So this was a pretty eventful week. Comedy clubs and Deep Ellum bars, midnight movies, deep paradigm-shifting revelations...oh, and my wife thought I was dead today.
It seems like everything significant this week has happened at or around 2am.
Saturday, at 2am
I'm sitting in a bar with an old friend, catching up on life and talking about the structure of the church. He's part of an improvisational comedy troupe for whom I designed a poster quite some time ago in exchange for free tickets to a show. Well, we went Friday. It was loads of fun. Our wives hit it off. After the show, as we sat in an otherwise empty bar in Deep Ellum, he brought up a concept that I'd never previously considered. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Actually, no it didn't. It hit me like...scalding hot coffee in my face.
Whenever someone says something hit them like a ton of bricks, I always want to respond with "So you're saying it killed you? Wow...[insert something awesome and sarcastic that I'm too sleepy to think of right now]."
But seriously. I walked away from that conversation with a new thought hovering in my head that would change everything I thought about the Body of Christ if I let it.
Tuesday, at 2am
I'm walking out of the Studio Movie Grill in Arlington, debating with my wife about the differences between the movie Edward and the book Edward. People kept asking me "How did you like Eclipse?" And my answer of choice: "I like seeing my wife happy." If I have to paint her a shirt and go to the premier to make her happy, then that's what I'm gonna do.
I read a book recently about keeping a beginner's mind when learning things. The whole concept is that you learn most when you understand that you are a beginner. Once you get comfortable in your aptitude, you lose your thirst for growth and you stop paying attention to things from which you might learn.
I've begun to apply this principle to every aspect of my life. It's gone pretty smoothly so far, but it's the marriage and the Christianity parts that are really proving to be challenges. Surprise, surprise. It's amazing, the things that pop into your head when you look at your loved one and think to yourself "I need to re-learn how to love you."
Wednesday, at 2am
Well this wasn't really at 2am but I'm going to pretend it was because I'm already this far into the post and I pretty much have to stick to the theme, or else I think like a fairy somewhere will die or something. So at 2am on Wednesday morning, I was walking out of the Movie Tavern agreeing with the wife about how terrible The Last Air Bender was. But after the heated Twilight debate the night before, it was refreshing to agree just as strongly on another movie.
Highlights of the experience:
- The guy in front of us in line who was able to pronounce M. Night Shalaman, Shominom and Shakala, but for whatever reason couldn't wrap his head around the concept of correctly pronouncing Shaymalan. Granted, it's not an American-friendly surname. But most of the time, people who can't pronounce it don't even try. They just mumble it, much like that Millajovavovavich woman from the Resident Evil movies. Most of the time it just comes out sounding like "Emnashomanon." And that's okay. It's a respectable and humorous way to say "I have no clue how to pronounce that freaking guy's name."
- My Facebook post warning fans of the cartoon series against seeing the movie. This is a highlight because several people whose tastes in movies (and really, most media-related artistic mediums) closely match mine, posted comments showing respect for my opinion. They were along the lines of "I'll wait for it to come out on DVD then" rather than "I don't believe you and want to see it for myself." Well, one person did say that second one, but I'll let it slide...because his wife can hurt me.
Saturday, at 2am
I'm blogging about my week. I normally do this during the day on Fridays, but today I had a root canal and we were also taking care of my stroke-surviving mother-in-law. Oh yeah - on my drive home from the dentist's office, my phone remained on but decided not to ring or alert me when people called or texted. The wife freaked out after me not answering my phone for an hour straight (while driving on the freeway in the rain in a truck with bad brakes, mind you), so she decided that I was probably dead and proceeded to place panicked phone calls to just about everyone in her contact list, as well as 911. I got home, and the dialogue proceeded as follows:
Mother-in-law, lying on couch: "Hey, cutie!"
Me: "Where's Glennda?"
Glennda bursts in: "Where have you been!!?!?"
Mother-in-law: "Someone help me up, I gotta pee."
I was in big trouble at first, and my wife had that look in her eye that makes husbands immediately stop talking and start indiscriminately cleaning random things around the house. But once she found out that I was in fact alive, and that it was my phone's fault for not ringing, she cooled off and just wanted a hug. But, you guys, this is just one more reason why I need an iPhone 4 as soon as possible. I'm jus' sayin'.
So what does this have to do with anything? Nothing really, but there are some things that you just don't not blog about. This is one of them.
Well, I started this post at about 1:30 thinking that I could finish it by 2, and keep with the theme of the post, but here we are at 3:43 and I've had to wake myself up about 87 times during the course of writing this post, and I'm pretty sure I have the impression of my laptop keyboard plastered across my face. So that was my week. How was yours?
Good night.
-R.
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