I am an All-Terrain Vehicle

I am an all-terrain vehicle. I go where no bike, no truck, no self-respecting SUV can go.

I climb steps, tiptoe down slopes, jump over creeks. I step easily over cracks in the sidewalk, blaze through undergrowth in the backwoods, breeze with grace over grass.

I compute the location of obstacles and avoid them, follow bends in the road, step down at curbs.

No robot, no computer, no oil-fueled wheel-restricted vehicle, can do what I do so effortlessly.

Gay Project Gets Going

When I am working on a project, I focus. It consumes me--my time, my energy, and my concentration--until its completion.

I've started collecting data for my independent research project, and now it's real. The key was in the ignition before, but now sparks have been released and I'm peeling out, full throttle.

Yes. One subject down, fifty-five to go.

Let's Teach Old Lies!

Conservatives want to take university education backward, proposing Western-centric curriculum based on the classics and the "triumphs" of America's history.

Financial backers of the initiative believe that universities have been corrupted by upsetting liberal ideas such as multiculturalism and America's history of oppression.

In institutions structured around the concept that it's all about You--your choices, your interests, your talents, your career--a focus on the rest of the world provides some balance. I consider it unfortunate that only the Honors section of Humanities here at Aquinas incorporates a variety of non-Western literature. College should broaden one's perspective, not narrow it.

Universities shouldn't be about spoon-feeding students an ideology--conservative, liberal, or otherwise. My favorite class at Aquinas so far has been Doc Durham's "World in Crisis," an intro to international relations I took during my first semester here. Although Doc's views are evident during his lectures through the material he selects, the books he assigns, and the direction in which he steers discussion, his most important lesson to students is to think critically. He challenges students to question everything he says and to research their own views.

To me, that's more education than any reading list can offer.

(more info in today's edition of the Press or at the NY Times online)

Big O Overload

If you haven't been to Big O's on Ottawa downtown, get on the bus or hop on your bike (or, if you must, turn on your car) and go! It's a laidback local place in a cool spot, set a little below the street in a restored meat-packing building that was part of original Grand Rapids.

And when you go, get the breadsticks.

But don't eat too many. After 3.5 cheese-filled breadsticks plus 2 pieces of four-cheese pizza with garlic plus 1 brownie a la mode, my gut took revenge.

Ohhh, it was worth it!

Donate Your Life to Science...

Can one truly love the sinner and hate the sin? Is there a difference between a gay guy and the gay lifestyle?

Want to help me find out?

Donate 20 minutes of your life to the cause...it's pain-free, I promise! I'm studying the relationship between religious personality and attitudes towards homosexuality.

Here's what you'd do: Brave the AB Dungeon (aka basement) and come on out to our current psych lab, which may look like a maintenance closet, because that's mainly what it's being used for. Then complete a survey and a computerized matching task. Presto: science. Count it as volunteer hours or chalk it up to karma.

If you're interested in helping out, nab me before or after class sometime next week. Both staff and students are welcome, espcially those who value faith/religion/spirituality.

If you want to hear the results, stay tuned in December.

Naughty Puppets

I'm going to see Avenue Q at DeVos tonight. I heard from a friend that some of the jokes have fizzled like damp fireworks over a conservative West Michigan crowd.

Maybe they should install some canned laughter in the back...or offer free tickets to the college crowd. Yeah. That's a marketing stragety I could go for.

School is a snake eating its tail

The education process sometimes feels...might I say...repetetive. I'm stuck in this cycle of beginnings and endings, which are never really endings afterall. I graduate from kindergarten, eighth grade, high school, et cetera, only to re-enroll and start all over again come August.

I started my college search early, investigating options as a 9th grader (although Aquinas never crossed my mind until senior year, and even then, it was an unlikely pick). But still, my search was finished by that November. By then, I never wanted to see another college brochure, take another standardized test, or list my volunteer activities on one more form.

Now, it's starting all over again.

Float

My motivation has fizzled into apathy. I have been pressing ahead, getting up at 8am on Saturdays to read textbooks and churn out poetry before walking to work for 8 hours of folding laundry, washing bodies, serving casseroles, and passing pills.

I am running out of steam, and it's only September. I'm a sprinter. I don't run marathons.

And why use my legs? I'd rather float. I'll dream my way from class to class. I'll be a dream.
I'm growing thin around the edges, fuzzy, out of focus, and soon you won't see me.

I'll be the memory of sleep. The warm-bread smell of sun. The lazy breath of wind.

I'll let the end of summer soak me up, and when it leaves this week, I'll go with it, wherever the gone things go: the mysterious way of lost socks, unspoken words, and faded days.

My Pastor's Name is Sigur Ros

I believe that church should be based in community. I don't like traditional church hierarchy. I don't think it's healthy for a faith group to be represented by a single person: Pastor, Priest, Head Honcho, etc. Even trendy "Preaching Teams" create an us/them mentality. Not only is this divide disempowering, it breeds stagnancy. Some people are the spoon feeders and the rest of us consume.

So why was I so unnerved last night when, at my church, no Head Honcho stood up to deliver a neat, compact "Message"?

The evening's food for thought was far from concrete. Instead of getting answers, we got questions. A bunch of them. From a bunch of different voices.

On top of that, we soaked up a music video from Sigur Ros, the band with their own beautiful and mysterious language. Talk about ambiguity.

At first it was like being thrown into the deep end without my swimmies.

But after letting this radical new concept nibble gently away at the tradition to which I subconsciously cling, I like the idea. Church isn't about one guy (or gal, if your church is that daring) handing out answers.

It's all of us, together, on a great and frightening quest.

Inventory

Living Situation: Benincasa, House of Discernment

Name: Of Italian origin. Literally "house of welcome." The surname of St. Catherine of Siena, Dominican Saint.

Location: -Marywood Campus, home of the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters
-Aquinata Hall, former nursing home for elderly nuns, connected to other Marywood buildings by a series of underground tunnels
-Fort Benincasa, a 10-bdrm hallway in Aquinata with magnetic locking doors. Keys necessary both to enter and to exit. Includes two lockable suites for psychiatric patients and a pharmacy where we store our Hamburger Helper and Cream of Broccoli soup.

Residents: 2 and 1/2 nuns:
-one fan of basketball, beer, and free software downloads from the internet,
recently relocated to Goshen, Indiana to teach at a Mennonite College
-one bubbly and highly political Obama supporter who enjoys camping, Skip Bo, and
talking to strangers
-one enigma who has moved in rugs and a dust-covered keyboard but not yet her
body

1 Aquinas Alum, currently enrolled at U of M online, who loves to bike and hates all social interaction
1 non-Catholic Aquinas student, figuring out what in the world to do with her life
1 fiber optic angel named Angelica

Community Activities: Praying in our La-Z-Boy recliners, eating blueberry pancakes, biking around Reed's Lake, stealing tomatoes, bowling in the hallway, watching SNL.

Mission Statement: Women will one day rule the world!

A Soul of Words

In my History of Psych class, we've been reading about early science-philosophers who searched to find a physis: the element which composes life.

Heraclitus said fire. Thales said water. Hippocrates described four humors. Democritus proposed the atom.

But I think Jaume Plensa, contemporary Spanish sculptor whose work is displayed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens, is the closest.

What is life?

Words.

OBSESSION

Mysterious Clarion Fund drops undisclosed amount of cash to insert hate/scare DVD in over 70 papers nationwide. Bloggers have been searching the net for info on the Clarion Fund, since they provide incredibly little on their website.

I finally got around to watching this feature-length film delivered with the GR Press last week. Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West pretends to be a balanced, educational look at terrorism throughout the world, voicing disclaimers that most Muslims are peaceful people and even including Islamic spokespeople in the video.

However, the voice-over does little to deter the psychological effect of the movie, which constantly juxtaposes images of ordinary Muslims at prayer with seething crowds of radical extremists burning American flags or blowing up buildings. (The majority of this footage, by the way, is dated after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003).

Like all propaganda, Obsession encourages suspicion and fear. One "expert" in the movie warned that it is difficult to know exactly how many Muslims hold anti-American beliefs. With billions of Muslims worldwide, it is surely a dangerous number.

In a particularly revealing line in the movie, Itamar Marcus of the Palestinian Media Watch states, "[T]he purpose of the Islamists' propaganda is to make the people angry, fearful against the West, to be willing to fight them."

Obsession eerily mirrors this intention.

Author Steve Almond: Just a guy

So today I met the Candy Guy and he signed my book.

For a comedian of sorts, sections of Steve Almond's writing can be downright depressing. Black moods of loneliness and self-loathing seep in between zany descriptions and politically-packed zingers.

He managed to be just as depressing in person as he is on paper.

But at least he's honest.

Not all writers are willing to enumerate their countless rejections by magazines and book publishers. Not all human beings are willing to admit that they have been confused or depressed or lonely in long stretches.

I think that's what's attractive about Almond. He holds nothing back, or at least he convinces his audience he's letting it all hang out. He tells all, even what we didn't ask to know, as the title of his latest collection of short stories, (Not That You Asked), acknowledges. He exposes himself for our benefit. His brutal introspection dredges up questions we've avoided facing.

Maybe he's a little egocentric. Maybe he's arrogant. Perhaps it is true that he called his students at Boston College names like "whore" and "goatf*cker"...before he quit teaching in protest of Condoleeza Rice's recent guest appearance at the school.

(As an interesting sidenote, while he was teaching, he offered extra credit to students who gave him mix CDs... Rob, what is it with writing profs bribing students for music?)

We like to think that writers are quirky and eccentric, infinitely more interesting than ourselves. And maybe some of them are. But they're real people too.

Yeah, Steve Almond is a published writer (which, for unpublished writers, is pretty big stuff). But maybe he's just a guy. Some guy who started as a journalist at a paper in Texas, who writes because he likes it. Somebody who spends twelve hours a day staring at a blank screen or writing bad sentences before he writes something good.

You could do that.

[See Steve Almond read tonight at 7:30 in the Wege Ballroom.
Visit his website here.]

Hurricane: A Hard Birth

Hidden in the woods, a creek presses against its banks. It swells like a pregnant woman: ankles puffed up like balloons, veins ready to burst. The earth tosses back damp hair, grits her teeth. Water pushes up from underground to meet the sky, bursts over dams, rushes forth from every corner, swirling in muddy eddies of meconium and blood.

In Cuba, the sea rises to swallow a wooden house. In Texas, the highway disappears. That long black scar in the earth is erased, smoothed out into a gray field of tree limbs, guard rails, and mud. In Michigan, two men paddle through roads turned to rivers, canoe slipping smoothly beneath a red light. In India, the earth is a lotus flower floating on the sea, constantly created and destroyed.

We have tumbled out naked and dazed, tossed headfirst into the blinding sun. It is quiet now. Blinking, we hug our cold, bloody bodies and long for home.

Hello

(She said hello. I said hi first, not slowing, not stopping, to warn her I was coming down the steep stair hill. She was halfway up and halfway down, her back to me, bleached blonde hair hunched down, cigarette pointing out like an arrow.)

"Hi," I say, and she looks up as I march down the steps, an object in motion.

"Hello," she says as I pass. "How are you?"

"Good, thanks." No time for reciprocal small talk. I've got the beat. There's a song playing in my head and my feet stomp out, dance out, stride out the beat. Past the playground, past the cars, past the sticky smashed pears rotting on the sidewalk, past the lady smoking on the steps.

"You scared me," she calls, not giving up. "I thought you were a big squirrel."

She lets out a little burst of nicotine-charged laughter, quick and bunchy. I laugh too, without looking back. I imagine her sucking a little on her cigarette and peering at me as I charge away. There's music in my head and my feet must follow. Tap, tap, tap down the steps, breaking into long strides when I hit the bottom.

She laughs.

"A very tall squirrel at that!"

Moving Day

It's back through the tunnels to the Fort tonight. No longer will I be forced to live in luxury. Tomorrow, I'll have to cook again. Rats.

Sister Nancy, founder of AQ Women Studies program

Lunch with the nuns--a cafeteria.

Sr. Theresa: I taught kindergarten and then I was a school principal. I just retired.
Sr. Mary Rosaire: I taught French and Spanish for fifty years.
Kyla: Wow.
Sr. Mary Rosaire: Nancy, did you teach language?
Sr. Nancy (hard of hearing): What?
Sr. Theresa (louder): Did you teach language?
Sr. Nancy: No.
I taught bullshit.

Mock your socks off!

It's easy for documentaries, especially those aiming for social commentary, to get over-the-top. Let's face it: Al Gore's animated polar bears, Michael Moore's dramatic vignettes, the invasive footage in Jesus Camp...sometimes it's just hard to take seriously.

So why not make it intentional? I loved the "mocumentary" A Day Without a Mexican. Its melodramatic details, from the pink fog cutting off California to the dripping water faucet showing the passage of time, set a hilarious tone. Its characters, dressed to the hilt in stereotypes, aren't necessarily believable. But the movie still manages to make a point.

The statistics sprinkled throughout Without A Mexican caught my attention without seeming invasive. The gears in my head were able to turn while I was still laughing.

The next time Al Gore makes a movie, maybe he should "mock it."

Since when is being crippled an advantage?

Oscar Pistorius of South Africa--aka "Blade Runner"--was banned from the Olympic Games in January his prosthetic legs were deemed an "unfair advantage". The decision was overturned in May, but Pisotorius didn't qualify for the 400 race.

However, Pistorius is competing in the Paralympics, which last until the 17th. He won the 100 meter Gold Medal this week.

In which I romance a piano

There are pianos in my life and everything is beautiful.

I finally got up the courage to try the mahogany Baby Grand in the Health Center lobby. It had a warm, familiar sound, the way mahogany should--not polished and glitzy like those gleaming black Yamahas. I played into the quiet sunshine and life continued as usual, as if I were in my own living room, as if wanderers sat down to pick out Schubert and Debussy all the time.

When I let go of the pedal and released the last chord back into the warm wood of the piano, the quiet reabsorbed me, a little more alive.

An Archaic Analogy

Writing poetry is like shooting a roll of film. It's great if two or three turn out.

After the Beep

If friends have to schedule appointments to talk, is it possible I'm too busy? If you'd like to offer input, I'd appreciate it: Please leave a message after the beep.

Reality TV Gets Real

Thought geese flew in gaggles? Think again. Those V-formations are really gangs. Today I saw two gangs of geese face off on the Health Center lawn. Discovery Channel met Reno 911 out the picture window when two huge groups of geese swooped in and got vicious. A couple of cops (gobble gobble) came out of the woods and tried to break it up, but they were only brave enough to pace around the perimeter and thrust a few threatening head-bobs in the direction of the melee. I had to leave for class before I learned who claimed Southside Marywood.

Small Town Grudge

How do you tell a sweet old Dominican nun that her nephew is the Antichrist? This is the kid who ridiculed my newly acquired driving skills on an 8-hr trip to Canada, pawed through my backpack, and told my friends I was a loser. He was my little brother's best friend from 5th to 8th grade, but they parted ways in high school at about the same time when a hate club for the highly conservative, bigoted sleazeball began to form. The club still exists as a Facebook group, but its members have dispersed from our small town and have little reason to remain an official operation except as revenge for bitter memories. I, on the other hand, must now face the fact that he lurks in the hallways of my small, small college. When Sister asked if I knew him, I nodded, gritted my teeth, and smiled. Thank God he's not a psychologist or a writer.

You know you’re in West Michigan when…

Celebration on the Grand stayed dry last night, and another year of impressive fireworks exploded over the river on schedule. We camped out on the bridge early and were joined by a mob of college students, bubbly fresh-people on their first downtown outing. I listened to their giddy attempts to impress each other with false confidence, straining to appear interesting. The opposite-sex pairs were especially amusing. One girl talked animatedly to her male neighbor about the fascinating aspects of pyrotechnics, who agreed emphatically with everything she said. Later, she related the pacing of the fireworks display to the elements of a Christian Reformed church service. After a particularly impressive series of fireworks—a Grand Finale-esque moment towards the beginning of the event—she would squeal, “That was the offertory!” or “Ooh, the Special Music!”

I won’t name the college they had plastered on their persons (not only on t-shirts, but also written in their blonde ponytails and hip cross necklaces). If you’re from West Michigan, you can probably guess.

Where's the hermit hut?

The Marywood Health Center isn’t quite my Home Sweet Home, but I have to admit, it’s a pretty sweet setup. These blue-hair nuns have got it pretty good: high ceilings, huge windows, and finger-licking food. There’s even a whirlpool tub next door to my bedroom, which is enormous, by the way. I feel like I’m in a hotel. This isn’t exactly helpful on my journey to asceticism.

Fake Nun Gathers Bad Karma

There's a priest in my bed! Or there will be, for the next 11 days. The Fort is packing up and relocating to accomodate for a 10-priest retreat. I can't say I'm celebrating the move, which is why I'm not sure I could ever be a Real Nun. Or a successful Hindu. I'm stuck in samsara, unable to relinquish my worldly possessions, even if those are only a desk, a closet, a dresser, and a sink--the tiny space I've called mine for a whopping two weeks. How American.

Tempting the Fates

Campus Safety is cracking down on parking. Or buffing up its image, anyway. Maybe all the new signage ("ALL VEHICLES MUST BE REGISTERED"..."THIS LOT REQUIRES A PERMIT"..."FACULTY ONLY") is meant to convince students they're getting their money's worth on parking permits.

Something I don't have.

I park my car at the commuter lot once or twice a week, so getting a permit wouldn't even cost me anything. I'm just lazy. Every week I expect to see a slip of paper fluttering from my windshield. 10 bucks, I think. No biggie.

But today when I saw Officer Tom's bald head and bristling beard barring Wednesday-nighters from the faculty lot, I thought again.

Maybe I should get one of those.

But Where Have All the Fritos Gone?

I don't typically buy food from vending machines. But recently on a rare binge, I fed a dollar into the machine on the newly renovated 2nd floor of AB. I was hungry between a cancelled class and the long stretch before dinner, and cheap gratification caught my eye.

Scanning the rows of Snickers and Kit Kats, something else caught my eye too--a bag of "Better Made" corn chips. A Frito by any other name still has the same greasy crunch, and with only three ingredients (corn, oil, salt), how much could an off-brand screw it up? So I chanced it on the unfamiliar yellow bag.

It turns out "Better Made" is made better in Detroit. From what I gather, the company is a non-conglomerate, and it claims to use Michigan potatoes during the 8 months of the year that they're in season. I wonder if someone made a deliberate choice to stock AQ's snack supply with more friendly food, or if Better Made filled a slot that would have otherwise required an expensive contract or overhead with a Big Brand.

I'll take them over Fritos any day!

Hike Naked, It Adds Color to Your Cheeks

Who says mother-daughter bonding involves shopping sprees or pedicures? My mom and I caught up on a backpacking trip, comparing the capabilities of our Swiss Army knives and reveling in my sweet new stove: The Raptor. Weighing in at a whopping 5 ounces, the stove is smaller than a digital camera and fits in the palm of my hand. Unfold its metal claws and the Raptor is born--simple, sharp, and ready to boil water in 4 minutes flat. $55 at Apex Outdoor Gear, a small independent store on 29th.

We hiked the Manistee River Trail and camped between the river and a creek. The trail was moderately challenging and offered varied terrain and a good view of the river. The only downside was the high river traffic--I respect those who canoe and kayak, but tubers are, indisputably, idiots.

It was good to spend a couple days letting my body breathe, sweat, and shit naturally. Communication was face-to-face and not by phone. Now I'm back to civilization with sore hamstrings and little regret for taking a long hot shower. One foot out and one foot in is fine with me.