Musing on Waterville, USA

Just looking over the hundreds of pictures taken of the hard-hit communities of New Orleans, Biloxi MS and Mobile AL still gives me frights. Expressways are completely submerged, houses and trees from a birds-eye-view look like boats surrounded by seaweed, traffic lights are ripped off the wires from which they once hung, cars crushed by piles of bricks and other debris... I could go on and on, but it is just absolutely devastating. Granted, New Orleans wasn't hit as hard as everyone had feared (the hurricane veered off to the east at the last minute), but since the ground there was already below sea level for most of the area, I knew there would still be a hell of a lot of water. I've been reading papers, online articles, and blogs covering all this mess and representing people's personal fears and prayers to those suffering direct damages. I have yet to talk to my dad since the incident, before which he told me some distant relatives who lived where the hurricane hit refused to leave. I do worry about any potential news as it comes, fearing that I will have yet another connection to this catastrophe.

New Orleans may not be livable for several weeks, maybe even a couple months, depending on how quickly all this water evaporates. Hard to believe a place that is completely packed with partyers on Mardi Gras could suddenly be so empty on a day like this (well, empty of people anyway). But in a way, that's probably a good thing; it means most people survived. The next thing to do is pray for those that cannot pick up the pieces, and donate cans of food to those that lost their entire food supply in the destruction.

Dreams reflecting the changing Reality

...I had another back-to-school dream last night, this time focusing on how many of my would-be classes went wrong (one of my classes involved going to a church service where people didn't know any of the responses--such as "And also with you," or "Thanks be to God," etc.). Even though my memory on most of what happened is greatly diminished (it's been about 12 hours since I dreamed the such), I can still remember walking from a Music History class down an endless hall that connected to a church, which in turn connected to a stairway that led to state-of-the-art practice rooms, where the ceilings were high and the acoustics were great. At the same time, as I was venturing between classes and practice sessions, I passed several people that I knew but for some reason didn't want to talk to them. I remember feeling both a rush to get someplace that even in the dream I had no clue where I was going, and guilt for not saying hi to the several friends that I had not seen in a while.

...It was probably the fourth or fifth St. Olaf-related dream I've had ever since I started going there, but this was the first time I had any negativity associated with it. It's possible that my brain was reusing old scenes from previous dreams in which I was going back to my high school and getting ready for Physics and History. About a couple weeks ago, I crammed a dream in three main sequences: first in which I finished practicing, grabbed a few of my friends and headed on a long footbridge over a bay of some sort; second in which I attended a History class with several Olaf and North Shore friends, all taught by one of my high school History teachers; third in which we all split up, and I walked back with my musician friends on the same footbridge that was fast getting flooded with water; we walked all the way to a train station, at which we would take an underground train back to school.

...I recall the first college dream I had actually didn't occur till midway through freshman year. It was the most obvious that I was on campus. My brain shot several scenes at Buntrock Commons (the center of campus where you get food and the mail) and an unnamed dorm, all in which I was hanging out with several people from North Shore (playing card games with guys and making out with the girls). I woke up several times just when the scenes were getting good, but the last part of the dream I remember driving out of St Olaf with family and suddenly finding myself driving on a Houston freeway being chased by some ex-cons wanting revenge for ramming their car, or cutting them off (by changing lanes), or something.

...The second dream didn't occur till halfway through the summer, where I was well away from my dorm when I heard that I had to go back and start packing everything because the U.S. suddenly engaged in a nuclear war with Al-Qaeda and we all had to evacuate and go north (presumably to Canada). So I returned to Kitt and found Tyler already having packed up most of his things (the room was half-bare). Next thing I remember, I'm running with a couple suitcases and a pillow northward in some thick woods, and suddenly I'm in this "safety center" which looked more like an open dungeon. Everyone was huddling together somehow, and I basically just set my stuff down, and woke up. I was actually so intrigued by the scenario that I actually wrote a short story about it. But of course I mixed in some fantasy to spice it up.

...There was another dream or two between then and the last couple weeks. Sadly I don't remember them. I think I had more music opportunities in those dreams, but that's all my brain can muster.

...I've had multiple themes in which I had clusters of dreams with the same ideas floating around again. When I was young I used to dream about different Chicago street plans, and wake up everytime a thunderstorm struck or my cat wanted to bite me. Over the years, I also had dreams about returning to St. Thomas and seeing everyone I knew again, and church dreams in which I was desperate to take part in the services and hang out with my church friends. Off and on I've also had reconfigured Evanston dreams, half the time with a river (not a canal) running through the middle of town, and sometimes Lake Michigan would disappear off the map. And over the past 5-6 years, I've had dreams generated by hormones, some more intense than others. In the past I would have dreams about chasing particular girls, creating all sorts of exotic scenes that wouldn't happen in reality, and at least for a couple hours I would be a happy boy. Now I have dreams in which I hook up with one girl, then we go someplace (like class) and afterward we split and I'm hanging out with other people that happen to be the "persons of the hour." Or, sometimes my dreams will reflect periods of being lazy socially, and my alienation of such people will drive me insane in the process.

...I worry I may get a little nervous about going back to school now, due to my history of being very socially active in small clumps and socially inactive in large clumps. Until the last couple days I have been extremely excited about going back to school. I learned where I was going to live, who was living near me, and all sorts of other possibilities. Suddenly this fear of replicating what I've done pretty much every year of my life, sitting alone in my room, not talking to people and not doing stuff with them and building memories will set in, and I worry about repeating my history in that regard.

...I really hope I'm not connected with Cubs in social futility. If it turns out that they have to go another century before winning a World Series, I surely hope that I will have started dating, hit a homerun, sustained a strong relationship, keep in touch with all my friends for sustained peroids of time, and other important aspects of social vitality long before that happens. Seriously, I couldn't stand getting myself to the point where I dream only about failing to keep correspondence with people that I care about.

Thank you God for another great day

I can definitely say, without a doubt, today was the best day in all of 2005 thus far. [Although the night I saw God in a vision while closing my eyes at an FCA-presided worship service comes really close.] I hadn't gone to Great America in about 2 years, and even when I went then, I certainly didn't stay practically the whole time the park was open. Chris and I were going to go about 10 days ago, when they were open 12 hours (10 AM to 10 PM), but today was just as good, as the last 2 rides that we went on occurred after sunset. We spent our time mostly on or waiting for roller coasters (no need for that carousel stuff), and we both started and finished our day riding the best roller coaster in the park.

Since I cannot exactly express my joy in words (although I could talk more in detail about what I did), I'll leave with a snapshot: a picture of my wide-open mouth and eyes when we went on the second-to-last Raging Bull ride of the night. That expression was so shocking, something that I never thought I could pull off. I decided to buy the photo, despite the $20 price tag. Once I scan it, I might share it later. [Edit: See below.]

Heck with the best day in 2005. I think it's the best day I've had since I pulled an all-nighter at a church lock-in, crashed during the following day, and went to a Halloween party dressed in a White Sox uniform a couple years ago.

Theology of Baseball

I ask my Lord why I bleed Cubbie blue;

I ask him, what it all means to be one too,

I ask what it takes to suffer, to give thanks for the lover,

To reach for the heavens, and all that is within it;

I ask my Lord why they can't win it.

I was bumbling around the piano a couple weeks ago when I wrote these words. It rings pretty appropriate today, as the Cubs lost yet another series, and are playing .500 ball. Granted, that's not so terrible, considering the many seasons they endured in last place and losing over 90 games. Anyway, I wrote down several other lines, but I don't know if I'll use them. It's interesting how, after the Cubs won Game 4 in the NLCS in 2003, they were one game away from going to the World Series. I was chilling with a fellow Cubs fan friend, and I mentioned in passing that if the Cubs went all the way I would write a song about it, exclaiming the finality of the so-called curse and the euphoria that we would experience. [Of course, the rest is history and they still are searching for that elusive championship.] In a way, writing a song about their failures and the divinity/theology of it all seems more appropriate in the big picture sense.

People say God is a Yankee fan, but I know that is absolutely false. If it were true, that would mean Jesus would be getting laid every night without ever getting STDs or women pregnant. If it were true, it would be OK in the Bible for people to steal, cheat, lie, commit adultery, dishonor their parents, and worship other gods (ultimately forget about God himself). The world would be utter chaos. Yes, even worse than what it's like today.

I propose that God is a Cubs fan (at least until they win a World Series). Generations of people have suffered through mediocre seasons, horrible seasons, even excellent ones that turn sour at the end, but they have remained loyal to the team. There aren't too many bandwagon Cubs fans (except for morons) the way there are bandwagon Red Sox fans, or bandwagon Yankees fans. In the "old days" (i.e. before I was born) most Cubs fans would go to Wrigley Field just to have a beer and enjoy the sunny afternoon. The baseball game was merely a bonus, and it didn't matter whether the team won or lost. These days, more fans who go to the games focus more on the team, and pour their heart into cheering when the team does well, or booing when they don't do well. But none of these mean switching loyalties. The fans learn about the history through their parents and/or other older generation Cubs fans who have suffered with the team their whole lifetime. And they share that pain, because they are lured into hoping that they will watch history go down when the Cubs finally do win. It would be that much sweeter to watch a Cubs team lift up the World Series Championship trophy than, say, the Baltimore Orioles or the Cincinnati Reds, because most people in the older generation would have been alive for those events.

I could go on, but what I just posted is merely an introduction to which I would look into history and make more references, and when I would need stats to compare players or teams, or to look at what decisions were made by the manager (during games) and general manager (in shaping the team) over the years, to see what went wrong, study what was common around baseball (spitballs, dead-ball era vs homerun era, etc) and suggest what the Cubs should do to keep themselves ahead of the times. I might write a tell-all book, but then I'd have to major in English, right? Well, did Jose Canseco major in English when he wrote his book claiming several players were on steroids? I don't think so. :-)

Anyway, I know some of you might have questions about the line "to give thanks for the lover," especially since it doesn't have anything to do with baseball. I was mostly trying to find a word that would rhyme somewhat with "suffer."