Stick 'Em On Your Rear

I've seen some pert-good bumper stickers in my day.  From the hysterical to the philosophical to the political to the grammatical, if I'm not laughing, I'm groaning (sometimes "That's just wrong" seems oh-so-right).

Textbooks have filled my brain with knowledge - which the Good Book gives a good washing - and now I fill young minds with knowledge...and maybe a little washing, too. But some of life's best nuggets have come from neither. No, its bumper stickers that have served our culture as sheriff, judge, town cryer, gossip rag, and epitaph on the social struggles we deem just another day in paradise.

For instance, more than one car's backside has testified that  

Pain is inevitable, misery is optional and  

He who laughs last thinks slowest. 

It's likely no good testimony to my character to confess I've laughed uproariously at

Could You Drive Any Better If I Shoved That Cell Phone Up Your A*%?  

and nodded gravely to  

Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. 

Eschew obfuscation 

actually means something to me - which appeals to my not-so-inner elitist.

But aren't these social discourses a bit more than a laugh and tickle? I mean, look at how long I've just spent writing about a lesser-valued genre of lower written English: what more could we say given 25 characters or less?

1 Pet. 3:15 instructs, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." If that command was the driving force of stickers upon the bumper, perhaps we'd get to the heart of the matter with decals like these.

The Seating Preference
          Eternity: Smoking or Non-Smoking?

The Zealot

        Hope dies last!

The Bottom Line

          God Bless Our Troops.

The Golden Rule

          Be human.

The Curiously Likely

         The More You Complain, The Longer God Makes You Live.

The Stuff at the End

         Don't put a question mark where God put a period.

Good reasons. Good answers. Good hope.

Why not stick 'em on your rear?

Whacked Out Underdogs

Give me an underdog, and I'll root for 'em.
Unless they're underhanded, nasty, or reek from the stench of greed, disloyalty, and rage.
In that case, I'd have to turn the channel from "The Bachelor".

Ba-bum-bum. And don't go clicking the red x quite yet - I promise I'm going somewhere with this.

I don't like the show, mainly because I think it borderlines prostitution and makes a mockery of any version of love you can give me...except for the one that's steeped in the hot waters of greed, disloyalty, and rage. But, given that that's not love anyhoo, I reckon I'm safe.

P.S.: If you really want to get into a blurb of excellent notions on the matter, check out one of my fave bloggers over at her writing pad. She gives some pristine insight on the subject of The Final Freaking Rose.

P.S.S.: If you're still wondering when I'm going to deliver on my promise of going somewhere with this, it's comin' at you right now.

There really is something good to be found in most of the bad's you scrub. "The Bachelor" is a perfect example, actually, for if I were to list some of the high-qual women I know who tune in every....wait, what night is that disaster on?...you might not actually be shocked. I mean, we can all read the Nielson posts. But you might stop and ask the same question that halts my gait: Why do so many good folk watch such a bad show?

Because they don't think it's bad. Or not bad enough to stop watching. Or not so bad they actually feel bad about watching it. Also, they are good people. And, while I'm at it, I could up with a thing or two - or thirty - I have engaged that aren't bad at their seed: they're just not great quality, either. They're empty. Or pointless.

They're also a release. So why not let it be what it is? Do I really see God as so small that some rich guy with bad hair, bad manners, bad common sense, and bad girl history can outreach His touch on us all? 

So here's the crux: In a world gone so grossly bad, good people are the underdogs I'm rooting for. The rest of it is just a preoccupation from a dastardly world that would rather chew us up and spit us out than put us before a red curtain and shower us with roses.

Or was that last week's episode?

The Sky Looks Pissed

Thanks to Hulu Plus, I stumbled upon the this glorious little musical treasure whose stage recently hosted Ingrid Michaelson.

Love her writing. And singing.


The best part of shows like this one is that you can, in their rawest form short of sitting next to them on a subway train, encounter new artists. Deciding if you like 'em is really so much easier when they're without producers, mixers, and dubbing knobs.

So is the case with Miss Ingrid. She marries lyrics to rhythm to create moments - ones I've lived in, some I have not. Nevertheless, they are ad rem to the human heart, the nature of relating. While humming along to the tunes I'm already stuck on, the first notes of this song knelled: it's one I had not heard heretofore.

Now I'm listening to it over and over.
At first blush, I thought it was a moment I hadn't lived.
Then again, I think we've all lived it. It's about loss by absence. It's about admitting that loss. It's about wanting to fill it with what once lived there, before the loss became too risky to endure. It's about reopening the heart by removing its chain.

Besides, there's not one of us who haven't seen a sky look pissed or heard the wind talk back.
I could dig it for those two lines alone.

Here's your shot to do the same.

 "The Chain"

The sky looks pissed.

The wind talks back.

My bones are shifting in my skin

And you my love are gone.

My room seems wrong.

The bed won't fit.

I can not seem to operate

And you my love are gone

(Chorus)

So glide away on soapy heels

And promise not to promise anymore

And if you come around again

Then I will take, then I will take the chain from off the door

I'll never say,

I'll never love.

But I dont say a lot of things

And you my love are gone.

(Chorus X6)

Prostitute Turned Virgin

I love words. In the manner others love food or air or blood pushing life through their bodies, I love words.

When you speak, I am listening to your words.
      What ones did you pick? 
I am wondering about your words.
      Why did you pick that one? 
Sometimes, I am laughing at your words.
      Uh, don't think you know what that one means!
And, every once in a rapture of rhetoric, I am staggered by your words.
      Did you just say  ____________?! Ultra. Cool.

Words are the guide you give to the honeycomb of you: that peculiar maze that defines your nature, coming with no particular map so much as a red signifier of "You Are Here". In any given word exchange, we each proffer two significant articles: the You Are Here of that moment and the red lines of direction to the next layer of maze. Your words are tells - and I love to watch your cues.

Not everyone is gifted with words - and that's okay. My brother can say more with a profanity, for instance, than I would ever have enough blush to relate. But I get his message, nevertheless. This means, I think, that words aren't about elitism in its strictest sense; more like elitism in its best sense. For how many people can drop a great F bomb, but do it with little to no aplomb? If you have to look up aplomb, then you've got your answer. The gist? High words come from high folk - but not necessarily better folk.

So, if Month of Love is about considering all the ways, means, efforts, considerations, manners, and content of what our bulleted banner of "Love", then (for me) words have to make the list. Incidentally, I ain't alone in my love, however weird some of you might think it. I am fully aware that there are those who read here and share this precise pseudo-obsession. But, just in case you're wondering about all the other yahoos who've jumped this bandwagon, here are some highlights.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.  ~Anton Chekhov

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.  ~William Wordsworth

 A word is not the same with one writer as with another.  One tears it from his guts.  The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.  ~Charles Peguy

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.  ~Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.  ~Karl Kraus

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.  ~Theodore Dreiser, 1900

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.  ~Author Unknown

The Grandest of Grand

Valentine's Day: not a fan. Don't mark it with my lover, actually - likely because he's not a fan, either.

It's not that I'm against marking love: I'm for hailing its power and beauty in banners worldwide, actually. Course, that's not what Valentine's Day often is. After all, since when did love become about grand gestures delivered in a single package bowed by dollar bills? Now, I'm not a minimalist, by any stretch: I don't carp for hours about the materialization of Christmas or the secularization of Easter (the weird business of Santa and Easter Bunny aside). And, if one day on the calendar is the best you can muster in the name of love, I won't mention Byron's grave-rolling or Barrett Browning's red red rose wilting.

There is more to love than a day, and that more is usually less in nature. I mean, dare I suggest that every kiss does not, precisely, begin with Kay (Gag on those commercials)? The older I grow, the more I see the grand gestures lying not in what you buy, but what costs you. It's in the Post-It you leave on the microwave or the laundry you fold without prompting. It's in the foot rubs and hair strokes, the secret smiles and sly glances. It's in the way you say his name or you hold her hand.

Maybe there's some wee truth to Johnny Depp's point (am I actually quoting Edward Scissorhands?!?) that the folly of youth is in claiming the idea of love without actually experiencing love.

"I think when you're young, you're hoping that this person will be the right one, the one you're going to be in love with forever. But sometimes you want that so much, you create something that isn't really there."

So, are the grand, often expensive gestures just an idea of love, an empty shell of the real deal?

Yeah, I dunno, either. And, most honestly, I wouldn't be the one to decide anyway. While listening to this little song that made it big, though, it occurred to me: simpler love is for me. It's a journey of mutual acceptance; of living big even in the small; of carving something from nothing, even in the everyday Post-It's, laundry piles, smiles, and glances.

Taking one another just as we are...perhaps the grandest of grand gestures, no?

"The Way I Am"

If you were falling, then I would catch you.
You need a light, I'd find a match.

Cause I love the way you say good morning.
And you take me the way I am.

If you are chilly, here take my sweater.
Your head is aching, I'll make it better.

Cause I love the way you call me baby.
And you take me the way I am.

I'd buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair.
Sew on patches to all you tear.

Cause I love you more than I could ever promise.
And you take me the way I am.
You take me the way I am.
You take me the way I am.

Redone

My spunky friend, Jessica B, yields a superpower particularly useful in our world gone clutter: she's a professional organizer. Her recent FB post proclaimed, "I love me a good, hot mess!" And God bless her for it! But I got to thinking: if I finished that sentence, how would it read?

I love a good, hot __________. (Wait, wasn't I in this fix last post, too?)

Project. My answer is project.

When Craig or one of the kids starts a sentence with, "You know, we should..." and end it with, "...you could totally do that", my inner project designer sits up and barks. In honor of the double sticks birthday, Grace decided she wanted most a bedroom makeover that was, as she put it, "bigger girl. But not too big."
     She wanted a room.
          Redone.

Now, any shopping fiend carrying a 54-by-86 mm IOU can redesign a room in an afternoon. But can you do it for less than $50? How creative can you be and still proudly wave your frugal flag? Now that's the real project.

Her color picks and patterns + a quest for the perfect fabric = Girl Date. Here's what she settled on.

Polka dots. In orange, pink, and brown. Best part of redoing a tween's room? No rules!

Which is good because we crafted these felt pillows to accent.

They're so easy to make, and each one cost mere cents. Buy the felt by the yard from a fabric store at about $1.50/yard. Use a coupon! We varied the sizes based on Grace's whim and cut the pillow forms from orange and brown. We also scooped up a couple of the 10 cent felt squares in neon green and fuschia for accent. You can hem inside around the perimeter or use an accent thread in a zig-zag on the outside for extra pop. Leave a few inches at a base side to stuff with Poly-Fil, and then stitch it up when the pillow's full. Grace decorated the outside using beads, circles, and flat glass marbles. Voila!

Strangely, our biggest brain teaser was this:

No, it's not a dead orange ostrich? Or, not quite. The shade used to be purple-trimmed, and how hard (dreamed I) could it be to find an orange shade? Well, if I was looking now, none at all - for they adorn the endcap of every blasted aisle in Target. But when I needed one? Nope. It was like water in the Sahara: a mirage of possibility, at best. Lest we be beat, the girl and I snagged a bag of orange feathers at Hobby Lobby which I used promptly to re-frock the lamp.

Remember: no rules.

A quick repaint of her name...

and a re-striping and decal-ing of her dresser ...

(We pulled out the drawers and painted her new colors just at the white areas between the drawer tops and bottoms. Then I free-handed some detail at the top and sides.)

along with a "craft-line" (aka hemp rope with painted clothespins in her new colors) to showcase her current treasures, and she was set! This way, she can change out her pieces without hanging them all over her room.

To further that idea, we used the narrow and wretched-to-paint wall area between her closet and bedroom doors to mount a corkboard wall. You can grab a package at a craft supply store for about $12 for 6 of the 8x8 size. Then hang 'em up in any configuration you want and let your kiddo go mad showcasing ribbons, notes, medals, drawings, snapshots...whatever. And NO HOLES in the wall!

I like!

 

Yes, I love me a good, hot project.

On a budget (yep, less than $50).

But I learned a little some'in, some'in along the way this time.

Our girl is growing up.

Today's "bigger girl but not too big" will fast become "bigger yet" and "bigger still" until she's decorating a house of her own.

If time is going to fly the way it insists on doing, these are the collaborations I'll love best.

Sure, there will be lots of hot projects. 

But the ones happening in a 10x12 cube with a Daddy, a Mommy, and a leggy Tween brainstorming on a budget....well, I suspect those are the ones that'll be remembered for quite some time. 

By every heart involved.

So, I s'pose I don't love me a good, hot project so much as I love me a good, hot family remodel, fixed and fiddled and flagged for display.

Us and her.

 

Redone.

Branded

While we're on the subject of the Month of Love...how about those items that fall into the category of what we love? Given that Americans have the absurd notion of rampantly overusing words like love, awesome, and hate (naming a few is an understatement), "what we love" is the wrong phrasing. Yep, I'm guilty, too.

But what about those little life extras that leave us up in our giddy when we find our hot little hands clutching our ..... what? Fill in your blank.  Ahem: keep it clean: I left that field of rhetoric wide open...

I've got a few. Most aren't even in my use everyday; rather, they're those lovely little whatsis's I find and, with a sigh of repletion, say, "Yes! That's what I've been looking for!" (Geek) Of course, I didn't know I was looking for the lovely...which, rather absurdly, makes it all the more valuable.

Here's one such gadget.

Craig bought this embosser plate for me when I was in grad school. With its opening came a sigh and a "Yes! That's what I've been looking for!" (Nerd) For folks like me who are more than persnickety about loaning books (your coffee stains, baby vomit, and boogers should not come back on my now torn, dog-eared, and otherwise abused folio), this is a must have. Most companies offer more variety than I care to recount (think shape, size, font, style, phrasing, and so on), and they are an investment (handhelds like mine run about $50). Still, if you're a connoisseur of books, then considering your favorites branded makes their value skyrocket.
Indelibly marks them as sacred.
Enriches their message tenfold.
Nay, a hundredfold.

Nah, it's just cool when you open the jacket of a beloved text, and see your brand. To be fair, I've already used the words geek and nerd.

 And one could argue you'd have to be one to appreciate such nonsense: except that we brand all the time. Why, a tattoo is no more than a branding of skin! How about a label on your jeans or a nameplate on that $400 bag you're carrying? Own a sweatshirt with your alma mater or fave NCAA team logo emblazoned across the front? 

It's how we communicate belonging. How we say, "Heck yes, I'm for that!" It's a shorthand of communicating. Of signifying love. Or like. Or being up in our giddy when something's in our hot little hands.

Such notions are good. What's even better is recognizing My Love knew I'd relish it before I even knew it existed. Which is just another way 

       of being loved, 

               known,

                     recognized as belonging.

Rather like being branded.

Overhaul Your Soul

February has arrived, and you know what that means.

Yeah, you have no idea, do ya.

Well, for Cadbury, it's time to crack some eggs. For Whitman's, it's time to blend the chocolate. And for Swiss Miss, it's time to stir the cocoa - extra marshmallows, please.

For the Covak's, it's time to mark Month of Love. You can hit the link to get an overview and history, but the box of chocolates synopsis?

If you get crazy about it, it'll become a habit. And habits will become ways of life. Ways of life change the soul. And souls change the world.

Every day in February is a cleaned-and-cleared slate to commit acts of love. Put love thoughts in the atmosphere. Get a bit more crazy and a skosh less restrained...all in the name of love. Love done His way. Carried my way. Their way. Heck, why not your way, too?

The month of January is about the planning. Yes, it takes a month. But that's just because I'm me and, well, my "me" is anal-retentively intentional, irrationally organized and, as a result, restricted to a month's worth of plotting and pinning. (I mean pinning, literally...I actuallly created a Month of Love board on Pinterest to gather all the state-of-the-heart brainstorms out there.) This year, the parts and parcels of the particulars, though, I've bound with a different string for, if I've learned but one thing from this family experiment, it is this:

Give God an inch on the subject of love, He'll re-plot your course a mile.

Months of Love have taught my soul a lesson or two on rejoicing over it, laboring in it, relishing within it, pausing for it, basking after it, catching it, releasing it, and creating it...in the fashion of the ultra-cool. But, in all these, my hand did not steer the wheel. You just gotta' go with the flow - another little dittie learned in the month slotted 2.

It is in this way, we get crazy.
Build habits.
Make new lives.
Overhaul our souls.
Change the world.

This year, I made us a reminder to press beneath a glass and checkmark as we go. (I printed it, framed it 8x10 style, and centered it on our kitchen table. We'll let the kiddos use a Dry-Erase marker to fill in the bullets.)

 It's our manifesto and edict...to get the little's done and, so, see the big.
The best.
Which is love.
Which is Him.

Overhaul your soul.
Month of Love.