memories

My brother emailed me with a list of hilarious events commemorating my birthing (31 events, to be precise). Some of the high/lowlights (Ed's words in quotes, mine in parens)

1) "Tonka Truck incident" (Basically, I threw one of those hard plastic tires off of a Tonka truck at my brother. When he was 4. I was 11. Also, I hit him in the forehead. From about 4 feet away.)

5) "I'm sure you clearly and can resentfully recall me accidentally throwing a baseball at your face from ten feet away. 'Tanks foh bweaking mah teeth.'"

7) "I can’t recall which Los Angeles apartment we lived in during this period, but among all of the sports posters we used to have, I smothered James Worthy with all of my boogers! Poor James Worthy. Oh yeah, and sorry about that.

8) "Foam baseball" - Line drive hit above the pitchers hips would be a double, the Venetian blind would be a triple, and the little space between the blind and the ceiling would be a homerun. Grounders and the ceiling would be automatic outs. In our Buffalo Grove home, we got a little more sophisticated with taping a sheet of paper on the wall to denote the strike zone. We passed countless hours having fun which cultivated our love for the game of baseball. (this was inside, by the way)

20) "Hanging out with Todd Watermann and eating at 'the Duck.'"

22) "Watching the Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment every week."

25) "Toronto World Youth Day 2002. What an awesome pilgrimage. This experience was the beginning of my conversion and desire for an adult faith. It was my first exposure to youth across the country who were normal and yet on fire for the faith!... Meeting these Catholic youth made me realize how little I knew about my faith and the desire to know more. It was great to be able to share this with you and it turned out to be our sole pilgrimage together."

29) "Your trinity of hamstring injuries. Among Mark’s life lowlights."

30) "The discovery of you being 208 lbs on the scale. 'Taanks foohhh bweaakkiing mah scale.'" (Thanks to the all-stress, no-sleep diet, I am now a svelte 195 again.)

Nothing says love like sharing life together, certainly.

national novel writing month

is november 1-30. Just a little excerpt from the site to explain what the deal is:

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

And all of that warms the cockles of this writing teacher's heart.

The awkward acronym is crap, though.

cinematique

Didn't get to see Jesse James yet, but indulged in some quality movie time with the boringly-named but awesomely directed Michael Clayton:



I realize when I watch movies like this, that I have a tendency of getting sucked in completely by the story, so I lose my third-person position of objectivity to analyze the story. Which left me thinking, "wait, so is he in the clear with his law firm?" when I left the theater. But, whatever. Some hard-earned self-reward at the end of a long day. I've found that a good way to get through the week (aside from lots of prayer and abandoning the outcome to God) is to have little rewards on the weekend. Like, friends coming in from out of town in the next few weekends, or movies, or watching football. Even though I'm tired, just catching up on sleep isn't enough to rejuvenate me; I need something for my mind to chew on that's not work-related.