Poison Eye Vee Three Vee

Day 7 with the plague. This is sort of what my face used to look like. Except imagine only one of my eyes looking like this guy's left eye. Mutant is the only word that comes to mind. It is looking a bit better. The large puss-filled bubbles seem to be deflating a bit. The bright redness isn't as sharp to the eye. Or maybe perhaps I am just getting used to it. I am running out of medicine though. So this thing better clear up soon.

Poison Ivy makes your skin tough and leathery. Does that go away when the rash does? I want my body to be back to normal, you know, smooth and silky like. I don't like this tough, bubbly, red, leather parasite that covers me. There is more red bumpy spots on me than there is skin. If you skinned me and laid out all of my skin, separating the infected areas from the healthy areas, the infected pile would be much larger. I'd like to go through with the skinning and the separating. That sort of reminds me of Silence of the Lambs. The antagonist makes a skin suit from the remains of his murder victims. I bet he would be frustrated if his skin suit had poison ivy all over it. I wouldn't wear it if that were the case. The lambs would indeed be silent.

I must admit, I was dishonest with my last post. I wrote about how it was "my" idea to write a series on my ongoing experience with the poison ivy plague. This was not the case. There was nothing "my" about it. The idea originated with one of my friends/students here named Eric Bellard. Perhaps you know him. If you don't, you should. This paragraph was intended to give credit where credit is due. Credit is due to Eric Bellard. Not "my."

So I went to the doctor last week. I'm in the back, sitting on the little bed-like thing with the paper. The nurse comes in and does her thing. Checks my pulse. Blood pressure stuff. Then she sits down and asks me some questions as she writes it on her little form there.

"Are you currently taking any medication."

"No."

"Let's see, I have you down as taking an inhaler for your asthma. You using that?"

"As needed."

"Are you allergic to anything?"

She asked if I was allergic to anything. My entire body looks like it vomited up on itself. My eye looks like I got pelted with a bean bag, that is, a heavy bag of beans.

"Yes, I'm allergic to poison ivy."

Poison I.V. Part Deaux

I'm on day 5 with the poison ivy. Day 5. That is five days of looking like an ogre and feeling like my skin is crawling. I made a decision. My decision was this - I am going to write a blog about my thoughts/hatred for poison ivy until it goes away. This is part two of the series. I will keep you informed of my progress.

I was with a student the other night and we were looking at my arms, which currently resemble more of a pepperoni casserole than they do real arms. Ok, so there might not be pepperoni casserole but you can imagine. He said that a friend of his bound up some poison ivy with other foilage for a bonfire. You've seen people do this before. It is like burning trash. You've seen it. Trust me. So the guy burns it. And he inhales the fumes from the oil from the poison ivy. And his throat breaks out and swells up. He can't breathe. He is rushed to the emergency room.

OK, so what is up with this f&#^in' plant? It is determined to harm any and everyone in its wake. But of course, its crappy defense mechanism doesn't work until a few days later. One bright commenter (Luke) wrote that its defense mechanism is for the corporate plant at large. You know, like maybe you won't mess with its brothers and sisters. This is complete nonsense. For now I have more of a desire than I had before to kill them. The rage that boils with every scratch is directed toward the living counterparts of this diabolical plant. It must die. It must.

And here's the thing, I wasn't intentionally messing with it in the first place. I was doing some yard work around my house to pull down the vines that are growing up on the walls. I wasn't out to get it. It was just there, mixed in with the vines and weeds I was removing. And it unleashed its wrath on me. And I have been in pain for days. Pain. Not to mention the fact that I look like a freak. I am a mutant freak. My swollen eye has gone down some, only to give rise to the thousands of red bumps all over my arms, legs, and stomach. And now the red bumps are mutating into puss filled bubbles.

It really looks like something out of a horror film.

My vow to you: Destroy all poison ivy from here on.

Poison Eye Vee

I have poison ivy right now. It is all over me. My neck. My legs. My arms. My stomach. Behind my ears. It has even made its way onto areas of my body that I will not mention explicitly. But oh, you can imagine.

But that is not the worst of it. The worst is that I woke up this morning with my left eye swollen shut. No lie. It turns out that if you have poison ivy, you shouldn't rub your eyes. This much should have been obvious to me. But it wasn't. And now I must go to the doctor for a cortozon shot. This will happen in about an hour. But until then I will look like a mutant.

The itch is killing me. It is so enticing. I scratch it and it feels unbelievable. Seriously. To scratch a poison ivy itch is unbelievably orgasmic. But then when you stop scratching, the itch doubles up its intensity. And it makes you pay if you choose not to scratch it again. I have been writhing for the past 30 minutes. Writhing. My skin is crawling. My skin is burning. I must scratch it. I must. But I shalln't.

And don't forget about my ogre-like eye. I wish I had a picture to post. I look like Egor off of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I'm hideous. I haven't left my apartment all day. But I will soon. One more hour. And then the cortozon shot. All I know is, this thing better work.

I've never been so pissed at a plant before in my life.

OK, help me out people. I don't understand this freakin plant. So it has this poisonous oil on its leaves that acts as a defense mechanism. It is supposed to keep predators at bay. But it only really works about 2 days too late. The predator has already killed the plant. The poison on Poison Ivy doesn't stop you from killing it or stepping on it or carrying out whatever threats it feels endangered from. It is like having a can of mace that doesn't work until a week later. The thief already has your purse. Who cares about it 2 days later? I don't understand this plant. It has a crappy defense mechanism. And believe me, it is not stopping me from messing with them again. I will put on gloves and long sleeves next time. And I will pull them from the ground by their roots. And I will enjoy tearing them to pieces, bit by bit. I will laugh. Yes I will laugh.

But for now, I will scratch.

My Friend Brent Corbin

For those of you who do not know Brent Corbin, you are surely unfortunate. Brent is the most intriguing, most interesting, most puzzling person I think I have ever met. One day I want to write a book about him. But for now, a blog will suffice.

Corbs is from small town Duncan, Oklahoma, where he was indoctrinated early on with the teachings of a local Bible Church. This is where he learned to close his eyes and lift his hands to such songs as "Brokenness, Brokenness is what I long for; Brokenness is what I need." He also sang other Christian classics like Heart of Worship, Shout to the Lord, and Sanctuary. He was indeed going back to the heart of worship and it's all about You, it's all about You Jesus.

Brent Corbin is physically attractive, personally disarming, fun to be around, and incredibly bright. To list a few of his accomplishments, he has been in the Presidents Leadership Class, Sooner Scouts, the Mortar Board, the Crimson Club, Campus Activities Council, Student Alumni Board, and the Beta Gamm Sigma Honor Society. He is a ConocoPhillips Scholar, a Kenneth and Juliet Woodward Memorial Scholar, a Valedictorians Scholar, an Oklahoma Scholar, and was voted by his peers into the Top Ten for his Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year. Think about it. He was one of the top ten, which was taken from a pool of thousands of other contestants. I'm not sure what qualifies one as being a "Top Ten" but he received it. Three times. He was the Vice President of his fraternity, Brothers Under Christ. (BYX was his second fraternity experience. He dropped out of Pi Kappa Phi after his freshman year. Reasons are still pending.)

He is muscular in his build and he cares about his appearance. In college he shaved his chest. He might have even shaved his legs, I can't remember. I wouldn't suprise me if he did. He owns products for his face and hair that I have never heard of, nor could ever afford. And he's gone tanning.

And of course, the ladies love him. But not more than he loves them. With his looks and personality, he had his pick of the litter in small town Duncan. Going out with girls was like taking out the trash, you need to do it a few times a week. The pattern continued into college and beyond.

The stats alone are mind boggling. How does one not develop a sense of pride with that report card? How does one not drown in self-absorption with those credentials? I'm not suggesting that he suffers from such vices. I'm simply alerting my reading audience to its hightened potential with such statistics.

His thoughts shifted in college from the dispensational sensationalism of the nondenominational Bible Church to the theologically rigorous Calvinism of the Presbyterian Church. And so shifted his targets for relationships. But this also provided new and interesting reasons to break up with girls. In the past, a common reason he would break up would be "God told me we shouldn't be together" or "I just feel like I can grow more spiritually on my own." Now, his break up reasons are "because you don't affirm paedobaptism" or "because you want to be something other than a mother of 8 children."

Brent Corbin is an amazing walking paradox. Seriously. He is the funniest person I know. And he frustrates me more than anyone else. He has all the reasons to be prideful and self-absorbed and he is constantly acknowledging his insecurities and failures. He lives out the synthesis of Romans 7 and 8 fully and honestly, tiptoing on the tight rope of his own sin and the assurance of God's forgiveness. People are attracted to him for a reason. He is a screw up. But he knows it. And God's glory is trumpeted as a result.

I have no doubt ragged on Corbin through this blog more than was probably appropriate. And there is more to rag on that will be left unmentioned. But as I close, allow me to reinforce my absolute adoration of him. He is a walking reminder to me of God's grace, that God is kind to those who distort and ruin life. He shows me this because he understands his ability to sin and he knows the free grace of a King who pardons him despite him. He tells the greatest and funniest stories because they are usually at his expense. He is the easiest person to laugh with because he knows how to laugh at himself. He is indeed a clay pot that the Great Potter is sculpting; dry and cracked and seemingly falling apart and yet being shaped into someone who exalts God's work because of his awareness of what God is actually working with.

He is a screwed up, corrupted, perverted, arrogant, beautiful, humble, faithful, faithless, pure, manipulative, honest person who has been redeemed and is being redeemed by grace. He is my dear friend Brent Corbin. And you should get to know him.

Girls are stupid; Guys are losers

I dedicate this blog to the arena of dating. Something must be said. Something has to change. Something must be done.

80% of my conversations with students are about dating or something very close to dating. (We don't talk about courtship in Louisiana. We leave that for those in Moscow.) Guys develop interests. They flirt. They hang out with their respective girls. They come to me and tell me their stories. And I usually end up getting frustrated. I get frustrated at a cycle I have noticed. I don't know how to label or identify this cycle. It should be labeled though. Perhaps it should be called the "Girls are stupid; Guys are losers Cycle." It goes a little something like this:

A guy walks into a room full of people his own age. Immediately he scans the room and picks out the 3 or 4 hot girls and develops a strategy on how to talk to them or get their attention. Every other girl in the room is instantly ruled out as even a potential person to converse with. The only reason the guy will even begin a conversation with one of the other, unhot girls is to gain credit in the eyes of the 3 or 4 hot ones he has on his radar. Guys are savvy enough to know how to use and consume the unattractive ones to get the hot ones' attention. And so he develops his strategy and carries it out. This is step one in the cycle - Scope out and seek out the hot girls.

This leads to step two. Girls are smart enough to pick up on the guys' strategy. They see which girls get more male attention. They see what body types, wardrobe, and personality guys are attracted to. And what does this compel them to do? Well, it compels them to compete. They develop their own reactionary strategy, which can go in either of two directions. Direction One is the more popular route which consists in losing weight or dressing sexier or modifying their personality to be more flashy. Direction Two runs completely opposite but it has the same goal in mind. This route is to be more reserved, apathetic and indifferent to the whole dating game in hopes that some guy will find the indifference attractive in and of itself. But obviously most girls go with option A.

And what does this, in turn, do the guys' initial strategy? It encourages and reinforces it. Girls dress less and put on more of a performance to satisfy the guys' unreal demand which forces girls to put on more of a performance which reinforces the guys' demand and round and round we go.

So which one came first? Do guys only run after the hot girls because of years of living in a pornographic culture and because girls are becoming skinnier and skinnier and revealing more and more skin? Or are girls becoming skinnier and skinnier and revealing more and more skin because this is what attracts guys? Well, obviously both. But which one came first? Which is supporting the other? Or are they, in fact, supporting each other continuously and constantly?

And so the cycle continues. Everyone knows it and everyone contributes to it. Well, what are the effects? Well, to name a few: eating disorders, pornography addiction, a distortion of love and sex, cultural deterioration, sexual perversion, jealousy and hatred, adultury, and ultimately divorce. Dating's only hope is to be redeemed and restored. Without the work of the gospel changing guys and girls to love each other in real, redeemed ways, we are doomed to live in the cycle and reinforce it and tear down and destroy everything and every body in the process.

Why Television Smells Bad (Stinks)

I've been at my parent's home in Dallas for the past few days now. They have a big screen TV. And Satellite. I have neither of these. Naturally, I am attracted to the glowing box and desire to journey through the 999 channels to my heart's content.

At first this seems like a good idea. "Yes! I can finally see who got Punk'd this season. I can catch a few Who's Line Is It Anyway?s. I can get caught up on Elimidate and the Surreal Life." And after a few hours of aimlessly roaming through channel after channel, my initial good idea begins to rot and reveal the actual very bad idea that it was to begin with. To simply put it, television sucks now. There really is nothing good on.

MTV doesn't even play music anymore. There is absolutely nothing "M" about it. It is pop culture, actors, rock stars, gossip, movie awards, reality shows, and post modern advertising. Where is the freaking music? I grew up watching Aerosmith music videos on MTV. Now there is none. It is a circus. It is just one big, ongoing freakshow. There are shows that cater to homosexuals, shows that have grown men being dominated by dominatrix (spelling?), shows with midgets getting drunk and naked and urinating in the living room, shows that recreate both cars and personal identities, and so on and so forth and so case. I do not want to watch Jessica Simpson and her husband watch TV on the couch. I don't want to watch Brittney Spears in the car on the way to a concert. I don't want to watch Ozzy scolding his pet. I want to watch musicians do the very thing that they are known for. You know...play music. I am very upset with the way MTV turned out.

So let's say MTV is not for you (or me) and you decide to change the channel. What do you turn to? The hot Prime Time line up for the summer? This basically means reruns of ridiculously unfunny shows that take place in corporate America that revolve around the unbelievably unclever sex jokes. "Good morning Johnny. What were you doing last night?" "Just taking care of...business!!!" [Insert laugh track here] And if corporate comedy isn't for you, you have a wide selection of forensic, criminal, sex dramas to choose from, all of which are bad. Court cases and suburban mysteries don't really do it for me.

Neither do the reality shows. The Apprentice is popular these days. I'm not sure if the home/wardrobe make over shows are as popular anymore. But they were at one point. There is just something about reality TV that rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps because I would rather experience reality myself than to watch someone else do it. You really can flip on the television and actually watch someone else watching television. This is absolutely absurd to me. And why does every multi-million dollar business exec want his own reality show? Mark Cuban, Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner, Sylvester Stallone, Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, Jessica Simpson's dad, Jessica Simpson's mother, Jessica Simpson's cousins, etc. Bla Bla Bla.

What happened to sit coms? There are no good sit coms out there right now? Where are the Taxis or the Saved by the Bells or the Seinfelds of this generation? Is the sit com going extinct? Is it a passing trend, only to be replaced by the wave of reality television?

Television has tanked in my opinion. It has officially jumped into the toilet. I think that HBO is our only hope. And I am not lying. They have created a structure called "Original Series" that frees creativity from the bureaucratic baggage of corporate television. Writers are free to experiment and express themselves how they want. And as a result, some very promising shows have been birthed. Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sex and the City, the Sopranos, Da Ali G Show, Six Feet Under, etc.

And by the way, my parents don't have HBO.

Job's Job

You remember Job, right? He was that poor unfortunate soul in the Old Testament that had his land, his family, and his resources destroyed. I don't know much about Job, but I know this. That had to have sucked.

Job's job was in the fields, working with animals. Satan observes that God blessed the "work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land." Blessed he was indeed. The passage tells us that he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. Can you imagine owning seven thousand sheep? That is a lot of freaking sheep. I can't imagine owning one. What would I do with it? Feed it? Let it run around in the yard? Would it sleep in a kennel? 7,000 of those things running around would be insanity. And the smell wouldn't have been too pleasant either. But what about another three thousand, clumsy, awkward, smelly camels. And another five hundred yoke of oxen (I must be really stupid because I am not quite sure what a yoke is). And oh yeah, Job also had 500 donkeys. I like that the passage includes this. Donkeys are really funny looking. And Job had 500 of them. That would be cool. If I were Job, I would trade all of the other animals for more donkeys. I'd have an entire donkey farm. I'd sell donkey sausage. I'd make donkey glue. I'd drink donkey milk.

Job was rich indeed. And Job's job was to tend and care for his animals. He probably stepped on a lot of doo doo. He probably was always spitting individual, coarse hairs from his tongue. He probably aided more animal birthings than I care to imagine. He probably killed more flies in a day than all of my insect murders combined. He probably named each individual donkey. I know I would have.

But just like Job naming the donkeys that were dear to him, I want to name some books I have recently read that have been dear to me. That's all I wanted to do with this blog anyway - just give you some good book recommendations. But then I noticed that Job owned 500 donkeys. That was too sweet to pass up.

Not the Way It's Supposed to Be by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. An ingenius examination of sin and its manifestations. Wonderfully written and unbelievably insightful.

Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks. A clever oberservation of the way our culture's new aristocracy has synthesized with the spirit of bohemia. Witty and charming.

Letters of John Newton by....John Newton. This is a compilation of letters that the old British pastor wrote to his friends and members of his congregation. Downright amazing.

Unveiled Hope by Scotty Smith and Michael Card. An easy to read exposition of the book of Revelation. As intimidating as that last New Testament book is, Unveiled Hope helped to remove some confusion and hesitation. Very good. Very good indeed.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Awful. Dangerous. If I had 500 donkeys I would make them urinate on it.

Love Constraining to Obedience by Doug Serven. This book is delicious. Seriously. Tastes like chicken.

Punctuated Emotions

What is the deal with this? :)

That is a side ways smiley face. It is a smiley face that is hanging awkwardly on its side. You either have to have a very good imagination or you have to tilt your head in order to even see it. So here is my question - how in the world am I supposed to respond when I see it? Is this a message telling me to be happy? Or is this a message telling me that you are happy? What is it? Seriously. It is a colon and one parenthesis. And somehow it is supposed to express happiness. I guess.

And what in the world do we do with the winking one? ;)

I don't even want to discuss the seductive nature behind this.
The more I think about it, you can really express quite a variety of emotions with these things. Take a few for example:

The frown :(
The winking frown ;(
The surpised face :0
The winking surprised face ;0
The smiling cyclops I)
The winking frowning cyclops !(
The winking guy with a big nose ;V)
The winking guy with a double big nose ;W)
The "something is wrong with my mouth" guy :S

And my personal favorite:

The unibrow I:)

What is your favorite punctuated emotion? I:)