Interests:Updated 1/30/2006
My current top five "to see" movies: 1) The Producers 2) Munich 3) Once Upon a Time in the West 4) Capote 5) Good Night and Good Luck Expertise:Melodrama, picking and grinning, kids, agricultural biotechnology. Occupation:Student Industry:Legal
From the heart-wrenched sweet nothings Between two distant lovers To the dying of the cruelty of war Oh, the sad news and the love songs Are passed along these phone poles That stretch forever Like the lines of a Hemingway story
And they stretch along this highway Like so many martyrs Hung and burned for loving Shedding light on Caesar’s gardens And they’re passing on a message sent from you To us here in New Mexico
Well the old man at the red light Was selling homeless papers And our windows kept the awkward silence in We kept our eyes ahead And then we quickly changed the subject And our hearts broke even more With our own hardness
Because Mark had asked If we should invite him along for dinner And we hemmed and hawed ‘Til green faded into our Scarlet Letter And I know no martyrs died to pass that on To us here in New Mexico
Well the might is raining from the clouds That hang above this city And all I want is just to be alone Unless that girl I’m praying for Is here in Albuquerque Unless you came to raise The quick and dead
Then we’ll step out of this river Of the Father, Ghost, and Son Where we’ve waded in your innocence Cause all of ours was gone And we’ll lift our eyes to see A new light dawn On the beauty of New Mexico
Bob Stoops' record at OU is 86-19. That's pretty dang good. I want to look at those nineteen losses and see which ones "hurt" OU the most in terms of the effect on the season, pride in the team, national respect, etc.
#19. at Notre Dame 34, Oklahoma 30, October 2, 1999 - A nationally televised game featuring the undefeated Sooners, who took a heavily favored Notre Dame team to the mat before losing the game late. Bob's first loss was his least damaging - it actually signaled to the nation that OU was back and that Josh Heupel was a force to be reckoned with.
#18. at UCLA 42, Oklahoma 24, September 17, 2006 - UCLA was very good this season, and OU was already reeling after barely beating Tulsa and losing at home to TCU. This game was much closer than the score, in Pasadina, and was a coming out party for Rhett Bomar (heh). Considering what was behind and ahead of the Sooners in 05, this wasn't a huge loss.
#17. Mississippi 27, Oklahoma 25, December 31, 1999 (Independence Bowl) - The loss to Ole Miss was respectible enough in Stoops' first season. The way it happened was remarkable. Down big early, the Sooner roared back (using a Patrick Fletcher trick-play-pass) to take the lead in the fourth quarter. Ole Miss came down and kicked a game winning field goal. Great game, and the last loss until the 2001 season.
#16. Boise State 43, Oklahoma 42 (OT), January 1, 2007 (Fiesta Bowl) - Okay, okay, okay. This hurt. But we lost the greatest non-NT bowl game ever played. To a team that ran three trick plays to beat us, all of which had to be perfect. After a poor first half, and an injury to Malcolm Kelly, OU acquitted themselves well. Yes, it stung, but in terms of actual pain to the program, I think it cast OU in a pretty good light.
#15. at Colorado 38, Oklahoma 24, October 30, 1999 - OU had a chance to win the South until this loss, but OU wasn't mature enough at this point to win on the road - we only beat Louisville and Iowa State on the road all season.
#14. Texas 38, Oklahoma 28, October 9, 1999 - OU, for the second straight game (the week before at Notre Dame as well), roared out to a big lead. Major Applewhite's Horns were simply better. But the game proved that Mack Brown couldn't bully Stoops the way that he bullied John Blake...
#13. at Texas Tech 23, Oklahoma 21, November 19, 2005 - OU had nothing left to play for, knowing they were going to a minor bowl and couldn't win the South. But OU played hard and won the game... Except... That they didn't win the game. Bad calls that, in a way, were worse than the Oregon calls cost OU dearly.
#12. at Texas Tech 38, Oklahoma 28, November 20, 1999 - This one hurt more than the 05 game because it was a bad Tech team with a lame duck coach in Spike Dykes. OU had an outside chance at the Cotton or Holiday Bowls because of its high-octane offense, but this loss relegated the Sooners to Shreveport. And going to Shreveport is enough to make any loss a big one.
#11. at Oregon 34, Oklahoma 33, September 16, 2006 - Yeah. This one was more public than the Tech debacle, and our team was considerably better. It was a punch in the nuts to get "beaten" by the referee's call like that. That said, it had no huge national repercussions - the rest of the games did.
#10. at Nebraska 20, Oklahoma 10, October 27, 2001 - The second worst game Jason White ever played, and the first one in which he tore a knee up. After the game, Jason said "When I was in, we played good, when I got hurt, we didn't." Brilliant, Jason. This man won a Heisman? Anyway, OU got whipped, the Nebraska fans were great, and the defending National Champion Sooners lost on Gameday, losing that #1 ranking for the first time. But this was the least of the "lose the #1 ranking" losses, as Nebraska was a dang good team this year, and Lincoln is a tough place to play.
#9. Texas 45, Oklahoma 12, October 8, 2005 - Rhett Bomar became pulp. Everyone was hurt. AD got three carries. But it's this high not because of it's season significance, but because it destroyed the OU mystique against Mack Brown. Devastating game.
#8. LSU 21, Oklahoma 14, January 4, 2004 - Yes, had we won, we would have won the "National Title." But USC had won on New Years Day, and we had already lost almost all credibility in the Big 12 title game against K-State. And lets face it, the rest of these games below were much bigger. OU should have won, and in many ways outplayed the Tigers.
#7. Texas 28, Oklahoma 10, October 7, 2006 - We were leading at half, and outplaying the Horns. Then the turnover parade began. The rest of the game was an ugly mess, cementing (for now) the Horns' supremacy in the South, even though two late losses would cost Texas the conference title.
#6. at Oklahoma State 38, Oklahoma 28, November 30, 2002 - OSU whipped us up and down the field, which essentially meant the days of running the Pokes over were through. OU had outside national title hopes (at #4, though this year Ohio State and Miami both finished undefeated) and were never really close to winning. And Les Miles made us all hate him even more.
#5. TCU 17, at Oklahoma 10, September 3, 2005 - Everyone knew the 05 Sooners would have some troubles. But the first game let us know how bad. After two straight national title losses, the Sooners were down and down hard. For TCU's part, they finished 11-1. This game clearly signaled that OU would take a while to get back. The last four games, however, all involve top ranked Sooner teams losing (only the Nebraska game and, sort of, the LSU game have involved this to this point).
#4. USC 55, Oklahoma 19, January 4, 2005 (Orange Bowl) - Coupled with the 05 regular season, 2005 was a bad year for the Sooners. This is only so low because OU was so completely dominated. USC was clearly the better team, but the WAY OU lost was what was so disheartening. The death of the OU mojo? No, not in this game. That happened in game #1. But we're not there yet.
#3. at Texas A&M 30, Oklahoma 26, November 9, 2002 - With all the talk of the Sooner teams in 00, 03, and 04 (all of which reached the NT game), this one is lost in the shuffle. This Sooner team was dominant. They won the Rose Bowl in a walkover. Quentin Griffin may have been the country's best back. Despite losing Jason White (again), the team rallied around Nate Hybl, who had an outstanding (and forgotten) year. But we had an Achilles Heel - stopping the deep ball. Yes, this game was about Reggie McNeal's coming out party. But it was also about our problems in the secondary. Without the blueprint provided by A&M in upsetting the #1 Sooners here, OSU couldn't have beaten us (see game #6).
#2. Oklahoma State 16, at Oklahoma 13, November 24, 2001 - Do you remember watching Colorado run all over Nebraska on Thanksgiving? And saying "wow, Nebraska can't stop the run, but we have Roy Williams and Teddy Lehman, so this won't happen to us in the Big 12 title game." And thinking about how all we had to do was beat Colorado and then face Miami in the Rose Bowl. And how the loss at Nebraska wouldn't matter because we'd be ranked higher in the BCS? And then backup QB Josh Fields found Rashaun Woods in the corner of the Owen Field end zone. Guh.
#1. Kansas State 35, Oklahoma 7, December 6, 2003 - I'm not sure what was worse, the K-State fans in the freezing cold or the K-State fans who put banners along I-35 for the drive home. OU's lowest point total this season was 20, when we beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Other than that? 34. We beat OSU, A&M and Texas by a combined score of (get this!) 194-22. People said we were the "Best team ever." That all ended in KC, where K-State took us out behind the woodshed. To make matters worse, we didn't slip in the BCS, and had to pull our tail out from between our legs and play in the "National Title" game. It would have been so much better to play in the Fiesta Bowl or something. Guh.
Anyway, I hope this was as painful for you as it was for me... Let me know what you think about right/wrong/thoughts...
Okay. The bold ones are ones I'll make a sincere effort to see. The non-bold ones, I maybe or maybe not will. The huge ones were on my pre-made list of about thirty artists that I thought were realistic to see at ACL, and I decided if five were on the list, I'd go... Um... ACL did better.
I think a bar is a more honest place to meet a woman than church.
Let's
face it, in Oklahoma, where most are married or engaged when they
graduate from college, the Church doesn't know how to handle those who
choose not to, or are not married by the time they reach 25.
This
isn't completely the fault of the churches. Churches tend to promote
marraige, because it tends to promote the "dream" in the American
church of the little house with the 2 and a half immersion-baptized
kids with the SUV with the Calvin-praying-on the back window and the
Jesus fish. And quite often, leaders in the twenty-something circles at
churches tend to be dynamic married couples.
So what does the
church in mid-Biblebeltland do with us who aren't so blissfully married
yet? Well, i've seen it go a couple of ways. Many churches have
"singles" classes which are awkward for we unmarrieds, because the
majority of the members are forty-something divorcees. Others (I think
this best characterizes Wildwood, my current church) simply subtly
encourage the unmarried twentysomethings to continue to pretend that
they're in college until they're grey.
In either case, there's
pressure to cross-pollenate with a single of the opposite gender so
that you can "Graduate" to the young couples class, which is where the
fun is had in the Biblebeltia church.
Because this is how the
game is played, I don't think there's anything to separate a bar from
your local church's singles ministry. sure, in theory the folks at the
church will be more likely to love Jesus.
Single folks in the
church are also more likely to expect a potential future spouse to be
"perfect." This idea's been engrained for a while now. Looking for "the
one" is a cliche that permeates the secular culture and its Evangelical
subculture.
In a bar, you're more likely to meet someone that
isn't expecting perfection - but instead needs to know if their
imperfection is compatible with yours. In the church, a first date is a
big deal, and has pretty strict rules, and is expected to lead to date
two. In a bar, it doesn't, and is an honest evaluation not unlike a job
interview.
That's the thing that the Biblebeltia Church
doesn't understand about the late-twenties singleite. We aren't looking
for something perfect and instantaneous. We're not trying to "make up
for lost time" by getting to marraige as fast as possible. Most of us
have experienced a good bit of failure, and have learned the reasons
why this occurs. While some of our married counterparts dated one,
possibly two people ever, and is (hopefully) happily married, we've
dated dozens.
Statistically, I'll have fewer children than my
married counterpart. I also have a 20% greater chance at a successful
marraige (a fun statistic that pans the secular and evangelical
subcultural worlds). But for a few years, the churches in the area will
have absolutely no idea what to do with me.
There's nothing
wrong with being married and 22. My sister was, and she's certainly a
good example of "that side." But man, I view my singleness as a gift
from God. Not because it allows me to "focus on God instead of my wife"
as most pastors (who likely married at 20) like to say as some sort of
attempt to "comfort" single folks (as if we needed comforting!).
I
view it as a gift because I get to be what my friend Aminta calls a
"serial dater." I get to meet lots of great people, spend time on
dates. Learn a ton about me. Try. Fail. Love. Fail. It's an amazing
thing. I've lived that to varying degrees over the last three years.
And I wouldn't change anything about it (since about January of 2005).
So
seriously, if you're a young, married person who thinks "I want to set
Ross up with my friend X." Hey, that's great. I'm all for it. I'll go
on a first date with anyone. But don't do it as an act of rescue.
I
tell anyone who will listen that I learned more about a healthy
relationship from an athiest I dated than from anyone else. It never
would have "worked" long-term, but it was a great four months.
Practical things, like communication, romance, sponteneity, sincerity,
were there, laid out, and bare without the confusing fog of "how Jesus
would date someone."
What on earth is that supposed to mean, anyway?
Anyway.
To my brothers and sisters who find themselves graduated and single, I
encourage you to do more than just be content. Celebrate! And never,
ever, ever let the sinful preference of the Biblebeltia evangelical
church in favor of early marraiges let you be discouraged. I think
thirty is a fantastic age to marry for the first time. So is
thirty-four. So is twenty-eight. Heck, if it's right, so is twenty!
So
next time you're looking for a great place to meet others like you,
remember, it's just as likely to be a bar, a coffee shop, a baseball
game than it is to be a church. And the former are probably more
"honest" places to meet them.
