A lot has changed since I last wrote here.
I got married!

I’m this close to being getting my BA.
We got a puppy!

The vet says he is either part Mastiff or Saint Bernard. In case you don’t know, those are both considered “giant breed” dogs. She said, “he’s going to be huge.” So this will be fun.

In addition to these changes, changes will be happening here too. I’m going to try to focus more on my original goal for this site, which is to write positive posts about things that make me feel uplifted (keep me from sinking) in hopes that they will help someone (even if it is just one person) who reads it. Among these posts, which will probably vary from life things, to things in the news, to thoughts on scripture—like I’ve done on some of my previous sites—I will be writing more reviews. Right now I think the reviews will mostly be books that I enjoy and/or have a good message, but there may be an occasional CD or movie review as well.

If you have anything you would like to see reviewed here, let me know by emailing Reese@Ohbuoyancy.net
That’s all for now.

I have a preference and tendency to use (without thinking about it) Old English. I use “dreamt,” not “dreamed;” I think the word color should have a “u” in it and many other things along these lines. I’ve always preferred British punctuation, especially when it comes to quotations. In American English, punctuation marks always go inside the quotation marks at the end of a sentence, no exception. The English way makes so much more sense; for example, with a question mark, if the question is what is in quotes then the mark is inside the quotation marks, but if the question is the whole sentence, not just what it is being quoted, the question mark is outside of the end quotation mark (How many times did I say “quotation”? Three. Did I ever say “quotation?” No.)

Just now, I was reading some 17th century literature and nearly every noun has its first letter capitalized (yes, I used a z and not an s, but trust me, it was not without hesitation). If you check my work from elementary school (not that you could do that, that would be weird) you will see that I did this more often than not.

Finally, when I was in elementary school we were still taught to use the Oxford comma. For those of you out of the punctuation nerds loop, this is the comma before “and” in: Red, white,(this guy to the left here) and blue. We’ve driven the Oxford comma into non-existence, but he’s there for a reason and I refuse to give him up!

However, I’m very excited about going to see mewithoutYou tonight, hence the title.

I don’t like the politics of church. I don’t like most of the fellowship (read: people getting together to gossip and be overly dramatic about everything while being highly critical of those outside their circle). I don’t like the judgment and stereotyping: how the inside is high and mighty, their wrongs are okay (sure when they realize they’re wrong they can ask and be forgiven, but so can anyone who is sincere) while everything outside is basically evil. Yes, the “outside” stereotypes the inside as well, but is the inside doing anything to break that trend and mold? From my perspective, (“on the fringes” maybe) the inside strengthens that negative stereotype in 85% of their interactions with the “outside.”

This is only part of it, but I believe that too often the people of the church forget that they’re in the world, there’s other people out there and they matter to God just as much as you do. They matter even more, remember the parable of the lost sheep?

Luke 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

But instead of creating community with others, people of the church create an insiders clique.
Jesus made friends with sinners, people who were not part of the church circle.

Mark 2:13And he went forth again by the sea side; and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them. 14And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. 15And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.

For me, while I’m “in the church,” I’m also in the world, which isn’t all bad, after all it’s the world that God created for me to be in for a time and I have a purpose here. I am not of the world, but I’m also not of the church, I’m trying my best to be of God.

For now, I think watching church on TV may be my best choice.

Today I came home, ate, washed dishes, that’s all normal. (Prepare for a really long run-on sentence) Then, I washed the sink, threw away gross stuff that didn’t belong to me, thoroughly cleaned the counters, the stove, the microwave (that I hardly use), the cabinets, the fridge, the table, the tv, the trash can, swept the floor, dusted, wondered what to do about those nasty drip pans on the stove, didn’t have any aluminum foil, googled it, decided to soak them in soap and ammonia, was going to swiffer with the wet jet, but was out of batteries because I put them in my Wii Fit, which is in Panama City, washed towels, made sweet tea, perused the interwebs, ate a not-quite-up-to-par peach, got annoyed with asmallorange.com because my site was down, searched for courses that may have opened that I could add to my summer or fall schedule, added History of Central Asia, then saw my site was back up and blogged about it all. Now I’m going to make some spaghetti.

One night Amy and I were browsing match for just these types and find them. Amy finds an ex and I find this guy I went to school with.
During my first stint at GCCC there was a guy in my radio classes, JP we’ll call him, ’cause that’s his name. JP liked attention I guess, he talked with a fake Australian accent, we all knew it was face, yet he still went on insisting it was real. Occasionally, when he would slip up and not accentuate words enough, or at all, and someone would call him on it, he would just say he’d been in the states so long that the accent comes and goes. Then we would talk about him behind his back, good times. Don’t get me wrong though, other than this weird reach for attention, he could be a really nice guy when you spoke with him one-on-one.

Maybe a couple weeks later after finding him on match.com, Amy and I are on a quest for pizza and stop at Gumby’s, which seemed to be the only pizza place open after 10 on a Friday night, weird. We go in and I immediately recognized the guy behind the counter and he clearly recognizes me because he begins to speak in a well out-of-practice fake Australian accent. Gumby’s just has a tiny lobby—it’s not a dine-in restaurant, so we’re cornered. I don’t let on that I know him and don’t have an opportunity to say to Amy, “this is that guy.” So he slips up on a word and Amy calls him out, he shrugs it off. I’m having such a hard time trying not to laugh. When I get the chance, I text Amy and it’s good I did because she thought he looked familiar and almost asked him how she knew him.

So we leave and we’re both cracking up as we walk back to the car. Of course, we’re talking about him and there he is standing behind the building talking to a coworker. I don’t think he heard us and the laughter resumed with added hilarity once we were safely in the car.