We used to skip church. Our parents just needed to see us in the sanctuary. As soon as the service started we would duck out of the balcony and race to Marie's car.
We would drive around Byron Center, listening to Marie's burned CD's of Dashboard Confessional, Nelly, and Ice Cube. They would always skip and Marie would bang her fist down on the dashboard in hopes that the disc would resume. For some reason I thought Marie was fantastic. She was from Southern California, why her family moved to Grand Rapids I still don't know.
I was thinking about her recently as I FINALLY boxed up my old CDs. There, nestled in between the soundtrack to Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Savage Garden was my stolen copy of WGRD's Bootleg 2k2. I borrowed it from Marie, when we were sophomores, to burn a copy of it. This is what we did in 2002. Despite her inquiries and pleas for its return, it is still in my possession.
That is the album that introduced me to Butch Walker. Eight years later, I don't feel guilty at all about keeping this treasure from her.
This is the song that hooked me:
Six albums later, I am still stuck on Butch Walker. I have watched him go from an angry redneck to a bit of a crooner.
I love this man. I love Angry Butch circa late nineties, to grown up folksy Butch circa now. All the other men in my life that I have loved have faded away. Butch is still here.
He's coming to Grand Rapids very soon. I need to see this man. :)
Friday, April 23, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Local, the Best Flavor of All (pt. 2)
I am currently working on a personal website for my WRT 351 class (web design).
One feature I have on the site is: Where Can I Find Stephanie?
To answer that question, Robyn and I traversed the city last night taking shots of our favorite places.
Best Beer in GR? HopCat. Also- Crack fries and Smoke free... Hummina hummina!
Best meeting place? Rosa Parks Circle. Also- Ice Skating in the winter. "Where do you want to meet up?"
"Rosa Parks, we'll go from there..."
Best Art Museum? Um, the GRAM. Fabulous. (However, GR is full of galleries and spaces for people to display their Art. Love this city.)
Best Local Book Store? Schuler's features great local writers and music, as well as a large used book section and hard to find books. Also, any place that sells wine by glass and books is okay by me.
Best Orange Chicken? Xo. No one know how to pronounce this place's name, so we like to call it "ecks-oh". Great Chinese food, great Thai food, great atmosphere. Patio and Oberon. Life is good.
Best Sandwiches in GR? The Cherry Deli. Too bad the girl that works there is awkward and mean. She almost didn't let me take this pictures:
One feature I have on the site is: Where Can I Find Stephanie?
To answer that question, Robyn and I traversed the city last night taking shots of our favorite places.
Best Beer in GR? HopCat. Also- Crack fries and Smoke free... Hummina hummina!
Best meeting place? Rosa Parks Circle. Also- Ice Skating in the winter. "Where do you want to meet up?"
"Rosa Parks, we'll go from there..."
Best Art Museum? Um, the GRAM. Fabulous. (However, GR is full of galleries and spaces for people to display their Art. Love this city.)
Best Local Book Store? Schuler's features great local writers and music, as well as a large used book section and hard to find books. Also, any place that sells wine by glass and books is okay by me.
Best Orange Chicken? Xo. No one know how to pronounce this place's name, so we like to call it "ecks-oh". Great Chinese food, great Thai food, great atmosphere. Patio and Oberon. Life is good.
Best Sandwiches in GR? The Cherry Deli. Too bad the girl that works there is awkward and mean. She almost didn't let me take this pictures:
(Actually that's the nice girl, the mean one went in the back)
Best Coffee/Tea House? The Sparrows. Oh hey Robyn! Bubble tea? sure.
Best City in Michigan? Grand Rapids. My sweet little city on the river.
Love this town.
Jesusland
This is my last real week of classes. Next week I have finals, then my Commencement on Saturday. Ridiculous. Suddenly I'm a grown up.
They are starting another campaign at Mars Hill for more children's ministry volunteers. I usually tune them out, because I don't want to commit myself to a church just yet. I still want to leave Michigan and go have my own life away from Grand Rapids, be my own person, meet all new people, etc.
But today they really struck me. One of the girls was talking about how her involvement at Mars Hill has given her this network of people. I started to think about my own ever shrinking network. My friends are leaving for Seattle, Ohio, and Chicago.
I listened to the volunteers share their testimonies and I thought, I really want to be connected to these people. The past few years have pulled me so far out of my spiritual life and its kind of depressing. We poke fun of ourselves for the Bible studies we had in high school, but really, I was so much happier, and I feel like I was more of an individual then. I'm kind of a 20-something drone these days.
Needless to say, I filled out the volunteer card and dropped it in the joy box before I left.
They are starting another campaign at Mars Hill for more children's ministry volunteers. I usually tune them out, because I don't want to commit myself to a church just yet. I still want to leave Michigan and go have my own life away from Grand Rapids, be my own person, meet all new people, etc.
But today they really struck me. One of the girls was talking about how her involvement at Mars Hill has given her this network of people. I started to think about my own ever shrinking network. My friends are leaving for Seattle, Ohio, and Chicago.
I listened to the volunteers share their testimonies and I thought, I really want to be connected to these people. The past few years have pulled me so far out of my spiritual life and its kind of depressing. We poke fun of ourselves for the Bible studies we had in high school, but really, I was so much happier, and I feel like I was more of an individual then. I'm kind of a 20-something drone these days.
Needless to say, I filled out the volunteer card and dropped it in the joy box before I left.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Don't Stand so Close to Me
I grew up in a house where we weren't allowed to watch the Smurfs, Roseanne, or the Simpsons.
Instead we had a record player that frequently crackled out Little Marcy Bible stories, Psalty adventures, and the Music Machine.
We were THAT family.
It's okay though, I have no shame in being able to sing "whir whir chick-a chick-a bonk bonk hiss".*
This is how we learned our Bible stories and life lessons, one of the big ones being the Fruit of the Spirit.
("But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." - Galations 5:22-23)
Every once in a while, that ONE person comes into my life that tests all of these fruits. Last year you may recall it was HPV-Dave. When I was in high school it was Corin. Now it is the co-worker that has been at National City for over a year.
I have the sneaking suspicion that she is illiterate. I am not exaggerating here. I don't think she can read.
English is her second language, so I can't really expect her to know all of the ins and outs of our very confusing vernacular. I don't call her out on it when she forgets to use "the" or "a", or when she asks me the difference between the name Doug and the word Dog.
She tries my patience in the exact same way that the infamous Dave did. Unfortunately I don't have Luke there to complain about it to, so it kind of sticks with me. I really think that simple aspects of being a bank teller go above her head.
She asks me how to run transactions she should have learned in the first month of being on the job. Due to my consistent decline in helpfulness, she has resorted to asking the "new guy" how to do things. What is most unfortunate about the whole situation is that none of us really have the patience to teach her things like selling traveler's checks, redeeming savings bonds, or finding the payoff amount on a loan.
Our conversion to a completely new operating system is going to destroy her ...or me. I am sure that I will be the one that has to explain all of the changes to her, despite the recent fifteen hours she spent in the National City classroom learning all about the new procedures.
Blegh, I used to love helping people. I mean come on, I took care of dementia patients for two years. This girl has turned me into a complete bitch, and I'm not quite comfortable enough with that to revel in it.
Secretly I am hoping that the conversion will weed her out. There is a good chance that she will be a teller for the next ten years. I hope and pray that doesn't happen to me.
*Actually I have much shame about this. Let's not talk about the Music Machine again, okay?
Instead we had a record player that frequently crackled out Little Marcy Bible stories, Psalty adventures, and the Music Machine.
(frightening!)
We were THAT family.
It's okay though, I have no shame in being able to sing "whir whir chick-a chick-a bonk bonk hiss".*
This is how we learned our Bible stories and life lessons, one of the big ones being the Fruit of the Spirit.
("But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." - Galations 5:22-23)
Every once in a while, that ONE person comes into my life that tests all of these fruits. Last year you may recall it was HPV-Dave. When I was in high school it was Corin. Now it is the co-worker that has been at National City for over a year.
I have the sneaking suspicion that she is illiterate. I am not exaggerating here. I don't think she can read.
English is her second language, so I can't really expect her to know all of the ins and outs of our very confusing vernacular. I don't call her out on it when she forgets to use "the" or "a", or when she asks me the difference between the name Doug and the word Dog.
She tries my patience in the exact same way that the infamous Dave did. Unfortunately I don't have Luke there to complain about it to, so it kind of sticks with me. I really think that simple aspects of being a bank teller go above her head.
She asks me how to run transactions she should have learned in the first month of being on the job. Due to my consistent decline in helpfulness, she has resorted to asking the "new guy" how to do things. What is most unfortunate about the whole situation is that none of us really have the patience to teach her things like selling traveler's checks, redeeming savings bonds, or finding the payoff amount on a loan.
Our conversion to a completely new operating system is going to destroy her ...or me. I am sure that I will be the one that has to explain all of the changes to her, despite the recent fifteen hours she spent in the National City classroom learning all about the new procedures.
Blegh, I used to love helping people. I mean come on, I took care of dementia patients for two years. This girl has turned me into a complete bitch, and I'm not quite comfortable enough with that to revel in it.
Secretly I am hoping that the conversion will weed her out. There is a good chance that she will be a teller for the next ten years. I hope and pray that doesn't happen to me.
*Actually I have much shame about this. Let's not talk about the Music Machine again, okay?
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Real Estate
Kates McGee and I have been discussing the possibility of living together this fall.
We are both anxious to move out from under the heels of our parents, and for some reason we are both convinced that we will be financially stable enough to pay rent somewhere on top of student loans, car insurance, cell phones, and utilities.
Many people that are less responsible than us make it work though, right?
So anyway, I have been crawling all over property rental websites for downtown houses and apartments.
The ideal living set-up (aside from a solid roof and running water.)
Wanted: House in safe neighborhood where neighbors have jobs and checking accounts. More than one bedroom and several bathrooms are required. Hardwood floors and a working fireplace in the living room. Full kitchen with brand new energy efficient appliances, as well as energy efficient washer and dryer. Neighbors must also be single males who have a history of playing college lacrosse/soccer (the majority of which must be straight, but not all). They must be handy with a snow-blower and lawnmower and willing to perform those tasks while shirtless. Preferably in a neighborhood within walking distance to mine and Katie's favorite nighttime establishments. Pets allowed. Rent for $600/month.
Essentially I want Dr. Stokes' scandal ridden mansion on Reeds Lake.
For no other reason than the fact that it's close to where I work.
We are both anxious to move out from under the heels of our parents, and for some reason we are both convinced that we will be financially stable enough to pay rent somewhere on top of student loans, car insurance, cell phones, and utilities.
Many people that are less responsible than us make it work though, right?
So anyway, I have been crawling all over property rental websites for downtown houses and apartments.
The ideal living set-up (aside from a solid roof and running water.)
Wanted: House in safe neighborhood where neighbors have jobs and checking accounts. More than one bedroom and several bathrooms are required. Hardwood floors and a working fireplace in the living room. Full kitchen with brand new energy efficient appliances, as well as energy efficient washer and dryer. Neighbors must also be single males who have a history of playing college lacrosse/soccer (the majority of which must be straight, but not all). They must be handy with a snow-blower and lawnmower and willing to perform those tasks while shirtless. Preferably in a neighborhood within walking distance to mine and Katie's favorite nighttime establishments. Pets allowed. Rent for $600/month.
Essentially I want Dr. Stokes' scandal ridden mansion on Reeds Lake.
For no other reason than the fact that it's close to where I work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)