A Dilemma

As many newly married couples find out, our friends don't contact us much anymore. There is the unconscious attitude that the married folks are busy being with each other, and don't so much want to be bothered. I've been that way myself with friends who have gotten married, and even with friends who have had children. I assume they have too much on their plate to get together. In any case, that ends up leading to a dull social life for the newlyweds.

Part of the problem for me is that I'm a suburbanite now, and most of my friends are city folk. It takes an Act of Congress for either of us to get out to each other's location, and it makes for a bit of a problem. I have a lot of suburban Mensa friends, which is freakin' awesome, but since I used to be a city person, I'm not so used to hanging out with them. Time to change the social circle. Heidi has a lot of friends here in the 'burbs, but they are under the "no time" impression.

This is exacerbated by the fact that we don't have a church home yet. When I was at First Free, my social schedule tended to revolve around my serving schedule. I got a lot of interaction through that, and being the inrovert that I am, that was pretty good for me. Admittedly, I was serving 2-3 times a week, but that was good. I like serving, I like getting to know and hang out with people who serve in similar manners, and it just tends to be a lot of fun.

However, since we don't have a church home, we are relegated to one-shot serving opportunities, occasional local dinners, etc. These are good opportunities to get to know people, but it generally is a random assortment of people that are significantly different than us. I have no problem mixing with people that are different than me, but there's not much of an opportunity to really bond with them, and that's what's missing.

So here's the quandry: there are two churches that we're considering, and that makes for some interesting problems. I like to serve, and I like people (usually). At Willow Creek, it's a freakin' monstro church. There are serving opportunities galore, and it's a very art-friendly church. They have great music, great preaching, great drama, even great set design. However, we have attempted serving there, and A) people either don't care to get to know you or they are just difficult to connect; and B) they're REALLY disorganized. Both issues would likely be less of an issue in a production environment (sound or music or drama), but it's a bit of a challenge to get into those groups.

Harvest Bible Chapel is also a great church. It's a lot more organized, and Heidi has a lot of friends there, which would make it easier for me to get friendships going. The music is pretty good, the preaching is freakin' AMAZING, but they're not particularly creativity-friendly. Neither of us have really "served" there, but from what I understand, they are much better at administration and thinking through things before they're implemented. I could certainly do sound at that church, and I'd be pretty good with it (and they do have a really nice sound board). And doing that, I'd probably hook up with some good geeks. Their small groups are much easier to get into, and the church, while still pretty big, is of a much more manageable size. But it's still a church in which creativity is somewhat stifled, and that's a huge bug up my craw.

So that's where we stand right now. It's becoming more of an issue, because, for the first time in my adult life, I find myself sitting around and watching TV because we're bored (as opposed to watching a freakin' fantastic show that I would pay to see). Meh, I'm sure it'll come together eventually, but it's a bit of a quandry.

A Very Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all! We've finished with our Christmas festivities, having spent time with my family last weekend and time with Heidi's family yesterday. It's been a kind of stressful Christmas season, but there were two standout high points: The Willow Creek Christmas service was the most spectacular (not necessarily the most moving, but definitely the "biggest") church service I have ever attended. It was like a variety Cirque du Soleil/Comedy/Muscial show, with a Christmas message. People were saying it was going to be huge, and dang were they right! The second wonderful high point was Heidi cooking the bet prime rib I'd ever had just a few hours later.

It's always a pleasure to get together with people I don't normally get together with, and this was no exception. Heidi's brother's fiancee's parents are great people, and we don't really get a lot of chance to spend time with them because they are fairly far removed from our normal daily life. But yesterday was one of the days we got to, and that was freakin' awesome.

So in all, it was a good Christmastime. It had some significant crap to it, but I choose to dwell on the happy things.

Officially a Suburbanite

I like the city. I miss being in the city. Whenever I go into the city, I want to be there for a while. It's the vibe, the closeness, the depth of the place. Moving out to the suburbs was a change of pace, one that was not particularly welcome, but made a lot of sense at the time. I do love the home we've created, one that we couldn't have created in the city for twice what we're paying now, but it's in the 'burbs.

I figured I'd be able to maintain a tie to the city by staying at First Free, my church in the city. But the sense of community was difficult to maintain when I was living there, and being this far out, it would be borderline impossible. As if to say a semi-permanent "goodbye" to the city, we've officially decided to go to Willow Creek, a much more local-to-us church (and I believe it to be the largest church in the world as far a building square footage). It's a great church for creative people, but small group community is practically essential with a population greater than some towns. I'm hoping it will be less of a challenge to maintain friendships here; meh, we'll see what happens.

Fortunately, like most suburbanites, both Heidi and I like going into the city. Unfortunately, it's going to be a challenge to maintain the city-relationships I do have, as city folk tend to fear the suburbs. Two of the most adventurous people I know in the city both said, on separate occasions, "Here there be dragons" about areas pretty darn close to where I now live.

Sure, the best relationships will stay, because that what good friends do, but I expect to lose touch with a lot of people whose company I really enjoy. Admittedly, I'll be creating new relationships at the new place, but I guess I'm just not ready to let go of the old ones.

So my last real tie to the city is gone, one that I've had since I moved to the Chicago area. I'll miss it. A lot. Might as well buy an SUV now.

On the weekend

I've been trying to figure out how to write about the weekend, yet it's difficult as this weekend had a lot of stuff going on, and not much time to write. I'll hit some pertinent points. I'd like to expand on them, but there's that time thing.

Saturday:
I watched Cinderella Man while I was working on the Reception party favors. I remember a theatre was offering a refund of the ticket price if you didn't like the movie. It was that good, and that unnoticed. I still didn't see it in the theatres (more for time reasons than anything else), but thought it was funny that Russell Crowe was playing a boxer (due to the stories that he beat up paparazzi). But here's the thing about Russell Crowe: he's a phenomenal actor. I have never seen a Russell Crowe movie that I didn't like, and most of the ones I've seen, I love. This is one of them. It's the true story of Jim Braddock, a boxer in the depression. It's really about his struggle from one of the rising stars of boxing to complete failure at almost everything, to his struggle back into a lucrative, if dangerous, profession. I might write more about it later, we'll see.

Anyway, Heidi's bridal shower was Saturday, and I wasn't planning on going (as it's a chick thing), but it became expected of me. We got a good haul from the loot, and we ate a good meal. But it ended up being freakin' exhausting, which led to a nap.

In the evening we wanted to relax, so we sat down to watch Everything is Illuminated. I didn't even hear about this movie until it was on DVD, but it was really good. It's about Elijah Wood (wearing glasses that magnify is already freakin' enormous eyes), as Jonathan Somethingorother (not his actual name, but I can't remember it), a Jewish man who collects everything around him. He has a wall in his room where all the personal effects of his relatives are posted, but he doesn't really have anything of his grandfather (who passed away when Jonathan was very young) but an amber necklace. His grandmother, on her deathbed, gives him a picture of his grandfather, and another woman, who evidently helped them leave the Ukraine to come to America. He goes on a quest to the Ukraine to find out who this woman is, and is guided around by a very quirky grandfather and grandson. I can't go into much detail, but it's a brilliant film.

Sunday:
Went to church, our outdoor baptism service at Foster beach. The weather was the most beautiful I've seen in probably four years. The temperature was perfect, the sky had all these fluffy clouds where it wasn't pure blue, and there was a lot of wind. I like wind, a lot. I can't tell you why, but I love it. Eventually the wind died down, but it remained a perfect day. I had to stay down in the city, as we were playing D&D that evening, so I had a lot of time on my hands. I took an hour plus long walk along the Evanston path by the lake, and then went to see Little Miss Sunshine. I wanted to see The Illusionist, but it was playing an hour later.

Little Miss Sunshine was another fantastic movie, filled with unique and wonderful characters. There's a lot about this movie that I'm still processing, and I'll likely see it again several times, as there's a lot of depth that doesn't quite come across with the firt viewing, but most of the acting in it was complex and deep (Greg Kinnear doesn't do complex so well, but he's still a really charismatic presence). The evnts in the show are pretty predictable, once you understand what kind of movie it is, but the show isn't really about the events, it's more about the daughter in the show being the binding force in an otherwise dreadfully dysfunctional family.

D&D was a good time, hanging with some people that I don't get enough of a chance to be with. I really value my time with them, and we had some good fun times. A good D&D game should read like a good novel, and I think we're on a good plotline, which would read well.

So it was a successful, if busy, weekend.