Moving

I've been kind of oblique about this until now, because I've been waiting for everything to be truly official, and also because I needed to have a few in-person conversations before I posted it on the blog. I'm pretty sure I haven't had all such conversations that are needed, but what do you do? I'm spread pretty thin at the moment, and some things have just had to remain undone.

Anyway, to the point already: I am moving. I have accepted a new position at a church not terribly far from where I am now. It's a very different job description, and one that I think fits me to a T. As of Feb. 1, I'll be coordinating mission, outreach, and youth ministries in a fairly large church in a small city. I'm sure I will say more about all of this - both the leaving process and where I'm going - in the future.

So, I am in transition. Things are happening very rapidly. For example, today I picked up the key to my new apartment. I had not planned to have a new apartment quite this soon, but I found one I liked and they offered me December for free, so I took it. The good news is that I have plenty of time to move. The not-as-good news is that I now have to figure out how I'm going to condense a 3-bedroom/1.5 bathroom/office/diningroom house worth of furniture into a 2-bedroom/1-bathroom/no office/no dining room apartment. I am a minimalist at heart, so I'm not terribly worried about it, but it does mean the hassle of trying to figure out where things should go if they're not going to the new place.

And now, I am going forth to look at washer/driers and over-toilet storage units.

An Experiment

Long Road Home

Things Which Are Currently Driving Me Batty

I bought some recording equipment a few weeks ago, because I got sick of waiting for my friends with studios to have time to work with me. I also got sick of people with studios saying, "Why don't you come over and record something sometime?" and then having it turn out that they wanted to charge me $50 per hour or more and try to convince me that I absolutely needed steel guitar added to my recordings. So, for the money it would've taken me to spend a few hours being irritated, I ordered a basic recording setup.

Of course, that meant I had to learn how to use it, which required time to do things like read the manual. Time is the thing I have least of in my life, but some of it was finally found yesterday, and I am pleased to report that it's not all that difficult to use, once you know what all the little buttons and knobs do. Mixing and effects and all that still need some work, but I've done basic recordings of three of my original songs. However, in the category of things that drive me batty...

The recorder creates wave files. I wish to post them on myspace, which only takes mp3 files. For some reason, my computer will not convert the files, even though it says it can do so. So I'm trying to put them on Putfile.com, which accepts wave files, but as I have dial-up, the connection dies in the 800 years it takes to upload them.

Other things on my petty list of minor annoyances today:

- Realtors who do not show up to show me apartments, but rather call me an hour later to tell me they won't make it, make a new appointment with me, and then call me several times during the weekend to see if I want to meet them RIGHT NOW, even though they have been told multiple times that I live a half hour away and have a rather tightly scheduled life.

- The fact that the Enter the Haggis concert I had planned to attend tonight is actually twice the distance from me that I anticipated, which is causing me to second guess my attendance.

- My own compulsion to answer the phone.

- My forgetfulness in regards to putting out the garbage at the proper time. Speaking of which, I must go to that now, so I don't pay for another week of garbage service in which nothing is actually taken away.

Thanksgiving Friday Five

My sermon came to me shockingly quickly this week (as in, hello! It is only Friday!), so I've decided to engage in some Friday Fiving, in honor of that holiday that happened yesterday.

1. Did you go elsewhere for the day, or did you have visitors at your place instead? How was it?
I visited friends. As I mentioned yesterday, it was lovely - absolutely no pressure. When I talked to my family in Minnesota, I told them we were having a "pastors' Thanksgiving."

2. Main course: If it was the turkey, the whole turkey, and nothing but the turkey, was it prepared in an unusual way? Or did you
throw tradition to the winds and do something different?
Turkey was replaced by leftover pork roast for lunch and a visit to a diner in the evening. I did have turkey on the Saturday before T-Day, though, courtesy of the Cub Scouts.

3. Other than the meal, do you have any Thanksgiving customs that you observe every year?
Nary a one. Sometimes this makes me wonder if I'm terribly unrooted, but my life has changed so many times that I've sort of let go of the traditions I once had with my family - which mostly had to do with the food anyway, and being together, which I now can do only by phone.

4. The day after Thanksgiving is considered a major Christmas shopping day by most US retailers. Do you go out bargain hunting and shop ‘till you drop, or do you stay indoors with the blinds closed? Or something in between?
No, no, no on the Black Friday shopping. However, I am out and about today - just not in stores. I'm going to a concert tonight.

5. Let the HOLIDAY SEASON commence! When will your Christmas decorations go up?
I am still deciding whether I will put up Christmas decorations this year, as mine is a house in transition. Heck, last year it was not in transition, and I never managed to get my tree put up.

Hmm. All this makes me wonder if I've become a bit of a holiday curmudgeon. Just call me Scrooge.

Sometimes I don't realize how tired I am until I stop moving. The last couple of weeks have been pretty insane on a number of levels (more about that at a later time), and today I finally got a chance to really rest. Thanks to the hospitality of friends, today I had no obligations whatsoever. I didn't have to wake up at any certain time or be anywhere in particular or see anyone I didn't want to see. It's been lovely. I think I may be growing roots into the couch now.

Medical Annoyances

The universe was conspiring to keep me from tending to my health care needs today.

First, let me say that I am obsessively punctual. Being late really bothers me. When I know I'm going to be late, my stomach clenches up and I become fairly frantic. I'm not quite as irritable about other people's lateness...but if it's excessive or repeated, I do tend to take it as a sign of disrespect or general rudeness.

So, I had to go to the doctor today to check in about the seizure situation and have some moles examined. I thought I was going to be the one who was late, which, true to form, put me in a tizzy before I ever arrived. I walked through the door at the very minute of my appointment - which in the Stacey World of Time is late. I ought not have worried, though. An hour and forty minutes later, I was still sitting there. This would have annoyed me anyway, but it was especially irksome because I had a chiropractor appointment, and there was no way the doctor was going to finish quickly enough for me to get there on time.

Oddly, he magically found time to see me when I started to walk out of the office. It did take too long, but at least it was done...sort of. The moles have been removed and deemed harmless. The seizure situation was covered by a brief, "Nope, I haven't had any more, and yes, I'm seeing a neurologist." Then I went rushing out the door to get to the chiropractor's office a mere two minutes late. I shouldn't have bothered, for I was also sitting there for forty minutes.

In the meantime, I received a message from the pharmacy that my prescription will not be available until Thursday. Since Thursday is Thanksgiving, that really means Friday, which actually means Saturday, because I'll be out of town for the holiday. Good think I didn't wait until the last minute to refill this time.

Anyway, I just needed to rant. I am an impatient person. That's all.

Not Enough

A colleague recently remarked that he had preached a really great sermon on the past Sunday. I was surprised - not that his sermon was great, but that he would just say it, or even think it. I never feel great about my sermons, even though rationally I know that I'm a good preacher. I always think I could have done better, somehow. It's not just sermons; I'm realizing these days that I never think anything I've done is enough.

Yes, I have a failure complex. I've had to resign myself to not being The Best a gazillion times, of course, but I've never really come to terms with imperfection. I was smacked good and hard during my first semester of college, when for the first time, working really hard was not going to get me an A in that accelerated chemistry course. Passing was the best I could do. This did not please me, to say the least, and at the end, even though I had nearly killed myself to pass the class, I still wondered if I could have done more.

I still do, about just about everything. "Good enough" is what I finally say when I have to do something else or miserably fail at it, but I'm not sure I ever really mean it. It's annoying. If one of my friends was like this, I'd probably think they should get a grip, or seek professional help.

The People Who Knew Me When...

Thanks to the wonders of social networking sites, I've reconnected with a bunch of people lately from high school and college. I have to confess, I'm not always thrilled to see their names pop up in my inbox. Some of them have brought on a surge of "AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH" feelings. I'm discovering that sometimes, that's much less because of them than because I don't always want to encounter who I was when they last knew me.

I don't want to remember how simultaneously awkward and confident I was in high school, especially when it makes me think of how much I am still that person.

I don't want to remember that I, too, was once someone who worried a great deal about who was saved and who wasn't.

I don't want to remember that I once discarded friends because they didn't meet my standards of what was "really a Christian."

I don't want to remember what I went through when I started to change, and I had to choose between going where God was leading me and remaining friends with people who didn't think that was possible.

On the other hand, these people have changed too, sometimes in truly astounding ways, and now I get to have conversations with people who knew me the way I was then. Even though we've both changed so much, sometimes it's comforting to talk with people who know where I've been, who don't need an explanation of that part of my life. Most of the time, I've found that I don't want to talk to them because I don't want to explain all the steps that have led me away from who I was then...but then I find that they've traveled journeys of their own. God is funny that way.

The Novembers

It happens every year. The gray skies and bare trees, the beginnings of snow and sleet, and the incongruity and pressure of excessive Christmas stuff already filling the stores all get together and wreak havoc on my mood. I know I'm whiny and irritable, and I can't quite jolt myself out of it. I feel like wearing yoga pants and sweatshirts all day. Little things, like yesterday's little gossip tidbit, get under my skin more than usual. I clearly have a case of the Novembers. Blah.

A Few Brief Notes to the Rumor Mill

If you gossip about me, yes, it is likely that what you say will get back to me. If that was your goal, mission accomplished.

What you say about me is not just a harmless little chat with a friend. It's malicious, and it's harmful to me, to my ministry, and to the church. I suspect it's also harmful to you, but I'm disinclined to worry as much about that at the moment.

As annoying as I find the latest round of rumors, it's making me realize that my skin has grown thicker by the day for the last three years, by necessity. Every minister needs a thicker skin, so I thank you for that.

I do realize that I'm an oddity in many ways, and that I've never exactly been one to fly under the radar, and so my life tends to provoke talk.

However, I genuinely wish you had something in your own life that was more interesting to discuss. Barring that, I wish you'd at least shoot for accuracy when discussing my life.

End of memo.