[] Tarot Cards, Income Tax, and Palms Read[]

Madam Ruby the psychic says "You're here . . . because you want something"

"YES!" Pee-wee states in desperation. The absolute in his world would have to be that dang-o beloved Red Racer.  His first love has been stolen which forces him to scour the cities nooks and crannies, desperately leading him to be huddled around a crystal ball.  Madame Ruby convincingly tricks Pee-wee into thinking she really knows the whereabouts of his bike. She feeds Pee-wee what he needs to hear in order for her to get what she wants.

Life is so much like Pee-wee's Big Adventure sometimes.  We all have a "first love", something that we cannot take our mind off even if we tried.  Whether its a bike, a person, a faith, a drink, a thought...we all have been Pee-wee at some point of our lives. We will make the puzzle piece fit, even if its not the right peace, i mean piece.  We sometimes even know the truth, the reality, but until we find that puzzle piece that makes us satisfied, we just don't stop.  


I pulled a Pee-wee sometime ago.  It was with the idea of a boy.  A boy with a job, great hair, friends, jokes, ideas...all the things that could make you interested in someone. However, I saw what I wanted to see.  I thought it was kinda odd how he managed to bring me into his world, yet keep me at bay.  I heard what I wanted to hear.  In reality, I knew I would never fit into his trendy-jet setter world, but yet I tried.  He kept throwing me breadcrumbs, so I followed.  

Have you ever got your brains scrambled riding the teacups at the fair? Eventually, you get your wits back, but for a moment, everything is a blur.  That is how my Pee-wee moment went: Super excited, waited in line, its my turn (finally), get in, latch the door, and we're off! Spinning, oh this i fun, kinda, well, not this, wait, whats going on, can i stop this thing? wheres the exit, i hope i don't puke, okay okay, i'm feeling better, won't be doing that again.  


And I haven't, for the most part.  I've really really prayed for my heart to be protected, as the Lord knows I do a terrible job at it.  I did learn huge lessons like calling things what they really are.  I tend to be optimistic in the ideas of things and people, which is normally a great way to pursue life, but with relationships, its just to hairy-kairy.  My "first love" priorities were outta whack.  I needed God to be the center, the first, the alpha, the springboard for everything else to fall in line.  Life makes more sense when I allow it to flow that way. My brain makes more sense.  

So whats your "first love"? Is it scrambling your brains? Get off the ride and take a walk with a God that loves you and wants you to be truly happy.    

[] lets go grab some gears[]

I picked up one of my old dirty habit’s a couple of weeks ago: biking.

Being a body on a bike feels so free.  You can hear conversations, smell the first burn of a strangers cigarette, see minor details in things you’ve driven past a million times, and then take side roads and walkways at a moments notice that show you a new part of our wonderful little city. Free to me means being connected to the details, raw and unedited.  The action of pedaling connects me to the street which directly involves me in that immediate surrounding. I like that feeling.

Biking has so many nuisances.  Like downshifting as you approach a planned stop, using reflective street signs at night that sparkle with approaching headlights from behind, and the morning after sore butt.  The past weeks of biking have lead me to realize that there is a fine art to the whole deal.

Being on a bike is also scary.  For the first time on a bike, I was being very cautious.  Cautious with something that I was so familiar with, something I truly loved.  I was disheartened.  I guess its kinda like dragging out an old pair of high heels.  You love them and they have served you well.  But putting them on again and prancing around just doesn’t feel the same.  Stairs are harder to climb and any uneven surface could send you tumbling to the ground. I takes some time to get reacquainted.  The same goes with biking.

To ease some of my fears, I went to the local bike shop, Queen City Cycles.  Once in the shop, I felt like I had been teleported to New York City for some reason.  Everyone in there was covered in tattoos, the lingo was foreign,  and the way they dress is a mix of mod-meets-street: I had been submerged into a Springfield subculture. They are super knowledgeable about bike laws and trends, as well as super nice.  They helped me price how much to get my bike street safe (lights, reflectors, helmet) and customized (basket for carrying stuff) which topped off around $200.

My next step is to find a bike club, but not a serious spandex wearing one.  More along the lines of people who love crusing around, exploring, and just getting together via bikes!  If you're interested, lets brainstorm...

[] oh...and thnx for the tea []

i had the chance to hang out this past weekend with some great intellectual kind of folk. while we met at a stupid chain restaurant, the conversation was perfect. perfectly interesting and perfectly funny. i hope the evil combination of facebook/twitter won't steal these types of get togethers away from me. but my fears are slightly based in reality. for example, for the past few years i have sent out group texts that would look like this "hey friends, great night to walk around downtown...anyone up for moxie, dinner, people watching?" friends would text back and we all would meet up. it was that simple. now days, my simple silly little texts get logged with other messages coming in from networking sites on friends phones. my simple silly little text cannot compete with the big boys of twitter and facebook updates. who would want to go out when you can read about john jay and grant baldwin (love you both!) eating pancakes together??? does this make sense to anyone else?

i like analogies, so here is one: if we went to the grocery store and were only offered 4 choices, we could make a decision and leave (texting). however, one year later, the manager of the grocery store thought she should start offering 8 choices, just for novelty sake (myspace/facebook). during the following year, the manager of the store decided to let her 19 year old son take over. He not only offered the 8 previous grocery choices, but he then expanded the store to carry a line of uuber rad self adhesive tattoos (twitter). he became very successful with the tattoo gig, so successful, that he didn't have time to manage the grocery end of the sales. he made the quick desicion to drop the grocery end of the store all together, just to expand the tattoo empire even more. the community was mad. they needed groceries, even if they had only the 4 original choices. they stopped supporting his store and eventually the self adhesive tattoo gig was up.

i love technology. i don't want facebook, tweets and texting to die.  i just want all of us to be more intentional with our friendships.  thank you to all of you that have given me face time the past year, i truly appreciate it!

[] my hearts interface []

This morning was the best yet. I drove to the overcast beach with a soy latte and my camera. the water has always been such a magnet to my heart. i can sit for hours just staring at the water. but my favorite is the interface of the water and sand. where the two meet is just so calming. i think i know what i want to do next time i visit, i want to get a surfboard, but not for the usual surfboard antics. there were 2 dozen kids, guys and gals just sitting out in the water on their boards. they were all suited up, straddling the board, facing the horizon, just riding the waves. probably thinking about the next few hours of their life, maybe rethinking the last few years as well. whatever the case, i enjoyed the respect out there. the quietness was different than the high noon sporty amped vibe the beach can create. i didn't want to leave. i really didn't want to leave. i didn't want to put my shoes back on and walk to the car. i just didn't. i prayed that God make everything right, whatever that means. i want the details to be looked into and taken care of. if i'm supposed to be out here (which is totally-utterly-completely counter intuitive to my life, my job, my business, my friends and family) make it happen. meanwhile, i'm going to be happy with what i've learned and seen and experienced these past few days. there are too many details to write of and honestly i don't want to dilute them from my mind. i always have to remind myself to put my camera down and just be, just enjoy the moment. so that is what i am being...

[] open window []

LA life is such a dichotomy. These peoples are the most hang-loose, placid, calm, laid back, chill, lazy-whatever you want to call it. Yet, they drive like they are taking all of their pent up anxiety, anger, aggression out on their engines. I am convinced that all cali's secretly love NASCAR.

I've had such a wonderful time out here. Part of loving to travel is getting to see how people live. We stayed near the beach in a great family neighborhood where i enjoyed getting to walk a dog every morning! i was in heaven, that dog kinda gave me a pseudo passport into what living there would feel like, in a strange way. The house where we stayed had such a calm vibe. Kethurah, annas sister was house sitting and she graciously let us stay there. they leave their doors and windows opened all the time, that feeling is so great to me ( probably because this isn't possible until the fall time in the ozarks). i also loved waking up (from a california king covered in egyptian cotton) and seeing a study bible opened, on the kitchen table. it wasn' t there the night before. i reasoned that keturah reads before she starts her day, which is so friggin' admirable. i stood there imaging what that might look like in my life. i know i was supposed to see this. it reminded me of my first love and how i only have one shot at this. how i've grown to be ok with not reading and praying so much, which really, really bothers me. just seeing that grey lifeless book sitting there that morning made my eyes well up. i was so happy that she has the discipline and love to make Jesus a part of her life, sharing her quite mornings. i was inspired to do the same with mine.

[] soy much more []

Woke in aspen, slipped out of the lodge careful not to wake anyone. I really, really wanted some solitude, alone time just to work out things in my head. I felt kinda rude not asking anyone to join me, so I wrote a good morning note with my vague whereabouts and placed on the disheveled bed. I headed out just to walk around and silently breathe the cold mountain air. I spotted a trail head enveloped in wild flowers and a big ol’ sign giving the rundown on the rules of hiking. 10 steps into the trail, my sisters voice “please don‘t go hiking by yourself, I had a dream that you got mauled by mountain lions” played out in my head. So I begrudgingly went back the same way I came in to keep my word about keeping on the pavement. The pavement adventure wasn’t so bad, it eventually led me to a hopping coffee shop where I found my new love: the Mexican soy latte (cayenne pepper infused soy latte). This spicy weirdness was the perfect touch to a morning of thought and calm absorption of the aspen life.

[] 32 hours of midnight []

If you have ever drove across country you know the feeling of getting tired and trying different things to keep alert. However, since I had a sleeping traveling companion, my options were limited. Cranking up the music paired with the same intensity of air conditioning/windows rolled down combo are my usual tactics. This time I was trying math tricks as I flew down the highway. For example, if I saw any number (mile markers, exits, license plates) I would add each digit together,. Then take that total and try to remember it then add it to the next set of numbers and so on. That worked for about half an hour until the dreadful eye crossing thing started. There is really no getting around that for me. So I nudged anna to let her know that I couldn’t drive any further,. We switched but then ended up stopping to sleep at a rest area. Thank goodness for these places, a bunch of people were there just trying to catch some sleep or stretch out. The neat thing about this stop was this: my mom and her friend had been road tripping as well and had ended up in Colorado springs for the day. They planned on going to Pikes Peak to ride the cog train up the mountain around noon. When we woke up from our pit stop I called my mom to see how her trip was going and where they had made it to so far. She mentioned the pikes peak deal and how they were in Colorado springs, which happened to be the next exit on the highway. Anna and I had to make a quick decision between keeping on our driving schedule and staying on I-70, or turning off and breaking the sound barrier to try to make it on time to check in and get tickets for the train. We turned off the main highway and headed toward the Pikes peak mountain. I remember riding that mountain train as a kid, so to go back as an adult was very exciting. Plus the obstacles we had to get around (sold out tickets, travel time, being stuck behind slower than slow logging trucks, and then the mountain marathon that had the city blocked off and rearranged) added to the anticipation of getting there. My mom in all her mom-ness somehow got us tickets on the sold out train- she has ALWAYS been good at that kind of stuff.
The ride up and back was great, as we hit 8,000 feet, the temperature started to drop. I seriously wanted to snuggle between the Indian man and his wife next to me, but i reasoned that was probably inappropriate. At the very top, it was a mere 27 degrees. I don't really remember much of anything up there other than being really drunk with altitude sickness. The lack of oxygen made me giddy, sleepy, dizzy, and sick. I do remember sticking my head through a cardboard doughnut hole for a photo...not sure why, i don't even like those types of photos.
Sorry for this post to go on and on and on, but thats how a roadtrip is. It felt like we had been up for 32 hours or so. So let me wrap up and highlight for monday. We took a 4 hour backroad to get back on the main road where we stopped in aspen for the night. I was hit on twice. The first was more of a cat call from a pair of old bum friends passing the car window as I looked at a map. I know, sexy, right? The second was in the lodge elevator. Riding back down to go park the car and grab all of our things, two guys and a girl got on. The dynamics changed when the girl got off the elevator at the next floor, leaving the two drunk boys to their own demise. “heeeyyyy, whhhaaat are you doing, you wanna come to zune with us?” “sorry, thanks though, kinda busy”…I’m pretty sure my blood alcohol level was positive after breathing the same elevator air he just exhaled. And it doesn’t matter, drunk or sober, if you turn a mans hit down, they always retaliate. This one mutter some crap that I pretended not to hear before bounding out of the elevator to the car. “What a douche” is all I kept thinking. However, every other person we met was extremely nice, and I mean like really nice. I’m convinced it’s the cold, thin, air. Or maybe it’s the scenery they are beautifully snuggled into. They wake up everyday to a mountain sunrise and go to sleep under a gazillion stars, believer or not, I think that would make anyone happy.

[] bum rush my heart, Lord []

I love to travel. I was so excited to leave town after two weeks of almost non-stop working. The thought of adventure, travel, driving, photographing, seeing new sights and meeting new faces made those two weeks a breeze. I think I walked around work permanently giddy for the last couple days. I tend to daydream a bunch and I had all sorts of ideas of how the trip would start out: tons of laughing and joking around, singing at the tops of our lungs- hitting unnecessarily high notes as much as possible, quoting “old greg” and other back and fourth banter. However, when anna picked me up that night to head out of town, I had a raging migraine from the wedding I had been shooting all day. I downed a couple of pills as we headed towards KC where the daydream banter was replaced by pounding pressure…at one point I wanted to hang the top half of me outside the car so I could puke at any given moment, but I reasoned that was a bit dangerous.

Anna, being the great friend that she is, started praying for me and it was so sweet. The urge I had to cry over such gratitude also made me want to puke, so I fought tears back and drifted to sleep. God and sleep are amazing, I woke up a hour or so later, 100% renewed and thankful. We switched at some point and as she drifted asleep somewhere in the middle of Kansas, a storm was rolling in. The lighting show was amazing. In every direction, from the horizon in front of me to the one in the rear view mirror, the sky lit up every 2-3 seconds with miles of silver light. It reminded me of when the paparazzi bum-rush a superstar sighting with their short recycle flashes. Was this show all for me? God knows how my heart is completely delighted by nature and anything outdoors, I’d like to think that he set that storm up just for my heart and eyes. Every trip i take always brings new understanding, always. That gift, that reason, that feeling is the number one reason I love to travel.  (roadtrip photos)

[] love dilution []

ok, so its like 85 friggin' degrees in my house tonight...i've gotten kinda used to the heat i suppose...a friend came over during the day and we were mapping out our road trip to LA and she mentioned how hot it was in my house, hmm, the heat didn't bother me then but it does now.

anyway, i really write because i've been inspired by a friend and
his life/voice/beard/stories. otherwise:
i forgot about blogs
i forgot i have a story to tell
i also forgot i had started this one two years ago. its started out as "adie adieu...farewell old self..." this could not be anymore true of the past two years of life:

• i've grown up by learning from both mistakes and right turns
  
• i've lived and loved more than ever
• i've had my heart rear-ended a couple of times... and fully recovered
• i've actually gone to the gym 5 day a week for the past month, and really loving it!
• i've been given the elbow room to grow to become more me

the difference from the past years has got to be (without any doubt) my conversations with Jesus, both frequency and sincerity...i have always loved God but i struggle with the fear of over spiritualizing everything but somehow wanting him within all the convoluted details of my life...i don't even know where i came up with the idea that God's love and favor should be kept on the shelf for a rainy day, a big decision, or otherwise worthy ordeal. i guess i want to be close to a God thats there on the sunny days too...