Predictable

I walk out the back door at 7:44 a.m. and wind around the house, my bag swinging from my shoulder, heavy with the same items as yesterday: lunch, water bottle, cell phone, wallet. A weed — that for some reason I’ve never bothered to pull or spray with Roundup — hangs in an arc over the sidewalk next to the house, swaying slightly in the breeze but not in any danger of dying, despite its lack of soil. I step on it, like I do every day, hoping that this will cripple the plant and lead to its eventual decline. I should bend down and pull it up, but I don’t have the time — I have to catch the 8:53 bus.

Down the steps, then, and up the street I go. A neighbor is bending over, fussing about her flower beds, like she was yesterday, with her butt in the air and no regard for what passersby might think. Another neighbor, dressed in blue scrubs and bearing a stainless steel coffee mug, heads for his car. Right on time.

I turn into the alley. Two blocks ahead, a 77F bus heads up Stanton Avenue.

Clunk. Someone drops trash in the dumpster from the third floor of some notoriously run-down apartments.

“71A — Downtown” says the recorded message as a bus opens its doors on Negley Avenue one block over. The disembodied voice echoes through the alley just as it does every ten minutes.

I’ve reached Stanton Avenue. A man in a grey business suit and light pink shirt stands at the corner, pacing slowly in his whiter-than-white sneakers and dragging heavily on his cigarette as he waits for the bus. His square face reminds me of a pale, pissed off Lawrence Fishburne every morning.

The bus arrives. A woman with the most curiously sprayed and sculpted hairstyle gets off the bus, her pointed features sending the same message as always: leave me alone. I flash my blue bus pass and the driver, a cheery, middle-aged woman with a youthful haircut, smiles and pushes a fare button. In the first row, a man rises to give me the window seat next to him.

“Good morning!” he says. “And how are we doing today?”

“Pretty well. How about you?” I respond, settling my bag on my lap and pulling out my book.

“Nice weather we’re having,” he remarks.

“Yes, yes it is,” I reply, diving headfirst into my novel to avoid further conversation. I’ve already heard everything he has to say: Babyland is being renovated, the city should really do something about this or that building, that program on Randy Pausch last night was really “touching” and the Mayor is an imbecile. I wish it weren’t true, but there’s nothing new under his sun.

The regulars get on and off at their respective stops. A tall woman with foamy black hair boards in Friendship, wearing her button-front denim skirt, plastic-rimmed glasses from the 80s and toting a small workout bag. She sits down, her legs a little too far apart for other riders’ comfort (especially considering the short, button-front skirt) and takes out her Hebrew scriptures, a thick rubber-banded packet of tattered, unbound pages. She meditates on each page for several minutes as the bus draws nearer to our destination, flipping each sheet over and placing it at the back of the stack before continuing on.

“Liberty and 10th,” the disembodied voice of the bus calls out, announcing my stop. It’s 8:16.

I rise, thank the driver, and head out into the sea of familiar faces going the same directions with the same expressions as yesterday — hoping that today will bring something fresh, something new their way.

Everybody wants to be an executioner.

Or so it seems from all the marketing copy I’ve been reading and editing lately. When asked what they do best, companies continually answer:

We execute.

When asked what differentiates their company from the rest; what they excel in, they say:

Execution.

What concerns me about this is that, if you take their meaning to be that they “get things done” and that they “excel in the implementation of their solutions to customers’ problems,” that’s not really something to brag about, is it? That kind of execution barely keeps you in business, let alone propelling your company to the front of the pack.

Therefore I must consider: are these companies doing some side jobs for the mob?

I know that’s not what these companies mean, but seriously – come up with something original to do, and an original way to express what you do, or I will assume that you’re whacking people in the back room.

On a lighter note, all this talk of execution makes me think of the almost-fate of Bartholomew Cubbins, the 500-hat-wearer of Seuss fame. Check out the book if you’re bored; it’s one of my childhood favorites.

Of Pop-Tarts and split infinitives

I am not a Pop-Tart eater. What’s more, if I were to consume a Pop-Tart, I would certainly not choose the frosted variety with hot pink sprinkles. But in order to satisfy a post-lunch need for carbs (which I should have predicted, since I brought salad for lunch), I ate one today. Two, actually, since they come two to a pack.

Now, I’m a fan of Brian Regan and his legendary rant regarding Pop-Tart instructions. How stupid do you have to be, truly, if you need to read the instructions in order to toast your Pop-Tart properly?

But today I found that, in my relative inexperience with this fruit-filled toaster pastry, I needed to read the instructions. Remember, these were frosted. Given that we have both a traditional vertical toaster – designed for speed and even browning of toast and bagels – and a sophisticated-looking toaster oven – perfect for reheating pizza, melting cheese on bread, and other messier jobs, but very slow – I was left with a choice.

Do I wait six minutes for the toaster oven to barely warm these processed strawberry treats? Or do I choose the fast track, inserting them on their sides into the toaster (all the while praying the icing doesn’t melt, gunking up and possibly shorting out the appliance)?

Choosing life on the edge – and a swifter return to my desk – I went vertical. As I waited and watched, planning the Pop-Tarts’ emergency exit from the toaster should it become necessary, I wondered why the package did not stipulate the orientation of the toaster pastry. Surely others like me have wondered if it is safe to toast them on their sides.

But what I learned today is that Pop-Tart manufacturers have designed icing that defies heat, resisting meltage, even at the high temperatures that render the filling too hot to eat. This leads me to believe that it is not truly icing, but some form of sweet, marginally edible ceramic substance that allows morons to keep their vertical toasters in clean and working order.

On a completely unrelated grammatical note, I also cemented my personal views on split infinitives. I know they’re messy – even, as many people would note, wrong – but they’re far more musical and dramatic than their grammatically correct counterparts.

Which is why, when it comes to Pop-Tarts or anything else, my goal is to boldly go where no man has gone before. “To go boldly ” just doesn’t cut it.

Risotto, a simile, and some news

My life is like a saucepan of risotto:
I stir and add broth, scrape the bottom of the pan,
Stir again, add more broth, scrape, scrape, sccrrAAAape
For what seems like an eternity.
(Forty minutes, in fact, of continuous stirring.)

And in the end I get a steaming, glutinous mass
Of short, stubby rice
With tender, golden onions
And bright green zucchini punctuating the creamy globs—
In short, a culinary masterpiece, the ultimate comfort food.

And nobody but me can understand why I would go to the bother of stirring, stirring, scraping
A saucepan of globby rice.

In other news, I have a new job, which I started today and I like very much. I am a writer (yes, I'm getting paid for it again!) for Brady Communications, a design firm in downtown Pittsburgh.

Disclaimer (Mr Wonderful insists I put this here): I did not take this picture. Someone has clearly aerated this bowl of risotto, and although it looks prettier than mine, I am confident mine was far more satisfying.

Wow, it's been way too long . . .

Here's something I wrote yesterday to share at a meeting with the BIC bishops:

I was at a conference last week and suddenly I realized why I have often felt so drained over the last year or so, why I so desperately needed refreshment:

I am a religious insider.

In the three years that I’ve been out of college, I have worked in communications for three different Christian organizations, which means I’ve not only been responsible for handling the Word of God, but also the message of each organization I’ve worked for. I’ve been privy to a lot of “inside” information, and I’ve watched how leaders and followers alike conduct themselves.

It’s easy when you’re a religious insider to become callous toward other believers; to be hard of hearing when it comes to the still, small voice of God; and to read the most powerful portions of Scripture without being moved. And I have to say . . . that’s kind of where I’ve been.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with being a religious insider—it is a privilege, an awesome responsibility—but the problem is, when you’re making your living with the Gospel, any frustrations that you face, any apathy that develops as a result of your job will negatively impact your faith. Unless, that is, you’re careful.

And although it seems a little late in the game for me to be coming to this realization (after all, I am leaving in July), I do need to be careful to think of my job as a ministry, to be sure that I am refreshed enough by God and others to share and shape the wisdom that we publish in denominational communications. I need to be refreshed enough by God that when people at work disappoint me, I don’t become hardened against them as spiritual leaders. I need to be refreshed enough by God that the busyness, connectedness, and the celebrity that make up the lives of religious insiders—that I would count all these things as loss. Because without my faith in Christ, that’s exactly what they are.

I have come to the realization that, being a religious insider (as all of you are), I have an especially great need for God’s refreshing power. Because without it, I could not only be empty of wisdom to share with others; I could lose my faith altogether.

We are worth so much more.

"Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said before, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more."

—Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Rockin' the tilde

That's right, unlike most of you who fear to venture into the wilderness of the upper-lefthand corner of your keyboard, I am a frequent tilde user.

A week ago or so, an incredulous-looking individual asked me, "What on earth would you ever use it for?"

I just smiled and replied, "I have my reasons."

"Well, I guess you probably use it for typing Spanish words, right? I mean, that's probably how you make the 'ñ.'"

"Nope," I answered. "For that I use Alt + Num Lock + 164."

"Oh."

The tilde (though I admit, it can be a little too girlie) is perhaps the only character of whimsy that appears on modern western keyboards. It's a free spirit, untamed and somewhat impractical--which is why it's been banished to the far reaches of the keyboard with dangerous characters like Esc.

The tilde is truly alone in its status as a diacritical mark. I mean, the other marks may carry with them an air of sophistication--for instance, even though he is like, the most awesome philosopher ever, no one would look at Søren Kierkegaard the same if he didn't have that slash through the "o" in his name. Most diacritics have the general effect (besides advising pronunciation) of wearing a pair of very artsy, european, dark-rimmed glasses.

But the tilde . . . it defies sophistication. It's too curvy and fun to fit in with the starkness of the other diacritics. And it would seem that just about everybody wants to use the tilde for something. According to wikipedia, it's really quite the popular symbol, despite its lonely position on the keyboard.

So the next time you wonder why such a useless character is taking up space next to your oh-so-practical numbers, remember this: it's the only fun key we've got. On my keyboard at least, the ratio of fun characters to boring ones is 1:103. Now come on, don't you think we can spare the room?

On editing

She was a middle-aged woman, slightly pudgy around the edges, with a critical air about her. Her dark-rimmed glasses rested just where she wanted them on her nose, and her clothes, though soft and simple, had been carefully and particularly selected.

Leaning in toward the round dinner table so she could be heard above the conference din, she pronounced with a knowing smile, "You're an editor, aren't you?"

"Why yes." I probably didn't actually say it quite like that, but it's my story and I get to write it however I want to.

Her co-worker, who sat next to her, looked astonished. "How did you know that?" she demanded.

I was about to answer that perhaps she had read my nametag, since it seemed to give away just about all the details of my life, when the first woman answered.

"We editors are born."

Feeling that I had just been linked to some sort of elite editing aristocracy, I shifted uncomfortably and changed the subject.

Was I carrying a red pen, or correcting someone's word choice? What was it that gave me away? After all, I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a good editor. But she could tell.

Later that night, I got to thinking, and it seems there is something about me--call it perfectionism, being anal retentive, whatever--that is a huge asset to me as an editor. I'm very particular, and each time I miss the mark, I try again--harder--to improve.

But that impulse is not unique to editors. In fact, I think that as a follower of Christ, I'm called to be an editor--to humbly approach and revisit my life, each day making choices that are closer to what God wants them to be.

So in that sense, yes, I was born an editor. But then, so was everybody else.

Figuratively speaking

Metaphors and similes cover our writing like chicken pox on a small child. Check out this amazing figurative language found in high school essays. Every year, English teachers from across the country submit them, and these excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
14. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
15. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
16. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
17. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
18. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
19. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
20. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
21. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
22. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
23. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
24. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

From an e-mail forward (I'll try not to post stuff like this too often, but in this case I couldn't help it).