"all I've got is a photograph, but it's not enough..." - Def Leppard

I spent most of my summer working for an online dating website while managing to stay single. That deserves some sort of recognition, I think.  I came away from this job with two things: a disgust for online dating and a whole lot of stories about weird online daters.
But that isn't the reason that I am posting today. This post comes about because of a picture I had to approve. Oh, did I mention that the best part of my job was approving the pictures people try and post on the site? Well it was. I saw all sorts of awful and great things. The picture I'm referring to was both awful and great at the same time. Sort of like a pizza milkshake.
So there I was on a bright summer's afternoon just clicking through the pics and making sure they were appropriate for a christian-oriented dating site, when a picture of a middle-aged man in a tuxedo came across the screen. There wasn't anything about his appearance that stood out to me. It was his caption: "I wish I would have smiled."
The man in the picture struck me as the kind of man that wouldn't put a whole lot of thought into captioning his photos. In fact I am willing to bet a Jamocha shake from Arby's that it was the first thing that came to his mind. His face in the picture wasn't angry, but he didn't look happy either. I have to imagine that he is a happy person in general, just because I doubt that angry people regret not smiling in pics.
So there I sat on a bright summer's afternoon, with my mind occupied all of a sudden with a bunch of questions. Why regret a non-existent smile? Would he still regret that smile never happening if the picture was never taken? Is it the picture that makes the moment matter?

Then I started to wax poetic and began imagining God developing film from his Nikon SLR Justice & Mercy edition with an Eternal Zoom lens [not an actual camera] and posting them up on some giant wall in Heaven. What would my captions be like? Probably a little more serious than I wish I would have smiled.
I know that a couple of mine would read like this: I wish I would have laughed. I wish I would have called that girl. I wish I would have cried. I wish I would have prayed. I wish I would have lived.  I wish I would have just told the truth. I wish I would have spoken, even when not spoken to. I wish I would have been myself.

Well, if God really does have a Nikon SLR Justice & Mercy with Eternal Zoom then there are gonna be a lot of pics up on that wall that I will wish I could un-tag myself from. Except I doubt Heaven has an 'un-tag' button.

one for the books, but not really

Sometimes, maybe, the first week of school can possibly be interesting. Mine was. I'll try to summarize it in poetry cuz I'm super cool.

 Fifteen credits because of country dance

and a balded, bearded professor 

who may just teach me how to write

Racing a random girl (t'was her request)

down a flight of JFSB stairs

In flip-flops that sounded applause

Books can sometimes cost a pretty penny

Especially when you're pretty poor

Somehow mine cost me 40 bucks

Despising the fact that I have to shave

While refusing to grow a "mustache"

Because mustaches are creepy

A two-part text message came from a girl

Who I swore I'd never see again.

Gets read over and over and....

Fifteen weeks seems short somehow.

I apologize with apologies...

I lied. Last time I wrote here was back in June and I definitely didn't ever post the random thoughts that crossed my mind. I thought about it, though. They say it's the thought that counts. What a load of crap.

A blunt death threat from a friend is why I'm posting. He said that if I didn't have a new post by the end of the day then he would kill a member of my family. This is the kind of positive peer pressure that I need. I thrive on it.

Apologies and death threats aside, I think my WPM has gone down 316% since 8th grade. Remember the Jr. High days of MSN instant messenger? I do. I thrived on those as well. That was where I learned to type--and quickly too. It was a beautiful time of life when you could go home, log onto MSN instant messenger, and talk with all those cute girls you would never dare to approach in person at. Those were the days of 'brb' and 'gtg' and 'lol' and 'ttyl' and 'lmfao' and 'omg' and 'c u l8r' (which takes more time to type out than the actual phrase but is a lot cooler). I'm pretty sure I must have been tapping away at around 130-145 WPM in my prime. No joke.

Now I'm tapping away at what must be a meager 300 words every other month, which equals about one blog post. Pitiful.

memories and gas money

Less than 24 hours notice for a road trip is a good thing, in my opinion. The likelihood of it actually taking place increases exponentially. 3 days in California + 1 day driving between the beach and Orem = 4 days of expensive gas and good times. The company was quality, the rooms were free, the sand was hot, and some guy hammered a nail into his nose and pulled it out with pliers to try and earn tips on Huntington Beach; all key factors to a successful beach trip. The only downside to this whole adventure was that I don't speak Spanish, but that's a story for a different time.

You know a road trip is successful when it makes some memories. I will now always remember that TK Burgers is super tasty and so were the 50 buffalo wings that we ordered at Wings 'n Things. Sunscreen should only be applied after the sunburn is already on your shoulders and beach volleyball should definitely be taken less seriously than it is. Also, a mouth full of salt water tastes much better when you realize that its 48 degrees and raining in Utah. And sometimes a blind guitarist will allow your friend to play his own song on a small stage set up in the Irvine Spectrum Shopping Center. Sometimes that might inspire you to take your own guitar playing a little more seriously, and your ability to see a little less for granted. Oh, and I'll for sure remember that driving 45 minutes out of the way to try and find gas that is 2 cents cheaper is a huge waste of time, but I already knew that.

my thoughts at 30x

I don't like to write these things down, but I do it anyway. Maybe its therapeutic, but I have my doubts. This pen is like a leech draining my thoughts onto paper. And by the time four lines of what I think or feel is scribbled unevenly across college-ruled lines, my thought breaks and my feelings ebb away.

I wish I didn't have to use something to write with. So much gets lost in translation as my thoughts run down the back of my neck, across my right shoulder, and down my arm to the tips of my fingers that hold this dollar-store pen. Wouldn't it be nice to feel and think and have those thoughts, as they were meant to be, just appear on the page? But that doesn't happen.

I worry that by the time my thoughts have reached the crevice of my elbow that they are no longer my own. They have been diluted so thoroughly that they barely exist anymore--like homeopathy at 30x. They become catered to the ones that might someday read my thoughts and feelings. I can't explain it. Maybe my pure, undiluted thoughts would be harmful or fatal if swallowed, and my subconscious knows that. Maybe that's why they change as they run their course from cortex to cuticle.

I want to tell you what I really think and feel without it killing you. Things would be much easier if you could just read my mind; if you could get to those thoughts before I have time to put them down on paper and ruin them. I wonder what you would think of me. I worry about what you would know of me.

I'm convinced that you wouldn't love me if you knew everything. Only God can know everything and still love. But for some reason I still want you to know. You can love so much and you don't know it yet. But not enough.

I don't like to write these things down. It isn't honest. The effort is, but the result isn't. The ends betray my means.

the way of all the earth

Sometimes I wonder if there is a cyber-graveyard for forgotten blogs. If there is, I imagine it looks something like the Arlington National Cemetery, except instead of little white headstones there are thousands and thousands of little orange Blogger icons. It would contrast nicely with the green grass in the summer and they might even look like some sort of flower if you squint your eyes from a distance.
Anyways, my blog almost joined those nameless ranks of forgotten blogs. It took an iron lung to keep it going for as long as I was away, but I elected not to pull the plug just yet. Not that anyone cares anyways. Anyways...