How Good Looking I Am

I caught another glimpse of myself in a mirror today. This was just after we were out to eat.

I had sat there in the restaurant feeling a little surly. I'm a nice person, but there's only so much of it I can take.

But I have this ingrown sense that I look better than I do, so as far as I know, the wait staff are seeing the same thing.

Then afterward, we're in the car, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I'm reminded once again that I'm not near as good looking as I imagine myself to be. So that's what they're seeing, an old man with weird hair. Maybe graying side hair, I didn't look that close.

Churches

The Church of the Sacred Welcome - You'll be personally greeted by the pastor and his wife. Your hand shook or your tithe cheerfully refunded.

The Church of the Vigorous Ass-kick - Self-explanatory policies.

Contemporary Worship Services

I've gone to a church for a couple of weeks, to their "contemporary" service.

What can you say?

The guys up there playing guitars are really good at it, but I'm already a little sick of watching them slash away at their guitars in great excitement. I haven't got any big criticism of them, but it's not really doing much to make me spiritually inspired. It's watching some guys play guitar, piano, bass, violin, and whatever.

It may as well be an old fashioned organ buried away somewhere, where you don't have to watch it as a performance thing.

The songs are all the usual sorts of stuff you might expect, God's glory, how glorious one's experience is, 'I was low in the pits before you go a hold of me, but now I'm a jolly person,' etc. The big difference between these songs and the old songs is they're "contemporary." Some of the old time composers didn't leave a lot of space for fancy guitar work.

One of the guitar players really gets into it. Today I was thinking about how calloused his fingers must be. Also I was thinking about how it must've been when he first picked up the guitar and started strumming, then how he started to learn. I was thinking how he made great progress along the way, practicing like the devil, until he was good enough, yet ever learning. I was thinking, 'I wonder if he's a regular at the music store,' always checking out the latest in guitars, maybe even owning a really good guitar. I was thinking how much practice he must do to stay really good, to come across so good on Sunday morning. I don't especially like watching him.

The other guitar player is an older guy. He also knows how to boogie down. I'm thinking many of the things I thought about the first guy, when he came to know he had proficiency at it. I'm also thinking of how motivated they are, apparently, to really put on a good show for us. This guy has the extra responsibility of saying all the prayers in the church. They're very ordinary, conversational prayers, albeit keeping some level of distance and arm's length adoration toward God.

As for me, I try to enter in ... or at least exclude these guys so I can get my own focus ... but that's not always an easy thing to do. I'd probably be better off staying home, to tell you the truth. I like the communal aspects of spirituality, but if you're unknown there, it doesn't make much difference.

This particular church isn't going to be my church. But, you know, God bless 'em.

I'm sitting in the library writing this. If you see me you may as well say hello, but since it's a library say it quietl@y. They have a lot of very cool books here. Most of them are inviting someone to read them.@

Setting The Table

I'm setting the table for a nice day. Being off to a good start and well-adjusted.

Republicans are afraid of people with dark skin. But they don`t seem to mind John Boehner.

Nixon Resignation Day

I think we're up to Nixon Resignation Day again, aren't we? Something in my memory says it was Aug. 9.

So it's been yet another year since we've had Nixon to kick around.

Nixon might not look that bad in hindsight, going by the feral Republicans we have these days. As bad as he was, there was at least a sense that he had some aspects of the good of the country at heart. Not like his modern day brethren, who are complete sell-outs to their peculiar brand of anti-Americanism.

A Sanitary Seat

At the grocery store they're germ-conscious, putting a container of sanitary wipes next to the shopping carts. No one wants to touch anything anyone else has touched. I know I don't, since my mind has a little red flag popping up every time I touch something.

They also have a nice looking electrical horse at the door for the kiddies. It has a beautiful saddle. But I'm looking around for the disposable seat covers that should go with it. I wouldn't want my kid sitting on a saddle that every pee-pants kid in town has sat on!

Macedonio Fernandez

I'm reading a book by a guy named Macedonio Fernandez, called "The Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel)."

I'd love to actually get the entire thing read. But it's been slow going for me thus far. I'm only up to page 52 (out of 238) and that after a few days picking it up and putting it down.

I love the concept and some of the sly observations he makes. I can resonate with some of the sly observations he makes about novels and characters, since I've thought of a few of those myself, not just with books but with movies and songs.

He has some things to say about the characters in a book and their existence or non-existence. Like a traveler who shows up and travels on, what kind of existence he has.

I'm no Fernandez expert, having just heard of him a few days ago. But he was from South America and was influential to other more famous guys down there. Somehow he became well known and now, being completely dead, is gaining in reputation. To the point that a guy like me would hear of him and be reading and resonating and all the rest.

The little I know about his book so far -- and forgive me if I'm announcing a completely new doctrine apart from his, although that would be better from my point of view -- reminds me of what I think of every time I hear the Beatles' "Day Tripper" song. To me it's like a little world that exists all by itself -- the riff is probably the key here -- then in a couple minutes it's gone, yet it exists as its own little compact self somewhere in the eternal stream.

The book, the title given above, has a novel in it somewhere, which I haven't gotten to yet but I've glimpsed. Before we get to it, a surface reading seems to suggest, we have 50 or so tangential or intrinsic prologues to make it through. Some of these are extremely delightful. And the ones that aren't delightful, I was just tired while reading them.

It was written many years ago before he died, but the English publication is only recent, having been translated in recent days. The translator deciphered it from a handwritten manuscript that was virtually indecipherable, but thankfully it was also nicely written out by Fernandez' lover, which had to help.