More ALF

Anybody in the mood for a few more ALF quotes from season three on DVD? I hope so. I’m at the end of the season now, so you wouldn’t be seeing any more from him for a while:

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“Boy, point out one major flaw in someone’s belief system and they take it personally.”

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“Have them throw the book at the guy. Preferably something by James Michener.”

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“When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And so do I.”

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“On Melmac I never thought much about having kids. You know how it is where you’re in your 220’s. You think you have all the time in the world.”

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“The three stages of courtship on Melmac are: exchange left socks, trade belly-button lent, and spit in each other’s soup.”

The Written Word

I wrote about my first road trip a couple of weeks ago and in that post I told you about meeting my dad outside of St. Louis at a hotel called Noah’s Arc. I haven’t driven by that hotel in many years. My sister, who lives in St. Louis, read my post and snapped a few photos of Noah’s Arc and e-mailed them to me a couple of days ago. I think these are photos of the lobby area, and not the hotel itself, but I could be wrong.

I knew that the place closed down, but actually seeing what it looks like now, as compared to that day I met my dad there was unbelievable. Here’s how it looks now (it doesn’t even have the animals poking their heads through the roof!):

I wish I had photos of the way it looked previously, but just imagine it looking clean and virbrant (and with animals). Eventually I’m sure the place will be torn down and something else will be built in its place. I’ve written about the power of place and about how much I struggle when places that mean a lot to me change.

While I still find such situations a bit sad, it gives me more motivation to record such memories with the written word. Written words outlast places, photos, and memories. They live on and on to be read by the generations that follow.

Donald Miller

Today is the first week in our Top Ten Series featuring my favorite authors. The writers on my top ten list may or may not be great writers. Great writing is subjective anyway. The authors I’ll talk about in this series are people who have taught, challenged, inspired, or entertained me.

Feel free to comment about each author I spotlight, or about your own favorite authors. Just be sure to tell us why you enjoy the author you are commenting about.

#10: Donald Miller

I’ve only read two of Donald Miller’s four books, but they were good enough to make him my tenth favorite author (as of this moment). I read Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality over the summer and I was really moved by it. The one thing you’ll hear people say repeatedly about Miller is that they are drawn by his honesty. I am too. He’s not afraid to tell you how he feels about politics (pretty far left), or the church (sometimes he’s too hard on it for my taste), or his own struggle to understand God. I wrote more about this book in June and July. Click here or here if you are interested in reading those posts.

Most recently, I read To Own a Dragon: Reflections of Growing Up Without a Father by Miller. I wrote about it here and here. True to form, Miller is quite relatable in this book about his own experience of growing up without a father. Here is brief glimpse from the book that really hit home with me:

“For me a father is nothing more than a character in a fairy tale. And I know fathers are not like dragons in that fathers actually exist, but I don’t remember feeling that a father existed for me...I don’t say this out of self-pity, because in a way I don’t miss having a father any more than I miss having a dragon. But in another way, I find myself wondering if I missed out on something important.”

How good is that?

Miller has his critics though. Just check out the comments on Amazon.com about Blue Like Jazz. Frankly, I agree with much of what they say. I disagree with most of his theology (or sometimes, lack thereof). And at times, I get the feeling that he doesn’t think that absolute answers actually exist, so consequently, we shouldn’t even be attempting to understand doctrine. If I’m reading him correctly, then I couldn’t disagree more.

So why is he one of my favorite writers? Because his honesty and his desire to live out his faith in the trenches challenges and inspires me. And any author who can do that can count on me purchasing and reading most of what he or she writes.

Save the Last Dance

I watched Save the Last Dance for the first time this past weekend. After the movie was over, I watched the deleted scenes in the special features section of the DVD. One particular scene should have been left in the movie. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

As you probably know, the movie is about a 17 year-old girl named Sara (played by Julia Stiles) who loses her mother in a car accident and ends up moving to another city to live with her dad—a guy she hardly knows. Her main goal in life has been to become a ballerina with the Julliard School. But since her mother was always so supportive, Sara has a hard time even returning to dancing after her mother dies. She feels guilty (for reasons I won’t go into) and she feels like dancing is part of who she used to be, not who she currently is.

The movie has many other interesting elements—including race relations, but I want to focus on a minor portion of the plot. Sara’s father, Roy, admits to making mistakes in the past and he knows he hasn’t been a good father. He’s just hoping that Sara will find a way to give him another chance now that she’s under his roof. Roy is a jazz musician who plays the horn in jazz clubs at night in order to pay the bills.

In one of the deleted scene that I referred to earlier, Sara, sneaks into a club that he’s playing in one night and she spots Roy on-stage—fully engaged in playing the horn with the rest of his band. His eyes are closed and people all around the club seem quite taken with his music. By seeing him in his “element,” Sara has the chance to see her father doing what he does best, and she seemed to understand him better after that. He became a real person, with real ambitions, and a real desire to create something great.

We can learn so much about people by viewing them in their element. People are more at ease there. They are more creative there. They feel free to be who they are, rather than who they are supposed to be. Everything seems to flow and it’s beautiful to watch.

Most of us don’t just allow anybody to waltz into our most prized, protected areas of life though. We reserve such places for people we want to go deeper with. But at the same time, it’s not hard to find a person’s element. Deep inside, we all have an innate desire to let others in. We continually send out signals to people we care about concerning the things that matter to us. The fun starts when somebody else grasps onto one of those signals and desires to find out more.

But we could all learn something from Sara. She wanted to know more about who her dad really was, so she grasped onto his signals. If all of us spent a little more time grasping, and a little less time sending, we’d feel considerably less lonely.

PDA vs. Paper?

A few years ago, I took the plunge and bought a Palm Pilot m515. Before that I’d used various daytimers to help me keep track of where I was supposed to be. I loved the ability to sync my Palm Pilot with my computer, and I loved having my entire address book at my finger tips no matter where I was. But at the same time, my Palm Pilot failed me when it came to recording thoughts and tidbits of information that really didn’t fit on the calendar. It had a memo pad, but have you ever tried to actually write or punch keys with a stylus?

I’ve continued to carry my Palm Pilot around because it does hold a lot of information in a very small place, but over the past year, I’ve also loved carrying a moleskine notebook around and capturing all the things that won’t easily go into a Palm Pilot. I’ve read and heard about people who are switching back from PDAs to paper and I can totally understand where they are coming from. Something about the freedom that paper brings is still alluring to me, but at the same time, I’ve never been able to make paper totally work for me. I’ve been stuck in digital vs. paper limbo-land and unable to decide between the two.

Recently, I missed a couple of key work-related e-mails when on the road and one of them almost cost me an assignment. Not because I did anything wrong, but simply because timing mattered and I didn’t get the e-mail until after I got back to my hotel that night—but the event had already occurred. So last week I took advantage of the fact that my cell phone contract ran out and I took the carrot they dangle in front of customers every two years to get a free phone (or a credit toward a new one if you get something a little fancier) and I picked up a BlackBerry 8703e.

I’ve only had it a week, but I love it already. I get my e-mail no matter where I am now and I can respond instantly if I so choose. It has a great calendar feature (which syncs with Google Calendar or Outlook), and it has Bluetooth technology so when I’m on the road I’m hands free on the phone. But with all that said, it still lacks the usability of a moleskine notebook for writing down thoughts, tasks to be done, manuscript ideas, etc.

So, I’ve come to a conclusion this past week. I know that most people are either PDA people or a paper people. I’m a PDPA (personal digital paper assistant) person. I need both. My brain doesn’t function on all gears without both. I know we are supposed to be heading for a paperless society, but take a look around the area you do your bills, taxes, and “paperwork.” If your inbox isn’t piled full of paper, then your filing cabinets are probably overflowing with it. So, I’ve finally come to the point where I embrace paper. Whenever I can use a digital device instead, I’ll definitely do it, but I’m not going to set my moleskines aside any time soon.

Saying Thanks

I’m thinking that this will be the last Top Ten Tuesday series based on my all-time favorite moments. I’ve had fun writing them and it sounds like many of you have been able to identify with my experiences and I love hearing that. I have a few all-time favorite moments that I just don’t want to blog about. They are too personal. I’m sure you understand.

I have to back up to 1974 to set the stage for this particular all-time favorite moment. That’s the year my parents divorced. For the next fourteen years my mom never dated anybody and she limited her social activity at night to bowling once a week. I can never remember a time when she wasn’t available for my sister and I. We ate meals together. We watched sitcoms together. And we played board games together.

My mom was a rock. She provided the most stable environment possible in an otherwise bad situation, but of course, I had no idea how much she was sacrificing for my sister and I. She must have endured many lonely times—just thinking about it now gets me a little misty-eyed.

Fast forward fourteen years. My sister was out of the house. I was 21 or 22 and ready to be on my own. And my mom was about to get remarried. How do you tell somebody that you have the ultimate amount of respect for that you understand what he or she has done for you and that you love that person immensely? I had no idea, but I wanted to try.

So, I bought a wedding card and I wrote down all of my thoughts. I thanked her for putting my sister and I ahead of her own desires. I told her how much I loved her. And I told that her that this was her time. She deserved it and I wished her all the happiness in the world. I gave it to her shortly before the wedding and she cried. And then I almost cried. It was a unforgettable moment between mother and son.

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Next week, I’ll start a new Top Ten Series. A number of you wanted me to do a series about my favorite authors and that sounds like fun, so I’ll give that a shot. I haven’t ranked them yet, but I’ll have it order by next Tuesday.