Too many labels?

Alright, I'm applying for a conference--to be honest I don't really want to go, but that is another story. It is a welcoming and affirming, all the various denominational welcoming groups, conference to be held in New Orleans in September. I'm filling out the registration form. I get to the bottom of the page and they want demographic information. And I think they are just two much, so I wanted to share them with you.

Race/Ethnicity:
African American
Asian/Pacific Islander
Bi/Multi-Racial
Caribbean
Caribbean-African Descent
Central American
European Descent
Latino/a
Middle Eastern
First Nations/Native American
South American
South Asian
Other

(Did anyone notice there is not an option for North American/Caucasian? Am I supposed to mark European Descent? My family is from Alabama, a couple hundred years ago maybe.)

Check all that apply:
Cross-dresser
Female
FTM
Genderqueer/androgynous
Intersex
Male
MTF
Transgender
Transsexual
Gender Non-Comforming
__________

(Seriously!)

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual
Gay
Heterosexual
Lesbian
Queer
Same Gender Loving
Two Spirit
_______

(OK, first of all, wtf is Two Spirit? Second, don't you love it that they give you the option in both the previous sections for you to write in something--as if they could possibly have left anything out.)

Check one:
Rural
Small Town
Suburban
Urban

(I just want to write them a note that I felt limited because I could only choose one. I mean I live in an urban area but some times I feel a little small town;) )

Seriously, come on people! I want to make sure everyone feels welcome. But that is a lot of labels.

Peace out!

Right Now

Right now I'm sitting in my office getting ready for worship this morning.
Right now I'm struggling to come up with the perfect prompt to get my congregation to tell stories.
Right now the choir of the Methodist church is rehearsing. I can hear them singing "All you need is love." Yep that is what they are singing this morning. It sounds ridiculous.
Right now I'm wondering about the sign in the bathroom downstairs that says "we have had on-going intermittent plumbing problems..." Can something be on-going and intermittent?
Right now I'm listening to Dolly Parton.
Right now I'm wishing I'm in the place that I heard about today on NPR where it is Sleepy-Head day. The last person that is found to be asleep in the town is thrown in the ocean.

Happy Sunday!

2 Movie Reviews

I saw two movies in the last 24 hours. One, in my opinion, better than the other. But first we have reached a new stage in technological disruptions. For a while now there has been reminder about turning off your cell phone. But now a new reminder has been added to that: please do not text message during the movie because the light from your cellphone is distracting. I bring this up really because I completely did that. Not this weekend, but a month or so back during what was a particularly bad movie. I can't remember what it was, but I remember blogging about the fact that it was so bad I sent a text message during the movie. Neither of the movies I saw this weekend were that bad.
The first movie I saw was Mamma Mia. It should come as no surprise that I loved this movie. What I will say is that Pierce Brosnan is not a good singer and he comes off as really cheesy. Really CHEESY!!! But I loved the rest. It is campy and fun. I wish I had seen it in a better audience. Very few people were dancing and singing along. And only once did people break out into applause, and then it was a little half-hearted. It is just a fun movie. I saw the Broadway show a couple of times when it was touring. So I knew what I was getting into. And I was not disappointed. Meryl Streep is fantastic. And then two of my favorite actors are in it: Colin Firth and Christine Baranski. And Colin Firth takes off his shirt--now lets be clear he is not as hot now as he was when he played Mr. Darcy in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, but he is still hot. And come on Christine Baranski? How can you not love her. I would suggest going to see it with group of girlfriends or gayfriends. I'd definitely see it again. I'm guessing if you are straight guy you are not going to love this movie--I'm guessing you'll enjoy it as much as you enjoyed Sex and the City. But the next movie I saw is for you.
The Dark Knight, the latest Batman installment, is definitely dark. I mean dark. A little too dark for my taste. It just never lets up. The other thing is it is long. Two and a half hours long. And after the first hour and a half I was looking at my watch. Had it not been so long it is possible that I might have been able to stomach the darkness of it all. Heath Ledger is good as the joker, but I don't necessarily agree with the people who say go ahead and etch his name on the academy award. Unless he is just going to win it because he should have won an award for Brokeback Mountain, which the oscars have done that before, or because he died young. Which I have to say I think is probably the reason there is so much buzz about his performance to begin with. It is good and by that I mean really disturbing--think Hannibal Lecter meets Chuckie. I heard the comment the other day that he is the first joker who doesn't seem to actually be much of a joker, meaning he is a jokster. And that is true he doesn't really seem to be having much fun. In the end I just didn't like it.
So those are my reviews. Not really much more than my personal preferences. So you be the judge. And if you are going to see Mamma Mia make sure you go with a friend who will enjoy it as much as you do.

Peace out!

How I spent my afternoon

I spent the afternoon helping my friend Alan make peach jam. We made 11 pints. And here is what I have to say: I would have made a terrible, terrible frontierswoman. My family would have starved to death. Because there would have been no way I could ever have made enough pints of jam or canned enough of anything to keep my family fed all winter.

But it was fun. Next week--a quilting bee! We'll sit around and talk about our husbands and our kids. It'll be great.

Peace out!

My hypochondriacal fears

So I don't know if I mentioned this already, but when I am at my weakest, mentally unhealthiest, most stressed one of the way it manifests itself is through hypochondriasis, i.e, I think I have everything. Hence the reason that simply going to the doctor actually made me feel a little bit better. I realize that none of this is rational, but I can't seem to stop it. And I'm working on trying not to judge it but instead to just laugh at it a little. And do my best to let it go. (Granted some of my fears are well founded and I also have to be a little bit more attentive to my body now with my family medical history.) But in trying to be honest and laugh a little I'm going to list all of the various and sundry illnesses that I currently at least wonder about.

Colon cancer (obvious, I'm also pretty sure I'm stuck with this one)
Testicular cancer (not obvious and ridiculous but touching myself in the shower can only help the way I'm feeling)
Parkinsons disease (This is based on the fact that as most of you know I have a tremor in my hands. Well several years ago my mother said to me as sort of an aside about my grandfather, "well you know he had parkinsons disease like you do." Thanks mom.)
Chrohn's Disease (See above only this time it was said by my mother's sister, my aunt June.)
Gastro-enteritis (Thanks Jon Stewart.)
Brain Tumor
Hepatitis
Syphillis
HIV (Don't fear I haven't actually done much to get any of the last three, but I told you these aren't necessarily rational.)
Some adult on-set phlegm related disease that I don't even know the name of. (It also might not have been discovered yet. I'm Patient X.)
A parasite brought on by foreign travel in Scotland where I ate haggis and black pudding. I mean I know they aren't living in the dark ages anymore but you never know.
And then of course there is any number of things that I might hear about on the radio or read in the newspaper that I haven't even thought about yet.

Fun right. But again at least I get to touch myself in the shower.

Stay healthy.

Grief sucks!!

Alright, I don't really have much to report. No news from the tests I had run last week. (I didn't really expect to hear anything since my doctor is away this week.) I met with my spiritual director today and really came to the clarity that while there may be something physically wrong with me I'm also depressed. And rightly so. I think I expected the grief over my brother's death to just be all done with. And honestly I wished it had been so. But it is just not the case. So I'm trying to be gentle with myself. I'm fairly certain I'm not clinically depressed--I think I'd be able to admit that if it were so. If I need medication I'm not afraid to ask for it. But right now I'm still getting out of bed even though it is a chore.

I'm grateful for all of you out there. I was talking today about the support I have received. One of the most significant human losses I experienced before this one was the death of my maternal grandfather when i was a senior in high school. He died while I was on spring break and so I didn't miss any school and no one knew when I returned that anything had happened. And I either didn't feel able to be vulnerable with my friends or I didn't really have the type of friends who could fully support me in my grief. But either way I remember feeling alone in that. And so I think I have been playing that tape a lot. Even though I feel much more supported now than I did then. So I have to keep reminding myself that I am not alone.

So that is it.

Peace out!

TMI: I talk about poop a lot.

I know, I know I said I was going to write more and now it is Saturday and I haven't written anything until today. But the only response I can give is that it as been a hard week. I'm fairly certain I'm depressed. I went to the doctor on Wednesday to see if there is anything physically wrong with me. He didn't find anything initially but drew some blood to see if we can find anything out. I am been fatigued for several weeks. And the body has just been out of whack--particularly my waste evacuation part. (Nice way of saying my poop hasn't been right, huh?) And then Monday morning I woke up with a kind of sore throat and felt like my throat was filling up with phlegm. (I hope you aren't reading this post while you are eating.)

I think there is a good possibility that there is nothing physically wrong with me. I'm fairly certain I'm depressed. It has been hard coming back to work. And I think the grief that filled the past four months just came flooding over me. So I've been trying to be kind to myself and taking it easy. I went to the beach on Tuesday with my friend Alan. It was beautiful and nice to get some sun. That seemed to help a little. It also helped a little just to go to doctor, even though he couldn't immediately find anything.

It was also time for me to go to the doctor anyway for my annual cancer check? That is my life now, at least for the next several years, possibly forever, I have to go to the doctor at least once a year for him to check for cancer. Every two years I'll have a colonoscopy. A colonoscopy is not bad--the prep is not that fun, but not bad. Then every other year I have to go to my primary care physician for him to do what is a stool hemocult. I understand what is going on in a colonoscopy. However, I don't really have a clue as to what is going on with a stool hemocult. Basically he had me drop trou, bend over, and then he stuck his finger up my butt. Then he wiped his finger on a piece of clear plastic and put some sort of liquid on it. Then he proclaimed that it looked good. I'm guessing what all that means is that I don't have cancer. Is that what my life has now come to, another year and I still don't have cancer?

So there you go. That has been my week. It has been poop-filled.

Peace out!

I-movie from Worship today

Dougie MacLean is singing.

My first week back

I started back to work on Tuesday. It has been a hard week. Too much to even talk about. Suffice it to say that after a two hour meeting with my treasurer/moderator/lone sane parisioner on Tuesday I was ready to take four more months off. Apparently the crazy did not leave while I was off. It also took me a little time this week to remember what it is that I do. And by that I mean the routine things, i.e how to put a bulletin together, who I need to call to give information, etc. And I started looking for a new pianist this week. Ours is leaving for another job. He has been great so I'm finding him difficult to replace.

And get this--this has nothing to do directly with my congregation--while I was away there was a lice break-out in the daycare that rents space in the building. Well they have this giant, fabric bean bag that they put in the fellowship hall where my congregation worships. Now I'm fairly certain that it was not cleaned properly. I am not touching that thing. And of course today the two kids in my congregation were all over it despite the best efforts of their dads.

Then today was my first Sunday. I came home really tired. Partly because it was my first Sunday back and partly because of what I was talking about. I talked about my sabbatical, specifically I talked about my brother's death. Anytime I have to retell that story it takes a lot out of me emotionally--multiply that when I'm telling my congregation. I really only ended up talking about that. I then showed an i-movie from pictures I took in Iona. I'll post that to the blog. It's not bad.

I'll try to write more this week than I did last week.

Peace Out!