January « 2010 « Okay City

Welcome (Back).

29 January 2010

Interweb, Meta, This I Believe, Writer | Comments (2)

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.

The Quiet Place

25 January 2010

Oklahoma, Photos, Travels | Comments (2)

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?

Fly Me To The Moon

19 January 2010

Hilarity | Comments (3)

EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!!! ME WANTEE!!!!

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.

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