house, and so on and so forth.

So what will I do now that I’m confronted with these things about myself?  First, I’ve got to stop being obsessed with stuff.  This includes being in the know about stuff, especially stuff related to my job.  I don’t know how to stop other than to pray about it, which is probably something my life could use more of anyway.

Secondly, it’s time for me to stop sitting on my butt.  I’ve implemented some new life rules in order to get up off my butt.  They are as follows:

1. No more computer until after Holland goes to bed.
2. I can have three TV shows at a time.  Right now, they are 30 Rock, The Office, and Bones.  Bones will have to take a backseat when LOST comes back on.
3. I need to do SOMETHING.  This is vague, I am aware.  I’m working on it.

I feel like I should make some grandiose statement like, I’m going to run a marathon, and then that would be an inciting incident and I would be forced to train for a marathon.  I’d rather die, than run a marathon, but I’ve got to figure something out and do it.

I’ve also been struck by the question of is it just rich people (meaning me, you, and everyone with a computer, Americans, etc.) that have trouble living good stories.  Because we don’t need anything.  Nothing pushes us.  We’re comfortable.  Don says that the thing about living a good story is that it sounds great at the beginning, but it’s hard.  And you’re not going to want to do it.  But joy costs pain.

JOY COSTS PAIN.

So, I really liked A Million Miles… and I’m glad that I read it.  It’s beautiful and full of important things for people to mull over.

I have a friend that is not living a good story.  I don’t know if they know it, but everyone else around them knows it.  And everyone (literally, almost everyone they know) is trying to push them out into a better story, but there’s a lot of resistance.  I was talking to a mutual friend about it and she said, “It’s like (they) aren’t a witness to (their) own life.”

I think it’s important that we are witnesses to our lives and the lives of others.  It’s important that we remember hurts and pains and happiness and joy, because they are all a part of the Greater Story that God is telling and we are characters in.  And we want to remember God’s faithfulness and His love within our own little story.

Oh.  This blog post is bordering on 1300 words.  I’ll stop now.  More later.

“Confession: Half the time, if not more than half, I am full of bullshit. I share what will make me look good. If I am vulnerable, I share just enough vulnerability to be perceived as vulnerable, rather than to actually humiliate myself so that others can talk more openly about their own insecurities. I also leak in my accomplishments, and I’ve become a master at it. I don’t even know I am doing it half the time, and the other half I strategically list my accomplishments so that they come off as dismissive or “in passing.”

Gah, if that didn’t cut me to the bone, I don’t know what could.  First of all, it’s incredibly refreshing to hear someone say that they are, in fact, full of BS.  Because, let’s be frank with one another, we all are.  Especially as believers.  I am so worried about coming off as (insert postmodern adjective here), that I’ve missed, oh, the whole point.  And hearing Don Miller, best-selling author who loves Jesus and whom I happen to admire both as a writer and a person, say that HE is full of BS is freeing to me.  Oh, he’s full of it, too? Huh.  How about that? Even when I am trying not be full of BS and be real, I’m only being real for the sake of hoping people will look at me and think, wow, Erin is so real. And now I’m sure you’re all thinking, yeah, dummy, no kidding.  You aren’t fooling anyone.

Either way, I wonder if you can even get past this.  Can you ever be real because you are real and not because you want people to think you are?  Can you ever be vulnerable because you want to help others and not because you want to show everyone how vulnerable you are?  Maybe it’s just me, but I wonder if I can.  I don’t think I can.  It’s like this one time at the Robinson’s house, we told the stories of the Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done.  And I told this story about how I joined in with a group of my peers in elementary school and tricked a retarded boy into sitting on a brownie.  And if you can believe it, that’s not actually the worst thing I’ve ever done (hard to swallow, but it’s true).  I’m sitting here, right now, thinking of the actual worst thing I’ve ever done and there’s NO WAY I’d share that on this blog or on the Robinson’s back deck or want to relive it in my head.  So now I’m even BS-ing myself.

So I had this conversation with my friend Jon today.  Jon and I are basically the same person in two different genders.  He is, undoubtedly, one of the coolest people I know, an excellent writer, and my only regret is that I didn’t meet him earlier so we could be better friends when we lived in the same town. Anyway, I feel God calling me to work with people who have AIDS.  Or something.  I have NO idea what that even looks like.  Does that mean I take meals to people who can’t because they have AIDS?  Does that mean Ben and I adopt an AIDS orphan?  Does that mean I need to clean bathrooms at Birmingham AIDS Outreach so someone else can be equipped to love?  I don’t know.  I really don’t.  But either way, I feel this call to do something with people who are dying or have been affected by the AIDS epidemic.  Anyway, Jon was asking me about that, because, incidentally, he’s sort of been approached by some people to get involved in that way as well (because we are the same person).  And I started thinking about why I feel God’s called me to this.  Why don’t I care about old people?  Or people with diabetes?  I need to be doing something with a cause that is socially relevant so I can be compassionately hip?  Is it because I’m bored?  Because I feel like I NEED to do something or Jesus won’t love me?  What is my motive?  Are they even in the same country as “pure”?  And should I even been THINKING about this crap, because people just need to be loved and cared for and my motives should be secondary to someone getting sponsored by Compassion or getting a meal because their son just had brain surgery.  Shouldn’t it?  Wasn’t it Paul that said I don’t care what your motives are for preaching the gospel, I’m just glad the gospel getting preached (I’m clearly paraphrasing)?

I would never (in a million years) reveal my flaws unless they were going to make you like me more.  WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I’M DOING NOW.  IT CAN’T BE STOPPED.  Because what would you think of me?  Did I reveal too much?  Was I inappropriate?  More than likely, yes.  Which would cause you to feel uncomfortable around me and dislike me.  And I so desperately need you to like me.

This is all really convoluted and I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say, other than I identify with Mr. Miller in that I’m full of BS.  And I don’t want to be.  It’s sort of like your wedding day.  I have pictures of my wedding up all over my house.  And I look awesome in them.  A real makeup artist did my makeup.  Friends that know their way around a straightening iron did my hair.  It’s shockingly not in a ponytail.  I’m about 45 pounds lighter and am wearing some gravity-defying undergarments.  I’m wearing high heels, for crying out loud.  But that’s not what I look like.  That was the best version of myself.   And I even had a little moment of “Oh, Erin.  She keeps it real” when I took OFF my high heels and put on my flip-flops during the reception.  What a kook!  I spent the day BS-ing.  Actually, I spent about 6 hours BS-ing.  By the time Ben and I got to the hotel room, I’d already spilled sweet potatoes on my wedding dress.  Just goes to show you can’t keep BS-ing for that long.

I guess the moral is that just like I have an amazing husband who can somehow connect the dots from the day we got married to the nightmare that he awakens to every morning, I am also surrounded by people and a Savior who can look through my BS and still see me, crappy me, that is incredibly insecure about…oh…everything, and care about me and love me in spite of myself.  And there is grace for me, even in my incredibly selfish inner turmoil-ish monologue about how stupid and ridiculous I am.  I know there are people out there who are not BS-ers (I know a few of them) and I salute you.

Now tell me your secret.

My friend Andy has really been hitting it out of the park with his posts lately.  Check out this cartoon he drew after he had a very interesting conversation with his young daughter.

Did you know that some countries have theme hospitals?  What I know Ruth wouldn’t give to have the twins in a Hello Kitty Maternity Ward.

Sophie Blackall is a New York artist that takes the Missed Connections ads from craigslist and renders them into really beautiful works of art.  She also sells them on her etsy store.

I loved this post from mental floss on the Top Ten Best Secret Menu items.  I want to order them now!

Ok.  Yes.  I am a mental floss junkie.  But this is another cool post.  Artists that take well-known cartoon characters and make them more realistic.  So cool.

Yeah.  That’s right.  CANDIED.  SALTED.  BACON. YOU ARE MOST WELCOME.

It’s cellular mitosis with doughnuts!

I have not tried to make this yet, but my friend Tris’ sister-in-law posted this sweet recipe for making Pumpkin Spice Latte’s at home.  Because I am singlehandedly funding Jill Casey’s benefits at Starbucks.  I love it so so much.

Not only is this video completely and totally fun, for every 10,000 people who view it, the Dude Perfect guys will sponsor one Compassion child.

Cracked.com makes me laugh so hard.  It reminds me of Shane for some reason.  They are like an irreverent mental floss.  This article about 7 Secrets Only Two Living People Know is so interesting, and it’s funny.  Warning: people cuss.

That’s enough for today.  My hope is that one day I’ll be able to post pictures on this blog (ugh) and I can resume normal postings.  Until then…

The site is back up and running, thanks to a literal team of people who are way smarter than I am.  I’m still working out some of the kinks, so your patience is appreciated.  Hopefully, we’ll be back up and running by the beginning of next week, but I make no promises.

Have a great weekend!