I saw that shirt you used to wear
(that we used to share)
and now,
I can't shake the smell of that notebook
we passed back and forth
or the smell of the grass
where we sat
and waited
for the next in line.

Explosion

Yesterday morning, I was messing around with my pedal board and out of nowhere got an idea for a song. In a few hours, it was finished. After listening to it on repeat several times (it's play count at iTunes since yesterday is 18), I opened up a few more GarageBand projects, and ideas just started pouring out. This isn't too unusual, except for the last year or so of my life. My musical experience moved beyond the ambient, indie, folky stuff I had listened to for years, and an explosion happened. I discovered Krautrock. I discovered shoegaze. I discovered psychedelic, free jazz, noise rock, noise pop, post-rock, avant-pop, post-punk, dub reggae, etc., etc. My palette of influences jumped from a major influence list of about five (Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, Wilco, Fleet Foxes) to about thirty (Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, Wilco, Fleet Foxes, Deerhunter, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Grizzly Bear, Charles Mingus, the Flaming Lips, Dirty Projectors, early Pink Floyd, Neutral Milk Hotel, Explosions in the Sky, Can, Scientist, Animal Collective, etc., etc.). And on top of that, I had started expanding my effects pedals, expanding my sonic palette as well. Ideas just leaked out of me. So much was coming out of me, and it was so different, that I felt completely lost. In twelve months, I wrote maybe four songs I was happy with, and I had a thousand other pieces of ideas that would never fit together.
And now, I think the clouds are starting to clear. In the past three weeks, I've had several ideas come together that I am really happy with. Time will tell if the ideas will flesh out like yesterday's song did, but if they don't something else will. That's one of the things I love about music. It always changes. There are songs I wrote four years ago that I'm putting to record now, and they're almost unrecognizable, and I like that.

Wintertime

You know what I hate the most about snow? People complaining about the snow. Snow itself I'm pretty keen on. I don't even mind the poor driving conditions that much. Sure, I may be constantly paranoid of being hit by all the cars, but I can deal with it.
This weekend was essentially a string of four snow days. Friday night, Michelle and I took a late night excursion into the blustery outside, jumping off of swing sets into the thick snow, surfing down icy slides, making snow angels (her, not me), scaling giant parking lot plow mountains, and going to Kroger in the middle of the night to warm up/buy ice cream and mozzarella sticks. Saturday was the same, but more. The city declared it a snow emergency, and we walked down to Big Lots to buy a shovel, taking our time as we did. We stopped on a bunch under an awning and watched the snow come down in droves being chased by snow plow after snow plow, then we went home and watched How I Met Your Mother (in my opinion, the most well-written sitcom on television) and had soup. Sunday was Sunday, and it was good. Then yesterday, South Bend Schools had its second snow day of the year, so Michelle got to stay home, and we had another nice, cozy snow day. Sometimes, when people are cooped up like this for such a long time, they get annoyed with whoever it is their cooped up with. For me, it makes me realize all over again just how killer awesome my wife is.
I'm very much looking forward to the rest of my life.

Tumblr

I started a Tumblr for my "band." Check it.

Musicology/Spiritology

Since I haven't blogged in a while, I think it's worth mentioning that for the past eleven months, I have played on the Vineyard worship team just about every week, with a week off here or there (no joke--I think I've had a max of seven weekends off). The past three months, I have been serving as the worship intern, which as had me working in that realm throughout the week too. Sunday, I had my first non-acoustic show in a long time, and it went swimmingly.

It is things like this that really get me thinking sometimes about just how important music is in my life, and how many different things I thought that meant--like that I should move to Chicago to become a full time musician, for instance. Two years ago, I was absolutely sure that what God wanted for me to do with my talent was to invest in it full time as a profession. A year ago, I was completely sure that I had made a complete mistake. So I moved back, gratefully. A month later, I found myself playing for a worship band--somewhere I never thought I'd go back to--and, surprisingly, enjoying it. As much as I'd criticized worship songs for being shallowly written (both musically and lyrically), I had come to appreciate what I saw as shallowness as simplicity, and I came to appreciate the space offered by that simplicity as freedom. I learned how to praise God again, and I learned to do it from the stage. To tell the truth, playing an instrument is much more natural for me than sitting in a large group and singing along. A lot of times, notes and rhythm say more from me than words do. If you ever catch me praying in solitude, you'll hear me humming rather than whispering. It's a language I sometimes feel like I speak better than English--which has brought up problems of its own when I try to write songs.

There's so much music can say. And lately, my lyrics have been talking about robots and time machines while the music itself just talks about truth, and beauty, and trembling, and aching, and love, and thankfulness.

I hope everyone hears that louder than the words.

I am truly blessed with a wonderful life.

The American Workforce

And so, it came to pass that Nathaniel FitzGerald worked several morning shifts at Bashor Children's Home, waking up at five to make the thirty minute drive that would end at the start of my shift, at six a.m. After the eight hour shift, he then drives twenty of those minutes back to the Vineyard Church to fulfill his internship there, which takes up around two and a half hours a day. He returns home around five thirty to his wife, who he wishes he could see more of, and then tries to be in bed before ten, which never happens.

And, I am tired. So, so, so tired. And that doesn't really bode well when my overall health is significantly affected by my sleep. I called off today because said overall health is a bit less than optimal, and after spending the past two days with a sick resident, I didn't want to risk infecting anyone else. But I'm beginning to rethink my goal of four days a week. It's going to be too hard to keep myself healthy with my current schedule. And with this schedule, being married is the only thing that makes sure I see Michelle anymore. If we were still just dating, I'm pretty sure I'd see her two days a week tops.

She got a teaching job, by the way. So I don't really need to work four Bashor days a week anyway. Maybe I'll take that extra day and spend it on music, or at the Vineyard. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

A Retrospective

The other day, in an episode of feeling particularly stupid (I burned a pan while making popcorn), I started to read back through my blog, specifically looking for times where I felt especially bad about myself (which were in no shortage). But as I went backward, something else started to happen. I started to become increasingly interested in what I was feeling with every post, whether I felt good or bad about myself. When I got the the end of this blog, I went to my Xanga and read that to its beginning, back to the summer after my 12th grade year, which I have often looked back to as my strongest days of faith, where I wrote about all the huge works God was doing in my life and my expectations for college. But as I read through it all, I realized that that time in my life, which was undoubtedly the brightest and most fiery was not the best or most godly. I was praying and expecting revival at Bethel, which in my mind meant prayer meetings that went on until the early morning with shouted prayers and hours and hours and hours of singing.

Regardless, that's not what my time at college looked like--not normally. And I felt let down by it. For a while, I felt somehow like God had ripped me off. But looking back now, I can definitely tell that there was a form of revival that happened--not a one or three day Spirit-falling-down, everyone huddling at the altar kind, but a four year revival of real growth and real learning that brought some of my very best friends to me and taught me that I must understand love before power and that grace always, always, always triumphs over judgment. I look back on the things God was doing in my life before college, and at times, I felt like I just couldn't contain it at all. It's been a very long time since I felt I couldn't contain my zeal and passion, but I realized the other night that that's because I've gotten bigger. I'm not trying to fit a huge thing into a small container. I have more room for it.

Back then, I was always telling myself it was time to be a man. Now, I am a man. At least, more of one.

Also, I got the job at Bashor. I go in Thursday for background checks and preliminary paperwork. Praise God.

Waiting,Patience, etc.

Last Monday, I had my second interview at Bashor Children's Home. After telling me that he was glad I applied, the fellow interviewing me submitted the approval of my hire, and told me that once HR signs off on it, I'll have to do a couple background check things, and then I'll be ready for training. I called later in the week and was basically told to just wait until they call me. I consider myself a pretty patient person, but it's easy to get frustrated in situations like this. As much as I enjoy not going to work and listening to my records or riding my bike or whatever else all day, its really only fun for about three weeks, then I'd much rather have a job. And now...well, I basically have one, kinda? I just have to wait for it.

Always waiting.

I made a new mixtape today.

For your listening pleasure,

Multitrack Sneakattack, vol. XI: Shooting Stars in Your Breakfast Cereal

Bash 'em, Bashor

Last week, I had an interview at Bashor Children's Home. I got a very good vibe from it, and was told to call back in a week if I hadn't received a call already. Well, today was a week, and I called back, and was told that the guy who interviewed me is on vacation, so I should try again next week. Come onnnnnnn.

Some background. In high school, my youth group went to Bashor a couple times to have Christmas with children in the HOPE unit--children between the ages of eight and thirteen who have been charged with sexual offenses. Within the first few minutes, I fell in love with them. A little while later, the pastor in residence visited our student leadership team, and at one point during the discussion said, 'call us when you're twenty-one and get a job.' And there was nothing then that I wanted more. Long story short, a lot happens in five years, and I got a little sidetracked, but here I am again, looking to Bashor, and I want it. And after a long, beautiful conversation with my darling sister Lyndsey last night about God's unexpected goodness, I have to ask myself, 'do I know that God is that good?'

I certainly want Him to be.

But in the meantime, I've been watching a lot a lot a lot of football*. Geez, I love the World Cup. There have been some incredible matches, and only in the first round! And strangely...I'm finding myself becoming a fan of the US team...this never happens in international sporting events...

*REAL football

I'm becoming more and more convinced that often, the most godly way to live life is to just enjoy the goodness in everything around you.

The Tension and the Blessings

There are eight days left in the school year. This leaves me in the position to find a job for the summer which I would need to negotiate with my involvement at the church (which may just increase...we'll see). On the drive to work today and while sitting in the classroom before the students came in, I was almost paralyzed by the perceived difficulty of this task. After school, Michelle called and we were talking about places I was going to apply (but forgot to because of the overwhelming amount of dishes in the sink), and I mentioned my worry of maneuvering my involvement in the worship band with one of the jobs in particular, and she said, 'Just apply and see what God has for you.'

What a wise wife I have. I love her so incredibly much. And, she just got a lot of her hair cut off. She looks very sophisticated. And hot. So hot. Oh, my wise, sophisticated, hot wife.

A kid I helped with had a seizure today. He had to be taken to the hospital, where they were 'going to take pictures of my brain' (his words...then he started crying). I wasn't in the room when it happened, but I was told that the nurse just ran down the hall to my classroom (I was in prep, helping the librarians figure out Windows Movie Maker), so I went down there and arrived to a group of program assistants surrounding him, one of them holding his stiff body in his lap. I stayed long enough to figure out what had happened and walked to the wall, feeling like I needed to cry.

I hate when children hurt.

Marriage

Marriage is awesome. Never let anyone tell you anything differently. I've been married for a week, and I'm so excited about everything yet to come. Michelle and I honeymooned in Pure Michigan--we drove up the coast of Lake Michigan and stopped in St. Joseph (a great little lake town), Grand Rapids (in a suuuuper swanky hotel), Muskegon (with their incredibly cool historical district), Manistee (we camped on a bluff overlooking the lake), and Traverse City (hitting up record stores and hair salons, then staying in a room with a door that opened up to the beach). On the way back, we stopped in Holland for their Tulip Festival. It was a great trip. Now, it's time to settle into everyday married life and watch Betty White and Jay-Z on Saturday Night Live. What a great ending to a honeymoon.

Happenings

I took off work today to apply for a summer job through WorkOne (a sort of unemployment office). About half an hour into the three hour orientation, I realized that the hour they were going to have me drive every day wasn't worth the $8.50 an hour they were going to pay me to do it. C'est la vie ("La vie")* But, I was sick today anyway, so it's okay that I wasn't hanging out with any kids that could also get sick. I'm also taking tomorrow off to get some rest so I can be fully back on my feet on Wednesday.

On a major sidenote, if anyone is interested, I'll once more restate that I have a new music review blog, www.turnoffthatnoise.blogspot.com. I've been covering all sorts of music, both old and new, but since my rate of keeping up with music with any regularity is pretty slow these days, some of the reviews may seem completely irrelevant. But hey. Whatevz.

The wedding is in eleven and a half days. Wow. It's crazy that, after such a long time of waiting for marriage (since fifteen, even if it was just for sex then**), it's finally going to be here. Yesterday, I gave Michelle the letters that I had written for my wife over the past four years (with no sort of regularity at all). It was funny, because the very first letter mentioned that I was 'currently very attracted to my friend Michelle...but I don't think that would happen. But if that is you, that'd be really funny.' And guess what? It was funny. It was strange to look over those letters again. As much as I've changed since I started writing those letters, the core of Nathaniel was the same then as it is now. I'm just taller now. A tiny, tiny bit taller, but taller nonetheless.

Eleven and a half days. Shoot.

*My dad just told me about a friend he has that makes this joke. But, the proper French meaning and spelling was so ingrained in my mind that I completely missed the say/c'est pun.

**don't get me wrong: I'm still looking forward to that too, just not only that.

Once more, On Music

I'm starting a music blog. That's right.

Check it out here.

On marriage

My parents' divorce is finally starting to move. Mediation begins in a few weeks. It's bittersweet, because on one hand, the tension of their daily interactions will finally be resolved, but on the other...you know. It's a divorce. They're rarely happy affairs. (Although sometimes they're caused by happy affairs)

A couple close friends of mine are surprisingly not being divorced. After dropping off of the face of the planet for a few months, husband came back, realizing what each of them had done wrong and newly determined to make it work. "Realizing the problem is there doesn't fix the problem," he told me. I did not expect this at all. Maybe I should have held hope for longer, but I didn't want to be disappointed.

I'm getting married in two weeks plus four days. Yesterday, I was sitting next to Michelle in church and I realized: I will be sitting next to this woman in church for the rest of my life. I will be sitting across the table from her, on the couch with her, sleeping in bed with her, in the car with her, my entire life. Starting May 1, 2010, the days I spend apart from her will be few and far between. All of my life, I have been surrounded by marriages with varying levels of toxicity, whether it be my own family, people in my church, close friends. I have seen couples happier than we grow to resent and despise one another. I have seen how more time together can embitter a man to his wife or a woman to her husband.

Far more rarely but much more notably, I have also seen marriages drowning with grace--grace for who the other person is, their weaknesses, their struggles, their irritating habits, their differing sleep patterns, their differences in decorating opinions. It reminds me that, like a commitment to Christ and His ministry of reconciliation, a marriage commitment is something that needs to be constantly overflowing with grace, and grace, and grace, and grace. Not only that, but I can't just see some girl in the food court and be all, '@wife we had a good run. see you later #speedydivorce.'

So I, sitting next to Michelle in church, realizing the weight of the decision I've made, looked at her and thought, 'if I'm going to make a commitment to anyone, it might as well be superawesomehotgirl Michelle.'

Because when it comes to marriage, I don't think it's as much about finding the right person as it is making right decisions for that person. And I'm positive that even when I don't, Michelle will take my wrong decisions and cover them with grace, and grace, and grace, and grace.

Top Ten

Alright, this started as a Facebook comment, and I needed a different forum.

These are the ten most impacting records on my life, in chronological order.

1. Project 86 - Drawing Black Lines
Before I heard this album, I really only listened to Weird Al and the Star Wars soundtracks. This record began to show me what kind of power music had.

2. The Ataris - Blue Skies, Broken Hearts...Next 12 Exits/End is Forever
I listened to these two records back to back to back in eighth and ninth grade--during which time I saw my first relationship, my first break up, my first kiss with a stranger, and my first real rebellion. The Ataris both enforced that rebellion and, in more introspective moments, helped me realize that I wasn't happy there.

3. The Juliana Theory - Emotion is Dead
The first emo record I ever heard, and I immediately started growing out my hair and playing acoustic guitar. No joke.

4. Weezer - Pinkerton
I don't think this needs an explanation. Just a metal fist. lml =w=

5. Sunny Day Real Estate - How It Feels To Be Something On
During a time in my life when I was playing mostly Thursday and Thrice influenced heavy emocore, SDRE grabbed a hold of me and showed me just how pretty emo could be.

6. mewithoutYou - [A-->B] Life/Brother, Sister
Because I can't choose. These albums represent such different periods in my life. I first bought A-->B for six dollars at the church camp bookstore. I hated it at first, but I forced myself to listen to it. A few weeks later, my girlfriend of two years broke up with me. Needless to say, that record got a lot of play. Brother, Sister came out during my sophomore year of college, and it opened up so much about God that had been clouded previously. Lyrically, musically, and spiritually, it crushed me and built me back up the first time I heard it the whole way through. And the Jeremy Enigk cameo didn't hurt.

7. Mae - The Everglow
At the time of this album's release, I had finally done most of my wandering and found my way back to God (in one way or the other), and I identified myself so much with the journey taken by the main character in the record. It was also during a time where I had thrown out all of my secular music, and this album was one of the first 'Christian CDs I bought after the great Purge, and I was pleased with it.

8. The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium/Sigur Ros - ( )
These were the first secular albums I let myself listen to after months of listening to only 'Christian' music. And God let me know that He'll dwell wherever creation is, no matter what the people who create it think of Him. They're just so dynamic and crushing. I would often put on ( ) and just lose the next hour and a half, and I would awake from the trance feeling like I was just born.

9. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
The first folk record I ever bought. It set me off on three years of writing primarily folk songs.

10. Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
Ear and heart shatteringly vulnerable. Very few records have ever had the emotional impact on me that this record does. It had way more to do with the almost disturbingly personal portrayal of spiritual struggle that my music has taken on than any other record. I sometimes feel like Jesse Lacey is a very close friend of mine, and we're just exchanging these narratives.

Spring Broke

I love being a substitute teacher. Seriously, the best job in the whole world. Maybe. Maybe third or fourth best. The kids are great, and if they aren't great, they're at least funny.

However. This week, kids around the nation are celebrating spring break. One of the students I work with a lot is going to Arizona. He's very excited.

And me? I'm staying right here in Mishawaka, not working and not getting paid.

It's not that bad. It's good to be in a position where I can miss being paid for a week and not starve or get evicted or get my power shut off. And it's going to give me some time to get some things done around the apartment, like painting the entertainment center or getting internet set up or bike downtown or just play guitar with my old amp that I just bought back from the friend I sold it to and some new pedals.

And, the wedding is in four weeks minus two days. Hot dang.

God is good.

March Thirty-first, Twenty-ten.

Today is my soon-to-be nephew's fourth birthday. Four was my favorite age. We had a kind of party for him last night, but he wasn't feeling too well, so we just had some cake and presents. His maternal grandparents are here from Sweden until Tuesday, so this was a good time for his birthday.

I bought my old guitar amp back from the friend I sold it to a few years ago back from him today. It's good to have it back. It's like suddenly rediscovering an old friend.

Michelle and I are having a picnic this evening. As much as I dislike people complaining about bad weather, I'm so glad for the sun's return.

Today, the class I was in had a visiting teacher that spoke about recycling and then taught them about haiku, and had them write some haiku about the earth. Naturally, I wrote a few.

Do your part to care

For Earth: always keep closed the

refrigerator.

The earth surrounds me

I look around, and I see

trees, bees, peas, and knees

You down with hippies?

They are down with Mother Earth

Mess with her; with them.

"Oh, my recyclers,"

Captain Planet bids you, "Be

also bicyclers!"

(these next two are from the perspective of Captain Planet)

Ugh. Oh, pollution

My band and abhoréd foe

I'm comin' for ya.

Um. Did you just throw

that toxic waste in the woods?

You just made my list.

I had a good day today.

Discovery

This week, I had the pleasure of substitute teaching at my old middle school. I was expecting to see a few teachers that I had, and I did. But I wasn't expecting to be revisited with how much those teachers meant to me.

Some background: I was a really insecure kid in elementary school, and didn't really come into my own until around seventh and eighth grade. But, being between the walls I walked as I found out who I was, I remembered just how much each of my teachers fostered that. Especially Mrs. Stutzman.

In fifth grade, there was an activity we did where we had a picture of a brain, and we had to divide it up into sections that represented each subject in school. The size of each section depended on how interested we were in the subject. I distinctly remember asking my teacher if I needed to have every subject in our diagram, because I wasn't interested in music at all. She said I had to, so I made it as small as could muster, and made it the ugliest color I could find.

Going into middle school, I was disappointed to find that I HAD to pick a music class. Wanting to do as little as possible, I signed up for Piano Lab with Mrs. Stutzman. Now...if I wanted to keep my indifference to music intact, this was absolutely the wrong choice. The first week of class, she taught us the grand scale, and played the entire class through a simple version of Ode To Joy. And I discovered that I could create music. My world was flipped. I didn't care much about science anymore (in elementary school if anyone asked what I wanted to be, it was a scientist). My mom bought me a keyboard from RadioShack, and I would come home from school and just sit down at the keyboard for hours--BEFORE I played Mario, even. Keyboard became the new most important thing, and I quickly excelled in Mrs. Stutzman's class. Then, in seventh grade, there was a three week guitar unit, right after my mom gave me a bass guitar. It whet my appetite a little, but I was still focused on the piano. The next year, after I had started working on bass at home, Mrs. Stutzman let me bring it in during the guitar unit. Then, after the guitar unit wrapped up, she let a handful of us continue the guitar unit in the hallway. For about half of that year, my Piano Lab class consisted of sitting out in the hallway with a few friends playing Blink-182 songs.

And there, in the hallway playing punk rock, I found myself.