All I can remember with child's eyes.

- When I was last in Mexico proper, I was a boy. The whole place is a group of random bits of experience, tortas and mummies, massive churches and poor children juxtaposed. It is possible that I have no frame of reference for what Mexico will be now. The trip is big in my mind, and my remembrances of a summer long gone are so small.

What actually matters

I thought I had something intelligent to say, but instead I find myself struck with a simple feeling. I am, for lack of a better word, weak. It's not the good humble weakness that has value, but the weakness that comes from trying and failing.

Oh well. I guess I have another chance for God to show me how much He loves me...

Father Rich, my parish priest, is close to retiring. I think I have learned more from him in a year than I ever learned in my foolish spiritual dabblings alone. He said that God loves us not in spite of our brokenness, but precisely because of our brokenness. It's in our brokenness that His love can truly touch us in ways that we can understand.

Think on that, if you like.

Stuff and Things

Winter is here.

I am failing a test of faith. It is difficult and complicated to explain, but I am disappointed in myself.

I am blessed, will continue to be blessed. Thank God for that. Is my not-too-secret secret prayer going to be answered? It already has. I just have to wait.

Waiting is hard.

Frakkin' addicted!

I haven't blogged much of anything recently, either at my personal site or at Muffin Top. I could make excuses like, "oh, the holidays, so busy, I'm overworked, blah, blah blahbitycakes," but really, the truth is, I haven't felt like doing much of anything other than holing up and mowing through Battlestar Galactica (the new version) DVDs. A season 3 marathon is running on the nineteenth, and we're almost finished with the first season. I've managed to convince Zack that we can indeed catch up by finishing seasons 1 and 2 beforehand. That's like, 2 episodes a night! Though it doesn't seem credible (especially if you remember the original version at all), it's a really good show. It's got everything you want in a tv show - explosions, spaceships, skanky blonds, love triangles, evil crazy geniuses, political intrigue, crochety old men, badass female fighter pilots, robot imposters and the classic will they/won't they couple (they so need to get it on already).

Moving offices remind me...

There is something intensely satisfying about cutting away the useless stuff in my life. I used to really look forward to the moment in which I would be forced to toss something I'd become attached to. It felt sad to let go, then I would repeat to myself the primary lesson I learned as a boy: "Attachment is weakness. Weakness is bad." Afterwards, I always felt stronger.

I don't get the same thrill from throwing things away anymore. I don't want to ever be so comfortable with materialism that I forget that there's a whole other realm of pursuit, a spiritual path. I will just let go when I need to, hold on when I can, and pray for wisdom to know the difference.

I shouldn't even write this

Can't sleep at night. I am considering drugging myself (with legal OTC sleep stuff) tonight if this sleeplessness persists.

It's good anxiety, but it's anxiety nonetheless.

Gym-tastic

I sit today in quiet glee. Thirty-three years old, I have finally joined a gym. I don't want to lose weight, and I am not really looking to get stronger. What I am hoping for, in short, is a chance to dodge a family curse.

I doubt other males in my family payed attention to this moment in a man's health. Cardio exercise helps keep the heart in shape. Men in my family have bad tickers. It's before things start going south that you have to address fitness. I find myself at the very edge now, when I feel good but I haven't done enough to keep myself healthy. I am not feeling heavy moving around. I focus the efforts on getting the heart rate up.

I am choosing to avoid heart disease and other chronic diseases that men in the family get by taking baby steps into cardio town. Could this simple choice make such a huge difference that it can write off genetic dispositions? Not without a lot of other decisions to follow through on some kind of program.

I am happy that I took the little step of elevating my rate to the good zone for about twenty minutes this morning. Tomorrow, the goal will be twenty five minutes.