Summer Sparkle

So I’m standing in the dentist’s office a few days ago chatting with the receptionist, working out a “convenient payment plan,” and I steal a glance at the big screen HD TV mounted in the otherwise drab waiting room. I see the words “Def Leppard w/ Tim McGraw” on the screen and the CMT logo in the corner. Surely I’m hallucinating . . . my mind getting things all mixed up as it tries to wrap its way around the four-figure number the lady with the 80s hairdo just quoted me. And sure enough there’s Tim McGraw doing his thing and the world returns to normal.

And then there’s Joe Elliot. And Phil Collen. Older. Rockin’. Country Music Television, if I recall correctly. Bon Jovi made sense. But this?! The heavy metal gods of my youth are on CMT. I’ve entered another dimension. The lady keeps talking but I’m not listening to her anymore. I need to wake up . . .

Or crawl out from under my oppressive pet rock.

Flashback to 1983. Joe Elliot, sweaty and pompous, draped in a Union Jack and hanging on my bedroom door, conveniently superimposed on a centerfold of Dorothy Stratten just in case the folks wander in. Pyromania, the song titles faded but memorized anyway, ensconced in the dime store cassette player with the wiry headphones that keep losing their oily, grey ear cushions. Gunter glieben glauchen globen. All right! For a kid looking to stray off the fast track to Christian maturity, nothing spelled rebellion better than The Lep.

New Year’s Eve – 1984. Rick Allen loses his arm in a drunk-driving accident. I’m in my bedroom hangin’ with John, his boombox crankin’ the hits as we ring in so many new things. New town. New school. New friends. And now this. Surely the end is near.

Summer of ‘87. Hysteria hit both physically and metaphorically. Rick Allen is doing the one-armed electric drum thing but who cares! The Lep is back! Seven hit singles over the course of my first year in college. My future wife and I dance at a mixer at Itza Pizza as “Hysteria” blasts from the sound system, cementing our relationship with its harmonic super glue. We crank “Love Bites” in the KBSB studio just to hear the freaky ending: “Jesus of Nazareth . . . Go to Hell!” My InterVarsity friends find that disturbing, so I do to. I lose interest. Petra, White Heart, Mylon LeFevre and Vengeance CDs slowly replace the secular stuff as I genuinely try to grow up and get real with God.

[Insert years and years of spiritually ambiguous stuff here, all fodder for future blog posts.]

I’m in Wal Mart after leaving the dentist’s office. Still a bit flummoxed. And there’s Song from The Sparkle Lounge on the New Releases rack. I think once, not twice. And then the wife and I are in the minivan jamming to Def Leppard. Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

Aside from the country-fried “Nine Lives” and the unnecessary ballad “Love,” this disc is a welcome mix of all things nostalgic and new. As the product description on Amazon says, it’s the glitz and glam of Hysteria meets the raw power of High ‘n’ Dry. I can buy that. “Hallucinate,” “C’mon C’mon” and “Go” could be outtakes from some lost 80s session, while “Cruise Control” and “Gotta Let It Go” have a distinctive “now” sound reminiscent of . . . is it Seether? Only without the heavy doses of barely-post-teen angst? Joe Elliot is still a fine singer, and Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell compliment each other nicely. After numerous spins, the standout song for me is “Tomorrow.” The vocal fills nod in Bono’s direction, the harmony is infectious and it sounds great loud. And there are guitar solos aplenty. Remember guitar solos? I do. And I missed them during the drought that was the 90s.

So it’s 2008. And I get to spend another summer with Def Leppard. I’m either really sick or just getting more sentimental as I age. But you know what that’s like, don’t you?

Laid Off & Laid Up

First off, I’m NOT DEAD!!

And it’s official now. I’ve been laid off by the company I work for. My last day was this past Saturday.

This whole thing has left behind that all-too-familiar bitter taste. The only communication regarding the layoff came in the form of a posted piece of paper on the bulletin board. A piece of paper that originally spelled good news: the layoff was to be by seniority within our classification, in accordance with our contract. That would have saved my job. Then the very next day a revision was posted stating that the layoff was instead going to be based solely on seniority. No explanation was given for the change. Not even by our very company-friendly union which obviously had a hand in the final decision. And there was no indication as to how many would be sent packing. I sent out a very cordial yet strongly-worded email to several people on both sides of the situation. No one took the time to reply. So I have questions. What about my vacation? How long until my insurance runs out? You know . . . things of the not-so-insignificant variety. Conveniently, the HR folks went home early the day the list of affected employees was posted.

The plant-wide grumble-factor reached a fevered pitch that evening.

So I spent my last day making nice (sort of) and doing my job well one last time. Then I headed home to polish my resumé. I’m surprisingly optimistic at this point. Despite my cheerful attitude and gentle manner (or perhaps because of those things), I never really fit in there. Also, the opportunity to look for work closer to home is a welcome one. So, I’ll be alright.

But first . . .

I’m having major oral surgery tomorrow; time to bring back the old, confident smile that’s been tentative and weak as of late. Sure my teeth will be soon be made of high-grade plastic, but a smile’s a smile. I see Tylenol with codeine, several rinses per day, mucho sleep and large doses of malaise and incoherence in the not-so-distant future. My biggest fears? What will I sound like when I speak? Will my wife still want to share those wet, passionate kisses with me anymore? And how the hell am I gonna pay for all this? Things could be ugly for a spell.

Do me a favor. Those of you with kids? Tell them to brush their teeth every once in a while. Especially the ones they want to keep. If you need some scary pictures to hang on their bathroom mirror as an incentive, I’ll send you some real doozies.

Your thoughts are coveted and appreciated in advance . . .

Tweakin’ The Cheek

For those of you who are regular readers of The Cheek of God, I’ve got a couple of questions that I hope you’ll take a moment to answer for me by way of a quick comment.

First, how do you get to The Cheek each day? Do you subscribe (which reader)? Email? Bookmark? I have access to some very basic subscriber info, but I’m looking for more specific, personalized reader information. If you’re a subscriber, does the feed meet your needs adequately? Does the formatting make it difficult to read, or is it sufficient as-is? Bottom line, when you get your Cheek on, how do you go about it?

Second, what keeps you coming back? And please be specific. Freewriting? Memoir? Random stuff? You just think I’m a swell guy and hate to miss a thing I post? That sort of thing. What about The Cheek tweaks you?

I’ve got some free time as of late and have made some tweaks to The Cheek that I hope make the blog more user-friendly. I also am debating whether or not to make The Cheek a self-hosting blog. The Cheek is going on three months old and has become something more than just a blog for me. It’s been my pleasure to be here. And the writing is the easy part. Tweaking the experience for you, the reader, is the hard part. I’m simply info-gathering at this point. Call it market research. And your input means a lot.

So fire away. All comments regarding both form and content are welcome and appreciated.

Brian

Ugly (freewriting 1.13)

Natalie’s Prompt: Tell me what you thought was ugly. Be detailed. Go. Ten minutes.

We bought the couches on the payment plan in 1992 while living in Fargo, North Dakota.

We’d just gotten hitched the previous summer and lived in a bantam one-bedroom apartment downtown at Roberts Street Place. Everything we owned was second-hand including a tattered old couch with a splintered wooden frame and a two-inch foam pad covered with a bed sheet for a cushion. It had been my bedroom during my first stint in college, situated below a wide picture window looking out toward a grove of red maples and Glenn’s sand volleyball court. I recovered from a minor surgical “procedure” sprawled on that couch. I’d watched the entire Star Wars trilogy (on VHS) for the first time curled up with a wool blanket on that couch. But it was my bachelor couch, and it had to go.

So we went shopping, our then-perfect credit score in hand, and found the perfect set. For around $800, we netted a couch, love seat, two faux oak end tables, a coffee table, and two lamps with robin’s-egg-blue bases and cream colored shades. We had no room left to romp once the guys with the truck hauled it all in.

Looking through our scrapbooks this morning, those couches are in nearly every picture. There they are in a picture of the old Berean gang studying the Bible and eating Doritos. There they are when we brought each of our four kids home from the hospital – mom proud but exhausted and the kid so small and snuggled. Fifteen Christmases.

Now they are sitting on our porch. Relocated after the new set arrived a couple months ago.

A friend tells me I’m now officially a redneck.

Their stuffing is gone. There are gaping holes in the arms where the frame has been pushed through after years as a headrest. A footrest. A jump-hug launching pad. After late nights lost in the throes of romance with the subtle glow of candlelight and the scent of vanilla wafting from the tealights melting on the end table. The bees are building a hive in the loveseat, or so my daughter says. But Beefcake does his homework out there now that the weather’s turned all sunny and dry. And no one else wants them. Not even for free.

Yeah, they’re ugly. And beautiful. And available . . .

About Freewriting

Wheel in the Sky

Leave it to Steve Perry & Company to put things in perspective. Released in 1978, the year I turned double digits, Journey’s Infinity holds the spot as the first LP I ever owned, a Christmas present from my uncle . . . the quiet one who used to take me to the local pool with him and his ever-present, smarty-pants girlfriend so I could sit on the concession counter and get oohed and aahed over. The pint-sized people magnet.

“Wheel in the Sky” moved me. Still does. I never spent much time trying to figure out what they were actually referring to. Some speculate the song is about Ezekiel’s wheel and its whirlwind of fire. Others say the song finds its roots in Greek mythology. And still others say it simply, and beautifully, refers to the revolutions of the Sun . . . the endless passing of time. That works for me. We move through life and experience things that are at once exhilarating and monotonous. And the big wheel keeps on spinning. “Don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow.” Indeed.

Such has been my life as of late. I haven’t sat down to write in over a week and I’ve missed it. This blogging thing is more than an addiction. It’s become a passion, spurring things inside me that have sat dormant for too long. There’s more ramblings to come, so stay tuned . . .

But now, for those of you playing along at home, here’s a quick rundown of my past week and the things that have kept me away:

Working in a manufacturing facility has its ups and downs. Downs dominate as of late. There have been rumors of yet another layoff swirling around. The housing industry is in the toilet and it seems no one needs a new furnace, air conditioner or thermostat. Yeah we’re pumping them out, but they sit in some warehouse, waiting for people to get those stimulus checks so they can go shopping. Meanwhile we’ve had three layoffs in two years. Because of my classification I’ve managed to avoid losing my job up to this point. But now it’s time for those who volunteered not to work, who have more seniority than me, to return. Which means its time to start hacking from the bottom up. I’ve sent letters of concern to both the union and the company. I’ve let my voice be heard. But in a company this size, there are too many ears and they aren’t always connected to brains thinking in unison. So my time will probably come by the end of this week. I’ll keep you posted . . .

I took the final for my Principles of Logic class yesterday. Logic for Dummies and I developed a heated relationship, spending hours and hours full of days together getting to know one another intimately. I caressed it with the fine point of my yellow highlighter. Devoured its pages with intensity close to madness. And now it sits discarded at the bottom of my book bag. Tossed aside like a cheap whore. I got what I came for, then hit the deck running. I’m fairly certain that I’ll get an A. Whoo-de-freakin’-whoOO! Now I have a couple weeks before I start a summer Ethics course with one of my favorite professors. There is sunlight on the horizon . . .

I spent the few free hours I could scrounge reading Alison Smith’s excellent memoir titled Name All the Animals. She tells a sentiment-fee yet heart-gripping story of grieving the loss of her older brother in a freak car accident. Shaky faith and tremendous loss combine to wreak havoc upon both her and her parents as they try to figure out how to go on living amidst the unspoken pain. Her account of unconsciously creating and then holding on to irrational coping mechanisms is told with very little in the way of condemnation or judgment. Three years of pounding despair wrapped in frailty and discovery.

A favorite scene: Alison spent much of her youth being afraid of the dark. One day, her brother Roy takes her hand before leading her out under stars, and tells her, “There is no night. Just the dark part of the day.” I actually stopped reading at that point. It’s been a while since something so small took my breath away.

Read the book for yourself. You can thank me later.

File this under “Happy News”. I learned that King’s X, one of my longtime favorite bands, has a new album coming out on May 20^th. I first met the X in 1991 after the release of Out of the Silent Planet. “See the bread / See the wine / See the graft into the vine.” That was the snippet of lyrics published in an article in CCM magazine about bands in the mainstream that have a Christian slant to their music. They ended up fighting the “Christian” label for years, releasing darker and moodier albums and shying away from any sort of positive exposure that sought to elevate the message over the music. I’ve always admired the way they wear the truth in all of its ugliness. Their impact on me as a young adult stretching for something real was so great I named my firstborn son after their guitar player.

Now I have a new CD to wait impatiently for . . . It’s gonna be a rockin’ summer after all!

So, yeah, I’ve been busy living. The wheel keeps turning. I really don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow. But for now I’m here. And it’s good to be back . . .

Another Brick in Our Collective Ruins – A Guest Post

One of the best things about surfing around Blogland is having the opportunity to meet people who become so much more than just avatars and screen names. Through reading posts, leaving comments, and interacting by email, several people I’ve rubbed digital shoulders with in recent months have moved beyond faces and words on a webpage to kindred spirits . . . soul mates.

One such person is Christine, known around the blogosphere as Flutter. Her posts push me, motivate me, and tickle the part of my brain that loves writing and those who do it well. To visit her blog is to experience a broad spectrum of emotions.

Life, work and school have been handing my ass to me as of late, so I asked Christine if she’d kindly write a guest post for The Cheek of God. She’s a very busy gal, so I’m thrilled that she agreed.

So, in lieu of a “woe-is-me” post where I bore you with the details of why I haven’t posted since last Tuesday, I’m privileged to offer you the words of a friend . . .

The act of writing is an inspired thing. You either feel compelled, or you don’t. For those of us who feel compelled, writing is an act akin to breathing.

Sometimes labored, sometimes natural, always necessary. Expression is historically documented, our written history the labor of love of those who took it upon themselves to archive. This creates a different perspective when evaluating history. When we consider the personal perspective that leaks into the gathering and the telling of fact. How fact changes depending on the view of the person telling the story.

Memoir is a blessing of history. Our own personal histories gathered, archived, shared. Memoir writing is an act of therapeutic healing. To tell our own stories is to give credence to the experience. To tell our truths is an act of bravery. Even if the story seems mundane to our own eyes, our stories have the power to heal, to unite, to teach.

My own memoir is a history of sexual assault and the subsequent decade plus of self abusive patterns. I am finally putting them to rest by placing them on the table. When brought to light, our own personal tragedies lose power. They become yet another brick in our collective ruins, ready to tumble. Such has been my experience in telling my own stories on my blog, and as I work on my book.

Bravery is essential in the memoir, as is delicacy, brutality, sensitivity and honesty. But all of these are essential to you and only you. You are not writing for your audience, in a memoir. You are writing a resonant truth. Your truth will resonate with your audience when it resonates with you. When you are touched, they are touched, when you are full, so are they.

It is the best kind of therapy, our personal histories. They are born of our eyes and can only be told by us. They are stories that need to be heard. They are history in the making.

To experience Flutter in all her finest “delicacy, brutality, sensitivity and honesty,” visit her blog and spend some time getting to know her. You won’t be the same . . .

Lost Hours

Tuesday, April 22, 2002. My wife’s parents arrive from Minnesota to spend a few days watching the kids and the house while I’m in Carmel. The kids are so young, their lives so full of fun and frolicking, that they won’t remember “fat dad” beyond the few pictures stashed away in scrapbooks and one wobbly video recording made the previous Christmas in which we hang popcorn strands amid twinkling lights, sing along with Bruce Cockburn’s “Mary Had A Baby,” and wrestle on the couch.

We crowd into our faithful white minivan with its brown leather seats stained with watermelon Kook-Aid and tinted windows spotted with “Have A Grrreat Day!” stickers courtesy of the smiley bank teller and drive to a local buffet – Minnesotans love buffets – and I eat heartily: fresh baked rolls piled high with scoops of honey butter; little meatballs smothered in barbecue sauce; a thick, hand-carved slice of glazed ham; long, steamy uncut green beans; a bowl of vanilla ice cream with Gummi Bears on top. I eat like I always have, fast and furious, talking with my mouth full, bellying up to the heating tables again and again, all the while pushing down the truth that keeps rising in my gut like so much swallowed breath and bile. . . I won’t ever eat like this again.

The next morning I kiss the kids goodbye. They’ve spent the night in mom and dad’s tiny bedroom, a sanctuary in our tiny home, good for bedtime stories about what Brown Bear sees and what Polar Bear hears, where dreams are filled with things-not-scary and grandma’s quilts and stuffed, smiling bears and bunnies are always within arms reach. They rouse enough to give clingy hugs and receive butterfly kisses, and then settle back down as the early-morning light peeks through the worn cotton curtains with flowery patterns that sometimes look like faces, caressing their rosy, smooth cheeks.

Details come easy when one is not heavily sedated.

I’m dressed in one of those too-thin hospital gowns as they wheel me into the surgical suite at 10:30 A.M., 120 miles from my baby blue front door. Pastor Neil goes out of his way to stop by and enlist the guidance of the almighty upon the assembled medical professionals. I like Neil. He’s the only pastor at our church who isn’t all pretentious smiles and pious small talk. His spiritual house is made of splinters and grungy carpet with nary a stained glass window for keeping things docile. He lives . . . truly lives . . . in a world of honesty, bristling amidst the mayhem, and I am grateful for his hand upon my trembling shoulder. A nurse dispenses with the small talk and asks if I’m ready to take a nap. I wonder if I have a choice. “Let’s do it,” I eventually manage and the drugs are pushed into my arm and I close my eyes.

It will be nearly two days before I’m deemed recovered enough to get a room of my own among the general population of patients.

Two days . . .

Like Neo in the real world, just after unplugging, my memories of those hours are patchy. I can’t pull focus on any one moment. A thought: God, I’ve been hit by a truck! I can’t move my arms. Every breath feels like I’m fighting against a pile of rocks on my chest. Someone tells me to take a deep breath and then breathe out on the count of three as they pull a tube, crusted red and then slimy and rotten-smelling, out of my nostril. A young female clad in white and sporting a long braid is guiding my morphine pump behind me as I shuffle to the toilet behind a curtain in a darkened corner. A series of slow-mo laps around the hexagonal nurses’ station, a smile upon my cracking lips and waiving a punctured hand as the nurses prod me on with encouraging words that bounce around inside my reeling head. A large black man in stunning white scrubs challenges me with a mock drill sergeant edge in his booming voice to just try and stop him from pulling me out of bed for another lap. A purple Popsicle melts on the bed tray next to the ice chips and Ensure.

All these images and words shrouded in a fog of timelessness and pain.

For my wife the hours drag by bringing their own burdens. She worries yet prays when a doctor comes out during surgery and says they are waiting on biopsy results from a dime-sized tumor found on my liver. Our faithful white minivan throws a tie-bar in the middle of a busy Indy intersection as she’s driving to fight boredom and loosen her stiff neck, scrounging for something besides hospital food for breakfast. Some old friends, a relocated couple from our church, answer her plea for a helping hand with grace and compassion, picks her up at the dealership and treats her to “the best doggone eggs and hash browns on the planet.” She scrapbooks away the hours trimming picture after picture after picture but not really accomplishing anything. She misses our kids and longs to spend time with her parents but she stays near me until the fevers fade and my mind clears and they wheel me upstairs.

Where the hours aren’t so lost anymore.

Indiebloggers.org

Today, my post from last week titled “A Boring White Wall” was featured on Indie Bloggers, a website dedicated to promoting those of us who do this blog thing as a means toward becoming better writers. I like the site because it’s stripped of all the frills and thrills that usually appear on blogs (mine included). There are no links in the posts, no pictures, no distracting badges, banners or ads, and no sappy comments; just a new piece of quality writing, usually updated daily. Stacy does a fine job of keeping the content fresh and consistently unique, no small feat I imagine, and I applaud her efforts on behalf of all of us who love writing.

So add IB to your favorites (it’s in my blogroll, or click the badge to the right or the link above), or simply subscribe to the feed, and enjoy a bit of fresh writing every day. You won’t be disappointed. Heck, you may even be inspired. Your call . . .

</shameless self-promotion>

Breakfast (freewriting1.12)

Two pounds of bacon – fresh not frozen – direct from the Friendly Local Butcher Shop.

Aunt Jemima pancake mix . . . the kind where you have to add milk and eggs and oil . . . not the “complete” crap.

Orange juice and 2% milk.

Joe and Kody, two of my son’s friends, had spent the night. We’d stayed up until nearly three in the morning playing Dungeons & Dragons on the PS2. Kody, the cleric, went around swooping up all the gold while the rest of us fought our little fingers off. He did heal us frequently, however, so I guess there was that.

Being one not to waste a beautiful Saturday morning, I hauled their carcasses out of bed at the bright-and-early hour of 9:00 A.M. We sat around the table and ate like the adventurers we were, fresh off the hunt and famished. The little ones joined us, as did mom, and we shared stories of furious battles and mighty conquests in the name of good and justice.

Kody had to check in at home so Joe suggested we manipulate the game a bit and steal some of our gold back. We decked out our characters with the best of everything – shiny silver swords and daggers, spells out the wazoo, and enough resurrection stones to keep up alive, relatively speaking, for hours. Kody was pissed at first, but the purse needed a proper divvying and the light of day, clear skies and full bellies eventually made for clear heads and hearts. We battled on and beat the game with ease.

Breakfast never tasted so good . . .

About Freewriting

Why We Have Kids . . .

Iced tea never tasted so good!

Ha!