Re:Creation

spring break part IV: 3.26.2002 – 3.30.2002

(the continuation of part III)

the next few days had that peculiar quality some days have — agonizingly slow and boring and yet somehow able to fly by quickly. on tuesday i worked 8-5 at the wycliffe bible translators headquarters, which is where my parents work. i was a temporary employee of the MIS (some abstruse abbreviation for “all things technological”) department. i ran around the office building setting up computers, fixing problems, answering the computer help desk phone (“did you reboot?….oh..it works now?…good…you’re welcome….bye”), and writing blog entries.

it wasn’t the most exciting job, but it was more exciting than a host of other jobs i could have had, and it was perfect for a three-day stint.

that day after work our family celebrated passover. we had a quasi-authentic passover seder at our house, with a few other families (and mark) in attendance. i say quasi because while we followed the general format of the jewish passover, it was very christian, and recognized jesus as the messiah who has already come. so we had no pretentions of being jewish, but felt that it was a good way to commemorate and remember god’s goodness to his people, and see how the promises of the passover were fulfilled in christ.

later on dave and i watched the new planet of the apes. i hadn’t ever seen the original or heard anything about the movie, so it was kind of a shock to see that the whole movie was actually part of a propagandic agenda. it was fun to keep a tally of all the holes in the analogy. in the end i decided that the story related so little to the reverse scenario it was trying to caricature that the film was what we call in philosophy a ’straw man’ argument. it was fun to watch apes fly around though.

the next day i was up before 7am again (i hate day jobs), and was at work until 5. i hung around the house that night. i think maybe i even took a nap. sweet. i ended up just sitting in the hot tub late into the evening, doing some “light reading” (a not-for-school philosophy book). my mom was an angel and showed me how to make a good smoothie to drink in the spa. eventually my dad and my brother even joined me, and we shared a cohiba, a nice cuban cigar my dad had. i think i don’t remember anything after that because i’d reached that point of relaxation where even my membranes (the things in your head that remember stuff) were too relaxed to do anything.

i was half an hour late to work on thursday because of traffic. my boss didn’t seem to care too much. last day for me, after all. a guy named shawn peterson, who’s the youth pastor at my church came to have lunch with me at the office. he wanted to see the new building, and talk to me about maybe doing some work with the youth group during the summer. he had some pretty exciting ideas about how i could get involved and help the high school kids grow, through worship and even some philosophical [apologetic] teaching/training. i feel like that would be a pretty fun thing to do, on top of being a good focus for extra time and energy.

after work i felt like i hadn’t done anything all day, so i went running. i did 2 miles in about 17 minutes. which isn’t bad, but not great compared to a lot of my friends. i think my roommate could run 4 miles in that amount of time. then dave and i went over to mark’s apartment and sat around and did nothing. mark’s roommate dave ahrens had a cs problem he wanted help on, but all the ways i could think of to do it involved boolean functions or pointers, neither of which he knew anything about. so i told him good luck and let him be.then mark fell asleep and dave (my brother this time) watched rush hour 2. it wasn’t horrible.

friday, being good friday, i had off work. i woke up late, bummed around a bit, then went shopping. first i went to panera for lunch, and ran into mark, who i was hoping could hook me up with free food. his manager was right there so he couldn’t, but he gave me a free drink. then i ran into a girl who works for my mom, that i went to honduras with last summer on a mission trip. she invited me to eat with her and her friend, and we had a nice lunch talking almost entirely in spanish. it felt good to use some of those spanish muscles that have been a little atrophied.

i got some random junk at target, some sandals at a shoe place, and a dvd for my dad at best buy. i deposited some checks at the bank, and then i was home. dave and i went running together, and did 2.5 miles in 17.5 minutes. i had improved since the previous day, and i felt good about that.

friday night was sweet–dave and rach and i called a bunch of friends over to have a time of worship. this is something we tend to do when a lot of the college folk are back in town, and it’s always really good. it was supposed to start at 9, so of course everyone showed up around 11, and we got started. i played and sang my heart out to god until 2 am. jason killingsworth played along. everyone sang, or prayed, or walked around, or just sat there, or even fell asleep. the last hour or so was just jason and nyffy and i, with a couple people who had fallen asleep on the couches and were dreaming peacefully. now that’s what i call awesome — worshiping to the point of exhaustion and sleep.

saturday we went to the beach. me, dave, jordan peterson, nate akers, hannah roberts & family, and hannah’s friend thais, who’s from brazil.

i’ll have you know, i love the beach. i love the sand, the sun (or the clouds or rain, whichever is there), the wind, the sound of the water, the bass of the surf in my stomach. oddly enough i don’t like being in the water very much–the undulating and the salt water which i inevitably drink too much of make me sick. but i love the beach.

we had a great time sitting around, boogie-boarding, playing sand soccer, and whatever else. and we enjoyed nice conversation on the car rides to and fro–most of which centered around cultural discussions with thais, since it’s not every day you get to hang out with someone who’s from another country. well, i suppose it happens all the time at stanford, but you know what i mean.

we drove 80mph with the windows down, the sun crashing through the windshield, making us all look cool, as if we were in a movie. it was good for my soul.

everyone got home more or less at 6. i wandered around the house for a bit, then prepared for “masculinity in togetherness–togetherness in masculinity” night. (that’s just the name i made up for it now, it’s not like it was premeditated or anything. geez). dave and i drove to pick up chris. then all three of us drove to albertsons to pick up some nice stogies. we went to the killingsworth’s. jason was there, and so was trey. other dudes showed up and left as the night wore on. we smoked cloves, stogies, pipes, and [that's really it but i'm going to add this for effect and for samuel] any other carcinogen-bearing object that existed, exists, or will exist. we tried to sit in their hot tub but there was no propane. so we gathered around and let our testosterone carry us on, soothing tired feet and healing mud-stained hearts.

we watched bottle rocket. it was an excellent movie, and on my “movies to see to be cool” list. double bonus.

and that was it. jason started the drive to gainesville, and dave and i wearily drove home, daring ourselves to wake up in the requisite 6 hours for easter sunday church.

for me, awake in the midnight watch hours, it already was easter. i stood in the shower and thanked god that jesus did not rot in the grave, but was made alive. and i thanked god for the promise that i am, with jesus, an heir to that life. happy easter.

spring break part III: 3.23.2002 7:30pm – 3.25.2002 11:59pm

(the continuation of part II)

the drive home from gainesville was nice and easy–i just stopped once for gas on the turnpike. i made it home before 10. my parents and sister and grandma (who’s in town for a few weeks) were already winding down and getting ready for bed, but my body was so confused by the highly erratic sleep schedule i’d been leading it on, that i wasn’t tired. i heated up some cold leftover dinner and sat down to watch a movie brainlessly. i watched ‘the last castle’, which, while not spectacularly philosophical or artistic, was fun and had that cool ingenuity-and-trickiness-in-planning-for-fighting aspect.

sooner or later i stumbled into my bed, and got up at 8. the family went out to breakfast at toojay’s for some together time before church. mostly we just talked about colleges (david and rachel are graduating soon), cars, and plans for the future. the hostess kept staring at me, and it was a little uncomfortable. i couldn’t tell whether it was a “you’re cute” stare or a “you’re funny looking” stare. but we got out soon and made our way to church. our pastor’s a pretty awesome guy–smart, interesting to listen to, has solid and engaging perspectives…so i’d say that it’s only because i was falling asleep due to heat and tiredness that i forgot what the sermon was.

dave and i drove home in the vette and went immediately to bed. more naps to screw with my system. my dad woke me up around 3 and informed me that i needed to wash the jeep, since it had gotten dirty on the trip to gainesville. i didn’t argue too much about it, which was a rarity. emily had called so i called her back and we decided that we should talk the next day, since we hadn’t for a while, and since i had a lot of stuff on my mind. so i washed the jeep, then mark rogers came over and dave and i ate a quick dinner and hopped in mark’s car. we drove downtown to “the social”, formerly “the sapphire”, formerly “the sapphire supper club”. doors opened there at 6 for a denison marrs / twothirtyeight show. we got in relatively near to the front and grabbed one of the few tables. the show started punctually (another rarity) at 7 with the opening act–sound the alarm. all right, a little like my hotel year…too pop punk to be enjoyable for long.

i’d brought my minidisc player and new sony ecm-ms957 mic to try and record the show, and see if i could get a decent recording at all. i tested it out on sound the alarm, and, satisfied, i kept everything hidden nicely in my bag which was sitting (nonchalantly) half-open on the table. 238 was on next, and put on a very tight show with super-clean guitarwork and some tricky lead guitar duets. denison marrs rocked the house with their hard/space/emo/80s set, and once again impressed me very much.

we were out of the club and in the car by 9pm–virtually unheard of for a show. must be new management at the social. i listened to the recording in the car on the way back, and was blown away by the quality–it sounded better than it did live! mostly because live, my ears were ringing so much that it was hard to distinguish different sounds. mark dropped dave and i off at our house, and i spent the rest of the night e-mailing and blogging. i don’t remember when i finally went to bed.

but i remember when i woke up–noon, 3.25. or maybe it was 1. i ate breakfast, showered, and did my daily devotions. i prayed about my phone call to emily, because i didn’t know what would happen. i knew i had to tell her what i’d been thinking about our relationship, and what the posse and i had discussed, and i knew i had to trust that god would let us make the right decision. i just prayed that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be just one of us making the decision.

i called her around two. and everything fell out. everything that i’d been thinking about, praying about, wondering about, confused about–it all fell in a gnarled mess from my mouth, between nose-blowings (i was still sick, remember) and involuntary silences wherein i tried not to cry. i told her where i thought we were, where i thought god had led us, and why i thought it couldn’t continue in the way it had been. then i did cry, and i cried a lot. for memories and deflated hopes and an unknown future. also for relief–for the doing of something that had been a long time in coming, but invisibly and painfully so. she sat there and wondered why she’d ever trusted me with her feelings, her deep thoughts, and her heart. even though i know she could see it coming. and i’d given her ample opportunity to get out, but she’d stuck by me faithfully and loyally. now she wishes she hadn’t.

i felt like the lowliest jerk in the world, like i’d just stabbed my best friend in the back. we both cried and she said things, and i took them and didn’t deny them, and hoped that we could stay friends. i think we can. then i prayed for us, and thanked god for the relationship that we had shared, and the encouragement and love that was there. and i prayed that we could still have that without the romantic aspect of the relationship. then we hung up, and i prayed for my friend, because i knew she was hurt.

11 months was a long time. i learned a lot, messed up a lot, and hopefully did some good things every once in a while. and now it’s over. but i wouldn’t have traded it for anything else! it’s sad, but in a way i get excited about the sudden unknown–who knows where god will lead us now. wherever it is, i’m sure it will rock. and emily, thank you.

i didn’t have too much time to think about it then, though, because i had to detail the inside of my grandma’s car in 3 hours. this includes: vacuuming carpets, spraying carpets, scrubbing carpets/mats, letting them dry, vacuuming them again, vacuuming seats, washing seats, cleaning seats, leather-sealing seats, washing vinyl, cleaning vinyl, armor-all sealing vinyl, and washing windows. i had to do it because i’d promised to do it that day, and i’d also promised to go rock climbing with dave at 6. so i worked fast, and hard, and did a good job (another rarity for me where cleaning cars is concerned). but i was getting paid, so i obviously had some incentive.

i finished the car, inhaled some dinner, and hopped in the vette with dave. we drove half an hour northwest to longwood, where aiguille, orlando’s climbing gym, is located. it’s a sweet gym, huge, with lots of routes. as we discovered, most of the routes are really hard. apparently they’d just had a national bouldering competition or something, so there weren’t a lot of easy problems to set. we took a few hours, though, and worked on some stuff that we thought we could handle, and it was a lot of fun. i’m glad i brought my climbing gear home.

the gym closed at 10 and we drove home. i got to bed reasonably early (since i was scheduled to work 8-5 the next day at my parents’ office) but couldn’t go to sleep. maybe it was because i’d slept so late, or maybe my mind just wouldn’t stop thinking about my conversation with emily, and the huge change that it had made in my life.

we’ll see where i go from there.

to be continued…

spring break part II: 3.21.2002 7pm – 3.23.2002 7pm

(the continuation of part I)

we left the story as i was beginning the drive to gainesville. man, i flew. normally a two-hour drive, i made it in just under 1:40. 84mph while eating tacos. i got to josh’s apartment a little before 9, and he was there, which was nice. we got back in my car and drove to UF to go to the crusade meeting. arriving over half an hour late, we casually walked in and sat in the back as the speaker taught. the message was standard–not too phenomenal–but the time of worship was real and sweet. and by sweet i mean totally awesome. by that time nate akers had come in too, even later than us, so it was good to have him there as well. we hung out after the meeting until late, probably 10:15 or so. then nate and josh and i went back to josh’s apartment to hang out. jason, josh’s brother, was back, and it was good to see him too. we sat in their room and played guitar for what seemed like hours.

then chris nyffeler and his girlfriend anne showed up, to my delight. more hang out time. josh’s girlfriend meghan came over too, rounding it off and completing the rocking party which we then had. but, rock wasn’t enough–we needed food. anne had to go home, but the rest of us sans jason (who was flirting with a girl on IM and so could not come) piled in my jeep and we were off. we stopped at checkers for food, and then–stogies. chris and i bought a punch (i.e. puncharello) cigar and some cloves to share, and josh and nate did the same. we dropped meghan off at her dorm, and then back to the apartment patio for stogie night.

stogie night was fantastically magical. surrounded by the quality guys that i was, the pleasant odor of burning leaf, and the sweet sounds of wise and sober words was like water to my thirsty soul. now i will quote from chris’ blog, because i feel it’s very accurate: “with stogies we figure out the world. and our world is girls.”

and this is exactly what we did. we talked and discussed and compared and felt and listened and understood. until 5am. then i fell asleep, glad in the company of brothers.

i awoke shortly after noon to a very weird comedy central show on tv. and to the blessed question, “do you want to go eat?”. josh, chris, paul copenhaver (who had come over), and i went to the gainesville alehouse. this is a standard hangout place for UF folks, but it was my first time there. more importantly, i lost my big red virginity, as josh and i shared one of the big spicy-chicken-and-ranch sandwiches. more than the sandwich, though, josh and i share the love of the sandwich, first expressed with the Chili’s chicken and ranch, and now in the big red. a beautiful time. we sat out on the patio and lit up some cloves after eating breakfast and dessert. paul and i argued about whether the simpson’s was a symbol of american greatness or not. we both agreed that if it was, america would be a sad place.

it was a beautiful day.

back to the apartment, and we donned swimsuits and went to the pool at In the Pines (the apartment complex). i read the bible and tried to get a tan on my chest and back, and dreamed about when it would be that sunny and gorgeous at stanford.

then it was time to go–josh, chris, and nate had a bible study leaders’ retreat to go to at a camp half an hour east, with crusade. i decided to tag along, hoping that the people who were running it wouldn’t mind that i didn’t actually go to UF. we picked up mike graham on the way, loaded our bellies with crappy mcdonalds fakeness, and shouted along with various tunes on chris’ compilation minidisc as we drove.

we got to the place, called something i’m now forgetting, and i met a good number of people before the retreat actually got underway. that night the speakers just gave a little background, and reasonings and motivations behind having bible discussion groups and whatnot. it went until about 10, and then everyone just hung out and played cards. i played euchre, and my partner lana and i lost badly to nate and a girl named kelly. sooner or later everyone drifted out, to the cabins where we were supposed to stay.

however, josh, chris, nate, and i didn’t leave–we hadn’t brought sleeping bags or pillows or anything, so we decided to just camp out in the meeting room. nate and chris settled down to talk, and josh and i took a walk to a basketball court, where we sat and talked and puffed on cheap cigars. well, mostly i talked. about emily, and all the stuff i’ve been thinking about her. see, josh had fallen asleep on stogie night so he hadn’t heard a lot of what we had been talking about concerning our girls.

we got back to the meeting room (the “fireside hall”–i bet every camp in the world has a “fireside hall”) and nate and chris were still awake. by this time it was at least 2am. and so we decided to make a fort. a secret fort, with battle plans and codenames and guns and mines and booby traps and barracks and swords. and smokestacks and food carts and pianos for scoring chicks. we made the fort. we played our parts as mr. hobble the disabled guard, junior mint, the ninja plumber, and falcor the librarian. we slept in the fort. and we froze our butts off, not realizing that the AC was on and all we had to do was turn it off.

we woke up at 7, tired and cold, and snuck into this place where there were lots of highschoolers, and stole hot chocolate from them. then the crusade folks came back for the day’s sessions, confused and a little bewildered by our fort. the rest of the day was a little hazy, because of the fatigue and the lack of being able to concentrate, but i remember that the talks were informative and interesting. i even took a group picture with everyone, and i’m sure they were like, “who is this guy?”

3pm, saturday, 3.23 came slowly, but come it did, and so 5 of us piled back into my car and drove back to gainesville, rocking along to hip-hop, john mayer, and cake. we stopped at chris’ dorm and watched a taped simpsons episode because we were too lethargic to do anything else. i said my goodbyes to chris and nate there, and josh and i drove back to his apartment alone. we shut the blinds in his room and fell asleep, he in his bed and i in jason’s, listening to a mandy moore cover of a switchfoot song.

i woke up at 6:30, groggy and hazy. i took my contacts out finally, and it felt like i was ripping my cornea off because they’d been stuck there by time, sleep, and eye boogers. josh cooked me up some nathan’s hot dogs, and then it was time to go. i had to go home, and he had a girlfriend to attend to. he hadn’t seen her in a little over a day, you remember! so i gathered my personal belongings and stumbled out to the car, trying to zone myself into a wakefulness fit for driving 2 hours. i waved goodbye to josh and left. when i made it to I-4 the clock read 7:30 and chris carabba was singing, “the moon is down, and heaven is waiting for us to find her in our sights”.

i looked, and the moon was still there, suspended and glowing, but small and far away.

to be continued…

spring break part I: 3.19.2002 7pm – 3.21.2002 7pm

not too long after my last post, i talked to emily on IM. apparently my attitude in the post was disappointing to her, because she thought i’d been doing better. i felt bad, but also defensive–i didn’t think that i was leading her on, or lying, or being false in any way. it was a rough conversation, and a bad way to start a trip, but i had to leave right after for the airport. truth be told, however, i certainly can’t lay any blame on emily for anything, and especially bad conversations. i’ve given her more than my fair share of hurt in the past few months, and i admire her perseverance. also, as she poignantly told me, i really just need to “get [my] act together”. she’s no doubt sick of the wavering, the unsureness, my ‘weird’ feelings, and whatever else. i’m sick of them too. and i wholeheartedly agreed then, and now, that i need to get my act together. thus, getting my act together is the theme of spring break. because, as emily and i both know, for me to ever make a decision about our relationship, it needs to be in a vacuum of other life doubts and problems, or i would forever wonder if it wasn’t one of them that needed to be fixed instead. we’ll find out if this is possible.

back to the story: right on time, at 11pm, my plane left san jose for chicago. i tried to sleep, but i started feeling a little too sick, with a little too much of the runny nose to sleep comfortably. i’m sure that it was staying up all night studying for my greek final which killed my immune system, and planes are notorious for spreading sickness. anyway, we got into o’hare at 4am local time. i was tired but couldn’t go to sleep for fear of being robbed in the airport. so, i walked around zombie-like until 5am, when mcdonald’s finally opened for breakfast. dying, i ate a ham/egg/cheese bagel thinking it was completely wonderful. i still think it is–those things are good.

then i walked to my gate and settled down to wait the 2+ hours until boarding. as it turned out, though, the plane was overbooked, and the gate agent called for volunteers who would be willing to fly on a flight 3 hours later. the reward for successfully volunteering: $500 in travel vouchers. i jumped up and made sure they put me on the list. when it was time for the plane to leave, they finalized the list and i was given the $500 voucher and a boarding pass for the flight at 10am.

tired but more than happy to have $500 for my troubles, i changed gates and settled down to wait another 3 hours in chicago. reading and listening to music helped pass the time. once again, my flight was overbooked, and they asked for volunteers, but i was feeling sicker and more tired by the minute, so i figured that at $500 i could safely call it a day and i boarded the plane. we got into orlando at 1pm and i was met by my mom and dad, who were coming home from work early.

i got home and unpacked my portable hard drive first thing, connecting it to my dad’s computer. then i opened up my last logic problem set, and spent a few hours finishing that (i wasn’t able to get it done before i left). i e-mailed it off to achyut and said goodbye to phil160a forever. my brother dave and i worked out for a while, then played thief (a unique sort of computer game). of course, we had to load it first. (hehe). to cap off the night, we watched the mummy returns. it was pretty stupid, but with one funny line and good effects. this brought the clock to about 1:30am, 3.21.2002. meaning, more or less, that i’d been awake for 51 of the past 58 hours. surprisingly, i wasn’t tired, and i couldn’t sleep. i’d say i knocked off around 2:30.

then comes the good part: i slept for 13 hours. i woke up, and was still tired, but my sony minidisc mic had come from UPS and rachel had brought it to my room, so the fun of new electronics brought me groggily to my feet. i played around with it for a while, recording my new song for kicks, and then drove to panera to see mark. i was thinking maybe he could get me some free food, since i hadn’t eaten in close to 20 hours and was hungry. he had just got off work, but i did see karen heine, which was cool. i left panera for mark’s apartment and chilled there for a while. josh killingsworth was on IM and he was talking to mark, so i said what’s up and he asked if i wanted to come up to gainesville that night. i was still feeling sick and a little tired, but i figured that was just from waking up so i said sure.

the clock at this point is about 5:30, and he wants me to be there by 8:30 so i can go to his campus crusade for christ meeting with him, and surprise nate and chris with being there. i call my mom and dad, they say it’s fine…only i have to check the oil and all the fluids before i take the jeep. a done deal, i say, and rush back home to pack and ready the car. i pull out of my driveway at 6:30, make a stop at taco bell / pizza hut combo restaurant and order my $2.94 usual–2 tacos and an order of breadsticks and sauce. gassed up, food sitting wonderfully close in the passenger seat, and my pedro minidisc winding up, i enter the 408 at 7:05pm.

to be continued…

playing: “options” | pedro the lion

i’m leaving in 2.5 hours. i don’t know what to make of this recently-past quarter. it certainly had some of the crappiest moments in recent history. i got blasted in each of my classes at some point, my inner life slowly deteriorated, my walk with god was part of my inner life, and my end of things in my relationship with emily gradually sunk into blackness.

which is where i still am — i have no clue what i’m supposed to be doing with her, and i don’t have the capacity to deal with the mess of feelings. sometimes [lately] i surprise myself by how angry, hateful, spiteful, and ugly i can be inside my own head. and i’m not normally that way. something’s obviously wrong, but i don’t know what or how it can be fixed.

we’ll find out in a week or two whether i defeated my classes or whether they defeated me.

as for my inner life…i guess i just wish it was excited enough about doing what is good and right and true to actually do it. right now it’s seeking gratification, not god.

i guess that’s it, in conclusion. that’s this quarter. not a lot of really important bright spots come to mind. i can remember isolated talks with friends, isolated moments of victory, and isolated moments of true behavior, but these were wavering lights amidst a great dark. more, light.

how did i get my little boat this far out? where did the sun go? i suppose there’s nothing to do but bail out water and wait for help. no use paddling in circles. but it’s so cold and lonely and dark. when is morning?

goodbye, winter quarter 2002, and good riddance.

virtual disc on spin: delicate fade | common children

2:35am…the clock is ticking…faster, faster…

if only caffeine had an impact on me

philosophy 184 paper: CHECK

glad that’s over with!

1 down, 2 to go.

today was dedicated to revising my paper. but i’ve been awake for 12 hours with not a whole lot to show …. i suck.

on the plus side i did talk to nate and chris, friends from home, for a while today. there’s not a whole lot of better things i could have done.

virtual disc on spin: speakeasy | stavesacre

ahh, classes are over for winter quarter. it was the suckiest quarter of my existence, but god got me through it. proof: here i am, and it’s over. heh.

sadly, i’ve got three major hurdles left to go: the philosophy 184 paper rewrite (i got back a c+ on the first draft: major ouch), the logic problem set (we’ve already got most of it done, which is good), and the greek final (which will be hard as butt).

but, major though those hurdles may be, they will be over by 12pm tuesday, 3.19.2002. and that will be a beautiful day.

i spent some time today acquiring a few new toys which i’ve been looking around for for some time now. i bought both at fry’s, which happened to have super great deals going today.

first, since i don’t have a printer, and i need one for school, i bought one. in fact, i bought a laser printer….for $100. yeah, it’s a good deal.

and i also bought an 80gb external firewire hard drive, to use for storing music, video, and document files. it’s pretty tight.

the capstone of the day, however, was a time of prayer and worship with some campus crusade folks….we met in the bottom of the history corner, and had two solid hours of praying with each other and praising god in song. it’s good to be in community…

especially for me, since one of my biggest character flaws is my insistence that i don’t need people. but i’m human, obviously, and whether i like it or not i need community and intimacy. so it was good tonight.

sounds: the pleasant hum of new electronic devices

the dashboard show tonight was great–it’s always fun to sing along. especially when everyone else is singing along too, and no one cares if anyone sounds good.

chris himself sounds more and more like a whiny guy with a british accent in his songs, but i guess we can’t hold that against him; the music’s awesome. and any man that can sing actual notes at that pitch can be forgiven for mutating a few vowel sounds, right?

three other bands played: the legend of rodeo, ben kweller, and the anniversary. all of them pretty decent.

which brings us to now. i’m asleep. and what do you think of the new design?

disc on spin: summers kiss ep | dashboard confessional