Why do people become fans of Pissing People Off! on facebook? Why do some of those people have to be kids that were in your group at Dordt Discovery Days last summer that you want to encourage? And if you had any words to give them... they would be to be confident about who they are. That's what we want for anybody we know, right? And if they're young (and so much moreso if they're bright), then we want them to grow enthusiastically and enjoy the time of their youth... pre-youth.

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I'm talking to a friend, let's call her Dianne, about whether people have types or not... and I just asked Beardface's mom (I almost called her Mrs. Beardface, but Paul Westra doesn't have a beard. Her name is Sharon... er, Mrs. Westra, but I can call her Sharon... and him Paul) because she is the only one awake. I came away with a few chuckles and the knowledge that she wouldn't have dated a Hindu party animal... her red flags were guys who were 1) non-Christian and 2) obnoxious party animals.

That's different from having a type, I argued later. Having a series of red flags, especially for a young Christian on the dating scene (do Christians have dating scenes?), is expected in everyone to some level. For example... I wouldn't exactly ask a girl out to coffee if she were a fan of Pissing People Off! on facebook. Girls don't look cute(r) with ironic phrases on their t-shirts.

Some people have a type, or types. Dianne has a type. There are certain characteristics that she either consciously ascertains from guys, or that she's noticed are common attributes with guys she's fallen for... or both (the latter, then the former). Guys with dark hair who aren't stringy tall and have calm, clear eyes. Not loud guys. (Dianne doesn't like me that much.)

Dianne and people like her are, generally, the same people who have separate mental lists of People I Could Date and People Who Are Just Friends... and there is some transition that takes place between those ladders, but not so often, and the criteria... ... ... I have a headache, and anyway, it's much more interesting to have someone explain it to you for themselves.

I don't have a type. Sorry. I maintain that I don't have a type because... it's so interesting when you talk with someone, and you walk away saying, "Who is this person?" as in, "I want to see this person again," and "I want to know this person." Girls who can be mean... that's hot. Girls who laugh when they want. Also hot. I could go on for pages...

Other friend, she'll be Isabel tonight, says that the people we don't find intriguing on some minimal level are the ones that guard themselves. Sadly, perhaps these are also the people that bore us.

Or, more truthfully, what I said was that some people bore me. That might be the most pompous thing that could be said about another person. "Maybe there's a correlation between how guarded people are, and how boring they seem to be."

...maybe I'm just bored by people who have different interests than I/people who suck.

No, because really, guarded people are intriguing initially.

And there are things that catch your eye with a member of the opposite sex. I don't mean being an ass-man or a breast-man, because that's a totally different, generic conversation. (It's still a fun one to have occasionally.) I mean things that you talk about when you haven't seen your bearded friend in awhile and you're up late playing Cribbage and having some wine. It's not that you're immediately interested in a GIRL when she wears black with silver jewelry (for example)... but you notice it, and think it looks nice and wish more girls would do that.

And then THAT girl (any number of them) does it, and you crumble.

But anyway.

That's all different from having a type. I just thought it was interesting. I mean, if I met a girl from India with a British accent... that'd be great. Mostly because of that frickin' movie Bend It Like Beckham... and then she was on ER later. That was cool.

/Someone who will die for you and more, but it ain't me babe! No! No! No!

The only way to enjoy the sun

An old, fat, happy looking man sat in the shade outside of his house. He wore gray sweatpants and a western-style shirt on the sidewalk, shaded by an unfettered magnolia tree (it seemed) on one of the hottest days during one of the hottest summers that Mount Vernon has seen in several years. Jeremy and I were walking back from the town (library for books, coop for coffee, groceries and late gifts for my sister's birthday). We passed the amtrak station, a few pubs, a small movie theater that's doing outdoor screenings for the summer. With onions, oats and yogurt in our packs, we made our way back to the neighborhoods, walking mostly uphill in 90+ degree weather. We met a nice guy on the way.

--

Just now,

"You might want to put some pants on. Maybe even a light jacket. And if they start swarming you, don't swat too hard. Just swat lightly."

"...don't freak out?"

"Yeah! Don't freak out! If you're five feet away, you should be fine. Just walk away if they come after you."

"..."

"And maybe... you might want shoes and socks."

Jeremy manages two medium-sized bee hives and we're going to set in some frames he assembled this afternoon. I will not freak out, and take photos. Hope to write more, and hear from you, later.

Five Operators and Me

I felt like the worst kind of person when I picked up my phone tonight. It was some 360 number that I was unaware of. Jeremy on the other end, asking if I had landed in Seattle yet.

This happened a few hours ago, when it was still Tuesday, July 21. It's now Wednesday, July 22 and the original plan that my mother and I carefully arranged online for was tomorrow, Thursday, July 23, depart Sioux Falls, SD to Seattle, WA to arrive back on August 18, the day before Symposium prep. meetings with Troy and Bethany began.

I thought Jeremy was kidding, and he thought I was kidding.

And then there was panic. A rush of anger, disbelief, sweat and blood to my brow. I felt like the worst kind of person and flipped open my email.

The itinerary online said Depart: Sioux Falls August 18, Return August 19.

We were both wrong. Actually, all three of us were wrong. I don't know how. I don't know how. I don't know what happened and, as I said (I hope kindly and patiently to the five operators) I don't really need to know what happened. What can we do from here? It's not about why/how the flight changed twice since whenever it was earlier this month that I booked it.

"Red Quail Dog Six Gopher Kansas." That's my confirmation number. I gave it four different times, and they always typed before responding "OK, Alvin Shim? What can I do for you?"

Gina, Andrew, Mike, Elaine and Cassidy. The last two are supervisors, and very courteous and straightforward. I don't want to say whether any of them passed their job on to another operator in another cubicle, though Mike did consider passing me back to online connection, which was Andrew's department, and I just wanted to say, to all of them, to please not waste any of our time.

One by one, they found me an alternate schedule, applied the flight change fee ($150) and calculated the difference in flight cost from the original reservation ($311.99, considerably more than the original ticket price), waived the change fee and discussed the various options I had from there. Cassidy felt that the best option would be to shop around online for a cheap(er) flight that would work into my schedule, assuring me that the credit I had with the original ticket would carry over so long as I gave them the correct numerals and informed the agent to document the "remarks on ticket" with the waiver code.

Mom says that maybe God doesn't want me to go to Washington. It should be noted that Mom doesn't want me to go either. Hani says maybe I should've asked God about it... which I did, but I think God and Mom talk more anyway.

The semester starts in one month. After the frenzy in Honduras, and rearranging the flight and summer schedule, building anticipation, having it broken and rebuild, I'm now sitting in the living room at 2 in the morning, trying to gather up the energy to search for another flight out... by this weekend hopefully. And if not, I'll have less than three weeks to (at least start to) make some sort of a living before the semester starts.

And Jeremy (and Elbert) drove out to Seattle to pick me up. And a 40-year-old pastor in New Jersey, with three kids under the age of 5, died of a heart attack. He was on the treadmill at the time. Isn't that ironic, and terrible? My family grew up with his apparently. I don't remember, but I probably would if I saw their faces. I did see my friend Poel's face tonight, under the light of the SV/East Campus parking lot. He and two dudes were launching water balloons at Sarah and I, practicing for when campus security showed up, but ran out before he actually did. (What a bunch of amateurs.) Poel's mom, as you may know, suffered an aneurysm last week and died Thursday morning. Mikey's little brother, the super intelligent and quiet (like all the Olthoff boys), will be in hospital for months more of healing, but he's doing better than anybody would have imagined. Sarah's home in Godfrey will be her former home officially very soon. Hani's mom doesn't want her to drink. Her dad just doesn't want anybody to pressure her. Scott and Margaret celebrated their two-year anniversary yesterday. Bree's car broke down on the way to Sioux Falls. Hani's broke down IN Sioux Falls. Caitlin said to yell, or cry, on the phone... maybe she really should have called for me.

What happened after I became the worst person ever? Bree decided she was too tired and finite to run about at midnight, so as Hani and I biked over to East Campus, we said a small prayer passing by her house. Sarah passed by in her car, cutting through that beautiful Sioux Center-in-the-summer air, and I relayed the evening to her, feeling like I was about to hurl the bike across the lot. I hate that anger and frustration bleeds over to unrelated people and irrelevant things.

Tease

I normally hate trailers for films. Even though I love (and miss) the guy who performed the "In a world..." voice-overs, I often can't stand watching trailers for films I've seen, even if I hate the movie too. Don't get me wrong. I love watching them, but so often there seems to be a tried (but not necessarily true) formula for enticing an audience... even if it isn't necessarily accurate to the content, tone or story of the film in question. The narrator says something very brief, but largely unnecessary, clip of the actors saying something entertaining, maybe something more indicative of the story, flash cut to action, flash cut to action, louder music, more action, explosion/blood/sex scene, CUT MUSIC, witty line of dialogue, titles up, release date. What's the purpose of a trailer? Like a book cover, it's generally for publicity - so more people will buy tickets, or pick up the book. "Here's what the story is, and the big name actors, maybe some awards it won already... and some A.D.D. video editing." Go!

But! Look at this!

You should (eventually) see the film because it's haunting, brutal, beautiful and terrible but I've never had as much fun with a trailer. And it goes against almost everything I've just whined about.

The thing is that films rarely are enticing when you describe the story itself. It shouldn't be this way, but take a look at the tops of the box office lately. According to imdb, they are...

1) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

2) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

3) Public Enemies

4) The Proposal

5) The Hangover

What are the synopses for these films? By themselves, not great movies. (Are any of these great movies?)

Robots come to earth and explode things, nasty "actress" bounces around, nerds freak out.

A bunch of semi-famous screen actors provide the voice for some animals running around in the... um... ice age.

JOHNNY DEPP kind of plays John Dillinger (but not really), robs a few banks, breaks out of a few prisons, has a few suave lines of dialogue.

A strained, forced relationship between a cold boss and a promising assistant turns romantic... Sandra Bullock, people!

And finally, a bunch of guys (including Andy from The Office) go to Vegas for a bachelor party and it gets out of hand.

So you need big name actors, and the right compilation of scenes (action, dialogue, sex appeal etc.) because the story isn't going to sell it... ... ... by itself.

WHICH is why the A Clockwork Orange trailer is so hilarious and awesome, because it tells you almost NOTHING about the story, not even bothering to tell you the most basic plot points or any actors involved. Instead, it vomits the most generic buzzwords that will be attached to the film - WITTY, SATIRE, METAPHORICAL, FUNNY, BEETHOVEN (that was my favorite). The crazy is that the story is, by itself, pretty enticing... even without mention of the director, or that it is based on the Anthony Burgess novel, or that it's set in a dystopian Britain.

Remember whenever it was that The Simpsons Movie was coming out? There were a few brief trailers out there that was merely the title, the release date, and Homer doing the Spider-Pig bit. That's a different scenario - a Simpsons movie is a Simpsons movie, and I'd read an article, that I'm too lazy to track down and link now, that said the writers really didn't want that clip to be given away in the trailer (it was, undeniably, the best part of the whole film) but the studio producers were adamant about it. Something about keeping the only funny clip out of the trailers and having half-empty theaters... etc.

But I forgot to ask the question. What makes you want to see a movie?

What you might not know, because we're drifting apart and that's only because you want to.

My hands smell like tomato plants, the taste of peaches lingers on my tongue and hot Dominican coffee is probably not the best thing for a post nap-in-a-hot-room dehydration headache... but it is delicious.

Manuel Zelaya is the ousted president of Honduras. The man is friends with Hugo Chavez. Earlier this summer, he (Zelaya) organized what he claims was merely a poll on whether the president should be allowed to serve additional terms than the current one. It wasn't official. Its outcome was not supposed to be a deciding factor, but perhaps a note for future motions. Chavez pulled it off, but he is apparently more popular. Anyway, the Honduran Congress ordered the army to confiscate the elections materials (ballots and so forth). They did so, which led Zelaya to lead a mob to retrieve said materials from... was it an army barracks? I don't think so, but something very exciting like that. In the morning of the election, one hour before the ballots were to open, masked soldiers apprehended Zelaya at gunpoint (reportedly, he was still in his pajamas) and flew him to Costa Rica in exile. The Honduran people are more than split on this... some support Zelaya and are protesting the Congress and their actions, some don't necessarily support him, but are concerned about the (illegal) coup, others are all, "Zelaya was a tyrant anyway, let's move on."

I know this from BBC, CNN and Time and not because I went with Dr. Woodbury, Bekah Ahrenholz, Megan Pothoven and a few other Dordt girls to Tegucigalpa for GEN 251: History and Culture of Honduras, as was planned. We were to depart the Friday after the coup took place, which was Sunday and perhaps the deciding factor was that the US Embassy advised against any "unnecessary travel" into the country.

The housing assignments - details of the families, pets, etc. - were sent out and all the speakers/seminars were finalized. I had a not-very-rough outline for the video written out... loosely inspired by Matthew Gray Grubler's video intern work on The Life Aquatic dvd (hilarious AND informative). The texts for the course were purchased and read and marked, our bodies were getting adjusted to the chloroquine.

Instead of all that, there's a wedding in Chicago, a farm to take residence and put weeding hours in near the Bellingham area in Washington State... a winery and a restaurant just a few miles from the property that needs summer help, a guy with a beard to live/work with (who gave me permission to fall in love with the women), friends who live SURPRISINGLY close to the area, other friends who are deciding whether to drive up and spend the rest of summer there. Video, photo and fiction can still be had. It would have been very exciting to be in a country that could almost be following some of the recent steps of the Irani people. But we're not.

Apparently writers know that "happy is nice, but it's hard to explain." Excuse me for a second while I scribble it in my notebook. I suppose I agree, but I'm not sure yet. We saw Public Enemies earlier today and walked out of the theatre, collected in a group in a moment of frazzled silence - confusion really - before rubbing our eyes to let them focus and unloading that, "That was the worst movie ever." Dane was already pacing around the parking lot, furiously smoking a cigarette. The next several hours were bound to thinking up the myriad of sins and flaws the film had. In doing so, I think we were attempting to digest it fully so we could wash the tastes from our mouths to let it go. It was fun. Our phrases were colorful and they were said with such angry vigor. And then the corn and chicken was on the grill, the guacamole on the table, the libations in hand and the evening was settling steadily away from muggy to clear and cool. Conflict is the main ingredient for story and, luckily, our lives have no shortage of it. Happy IS nice, and happy should be taken deeply and/but we're complex individuals grasped on all sides by individuals that we might find we're comfortable with from time to time, and maybe that has to do with the layers we build and the holes we dig, but what are we really doing but scurrying about frantically? Maybe another way to see it, to think of what we do, is that we're dancing constantly - slow or frenetic, but we are. At least. What's happy then? Are we happy when we hear a good song and see a good friend? Or is it when we realize that what we're doing, that all we're doing, is dancing?

Cryptic enough? I'm just having trouble organizing my thoughts. My body is worn, especially down at the tips of my toes. It feels good. Fireworks are magnificent. They're almost too dazzling and surprising for anybody older than seven, right? Especially in the middle of an empty tennis court, with racquet and balls and similarly equipped friends.

And it will rain all night, I hope. It's lovely because while your dad sleeps off the jet lag, you can sit on your sheltered porch with a bowl of pasta and green beans and a glass of wine and listen to the rhythm of it all. And also, after several hours yesterday evening of weeding, tilling and fortifying the plants with compost, the rain is such a divine blessing, it might as well be a sacrament.

Here's the catch up: I'm back in Sioux Center. The Honduras trip was officially cancelled. Otherwise, I would've already landed there and would have been trying to memorize names and documenting initial thoughts upon arrival. Instead and currently, looking for jobs in... Des Moines, Chicago, Grand Rapids and Skagit area in Washington state... finding places to hire rest-of-summer work won't really pan out in this lovely, dinky town. Also, as I said, dad is home and it's been very, very chill with our respective work places. Mom flies back on Monday coming and, hopefully, I'll be out of the house soon after that week. Craigslist is a sprawling beast, but it's much more useful when one has already put a resume together. There are nine rogue tomato plants, three additional ones that I actually planted, three sprawling zucchini and some outrageous, towering hollyhocks. All of them growing like children.

I don't really know what to report... which is the anxiety that manifests when one gets out of the groove of posting... much more often. I suppose. Watched My Kid Could Paint That earlier today... among other things. Which was great, and inspiring for art AND video... thought through the years when documentary film was the focus...

I do love Sioux Center in the summer, and the timing has been great lately... with the productivity, sun, solitude and laughter at the appropriate times. It will not last and the summer will turn again, somehow, hopefully somehow soon. Which is, largely, a problem of my own if it doesn't.

Maybe I'm starting to miss working in collaboration/on a big project... because Honduras video, photo series were to be large projects... say the empty space on the hard drive, the three CF cards and the box of fifteen blank miniDV tapes downstairs.

Another lesson, of course. In self-motivation... towards staying up late AND getting up in the morning, to start the coffee and jumping in the shower, keeping up the cycle with night runs, and hopefully tennis soon. Ross! Matty! Wake up! Spontaneity is great, but it isn't really possible if you droop around on your ass all day.

More to do.