Strange People Listening to Strange Music

Every time I see a person walking somewhere with headphones on, I go crazy with curiosity.  I would love to know what everyone is listening to.  Sometimes people will walk up to Spicer Brothers with headphones.  They'll shop with their headphones in, and only take them out to talk to the person at the cash register.  As soon as they pay for their produce, the headphones go back on the ears.  It's amazing!  Could their music be that good?  I must know what they're listening to!

I've been working up the courage to ask one customer that is always wearing headphones what she listens to, but it hasn't happened yet.  For now, I just imagine that everyone is smiling and listening to this song.

A Little Mood Music

Is the mood I'm in affected by the music I listen to, or do I choose music based on the mood I'm in?  I think most people will sit down at their computer or car and pick songs that would best accompany how they are feeling at the moment.  If I want to relax and take it easy, I might choose Fruit Bats.  If I'm feeling energetic, I might choose Chromeo.  There's an argument for hearing a exciting song on the radio or in a store and being affected, but my money is on the mood changing the music choice.

And so much more than just mood changing choice; who I am changes the experience I have with the music.  200 people standing together at a small concert venue can hear the same song and simultaneously experience 200 different emotions.  It's not the music, it's the people.  An album isn't complete when it is finally produced, printed, wrapped, and placed on the shelve.  It's complete (and yet ever-growing/changing) when people listen to it and give themselves to it.  It's collaborative; we're all a part of it.

This is why I love creativity!  Music, films, paintings, novels; past all of the money, there's a reason these are all mass-distributed.  Songs must be heard, movies must be seen, paintings must be viewed, books must be read to exist, to serve their purpose.  And discussion fuels the fire.  It all boils down to the basic human desire to be involved, to be included, to contribute, to be recognized, to have value!

Kylee's Mom

When I Dream

The other night I was dreaming.  I had woken out of the same bed that I was sleeping in and walked to my computer in the other room.  All of this was in my dreamy haze.  For some reason I had decided to look up the roster for the TOMFest muscial festival in washington, but I was having the hardest time finding it.  Instead of searching for TOMFest, I kept typing "portico", which is what the festival was named for one year.  Eventually, I gave up trying to find the website.  Later, in relaying this situation to a friend - still in the dream - I said, "Never try to google something while you're dreaming."  It was the best advice I'd given in a while, dreaming or awake.

Before I Go To Bed (Version 2)

I've been pretty skeptical of this whole coming back home and working for my dad business.  I was against it for a long time, because I wanted proof that I went to college.  After spending four years in Idaho, now where am I?  In the same town, same house, working the same job, with some of the same people.  Not much has changed.  I've been taking steps to make these changes though.

This summer, my old bedroom will be turned into another guest room.  I don't even sleep in it now; the bed in my brother's old room is more comfortable than mine.  Anyways, I've been sorting out and getting rid of most of the junk that has sat waiting for me in my room for four years.  My mom has bought a new bedspread, and once we paint over the two-tone blue paint job that I chose five years ago, there won't be much left to remind me of my old self.  And that's the way I like it.  I need proof.

Not the kind of proof that everyone older than me keeps thrusting upon me.  Just because I'm out of college now doesn't mean that I have to get a job.  For me, it almost means the opposite.  I need some time.  Sure a job would be nice, but I just need time, you know?  I can work for the rest of my life until I've work myself tired, but why start now?

Before I Go To Bed (Version 1)

I've been home for seven days, and I've worked five.  Spicer Brothers is a good place to work though.  It's work that doesn't require much thinking.  And when the day is over, I can leave work at the store and go home.

I have a habit of worrying about everything I have to do.  This happened at school often, and it has transfered over to work.  At school, I would have five assignments, or big tests in two days, and I couldn't see them getting done.  Or at least without extreme suffering.  Eventually though, I would step back and tell myself, "No matter what, tomorrow, or next week, or the moment after the due date will come.  Whether I turn in the homework or not."  For some reason that always calmed me down.  I still had to do the work, but the prospect of the inevitable arrival of relaxation and carefreeness made the work easier.

I have had to remind myself of that several times in the last week at work.  When I get to the store in the morning, I don't leave again for eight and a half hours.  That's a long time.  But it's coming whether or not I work hard.  So I might as well work hard.  That could be a good way to live the rest of my life.

Also, the guitar player from Kutless shops at our store now.

Home in Oregon

After spending a week in Nampa after graduation I am now back home in Oregon.  The reason I stayed in the was for a job interview, but I'm glad I stayed for other reasons.  I got to spend a lot of time with some awesome people; Katie, Kylee, Jenna, Mike, Ryan, and Kenton.  And I was able to relax and enjoy life in Nampa without all the usual added stress.

I can't think of a better way I could have ended the week either.  Thursday night Katie and I went on a date.  We went to dinner, coffee, and a movie (classic date style).  I had a great time, and it really was the perfect last night in town.  The next day before I left I had lunch with Katie and then stopped by the Brass Razoo to say goodbye to Kylee.  It really is goodbye for a long time too, since she's moving to Kansas.  I'm going to miss her when she's all the way over in the midwest.

The best thing happened right before I left town.  I got a drink at the flying m before heading out of town, and the lady right behind me stepped up to the counter and said, "Are you ready for me?" to the barista.  They said yes, and then she said the best possible thing she could have said: Six-Shot Mondo Mars Bar.  It was like the end of a book or movie, where a ridiculous moment from the past is linked back to the end of the book, and the last sentence or line hits you when you're least expecting it.  But it's the perfect ending.  I would explain further, but my cousin and I are leaving right now to go to a movie.

Next post: How Oregon is different than Idaho.

Time to Relax

School's out. It feels really good to be done. I try not to let myself get stressed out, but it happened a lot this semester. And now that's done.

I'm still in Nampa until Friday. I'm on the schedule to work at Spicer Brothers Produce starting Saturday! I can't wait to just take it easy for a while. I have a lot of books to read, so I'll be out on the patio at my house in Oregon City if you want to find me.

Who I Used To Be

And so the day comes to a close.  Another ring cut off of the chain.  Soon enough I'll reach another milestone.

When I was in 3rd grade, someone told me that I would graduate from high school in 2004.  At that young age, I couldn't even grasp the actual meaning of a length of time that long.  At that age, that would have meant that I would be in school for about as long as I had already been alive.  then someone told me that 2008 would be the year that I would graduate from college, and I just didn't even try to contemplate that remark.  In my mind, I saw flying cars and jetpacks in 2008.

Well, it's 2008.  Everyone constantly talks about moving on, being a part of the real world, as if everything we have known and experienced up to this point amounts to nothing.  I'd like to think that I've done something worthwhile with my life in the past 22 years.  However, I can even become a follower in this thinking sometimes.

Over the past four years at college I have made and achieved a lot of goals.  Those include learning, earning a degree, making great friends, etc.  Another goal that I made was to forget about everything about my life before college, except for my family.  This goal came out of a tough last year of high school.  Well, if I'm being honest with myself, high school wasn't so kind to me, as it isn't to most people.  The fault may lie in the fact that I had too much hope.  Let me explain.

I never had solid friendships throughout high school.  I knew many people, and many people knew me, but I only had a couple friends that I would hang out with outside school.  This was never much of a problem for me though, because I had a strong group of "best friends" in my youth group.  The end of junior year and all of senior year proved to show me that having hope (or an unhealthy amount of hope) in people can paint an unrealistic picture of the way life is.  When friends moved on to other friends, or churches, or moved on to drugs, my hopes in their perfection and ultimate loyalty to me as a friend were dashed.  Lucky for me, I kept hope.  Even in the midst of changes for the worst in many of my relationships, I was able to smile and keep up my reputation as a silly guy, always smiling and laughing.

Since this happened at the end of senior year, I fooled myself into thinking that it would be the perfect time to move on and start life over again.  Good and bad things have resulted from looking at my move to Nampa in this way.  It's been good that I have been able to find meaning and importance in everything, and to make every moment here at college memorable.  However, I believe that I have been lying to myself and to others about who I really am, or at least who I used to be.

Just like the rest of the world expects to forget about our old life and start anew in "the real world" after college, I forced myself to forget my past and take a stab at maturity.  But denying the past makes a person forget where they came from and what they went through to get where they are today.  I have a bad habit of looking back and seeing the sour moments, the bad decisions, the missed opportunities, but I cheat myself out of all of the good memories that have also made me who I am today.  It was as if I stepped back from the chalkboard of my life at the end of high school, which was full of writing, some good, some bad, and just erased it all.  I didn't take the time to leave the good, I just erased it all.  Sure, it felt good to have a clean slate, but I had to forget myself to start anew.  Was it worth it?

Now that I'm the end of college, I feel like a four year old boy stepping out into a big, scary street with fast cars, rather than a 22 year old man.  I can't rely on everything I've learned in the past four years to support me alone.  There is gold my past; events that have changed things for me and made things the way they are today.  I can't ignore that.  I know I couldn't fathom this day when I was only seven years old, but it's here now, and I managed to get here somehow, if only by the grace of God. In three weeks, three years, three decades, when I am an official member of "the real world"  I want to say that life is good, but I also want to have the wisdom to look back and see that life was also good back in the day.  That I wouldn't be where I am without who I was.

More Homework

Took my computer downstairs, woke up at five again.

And my friendly neighborhood spider-man stopped by!