I Really Have No Business Blogging Right Now

I really have no business trying to whip up another post right now. I really have no business drinking another beer either, but oh well with that. It’s a reward! I went the whole day without caffeine! Crack open a BEE-YA!

But no, I have no business blogging right now. There’s a couple of emails that need to be sent, dear friends who’ve asked for advice, and because they’re dear friends, I don’t have the heart to tell them they’re dumb as rocks for asking me for advice on anything, because I never know what I’m doing. Not really. I’m a huge proponent of Faking It Til Ya Make It, and I think I’ve got about 80 % of my immediate friends and family fooled.

But I’m getting a bunch of new visitors these days, thanks to the lovely Appalachian Mermaid, whose prose is stunning in its visual imagery and poetic undercurrents, and meanwhile I limp, trip, and kick rocks and talk/dance/wrestle with/about God.

If you’re new, welcome! I haven’t a clue what I’m doing! I’m a Christian! I’m drinking beer! I’m avoiding reality! Welcome to my blog! I drop the F Bomb on occasion! OOOPS!

(Everyone goes by an assumed name here, except for me.)

(I usually post on Sundays, except for the days that I don’t.)

It’s up down, up down these days. I was having an argument with myself on Sunday, and I said to me, “All I want is my emotional needs MET! What’s WRONG with that?” And myself answered, “Who can meet them!? THEY CHANGE EVERY FIVE MINUTES!”

That particular conversation took place at LACMA where I seem to find myself these days when I’m desperately in search of inspiration. I was checking out the relatively new exhibit at LACMA labs, “Consider This”

Nothing like tooling around an art museum to make your own sense of creativity feel very small and stupid, or it’s probably the mood I’m in these days. I did my best to observe the stuff, and think deep thoughts, and check out the occasional hottie, and to note his girlfriend two steps behind. (Note to self, single hot guys do not hang out at art museums. Please banish those There Must Be At Least One Beautiful Tortured Young Genius With Adorably Floppy Hair Who’s A Painter And A Perfect Match For My Seesawing Emotional Needs out of your head right now.)

And after I had observed the stuff, and tried to think deep thoughts, and came to the conclusion that there was simply too much to take in here, and it’s running until NEXT JANUARY, so let’s come back, I check in with myself, ”Should we go home yet?” Not yet said something inside of me. So I continue walking to the main museum, said hi to my boyfriend the statue , checked out a photography exhibit, still nothing doing. I check in with myself, “Should we go home yet?” Not yet.

So I attempt to people watch in the LACMA courtyard, which isn’t very interesting, because it’s an senior citizen crowd today, and half of them are tourists clutching their Gustav Klimt brochures like it’s art manna from heaven, and my feet are starting to hurt, and I check in with myself, “Can we go home YET?” Keep going said self.

I decide I’m going to trick myself, and start HEADING for home, taking the long way past the tar pits. Just keeping my eyes open for anything. Any little spark of something that’ll make me think of something new. The Wooly Mammoths don’t count, I did a diary entry about them for another project YEARS ago. But maybe there’ll be something else, maybe there’ll be…

And then I saw it. The George C Page Museum at the tar pits is built in such a way that the sides of it are rolling green hills of grass. Gently rolling hills. The kind that little kids want to roll-like-a-log down. And a mob of them are doing just that, right in front of me.

Oh, I get it, self. I get it now.

So I sit on a bench, pull out the digital camera, and start taking pictures. All it takes really is one or two kids to start it and every other kid in a five mile radius will sense that Fun Is Happening: Fun? FUN!? FUN is happening NEARBY! IT CAN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT ME! And they twitch their little Fun Antennas and they drag their parents, siblings, babysitters, whoever, over to the hill, to seek out the source.

Seriously, they’re just like THROWING their bodies down a hill like a sacrifice to the Fun God. “I regret nothing! TAKE ME FUN GOD! TAKE ME!” Their parents, siblings, babysitters, may be worried about grass stains, bumping into other rolling kids, or the possibility of broken necks (I know I did, and I was just watching them, not related to a single one) but the kids don’t give a rat’s ass, they just wanna ROLL!

And then I realize that this is the true meaning of Abandon. When I yowl and groan about how particular pastors in churches will say vague statements like “Abandon Yourself To God” and conveniently avoid an explanation of what that vague statement means, they were probably trying to talk about this. These kids literally are abandoning themselves to the hill, to the laws of gravity, trusting that they’re not gonna kill themselves (actually, since they’re kids, they think death can’t touch ‘em), all in the pursuit of fun. I think that’s what Abandoning Yourself To God is supposed to be, with the trust of a child rolling-like-a-log down Mount Abandon. Can we all have church here on the side of the George C. Page Museum one Sunday? And instead of communion, can we have people line up and throw themselves down the hill? I’m not against communion, but I think this would be a bonding experience a whole congregation should do.

I think this is why the voice in my head told me to keep going. So I could discover this scene, and think these thoughts. Now I can go home. Now I can post, and go write the email to people who think I know things. Silly people.