And That was the Week(end) That Was

Normally, I wouldn't just write a post about things that happened to me, but I feel like doing that today. So there.

I'm not usually up at 7:15 on Sunday mornings, let alone outside walking to the Cleveland Park metro station, but yesterday, that's exactly where I found myself. It's a little weird being out early on a Sunday. Every other day of the week an early morning walk puts you on the road with the poor and the servants that we don't want to see during the day. The janitors and the lawn care guys, mostly hispanic. But on Sundays, even they get the chance to rest. The roads were nearly deserted, the cars silent. If you're walking down Ordway St. from 34th to Connecticut, you get to a point from which you can't see either of those streets. As I walked that brief section yesterday with music in my ears I saw a cascade of golden leaves falling onto the road and the cars parked all along it. It seemed that everything was still except those leaves falling, and I wondered, how long would it take before evidence of our society would disappear? How long until those cars parked in gapless rows along the road rusted beyond recognition and were buried in fallen leaves? How long until the streets which we carefully maintain (or not so carefully, i.e. the Nebraska Ave North to Massachusetts Ave East turn at Ward Circle) became shattered crumbs of asphalt and concrete with tree roots spreading relentlessly? Would the iron from the cars seep into the soil and change the fall colors of the trees? Or would the remnants of our lives poison the earth to the point where it was unihhabitable? Before I could answer those questions, I was startled out of my reverie by the cars zooming by as Connecticut Ave came into view. Sure it was only a few cars (it was Sunday morning after all) but that was all it took. Then down into the bowels of the city for the long trip out to Vienna. As much as I wonder about some of the repercussions of our modern society, it sure is nice to have a clean and timely subway system.

Speaking of clean and timely subway systems, Metro is awesome on Sunday mornings. I checked the WMATA website the night before to see what time I would need to leave home to get to Vienna at 8:30. It told me to catch the 7:38 train at Cleveland Park which pulled into the station the next day at.....7:38. And I got a seat! I never get a seat!

Do strange things ever happen to you about which you do not know what to do? Well, it doesn't happen very often to me, but yesterday, as I was walking towards the north Kiss & Ride in Vienna, I was approached by a, for lack of a better word, hooligan. Some dude, probably about 24 or 25 (my age!) was walking toward me in very baggy and unkempt black clothes and a weird black stocking cap. He was carrying what looked like a Double Gulp from 7-11. As we approached each other, me heading out, him in, I moved slightly to my right so that we didn't collide. You know, what everyone does when they approach an oncoming person. He however, moved to his left, very intentionally blocking my path. At the last second he moved to pass and spit, again very intentionally, right at my feet. It was, well not surreal, but pretty strange and at least two standard deviations away from the mean of normal human relational behavior. How do you react to that? And since we were talking about ethics at church that morning, how do you turn the other cheek? He was gone before I really even realized what happened. And why did he do that? Was there something about how I looked that made him dislike me? Was it my stylish leather jacket that I paid nothing for and wear because it's warm? Or do I carry an air of smugness about myself that I don't realize? Or does he just like to flirt with the borders of proper behavior and see how people react? Maybe he's a grad student doing research? Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I didn't get mad, I just got confused.


Also, does anyone need $10? While wandering around the Vienna station, waiting for Dee to pick me up, I set out to find the south Kiss & Ride. If, upon exiting the station on the south side, you turn immediately left, there it is. Not knowing this, however, I turned right and followed the road around towards the parking garage past the end of the sidewalk. Not knowing where to go from there, I turned around and promptly found a ten-dollar bill lying on the road. A road down which no one had driven for at least the last 5 minutes. Was I meant to find that money? It sure felt like it. Maybe I'm still destined to find a good use for it, or someone that needs it more than me that I can give it to. We'll see.

For those of you that read this and don't go to my church, the following anecdote should tell you a lot about what we as a church are about. Yesterday we began a new Open Mic time at the beginning of our service. The main idea is to give people something they don't want to miss so they arrive approximately on time. For the first "act" my friend Mike and I did a poetical rendition of Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne. I hear it was pretty good (Pete, I definitely want to know if we got recorded or not!). After church, we discussed the possibility of doing something similar in the future and Mike (stage name: Mike Check) suggested that I need a stage name. He came up with "The Snake," probably a reference to my snake-themed "comics" that I post here. I've decided, however, that I don't like that name. Too many negative connotations. So here's my new stage name: The Snackmaster. I like the evocations of musicopoetical crunchy goodness and the relationship to a popular line of food dehydrators. Plus it keeps the strong unvoiced alveolar stop that lends a bit of rhythm to our name: Mike Check and The Snackmaster. That is, in two words, Awe Some.

And now, I'll end this loquacious post with a question: Last night I was talking to my mother on the phone (what a good son, huh?) and I told her that Maggie and I had recently joined the Design Team at our church, unqualified as we are. And she of course asked what that team does and I explained that we plan the services. Then, she asked if we plan good bible teaching. Uhhhh, I don't know how to respond to that! If you don't know, "Good Bible Teaching" is like a brandname for "guy (must be a guy, no chicks allowed) standing up and going through a Bible Passage so that the congregation can learn what it means." I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that, but it's really not what we do. However, I do think we follow what should be called good bible teaching (non-registered trademark) in that I think it's good, we look at the bible and I at least usually learn something. But it's definitely not "Good Bible Teaching©®TM" So, how should I respond to her question? Last night I just changed the subject, but I'm afraid some day she'll come out here to visit and go to one of our church services and be convinced that we've revoked our faith.