"the hobo's watch stopped at five o'clock..."

I've had this old Drivin' and Cryin' song stuck in my head the past couple of days. Any of you that grew up in the deep south in the early 90's may remember Drivin' and Cryin' - a straightforward folk/rock band from Atlanta most famous for it's alt country (when alt country was new) tune "Straight to Hell." Or maybe you remember that crunchy guitar riff from "Honeysuckle Blue," or the title track from the album "Fly Me Courageous." Or maybe you've never heard of them at all.

"Let's Go Dancing" has been my song du jour recently, though I can only play it in my head because I have no idea where the actual CD has run off to. I looked the album up on iTunes and was surprised to find that the album release date was January 3, 1991. That's fifteen years ago this month. I admit that I am a little disturbed by this fact. More time has passed since the release of this album than the amount of time between my birth and this album's release. So I'm riding a wave of nostalgia for Kevn Kinney's bad teeth, for Buren Fowler's (even worse) 90's rocker hair, for strumming and singing along to "Let's Go Dancing," for my childhood and for the now-diminished quality of my once-pristine hearing.

amadeus

As an aside, how could I forget to mention that today is Mozart's 250th birthday??? Take a few minutes today to listen to one of the most brilliant composers of Western music. I recommend the Laudate Dominum from the Solemn Vespers...

it's all about the music...and the beer

This weekend is the Diocesan Council for the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. The Diocese of the Virginia is the largest Episcopal Diocese in the country, and basically this is a big meeting of over 800 priests and lay delegates from the diocese who get together and argue about whether they do or do not agree with the appointment of Gene Robinson (the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire) two and a half years ago. They discuss other stuff, too...but mostly people are either still pissed about the gay issue or they're not.

Anyway. St. James's choirs are singing for the Council's Eucharist service tonight, which is kind of cool - of the hundreds of churches in the diocese, we get to do the music: a half-hour prelude of bluegrass, a Youth Choir anthem for the Offertory, and anthems by the Parish Choir during communion.

So that's my church-nerd news for the weekend. I'm headed down to the Richmond Convention Center shortly to get set up. What I'm really looking forward to is the beer at Capital Ale House after the service...

i can see clearly now

New glasses finally got here. I'm pretty happy with them. Any thoughts?

exercises in futility

It's an incredibly beautiful day in Richmond, one of those out-of-place January days where the temperature is in the mid-60s and you can sit outside without a coat. Even better, today is my day off.

The huge irony is that I'm stuck sitting on my ass at home. My new dining room table (for which I've been waiting for two weeks) was scheduled for delivery today between 11:00 and 2:00. Sure enough, the truck showed up with my table at 1:30...with absolutely NO hardware to attach the legs. The table now sitting upside down on my dining room floor while I wait for the warehouse to call me and tell me when they're going to come by later this afternoon to finish putting it together.

While I'm waiting, I thought I should use my time wisely and check to see why the new eyeglasses I ordered two weeks ago had not arrived yet, either (they're coming from a frame shop in Nashville). So I called SEE and was put on hold for a few minutes before explaining my dilemma to the girl who answered. The conversation went something like this:

CLUELESS GIRL: "SEE. Can you hold?"
ME: "Sure."

(3 minutes on hold)

CLUELESS GIRL: "How can I help you?"
ME: "Yeah, I ordered some glasses on the 5th, just wanted to check on the status of..."
CLUELESS GIRL: "Name?"
ME: "Edwards."
CLUELESS GIRL: "Hold on."

(2 minutes on hold)

CLUELESS GIRL: "They're ready, you can come in and pick them up anytime."
ME: "Uh...I live in Richmond Virginia. They were supposed to ship them to me."
(pause)
CLUELESS GIRL: "Hold on."

(3 minutes on hold)

CLUELESS GIRL: "Yep, you're right. They shipped on the 11th."
ME: "OK...well, today's the 20th and they're not here. I'm just trying to figure out where they are."
(pause)
CLUELESS GIRL: "Hold on."

(5 minutes on hold)

NEW CLUELESS DUDE: "Hello?"
ME: "Um, hello?"
NEW CLUELESS DUDE: "What's your first name?"
ME: "Chris."
NEW CLUELESS DUDE: "Chris."
(pause)
"Hold on."

(30 seconds on hold, probably just long enough for this new guy to curse my name or laugh at my misfortune)

NEW CLUELESS DUDE: "Um...Chris. Can we call you back in a minute, Chris?"
ME: "Sure."
NEW CLUELESS DUDE: "Great. Call you right back."
ME: "Do you have my number??"
(pause)
NEW CLUELESS DUDE: "Oh. Um...can you give it to us real quick?"

That was about 30 minutes ago.

A table that can't hold its legs, a pair of glasses trapped in a mail package misplaced in some Post Office, and a phone that sits quietly, patiently, waiting for someone to make it ring. But alas: the phone stays quiet, the table keeps lying there, and the clock is counting down the remaining hours (minutes!) of this beautiful sunny afternoon anomaly.

feeling good...maybe too good?

Despite the fact that I was up at 6:00 AM again this morning, this has been a stellar day.

After a whole lot of talk and days of "gym shame" (guilt over not going), I finally made it to the Y for the first time in several weeks. OK, months. Whatever. I've been living through most of the winter thus far with that tired, sugar-hangover feeling all day...but for today, at least, I feel good.

Anyway, my ridiculous sister calls after I get home from the gym, and she can't even talk she's laughing so hard. She's laughing because she's been taking retarded-looking pictures of herself on her iMac (she has one just like mine). Consequently, she thinks she's hysterically funny...which, in fact, she is. Once I see said retarded photos, I too am laughing so hard I'm nearly crying. Inspired, I ask her how I can join in the retarded-image fun...

So behold, unbelievers - see the fruits of our embarassingly juvenile labors...

global warming and stuff

Another fantastically funny video clip...but frighteningly close to reality, perhaps?

http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1147

up before the sun

Did you know that it's still COMPLETELY dark at 6:15 in the morning? I mean, only the faintest hint of gray on the horizon. Why didn't someone warn me? It was only just starting to get pink and orange along the skyline when I walked into the church this morning at 7:00 to cook breakfast for a young adult men's Bible study that's meeting on Tuesday mornings this month. It was a good morning, but I am now experiencing complete mental incapacitation. I feel utterly "off" and it's not even noon yet. Wait...it's not even 11:00 yet. Ouch.

I tried to write a post yesterday because I actually had something legitimate to write about (none of this whining nonsense about getting up too early). But for various reasons, I ended up staring at a blank screen for too long and had to get on with other things. So I'll save it for later, as I feel incapable of writing anything meaningful in this mental state.

not an auspicious beginning

This morning I played mandolin on the bluegrass tune "Angel Band" for a funeral at the church. The service was for a parishioner who was 41 years old - he died New Years Eve day when he had a heart attack while biking a few blocks from his home. It turns out he was also a W&L guy, class of '86. I didn't know him or his wife or his two little girls, but as I listened to his friends eulogize him from the lectern, I started thinking about all those W&L guys I just spent New Years with. It was far too easy to picture any one of the six of us up there telling similar stories about the good times we had watching football, drinking beer, talking about girls, being in each others weddings.

So far 2006 has brought with it a tone of palpable darkness, at least in this first week: on top of this recent death and funeral, Richmond was stunned by the unspeakably horrific murder of an entire family in their Southside home on New Years Day. In broad daylight, no less. Generally speaking, I am eternally optimistic in spite of my occasional sarcasm. I still feel blessed to be clothed, fed, healthy, and safe. But this year seems to have been born under a bad sign - it isn't the kind of "new beginning" one generally associates with the New Year. But perhaps that's not such a bad thing, as it reminds us that every day can be the start of a new year. Regardless, I can only hope that it will get better soon.

save it for later

My dog, Scout, was recently given a new bone by Colin. For some reason, Scout has decided that she needs to bury the bone in the backyard every day and retrieve it later in the evening...only to carry it around the house for a while before re-burying it. In and of itself, this is not a problem (except the other night when I found the bone "buried" under my pillow) - it's just curious. She has always been something of a digger, but it's generally random and without purpose. And she certainly has never bothered to fill any of the holes she gouged in the landscape before this past week. I laughed at her neurotic bone-hiding and told her - as if she could understand me - that she was being a little bit ridiculous.

Meanwhile, The Great House Cleanup of Late 2005 has now turned into The Great House Rearrangement of 2006. I'm trying to get myself and my surroundings as clean and organized as possible, moving furniture and throwing things away. I stood in the doorway of my closet staring at piles of clothes, trinkets, papers, hats, belts, shoes, posters, books, and an assortment of other junk, realizing with horrific irony that I am worse than my dog. These things, these objects, are my bones. My closets, cabinets and basement are the holes in the backyard, and I bury as much crap as possible in them...only to dig them out every few months or years just to make sure they're still there before stuffing them, slightly readjusted (read: "organized"), back into their hiding places. Unlike Scout, instead of holding on to one object that I cherish, hide, and rediscover, I have about 500.

I guess I shouldn't have given the dog such a hard time. You know - stones, glass houses, and all that.

resolved not to resolve

I can only think of two times in the past year that I've gotten far too drunk and stayed up past 4:00 AM: one was at Hudson's wedding in October. The other was New Years Eve in Nashville. Somehow this occurence only seems to rear its ugly head when I'm hanging out with those punk W&L friends of mine. We decide to relive our frat-tastic glory days, fall painfully short, and reap the benefits of a magnificent hangover the following morning. Or afternoon. Whatever.

In any case...yesterday's borderline retardation aside, it was a good time. Half the group had to leave mid-day on the 1st, but the last five standing (the Farringers, the Smiths, and I) had some great sushi last night. And we went to see Capote. I learned - for about the 5th time - that Philip Seymour Hoffman is ridiculously talented. I also learned that paying $2.75 in exact change for Mini Tarts because I'm too lazy and cheap to break a $20 for the $3.75 bite-sized ball-shaped 3 Musketeers is a terrible idea, because Mini Tarts have the flavor and consistency of chewable Flintstones vitamins.

So I thought about writing some sort of "year in review" post, or coming up with a resolution or two, but here's the thing: I think I've stopped seeing things in terms of open-and-closed years...there's just too much backstory that needs telling before "A Look At 2005," and too many loose ends that wouldn't get tied up. My favorite little camper (ok, she is now an old woman, but whatever) said it best in her Dec. 30th post - check out paragraph four...and please marvel at the new design while you're at it!

And as for "resolutions," I never keep them anyway. At least not the ridiculously unrealistic ones like, "I WILL start going to the gym four times a week at 7:00 in the morning!" Because that's just flat out not going to happen. I'm thinking of more general things, like "Eat healthier." This wouldn't be too much of a stretch, as cutting out the multiple daily pieces of chocolate would go a long way. Or maybe "Take more time to meditate," or "Read more." It doesn't have to be every day, just a general trend toward more goodness. No idea if that will work any beter, but I'm going to give it a shot.

"quiet in the theater or it's gonna get tragic..."

Wow, please tell me you've seen this - and if you haven't, watch it about 5 times. Brilliant.

SNL - "Lazy Sunday" (The Chronicles of Narnia rap)

one week down, a few months to go

I realize it has only officially been winter for one week. Still, in these quiet days between Christmas and New Year's, when it's supposed to be cold and dark (at least to my way of thinking), there's this little bit of spring piercing through the veil of winter. It was 61 degrees today in Richmond. There's something that happens when the temperature reaches the high 50's and low 60's that allows the air to regain a distinct scent. I stepped out onto the fire escape outside my office and leaned around the corner of the building, and I swear I could smell the magnolia tree a hundred feet away.

I'm going to cut short this uber-sensitive post before sappy violins start playing in the background...but I always look forward to the end of winter when everything thaws and the world is reborn. I just wanted to send a little reminder to all those who feel renewed and uplifted by the advent of spring that it will arrive eventually, even when we're certain it won't amidst 4 inches of snow and ice in mid-February. Until then, we can enjoy the anomaly of these misplaced warm days while they last.

on the second day of christmas

I have to say, it's been a pretty fun Christmas.

For starters, I'm typing this post on my brand new iMac G5 computer (the one where the whole computer is contained within the 20" monitor). I'm pretty sure it's wrong for me to feel such affection for a piece of machinery...but it's so beautiful. It's like furniture. Or candy. Inexplicably, I just want to bite the corner of the screen...and I expect it to taste like cotton candy.

In the realm of "all things Christmas," the past couple of days have been great - despite the fact that we never actually got around to my mom's over-the-phone reading of "Twelve Bells for Santa" per our yearly tradition. It is, after all, my favorite Christmas book, and no one reads it like my mom. But Christmas Eve dinner at the Rawls's house was as fabulous as ever; the 5:00 Christmas Eve service saw an attendance of around 800; the Messiah was well-sung at 11:00; I slept late Christmas day and put together the work bench that I bought at Lowe's; had a second equally amazing Christmas dinner at the Whitmire's on Christmas afternoon and then joined them in going to see "Walk the Line." Which, by the way, is worth the price of admission - I have to admit, Joaquin and Reece can both sing.

Tonight was the annual Boxing Day dinner thrown by a choir friend, Vienna. It turned out that I was seated next to my friend Antonia, who is a fabulous person with an amazing voice and who, it turns out, is an equally good dancer. Of course, Julie and Antonia and I (all of Thursday Night Post-Choir Drinking infamy) were the last to leave and stood around in the freezing cold making juvenile (yet strangely hilarious) puns on the word "beaver" in the Country Club of Virginia parking lot until midnight.

In completely unrelated news, I finally found this trippy Muppet song that my buddy Joseph played for me my freshman year in college. I don't know why it's been on my mind lately or why I find it so ridiculously funny.

all quiet on the richmond front

With Christmas looming a couple of days away, things have been really busy and strangely quiet all at the same time. There's a lot going on in my day-to-day existence, but my little corner of Richmond seems to become more deserted by the hour. Colin and Nancy have both gone home for the next couple of weeks. Alyssa and Nate are out of town for the holidays. Erin has gone to Mexico for Christmas. In a way, it's helpful because it's cleared out all distraction so I can get some things accomplished: I had a dentist appointment today and then came home and spent a good bit of the afternoon cleaning the kitchen (specifically, scrubbing down the stove) before going to choir rehearsal. But even choir felt a little emptier than usual, with several people out of town for Christmas.

Included in my own goings-on this week were three events that I've been meaning to write about, but now it's kind of after-the-fact, so I'll just enumerate them briefly:
1. My friend Sarah's ordination to the priesthood on Monday night - great service (liturgically), terrible music. Anytime you take something as cool as Gregorian chant and try to turn it into something as cheesy as "praise music," disaster is bound to strike.
2. My existential crisis after killing a mouse. This is not the first time these two events have occurred in tandem.
3. A certain girl who will remain nameless used the word "wherewithal" in a phone conversation that we had yesterday (and did so effectively, I might add)...and being the vocabulary nerd that I am, I found it stunningly sexy. Is that weird? I don't know.

Song of the week: I'm too lazy and tired at the moment to find it and link to it, but if you have the means (or should I say "wherewithal") to get your hands on Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl" from her album Revival, then do so. For some reason, this song is sticking to me and won't leave me alone.

through the wardrobe

I went to go see "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" yesterday afternoon. I've been waiting for a decent live-action version of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia for years. The seven books in the series are my "desert island" books. I re-read them every few years, and each time I'm reminded how believable the characters are and how easy and fluid Lewis's writing style can be. Thankfully, the movie did not disappoint. Was it a mind-blowing film? No. But it was pretty great...and it made me nostalgic for the fantastic imagination of childhood as I watched the action on the screen and simultaneously remembered reading each part.

And besides...Tilda Swinton is pretty smokin' as the White Witch.

straight on til morning

It's well after 4:00 AM. I've got to go to sleep. However, there was one moment earlier in the night that was comical and surreal at the same time and thus deserves being on record. I somehow managed to smash my knee on the corner of my desk earlier today, and it caused a fairly serious pain (and subsequent limp) in my left leg. Luckily, a W&L friend, Sarah, is in town visiting tonight, and she just had her interview for her medical internship/residency at UVA earlier this afternoon. So there was a moment after dinner and before drinks at the Commercial Taphouse when I was sitting on the rear bumper of my car with the hatch open, both pants legs pulled up over my knees in the 28 degree weather with Sarah squatting on the pavement inspecting my patellae, pushing and prodding in an attempt to diagnose the seriousness of my retarded knee issue. With cars driving by and Colin watching from his own driver's seat, it was simultaneously a medically reassuring and realistically ridiculous moment.

I can't believe I have to work tomorrow. I mean today.

o ephemeral internet

So, I wrote the post below in order to share this bit of holiday humor passed on to me a couple of days ago...only to find that the link no longer exists. I'm going to leave the original post just in case the link is back up sometime in the near future...but O! Internet! With your fleeting humor, how you mock me...

***********************************************************

I can't decide if this is hilarious, tasteless, or both:

http://www.americanangst.com/dingfries.html

Watch the volume - you don't want the Burger King guy singing too loudly in your office.

what's drew got to do with it?

This has been a weekend of perpetual motion.

Friday was Soup Kitchen, coffee with a friend, numerous errands, and the much-anticipated choir Christmas party, where there was a surfeit of wassail, egg nog, and bad singing (ironic for a choir party, no?). Of course, the highlight of the aforementioned musical debacle was twofold: "Jingle Bells" sung in dog barks courtesy of Andrew, Anita, and myself, followed by the much anticipated debut of "Silent Night" in cat meows...in harmony. Wow, what a show! What a display! What...what...what the hell? Consummate nerd-dom, I tell you...and extreme self-indulgence.

I managed to get up Saturday morning and join the guys (and girl) of Oak Lane for a 9:00AM-to-noon set of acoustic music at Grove Avenue Coffee and Tea. Three hours of mandolin playing was a great warmup, but why stop there? I spent an hour or so afterward helping my friend Russell with some original recordings he's working on. Then more errand-running and failed attempts at productive Christmas shopping. Tack on a second weekend holiday party Saturday night (I mention it only to construct a facade of popularity) complete with bourbon and ginger and sundry baked goods, and I'd call it a pretty full day.

Today's marathon was brought to you by St. James's Episcopal Church - two services, 9th grade classroom painting/cleaning, and a trip to Williamsburg with the Youth Group...though the trip didn't actually happen because virtually no one showed up. So we played foosball and ate pizza instead. Productive? Not really. Fun anyway and easier than driving back and forth to Williamsburg? Of course.

In other news, I think I'm a little bit in love with Drew Barrymore. There are those who argue her awesomeness...but those people are stupid. More on this later, perhaps.

That's all I've got. It's going to be another crazy pre-Christmas week, so buckle up, buckle down, and stay warm, little campers.

hello? are you kidding me?

I reaffirmed for myself today how retarded I am on the phone...especially when trying to leave a message. I was calling someone (who will remain nameless for fear that she may one day read this blog) I'd met only once through a friend because I thought it might nice to get together for a drink or something later this week or next. Should be a simple, straightforward call, right? A no-brainer message? Nope. I turn it into an awkward, convoluted, bumbling, talking-too-fast, minute-long ordeal recorded for posterity on her answering machine. Possibly one of the lamest messages in the history of telecommunications. It's one of those moments when you hang up the phone, pause, acknowledge the welling sense of nausea in your stomach and think to yourself, "What the hell was that??"

Anyway, moving on. Arguably the most productive thing I did all day was to fill out this iTunes survey that a friend posted on MySpace. At least it makes me look like I have eclectic (and, I hope, reasonably good?) taste in music. For your edification, I'm including it below - feel free to comment with your own version of the survey.

How many songs: 2,785

Sort by song title:
First Song: 'Deed I Do by Diana Krall
Last Song: Zuiderzee Blues by Django Reinhardt

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Monologue - The Suckiest Water by Jeff Buckley (Live @ Sin-e, Disc 2) (0:08)
Longest Song: Vox Patris Caelestis, a choral piece by William Mundy (19:19)

Sort by album:
First Album: 1 by The Beatles
Last Album: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips

Top Five Most Played Songs:
1 I Have Seen by Zero 7
2 Ribcage by Elbow
3 Winding Wheel by Ryan Adams
4 Lover, You Should Have Come Over by Jeff Buckley
5 Landed by Ben Folds

First song that comes up on Shuffle:
Hell is Chrome by Wilco

Search:
"sex", how many songs come up? 2
"death", how many songs come up? 13
"love", how many songs come up? 112
"you", how many songs come up? 246