June 19, 2005
I've actually seen a couple of good movies in a row recently, with the crowning one being "Batman Begins" which I saw with my dad tonight for Father's Day. First I rented "Hitch" for my birthday (you have to love the free video for your birthday at Hollywood Video), which was actually quite good. I used to think of actually doing something along the lines of what that character does. Except, my idea was more for men who were already husbands, but were kind of clueless when it came to romancing their wives, or understanding them, or...well, you get the idea. Anyway, good movie. Then, I saw "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." No academy award stuff going on in that, but it was quite a fun movie, mixing humor and action quite well, I thought. But really the movie that beats them all is "Batman Begins." It is 50 times better than any of the other Batman movies. No silly comic-book villians, like Jim Carey's The Riddler; this Batman is much more human, and Bale does justice to the storyline. I've heard they might restart the whole Batman frnachise with this movie, which will be interesting if they do. Comparing it to the other movies is kind of like comparing the old animated version of "Lord of the Rings" to the new live action one. Each has its place, but the new blows away the old.
Anyway, my dad actually has a day off tomorrow, since it is father's day. He was going to take my birthday off last week, but ended up having to orient a new employee. He did make it for my graduation at least, which I'm glad for. As usual, he works too much. C'est la vie.
Life in general - it feels like it is going by too quickly and too slowly at the same time. I have so much to do, and I'm not getting a fifth of it done. On one hand there's just so much to do, but on the other I'm both not organized nor disciplined enough to get all that I could do done. I want more of my old life back, when ideas instead of events occupied my mind. I want...so many things. Nothing happens though till I take action and make it happen. I guess what's hardest is the things I want that I can not make happen, no matter what effort I put into it. I feel quite a bit like II Cor 4:8-9 ~ "hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." It's complicated...it's life. The only thing to do is live it.
Anyway, my dad actually has a day off tomorrow, since it is father's day. He was going to take my birthday off last week, but ended up having to orient a new employee. He did make it for my graduation at least, which I'm glad for. As usual, he works too much. C'est la vie.
Life in general - it feels like it is going by too quickly and too slowly at the same time. I have so much to do, and I'm not getting a fifth of it done. On one hand there's just so much to do, but on the other I'm both not organized nor disciplined enough to get all that I could do done. I want more of my old life back, when ideas instead of events occupied my mind. I want...so many things. Nothing happens though till I take action and make it happen. I guess what's hardest is the things I want that I can not make happen, no matter what effort I put into it. I feel quite a bit like II Cor 4:8-9 ~ "hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." It's complicated...it's life. The only thing to do is live it.
June 17, 2005
Went and played poker for the first time tonight. Bruce has invited me before - the guys meet up on Thursdays to play - and finally today worked out. Everyone laughed when we started - I was saying how I didn't know how to play and I needed the card order of winning explained to me, and I ended up getting a straight on my first hand. I then proceeded to win like 8 of the next tens hands. I was betting on every hand, and every one else was folding, so most of those hands I won by default. I thought you were at least supposed to wait for the flop before you folded (we were playing Texas Hold'em), so that's what I was doing - everyone else though, if they didn;t like their first two cards, they folded. Live and learn I guess. I did alright though - there were eight of us there, and I was the fourth one out. Basically, I went tonight to learn how to play and to learn how they all played. Now I know, so maybe next time I will do better. Bruce ended up winning the pot, which he was happy about since he hadn't won since they started playing at Sam's new house. Pretty nice place, but I'd prefer a place with more yard if possible. Really though, I'd take anything I could. The housing market is getting so crazy - I don't know how I'll ever get a place. It will have to be God I guess, because I don't have the money for it.
Life after school is not so easy to get back into. I need to be better disciplined and work more, that's for sure. (Oh yeah, graduation was this last Sunday, and my birthday was Monday - good times - lots of people came down for the graduation - something like 45 people.) Time will tell what will happen with me next.
I feel like I should be more spiritual on here, like this other person I know whose blogs are quite inspiring, but I just don't have much God stuff going on in my life at the moment, at least not stuff that I'm aware of. I did get a couple of good books as gifts though, which are on my reading list now - C.S. Lewis's "Poems" and Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship." More than reading though, I need to live out. Knowledge is plentiful; action on knowledge is rare. Well, consistent, continued, conscientious action is anyway. I just want to be all that I was made to be, that's all. I don't have any burning desire or passion in my at the moment though, and haven't for a while. I guess that would be what I would wish for at this moment (see last month's blog...) - passion, desire, drive - things I want and need, but don't have much of. I do what is before me simply because it is before me. That's how I am now, at least, and have been for a while. I want something more though - I want so much more.
Well, stuff to do, sleep to get.
Life after school is not so easy to get back into. I need to be better disciplined and work more, that's for sure. (Oh yeah, graduation was this last Sunday, and my birthday was Monday - good times - lots of people came down for the graduation - something like 45 people.) Time will tell what will happen with me next.
I feel like I should be more spiritual on here, like this other person I know whose blogs are quite inspiring, but I just don't have much God stuff going on in my life at the moment, at least not stuff that I'm aware of. I did get a couple of good books as gifts though, which are on my reading list now - C.S. Lewis's "Poems" and Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship." More than reading though, I need to live out. Knowledge is plentiful; action on knowledge is rare. Well, consistent, continued, conscientious action is anyway. I just want to be all that I was made to be, that's all. I don't have any burning desire or passion in my at the moment though, and haven't for a while. I guess that would be what I would wish for at this moment (see last month's blog...) - passion, desire, drive - things I want and need, but don't have much of. I do what is before me simply because it is before me. That's how I am now, at least, and have been for a while. I want something more though - I want so much more.
Well, stuff to do, sleep to get.
June 07, 2005
Sometimes I so very much wish I was more out in the world. I don't dislike living at home for now, but it is not ideal either. To a large degree, I feel like I haven't been able to start my own life yet. I feel that this is where I need to be for right now though, to help my mom. Her health is so up and down, mostly down I guess. It's not all physical though, not in my opinion, and those parts are what I find most wearing. Lord knows I have my own issues too, so I can't talk that much. I just need more grace I guess. Grace and discipline for myself.
I wish I knew what my work situation was going to look like in three months. I still have little things here and there at the DRC, but part time work will not cut it when I have to start paying back my student loans and want to get my own place. I'd really like to buy, but it seems like nothing around here goes for less than three or four hundred thousand anymore. A friend wose parent's house is really tiny, not up to code, and leaks, is worth like 600,000, just because of where it is. Such is life. No long-lost relatives to inherit any money from...maybe some heiress will fall in love with me - ha, right.
No, really though, housing is a but of a concern. I don;t worry about it much though - probably not enough in truth. I don't really worry about much. Life always seems to come together. Very often by the slimmest margin, but it does. Finances are one area that I've never really felt any doubt in God about. Well, since they are a major point of contention in marriages, maybe that will be a good thing. Unless my wife's the opposite way. I don't really see that happening though. Speaking of which, I keep getting more and more lonely, longing for a companion; yet at the same time, I am becoming more and more apathetic about looking for someone. I've found a couple girls here and there over the years that I think/thought would work - that I liked and felt were Godly women with personalities that would mesh with mine, not to mention being beautiful - but something always derails anything from happening. Actually, it is kind of amusing. Several times, maybe 60-70% of the time, when I like someone and ask them out, and then nothing comes of it, they end up getting engaged to someone within a few months. Several times this has happened. Well, to be honest, there haven't been that many women I've felt that way about, so the sample size is rather small, but still. (You up North, watch out, you're probably next.)
Writing seems to be becoming more difficult for me again. I'm all mused out it seems. I used to be able to pick just about anyone or anything to be my muse...it's a lot more difficult now. I wonder if there is much of a difference between pickiness and discernment. In some ways, it seems the more/deeper I see things, the less I see. All fancy-speak that isn't saying anything, or that is taking forever and using way too many words to say a simple thing. Or is it simple.... I love Cary Grant's quote: "A (blank) is the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicular muscles in a state of contraction." If you know the quote you know that "kiss" goes in the blank. It's so much like poetry. Show, don't tell. That's a point in my writing that I've always struggled with. It's so much easier to tell. It lets you avoid the facts, lets you walk around the real issues. I think that's why so much of my writing analogy centers around death imagery. Writing, good writing, is the baring of one's soul, which is never an easy thing to do.
I just want to be growing, to be changing for the better, to be becoming in a measurable way the man God made me to be. There's so much that I want to do, so much that I want to become...
I just ask Lord for the grace for this day.
I wish I knew what my work situation was going to look like in three months. I still have little things here and there at the DRC, but part time work will not cut it when I have to start paying back my student loans and want to get my own place. I'd really like to buy, but it seems like nothing around here goes for less than three or four hundred thousand anymore. A friend wose parent's house is really tiny, not up to code, and leaks, is worth like 600,000, just because of where it is. Such is life. No long-lost relatives to inherit any money from...maybe some heiress will fall in love with me - ha, right.
No, really though, housing is a but of a concern. I don;t worry about it much though - probably not enough in truth. I don't really worry about much. Life always seems to come together. Very often by the slimmest margin, but it does. Finances are one area that I've never really felt any doubt in God about. Well, since they are a major point of contention in marriages, maybe that will be a good thing. Unless my wife's the opposite way. I don't really see that happening though. Speaking of which, I keep getting more and more lonely, longing for a companion; yet at the same time, I am becoming more and more apathetic about looking for someone. I've found a couple girls here and there over the years that I think/thought would work - that I liked and felt were Godly women with personalities that would mesh with mine, not to mention being beautiful - but something always derails anything from happening. Actually, it is kind of amusing. Several times, maybe 60-70% of the time, when I like someone and ask them out, and then nothing comes of it, they end up getting engaged to someone within a few months. Several times this has happened. Well, to be honest, there haven't been that many women I've felt that way about, so the sample size is rather small, but still. (You up North, watch out, you're probably next.)
Writing seems to be becoming more difficult for me again. I'm all mused out it seems. I used to be able to pick just about anyone or anything to be my muse...it's a lot more difficult now. I wonder if there is much of a difference between pickiness and discernment. In some ways, it seems the more/deeper I see things, the less I see. All fancy-speak that isn't saying anything, or that is taking forever and using way too many words to say a simple thing. Or is it simple.... I love Cary Grant's quote: "A (blank) is the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicular muscles in a state of contraction." If you know the quote you know that "kiss" goes in the blank. It's so much like poetry. Show, don't tell. That's a point in my writing that I've always struggled with. It's so much easier to tell. It lets you avoid the facts, lets you walk around the real issues. I think that's why so much of my writing analogy centers around death imagery. Writing, good writing, is the baring of one's soul, which is never an easy thing to do.
I just want to be growing, to be changing for the better, to be becoming in a measurable way the man God made me to be. There's so much that I want to do, so much that I want to become...
I just ask Lord for the grace for this day.
