Tuesday, June 30, 2009 | by nathan

Not Roadkill

I saw this little dude laying under a car on the corner of my street on the way back from work yesterday. At first I really thought some unfeeling or spaced-out motorist had backed over a cat in his own driveway. So, I slowed down to inspect a little more closely and realized that nope, this little dude was just blissfully, stupidly asleep underneath the car in the afternoon heat. I slowed down to take a photo, but honestly I sorta considered – just for a second – crawling under there with him.

Monday, June 29, 2009 | by nathan

The Garden Show

When Brian and I first looked at our house in August of 2005, we knew we wanted to live in it when we came out the back door and saw the sunroom and gorgeously landscaped backyard. What I didn’t imagine is that fewer than four years later, the always-amazing K.C. Clifford would be doing a show in said backyard. Brian and I were honored that she’d do this for us, because we really support what K.C. and David do (and so should you. So should really you.)

What was fun about this show is that we not only got to set up a sound system and hear some excellent music just outside our sunroom on a somewhat-temperate summer night, but that we got to invite our friends, family and neighbors to come hear said music. Most of these people had not heard K.C. and David play before, and were righteously blown away. In fact, all I’ve heard from anyone who was there ever since was how much they enjoyed it.

We left the gate open, and neighbors came and went, and the music went on until almost 10 p.m. I had strung up our shortest tree with lights, and we had the lanterns on in the sun room. We had about 30 people there – maybe more.

The thing about the house concert is that anyone can do it, really. I think you should do it. I do – I think you should mow your grass, plant some great flowers, string up some lights and invite some fantastic musicians to come and play. Or, let’s say you don’t have a backyard. You clear some furniture out of your living room and set up some chairs and invite the artist to come and play there. There’s a great website to tell you how to do it all – ConcertsInYourHome.com. Really, I can’t recommend it highly enough. You get to support some musicians in your area who love to play to people and who could probably use the work and the income. You get to make super nice with your neighbors and friends, and have a really excellent time with it all. Bringing music into people’s homes is what the house concert movement is all about, really, reaching new listeners and fans one by one.

Monday, June 29, 2009 | by nathan

Beauty Queen

Oklahoma City Pride was yesterday, and though Brian had taken off for a week’s business in Washington, D.C., I decided that I’d rather be out doing something – anything – than sitting at home and being sad. And though I did have a great time taking photos and killing a six-pack of Red Stripe while watching the floats go by, it wasn’t the same without my husband there. Still, I got a highly respected local politician to buy me a shot and got to reconnect with someone from high school, all of which was great craic, as they say in Ireland. I don’t go out very often at all anymore, and the majority of my friends are straight married couples, but on days like that I really enjoy being around my gays. See you queens next year!

Monday, June 29, 2009 | by nathan

Weekly Reader – 29 June 2009

Scanwiches
Aren’t sandwiches just the best food ever? That might make Scanwiches the best website ever. People scan their sandwich and share what’s on it. I’ve got at least a dozen recipes I want to try now.

5 Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do
"Has your mom ever called in a panic, saying the computer was displaying a weird error message and that she hurried and unplugged it just to be safe–and then dunked it in the bathtub so it wouldn’t burn the house down? It makes you realize that, to some people, a computer is still a terrifying box of mysteries. Well, we think Hollywood writers have those people in mind when they portray laptop computers doing everything short of blowing up the moon."

Painter of Crap
I once was almost asked to leave a Thomas Kinkade gallery that I’d been dragged in to when I referred to the artist as "The Painter of Crap," so naturally this story made me smile.

Mac Dock Icon Spelling
Yet another reason why Apples rock.

Friday, June 26, 2009 | by nathan

Pure Oklahoma

This is another one I *almost* didn’t have to touch in Photoshop – I did black out some below-horizon details that distracted from the sunset, but the color is all God. This was out at Laurie’s dad’s vineyard near Okemah, Oklahoma.

Thursday, June 25, 2009 | by nathan

Streaks on the China

Now that I get home an hour after Brian does, I often come home to find him playing Wii in the living room. Imagine my delight to come home the other night to find him about to complete a puzzle on the mid-1980s video game edition of Wheel! Of! Fortune!, especially since I not only got to yell out "MISTER BELVEDERE!" really loud, but also to start up singing the theme song, which I remember very, very well, thank you:

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 | by nathan

Bridging The Gap

This post is a part of the Bridging The Gap Synchroblog, wherein over 50 bloggers try to answer the question, "How can we embody mutual honour and respect in our conversations and relationships with those with whom we may disagree on the topic of homosexuality?”

As a writer, I regularly find myself irretrievably mired in some writerly muck or other, stymied by some untenable next plot point or struggling to overcome some barrier of language. More often than not I come to these roadblocks because I have written myself into a corner, or into a nice, crazy frenzy. I think that this is paydirt for Jesus. I think that when I get all good and frustrated is when Jesus rolls up his sleeves, rubs his hands together and says, "Good. Let’s get to work." 

They say that you can’t heal your own sick mind with your own sick mind, and so when I’ve reached some crazy-making bad place with my writing, I get up. I push back from the desk, stand up, and get out of my own head space for a little bit. I walk the dog. I weed the garden. I think of these as my "lifelines;" I phone a friend. I bake something. Then, if I find that I’m out of the rhythm of writing, I start by writing a letter to someone I haven’t seen in too long. I step back in, slowly, carefully, playfully.

Case in point: this is my fourth draft of a piece for the Bridging The Gap Synchroblog. Since my last draft I stood up, walked around in the summer sun, went to get some lunch.

Those of us on either side of this supposed "divide" over homosexuality can often feel like we’re beating our heads against a wall. Stubborn and convinced we’ve got something to prove, a mission to accomplish, we plant our feet and go at it, hurdling arguments across this great yawning chasm like cannonballs. "You’re trying to justify sinful behavior!" "You’re ignoring the Bible’s message of radical acceptance!" 

I don’t know how we reconcile our theologies of sexuality together. Maybe we don’t. But here’s what we can do: we can stand up, step away, and get out of this space for awhile. You can go ahead and think I’m wrong, and I can go ahead and think you’re wrong, and maybe in the meantime we can go feed the poor together. Maybe we can get together and take a carful of groceries to a hungry family. Then, if that goes well, perhaps we could go register some people to vote. If that turns out to be a minefield, then it’s okay; we just hit the reset button and find something else productive to do – cleaning up our neighborhoods, our shared space. Help some latchkey kids with their math homework. Volunteer at a food bank.

Let’s start there. Let’s leave our little verbal bombs and facial tics at home and just go do something good, together, that has nothing to do with this thing we think makes us enemies. Let’s promise not to browbeat each other, just for today. I’ll bring a sack lunch if you’ll bring some water, and we’ll work to alleviate just a tiny little soupçon of suffering, just for today.

I think what we’ll find is that we share more than we think. We share a basic faith in the value of showing up, for one, because at the end of the day it seems we will have done something. We share a faith in God, and we call that God Jesus, and, as Rich Mullins said, "If faith is all we’ve got then maybe faith is all we need." We’ll have dirt on our faces and sweat on our backs. We’ll have the sandwiches and the water, and this thing that we will have built – this good work, conceived together. Those things will be our sacraments, the holy things we share. Those will be our bridge. You can go live on your side of the "gap," and I’ll live on mine, but I’ll bring sandwiches if you’ll bring some water, and we won’t keep the world waiting for us to agree on this one thing before we do something amazing together.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 | by nathan

Pink and Blue

Sometimes, in order to get a good photo, you have to lay down on a scalding hot sidewalk in 100+ degree heat. This will probably get you some strange looks from people walking past but is a great way to prove that your dedication to the craft is total and complete.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 | by nathan

Story Of Our Own*

My dad came up this weekend for Father’s Day, bringing with him an old photo album.

His mother gave him this photo album for Christmas in 1978, less than two months before she died in February 1979. I was born in July 1980 and have spent my life hearing stories about my dad’s mom, Clara Mae, and have always been disappointed that I never got to meet her. The fact that she and I never met, and yet that I always felt very close to her, is part of what fueled my belief in Heaven from a very, very early age, because though we never met I always felt she was near, and that someday I’d get to see her.

This is Clara Mae:

That’s her and my grandfather, Joe Nathan, my namesake. He died just before I turned 6 years old.

This is my dad. He grew up in Hackett, Arkansas:

Though to be honest, if I’d been handed this photograph, I might have thought it was my younger brother:

Ohhhhhh, he’s gonna kick my ass for putting that photograph on the internet. So, to be fair, here’s this:

That would be me. That photo actually appears on one side of my new freelance business cards, because, apparently, I have lost my mind.

Boy, this blog post ended up in a different place than it started out in.

So, Joe Nathan, the guy I’m named after? This is a photo of his grandparents and their children.

I love the 19th-century metadata at the bottom of the photo; I might never have known that this was taken in Grangeville, Idaho, at the Elite Studio. The handsomely mustachioed man is Joel T. Gunter, who is Joe Nathan’s grandfather (my older brother is named Joel as well). His wife was Minta Dolan; she was one-half Cherokee but her last name is an Irish one. I knew I had some Irish in me. Joel was born March 29, 1861 and died in 1943. Minta was born on September 26, 1862 and died in 1930. They were married November 20, 1881.

The tall boy in the back is Nathan, like me; we have the same first and last name, and he passed his name on to his son, who then passed it on to me. Nathan was born on January 3, 1883 and died January 14, 1938, when my dad, his grandson, was not yet 3 years old. Also, do you know what’s weird? I have always been FASCINATED by Idaho, and have wanted to visit there since I was small. I never have, but now that I have this connection I have even more reason to.

Ever since my dad let me keep the photo album for a few days to get some of these pictures scanned I’ve become utterly fascinated by my family’s history. Just in the 36 or so hours since Father’s Day I have come across a wealth – a fecundity – of information about my roots, and I’m going to be posting a little more about it as the days roll on. It’s really fascinating stuff, and I’d love to hear any of my readers’ family histories in the comments. Come on, people, I know you’ve got some good stuff in those genes! Let it out!

*Post title comes from a great new song by K.C. Clifford that she wrote for this film.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 | by nathan

Fuzzy

That this photo of one of my purple hydrangeas is ever so slightly out of focus bugs me to no end, I can’t even tell you, because other than that I think it’s great. But that’s sort of like saying, well, my house is on fire but at least all the dishes are clean. Anyway, I’ve been trying over the years to get my hydrangeas to turn purple, or even blue, and I am told that my meager application of pecan shells a couple years ago won’t suffice; the pecannage of this flower bed needs to be near-constant. Error discovered, and [soon to be] corrected.