Saturday, January 31, 2009 | by nathan

Eire

"South County Dublin, Ireland" by Kevin McGarry

Shortly after starting college I joined a wonderful church. Through them I met some fantastic people and, over spring break of my freshman year I got to go meet a bunch of really amazing church leaders in and around Dublin, Ireland. The country drilled into me, and when I found out about a summer internship wherein I’d be working with the same church leaders, I immediately felt like I absolutely had to go. A calling, if you believe in that sort of thing, which I do.

I applied, got accepted, and in June and July 2000, went. Even almost nine years later I can say that those two months in Ireland changed me greatly and had a lot to do with turning me into the person I am now. But over time, experiences like this get woven into the fabric of who we are and we don’t give them a whole lot of conscious thought. Such it was with Ireland, a place I fell in love with, where I felt connected with the place, the physical land, as much as the people I knew or what was happening to me there. I have all these amazing memories of being in Ireland – standing on a sidewalk, or waiting for a bus, or sitting by the sea, and feeling rooted, deeply at home. The only other place I’ve ever felt like that was in Oklahoma – not in North Carolina, where I lived for four years, and not in Italy, where I lived for four months just after my time in Ireland.

So last year when our good friends told us they wanted to go to Europe in the summer of 2009, I couldn’t stop gushing about Ireland. So they added it to their itenrary and asked – "Why don’t you and Brian come along?" I gave what is always my initial response at the outset of a great and wonderful dream – "Yeah, wouldn’t that be great?"

But good friends always let you know you’re invited, and as the two of them started planning the trip they kept us in the loop, and encouraged us, and repeated, every time we hung out, how much they’d love to have us along for this journey. So after the holidays had passed I took a long, hard look at our finances and ticket prices and realized that it was possible. Not easy, necessarily, but possible. Last night our good friends came over, we drank beer, and I booked two tickets for me and Brian to Dublin in July.

It’s exciting on a number of levels, as the first stop on the trip is in Washington, D.C. for the 4th of July festivities, which I’m really excited about, and an Amtrak trip to New York City for the flight. Mostly I’m excited to reconnect with a place and a people I haven’t seen in almost a decade. Though I’m not entirely sure of the effect that being back there will have on me – I had a deeply emotional and spiritual moment recently when I re-read through my journals from that summer – I do know that it will be fantastic to be back in a place I love so much with some of the people on this planet who love me best. That, and Caffrey’s. Sweet, sweet Caffrey’s.

Saturday, January 31, 2009 | by nathan

Winter Street

In any other part of the country they’d call this a "dusting." Here, it closes schools and businesses for three and a half days. Yay for Oklahoma!

Friday, January 30, 2009 | by nathan

Melt

It’s all melting now; temperatures over the weekend are supposed to reach into the 60s, with a chance of some 70s in southwestern Oklahoma. Will Rogers once famously quipped that if you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, just wait a minute.

Thursday, January 29, 2009 | by nathan

S***box Update

Remember this?

This was the garage of the house next door to me back in February. This house here, affectionately known as The Shitbox:

To say that this house has, for YEARS now, been the scourge of my street is a wild understatement. The former owners, who were nice enough people, owned two of the barkingest dogs. They yapped and yowled at anything and anyone in any yard adjacent to theirs. The garage was unpainted, the shutters frequently fell off the windows, and the place reeked of cat pee and mold.

In June 2007 Brian and I went to San Francisco for a week; when we came back the house was abandoned. Once every two weeks or so the owners would show up with their minivan and load it up with stuff and drive away. About four weeks into this process they showed up and left with a cat. Which had apparently been living there for four weeks, on its own. IN ITS OWN FILTH. It soon became apparent to all us gossipy neighbors that said owners were in some dire financial straits, and while we felt bad for them, we did see this as an opportunity. Perhaps the house would get some owners that would care for its 1800 square feet, ample bedrooms and awesome floor plan. It was like a really pretty house that had been neglected on the back shelf of a thrift store.

Enter my good friends J&L. J&L are about ready to start a family and we would literally kill to have them living next door to us. Kill. They paid almost $200 to have this place appraised after speaking with the owner, who seemed eager to sell to get out from under his mortgage. The place needed some serious repair and remodeling, in the amount again of what it was worth. This still made it a bargain. The plumbing was all effed up, and we learned later that they’d been living there for YEARS without hot water. WITH KIDS. But we’re not here to judge them. Much.

After Jaye forked out a whole wad of cash to have the place appraised, it went on auction before he could move on it. We cursed to the heavens, but when the new owners showed up ready to flip the property, we decided to hold our breaths. That was August 2007.

For about the entire first year the place sat there, and nothing happened. Then, last summer, a crew showed up and began work. It progressed quickly, but just as suddenly as they came they were gone; we were told they’d been fired. Soon enough another crew showed up and they’ve been there ever since, working through cold and rain and awful autumn and winter weather. Now, it looks like this:

I KNOW, RIGHT? How much better is that? I’d love to show you photos of the inside, but I’ve only peeked through the windows and I can tell you it’s going to be fantastic. Check out the garage:

It’s been painted and drywalled. The rotting tree that was growing back there has been cut down. The makeshift housing for the malfunctioning hot water heater that stuck out like a tumor on the back of the house has been removed, and the entire back yard cleared of debris and detritus from a house that was crumbling and ugly.

We must be bad luck. The house on the other side of us almost went in foreclosure and is also now being flipped by a delightful older couple who drive up weekly from Hot Springs, Arkansas, to work on it. So on either side of us, in our awesome 1940’s-era neighborhood, is construction, construction, construction all day long. It’s like living in a brand-new suburban subdivision. But we DO NOT CARE as long as the houses get finished now in a timely manner, which it looks like they will.

Now we’re just hoping we get some awesome new neighbors on either side, people without yippy dogs or horrible taste or drinking problems. We’ve been patient, Universe. Patient and kind as can be, even though I’ve suffered no fewer than 5 nails in my tires because of these endless construction projects. I think some awesome neighbors with good taste in beer is in order.

Thursday, January 29, 2009 | by nathan

Thorns

The Canon EOS Rebel XTi does a wonderful macro. This is on one of the barberry bushes in front of my house, yesterday, when the sun was out and everything was melting and someone decided I should have to go back to work today but all my teacher friends get to stay home an extra day and I’m feeling grumbly about that.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 | by nathan

Frozen

The last two days I’ve been frozen in at home. Yesterday Brian stayed home as well and we rather enjoyed being "trapped" in our house, but today he went to work (I didn’t have to) and I went outside to nab photos as everything started to melt. I’m really rather fond of this one, one of those stupid little SOBs I have to pull up before planting anything. Looks cool all iced over, though.

Monday, January 26, 2009 | by nathan

The Air Out There

It’s freezing and freezing raining today, and though I’m in a fantastic mood I need to be reminded of clear blue skies and green, growing things and that I’m not trapped in this city, which is how I feel when it’s like this outside. Also, the prairies, more than anything, remind me of God, who feels very close today.

Friday, January 23, 2009 | by nathan

Ghost Sam

Sam’s pretty good about sitting still while I’m taking photos of him, but sometimes he gets antsy and restless, and sometimes the results are pretty cool.

Thursday, January 22, 2009 | by nathan

Good Stuff I’m Probably Going To Jinx By Talking About It, Except I Don’t Believe in That

This will be one of those weeks that I look back upon in the future and say, "That was an important week for me as a writer."

I think any artist goes through seasons, or cycles, of possessing or using the energy he needs to effectively accomplish and promote his work. The great thing about working retail – other than the alcoholism, promiscuity and free clothing – was that it left my mind free to wander all day, and as a result I was able to write some pieces of which I was proud, at the time, and to journal effectively. While I do love my current job and would only leave it if offered a multimillion-dollar publishing contract with movie rights and a TV development deal – and a sandwich – it does have the unfortunate downside of leaving me occasionally sick of staring at a computer screen and unable to stomach composing words at the end of the day.

This year I’ve resolved to combat this ennui, this stagnation, because the fact is that for a year and a half I’ve had no writing professors to breathe down my neck, threatening me with an additional semester or year of expensive schooling should I not complete the work I’ve been given. This year my Überlist, my annual mission statement/to-do list for the year, contained fewer writing items than usual, but each is very ambitious and yet totally doable.

It’s been a big week.

I’m writing a novel. Actually, I’ve written three of them, and the one I’m writing now is a ground-up, from-word-one rewrite of the novel that earned me my graduate degree in Professional Writing, because while I liked the story and loved the characters, and while it was good enough for me to pass my thesis defense, I can’t look at it and say it’s the best work I’ve ever done. So, after giving it some time to breathe and rest, I started again from the beginning with the same basic concept and characters, and so far I’m much happier with the result, even though I discovered a semi-large-but-easily-fixable hole in the plot this afternoon while driving to lunch. This week alone I’ve written over 8,000 words. Two nights ago I sat down to work on the story and found myself in a sort of a fugue state. I was listening to Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to The Mission while I worked, and the combination of the music and my own creative frenzy caused me to have what I can only describe as an ecstatic experience, wherein the scene I was writing was at least as real to me as what was going on around me at the time – my desk, the window, the keys, the world all sort of blurred together and when I emerged I had written what I consider to be my best chapter to date, of anything.

Also this week my friend J-Money and I set in motion a plan we’ve had for awhile to write something together. J’s one of my favorite people; we met in college, she cracks me up, and her website is at least five times better and funnier than this one. We have been repeatedly assuring one another that the concept we’re kicking around should easily secure us the fame, prestige and fortune we so deeply crave in a matter of weeks, at most. Seriously, I’m honored to get a chance to work with her because I think she’s going places in a big way and I want in on the ground floor. I’ve never collaborated with someone this closely on a project before, however, and have no idea what this kind of collaboration – especially between two people who live 1,150 miles apart – entails. It’ll be exciting to find out what we’re capable of when we put our brainsauce together.*

Last but not least, something I’m stoked about to what I think is an appropriate level – Okay City was nominated for an Okie Blog Award for Best Looking Blog.** To whomever nominated me, thank you; it’s an honor that you think Okay City is a great looking blog. I do too, and I’m proud of it, though at least 75% of the credit goes to my brilliant husband, Brian, who recently spent almost an entire Saturday tinkering with the look and feel of this website, making things happen as if by magic while I stood behind him and told him what to do. Anyway, I can’t vote for myself, but if you live in Oklahoma and have a blog, you can vote for me, and I hope you will. I also have to give a shout out to my fellow nominees and buddies Lucas, whose website Hypeful was nominated for Best Audio Blog, and David, who is up for Best Overall Blog with Last Exit to Babylon. There are a lot of fantastic Oklahoma blogs out there, so I hope you’ll take a look at the nominees, because they’re all great websites, and vote if you can.

*Just the conversation we had on Twitter, going back and forth with direct messages, is one of the funniest things I’ve written/read in a long time, so this project has a lot of potential.

**It needs to be said that the nomination is for Best Looking Blog, not Best Looking Blogger, because, well, Lucas would beat me stupid in that category.

Thursday, January 22, 2009 | by nathan

Hastening Spring

Once the holidays are over, I’m done being cold. As exciting as it always is to pull out the sweaters and scarves and heavy coats, once the New Year and the BCS Championship have passed, the cold becomes less a festive holiday decoration and more a soul-sucking happiness-hole. I’m ready to start planting the garden (and am going to, this weekend) and getting the flowers going, and I’m ready for shorts and open windows in the car and long walks and thunderstorms. I’m ready for tomatoes.