Ultimate

For those of you who have never heard of ultimate frisbee, it is one of the most entertaining fusion sports available, and also one of the cheapest. Funny how often times the simplest games are the most fun to play.

Ultimate frisbee is played with a [frisbee] disc. The object is to score a "touchdown" by passing the disc to a teammate in the endzone. Whoever has the disc can't move until he/she throws it. Easy enough, huh?

The key is mastering each of the different throws, so that the frisbee will go to a teammate instead of the person defending them on the other team. There are basically three different throws: overhand, underhand, and overhead, each of which is useful in it's own way, depending on the situation. Someone who is really good, can throw the disc the length of the field and have it curve away from the defender into the hands of his/her teammate.

I've been playing every Saturday for something like 6 or 7 months [yes, through the Chicago winter...we lovingly call it "snowtimate"]. It is incredibly good exercise, has allowed me to meet several people (including single women) my age, and never fails to generate several ESPN top ten plays of the week-worthy throws and catches.

Today, the weather was gorgeous and as you would expect, we had a great turnout. One of the girls, Stephanie, has a way of sneaking into the endzone unguarded and scoring a ton of points. Today was no different. No matter how many times she scored, we could never seem to get a defender on her when it mattered. I defended another female, Lauren, who is a P.E. teacher and soccer coach. She also enjoys biking and doing triathalons. Needless to say, she was difficult to cover. By the end of the game, I was covering another guy, Steve, about my height. The disc was thrown to the back corner of the endzone. I timed my jump and deflected the disc, but somehow, Steve was able to grab it off my deflection.

One of the guys brought his dog, who spent most of the game whining from the end of her leash, longing to be a part of the game. She escaped several times, and we would have to stop the game while he retrieved her and put her leash back on. She was, however, quite well-behaved in general, and very friendly.

Keane, another ultimate frisbee regular, brought his small neice and nephew to watch the game. Both were incredibly cute, waddling around the park where we play with sippy cups full of milk. They both loved the dog, and she appreciated the attention.

It's times like these that really make me appreciate my current station in life. Sometimes I feel like things aren't happening fast enough, but I know I don't really want things to speed up. Life comes at us fast enough as it is. I'm pretty sure being content with where we are would solve a great many problems.

Wicked Book End

It's fitting that I'm picking this blog back up right where I left it...in Oz. That's right, I finally saw Wicked. And what an amazing show it is! It was brilliantly cast, had a beautifully designed set, the music was unforgetable and haunting, and the script does everything that Gregory Maguire failed to do in his novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West upon which the play is loosely based. Namely, it makes you care about the politics and spirit of Oz and empathize with Elphba, the wicked witch of the west as she comes of age and is ostracized from her friends and family.


For those not familiar with the plot, Wicked follows Elphaba, the wicked witch of the west and Glinda, the good witch, detailing their journey through Shiz, Oz's University and exploring the question, what makes an evil person evil? Along the way, the viewer is provided with a revisionist history of the story presented in L. Frank Baum's beloved children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In this telling of the story, things are not as clear cut. The "wicked witch" becomes so only after every honorable attempt she makes to bring restoration to those around her backfires and she is left with the sorrowful realization that "no good deed goes unpunished". Often her attempts to help those around her only hurt them worse.

Glinda, on the other hand, is self-centered and superficial. The prom queen and primadonna of Oz who in a twist of fate is made to room with the social outcast, Elphaba. She is blissfully ignorant of how her actions affect others and has a feeling of entitlement. That is...until she begins to see Elphaba for whom she really is.

I don't want to go any deeper than this so that I don't spoil the plot for you, but suffice it to say, I recommend this show without reservation. It was everything I hoped it would be and lived up not only to the hype surrounding it, but also my two years of anticipation as I waited for an opportunity to see it.

I was struck once again, as I watched the show, with the role that choice plays in our lives. You'll remember, I discussed this very same thing in my previous post from last April. It seems to have been this past year's theme, because it came out again in July when I saw the critically acclaimed The Dark Knight movie. I think what made the Joker so frightening in that movie was the same thing that made Anton Chigurh, the villian from No Country for Old Men the same: chaos. There was a sense that the human will to make logical choices was absent in these men. Both seemed to base their decisions on nothing but the feeling of the instant. I got the sense that either one of them could have been inspired to murder by a feeling of indigestion from a bad burrito. Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight is such a tragic character mainly because he allows his emotions to control the choices he makes and he thus becomes a villian of passion.

Elphaba, alternatively, makes choices based on noble intentions. She strives to make things right...but there is a sense that whatever her intentions, her choices betray her. We are at our lowest point when we decide that our choices don't matter. Whether this makes us choose flippantly or give up on our ability to choose, either way we have lost. I have a Christian friend who is losing her will to choose and thus drifting into agnosticism. I hear the chilling surrender in her voice. How can we know (enough to make a choice)? I try to reason with her, but reason has lost its convincing power in the weight of the impotence to know that envelopes her. The world is becoming impersonal for her and her choices are losing the eternal weight they once carried.

This is what makes Elphaba such a convincing, sympathetic character to me. Her noble choices backfire, yet she continues to strive, believing that the next one will succeed. She is doing the right thing and she knows it. Perhaps she will be vindicated in the end, perhaps not, but the point is she still has the courage to choose to do right whether or not others understand her. Yes...the Wicked Witch of the West has integrity! How's that for a plot twist?

Wicked Timing

Yesterday, my roommate Kevin and I went to Chicago to see Wicked...o.k....we were supposed to go into Chicago to see Wicked. We had the perfect plan. We would meet at the train station on this, the first 60 degree, sunny day of the Chicago spring that we both had free, and take a leisurely train ride into the heart of Chicago. Then we would go to the Borders bookstore next door to the theater, put our names into a drawing to get two seats near the stage for the amazing price of $25 each, and enjoy a great evening of quality entertainment and roommate bonding time.

Then I decided to iron my shirt. Who wants to go to a classy theatrical show with a wrinkled shirt, especially when it's already a faded second-hand Banana Republic polo with a couple iron burn marks? This decision, small as it seemed, made me miss the train by about 3 minutes. The next train to Chicago was leaving two hours later, and that would have been too late for all practical purposes. What could have been an exciting afternoon in Chicago was then down shifted to a spur-of-the-moment matinée at the mall just up the street from our apartment, and followed by a quiet evening at home.

Kevin and I joked about the butterfly effect that my barely missing the train would have on the rest of our respective lives. Maybe Kevin was supposed to meet his future spouse at that night's Wicked performance. Maybe this night would have been the least attended Wicked show ever and we would have been assured tickets had we made it. Maybe the train would have mechanical problems halfway between a couple stations and the passengers would be stranded for a couple hours. Maybe Kevin was supposed to be working on his portfolio and this was a sign. People are always reading into things, stargazing, wondering how their lives would have been different had they made different choices. Yesterday I was reminded that our choices are like dominoes: they affect our future, other's futures, and the other choices we will have as a result.

The previous night, I had watched this year's best picture, No Country for Old Men. Among other things, it's an intriguing exploration of chance, choice, and destiny. Each central character seemed to embrace a different philosophy of life in regard to the role of choice. There was the trailer park cowboy who believed he had complete control over his destiny, the disillusioned sheriff who seemed to believe his destiny was set in stone and he was simply living it out to its inevitable conclusion, and the psychopathic killer who believed the power of choice was swallowed up by the rule of chance and as a result was as stable as a gust of wind.

Funny thing is all three seem to resonate with my unfortunate experience. I had the choice to leave 3 minutes earlier and probably would have made it had I done so, but I also could have made it had the stop lights or any other chance aspect of my trip to the train station gone differently. Yet, apparently I was destined to miss the train, because that's what happened. Guess I got a good lesson in philosophy, but I'd trade it to have seen Wicked instead. If you see me with a wrinkled shirt the next time you see me, you'll know why.

Cars Need HMOs!

Vehicles...can't live with 'em...can't live without 'em. I took my car in for some routine work today and found myself in another world. Cars were jacked off the ground; suspended as if they were weightless. They looked kind of exposed just sitting there. It was like a doctor's office. The doctor has you take your clothes off then just leaves you there wearing nothing but a flimsy gown as your eyes bounce around looking for something to focus on...anything but the sterile florescent glow and the jar full of tongue depressors. The mechanic's is no different. The cars rest elevated with their parts exposed, useless, waiting for a diagnosis.

Another similarity soon became apparent. Car manufacturers, like medical professionals, operate in a completely different world when it comes to cost. Go to Wal-Mart and a bottle of Tylenol will run you about 8 dollars. Go to any hospital, and two Tylenol pills cost like 80 bucks! Similarly, in the real world, rubber is a substance you use to cork cheap wine, or make cheap, non-lethal ammunition, or cheap sports equipment, or keep a poster rolled up. Melt some of that rubber down and mold it a little and voila! you've got a gasket: an essential piece of equipment that keeps your car's oil from seeping out. The gasket itself costs a couple hundred dollars and the labor to put it in is a few more hundred (the labor costs make you think they have to disable a couple land mines). It would seem that car manufacturers insist on using materials that wear out quickly and putting the parts that wear out fastest underneath the parts built of more durable materials *I've got it...we'll put a dry cotton ball at the core of the engine and surround it with titanium. Then we'll insure the entire engine seizes if the cotton ball gets wet.* It sounds like sometimes you have to lift the engine to find and change the rubber band that's keeping your oil from spilling out. Welcome to the world of motor vehicles!

Half the time I wonder if the parts the mechanic is describing actually exist. To create a car part it seems all one has to do is pick a verb, add -er or -or to the end and then attach it to a metal container noun. *Yes, Mr. Jones, the problem is most definitely differential wear in the two sweeper rods. And when we replace those, you'll probably want to have the breaker tanks recalibrated*. Whether you understand or not, it's clear those sweeper rods need immediate attention, if for no other reason than ignoring a mechanic's suggestion makes the consequences he's predicting more likely to occur.

We complain about the high cost, but we keep going back, letting them perform the repairs they suggest, paying them for the peace of mind that you're not going to be the poor sap who has to abandon his car on the shoulder of the freeway as he searches for the mechanic he wishes he'd spoken to sooner. Or, we go to a friend who knows a thing or two about replacing rubber bands and lives in the real world. Thanks Stephanie.

Surface Tension

I dream.
What might have been, what may still be.
Thin tensile strength of buoyant rest undisturbed.
Soul mirrors stream across a transparent stage.

I fall.
Glimpses of sun break the surface.
The bubble bursts.
Phantoms flee before the power of dawn.
The prodigal returns.

I wake.
Born again in yawning eyes.
Find sink and soak till sleep is washed away.
Waves splash from earnest hands; bring me back to life.

I see.
Caffeine completes the aftershock.
Ripples spread from core to limbs.
Two feet land solid on the ground.
Mind again is cognizant.
The spell again is broken.

Back Safe Home Again...

Home once again. Is home truly where the heart is? Is it home because of the people, or is it remembered experiences that make it solid, worthwhile? The esoteric way that memories spring forth, responding to the call of myriad tactile associations that only the subconscious can process. I wonder, can animals feel a sense of home? I have to reintroduce myself to my family's cat every time I return, so obviously for her, home is, if anything, separate from the other creatures that inhabit it. For her, it is a territory; a space.

Maybe it's the interaction of all the above that creates that feeling of home. Whatever it is, it seems to be a universal human longing. Odysseus, the brave warrior of Homer's The Odyssey, was driven by his desire for home. It was the only thing that could tear him away from the allure and spells of the goddess Circe...that and Penelope, his wife, of course. There is something compelling about having a place to call one's own and many a man (and woman) has died defending the ideal.

So...here I find myself. Home once again. Home in Marion: a place I have never actually lived. It's a new home and less a place that I live than a place that I feel that mysterious, palpable emotion of wellbeing we so often associate with home. I braved awful Chicago Christmas traffic to make it here; to be home with my family. All is as I left it and will continue to be so long after I have returned to the two bedroom apartment I now call home with the friends that have become my surrogate family.

That's it...no applications, no pretenses, no insights...just home. It cannot be described and I won't venture to try. There's just the experience of home and the experience can only be felt. It's best just to savor it with all the beautiful moments that will coalesce in the mists of future memory.

Life After College

By this point many of you are probably starting to wonder whatever happened to Jonathan Sprowl. For many of you this blog is your only point of contact with me; a veritable telescope in which you catch a glimpse of a comet as it flashes across the sky. Perhaps it's presumptuous of me to compare myself to a heavenly body, but I'm sure you've caught my intent. Flowery metaphors aside, I have been silent for a long time.

I could give many excuses: a fried laptop, busyness, a lack of worthwhile news, but honestly, life after college has been like learning to walk on a treadmill on the highest setting. I've got the skid marks on my face to prove it...well...not literally. I've started a new job with a prominent Christian publishing company and settled into the 9-5 life. My friends have lost that crazy "Let's do something. Who cares if it's 2am." college streak and replaced it with a prudent deference to sleep in preparation for another workday. Other friends are now engaged, married, or card-carrying parents. In essence, I have entered a new demographic: that of the young, single working male.

My adventures learning to drive stick shift have given me an apt metaphor for life's many transitions. Shifting gears, quite frankly, takes a great deal of practice. Each new gear gives you more power and increases your speed. Each new gear also requires a gentle negotiation between clutch and gas pedal. Too much gas you get a jolt, too much clutch and you get an unpleasant gear grinding. Each gear prepares your engine for the next one, and if you try to skip too many the engine can't handle it and protests loudly.

I'm in the process of shifting gears. The comfort of being a college senior has been replaced by a displaced feeling. Degree in hand, I am back at square one, trying to find myself on the radar of human history once again. The future is bright; blindingly so. It'll be exciting to see what the next five years will hold...

But, enough musing. Most of you are thirsty for news, not existential meanderings. As I've said, I'm settling in to life after college. Currently, I'm living with 3 other guys in a suburban apartment overlooking a lake. It's not bad for what we are paying for it, though the kitchen is criminally small. I take my little green Mazda out for a spin every once in a while when it gets antsy sitting in the parking lot, or tires of the daily commute to and from work. My work consists mostly of implementing paid ad placements in e-mail newsletters. It works fine as a first job, but I hope I'm not still doing it in two years. It's far too mindless and can feel a little mercenary at times. I do, however really like my co-workers: a couple other recent grads and two older married women.

I'm joining my church's college staff. I figure I should give back a little of the rich blessing I received in my four years on the other side of the table. Hopefully, I'll be able to share some of my experiences with the young up-and-comers, and bring a voice to the group that's not coming from an older, married person. It'll also be nice to get more involved in my church as my college friends begin to go their separate ways. Whatever the coming year holds, it should be filled with adventure and growth. Thanks for stopping by...