While Listening to Hamilton: my questions for today's politicians

“Death does not discriminate between the sinners and the saints; it takes and it takes and it takes.” Hamilton, the musical.

Dear Politicians, 

I get it, your hideous hair makes for excellent meme and any media exposure is still exposure. Fighting over who speaks better Spanish to get the Latino vote makes for good sound bites. And no one’s going to hold you accountable for lying when the masses don’t do the hard work of fact checking. And for those of us who do, it’s a matter of discerning whose pants are up in flames and whose are just sort of smoldering.

But I’m tired of all that. Here’s what I want to hear from the presidential wanna-be’s. 

A Little Midsummer Night's Dream

It's Shakespeare and its a rock concert and my costume is lingerie meets circus performer... are you excited yet?

UT hosts the Texas Musical Theatre Workshop which includes a performance Thursday night of Vigand & Milburn's new musical, A Little Midsummer Night's Dream... Shakespeare's famous fairy filled play condensed into an hour and a half chamber musical featuring Shakespeare's quirky leads as rock stars and the four star-crossed lovers as hipsters at a music festival.

Clergy Health

Or lack thereof. Check out this article. Thanks to Wes Eades, PhD, LPC, LMFT for the heads up on the article. You can find him and other resources at the Waco Partnership.

Be healthy.

No matter who you are.

But especially if people have elected you to represent God to them or at least speak to them on behalf of Her...

My Theory of Tippability: Why It's Not All Relative

Tonight, I'd like to write about tipping. Not cow-tipping. Restaurant tipping. Or rather, fast-food restaurant tipping.

I kind of have a pet peeve and I feel torn about it.

But first, a little background. I used to work in a restaurant. So I know how to tip. I know what it means to tip. I know who tips the most (Lovers and other Waiters), who tips the worst (Christians, Teenagers and PWT) and who tips to the penny (Asians).

I also know that when I worked at a restaurant, I made $2.13 and that's not because I'm a hundred years old and that's what minimum wage was back then. I'm only 33. And this was just after Y2K, so minimum wage was well over four dollars. Yet, I made $2.13 and hour. And yes, there were days (Monday lunches) where I never got one table and therefore walked home with less than minimum wage.

Most days though, we did fine considering the restaurants I worked in were in Waco. Actually, I should take that back. One restaurant I worked in was fine. The other was... well, not fine.

We'll call that restaurant, Chochkies (my second Office Space reference of the week, hmm...) to protect the guilty. While Chochkies didn't make me wear flair (because the restaurant I worked at wasn't actually T.G.I. Fridays, but somewhere very similar), they did make me wear all white tennis shoes, which I had to purchase, because who in their right mind owns all white tennis shoes besides grandmas and nurses? So right there I'm out $40 or so for those damn white tennis shoes. But I'm missing my point.

My first week at Chochkies, I didn't make much money and so on the final evening of that week, I worked until closing. The shift leader was sweeping the carpet (weird, I know) and a family of seven came in to eat. "You can have 'em" she said, and I was so thankful. I couldn't believe she'd given me a table of seven! She must have been taking pity on me since I'd been complaining about not making much money. Maybe I'd been underestimating these people I worked with at Chochkies...

The table ordered, ate, paid their bill (split checks three ways, I think) and got up to leave. I scurried to the table to begin busing it since it's late and I too wanted get home and that's when I saw their tip: $2.

"Seriously?"

I said this out loud. As in, not to myself, nor in my head.

This may be why when my family heard I was waiting tables to make money during grad school, they laughed.

A couple of the people from the table turned around when they heard me. "Two dollars?" I said, shocked and defeated, and let's admit it, a little defiant. One man fumbled in his pocket and threw down another dollar or two. And then they all left.

"What the hell?" I complained incredulously to my shift leader. They left me less than 10% on a table of seven people and a bill of almost $70!

"I know," she said nonchalantly. "That's why I let you have that table. Hispanics always tip bad."

And there you have it. My first (but not last!) encounter with racism in Waco, Texas, and my first of many "lessons" on tipping and waiting tables. I called my mother that night, traumatized. "She can't say that," I whispered into the phone. "It's so racist!"

And I'm pretty sure that in defiance I took as many "ethnic" tables as possible for the next week.

And then I quit.

Turns out Applebee's, oops, I mean Chochkies, and I weren't a good fit (I also couldn't stand my managers). So I moved on to a local Wacoan restaurant with a slighter different clientele, and I began serving customers there. "I need a Coors for me and a Coors Light for the little lady... oh and a dozen oysters."

All that to say, I know how important it is to tip at restaurants. When you get paid $2.13 an hour by the restaurant, your salary comes from the people you serve. Which is why you want to give good service. Everyone should know this. The managers of the restaurant know it (they adjust the prices of the food knowing that part of what the customer pays goes to the servers), the cooks know it (they're paid by the hour, which is why they can yell at the waiters all they want and not get in trouble - they don't get tipped), the waiters know it (obviously, it's their paycheck), and hopefully the customers know it.

So, if you can't afford to tip when you go out to eat at a sit-down restaurant, don't go at all, because tipping is part of the package.

But I've digressed again. This was supposed to be a post about fast-food restaurants.

You see, I was in line recently at a local chain sandwich shop that had a drive-thru window. I ordered in front of a screen showing me my options, I pulled forward and paid for my sandwich (extra for the pickle slices) and received my sandwich wrapped in paper and stuffed in a plastic bag. I drove away from the window and continued on my journey.

I did not put a tip on the line that said tip when I scribbled my John Hancock at the bottom of the credit card receipt. Because I think it's wrong to tip at fast food restaurants... for two reasons.

One: you're not really getting service.

Two: it's racist.

Let's start with the service as it's easier and less controversial. Maybe.

When you go out to eat at a sit-down restaurant, you are usually escorted to the table, seated, brought your drink, told of specials, answered any questions, given recommendations, your order is taken, you receive complimentary bread, your food is cooked to your desire, it's put on a plate and made to look nice, it comes with specialized condiments on the side, it's delivered to your place setting where you are given additional utensils if needed, in a few minutes you are asked how it tasted, do you need anything else, you receive a refill on your drink, more complimentary bread is brought to your table, your asked if you'd like dessert or an aperitif, your empty plates are cleared, leftovers boxed, and your bill delivered. After you leave, any remaining plates are cleared, washed and set out to dry, your table is wiped and sanitized and any salt, pepper, sugar or ketsup is replaced if necessary.

At a fast food restaurant, you walk up to the counter to order, you pay, you receive your food wrapped in paper or cardboard, you pick up your own condiments, you leave.

That's not service.

No one waits on you, no one washes your dishes, no one refills your drinks, and if you're lucky the table you sat at gets wiped down at the end of some kid's shift. And those people don't make less than minimum wage. So in my opinion there's no need to tip. Whether you're at a local chain sandwich shop that charges extra for the pickle or whether you're at Starbucks, I think tipping for that "service" is dumb.

The other reason I don't like to do that though, is because I think it's racist.

And it's racist, because we're not consistent with our "fast-food" tipping. Think about the places that put tip jars next to the register. (First indicator you shouldn't be tipping. if you're paying at a register, you're not getting tip-worthy service. You just had to stand in line for someone to punch in numbers and take your cash. Give me a break). Starbucks, Ben & Jerry's, sometimes Quizno's, Thundercloud Subs, Freebirds, Amy's Ice Cream (local chains here in Texas), or a local coffee shop in your town. Now, think of other places that give you food wrapped in paper or coffee poured in cardboard, i.e. "fast-food" places, that don't have tip jars next to their registers: McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Hardee's, Long John Silvers... you get the picture.

Now, think about who works at Starbucks, Ben & Jerry's and Thundercloud Subs and where those restaurants are usually located... and now think about who works at McDonald's and Taco John's other such chains and where they are located.

You may have guessed I'm poor. If I were rich, this might be a different post. I'd tip anywhere there was a tip jar just to share the wealth. I also vote democrat for similar reasons. But because I'm poor, I have to pay attention to my money. And if I don't have enough to tip at a sit-down restaurant, then I buy fast food. And I've no intention of tipping at such places because I think it's wrong to tip at restaurants where wait service isn't offered. And I think it's wrong to tip at restaurants where the kid behind the counter is either the daughter of that lawyer who goes to your church because you're ordering from the Starbucks at the end of your block in your predominantly white, middle class part of town, or it's that kid with all the tattoos who wants to be in a rock band so they dropped out of college and they're working at a local sandwich shop cause it's local and that's awesome, and mom and dad still foot the rent, because well, there's always a fall-back plan for poor people in their twenties who come from middle or upper class families who can pay the rent until said hippie or skater or musician finds their way or goes back to school.

I'm generalizing, I know. And maybe that makes me as "ist" as my shift leader at Applebee's.

But I don't think those people in those neighborhoods reeeally need the money. They need the money, don't get me wrong. They're college kids or graduate students, or people in their twenties who lost their job and now need a gig that comes with health insurance (thank you Starbucks), but they don't need the money like the people who work at McDonald's on the east side of Austin. The people who work fast-food on this side of town may think they world owes them something, but they're not going to put out a tip jar to show it.

And that's what frustrates me. The people who really could use the extra cash, that 50 cent tip for the coffee in a cardboard cup or that two dollar tip for a sandwich wrapped in paper aren't going to get it. They'll take their meager minimum wage check home and hand it over to their parents, or cash it and head to the dollar store (where for some reason it's legal to buy expired! food), or they give it straight to the bank who's threatening foreclosure on their two bedroom home housing three kids and their grandmother)...

I had an argument with a youth from Westlake High (one of the wealthiest parts of Austin) once about kids from Johnston (a school in the poorest part of Austin that closed the year before). He thought that dealing drugs was stupid (I agreed) and that those Johnston high teens have other choices they can make in their lives. They don't have to sell drugs, they choose to sell drugs, was his argument.

"What if their parents don't make enough to support their family?" I asked him. "What if they don't get enough to eat at their house? What if they want their younger siblings to get a Christmas present this year unlike the year before?" "What if their parents give them the drugs to sell and they don't know any better or know life apart from selling drugs to make money?"

"It's their choice," was his final answer.

I guess he's right. They could go get a job at McDonald's and work for minimum wage and take home $100 after 20 hours a week (on top of school) instead of getting $200 for 30 minutes of "work" early one Saturday morning.

But this isn't a post about drug dealing or the hard choices facing teens and young adults. It's a blog about tipping.

And my bottom line is, it pisses me off that Starbucks and Thundercloud Subs ask for or expect tips (and admittedly sometimes I do tip at these places just because they make me feel so guilty like I owe them something above and beyond the bill for my tuna sandwich with lettuce and tomato, add pickle, on wheat wrapped in paper and put in a plastic bag). And it pisses me off that we comply and don't stand up for or demand tip jars at other fast-food joints on behalf of other poor people. I think it's classist and racist, and I think it's wrong.

There you have it. Ann's Theory of Tippability. Stay tuned next week for Ann's Diatribe Against the FDA or Why the Eff Do We Sell Expired Food to Poor People?

Oh Baby!

Today I thought I would write about babies. And if you're sick of hearing about them, I don't want to hear about it, because I'm pretty sure I've got you beat.

From February 2009-January 2010, in just 11 months I welcomed Zoe, Laurel, Lila, Tessla, Lindley, and Arianna into my life. And those kids came to my closest friends. That doesn't include Cane, the Bauer twins, Frannie, Annajean, Win, Edward, Noah, or Marylin most of whose birth annoucements or Christmas cards decorate my fridge. Neither does it include Dillon, Carly, Corbin, Everett, Ace, Roxie or James who were born in the year after that. And neither does it include the two babies my therapist had in the two years I was seeing her. I started off making each kid a photo album on Facebook, but that quickly digressed to a "Babies album" as I just couldn't keep up.In 2010, before I quit my job, one of the steps I took to make sure I was emotionally healthy (because I was not very healthy at that time) was to swear of all baby showers. Cause I mean seriously people, who attends 18 baby showers in two years? That's ridiculous. And if you add in wedding and bridal showers, I was attending a shower for some joyous occasion once or twice a month. That's just too much happiness for one single girl to bear.

And that's the thing about babies and weddings, everyone wants you to be happy for them. And somewhere inside, you probably are.

But truthfully, it gets old.

Imagine 18 of your friends buy a Honda Hybrid. By the time 11, 12, and 13 roll into the driveway, it's old news. You're tired of saying congratulations, and tired of still climbing behind the wheel of your Toyota Corolla. Add to that society's stigma against unwed non-moms suggesting that women are only fulfilled when they're married and bearing children, and suddenly, you've got a single un-mother in her thirties who's a little confused in the head.

Now I know what you're thinking. Statistics say it's the norm now to get married in your thirties. But guess what friends, those statistics came out of New York, and I live in Texas. And while adopting babies from Haiti are all the rage among conservatives (thank you earthquake mission trips) and adopting babies from China are all the rage among rich people (thank you Sex and the City), there's still a stigma attached to adoption. "They must have had problems getting pregnant..." "Well, I heard she..." Virtually no one adopts just because they want to adopt.

Except me. And I'm dating a man who wants to have (or have his wife have) kids because of his own personal experiences with adoption. Great. But that's a post for another time.

So back to the babies.

I didn't mean for this post to be a diatribe against child-bearing adults or their prodginy. I wanted to talk about Tessla, my nanny charge and some of the other beloved babies in my life. But talking about her requires first admitting a few other things.

Truthfully, now, I'm doing a lot better with the whole baby thing. If I get invited to a shower (and of course, I've got one to attend next weekend), I no longer break out in hives. But some people are so ignorant of the way society talks about women and child-bearing, it drives me crazy! For example, here's a conversation a friend of mine had with her supervisor five months after her daughter was born. In their monthly meeting, the supervisor asked my friend, "So, has being a mother changed the way you view counseling or the way you relate to your patients?"

"No," she said.

Awesome. "Thank god," was my response. Thank God it didn't change the way she does her job because to say so suggests a certain enlightenment or change in perspective or fulfillment afforded women who have children. Furthermore, it denotes a level of inadequacy in women who don't have children.

Like: because I'm not a mom, I somehow can't relate to the world in my full potential.

And it's not that I don't think having a baby should change you. It should. But everything you experience in life should change you (hopefully for the better, or at least for a wider-

worldview). The idea that women are only really complete or cognizant or edified or illumined or whatever once they've had children has got to go.

But again, I've digressed, so let me try a third time.

Disclaimer: for those of you who aren't moms, I am not writing this blog to be a smug-pseudo-mother. And if you're as fed up with the baby talk as I was, you have my blessing to stop reading now. (However, the BEST smug pregnant woman song/skit can be found here written by two comedians in LA who've also appeared on shows like Gilmore Girls, Pushing Daisies, Scrubs, and Million Dollar Baby. It's awesome. And you've got to see it. But don't watch it if you're pregnant and emotional or if you have no sense of humor). Again, I am not writing this blog to be a smug-pseudo-mother. I'm writing this blog about the babies in my life and about my job, and I am currently employed part-time (32-40 hours a week) as a nanny. And I want to write about how ridiculously delightful my little charge is. But we must start at the beginning...

First off, there was Zoe.

When I met Zoe, the first words out of my mouth were sung: "Welcome outside of your mother's womb, I know it is frightening but now there's more room." (from "Welcome" by Lori Chaffer off her album 1Beginning) My acquaintances and friends had been having babies off and on since college, but this was the first one to really come into my inner circle, to change the lives of two people I called my best friends. And like Adam did when he saw the wonder of Eve, so did I upon holding Zoe Hilel: I sang. Her father, Peter, watched me and said it couldn't have been a more appropriate response.

Then came Laurel. Literally, out of her mother's vajayjay and onto the bed. I saw it. I was there.

I was supposed to be there for her mother who wanted women surrounding her at her daughter's birth. I was there as her friend, her sister was to take pictures, and her mom was to gush at her first grandbabby. However, Michelle's laboring went so quickly and she was such a champ that she talked herself out of believing she was really in labor for like 6 hours (the only time I will ever know more than Michelle when it comes to childbirth was that day. I knew she was in labor and that baby was coming, and when the doulah finally arrived she confirmed my suspicion and whisked Michelle off to the midwife clinic immediately). So when she finally got to the birthing center, that baby was out in like 20 minutes. Her sister missed it, her mom missed it. So there I was, trying to capture the crowning of the head on camera. I was watching Michelle push so hard that tears came out of her eyes, though I wouldn't say she was crying, I was watching the birth of a baby, something I've feared for years and it was going so quickly and so seamlessly that when Michelle sort of burped that baby out onto the bed, (the actual move from the birth canal out into the bedroom is very fast) I thought for several months afterwards that hell, I could do that too someday!

I changed my mind after Lila came into the world. Somewhere in there I acquired the reputation of being a baby photographer, so when the first couple I ever married asked me to be there for their daughter's birth, I said sure! Laurel's birth was wonderful and exciting and I'll never forget it. This woman who feared giving birth more than the boogieman suddenly heard herself saying, I'd love to help out at the birth. And good thing too. For while Patrick and Angela also chose to give birth at a birthing center, it was a much longer and more painful process.

Fortunately, I'd been at all of Chris and Michelle's meetings with their doulah (not sure how that happened except I practically lived at their house over at 5209). So as 9 o'clock became midnight and midnight turned to 2am, and their midwife just sat there watching from a chair, I began to take as active a role in helping that baby get out as Patrick did. "Let's try squatting," I suggested. "How about the shower?" "Tie this cloth over the door, close the door, hold on and hang from it. Let your body relax." "Let's try the tub now," anything I could remember Chris and Michelle's doulah telling them, I offered to Angela. She was in so much pain and was so tired. I finally napped somewhere in the wee hours of the morning so that when the pushing began around 4 or 5, I was the only one refreshed enough to get through it. Angela fell asleep in the 30 seconds she had between every contraction. Patrick looked exhausted and just lay on the bed beside her. And the midwife crouched down near her feet poking and proding and doing whatever they do to make sure the baby is okay. I saw things I was never meant to see that night and decided then and there that my first intuition about adopting had been correct. I was not designed to bear children. How in the world we got that little alien out of Angela's stomach is beyond my comprehension, but I now knew I would not be getting myself in the same predicament.

Because then I had to go home, get dressed and preach a sermon in big church.

Now that was a night.

When Lindley was born, I got to spend lots of time with her considering she lives in Nashville. I flew out to see her when she was 2 months or so and spitting up more than any creature I'd ever seen. Then again on my 32nd birthday, I was in Nashville for the Festival of Homiletics (a preaching convention) and appropriately so, she's the first baby I ever took with me to a conference. And like a child after my own heart, she cried when the organ played and quietly listened during the sermons. Her parents met as worship leader and pastor at a camp some seven years prior and her mother and I had been best friends (and cohorts in crime) at seminary, so I felt an obligation to introduce her to the theology of Tom Long, Lauren Winner, A.J. Levine and Will Willimon. Plus, her parents needed a babysitter that day.

I admit, by the time Tessla was born, I was getting a little tired of the babies. Plus, I was worried about how my poorer friends were gonna pay for those little monsters... diapers, baby wipes, cheerios, clothes they outgrow in two weeks. They're expensive little suckers. But Tessla was sweet just like the others and her parents seemed happy.

Then when she turned three months old, the shit hit the fan and everything changed. Her mother got lymphoma and went through chemo-therapy and lost all her hair and got sick but got well and finally everyone relaxed. Then I quit my job and she asked me if I wanted to nanny for Tessla for a while, so I agreed. And then, when Tessla was eleven months old, we found out the cancer came back.

But I've written about all that before. And this blog isn't about mamas, it's about babies, so let me tell you about Tessla.

First of all, she's way smarter than me.

She knows a ton of sign language. Now, some of this I taught her and some of it she learned from Baby Einstein, but check out her vocab: eat, more, please, thank you, milk, water, juice, cereal, all done, mommy, daddy, Aunt Heather, Uncle Marcus, Ann (and she made up the sign for me!!), baby, help, ball, story, library, garden, shoes, cat, dog, bird, fish, tree, play, bath, sleep, pacifier (she made that sign up too) and... I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

She can even make sentences. One day we were playing at Chris and Michelle's house, and their daughter Laurel, who is almost two now, began crying and throwing a fit. Tessla looked at me with wide eyes and made two signs one right after the other: "baby" and "asleep." I interpreted her to mean "the baby is sleepy," or perhaps "the baby needs to go to sleep." Either way, I was pretty proud of that first sentence.

And she can verbally say lots of words with her mouth too. I think her first words were dirt (her father is a landscape architech), cat, dog (which both her parents, aunt & uncle, and I all have), da da, shoes, roar (she loves lions), yellow, uh oh (she got that one from me), yeah, no, apple, banana (which she says by sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth and saying yayaya), pickle and mama. Those are the big ones. Now she blabbers all the time, and I just pretend to understand her. Sometimes she talks to me and looks at me like I should be able to understand her, and other times she talks to herself, laughing at her own jokes and having a grand old time.

She smiles and sometimes laughs when it's time to take a nap and I (finally) put her in her crib. She's a child of routine and when I put her down for a nap I change her diaper, close the bedroom curtains (this is when she recognizes what's coming next and begins to giggle), hand her the pacifier, place her in the crib, lay the blanket on top of her, turn on the sound machine, say goodnight, and close the door. She loves it. All my mommy friends hate me. Even at my house if she's ready for a nap and I don't seem inclined to put her down anytime in the near future, she'll walk to the bedroom that she sleeps in and bang on the door until I go open it for her and ask if she's ready to go to sleep.

She's a hoot. And I could seriously post a thousand pictures of her on here, but I'll spare you. Again, I don't want to be a smug nanny.

But I did want to tell you a little about my life and my job and the babies in my life. And tell you I'm happy and healthy and hoping all my patience won't get used up on Tessla and the others in case I do ever get to adopt my own children someday. And I want to apologize if I skipped your baby shower at some point over the last two years. But trust me, you wouldn't have wanted this old hag there anyway. I'm a cat lady. I smell funny.

happy valentine's day 2011

So on my facebook author page, I've been running the 14 days of Valentine... fourteen posts in fourteen days with articles and stories I've written about men and relationships over the past five years or so. Some are more recent while others, I really had to dig deep to find. To recap...

February 2... "The Windy City, Harry Potter, and the Importance of a Glerb"

February 3... "Reinventing Dating"

February 4... "More About Men"

February 5... "33 Days and Counting"

February 6... "I Walked Through the Door"

February 7... "Reflections On Relationships"

February 8... "85 Days and the Loneliest Job In the World"

February 9... "Well, That Was Different"

February 10... "What It Says About You In the Papers"

February 11... "I Smelled of Smoke and Men"

February 12... "I Went To My Ex-Boyfriend's Wedding: A Sermon"

February 13... "Cats and Cookies"

And today's the day. But it's a little anti-climatic. I feel obligated to post something about the dreaded day even though it doesn't feel differently from any other. People have sent me beautiful graphics...

And wonderful videos (with compromising language, so I'm refraining from posting them here). And another lonely soul from Georgetown invited me to lunch at La Madeline. And KiKi and Pitty sent me a cute card about how I'm a princess (cleverly stuffed with money!). And my grandmother who collects, well, everything, posted this picture of a card my Great-Grandfather gave to my Great-Grandmother in 1907, one hundred and four years ago!

Kind of amazing.

But this was my day today, awake at 6:55pm after a 9.5 hour tech rehearsal (with one dinner break) yesterday (11 hours if you count driving time). Fed my neglected dog. Minimally got ready for the day (threw on clothes, brushed my teeth, did not brush my hair but put it in a pony tail), ate some of my roomie's cereal (because I haven't been to the grocery store in over two weeks ) and drove to Cedar Park.

I arrived to find everyone already awake. Bethany and the baby were eating breakfast out of the same bowl, cream of wheat with peanut butter in it. Gabe was loading the dishwasher and taking out the trash.

Why were they awake this early? Well, Tessla had awoken at 7:30, who knows why. Gabe had a morning meeting at work. And Bethany? Well, she has her second round of chemo today at the hospital in Round Rock. (If you missed her story, click here.)

"Here's the errands I need run. Stuff that needs to be dropped off places. It's all labeled," she said. "And I packed Tessla's overnight bag, everything except food. You can take care of that."

Yep. I'll be nannying tonight on Valentine's Day. Tessla will have her first slumber party at Auntie Ann's. And Auntie Ann doesn't have time to think about men or being lonely or wishing someone had bought her a "day at the spa" package or maybe a "pre-paid trip to the dentist" package. No time. No time for nice dinners at our favorite restaurant, no time for wine and chocolate and a little snuggle time in the TV room where the candles are dripping onto the furniture. No time for anything but the essentials: changing diapers, running errands, visiting the hospital, and practicing sign language for words like "please," "thank you," "mommy," and "story."

That's my life right now. And a fourteen and a half month old baby will be my Valentine this year while her daddy stays with her mommy who wants to get well.

If my perspective on this day weren't so acute, I might have posted about one of my favorite songs by Patty Griffin...

or perhaps written, not of how Jesus is my Valentine, but about the intent of Love, reflecting in part on the lyrics of Mumford and Sons song, Sigh No More:

Love it will not betray you

Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free

Be more like the man you were made to be

There is a design, an alignment, a cry

Of my heart to see,

The beauty of love as it was made to be.

But I won't. Not this Valentine's Day. Nope. No sad bastard music or morbid Glenn Close movies. No long hours of journaling into the night. Just some green pea Gerber baby food and a little Goodnight Moon for me.

And maybe that's all it takes.

For me and my valentine.

I Quit My Job

August 15th was my five year anniversary at First Baptist Church of Austin, Texas. Three days later, I quit my job.

I officiated my first funeral when I was 10 years old. It was for my cat, Thisbe, who belonged to my parents when they married eighteen years earlier. Twenty-one years later, I officiated my second funeral for my uncle in Arizona who drank himself to death. Maybe I always knew I would be a minister. Maybe not.

At the dinner table one night, in those same years as the cat funeral, I announced that I wanted to be one of two things when I grew up: a preacher or president.

"Oh you can't be president," my concerned younger sister told me. "They'll kill you."

Well, probably. But not for any reasons that my sister understood at the time. All we knew as little kids was that of the four presidents we knew: Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan (I don't think either of us could remember Carter), only one of them hadn't been shot at while in office. Presidents died. We, the people, killed them.

And If I were president instead of Obama or Bush I or II or Clinton or Carter or Reagan, I probably would be shot for being a socialist or a liberal or a hippie... and for being a woman I suppose (the only certifiable proof of the aforementioned offenses).

So I became a preacher instead.

Because in the pulpit it's okay to wear a nose ring and cowgirl boots, and say blessed are the peacemakers, and tell people they need to give 10% of their income away.

Sometimes.

Not always, but sometimes. And fortunately I was at a church where sometimes preachers can do that.

But now its time to fill in the gaps that I overlooked as a child. Mostly as a kid I think I saw myself making speeches. I loved listening to our preacher, a man who told the same stories over and over again for 30 years, and who ran marathons in short, pink running shorts. And I loved President Reagan because I knew nothing about him other than he had been an actor in the movies. And I saw his face on the TV screen and knew that I was an actress (there wasn't the PC term "actor" used universally for both genders or transgenders of performers yet), so surely I could act and make dramatic speeches too.

As an adult, I know there's more to ministering than preaching and more to the presidency than speaking in Congress, and so I'm choosing another route.

Operation Strange Bird has begun.

I know I am one. I'm an ordained Baptist minister who preaches peace, pushes gay rights, teaches Old Testament (with a little bit of American literature thrown in), acts in local theater (and once played a mini-skirt-wearing Mary Magdalene), writes blogs (both public and secret for the discretion of her family), has never married, but dated a long list of men that is almost laughable (and boy do we laugh), suffers but survives a mental health disorder, and who would someday love to be a lounge singer.

Do I belong in the church?

Yes.

Should I be running the church?...

I'm tired of running.

So I'm resting, and writing, and applying to PhD programs in Southern Literature, and officiating weddings, and reflecting, and auditioning, and exercising, and doing some guest performing, and hopefully visiting my grandparents and sisters whom I haven't seen since Christmas.

And most of this because I've learned so much in the past five years at FBC and so much in the past 32 years on this planet we call earth. And now it's time to spread my little wings, as patched together as they may be of ambitions and dreams and maybe-this'll-works, and try to fly. Even just a few feet would be okay.

And wherever I land I land. And then I will try again. And hopefully somewhere in there I'll get a little more perspective on my life and a little more direction. And perhaps with the help of some Wind maybe things will pick up enough that I'll actually soar, and someday land on my feet.

And if not, there's always the classifieds. Someone's bound to need a blessing for a dead cat.

Happy 40th Anniversary

Yesterday was my parents' 40th Wedding Anniversary. Whoa. So we celebrated tonight by surprising my mom with a family and friends dinner at Galvin's, a famous restaurant in St. Jo, Mo. EJP made mom and dad a scrapbook of the past 40 years including letters from friends and family reflecting on old time and more recent times and on my parents' marriage. It was a pretty exciting and happy and yes, a little bit of a tearful evening. My dad gave a speech and my grandpa fell asleep (he couldn't hear it anyway) and as always, my grandparents figured out a way to pay for dinner.



So, here's what I wrote for my parents to put in the scrapbook and now on the web.

Dear Mom and Dad,

You've taught me that...

No matter how messy the house, how obstinate the children, how high the bills, how leaky the roof, how needy the children, how stinky the pets, how low the funds, how overgrown the yard, how ornery the children, how aged the body, how annoying the in-laws, how slow the internet, how overcooked the dinner...

Love is worth it.

The beautiful children are worth it, the blooming impatiens are worth it, the nights at the theater are worth it, the Sundays at church, the living room full of family, the articulate children, the murder mystery parties, the rock garden, the den cabinet full of toys, the Disney movies and Steven Spielberg films, the swim teams, the choir performances, the creative children, the boards and committees, the dinners with the grandparents, the friends who made it and the friends who didn't, the fireplace fires, the birthday parties, the talented children, the quiet nights alone, the swing sets, the board games, the cats, the hamsters, the guinea pig, the newt and even the fish who jumped out of their bowl... it was all worth it.

Love is always worth it.

Congratulations on 40 years of Love. Here's to 40 more...

Speaking of Professions... Awkward Moment of the Week

So i spent most of yesterday at the hospital hanging out with a student who's mom was in surgery. While we were playing cards, "B*llsh*t" i believe, some relatives of the woman in surgery came over to say good-bye to us. THey'd been sitting with her grandmother.

After the formal introductions, and upon hearing of my vocation, the couple began telling me of their daughter who went to seminary in the 80s and then was hired to be a singles and senior adult minister and wasn't that weird? and their daughter-in-law was a receptionist once at FBC in waco. yes i knew the church, my own seminary met in their building for several years before we got on own on baylor campus...

blah blah, the usual. but then this woman says,

"Well, I'll be praying for you. Ministers do hard work dealing with us." I glance over at Donna and Kelly (these are pseudonyms) who both go to my church (and are therefore my "parishioners"), trying to discern where this conversation was going.

"Yeah, it's hard dealing with all us stubborn sheep. We're just wandering around all stubborn, I know. So I'll pray for you. You're doing good work."

I giggled nervously. "But I like my job and the people I work with." The woman went on and on about how she knows but she also knows sheep go their own way and ministers have to take care of all of them...

Um... "Thank you." I said finally hoping she's stop talking.

And the couple left. Thank God. My two friends burst out laughing and I began apologizing profusely.

"I'm so sorry that woman called you sheep and called you stubborn! I don't think of you like that, I promise!"

"It's okay," Kelly said, "I know I'm no walk around the park. Besides she was probably just commenting on me since I'm her niece and I have no manners."

"But y'all do as much ministering to me as I do to you!" We laughed some more.

Either way, the three of us agreed that that was the most awkward conversation: one woman expressing her theology while putting one person on the spot and offending everyone else.

Hmm. Maybe it wasn't so uncommon after all.

And we returned to playing cards.

You're In the Wrong Profession

What would you do?

What would you do if someone told you you were in the wrong profession?

Not because you messed up or failed at something or whatever. Rather, because you were gifted at something else. What would you do if your gifts didn't match your profession?

Someone asked me that tonight and i didn't know what to say. Probably because the economy is crappy and one of my friends just lost her job (take that all you people who keep reporting that jobs are up in austin), and because i don't have a savings account and i'm freaking out, and because many people my age are having babies and not really worrying about "what they want to be when they grew up."

So what would you say to someone who told you they were in the wrong profession? What would you say in 2009? The year of frugality? They year of opportunity?

Would you have told her, go for it?
Would you have said, do something practical?
Would you have said, stick with the job and the money, life's unpredictable?
Or would you have said, do what you like, what makes you happy ... honey, go for it.

That's what my parents say. I tried to stir the waters a bit when I was at home for Christmas. I announced in the car after my parents and i'd been out for a movie (Emily had a party and we were "excused" from the home front). "I'm considering going to opera school," I announced.

"That's great," mom replied. "Whatever makes you happy."

Please. I just said it to get a reaction. Perhaps like the person who told me the "wrong profession" comment.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd like to go to school for opera, but really. I'm too old to go pursuing whimsical fantasies.

So what would you tell this woman, blog world? Cause Lord knows I don't have all the answers.

What would you say if someone told you, "You're in the wrong profession"?

Anniversary

Today starts year four: coincidental that it's labor day.

The day I'm not working in honor of my labor, my labor begins it's fourth year.

Yep, I've been at FBC three years now. Today's my anniversary. Now I suppose Marshall, my business manager will now begin griping, "But I began paying you August 15, 2005," which is true I suppose but as I recall my first official kick-off day was Sept. 1.

Three full years. Man...

I'm remembering...

Jonathan and Justin, my two faithful college students. Then came Lauren and Samuel, Paul, Aaron and Elizabeth. Cantamos. Route 66. Hospital visits. Awakening. Angels Over Austin (which I never understood until I actually experienced it for the first time). Beresheth. J.B. Staff retreats. Resident retreats. Current. Lent. SWBYC. Outbound. Officiating Patrick & Angela's wedding. Children's Camp. VBS. Creative Arts Camp. More college kids: Alaina, Gracie, Amy, Jorge and a college name, "Water's Edge." Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Marcus Borg, Dom Crossan, Joan Chittister. Festival of Homiletics. My ordination. College Beach Trip. Singing "Down By the River" at baptisms. Baptizing Kat. Preaching a whole month in "big church." CBF conventions. BGCT Conventions. The first BGCT Women's Convention. More funerals than I can count. Email, websites, facebook, myspace, Clarion, mailouts, and text messages. Strategic Planning. Deacon's. Church Council. Discipleship Committee. Shows at Zachary Scott Theater and UT. Films & Faith. Theater Arts Action Team. Aria Da Capo. The Diaries of Adam & Eve. New Baptist Covenant. Births and tragedies. Lunches and coffees and dinners and on and on and on...

There's so many things I could name. I see I've forgotten the time I prayed over people at Taize. Preaching (or rather not preaching) at the Convention Center after Katrina and Rita. Agape meals. Midweek Moorings. Bible studies. Even a WMU meeting.

So many things to remember and so many things to look forward to. Here's to three more years... or to whatever lies ahead.

and to God... may we never stop loving others in the name of God no matter what our vocation or our calling.

The Diaries of Adam & Eve

So I'm in play that Trinity Street Players (FBC's Theatre Troop) has produced. It's based on short stories by Mark Twain and is of course delightful. Titled, the Diaries of Adam and Eve, I play Eve :) I remember when my dad directed this play probably ten years ago. It's a great show and we're really proud of it. Already Thursday (and I think Friday) are sold out. So if you're in Austin, call 476-2625 to reserve your tickets for this Saturday at 8pm or Sunday at 2:30!

Directed by Dick Westerburg. David McCullars playing Adam. Other guest performances by Grant Hudson, Linda Miller Raff, Anna Taylor, Josh Houston and Jonathan Slocum.

PS - I don't know WHY the arm and the apple are blue. Something's wrong with my computer...

I made it.

"I made it this far," I sighed with relief as I settled on the bus and it pulled out of FBC at 6:47pm. I got everyone on the bus. That's amazing. I felt very adult-like.

That was yesterday. I am surrogate youth minister for retreats and wednesday nights as our youth minister is on sabbatical. My first "retreat" actually being the one is charge. I'm used to leading worship, or teaching or playing cards, but being responsible for 25 little lives? It was daunting. Not to mention the "If this gets screwed up you're dead meat" sound system and the lighting system for the dance Saturday nigh (also not mine) , and of course my own trusty college projector and computer which could also bring a price for my head if ruined or stolen.

No pressure.

And then there were the students.

"I cannot believe you're making us go home."
"I didn't make that decision."
"I can't believe you won't let us have a lock-in at the church instead."
"None of the other counselors will stay, I can't do it by myself."
"I can't believe you won't let us have a slumber party at your house."
"Some of your parents would be more panicked about you staying the night in my neighborhood than they would about us driving back in ice. Get a grip. I'll make it up to you. There's another youth retreat in two weeks."
"That retreat's for youth led worship. Don't try and trick us. You owe us big."

Sigh.

Is this what normal youth ministers experience?

I think the "three musketeers" are no longer speaking to me. This is not much of a change since they never listen to me either (14 year old boys), so what's one more sense lost?

"What are you going to do if it's sunny tomorrow here, Miss Pittman?" (I hate it when they call me that. They only do it to get under my skin and it works).

"Well, I guess I'll see you at church then. But it won't be sunny. There's an ice storm coming tomorrow."

And Austin is panicking. They're considering shutting down the city for two days Monday and Tuesday.

G.M.A.B.

Truth be told, if we were in Missouri or Colorado and conditions were as they were at Glen Rose, I wouldn't have thought twice about the roads. We'd have stayed the whole weekend. But this is Texas which means several things: 1. Texans panic at the thought of ice or snow or sleet, 2. they have no clue how to drive on or in any of the aforementioned states, and 3. they have no salt on the roads which, if the ground actually gets cold enough that it ices, it is dangerous.

So it's best we left.

Although the students would have preferred to be stranded with one another at the retreat center. It sounds very romantic now, but how about on Monday evening when we're still there and they're sick of playing cards and basketball? I can just hear it, "Now what can we do?"

But they're such a great group of kids. They just like to raz me. They love me, but whenever I claim to be the youth minister, they're always quick to remind me, "substitute."

I actually only had to play that card once. Last night around 1:15am when we could hear the boys talking and howling through the walls. I threw back the covers and marched over to their door, politely banged on it and stuck my head into the dark room. "This is Ann, I'm playing the youth minister card. Now shut it."

It worked.

They really are swell kids.

And I made it.

i'm excited about church tomorrow. yep, i'm one of those. i'm excited because i get to sing. i love singing in church. i love singing more than i love preaching. more than i love acting. more than i love art musuems. more than cats.

and tomorrow i'll be singing with the young (ahem) women's choir in church. and there's something very fulfilling about being creative with the beauty god has given you.

and that's why i love doing all the things in church i love to do. from acting to reading scripture to singing to preaching, it's not all that different is it? using beauty to communicate something about the world and most probably about god?

and it's good.

even when it's bad, it's good.

and so i'm ready to go to church.

to give back to god in the most honest way i can.

I'm sorry I've been so delinquent in blogging, but every time I've gone to write a blog, my internet has been down at home. Argh. No comment.

What was I going to blog?

Damnit. It was good. I had two posts going in my head last night and now I can't remember them.

Was I going to write about how exhausting Thursdays are? How last night I came home at 10:30p.m. and laid down on the couch feeling like a tired out little kid? I just completed a full day of school learning the dewey decibel system, and then played all afternoon outside on the patio - little house on the prairie - with tricycles. And now I'm asleep on the couch. Will my dad scoop me up, cradle me in his arms and lay me carefully in my bed to complete a good night's sleep?

Will he?

Or maybe I was going to blog about what finally arrived. Not a long awaited package, not a visitor, not a promotion, but a cold front. It finally arrived yesterday at 5pm... a few days late if you listen to the meteorologists. And I slept last night with the air turned off for the first time since I bought my house, and it was wonderful. But today it turned out to be hot again, so that feels like false advertising so perhaps that wasn't what I was going to blog about.

I can't remember.

Tonight I celebrated the birthdays of two friends, so I guess I'll blog to them. Ginny and Bria - love you. Fun parties tonight. Bon chance with all your adventures.

And may your internet always work and if not, may your memory always be keen.

Good News: I have strep throat.

This is good news, I swear. I could have had mono. That's what the doctor said.

Broken records. I get them now. You put them on and get all hyped up for your favorite song or a beautiful refrain and just as the song gets going, it bleeps and skips and goes back to where you were. Back to where you've already been, back to what you've already heard.

I know. It's my third sickness this summer. Physically, I mean. Amazing.

The children's minister at my church is smart. She said that what we feared would happen when we first organized how we would do my residency (i.e. that it would zap my energy) actually happened.

And that's why I've gotten sick three times this summer.

I've been busy.

And isn't that a beautiful song.

I'm sitting in another hotel room in Hotlanta.

The computer is in front of me, mass quantities of chinese food are piled around me, I'm catching up on all the blogs I haven't had time to read lately. It's great. Sometimes work requires time to catch up, even when that's not its intention.

It's intention is to get me to yet another conference in Atlanta, but after flying in airplanes or sitting in airports all day and then sitting in a shuttle waiting (praying) for the clock to strike 8:00 so we can leave ground transportation and i can actually be transported somewhere, after all that, it has allowed me the opportunity for peace and reflection.

But of course I'm starving after I get to my hotel at 8pm. So peace comes at a price. The kind lady at the front desk hands me several menus of local restaurants who deliver since I obviously don't have a car.

Italian place. . . pizza joint . . . pizza joint . . . i'm noticing a theme . . . chinese. Okay chinese, but only because they have crab rangoon or "Crab Angle" as they call it at Dragon Palace. I peruse my friends' blogs, check email and hear a knock on the door. My food has arrived, and I'm slightly amused that the delivery boy borrows a pen from me to scratch my credit card number onto a receipt kind of like we used to do with crayons on gravestones. But food is now in hand and I open it up. There's two fortune cookies on top which probably indicates that I ordered enough food for two people and I'm not the only one who thinks so. But the crab is good and so are the egg rolls. After two bites of the cashew chicken though, I begin plucking out all the chicken because I get paranoid I'm eating cat, and because as much as I always talk myself into ordering it, I really don't like meat. But rice mixed with cashews and veggies is yummie and is now sitting as leftovers beside my computer, probably stinking up my room which I won't notice until I come back to the hotel tomorrow and discover my room reeks of chinese food.

I digress. Or digest.

Both.

So I should be writing a learning report for my supervisors at CBF that was due April 15th. Oops. Instead I'm reading my brilliant friends who write about God and beauty and Paris, cursing my lazy friends who are neglecting their blogs and of course me, and debating whether or not to go to my ex-boyfriend's wedding.

Just the norms of life people. Nothing ever changes here.

My fortune cookie reads, "Be willing to apologize and the world will become smaller."

Thanks a lot. Mostly I've been apologizing to myself lately. Myself and the cats who have borne the brunt of my travels.

Maybe the second one is better. I'm weary of opening it though because then I will be forced to eat it for the sheer fact that it's a fortune cookie and I can't resist it, even if the first one kind of tasted like an orange peel.

Let's just do it. Who wants to write a learning report anyway?...

Holy shit. It contains two fortunes. What does that mean? Do I read them both? Is only the one on top really meant for me? Do I really believe this crap anyway?

1. "A four-wheeled adventure will soon bring you happiness."

Hmm. No road trips planned. Plenty of plane trips though. There's been no rain in Texas so mudding's out even though I've never been mudding and have no intention of ever going. Maybe it's a metaphor.

2. "Listen these next few days to your friends to get the answers you seek."

Interesting. Very interesting...

Several observations may be made. One - I'm at a conference with 9 other residents to discuss our jobs, goals, etc. etc. etc. We will hear from our bosses, we will hear from each other. We will go away resolute and renewed. Two - I've been asked to speak for about 10 minutes Friday about either my ordination or something that I've learned recently and then receive 5 minutes of feedback from fellow residents. Three - I just had a dream in which I was trying to get home but was unable. Along the way I met several friends who, try as they did, could not help me find home. My interpretation of the dream? Only I can get me to where I need to be emotionally and relationally. This third thought lies in direct contrast to the cookie's advice however. So maybe the cookie is just foretelling observations one and two.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing this.

Maybe I've spent too much time by myself since I arrived in Hotlanta.

Maybe I'm too hot.

Maybe I should write my learning report.

Was ordained Sunday the 16th. Preached Thursday and Sunday the 23rd. Really need a nap. Finally came off the high on Saturday and have wanted to sleep for the past two days.

But I leave tomorrow for children's camp, my least favorite part of ministry. Don't tell them. It's just so draining and I'm going in empty...

On a lighter note (for you), I managed to burn my finger on the iron while ironing a shirt to get my picture taken for the church directory which of course turned out hideous due to the laws of nature and church photos. My first official photo as a singleton: also a bonus to the week. The burn did blister, but it doesn't hurt too bad. So I guess that's a plus.

And I mowed my yard again for the second time but only after I got into a fight with the lawnmower. I discovered it just wanted to be cleaned and so I sprayed it with a hose and that seemed to make it happy and want to work again. Another plus. Course by that time (three attempts later) it was midday and hotter than hell. My face got all splotchy like it used to when I used to try and run. Horrible idea. It took my face an hour and a cold shower before it finally turned its usual shade of pale nothingness.

Speaking of the heat, I also managed to overheat my car. It turns out that you're supposed to pour anti-freeze/coolant into the car every year, but of course no one told me that so when I arrived home friday evening, my thermometer was pointing above the H and when I got out of the car I could hear things boiling under the hood. The next day (after the fight with the lawnmower), KC put a whole bottle of anti-freeze in the radiator and then another gallon of water before it filled up. I guess it was really dry. He was shocked. I was grateful.

What a week. Did I mention that the reverend needs a nap?

Maybe I'll get one in next week.

“What a beautiful service,” everyone said to me and I felt it in my most core being. The beauty of God radiated through song, liturgy, the spoken word and the laying on of hands. Cantomos’ music was serene, Seth’s hymn contemplative, and Joy’s song passionate. Add to that Samuel’s expertise on the piano and Lynnette’s soft, telling voice, and musically we were at our finest.

I had said to Genie Norris before the service, “I hope I don’t cry when I give my word of witness,” “Crying’s okay,” she told me with a smile and a hug. And cry I did. From the moment Holly Eades opened her mouth in prayer to God for God’s daughter and God’s people, I cried. I had no idea how overwhelming the experience of ordination would be.

Remembering people who have shaped my life, opened doors for ministry, pushed and prompted, encouraging me to use my gifts for God’s glory: it was an emotional trip down the proverbial memory lane.

I tried to listen as hard as I could. I kept my eyes on Julie as she told our story and gave the charge. I practiced the good listening skills they teach you in leadership classes. I made eye contact, I repeated what people said in my mind, I nodded my head.

And I’m not sure I caught it all. From some, I remember exactly what they said, from others, how they laid their hands on me, from others, how they spoke, and still from others, their facial expressions. But it was clear as the ocean on a cloudless day, I was loved. Love, love, love was all around.

I am still remembering, and writing what I remember down. Who said what, who slipped a gift in my palm, who hugged me hard. I only wish every young adult, as they recognize their calling in life, could be blessed, pushed out of the nest to discover they can fly on God’s grace; I wish everyone could have that affirmation of calling, that affirmation of love.

So thank you First Baptist. Roger’s last words for me as we left his office to go to worship were, “This is an honor and blessing for First Baptist as well.” Thank you FBC for all you’ve given me, thank you Wyatt Park, thank you CSM, thank you UBC, thank you Mosaic. Thank you for loving me and for allowing me to love you too.

I can't believe this is happening.

I feel like I'm getting married.

Except I don't have a dress, and my hair hasn't been cut, let alone colored and I've not written my vows.

Except I'm not. Getting married, I mean.

But it is incomplete. At least it feels like that. Sort of. There are so many blessings. My grandparents are here, miraculously. Both my sisters and my parents at the same time. Lynnette, Josie, Lance, Julie, all at once. Chris, Michelle, Joy and Peter.

But not Kyle. Not Jeremy. Not David or anyone from UBC now. They're moving into their new building the morning I get ordained. They've changed their interior design and so have I, I guess, but that doesn't mean that old grocery store doesn't still sit inside us, in our memory, informing who we are today.

And so I cried. I cried because my skin got sucked down into the lock of the door when the car reached over 20 mph. I cried because my "word of witness" isn't written yet for Sunday. Because I only have "winter" dress clothes t0 wear to the reception and everyone else got new clothes. Because my hair hasn't been cut since December. Because I don't like working in the children's department. Because I don't have any idea how to talk to mass quantities of children about Jesus. Because I'm tired of going on church trips. Because I leave again in a week. Because I hate high school reunions. Because I am so stressed that I started early. Because I got my damn skin pinched in the damn door lock. Because I feel totally unprepared for my wedding day.

But she will be the bride of Christ. And she will be redeemed nonetheless. With or without a summer dress. With or without spit-ends in her hair. With or without her witness written. With our without you.

That I will be good with or without you, she sang last night.

With or without you, she sang.

And she believes it.

But she cries anyway.