what’s your story

I didn’t think it was possible, but I have a new favorite by Donald Miller…

A Million Miles In A Thousand Years

Read it in a little over a week. Parts of it resonated so strongly with me I had to physically put the book down for a few minutes and take a deep breath.

The central question of the book: what kind of story are you writing with your life?

Highly, highly recommend it.

over the rhine @ the triple door

What an amazing performance! It was such a mesmerizing show. I was thinking about how different this show was from the one I saw at a dingy college bar in Lexington, KY over 10 years ago. At that show, Karin (the lead vocalist) berated some of the audience members for their rude manners–as they were talking loudly through the entire performance. This show was nothing like that one. Good art / music has the power to lift the soul.

Here’s the setlist (courtesy of someone else at the show who was paying better attention than I):

Don’t Wanna Waste Your Time
Born
Drunkard’s Prayer
Trouble*
Nothing is Innocent
I’m On a Roll
Trumpet Child
Who’m I Kiddin’ but Me
Desperate For Love
Ohio
Professional Daydreamer
Etc. Whatever
Don’t Wait for Tom
Backstreets of Heaven
———Encore———-
All I Need is Everything
I Want You to Be My Love
Redemption Song

Our pictures were a bit blurry, but here are a few…

date night tomorrow

Tomorrow: In the morning, Sarah’s last soccer game, in the afternoon, brewing a batch of beer with some guys from church…and then, in the evening…

Going with my wife to see one of my all-time favorite musical groups, Over the Rhine at The Triple Door in Seattle. This week has really made up for last week. It’s a charmed life!

the In crowd

Got a call this morning from Goddard College, the “vanguard” school to offer low-residency programs in Master’s of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing.

Short story: I’m “in”.

I’ve been accepted to participate in graduate level work in creative nonfiction. The program starts in January but I’m hoping I can defer that and start in June. I would attend two “residencies” 10-day workshop sessions in Port Townsend, WA each year, and do all the writing / reading / critique work with my advisor(s) through correspondence. After two years (5 residencies) I’d have my MFA and and a “publishable” manuscript. I think there is also a “teaching” element or practicum.

This news was a huge boost for me after getting two denial letters in the last month and having the country blues I posted about below. It’s so validating and encouraging to get this kind of feedback. I was starting to seriously doubt the quality of the manuscript I submitted. Now I feel a little better about it. The journey is just beginning, but this is the kind of start I was hoping for.

Some notable Goddard college alumni: Piers Anthony (fantasy wizard / author), Mark Doty (award-winning poet), and William H Macy (actor). There are many other artists listed here on Wikipedia.

Here’s a picture of Goddard’s main campus in Vermont. Thanks to everyone who prayed, wrote reference letters, encouraged me, and have commented on my writing for years now on this (and other) blog posts. I will keep you posted re: what happens next. (I’m still waiting to hear back from one last remaining school that I applied to.)

halloween

These pictures come in a little bit late, but that’s because our Halloween coincided with the swine flu epidemic in our household.

* H1N1 mask sold separately

country song

My wife and kids got the Swine flu, my car battery died, the Yankees won the World Series, and I got my second rejection letter from an MFA program I applied to.

November has been real special so far. Glad when this freakin week is over.

(I know it’s not really that bad in the eternal scope of things, but it would make for a good country song.)

the Walk

Out the front door of our apartment, I flip off the light, close up, and use my key to swing the deadbolt. Before leaving the building I run inventory:

Computer bag? Check.

Lunchbox? Check.

To-go coffee mug? Check.

From there it’s down the long corridor, out the back door, dress shoes on concrete, wet grass, sidewalk and then the long stretch of asphalt. Looking at least one way before crossing the road, I make my way out into “it”, allowing the crisp air to mix with the caffeine on my tongue in an effort to wake myself up. Like a teabag, I begin the slow steep into the new day.

The morning commute, from apartment door to my cubicle desk, usually takes between 12-15 minutes. I don’t hurry; I don’t worry about the time. When I get to work I will start working and eight hours later (give or take) I will stop working, shut down my computer, pack my things up again and take a similar route back home.

Almost every time I make this Walk, I am thankful for each step of it. It’s predictably the same, but almost always different. Some days it is misty, drizzly cold; on other days the sun lies just on the verge of making an appearance. Lately the crunch of leaves adds to the backdrop of cars start-and-stopping at busy four-ways. On other days I am tethered to iPod.

There are few other wayfarers on this urban fjord, a mixed topography of residential, commercial, and industrial. Every morning, without fail, pigeons and ravens eye one another from parallel electric lines. The guys who work in glass are loading windows into flatbeds before I arrive, but the warehouse crew from the hardware store sit in their pickups smoking down nicotine while listening to sex jokes on sports radio. The mechanics seem as relaxed about time as health insurance hacks like me, but their black jumpsuits seem more manly, or maybe it’s the congealed grease on their hands, the carved wrinkles and cracked nails.

We are neutrons and electrons spinning around inside a atom, our trajectory may cross and collide, our occupational pursuits cause us to bump into one another but we just keep moving, heads nodding; no real mingling and no splitting.

The things I think about on this Walk are profound, endless, and mundane.

If I could find one, I’d hire a painter who could read my thoughts along the way and splash them across canvas in broad strokes. Like artistic dictation, I would feed him inspiration, on my walks; my imagination loping off in various directions where his colors could pursue. In hues, his paintings could pinpoint the edges of stories that must be pulled out, stretched into the middle of the frame, exhumed from within, and captured–right there in the waning light of day.

And having painted them, I would see where these walks lead and where they could go. Not back and forth forever, in an endless loop, a Celtic knot. But inward and outward in spiralling ripples of creativity and calm.

This Walk is a story, too. One that unfolds each day. I am the only reader, writer or editor of it. And to be honest, that singular, self-directed pleasure, well, on most days, it makes me quite satisfied. Even when my feet hurt.

road to recovery

After a rough weekend, the Johnson household is on the road to recovery. Still some sniffles, coughs, and soreness (Christa) but thankfully the flu has passed on to its next stop. I’m just excited that it is November and I can start listening to some Christmas music. I figure why wait around for Thanksgiving this year. Tis the season…

I’m off to work…

strangest “day off” in my short history

Update 10/31

Here’s a list of a few things I did today. I took the day off, for reasons which will become clear, but I still believe it was one of the strangest days I’ve had to date.

Things I Did Yesterday / Today:

• Called the doctor to ask questions about the swine flu. (Anna and Christa have it we discovered this morning–Anna is sleeping a lot and has started on Tamiflu. Christa is riding out the storm without drugs since they weren’t prescribing to low-risk adults.)
• Jump-started my car (thanks to my friend Josh) which was parked a block away at Walgreens.
• Dumped out many buckets of vomit. (Sorry for the detail, but it seems like such a weird task.)
• Played dominoes with Sarah (who strangely is not displaying flu-like symptoms.)
• Ate a Krispy Kreme donut with orange and black sprinkles.
• Replaced the battery on my car using instructions from a manual I got at the public library. So far, no electrocutions.
• Ironed my St. Francis of Assisi Halloween costume. That activity is just “out there”–on multiple levels–if you think about it.
• Cleaned acrylic paint off of paintbrushes, tablecloth, and second born daughter.
• Retrieved the phones from multiple rooms of the house as they seemed to keep moving like migratory birds from dawn till dusk.
• Took Tamiflu myself. (Don’t ask. Evidently with my asthma / breathing issues, I’m at a higher risk even though I haven’t displayed any symptoms thusfar.)
• Made meatloaf (a food I happen to hate) for myself and Sarah because a.) it was available (we’re members of a cooking co-op right now where different people prep meals and deliver them four nights a week) and b.) we needed a semi-healthy dinner after eating donuts and yogurt for breakfast and lunch.
• Wondered at what point of repetition Curious George episodes could break someone’s sanity…
• Taking Sarah to the ER at 1:30 a.m. since she had a raging fever and was having trouble breathing. The doctor thinks she has asthma like her sister which complicates the swine flu symptoms. Her big concern with all of this was missing out on “truck or treating”. She keeps reassuring us that the feels much better.
• Seeing Christa black out and tumble down in the hallway. Thought I was going to be taking my whole family to the ER. She’s OK, just bruised and sore this morning.

Halloween has been real scary so far…but I think we’re all on the road to recovery today. I hope.

october

love it.