i am really exhausted so i'm only going to share one thing. today, i was talking to rand my pastor @ the hyde park vineyard, and he said something that hit me like a million tons of goose feathers. in describing how god's been watching out for me lately, he compared my situation to being fed by ravens in the desert, which is a reference to how god cared for elijah when he was hiding out after his showdown w/ bad king ahab. it really hit me because it felt so accurate. i do feel like i'm in the desert, but that somehow i'm being cared for. the ravens have been in the form of folks like josh, denison, bill, tim, caleb, nan, rand, jen & john, jane, kris, connie, etc. it's been in the form of the music i listen to, like denison, bill & VoL, erik & the urban hillbilly quartet, ticklepenny corner, stickman jones, pedro the lion, rosie thomas, lost dogs, bright eyes, damien jurado, zapruder point etc. it's been in the photos i've seen whether they got captured or not, like the red damen bridge i love so well, daisies snuggled close to the forest floor, porchlights reflected in a fresh summer rain puddle, a rainbow arching across a late afternoon eastern sky, purple mountain range clouds gathered on the horizon at sunset, etc.



the desert. the ravens. i am not forgotten. i may have been given over to the birds, but at least i've got SOME sort of company.



oh, these photos are from cornerstone. just a few for now to fill in space. actually, that one of denison is probably my favorite photo from the fest. i've got probably a thousand photos to go through from the past week, between cornerstone, the shows at schubas on saturday, and pedro the lion's concert monday night. then tomorrow's the white stripes @ the metro, bill & the trophy wives & dolly varden on friday @ fitzgeralds and the vines/ok-go/sleeping at last @ the metro saturday. it's been like another mini cornerstone this week with all these darn concerts.



today's musical choices:

here's to hoping--annie's apology

the places you have come to fear the most--dashboard confessional

bone machine--tom waits

nothing feels good--the promise ring

helioself--papas fritas

the only reason i feel secure--pedro the lion

anodyne--uncle tupelo

today i learned how to play the bass part for catapult by r.e.m. like how cool is that?! ok, it's like 3.5 chords or something, but before today i'd never played more than one string at a time, so this is like a turning point in my life almost. turns out my friend geoff has this whole music studio set up that is so cool if i hadn't had an empty bladder i literally would've peed in my pants. he's the one who taught me the song. literally, all you need are bodies in this room and you'd totally have a band. well, maybe not just any bodies. bodies of actual musicians who can play the various instruments in that room--guitar, bass, drums, piano.



so i went to a really cool bar last night called 10 cat tavern on ashland just south of irving park. it's got the bar, some pool tables, and then this separate room in the back w/ tables and chairs and stuff. but wait--i forgot a very important part of the bar. before you get to that back room, there's a little alcove where the arcade games are. ya know, like that golf game, and a south park pinball machine (which actually looks pretty cool). and in between the golf game and the south park pinball machine is one of them old fashioned baseball arcade games!!! it's the one where one player chooses a pitch by depressing one of 3 buttons and spits out a pinball, and the other player has to bat with one of them pinball blocking gate thingies, and the ball hits these markers in the back that determine whether you got a single, double, triple etc or an out. it was so totally cool!!! i beat my friend geoff like 17 to 15 or something like that which like totally got me stoked cuz he's the arcade wiz and i'm just a novice. ok, anyways, then there's the back room which has a fireplace and places to sit and hang out. there were these musicians there--mainly guitar players but one fiddler. they didn't seem like a hired band or anything, just a group of informal jammers. they were actually pretty good and had a real fresh impromptu feel to them. then you go beyond the back room, and there's a lovely yard w/ patio furniture and japanese lanterns. it was perfect for tonight, which was a relatively cool summer night for chicago. i love outdoor places!!! they totally rawk! especially when there's some hot jammin' music floating outward created by an informal band of musicians that's grown from 1 guitar player & 1 fiddler to 1 fiddler & like 5 guitar players over the course of the evening.



a tall glass of guiness, a game of arcade baseball, outdoor seating underneath a cool wispfully clouded sky, the strains of an impromptu jam session dancing its way outside. it was all good.



stuff i've been listening to:



anodyne--uncle tupelo

trace--son volt

fight songs--old 97's

wrecking ball--emmylou harris

murray street--sonic youth

glm--the altar boys

pleased to meet me--the replacements

s/t--holiday runner (jesse sprinkle & ryan beatty--these guys rule!)

nothing feels good--the promise ring

hyde park is an awesome neighboorhood! caleb showed me around yesterday after church, which is ironic cuz he's the one in town from connecticut, and here i was the practically native chicagoan getting a tour from him. it was gorgeous. totally awesome! if i didn't work in lake forest, i'd live in hyde park.

ok. i fully realize that it's been over a week since i last posted, but i've been at cornerstone and really busy otherwise. i've decided i really can't post on cornerstone right now because there's just way too much there, so i'm going to eventually post something separately on that. i'm just going to pick up where i left off...some of this won't make sense until the cornerstone stuff is posted but oh well, so goes life...



here's a journal entry i wrote yesterday afternoon:



07.07.2002 12:56pm



i went to church this morning @ hyde park vineyard after almost 2 months of not going. i was late of course, and when i walked in, caleb & audrey were leading worship with their guitars. somehow, at that very moment, i got hit w/ a flood of emotions that nearly knocked me off my feet. i swear, you couldn't have stunned me more if you'd hit me over the head with a 2X4. i don't know where those emotions were coming from, and i don't even know what those emotions were exactly, even right now as i'm processing all this in retrospect. i guess it was like something of a desperation, and what comes to mind is a conversation i had saturday mid-morning while still in macomb, il. i don't know what that desperation means...i don't know why my heart would feel like it's being choked to death.



i'm still really defensive when i go to church these days, so i was a bit miffed that i'd let my guard down. i was pretty exhausted from the past week, i suppose. well, i basically spent the rest of the service trying to undo the knot in my throat, but i was unsuccessful. when i talked to rand (the pastor) afterwards, it took every ounce of concentration to keep from just breaking down. it was good to see rand, though, after such a long time, and i know he knew i wasn't ok, but he didn't push the issue with me, for which i was grateful.



and now i'm in my car w/ the windows rolled down, holiday runner coming through the speakers, parked next to nichols park. the sun is warm, but not stiflingly hot like @ cornerstone. the breeze sweeps away the stuffiness in my car. it's all quite lovely, really. a brood in the sun listening to beautiful music (yeah, holiday runner is definitely worth checking out). it's a great way to spend an afternoon, i'd say.

i FINALLY finished arranging the zapruder point photos, which you can go look at here.



and i learned that i'm an idiot when it comes to designing web pages (can't you tell?!)...all this time, i've been manually aligning stuff, and the web page builder program i use has a function that aligns stuff for you! like what a concept...



oh, i updated my photos page after about 3 months of not changing it at all. i'll try to add to that more regularly...