That's E-nerd-tainment! (with apologies to Howard Dietz... and probably the rest of the universe)

A meme with a Battlestar theme

Or a cat wearing the Sorting Hat

Or a pic of the Hulk as St. Nick

That's e-nerd-tainment!

Fan fic, be it sloppy or slick

Be it short, or the babbling sort

Or the kind where you wish you were blind

That's e-nerd-tainment!

The plots involve 'bots, or a giant T-rex,

Takei-making-ray beamed out from Planet X,

Intergalactical sex,

Where a guy's his own grandfather, and causes timeline bother.

One scene posted at 2:13:

Aeryn Sun's wearing just three balloons

Quarter past, googol hits it's amassed

That's e-nerd-tainment!

It might be a fight about Leia and Luke

On boards seen by hoards, whether "meant to" or fluke

Both sides posted by the same kook

The title of the thread: "Worf, and How He Links to Red Dwarf"

Cosplay everywhere on display

Hot or cool, made by genius or fool

Hip hooray! Nerds are having their day!

The e-world's a stage, a stage for a world of e-nerd-tainment!


(c) 2014 Mark Travis Riggs


Edited 1/12/14 to change "Picard" to "the Hulk" and "2:15: The whole world's scene that scene" to "Quarter past, googol hits it's amassed" and "A gay" to "Takei". (The first and last because I wanted to include more "nerd" stuff, and the middle because I didn't like the original line much at all. Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of the replacement. But it's always a work in progress, so who knows what tomorrow will bring?)

We Interrupt This Lengthy Blog Silence for the Following Moment of Simple Beauty

The sky above my house is very clear right now. I was just in the back yard, and I looked up to see a truly beautiful sight. All the leaves have vacated the trees in my yard and the surrounding ones, and the sky is so clear I can see more stars than I'm used to seeing in the city.

The view above me had a background of that deep-blue black which is the color of the darkest urban night sky possible without a power outage. The rest was either dark lines of naked trees or bright dots of light that started the journey here long before I was even thought of.

The stars were not only above the trees, but they were shining through them--since the leaves have all given up all of their summer duties, including the minor one of making stars have to work so much harder to accomplish this. I've only ever been able to pick out few constellations, but bits of Orion were recognizable through one tree (at least they were once I saw the rest of him poking out above the tree). I was struck by the simplicity of this beautiful scene.

It made me wish I had a better camera. It made me wish I knew how to take paints or charcoal or pencils or markers and re-create the memory of that sight.

But mostly it made me stand there longer than I probably should have, given the cold.

So I Won't Be Teaching This Year...

I've already messaged most of my co-workers via The Facebooks, although I haven't responded to many--maybe not any--of the responses yet, as my emotions about it are somewhat complicated.

But there it is: I'm not teaching next year.

I have been granted the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams. (I have way too many dreams for me to accomplish in one life, which is probably a major reason why I don't pursue any of them that much... I should probably work on that.)

I'm going to miss a lot about teaching, and a lot about Eastgate, but this is a chance to do something that I've been dreaming about doing since... well, at least since I started teaching, but probably since I was in high school. It's scary, because pursuing a dream always is, but it's also very exciting.

The short version is: I'm helping to write an Algebra textbook. The long version is: too long for me to type right now. There aren't any huge fun secrets that are keeping me from explaining. I'm just lazy and in a bit of a hurry. Just know that it's a bit more involved than writing a textbook, and I'll say more about it in future posts, I'm sure.

Yes, it's been over a year since I've written. I apologize. I know the world has been a much more bleak place without my typo-ridden and poorly-punctuated stream-of-apparent-total-lack-of-consciousness ramblings. I shall endeavor to post more frequently.

But back on topic: one of the things I'm going to miss the most at Eastgate is having so many friends in one place. All the teachers, instructional assistants, cafeteria workers, custodial workers, administrative assistants, the library staff, and whatever co-workers I'm inadvertently leaving off here... I'm going to miss working with them and seeing them daily.

I'm also going to miss the kids. While a middle-school-aged child can go from zero to bouncing off the walls then back down below zero to "moody and sullen" and so forth in the course of the first five minutes of class, I have still enjoyed teaching them, attempting to teach them, and generally entertaining them when nothing else seemed to be happening.

However, all of the sad aspects are balanced by the joy I'm feeling about trying something I've always wanted to do.

Plus, I won't have to get up as early every day!

I Sliced My Thumb (the Long-Awaited Details (for a Set Definition of "Long Awaited"))

Finally, the long-awaited tale of how I sliced my thumb last week!
(Yes, only a couple of people have asked how it happened, but I think that sentence will help make people think I'm about to say something interesting and relevant to them. Suckers!)

So last Sunday Cody woke me up to see if I'd watch Hads and let Marissa get some more sleep. I'm all about watching Hads, so I was all about letting Marissa get some more sleep. They two of them had been doing a lot of work helping Cody's mom out the night before, so we can pretend I was being more benevolent that selfish we like.

I was going to need to feed Hads at 11:00 or so, so somewhere around 9:15 or 9:30, I decided to make sure there were plenty of clean bottles.

I got to the sink and realized the knives I'd re-washed with the intention of drying before spots could form on them had fallen into the "Oops, guess what I forgot to do" black hole. I picked up one of the knives and ran my thumb along the side hoping I could just rub away the spots.

Swipe one, completely safe and away from the sharp edge.

Swipe two, just as safe and away.

Just before swipe three, I distracted myself by realizing I was probably going to have to wash the knives again, and therefore didn't pay as much attention to where my thumb was.

The result: Marissa didn't get to sleep in. She watched Hads, I drove myself to the emergency room, and now I have five stitches in my thumb.

I refuse to post the picture I sent to Say for her opinion, but if you're friends with me on Facebook, she posted it there and tagged me--I'm sure you've already seen it and almost lost your lunch if you are in the aforementioned category. But here's the "after" picture. Hope it doesn't gross you out! Enjoy!

Well, 2011, I Think You Should Go. Now.

It wasn't that bad of a year. The past 6 months have been a bit of a joy, and there are lots of things I wish I had done differently... but what year isn't like that, eh?

I'll just be glad to see this one go. I was already not thrilled to death with it, but now it's just... I don't know. I'm just over everything, the bulk of the everything being me and what passes for a mind in my head.

There were a couple of paragraphs here. I deleted them. Suffice it to say today turned into a bad day, but I've decided not to go on about it here just yet. The short version is: I'm a f***ing idiot.

Anyway, Happy New Year, everybody. It'll be better next year. Maybe not tomorrow, but... at some point next year, it will be better.

Right?

Say

I was just thinking today that I may have never shared the story of my sister's nickname, Say (she actually has more than one nickname, but this one I'm responsible for).

When I was but a toddler, my sister took me everywhere with her. I was around her a lot, especially when Mom was in the hospital giving birth to Dane with I was almost 18 months old.

I think it was when Mom returned from the hospital and I was given to her that I looked around and said, "Where say go?"

Mom was baffled. Everyone else in the room was baffled, I assume... assuming others were in the room, and it seems like Mom mentioned there were others, but I have no idea who they might have been. Nobody knew what I was talking about, even though I asked at least one other time, "Where say go?"

It wasn't until my sister walked in and I exclaimed, "There say is!" they realized I was referring to my sister Lynne (called Rusty at the time) as "Say".

And it stuck. The end.

Well, that and the fact I can't ask where my sister has gone off to without thinking of that story... mainly because I always word it as, "Where Say go?"

And yes, upon her return, I say, "There Say is!"

"Mom, You Ignorant Slut" (A Belated Mother's Day Memory of My Mother)

This is not a story about my mother as much as it is a story about the complete and total ignorance of youth.

It was the late 70s. I was in either late elementary school or about to enter Junior High. Saturday Night Live was mostly the original cast, and I tried to watch it when I could--just because it was so "adult".

For some reason, Mom and I were standing pretty close, face-to-face. She might even have just gotten a hug from me. I have no idea. I just remember we were face-to-face. Wanting to say something funny to her, I flashed on this little tidbit from the Weekend Update part of SNL:

"Yes," thought my young and ignorant mind, "That's funny."

I looked her in the eyes and said, "Mom, you ignorant slut."

I remember she was smiling at the time. You know how things go to slow motion in your mind in a life-or-death kind of situation?

Oh yeah, totally there.

Her face started to cloud over (in slow motion--or that's how I remembered it later, of course), and I could see something was very wrong.

I blurted out as fast as I could and in a very panicked voice, "I don't know what it means! I don't know what it means!"

Yes, my quick thinking saved my life that day. I was instructed that if I don't know what a word means, perhaps I shouldn't use it. (Never mind that I had a good idea of what "ignorant" meant, but still used it.) I was, however, allowed to live.

That's one of my favorite stories to tell about my own ignorance--not just because it shows how ignorant I have been in the past (and thus may be in the future), but it's apparently crazy funny--at least Brenda seems to enjoy the story... and I enjoy that she enjoys it.

I Know You Aren't Keeping Score, But...

I'm trying really hard to average a post a day on here. I'm behind by one at the moment, and it's making me crazy.

Okay, crazier. Or more crazy. Whatever. I teach math.

Anyway, I keep meaning to post things in the morning and then again in the evening, so I can get caught up... but then the time comes in the morning and I'm either running behind or have even less to say than I usually do (because I thought about typing "or I have nothing to say," and realized that's the norm on here anyway) in the morning... or if I get something posted in the morning, I don't get around to it in the evening.

Again, not that anyone is keeping score. It's just a goofy rule I've made up in my head.

Like the one I had as a kid about turning on the bathroom light before I stepped into the bathroom--otherwise something "bad" would happen. I'm not sure what... monsters attacking, maybe?

I had another rule about the sleeping bag I used to sleep in. If my foot went out the hole in the bottom, it would be chopped off.

Now my rules have no dire consequences. They're just goofy rules I try to non-blog by. I suppose my brain likes a challenge, but it terrible at rising to one.

Anyway, here's a non-blog post for today... just me, rambling about how I never get around to writing like I want to.

Next up: me rambling about how I never learned to play the piano. Or something.

Goodness Sakes! Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally!

This is old news to my friends on Facebook, but yesterday morning my status was asking non-math folks what was confusing about the order of operations.

(Warning: Math review)

For those who don't remember, that's:
1. Operations inside grouping symbols
2. Exponents
3. Multiplication and division
4. Addition and subtraction

(That's the super-simplified version, which is as complicated as we get in 7th grade.)

I have kids who seem to be struggling with it (confirmed by the quiz results yesterday, by the way), and this is one place where I'm at a loss as to how it is confusing or difficult.

Fractions, I get. I remember what confused me about fractions. That memory serves as a nice jumping-off point for finding other ways working with fractions might be confusing or difficult. Decimals, long division, even multiple-digit whole number multiplication. Yes, I get it.

Heck, I can even related to that panic one might feel when asked "What's 6 times 7?"

But the Order of Operations? C'mon! What's difficult about it?

There had to be an answer, of course, as I have so many kids who struggled on a quiz where the only steps needed were the last two (multiplication/division and addition/subtraction). I tried to take math fact fear out of the equation by making the first four problems along the lines of 3 + 2 x 5... I mean, who doesn't know 2 x 5 (or even 5 x 5, should you not remember to do the multiplication first)? Who doesn't know 3 + 10 (or 3 + 2, should you think the addition goes first)?

So the cool thing is this: lots of help from the Facebook friends.

The first was a reminder that some students are going to be freaking out about the arithmetic involved, no matter how simple it might be.

The next was the confusion as to why the Order of Operations exists--when you're working with one operation, you just go from left to right, and you don't even have to worry about that when working with addition and multiplication.

Exponents in the presence of parenthesis can be confusing--which is something I can keep in mind as we delve deeper into the whole Order of Operations thing.

A couple of people gave ideas as to how to make it "easier to remember" or "easier to understand" beyond the whole mnemonic device I used as the title of this post (although usually it's "Please Excused My Dear Aunt Sally," but as students get older some people change "Parenthesis" to "Grouping Symbols").

And one math-phobe expressed she found the Order of Operations easy to understand (comforting, even), because it was a simple list.

Oh, and lots of funny comments from my non-math friends, too.

So I think I have found a new way to irritate my Facebook friends and also get some insight into what's confusing or difficult for my kids--I mean, I have an imagination, and I do use that to figure out where the kids might get confused. However, extra brains on the task can't be a bad thing, right?

Anybody Want to Research for Me?

So I was thinking about writing on a few topics, share a few stories, and so on... But I'm getting the feeling I've written on them at some point or another, and I don't want to show my Alzheimer's hand this early in the game.

Therefore, if anyone would like to do some research for me, do me a favor and go back and see if I've written on any of these topics:

1. My guardian angel story
2. The time Scott and I almost hopped on a train just to get away from our lives in Ralls County
3. The time I "got lost" at the mall in Omaha
4. My high-school obsession with iguanas
5. The time I spent the night in the theatre at Jewell, just to see if I saw Mona, the ghost that haunted the place
6. My wreck one month after I turned 16, the blackout, and the flashbacks
7. States I've travelled to and/or through

Yeah, that will give me some "on deck" topics for when I've run out of nothing to say.

(That is, if I haven't already written on all those topics...)

Okay, get researching!

The Tale of My First (and Only) School Paddling...

I was a joy as a student in 8th grade. I'm sure of this. I'm sure Mr. Carrol (Carroll? Caroll? Carol? Whatever.) thought I was his best students ever! Of course, he was a coach, so I wasn't too concerned with what he thought. That's how I rolled in grade 8, peeps.

It was in his Social Studies class, however that I had to take a geography test in which you identified (and spelled correctly) major U.S. cities. I can't remember how many there were. I just knew if I needed one, I could find one on a map (or, as it turns out, go to mapquest), so I did not feel this was information that needed to be taking up space in my head.

Everyone who did poorly had to write the cities they missed twenty-five times each.

Seriously.

This, of course, meant war.

So I wrote them out, and then cut the cities up so that I had a lot of little slips of paper with a city name written on it once. I'm pretty sure there were close to 1000 little strips of paper.

Mr. C. took me to the office to see Mr. Ray. In a wonderful Malaprop moment, Mr. Ray responded to my claims that I did the assignment as instructed (I just went above and beyond the call, right?) by saying, "The assignment was to write the cities twenty-five times each, not make graffiti."

After a pause, Mr. C. quietly said, "Confetti."

What 8th grade kid wouldn't love that moment, right? However, I had the sense not to crack up laughing. I have no idea who I borrowed it from and if I returned it promptly.

I was put into the conference room with the slips of paper and some tape, and told I would have it all taped back together by the next day, or I'd get a paddling. It was toward the end of the day anyway, so I taped some up, then took the paper bag containing my "graffiti" on the bus with me at the end of the day.

This kid who was two years older than me grabbed the bag and said, "What would you do if I threw this out the window?"

I shrugged and said, "Nothing."

Out the window it went.

Turns out, being bullied by an older kid who--despite my pleas to not throw my precious project out the window--threw my beloved project out the window anyway does not equate to any sort of sympathy in this situation (actually, I didn't even play it off that way... I just said, "This older kid threw it out the window.").

And so I got the paddle.

I remember it hurt right then, but by the time I got back to class, it was fine.

The important part was: I didn't have to tape up those stupid little slips!

Remembering Eighteen

Yes, I remember a lot of being 18. I remember having to register for the draft. I remember not feeling any different than I did the day before.

I didn't smoke, so being old enough to buy cigarettes was no big deal. I remember being excited I could vote, but we had a presidential election the November before, so it would be a while before I got to vote for a president.

I've said several times over the past week or so that I could never survive being a parent. I think having a kid turn 18 would be the worst of all. Where did the kid go? (Well, speaking from experience, I know the kid is still in there somewhere, just under the surface, usually. Or that's the case in the darkness behind my eyes.)

Cody turned 18 this week. Jordan turns 18 in just a little over 20 months. It's just strange.

Now begins the string of graduation ceremonies... And then I guess the nearest nursing home after all that's over, eh?

Anyway, back to school tomorrow to prepare more kids for 8th grade and beyond. Gives me something to do while all these kids I know are growing up!

Not Like I Ever Have Anything to Say, but...

I'm going to try to post twice today, as I was so beat last night from travels, unpacking, gift-giving, and grocery-shopping... and cooking dinner...

Where was I?

Oh yeah, I was so beat, I didn't get any blog-posting done. I watched Groundhog Day (or most of it), and decided to just call it a night.

I guess I'm strange (or not in the majority, anyway), but I enjoy snow. I'm a little sad I wasn't here for the snowfall. Snowfall is to my eyes what wind is to my ears and skin. I love a windy day. I find it very calming to hear the wind rushing around my ears and feeling it move over me. Snowfall does the same thing. I could sit in the chair by my front window and watch it snowing for hours if I wasn't so worried the neighbors would mistake me for dead and call an ambulance.

Maybe I'll make a snowman today. Most likely not, but I haven't made one (or a snow angel, for that matter ) for a while, and it's about time. I need to do something to make up for missing that snowfall!

The flight back was uneventful. Didn't say much at all to the guy next to me. Was that rude of both of us? Probably, but I think I irritated the guy next to me on the way there (the guy on the other side of me on the way their didn't say a word, and I returned the favor... and on the way back, I was on the emergency exit row, so there was no seat between me and the window)... so I didn't think it would be a good idea to talk.

And I'm so confused about the use of cell phones (or whatever the best term for them would be) on the plane. I didn't hear them say it was safe to use them on the first flight, but people with me said they did. Then on the flight back, I for sure heard them say to not turn them back on at all (unless in airplane mode, which is a complete freakin' mystery to me on this new phone--a search for "airplane mode" in help gets me nothing at all). So did my group mis-hear the Chantho-voiced (or Diagnosan-voiced) steward one of the many times she spoke over the speaker during that first flight, or does the phone thing vary from plane type to plane type? Whatever, I don't know that I'll be flying again for a while, anyway.

Anyway, I'm home, there's snow, and the kids didn't have school one of the days I was gone. This means my plans for Monday are all prepared already! Hooray!

I Could Live Here...

I finally got to drive down the 10 today. I haven't been on that interstate since... 1994, maybe?

I noticed as I drove to visit Kathy that I could live here. It's beautiful. There are mountains, and that sort of deserted beauty that a desert seems to have. Where Kathy lives, you can see crazy numbers of stars. And the weather kicks butt.

Thing is, there are lots of beautiful places I could live.

Colorado. Now that's beautiful. I could live there for sure.

California: also beautiful. Seeing the ocean put my mind in such a good place back when I lived there in 1993 and 1994. I could use that sort of calm mind on a regular basis.

Germany... it's been years since I've been there (December of 1987 and January of 1988), but from what I remember, plenty of beautiful stuff.

Sydney: Also plenty of beauty. The nearby Blue Mountains were also very beautiful.

London and other bits of England: loved them. Could easily live there.

Heck, I even found beauty in New York City. Not a traditional and natural beauty, mind you, but more of a beauty that comes from the sheer life force of a place.

So the big question in my mind is this: Why don't I notice the beauty around me back home?

The follow-up question in my mind is this: What do you mean you don't notice the beauty around you back home? What do you think taking a picture a day is all about?

The follow-up statement to that follow-up question is: Okay, that was two questions. Two questions can't be a follow-up question. That's a follow-up question with a follow-the-follow-up-question question.

And the follow up statement to that follow-up statement is: Yeah, whatever. You still understood my point, right?

And from there: What do you mean? I am you!

And finally: Would you both just shut up so I can get back to the point?

My point is, familiarity may not breed contempt, but it does breed a kind of laissez-faire attitude about having an opinion one way or the other about the view.

But Arizona is really kinda beautiful. That was my original point. Kyrie might not appreciate how I took it down the road instead of around the block, but I made it back with it, didn't I?

I Really Love to Teach

No irony intended in that title. I enjoy teaching. I enjoy finding new ways to reach students. I love thinking of ways to help students. I become frustrated with myself when students aren't "getting it" (although I still spend a few moments being frustrated with them, I should admit). I really do love to teach.

This summit I'm at is giving me all sorts of great ideas--and it seems to be saying a lot of things I've "felt" all along, but they're backing it up with actual research.

I really stink at sifting through research, I should say.

Anyway, I'm excited, and I have all these ideas, and I wish I could start work on some of my ideas tomorrow. I can't. But I want to.

If 80-and-out stays in place, this semester is the first semester of the last half of my teaching career (assuming I leave at the end of the school year I become eligible to leave... which I plan to do, because I love to teach, but the b.s. is just too much most days). So I may be halfway through. That seems odd.

But I want to make this last half way better than the first half--I mean I want to be a better teacher. I want to help more kids find success is math (or whatever I teach in the next 12.5 years).

All this to say I'm excited about this summit. Maybe it'll all blow up in my face and I'll be all resentful that I was ever excited about it, but right now, I'm hopeful.

So let me have this, people.

Phoenix!

Okay, so I surprised most of my friends by saying, "I'm going to Phoenix" today. I didn't mean to. I really have had this on my schedule for quite some time now.

It's just how I roll these days, I guess. I tell people on a need-to-know basis, not because it's top secret--but because I don't think to tell people.

So I'm in Phoenix for a Professional Learning Communities Summit. I don't know what that means, but I know it's about me being a teacher leader and... other stuff.

I'm mostly stressed about what I'm going to eat while I'm here. We should all have such difficult problems, right? So it goes.

I'm an hour in the past, by the way. I should call someone so they can tell me what's going to happen in an hour. Do you think that will work.

Oh, and I woke up at 4:00 this morning. I just happened to wake up, and thought about going back to sleep for 15 minutes--and almost did, but decided I should take the time to get ready for the trip (you know, pack and stuff). I guess it's good I did. I spent the day a little stressed about what I may or may not have forgotten.

Okay, more news as it arises over the next few days.

So... probably no more news, right?

Another Random Memory (In Which Shawn and I are Stranded on Top of a Garage)

This happened back in the late 70s when I was still in elementary school. I'd have to know for sure when Mike Couch moved his old garage to where it is now (at least I think it's still where it was moved to... I haven't been back home for a while) to know for sure about when it was. It was pre-move, anyway.

For whatever reason, Shawn and I decided to climb on top of the garage. You have to understand, being Shawn's friend was often an exercise in "What to do if your friend suggested doing things that you know you shouldn't do." We have such hits as, "Pulling a little cart around behind the riding lawn mower, going as fast as possible to jump over our make-shift ramp", and "Elementary school kids take a drive out in the country while the adults are away", and "Let's see what chewing tobacco is like." What I always did, by the way, was go along while feeling very bad about the whole thing. Not "guilty" so much as "bad". Just a sick kind of, "We shouldn't be doing this, but I have to go along because that's what I do," thing.

So we climbed up on the garage. It had one of those corrugated metal roofs, and the roof was at a pretty steep slant. I don't know how long we were up there before my brother Wade (and a friend--Mike Stuart, I think) took the ladder down so we couldn't get back off the roof.

Luckily (not) for us, I realized the well house was right by the garage. All Shawn and I had to do was slide down to the edge and drop onto it. Three, maybe four feet, max!

Granted, the area around it was a brick patio, but that wasn't important. I had an idea, and we could make this work.

It did work, too. That is to say, we got down, and we didn't die, and there were no major injuries.

About one or two feet into our scoot from the apex of the roof, we started to slide. That would be an uncontrollable slide. There was no stopping us.

It was all great fun, while being a little frightening--but we were going to land on the well house (which seriously took up over half that side of the garage, so how could we miss) and I was thinking all would be well and I will have saved the day.

Of course, we missed the well house entirely. We both landed on our rears on the brick patio.

We subsequently laughed so hard we cried. I'm amazed we didn't try it again.

I feel this experience has tainted my problem-solving process, now that I think of it.

January 29, 1967 - February 18, 2034

When I was in college, I worked out what day I was going to die.

More correctly, I figured out a day that would be freaky for me to die on. Especially if I end up having a 19-year-old son on that day.

See, Grandpa Riggs passed away, it was Valentine's Day. He was 65. He had a son who was 17. The son was Dad.

When Dad died, it was two days after Valentine's Day. He was 66. He had a son who was 18. That was me.

So if I die on February 18, 2034, and if I have a son who is 19... well, first of all: how freaky would it be for me to have a kid, right? But that poor kid only has 49 years left to live and is for sure going to kick the bucket on February 20--and have a kid who is 20.

I may have some of those numbers wrong, by the way. I was home at some point during my college years and found an obituary for Grandpa Riggs. I got that info from there, and I used it to figure out my "wouldn't it be cool if..." death date. It's been twenty-some-odd years, and I have no idea where that obituary is now. So maybe my kid will be 17, because maybe Dad was 19...

The only thing I remember clearly is the date. I hope I make it. I would love to be breathing a sigh of relief just after midnight on February 19, 2034.

But, you know, whatever. Just wanted to make an official note of it, just in case.

Marilyn and Me

Marilyn getting her face painted at Applefest, 2007 (September 29, 2007)

I don't know that I think of God as Rube Goldberg, but I sure am more likely to think of her as Rube Golberg than Death as Rube Goldberg (I won't go into the full rant about the "Final Destination" movies... consider yourselves lucky).

My friend Marilyn died this past December, early in the morning on the 7th. There's a beautiful story about her dying moments that caps off what could easily be called a graceful dying couple of years. I won't share it here. I don't know the full details. That's not what I'm writing about, anyway.

Marilyn had four kinds of cancer, and lived much longer than she was told she probably would. She also crammed a lot of living in that time, as well.

I may have met Marilyn at some point prior to going to church at First United Methodist in North Kansas City, but if so, I don't remember it. My first memory of note where she is concerned was at a W.O.W. night, when she told me she thought I should go to Cursillo. I had no idea what that was, and had no idea what would happen at such an event, but she seemed to feel strongly that it was for me.

I got the paperwork in, went to the weekend, and it seriously changed my life.

If you were wondering where Rube Goldberg comes in, we're there:

In a way, I think of Marilyn like some necessary piece in the Rube Goldberg machine that got me to where I am today in my faith. I can identify a lot of the pieces: my near-death experience (for lack of a better "term" for it), Jhoneric's upset at wishing me dead that very same day, Andy coming to see me at the hospital, Bert passing on to Andy news of my mother's passing, subsequent talks with Andy, and about a fifteen other things that came before and after and between those events.

Marilyn was in there, big time. She told me after that weekend how she knew it would mean something to me to go.

So whether she was the fan that blew the sailboat across the kiddie pool to knock over the glass with the golf ball in it, or she was the sailboat, the pool, the glass, the golf ball, or the pulley that activated the fan, she was an important piece in my journey. (Not to imply that I'm there yet, mind you.)

One of the last times I saw Marilyn was at my second Cursillo weekend. I was working that weekend, and she got herself assigned as my "buddy". If anyone were to ask, I wish I could say in person what it means to me that she prayed with me and for me that weekend this summer. If anyone where to ask, I wish I could say in person what it means to me that she was very adamant that she would be my buddy, or what it means to me that we had time that weekend to just sit and talk, and I got to know her better. If anyone were to ask, I wish I could say what it means to me that she enjoyed the recording of Sarah McLachlan singing Prayer of St. Francis that I brought for that weekend.

But I don't like getting upset in front of humans. I don't know if I could do it in front of Ben & Tricia's current dog, even. Their dog Killian was the best at hanging out and being all cool-dog when random upset hit me in front of him. I think Guinness would just jump in my face and try to lick my tears or something.

The point is, I don't do emotions well with humans present.

So now, in my continuing faith journey, I have to ask myself how often I'm a piece in a Rube Goldberg machine. I have to go further and ask myself how many times am I supposed to be, but fail to do my little part.

Marilyn seemed to be so good at having a caring heart with eyes of love that really looked at those around her and saw what she needed to be doing. Perfect? Probably not. But better at love than I am? For sure.

So, if you're reading this, Marilyn, thank you. Thank you for playing your part. Thank you for making me think about mine. Thank you for being you.

Things I've Learned from Binx

Binx is spending the night here. As we were going through his "Bedtime at Mark's" rituals (which used to only involve me singing every song I could think of, then several versions of "Mary had a Little..." where Binx picked the animal and then edited the color of fleece/hair/fur/skin/outer-covering as I sang, but has now evolved into stories, conversations, and singing), he shared all sorts of knowledge with me, which I share here with you:

My sister's name is really Mary Nana Riggs.

Wade is missing two toes, and we should find them and tape them on for him.

The sound of my heater kicking on is actually a snake.

Jordan's favorite color is the same as mine.

Binx's favorite color is orange.

Binx is firmly of the opinion that a couch or love seat in a home means someone sleeps on that piece of furniture..

Binx's stuffed animal frog is his nephew.

That's all I can remember now. I'm sure there were other things. And for the curious, tonight's version of "Mary had a Little..." was "Mary had a Little Dog." It's fur was brown as dirty snow.