How the Flaming Lips Saved My (Spiritual) Life

It's weird to go to the same church for 8 years and then one day decide "Maybe I should just stop going here." There was no life changing event, I was just bored. I was showing up late, if at all, and was leaving the minute service was dismissed. I realized that if this was going to be my routine for Sunday mornings, I would be better off sleeping in or watching TV.

So I decided I would check out a couple of different churches and then I would decide if I should find something better to do on my Sunday mornings. I didn't feel like I owed it to anyone (or to God) to check out some churches, but since I've been going to church since I was born, I wanted to make sure I wasn't making any rash decisions. So I called my friend, Paul, and asked him if he knew of any places in the area. He gave me a couple of suggestions and I decided that these would be the churches that would tell me where I was going to be on Sundays, if I would be going anywhere at all.

I wasn't going to set the bar too high. I didn't expect to be speaking in tongues or have a spiritual awakening. I just wanted to go to church for more than the need to satisfy a routine or keep myself from feeling guilty. My sisters have stopped going to church and they seem happy enough without it. So I went to one church, and while the people were friendly enough, something just didn't click with me. I liked it, but wasn't sure if I liked enough to want to return every Sunday morning. So the next week I headed off to the next suggestion, which Paul thought was ideal for me even though he had only been there once and the only person he knew that went there was his cousin's best friend who was also an "artsy fool like [me]".

I went with a couple of friends to this recommended church in Fullerton, which is about 20-25 minutes north of where I live. When I saw that it was a 20-25 minute commute on Google Maps, I secretly hoped I would hate it. (Un)Fortunately I enjoyed it and decided that I would give it a shot and that I'd re-evaluate later. I wanted to throw myself into the fray to get a good feel for the people and the place, but also didn't want to act like I owned the place. So after a couple of months, I started to integrate, and then I decided to test the mettle of the people in my age group. I didn't want to go to a church where I didn't have to alter my interests to fit in. I wanted to talk about my artsy film, indie rock, and under the radar comedians. I didn't want to debate whether Michelle Branch was a Christian so people wouldn't feel guilty that they liked listening to her music.

About a month before I showed up at this church, my friend Phil had informed me that he went to a Zaireeka Party on Record Store Day (Approx the 3rd Saturday in April) in Chicago. Zaireeka is a 4 CD set by the flaming lips where you are instructed to play all 4 CDs at the same time and to spread out the 4 CD players you are using so you can discern what sounds are coming from where. I was fascinated by this concept in high school, except when I had learned about it, the box set was out of print. Fortunately it was back in print and my friend telling me about the party inspired me to grab a copy so I could have a party of my own. This would be my formal introduction to this church.

I partnered up with a couple of other church Flaming Lips friends (who conveniently were roommates) and we sent out an e-mail about the party. We had a decent amount of people show up (none, who had heard of the Flaming Lips previously) and we had a good time. After it was over, we grabbed dinner and went to go see Burn After Reading. While it's is not the greatest Coen Brothers film, it's still a Coen Brothers film, and I was satisfied with how the night turned out. There wasn't any sort of spiritual pretext for the party. It was pretty self-indulgent, if anything. I was inviting people who I'd only known for a couple of months into my world and was unapologetic about it. Luckily, people thought the Zaireeka idea was cool and appreciated being invited.

From that point on, I felt a lot of freedom at church, which is probably how church should be, but I've never felt that way. At the last church I was at, there was a lot of clearances you needed to receive since that's how things work at big churches (organizations). Here, it's much smaller and relaxed. For once, at a church, I didn't feel like I needed to compromise my interests. Whether it be planning events or playing guitar, I've been kind of left alone, and I mean that in the best way possible. I grew up in a church where there was a debate if the electric guitar was evil. Now I'm encouraged to make evil sounds with my electric guitar.

I've been at this church for about a year and a half now. My friend told me "At the 18 month mark is where you get sick of something or not." As it stands right now, so far so good. I haven't found myself bored of this place nor have I thought about leaving. A couple of months ago, I saw the Flaming Lips in concert with a couple of friends and my pastor. I invited him to the show and he really enjoyed it. As we watched Wayne Coyne come out in his plastic bubble into the crowd, it confirmed the notion that I'm in the right place, and I definitely have to thank the Flaming Lips for making sure I stuck around.

E-Dissonance

I'm not sure how long this has gone on for, but every week when I talk to my Dad on the phone, he asks me if I have any good news. So I tell him "I still have a job, that's good news, right", but I know this is not the good news that he's looking for. My Dad wants to hear that I've found the girl of my dreams, his future daughter in-law, and that she can't wait to start to pumping out the grandchildren. Like I said, this has been a recent addition to our phone conversations and it doesn't look like it'll be going away anytime in the near future.

I think when these conversations began, I was amused by the fact that my Dad was talking to me about girls. I embraced being a bachelor, using the cliche "I'm happy being single" whenever anyone brought up dating and quickly dismissed the "good news" question whenever it came up. Over time, that happiness of being single started to dissipate, and the itch to find a significant other started to show up to my chagrin. It's not that I don't want to be in a relationship, it's that I usually get stuck in the "friend zone", and it's not because I can't "initiate", I'm just not the type for the girls I chase.

So after doing some chasing and being shot down, I turned my attention to a certain popular dating service. I found a deal for a 3 month trial and decided to give it a shot, since 3 months of this service would only cost me the equivalent of a video game purchase. I often found myself frustrated. I didn't have a problem with the service, I ended up talking to people who only checked the site once in a blue moon. I can be a bit of an anxious person and I like to be in a rhythm, so perhaps this dating service doesn't really fit with my personality. I don't expect to hear responses every day but I think waiting a week for people to answer some basic questions is also too long.

Then I was able to find Whitney. Whitney's very cute, very smart, and has a sense of humor. Even the fact that she's in the midwest wasn't going to deter me, especially since I grew up there and would consider moving back at some point. We found a nice rhythm and I didn't find any red flags with her. She didn't seem crazy, she was just sick of the bar scene and wanted to find someone serious, and I guess didn't care if that guy was across the country. We only knew each other's first name's and at a certain point, I gave her my personal e-mail address, which has my full name in it, hoping to move things along to where we would actually talk on the phone or even fly out to see each other, but I guess this is where I messed things up.

I have a blog. It's not a personal blog where I talk about my issues or my exes or anything like that. I write short stories about my life, like I'm doing right now. My most recent post is about how my friend thinks that this little kid at church looks a lot like me and that they could be my kid. It's become an inside joke between a bunch of people so I decided to write about it in a creative way. I wrote about how I think she's my kid from the future and then wondered why my wife from the future would send her back to me. It's definitely an comical piece that really breaks down the perils of time travel, but I could understand why this piece in particular might scare off someone who is interested in dating me and doesn't know me very well.

I know Whitney visited my site because I have Google Analytics and no one from area ever visits my site. You could call this stalking, but she stalked me first by looking me up and visiting my site, so I think we're even. She never wrote to me again, so I can't be sure this is the reason that we stopped talking, but since I'm a writer and she's left the ending to our online relationship open ended, I'd like to believe that she was scared off about the story of the future child. And do you know what? If she can't accept that kid as our future child, maybe I don't want to be with her anyways.

I Left My Identity in El Segundo

It's weird to visit a city for the first time as an adult. It looks familiar, but there's a certain freedom that you feel since you're their san parents. I was recently in Chicago for the first time since my childhood. This meant two things. One, I didn't have to follow my parents around doing touristy things like visit the Sears Tower. Two, since I wasn't with my parents, I would have to use public transportation to get around. I've used public transportation before, but never on a regular basis, so it can be kind of intimidating for me. It's not second nature to me like it is for someone who lives in the Bay Area, New York, or Chicago, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from getting to the places I needed to go. I wanted to get the best hot dogs (a 45 minute wait in the middle of the day on a Wednesday) in Chicago and all it required for me was a ride on the train and a hop on a bus, it was pretty simple.

I was visiting my friend Phil and his fiancé, so I didn't have to labor too much about finding the fastest and easiest ways to get to places. I needed to take a transfer trains at one point and then hop on a bus, but I was assured it wouldn't be too difficult. I wasn't so worried about the complexity of the transfers as I was about my ability to zone out while listening to music on a bus or a train.

The train ride was a breeze. I just listened to music and stared out the window as we whizzed by Downtown Chicago and the bus ride was pleasant enough. I didn't have as much time between spots to get lost in my surroundings as I did on the train, so I was much more aware of the people around me than when I was on the train. There was an old lady seated across from me. I didn't talk to her, but she seemed nice enough. At one point of my bus ride, a large wo(man) sat down next to me. The old lady shot me a smirk and I quickly realized that this wasn't a woman, but a man dressed as a woman. They had gone the whole nine yards wearing a dress with a wig and a lot of make up. Sure, I've seen transvestites before, but to sit next to one was a brand new experience to me, and like I mentioned before, this transvestite was particularly large, probably at least 6'4.

I'll admit that I wanted to ask them a bunch of questions, but I chose not to because I would probably just come off as ignorant and judgmental. I was simply curious about their story, but understood that the general public's reaction to their lifestyle might make them slightly agitated when being asked about it. I think, because they were particularly tall, that they piqued my curiosity more so than if they were a transvestite of a normal height. I just assumed it was probably more difficult of a transition for them and would have loved to hear their story, but it ended up they weren't going to be on the bus for long and they weren't very talkative so I didn't even bother to start a conversation.

We got to my stop, I got off the bus and ended up at my destination, Hot Doug's, which had a 45 minute wait in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. I saw down with my meal and just enjoyed the amazing food in front of me, my mind consumed with only the food I was about to consume. Sitting next to the transvestite was a distant memory and I had almost forgotten about it until my friend brought it up later that night.

Meanwhile, back in California, Lancaster to be exact, someone was committing identity theft with my credit card. I didn't lose my credit card, so it somehow someone got my information and they managed to spend $304 at a Jamba Juice with it. A couple of days later they spent $300 at a Panda Express in Palmdale, CA. I've obviously reported these charges to my credit card company as fraudulent and they've been taken care of since.

I wasn't so worried about the fact that someone had been using my credit card as I was curious about what the people at my credit card company thought about me. The Jamba Juice charge actually appeared on my statement and the Panda Express purchase was a pending charge. That means, the Jamba Juice charge wasn't suspicious enough for them to see something shady was going on. It was the Panda Express purchase that finally set off the red flags.

I wonder if the person helping me with the dispute or if anyone at the company saw the charge and wondered what I looked like and what I would do with $304 of Jamba Juice and $300 of Panda Express, like if I was like that Subway Jared guy and was trying to lose weight by only eating food from these two food chains. Perhaps they thought of me as an incredibly confused man who wanted to make up for the nutrients I wasn't getting in my orange chicken with nutrients from a fruit smoothie, I don't know. Perhaps they had all these questions they wanted to ask me, but didn't want to ask them out of being polite, and maybe that's why the transvestite sat next to me on the bus. There were surely other open seats on the bus, but maybe the transvestite saw something in me, that I didn't seen in myself, that people were leering and jeering at me and that I could be empathetic to their pain.