Friday, January 29, 2010 | by nathan

Welcome (Back).

Remember how I said I was going to start a blog on Open Salon to publish pieces I’ve been writing but not publishing online? WELL OH MY GOD I ACTUALLY DID IT.

I chose Open Salon, mostly because I love Salon.com and pay them $45 a year to keep them in their elitist arugula and expresso coffees or whatever the hippies drink out in Sin Francisco. All I know is that I love Joan Walsh, and Garrison Keillor, and Anne Lamott, and Alex Koppleman, though I’m still not over my Election Fatigue from 2008 and have stopped reading their War Room altogether. At least until a year from now, when it’s time for the 2012 election to start up.

Also, I love Open Salon’s community nature. And if we’re being totally honest, I love that several people have scored book deals writing for them. Are any of our motives ever completely pure? Come on – let’s cut the crap.

But the main reason is that I loved writing these kinds of pieces for GCN, and I want to continue writing for them. But there’s no reason why these can’t be in two places at once; AMIRITE?

Also (and I have yet to e-mail them about this, so we’ll see how it’s going to go over), I really want to start a blog over at Voices of Oklahoma, because I think they’re one of the coolest Okie internet outlets going right now.

And – JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THE SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WAS OVER – if you have a blog and live in Oklahoma, you can totally vote for me in the Okie Blogger Awards! I’m gunning for Best Kept Secret and Best Writing, though as of December 24 I totally qualify for Best Veteran Blogger! And if you’re looking for recommendations for other blogs to nominate, can I recommend the Mixtape Jones Report (Best Culture Blog), K.C. Clifford (Best New Blog), Rocks in My Dryer (Best Humorous Blog) and Angela and Luke (Best Inspirational Blog), just to name a few?

In the meantime, I’d love it if you’d head over to Open Salon to read and comment on my new stuff; here’s a taste to whet your appetite.

As a young man my faith was marked by deep impatience. Every prayer session was marked by a sense that any moment God would – or should – reach down and make me Victorious over all that vexed me. I figured I’d struggle with this or that sin or challenge for awhile, then I’d experience a miracle healing, and my life would finally begin. Of course, this never happened and at some point I realized that my desire for miracle healing was less about faith than it was about no longer wanting to be dependent. I wanted God to come down and fix me so that I didn’t have to feel broken anymore, so that I didn’t have to be constantly reminded of my need for Him.

Monday, January 25, 2010 | by nathan

The Quiet Place

Hey there, Internet Website! How have you been? Good? Replacing your diaper every time a new Apple Tablet rumor makes you evacuate in your pants? So glad to hear it; me too.

Me, I’ve been busy. I’ve been thinky. And then, this weekend, I’ve been lazy. Which is to say that my work life currently threatens to overtake my life me. The two of them are fighting so much that I’m about to pull this car over and give them both the frowning of a lifetime.

And so, to that end, I took Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, a week ago, and spent some alone time at one of my favorite spots on Earth, Red Rock Canyon State Park in western Oklahoma.

It was temperate, and mostly cloudless. The best part, of course, was that it was almost entirely deserted, it being January and all. That, and all your better Americans were out celebrating Dr. King’s birth by – I dunno – cleaning up a park, or registering voters. Me, I was out in nature with The Jesus. We totally didn’t contribute to the National Day of Service. But we also didn’t litter, so.

Anyway, I just needed some fresh air. The drive out to Red Rock – or at least, the way I go – is breathtakingly scenic, at least for people who love the plains as much as I do:

Someday I dream that that will be the view from my house. Perhaps without the concrete piping and the cell tower wires. But you get the general. Along the way I also met a very friendly herd of buffalo:

They were watching me like hawks, but in general they were pretty nice. I think it was because this guy was with them:

That drive really is gorgeous – you go out state highway 152 to Binger and then up to the Canyon, just south of Hinton. Listen to your best road trip mix.

Anyway, once I got there the stillness of the canyon proved to be exactly what I needed. I sat for awhile, read, prayed, was quiet. It was the perfect way to spend an extra day off work. The best thing – or at least, one of the best things – was the smell of the evergreens that grow all over the canyon. When I was a kid I used to get a rash when I touched them, but I never could stay away because of how they smell. I love them; it’s the smell of home, for me:

I’ve been going to this canyon since I was a little, little kid; I grew up just 20 miles away from it. It’s a little further away now, but I learned how to rappel here, I’ve hiked every inch of the trails, and I once ran afoul of a rattlesnake, though I got away just fine. I learned a lot about geology here. And when I’m stressed, or sad, or just needing to go to the Quiet Place, the Happy Place, this is the place I picture myself. Just thinking about it, I can almost smell the cedar trees. What’s your place like that?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 | by nathan

Fly Me To The Moon

HOLY. BALLS.

YOU GUYS! The SPACE SHUTTLE is for sale! No, strike that. TWO space shuttles are for sale. And prices have been slashed to move! I think it probably goes without saying that Atlantis and Endeavour have a little bit of hail damage. Their heat shields aren’t quite what they used to be, but – whose is? 

Look, I’m just going to lay this out there in the simplest terms I know:

ME.

WANTEE.

I’d been thinking that, when my beloved car Calvin finally goes to that great redneck’s-front-yard in the sky I’d invest in something a little greener, a hybrid, but with four-wheel-drive, maybe the kind of car that Arnold Schwarzenegger might drive Brangelina around in. But look: I wants me a Shuttle. I’d rather have Atlantis, but I suppose I could settle for Endeavour if they lowered the price, installed a keyless entry system and an iPod dock. Which shuttle did crazy diaper lady and that other astronaut have sex in? I don’t want that one. Again – unless the price is right.

Here’s where y’all come in: I can’t even really afford the aforementioned hybrid, much less the [low, low] price of $28 million for a space shuttle. So I’m going to need a small loan – no, let’s just call it an investment. On your part. Think of it – you could have the MOTHERFUCKING SPACE SHUTTLE at your kid’s parties. Or, I dunno, we could go to the moon. OH MY GOD YOU GUYS WE COULD GO TO THE MOON!

We could get corporate sponsorships, too – think of it. Haven’t you always thought the shuttle lacked a little … panache? We could get that mother looking like Jeff Gordon’s car so fast – do you think DuPont and Nicorette would agree to have their logos painted on the side for, say, $14 million dollars each? Then we could sell tickets. The Russians charged all those crazy gozillionaires and Lance Bass $20 million a head to go into space. Screw that – for the low, low price of $15 million (plus baggage handling fees, natch), I’ll take you all the way to the moon. For an extra hundred thousand dollars I’ll buzz the International Space Station and let you give those guys the finger, or moon them through a porthole. It will basically be the universe’s most badass party bus.

We have a business plan here. We have a viable business plan. Now, we just have to get NASA to lower the price a little. I think the recent discovery of cocaine in the shuttle hangar taints the entire deal; so let’s knock of about $5 million for that. And then there are the sponsorships. Who am I approaching first? Do you even have to ask? 

Viagra. Come on, let’s cut the crap. It’s them or Cialis, painted all over this thing. WHO DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO BE BUYING THESE TICKETS?

It dawns on me that with this business plan we could probably snatch up both of these bad boys. Within ten years the Moon will be putting Vegas to shame. Just think of the advertising: "What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, BUT THERE ARE NO LAWS IN SPACE, BABY!" 

Come ON, people! Let’s do this! You know – for science. Somebody get those coked-out NASA guys on the phone.

Friday, January 15, 2010 | by nathan

#1

Leaving a Friday night showing of Avatar, there is a bin just inside the theater door where people are encouraged to deposit their 3D glasses. "Keep 3D Green," it says, "Recycle Your Glasses."

In front of us a theatergoer – or possibly one of the larger Kuiper Belt Objects – lugs a half-eaten garbage bag full of popcorn out with him. His wife plows through the crowd like a Katamari toward the bin; when she passes me I’m surprised not to see several thumbtacks, a dozen erasers, a bicycle, and two small children clinging to her.

"No," he snaps at her. "We paid an extra dollar for those glasses. We’re keepin’ em." 

Friday, January 15, 2010 | by nathan

What I’m Working On

Writing a novel is hard, but the beauty of it is that when you’re working on your rough draft, you don’t have to worry about whether or not it sucks. In fact, you can’t worry about that, or you’ll find yourself paralyzed by self-doubt and criticism. Editing as you write is a surefire way to get yourself shackled by the monster known as perfectionism, that oppressive force that will keep you forever wondering why you never lived up to your potential. You keep hearing the voice of your high school principal, or your meanest relative, or your worst friend, telling you this will never work out, that you’d better just go get a job at Aldi and forget about it. Well – probably your mind doesn’t sound like this. But mine does.

All that is to say, I’m editing a novel right now, and it’s really hard because I don’t get to be free anymore. I don’t get to plow blissfully forward, getting my work done each day and keeping the monster of perfectionism at bay. I have to critically evaluate my own stuff, patch plot holes and seek out my worst writerly and grammatical mistakes. It feels less like being an artist and more like being an engineer.

Also, I’m working on new stuff for this website, specifically an entry – or, more likely, a series of entries – about some of my religious and political beliefs. I’m certain these entries will in no way offend anyone at all and that my comments will be filled with glowing praise. I’m also sure the yet-to-be-announced Apple Tablet will be able to make me coffee and will wake me each morning by gently massaging my naughty bits.

FInally, I’m considering starting another blog, on OpenSalon. I have a bunch of pieces that are, frankly, too good to put on this website but have been more or less pocket vetoed by other places I write for on occasion. I don’t want to start another website with its own domain name, mostly because OpenSalon blogs seem to more or less promote themselves, or at least, to make themselves a little easier to promote. I haven’t forgotten you dozen or so awesome souls who read this site. But I did promise myself that 2010 was going to be the year I wrote more, and lo and behold if that resolution hasn’t come back to bite me in the ass a little bit.

Monday, January 11, 2010 | by nathan

Gay Unclehood

These are two of my dearest people, J&L. One week from tomorrow they’re finding out whether their child, who we’ve been calling Baby Flynn, but who I’ve now decided to call POTUS Donette (thanks to last week’s episode of This American Life and the small donuts that L gets to eat and I don’t, at least not if I want to keep buying my clothes at normal-sized-people stores and not from special catalogs*), is a boy or a girl. POTUS Donette is scheduled to grace us with his/her presence around June 13th. Also scheduled to enter the world that week are no fewer than FIVE OTHER BABIES of people I know, provided no one in my life is baking up a set of twins. Seriously, I know five women who are set to pop in the week between June 12 and June 19. That in addition to two in February, two in July and at least one in August, fercryinoutloud.

The fact is, I just can’t wait to play gay uncle to POTUS Donette and all these other chilrens. I imagine my gay uncling style to be somewhat of a blend of Chef from South Park and Dumbledore, or maybe Giles from Buffy. The two kids currently in the world to whom I’m unofficial gay uncle are pretty loved and doted on, if not a little too young to appreciate it yet. I can’t wait until they all get a little bit older and start coming to me for advice, especially when they’ve pulled some kind of stunt that’s eerily reminiscent of the stuff their parents were up to in high school. Then I can send them home with my copy of our high school yearbook and they can be all, "YOU WON’T LET ME GET MY EARS PIERCED BUT YOU USED TO WEAR YOUR HAIR LIKE THAT? GAWL!"**

* Seriously, we went over there the other night and there was a bag of chocolate Donettes sitting on their coffee table, CALLING MY NAME, and I managed to restrain myself for a full four hours. I deserve some kind of medal for that shit.

** If the price of this maneuver is having to pay for these kids’ college tuition, I consider that to be more than a bargain.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 | by nathan

Midnight Train, Going Anywhere

Though generally I like him, I admit that sometimes Joe Biden is a dunderhead. But what he has to say on HuffPo this week about Amtrak is awesome:

…With delays at our airports and congestion on our roads becoming increasingly ubiquitous, volatile fuel prices, increased environmental awareness, and a need for transportation links between growing communities, rail travel is more important to America than ever before.

Support for Amtrak must be strong–not because it is a cherished American institution, which it is–but because it is a powerful and indispensable way to carry us all into a leaner, cleaner, greener 21st century.

Brian and I traveled high-speed Amtrak from D.C. to New York this past summer, and it was some of the most effortless, comfortable and enjoyable traveling we’ve ever done – far better qualitatively than anything we’ve ever had on an airline.

As part of the stimulus package, the President released a plan for high-speed rail in America, including a high-speed line that would link Oklahoma City and Tulsa, making a trip between the two cities possible in 45 minutes or so, as well as between Oklahoma City and Dallas. The map looked something like this:

It’s still a little disconnected and spare, in my opinion. And it bugs me how it’s so concentrated on the coasts; I think westerners could get a lot out of rail travel. Building railroads put generations of Americans to work in the 19th century; I wonder if it might be able to do it again in the 21st. I’d love for that map, sometime in my lifetime, to look more like this:

You might notice I’ve got all those lines converging in Oklahoma City; a dude can dream, can’t he? Seriously, though, there’s something wonderfully communal and American about traveling by train. I know we all love our cars, but I think our country could gain a lot by instituting nationwide, accessible passenger rail. Whether this is a job for the government or for private enterprise (or some marriage of the two) is a debate for another time, but I can’t tell you how much I’d love to be able to travel by rail to every corner of this country. Even though it would take longer than air travel, I’d LOVE to be able to eschew the airline industry every chance I got and to watch America zooming past my windows in the process.

Monday, January 4, 2010 | by nathan

A One-Inch Picture Frame

I keep a one-inch picture frame hanging in front of my face at my desk at home. I love that old advice of Anne Lamott’s, that you only have to write every day as much as you can see through a one-inch picture frame. In other words, start with a tiny detail. Start with one thing about a person, or a place, or a situation, and just let your imagination run from there. This picture frame is especially special to me, as it was a gift from a Venetian nun I met in the Fall of 2000 named Suora Luisa. Suora Luisa worked at a kids’ club where one of my roommates was volunteering, which was how I met her. She helped me perfect my Italian by talking to me about Galatians. Then, when it was time for me to leave Italy, she gave me this picture frame, which has a little one-inch photograph of the Ponte di Rialto.

Since I returned from Italy, nine years ago last month, this little frame has hung in front of my face in the place where I write. It hangs underneath a set of rosary beads and my small replica of St. Francis’ Cross, which I also picked up on my Italian travels, and on the edge of it dangles a small strand of red beads. I found these at a curio shop just after I moved home – originally there were seven or eight of them, and now there’s just the one. Don’t worry; I haven’t found Kaballah. I just like the way they look in the soft light of my office. Sometimes I just stare into this photo of the Rialto. The secret to writing is that you sit down and then spend a whole lot of time just sort of staring into the middle distance, asking yourself, "What happens now?" This looks a whole lot like slacking off, but to tell you the truth it’s the hardest thing about writing. This frame is my middle distance.

Saturday, January 2, 2010 | by nathan

Rolling Over

You may have noticed that things look a tiny bit different here at my little website. I moved the sofa, so to speak, and while I don’t believe in change for change’s own sake, I have been feeling an itch to shake things up blog-wise for some time. So, the Weekly Reader and Daily Photo features are disappearing, and in their place … well, nothing’s rising up to take their place, to be honest. I’m just going to write more.

I started this blog five years ago, just as I was getting ready to start a graduate program in professional writing. It’s expanded to cover more topics than I ever intended or expected, and while I’ve been happy with it on the whole, I’ve never felt wholly satisfied with what’s been going on here. Which is okay, too; the only mission statement I’ve ever had for this website was that it was sort of a living electronic piece of paper on which I was free to do what I wanted and to share with you.

As much as I don’t believe that having a blog automatically makes one a writer, any more than Guitar Hero makes one a musician, the fact is that I am a writer, and though I don’t expect Okay City to net me a book deal anytime soon, I want to get back to the reason I set up my own website in December of 2004 – to write. There will still be pictures, and tasteless jokes, and the occasional political aside sure to net me in lots of "trouble," but the simple fact is that though I never want this website to become my number one creative project, I could be giving it more than I am, and that’s what I intend to do. So, thank you all for reading this, the maybe nine or ten of you who do. You really have no idea how much I appreciate you. (HINT: It’s a lot).