Yeah, so I got back from an awresome trip to the American Northwest six days ago. I don’t feel like writing all about it now, but one discovery I made was that God is, indeed, in Cananda. Even though some Canadians may not always be very hospitable (can’t expect too much from frozen frogs, right, Ha…oh yeah, hoo boy….), God hasn’t abandoned our neighbors to the Nort!

Where did I find Him? In the Canadian Rockies! Yeah, He must own some land up there, or a timeshare or something, because, man, it was nice.

There’s even a river up there called the “Bow River.” So the you can tell God is there when nature knows to genuflect. It’s so pristine up there it makes you want to use the outhouses and put your apple cores in the bear-proof trash cans, like Mario here.

Anyhow, it was so majestic I might make the conversion to Canadian someday. So, say “hi” to God for me if you go up there, eh?

Yes, it’s been a while since my last entry and my entries over the last few months number less than orfices I have on my body, but life is going on surprisingly enough. I am working on something I want to post all at once, the next chapter after “Elisabeth” (with which I need to get my rear in gear!), but yesterday I was given something I had to share. It is really exciting to me. It is a wonderful affirmation to the decisions I have made in the last year.

Carl Flink, the artistic director and choreographer for Black Label Movement, one of the dance companies with which I am dancing and a weighty force keeping me in the Twin Cities, sent an email to his company member in which he posted a link to an artists web-site who has a set of photographs that bring to focus his(Carl’s) vision for Black Label Movement. The artist is Kerry Skarbakka.

Check him out! Click on his “Portfolio”, then on “Struggle to Right Oneself.” What is so crazy to me is that you KNOW he’s going to be hurting post-flash! He goes there, he’s committed (or should be). Check out his “Artist Statement” too, it’s where Carl would like to head with BLM.

It fits me. I’m excited!!!

It is highly unlikely as a reader of my blog that you don’t know me and, on top of that, if you’re reading this you probably know who Josh Lewis is as well. In fact, you may even be him! So basically this entire entry is for those who are hypothetically wondering, “Who’s the bald guy that appears in the web address window anyway?”

Eso, mis amigos, es Josh Lewis, el hombre del huevo.

I recently visited the Josh (who hasn’t always been bald) and Stephanie(his wonderful wife) Lewis in Cupertino, CA. Near the end of the trip Josh mentioned something that got me thinking for the next several days, “Eddie, I’ve really been the Bert to Ernie, haven’t I?” I laughed and said, “Yes, you have.” And that was that. But that idea kept coming back to me: The Bert to my Ernie.

I can whole-heartedly say that if Josh hadn’t been in my life I’d be a very different person. I am probably, at my core, more intuitive than rational, more feeling than thinking. I do have logic capabilities, which have often surprised people (A “smart” friend of mine and Josh’s found this out in Chemistry and said in astonishment, “You could actually get good grades if you tried, Eddie!” That was a nice compliment and actually had more of a positive affect than he knew), but I work for it. Josh and me are somewhat reversed. He has amazing thinking and rationalizing skills, but often surprises people(who don’t know him, that is) with how feeling, compassionate, sensitive, loving he can be.

Josh led me to Christ, but it was not as if he just pointed out the Way. He got right in there with all the crap I brought to the table and showed me himself. He was gentle, and committed to me knowing God. I would screw up, and pretty big sometimes, but I never, ever felt looked down upon. I really felt loved and brought in. In fact, one of the biggest honors I’ve had in my life was to be his best man in his wedding! I remember when he told me, we were looking at the moon through my telescope in Stevens Point, WI and I thought at first, “Oh, he must be having two best men.” What an honor! The idea is still crazy to me, and so generous. It was, and still is, a symbol to me of the way God takes a pitiful piece of crap, transforms him, and brings him into a place of honor, even makes him heir to the heavenlies! Josh planted, God grew me and kept Josh close by to help wipe the dust off my leaves.

What’s so great is that I know I’ve gotten on Josh’s nerves and ticked him off quite a few times, and maybe even encouraged him to lie to a Fazolli’s drive-thu attendant, but he stuck with me. He’s like a cloud guy in Super Mario Bros. that keeps throwing out those spiky turtle things. You’ll jump on him and he’ll fall off the screen, but wait a minute or two and he’s right back throwing those spiky turtles. BUT JOSH DOESN’T THROW SPIKY TURTLES!!! He throws balls of Really Good Happy Nice stuff, full of 1-up’s and Fire Flowers and things! And then instead of taking off once you get to the flag area, he guides you to some kind of secret warp zone and his wife makes you some really good tasting buffalo wings and you talk about surfing and laugh at Ramtha…

Yeah, Josh is a great guy and I’m blessed to have a Bert like him. Now if I could only find myself a rubber ducky…

…continued

Once upon a time, the letter ‘z’ held a simple functionality. It made a sound wholly its own and didn’t threaten other letters. ‘Z’-words tonally buzzed from the roofs of our mouths and under our teeth as bees finding their ways out through cracked porch doors; words like “zoo” and “zippity-doo-da” pollinated our vocabularies. And certain words like, like… “swell” and “salsa” felt unencroached. They were happy times.

Then one day some linguistically lazy person decided that it was easier to say “bunz uv steel,” rather than “bunce uv steel.” More romantic or something. Anyway, this early kinship of the ‘s’ and ‘z’ was nothing too horrible. It was, in a way, practical, like wearing house slippers to get the paper.

It wasn’t until the entrepreneurs of the late 1980’s/ early 1990’s discovered this natural partnership between ‘s’ and ‘z’ and, with their Kutting Ej use of the language, prostituted out the letter ‘z’ (not to mention the solicitation of other letters) so that now we have gems such as “Kreative Kutz“, or “Wingz N Thingz“, and “Bobbyz Sex Toyz”. The experimentation with the letter ‘z’, along with big bangs, acid washed jeans, and “Alf“, later became veritable grounds for nostalgic blushing. But the letter ‘z’ couldn’t just slowly fade, as the others had, from metro culture to suburban to rural, then disappear. It had to go on living in noble names, such as “Ebenezer” and “Zona” , and so tarnishing them, as it further damned words such as “zilch” and “zit”. But when option presents itself, when a word uses a ‘z’ when it could use an ‘s’, like an unintentional cliche in an otherwise respectable poem, like a finger in your chili, like a turd in a pool, the letter ‘z’ should be extracted, forgotten about, disgarded like a pink, puffy-sleeved dress after prom, and replaced with the simple, classic, untarnished

“s”.

Bruno was invited to join the Good-looking people from his Bible study group following the weekly lecture. There were three predominant groups at this, rather large, singles Bible study: the Good-looking, the Homely, and the Inbetweeners. Bruno usually mingled among all three, related to them all in someway, but he found the most resistance among the Good-looking, a silent war between homo-hormones and egos. But it must have been a mix up, he got caught in the traffic between the handsome men and women. Bruno was handsome, but their coolness and indifference were intimidating. Bruno was too often betrayed by his flowering doubt.

How it happened: the women were invited out to “fellowship,” Bruno was talking to the women, caught in the middle he was invited along, “You can come, too, Bruno.” Christian charity.

At the time Bruno was actually feeling like he had made a good impression on the handsome women. He had felt like things were rolling quite nicely, so why not continue it? He accepted the invitation. All three of the women seemed animated and interested in him coming. From them there was no hidden animosity, but that was because he wasn’t their competition. He was hoping, though, that he was being fought for.

In the car ride over he thanked God for bringing this opportunity. He had only a week ago written one of these women, Mable, a sonnet. He didn’t really know her well, at all really, but wanted to get to know her better, to ask her out. He always screwed things up and seemed to make things awkward when he pursued women, so he planned a sonnet to steer his mouth. So often those moments of execution locked his brain where his mouth followed. If rejected at least she might be touched by the poetry and would have a story to tell. The poem might even relieve him from the shame, for a bit, from his past. In his eyes his baggage always seemed to powder up, fogging over any shine that was only just there. It was always ready in the lower folds of his eyelids, crowding his tear ducts, for the slightest sign of heart flutter. His poem, he hoped, would be distraction enough.

That hope, itself, was distracted the next day, when following Mable out to her car found her embracing a tall red-haired man. Bruno’s poem suddenly joined the rest of his collection in their impracticality. He drove home dreaming of life-long celibacy.

This week had promise. Mable, who is taken, proved to be a bit caddy when Bruno briefly spoke to her leaving him grateful for his deferred hopes. This week still had promise: Elisabeth, the nurse. This much he gleaned from her short, but lit, conversation before the invitation: her name used an “s” instead of the common “z.”

to be continued…

Josh brought to my attention that U.S.E. would be in Minneapolis on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 at the Triple Rock Social Club.

I went. It was ELECTRONIC LOOOOOOOVE. When they came on it totally made up for the fact that the concert started an hour and a half late, I got beer spilled on me, I smelled horribly of smoke, and I had to teach fourth graders the next morning; life tasted of sun and strawberries and the club rocked! They had seven or eight band member crowded onto the tiny stage. It was amazing how thick and together the music was considering that, from what I could tell, it was all done live. The place was not packed, which totally surprised me, but it left plenty of room to dance, babvy yeah! If you ever have the chance, see them live. They are electonic butter.

Considering my last entry I thought I’d share a poem I wrote a couple of months ago. I was in a weird mood, my cat was being weird, and I really felt like writing in the voice of an adolescent Hmong boy. If you’ve ever read ELL Hmong writers they have a distinct way of writing and speaking. For example they don’t remember to put words in past tense. They also seem to wander in free-association thought land, but occasionally they have some extrememly insightful things in their writing that I’m never quite sure whether they meant it or not. There’s something in the way they write that I warms my heart and also annoys me. I don’t know. There’s some connection there. Anyway, here it is:

Weirdo.

She not like other cats
She more like dog
It like she think I her kind
Or she my kind
Or some kind half breed,
Closer than we think.
I know where she like
to sleep best: in my lap.
When she is comfy she cleans
when she full of play she
fetch or hide or bite.
Her annoying when she get hungry
She such a baby
Whining whining whining
“Shut up,” I tell her
But she jus keep it up
Rubbing my leg or pawing my back.
I teach her to massage.
She like my slave I give
food if she massage my back.
But my cat she drool on me.
She must be imagine like I am
a piece of steak and she
is tendering me and
imagine that she slice tiny garlics
into my steak and grill it (with
butter) so that it is a little bloody.
I would drool too.
I call her “weirdo” like
she wierd or something.
She like it because I only tell
people I love “wierdo.”
I say-I say “weirdo!”
And she say “clclclclcl”
I tell her “reaowuh…^”
She responded “giblets?”
In that way she is like other cats.
That how we different too.
She get happy when she hungry
I get mad like I will
eat you when I get hungry,
But we tell, “Hello” to each other when
I get home,
I pet her fur.
She got a good fur
Cuz I turn it off the heat
When I go and she grows hairs.
That why my lap so nice to her
It warm like mother milk.
She not home until I come home
and my lap open up for her
Then she home.
Then she breaths deep and
hide her nose under her wrist,
curling like orange cane,
wrapping like a gift
I open knowing what inside, a boy
who picked out my own present but
have to wait until my birthday.
Her white belly and gold eyes
open to me and tell me
” I like you. You the kind I
can trust.”
I stretch the orange accordian
Her buttons click and chirps.
Weirdo. Simple cat.
You kinda dumb but you different.

Today an Asian Kindergartner boy called out to me on the playground as his swing was losing speed, ” Meesta O’Lion! I nee help!”

I didn’t correct him.

First of all I’d like to preface my interpretation that this dream is really a “night in the life of” kind of dream for me. My dreams are so vivid and extraordinary sometimes that I actually went through a phase in highschool that I preferred sleeping to consiousness (which my girlfriend at the time didn’t quite appreciate).

Now I have some clear real life connections to why I dreamed as I did. A few nights earlier I was filling Pumkin’s food holder from the 20 lb bag I keep in my closet. Opening the bag I found a new hole (by way of it pouring the food all over the floor) chewed in it . So I noted, “I must have a mouse or a few.” Then I considered Pumkin and asked her, “How did this happen?” Useless cat.

Anyway, one night later I almost hit a deer, which reminded me of Neal’s epiphany. That night I dreamed the dream.

I also must mention that the dream may have been guided by some guilt I felt from considering getting Pumpkin a live mouse for Christmas to play with. I almost purchased one, but when I saw the wittle furwy cweatures I pictured one of these wivewy wittle mice twitching, not fully dead, in Pumkin’s mouth and also thought of the possibility of having to clean up after her then decided against it.

Now when I was writing my last entry I was reminded of Matt 12:43-45. It also reminded me of a book I finished a month or so ago that depicts the battle of good with evil through farm animals. So these may have played a part in guiding my dream, too.

My final appraisal of my dream: I’ve got a mouse in the house and if I don’t deal with it Pumkin’s not gonna make a meal of it. Yet, if I don’t deal with it it may become somewhat of a bigger problem. So the solution is obvious…

progesterone infused cat food.

In my apartment I was playing with my cat, Pumpkin. We were on the wooden kitchen floor when Pumpkin was distracted. Immediately, I knew it was a mouse. I looked under the refridgerator and saw it scurry out from under it. Pumkin chased it, but it looked like it was getting away. So I karate chopped it to slow it down and so Pumkin could catch it. Pumpkin got it and chewed it for a little bit. The mouse was maimed but not dead and actually looked pretty upset, even mad. Pumkin caught a look at the mouse’s face and was scared off. I thought, “Perhaps, that mouse may not really be a mouse.”

I felt the strong desire to kill it, and quickly. So I grabbed the butcher knife and cut off the mouse’s head, but it was still alive so I diced up the head too. It seemed dead then.

I went to get a garbage bag to clear the chopped mouse out of my house and when I came back the chunks were huge, like big pieces of deer meat. I started stuffing it all into the bag when I noticed there was a rather important piece missing, a piece that would have held one of the eyes. I knew that it had gotten away somehow and was waiting in some humid corner to regenerate or something later.

*Alarm goes off at 6:33 AM. I hit the snooze and fall back to sleep and dream something else I don’t remember.*