October 2009 – Page 3 – The only certainty is bad grammar

Penn and God(er)

Published: October 21, 2009 / Updated: October 21, 2009 Crystal god, medium

I saw that video of Penn from Penn and Teller today, and now it’s rooted itself deep inside my brain. It’s playing again and again and I need to talk about it.

I need to talk to you about God.

I’m usually type to live my faith and hope it catches on – a habit I developed after being rejected by about 47 of my closest friends when I tried to tell them about Jesus back in my high school days.

But that’s crap.

The part that’s most striking in this video is when Penn says “I still think religion does a lot of bad stuff, but man, that was a good man who gave me that book.”

I never grasped before the anti-God I’ve gotten from people, but it’s suddenly so clear to me.

It’s not anti-God. It’s anti-religion. And we all know religion is a human thing – flawed and many times mistaken.

But I’m here to tell you that God is not a human thing.

First, you need to hear about his grace. It’s the most comforting thing you’ll ever know once you accept it.

When the world wears us down – grace lifts our tired souls off the ground and says “I still love you.”

I should also tell you I DO feel weak when I think of Him. Non-Christians are always telling me how weak religion makes me. How I must need a crutch to get through life.

Uh. Heck ya I need a crutch. And so do you.

Some try alcohol. Some try sex. Some try money.

None of it will ever work.

With God though, it’s all right to be weak because he’s not.

I also should share how incredibly amazing my work as a youth leader is. How it teaches me things I didn’t even know I needed to learn – like how to spread faith, and what it feels like to inspire a student. And how I prayed for a chance to work with high school students and he gave it to me like a present on Christmas day. He handed it right to me and then dropped me in the deep end with a trust I didn’t even have in myself.

And I should explain how he makes me want to be a better person. How I love more, and care more, and act more because of His Word. And I should tell you that you can have him too. That you NEED to have him too.

He’ll save you.

I should tell you right now and then ask you beg you to come to church with me Sunday.

So this is me. Begging you.

Sunday at 9 a.m. I’ll be at the First United Methodist Church in Woodstock. E-mail me if you need a ride: cs.lindell@gmail.com. Seriously.

“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty.'” – John 6:35

Pretty sure it’s all downhill now that I’ve met Sedaris.

Published: October 18, 2009 / Updated: October 20, 2009 Crystal bears, exercise, god, humor, medium, random thoughts

Hey there.

I’m just chillin like a villain watching the stupid Bears lose.

(stupid. stupid bears). (“chillin like a villain” is totally still cool right?)

I went to church this morning. Youth group was fantabulous. While. Um. Other than the fact that there’s a small chance someone (name withheld to protect the guilty) ate bad macaroni and cheese. He seemed fine though, so I’m sure it all worked out. or up.

Speaking of church, I’m super worried about swine flu. I’ve calculated that I shake an average of 87 hands per Sunday, which comes out to 5.7 billion million germs. I’m picturing a slow death with a high fever while I apply that hand sanitizer every seven-teen seconds.

Every. Seven-teen. Seconds.

(If I get sick I’m totally suing purell). (unless it causes me to reach my goal weight. Then I’d send a thank-you note). (true story).

I also walked four miles today. Hot frost, it’s getting cold out. Stupid deceptive sun tricks me into thinking I just need a sweatshirt. Five minutes later, my finger nails are purple and my nose is running. In conclusion, I need to join some sort of indoor work-out facility.

Either that, or buy a stairmaster-related DVD from Wal-mart.

(New life goal: Move somewhere with summer all year long).

Well, the Bears are still being stupid, but maybe if I start paying attention I can send them good vibes and they’ll come back in the last 15 seconds.

Wish me luck.

David Sedaris talked pretty and signed my book

Published: October 16, 2009 / Updated: October 16, 2009 Crystal books, humor, medium

I’ve confirmed what I’ve long feared – I’m no where near cool enough to be friends with David Sedaris in real life.

You’d think I would be.

We’re both writers. People think both of us are funny. And we both date boys.

But when he asked if I knew that breast milk could cure eye infections, as I approached him Thursday night – I stumbled without ever finding a clever response. Likely because I’d never had the good fortunate to need breast milk for an eye infection.

My friend Beth and I had just been to his show, and then waited in a two-hour line set up roller-coaster-wait style in the hottest conference room this side of the Mississippi.

“Oh. Um. infections?”

“EYE infections.”

“Oh. Um. No. Um. Oh. Oh. Um. Thanks so much for coming to the quad-cities and signing everyone’s book. I think that’s really awesome,” I said faster than a speeding bullet. “I have a question for you. How do you think your career would be different if you were just starting out now? What with all the digital media and blogs?”

“Well, I think it would be worse. Everyone expects everything to be free now,” he told the newspaper reporter still chugging through her company’s pay cuts. Sedaris went on to explain how he’d negotiated his book contract for a three-book deal, and then started talking about how much he makes in advance.

At that point, he asked the two girls who still look for coupons before going to a sit-down restaurant, how much we think he gets for an advance.

“I don’t know.”

“Just guess. Take a guess.”

“Ten thousand dollars?” I said.

For real.

That’s what I said.

I honest to God, at that moment, thought $10,000 was a lot of money.

“$100,000?” Beth chimed in, trying to save me.

He gave us a blank stare that said, quite clearly “you are in no way cool enough to be my friend in real life.”

“You think I get $100,000 as an advance? Really?”

To quote Sedaris himself, “It seems open and shut now, but at the time I was truly conflicted.”

Was $100,000 too much? No. It couldn’t be too much. Too little? By how much?

Crap.

This isn’t going well.

I swear to ink, if this man doesn’t tell me how much his book advances are, I’m googleing the crap out of it the second we get home.

“Well, let’s say I make $2 per book. The way an advance works, is that if they give me $3 million before hand, I then have to sell 1.5 million copies before I start getting royalties,” he explained.

Frick.

The man makes a $3 million advance, and I guessed $10,000.

“Oh. Wow. Ok. I understand. Umm, my friend beth has a quick question I think.” ask him!” I whisper-yelled to her.

“Oh. Um. What’s your favorite word?”

“Teanaste’lle’n”

“Oh.” “I don’t know what that means”

I CANNOT BELIEVE I DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF DAVID SEDARIS’ FAVORITE WORD. I suck at life.

“It’s Ethiopian for hello”

Phew. I wasn’t supposed to know what it means. It’s not even my language. Thank dictionary.

Then beth told him about the Web site Etiquette Hell because he’d told a few stories about rude people during the show and had requested more from readers during the signing. He then took out his notepad, wrote it down, and said he’d check it out.

Maybe we redeemed ourselves.

Probably not.

But maybe.

Oh. and Don’t worry. I gave him my blog card.

Sedaris doesn’t allow photos. At all. (Ask him about that time at Costco, if you ever get a chance), so I don’t have photographic proof this all happened. However, I will post the super-duper awesome picture I have of my signed copy of “When you are engulfed in flames.” You can be jealous if you want. I’m cool with it.

sedaris

– yes. he drew that picture of the lincoln-turtle. no, I’m not sure why.