this is why i love tennessee

rock island state park. an hour and a half away, perfect for a weekend getaway.

Ladies, don't know how to break-up?

The following is Article 1 in a series of blogs titled "Dr. Dean's Advice." More to follow, so check back often.

Okay ladies, let's face it. Most of you are too sweet for your own good. The most common problem I notice in ladies is the difficulty they have in ending relationships.

Here's the prevalent scenario: girl and guy date for a certain period of time, usually not very long, and the girl realizes that he's not the one for her. He hasn't necessarily done anything wrong (in some cases he has, which is even more ridiculous for not breaking it off), so she doesn't want to be "mean" in being up front with him that it's over. She dances around the issue hoping that he will take the hint.

Here's the problem: males are meant to pursue. Males are the hunter, we're supposed to chase and try until we realize that it's not going to work. Coming to that realization is difficult because of games such as "playing hard to get" and the fact that when you thought you ended things, you didn't give any concrete reasons.
Guys take any open door -- any glimmer of a possibility -- to mean that there's still a chance. Guys are simple. We chase, we're rejected, we move on. Until we get that rejection we are going to chase. We're not quitters. That's wimpy.

The best thing that you ladies can do is be up front and honest. Guys respect that. This is NOT the time to list reasons -- those only lead to arguments. Simply state that it didn't work and that there's not a chance that you'll change your mind. He'll get over it, and he'll move on. If he's a stand up guy and you were friends before, he'll be able to be your friend again with time. But this is not something for you to worry about. He very well may choose to disassociate himself with you because it hurt, but that's okay too. You gave him a fighting shot like he deserved.

Look at it this way. You're not being "mean" is in turn unfair to him because he thinks there's still a chance. He's wasting his time, energy, and emotions on you holding onto that slim chance. If you truly END it when you know you should, he will recover much sooner because you've cut short the drawn-out misery.

Honesty is the best policy. Just like a can of worms that follows a lie, by not definitively telling a guy that it's over, you've got a mess on your hands. You know what the right thing to do is, you just don't know the gentlest way to go about doing it. When all is said and done, being blunt and honest is the best way of going about it. It will sting at first, but in the end, he will respect you.

no more 3x5s

i'm worn out. i came home from the beach to find the apartment i'm moving out of full of water. the laundry room, half the kitchen, and a whole lot of ceiling and drywall were waterlogged and starting to grow mold. thankfully i only had a few things left there and none of my stuff was wet or growing mold like the walls. the emergency maintenance man who was on duty said that when people move out they tend to leave their washer connections still turned on... how does that work? i thought when you unhooked the hoses it had to be off or you'd get sprayed. i don't understand. this same smart maintenance man dumped the water from his shop-vac down my garbage disposal drain. not sure what was in it from the last time he used it, but when i ran the disposal it made an awful racket and quit working all together. either he's dumb or lazy, either way, i just don't understand.

i pulled my camera out a whopping one time at camp -- to take group photos of the cabins during traditional week. didn't touch it for a church group, and didn't touch it at the beach. it wasn't that there weren't things to take pictures of, i just didn't feel it. i was stressed and busy, and by the time i got to the beach, all i felt like doing were crossword puzzles and reading about the new gm trucks. megan's making me bring it to iowa for the cultural experience i'm going to gain. i'm pretty well practiced up on the lingo -

pop = coke
regular tea = unsweet
farmers market = the place to go on saturday morning
corn = everywhere (but they don't eat grits, weirdos)

so since i didn't take pictures here's the highlights of the past week:
-montgomery, al looking as i would have imagined it to look during the 1960s, except with every kind of car you could imagine on 22s. megan had never seen anything like it. i welcomed her to the dirty south.

-buddy (lesley's horse of a yellow lab) stretching out across 2 boogie boards because he was too tired from swimming

-blue deciding he'd rather run along the beach and meet people than listen to me

-duke (justin's mess of a dog) choosing to dig the sand out from under our chairs rather than go anywhere near the water

-duke staying away from justin because he didn't want to carried back into the water

-sting rays, jellyfish, and dolphins

- our little motorcycle gang on adly fox scooters. i'm not sure which was funnier - eric riding off the road or lesley (trying to drive with justin on the back) riding off the road

-us 3 boys spending hours looking for a wal-mart and finding the perfect hawaiian shirts to wear for about... 10 whole minutes

-looking at the stars/fireworks from the roof of the house we rented

-sweating through a date with megan with a waitress who didn't seem to understand that we needed drink refills in order to be able to swallow the food

-spending a week with my family without having to plan what everyone was going to do or needed to do in order for the week to run smoothly

conformity and camp

when i'm in nashville, i feel like a country boy. everyone's so proper and affluent and it's so important to have a facade of perfection. when i'm in the mountains, i feel like a city slicker. it's all about being rough and raw and getting dirty and working hard. it's amazing how natural it is for us to conform to our environments and those around us. i missed my guns when i was at camp, even though i haven't touched them since last year. i wanted a truck to navigate the rocky roads. i wanted a little green ticket with a trout stamp, a pole and some salmon eggs to try my luck with the rainbows. the bugs used to bother me in nashville, but i spent a night under the stars knocking off spiders and swatting mosquitoes feeling comfortable and relaxed. i've never been one to fit in with a clique though--i'm too much of a loner, too weird i guess.

my heart wasn't in camp this year. we had the youngest staff we've ever had. they did great, the kids stayed safe and had fun, but i felt like i had to do a lot of managing on my part. i didn't enjoy it like i usually do. it's time for me to pursue other things. i need to start grad school, buy a house, and basically settle down to make the nashville area home. the summer is going to be the best time for me to do those things. levoy seemed pretty sad when i told him this would be my last summer at winfield, but i think he understood. they've been so great to me and i know i'll miss it.

poor pup, orphans and widows

blue's as sick as he's ever been, so i'm glad i'm here to take him out often. he's got a bad habit of licking things that smell interesting to him, including things that make him sick. he's got it coming out both ends and just curls up into a ball when he's not. ah the joys of pet ownership.

i woke up at about 5:30 a.m. a couple of nights ago with a melody and song idea in my head. blame it on God or the spider bite, but i had to get up and write it. i finished it really quickly, let me know what you think.


orphans and widows

can't you hear them crying in africa
where they're starving and scraping just to have enough
where they're longing just to have necessities
that have never been a cause of concern for you and me
they've got orphans whose parents died from AIDS
they've got widows from the wars our diamonds made

things aren't much better in america
where we're slaves to pleasure and we just can't get enough
we've forgotten how to work and what it means to be a man
we're so consumed with status we lost our direction
we've got orphans whose parents never died
we've got widows whose husbands live a lie

and i see it almost every single day
a workaholic father can't push himself away
his drink of choice is the money that he makes
while his family suffers from the choices that he's made
when he gets home his orphans are all asleep
he wakes his widowed wife with a kiss on the cheek

so sell your mansion, sell your s.u.v.
work a 40 hour job and mend your family
have a meal at the table, all grab hands and pray
to thank God for what he's given you today

you can't push your camel through the eye of a needle
you've got to lose some baggage

chiggers and spiders and bears

as summer comes to nashville i find myself covered in red bumps. i've been getting bit by chiggers on a pretty regular basis for about 3 weeks now. you'd think i'd spray on some bug spray by now, but i haven't.

a few mornings ago i woke up with a new bite. it didn't itch, and it was hard to the touch. i thought it was interesting, but didn't think much of it. that afternoon i was doing laundry. when i pulled my sheets off my bed a dead spider fell out. i picked it up by the leg and sure enough, it had an upside down violin on its head. i called my doctor and they just told me to ice it and watch it for any changes including necrotic tissue. so far so good, i think it's shrinking now. and to think i get bit in my apartment rather than at camp where i've known of a few people to get bit.



i found another dead one yesterday when i was digging through the mountain of laundry. i'm a little freaked out and considering not being such a slob. i'm ready to get rid of a whole bunch of stuff i never use (and ask the apt complex what kind of pest control they use). it's funny how every single crevice and crack becomes obvious when you know what can be hiding in it. check your sheets before you climb in!

on a happier note, megan, blue and i headed east to the smokies to go camping with my family. it was a great trip, and the most fun i've had there in a few years. my little cousins are growing up fast. i discovered how out of shape i am after hiking 6 miles over roots and rocks and barely being able to walk the next day. getting old i guess.

rites of spring

i've never been a fan of music festivals. i bought a weekend pass for music midtown one year and just didn't enjoy it much at all. it was hot, it was crowded, and in crowds there always seems to be an overabundance of stupid people. and they all seem to find their way to me. so i hear about a little thing at vandy called rites of spring. i figure these little bands and songwriters will attract a smart crowd of folks who are there for the music. i mean, vandy kids are smart right? so they'll be there for the music.

megan and i got there a little after 6 because i wanted to hear brett dennen. he was good, nothing special, just sang his songs and wished everyone a happy 4/20 and earth day. a band from athens called the whigs came out and right away i was disappointed. the guy's singing kinda sounded like ryan adams, except he was about a quarter of a step flat... the whole set. the guitars sounded horrible, it was just a mess, painful at times. after them came keller williams. keller williams is very very similar to tim reynolds if you've ever seen him when he's not with dave. i enjoyed it. he had a little sampling doohickey set up so he could play bass, and 2 guitars by looping it. it sounded good. nerdy, but good.

it was about keller william's time when the vandy kids started to get obnoxious. i don't understand how people can pay $30 for a one-night pass to stand around talking. the talking was so loud at one point i had a hard time hearing the lyrics to songs that i knew. they stepped on feet, stepped on the cooler, knocked around the chairs... not fun.

drive-by truckers put on an amazing show but no one appreciated it. i hope the folks crammed up front were showing them more love than the majority of the folks around us. the only way it could have been better was if they played more off decoration day, especially "outfit."

wolfmother is great live so go see them if you ever get a chance. they had a big big sound for a 3 piece band. good stuff.

yesterday we went back, and luckily the 3 acts i wanted to see were all in a row. rocco deluca blew my mind. the album is great, but that boy is a force live. i've never seen anyone play a dobro like that and i never will. amos lee was pretty boring and didn't even play "shout out loud" which i'm guessing has been the biggest or second biggest hit of his career. mat kearney was great though. it's cool to see how much he's grown since i saw him last time. the big vh1 tour must have helped. he had a bigger band this time around so that probably helped.

i guess i'm getting jaded when it comes to concerts. i compare everyone to my favorite shows, and if they don't measure up i'm not impressed. favorite shows ever you ask?
-my first dave show... '98
-cowboy mouth - georgia theatre '99?
-jump, little children - "last" athens show - georgia theatre '05
-ben harper - classic center '05

frisbee + dog

eric.is.talented

my brother wanted pics of blue in action, and he came up with this after deciding blue looked like he was the deer on the john deere logo. the boy's good.


rocco deluca's bringin' jeff buckley back from the dead... i hope to see him live in less than 2 weeks!

cold + wet + lightning

weather report: severe storms, lightning, wind, hail.

what genius thing do megan and i do? meet jason, whitney, and erin for bbq in downtown nashville. where do we park? close as we can, which happens to be about 5 or 6 blocks away due to the predators game. so we're wrapping up dinner, filling out credit card slips, and then we notice it starts raining. and the raining only lasts for about 30 seconds, then it turns to a downpour.

now when i say downpour, i'm not talking big summer raindrops falling straight down. no, this is forrest gump "rain that flew in sideways. and sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath." even if we'd had an umbrella it wouldn't have done much good. and we'd seen the radar before we left so we knew it wasn't going to let up any time soon. so we ran for it.

i've never ran so far in sandals. megan's flip flops maybe lasted a block, and the first river (i mean street) that we crossed claimed one of them. she caught it before it got washed away, but she went barefoot after that. lightning was flashing overhead, and cars were stopping at green lights to let us cross out of pity. at that point there's no sense in trying to maintain any dignity. all you can do is laugh at the water dripping off your hat bill while tourists stare and yell at you from the honky tonks on broadway, the windows of the wild horse saloon, and the massive tour buses along 2nd avenue. that was the coldest and wettest i've been since a canoe trip down the broad river in rainy weather at age 11.

it was great seeing you guys. next time, let's go someplace with a parking lot.

she don't tell me to

megan dragged me to church this morning. i can't remember the last time i did that.

more cultural learnings

so this week has been interesting. on wednesday, i had training in brentwood, and holy cow there are some humongous houses out there. i saw one and thought for sure it was like a nice country club clubhouse. no, someone lives there. it has its own pool and tennis court. so yeah, i don't know how anyone has that much money or how they spend that much on a house.

and then today i went with half of the 3rd grade on a field trip to the country music hall of fame. they have a ray charles exhibit there, complete with quite possibly the most ironic thing i've seen in a while: a braille playboy. that's right. my group's chaperones were all dads so we got a big kick out of it. one dad said "that'd be the only playboy my wife would let me read." another said "i guess he had to read it for the articles."

and tonight i've been fascinated with wart freezing stuff. if it wasn't so dang expensive, i might see how deep i could freeze a grape or something.

i'm a dork and need to go to sleep.

christie's dad died tuesday night, so megan and i are leaving right after school to go to the visitation. sad stuff.

new song - baby back

"baby back"
well you ain't a cowgirl but you sure look corn-fed
when you walk by it does a number on my head
in your tight jeans and my old faded baseball cap
then you looked me in the eye and you told me you want me
i stared right back and i told you you're crazy
girls like you never ever call me baby back

but who am i to question
this infatuation
this amazing situation
please don't pinch me when you call me baby back

well a girl like you sounds too good to be true
never dreamed i'd get along with someone like we do
never had a connection quite like this and that's a fact
i find myself stumbling over the words that i say
never met someone who makes me feel quite this way
please don't ever stop calling me baby back

i'm not gonna question
this infatuation
this amazing situation
please don't pinch me when you call me baby back

i'm not gonna question
this infatuation
this amazing situation
please don't pinch me when you call me baby back

i won't wake up when you call me baby back

another travelin' song

so it's spring break and i'm being a bum and haven't even packed to go home yet. i'll probably go tomorrow. all i've done is indulge myself in music and it feels great. i wrote a new song and half of 2 others which you'll get to check out on myspace soon.

i've been experiencing mute math, because that's what you do with them. you don't listen. they take you places. i love that. thanks jb.

i just bought bright eyes tickets (ryman may 19th)!

hey there spring break

definitely going to enjoy the next week of doing NOTHING.

self deprication

holy cow it's funny to look back on how dumb i used to be. how dumb i still am. i've been struggling with the same things since i started "blogging" on livejournal. i still complained about girls, sin, and pursuing my music dreams. i did write some good song lyrics though. it's too bad i can't remember the guitar parts or melodies.

i hope i'm more humble than i used to be. i said some pretty cocky stuff in those posts. maybe i miss that confidence. i'm sure a lot of it was to be funny, but you can't hear tone of voice in a blog.

i grew up a little when i got a xanga account. but i still had a lot of the same problems. it's fun to read about blue as a puppy.

borat comes out on dvd tomorrow. that's how i will spend my evening. =)

mitch hedberg

so i know i'm a nerd, but this guy's second only to bill cosby as far as funniest in my book. too bad drugs got in his way.

cathedrals

jay clifford is a genius. this song has been one of my favorites since i heard it back in high school. these guys were amazing live and it still saddens me that they never blew up, but i feel privileged to have seen them and been one of the many blown away by their music.



i need to get out and shoot some photos.

hide and seek

it's all part of the process...
myspace.com/dizzymusik

this could be the hardest thing i've ever done
walking away from you
i used to think you were the one
sometimes i still do

and i'm watching as my clock rolls over to a new day
and i know it's going to be another sleepless night
i can't be the very person that you want me to be
and i have to tell myself that this is right

you told me i was a fool
you'll never find another girl out there like me
and while that may be good and true
i'll leave it up to chance and see

and i'm watching as the days go by but don't get easy
but it's too late to take back what i've done now
and it's just the pain in my heart that's talking to me
i shouldn't listen to it anyhow

take my pain away
take my pain away
don't want to be afraid
take the pain away

i brought your stuff back to your house
it really did a number on me
part of me wanted you to come down
to end this game of hide and seek

now this is hockey

kehoe's brother was playing in an adult league hockey game in nasvhille friday night so we went to check it out. i felt like we were in some movie like fargo because it was just so culturally different from what i was used to.

the smell: it smelled like a locker room but worse. it was like they were harvesting sweat slime or something.

the crowd: redneck and proud. i haven't seen anybody but trendy folks since i moved up here, and for once i saw different types of people. there was the girl with hair to her butt who was crocheting, the girls with too much make-up smacking on their gum, and the men with trucker hats (who weren't wearing them to be cool) and beer guts.

the game: apparently pads are optional in this league because the guys on the other team were playing in their white-tees, and i don't mean the big ones the rappers wear. kehoe's brother's team had 2 girls on it, including the goalie who looked to be close to 50 years old the other girl was probably the best player on the team. the game was full of bad skating, even worse passing, and a lot of bloopers. the league doesn't allow fighting, so we were pleased to see the players ignore the rules as they fought and got kicked out one player after another. the good ol' country boys in their white tees lost badly in the end, but the game wasn't about the competition for me, it was the movie-like comedy.

longing for simplicity

you can only lay in bed so long before you realize that the nap you took when you got home from work isn't going to allow you to get any sleep any time soon. i was supposed to be in acworth at 10:00 in case they didn't need anne at work tonight, but instead i slept through the tv i set to wake me up, and decided to get up in the middle of the night to meet her when she gets off in the morning.

so i do what i do when i can't sleep: write half of a sad song, look through some photoblogs, and see what old friends are up to on facebook. caroline had updated her quotes (which i rarely read) but out of divine providence i noticed a quote by c.s. lewis:

Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature & art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas, if you simply tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. This principle runs through life from top to bottom. Give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

all night i've been thinking about how selfish and lazy i am. how concerned i am with how i'm perceived at work. how i worry about the wealthy people who live all around and whose kids i teach. how i let silly fears and anxieties cripple me from doing little things i need to do in work and life.

i used to think that as a creative person i had to create suffering for myself. i like the depressing intellectual movies and the hemingway novels. that greasy character who smoked cigarettes in scuffed up shoes was always cool. now i just long for a simple life. struggle will always be there. that's life. i yearn for structure and consistency -- a healthy and productive lifestyle. i don't know what that's like, but i want to be there. to be at a place in life where i don't care how i'm perceived because people see the real me and they love me for it. it's a place where i'm not trying to impress anyone, but i'm just living, being. i go to work, i do my job to the best of my ability, i don't let petty drama stir me up. this is the place where i quote ecclesiastes and remind myself that everything is vanity, a chasing of the wind.

funny, in the sun also rises, hemingway quotes ecclesiastes and that's where he got the title.