of Water

I knew the 40 days of Lent would be difficult. I really love carbonated drinks, and so I do drink a lot of soda day to day. I also will drink coffee and alcohol socially.

In fact, I love soda so much I have a glass bottle collection from all the international carbonated beverages I pick up at international food stores and on travels through the country.

I knew that choosing to only drink water would be mildly distasteful to me: I also absolutely hate the chlorinated taste of public water. And I drink bottled water as little as possible due to the waste of resources/energy involved in its production – besides the fact that it’s often tap water from elsewhere – I might as well drink my own! (Needless to say I am often dehydrated by the mere finickiness I exhibit in beverage choice.)

Plus, I had decided to only drink the water available to me – so no bottled water from the store and no club soda. I found out that my workplace has its own well water, and that I like drinking it out of a metal bottle. I also found out that I don’t taste the chlorine as much in the public water in my house if I’m really thirsty and gulp it down without smelling it. Otherwise, I have to draw some water and then let it sit to let the chlorine dissipate.

Physical side effects? Although in the past I had fooled myself into thinking I was not truly addicted to soda and tea, I did have a few headaches in the first week or so.

Really tempted? Yes, but despite the taunting of the half-finished juice container, the chilling beers and champagne each time I opened my refrigerator, and the faint call of my name from the Starbucks counter each time I was in Target, I drank only water.

The tally of beverages given up did become harder to maintain because I had to answer certain questions, like how do you tally a tea offered to you by your friend, or a mug of coffee offered by your brother at his house? I set monetary values on those declined beverages and was very meticulous for the first three to four weeks. But as time went by, it was less difficult to choose water over soda/coffee/tea/alcohol and so the number of drinks I was passing over for water simultaneously declined. So if I was not so good at tallying my drinks denied, a rough extrapolation from the first three-four weeks gave me a good idea of what to give.

Consequences? I was an inner whiner – two weeks in, I was wondering what the purpose was of this daily decision to only drink water, in fact, I even began to question the whole idea of Lenten devotion. But being stubborn, I stuck with it. I knew it had to be better for my body than all the sugar and caffeine I’d been loading it with. And although I felt like a wimp, being cheated by the fast food industry when ordering and paying for tap water instead of a refillable soda at a burger/chicken/sandwich joint, I also did not act like a fool on March 17, but was the DD.

Plus, the idea of fasting was one I really struggled with during those 40 days. I just didn’t get it! Why deny myself?, I asked. Not in the selfish, I-deserve-better way, but more like, what is the purpose, other than a really unique way to contribute to an important cause? I puzzled over it with every drink I denied. I grew frustrated and began to feel alone, in the wilderness. I began to feel like I wasn’t supported by anyone in particular – while simultaneously telling myself ‘that is ridiculous, you’re surrounded by a huge number of supportive people – at church, by your family, your friends at work, and your roommate!’ So eventually I let it go, deciding to cling to God, His love, and the knowledge that He is constant (solid facts). This continued until Easter, when the church celebrated the greatest gift God ever gave us. With the end of my fast, I let go of the puzzle and other things began to take over my life – a car in the shop, stomach ulcers, social events, and general housework. Until today, when everything clicked into place with this morning’s old testament reading from Isaiah!

Isaiah 58:5-8 -

5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness [a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Whoa! God’s actually kinda anti-fasting in a fasting-for-appearances,-or-mere-self-denial-type way! How can you praise God through causing yourself misery? Yes, I do understand that there are times and seasons for self-denial and repentance, and you can meet God there. But that wasn’t the purpose of this effort. That wasn’t where I was trying to go – I was trying to raise money and testing myself a little, and I was feeling all-around purposeless.

Aha! Through this verse it is easy for me to see that the result was the purpose for the fast, that aiding others is a true fast, and favorable to God. And that’s only part of what I learned today! But I’ll continue with that in the next post, because I want to finish debriefing on the 40 days of water…

I would also like to say that these 40 days have also been a real accomplishment for me – by giving me a reason to talk about my faith, but more importantly, the desperate need that can be so easily met by giving people. Though typically outgoing, I am not a confident person and am nearly afraid to be non-PC when talking about my own faith; for me, my passion regarding world thirst, hunger, and social justice is all bound up in my faith and this gave me the opportunity to educate others on world needs and more fully, socially, embrace my own beliefs.

The visual facts that were created by popesaintvictor, were amazing. The combination of their interesting design and compelling factual nature were put to use by incorporating them into my slideshow desktop (Windows 7). Coworkers would ask, “what’s that?” when a part of it showed on my screen beneath my work, and I would cycle through the facts to date, giving me an opening to talk about what’s really going on in the world, outside our town, state, or country, and what a pull unimproved water conditions in lesser developed countries has on my heart – with solid facts and honest pictures.

That was my secret mission – something that seemed at first a complex mass of goals, but was really only three: 1) educate others about humanity’s needs, 2) to not deny my faith but admit that this was my Lenten devotion, and 3) to be very careful that my declaration to renounce all beverages other than water and the accompanying tallying and donating, did not develop into a boasting. Always cautiously gauging the other’s reaction, my effort was focused on primarily sharing a fact or more about the water needs around the world, and then if time, friendship, or interest allowed, connecting it to my Lenten devotion and from there noting that mere sacrifice of a luxury, while certainly something, might be better replaced by taking up something affirming– hence the tallying and donation.

All in all, a good experiment, a happy donation, and a wonderful gorging on soda and coffee during the usual familial Easter celebrations!

Ok, raise your hand if you are tired of seeing hundreds of comments – all spam, chock a block with the blue text of hyperlinks – on this site.

(Raising hand, looking around in the silence.) Oh yeah, right. When I delete all the comments it makes it painfully clear how few people actually look at, and even less comment on, this site.

Oh well.

I have decided to keep a tight rein on how quickly comments are published because I’m tired of seeing school, sex, insurance, and Rx spam on my site. It’s yucky and I am not willing to waste either time or ingenuity in coming up with ways to block it.

If you run into a problem where you’re not seeing your comment in a timely manner or when you ask me (recommend methods: facebook or email, because if you’re reading this you probably actually know me) I say “what? I never saw that” repeatedly, make sure I know about it. Otherwise you’re getting batch tossed with the spammers.

Period, like the remainder.

I’ve just had a flashback to my days of my internship at PAXR and sane, awake me would like it duly noted that I should never listen to my personal Sleepy Carl.

As my coworker just pointed out, Birbig’s Sleepy Carl asks him to do fun dreamy things – a ferris wheel made of pizza! – with small negative side effects – miss class; while my own S.C. asks me to do very dangerous things. Case in point: during the long early a.m. Monday drives down to PAXR he would loudly ask, “Why stay awake through this long light and line of cars when you can take naps at red lights!”

Sleepy Carl!

He is just so persistant! I really need to evict him. He convinces me to stay in bed later than I should and forget the reasons I set my alarm earlier than usual; and then on days where sane me gets myself out of bed despite S.C.’s grumbling, S.C. is grouchier than usual and sticks around for a full-on 20 min through my shower and while I’m shampooing he asks, “Why are you here, in the shower, when you could be sleeping, in your bed?” And all I can do is mumble, “Shut up, Sleepy Carl.” What a pain.

And since you really can’t wait any more, here are the most popular songs, and the number of times they were listed:
Animal Collective – My Girls (17)
Bat for Lashes – Daniel (12)
*Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks (11)
*Phoenix – Lisztomania (11)
Phoenix – 1901 (11)
Bon Iver – Blood Bank (8)

*TRULY EXCELLENT SONGS!

after which point, there are multiple songs for 7 occurrences on. Oh, what’s that? You want to see what those are, too? Ok, I’ll post the 7x, 6x, and 5x mentioned.

7
Atlas Sound feat. Noah Lennox – Walkabout
Camera Obscura – French Navy
Dirty Projectors – Stillness is the Move
Here We Go Magic – Fangela
Neko Case – People Got A Lotta Nerve

6
The Big Pink – Dominos
Girls – Hellhole Ratrace
Girls – Lust for Life
Japandroids – Young Hearts Spark Fire
Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
Miike Snow – Animal
Volcano Choir – Island, IS

5
The Avett Brothers – I And Love And You
Dirty Projectors and David Byrne – Knotty Pine
Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
Metric – Help, I’m Alive
Neko Case – This Tornado Loves You
Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer
Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings
Real Estate – Beach Comber

I’ll get back to you on my personal favs in a week or two. I’ve got to listen to it all first, of course.

I don’t know if you know this, but I am a musicphile. fa realz. I’ll listen to just about anything once and I sincerely believe that if it’s good, one can appreciate it even if they can’t love it. I think everyone has a genre that they live in, that feels like home. I know I have a couple, depending on the time of year and the current state of affairs in my life, the pace I’m moving at, etc.

Needless to say, I spend probably 75-90% of my day listening to music. In fact it can be borderline agonizing to be denied access to my ‘jamz’. (Read: Occasionaly at work.)

Unless I’m outside doing some outdoorsy-type thing. That might have to be the one exception. When I’m outside in a National Park, doing my photography, hiking and enjoying the landscape, music is just outside of that world. I might have an unfortunate ohrwurm at the moment, but I’ll try to ignore it.

Anyways, I am occasionally afraid for the state of my hearing (long-term) ’cause when it hits me, I have to turn it up and dance. Probably similar to most young punks my age. Luckily when I did a hearing test last year as part of a pre-employment physical the technician said I had really good hearing. I guess music has only served to tune my ears? I don’t know.

Back to the present. I explain the draw that music has for me so that you can better understand the ridiculous project I have recently undertaken. What I am working on is not scientific (horror of horrors!) but it is incredibly nonsensical out of context.

In my very limited amount of free time I have sifted through a very random, shotgun sample of music blogs, both mainstream and indie, well-known and barely functioning, industry-based and fan-based, genre-based and self-elected-sommelier-de-musique types, to find their own lists of the top/best songs of 2009. All of which, of course, use completely different criteria in generating their lists. Although the scientific part of me is shaking its head at the this completely non-statistical approach, the other, very optimistic side of me exclaims, “Ah, yes – but cream rises to the top!” And in a way, it has. To satisfy the scientific, musicphile, and attention-to-detail-hard-worker parts of myself I have listed below the sampling of sites I retrieved lists from (in order to repeat or improve the analysis) with the songs and artists that have truly risen to the top (because I like to share, too).

2009 RS songs
wtmd Top 89 Songs of 2009
heartachewithhardwork Top 40 songs of 2009
gorilla vs. bear’s songs of 2009
DAVID’S TOP 40 of 2009 (same site as gvb)
SPIN The 20 Best Songs of 2009
Said the Gramophone Best Songs of 2009
musicforants.com 50 Songs of 2009
startlingmoniker Top 12 Best Happy Neat-O List of 2009
THe musIc FILe Editors’ Picks Top Ten Covers Of 2009
THe musIc FILe Editors’ Picks Best Songs Of 2009
b3science top 40 tracks of 2009
Filles Sourires Best of the Year List
betterPropaganda Favorite Tracks of 2009
kickinthepeanuts (including the whole gang)
faronheit.blogspot.com top 50 (this one has separate posts to draw out the anticipation)
Mon Khmer’s Top 10 Songs of 2009
North Highlands’ Best Releases of 2009
Pterodactyl’s Top 10 2009 (in no particular order)
Goes Cube Best of ’09
A Sunny Day In Glasgow Top 10 Songs of 2009
Copycat’s Top 20 2009
Phil Retrospector’s TOP 20 2009
Simon Iddol’s TOP 20 2009 (same site)
Pitchfork’s Top 15 Songs Of 2009 … So Far
Pitchfork Top 100 Tracks of 2009 – yeah, I know. I TOLD you it was unscientific!
Stereogum’s 50 Most Downloaded mp3s of 2009
Esquire’s 50 Songs Every Man Should Be Listening To
Spinner best songs of 2009
culture bully top songs of 2009 [multiple lists]
NPR All Songs Considered Poll Results: The Best Music of 2009 (So Far)
Best Songs of 2009 rollogrady.com
DiS Editor’s Top 40 Songs of 2009 (Drowned in Sound)

Wow. Ok. That list is wicked weird. I don’t usually go to very many of those sites, this was a big experiment in randomness! For cereal, I’m a little worried I won’t get ‘cream’y songs. Fingers are crossed.

« Previous PageNext Page »

  • I'm following