I’ve looked forward to reading Judy Greer’s memoir, I Don’t Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star, ever since I heard about it. What I personally know her from is 13 Going On 30, in which she played Jennifer Garner’s middle-school frenemy all grown up. But as Greer and her IMDB page attest, she’s been working consistently – mostly in supporting roles – since the late 1990s. Most recently she’s been on Archer, Arrested Development, and Two and a Half Men.
I Don’t Know What You Know Me From is a pretty typically structured memoir, starting with Greer’s childhood in Detroit. After ten years of ballet (she had the right body type but never particularly excelled), she started acting on a lark in high school. When another girl told her she wasn’t good enough to get into an acting program at DePaul University, Greer decided that was exactly what she wanted to do. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles, where she still lives with her husband and stepkids. This memoir is full of amusing and touching stories about her family and friends (as well as straight talk about what really goes on in Hollywood). One of my favorite chapters is a series of e-mails from her best friends about how America’s go-to movie best friend stacks up in real life.
I found Judy Greer extremely likable. She seems like a genuine, humble, funny person who doesn’t take her success for granted and knows what’s important in life. I loved hanging out with her in the pages of this book and would definitely read anything else she writes!
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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2013-14 has been one of the most memorable Tiger basketball seasons in years. When the Tigers kicked off with a painful road loss against Oklahoma State, only to beat them decisively two weeks later, we didn’t realize they were setting the tempo for the entire season. Get swept by Cincinnati and UConn; beat the defending national champions twice. Come back for an awesome victory over Gonzaga on ESPN GameDay; fall apart against Houston. (Houston?!?) You never knew which Tiger team was going to show up, but that sure added to the excitement.
I’ve been an active Tiger fan for about fifteen years, all of them in Conference USA, where every game was a must-win to have any hope of a post-season. So it took me a while to understand that, in the American Athletic Conference, against good teams, we can now lose a game or two and stay in the top 25. Once that sank in, I decided being in a good conference is awesome! I think the Tigers would agree, despite the aforementioned losses.
It’s hard to explain how much basketball means to Memphis. There’s a sense of civic pride that you don’t find elsewhere. Many of our best players grew up here, including Joe Jackson, who recently said he would have played for the Tigers even if “Billy Bob from Wal-Mart” was the coach. Until recently, I assumed every college fanbase was as intense as ours. Every fanbase overanalyzes every game and knows all the players’ life stories and can call a travel in like 0.2 seconds. Right? But in all of our televised games this season – even the away ones – the announcers have mentioned how passionate we are. The SEC is religious about their football. They can have it. We’ll take basketball.
For Christmas, my parents gave me a knitted tiger hat from Etsy (pictured above). I love it and have worn it on the cold walks to and from the Forum every home game since. During our first game against Louisville, when things weren’t going so well, I took out the hat and put it on. The Tigers rallied and won. When we were down against Gonzaga with only a few minutes to go, I put on the hat with the same result. So you better believe that hat will be on my head at 5:55 this evening. Win or lose, I’m proud of my team and especially the seniors who have given us a spectacular four years. TIGER FOR LIFE. GO TIGERS GO!!!
PS – I am this guy.
I loved Sara Miles’ memoir of unexpected conversion, Take This Bread, so I was excited to get her latest, City of God: Faith in the Streets from Netgalley. The central narrative of City of God is set on Ash Wednesday 2012, when Miles and other local Episcopal ministers take to the streets of their neighborhood – the Mission area of San Francisco – to impart ashes to anyone who wants them. Along the way, she tells backstories of her relationships with the other residents of the Mission and people participating in the service. But most of the book is an exposition on the beauty of diversity, and how God is everywhere, not confined by the locations and rites where we expect to find Him.
City of God isn’t as tightly written as Take This Bread. Miles hits the same points again and again, which might work better if this had been a series of articles instead of a unified piece. Eventually I started thinking, Okay, I get it. But she’s clearly passionate about her subject, and it’s a testament to her quality prose that I wasn’t bored by a hundred mentions of unexpected people saying “Hey, can I have ashes too?” I also appreciate how different her history and viewpoints are from anything I’m used to… reading her work is a refreshing shot of perspective for me, even if I don’t agree with her on everything. I highlighted many insightful passages. Overall, City of God is a beautiful picture of grace and humanity’s hunger for God.
Recommended for: fans of Anne Lamott
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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I am not a natural fan of change. As an Enneagram Type Six, I seek security, and security usually means things staying the same. When my life got turned upside down, I became a lot more flexible and open, and generally I see that as a positive development. But change continues to scare me when it comes to my opinions and spiritual life.
Somewhere deep down, I feel like REAL Christians don’t budge in their perceptions about God, the Bible, or the way the world should work. I know many Christians who have happily remained in the same denomination, even the same church, for their entire lives. I admire their consistency and sort of envy the ease of living in a perfectly black and white world. But for most of my life, my beliefs and relationship with God have evolved – and never more so than in the last five or so years. The more life happens to me, the fewer pat answers I can accept, because life is complicated and messy. I’m embracing more gray areas, discovering the freedom of the words “I don’t know,” learning to respect differences, questioning some traditions I used to take for granted, and acknowledging that God is beyond our comprehension, bigger than any definitions we can dream up. I’m still solid on the core truths of Christianity, but because I come from a very black and white tradition, I struggle with anxiety and shame about my changing views even on small things. Or I did, until I came across this quote:
“Change means you are alive.”
Alive. Not unstable, flighty, or compromised. But alive.
Alive creatures are constantly changing and being renewed, right down to our cells. The only creatures that never change are dead ones. I’ve said before that a questioning but alive faith seems healthier than an assured but stagnant faith. I need to start living like I believe it. Being fully alive means changing a little bit every day. That doesn’t necessarily mean that every day I’m dancing one step closer to the edge. It might even mean that every day, the Holy Spirit is making me a tiny bit more like Jesus, or showing me a facet of Him that I never understood before. Change doesn’t have to equal danger, at least not the destructive kind – God isn’t safe, but He’s good.
I have a sense that I’m moving into a time of greater change, and a few friends have observed it too. I don’t know what that will look like or what’s in store, but I want to put away my fear, and trust that He who makes all things new is making me new too.
This post is part of the monthly OneWord 365 linkup at The Messy Middle.
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Like Anna in Frozen, much of my adulthood has been a series of doors in my face. Apparently God’s personal plan for me revolves around learning to deal graciously with disappointment and failure. For most of my life, the fear of failure kept me locked inside myself. If I wasn’t confident of a good result, I usually didn’t try. Now I understand that you have to try, because it expands you and makes you stronger and braver. You have to ask for what you want, because if you don’t, no one will know. You have to love, even if it breaks your heart. I continue to put myself out there, to keep my dreams alive, because I believe it’s the healthiest move regardless of the outcome. But I’ve stopped expecting success. I carry the knowledge that anything is possible right alongside a long history of things that didn’t work out.
If you read any of that in a mental Eeyore voice, you’d be wrong. When I say that probably nothing will come of an opportunity, I’m simply stating a fact from many years of banging my head against brick walls. Sure, sometimes I get angry or feel sorry for myself… even though I’m already more privileged than most of the world. It’s easy to lose perspective when I feel surrounded by charismatic (or just well-connected) people who seem to live charmed lives. It’s especially frustrating when they attribute it all to “God’s favor,” making you wonder if you were in the bathroom when that was being handed out. Or when people assure you that God is just waiting for the right time to open doors for you, even though He never promised us that. But I’m slowly making peace with my struggles. Sometimes I’m even thankful for them.
My whole upbringing was pointed toward becoming a wife and mother. I foolishly made zero preparations for a long-term fulfilling career, extensive living alone, or being single at 34. So after my marriage chewed me up and spit me out, I prayed, Okay God, You’ll just have to give me the tools to do this. I actually imagined myself under a car and God handing me wrenches and ratchets one at a time, a picture that continues to stick with me. And you know what? He’s still doing it. Lately I feel extra capable, like whatever happens, I can handle it. That’s a gift that the life I wanted would not have given me… along with other gifts, like increased compassion, more humility, the ability to see and validate others for whom the big things don’t come easily. Standing as proof to people with similar wounds that you can survive. Learning to trust God differently. Participating in Jesus’s suffering, in a tiny way, and relating to Him better through it.
We call people blessed when they marry well, bring children into their families, go on that big trip, get the dream job, get the book deal. I may never have any of those things, but when I reflect on what I do have, I still feel blessed. I really do. My blessings aren’t happy fun ones, but they’re transforming me for the better day by day. Though it would be tempting, I don’t think I’d trade where I am now for where I’d be if I’d never had to wait or fight for anything. I don’t think God has abandoned or “disfavored” me. He’s just called me to a different sort of path, and He’ll keep handing me the tools I need to walk it.
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