Never forget, and figure out how you’re going to explain the memory.

It’s a working shop. No flash. No effort at decorating or slickness. The clothes hang all around, in various states of chalk mark and straight pin, claim sheets attached and the day’s work moved to the convenient end of the clothes bar nearest the primary sewing machine.

I am Thine, O Lord; I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me.
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.

The sign above the door, one down the row from the convenience store, says, “Lee’s Custom Tailors.” There are in fact no tailors in the shop apart from Mr. Lee himself. I walk in with an armful of clothes, ringing the bell hanging from the door bar; he looks at me quizzically, waiting for me to explain myself so that he doesn’t have to bring out his small but serviceable stock of English. When I hesitate, he gestures to my arm. “What you have?”

“Oh. Pants, a suit, and a dress.”

The next gesture is to the dressing room, one of two cubbies built against the wall and covered by a length of cotton print hanging from an old spring rod. Dust covers the Stick-Up air freshener. People must sweat when trying on clothes, or maybe the sheer number of them is no match for the limited atmosphere of the shop. “Go ahead.”

Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the power of grace divine.
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine.

I hear the sewing machine hum. Evidence of the obviously busy shop aside, I am depressed. Who would make a living sewing? I gloomily put on my first piece of maladjusted clothing. Poor Mr. Lee. Wonder how long he’s been in America.

O the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend–
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God
I commune as friend with friend!

I emerge looking sheepish, as I always look when I put on clothes other than what I wore on purpose that day. Mr. Lee looks me over, yanks the pants up by the waist to make sure I’m not wasting his time, that they really do need to be shortened, then gets down to the floor to turn them under. He looks at me in the mirror. “Yes?”

“Maybe just a little shorter?” I suggest.

“What? Shorter? No, no.” He gestures.

“Okay.”

This is Oregon; the pants will get wet, daily, if they are even an eighth of an inch too long, but Mr. Lee has hemmed my pants before. He’s the pro. He untwists my hips so he can measure accurately with his little chalk stand.

Back into the dressing room. Next misfit piece. I hear something besides the sewing machine. Mr. Lee is whistling. I recognize the tune.

Draw me nearer, nearer, blessèd Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessèd Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.

(Written in February. Posted now.)

Lack of posting is more to do with a consuming offline life. I’m at a crossroads and trying to figure out which way to go. Once I do, I’ll have a lot to say about whatever route I pick. Meanwhile, some unrelated (to that or to each other) lines:

This here blog is a must-read for anybody who loves TV: The Masked Scheduler.

I fired up a movie I TiVo’d a few weeks ago, The Ladykillers, thinking it was an old one, only to realize by the lighting and the stylization that it is Coen Brothers, 2004. Favorite part so far: Black gospel preacher “…and the Lord smote them. Y’all know what smote is? … It is GOING UPSIDE THE HEAD, because sometimes, brothers and sisters, that is the ONLY WAY.”

Leaving for Indiana tomorrow for a couple of weeks. It’s gonna be hot.

I can’t wait to take a photography class.

That is pretty much all, except that of Portland beers, I recommend Bridgeport IPA and find Full Sail Amber to be “meh.”

[The teacher] planned to base final exams on the Michael Moore film, “Sicko“.

A single conservative student objected and also says that her teacher called her a “teabagger” earlier in the year, during a different controversy. But what manages, incredibly, to bother me even more than the choice of movie and the public insult of a student by her teacher, is this:

…Blessman distributed to students in her Senior Literature and Composition class…

So for a Literature and Composition class, the final was … a movie.

The teacher should have been fired before anybody discovered she was pushing her odious political bias on her students. She should have been fired when it was discovered she is not a teacher of literature and composition. Good luck getting that done now.

Damn. Ballsy. So to speak.

I’m with His Instaness: iPhone on Verizon and I’m there.

Indiana, we’re proud of you.
We will fight for
The health bill rollback
And the freedom
of me and you.

Never daunted, we cannot falter
In the battle, we’re tried and true
Indiana, our Indiana,
Indiana, we’re proud of you.

As an organization, you are sucking the suck right now. You have called my house every night this week. Being perfectly able to read the words “political call” on my caller ID, I didn’t answer until tonight. Thus the calls got later and later until tonight’s came at 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night. So I picked it up just to stop the hounding. I didn’t actually say “Hello?” though. I waited to see if you would say anything. Your computer system is pretty good; it didn’t put a person through to me until I actually said something, to which your witty response was “Uh huh!”

Me: “Who’s calling, please?”

Female drone: “May I please speak to Anwyn?”

Me: “Speaking.”

Female drone: “Mrs. Anwyn, I’m calling on behalf of the Republican Party. Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican or a Democrat?”

Me: “I’m a Republican.”

Her: “Mrs. Anwyn, I’m very glad to hear that. This is a critical time right now for the blah blah blah Obama blah blah health care–”

Me: “I’m sorry–” This would have been followed by “but are you with the national Republican organization or the local one?” had you not HUNG UP the second the words “I’m sorry” were out of my mouth.

That’s right. YOU called ME and then HUNG UP when I wouldn’t go along with your script. You are not interested in me beyond my money. That’s just reality, but at least learn how to disguise it.

Republican Party, quit relying on idiots to represent you. Stop sucking the suck.

Watch it now. That is all.

Via Hot Air.

Instapundit writes up Honda’s new Advanced Light Jet for Popular Mechanics and mentions the likelihood of a new “air taxi” model to replace the airlines:

Although other efforts to build an on-demand air-taxi market at low cost have stalled with the current economic downturn, those efforts faced financial and technological problems that Honda expects to avoid, and by the time the HondaJets are rolling off the line at full speed, there’s a good chance that the economy will have recovered. So the air-taxi model—where you got to a website, enter your destination, and have a small jet swoop down to pick you up, possibly at a small business airport rather than a big one where parking and security hassles are greater—may well have a chance.

The food pantry at my church, named Casey’s Corner for the autistic boy who every week helps his father unload a truck full of food and supplies into the pantry, is a finalist for a $25,000 grant from Pepsi. If the pantry wins the grant, we will use it to install a walk-in cooler/freezer to store meat and other perishables and open the food pantry one more day per week, thus serving up to 1500 more people each year. Bonus: A walk-in will be significantly more energy-efficient than the consumer refrigerators we have in there now, thus saving the church overhead money that can then go directly to the food pantry or similar service ministries.

You could really help us by voting once a day between now and the end of March. There are at least a couple hundred finalists, so it’s not like we’re down to the top five or something, and we need every vote. Pepsi is doing a good thing–help us make it worth their while so that they will keep on. Please vote!

Update: Pepsi has a registration process attached to the means of voting, but it’s fairly painless and it looks like they won’t force emails on you. Hey, they have to get something out of it or they wouldn’t be doing it, right?

Update: If you don’t want to register with Pepsi and you have a Facebook account, you can vote through the Facebook account. Easy! Also, Casey’s Corner has already jumped from 169th in the running to 91st, which is awesome, but we need sustained voting over the month to put us in the top ten–the top ten will get the grants. Please do vote as often as it occurs to you. Thanks!

How many can fit in the Nerd Herder?

Pre-prefrontal-cortex Billy Joel, by the description:

Yes, that is Billy Joel, wearing fur pelts and posing with Small in a meat locker. And while such packaging might seem at best laughable, you ain’t experienced nuthin’ ’til you’ve heard the thing.

“Wonder Woman” kicks off the record, and we should be able to tell we’re in trouble, right from the get-go. A swirl of amplified wah-wah noise greets us, like a haze of pot smoke from an open van door. Out come the fur pelt-wearin’ Long Island Huns—Jon Small flailing around, beating anything he can find with his manly drum-clubs, and Joel coaxing noises from his organ rig, just like Jimi Hendrix, only without the sexiness or melodic intent. “Wonder Woman with your skin so fair!” Joel shouts. “Wonder Woman with your long, red hair! You have the velvet touch! You have what I want so much! My love is burnin’ fire! My need is my desire!”

It gets a lot worse from there. The prefrontal cortex, by the way, is “implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, decision making and moderating correct social behavior.[citation needed] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.” Goals such as creating a hit record and correct social behavior such as … none of what’s described in that album. The prosecution rests.

I also didn’t know that Billy Joel’s first wife was poached from his bandmate. Apparently he never really was any more normal than other Hollyweirds. Sigh.

H/t Daddyman.