Upon The Feast Of St. George

Before I became Catholic myself, I lived at Old St. George, a former Catholic Church, in Clifton when I first moved to Cincinnati. It was a time of radical formation for me, and I can sincerely say that my sojourn there, fraught with both joy and distress, has served as much as any other experience of mine when it comes to my understanding of myself.

So in honor of this saint on his feast day, about whose legend we know more than his life, I offer these lyrics from one of the songs that I wrote for a stunted concept album about my life-changing adventures in the building named for his patronage:

Making Your Mother Concerned

Looking for treasures in heaven
I lost all my treasures on earth
Suckered, depleted, broke and defeated,
Hustled, harangued, had and hurt,

And it's damn near impossible
To play a righteous role
Being so bitter and burned,
When you turn 21,
It's never quite as fun
Making your mother concerned.

But I've got my bets on a longshot,
I've got my eyes on the prize,
Heard all the projections predicting defections,
But I'd rather be a surprise,

We train like olympians,
Take it like champions,
When we get beaten and bruised,
'Cause everyone knows the disgrace when you quit
Is worse than the shame when you lose.

It's damn near impossible
Not to be humble
Knowing how broken you are,
But everyone knows that the Spirit sticks closer
To spirits who're falling apart
It shakes out the sickness
To recognize weakness
It undoes the things that you've done,
But I'm lifting up my eyes,
Glad for the exercise,
Glad for the treasures I've earned,
I've not lived so long I can't learn,
But I'm making my mother concerned.

The Lights Are Back On

After Sunday's maelstrom, we in the Cincinnati area are beginning to finally be back in business, electricity wise. My place of employment went back online around 1:30 this morning. The humble Hartwell Homestead still remains electricity-free.

I, for one, must express my slight disappointment at the fact that we're getting the power back. These days of no electricity have been some of the most peaceful in recent memory. Odd how when there aren't televisions, ipods, computers, and cell phones to monopolize our every waking moment, people actually hang out with their neighbors. Call me crazy, but I sort of wish the Duke Energy people would have been more relaxed in their approach to Cincinnati's own localized experience of Hurricane Ike.

(That's right, I said HURRICANE Ike. He hit the tri-state Sunday afternoon with Category 1 strength.)

Went to a Panera across town yesterday just to check things out. It was a veritable laptop-fest, as young and middle aged professionals clamored for their respective pieces of the wi-fi pie. One person recounted how on Monday, two such customers were thrown out of the place because one of them, furious that he had as yet been (gasp) Unable To Check His Email, unplugged another person's power source, sparking a heated altercation that, from anecdotal reports, nearly escalated to fisticuffs.

In this great, prosperous and civilized nation, I've come to the conclusion that we are roughly five to seven telecommunications-free days away from total barbarism.

"Send a solar flare, Jesus..."

'I Have Bought A Piece Of Land And I Need To Go Out And Look At It; Please Consider Me Excused.'

I bought a house. I'm moving on Saturday. Life is chaos. No blogging for now.

An Observation

Most people, when they want to mask the smell of marijuana, do so by lighting incense. The people in my apartment do so by frying chicken.

Celebrating The 1st Anniversary Of "That's No Moon, That's A Space Ovum!" and "An Egg, Lidless, Wreathed In Flame"

M. Swaim, Holy Saturday, 2007.

Having Been Memed...

The ever-pithy Will Cubbedge has memed me with a mighty meme. The rules, should I choose to obey them, are as follows:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

While this feels a little like a chain letter, and makes me want to mock it and all those who participate in it, it also feels like a chain letter in the sense that I secretly want to read it and participate in it as soon as all the people I was mocking it in front of go away. That being said, being at work at the precise moment of my meming, the closest text to me was a review copy of Dr. Kevin Vost's Memorize the Faith, which offers the following mnemonic device advice:

The pronunciation of charity, for example, made me think of "chair with tea," as we saw with chapter 5 on the seven virtues. Now it occurs to me that "cherry tea," or perhaps, for a golfer, a "cherry tee," would be other possibilities. Does charity call to your mind any other concrete images?

As a matter of fact, Dr. Vost, it does. I'm reminded that the latin word for charity is caritas, which also just happens to be the name of the bar owned by Krevlornswath (A.K.A. "Lorne") of the Deathwok Clan in the Angel TV series. So if you're wondering, the concrete image in my mind when the word "charity" comes up is a green effeminate demon in a lounge suit that reads your thoughts while you sing karaoke.

I hereby meme: Jimmy, Dustin, Fr. Kyle, Fr. Rob, and the crazies at Colbertcatholic.com.

Gone.

Not sure how to respond. I once called the place home.

The Enquirer article.

Jimmy's take.

Father Kyle's take.

Rich Leonardi's take.

Oh, and in case you're curious as to what I think may have been the cause behind the fire, feel free to refer to today's top story on msn.com.