1 in 4 of my titles has something to do with Ben Folds, regardless of whether the post has anything to do with him.

I've been spending a lot of time in the pub room at school lately. I think that I like it there. Jennifer and Malinda just took over the paper. They're going to do a really good job. They are already trying out some really cool new stuff, like a photo comic that Blake, Sydnie, and Caleb made. I think that the school newspaper, once an object of ridicule for me will become something that I really enjoy being a part of and take pride in. Ironic. Besides, they're going to let me hook up speakers to one of the computers and play music off of my mp3 player in there, just as long as I promise to bring in The Fray. I'm definately alright with that.

The play is going to be over this weekend. Opening night is tomorrow. I'm really excited. Once again, for all my worries, the whole thing worked out. You would think that I would learn, but I still haven't. I've been working on the Steve Fan Club shirts, they're going pretty slow, but the ones that are done look great. Twelve is a rather overwhelming amount of marker, but think how fun meetings will be.

I was driving past Friskies on the way home from play practice about a week ago and I drove past this semi parked behind the factory. On the side of the truck someone had spray painted the words, "This is revenge for the smell that haunts my memories." Now, unless you live in or around Jefferson, you can't fully understand how true that is. The production of cat food makes a smell like no other smell. It's similar to breakfast cereal, but definately not the same. Smell is one of the most powerful senses. I don't know if whoever did that was just joking around, but they could have been quite serious. It's so true. When I think of first moving to this house, ten years ago, I think of that smell. I hated it. All I could think was, we can't live here, it smells horrible, and then we got into the house and it smelled even worse. I started to cry, so I ran outside and down this path, not knowing where I was going, and I came upon the runway. For some reason, I walked up on it and sat down in the middle of it. Now, that was really a stupid thing to do, but I was a second grader and it must have just felt right. I was sitting there in the middle of the end of the runway and a plane takes off, about midway down from where I was and goes directly over my head. It was one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me. It's hard to describe, there was this huge rushing of wind, but it was surprisingly quiet. I don't really remember the end of the story. I just sat there thinking how cool it was going to be to live there, at that house with the runway down the path in the back yard.

Where the lightning begins.

There was a thunder and lightning storm tonight. I was watching it and it really made me start to think.

When I was little, I used to get really scared of thunder during storms. The only thing I could ever do was sit up all night until the storm ended. Every time there was a storm it was terrible because even before the thunder started I'd see the lightning in the distance or see the warning on TV, and I would just get terrified, not only because of the coming noise, but because I just dreaded the coming night, knowing that I wouldn't get any sleep. When you're little, you know, 5, 6, 7 years old, the night is an incredibly dark and long thing, and it can make you feel so lonely.

One night, I was in first grade, Erin woke up from the thunder and saw me sitting in the corner on my bed, probably crying, and she called me over. So I climb up onto her bunk bed and she tells me to look out the window. Have you ever really looked at the sky during a thunder storm? It is a terrifyingly beautiful thing. There are colors in it that you won't see anywhere else in anything in the whole world. She told me to watch for the lightning to see where it started. Watching lightning is completely different from watching TV or a movie or just everyday life. The longer you watch the brighter the lightning gets. It's so powerful, but it's gone so fast.

Since that night, I have never been afraid in a storm. Some things can seem so terrible, but when you look at them just a little closer, you see power and beauty. As you look at them and see the bigger picture, the situation gets brighter and brighter and brighter and you start to see things that you never even knew were there; things that you may never see again, but they are beautiful.

In Tune

I had the most amazing experience today. Last week Pastor told us that we had watched the last Rob Bell video that he had and I was really devastated because I love them and they always have something that really applies to me. Today, however, he had just gotten two new ones so we watched one. It was called Rhythm, which was really amazing for me because it had all sorts of good music analogies which hit incredibly close to home. Through the entire video I felt like he was talking entirely to me. Everything he said was almost entirely identical to the things I have been struggling with. He'd say something and it would just click. It was so awesome. I was writing things that he said down, but I ended up getting hardly any of it because it all fit so well, I think I'm going to have to buy it. In a way it was rather ironic because I was so excited that I couldn't follow what was happening in geometry and I kept messing up. While I realize it's not the solution to everything I have been feeling, it feels so good to have exactly what's been inside of me voiced.

"Maybe you have this sense like you have no relationship with
God because of all these things, these ideas you have about what that means, all
these that you've been told about what it is or what it isn't. And an infinite,
massive, kind of invisible God, that's hard to get our minds around, but truth,
love, grace, mercy, justice, compassion - the way that Jesus lived,

I can see that.

I can understand that.

I can relate to that.

I can play that song."

"May you come to see that the song is written on your heart. And as you live in tune with the song, in tune with the creator of the universe, may you realize that you are in relationship with the living God."

"Who's Tom Manchester?" "He's coming to the party."

The conversation that created title to this post actually happened in a car maybe a month ago, but it didn't really have any relevance to me until recently. I'm reading this book called Babbitt. It's by Sinclair Lewis. It's about this guy named George Babbitt who's a total conformist. He has these incredibly mundane conversations. Example:

“Fine morning,” said Babbitt, lighting—illegally early—his second
cigar of the day.
“Yes, it’s a mighty fine
morning,” said Littlefield.
“Spring coming along
fast now.”
“Yes, it’s real spring now, all right,”
said Littlefield.
“Still cold nights,
though. Had to have a couple blankets, on the sleeping-porch last night.”
“Yes, it wasn’t any too warm last night,” said
Littlefield.
“But I don’t anticipate we’ll
have any more real cold weather now.”
“No, but
still, there was snow at Tiflis, Montana, yesterday,” said the Scholar, “and you
remember the blizzard they had out West three days ago—thirty inches of snow at
Greeley, Colorado—and two years ago we had a snow-squall right here in Zenith on
the twenty-fifth of April.”
“Is that a fact! Say,
old man, what do you think about the Republican candidate? Who’ll they nominate
for president? Don’t you think it’s about time we had a real business
administration?”
“In my opinion, what the
country needs, first and foremost, is a good, sound, business-like conduct of
its affairs. What we need is—a business administration!” said Littlefield.
“I’m glad to hear you say that! I certainly am glad
to hear you say that! I didn’t know how you’d feel about it, with all your
associations with colleges and so on, and I’m glad you feel that way. What the
country needs—just at this present juncture—is neither a college president nor a
lot of monkeying with foreign affairs, but a
good—sound—economical—business—administration, that will give us a chance to
have something like a decent turnover.”

At first when I started reading it, I was really bored by it, but now I'm really starting to enjoy it. Everything I've read so far has been incredibly similar to conversations that could be me and everybody I know in twenty years, which would be really unfortunate. There's all of this really good irony which I enjoy and it's funny. Sinclair Lewis, good man.

I lost where this was going. I'm sure it had some really good tie-in to something in my life right now. Curses on my horrible short term memory. Anyhow, it's a good book even though I haven't finished it.

Let's see, it's been awhile since my last post so I feel like I should be filling you all up with the wonderfulness of my life and all the great things I've been doing, but off-hand I can't really think of anything that I haven't talked about before. Oh, we had LITs on Friday a couple weeks ago. I like saying it like that because it sounds athletic. Then people ask you how you did and you tell them you got a 25, 22, and 24 and they give you this funny confused look. It was a forensics meet. It was actually really fun. Sometimes by the end of those things I get really bored out and I just don't want to be there anymore but that didn't happen at all. This was especially great because I had felt really cruddy that whole day, but enough complaining. Why was it good? Well, I got a perfect score my first round, which is good because there only is one round at State. I met Jason Scheef who Blake and Evan are always telling me I have to meet him and I finally did, he seems to be a pretty cool guy.

There doesn't seem to be much else to tell. Play practice goes on and on, until next weekend.