Jordan Johanna

I think Wednesday should be an extra weekend day. You need a break midweek to recharge and catch up...

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:36:42 -0700

I think Wednesday should be an extra weekend day. You need a break midweek to recharge and catch up on New Girl and slide around the house in socks.

10 Things I Know to be True (#4): Soup is simply not a...

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:07:40 -0700

10 Things I Know to be True (#4): Soup is simply not a summertime food.

10 Things I Know to be True (#3): Sometimes contentment...

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:04:00 -0700

10 Things I Know to be True (#3): Sometimes contentment surprises you in the midst of seemingly dire circumstances. This is called joy, and it is beautiful.

Photo

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 07:14:30 -0700

10 Things I Know to be True (#2): Just because you love someone...

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 15:10:00 -0700

10 Things I Know to be True (#2): Just because you love someone does not mean they are contractually obligated to ever love you back.

10 Things I Know to be True (#1): The perfect pair of jeans is...

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:37:00 -0700

10 Things I Know to be True (#1):

The perfect pair of jeans is elusive. Particularly if you are only willing to spend 30 dollars on them.

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with an idea/lyric/joke/et cetera that you...

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:33:43 -0700

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with an idea/lyric/joke/et cetera that you believed was so brilliant you had to write it down immediately so it wouldn’t be forgotten? And then you wake up later, look at what you wrote, and realize that you’re a moron?

I’m pretty sure it legitimately happened in an episode of Seinfeld. Which is why one night, when I woke up thinking I had thought of something brilliant, I wrote it down, halfway remembering that episode and knowing I would wake up later to idiocy, but also halfway believing it was actually brilliant and I would thank myself for gifting it to future me.

Lo and behold, the line of poetry that I thought could not wait at 4 in the morning:

“And maybe that beautiful song sits in bathwater”

Lame.

sang.

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 22:55:24 -0700

sang.

"And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask..."

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:03:56 -0700

“And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

- 2 John 1:5-6

Every light was dim in the poorly monitored memory wing of the...

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 21:45:26 -0700

Every light was dim in the poorly monitored memory wing of the care center. An older woman with saggy leggings and the jowls of a basset hound wandered into my Grandad’s room before mumbling something to my dad and calling him a bitch. Once she shuffled back out the door, I wasn’t sure what I could say to ease the tension, so I went out to the wood-paneled vending machine in the lobby that time forgot and bought a bag of RedVines. My dad and I ate them together and marveled at the fact that they only cost seventy-five cents, because I didn’t know how to bring up the fact that if he ever died on me, I would kill him.

A comment on the About.com article “Is Sun Tea Dangerous?”: here’s the thing,...

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 08:59:27 -0700

A comment on the About.com article “Is Sun Tea Dangerous?”:

here’s the thing, everybody:

i’d rather die from sun tea than be afraid of sun tea.

now that we have officially scared ourselves of everything – (i mean, what’s left? popping the heads off dandilions? hopscotch? key lime pie??) – let’s take a minute to remember one simple fact:

we are indeed going to die.

all of us.

you too.

maybe even today.

so it’s not the inconvenience or the sentimentality of the sun tea. it’s just: sun tea. and i refuse to be afraid of it, or of the bacteria it may harbor.

the reason germs are more difficult to fight with antibiotics is because we take too many antibiotics. let the body work a little, learn to withstand some germs, develop a healthy immune system. harder to do now that there is antibacterial spray, soap, air freshner, etc etc etc, but geez.

and let’s say you do it, you go on ahead and drink sun tea anyway, (damn the torpedoes! full speed ahead!!) and the unthinkable happens: you DIE from sun tea. well, so be it. we’re going to die from something. please god let me be so lucky as to die from sun tea.

we are spending our whole lives trying to stay alive instead of living. life is dangerous! life is uncertain! life can be scary, yes! but we have it so good here that we forget that it’s going to end someday relatively soon for each of us alive right now. and i am assuming this applies to you, too: if you have a computer and are capable of reading this, take a moment to reflect on how extremely lucky you are in the spectrum of human experiences. you are not, most likely, in Darfur. you probably aren’t being shot at by gang members or insurgents. you most likely HAVE a refrigerator. take a moment to reflect on the fact that you, reader, are alive, and probably safe, and relatively comfortable, else you would scarcely be reading about the $%#& dangers of SUN TEA.

we think this is how it’s always going to be and get attached to life and comfort and come up with crazy ways to insure we get to keep it, to stay alive and comfortable as long as possible. we go to school and spend years “learning” things we may never need to know and that may not interest us, things which we promptly forget as soon as our “test” is over, to increase the likelyhood of getting a job that we most likely are not passionate about, would not be doing if not for the money, to buy things we may not need, to increase the chances that we will still be able to be comfortable in our old age, so that we don’t have to think about dying. and we defend with our lives sometimes our “right” to these things.

everyone! get up from your computers right now! go into the kitchen, grab some tea bags and a glass jar filled with nice cold water, and set it out on the front porch. i hereby declare it national sun tea day in america! take back your life by proudly showing you REFUSE to be afraid of sun tea. and while you’re at it, if you’re not doing something you love, i mean really love, every day: sit back with your deeee-licious glass of sun tea and ask yourself: what am i waiting for.

i say this with deepest love and respect, and wish you peace.

rock on, sun tea rebels.

more from "This is your Life, Charlie Brown"

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:17:00 -0700

On December 9, 1965, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” aired for the first time on CBS, sandwiched between Gilligan’s Island and The Munsters. Though CBS thought the special would be a disaster, it ended up winning a Peabody Award and an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Programming. Sparky was pleased.

I don’t remember the first time I watched a Peanuts special, but I know I was young because they were one of the only positive memories my mom had of her own childhood, along with Tang and the Jackson Five. Our own family of five would all sit in the living room and watch the gang dance to Schroeder’s uptempo jazz before Charlie Brown had a meltdown and Linus the Prophet answered with a recitation of Luke 2 and the stoic proclamation of: “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown”. My dad would follow up with his own reading of the same passage on Christmas morning, but without the dramatic spotlight and controversial KJV. Now those specials are like my visual security blanket—collected on DVDs and watched when I’m sad or sick or nostalgic or feeling my Charlie Browniest. Because nobody can out-Charlie Charlie.

If only the task of uniting the world was as simple as a...

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:07:16 -0700

If only the task of uniting the world was as simple as a thumping disco beat and some primitive digital imaging.

You know those little signs on the side of the road with the names of local people running for some...

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 23:42:02 -0700

You know those little signs on the side of the road with the names of local people running for some generic political office? How sometimes they’ll have a couple of words to sum up their entire campaign like: LEADERSHIP, INTEGRITY or JOBS, SECURITY?

If Jesus had a sign on the side of the road, I imagine his two words would be something like: SEEK, SAVE.

It’s simple but effective. Unfortunately, those people genuinely attempting to vote him into office are also running a smear campaign against him.

hair! it grows!

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 16:31:00 -0700

hair! it grows!

She: He was a head counselor at the boys' camp, and I was a head counselor at the girls' camp. And they had a social one night. And he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to talk to my friend Maxine, because people were always crossing rooms to talk to Maxine. But he was coming to talk to me. And he said--

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 20:56:00 -0700

She: He was a head counselor at the boys' camp, and I was a head counselor at the girls' camp. And they had a social one night. And he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to talk to my friend Maxine, because people were always crossing rooms to talk to Maxine. But he was coming to talk to me. And he said--
Him: I'm Ben Small, of the Coney Island Smalls.
She: At that moment, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.

more from "This is your Life, Charlie Brown"

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:50:34 -0700

“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.” –Sparky

When I was little, I never thought I’d make it to my eighteenth birthday. I watched Jurassic Park too early and was positive that at some point during one of my showers, a velociraptor was going to tear through the shower curtain and let out a horrifying screech before slicing my belly open and devouring my organs. I showered with the curtain pulled back and a watchful eye on the locked bathroom door for at least two years before the fear finally waned.

Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly cowardly, I imagine running into myself back then. If she knew I was still living like there was a raptor lurking around every corner, would she pat my arm and call me poor sweet baby, or would she punch me in the stomach and say something like, “Don’t you see you’ve been given a gift? You thought for sure you’d be a goner by now but you’re still here! And you are wasting it. Show me why you’re here. Show me why you haven’t been eaten alive yet.”

She is pretty wise for an eight year-old figment of my imagination. And has a wicked right hook.

It would just be selfish of me to keep this photo all to myself....

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:39:00 -0700

It would just be selfish of me to keep this photo all to myself. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ron Steele (1985 edition).

My Grandad’s funeral service isn’t until Thursday,...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 23:54:13 -0700

My Grandad’s funeral service isn’t until Thursday, but I figured this place is private enough to debut the video my parents asked me to make for it.

One thing’s for sure, that Ben had style.

Also, Benjamin Franklin Steele is just about the most badass name on the planet, perhaps second only to my grandmother’s name: Billye Jean Steele.

admiration.

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:16:00 -0700

admiration.