Pi Girl

Amy challenged herself to find or create the best meme ever. And she found a very good thought-provoking one in the Proust questionnaire, so I challenged myself to fill it out. And man, it took forever.

Your most marked characteristic? I’m (almost too) nice; at least, that’s what everyone tells me.

The quality you most like in a man? I like a mixing pot of wit, genius and respect for others.

The quality you most like in a woman? Same mixing pot with a hint of strength, understanding and the ability to reach out beyond themselves in order to grow.

What do you most value in your friends? That our conversations can be picked up right where we left them, whether it’s been a day, a month or a year.

What is your principle defect? procrastination

What is your favorite occupation? youth ministry, or singing with Affinity, kind of hard to choose right now

What is your dream of happiness? That I could either of the above full-time and support myself doing it.

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes? To live life without ever questioning the norm or stretching your mind beyond the routine.

What would you like to be? a third Indigo Girl

In what country would you like to live? If it wasn’t so cold, Canada.

What is your favorite color? blue, purple, pink

What is your favorite flower? carnations

What is your favorite bird? blue jay

Who are your favorite prose writers? Wally Lamb, David Sedaris

Who are your favorite poets? Shel Silverstein

Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Luke Skywalker

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction? Buffy Sommers, Veronica Mars

Who are your favorite composers (musicians)? Indigo Girls, Peter Simon, Tori Amos

Who are your favorite painters? Monet, Munch

Who are your heroes in real life? my mom

What is it you most dislike? closed minds

What natural gift would you most like to possess? to heal, although I guess it’s not all that natural, so I’ll go with athleticism

How would you like to die? peacefully, with no regrets and preferably in my sleep

What is your present state of mind? excited, stressed, with some wtf? for added value

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? my love of too much food

What is your motto? To quote from one of my favorite songs:
“Dance, dance, wherever you may be.
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He.
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said He.”

I’m a total dork and put this on my myspace because all the cool kids in Harmony Inc land put a countdown on their myspaces. But then I realize I don’t often visit my own myspace profile, because well, why would I? So, because I do check the blog everyday, I decided to also post it here so you non-myspacers can share in my dorkiness.

So, yeah, I’m on stage in a week with Affinity, and with the Crystal Chords the next day. The butterflies are a-fluttering.

I’ve been involved with youth ministry in the CNY Diocese since I was the youth being ministered to. When I was 12, I went to my first Thornfield conference and loved every second of it. And I was ever so grateful to the staff of that first conference. Heck, it was Bryan Calhoun-Bryant who branded Amber and me as the Twins, and he probably started the trend of mixing our names up (I still answer to Amber, by the way…). It was because of cool adults like Bryan that I couldn’t wait to be an adult myself and staff these conferences. And then when I was 21, I got to staff my first conference. And it was so much fun.

After several Thornfield conferences, I experienced my first Happening. I was 15 then. Happening will always have a very special place in my heart. I have gone to church my whole life and accepted that God was real and Jesus was his Son and, yay, He loved me. But I can’t say I really understood that love until I went to Happening. Everything changed for me from that point on. And I loved it that after my first weekend, we could be on the team to minister to our friends. Which made me see Happening from a whole new light because I found new ways to expand my horizons and discover my gifts. When I graduated from high school, I knew I didn’t have to give Happening up because there was the Prayer Community to support Happening. Except, as I discovered, as you get older, it’s gets harder to do PC. I kept it up a little bit because I sent my youth group kids to Happening and supported them in their journeys. But I knew I probably wouldn’t see another real Happening weekend again until I was old enough to be a “mom.”

To be a mom and dad, you have to be 30. When the Happening Committee met to find their next couple, *someone* (I’m looking at you, Kate) remembered that my 30th birthday just happened to be right before Happening #48. And so, almost 15 years after my own candidate weekend, I got to come back and bring Jason so we could be a mom and dad at Happening. It was awesome! These kids blow my mind, which they always do at the many conference I’ve staffed or all the New Beginnings I’ve staffed. But it wasn’t a case of older peer group ministering to a younger peer group; it was high schoolers ministering to high schoolers which changes the dynamic considerably. And all I had to do was sit at the old folks’ table and wonder where these fantastic kids came from. I could go on and on about Happening, but I think I’ll go the highlight route:

- As Kate predicted, the kids had as hard a time calling me Mom Erin as I did. Hope and Richard’s name tags all said Mom Hope and Dad Richard. Jason and I got Jason and Erin. Tee hee hee. A few kids who didn’t know me got into the Mom Erin thing, but that was ok. My favorite part was when Jason and I had to sign our names on notes to the kids, and he accidentally wrote Mom Jason and Dad Erin on a few of them.

- It was a little odd that the boys outnumbered the girls, by a lot. I can’t say I’ve ever seen that before. I’ve certainly seen the reverse. Very interesting. But the girls still outsang the boys on those gendered songs where the boys and girls all have different parts to sing. Ha!

- It was very, very weird to not be at Thornfield. It threw me off quite a bit. I like White Eagle and all, but it’s not Thornfield. I found myself saying “and when I was a kid, ..” or “when it was at Thornfield, we did …” It’s kind of hard when I know the script as it was written for Thornfield, and it hasn’t quite changed to fit White Eagle, or any other place for that matter. I know youth ministry can not be put on hold while we figure out what to do with the conference center, and I need to move on, but it was such a huge part of my growing up, it’s hard to let it go.

- Bishop Skip and one of my favorite moms, Mom Kathi decided that if I’m now a Happening mom, that must make them Happening grandparents.

As part of my job as an Online Manager in the newspaper biz, I like to read up on trends with the readers. Like how readers are mostly ditching the paper and going online. So, the work part of me loves this story about Pew Survey Finds Most Knowledgeable Americans Watch ‘Daily Show’ and ‘Colbert’– and Visit Newspaper Sites. And the faithful Daily Show watcher part of me is in heaven.

And if you don’t read the story, here’s all you need to know:

Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot — with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind.

Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly.

Love it.

I don’t watch American Idol anymore. We broke up after the whole Fantasia/Jennifer Hudson/Latoya London fiasco. That’s when I realized “America” and I were just too different and therefore the relationship couldn’t last. But we are on civil terms and since it’s everywhere, I can’t very well ignore its existence.

So, I find it fascinating that one she-man could very well bring down the AI empire. And when I found this fun site (via Pop Candy) I couldn’t resist the opportunity to create my very own Idol moment.

Happy Easter! I think we woke up to more snow at Easter than Christmas this year. Yea upstate NY!

After a lovely church service where all the teenage girls froze because they simply had to wear their new fashionable Easter dresses that involved sandals and spaghetti straps, Jason and I decided to spend our afternoon with dinner and a movie. I mean really, what better way to celebrate our Lord’s resurrection than Blades of Glory?

By the way, I highly recommend the Blades of Glory. What it lacks in wit, it makes up for in soundtrack and Amy Poehler. And Will Ferrell. And Will Arnett. I laughed so hard, I almost peed my pants. Seriously, my bladder was in pain at the end of the movie.

After the movie it was on to an Easter feast at Red Lobster. Where, thankfully, Jason didn’t order anything with eyes.

And then we came home to find a surprise in our backyard. Some unidentifiable substance covered our picnic table, which is really the dining table I grew up with but we painted it and now it’s a picnic table. Upon further inspection, we deducted it was fecal matter, with some paper or white thing attached to it. We have no idea where it came from but our best guess is that the neighbor kids were having target practice over the fence on to our table.

Not knowing what to do, we called the police. They couldn’t do much, because we have no suspects and no idea what really happened. But we filed a report with them. At the very least, if this, or something equally disturbing, happens again, we have it on record that something weird is going on. The officer was quite nice and also suspicious of our neighbors so it’s good to know we’re all on the same page.

And that was my adventurous Easter. How was yours?

Is it crazier to say you snorted Dad’s ashes mixed with cocaine up your nose or to take it all back and say it was a joke?

I’ve spent way too much time pondering this. I mean, why didn’t Jimmy and I think of that?? No, we had to go the boring route and bury our father’s ashes in the the ground. Where is our imagination?

Thank you, Keith Richards, for appealing to my sick, sick sense of humor.

It’s amazing the life lessons we learn while at the communion rail in church. For example, little Matthew learned it’s not polite to take a bite out of his wafer before dipping it in the chalice. Thankfully, mom caught that one just in time.

Then, there’s Kirsten, who was playing with her hair while she sat on the altar. And then exclaimed in wonder, “You know, these hair bands are so pretty but they hurt, too!” Welcome to our cruel, cruel society, Kirsten.