i looked in the meerkat's eyes

Yesterday, Ange and I celebrated our year-and-a-half anniversary by going to the zoo and then spending the night at a bed and breakfast. It was really a blast. We had to go see the lions (of course) and also the meerkats at the zoo, because we had watched this show called Meerkat Manor in Ireland and loved it. We watched them for a long time because they're really entertaining and eerily human in their mannerisms. At one point, one of them looked me in the eyes and I was struck by the tragic absurdity of zoos (though I love them and I'm deeply thankful that I have the opportunity to see all these amazing animals).

Here is an animal that is made to be roaming the wild places, watching out for birds of prey and the only thing flying above it is a fat quail. These animals have such fantastic immune systems that they can often live through a serious scorpion or cobra bite, but the most serious thing they have to live through is a vet's needle and some ugly kids looking through the glass. They are incredible hunters, travelers, and survivors, but this one in front of me didn't have to hunt, didn't have the option of travel, and had a full-time staff of professionals to see that he survived. And when I looked into his eyes, this meerkat looked nothing but bored.

Driving to work in the morning I often look around me in some traffic clog or stop light and see faces with pretty much the same expressions. Sometimes I wear it myself. Oh the things we were made to do, you and I, but it's safer to think about web sites and new outfits and whether or not Danika Patrick will win the Indy 500 (sorry guys, but what's the big deal?). And we think we're bored because we're not "living our dreams" so we change jobs and relationships and locations and never think about getting on our faces before the Maker of Heaven and Earth. And so we are meerkats or gazelle or lions laying in the shade getting fat and nothing but bored.

Mark

weddings and things

Wow. How does a month go by so fast? I tell you, this forty hour work week thing is killer. I think it ranks up there between thumb screws and those nasty "plaque picks" that the dentist uses on the horrible inventions scale.

Ange and I are well. We've been spending a lot of our weekend time getting ready for an event which has just occured: a wedding between Ange's brother Nate and former roommate Becca. It was a cool wedding on a warm Saturday afternoon. We did a lot of the music for and before the ceremony. Good times.

What else? Oh yeah, did I mention I've been working forty hours out of every week? Ek.

Mark

P.S. I actually love my job by the way, and I actually wouldn't mind doing it more than forty hours a week if there were twice as many hours in a day or I didn't need to sleep or I could be in two places at once. But alas....