nick brown is a funny kid. 

hey! that's my hat... 

jes beat me at chubby bunny...that girl has some BIG cheeks... 

PDA!!!! 

ain't she just the cutest little thing?!? 

the brownies, sad to say, did not last through the night. 

i guess if they don't come bigger from texas...they come cuter. 

there were like...30 people there. 

Edward: this is an invitation from the queen, to the duchess, to play croquet.

 

Nigel: oh, i see. it's an invitation from the queen, to play croquet, to the duchess.

 

Edward: yes, you see, it's an invitation to the duchess, from the queen, to play croquet.

 

Nigel: oh, you mean an invitation to play croquet, to the duchess, from the queen.

 

Edward: well. i wouldn't 've put it quite like that, but...it'll have to do, i suppose.

 

Nigel: very well.

 

 

 

[ah, the joy of prepositional phrases]

i hate fluorescent lights.

not all lights are created equal.
when God said, "let there be light," He meant natural, warm, incandescent light.

fluorescents light the dark corners of hell.

a few weeks ago, i went to indiana for business.
we drove there. 14 hours.

the next week, i went to illinois, on business. i flew there.
the job involved driving a rental ALL OVER ILLINOIS. 40 or so hours.

the next weekend, i went to see brandon before he left for seminary.
jonesboro: little over 2 hours.

i also took a trip to kentucky to celebrate 4th of july with canadians.
ekron: 5 hours.

two weeks ago, i went to florida on business. i was supposed to fly,
but then they made me drive.
sarasota: 15 hours.

last week i went home.
it's a 10 hour drive.

on the way back from home, i had to bring a car to nashville from
jackson that day...complicated story, but the grand total for the
drive back from home was:
17 hours.

if you just take the times listed above...and you double the ones that
involved a return trip...

it's 139 hours.

in the car.

driving.

in the past...oh...6 weeks or so.

that's over 5 and a half DAYS. as in: 24 hour periods.
it's 17 work days.
3 and a half work weeks.
8,340 minutes.

perhaps this explains why last month's phone bill listed me at over
4300 minutes (72 hours).

i guess i was lonely.

i hate stagnation.

i hate treadmills. you run and run and run and run and the scenery never changes.

sometimes life feels like that. you know what i mean. you wake up one morning, look around, and it hits you. this scenery never changes. you've been doing the same old same old for who knows how many years running. and you're not satisfied with it.

the grass is always greener.

this is why, i believe, we idolize and sanitize the past. the past is always better to us now, because the past was different. rarely was it actually better.

this also explains why we are so anxious for the "next things" in life to happen. like right now, i'm ready for the summer to be over. it's a stupid thing to wish for, actually. i have zero effect on the speed with which the summer's end gets here, yet for some reason i feel it necessary to comment on how i am "ready for it to be over." it's senseless, really. why not just enjoy the summer?

not that i don't, mind you. i like a summer as much as the next guy. my point is, part of me wishes the summer was over and the semester was here, and when it is, that same part of me will wish the summer had never ended.

the grass is always greener before or after today.

but you know what? it isn't true. life is not a treadmill.

it's an ocean.

sure, you can run all day and the scenery will never change. and that's incredibly frustrating. but that's merely the psychological disadvantage to living in a ocean. it does not change the fact--the fact--that you did, indeed, travel.

all you lack is a point of reference. a buoy. land. something that is fixed, that can assure you that you are traveling in some direction.

whether or not it's the right direction is an entirely different conversation.

i'm beginning to realize, i think, that it's not so much a lack of buoys, it's that i don't pay attention to the ones i pass on a regular basis.

the grass is never green until you stop comparing it to another yard.

thanks, God, for buoys.

so i went to florida and stared at women in bikinis through a viewfinder all week.

and i sunburned.

 

then i came back to school and moved off campus.

and now i'm peeling.

 

tomorrow i go home to visit for a few days.

then, perhaps, i'll tan.

 

and somehow, through it all, God is very, very good.

i am no longer an RA.

 

time to get sloshed.

 

[oh, wait...]

i miss worldview.

i miss walker pfost.

i miss being skinny.

come crawlin' back

and beg for forgiveness

and don't get your hopes up

cause i'm puttin' my walls up

not takin' flack

i was miffed by your glibness

i was stringin' my ropes up

for this

 

and i

smiled one too many times

so i'm askin' please would you wash your feet?

and you

made up way too many rhymes

so i'm askin' please would you wash your feet?

 

keep stallin' fate

just count on your chances

by pushin' it harder

you just make it run farther

not second-rate

there just weren't enough dances

i thought you'd be smarter

than this

 

and i

smiled one too many times

so i'm askin' please would you wash your feet?

and you

made up way too many rhymes

so i'm askin' please would you wash your feet?

 

--------------------

in other news:

i got a new job.

i got in a wreck.

i canceled some addictions (cheers, blockbuster).

i'm trying not to waste my life (cheers, john piper).

i got some new discipline (woot, richard foster).

 

currently writing:

religion, sex, and politics

[the film you don't talk about]

i notice you.

 

i can't help it. you pass by--airport, museum, park, street, whatever--and my mind just...wonders. why here? why today? why now?

 

it's OK. you don't have to explain. there is that...unspoken understanding between us. so please, don't let me bother you. i was just noticing.

 

wait. one question. what exactly was going through your head when you got dressed this morning? [i do apologize for the unqualified assumption that you dress in the morning. though i don't retract the statement. unqualified assumptions are my right as an american.]

 

you. old man. with the bright yellow polo shirt and navy blue pajama pants. what precisely were you thinking?

 

"you look good, hector. real good."

 

whatever. it's guys like you that make fat, greasy, balding hispanics seem...well, fat, greasy, and balding. not to mention nasty--c'mon, at least button the polo.

 

and what about you, miss grey-sweatpants-and-a-camisole?

 

"with this outfit on boys can't help but stare at my stomach!"

 

maybe, but i'm not sure that was worth sacrificing the style points. like, i think you're negative now. sad thing is, your tummy might actually be pretty sexy looking. you just sorta...packaged it wrong.

 

"today, clifton, is your day."

 

maybe that did run through your head. but the horizontal stripes do nothing of value to your already grandiose figure. i think, clifton, you were lying to yourself.

 

yes, i am staring. yes, at you.

 

you, One-Glance. you seem pretty used to it. i guess girls of your...maturity level have to deal with staring a lot. but perhaps you found it a bit odd that i was staring at your eyes. is that why you looked away?

it's cause i'm a guy, isn't it? or maybe cause i'm white? maybe you've seen me before, too, and i burned you. maybe this is how you cope.

i wish could apologize. i would assure you that i haven't been myself. but you can't stop to listen. and i suppose i understand.

 

yes, Muscles. i'm looking at you, too. our eyes touched, didn't they? that was a little to intimate for a man like you, wasn't it? maybe that's why i'm repulsive to you. 'cause i'm real.

 

ah, No-Glance. hello again. you know i'm here. your peripheral vision alerts you to my uncomfortable presence, like an itch in the back that you can't seem to find. but you are a well-oiled machine. and goodness, you're the best-dressed in this whole airport. you are far above the petty distraction i provide.

 

and then there was you. Glance-and-Stare. i live for you. you're not just noticed, you notice right back. you...wonder. you, like me, want to know--my thoughts, my feelings, my life. why are you always so much younger than the rest?

"why is he sitting there, daddy?" you ask No-Glance. he lives up to his name, and yet still responds.

"i don't know, son."

"what is he writing?"

i don't get to hear daddy's answer. you keep walking. i can guess, though.

"nothing important."

 

maybe you're right, No-Glance. maybe this is an excercise in futility. maybe i don't deserve the Glance-and-Stares, like your son. but i guess you wouldn't really know, would you? you don't know me. your son does.

 

all i want--all i really want--is to be noticed.

ive got one chance

so why don't i make the most of it?

gravity is an experience

that no one can escape

i've just got one dance

so why do i miss the best of it?

gravity is draggin me

i'm fallin on my face

 

why do i kid myself

thinking i can fly

i'm still a kid, myself

dancing through the night

 

cause there's more to life than questions

my heart is filled with more than dreams

and it's not wrong not to know the answers

don't miss today for what could be

 

you were safe, once

so why did i make a mess of it?

sorry for all the gravitas

i needed to escape

this is nonsense

heart fluctuation, breath intake

but i can't seem to get my mind to change

and i'm sick of my mistakes

 

i'm not meant to control the outcome

i'm not expected to part the seas

just get in, sit tight, and hear the countdown

throw up trusting hands and fly free

 

i got a ticket today.

 

85 in a 70.

 

the cop was nice, knocked it down to a 74 in a 70.

 

this from the guy that rants at everybody that speeding is not loving jesus. i made my father look like a liar, because he had just got through bragging to somebody that he "doesn't have to worry about nic ever getting a ticket. he doesn't speed."

 

no dad, this is not God teaching you about bragging. this is about humility, and righteousness, and integrity, and my lack thereof.

 

when will i ever wake up?

 

someone save me from this body of death.

[please, if i aleady told you this story, tell noone the ending. i want honest reactions as this story unfolds. that's the only way to get good constructive criticism. besides, the story might have changed from what i told you.]

 

Big People

[a little fairy tale in several parts]

 

It was not a dark and stormy night.

There are many words one might use to describe it: how it was so dry the wind blew the chap off your lips; how the day had been so hot that it was still sweaty long after the sun went down, like an oven cooling from broil on a warm day. One might even be inclined to note how the dogs ambled around, mouths hanging open but no tongue sticking out, not because they weren't panting but because their lickers stuck to the roofs of their mouths.

But one would not call it dark and stormy.

One might, however,  call it restless. Perhaps it was a residual effect of the heat. Men often become lethargic during a hot day, which makes their wives quarrelsome at night, because nothing had been accomplished. Not that much was ever accomplished anyway. People in Benson, Arizona hardly accomplished anything at all. Their legislators and public relations committee knew them as "the gateway to Southeastern Arizona" and "an important transportation hub," but the actual citizens, who usually have a bit more common sense than their elected officials, knew it simply as "the town."

No, Benson was not really that much of a gateway, or a hub for that matter. Truckers stopped in on occasion, but for the most part people drove right on through to Sierra Vista without stopping. The inhabitants of Benson took this as a sign, and thereby refused to fraternize with the outside world. Oh, sure, the young ones got antsy and as soon as they could drive they'd make their way up to Tucson, visit the M.O.C.A. or the independent film theater, putter around a bit, realize that city life just wasn't their cup of tea, and return home just after curfew in a funk, grumbling that they should have seen the Biosphere 2 or run away to Flagstaff: "Then we wouldn't have come back at all," they would insist. But their listless attitude would dissipate and be forgotten by the start of school in the fall.

But tonight, everyone was restless. Maybe it was the heat. But more likely, it was the hills. Nearly every backyard and picture window in Benson had a stunning perspective of some very strange, very grey, mountains. The hills used to be green, but the townsfolk, for reasons they'd rather not talk about with strangers, had cut down most of the trees, so that the only part of the Great Woods beyond the hills that still spilled over into the valley that cradled Benson was beyond the northeast corner of town, in the foothills of Casandres. Not that anybody minded those trees. Noone in their right mind ever walked those hills anyway.

Dakota Clayton's mother was not in her right mind.

"Just a picnic," she had said. "A dinner picnic."

Dakota slammed her face down into her pillow once again. Noone has dinner picnics, she thought to herself angrily. Why did I–why couldn't she have asked for something normal, like pizza and a movie? Why didn't I warn her?

It's not that her mother didn't know that the woods were dangerous. Her mother knew better than most. Teri Clayton had been attacked in those woods before, miraculously escaping the clutches of a rabid dog, only to be hospitalized for a week. And her job–Teri was a lobbyist with a PAC organized to help pass legislation aimed at protecting the Saguaro Woods from further damages. Surely the Citizens for Saguaro Immunity (CSI was a favorite show of Teri's) understood the dangers of the woods they purported to protect.

So why had Teri Clayton insisted that her daughter come with her to hike the foothills in the Northeast for a "dinner picnic?" This was the question, the one raging through Dakota's mind, curling her stubby fingers, flaring her parched nostrils, beating behind her yet unblossomed chest.

It was almost as if Teri Clayton had wanted her daughter to watch her die.