Simply put, the protagonist, a little boy named Kincaid, is getting scared because his mom left the house on account of a big fight with his dad one evening, and his dad bought a bunch of beer. So, Kincaid runs into the bathroom and starts praying an extra long, extra holy prayer “sticking ‘-eths’ on the end of words like ‘beggeth’ and ‘beseecheth’” and relating the entire night’s events to God. “And this is the trouble,” I told Him. “So if You would disappeareth the rest of Papa’s beers for me, Lord, I sure would appreciate it. I thank thee. Amen”

Kincaid finally leaves the bathroom, entering the living room with high expectations, only to find his Dad guzzling down a cold one. “I fired off another prayer…to let Jesus know that only a wise guy would think I was asking for the beers to disappear down Papa.”

Kincaid continues to have a conversation with God about not answering his prayer, and God replies to him with some funny remarks. “He started answering me in the head the way He does sometimes. He knew everything. Knew, for example, that I had Soap Mahoney’s lucky Bazooka [gum not gun] right there in my pocket and could easily have made a wish to disappear the beer on that. Feeling selfish, I admitted I was kind of hoping to save the lucky gum.” Kincaid continues to whine while God cheekily encourages him to use the lucky gum on his Dad. “‘What a friend I have in Jesus!’ I snapped right back.”

So his father procedes to get plastered, while Kincaid watches warily. However, to Kincaid’s surprise, his Dad doesn’t get belligerent; in fact, he becomes really funny, enjoyable, and fatherly. As his father later tucks him into bed,

“I shot off another sleepy prayer, just to forgive Jesus for not answering the prayer I’d prayed earlier. I suppose He knew all along how much beer Papa could hold. And who knows, maybe Papa had prayed himself. Maybe he’d asked Jesus to let him drink his fill in his own house in peace for once, and begged Him to ignore anybody who sent up messages to the contrary. Prayer is mysterious, and God is even worse. I don’t completely understand it yet.”

—-Duncan, David James, The Brothers K, (New York: Dial Press, 1992), 23-24.

I adore how this passage portrays both Kincaid and God. Here’s a little boy, already having conversations with God, already having frustration with God, and God responds with an outpouring of humor, a little mystery, and love. The kid’s outright honest with God, but He doesn’t seem to mind. He likes it. He likes teasing Kincaid about withholding his lucky Bazooka - but in the end blesses him more than Kincaid could have imagined. I didn’t mention it above for fear of being longwinded, but later in the night he has nightmares, and his Dad comes and sings him back asleep. The moment is magical for Kincaid - too much so for me to reiterate. But it reminds of God’s goodness and out-of-the-boxness and his tremendous ability to bring a healing laughter into tough situations.

God, You never cease to fascinate me, especially when everyday You are showing me more of the greatness of Your understanding, Your compassion, Your belly-laughing humor, Your individual attention and love to our individual quirks, and Your ability to heal human interaction. I see this passage from The Brothers K as a delightfully affectionate tribute to You.

Love,
Ander

NO ROOTS

“C’mon, tell me! What new life languages have you learned since you came to the university?” asked my English professor.

The language of God.
The language of Jesus.
The language of agape.

My classmates and I resist nervously. They are afraid to answer. I do not understand why. I look out the window and rivet my eyes on a silent seagull. I am afraid to answer. I understand perfectly why.

One Korean foreign exchange student finally breaks the awkwardness.

“I’ve had to learn how to relate to other people in English.”

Relating to God.
Relating to Jesus.

The Spirit squeezes my heart, trying to put active life into it, trying to connect it to my tongue.

The seagull perches on the windowsill, peering into the room. He is quiet and pensive instead of the making the usual raucous and annoying cries.

Only I can see it. Only I know the reason for its silence.

The moment passes and my heart loosens into its squishy place. Fear is my momentary god. All I can think of is Psalm 40:9.

“I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness
In the great assembly;
Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
O Lord, You Yourself know.
I have not hidden Your righteousness within
My heart; I have declared Your faithfulness
And Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness
And Your Truth from the great assembly.”

The tree outside perches on the window ledge, staring at me intently.

It nods. In agreement. One day, it shall clap out loud. Until then, obedient silence.

I look down at my leaves. They are falling.

The tree turns around, giving me a lingering farewell glance that seemed to say apologetically, “No roots?”

The last of my leaves are falling.

I can no longer be a tree.

One night I was having difficulty falling asleep. Normally, I fall asleep just fine (as long as the husband’s snores are muted), but since I had taken a nap from 5pm-7pm, I obviously wasn’t very tired. But I have this weird phobia about getting less than six hours of sleep per night. So I went to bed anyways around 11:30 since I had to wake up early for work the next morning.

After a swimming a few Olympic-length laps in the bed (which created a lovely trampoline sleeping experience for my husband), I decided that the physical exercise wasn’t helping, so I moved on to mental exercise: counting sheep. I’d heard it helped.

So I started preparing for this sheep-counting extravaganza. I told my mind to set up the scene. Grass, check. Hurdle check. White? No, red like the horse hurdles near the bike path. Double-barred? Yes. So far, the setup was going good. I gave it a good lookover before bringing the sheep in. But I found something wrong.

“Crap, Mind, the side posts of the hurdle are taller than the top bar. That shouldn’t be!” I complained to my Mind.

The hurdle didn’t change.

“Dangit mind, change it!”

Mind finally changes it.

“Ok,” I direct it. “Let’s move on to the sheep. I want—”

“But what about the weather?” Mind interrupts.

“What does it matter?” I reply.

“Well, you did say you wanted to set up the scene. How can you have a weatherless outdoor scene?” Mind interrogated.

I sigh, exasperated. “Clear skies and sunny then!” Now can we move on to the sheep?”

“Yes, boss,” Mind says cheekily.

“Ok the sheep. Geesh! I can’t believe we’ve already wasted ten minutes on setting up the scene. Ok, so little sheep #1 scampers up—”

“–Little??” protested Mind. “It would be a LAMB then, not a sheep.”

“Lamp, sheep, potato, potaughto - what the hell difference does it make in this circumstance Mind?”

“Well,” Mind said. “Obviously it DOES make a difference. One form of potato that you listed is spelled completely differently than the other. And, depending on the pronunciation of each, different deductions can be made about accent, dialect, etc, like whether the speaker is British or American! Huuuge difference. Likewise, the difference between a sheep and lamb matters in this scene.”

“How?!?” I asked with the greatest annoyance.

“A sheep is heavier than a lamb and thus would have more trouble scaling the height of the hurdle,” Mind replied condescendingly.

“First of all, watch your attitude Mind. Second, I’ve been told that counting SHEEP, not lambs, is what helps you fall asleep. So I want sheep! And just give it a pole if ya need to - let’em pole vault over the hurdle!”

Mind stared at me, incredulous. “Sheep? Pole-vault? I ca–(stutter) –I can’t begin to describe the technical difficulties involved in creating that image. It’s ridiculous and impossible!”

“Fine, just let it be a normal sheep then. Just use your friggin’ imagination to give it hops like Kobe Bryant or something. After all, you ARE my imagination. Oh, and while you’re at it, please make the sheep British. I want him to say potaughto, no potato.”

“Yes boss,” Mind replied, monotone. “But if it doesn’t work out, I told you so.”

And so the first sheep runs up to the hurdle. It stops. Stops! It glances around nervously and baas,

“Whaaaaat aaaaam I supoooosed to doooo?”

“Ander has instructed me to inform you that you are to jump over this hurdle,” says Mind.

The sheep replies in an astonished tone (and, remember - with a British accent.) “What?? This hurdle in front of me? Bloody impossible! Have you seen my stumpy legs? and my round middle? A dolphin can jump higher than me, and it is legless!”

“For heaven’s sake! Just jump it!” I thunder from the sky.

The sheep abruptly cowers at my stormy voice but recovers his dignity after a few seconds, no longer scared, and gives a snobbish glance upward toward the source of my voice.

“I will attempt to jump it only if you sign a contract stating you will pay for any injuries sustained in this endeavor,” he demanded.

A shout of frustration physically rushed to my vocal chords, but I thwarted it, remembering my sleeping husband beside me. I sighed, realizing I was never going to fall asleep. I returned my attention to the sheep, and muttered menacingly under my breath,

“Just DO it or I will ERASE your existence from my mind!”

The sheep cowered again, this time devoid of any retort. He backed up a few yards, gave a little squeal of fear, and started running for the hurdle. I watched in satisfaction, eager for the lovely sleep that was to come my way from the boring scene of jumping sheep. He gained more speed and lifted off the ground, front legs tucked in, head turned to the side with squinting eyes in trepidation of possible injury. His dismount was good; I was sure he would clear the hurdle with room to spare, and then CRRRUNNNKKK! The sheep smashed shoulder first into the top bar, completely knocking the entire hurdle down and slamming to the ground like a box that was too heavy to be carried.

A few minutes passed, and the sheep looked up at the sky in self-pitiable indignation. I wanted to smash another hurdle on top of him and make him the middle of a hurdle sandwich, but I withheld my malice. As best as possible. After all, he had just taken a bad fall. I didn’t want to appear heartless.

“Alright,” I said with resignation. “You can go. I will cover any chiropractic expenses that resulted from this accident.”

The sheep thanked me profusely (although I suspected its phonyness) and walked away, limping pathetically. He headed past the patch of tree shade in which sat my smirking Mind. As I shook my head disapprovingly at Mind and began to turn the scene black, I swear I saw Mind wink at the passing sheep. I sprang to give them a piece of my mind, but it was too late - they were gone and all was black.

Those bastards.

I think I fell asleep at 3am that night. I have never tried to count sheep since.

I mainly entitled this post “Beserk” because it rhymed with my original title: “A Day at Work.” And it is truly one of those rhymes that rests well with the soul because it is a synonorhyme. Haven’t heard of that word? Go look it up. Can’t find it? Come work a day at my job and you will.

Disclaimer: I am thankful for my job. But in a self-righteous sense. I SHOULD be thankful, considering the heavy rates of unemployment currently in the country. But in the reality of the selfish, lazy individual - me - I wake up every morning hoping I’m sick so I don’t have to go to work. But I have to go to work.

So, I drive to work, and as I park in front of the big dreary building wanting to leadbrake my head into the steering wheel, my oxygen supply gets carbon monoxonized by the six-hours-in-a-cubicle-monster. Short, clipped breathing begins.

I trudge up the stairs to work. There’s probably 25 total, but no matter how in shape I am, it always seems to add additional shortage to my breath. But maybe that’s the monoxonized air and not the stairs. Sometimes, I’m right along there with *Mildred,* the eighty-year-old whose antiquated voice and mundane comments have come to taste like a cool and refreshing ice cream treat amongst the dry tasteless quiet of the office, particulary chocolate ice milk, which, to my detriment, I have not tasted for numerous years due to my lac of lactose digesters. (K omitted intentionally all you Type A’s.) Mildred moves up the stairs as if each one was a sparse surfaced stone pathing a waist-deep river.

As I open the door into the actual office, I greet the stacks. Large stacks of journals whose articles never get read by me, only glanced at, mourn the attentiveness of my eyes as I trek past them toward by cubbie hole. Oh no, wait. Cubbie holes were fun little spaces filled by my imagination as a kid. So let’s call it instead my cube in hell. Much better and much more imaginationless.

I spend my first 15 minutes at work preparing my coffee and breakfast. I count this as work. Perhaps I shouldn’t count my breakfast, but I do since I make it while the coffee grinds steep in the French press. And making my coffee is justified as working time since work does not provide edible coffee. It should be a necessity, like clean water.

I go to the bathroom.

I take my gluten free cereal with berries and almonds and rice milk back to my cube in hell, along with my aromatic, enticing cup of Major Dickason’s, grind #12. At this point I usually suppose that I should actually start working, so I grab a batch of abstracts to proof.

The next thirty minutes I think about my coffee while I proof the abstracts.

When I’m done proofing the abstracts, I realize I should probably reproof all of them. But I don’t. Fortunately, they go to Editor *Dakota*, who lets out a loud groan of misery whenever I pass them onto him for checking queries. He surely won’t mind the dearth of pen marks.

I go to the bathroom.

Next, I try to find some computer task I can do so I can start chatting on G-chat. And looking at food blogs. I capitalize, I delete, I change “essay” to “article,” I put articles in the abstracts from Chinese journals, and I say to myself, “Next time they should pay someone who speaks English to do the English translation. But why would you, when you could pay someone who doesn’t speak English a lot less to do it?”

I ponder how my degree of analyzing Tolstoy, Poe, and Toni Morrison flew me to such ambitious heights of capitalizing letters that should be capitalized and were not.

I go back to proofing abstracts on paper since the fuzz of my old monitor screen has grown mold in my brain. However, this time I have no coffee to think about, so halfway through page 2 of 26, my green proofing manual binder knots a plastic bag over my head, and I start suffocating. He likes to do that to me early in the day so that my day seems longer.

The clock moves like a slug.

I go to the bathroom. Again.

(To be continued…)

I transformed from grumpy to delighted

As he took my hand in the rain

Dancing a silly dance

Laughing a silly smile

While the put-put of wet bullets

Sprayed the front porch

He twirled me around

To a romantic vista

Of the dog going pee

Which was what we came outside for.

Blueberry pie, apple pie, Kenny’s laughter and wrap-around hugs, Buckley’s cuddles and sleepy morning puppy breath yawns, Marky’s generous massages and video game glee, Jon’s voice, Magda’s soothing conversation, Lauri’s silliness, Jen’s mothering, Joseph’s RainCloud heart, Sarah Elizabeth’s hope, Cheryl’s soft quietness, Tim’s playfulness, Dara’s cookie night, Austin’s silly expressions, Aliyah’s cheeks and pouty lip, Doris’s quirkiness, Sparrow’s ballet, Golden’s bright eyes, Alyssa’s Europe heart, Stephen G’s John Deere fetish, Annie’s wildness, Camille’s home cookin’ and eatin’, Tara’s Jew pride, Trish’s King of the Castle face, Abby’s compassion, Liz’s art of worship, Mitchell’s Southern stories, Bunny’s cheer-infused greetings, Dave’s jokes, Mikey’s brotherliness, Nathan’s colorful language and honesty, Shannel’s ideas, Stephen’s humbleness, Kimberly’s Guatemala pants, Crystal’s cookie fetish, Grey’s sleepy newly awakeness, Jamie’s kindheartedness, Becker’s subtle humor…

a). I have transformed into a sexy athlete who wishes to discover her “primate” side by joining the “Atlantic Steam” or the “San Diego Seduction” and prancing around and wrestling other women while we’re all clad in ruffles that cover an extremely minute proportion of the body as sparsely as authentic meat in a McDonald’s hamburger.

b). I will watch women prancing around and tackling other women while they’re clad in ruffles that cover an extremely minute proportion of the body as sparsely as authentic meat in a McDonald’s hamburger.

c). I will market the image of women while they’re clad in ruffles that cover an extremely minute proportion of the body as sparsely as authentic meat in a McDonald’s hamburger to the begging, hornthirsty hormones of the male species.

So one of these could potentially become a lie. Which one is it?

If a movie were to be made about this, it could be entitled: A League of Their Own 2: Postfeminist Panty Pride.

Singing. Writing is part of the mind + part of the heart. But singing is HEART. In its entirety. To me, singing is breathtaking. When I watch someone sing, and sing well, and sing from the heart, an aura bursts from the singer’s body, an aura composed of a bass-beating vitality and lightening flashes of pumping blood. Or, otherwise, the aura exudes the aloneness of a person and air, and the singer’s voice seems like my own, the echo of my thoughts in my head.

I am not a singer nor a musician. If it feels like this for me, how does it feel for those who actually express it like this?

To all my friends out there who have the expression of music in them, please continue to live in it. For yourself, and for others.

Thanks to Across the Universe for inspiring this post.

My oh my what a fuckin’ concave.

Plenty of backpain headin’ my way.

Si-esta mattress, I hate you today!

This pleasant little diddly is a product of my wrath. My wrath is a product of a dimwitted letter. The dimwitted letter saying “No, we will not honor the warranty you paid for. Rather, we would like to royally screw you over,” is a product of a greedy, pissant bastard from the warranty department of Siesta Mattress Company. 

For some reason, the grand canyon splitting through our two-year-old, $1,700 mattress does not meet the qualifications for “manufacturing defects.” Apparently, we have to sear our asses on volcanic lava before the caverns in our mattress are considered deep enough to meet the qualifications for warranty coverage. 

Additionally, the rage-inducing letter states, “A stain found on the mattress nullifies the warranty for health and safety reasons.” Unfortunately, a minor stain on the mattress from moving prohibits Siesta from the potential profit of reselling the defunct p.o.s. to some poor cheapass fellow, who will soon after fork over his life savings to the chiropractor. The health and safety of the company is put into jeopardy when they resell a mattress with a dirt stain, but one with a giant abyss passes A-ok.

Life lesson learned: Never buy a mattress from Siesta or you’ll find yourself gorged with vexation.

He was alone. Terrified, screaming out to another planet hoping someone there would hear him because on this one there was just him and the lurking monster that is the dark.

I could see him, but I was not there. My heart kicked in my chest with the desire to sprint to him, grab him in my arms with a fierce tenderness, drown him in the warm sunlight that holding him filled my heart with, hoping to melt the sharp ice of his loneliness. “I’m here to protect you,” I would say to him, framing his soft, little-boy face, locking my eyes with his so he could see the integrity of my promise.

But I couldn’t. He was submerged in the depths of my nightmare, and it was impossible for me to dive that deep. I, too, was trapped in helplessness. And even though he was a toddler, I started feeling more like him and less like a protective mother. As if I was utterly alone in the rain, in the darkness, crying like a child.

Until he and I, estranged by imaginary walls, were no longer alone. From my perspective across the wide street, a car drove up stealthily, long black body, black window eyes, like a jaguar targeting its prey in the pitch black. The little boy’s face morphed into frozen terror at the new unanticipated fear of not being alone. My desperation to help the boy exploded into screaming and pounding on the walls that my mind could not get through. I watched in horror as one eye of the car started moving downward. The reflection of the little boy began to disappear down the inside of the car; the black outline of a top hat appeared faintly. My eyes feverishly anticipated a heavy silver glint, and I waited through the violent rattle of my heartbeat for the last half of the window to sink, revealing-

I woke up.