Multiplication Would Be Nice

Here's a Catholic Problem for you.

You're one of the last people in line to receive communion and the chalice only has a few drops of the Blood of Jesus left.  Even though the Blood should be self-cleansing (like soap!), you're a bit grossed out by the fact that this is backwash from the however many congregants there were before you.  But then you only sip half of the few drops that's left because there are still a few people behind you and you don't want to be that guy who drank all the Blood, but now have perpetuated the same problem for the next person.  It would be uncharitable to jokingly (let alone seriously) cough for good measure.

Weird Dream

I had an odd dream last night.

I arrived in the parking lot of my office building about to go into work.  As I was closing my car door, two of my longtime co-workers K and M walk up to me and exclaim with anxiety in their voices, "Did you hear?  They (the company executives) just announced on the radio that they're shutting down our department and that we've been given our five minute notices (as opposed to two week notices)."

We stood there in shock wondering how our company could do this?  The company had been taking cost-cutting measures recently, but no one would have ever thought our entire department would be cut.  We were just too valuable, if not under-appreciated.  How could the head of our department let this happen?

I could see how upset my colleagues were and we somehow ended up at rustic, cowboy-ish dive bar (the kind where patrons sit on wooden benches throwing peanuts on the floor and there is a mechanical bull) to comfort each other and drown our sorrows.  One guy, who was recently promoted, was particularly devastated.  In my head, I thought about if I should try to be strong and comfort my co-workers or if I should join the pity party.

While I tried to figure out what I was going to do next, at some point I really had to pee.  As it turns out, the bathroom was an outhouse type of thing away from the bar.  Walking to the outhouse, we were clearly on a farm or ranch somewhere with the scenery being mostly dirt, gravel, and a sparse covering of native Californian plants.  When I get to the outhouse, I see there's a non-running water toilet on a platform with two wooden walls on either side of the toilet, but no wall on the backside.  Meaning, where one is normally facing a wall when standing to pee, there was just open air.

As I'm struggling to pee (the kind of struggle where you need to pee in real life, but your sub-conscious is trying to actually not really pee), all of a sudden, Aubrey Huff walks around the wall and faces me.  With my junk hanging out and everything, I could tell he was there to comfort me, him of recent anxiety disorder.

Then my alarm goes off.

Double-you-tee-efffff.  I have no words. 

Good thing I didn't actually pee.

Lyric of the Moment 16

"May the best of your todays \
 Be the worst of your tomorrows \

---

 Fear not when, fear not why, fear not much while we're alive \
 Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky \
 Fear not die, I'll be alive for a million years \
 Bye-byes are not for legends, I'm forever young, my name shall survive"

          ~ Jay-Z, Young Forever

Lyric of the Moment 15

"See I knew that this is how you act, so typical /
 Said you love me, oh but now you flippin' like reciprocals"

          ~ J. Cole, Lost Ones

Work/Life Balance

It's interesting how perspectives change.

Coming out of college and into the work-force, one principle that was impressed upon me was making sure to have a good work/life balance.  This meant avoiding blackberries (at the time) where work email could infiltrate my personal life and giving out my cell-phone number (since part of my job is supporting other employees).  Essentially, the goal was to leave work at work.

This was the expectation that I had set for myself and so whenever this boundary was crossed, I traded my inner-peace for an inner-anxiety that was alarmist in convincing me that I was falling down the slippery slope of losing myself.

Then I had a kid.

Now, instead of drawing a hard line of leaving work at work, I appreciate the flexibility of being able to do a bit of work at home so I can spend some extra moments with my family so I don't become the dad that is never home.

It's pretty cool how Sheryl Sandberg leaves Facebook everyday at 5:30PM.

Phantom

My wife and baby were recently out of town and I was living home alone for the first time since my daughter was born.

Prior to that, we had been doing some sleep training trying to teach my baby daughter how to self-soothe.  This teaches you the schizophrenic skill of being able to simultaneously hear her cries over anything and ignoring them all at the same time. 

In the empty house, it was the strangest thing to hear her cries over the TV and especially in the silence.  It was like phantom ringing or phantom phone, but with babies.

Finding Catholic Game Changers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLmp6u74KN8

Matthew Kelly's pretty dope.  This talk makes me all like this: