A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

  Today was a good day. I read all of my Shakespeare for the day, watched my brother (an angry, blond, Irish man-elf, as described by Kristyn and myself at the game) play a decent game of rugby, and got the chance to hang out with a few friends, including the great auditing guru of Greenwood, Patricia Jongkind. The biggest problem is that I seem to have overbooked myself (as usual) for tomorrow. I need to do my laundry, play catch-up on my term paper for British Lit -- two pages to write now, since I didn't write one today -- and of course then I'm going to Greenwood for some Thai Spice. --Quite possibly the best Thai food ever made, I imagine. 

     What is up with my brother lately? I just found out that the chuckleberry apparently got mad at another guy at practice and PUNCHED the guy in the gut. Seriously, that is not like Cody at all. The only person I've ever seen him punch is me, and that was what we did to knock the wind out of each other when we were younger -- nothing like a stark raving mad, screaming idiot suddenly being deflated (literally) -- it was our admittedly odd way of laughing our way out of fights. Even then, we never actually hurt each other (or intended to). So what's going on with that boy? Sheesh, he was glowering the whole game. Kristyn was worried that she had done something wrong, but seeing as how they were getting along just peachy last night, I really doubt it. He reamed Ray out in the game, which was not altogether unlike his angry competitiveness in high school when he played football. (And then someone yelled, "A lot of bad things just happened!" -- a real Captain Obvious, I guess -- which broke up the tension a bit, so that was good.) I just wonder what bug might have flown up into tricky territory with that kid. 

     On a softer note, it really does seem like something is bothering Toad; I know that if something is there, he'll probably open up about it eventually. He's more like our mom than our dad there, as far as bottling things up and trying to sort through them on his own (until he can't, and it leaks out). I'd much rather that than the two-hour rants that my dad goes on, though. (Hmm. Wonder who I take after.) Anyway.

     The Calvin team didn't seem so unified, either, screaming and swearing at each other. I'm proud to say, bittersweetly (which is not a real word), that Cody's outburst seemed to be the only dissension on AU's part. The Calvin team, although AU beat them, was brutal. Moose got nailed hard around his eye, which sprayed his blood all over JJ Perry (with a little bit on Bracken's leg, too, as I noticed later). I didn't see the hit, but Kristyn said that Moose was just kind of standing off to the side of an almost-dead play when this guy sprinted right into him with a head-to-head hit. Punk. Darn Calvin. I guess it either wasn't a late hit, or there is no such thing in rugby? I'm guessing it was the former. Anyway. 

     On another note, I actually liked the mall. I'm obviously not a huge fashionista in sense of the word, but today I actually found stuff I liked at the mall! In the past, I would have been happy just to go to Dick's Sporting Goods, Borders Books, and Starbucks, but with two 19-year-old girls, I ended up at Forever 21, Hollister, American Eagle, and Macy's. I have to admit, once I could get past the ridiculous prices of shorts that seemed more like belts and t-shirts designed for women with the bodies of tiny fifth graders, I did find some genuine "trendy," "feminine" clothes and even jewelry. I could see myself actually dressing more girly if I really put my mind to developing a new wardrobe this summer, except that I have those dern bills for college and such. How hollow is this paragraph, though? Gimme a raw, close Colts game instead, and at least I think that would be more interesting. Heck yes.

     Speaking of the Colts, I found out that they're going to kill (not play) the Lions for their second preseason game, and I convinced my dad that we should go watch this massacre in person in "Day-twa". I can't wait to see who they'll draft come next Saturday and who will do well in those preseason games. (Shoot! I just realized that I'll be watching a rugby game on draft day. Oh, well, that's what SportsCenter is for, I guess.) I wonder who will make second string, who will make third and fourth strings, and who will just be sent home after those first few games. I'm not at all  and who will get sent home after those first few games. I'm not gonna lie, I'm really not going to miss Ben Utecht on the team next year. He seems like a decent guy from that chapel that he spoke at, at AU, but the guy does NOT play consistently. I wish him the best with the Bengals, but it tore me up a lot more last year when we gave up Cato June. I can't believe that they let Rocky Boiman go this year! Sad day. Darn salary caps. We are definitely hurting at the linebacker position now, since we've lost two good linebackers in the last year. Heck, Cato led the team in tackles two years ago. I also wonder how releasing Jake Scott will affect the O-line, since the fab five have been pretty tight in the past. Oh, well. This is the downside of the beautiful world of sports: players are constantly streaming from one team to the next. Anyway. I hope we pick up a fast, hard-hitting LB who can make big plays and an aggressive, strong blocker with good hands and decent speed at TE. That's my two cents' worth. 

     Random realization: I don't imagine that I could ever enjoy watching golf, fishing, racing, or poker. I just don't care too much for any of them. Maybe I would like poker if I played it more often -- the only poker I've played was Texas Hold 'Em with JJ on the way to Nashville, but I imagine that even if I played more regularly, my face would give me up in an instant. My poker face and I were separated at birth.

     Two other things I've been thinking about a lot lately: 1) Is a naive, hopeful faith better than a time-tested, trial-tested, more cynical one? I don't know the answer. I would venture to say that both are aspects of one faith, but I wonder if, and how, one could move back from the latter to the former? Hmm. 2) I still can't handle failure. I can't face it; I avoid it entirely. I really need to have more hope and perseverance. I let someone down big time this week, and every time I think about facing this person next, I feel both terrified and incredibly queasy. That tangled mess of yarn that's created when my dad's cat gets ahold of my crocheting? Yeah, that's how my stomach feels -- irreversibly mangled. Yikes. I need to get through this.

     And finally, I survived my first ever earthquake yesterday morning (okay, I'm still counting this as very late on Saturday night, even though it's really not). Technically, it was just an aftershock, but still. I woke up and thought, "What the --?" (There was no third word, so no worries.) "This feels like an earthquake, but Indiana doesn't get earthquakes. Those happen in California!" My second thought was, "Jesus came back!" upon which thought I promptly looked out the window to see if there were any cars that had crashed into each other like in the Left Behind stories. Unfortunately, there was no one on University at 5:35 am, so I was left to wonder with the realization that, if this were indeed the case, my sorry butt was still stuck in my bed. So I naturally said a quick prayer and went back to sleep (hey, what else could I do?). Anyway. I'm glad that I wasn't the only one to think that; one of my friends said the same thing. We Christians are a pretty comical bunch, I guess. 

     If anyone reads this (Heather, I didn't realize that you actually did. Woohoo!) then please keep my best friend, Steve, in your thoughts and prayers. His uncle just passed away, and I know that it's really hard on Steve and probably much harder on his dad, Ken, my second dad. So yeah. Much love and many prayers to all of my second family. 

     Well, it's adieu and bonne nuit for me. Thank you, Babelfish. ;) Oh, and to my fav flautist, I miss your maize-and-blue self. :)

MOOD: contemplative