Fuller Seminary bookstore

My pastor is not fond of Christian psychology in general, and he is not fond of Fuller Theological Seminary in particular. He likens Christian Psychology to Grape Nuts – “It’s not grape and it’s not nuts.”

As a conservative Christian and someone with manifest psychological issues, I take the buffet approach regarding psychology. I’ll talk to any psychological counselor, no matter how dubious their creed (I like to talk). However, I won’t ingest any psychotropic medication, no matter how reasonable.

As many are aware, my beloved wife Nicole got her master’s degree in Marriage & Family Counseling. Not long after we moved to Pasadena she got a job in the psychology department at Fuller Theological Seminary. I received the news with the attitude of an entertained spectator.

Last week we made our first trip to the Fuller Theological Seminary bookstore and coffee shop. I have to admit, I was looking for trouble and expected to laugh up my sleeve at things I would find there. I was not disappointed. I was expecting to find the Abnormal Psychology textbooks. I was not expecting to find Harry Potter, ha! That’s the book about witchcraft, isn’t it? Another goofy title I saw was The Gospel According to the Beatles.

We also enjoyed Coffee by the Book, the bookstore’s coffee shop. I got a chai latte and Nicole looked around at the art work on the walls. Among the magazines available to read in the coffee shop I thought I found an unusually hip-looking journal called Pastor. A sticker was obscuring the title. The title turned out to be Paste, a rock ‘n roll magazine.

I’d like to go back to the Fuller bookstore to browse and drink coffee as soon as I can. And I’d like to get several of the Fuller Theological Seminary mugs for coffee at home and to clean paint brushes in.

Rasputin & progress

In case you're wondering if I'd burned out on Rasputin yet, I haven't burned out yet. I've gotten about two hundred and fifty odd pages done, I just finished chapter twenty-five.

Chapter twenty-five was kind of a pain in the neck because it was just a load of information. A lot of talk over a bowl of cereal. I'll mess with it and make it more ridiculous in the re-write.

I'm taking a quick break to write another story to send to McSweeney's. I think the last story I sent them was "Meth Lab Girls" and that was over a year ago.

Finally got internet/telephone/cable t.v. at the blue house, very relieved to be able to post from home.

black wire

Life at the blue house continues to be very good. N. & I went to Café 50s’ in Santa Monica again on Friday night for dinner (although the place is beginning to get on our nerves) and then we went to see “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple” (more on that later). Saturday night we went to a retirement dinner at Fuller Seminary for one of the professors Nicole works for. Sunday we went to a most pleasant Sunday brunch at Jeff and Jessica’s place.

So that’s great! But I’m still virtually cut off from most of the people I know. The only telephone at home is Nicole’s cell phone, and I avoid talking on cell phones whenever I can. I have e-mail access at work, but from the moment I arrive I don’t stop moving. There’s always a pile of time-sensitive tasks to take care of and if I lunch at my desk people just stop by to ask questions or to give me more work.

Two weeks ago a cable t.v./internet/phone company guy made an unscheduled visit to the blue house. Like the last three guys who visited, he didn’t understand why one of his co-workers hadn’t dropped a cable down from the telephone poll and connected it to our house. The company blames the contractors, the contractors say it’s the company’s responsibility.

It’s all very boring and frustrating. The good news is that he had a cable with him and, with my help, he ran it from the telephone poll to our house.

So now we have a coil of black wire attached to our roof. We are scheduled to have another of these fine people visit and finally hook us up to cable t.v./internet/phone access this weekend. That’s the idea anyway.