Sunday Sunday Sunday

Its three hours till easter and good Friday was just yesterday. Lent is over tomorrow and I have just finished writing (gave up on) another blog because I realized something. I rant. I don’t how something is going so I rant about it, then once I have said what I needed, cursed 10 times had half a beer and realized that the particular blog that I had been ranting in is only  1-- words I rant. I keep going with the same idea until every dead horse feels beaten. Well Im down have a beer, “Shit” makes 10 and now onto what I really want to write about.
Malia has been reading and writing a lot of blogs about lent, the majority of them she abandons before posting them because they aren’t just right. And I totally get that, there have been many times over the past 39 days that I have wanted to talk about the lent machine, the holiday machine and what the fuck a bunny has to do with a dead man walking the earth. I have been conflicted because one, I don’t get a lot of comments and the readership of this blog seems to be primarily my wife and I, so sometimes I get the feeling that my questions are frivolous, or the more likely option, I frustrate people beyond wanting to discuss my blog with me. But to whatever end, here goes.

Easter and lent are stupid, good Friday rocks

I don’t like easter for the same reasons that I don’t like christmas, they are primarily about candy (like) and consumerism (dislike) they also have nothing to do with the christian implication. I know that there are resurrection eggs but thats all crap and the church knows it. If easter was a real holiday that christians celebrated like they should. Easter would look a lot more like st. Paddies day, than the pastel, easter dress holiday that it is. Let me break down what I’ve just said and explain myself before you think Im crazy (I am crazy though). Christ our lord and savior, who was dead crucified under pontius pilot, beaten, pierced, abandoned. Prepared for burial, interned in a rich mans tomb. A tomb whose door was covered with a boulder the size of a man, and then sealed with tar. Most likely making it pretty air tight, oh and it had two roman guards who were not going to ideally going to stand by if they thought the zombie apocalypse was starting with jesus. So jesus puts the soldiers to sleep, moves the boulder down the road, walks out from the tomb and then starts showing everybody his wounds all over the place. Ya that holiday needs partying and shooting guns in the air and drinking and running to everyones house, ringing their door bell before we kick the door in to shout “HE HAS RISEN” just before we run to the next house to do in kind. At no point should that day be marked with vinegar soaked hard boiled eggs.
Lent, the spirit of it is to make you fast for the lord. You give up something so that you the time you would have spent doing that thing is now spent longing and thinking on the lord. I absolutely think that some people do lent right. But the majority of, “Im giving up ______” insert sugar, chocolate, facebook, twitter people or those who think they are experiencing what jesus experienced in the desert are fools. Jesus was tempted for 40 days in the desert, he did not eat or drink and I would assume sleep was not a regular thing either. While in the desert he was tempted, not by a demon, not by an underling, but by satan, lucifer himself. The baddy of all baddies took the job of tempting jesus, and MY guess would be that if temped by the devil himself none of us pathetic humans would stand a chance. Adam and eve fell. Jesus didn’t. He didn’t fall for the tricks, he didn’t get fed up with the taunting, he didn’t do what we would have done. He was tempted every second on everyday, through it all he prayed. If you think giving up chocolate gives you any idea what that was like you are stupid. Chocolate is not like giving up eating, or showing your divine power to shut up the bad guy. Its not like falling to all temptation, all at once while you are being tempted by the A-team. Lent degrades what jesus went through by making us think we knew what it was like. I don’t participate in lent, because if I did. I would quit my job sit on my floor and pray for 40 days like a seraph still only partly realizing how unworthy I am of his love and redemption.
Why then is good Friday the best. Well it is simple, thats the day it all went down. The day the curtain was torn, the day the earth shook, the day the blood and water flowed. Ya it is a sad day, a hard day to realize what has been done for you, but we have to realize that that is the ultimate communion, his life our sins. And not just those sins or the past sins. My today sins...PAID my maybe sins...PAID my tomorrow sins...PAID. A church I no longer go to or support said it best, you get to heaven, you get to the gate, and peter hands you a bill. You open it and its pages are more numerous than an original iPhone bill. Pages cascade to the floor in a waterfall of sins and sin debt. You riffle through all the pages frantic to see if you can afford all this sin and still get into heaven. When you get to the bottom you see PAID. No matter how much sin is on your bill, no matter how long you have lived or how terrible you have been while you were here, the bottom line still says Paid in full. Good Friday is the culmination of that payment. It is the day that your sins are payed, its not Christmas, its not your baptism, its good Friday, its the day Jesus died for you. His body and blood.
In an hour, it will be the day he rose. I only wish I could kick in door without getting sent to jail.

family man 2.0

Malia and I live in a small house. Our house is probably somewhere in the 500 to 600 square foot range, it has a big bathroom, a huge closet (nothing you can walk into but there is definitely miscellanies storage space in there) We don’t own a tv but use our computer as our tv because one more screen would be just ridiculous. We have just enough space for everything we could ever want to have but not enough space for the things we really desire. There is clearly a level of comfort found in our home that is absent in homes with a den, or a foyer, or a sitting room. If your house has more than a room, my house is more cozy than yours. When anyone who isn’t like malia or I sees our house they immediately think that we are nuts for living in such a small space. Even our landlords question our sanity, and they own the house. We barrow a kitchen table and four chairs. We don’t own our entertainment center or our blanket chest. We love our home, honestly as we look to leave on mission, leaving our tiny little flat is the thing I am most sad about. 

When we look at our home it is so huge, and we could be on an episode of hoarders. There is always a this or that, that we have been meaning to take to goodwill or sell. The couch is just right but really it is too big. The bed is cheep and lumpy but could we survive with something smaller? The entertainment center is my parents and while it works really well for us, it isn’t ours and we know we are always being “helped” by borrowing it. It works for books trinkets and paper work there is shelf space and book space all in one unit. But it isn’t ours and it is really really big. We want to make something that works better for us. We want something smaller and more perfect something more custom to us. Nooks and crannies for us to hide things in, loose things in, space to spill a cup of tea or wine and not worry about ruining the keyboard. We want to have a shelf for each thing not things that fit on a shelf. Does that even make sense? Its not that we want everything to have its own shelf its that we want a shelf that works for the things that we have. Like if we were to buy something new we would have to make it a new shelf not find a shelf that works for it. I don’t know how to explain it, I want to make stuff that works, not make it work (said in tim gunn voice)

There are two problems with our couch, it is too deep and too long. (Ya I know I read the joke too) it takes up so much space and you cant store anything in it. Its like a tetris piece that doesn’t fit. So what do you do when you don’t like something that you bought from goodwill two years ago? You break it and you make your own. Our landlords have a bunch of pallets that they were going to burn, so we are going to take pallet wood and build a new couch. Guess what, even if it sucks we will love it because we made it and it will be exactly what we want it to be. 1)free 2) have storage space 3)be made by us 4) have incorporated shoe box 5)be smaller than our current couch is. You just can’t beat that. It will be a wonderful 1.0 couch for us to have so that when we are at our next place we already know the pitfalls of the design and how to improve it. All the wood will be reclaimed, originally we had planned to use 1 sheet of plywood on the front and back of the couch but then we decided that was like only selling out a little... Its still selling out so we still don’t want to do it. PLUS WE GET TO DESTROY AND CANNIBALIZE  OUR CURENT COUCH!!!!! Its going to take longer than we would normally be willing to wait, as we have to let wood dry, wash wood, re-dry wood and so forth, but we are willing to do it because it fits our tiny house lifestyle. 
If there are two things wrong with our couch then I can honestly say that there is only 1 thing that is wrong with our flat as a whole. It presents its self in two ways. 1) there is no bathtub 2)there is no clothes washer. Aside from the proximity to our parents and the two aforementioned items, this flat is perfect, if it had a bathtub and a washer we probably wouldn’t leave on mission. Those are the two manifestations of the 1 problem, that being that the septic thank is not big enough. We are both kind of snobs and there is nothing better, more sexy, more relaxing, rejuvenating that a soak in a claw foot bathtub. Whoever made the first advert advising people away from claw foot bathtubs should be brought back to life a killed again just so that he could be punished for killing the claw foot. Malia and I both always dream about being able to take an immersion soak in the tub together with a glass on wine and just talk about our days. If you find yourself with the urge to say “why don’t you just get a hot tub?” I want you to walk outside and I want you to walk into traffic because a bathtub and a hot tub are so vastly different on every level! You will notice that I didn’t mention anything about a dryer. This place doesn’t need a dryer. You can line dry your clothes, if I got what I wanted we would have a small clothes washer and we would line dry everything we owned. All I want is for the ability to upgrade the septic tank, put in a bathtub and a washer and seriously I might never move out and Ill just grow old and die in this flat.

We have a million ideas, we have a million projects, we have desires fo days. We have the rest of our lives. I hope we are constantly getting rid of things and living the life we more want to live each and every day. My mom recently asked me if I was just running away by going abroad to go on mission. As though I couldn’t hack it in America so I felt the need to leave for an easier life in a third world country. This caught me off guard as a stupid question, no one would run away to a harder life. While our new life will be harder it will have its purks. We want to try to be in the city so that we can have bikes, anyone who has every heard me talk knows that I think riding a bike is a form of torture only reserved for masochist and villainous dictators. But I want to be as carbon neutrual as I can so we will get bikes and we will make a trailer and anything that I need to haul will be on my bike. This house, we hope will be our biggest house if and when we move we would like to not have a larger space; maybe a loft for rory but thats it. We have ideas and they will work where ever we go, Alaska-yurt, upstate newyork-shipping container, Italy- wine cellar. With every move I hope to have more ideas fleshed out for small home living and more comfort knowing that I can spend more time with my family because my wife and I are not spending all our time at work trying to pay rent for a house we are never in.

Malia works 20 hours a week, I work about 17 sometimes 20. It would be great if those hours were during the same hours of the day but this way we don't have to get rory into daycare. Malia goes to work in the morning and I go to work at 1, we both get alone time with rory and we both get time away from the family. We make enough money, maybe just enough but enough money all the same. We have lights, phones, food and diapers. We have bills and yes it would be nice to get rid of them but sé la vi, we live the life we want to. We aren’t stuck in some big house, we aren’t stuck in 40 hour a week jobs that leave us too tired to use all the money we have. When I say I want a bike im realistic, I want a bike that costs like 100 dollars tops, not $1500 mountain crushing beast, because I don’t crush mountains, I just want to get to the grocery store and back. 

“It won’t always be and easy life but it will be a good life.”

Family man

Rory has two teeth. Therefore he is a grump perpetually upset about how sore his tongue is from licking his two new teeth and from the bone growth in his jaw. His teeth are razor sharp, not an actual razor but if he bites down hard, There will be Blood. We have our home and our one door frame from which to hang his jumper; its the bathroom door so you can’t really utilize the room if your shy. We have dishes in the sink, they are a collection of what we have cooked and drank since Sunday, It is now Thursday. We have carpet floors covered in drool, hair, coffee and tea spills, books and jacket covers, clean clothes, dirty clothes, burp rags and swaddles. Our house isn’t dirty despite what you might think, or what you have just read, even if you ask malia; our house isn’t dirty. I wouldn’t lick the floors, nor would I serve spaghetti upon them. But the 5 second rule is on hiatus until we sweep, mop, vacuum. 

Our house is lived in the blankets are there to be used by anyone who is cold because the fire isn’t supposed to be on, so unless we are baking the house is a balmy high of 60 on a good day. Propane is expensive and as it is also used to heat the water we try to use the heat sparingly to keep our bills at a manageable level. Socks are an everyday requirement even if your desired footwear is flip flops otherwise known as thongs to those of us who remember. A flannel or a sweatshirt is often thrown over whatever you are wearing at the moment because there is no reason to get drool on the clothes you want to wear in public and also because it gives you another barrier against the cold. Rory sleeps in a minimum of two layers with socks, two swaddles and either rapped in a blanket or if in our bed half under the covers for warmth just to make sure that he doesn’t get cold in the night. If either malia or myself gets the opportunity for a shower we make sure to leave the bathroom door open so that any heat that escapes, can at least enter into the house. This means that the kitchen fan is always running to try and suck some of the moisture out of the air so that we don’t have mold issues during the winter.

Rory wakes up at 5 most days and if we are quick we can trick him into at least another hour or two of sleep, but sometimes we aren’t and that means that he gets to play with his stuffed donkey our landlords got him for christmas. It is a strange scene to wake up to having your hair pulled or getting slapped in the face by a sopping wet donkey tail. Hair pulling is rude, but slobber in the morning is just unappreciable. The sheets are always askew as one of us is invariably climbing in and out of bed every few hours. There is an exercise ball in the living room (rachel’s favorite chair in the house) if only it were there for exercise. When Rory wakes up in the night to be comforted because of a bad dream or because a tooth is sore, as the waking parent you then scoop him up and take him in your arms to the green ball. There you snuggle and bounce, gently like the bobbing of a boat on water, this will lull him back to sleep and he can be re-swaddled and placed between Malia and I in our bed. The damage however has already been done. This ball is cold and I for one never sleep in pants so as I tiredly carry my son into the living room I have the horrid anticipation of feeling that cold ball on my thighs. Bouncing up and down, cold night air all around in a matter of moments you are chilled to the core. On bad nights the second you fall asleep again and think you might be warm Rory will wake up again.

This is our life. A baby hammock hanging in the living room, more expensive than both our mattress and bed frame. For a baby who spends most nights in bed with us. Laundry once a week because there isn’t room for a washer and dryer in our small flat. Dishes done by hand when we get the chance, brain washing us at the same time, “who needs a dishwasher what a waste!” Coffee in the last remaining clean mugs more often than not being the signal that dishes need to be done. Fueling discussions of self sustainability, mission locations, books read and to be read, plans for homeschooling and nostalgic talk of a nomadic future. The scariest sound being that of a waking baby signaling that our daydreams must come to an end because there is a baby who would like to play. Canasta cards rest on the moleskine of game scores just waiting for someone to shuffle them, so that another game to 50,000 can start. Frog and toad, Calvin and Hobbs complete collection, spanish Whinnie-the-Pooh and The Lord of the Ring all tucked strategically under the bed by the shelf on the couch for easy access when anyone in the family needs story time. Monday morning meetings where Malia and I sync our planners and plan dinners together, schedule meetings, plan emails, phone calls and prayer requests. We primarily set those meetings via twitter and often go weeks without talking to anyone in person. Most of our business is conducted via the main computer, skyping people in other countries comparing video chat backdrops, trying to keep Rory quiet so he doesn’t cancel out what they are saying. Over the past 4 months we haven’t met anyone new that is less than a 5 hour flight away from us. Rory prefers people to be on the screen, than in person.

This is our life, it is messy, busy, tiring, dirty, exhausted and wonderful. My wife works two doors down from me, if Rory is asleep we can clean our whole house in about thirty minutes. We are a one car family who has the ability to write a manifest about the things they would like to change. Like no paper in the kitchen, no paper towels, no paper napkins, no paper plates (unless your having pizza, pizza tastes better on paper) 2) compost, 3)always grow something be it spring onions and basil in the window, or tomato plants in the garden by the door, we will always grow something we can eat. We have the ability to buy organic when we can. We buy flour by the 50 lb. sacks because we don’t buy baked goods from the store. We only buy “green” cleaning products even if they are more expensive (baking soda and vinegar do pretty much anything) last night we went out to eat for the first time in six months, because we can make better food at home for a lot less money and we don’t have to wear pants. While Rory often gets up at 5 or 6 or 7 for Malia and I getting up early is getting up before 9, so we are morning people now. We love our life, we know it will only get better from here as we move towards leaving on mission. We don’t have a location as of yet, but whether its in Africa, India, Mexico or Jamaica, whether we find work in a vineyard or in a church, whether we will be poorer then than we are now. 

My uncle once told me “Your going to have a good life, I didn’t say it was always going to be an easy life, but mark you are going to have a good life.” I truly believe that. Our lives are good, they will continue to be good and hopefully someday we will die happy.

Dainty

MY wife and I are always arguing, its always the same fight, and it always ends the same way. She always wins and I always cower. The argument is about which day was our first date and when did either of us decide that we liked the other. The argument really steams form me trying to remember if I was a douche or not. I have been a douche to so many women in the past, its hard for me to remember some times but I like to think that things are different with my wife. I try to think of how Malia deals with guys who are douches nowadays and I just can’t believe that she would have let me of the hook and yet I don’t ever having my soul crushed by her.  

Sometimes malia will come home and say “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone but today...” Some boy at the bank or in line at the grocery store will have stared at her and maybe asked for her number or something and that she had invariably turned them down and not gently she will have given them the “No Im married.” Now I don’t have a problem with her not accepting dates while married to me. What I do have a problem I have is that she just doesn’t have any tact when it comes to this little boys hearts. I use the term “little boys” because malia pretty much always indicates that they look like children incapable of growing beards. Which lets face it is the primary reason we are married to this day. So my wife is going around breaking hearts, and all of the sudden she comes home the other day (and yes my wife is a mega hottie, disagree, I dare you) The other day she comes home and says that she is waiting at a stop light when a boy rolls up in his small penis truck. (when we pass people with lifted trucks malia screams small penis at the top of her lungs, she is precious) So he pulls up, honks his horn checks her out and gives the “how you doin” smirk. 

At this point my dainty wife turns into something very different. She is a mom now so she totally has the power to rip lions in twain, lift cars off of babies and do that bulging neck vain thing. So he honks and my wife smiles signaling for him to roll down his window. Then while still stopped at the light in the lane next to she begins to rake him over the hot coals of, “Do you know how disrespectful that is, besides the fact that I am married, I have a baby who is asleep in the back seat. If your dumb ass had woken him up I would have gotten out of this car and kicked your ass.” He then proceeded to stammer his apologies and proceeded to drive off when the light turned green. Then still in a huff my lovely wife turned the corner to enter the parking lot where she works... At a small church. 

Needless to say my wife is awesome, I often worry that she will shoot someone if given the opportunity; but said opportunity has yet to present itself. Back to our argument, I am obviously sad for these guys whom’s dreams she has so recently crushed because I remember what it was like to be a bachelor. No matter what anyone tells you, asking a girl out is scary. The amount balls it takes to ask out a girl is way more than it takes for a girl to ask out a guy. Guys will get a yes maybe 5 times out of 10 but most decent guys won’t ever ask out 10 girls. Where as girls just have to trick guys they like into asking them out. WE ARE STUPID THAT IS EASY. Lets not forget the momentum killer that is a no. You spend weeks building confidence and talking to your buddies who are not supportive at all and when you finally have enough to ask. Her saying no can set you back for months. 

You are about to be part of a select group of two people who have heard this conversation. As I am bad at quotations I will write it like a movie script. 
To set the scene, I have just driven malia back to her house from some of our friends house after a rainy day spent at the beach were malia wore my wool coat and I wore a cold t-shirt, one that possessed little to no water retardant properties.

Mark: So I guess we should have that talk? Im sorry ______ drove with me, it was good to catch up, but I know that we had said we would talk during the drive.

Malia: Ya no, its totally ok I had a good time in  _______’s car we had a good conversation.

SILENCE

Mark: So I know that I’m not looking for anything casual so if you are thinking that this could just be a fling, or if you know you are leaving. I mean really neither of us know what are plans are for the fall so?

Malia: Well lets be honest, we hangout everyday and most nights Im at your house until 4am while we watch cartoons or documentaries or whatever. I mean really thats called dating.

Mark: Well when you put it that way its really hard to argue with. Then you have to know, I really want to get married and I know that I want to have babies so unless you want to date to see if we can get married this isn’t going to work.

Malia: I completely agree.

Like four months later we were engaged and three months after that we were married. So when I state my case in the argument of was I a gentleman when we were dating, and she always say no “you were a dick”. I retort back that I was nice and I invited her to hangout and go to barnes and noble (a reoccurring location on my places to take girls I like list). I invited her to watch stupid movies and boring documentaries about failed resort towns just north of palm springs. “You were a dick, you were always standoffish and made me feel like you didn’t like me.” Then I bring up the fact that I was the first one to say “That thing people say to each other when thats not like, I feel that for you” it was fourth of July and she had just jumped into the sound off the third story of a friends houseboat. Then there was the proposing with a vending machine ring that I found in my bedroom. The skipping down the isle at our wedding. My sweet beard, have I mentioned my sweet beard! 

No matter how hard or long I protest she is always adamant that I was a jerk, and thus she liked me first because even though I was a jerk she stilled hung out with me. That no matter how cute I was at any stage of our relationship, she was still better, firster, correcter. Now I must divulge that this fight is the kind of fight that you have either form different sides of the bed or from completely different rooms. You don’t need to be near one another because neither of us really have a dog in this fight. I know that she loves me and she knows that I love her. I can admit that I wasn’t super suave at any point ever! And she can admit that she was right. 

Here is the problem, there is this guy “LINK” and as far as I can tell he is totally for serious. I think that this may be a set up, but I prefer to believe that this was totally legit and on the up and up. To be fair, he is rather handsome so this would not work for every guy also she totally has that air or giddy freshman who just got hit on by someone she didn’t attend K-12 with. So while I can blow holes in this all day long I would rather think that it really is all just this easy. My wife is the outlier that will always ruin this idea but it should always be this simple. It shouldn’t involve discomforting glances, whistles, honked horns, or even sending drinks, however I do appreciate that hard rock cafe glass that guy sent my wife awhile back. Men everywhere should take a lesson from this guy, and realize that so long as its not my wife you probably have a chance. Certainly more of a chance than if you honk your horn at a woman with a carseat in the back.

Almost but on my way

So the way it starts is with me walking over to the computer and folding out the shelf cupboard thing. Then I adjust the green exercise ball into the compressed spot in the carpet so that my arms are resting on the shelf and my fingers are over the home row of the keyboard. I then curl my toes under so that its almost like Im standing on them but really it just makes it so that my lap is parallel with the ground. At this point I either open up a pages document as of late because I really want to start keeping track of my word count per day as both malia and I think about perusing the prospect of writing a book. (separately obviously) or I will just open up the internet and log into blogger and start typing directly into the window. I might have had a conversation with malia, or heard something on the radio, as anyone who reads my blog can tell most often its because I am really frustrated with something that I have recently heard or seen. I then begin to rant with only the occasional glance at the red squiggles underneath the words that I can’t spell or the apostrophes that I think should insert themselves in this day and age. 

The sad part is that without fail I get to about the three quarters mark and I realize that I don’t know how to finish. (insert joke) I look over what I have previously written and I realize that I have obviously strayed form my original point. Which is genuine because what is truly bothering me is genuinely never what is really bothering me. After I make a vague attempt at getting back on track and answering any of the questions I had previously posed and failed to give a response to I find myself still almost finished but none the less further down the page. I stop. I wait. I come back to it several hours, maybe even days later, having lost the flame I originally struck the keys for and now find myself just playing catchup to what I was trying to say before. I have also invariably done more research to the subject and often time now see the text from another sometimes different view. I find this frustrating.

Im not a writer why put this pressure on myself to write. I can’t even speak well and that’s like  writing but no one checks your spelling, and often time grammar doesn’t exist because of location or context or the group your speaking to. Where as on paper every is grading my spelling and grammar haters are just rolling on the floor unsure which sentence to make fun of first. But still I find myself addressing the keys making another attempt. And why shouldn’t I Mcklemore tells me that great painters weren’t born great, they were great because they never stopped painting. I can resonate with that, I once tried painting, well really it was a few times, but finger paints are disgusting and I feel like Im painting with someone else's puke. Then there was the time in college when I went to the art supply store and used my credit card (that was essentially maxed) to buy some canvases, some oil paints, and some nice brushes. Then I came home and having just watched a documentary on Rothko’s panels (which I think are beautiful) and proceeded to paint one six inch by six inch canvas with one small yellow rectangle stripe and a larger reddish orange square. It took me about 2 hours. I used my other canvas to try and do abstract art and see if I was any good at that. I was not. 

Then I think of all the things that I have heard about other actual famous successful (read, people who have written at least one book.) writers. Roald dahl, He wrote in the same room under the same blanket, in the same chair for like ever. I think he may have even eaten the same sandwich for lunch every day as well. Dr. Seuss was similar I believe. But I can’t do that I have a wife and a baby, it was all I could do to get one load of laundry done and feed Rory at the same time. I read 6 pages of a book over that time as well. I find myself completely incapable of doing anything consistently, I hate change but consistency is like the devils dad. Obviously there are things I do the same every time but I don’t think that makes me consistent. I always wash my left arm first then my and down my left foot. I always start brushing my teeth on the top right side, always floss before you brush thats just right its not about habit. Then when you think about the fact that I now have a job, that requires me to type some times then you think about the chances that I might in fact be harming myself because I want to write more. 

This is a whole whirl wind of ideas but as you the reader may have noted we seem to be winding down and that must mean that we have reached the magical last quarter of the story. Where in mark runs out of words while not having reached his word goal set out by himself. Well guess what dear awesome, astute, insightful reader you. You’re right. We are currently sitting at my proverbial 3/4 of the way done. Ive gone back and re-read what I started this with and realized how truly ritualistic I truly am. I’ve tried to fix the unfathomable amount of errors and that occurred above this point. I’ve thought of some poignant last words to impart on you that would make me think that I for some reason used this writing to answer my own questions and have now come to share with you my new found knowledge.

Guess what I’ve got nothin. What I do know is that if I just keep plugging away I will eventually reach my goal and the little train that could will be proud. I know that by just starting this little tale, lambert would be proud of me for trying to make something of myself instead of just staying inside my little cave or winter hiding. Dr. Seuss himself taught me that this whole thing started with one simple step and that where that one step leads me only time will tell. Obviously I know to stay golden, duh. The bouncing ball guy with a sad face from the old zoloft commercials definitely told me that being a boring sad ball sucks so go outside and play in the sun so that you can be a happy jovial ball... Or something like that commercials in the early 2000’s were really vague. The BFG taught me that being who you want to be is always better than being who everyone else thinks you should be. Countless other authors have taught me about ecology, conservation, restoration, social justice. Shell Silverstein taught me just about everything I needed to know about nothing and calvin taught me everything about everything  that has ever or will ever be important, he also taught me the kind of life I should aspire to while I’m here. (My wife informs me that I need to make it abundantly clear that I mean Calvin and hobbs and not john calvin, that guy was a downer)

What I’ve learned is that everyone had something to say, everyone had a reason to write. Until their reason was realized I’m sure they wrote things that never got finished. I can’t imagine that everything Dr. Seuss wrote was published. So maybe now as Im just getting into blogging and writing I might have as many drafts saved as I have published. And maybe my average page views in a day can be counted on the had of a mammal without opposable thumbs, and or a missing another flange as well (three toed sloth is the answer.) But eventually some day at some point there will be a time when I get to say just like all the rest. Ya I write, its not all gold but some people like it, and if nothing else at least Im willing to put myself out there. Sometimes if I’m lucky I even reach my word count goals. 

Dang only one thousand four hundred words

How the world turns

Pretty sure thats a soap opera tag line. When did everything change? When did it all go different? Who the frak knows! all I know is that my two week old baby is now five and a half months old and wholly crap time is moving fast. Its not that he is bad, he is a baby and when he doesn't get what he wants then he gets upset, when he gets upset that usually means crying, grunting, or screaming and honestly I can't blame him. I would love to be able to scream every time I didn't get my way, if nothing else I would at least feel like I had made a final attempt to get what I wanted. I think of when he gets older and how we will teach this out of him, if you protest about not getting your way that makes you a poop face and no one will like you. But that is crap! I think of Rory going through school and wanting to know more but being unable because "it isn't on the test" well guess what there is a bigger test coming!



-Right, about the test.Listen closely: The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will be administered in bars and offices and dorm rooms and places of worship and hospitals and yes even schools.. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, while scrolling through your twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you'll be easily persuaded by empty rhetoric, and whether you'll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of millions of decisions which, taken together, will make your life yours. And everything-everything- will be on it. I know, right? So listen up: 

-@realjohngreen

I look back at my own school and while I am unable to write this without spelling (even when aided by spell checker) or perfect grammar, that is by no means the fault of my schools fault. There were obviously lunchrooms, classrooms and the football field was more expensive than all the textbooks in the school combined, plus the tech levy of the year it was built. (but football brings in money when people come watch the games, its there money to spend) if you said that, stop reading this and go sit on a thumb tack. Someday I will lay out why I have a problem with organized sports but today is not that day! Again I digress, there were good teachers and there where bad teachers at my school, there were teachers who needed to retire, and there were teachers who loved to teach so they would retire every year and re apply and interview every summer so that they could continue to teach without breaking the schools budget. There I learned many lessons such as, don't have fun, always do your homework, and if your likable you can get anything.

There were other lessons that I learned while in school that were less than positive. Don't ask questions, especially if the teacher doesn't know the answer, don't be inquisitive, if you need to know something someone in charge will tell you. School will train you to work on an assembly line, they will teach you to read directions, count, and write down what you did. I am now 25 years old and I can honestly say that I have spent the last several years trying to break the non learning cycle. Mr. Soldano taught me who things while I was in class, but I learned three. What I learned was that sour patch kids are a necessary addition to popcorn. Now for what he taught me, 

"maybe you shouldn't read next time" 

was said to me after getting a daily quiz back after having actually read the material, I was told that I did better when I just guessed. 

"History is written by the winners"

The second thing he taught me and the second most important thing I learned next to the sourpatch kid thing.

So if the winners are recording the truth and then that one sided truth is being taught to us, how are we supposed to say that we are learning anything. Ask any brit how they feel about the US and the revolutionary war. I am 25 and only now am I actually thinking critically about the world around me and how I fit into it. We raise all these people and tell them that they are ready to go at 18, your done this is the bare minimum you will need to get through life, then on the first day of college they sign up for a credit card to get a frisbee and by junior year they commit suicide because they have $20,000 in credit card debt. Only now that I am hoping to leave on mission am I wanting to research an Archimedes screw, as opposed to a sleeve pump, or a piston pump. That makes me ashamed of myself for not trying to learn something everyday. 

Look at Rory, add more to his collective knowledge in 20 minutes than I do in a year. Ya obviously I have already mastered many of the things he is weeks from approaching, but he is always trying! He is five months old and moments away from crawling, moments from saying his first words and getting a grasp on language. Every second that he tries something new he is improving and his time is never wasted. Imagine if babies got discouraged and quit when they couldn't get something right off. I quit trying to paint because I painted two canvases and decided that I was no good. Rory has spent his whole life trying to pick his head up, crawl, walk, communicate, breath! Think how fast humanity would end if babies were as apathetic as most people you know, never striving, trying, persevering. Even in our schools we are told you preserver, unless you get a bad grade, or if the levy doesn't pass, then we will cut the program. 

Between TED.com, youtube.com/crashcourse, youtube.com/scishow, THE INTERNET! why are we thinking that school is the only way to teach. Rory will not be going to public school and that means especially public schools in America. That is coming from someone with two teacher in-laws. Why do we stop complaining, why do we stop crying when we don't get what we want. Why don't we scream when we see people who stop learning, people who get stagnant, when we get stagnant. Aside from screaming how do we change something that we don't even recognize as broken. We all need to be a little more like babies and a little less like adults, it might save the world.

Wide spread Hypocrisy

I don't really know how to start this or even more so what it is exactly that I want to say. I live in washington, so pretty much by the time that I got up and had my second cup of coffee and checked my twitter, there had already been news of the sadness in Connecticut. By the time I picked my wife up from work the news from China had already come out. First and foremost I want everyone to know that my heart yearns for the hearts that are broken, bleeding, or extinguished. I am disgusted at all news affiliates who feel it appropriate to interview a child about what happened. I agree with a tweet from joe bereta.

Joe Bereta‏@joebereta

A motive will not provide closure. Details will not help us understand. Stop interviewing kids. Embrace them. Protect them. Spread love.

from there I diverge from this pathway and I explore something very different. I am a youtube watcher, there have been countless videos trying to explain what happened, the tragedy, the sadness. There will be countless people who will shout at the top of their social network lungs that they have the answer, that they are outraged, that they are an expert. There will be info graphs, there will be MEMES, jokes, commercials, videos and bleeding heart statuses and tweets stating that they are hurt the most. There will be people who shout about how this is the final straw, this is the worst tragedy ever and then they will try to quantify it with weighted numbers from a study someone else did. 

Why, what will it solve, why are you angry. Don't pretend like you feel their pain, you know what they are going through. Now comes the hard part of this post. Here comes the scary part, here comes the part where I give my opinion and open myself up to everyone else's opinion. Why are we all hypocrites? Why do we call it a tragedy because it happens to kids and we pick a villain, in this case a gun or a knife. We say that its the implement that did the killing. We forget that there was a person who wielded that weapon, we forget that people kill people and not guns, or knives, or bombs, or ships. But guess what else kills? We do, all of us collectively commit widespread genocide  everyday. Everyday people die and we all, each and everyone of us could do something about it, but instead we only see outrage when the news and social media tell us to.

Now I would like to give you some perspective about some things, all these facts can be found on the internet from reputable sources and if I neglected to put a link to a fact simply google search it and see if I am correct or not. In 2012....this happened
deaths by gun by country

Japan 48

Great Britain 8

Switzerland 34

Canada 52

Israel 58

Sweden 21

Germany 42

United States of America 10,728

Total 10,991 among 8 cherry picked countries

To give you some scope that less than .0003% of the US population, conversely there were 35,900 deaths in car accidents over three times as many. 1,897 people died from stabbings. Now I can't say that I am completely in favor of gun control, I love shooting guns just as much as I love throwing darts in a basement with a pint and some friends. I also can't say that stricter gun control is a bad idea, did you read the facts that I just presented? But that is where my unrest on that issue ends. For those of you who are going to spend energy trying to place blame on a political party, people group, or inanimate object, you... should punch yourself in the throat. 

Now lets revisit what I said about us all participating in mass genocide and not even batting an eye about it on a daily basis. Just guess how many people die every year from pooping, well specifically diarrhea, yes shitting themselves to the point of death. 1,500,000 yes you read that correctly 1.5 million people die every year from diarrhea, most often because they don't have access to clean drinking water. A smaller 655,000 die from malaria die every year, again a curable disease for which there is a vaccine available. How about things that happen right under our noses, even here at home, men and women with breast cancer die every year, 39,920 to be exact. Men with prostate cancer who find it, 28,170. each of these diseases gets one month out of the year where people care about it. Lets ramp the sadness back up in 2012 two hundred and twenty two combat related deaths for America, 158 veteran suicides. We aren't even at war anymore. Do you remember that genocide thing that happened in Darfur, over a six month period 70,000 people died, Bill Clinton said that not intervening was his biggest regret during his presidency. 

Now that your warmed up to what you should be upset about everyday lets get to the heavy hitters. Remember these things are happening every day, they aren't happening just when they are in the news they happen all over the world, over every second on the clock. Human Trafficking 30 million, your impotent 10,000 gun deaths feels pretty petty at this point doesn't it? Did you know that the average age of a child involved in sex slavery is between 12-14 years old? Now here is the big hitter, the big bambino of sorts, guess how many people die of hunger? 10,000, 1 million, 2? Well in a tangible number 16,000 people die of hunger. PER DAY! That makes 5 million 840 thousand people every year starving to a point of death.

This is not to diminish those who have felt loss today. This is not to berate everyone who doesn't quit their job and go feed the children and hold a cool cloth on their head as they die like a Mother Teresa. I am not saying that we shouldn't be an uproar about a few dying under sad circumstances. Purely I am pleading with you that you hold on to this outrage and you send letters to millionaires and billionaires, politicians, celebrities, delegates, the United Nations. Do something Be outraged, Do not let this sadness die because there is so much sadness that deserves our attentions, that are insulted when we tumble, tweet, status and blog about finite seldom tragedy as their world is ending. Cherish your life, every time your baby wakes in the night to wake you up, cherish it. Every time your wife asks you to do the dishes or the laundry, cherish her. There are far worse villains than governments and taxes, an isolated incident deserves just as much of our attention as wide spread sickness, famine, death, disease, tyranny, injustice.

I am a bleeding heart, I don't have the ability to save all those who need saving, I cry just thinking about all these numbers the large ones just as much as the small ones. So I leave you with an unrelated note about who is writing this to you.

I love my wife and I love my son.

mark.