Dan's Journal

I try and get to Starbucks twice a week to write and update my movie blog (Truth On Cinema) and every time I leave, I always have a handful of observations of the people there and the atmosphere. It’s time to empty my brain and get my thoughts down on “paper” and so this will begin my Observations on Starbucks.

• I love watching people who are making their first trip ever into a Starbucks on an early morning before work or school. It’s obvious that they have heard of it but have always held out going for any number of reasons. Maybe they don’t like coffee and consider it a waste of time to go in otherwise. Or maybe they are a little more socially aware and have made it a point to buy their coffee from more “indie” coffee shops around town to, for a lack of a better word, “damn the man at Starbucks.” They realize the social implications of telling their friends in a conversation that they “went to Starbucks.” These people are easy to spot. Their eyes dart to and fro trying to avoid direct contact with any of the “regulars” so that they can blend in and not be called out as a “newbie.” Cute. You can easily spot them though because they are the ones who ask about the sizes and why a “tall” isn’t very tall. Gotta love ‘em.
• Whether you are a “regular” or a “newbie,” going to Starbucks is an experience nonetheless. You feel differently when you go in there. The smell of coffee, the colors of the products and the decorations, the rounded corners all around you, and the hurried and frenzied atmosphere make it a completely different world. When you walk into Starbucks, you can forget everything that is going outside in the real world, and I think people actually believe that. They light up when they walk in, you can see the joy and their child-like innocence return to their faces as soon as the aroma of coffee hits their senses…there’s not a place like it in the world.

I don’t want to “give away the whole cow” so-to-speak so for now, that’s all that you get to chew on. Rest assured, I have many more observations on Starbucks and what I think about when I leave.

What about you? What do you see and think about Starbucks? Is it everything?

Lunchtime in high school is all about jockeying for position on the social ladder. It doesn’t matter what clothes you wear or who you hang out with or what words you use, where you sit at lunch in high school is everything. For a lot of people, where you sit at lunch is or has already been decided upon by who your friends are and where they signal you to come sit. I always wanted to be one those “guys” who was “signaled” by a large group of friends and yelled to “come on over and sit here with us.” It has to feel really special to feel “called over” by friends at lunch. I know that it’s such a self-esteem shot to have to search around for a table to sit at. I mean, I am not one of those friendless guys who will sit alone, but still, it would be nice to get the wave-over.

As I begin to peruse the landscape of lunch tables and look for any recognizable faces that I would consider “safe” to sit by, I start to get nervous. I can literally feel every eye in the cafeteria looking at me. Look at them, they must all be thinking to themselves, “Oh look, poor guy, see, he’s doing that ‘look around the cafeteria thing’ because he doesn’t want to show anyone that he really doesn’t have anywhere to sit.” And to be honest, I’m really not. All I am trying to do is find someone I know among the mass of faces. Why does everyone look exactly the same? Hey, football guys, sit down and eat. Why do you insist on always standing around with one leg on your chair? You look like you’re trying to pose! I can’t see around or over your inflated head! I feel like I’ve been standing here for an eternity and it’s not getting any better. Did I somehow change schools as I was walking from classes? Did I find a portal to another dimension? Why does no one look familiar anymore? Where is everybody?

After what seemed like forever scanning the faces and tables, I finally see someone I know. It’s not a really close friend but someone that I have had in a few of my classes who I think is like me. Or at least I think he’s someone that won’t make fun of me since I brought my lunch. Yes that’s right, I brought my lunch. I of course have the mom who thinks spending a couple of dollars a day at lunch is too much money for our family to afford, so I have to come to the “lunch war” armed with a brown paper sack. There really isn’t anything more embarrassing than being the guy who brings their own lunch to high school. I’m sure there are people who don’t think it’s that bad, but when you first start out at high school and experience the greatness of “vending-machines-with-food-that’s-bad-for-you” for the first time, bringing a sack lunch is like an insult. “Really? So you think bringing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bag of gummy bears makes you better than me?!” It’s like your badge of honor. You may be a geek, a dork, someone with no friends, someone who smells, maybe you’re the guy who every0one makes fun of, BUT, if you buy your lunch like everyone else, it’s almost like you’re accepted. You’re one of them. You won’t be invited to any parties or anything, but when you’re carrying your old-probably-never-washed tray to the lonely table, you can feel a little better about yourself when you’ve purchased school food. BUT, that isn’t me. I am the guy with the paper sack. All I wanted to do everyday was just sit everyone down and explain to them that this wasn’t my choice: it was my mom! She made me take a lunch. I would starve to death if I didn’t endure white bread and wheat thins. I don’t think bringing your lunch to high school will ever be looked upon as normal and in fact, I think it will forever be remembered and regarded as being for “losers.”

I can remember in middle school and even in late elementary school thinking about high school lunches and fearing the “food fights.” “Of course,” I thought, “food fights must take place all of the time in high school. You’re older, more mature, you’re a teenager…you can do whatever you want.” I don’t know if it was movies I saw or Saved By the Bell (though they were never in a cafeteria, they always hung out at Max’s) that put that thought into my head, but in high school at lunch, there were no food fights. It wasn’t all that different than middle school, except for the amount of police officers and baggy jeans. So far, the “eating” part of high school lunches is pretty normal.

Here’s something else that is really odd to me at lunch: right before we all know the bell is going to ring, a huge mass of students begin to form a “riot-esque” circle near the hallways that lead to the classes. Wait, what?! So, the same students that are “rebellious” and who are supposed to historically “hate school” are actually lining up and awaiting the bell so they can get to class? I mean they are actually telling the students to go back to their lunch tables and wait until the bell rings before getting up. Let me get this straight: it’s the teachers and the faculty that are having to tell the students to keep talking with their friends and ignoring “school” UNTIL the magical bell rings?! What’s up with that? Why are students so worried about getting to class AFTER lunch? Calm down. Take a seat. This is our one time that we are encouraged to talk to our friends about whatever we want, and we get a whopping 35 minutes to do it, and you want to rush to get out of here to your next class? So much so that it causes the administration to make an announcement about it?!?! I do not get high school.

(sigh) Oh well, on to P.E…..(to be continued)

“Dude, who do you have for first period” was the very first question I ever had to answer in high school. It wasn’t that complicated nor confusing, but for the first time in my young teen years, I had to come up with an answer that would suffice and be good enough for High School Dan. “Man, I have someone named J. Smith for American History. Do you know about him? Is he hard? Mean?”

I was in high school now. Middle school is behind me and elementary school is a laughable memory of my childhood, something I reminisce about at lunch with my other “high school” friends. This is who I am now, a high school student. I had made it.

As I walked into my first ever high school class, a fear overtook me about where to sit that was so intense, that unintelligible guttural sounds were all I could muster. Where you decide to sit in a high school class determines everything about how the rest of the year will go. Don’t even talk to me about what other people think about it, but where you sit basically lays out who you will be for the rest of your life. Alright, so that’s a little overstated, but folks, it’s serious. If you think the Army has strategic plans about their decisions, wait until you hear how I am going to plan my seating arrangement:

Things to consider

• I can’t sit too close to the front of the class because, well, I am not one of those people that intentionally sit at the front of the classroom. I want to be an involved but not involved student. Does that make sense? I would like the teacher to know that I am eager to learn, but only enough to get good grades and graduate with a minimal “social footprint.” Verdict? No Front Row.
• I also have to consider the enormity of sitting in the back of the classroom as well. As with the front row, I also don’t want to be associated with those people that stake out the back row like it’s the Holy Grail. Again, it’s all about making a non-impactful impact on the teacher and the students overall. What does the back of the classroom say about me? It says that I don’t want to learn or that I really don’t want to be called upon. I don’t hate the teacher or his/her authority as my teacher and although I’d rather take a hot poker to the eye than to be called on in front of the entire class, I don’t want the teacher to think that or know or assume that about me. Verdict? No Back Row.
• The exact middle also says more about me than I want my teacher to know right away by my seat choice. I don’t want to be a stereotype or someone she can immediately classify or label because of where I sit, and I have to say that in addition to the front and back rows, the very middle row also says a lot about me. It screams that I am a “middle-of-the-road,” “no-opinion-having,” “politically correct,” “eternally-average” guy who longs to just be forgotten. See, although the “back row seaters” may at first seem like students who want to be forgotten or looked upon as rebellious, truthfully, they want to be remembered as the “back row kids.” But the “middle row kids” truly want to be forgotten, because they are so afraid of either rejection, looking bad, having the wrong answer, not knowing who they are, not totally being confident in their intelligence, or whatever, that they want to hide and just disappear. These are the people that you need to keep an eye on when it comes to school violence or troubled teens. Verdict? No Middle Row.
• After considering exhaustively all of my options, it’s clear where I have need to sit: the 2nd row of seats, in the 3rd chair in a row of 7. It’s the perfect seat for me to be able to shine and truly stay invisibly visible.

Now that I have secured my seat in my first high school class life, I will copy and paste this entire process for every class after this one. There’s no sense in trying to be courageous my first year about where to sit, I’ll wait until I’ve earned at least a year of stripes before I start being more original in my seat choice. For now, this is working.

Almost as important as picking a seat in class is who will be sitting around and by me. Hopefully there are other students who care enough about where to sit as much as I did that end up near me so I can have someone to be a freak with. It would be nice to have something in common with the classmates around me other than having the same teacher and having grown up in the same school district for 14 years together. It’s such a funny thing to sit here with these “popular” kids that I have known since kindergarten when they were on my team in kickball and were high-fiving me when we won. Growing up in a relatively “small big town” is a pretty weird social experiment. The same kid who wore his Dad’s jeans that were way too big for him for the first ever 6th grade dance is now the same all-star wide receiver who has more girlfriends than I do actual freckles. (believe me, I have counted) This guy knows me, has grown up with me, knows my sister and my parents, has shared a Braum’s ice cream with me after a little league game, but will continually ignore me throughout our high school career because of some misplaced illusion that he thinks that I am a “nobody” and that he is a “somebody.” Hello dude?! Remember that night when we spent the night at your parents house and we played Lego’s? Did you just all of a sudden forget that memorable night in 4th grade?!

I digress. Once it’s established who I am going to be sitting around the rest of the year, I have to ask myself the question all teenage guys ask themselves, “What girl in this class is hot? Who do I have a chance with? How can I maneuver myself close to her yet remain distant enough for her to chase me? Who do I want to flirt with all year? Which one of these lucky ladies will have the pleasure of….”

Oh wait, you don’t actually think the same guy who spent hours analyzing where to sit in class is asking himself these questions now do you? No, these are questions I’m sure the typical teenage guy asks himself, but no, my thoughts look more like, “Most of these girls are too good for me and I am too afraid of being told ‘No’ to even dare spark up a conversation with them. I know almost all of them because we have all grown up together and I am hoping that my “cuteness” from our childhood has transferred over to my teenage years. But, seriously, honestly, it’s more like which girl will befriend me for help in class that I will confuse for actual feelings? It’ll probably be the cheerleader who I have had a crush on since 3rd grade, the same girl who thinks I am just “the cutest little guy” in the whole wide world. On the outside I complain about that and hate that label, but on the inside, I am just glad she knows me.”

The bell has rung and it’s time for lunch…(to be continued)

(I want to make sure I preface this with the DISCLAIMER that this is my CURRENT favorite TV show, not ALL-TIME favorite)

I am going to start a series of posting about some of My Favorite stuff. Whether it’s movies, books, comics, TV shows, videos, photos, observations, etc., I am going to pick a topic and talk to you about why it’s my favorite and try to convince you to make it a favorite of your own.

My wife and I don’t regularly watch TV as we have a very little TV that only gets the FCC required channels, and we also have a newborn son that we enjoy playing with more, BUT when we do sit down at our laptop to watch our favorite show online (since we always miss the shows when they are actually on), we land on GLEE.

I don’t know if I just lost any readers or my man-card, but whatever the case, I love this show! I am a sucker for high school drama (not being in it, but watching it safely from my couch) on the screen, and to add music to that, totally makes it a killer combination. I really think that high school provides the context for some of the most complex and divisive and explosive and interesting and joyful and frustrating and emotional moments in anyone’s life. We all can remember trying to discover who we were, what we liked/loved/hated, the people we enjoyed being around, the social groups we hung around, the angst that we went through as our physical bodies shifted from a child’s to an intense and awkward “teeny” body. I love that this show glamorizes that and really simplifies the situations with the infusion of music. There is no other universally accepted medium than music. Music is the game changer, it’s the Switzerland of life: neutral and peaceful.

You can hate someone, you can love someone, you could be totally mad at somebody in high school, but if you are forced to sing, by either a conniving cheerleading coach, or you voluntarily chose to, it seems to make all of the drama disappear. It’s refreshing to see how their music brings so many different cultures together and how it even makes a team out of the Elite (cheerleaders) and the Down Trodden (the geeks). And although I am not a huge fan of trying to modernize older music, I am a fan of the way this show does it.

What also makes this show so great is the work of Jane Lynch, aka, Sue Sylvester. She is the head of the cheerleaders, called the Cheerios, and her mission in life is to bring down the Glee club. She is the character who you “love to hate.” Her evil is more humorous and fantastical than serious. I love the way that the writers have played with her character’s heart, how you’re never quite sure what she’s going to do with it. There have been some amazing sincere scenes with Sue involving her sister, dealing with heartbreak, and trying to reconcile her hate for the glee club. I could provide you with some witty quotes, but to be fair, you have to watch them in context. Other words, it wouldn’t make much sense. But, to wet your appetite, here’s a sampling:

Sue: You think this was hard? Try auditioning for Baywatch and being told they’re going in another direction. That was hard.

Sue: I, for one, think intimacy has no place in a marriage. Walked in on my parents once and it was like seeing two walruses wrestling.

Sue: I empower my Cheerios to be champions. Do they go to college? I don’t know. I don’t care. Should they learn Spanish? Sure, if they wanna become dishwashers and gardeners.

A T.V. show has to have a good story for me to be interested. I don’t care if a show has flair, all of the bells and whistles, or even the hottest stars, a show has to have a great human story (and by human I don’t mean that it can’t have aliens in it, ie “The X-Files”). GLEE, like one of my other favorite T.V. shows Ugly Betty, has a very cool story about the power of music and how there could be “stars” in all of us, we just need the opportunity to release it.

If you have a chance or a spot in your “Television Rotation” then I suggest you checking out GLEE.

What are some of your favorite T.V. shows? Why? Should I check them out?

This isn’t one of those New Year’s Resolution posts where I layout all of my bulleted items that I plan on doing, but will eventually fail at, no, this is more of what my “direction” will be next year. To be a good great writer, you have to be a reader. I like to read, I enjoy reading, but I’ve never really taken it seriously. I have read fanciful fiction like the Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia series’ and even have dabbled in a little Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park), but what I’ve never read is the classics.

You know the ones I am talking about, The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, Crime and Punishment, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, etc. Those are the books that make up the very cinema we enjoy, the stories we love today, the essence and even the reason some of our greatest writers of this century ever wanted to become a writer.

So, I will be embarking on an epic literary journey to expand my horizons, to learn words that aren’t used anymore, to improve my writing by reading some of the best writers of our time, and to even learn how to speak more eloquently. Join me as I will be journaling my experiences and observations from each book I read. Check back in January as I will post my reading list and until then, please feel free to leave me some suggestions on some classics that I should read.

Thanks for listening,
Dan

I don’t like talking on the phone. If I could get by without one, I would. I would love to totally communicate by way of my computer. I am so much better as words than I am as a voice.

Take this awkward example as my justification for eradicating all telephone conversations:

Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using “as in” examples I will always undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete fool. I know that in the service when they are talking over radios and spelling out letters they use words instead of actual letters, but when I try and do it, I can never think of the best word to use. I can remember one time when trying to spell out a customer’s name over the phone and said, “Yes, that’s G as in….(too long of a lapse)…ummm….Grapes.” Grapes?! Are you kidding me?

If we eliminated telephone conversations all together, we can avoid such embarrassing encounters and get back to meticulously planning out and typing out exactly what we want to say without error.

Anyone else with me on that?

Day 1-I can’t believe this is actually happening. We’ve talked about this day for years and it’s finally here. I can’t turn back now, this is real, this is happening right now. My life is now and forever will be changed. So much happened today, so much so that I can’t journal about it. My emotions weren’t chartable today. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a proverbial emotional cliff with the entire world’s population behind me trying to push me over, and if I let them, I would have fallen with such force, that I’m sure I would’ve created the 2nd Grand Canyon. Oh God, hear my small voice among the cries of the world: heal my wife!

Day 2-Praise God that He cares enough about His children to help us. Vivian’s recovery has been slow, she has been stuck in a hospital bed all night and day, but her spirits remain hopeful every time she looks into Judah’s eyes. It helps me when she smiles at him and enjoys him. I don’t think I would be strong enough to find joy in someone I barely know who is a cause of why I am in the hospital having to recover. I am struggling to come to grips with feelings that I’ve never experienced before. I love my wife more than I love my baby. I care more for my wife at this moment than I do for my baby who just yesterday entered this world. Everything in me says that’s wrong, but I don’t care. I guess that’s why God in His infinite wisdom chose women for childbirth.

Day 3-Like most trials in life, this day is a better day than the previous. Amanda was able to come and relieve Mom for a few hours and allow her to sleep at our apartment. I am glad that Amanda chose to come be with her sister and her nephew, that will mean a lot more to Vivian later on I think…and to Amanda. Vivian’s blood count continues to drop and yet her energy seems to be refilling itself every day: God. We get to go home today! Those 6 words sum up what I feel today.

Day 4-Our first day home with Judah. I feel like we missed the big grand momentous occasion of bringing your baby home for the first time. It was marred by the fact that my wife could barely make it up the stairs to our apartment without passing out. Our family is supposed to come over today to visit us, I hope Vivian is up to it. I love seeing people love on my boy, I feel really good about that, I just don’t want to love on him yet. I still am trying to stay guarded with him as far as letting myself completely fall in love with him. But I think Vivian needs that from me, I think it helps her to see me enjoy him, probably thinking that I am trying to guard my love for him so it’s reserved for her…she’s so much smarter than me, she’s always a step ahead of where I think I am. I love her so dearly.

Day 5-Oh boy! If we have more than a handful of nights like tonight, God, we will need an intervention by you. Judah was up all night, every hour on the hour, wanting to feed. He just wasn’t satisfied at all. Today I learned about colic…that disgusting little creature that lives and breeds off newborns for their first few months of existence. He disguises himself as fussiness and discontentment and just flat out screaming, but nothing can best him, other than to admit defeat and that it’s just something babies have: clever enemy. Praise God for Roxanna! She is a God-send to us. We wouldn’t have survived, literally, if she hadn’t decided to stay with us. It actually scares me to think about life without her here.

Day 6-The days of the week are beginning to meld together to the point where I’m not even sure what day Day 6 is. Judah had a much better night, actually slept for a bit, allowed me and Vivian to finally catch up on some sleep. I say catch up but there’s never really going to be a time when Vivian and I reclaim the hours we lost from Day 1 to Day 4. As someone posted on my Facebook said, “Dan, learn to live without sleep.” Today I relinquished the hold I had on wanting or hoping to sleep more than 6 hours at a time and still be a Dad to a newborn. Stacia came to visit today, she was a surprise angel for us. Her being here allotted me time to go out to run some errands, something I never thought would have made me feel better, and her tender touch and special love for Vivian has comforted her greatly. I wish she lived closer. I feel better about this already.

Day 7-As hard as it’s been, I can’t believe 7 days have already passed. Everyone keeps telling us it gets better, enjoy this time, it’ll fly by so quickly that you’ll regret not enjoying every second of it, and I am starting to believe them. I feel more hopeful when I think of Judah in terms of forever. He will always be my son and I will always be his Dad. That’s both frightening and empowering at the same time, though at this stage, I’m leaning more towards the frightening. After a rather pleasant day, the night took a much harder and unexpected turn: Vivian’s breast feeding attempts came to a halt when one of them experienced a clog. I’ve never seen my wife so desperate before that night, even during the 13 hours she labored with Judah, her eyes were sad. We initiated DeHart Pump Fest 09 that night and discovered just how painful plastic vacuums are to a woman’s breast. Again, God knew which sex would be able to withstand that.

Day 8-The quote of the day goes to my wife who, while attaching plastic breast vacuums to her breast so a machine could suck the milk out of them drop by drop, melted my heart with, “You know, I would do all of this for you too.” She didn’t have to say that, she knows how much I love her and that I know she would do anything for me, but she has such a capacity to love other people that she felt like she needed to make sure I knew. I’m going on the record right now: I have the BEST wife in the world! Judah, you have no idea the mom you have.

Day 9- This is the first day without Vivian’s mom staying with us. I can’t lie and say that I’m not scared about being able to handle it without her. It’s almost frightening to realize what it would have been like without her here. I wonder how much I could pay her to keep her here forever…but I know that’s not reality. Highlight Of The Day: After days of breakfast being fixed for us before we ever got up and basically having all of the meals prepared for us all day, I ventured into the kitchen to fix Vivian some breakfast and ended up fixing her moldy toast. Like I said, it’s frightening to realize life without Roxanna.

Day 10- Normally this would be the day that we would get up for church but I don’t think that’s going to happen for a while, at least not until Judah can get his days and nights figured out. He seems to want to always party while his parents want to sleep. The Julin’s dropped by to meet Judah and lend us some comfort and encouragement, and it was graciously and desperately welcomed. Unfortunately, Judah was very hungry and when he is hungry, he lets everyone know it. It bothers me when people see the “bad” side of Judah, and I know he’s not being bad, but I want people to feel confident in me as a Dad.

Day 11- Today marks the first day that meals will be arriving for us from our wonderful Lifegroup. Our days seem to be taking on a pattern: wake up when Judah wakes up, feed him until he falls asleep, try and get some more rest until he wakes up again, feed him until he falls asleep again. Take a shower or get ready or eat or actually be a husband and a wife for a while until Judah wakes up and we do it all over again. It doesn’t necessarily feel mundane, it just feels like we’re in a hamster wheel that doesn’t end for a while. We Had A First For Judah Today: Judah had his first public accident on someone…and it wasn’t one of his parents! I have to admit, as his father, I was a little proud.

Day 12- I can’t believe how close are we getting to his two week old birthday. As much as it pains me as a cynical observationalist who avoids social cliches to admit, it’s getting better. As more and more people come over to see Judah and offer their, “I am right down the street, if you ever need anything, please call me” encouragements, I am secretly writing down all of their information for future use.

Day 13- Tomorrow will be his two week birthday, are you kidding me? I am almost going to be a Dad of a two-week old.
Like today, he is a week and 6 days…yeah, like that’s not confusing and overly complex. Why can’t I just tell them that he’s almost half a month old? I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just something I never thought I would do.

Day 14- We went through a lot of today not even realizing that Judah was born two weeks ago today. Vivian is slowly and progressively coming to grips with what happened to her as she delivered Judah. Thoughts she had, things she thought she said, feelings, they are all coming out slowly now and I wish I could take them from her. It’s been a wild two-week ride and I can’t believe I can say that I have a two-week old, I kind of feel like those Dad’s with kids who are a month old have it figured out. They aren’t like me with my haphazard diaper changing, the way I keep pulling it too tight and causing my son’s belly to blow up, or accidentally dipping his face under the water as I give him his bath…Can I make it the last two weeks? We’ll see.