I got called a creep today.

"Keep it to yourself Creep-O! This is a house of Gawd!" I guess she called me "creep-O" because calling me a "creep" at church wouldn't be very Christian. OK, so I started at the end. Let me back up.

I started this new mouthwash today and it tasted fantastic! I mean the best mouthwash I've ever tasted. Including that bubble gum mouthwash I had as a kid. At lunch I was thinking "I can have water, milk, orange juice or...mouthwash!" it was so good. It was purple so I was expected cough-syrup grape flavor, but man was I wrong! Target sells it and it's mint-eucalyptus. I've had mint plenty, so I'm guessing it's the eucalyptus. No wonder that's all Koala's eat! It's delicious!

I'm sitting in church and the pastor's talking about the condition of people's souls eternal consequences or somesuch, and all I'm thinking is "My god, this mouthwash tastes good on my teeth." I'm smacking my lips and rubbing my tongue over my gums and making mouth noises to the distraction of the people sitting next to me.

After the service, in the lobby a marginally attractive woman approaches me with a determined look on her face. My church is shaped like an amphitheater and I sit on one end and I recognize her as a regular sitter on the opposite end. I smile because that's what you're supposed to do at church, and she says "Keep it to yourself, Creep-O! This is a house of Gawd!" then marches off in righteous indignation. It's then that I realize that apparently, it's a come-on to look in someone's general direction and lick your teeth and lips.

Man's man video...kind of

Brandon Flowers is the lead singer for the Killers. In his video, he's incorporated explosions, trucks, ninjas and Charlize Theron. Pretty much the perfect man-video. Check for yourself:



Here's another song that I hope does well. No ninjas, but I love the cadence the lead singer uses:

Glasses for Giants

My son recently got the news that he'll need to wear glasses all the time. When I was told that, I felt like I was being forced into nerdom. However, my son has no self-esteem issues. He's picked out glasses with flames running down the earpieces. Today he said:

Son: I like these glasses.
Raesh: I do too. They make you look tough.
Son: When I put them on, everything looks smaller.
Raesh: When you put them on, you grow HUGE like a giant! Everything looks smaller because everything *is* smaller!

We then wrestled on the bed with his giant-powered magic spectacles.

Lepidoptera

Sometimes I forget you’re just an insect,
Fragile and delicate with the slightest flutter of flight.
I don’t reminisce about your pupa –
Full of earth and consumption.
All I see is color and elegance
When your erratic aerials
Delight my eyes.
Through you I hope sometimes God
Might forget I’m just a human.

Grocery Store

Raesh: We've got Turkey Ham, Turkey Beef and Turkey Bacon.
Son: Turkey can be anything!
Raesh: It's O.K., Turkey, you don't have to try so hard. Just be yourself.
Son: We love you just the way you are.
*giggling*
Son: That's something Jim Gaffigan would say.

Thrice Holy

"Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come." - Rev 4:8

The word for "holy" in Hebrew means, literally "set apart." Specifically set apart for religious use. However, the root word evolved to be richer and more meaningful. The implication developed beyond a separation from the world to "different", "alien" or "other." God is not bound by the world or its influences. He does not sleep, worry about the mortgage, become motivated by sex, feel inferior, strive to improve his status or try to find meaning. We humans avoid pain, exploit those weaker than us, worry about death, create hierarchies, garner respect and take things for granted. God does none of these. He is different than us.

Not just different, though. In English, when we want to compare something we add an "-er" to the adjective. If it's the most we add an "-est.": Jack Black is funnier than Adam Sandler, but Will Ferrell is the funniest actor. In Hebrew, they repeated the word. The Passover is holy. The temple's back room is holy holy (called the Holy of Holies). God is holy holy holy.

God is three times separated from us. We conceptualize him with finite minds and limited lifespans. We see him through a glass darkly. Our perception is so limited, God had to send us a Son so that we would have a glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven's precepts. There is a religious philosophy that states the entirety of Scripture is an anthropomorphism - like using an embedded video of a tesseract to "show" the 4th dimension in a 3 dimensional world. Except that's only one degree of separation from our dimension. Can you concieve of a 5th Dimension at two degrees? A 6th at three degrees of separation?

God is the not-like-us-est being in the universe. And it disturbs me when someone says with absolute confidence they know Him. When I hear that, I want to say "I once thought as you did. Then God changed my mind."

Super

Vanessa and I are standing by the window when the helicopter starts shooting. The window reaches out with glass and bullets while I push her through. We fall down the cliff toward the ocean and I remember water isn't all that soft at 60 feet. Vanessa transforms into a gull below me and soars away. I can hear the pilot whining his guns to follow me. At least she'll make it.

I go in like a pencil and the water catches me in what feels like electricity. I can see bullet wakes around me so I dive - riding the adrenalin from the fall and the cold. An over sized fish comes alongside and I grab its dorsal fin. It moves so quickly that the water nearly blows me off. When my lungs can't take another moment, the fish flares its gills and she transforms. Vanessa's kiss fills my mouth with the air in her lungs. I don't even think about the intimacy until later. She repeats the race and the kiss until we're safe.

I tell her I have to go back. She should meet us at the rendezvous. She hunches into squirrel and runs into the woods. With that talent, Vanessa'll outlive us all.

*****

David's waiting for me. It's poetic, really. He's a traitor to his kind and I'm a traitor to mine. Most people think of superheroes as big and muscle-bound, but the truth is you don't really get that much opportunity to bulk up when you can bench press a city bus. David looks like an emo kid in preppy clothes.

"I should have known they'd send you. You coming in for a drink or do you want it here?"

"Depends. Where do you want to die?"

I invite him in. I hold open the door as he goes in first, arrogantly giving me his back. I taught him better than that. I'm strangely calm. Zen. Do the Shaolin fight in this kind of trance?

The door closes and my foot is in his oblique. I follow with a left hook. Way too slow for David, he blocks it easy just like he's supposed to. My blocked hand pushes his elbow, turning him slightly and jamming his counter. I'm twisted like a coil and unleash my right fist into his pubic bone with a satisfying crack.

Even a superhero can't walk with a broken pubic bone. I get the laptop and tell David I'll see him later. Humans would take three months to recover from an injury like that. I've got a three day head start at most...