After going away to college and then going out on your own, actually coming back home and visiting is a surreal event. It's hard to sit there in your living room and pick up where you left off several months ago like you'd never left. Turning to your old favorite radio station is always somehow comforting. Sitting in your old bedroom, looking at all the old stuff you deemed wasn't important enough to take with you. . . it's strange. Almost unnerving.
Those living room conversations. "So, how have you been?"
How do you say "I'm doing more or less the same. I'm just in a different geographical area."? So you say, "Good." and nod a bit.
Driving around your old neighborhood is strange (Note to self: use a word other than strange for the rest of this entry ... "peculiar?"). I like to drive past all the old places I used to hang out and see if I can imagine in my head what it would feel like if I were still living at home and those places were still the places I hung around. Actually, I can almost do it, but just before that final image forms, it's ripped away and I'm back "visiting."
I think, deep down inside, subconsciously- that is, I'm jealous of my old friends that either went to school near home or came back home after school. I love my hometown. As much as I feel the need to get out there and experience new life in new places, I think this may just be a displacement or transference of the fact that I don't really want to leave. Something that concerned me about my "being in the ministry" is it's so rare that people actually pastor or work at a church in their hometown. Rather you talk to a pastor about what they've done so far, and usually they'll say "1 year in Virginia, 3 years in Oregon, 2 years in New Jersey..." etc. How do you lay down roots that way? Where is the stability?
I've gotten a bit ahead of myself. This was supposed to be a lighter entry (*cough*). So, I drive around and soak in "home" as much as I can when I have a chance. I swing by the "mall" and do a bit of walking around and check out which stores are still open (not many anymore.)
My senior year I worked at a Christian Bookstore in the mall. For some reason, any time I entered a Christian bookstore for the next year or so, I'd get a bit queasy. A couple of doors down there was a store, uh, opening?, where several stores set up for a few months but never made it and always closed. One of the more successful stores that set up inside the, uh, opening, was Rue 21.
If the store were laid out like a giant, square-faced clock, the guy's clothing would be from 6 O'Clock to 9 O'Clock. The girl's, clothes, though, were from 9 O'clock all the way around the clock face back to 6. In other words, yeah, they had guy clothes, but they were only in roughly one-fourth of the store and push together in the front corner. I was maybe 16 at the time and found a shirt or pair of jeans that I wanted. Because it was a new store, I wanted to try them on first. I asked one of the sales girls where the fitting rooms were and she pointed behind her.
If they made bathroom stalls for little people, that's what these would look like.
Since they had just opened, they didn't have any permanent fitting areas, so they had set up a few "booths" kinda out in the middle of the back of the store. I think to myself " Hmm. Okay." (Maybe I said it aloud.) and enter one of the "booths." As soon as I start to try on the new piece of clothing, I hear the door next to mine open and see a girl about my age or a little younger walk in. This is a bit odd to me at first, but I focus on putting on the shirt. Out of the corner of my eye I see two arms go up in the air and a shirt fly off of them.
Surely not . . . I couldn't quite finish the thought.
A sideways glance reveals a bare shoulder. Now, I'm not very tall. I'm just under 6 foot, mind you. Nothing extraordinary. But I can nearly see this girl changing. In the middle of the store. In the bare-bones co-ed dressing area.
I'm also standing in the middle of the stall. It wouldn't have been much effort to shuffle closer to the near wall and see everything if I were of that mind.
All I can think is Who's idea was *this*?
I decided quickly, yes, the shirt (or jeans) fit, and yes, I'm going to buy it. I shimmy back into my normal clothes and leave the poor girl alone. She had no idea how exposed she was.
Or maybe she was busy checking out my shoulders.
FUN FACT: I am actually quite good at skipping.
MUSIC SNOB: Eyes by Rogue Wave (It has a prominent roll in Just Friends!) Also, Hackensack by Fountains of Wayne (Also in Just Friends [a 2-for-1 deal!] ).
1.25.2007
Christmastime is Here . . . Wait. Replace "Christmastime" with "My Screaming Mortality".
I made the mistake of listening to the song "Christmastime is here" on the Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack (I think, maybe one of my most prized possessions).
Big mistake, friends.
I think the first few months of the year are mildly depressing for me because I know that Christmas is as far away as it can possibly be.
I'm not one of those crazies that listen to Christmas music year round (I think I just lied) but it always seems to mean more outside of the traditional "Christmas season." And yet, when it really is Christmastime, it always seems so trite. Why is this? Is it because no other music is played, ever, anywhere during this time? The beautiful songs that tug mercilessly on heart strings are singing about this time, yet it seems so mediocre. Is it the saturation that kills it? Is it the Old Navy commercials with people jumping in and out of presents? Why don't I like Christmas music at Christmas time? Well, rather, I don't like it as much.
It doesn't have that quick pang that hits you center mass when you hear the first few notes of a great Christmas song.
But it's not Christmastime. It's now the "new year."
2007.
I graduated high school six years ago.
Where have I been? High school seemed to last so long, yet that was only 4 years.
It's been 10 years since my freshman year in high school.
If I had kept with the whole "orthopedic surgeon" thing, I would have been in the middle of Med School right now.
I'm a youth pastor, which I love. I'm doing what I know I'm supposed to do. I'm doing what I went to college to do. I'm doing what I dreamt about doing in high school. But, honestly, I feel vaguely unfulfilled.
Why?
Maybe it's because I'm about a month away from being 24. Which is one year away from 25.
A quarter of a century is me.
What have I done? Graduated college? Actually, no. I'm still working on my one, last, remaining class.
What have I created? A stack of half-thought out stories? A ream of melodramatic poems (blech. I hate poetry. Maybe just my own. Why do I write it, again?) Pages and pages of pretty decent story ideas that I'm too afraid of messing up by actually attempting to put them to paper? A good, healthy youth group?
Yeah, that last one. Everyone I talk to and everything I read says that that last one will really only happen with a good deal of time. Years. Who has that kind of time? I'm almost a quarter of a century old.
My own screaming mortality is challenging me to a staring contest.
I feel like I've been here a long time. In my mind was an image, I think, of a group of kids that were fundamentally different after just 6 months under my leadership. We've made some great strides, but I haven't lived up to my delusions of grandeur.
Actually, I'm just afraid I'll screw everything up some how.
Isn't that really what we're all afraid of ? About everything?
What could have been different? Could I have been more assertive? Done more with what has been provided me? Been more observant of the needs around me?
When I was a kid, every day seemed so long. I looked at my chubby face in the mirror and wondered what I'd look like as a man (answer: pretty much the same. More facial hair, though.) I saw the adults in my life and wondered if I would ever get there. With each day an eternity, would I ever actually become an adult, or would it be this intangible goal, past my grasp, well over the horizon of my life? They all seemed to have it together.
Sometimes I feel like I've missed something. Some key step that acts as that missing gear that gets the machinery up and running. After eternity days as a kid, something clicked over and sent my day-to-day into a rocketing snowball of time. Was there something that got lost in the fury?
No.
I know that it's just the way it is. For everybody, probably. Nobody's really got the answers. Not all of them.
We're all just doing the best that we can.
FUN FACT: I've collected knives since I was 5 years old. I remember that's when my dad gave me my first one; it was a Buck. I took it to the ditch (why???) and whittled a stick. Ah, memories.
MUSIC SNOB: "Quality Revenge at Last" by Hey Mercedes.
Big mistake, friends.
I think the first few months of the year are mildly depressing for me because I know that Christmas is as far away as it can possibly be.
I'm not one of those crazies that listen to Christmas music year round (I think I just lied) but it always seems to mean more outside of the traditional "Christmas season." And yet, when it really is Christmastime, it always seems so trite. Why is this? Is it because no other music is played, ever, anywhere during this time? The beautiful songs that tug mercilessly on heart strings are singing about this time, yet it seems so mediocre. Is it the saturation that kills it? Is it the Old Navy commercials with people jumping in and out of presents? Why don't I like Christmas music at Christmas time? Well, rather, I don't like it as much.
It doesn't have that quick pang that hits you center mass when you hear the first few notes of a great Christmas song.
But it's not Christmastime. It's now the "new year."
2007.
I graduated high school six years ago.
Where have I been? High school seemed to last so long, yet that was only 4 years.
It's been 10 years since my freshman year in high school.
If I had kept with the whole "orthopedic surgeon" thing, I would have been in the middle of Med School right now.
I'm a youth pastor, which I love. I'm doing what I know I'm supposed to do. I'm doing what I went to college to do. I'm doing what I dreamt about doing in high school. But, honestly, I feel vaguely unfulfilled.
Why?
Maybe it's because I'm about a month away from being 24. Which is one year away from 25.
A quarter of a century is me.
What have I done? Graduated college? Actually, no. I'm still working on my one, last, remaining class.
What have I created? A stack of half-thought out stories? A ream of melodramatic poems (blech. I hate poetry. Maybe just my own. Why do I write it, again?) Pages and pages of pretty decent story ideas that I'm too afraid of messing up by actually attempting to put them to paper? A good, healthy youth group?
Yeah, that last one. Everyone I talk to and everything I read says that that last one will really only happen with a good deal of time. Years. Who has that kind of time? I'm almost a quarter of a century old.
My own screaming mortality is challenging me to a staring contest.
I feel like I've been here a long time. In my mind was an image, I think, of a group of kids that were fundamentally different after just 6 months under my leadership. We've made some great strides, but I haven't lived up to my delusions of grandeur.
Actually, I'm just afraid I'll screw everything up some how.
Isn't that really what we're all afraid of ? About everything?
What could have been different? Could I have been more assertive? Done more with what has been provided me? Been more observant of the needs around me?
When I was a kid, every day seemed so long. I looked at my chubby face in the mirror and wondered what I'd look like as a man (answer: pretty much the same. More facial hair, though.) I saw the adults in my life and wondered if I would ever get there. With each day an eternity, would I ever actually become an adult, or would it be this intangible goal, past my grasp, well over the horizon of my life? They all seemed to have it together.
Sometimes I feel like I've missed something. Some key step that acts as that missing gear that gets the machinery up and running. After eternity days as a kid, something clicked over and sent my day-to-day into a rocketing snowball of time. Was there something that got lost in the fury?
No.
I know that it's just the way it is. For everybody, probably. Nobody's really got the answers. Not all of them.
We're all just doing the best that we can.
FUN FACT: I've collected knives since I was 5 years old. I remember that's when my dad gave me my first one; it was a Buck. I took it to the ditch (why???) and whittled a stick. Ah, memories.
MUSIC SNOB: "Quality Revenge at Last" by Hey Mercedes.
1.22.2007
Coffeehouse Aggravations
I'm really excited about tonight. We're starting a college group tonight at the local coffeehouse. It's going to be low-key and group discussion instead of preachy sermonic style. I've been leafing through some of my Bible College notes on Calvinism Vs. Arminianism (or predestination vs. free will, respectively, mostly). There's a few things that I wanted to brush up on, so I've been doing some resear
ch. First off, I have the worst note handwriting EVER. It doesn't help that I used "slow days" as an opportunity to practice my ambidexterity. Even with my left hand (that is, the one I normally write with) it's not that great. I didn't always sleep much at school, so every so often I'd find myself dozing off while writing notes. Whereas most people would stop writing when they fell asleep, no, not me. I'd keep writing, the line of ever-increasingly illegible letters finally trailing off of the page. One notable instance I had, in my sleep induced note-taking state, scrawled in big capital letters "PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST." Yeah, I'm not sure what I was dreaming, but I doubt it was about Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
Bible College. It's a place where you can go. And then leave. And then rifle through notes taken in said period of time. And then wonder "Did I even go to class?"
FUN FACT:
ch. First off, I have the worst note handwriting EVER. It doesn't help that I used "slow days" as an opportunity to practice my ambidexterity. Even with my left hand (that is, the one I normally write with) it's not that great. I didn't always sleep much at school, so every so often I'd find myself dozing off while writing notes. Whereas most people would stop writing when they fell asleep, no, not me. I'd keep writing, the line of ever-increasingly illegible letters finally trailing off of the page. One notable instance I had, in my sleep induced note-taking state, scrawled in big capital letters "PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST." Yeah, I'm not sure what I was dreaming, but I doubt it was about Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.Bible College. It's a place where you can go. And then leave. And then rifle through notes taken in said period of time. And then wonder "Did I even go to class?"
FUN FACT:
- My favorite smell is the body spray Love Spell by Victoria's Secret. That junk = catnip.
- Stereo by Audio Learning Center (on Cope Park album).
1.18.2007
"You do what, now?" -- "What?" -- "YOU DO WHAT, NOW?"
Who I met today:
A nearly deaf piano tuner.
I'm not even kidding.
I'm thinking of starting a couple of new bits in my blogs (The aspiring Conan O'Brien in me desperately wants me to have more "bits" in my life). I think I'll call them "Fun Fact" where I divulge a lesser known detail about myself, and "Music Snob" where I name a song that I don't think gets nearly enough attention (my inner hipster is radiating).
So, let's get this rolling:
Fun Fact!
Music Snob!
A nearly deaf piano tuner.
I'm not even kidding.
I'm thinking of starting a couple of new bits in my blogs (The aspiring Conan O'Brien in me desperately wants me to have more "bits" in my life). I think I'll call them "Fun Fact" where I divulge a lesser known detail about myself, and "Music Snob" where I name a song that I don't think gets nearly enough attention (my inner hipster is radiating).
So, let's get this rolling:
Fun Fact!
- I take every opportunity to use chopsticks when I eat. This includes eating at Asian/Japanese/Thai/Malay/Chinese/etc. restaurants where it is seen as normal and eating other types of food where it isn't (Salad! It's fun!)
Music Snob!
- "Perfect Memory" by Remy Zero. One may remember this as the song played at the prom on the season 1 finale of Smallville (the only season that I watched).
Moms and Video Games
When talking about video games, it's easy to identify the level of comprehension a mom has of the world of video games. The following statements are indicative of which level they are:
Level 1: Doesn't know much :: "He's playing Playstation." (It may still be possible that a kid could still be playing this thing. But that fact of the matter is that it's been nearly a decade and two generations of console gaming since we were all reeling over Playstation One Games.)
Level 2: Knows very little :: "He's playing Nintendo." (Unless he's 25 and playing a Nintendo for nostalgia's sake. . . no, no he's not.)
Level 3: Next to nothing :: "He's playing Nintendo Playstation." (I think I've heard my grandpa say this. It's so wrong that it's almost funny.)
**An important point to make is that it doesn't actually matter what the kid is playing. He could be playing a Wii or an Atari 2600, the answer would still be "He's playing Super Sony Nintendo Playstation."
Level 1: Doesn't know much :: "He's playing Playstation." (It may still be possible that a kid could still be playing this thing. But that fact of the matter is that it's been nearly a decade and two generations of console gaming since we were all reeling over Playstation One Games.)
Level 2: Knows very little :: "He's playing Nintendo." (Unless he's 25 and playing a Nintendo for nostalgia's sake. . . no, no he's not.)
Level 3: Next to nothing :: "He's playing Nintendo Playstation." (I think I've heard my grandpa say this. It's so wrong that it's almost funny.)
**An important point to make is that it doesn't actually matter what the kid is playing. He could be playing a Wii or an Atari 2600, the answer would still be "He's playing Super Sony Nintendo Playstation."
1.02.2007
An Open Letter To the Collective Xanga Entity (Ironically not written on Xanga)
Dear Xanga,
I am sorry that you're feeling so left out. It's a real shame what's happened. A few years ago, you were the man. The Man. You were edgy. Blogging wasn't yet a buzzword. People came to you and really opened up. "Like, today I totally talked to David and he was all 'What?' And I was all like 'huh?' LOL." These are the kind of gems that people filled your virtual pages with. But now, alas, you are a mere stepping stone to myspace. Anymore, it seems that the only thing written in you is " Sorry I haven't written in so long. I don't really use Xanga anymore. Myspace is teh rulz lol!!!!!1!!" At least people still overuse dumb abbreviations like LOL. It's not your fault that the internet culture passed you up for the culturally cliched Myspace. You, one of the biggest progenitors of online diary writing (C'mon, we both know that's all blogging really is) can't be blamed that Myspace and Youtube have been scooped up by society as the super-hot "it" thing. I am just as much to blame as anyone else. I barely even check on you, let alone write in you, because hey, facts are facts. The list of subscribers on the left side (conveniently set up for sorting by updated pages) hasn't moved substantially in a long time. I don't get comments anymore because nobody reads anymore.
Good night, Xanga. And good luck.
Aaron
I am sorry that you're feeling so left out. It's a real shame what's happened. A few years ago, you were the man. The Man. You were edgy. Blogging wasn't yet a buzzword. People came to you and really opened up. "Like, today I totally talked to David and he was all 'What?' And I was all like 'huh?' LOL." These are the kind of gems that people filled your virtual pages with. But now, alas, you are a mere stepping stone to myspace. Anymore, it seems that the only thing written in you is " Sorry I haven't written in so long. I don't really use Xanga anymore. Myspace is teh rulz lol!!!!!1!!" At least people still overuse dumb abbreviations like LOL. It's not your fault that the internet culture passed you up for the culturally cliched Myspace. You, one of the biggest progenitors of online diary writing (C'mon, we both know that's all blogging really is) can't be blamed that Myspace and Youtube have been scooped up by society as the super-hot "it" thing. I am just as much to blame as anyone else. I barely even check on you, let alone write in you, because hey, facts are facts. The list of subscribers on the left side (conveniently set up for sorting by updated pages) hasn't moved substantially in a long time. I don't get comments anymore because nobody reads anymore.
Good night, Xanga. And good luck.
Aaron