If you're reading through Firefox, I apologize for the font and size crazy. I've tried some different things. I hope it's pleasing to read from where you are.

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OK. To answer the query I just posited on facebook...

No. It is not easy to start writing with Wu-Tang streaming through your headphones. Have you ever tried to clarify the lyrics or melody to a song while another song was playing? It's damn near freaking impossible. So you can imagine trying to find the words to express what you felt today while this is pouring into your head,

Yo RZA, yo razor!
Hit me with the major
The damage, my Clan understand it be flavor
Gunnin, hummin comin atcha
First I'm gonna getcha, once I gotcha, I gat-cha
You could never capture the Method Man's stature
For rhyme and for rapture, got niggaz resigning, now master
my style? Never! I put the fucking buck in the wild kid, I'm terror
Razor sharp, I sever
the head from the shoulders, I'm better
than my compeda, you mean competitor, whadeva!
Let's get together

It doesn't work too well. But you sit back and let the track finish and keep up on the chat until it does.

I went to GIFT for the first time since sophomore year tonight. Robert Minto had a short piece in the last Diamond about the idea of unity in the various worship venues that Dordt campus has to offer. He called out how a lot of Dordt students see GIFT, Wellspring, Praise and Worship and Chapel. I know I thought of them all as separate services before and attended Wellspring even less than I had attended Chapel before, and GIFT or PW much less... if at all. OK, except that I was in a Wednesday night PW band freshman year (very sexy) with Andrew Voss (very sexy) and Brando Huisman and Bethany pre-Keep and Heather and Heather. So I was there when we, you know, played. The point is that I miss playing... wait, let me make sure I mean what I'm about to type. I miss playing praise and worship songs. I miss praise and worship.
And, for those of you who might not know this already, a large part of my life (about five or six years) was driven by praise and worship. I learned guitar with the hopes to play in youth group, but they needed someone to play the newly purchased bass (a sweet, lovely black Washburn that I hope they still have) so I did that for years, with John on the drums, then Pete when John moved back to Korea. Andrew took over on bass, tore it up, and I played back-up guitar with Min and Dan leading... and then, with little variation in the band, I led for almost a year (I think). Jean on keyboards, teaching me to sing. Rachel and Priscilla on vocals. James from time to time. Mikey took over on drums when Peter and David and Jean went off to college. My best friends were playing drums and bass and keyboard and on vocals and we lived all week together, culminating our experience and angst and gratitude twice every weekend leading praise and worship. (We were really good.)
It's good, I think, to ask "What is worship?" for so many years as a stupid, young kid. Not that all young kids are stupid; I was. It leads to good discussion and deliberate actions every week - practicing, playing, singing and praying songs with a trusting group of people. Did we do enough? No, of course not. Do we do enough now? No, of course not. But the point is that I grew up in a Christian setting - the Korean Christian Grand Rapids scene - that had praise and worship as its foundation. (Brothers, am I wrong? Is it different now?) I moved to Iowa and found that, even within the CRC, white people do praise and worship differently, which is a whole different conversation. Maybe it was the move to Iowa as much as it was me "growing up" and "maturing" but I got tired and disgusted with large groups of North American youth raising their hands and singing poorly written songs as an expression of love to a Lord and Savior - an activity that could very easily be mistaken for having a pleasing emotional and self-serving time with your friends. (Singing in a group is therapeutic. Live music is fun. It's easy to convince yourself that this is good for the soul, but is it challenging and genuine?) I was that guy, that North American scum, for so many years in my life and believed that the most faithful and righteous action we could perform was praise and worship.
OK. I know a large part of the change was from a closer examination of some popular CCM songs. We don't need to talk about those... Every Move I Make? Really? I was a counselor at Dordt Discovery Days two summers ago (summer camp for pre-high school Christian kids... a fun time and a serious recruiting avenue) and encouraged my group to sing at the nightly praise and worship sessions around the fire, but I literally cringed when we sang this song and -horribly - I wondered if singing these words, adding the motions and filler-sound effects made them simplify their understanding of their relationship with Christ. I wondered if it made them stupid. Cushy Christian homes in cushy Christian suburbs, man.
I felt that GIFT (Growing in Faith Together) and mid-week Praise and Worship were high school worship sessions... largely for the people in college that never "grew out," or got sick, of high school worship. As they are, arguably, the two best-attended ministry sessions on campus, it's an indication of what the larger student body wants in worship - and for those that don't, they're showing, with much smaller numbers at Wellspring, that they are the minority, or they don't really care. They're not voting. Don't get me wrong - some of my best friends regularly attend GIFT and/or PW and I've done some grumbling about the lack of worship diversity on campus etc. The idea, however, much larger and more holy significant than my idea of it - thankfully. The auditorium was largely filled tonight with students who weren't expressly required to be in attendance and music was lifted up with what I believe was the genuine hope for glorifying the name of our God. I didn't know a lot of the songs tonight, or most of the people in the band, and - of course - I was distracted by a lot of the technical details/mishaps as well as the questions, again, of worship and service. I was critical of lots of things, noticing decisions that I would have made differently, comparing worship leaders to others I knew and played with - wanting to speak, angrily, to the guy about what it means to lead worship as a servant and not as some sort of vessel having this amazing individual experience of your own that everyone is supposed to, somehow, benefit from. Put your hands down, sir. Open your eyes and sing into the microphone so the people that came to worship won't be distracted and worried about which verse they're on.

"There's a typo on the screen. They should really get somebody who knows the flow of the songs to work the Powerpoint. There should be a better program for this than Powerpoint. I miss using overhead projectors. Why is there such a glaring, awkward pause in between songs? Why don't they do something about that? Why isn't the lead singing into the microphone? Why isn't that other girl singing into the microphone? I don't even know what their voices sound like. Why do they call this Growing in Faith? There has to be a better, more fitting, more accurate acronym for what this is. Shoot, I don't know this song either. They're looking at each other like they don't know when to end the song. Did they not practice enough? Is that the American flag on the side of the stage? Is that the Iowa flag next to it? Iowa has a flag?"

Etc. All very distracting. It's unfair already to judge, but it's REALLY unfair to judge a new band off of one night at a relatively early part of the year. Afterward, a new freshman friend (Paul Alberts) said that, based on his first impression of GIFT, tonight, he probably wouldn't be back. I wanted to encourage him to give it another try, to come with us again next week, but I hesitated because I realized that I probably said the exact same thing when I was a freshman. I don't want my freshman friend to go because I want him to go... I'm not even sure I want him to go. I know I don't want him to go if he feels obligated to, or that he thinks he should for some bullshit reason... OK. I do want him, after processing his decisions and humility and desires, to go but, moreso, I want him to be unsatisfied with a Christian lifestyle that ends in praise and worship - or any other session that is designed for an exclusively Christian audience.

There's a photo buried in a box somewhere at my house. It's me with thirteen of my friends from high school at prom. It's our junior year and, of those fourteen guys, six are married now. We're in our tuxedos, smiling pleasantly as if our moms were watching. I dreamt last night that I went to go see Dan Poel get married. Poel is the first one to take his shirt off and improv a pole dance (very sexy) and did the best impressions in high school. He has a quote on his facebook from Vince Lombardi (Confidence is contagious; so is lack of confidence) and his job description reads, "i help people lift weights." He has a heart condition that kept him from playing football last year, but recently got approval from the doctor. His dad was a huge prankster in his years at Dordt. I saw a photo of him when I was a sophomore sitting on Dan's desk. He had a mullet and a party animal face; he looked like a nice guy. If I remember the story correctly, he died of a heart attack when he was in his thirties. Dan has a tattoo on his left bicep - his dad's name in a large novelty black font. He also got both his ears pierced with big diamond studs and walks around campus in shorts and t shirts from some athletic training camp or wherever. More often than not, the sleeves are cut off of those shirts and you can totally see his nipples. He'll notice you noticing his nipples and he'll ask if you want him to come over later to knock boots. THAT's who Dan Poel is.
So he got married last night to some girl that I had never seen before but now, thinking back on it, I imagine I respected the shit out of her - taming the beast and its hormones. I traveled via tugboat to a town that looked like it had seen more thriving days. The streets were empty, the buildings needed paint, the sidewalks were overgrown etc. The reception took place in an old Catholic church with winding, carpeted stairs and wood-paneling in the basement. Everybody was there. Dancing. There was a jazz band battle - some hired band tearing it up against the likes of Jason Kornelis, some other friends and Dan Davis. Who knew Dan Davis played standup bass? Who knew Dan Davis played standup bass so well? I thought that to myself sipping a glass of wine and he looked over and smiled in a way that said, "Yeah, how you like me now?" I danced with Scott and Margaret. I have to say this again: Everybody was there. I arranged to have drinks out on the town with some, shall we say, old friends when the reception began to slow down. Quick drinks. I had to get out of there, throw my stuff in a suitcase, and leave early. No, I know. I'm sorry. I won't be at the hangover-tending brunch the next morning. The dance floor was dark, the music was slow and smoky - I want to say elemental, and I can because this is a dream that I remember and also because screw you. I traveled to see my friend from high school marry a girl he loved, and was celebrating that with, like I said, everybody. We danced to dozens of beautiful songs and the dance floor was dark, slow, smoky and elemental. I remember after that, after drinks so brief we barely spoke, but looked at each other and sipped in a small place outside in the quiet, after that, on the tugboat pulling away from the island, I read message after message after message... from everybody... telling me they were happy, sad, angry, disappointed, surprised, disgusted, indecisive, anxious... mostly unhappy, but a few people were happy.

I ran into some old friends at Tofher's the other night. Super ex-girlfriend and Chicago resident Renae, current roommate and chill drinking buddy Adam and I walked in on what we expected would be a slow night - the middle of the week - and found... who was all there that night?

Emily Stam and Brady, Jane, Jason, Mikey, Dee and Mela and a handful of other people that I don't remember, know too well, or don't know at all. I said hi to the bartender, ordered a pitcher of Blue Moon and pulled out my ID but she shook her head and said, "It's OK. I remember you." That has nothing to do with what I want to relay here - I just thought it was cool. The fun thing about having a drink in a small town bar is that you can go back, and forth, and make the rounds with your drink, stopping in for an argument, making a sly joke, pulling friends out for a bar and taking a breath for conversation in a loud(ish) room. Near the end of the night, as they were headed back to the brick house and we were headed back to campus, and Mela was relaying her parents' visiting, she left with an invitation to join them. I had to decline. We were tired, our other roommates and friends were expecting us back and if I went to the brick house, I would probably end up spending the night on the couch. "OK. If I don't see you tonight, I'll probably see you two other times this year," she said with a smile that wasn't really a smile, but a "Yeah, how ya like me now, you beautiful bitch?" That made me sad (and electrified) because the truth is that I can, and feel comfortable, taking my roommates over to the brick house, any circle of friends over to the brick house (and back to my apartment, out for a walk, a drink at Tofher's, Orange City for an escape, the Bean etc. etc.). Introducing new friends is one of my favorite things, but sometimes I feel like I am neglecting some friends over others. I live with, and have a great time with, my roommates and I'd argue that I'm the odd one out in the group. I don't want to call them the Bean crowd, but I love them too - individually and communally - and we celebrate a lot of the same interests. There are other friends too - the rooms upstairs that hold an indispensable refuge from the activities that take place in my apartment. Just last night I read in Bailey and Val's room while they were already fast asleep and earlier today, I took a pre-dinner nap in there with Pam and Amanda and Devil Wears Prada. (You heard me.) But we fall into a routine, you know? Class, class, see friends in between classes, lunch, class, stop by rooms, some people come visit, etc. So I'm wondering, dear patient reader, what it is that leads people to be friends. Note that some people... some personalities are more prone to be friendly anyway, to everybody, and others are more guarded.

I'm sitting in my Southview apartment, in the middle of bags, boxes, open suitcases with clothes spilling out, lamps, a lineup of speakers and LCD Soundsystem blaring, a sink of dirty dishes and a few magazines that I have to catch up on from my time away. Just a little bit ago, Troy and I met Dordt faculty and staff upstairs in the mezzanine to welcome the freshmen class to their college experience. We sat as student representatives on the stage and sang with our professors and administrators as the freshmen filed in and took their seats. I'm glad we did it, even if they looked dazed, confused, tired and/or bored. That's all expected from their first day of orientation. One thing I wanted to say: College is nothing like orientation - shake it off. Their PC leaders and advisors and everyone else has, no doubt, welcomed them to our fine institution already, and even if some of them are looking forward to starting the semester, I'd put some money down that none of them feel as terribly excited as the professors, administrators and their parents. Dr. Kobes spoke for the faculty right before us. The house was brought down. The man tore it up. I firmly believe that the ceremony should have consisted of songs, prayers and Dr. Kobes affirming the hopes and promises of the incoming class. Troy and I stood at the opposite microphone and felt our knees shake. As my eyes adjusted to the lighting from the stage, I saw more and more familiar faces in the crowd - people I knew would be there and, unfortunately, others I forgot had graduated high school. One thing I wanted to say: It's astounding to realize that these friends will be walking the same halls, that we'll be there as they grow and affirm who they are and what they believe. Especially for those of us whose younger siblings will be starting this year, I can't take how excited we are. I've stepped over onto sentimental now, but you can believe how strange I felt before the sea of confused and anxious students. One thing I wanted to say: This is their school now. How they choose to lead (or not to lead) this year will be much more significant than anything the upperclassmen manage to pull off in the next couple months. Hats off to them. Here's to a good year.

The clock on my laptop reads 1 38 AM, which means it's 11 39 PM here in Mount Langley. Bear and I set up our dinner just a few minutes ago. Deep breath.

Olympia oysters pan-seared then topped with a dot of herb butter. After learning to shuck an oyster, and considering that these water-filtering gender-switching creatures are still alive through our sticking a knife into their most intimate spaces, sweeping through the muscles to reveal them in all their vulnerability, I still find myself silent and focused at the counter with a small knife. I've read that oysters are the only food we eat still fully alive. I guess I did have squid in Korea that was still moving, but I think those were "just" nerves reacting - the way a daddy longlegs' leg still spasms when you rip it apart. I know. I know. We're talking about food here. What I mean to say is that shucking an oyster is a dangerous and serious ability - like slaughtering a chicken to feed people you care about, to entice their senses and provide sustenance. And they taste so good. Even as they shrink to the size of dimes in the pan and take on the coloring and flavors of the butter, we taste the ocean.

Roast tomato. As simple as ripe, organic tomatoes, marinated for fifteen minutes in sea salt, black pepper, chopped shallots and olive oil then slow roasted at 225 degrees for... must have been almost two hours, slowly filling the kitchen with an escalating dance of comfort and sensuality. We topped with a few drops of balsamic vinegar right before serving. It was more subtle than sticking your face over a pot of tomato sauce with the music going, and friends laughing in the tail end of spring semester, but along the same lines. This bowl of tomatoes is so precious, we'll keep the juices that are left when the last piece is eaten. It might be the base to a sauce we make, or we might sop it up with a nice piece of...

Olive baguette. We purchased this at the Mount Vernon Food Coop, but we believe one Nate Smith could (and probably has) reproduce such a crusty, tasty canvas for a forkful of...

Roast vegetables - zucchini, red bell peppers, leeks and fava beans with olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and pepper. This was probably the most visually vibrant plate we had, and a wonderful salad to behold. We could eat this all week, but we'll have polished it off in two days. (You don't understand how much we made of this. If we stuffed it in a bag and placed it under Beardface's shirt, people would ask if we were having twins.)

Salmonberry Wine, picked in May of this year from the back 17 acres of Child's Creek Farm, among the creek and muck, bottled the 4th of August... which is just last week. Beard has a winemaking store owner friend Bob who, with his dog, caught up with us on the way to the co-op for afternoon coffee. Beard gifted him four pounds of Salmonberry when he picked them so they could both make their own wine and share. Bob ranted and raved about how good Beard's was - he shared it with some winemaking aficionados (read: nice snobs) and they thoroughly enjoyed it. So we opened it tonight to see and record notes.

8/15 First Bottle (w/ Alvin) + oysters!

- tang, good berry bouquet and flavor

- very bright and refreshing

- reddish rose color

- lemon on back of tongue?

He's right and there's a very, very clean and appealing finish. It's almost a buzz on the roof of your mouth, but there's no fuzzy film left on your tongue which adds greatly to the drinkability. Right now, I'm not trying to sell this guy. It's a great wine and I'm not a huge fruit wine drinker. So, ladies, first year winemaker and single bearded guy. Must be great with kids and OK with asian life partners and goats.

I was going to take pictures, but most of the food is gone. Later, photos of wine.

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D9 was... well, it's an interesting story of how it was made... apparently a Halo movie (the xbox game) was in the works, but it fell through... and that is somehow related to this... where Producer Peter Jackson approached Director Neill Blomkamp and basically said, "Do whatever you want and I'll support it. I'm Peter Jackson." Whatever Peter Jackson touches is studio insurance (even mediocre, three-hour King Kong with a world profit of well over $250 million). So previews were all over the place, a creative marketing strategy for the bigger cities was executed and a bunch of girls rolled their eyes. When a movie gets well over 90% on Rottentomatoes, it's kind of a big deal, but those usually aren't movies that might be described as "Not enough like Time Traveller's Wife," or "Too much like Transformers, not enough like... insert geeky sci-fi movie here," or even "Where are the boobies?" Let's talk about the flaws first.

The first half or so of the film took a documentary-style to relay the exposition of the plot - interviews and "stock" footage of anti-alien/non-human regulations. The second half is the Transformers/Harrison Ford/Bourne with shakier camera and quick cuts. There was one POV of the alien looking out the window, he is dejected and... claw-cuffed and hopelessly observing some physical abuse and the POV shot itself is swooping all over the place. That, and the gross content, with the cherry coke and theater popcorn, led to a pretty rough headache.

It dipped, for just a few scenes, into the sentimental. The rogue alien and cast-off human kneel before each other, wounded and bleeding with bullets tearing all around them. They look each other in the eye - one set is kind of gray and blue, the other is yellow and black. "We stick together! I'm not leaving you!"

That being said, it's pretty impressive that the film had the audience to resonate emotionally with the aliens. Glory had us caring about Denzel Washington, WallE had us crying for a robot that only said one word, and District 9 had us rooting for a prawny, skeletal creature from space. Nice.

The metaphorical significance somewhat dissolved itself as the specific resolution was being sought out. I think I'm OK with that because it gave way for character structure and decision, but I'm not too OK with as simplified a resolution as, "They have the thing we need, let's go Die Hard on their asses. Thug life." I should have said that I'm not a big sci-fi viewer, and maybe it all dwindles down to the geeky guy getting really mad and picking up a gun that makes people explode in order to make a movie.

I guess the previews led me to believe that the black muck the guy gets sprayed with is some sort of initial infection that would spread, of course, to other humans, which is why the aliens are there in the first place... like several other alien films or, even worse, some vampire flicks and, even better, a handful of zombie flicks. One guy gets infected and starts spewing his business on everyone else, the aliens successfully plague another planet. How many movies are coming to mind right now? Independence Day, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later, The Faculty etc. That's not what happens here. What happens is, the guy goes back in time to see what his wife was like when she was, like, six years old. It's OK! It's not creepy because he tells this little girl, while they're standing alone in a field, that he's going to marry her someday. Not creepy. Romantic.

Right?

Happy Allison's birthday. Allison, all my friends like you better than they like me. Enjoy it.

Eerie.

...I feel like a part of my blog was put through Google translator, brought back to broken English and then posted on this clusterbone of a blog. Or maybe it's a rogue non-English speaker teaching him/herself by tediously translating word-for-word with an outdated dictionary. If the latter, keep at it Poytiki. Either way, at 1 30 AM, after crosswords, Entourage, wine and laughter, this is nothing short of terrifying.

But anyway.

Tonight marks the last of nights that I'll stay here in Langley because tomorrow, the minute that Stina and Jess return home from work, to the waiting arms and greetings of Paul and myself (two able, educated, competent and healthy American young men), we will journey past the border into Washington.

I hate to say this, and many will scoff, but I'm looking forward to being able to use my cell again. Simultaneously, I wonder that I may have been happier, more calm, with a stunted ability to make calls and texts. There are voices I miss, so I have calls to make - especially back in Mount Vernon, contacting Beardface as we run our circles around.

I miss watching movies. I had this big idea to walk through a

District 9 VS. The Time Traveler's Wife

, which would have been very fun (and would have put a few people in their places), but I would have been largely going by trailers. Still would be interesting, I think, but I guess I'd like to see more movies than I have been lately. Also, I'm tired and there are a few others out that look interesting.

I've started about five different paragraphs, with five starts on five different subjects, but they are boring and I'm not sure how/that I want to talk about them here.

A moment. Thursday, Paul driving the Passat down Hwy 1 back towards Langley. Having had picked up Christina from work, and abandoning the Buick from where it stood in the parking lot, after a tantrum and shutdown with the engine (and the brakes, then the ignition and...), we sped back to Ralph's, a semi-outdoor produce place, before they closed. We were hungry, Stina had a big day, and we wanted to get groceries so we could make Mexican food for dinner and relax together into the evening.

I sat in the back, staring straight ahead and occasionally sipping my carbonated lychee drink. They softly chatted and talked out their day, and current decisions - small as they were - to each other. Paul offered Christina a sip of his drink each time before he took one for himself. He wore jeans and a t shirt, both dirty from having had worked construction in the morning and staining the deck. She in greys and blacks with her hair partially up in elegant swoops. The sun was on its way down, and I looked at the empty seats next to me, the landscape flying by, and two good friends of mine, trying to imagine, and hang on to, what we must be right now, in a moment. One college grad, working an actual job. Two students - graphic design and writing - entering their senior year. A week ago, the border patrol asked us how it was we all went to the same school when we were from Langley, LA and Iowa. I guess I've been turning that question over in my head since we drove away, baffled at how we were supposed to answer.

"After this week, the next time I'll be riding in a car with you two up front... your kids will be here. Your firstborn will be named Quincy."

They did laugh, and went along with the premonition, which is great (because the premonition is great) and I wondered if it would be true and, if it will, how accurate it will be.

(Their next kid will be named Alvin.)

Because in a little more than a week, I'll be back in Iowa and the semester will start, and end, much sooner than we will be ready for it. Friends will go for their semester away, others will come back for their last, and we will all still be adjusting to having the '09 class gone. And who are all these little kids running around? Paul will follow a few days after. Christina will stay and work and continue to seek out jobs with better pay and more to offer in the motivation department.

Yikes. I just freaked myself out. Again.

The Man

Say what you want about Bill Clinton, rehash any old jokes and supercilious comments about any decisions made in the past. And then read this story and watch the video. I'd honestly like to hear any ideas about what a former American president would say to the dictator of the most secretive and arguably the most oppressed nation in the world. Do you shake hands and smile in the face of a childish monster?

I'm in Langley now. Up in British Columbia. Paul and Christina came out this morning to pick me up from Mount Vernon, to stop by in Bellingham and to cross the border.

Border Patrol: How is it that you three went to school together?

On the ride out here, she told me about a book... something about searching for rose (the wine)... and a couple traveling with a friend who is hilarious and a womanizer to... search for rose (the wine). I'd like to read it after she's done, because she recommended it. Guess who the hilarious womanizer is. How ya doing?

So we're back together... another sort of triple threat, if you will... with the addition of Stina's sister Jess, and spent a big exhausting day in Vancouver and came back to chat and enjoy libations with John and Lynn, to laugh at hiccups etc. etc.

At one point in the evening, Christina slammed her hand down on the dining table. "I don't care. We're going to have pillow talk tonight. It's going to happen." It's not very often that Paul and I exchange bewildered looks without erupting in laughter. We were confused, for slightly different reasons. She went to... contain her excitement, to get more wine, to get some pillows... I don't know, but when she was out of earshot, I whispered to Paul,

"... ...what does she want to pillowtalk about?"

In a regular situation, my answer might have been.

"Bitch, I don't know!"

"Hell if I care!"

"Whatever I want, ho!"

...and so forth. But we were tired.

So we stay up - Paul, Jess and I - quietly listening to soft music, writing letters, searching for lost computer files, sipping more beverage... winding down, one might say. After some time, Jess goes to change into sleep clothes, and Paul disappears shortly after.

Jess came back into the room with her hair tied up. Paul returns with the slightest, most reserved of grins on his face.

"Hey, where's Christina?"

"She's asleep."

It's strange to remember that I'm in Canada now. And with the Beimers at their house, and not at Sandy Hollow sitting outside of their camper as a sweet escape from campus life. The Pacific Northwest is agonizing in its beauty and I'm doing my best, also, to soak in familiar friends in their settings. It's exhausting, the thoughts that constantly stem out from being in the same vicinity with everyone here, everyone I'll hope to spend (more) time with for the duration.

Anyway.

I watched a family in Vancouver earlier tonight. They were young - mom, dad and son. I think they were Chinese, but we weren't close enough to hear what they were saying to each other. They sat upon newspapers that they brought along to wait for fireworks. Just like us, and the 500,000 others. Not a lot of people reading this will know really what I'm talking about, but the young Asian couple... dressed in bright colors, simple garments... very skinny, and looking as if they can live efficiently, as if they're sensible around a calculator etc. etc. Tiny people really, all three of them. Stina reported that the mom and son could comfortably sit on one newspaper square together. They laid back against the gently brushing waves, the sun and water matching each other in exploring the possible colors as the evening dripped away, and the boy rolled about his parents. At one point, the father put his forehead against the back of his son's as he sat quietly on his lap. The child was, no doubt, mesmerized by the dancing water and the father might have been exhausted, working tirelessly to give his family the best start that he could provide. They sat like that for what seemed to be ten minutes. The boy's hair was the same as his father's - cut short to reveal the same efficient, simple head with nothing to hide from each other.

Why do people become fans of Pissing People Off! on facebook? Why do some of those people have to be kids that were in your group at Dordt Discovery Days last summer that you want to encourage? And if you had any words to give them... they would be to be confident about who they are. That's what we want for anybody we know, right? And if they're young (and so much moreso if they're bright), then we want them to grow enthusiastically and enjoy the time of their youth... pre-youth.

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I'm talking to a friend, let's call her Dianne, about whether people have types or not... and I just asked Beardface's mom (I almost called her Mrs. Beardface, but Paul Westra doesn't have a beard. Her name is Sharon... er, Mrs. Westra, but I can call her Sharon... and him Paul) because she is the only one awake. I came away with a few chuckles and the knowledge that she wouldn't have dated a Hindu party animal... her red flags were guys who were 1) non-Christian and 2) obnoxious party animals.

That's different from having a type, I argued later. Having a series of red flags, especially for a young Christian on the dating scene (do Christians have dating scenes?), is expected in everyone to some level. For example... I wouldn't exactly ask a girl out to coffee if she were a fan of Pissing People Off! on facebook. Girls don't look cute(r) with ironic phrases on their t-shirts.

Some people have a type, or types. Dianne has a type. There are certain characteristics that she either consciously ascertains from guys, or that she's noticed are common attributes with guys she's fallen for... or both (the latter, then the former). Guys with dark hair who aren't stringy tall and have calm, clear eyes. Not loud guys. (Dianne doesn't like me that much.)

Dianne and people like her are, generally, the same people who have separate mental lists of People I Could Date and People Who Are Just Friends... and there is some transition that takes place between those ladders, but not so often, and the criteria... ... ... I have a headache, and anyway, it's much more interesting to have someone explain it to you for themselves.

I don't have a type. Sorry. I maintain that I don't have a type because... it's so interesting when you talk with someone, and you walk away saying, "Who is this person?" as in, "I want to see this person again," and "I want to know this person." Girls who can be mean... that's hot. Girls who laugh when they want. Also hot. I could go on for pages...

Other friend, she'll be Isabel tonight, says that the people we don't find intriguing on some minimal level are the ones that guard themselves. Sadly, perhaps these are also the people that bore us.

Or, more truthfully, what I said was that some people bore me. That might be the most pompous thing that could be said about another person. "Maybe there's a correlation between how guarded people are, and how boring they seem to be."

...maybe I'm just bored by people who have different interests than I/people who suck.

No, because really, guarded people are intriguing initially.

And there are things that catch your eye with a member of the opposite sex. I don't mean being an ass-man or a breast-man, because that's a totally different, generic conversation. (It's still a fun one to have occasionally.) I mean things that you talk about when you haven't seen your bearded friend in awhile and you're up late playing Cribbage and having some wine. It's not that you're immediately interested in a GIRL when she wears black with silver jewelry (for example)... but you notice it, and think it looks nice and wish more girls would do that.

And then THAT girl (any number of them) does it, and you crumble.

But anyway.

That's all different from having a type. I just thought it was interesting. I mean, if I met a girl from India with a British accent... that'd be great. Mostly because of that frickin' movie Bend It Like Beckham... and then she was on ER later. That was cool.

/Someone who will die for you and more, but it ain't me babe! No! No! No!

The only way to enjoy the sun

An old, fat, happy looking man sat in the shade outside of his house. He wore gray sweatpants and a western-style shirt on the sidewalk, shaded by an unfettered magnolia tree (it seemed) on one of the hottest days during one of the hottest summers that Mount Vernon has seen in several years. Jeremy and I were walking back from the town (library for books, coop for coffee, groceries and late gifts for my sister's birthday). We passed the amtrak station, a few pubs, a small movie theater that's doing outdoor screenings for the summer. With onions, oats and yogurt in our packs, we made our way back to the neighborhoods, walking mostly uphill in 90+ degree weather. We met a nice guy on the way.

--

Just now,

"You might want to put some pants on. Maybe even a light jacket. And if they start swarming you, don't swat too hard. Just swat lightly."

"...don't freak out?"

"Yeah! Don't freak out! If you're five feet away, you should be fine. Just walk away if they come after you."

"..."

"And maybe... you might want shoes and socks."

Jeremy manages two medium-sized bee hives and we're going to set in some frames he assembled this afternoon. I will not freak out, and take photos. Hope to write more, and hear from you, later.

Five Operators and Me

I felt like the worst kind of person when I picked up my phone tonight. It was some 360 number that I was unaware of. Jeremy on the other end, asking if I had landed in Seattle yet.

This happened a few hours ago, when it was still Tuesday, July 21. It's now Wednesday, July 22 and the original plan that my mother and I carefully arranged online for was tomorrow, Thursday, July 23, depart Sioux Falls, SD to Seattle, WA to arrive back on August 18, the day before Symposium prep. meetings with Troy and Bethany began.

I thought Jeremy was kidding, and he thought I was kidding.

And then there was panic. A rush of anger, disbelief, sweat and blood to my brow. I felt like the worst kind of person and flipped open my email.

The itinerary online said Depart: Sioux Falls August 18, Return August 19.

We were both wrong. Actually, all three of us were wrong. I don't know how. I don't know how. I don't know what happened and, as I said (I hope kindly and patiently to the five operators) I don't really need to know what happened. What can we do from here? It's not about why/how the flight changed twice since whenever it was earlier this month that I booked it.

"Red Quail Dog Six Gopher Kansas." That's my confirmation number. I gave it four different times, and they always typed before responding "OK, Alvin Shim? What can I do for you?"

Gina, Andrew, Mike, Elaine and Cassidy. The last two are supervisors, and very courteous and straightforward. I don't want to say whether any of them passed their job on to another operator in another cubicle, though Mike did consider passing me back to online connection, which was Andrew's department, and I just wanted to say, to all of them, to please not waste any of our time.

One by one, they found me an alternate schedule, applied the flight change fee ($150) and calculated the difference in flight cost from the original reservation ($311.99, considerably more than the original ticket price), waived the change fee and discussed the various options I had from there. Cassidy felt that the best option would be to shop around online for a cheap(er) flight that would work into my schedule, assuring me that the credit I had with the original ticket would carry over so long as I gave them the correct numerals and informed the agent to document the "remarks on ticket" with the waiver code.

Mom says that maybe God doesn't want me to go to Washington. It should be noted that Mom doesn't want me to go either. Hani says maybe I should've asked God about it... which I did, but I think God and Mom talk more anyway.

The semester starts in one month. After the frenzy in Honduras, and rearranging the flight and summer schedule, building anticipation, having it broken and rebuild, I'm now sitting in the living room at 2 in the morning, trying to gather up the energy to search for another flight out... by this weekend hopefully. And if not, I'll have less than three weeks to (at least start to) make some sort of a living before the semester starts.

And Jeremy (and Elbert) drove out to Seattle to pick me up. And a 40-year-old pastor in New Jersey, with three kids under the age of 5, died of a heart attack. He was on the treadmill at the time. Isn't that ironic, and terrible? My family grew up with his apparently. I don't remember, but I probably would if I saw their faces. I did see my friend Poel's face tonight, under the light of the SV/East Campus parking lot. He and two dudes were launching water balloons at Sarah and I, practicing for when campus security showed up, but ran out before he actually did. (What a bunch of amateurs.) Poel's mom, as you may know, suffered an aneurysm last week and died Thursday morning. Mikey's little brother, the super intelligent and quiet (like all the Olthoff boys), will be in hospital for months more of healing, but he's doing better than anybody would have imagined. Sarah's home in Godfrey will be her former home officially very soon. Hani's mom doesn't want her to drink. Her dad just doesn't want anybody to pressure her. Scott and Margaret celebrated their two-year anniversary yesterday. Bree's car broke down on the way to Sioux Falls. Hani's broke down IN Sioux Falls. Caitlin said to yell, or cry, on the phone... maybe she really should have called for me.

What happened after I became the worst person ever? Bree decided she was too tired and finite to run about at midnight, so as Hani and I biked over to East Campus, we said a small prayer passing by her house. Sarah passed by in her car, cutting through that beautiful Sioux Center-in-the-summer air, and I relayed the evening to her, feeling like I was about to hurl the bike across the lot. I hate that anger and frustration bleeds over to unrelated people and irrelevant things.