a fond farewell

okay, so this is last year in vegas. fun was had by all. and by all, i mean me.
:)

this is dustin washing out the yard-long drink thing before we catch our flight home. they're so smart that they give you this harness to wear around your neck so that you don't have to exert yourself by carrying the thing up and down the strip. it's kind of like a feedbag, except you would call it a drinkplasticthing. one of the more entertaining moments of my trip.

so, dustin is leaving maryland soon for his new job. i'll miss ya. viva ohio!

church family

Second Presbyterian is my church home, or as Kim's song goes, my second family. i sing on the worship team for the 9AM service, and although dragging myself out of bed for our early practices before the service can be tough, it's completely worth it.

i've been a Presbyterian all my life, but it wasn't until life happened that i really started to search in my faith. basically, when i was 16, clinical depression started to set in, but at that time, nobody in my family really recognized what was going on, so we just thought i'd get over "the blues." well, over the next few years, it just grew and grew, and, on top of other life events, everything just got out of control. i was formally diagnosed and underwent treatment, but the thing about depression is that it starts to tear away at your cognitive abilities. it's hard to understand what's reality and what's not, and you beat yourself up for not being able to tell the difference.

so, what was once just a set of memorized verses and litanies started to become thorns in my side. i've wrestled with God to the very depths, and i was extremely furious when my diagnosis changed to bipolar disorder. sure, it explained my deep, dark lows, as well as my frenzied ability to write two papers in two days, but i was angry with Him. since i was young, i'd seriously prided myself on my intellectual abilities, but it seemed that my illness rendered that moot. i was upset because it seemed that my intellect was targeted. i was distraught because i became too emotional to be involved in all of my activities. i was enraged because it took away my ability to handle and participate in track and field, something i'd done for nine years.

most of all, i was terrified of what was happening to me.

the amazing thing that i've learned in my struggles with God is that these times call us to open up and depend on Him. depression makes you think that something is very wrong with you, that you are unworthy of any kindness or even recognition. so you withdraw and even deny yourself anyone else's attempts to help you. but He doesn't let go. and after i'd exhausted myself with yelling and sobbing and fighting, i had nothing left but to let Him in. so now i know what it means to be grateful to
and accepted and loved by God. i don't think i would have truly understood that had i not been through the first years of my illness.

i still don't know what all of this is about. and sometimes it's very hard to describe to my friends and family what it is to own the illusion of the jekyl and hyde (sp?) abomination. but i think what it can do is comfort others who are in the same situation; maybe they too can know grace and hope. and maybe people who do not have this illness can learn about it, at least a little, and can learn to exercise compassion and a willingness to sit with an afflicted friend.

i may not be able to express it so well, but my faith and my church are essential to and first in my life. Second Pres. really is my second family.

*oh no you di-int!!!*

right now, matt's in korea. we miss matt. anyway, he's the only one i know who can do the grabby joke and not get decked. this picture heralds all the way from 1998, his freshman (my sophomore) year at UMBC. and once i get the 2000 pic scanned, you'll see matt in his polyester liesure suit finest. and me dressed as a disco ball. lovely.

thank you, annie liebowitz. :)

more pix--grad student halloween, 2004

so you thought academics were stiff nerds. suckers! these fabulous people are exactly that--fabulous. what is jess's costume? can you guess? i'll give you a hint--anyone who was 5 in the 80s and loved little plastic horses... no? haven't you ever heard of MY LITTLE FREAKIN PONIES?!!! philistine...









and here's groucho mike marx. marks? marx? i have no idea. anyway, mike loves henry james. he must be drunk.











this is margaret, dressed as some little girl from a book about little girls. she wore bloomers. and showed them to us. with her is karen, dressed as the *green-eyed monster*. can ya guess what that's from? i'll give you a hint--it's a Shakespeare reference. from a play with a black dude, a virgin and a hell-bent bastard. still nothing??? Othello, you. and, you get 10 bonus points if you knew that the green-eyed monster is jealousy personified. not only do we scholars know how to party (read: get drunk really fast and have no clue what we're doing), but we also have very intellectual costumes. awesome.




and lastly, with no shame at all, here's me, with my amateur attempt at a costume. i don't even remember what i was supposed to be. any clues? and no, the streamers were not part of the original costume.

sleeplessness and family

so once again, i can't sleep. i think it's because i watched "super troopers" with court and wadassie. we were up late laughing, and so now i'm wide awake. oh, and i can't get people off my mind. that happens with me. and i've got songs in my head. hopefully this will all go away so that i can be awake for the early service later this morning. where i have to sing. and be sort of a worship leader. eep.


here is my brother Geoff and his family, in a picture from Benicio's 2nd birthday. we all went to see Polar Express, and then we ate lunch in a train. seriously. we really did. anyway, from L to R, it's Geoff, Manny Day, Benicio and Maria. if i had to say, i'd think that Manny is a lot like my mom, in that, already at age 4, he's very musical. Benicio is like my dad because he's crazy about trains. Geoff is an artist and a teacher, and his animation is amazing. Maria is an at-home mom who writes poetry and teaches a Bradley class (a birthing method).



this is my cousin Rachel and my grandpa (my mom's dad). although she looks all grown up and mature now, just ask Rachel about our little fashion show at the beach. :) and grandpa is amazing--at 86, he volunteers at hospice each week, is active in his church in FLA and takes good long walks every morning. oh, and ten years ago, he got his LPN certification and worked as a nurse in a nursing home. this is after being a Navy man, teaching at a trade school and climbing around on roofs, helping my uncle with construction. amazing.

there will be more to come with my mom, and hopefully at some point i'll have a picture of her mom scanned and posted. i'll also try to get courtney, steve "bo flex" handy, matt-a-tat molter, laura, kate, marc, samy, val and jody and ed and jess and... stay tuned...

more family

this is my dad and his parents. they're awesome. grandma and grandpa are both 86 and still independent and still spoiling their grandkids (that includes me) and great-grandkids. my grandfather, Donald R. Beatty, was an Army sergeant in WWII and was part of the forces that set up the beachheads before the Allied armies invaded Italy. he saw some pretty hellish stuff. when he got back, he worked for bethlehem steel as a photographer. now that he's retired, he's a gadget geek and loves his computer.

grandma, Millie L. Beatty, grew up in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma and survived the great depression. she and her parents and two brothers lived in a tent for a good long while. she's great because she has taught me so much about my family. her maternal grandmother (my great-great-grandmother) was a Cherokee named Six Killer. she also helped my grandfather write a history of the beatty family, and while we don't have anything more than oral evidence to corroborate (sp?) it, we have reason to believe that our line of beattys has been in the U.S. since Revolutionary times.

and then there's my dad, Donald E. Beatty. none of this junior or beatty II stuff for him. he's retired army national guard, having been a helicopter pilot for YEARS. he's a vietnam vet, and i've been privileged to share some of his stories and ceremonies and everything. at this point, he's loving his roles as church trustee president, air museum docent, and grandpa and dad. he also gets his honey-do list and helps mom out a lot.

it's one of those situations where i love my family and absolutely am so lucky to have them.

dad and nici

this is my dad and Benicio. my dad's an awesome grandfather--he's hilarious with little kids. and Benicio. i love that kid. i have the best nephews ever. and you thought yours were awesome. :)

i want one.

http://www.pontiac.com/g6/index.jsp

yummy.
:)

wtf?

that helicopter crash in afghanistan really freaked me out. there was the strong possibility that a friend of mine was there, and i hoped to God that he wasn't. thankfully, he wasn't, but it was a big blow to him and his community. i have a high regard for those who will put their lives on the line so that we can continue to have the liberties that are singular to our country. and for him to do what he does, i respect him quite a lot.

and then there's the london bombing yesterday. i was there a year ago, at a conference where i delivered a paper on 9/11. one of my listeners asked how the entire country could be so traumatized over something that happened only in three locales. and now, what a gross and disgusting irony.

the lady and i didn't stay in touch, and i can only wonder what she's going through now. it doesn't matter that the scales of the attacks are different. what does matter is that it really pisses me off. it's plain that every generation experiences something that really fucks up their world--that's no newsflash. but i just can't wrap my mind around it. i'm sitting in my living room, having the great things that i have, and there are people out there just like me getting blown to pieces just for riding the wrong double-decker bus.

i'm not naive. we're an incredibly violent species. but i find the mixture of the glorious and the profane very disconcerting. and somewhere in there, there's room for mercy and grace. this is where it's very easy to get cynical and angry. but i'm no nihilist either. we do have our redemption. i see it in my nephew Manny. he was born only two months before 9/11, and that day, i remember being terrified for him because of the world that he was going to grow up in. but his tiny fingers, bright little face and baby growls--he was the one who soothed me. i really believe that Christ gives us the ability to embody grace for each other, and that, however hard it may be to see and believe, is our victory. our potential to receive and live in that grace undermines everything these people do.

and thanks to those who fight to give that grace. we all miss you.