Confession

My most common prayer is this:

"I don't understand."

Summer Like Friday

I played outside on Friday. It was much needed. 

Pick Me Up

I've been reading other people's blogs. It's a good way to pass the time. Sometimes, I find things on their blogs I wish to steal. Such was the instance recently when reading my friend Jeffery's blog. Posted there were eight rules for picking up women at a bookstore, written by someone other than Jeffery. Oh. M.J.Mewes. That's the fellow.
Here are his rules:

1. Go at night or in the evening, rather than during the day. There is a higher concentration of eligible females during the evening hours at a bookstore. Plus, if you are successful, you can segue into grabbing a quick dinner date with her.

2. Keep your eyes peeled for rings on the left hand. You’ll be more efficient if you skip the married/engaged ladies.

3. When looking for nice women to pick up, visit the literature, video, travel, cooking, and home improvement sections. Avoid the self-help, dieting, and exercise sections. You want a girl who is confident and likes to do fun stuff.

4. If there is a coffee shop in-store, check it for ladies.

5. Next, when approaching a woman, have a visible cooking or home improvement in your hands. Women like a man who can fix stuff, and make a decent meal.

6. Approach the women with whatever pick-up techniques that work best for you. If you’re cute and charming enough, canned lines can pique a woman’s interest. If you do better with a pre-established connection, strike up a conversation about the books each of you are browsing. If you’ve got balls, hand her the cook book you’ve been carrying and point out the meal you’d like her to cook for you.

7. Don’t forget to compliment her looks and taste in books. Flattery will get you everywhere.

8. Don’t flirt obviously with every pretty girl in the store. Women can easily spot a guy who appears to be making pick-up rounds in every aisle. Make the woman feel special by setting your sights on only a couple women, or better, just one.

As a female who spends a more than adequate amount of time a book store, I thought it my duty to weigh in on the rules. Especially since the occasional time is spent day dreaming of a handsome, well read gentleman making himself known to a certain well read single female, say perhaps in the travel section.

1. Obviously go in the evening, unless you're intent on picking up soccer moms and retirees.
2. The ring thing is true. Don't be a bastard.
3. Props to Mewes who looks for confident girls. It might also go well the other way when said maiden sees that you also are confident and intelligent and not just looking for the next big diet fad or get rich quick scheme.
4. It would do well for you if the coffee shop was rather full, so that you might need to ask fair maiden to share a table. She drinks light roast with just a bit of room for creme.
5. Cooking or home improvement books are a little too obvious. A current events, travel, or outdoor magazine would do fine, as would any well respected novel or book of essays.
6. Don't be an idiot. Translation: Don't used canned pick up lines. You're in a book store. Talk about books. (Unless you're in the music section, then you have the liberty of speaking of music.) If you want to be "that guy," show her the meal in the cook book you'll make for her.
7. Yup. And don't forget the coffee.
8. What are you, on the prowl? Chill out.

But the BEST way to pick up a girl at the book store is if you happen to be there doing a signing and you're not Tony Robbins. It would do you really well if you were this guy or this guy. If you're not, figure out what these guys are writing about, then come back and buy the girl a cup of coffee and talk about those guys' words along with your traveling adventures, humanitarian aid work, music collection, and your dog,

Sunshine Fashion

Yesterday, I bought a new orange coat
to replace the sun who went away
and forgot us here on the frozen prairied tundra

I must have made him jealous, because
look who came out to see me today?

Help My Friend!

Hey Friends,
I think it would be really cool if you helped support my friend Vanessa's project on Kickstarter. I met Vanessa while we were both teaching English in Korea, and she became a much cherished friend. I was even fortunate enough to see her play her songs a time or two. Her lyrics are as real as they get. I see myself in many of the songs she pens. Her voice can move from sweet and cool to down right sultry, as I think the second video demonstrates. She's a great singer/songwriter and she deserves to be able to record an album!! You can help her do that! Here, I'll let her tell you about it. And then you can listen to one of her songs. And then you can support her?
Thanks!!!!!!

After The Storm - Mumford And Sons

A Distraction Of Words While Cleaning My Room

To my passport,
Cleaning, I tuck you away safely beneath folded cotton
in the far corner of my room.
You are so neglected these days, my love.
Forgive me.
It is a parting neither of us desire,
but a necessary evil in these days,
the days of interim.
In this time of quiet,
I pray that you keep well,
and dream of better days ahead.
Days filled with ink for your pages,
and the breath of life for me.
A life that for now,
is stilled in dream,
as you are stilled,
safely beneath folded cotton,
in the far corner of my room.

Some day, my dear one,
the far corners of the Earth.
For now, rest well, until for us both,
the time of resurrection uplifts us,
if only in coach.

For the Interim Time

My friend showed me this poem this morning. I didn't write it, but was moved by it. It is by a late Irish poet, John Donohue, from his book To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.


For the Interim Time
When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of darkness.

You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.

"The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born."

You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here in your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn. 


The last two stanzas really are what got me. A pleasant, yet some how bittersweet reminder, that what is now will not always be. Somehow, there is hope for more...even when that hope fades into the current dusk.

Still Ringing True

January 15,1929, Martin Luther King, Jr was born.
Happy Birthday, Mr. King.
Thanks.

in july...

I'm longing for the nights filled with prairie thunderstorms.  Instead, I'll watch the one I recorded in July, with a little help from Sigur Ros. (Unfortunately, I ran out of memory) :(