The Writing Life

I had to throw last week in the scrap pile, as far as routine goes. I don’t know what I was thinking, jumping out of the gate like a race horse. Nothing was normal last week. Monday was a holiday, so I fell behind on Monday stuff. It was also the first week of the month, so I fell behind on first week of the month stuff. Ruthie started school, and her district likes to be all tricky right from the start, confusing me with delayed start times and no school on the second day.

Clearly there was no time to poor out my creative energy.

I ran from the shower once, dripping water all over the floor as I scrambled for my idea notebook – nothing but a towel between myself and the open windows. By the time I found it, the idea escaped my strainer brain and I shoved a chair in frustration.

I feel like a college frat boy who hasn’t had a lay since spring break at Daytona Beach – tense and jittery, on the prowl for opportunity, all filled up with something needing release.

I need a creative one night stand.

Better yet, I need a creative affair.

If I don’t rendezvous in a shady roadside motel soon to unload all this writing angst in my head, I think I may suffer a brain freeze.

The thing is, I can’t write at the dining room table anymore with the kids running around. I can’t steal an hour of writing while the kids nap. I mean I can, but you’ll get things like book reviews and recipes. I love writing those, but what I need to get out of my head are the trains of thought that are going somewhere. I need time and space to pick just the right word, to think straight, to connect tangible with transcendent.

I’m also learning it takes me a long time to crawl down into that well of concentration, to get into the mind space of creation. And once I’m down there, it takes me even longer to climb back out of the well again into real life. If someone pulls me out of the well before I’m ready, I’m grouchy and distracted, unable to check my mind back into reality.

(I read of this well of concentration on someone else’s blog, and it resonated with me. I’m sorry to say I can’t remember whose it was).

I don’t know where I’m going with this. It’s late, and I can’t afford the time it takes to wrap it up neatly with a bow. Maybe I’ll ask a question: how do you make time for the one thing you are passionate about, without neglecting all the “have to’s” in your week?

Book Review: Half-Assed, a weight-loss memoir

I met Jennette Fulda, author of Half-Assed, at the BlogHer conference in San Francisco. I attended a session titled Blog to Book, and she was one of the panelists, having converted her weight loss blog, Half of Me, into this memoir. She was lovely, and I was happy to buy a copy of her book, ask her a few questions, and have her sign it for me.

She mentioned during the panel discussion that she read back through her archives three or more times in the process of putting together the book. This was good for me to hear – daunting, but realistic. I can do this, I can read back through my archives and begin piecing together a train of thought. One of my writing friends also suggested printing out pages of my essays and laying them out on the floor, visually organizing them into the structure of a book. This I can do, and seems to fit right into my visual/spacial need for organizing.

I think these two pieces of information put together will surely lead to a national best seller by me, don’t you think?

Anyway, back to the book. This is not a “how to lose weight” book. It’s not really even a “how Jennette lost weight” book. She purposely doesn’t mention which diet plan she used, how many calories she ate, or how many miles she ran – she didn’t want it to be about a magic formula. I mean, obviously she talks about her weight, and how she lost it, but it’s really more about the mental game and the discipline of losing the weight (which took two years, by the way).

She writes about how she felt being fat, both mentally and physically, and how she felt as she got thinner. She writes about the struggle to remain on track, while at the same time allowing for flexibility, like eating cake at a wedding. She writes about how she changed more than just the numbers on the scale, how she became a different person altogether – a person she admired and respected.

She writes about plateaus and set-backs from a review mirror perspective, almost blowing them off as incidental. I appreciated this. It puts into perspective the blip on a two year process. I’m sure at the time she was discouraged, but looking at it in retrospect reminds me that it’s important to stay on goal, because in the end you get through it if you just don’t quit.

She writes about making the choice between weight-loss surgery versus diet change and exercise. She was not opposed to the former, but felt in good conscience she needed to exhaust all her effort before going that route. She doesn’t judge people who do have surgery, by the way. In fact, she poo-poos on people who tell her she lost the weight the “real” way, and maintains its just a matter of choice based on what you know about yourself.

I think Jennette is a very brave person. After a lifetime of eating fast food she learned how to cook, and once she got the hang of that she started experimenting and trying new things. After a lifetime of taking shortcuts, she began parking at the back of the lot, and even rented an apartment on an upper floor just so she could incorporate more exercise into her life. Jennette took on a new lifestyle, and stuck to it. It meant changing all her habits, her mindset, her comforts.

She is like the alcoholic who finally hits rock bottom, gets sober, and never looks back.

I’m proud to have met her, and proud to recommend this book. Even if you don’t need to lose weight, this book is a must read for anyone who loves a good story about persevering and overcoming ourselves.

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p.s. here’s a sneak peak at her weight loss photos.

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(For ratings and other reviews on books I’ve read, visit my Shelfari page and my books category.)

Dinner Tonight: Slow Cooker Lime and Cilantro Chicken Tacos

lime and cilantro chicken tacos

What’s the opposite of Post Traumatic Stress? Post Euphoric Orgasm? I don’t know, but something in me twitched when I saw this picture and suddenly I could taste the lime and avocado and Sungold Cherry Tomatoes in my mouth.

I was having lunch with a friend one day, lamenting about all the boring recipes available for cooking a whole chicken in a crock pot. I did an internet search, and all of them started with “place chicken in a crock pot with a potato, onion, and some carrots…” The traditionally roasted chicken in white wine or broth is nice on occasion, but I was looking for a new way to use slow cooked chicken. Buying a chicken whole is one of the cheapest ways to get it (ninety-nine cents a pound at Costco). I wanted to be able to buy it often, but not just to make the same old roasted chicken.

My friend pulled out a recipe she’d gotten from her mother-in-law (mother? I can’t remember now), and it’s exactly what I was looking for. I’ve already used the lime and cilantro to cook a chicken for the Thai Chicken and Rice Salad, and I’ll be on the lookout for more ways to use it.

How do you slow cook your whole chicken, and then how do you serve it? Share any fun recipes in the comments, or link to your own blog.

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Lime and Cilantro Whole Chicken
3-4lb chicken frier
Â¾-1 tsp salt
Â½ tsp pepper
1 small lime, juiced
Â½ cup Cilantro Sprigs
2 cloves garlic, peeled

Directions (for the night before serving):
1-Remove giblets neck and fat from fryer. Season inside and out with salt and pepper. Place in slow cooker, breast side up. Squeeze lime over chicken. Place lime rind, cilantro and garlic in cavity. Cook on low 6-7 hours to 180 degrees.

2-Allow chicken to cool. Remove skin from cooled chicken and shred.

3-Refrigerate juice in cooker.

4-Remove fat from refrigerated juice.

Directions for day of serving:
1 Large Onion
Â½ tsp Oregano
Â¼ C Dry White Wine
Salsa (to taste)

1-Cook onion until soft. Add oregano and cook 2 minutes. Add white wine and cook until almost boiled off.

2-Add cooked chicken until hot.

3-Add 1/3 of juice, sizzle and reduce until syrupy.

4-Add Â½ of remaining juice, sizzle and reduce until syrupy.

5-Add salsa and remaining drippings and bring to boil. Cover and simmer 10 minutes.

6-Season with salt and pepper

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This recipe is a two-day process, but it is so easy. You just have to remember to thaw the chicken over night two nights before you need to make the meal. The first time I made it I forgot to thaw the chicken, so I had to push it back a night. But believe me when I say it was so good I never made that mistake again.

As you can see from the picture, I added black beans to the chicken (we eat black beans with nearly everything), and served it in whole wheat tortillas with homemade salsa (avocado, green onions, sungold cherry tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, salt). I know I totally sound like Suzie Homemaker when say all that, but some nights all the planets align and I can manage to throw together a pretty decent meal.

Other nights? It’s broiled chicken with salt and pepper and a bagged salad. It all works out.

Friday Link Love

track breastfeeding schedules on your iPhone – Techmamas
This obviously doesn’t apply to me at the moment, but I am fascinated by technology that is useful to me should I find myself in this… predicament. More and more I find myself consolidating my entire life into one place, despite all efforts to sabotage this. I have a computer, and I have a Treo, and that’s about it. No more date books, wall calendars, or address books – I keep it all digitally and share the files between my computer and my phone. This application, and others like it out there, would fit well into my lifestyle. (Thanks to Lindsay for twittering this!)

Don Miller talks about his faith as it relates to partisan politics.

Don Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What, gave the closing prayer Monday at the DNC, and this is an interview he gave Christianity Today before taking the stage. Two things in particular struck me. One, is his comments on abortion and the way the Republican party has dangled the carrot of idealism in front of evangelical Christianity. The other is his comments on the Democratic party’s treatment of people of faith – “You need to tell your leaders to stop mocking people of faith.”

Speeches on Wordle – by Papernapkin
I was going to link to Wordle a long time ago, but it was old news already by the time I got around to actually doing it. I’ve looked through the gallery and am convinced The Zugs should create a Wordle design to print and frame for our living room.

Anyhow, Papernapkin twittered these Wordles she created of the major political speeches given over the last several weeks. Very fascinating, to say the least. Please check them out: Obama, Biden, McCain, and Palin.

Aaand…she’s off!

First Day of School - Kindergarten kindergarten2 Kindergarten3

The Internet continues to ask me how Ruthie’s first week of kindergarten is going, and I am derelict in responding. My sister was in town last week, we had a holiday, I’m having some sleeping issues, and I’m reading a book I can’t put down. My apologies to The Internet for leaving you hanging in the balance.

But it gives me warm fuzzies all over that you continue to harass me via twitter, IM, and email – I’ve been writing about Ruthie for so long that it sometimes feels like our little girl is growing up. Someday when she reads back through my archives looking for ammunition to bring her therapist, I hope she runs across this post and realizes that I love her so much it’s contagious.

As far as school itself is going, Ruthie is much more tight lipped than I expected her to be. Though I don’t know why I’m surprised by that – every Sunday I pick her up from her Sunday school class and ask what she did. Nothing, is always the response I get, and I get the same when I see her after school.

Though I do get the lowdown each day on a new friend she’s made – a girl in the other kindergarten class she met at the back to school bbq. They are not in the same class, but it turns out they ride the same bus home. Today when I met her at the bus stop Ruthie was hysterically insisting I board the bus to meet her new friend, and since I clearly can’t do this there were great fits of rage right there on the sidewalk with the backpack a-flyin’ and the feet a stompin’.

Thankfully we recovered from that quickly, and moved on. But what can I say? She’s a social, hospitable girl with clear, unbendable, expectations (sound familiar?).

Speaking of riding the bus, at the 11th hour she had a panic attack of sorts, and began crying the night before she was to ride the bus for the first time (I drove her in on the first day). I don’t want to be alone! she kept sobbing. Drive me in the car! I don’t necessarily have a strong…how shall we say?…compassion quality to me, but this was breaking my heart.

It also came as a huge surprise since she’s been talking about taking the school bus since she was three years old. But I could tell she was tired so I told her we would talk about it in the morning. And after some brief hesitation and one crying spell, by the time she put her sweater on she was back to being excited.

Though she did hold my hand all the way up to the second step of the bus, and only let go when my arm wouldn’t go any further – and I thought this was very sweet.

Putting her on the bus was much more emotional for me than when I took her into class the first day. I’m used to door to door delivery – it’s what I did for preschool, it’s what we do for Sunday school, it was no big whoop. But when that big orange bus swallowed my baby up whole and drove around the corner? There was not only tears, but there was actual sobbing.

My heart swelled with love and pride, but also with fear that she was driving away from me and never coming back. I wanted to wrap her up in my sweater and whisk her away, take her home, and curl up in my bed for a good snuggle. I wanted to snap my fingers so a cartoon maid would appear and sing a happy working song while doing all the now-insignificant chores that always seem to make me so grouchy and emotionally unavailable.

I knew this time would come, and I knew I would feel exactly like this – which is why I was able to get home and move on with my day without pouring myself a margarita (barely).

Dinner Tonight: Thai Chicken and Rice Salad

Well, *I* certainly enjoyed that rash of new blogs posts last week – didn’t you? Not sure how I found the time to do that, but I can guarantee it won’t be happening again this week. Ruthie starts school on Tuesday, and while that theoretically gives me more time to think straight, I’m feeling a little like the kid who tried Pop Tarts for the first time and loved them so much he ate three boxes.

(what this actually means, is that I’ve severely over committed my expectations for next week.)

Anyhow, that clearly has nothing to do with Thai Chicken and Rice Salad.

This is a new favorite at the Zug Haus – even Ruthie devours two bowls of it. And? She’s taught herself how to use chopsticks. Between this and the shoe tying incident, I’m pretty sure she’ll be teaching me how to bake cheesecake by Christmas.

I found the recipe at Love Drunk and I highly recommend it. The nice thing is, I’ve made it chilled and I’ve made it warm, so it’s a recipe that can last into the winter months. The only adjustment I made was to add a splash or two of soy sauce to the dressing – it added another necessary layer that makes it perfect.

Oh, and I also made it once with a whole chicken I cooked in the crockpot with lime, garlic, and cilantro, cooled, then shredded. Yum.

Thai Chicken and Rice Salad

(adapted from Cooking Light)

Cook 2 cups short grain brown rice.

While that’s steaming, heat a couple TBSP olive oil in a pan, med-high heat, and
coat 4 chicken breasts (bnls, sknls) with sea salt (I like the coarse, unrefined) and
freshly cracked black pepper. Get a nice sear on each side of them and cover, turn down heat, and cook till done but still moist. Shred with a couple of forks.

Grate 3-4 good-sized carrots
Chop big bunch of green onions
Chop good sized bunch of cilantro
Whisk together 1/4 cup sesame oil, the juice of 3 limes, a little olive oil and 4-5 cloves garlic (crushed)

In a big bowl (this makes more than you’d think), put the warm rice and shredded chicken, the grated carrots, the green onions, and cilantro. Pour the dressing over and add a couple good handfuls of roasted, unsalted peanuts (to taste). Stir till combined, check for salt and pepper, and serve. Good warm or cold.

One of those moments when it was just too quiet

face painting

Ruthie? What are you guys doing up there?

Nothing…

Ruthie, what are you doing?

Nothing!

No seriously, what are you doing?

(pause)

We want some alone time, Mom!

That’s fine, but what are you playing with?

(pause)

Naaahhhh-thiiiiiiing!

So if I come up there I’m going to find you sitting on the bed picking your nose?

(like a teenager) Mom!

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At the sound of my footsteps on the stairs I hear them scramble, and when I enter the room Thomas is in the closet and Ruthie is hiding under her desk. I am feeling a strange deja vu tingle that takes me back to when Ruthie hid under the bed after cutting her own hair.

What are you doing under there? I ask with measured control.

She slips out from under the desk and sits on the floor, defeated.

I’m pretending to be a face painter, she says.

I know there was a day – hell, even maybe an hour ago – when I would have blown a gasket over such a thing. For some reason I’ve never been able to see antics like this as basic childhood curiosity and mischievousness, but rather as a personal assault on my authority and control.

Even though I wasn’t happy there was also green marker on the carpet, the walls, and the night stand, it’s all washable, it’s all perishable, and it’s all meaningless. It’s just stuff. Stuff that sacrificed itself for the creative genius of a child who likes face painting at the fair.

As Ruthie waited tentatively for my response, I felt such freedom in my soul as I smirked at her, then smiled, then laughed as she laughed. I never realized graciousness could fill me with such joy.

face painting

Link Love

Mommy Come Lately – Yoga soothes worst symptoms of menopause.
You know you’re staring down your 37th birthday when stories about menopause perk your interest. I love yoga, and I hate my hormones, so this was worth reading. For whatever it’s worth, that is.

Meal Planner by Future Girl
Because I have a brain that doesn’t always like to kick into gear, I keep a copy on my fridge of what I’ve planned to make for dinner all week. I started doing this because there were many times I would buy a bunch of cilantro for a certain dish, only to find that bunch of cilantro reduced to a pile of green slime a week later. When I try to remember why I bought the cilantro in the first place, I slap my forhead as I recall that one evening when I couldn’t for the life of me think of what to make for dinner, when all along I’d planned to make Lime and Cilantro chicken tacos. So, if one is going to be geeky-organized, one might as well have a super cute menu planning chart to make it more fun.

Backpack stations from Organizing Junkie
You may recall how I revamped my entryway a couple months ago to be more efficient for shoe and coat storage. Now that Ruthie is starting school (ack!) I’m trying to figure out how to add in a spot for her backpack and a place to dump all the paperwork she brings home. I got caught in a loop of organizing blogs the other day, and came across this post with lots of great ideas.

Mind Mapping for the overwhelmed mom from Organizing Queen
Once again, something Bryan’s been telling me for years that I’m now taking notice of because a chick brought it to my attention. Bryan uses a mind map program for taking notes and such, but it always gave me a headache to look at it, because my brain doesn’t work visually like that for note taking. But when it comes to organizing a physical space? The mind mapping idea seemed to click a little better. I may give it a try.

That tenacity may actually get her somewhere

The other day as we were trying to get out of the house, I was caught up in the usual fussing around that happens when one person is trying to get three bodies going. Ruthie kept asking me to tie her shoes, but of course I was not in shoe-tying mode, I was in snack packing mode. Ruthie persisted.

Mom, can you tie my shoes?

Mom, when are we going? Can you tie my shoes?

After a few minutes of me putting her off, she became quiet in the next room. That is, until she came screaming into the kitchen, literally. She screamed “MOM!” as if Scout had just swallowed Thomas’ head.

“IS ANYONE HURT?!?” I said, my heart racing.

“NO, BUT MOM– ”

“IS ANYONE IN DANGER?!?”

“MOM, NO! But– ”

(sighing) “Then why are you screaming at me?”

“BECAUSE I TIED MY OWN SHOE!”

I looked down at her shoe and a little scream escaped my lips, too. What a big girl. She’s only had lace-up shoes a few weeks, and taught herself to tie them by watching me do it for her.

It’s not very often that I recognize the positive aspects of Ruthie’s tenacity. I should remember this story on those days when her tenacity pushes the buttons of each and every one of her friends. I should remember this story on those days when her tenacity drives Thomas to the brink of insanity. I should remember this story on those days when Ruthie is a walking Wall of Obstination.

She is still finding her way, but I pray she learns to use her tenacity for good more often, and not evil. With that kind of ferocious focus she can solve the world’s problems.

Of course, I captured her accomplishment on video:

Works for me: wrapped wraps

We have taco salad once a week in our house because it’s a big favorite. The kids get theirs wrapped in a corn tortilla, which they love, but the fallout can be frustrating (get it?!). One of my friends told me how she wraps her kids’ tacos in aluminum foil or plastic wrap to keep the contents from falling out, and to help keep it wrapped.

She has four kids, so I figured she knows what she’s talking about, and gave it a whirl. Here’s Ruthie’s breakfast taco from last week:

wrapped taco

And look how happy she is eating it! No temper tantrums, and that definitely works for me.

wrapped taco

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Visit Rocks in my Dryer for other Works for Me Wednesday posts.

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p.s. I love the complete randomness in the background of this photo. Like the swimming vest in a stock pot, and the empty napkin holder, and the Costco sized Simple Green bottle on the food prep counter. Awesome.

Blog on, little grasshopper

Blogger In Bloom

You must have known it would only be a matter of time before one of our offspring had presence on the internet. Of course I’d always assumed Ruthie would have a blog, but I didn’t think it would happen until she was old enough to read. But in conversations via Twitter with Daisy of Kids Blog Too! I realized it worked just as well for Ruthie to tell me what she wants to say while I type.

I see several benefits in Ruthie having her own blog:

We get to do something together. You’d think this would be easy, but it’s not. I need an activity that gets us both excited, and will (hopefully) help us work through our respective needs to be in control.
She gets to learn computer skills – including picture and video uploads. We want her to do as much as she can by herself, which will obviously start with lots of direction from us. But as she learns to read and learns the process of posting, she can become a more independent computer user.
We can pass on our love for storytelling. Mr. Presbo said on last night’s episode of The Wire (season 4, via netflix) “They have fun learning if you trick ’em into thinking they’re not learning.” Or something like that, anyway. If she’s going to grow up to write a book about her dysfunctional upbringing, I want her to at least be able to tell the story well.

So if you have a moment, please check out Ruthie’s blog, Roo the Day, and leave her a comment. I wanted to get her up and running in time to report back about Kindergarten – which she starts next week – and I’d love to read back to her some of your comments.

“If you lived here, you’d be home already!”

seattle center in early spring I’ve seen a marketing campaign with this slogan on a huge banner against a newly built Belltown apartment building or condominium, and it sounds rather appealing to me at times.

Bryan’s been working downtown Seattle since late last year, which is a marked improvement from his commute to San Jose a couple years ago. However, his working downtown has amped up my itchiness to move back to Seattle from our suburb in the south.

This summer in particular has been bad. We’ve taken advantage of his locale, and at least once a week we pick him up after work and and have a picnic at Seattle Center, or Gasworks Park, or some other city destination. The kids love it, and of course, so do I.

I love it so much, in fact, that we end up driving into Seattle as much as three days a week, which is not easy on the gas budget. We sometimes drive him in to work in the morning and have fresh mini donuts at Pike Place Market. Sometimes we drive in for the free summer movies at Regal Cinemas’ Meridian 16 theater. Sometimes we drive in to visit the Children’s Museum.

seattle center fountain

We drove in so often this summer I justified the need to move there, and began looking into it. I won’t go into details regarding the scandalous number of hours I spent ~~wasting time~~ researching homes and condos for sale. Let’s just say I’m well aware of the Seattle condominium market for units over 850 square feet.

Yes, I talked myself into downsizing from a 2200 square foot 5 bedroom house with an office and family room into a 1000 square foot two bedroom condo in the middle of Capital Hill – where you would not be able to visit me, by the way, because parking is TERRIBLE on Capital Hill.

I was completely sold on this idea, and even began complaining about how rough I have it in my giant castle. I CAN’T CLEAN ALL THIS SPACE! WE HAVE TOO MUCH JUNK! WE DON’T EVEN USE ALL THESE ROOMS! WE DON’T NEED A PLACE THIS BIG!

I had visions of traipsing to the park with my kids, grocery shopping daily for only as much as I could carry, and taking the bus everywhere. After all, my kids are headed off to school this year, so it’s not like I’ll have crazy toddlers running under foot all day.

And then?

Last week it rained for three days straight, and my kids ran from top to bottom in this house. They jumped on the couches, they swung on the swing in our basement, they climbed on the rope ladder, and they used every. last. inch of this giant house before they even began to tap into one tiny little nerve.

And then?

snap peas

All my tomatoes came into harvest. And my carrots. And zucchini. And I put a kiddie pool at the end of the slide on our big toy in the yard. And we made s’mores in the fire pit on our deck.

It didn’t take much to remind me I have all I need to be content right here.

Dinner Tonight: Chicken Wings w/ peanut dipping sauce

A big bag of frozen drumettes was on sale this week, and one thing I hear often in this house is WHEN ARE WE GOING TO HAVE CHICKEN WINGS AGAIN? So I picked up a bag for an easy Saturday night dinner.

I marinated the wings and drumettes in teriyaki sauce, broiled them, then borrowed the peanut sauce recipe from a fabulous Thai Peanut Chicken dish for dipping.

As you can see, it was a winner.

Here’s the peanut sauce recipe:

1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup lime juice
3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter*

*I actually had to add more peanut butter to make it less marinade-y and more dippy.

Friday Link Love

Half of Me – blog to book.
I started a new book this week by BlogHer blogger, Jennette Fulda, called Half-Assed: a weight-loss memoir. I met Jennette in San Francisco at the BlogHer conference when I attended the session, Blog to Book.

Jennette documents how she lost nearly half her weight – close to 200 pounds – through diet and exercise. I’m only into chapter three, but already I enjoy it so much. The style of her writing is raw, honest, and with familiarity – much like a blogger writes. Also, within the first chapter, A History of Fatness, she takes full responsibility for her obese condition without blaming family genes, emotional trauma, or anything else.

Sadly, I didn’t have a strange disorder to be documented in medical textbooks. I was never sexually abused and driven to build a fat suit of armor for protection. My mother never once nagged me about my weight or put me on a diet, saving me thousands of dollars on therapy. This was great and all, but it left me without any good fall guys. If you’re fat, you definitely need a scapegoat or a glandular problem.

I’m enjoying her book, and have added her blog, Half of Me, to my reader. Incidentally, when I asked her about the process of collecting and organizing her blog archives to prepare for the book, she said she read through her archives three times. THREE TIMES. I had suspected something like this would be the case, but it’s a little daunting to have it spoken into reality.

I’d better get crackin, I mean, reading.

Book Review: Here Comes Everybody

here comes everybody.jpg I took a break from fiction last month and read Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky. To explain my interest in this book, I should mention that Bryan once read me an entire keynote speech given by Clay Shirky, from his iPhone, while sitting on a bench as the kids played at the park.

Such is geek love.

The book was interesting, though not as riveting to me as Freakonomics was. I think most people who are interested in reading it will not find anything Earth shattering about it, but I did enjoy the case studies.

“The power of organizing without organizations.” That’s what the internet and all its social media provides the common man. Professionals and institutions and governments are scratching their heads at our ability to create, publish, gather, and move mountains.

We are polite, and exercise rules of etiquette as we collaborate. But if you steal our cell phone, or trap us on an airplane for several hours, or overthrow our government, our collaborations will spread the word faster than a wildfire. And before you can hit ctrl+alt+delete, you’ll have a flash mob on your hands, or a hundred bloggers calling you out, or a customer manifesto enacted into law.

That’s right: if you choose to step on the toes of social media’s children, you will reap the consequences of their collective roar.

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Out of all the things I found interesting about the book, I will mention two that hit on Real Life discussions I’ve had. The first comes from the chapter titled, Solving Social Dilemmas. Shirky tells us the most popular group currently on Meetup.com is Stay At Home Moms (SAHM). I know. I KNOW. I’m tired of hearing about us, too. But hear me out.

Shirky points out the significance of SAHMs adapting to media and technology, and what that says about the tools we choose:

Some groups we expect to be technology-obsessed; maleness, singleness, and youth all correlate with technophilia, while femaleness, age and family life don’t. So when a group of mothers adopts a piece of technology, it indicates an expression of preference far more serious than seeing a thirteen-year-old boy go wild over an Xbox. The popularity of groups like Stay At Home Moms indicates that Meetup’s utility in helping people gather in the real world is valuable enough to get the attention of people who are too busy for most new tools.

In other words, do what Mom says.

I found this refreshingly intelligent in light of all the emotional battle cries I hear about the importance of SAHMs on the internet.

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The second topic that struck me in light of Real Life discussions comes from the chapter titled, Fitting Our Tools to a Small World. “What a small world!” we say when we bump into a friend of a friend (FOAF). Shirky breaks down the social phenomenon of Six Degrees of Separation, and reminds us our large world is simply a series of smaller world connections. As our network grows it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain healthy relationships, so we must continue to break down our network into smaller groups, remaining connected to the larger network through one or two members of each group.

(are you following me?)

Shirky points out that a network of 5,000 people would require half a million connections – hardly the formula for healthy relationships. So what do you do? –

…dense and sparse connections – at different scales. You let the small groups connect tightly, and then you connect the groups. But you can’t really connect groups – you connect people within groups. Instead of one loose group of twenty-five, you have five tight groups of five. As long as a couple of people in each small group know a couple of people in other groups, you get the advantages of tight connection at the small scale and loose connection at the large scale. The network will be sparse but efficient and robust.

This pretty much sums up the organizational structure of my church, and also closed off any doubts I’ve had regarding said structure.

Our congregation has grown to epic proportions over the years, so our leadership relaunched us into a multi campus structure. I won’t get into all the details of how this works, but generally speaking we have one main campus (HUB) with one main preacher, and multiple campuses spread around the city, each with it’s own leadership (SPOKE).

I had my reservations about this structure for many reasons, the first being my perception of a Starbucks-like taking over of the world. My church on every corner and even in some grocery stores? I think not.

But this new perspective on breaking the “network” down into a smaller, more socially manageable size, makes sense. Our large church of 5,000 now meets in smaller “campus” groups of 100-300, which then have multiple in-home community groups of less than 15 people. All of these smaller groups stay intimate, but they are connected to the larger body. in this way we can teach and meet the needs of many, while encouraging growth and discipleship intimately.

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There were many more interesting topics covered. I recommend reading Here Comes Everybody, particularly if you are new to the Interwebs or have any sort of reservations toward social media or enjoy historical case studies on the use of technology.