B1Y

So, today is/was my day off and I decided to shoot some baskets at the Rec. Center. As I was working out I decided that I should call my workout B41Y - B for basketball, 41 minutes for about how long I did it (really an hour, but I sat down once and shot about 60 free throws). The Y is for "Why the Hell would you do P90X when you could do B41Y?", but Rachel says the 90 is for how many days. So: B1Y is my workout; sounds more like a disease...

I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my kids a lot today - they are beautiful and funny and weird.

I sat at the landing of the stairs on the way to the playroom before bed, they threw things at me, I threw them back. It was all pretty fun until Julia threw a stroller. Seriously. No one was injured, but seriously? There were so many things in between the felt blocks and the plastic stroller. Oh well. I guess she threw some large stuffed animals as a warning first.

Rachel and I watched Frozen River. it just reminded me that movies make me a lot more tense than they used to. Redemption is strange in this movie, light enough to make you think it is believable, but as you go the fridge (google "Fridge logic", apparently it is an industry term) you think, "Nah.... but I liked it".

Then, I finished Hurt Locker. I don't know how I felt about it. Mainly because I was talking with an Iraq vet once when some guys asked him if he had seen it. How come people don't ask me if I have seen this or that movie about people who had cancer? Then ask, "I just wonder what you thought of it and if you thought it was realistic?" His response was light and awesome, "Well, do they just sit around for 90% of the time and then the other 10% is so crazy you can't even figure out how to talk about it? If that is the movie, seems like it would be boring, but realistic."

I'm being harsh, but not anecdotally. I am not mad at those guys; no one who hasn't been knows how to ask but we're all wondering. But, my friend the veteran (the one whose fault it is that I am reflecting on why/how/where I am different) compared my sickness with his being in Iraq. I don't really see the parallels. I mean I do, but I don't. They seem unnecessary.

How am I different? Movies are less important. I still enjoy them. My Valentine's Day Gift was a card to watch movies, and I am excited - especially for Iron Man II. A Friend said that while I am (was) sick lesser affections would fade. He was correct. They are back; but dim.

Perspective still seems shallow to me. I don't know that seeing Hurt Locker made me more or less empathetic to my friend. I'm just supposed to be empathetic (right? sympathetic would be if I could relate?).

I was trying to explain to the lady cutting my hair that my hair used to stick up. She said that people's hair changes every seven years. I let it go. She did a good job. If I had told her about how chemo kills all cells which make new cells fast she might have messed up my now-well-blended sides.

:)

2 Things I have learned about myself

At least part of the point of continuing to blog is to think, pray, and own the things about me that are different. If you think this is a bad plan you can blame Jeremy; it was essentially his idea.

1. I don't like 270 anymore. This might not be a post-cancer thing. If possible, I do not get on to 270. For instance, the drive to Seminary (at least from our old house, which you should buy) is shorter if you take 44 to 270. But, I don't anymore. Laura showed me the way up Rock Hill to McKnight (My wife also used this way when she worked at the hospital), and I just liked it better. The speed was easier to navigate, less inducing, a rhythm I could get on board with. I prefer five more minutes in the car to getting there faster but going from 70 to 9 intermittently.

2. I think I am less interested in perspective. This has been growing in me in some ways for a long time - like when people come back from Missions trips and their main thing is "how much they have here and how thankful they are". I think that that is true, and a good thing to learn but I don't think a change of perspective changes people. In this case I used to try and relate to people, or semi-consciously compare what I had been through with what they are going through/been through. I didn't mean to do it then, and now I consciously enjoy not trying to do it - I try to listen, be present, etc.

One of the ways this effects me is that in a lot of movies and media people have cancer. It is the disease of choice for the sick or dying person oftentimes. This makes avoiding it socially very difficult. I realized this when I was watching Up in the Air with a friend who is divorced: divorce is everywhere. My sister, who lost her father when she was 1, pointed out to me that fathers are everywhere.

I don't think there is a BIG TRUTH here. I am just sifting through little differences in me, and thinking about them.

The inappropriate movie quote after the media paragraph is from the second scene in Naked Gun, where Leslie Nielsen says, "Everywhere I go I see things that remind me of her."





Thoughts?

Discuss...

Just a couple of quotes

HIghlights from today with my girls.

CKB, "Daddy, you should drink a beer. I will open it for you." (this is because she found the opener and asked what it was for this morning... this conversation is as I am cooking dinner). She opens the beer. "Now you may drink it." I complied.

CKB, "Daddy, I would like to wear my summer shirt - the one with butterflies, and flowers, and all of those beautiful things on it."

CKB, "Daddy, I would like to put on my Fairy Princess Costume so that I will look special for God."

CKB (after every time I put Julia to bed), "Daddy, I want another little sister."

The Magic House was also a lot of fun. Julia doesn't say a ton, but we had a ball today also. She loves Clifford.

Also found out I passed my ordination written tests today. Good feeling, thought I was going to have to sit down I was so relieved. Orals are in April.

As one my my prof's used to say, "I hope you have a good weekend, and a good Lord's Day."

Julie and Julia

Judge me all you want, but I loved this movie.

It went about 20 minutes longer than my 80's-styled desire for a 91 minute movie with songs written just for that movie "Fletch is workin' overtime.... bit by bit..." Julie and Julia was funny, cute, the marriages were very real - there was some real life disappointment, but they didn't have to dwell on it or pretend it didn't affect them.

Plus, I rented it for free. that is right: insideredbox.com. Thanks Todd Johnson.

So, I have 3 minutes to finish this blog, but I did want to throw it up there (up here?). Julie and Julia inspired me. I know there are many of you that like my blog (you have pointed this out by sometimes mentioning you don't like when I write on the church blog... makes me laugh). My goal then, is to write. The sub-goal is for me to learn how I am changed. I was chatting with a friend the other night who was in Iraq, and he was encouraging me to own how I am different post-sickness. This has apparently been a helpful way for him to reflect - I was humbled that he would equate my sickness with war; very humbled. Rachel says it is one of the only things that has happened to me that I am unable to talk about without blanching... Chemotherapy specifically.

This will continue to be a random thoughts blog. I will write about movies, I will try to keep up my old church-correspondence with Bob Dillon, but my underlying post-Julie and Julia goal is to pay attention to how I am different.

As Chandler says to Monica when they realize they will have twins (through adoption), in response to Monica pointing out that he is panicking, "Join me, won't you!?"