I have a new breakup movie.

More people need to see "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Beautiful movie. I know it sounds really, really ridiculously girly, but it makes me appreciate love and wish I could experience it again, regarldess of all the pain that eventually (inevitably) results. And by calling that "ridiculously girly" I've probably landed the understatement of the month. I've watched the movie twice in the past three days, once with a group of people the other night and again by myself this morning (with commentary from the writer and director, so I guess it doesn't really count as seeing the movie again). It's kind of a sad movie, and also one of those that makes you think, "Dang I want to cuddle with somebody now."

Okay, I get way too introspective when I start spending time by myself. I need to remember that this is an online journal, and anybody in the world who wants to can read this thing. Just because I don't tell anybody about this site doesn't mean nobody reads it, and it's not that I want people to stop reading it. I just need to be a little bit cautious about putting potentially damaging/hurtful/vulnerable information on here. Too much of that stuff and my whole macho veneer could disappear. I could be trying to convince somebody about how manly and independent I am, and suddenly they'll say, "Hey, didn't you say on your online journal that you wanted to cuddle?" and my machismo will instantly deflate. Can't have that.

Listening to: Light & Day / Reach for the Sun by the Polyphonic Spree.

I talk too much.

Hey there, everybody.

So here I am, finally able to access the internet at my home in OKC. Dad's got the security on this thing tighter than the Pentagon, so until now I've been lacking the proper information to get it set up. But now it's all good.

Yeah, so if you couldn't guess by my earlier entries, Elizabeth and I broke up a couple of weeks ago. And that kind of sucked, because it was my call and a call I didn't want to make. But hey, things between us seem to be okay. At least I'd like to think so; nothing I can do about it if she is angry with me, is there?

So I'm VP for K-Psi next semester, and that's a pretty exciting prospect. I'm ready to have some pledges around. Yay pledging.

I'm also heading to Austin for New Year's with Farris, and that's something I'm most definitely excited about.

Oh, and I turn 21 in about six weeks. Guess I'll need to start drinking or something.

Listening to: Sleigh Ride by the Barenaked Ladies

Okay, no more burnout. Just tired now.

I think this is called "burnout."

New favorite quote:

" I sat in the Texaco parking lot and thought about poor old Romeo, begging for love, running off with his woman, and then accidentally dying. Some dates go terrible, it's a fact."

-Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

I love it.

Listening to: You Call Me Al by Paul Simon.

Real quick one today: I just got to hear Brian McLaren speak at the Hearn symposium (yes, the Brian McLaren whose books I keep reading and recommending here)... 'twas awesome. I have the best major ever.

Listening to : Rain hitting my window

Today, I played the Tennessee Waltz solo.

Today is beautiful.

I've got to say, I really enjoyed "The Sound of Music." I can see why everybody seems to like it so much. Although they usually don't have the pleasure of such fine company, so perhaps my perspective is slightly skewed....

Everyone should read Adventures in Missing the Point by Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo.

Listening to O Praise Him by David Crowder

So instead of going to a high school football game last night, a bunch of us took Casey to Dave & Buster's in Austin to celebrate his 21st birthday. It was quite good times, even between all the drama of people getting sick, other people getting angry, and other people getting sick of being angry.

Jaylene offered to buy Casey his first ever alcoholic beverage, but he declined. And so my pledge class remains as a group of teetotalers among... well, whatever the opposite of that is.

Man, I just don't have anything to say.

So I embarrassed myself a little bit today. I've been planning to take a girl (any girl, really) to a high school football game, and earlier today I saw my opportunity to make it happen. After diction class, one of the girls who sits near me was kind of standing around not talking to anybody and it didn't look like anybody else was watching, so I got her attention and asked her what she was doing tomorrow night. And I quote:

"Oh, my boyfriend's coming in from Texas A&M!"

Whoops. So after immediately probably turning bright red, I tried to save some face with some "maybe another time" type of line and got the heck out of there.

Note to self: find these things out in advance in the future.

---

[edit, Nov 23, 2010: holy hell I was such a pansy]

I am in love with today.

Church was great.
Meeting was hilarious.
Filming was brilliant.
Dinner was fast.
Ice cream was delightful, as was the companionship.
Jamming with Tony... man, that was fun.
Running was exhilarating.

To reiterate: I am in love with today. Good night, everybody.

Well, I've got a paper to write, so of course I'm finding other things to do before it comes right down to the last minute.

I was thinking to myself that I should start writing music again, but I think the reason the music I wrote in the past always sucked so much was because I really didn't have anything to say with my lyrics. I would strum out some chord progression I liked, make up some weak little melody, and then slap on some crappy lyrics that I would write in about a day. Perfect recipe for suckage. The one song that I wrote that I can still stand to listen to is one that I didn't even write the lyrics for; it's based on a poem that was written by the girl I dated my senior year of high school (hi, Sarah!). It's solid poetry, and I really like the tune, but whenever I play it for people they just tune out. And I can see why, really; it's pretty repetitive, and you can only hear the same chord progression so many times before you're ready for something else.

But you would think that since I'm in college studying music practically 24/7, I'd be writing like a madman. This, however, is not the case. Since coming to school, I haven't written a single song. The closest I've come was my first semester here when I was thinking about writing a song about how awkward it was to have a gay roommate (even got as far as a nice chord progression... but then, same problem: shortage of lyrics that aren't high in suckitude). Since then, I've gotten over my homophobia but not my writer's block. But now that I think about it, I can't even call it writer's block; I never had anything to block in the first place. My experience in life, thus far, has just been normal. No suicidally depressing lows, no mind-blowing highs, just some stuff that sucked and some other stuff that was pretty cool. I've got no major political stances, no spiritual agenda, and no special insight into what God has to say to anybody else. Heck, I'm lucky if I can figure out what He's trying to say to me, and even if I could I doubt I'd want to lay it out in song for all the world to see/hear.

Okay, time to change the subject. If, for some strange reason, you have some great insight into this or simply would like to offer me a word or two of good advice, shoot me an email or give me a call and we'll talk. And if you have neither my email address or phone number, then how the heck did you find me here?

So Bryan and I went down to New Braunsfeld and went "Toobing" down the river. It was quite fun; we met Bryan's friend Carly, and her friend Nina, and we all went and got nice and cold in the river water. On our ride down the lazy river, we encountered a massive number of groups of inebriated individuals who had also decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and cold water. After all of that, all I have to say is this: after you reach a certain degree of largeness, you really should stop making that bikini. Sizes 0-18 is enough. Once you reach a size 44, you are no only encouraging a person of that size to wear such a thing, you're forcing everyone else on the river that day to see it. That kind of thing should be a crime. In fact, I'll bet it is a crime in Canada. Canada, after all, is awesome. And in an awesome country 300-pound women would almost certainly wear very large overcoats to swim.

Listening to - SE 101 by Ace Troubleshooter

You can't go home again... I guess.

I'm heading to Hinton again. Sarah Ray needs a ride and can't get a train ticket, so I'm using that as an excuse to help my family unpack in their new house. Not sure how it's going to work out, but we'll get it somehow.

Well, sometimes you just don't know how to feel.

I left my house in Hinton yesterday for the last time. I know that moving isn't such a big deal for lots of people, and there's a ton of folks who have done it several times in their life. But me, I've always had that house. In fact, the house was built in preparation for my birth... I've been living in it since day one. Even when my parents got divorced and my dad moved us in with his parents while the courts decided how to divy up the marriage, my mom was still living there. Then when the divorce became final, dad got the house and custody of Rob and I (among other things).

In the end, all I could do yesterday was give my dad a hug and walk out the door. Had I really put any thought into at that point, had I let myself really think about what leaving my house meant, I probably wouldn't have made it to my car without breaking down. Gosh, it's just a house! Why do I care so much? My family's intact, everybody's alive, and the new house is really great (though hardly an upgrade, in my own humble opinion). I shouldn't be moping about over something like this; Josh and Lorie will be happier, and dad and Jason will probably be just fine, and they're the only ones who will ever actually live in the house. Rob and I are in Texas for school and hardly make it up to Oklahoma more than two or three times a year, so we don't have any room to complain (not that Rob would; he was never one for emotional attachments).

Losing my train of thought, time to go elsewhere. Happy birthday, dad.

Listening to - Man of God by Audio Adrenaline

Well, tomorrow I'm going home to Hinton, Oklahoma. This will probably be the last time I ever spend the night in the house I grew up in... and I don't like it one bit.

Initially, I chalked up my dissatisfaction with the move up to the fact that sometimes I react badly to change. For instance, whenever a girl I'm dating gets a haircut and radically changes the style, no matter how much I may like the hairstyle my first reaction is always, "Why did you do that?" instead of, "Hey, that looks nice." And so when dad first told me he'd bought a house in Oklahoma City, I felt the temptation to say, "Why?" and instead said "Well, I guess that's good." Right now, I'm wishing I'd let myself get upset about it. I don't want to leave my house. I don't care that I don't live there, and I don't really care that I'm only there for maybe two weeks out of the year anymore. That's my house, that's my town, and by golly I'm going to miss it. I'll miss being able to bring people home and tell me how beautiful my house is. I'll miss seeing their reactions to how small and quaint the town is. After this week, I won't be able to bring people home to sleep in "The Cave" (props to Mandie for naming the bedroom in my basement). I'll miss having people over to sit in the hot tub, I'll miss the patio that I helped stain while Roy MacLemore built it for us.

I love that place.

Okay, I can't talk about this anymore.

Okay, this just irks me. Not to hate on my friend, but today I saw this as her away message:

"Wait for the boy who will drop everything for you at any time of the day just to see you, whether it be the best or worst circumstances. Wait for the boy that will make an ordinary moment seem magical. Wait for the boy that you can't help but smile when you see, and when he smiles you know he needs you. Wait for the boy who will be your best friend, the one who wants to show you off to the world even in your sweats and with no makeup on just because...but most of all, wait for the boy who will put you in the center of the universe because he's obviously in the center of yours..."

That, my friends, is a big fat honkin' bunch of baloney. Romanticized bull without the slightest hint of actual thought behind it. Consider for a moment how selfish and childish that sounds.

"Wait for the boy who will drop everything for you at any time of the day just to see you, whether it be the best or worst circumstances."

The fact of the matter is, people are people. There are going to be times when a guy is going to want to be around people besides you. This doesn't mean he doesn't like you, it doesn't even mean that he's not in love with you. All that this means is that he has friends, relatives, and other such people in his life who are not you, and from time to time he likes to see them, too. In fact, if you're dating the guy at all, then he's probably not a huge loser and likely has a job (assuming he's not still in school). Would you expect him to risk getting fired by cutting out on work, just because you aren't happy about the slightest thing? If he is still in school, are you going to make him cut class because you can't make yourself happy for a lousy hour and a half? If you really require that kind of affection, get a dog.

"Wait for the boy that will make an ordinary moment seem magical."

You know what? There are times when I don't much feel like talking. Sometimes, I don't feel like trying to be funny. Sometimes, I just want to sit there and not have to cater to your every whim. Don't get me wrong, one of my favorite things ever is to take a girl out and make her feel like an absolute queen, but sometimes you're going to have to put up with a little bit of monotony and quite a few "ordinary moments." Guys do not exist for the sole purpose of fulfilling your every romantic fantasy, any more than you exist for the purpose of fulfilling our sexual fantasies.

"Wait for the boy that you can't help but smile when you see, and when he smiles you know he needs you."

So I guess that means that if you see your guy once and you don't smile at him, then you don't really love him? Man, that sucks. I'd hate to be the boyfriend of the girl who actually believes that line.

Also, why do you want to be needed? Do you have any idea how draining it is to be needed? This is why girls don't date needy guys; if a guy calls too many times in the first few weeks of a relationship, the girl stops calling back because they think he's "creepy" or "too aggresive." No, he's not. He's just being that very guy that you girls seem to think you want, but really don't.

"Wait for the boy who will be your best friend, the one who wants to show you off to the world even in your sweats and with no makeup on just because..."

Girls don't date their best friends. Girls' best friends are always "like a brother" or they don't "see him that way." Any girl who claims that her boyfriend is her best friend is only fooling themselves. Simply put, the kind of relationship you have with your boyfriend is substantially different than one you can have with a "friend." It's a completely different dynamic, and that's why we have a different word for it. Just because you're closest to that person doesn't mean they're your best friend.

The whole make-up and sweats thing... when are girls going to wake up and realize that pretty much every guy EVER is going to find you so much more attractive when you're not wearing make-up, when your hair is just pulled back or simply left down, and when you're just wearing whatever clothes make you feel the most comfortable. However, even though girls seem to think they want a guy like this, I've only met one girl in my lifetime who actually listened to me when I said, "You know, you really don't need the make-up." Instead, most of them freak out and can't believe I would suggest something so audacious as allowing your face to breath the clean air.

"but most of all, wait for the boy who will put you in the center of the universe because he's obviously in the center of yours..."

No. No, no, no. That is something that should be completely reserved for marriage. This sort of co-centric co-dependent relationship in a pre-marriage situation only leads to your friends disliking your significant other, resenting you for ignoring them, and just developing a feeling of bitterness towards you as a couple. When this happens, when you adopt this mentality, you're telling everybody around you that they're only important to you when you're not dating somebody. It makes your friends feel like your back-up, your "contingency plan" for when your significant other is busy. Good luck getting those same friends to invite you to stuff when you've broken up with your boyfriend for not smiling at you.

---

There may be a somewhat bitter tone to this post, but I should say that I'm not writing it out of a spirit of resentment. Things like this just rub me the wrong way. We live in a real world, and we need to stop pretending that we're each living our own personal fairy tale. Eventually, everyone around you is going to fail you.

Listening to: Layla by Eric Clapton

Note to self: remember to post about heaven and hell later today. Don't forget!

'Finally, he spoke up. He seemed to be having his own internal conversation: "Besides, the whole notion of authority as so many people conceive it is thoroughly modern." Now, I must have looked even more confused, because Neo gently hit me on the shoulder, smiled, and winked. "Relax, Dan, I'm only saying what the Bible says. That oft-quoted passage in Second Timothy doesn't say, 'All Scripture is inspired by God and is authoritative.' It says that Scripture is inspired and useful--useful to teach, rebuke, correct, instruct us to live justly, and equip us for our mission as the people of God. That's a very different job description than we moderns want to give it. We want it to be God's encyclopedia, God's rule book, God's answer book, God's scientific text, God's easy-steps instruction book, God's little book of moral for all occasions. The only people in Jesus' day who would have had anything close to these expectations of the Bible would have been the scribes and Pharisees. Right?"

'All I could say was, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute." Then I said, "What--do you want me to throw out the Bible, then?" Neo said, "Daniel, Daniel, a little defensive, aren't you? I never said anythiung like that. I think that when you let go of the Bible as God's answer book, you get it back as something so much better."

Passage from A New Kind of Christian, by Brian D. McLaren. Brian is a 1982 graduate of Baylor University.

This passage has got me a little messed up, to be sure. Because the "Neo" character is so obviously right: by using the Bible as a hard and fast rulebook and smacking people in the face with it when we find them to be wrong, we are very clearly being modern-day Pharisees. Just like them, we've lost the point of why God even wastes any time on us to begin with and we're just out to make sure everybody is playing by the rules.

I need to ponder this further. While I'm sure that to anybody outside of Christianity this is something that's blatantly obvious, it hits me like a smack in the face.

Listening to: Nu Thang by dcTalk (always good for a laugh)

First off, two things:

1) Air conditioning never felt so good, and
2) I am horrendously out of shape.

I just ran the Bear Trail... or rather, I ran about four hundred yards of the Bear Trail and walked the other two miles or so. I stepped out of my apartment, started running towards the new science building, and I made it about to the bridge on University Parks (next to the marina) before I just petered out. I had nothing left, and I had only gone probably a quarter of a mile. And to think I used to be a distance runner. I walked the rest of the way, which I suppose is an okay workout, but I don't think my sides are going to get any less squishy until I'm able to run at least half of the trail. Ah, well, I guess I'll keep working on it.

On an entirely different note, I have enabled comments on my blog. I used to have these disabled because at the time I felt that it might be better if I didn't know who was reading these things. But now I'm kind of curious to see if anybody even reads them at all. So if you're reading this entry, feel free to leave me a comment and laugh at me for my out-of-shapeness. And if I'm just typing to myself, then I should pay very close attention to this next statement. Am I ready? I'd better be. Here it goes:

Get a grip. You're typing to yourself, man.

Listening to: Trust in Me by Katy Hudson (note: not Kate Hudson)

Okay, last post today, I was just pointed to this site and found it to be quite cool:

GIF2TXT

Using this site, I turned this image:


Into this:

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I realize it's not exactly the most practical thing ever... but it's neat. So have at it.

Listening to: Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul, & Mary (seriously)

There we go.

If you miss the old design, you can always give it a visit at blog.johnmcarmack.com/tedeum, but since this is the new layout none of the new posts will be published to the old folder.

As to the new name... well, I don't know. I just started typing stuff, and at the time "Hamster Feet" sounded funny.

I think I'm going to make a new design... who knows, crazy things happen.

Apparently, over the past two weeks MCC has been doing what they call the "School of Rock," a summer camp kind of thing where they have kids aged 13-18 who play instruments and/or sing come together and form a bunch of bands. It's a really cool idea, actually. But anyway, their concert was tonight and my voice teacher's daughter was the singer for one of the bands, so I went to see what all the hullabaloo was about.

It was... interesting.

The first band had out was really good--especially considering that they had only been together for about two weeks. It was a shame they went first, because they got a little gypped (sp?) by the sound guy; they played their first song (You Really Got Me) just fine, but you couldn't hear the rhythm guitar or lead singer for crap. (side note: I like writing these because I can say things like "can't [blank] for crap" and nobody's going to "red-pen" me) Once they got past the obligatory song and got to play the original song they had put together in their two weeks, they really did manage to rock. It wasn't like a Five Iron show or anything, mind you, but for junior high/high schoolers, they were pretty tight. The drummer was CRAZY good... awesome fills, syncopation like mad, and he never, ever ever ever rushed the beat. Beautiful. They had a little black kid on saxophone, too, and I was seriously impressed by him as well.

The second band... well, they weren't quite as impressive. The instrumentalists were just fine, but the singer was a bit tone-deaf. Ozzie Ozbourne's Crazy Train will never be the same for me.

Third band: Not bad, but not memorable... this was just a few hours ago and already I can't remember what songs they did.

Fourth band (Cameron's band): Hilarious group of guys, plus Cameron the twelve year old girl. Cameron was a little nervous for their first song, The Darkness' I Believe in a Thing Called Love, and so she sang most of the song a third too high. Their second song was solid, though. Christian overtones to the lyrics, which I enjoy, really nifty acoustic guitar stuff. I'm going to have to see if I can get ahold of a recording just so I can remember how some of their stuff went.

Also, I taught my first guitar lesson today. I relied heavily on resources from CyberFret, so if you're looking to learn then I recommend you go there and click on the "First Fret" link in the nav menu. Thank you, Mandie and Kathryn for being my first students; my apologies to both of you for having to wait for me while I learn how to teach.

Goodnight.

Summer school... is awesome.

I know people like to complain about school, and I've been that guy more than my fair share of times, but summer school is just so different you can't even compare it. The teachers are more laid back, the classes are smaller, and you can actually have a good time while you're in class. Bloody brilliant. Sure, there's more homework, but there's also plenty of time to do it. I mean, what else are you going to do? It's not like I'm taking a road trip in between classes, so I can sit down and work on my classes and nothing else.

Problem is, I'm going to get used to having three hours a day to do homework for one class. Come fall, when I'm doing marching band and carrying all of my music major hours, it's going to be some rough going.

Keep on keepin' on.

Listening to If I Had $1,000,000 by the Barenaked Ladies.

Argh. I hate finals. Too much test taking is going on in this world, and I hate that I've become a part of it. Fight the man! Leave your finals! And then run around NEKKID! YEEEE-HAH!

Okay, I'm going to play table tennis.