Stone Life

Perhaps the better question would be this: What is this NOT a picture of? Answer: This is NOT a picture of me at work at 9:30 this morning! Seriously, is there any better phone call in the world than the one at 5:45 that says, "Hey, coach, just wanted to let you know that school has been called off for the day due to the weather."? Suddenly, though it is still dark outside, the sun shines a little brigher, the cold does not sting your toes so much, and I would swear that an angel just received its wings. I am giddy with excitement at my school's quick-triggered response to even the slightest bad weather. Go Alban's!

I think the administrative staff was looking for any reason to take the day off, because they have been having to make major cuts this week in order to recoup 167 thousand dollars in 5 days. My understanding is that this means there will be a few less faculty/staff by this time on Monday morning. It has made for a relatively hushed and tense office-house this week. I feel fairly safe, but I did lose my first game as a coach, so we will see.

As I mentioned, the coaching gig started out with a whimper; we were blown-out by 25-or-so points, but we had only had 30 minutes of practice prior to the game, so I was pleased that we played as well as we did. Whatever they had been taught up to this point might be in complete opposition to the way that I want to play basketball, so it was like I was speaking Japanese to them the whole game. I would say, "Take it in", and they would assume that I wanted them to pass the ball to the double-teamed post player, when I really wanted them to drive to the basket. They did not know how to fast break, they couldn't set up in a half-court offense, the guards were afraid to dribble the ball, and they did not know how to run a simple 2-3 zone. Only 25 points might have been a gift.

Yesterday was my first practice with them, and it could not have gone better. I have been assisting with the varsity boys for this entire year, offseason workouts through the first 1/4 of the season thus far, and it has been like a kick in the groin every day of the week. They do not listen, they certainly do not consistently hustle, they roll their eyes, they pout, and they generally talk and play THEIR way.....which has led to more than a few embarrassing losses (30-plus points embarrassing). I could not be happier to be coaching these girls after 1 practice. They listened to every word I said, as if it was coming from Jesus Christ himself; in fact, they even "shsssed" someone for whispering something while I was explaining a drill. They hustled for 2 solid hours of practice, never once walking or jogging when it was supposed to be a sprint. They listened; when I said "bend your knees and sit lower on defense, they actually did it. They are not the most gifted athletes in the world, but they worked themselves as hard as I could push them in a 2 hour span. I am convinced that with their work-ethic they will win some games this year. I am excited to be doing it.

I better get back to studying. I am down to just a couple of weeks, and it is getting harder to stay motivated, but I am trying. Hope you all are getting a day off today or tomorrow too.

It has been creeping up behind me for some nearly two years now. I have often looked over my proverbial shoulder to see if it had caught up with me, ready to overtake me and take me back down to the realm of the common coffee drinker. Well, it did catch me, and it rather caught me by surprise despite my previous diligence….one might even use the apocalyptic, biblical imagery of, “like a thief in the night.”

I am no longer a Starbucks Barista; this crushes me.

It has been a good run; I am sad to see it go. Who would have known that a job I intended to work no more than 9 months would have stretched into more than four years? I suppose such a statement is a little misleading, though.

I worked diligently for the coffee-giant for about three years, most of that spent waking at 4:45 am in order to make it to the store by 5:30 am to feed the addictions of those unfortunates also forced to rise at that hour. I found that I enjoyed those people, and they were the same people each day, more than any other patron that came through the doors of 11919 Preston Rd. on any given day. Perhaps it is due to the fact that they too understood the drudgery of getting up hours before the sun in order to pay the bills and they gave me a break, but more than likely they were just too tired to put up much by way of a fight, and so their personalities that would normally be as grating as most of the others were subdued by the need for more sleep. Either way, they were great.

The 7:00 am crowd was by far the worst; they were hurried, angry, easily-annoyed, and mostly just pains-in-the-ass. My most lasting memory of the 7:00 am’ers is Debby (no, not that one). This one is a she-devil of sorts, sister or more likely mother of Beelzebub, and she made it her mission, particularly in my waning months of active employment, to make her 3-5 minutes of daily contact miserable. I believe I intentionally made her drink wrong on my last day just to reciprocate the spite and somehow avenge my years of assault….it certainly satisfied me.

The 9:00 am crowd; by far, the best. Probably due to the fact that they were either a.) retired, b.) housewives, or c.) executive-types who can flex their schedules enough to enjoy a leisurely, extended coffee break, they were just friendly and laid-back. It is from this group that I have made friendships that have extended beyond the storefront.

My co-workers (aka: partners); I have never been around a more mixed-bag of various states of insanity in my life. I have always stated that Starbucks has two things going for it that will forever ensure that their workforce’s ratio of utterly-odd to normal will be rivaled by none. First, the whole coffee-shop atmosphere attracts a certain artistic-type that you Dillard’s does not, and second, they pride themselves on diversity in hiring to the point of absurdity at times. Look around next time you are in one of the 12-14 thousand stores worldwide; you can almost make a “diversity roll-call”. White-artsy guy? – check, Black-woman? – check, Lesbian? – check, Old-retiree? – check, and who can forget, Hot-young blonde (or occasionally you can substitute brunette)? – check…..or in the case of my store – check, check, check (I am not making accusations, but there was a disproportionate number of pretty young girls at my store for a time…not that I am complaining). Diversity = Drama, and there was not a day that went by without wanting to kill one of them. It was like managing a group of hyperactive-preteens at times, but I loved them. Weird, but great.

Some of you might be a bit confused, saying, “Michael, I thought you were a school teacher.” You would be correct, because the last year and a half of employment at Starbucks have been by far the best. I went from forty-hours a week to eight to sixteen-hours per YEAR! That’s right, per year. My manager was a really cool guy, and he allowed to hang out on the payroll for all of this time, which did not earn me any money, but it did earn me a free lb. of coffee every week and a thirty-percent discount at every store nationwide. In return I only had to work one shift per quarter to keep corporate off of his back. It was beautiful, but I suppose that all beauty is subject to fading with age, and this was no exception. Apparently the District Manager caught what was going on and decided it was not in the best interest of the company to give away their product to a leech, and so she forced Mark to dispense with Partner #1151029. Sad day.

A New Chapter

On an interesting side-line, the very same day I received that call about being fired from Starbucks, I was given the head basketball coaching position for the varsity girls at St. Alban’s. We may be awful, really awful, but I am excited for the opportunity to run a varsity program. More on that later.

I was faced with one of life's great mysterious questions this evening. Upon entering church a woman asked if I had signed up for 'living christmas' yet (this is apparantly some sort of drive-thru nativity scene that the church does every year at this time). I had honestly been waiting for the invite, because I already have the beard that 50 percent of the men in the church are now attempting to grow for the occasion. I said that I had not, and so she left me with the option: Jesus or Barrabas.

Apart from the question of whether or not I even want to be involved in the whole ordeal, this presents quite a quandry for me. I suppose that it feeds nicely into my Jesus-complex to play the role of the one-and-only Saviour, but this is perhaps even a bit much for my inflated sense of self. I am prone to a good deal of cursing at different moments, and so would the sacrilege be all the more exaggerated if it occured while dressed as Jesus? You never know when you are going to stub your toe and say something very un-Saviour like.

Barrabas seems a much more appropriate part for me to play. Though I am not a murderer, I am quite sinful. Undoubtedly I will speed in my car on the way to the church (sin), I will probably think nasty thoughts about the urchins that I taught earlier that day (sin 2X), and a host of other unJesus-like thoughts/actiities (sin 3X, 4X, 5X....ect).

I suppose I should thereby stick with the ugly sinner; I play one of those everyday.

Julie and I just wanted to wish everyone a happy turkey-day. We have had plenty of it in the last 24 hours, and now we are camped on the couch watching the Cowboys game.

We have also been playing with my fun camera on my computer.....enjoy.



....and my favorite...

I should be working; nay, I should be knee-deep in solving the perplexing issues contained in Goethe’s Faust or Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human. I have the luxury of 7 days off, time which I have allotted for the strict formulation and hopeful completion of the term papers that will be due in the next 3-4 weeks. Here is the problem, I do not want to. I could not be less motivated at this moment to work hard. I have 400 pages left in a novel that I have to give a presentation over 7 days from now, and I have about 6 out of 35 or so pages of research-papers completed, but at this moment I could not care any less. I would rather sit here doing nothing, checking my email every 5 minutes than work hard.

This will pass. In fact, just the very venting of my frustrations has motivated me to begin my work anew. Here I go.

This very serious looking gentleman is the reclusive Mr. Stone on a Friday, just hours before being released for the extended Thanksgiving holiday. That’s right, this is him happy. His exuberance is due to the bright pink heat-sustainer known as new thermos that he is holding in his hand. He is a fan of new thermos, though it is a bit gay, because yesterday morning one of his students gave him said heat-control device. Fear not, he washed it prior to its inaugural use (that was his first thought too).

Okay, enough of the obnoxious third person, let me now proceed with the equally (or more-so) obnoxious first-person. I have been noticeably absent (at least I noticed) from blogging these last few weeks for several reasons. First, I have been a little short on free time, though this hardly an excuse in my opinion, but mostly I have not had anything that I felt compelled to publish to blogger. I have started several, but most have been either mindless, without mercy and compassion, or half-hearted attempts at humor. I chose to wait until I could not wait any longer, and now is that time.

My Nietzsche class has wound down slowly, and last night was the last new book that we will read for the class. We read and discussed one of his concluding works, Twilight of the Idols, which reads something like a concluding manifesto.

He writes in his last paragraph:
“...but, beyond pity and terror, to realize in oneself the eternal joy of becoming - that joy which also encompasses joy in destruction.

Nietzsche’s great problem with Christianity lies in this pity and terror, or, as he elucidates many times throughout his books, in their will to death. The entire idea of dying to oneself, submitting in weakness to an unseen, unheard power on the basis of faith is repellant. He calls for mankind to flex its proverbial muscles, as evidenced in its instinctual nature that Christianity fights against, and rise up in strength. Pity, fear, death, empathy...etc, lead one only to misery and death - Christianity, in his estimation, looks something like a sickness, and he holds man to be capable of so much more.

Though I am certainly a Nietzsche-apologist, and by that I mean that I would pound the table in defiance of anyone who said his criticisms have no place in the Christian experience, but, for once I am going to resist the tendency to kick my own while down and focus rather on the irony in Nietzsche’s own statements. He sharply criticizes the Christian’s will to death, but what about the same will present in the academician.

It is at this time each semester that I am painfully aware of my mortality. As is often the case, I am falling a bit under the weather, and I blame it entirely upon myself. I eat worse - where I began the semester on a strict and sparse diet, I care less and less now as the weeks progress. I sleep less and work more - I do not suppose this needs further explanation. My alcohol and tobacco intake have increased substantially - call me what you will, but I cannot deny it. I am less happy, less attentive to my wife and job, and generally becoming farther removed from normal in mind and body as the semester progresses. Academics, like the Christ, seem to drive a wedge between loved ones, far more a divider than a uniter.

Sure, one might become an overman, but one might also contract syphilis and slip into madness (see: Nietzsche), become an alcoholic degenerate (see: Fitzgerald...or most any other good writer), fall into irrecoverable drug addiction (see: Burroughs, Kerouac, or other Beat writers), or, my favorite, take one’s own life with shotgun on a sunny Sunday morning (see: Hemingway).

It seems the deeper one crawls inside one’s head, the darker the place seems to be. Is not this the stronger will to death?

I admit it; like a rubber-necker to a fender bender on the shoulder of the highway, I love to internally gawk at the dogmas of other people. Please, please, do not throw back at me my own sins in this area; I am way ahead of you, but even scripture infers that one is able to see through the plank in their own eye...even if this is not the wisest move. So, I turn my head sideways, squint a little (so as to see around my plank better) and enjoy the show of the dogmatic.

Today, before basketball practice, we had a team "devotional" (and I use this word very, very loosely) led by one of the assistant coaches. Let me pull back the curtain on this particular coach. You all know him, you have perhaps been him at some point in your life; at the very least, you Baptists (or ex-Baptists, as the case may be) have gone to church or school with him. He's the hyper-militant-abrasive-, and, yes, dogmatic super-duper Calvinist that has all of the answers wrapped up in some ready made sermonette that was preached to him in a 4 part series. He is armed with just enough Scripture and jargon to be dangerous, but not enough to be taken seriously as an expert; this, however, does not prevent him from being an all-encompassing "answer-man" for the faith and a beacon of light for those "wayward sinners" that dare to believe in things like Catholic Christianty (liberals). Like I said, you have met him.

He spent 20 minutes or so detailing salvation and Calvinist doctrine, which was by and large tolerable, but then the real fun started. Our players began to ask questions, real questions. When asked about the logic behind his faith......you could hear the crickets singing. When questioned about the validity of the Bible....more of the same. It was an unarmed man running into the fray with only the sword of "I have experienced it, and that means that it is true". It was a slaughter, in my opinion. Once on his heals he reverted to the ever trusty bashing of Catholics and Episcopals as Godless wannabe's, the stance of himself having attained some measure of perfection that we lowly sorts should strive towards, and those with legitimate questions as faithless rejectors.

Are dogmas not great from the outside. Was it that long ago that I held firmly to the belief that alcohol was evil? Did most Calvinists not once hold opposite views as tested truths? Have the particulars of my faith not be transformed time and again? Why then do we insist that our newest insights are the only truths acceptable? Where is the humilty? Is there not room for error or change? Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not advocating relativism, just relativity and change. I hold to as few "isms" as possible, but there seems a dire need to adopt a stance that allows for growth and maturity in our beliefs.

I have no great declarations or the strength to ramble incoherently (lucky you); just fired up tonight. Good night.