dreamblog

I dunked on Michael Jordan

2011-03-04T06:36:00.001-08:00

So I'm standing in the gymnasium of my old middle school. Ellis School. Awesome. The lights are low, and there's fairly inspiring music playing. We are about to start playing a basketball game, oh boy. I'm wearing red warm up pants, a red jersey, and a red bandana. As I walk toward the area where the stage is on one side of the court (Ellis folks, you know what I'm talking about) I see Kevin Garnett getting loose. I walk up to him and high five him, hard. "COME OOOON!" I yell, and he just yells right back at me.

The opposing team comes out of their locker room, and it's the Miami Heat. I don't actually see D-Wade, Lebron or Chris Bosh, but I know they're there. I then see the score. 76-54, bad guys. I'm on the good guys team, duh. The second half of a game I didn't even know had a first half was about to begin.

I try to say something inspiring to my teammates, but Garnett just says "Man, this hole is deep. We have a lot of work to do."

First possession goes to the Heat, and as I'm trying to defend I realize I'm playing against a girl. Then I realize I'm seeing a mirror image of what's happening on the court in a tiny room, but what's in the tiny room means nothing, while the actual court is what's important. Fun how dreams can do that to you, right?

The girl turns into someone who looks like Jameer Nelson, drives to the hoop, the D collapses on him, and he turns it over. Someone who looks like Mauro Messina passes me the ball, then runs down the court to play defense on me. What? Also, the ball has now turned into a rubber band. So I start "dribbling" the rubber band by just holding it and bouncing the loose part off the floor as I run. It takes a bit of work to get by Mauro, but once I do, I run to the basket aaaaand... miss a layup. Rubber bands are hard to shoot apparently.

The Heat don't really exist anymore, it's just players. Also, KG is gone, and my team is now yellow. We run down the court to play defense, force a turnover again, and I receive the ball at mid court. There standing in front of me is Michael Jordan. I have to play against Michael Jordan. He is wearing all plaid, and has me totally defended.

So I drive past him, jump up, grab the net and dunk on him.

"Is that even legal?" MJ yells to anyone who can hear.

"If the ref didn't call it, it must have been good dude" is my reply.

On the next possession I dunk the ball outright over Jordan and one other defender, no net assistance required. The other team calls timeout.

Now I see my life as a pre-commercial highlight. I'm not sure how many times I had scored (outside of the 2 dunks), but apparently our team was back in the game, I was running down the sideline with my arms out after dunking on His Airness, and the people on my bench were high fiving each other and going bananas.

I don't know if we won the game, but I know the coach was really happy he put me in in the second half.

Awake.

Zee Deveel?

2010-02-03T10:38:00.000-08:00

Imagine a darkened alley with brick walls on either side, but that alley is wide enough for two cars to pass by each other without touching. Now, there is a roof over my head, also made of brick. I see a loading dock in the distance, and the alley cuts sharply to the right.

Something strange you should know. I am a midget, and I am a girl. There is another girl midget with me.

So my midget girl self and my tiny friend walk down this creepy alley. The walls appear damp, and I can see little puddles here and there. In front of us there are little creatures no bigger than soda cans. They have beady, angry eyes and two fangs that hang out of their mouths. I should be scared of them, but I'm not. I run up to one and kick it. The creature sails through the air, hits the wall, and vaporizes.

These things creep me out, so I kick all of the until eventually, they're gone. I think there only two, so "all" might not be the best wording. I have made it to the sharp turn at the end of the alley.

Suddenly, I'm myself again. Full grown Adam Dreyer, and my midget friend is gone.

The wall I see has no visible door. For whatever reason, I feel as though if I touch the wall, something will be revealed to me. So of course, I touch the wall.

The glowing shape of a sickeningly skinny man begins to appear in the middle of the wall. He looks like a skeleton, but with skin stretched over his bones. The bricks of the wall begin to fall away to form a circular hole. The devil is standing in the middle of this hole. He turns his back to me and beckons me to follow him. Once his eyes have left mine, he runs faster than anything I've ever seen. He is gone.

I walk slowly into the hole in the wall. The room behind the wall is magnificent. 20 foot archways on pedestals, intricate designs on the walls and ceilings, dozens of different hallways to explore. I stand in this sort of center room, looking at all my options.

I begin to hear disembodied voices. I can't make out what they're saying, but they're calling to me, like they need me to come to them. It's impossible for me to tell where they're coming from, but I know they're in the same building as I am. I stare down the hallway I believe the devil went running down, but I have a terrible feeling that if I walk down that hallway, something bad is going to happen.

In my head I begin to run possible scenarios. Somehow I am able to see some of the creatures lurking in the hallway without being in the hallway with them. Could I fight them? Kill them? Get through the hallway without them noticing my being there at all? These weren't little soda can creatures. These things were as big as lions, cat-like creatures with their skin all peeled off. They did not look happy.

As I'm attempting to build enough courage to storm the hallway, my sister Erin suddenly appears! I'm excited! Now I don't have to go down the hallway alone!

But she won't go with me.

I start to nag her a bit, but she refuses to go, without saying a word. She will not go down the hallway with the creatures, the darkness, and maybe, the devil.

So I wake up.

Andy Braner, First Person Shooter, Laurence Fishburne?

2009-06-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

This dream takes place in three different locations.

I'm watching Spiderman 2 with Drew Crowson and someone else. Their face is completely unidentifiable. For whatever reason we decide the movie is miserable and we want our money back. So we walk out of the movie in an attempt to find the manager.

Upon leaving the theater and entering the main lobby, I realize I've left my flip flops in the theater and am now worried about their well-being. But Francine the usher, now aware of my ardent desire to get my money back, simply pushes me along towards the main offices of this complex.

The place is beautifully ornate. Multiple levels of theaters up as far as I can see, making this the nicest theater I've ever been in. Everything is made up of finished wood and glass, with shining metal outlining all the wood. Francine leads Drew and I down several flights of stairs, smiling the entire way. A teenage girl working at the theater sees me and runs into me on purpose, then curls up into the fetal position on the floor as she falls. What the heck?

We arrive at an elevator. I don't know why we just went down dozens of flights of stairs to end up at an elevator, but it happened. As the elevator door opens, tons of beautiful people pour out. Girls in shimmering dresses walk out, draped over the arms of handsome men in tuxedos. I enter the elevator, but Drew doesn't follow me. The elevator is full of beautiful people, one of them being Luke Edgerton. He sure is beautiful.

Turns out the elevator isn't an elevator at all. It's actually a cable car, shaped a lot like a Pepsi can, but without the artwork. The cylinder is yellow, and suddenly my view is that of a bird flying around the cylinder as it is hauled up an enormous hill. Next to the hill is a large highway. Cars are shooting up and down the highway as we head towards our destination.

You might be wondering what the destination of this dreamy cable car is going to be. Welp, from my bird's eye view, I can see it appears to be some kind of industrial park. As the cylinder nears the top, the voice of Andy Braner comes over a radio inside.

Andy: "I've done this a million times on the simulator, and it usually ends up alright".

That's all he says.

I have just come to realize that what Andy meant was he had never docked one of these cars, and we might die. Hmmmm.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Nobody panics inside the car for some reason. They just maintain happy faces as, from my bird's eye view once again, I see the car swinging out of control around the last support pole. Suddenly I'm back inside the cylinder, and the door is wide open. I'm spilled out on top of at least a dozen beautiful people, all moaning and groaning from our crash landing. I look around and feel like I'm in a warzone. The industrial park is sprawled out around me like some weird level from Metal Gear Solid or something. I start running up around the cylinder and up a hill, which leads me to a sidewalk and parking lot. To my right are a bunch of street lights, and to my left is a strip mall of sorts. Behind me, a few of the people from the cylinder are running with me and laughing, mostly girls.

I looked through the window of one of the shops and noticed it was a bar. A man was playing a piano, and in front of him was a girl on rollerskates, shooting around, serving people drinks and such. The whole place was illuminted by a red light, and nearly everyone in the place was laughing. I continued running forward.

The further I went along the outdoor mall, I began to notice it was becoming more of an indoor mall. The roof was slowly closing over me as I proceeded down this sidewalk, which turned from concrete to tile almost seamlessly.

I approached the front of a store (which again was on my left), where mechanical chimpanzees were taking mechanical dumps and throwing them at each other, and anyone who passed by. I easily ran between two of them and continued into a JC Penny-esque store. I heard screams from behind me, so naturally I turned around. I think the robot monkies were murdering the girls that were chasing me. I turned and ran some more.

Once I entered JC Penny, or whatever weird retail store it was, I began to relax. I started walking through the many snaking walkways that permeated the sales floor. It was quite well lit, and I saw several people engaged in conversations about jeans and socks and home appliances. As I moved further and further along, the store became more of Dick's Sporting Goods type store. I encountered a rack of nice looking Brooks running shoes. They were AWESOME. Better than brand new looking, as though they'd been assembled right there in the store. Weird.

The lights in the place begin to dim the futher I go. Soon I am surrounded by electronics. Televisions, computers, and video games systems are all well let while the walkway I use is progressively getting more and more dim.

I look to my right and see the head of Laurence Fishburne floating above a television. On that TV is the Matrix code, just pouring down the front of the screen at a high rate of speed. Fishburne's head is spinning around in circles, floating just above the TV. I decide this is really weird and push on.

Now things become extremely bizarre. All the lights in the hallway I'm in are out, save two blue tracklights in the ceiling. Everything is illuminated in a dark blue. There are pipes all along the walls, and there are electronics stacked 3 feet high all over the floor. So of course, what would I do other than fly through the hallway?

I'm flying. Flying over vast piles of computers, Xboxes, Playstations and flat screen TVs. I keep hearing clicks and beeps, as though some of these pieces of equipment are on.

To my right I hear a loud clank, the sound of metal hitting metal. I hover and look right into a dark room, barely lit. I see the shadows of several large pieces of machinery, and hear another large clank. I look to my left and see what looks to be a large nuclear reactor down the hall, glowing green with tubes coming out of it. The clank comes again from the dark room.

I decide to investigate the clank. So I float into the room slowly, and the clank happens again. I'm getting closer and closer to the source of the sound, but the room is also getting progressively darker. I hear the sound of metal hitting metal again, and this time I think I see the outline of a man standing behind one of the machines, rigid against the wall. I hear the clank again, and turn to face the entry from whence I had orginially been. The hallway was still a deep blue, with a tinge of green from the reactor. I hear the clank again, turn to see the figure of the man, but he has disappeared.

And the whole room went completely black.

Awake.

Things We Definitely Don't Need

2009-04-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

Stupid.

Here's my list.

1. Remote controlled Manta-Ray. Operates in up to 8 feet of water, but you can only be six feet away from it. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose if you're not inside the pool your Manta is shooting around in? How stupid.

2. Electric-powered bumper boats. So expensive, not that fast, super crappy.

3. Anything replicated from a movie, such as Harry Potter wands, a pin that says "I believe in Harvey Dent", or anything that looks like it may have come from Mordor. Nothing makes you more of a nerd than one or all of these things in different combinations. If I ever see a person with a Hogwart's cloak giving out packs of cards made entirely of Jokers and raving about halflings, I'm going to punch them.

4. If I ever see someone with a ramp in their house specifically for their dog to get on the bed or sofa... holy crap, I don't even know.

5. Insert your name on the back of a jersey of a player scoring the winning run, or jumping on the "joy pile" at the end of a big game. HOW STUPID IS THAT. If I saw my last name on the body of someone shaped like Kevin Youkilis, I would piss myself. I should hope everyone else in the room would do the same. My name, on the back of a Red Sox jersey, in the middle of the action. Diagnosis: retarded.

Why do we feel like we NEED all these THINGS?? Andy Braner told it to me best... a buddy of his was driving him along in Durango some years ago and they passed a gigantic mansion overlooking beautiful mountains. Andy marveled at the location and wondered aloud what it must be like to live like that. His buddy simply looked at him and said "Dude, it's all gonna burn".

Ha!

I wish I could live like that. Just make myself do it. I can't though. It looks like I'll have to ask God to change me from the inside out on that one. Hmmm. Change my heart? Again?

Worth a shot.

Anime? Darth Vader? Jason Statham?

2009-04-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm standing in a field, and it's super bright outside. The sun is beating me down, and a gigantic robot is crossing the field towards me. It has legs like a spider, and weird half-circles hanging from beneath it. It wants to hurt me, and I want to fight it but I'm too small and weak.

Out of nowhere, Naruto shows up. If you don't know, I watch this anime show called "Naruto". It comes on once a week, online, and it kicks butts. It's the only Japanese animation show I watch. Don't judge me. Anyway... so Naruto is there. He runs in front of me and tells me he'll "handle it". Awesome.

The robot attacks Naruto, shooting some kind of laser thing at him and blasting him back hundreds of yards. The robot is after me again, with Naruto out of the picture. I then get an aerial view of what Naruto is doing. He picks himself up, dusts himself off, yells something at the top of his lungs, and places his hands together as though praying, but with his elbows sticking straight out. All these little red and blue balls start rising out of the ground around Naruto. Hundreds of them. They turn into little darts and start shooting at the robot. The robot is being pummeled ruthlessly, knocked back again and again.

Suddenly the robot lifts off and flies through the air, transforming into some other object. I get an aerial view (in my dream of course) of where the robot is headed. It transforms into the roof of some industrial garage and settles down on top of an already existing garage.

I run to the garage, trying to see what the robot thing is doing. Darth Vader is in the garage, with some other people I don't recognize. He tries to put me inside of some suit that will make me look like him. I try to resist, but it's freaking Darth Vader. He gets everything on me except the creepy helmet.

Flash forward and now I'm in a semi trailer, being followed by a car driven by Jason Statham. Over a hill comes a horde of cars, like in Doomsday, that terrible British plague movie. Jason Statham is laying down covering fire while I think of things to do from the back of the trailer. I unscrew these huge bolts and start throwing them at the cars. The bolts turn into grenades and blow up a few of the cars. Some of them are heavy construction vehichles, just flying all over the place. Jason Statham then runs and jumps into the back of the trailer with me. Our truck is crashing on a draw bridge that is raised up.

We both jump out of the trailer and start running and climbing as it gets steeper and steeper. I pass a lady in her car. She looks at me and says "Who are you running after?"

I wake up.

Coach has a decent role in this one. Also, dogs.

2009-04-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

Luke Parrott + dogs = strange times.

So I'm in some stupid sweet mansion, watching someone's dogs. I decide that I need to lock them in a certain room in the house, because... well, because I do. I'm also house sitting with some random girl. Don't know who she is, I can't see her face for some reason.

I get the dogs locked up in this room, put a gate in front of the door leading out of the room, and close the door. Everything seems fine. Then the st. bernard I'm watching decides to smash completely through the gate and the door. The pug that I'm watching follows right behind it. It squeezes under the gate (which didn't break, but the door did. That doesn't even make sense), and fires down the hallway.

I start panicking, because for some reason I need to keep these dogs in the room! As soon as I stand up, I see that I'm completely naked. Oh goody.

Running to the bathroom in the same room, I try to figure out what just happened. The dogs are gone. I was nude in the room with a girl I don't know, and can't see her face apparently. I look down and see a pair of cutoff jean shorts, dark blue wash. So happy at this point. I throw them on, and go out of the bathroom through another door into the hallway where the dogs went.

I run down the hall in my new shorts and try to find the dogs. Descending the staircase, I find myself in a livingroom with a piano and several couches. The big dog is under the piano, trying to hide from me. As I head towards it, Luke shows up out of nowhere with a fleece blanket over his head, screaming "MY BLANKET IS CLEAN!" He runs around the livingroom, up the stairs and disappears.

I wake up.

I wasn't even trapped, holy crap I'm an idiot.

2009-04-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

DANCIN' WITH MAH-SEH-HELF OH OH OH

OK... this dream is going to make me look like an idiot, and my dad like a cat lover. We are both neither of these things.

I'm at a house party. Nate Friend is there, and loads of other people from K-CO. I'll divulge identities shortly.

Rap music is bumping (and no it isn't Lecrae or any of that awful stuff). The entire party is pretty much all K-CO guys and girls, except this one girl. Her name is Dana. She is acting super weird towards everyone. She's taking shots of "stuff", and so is everyone else. I have no idea what the stuff is, but no one is drunk. They're just drinking... stuff.

I'm standing in a kitchen with my back to a counter top when Nate Friend and Drew Crowson approach me and start talking with me. About this girl who acting "weird". In real life, Nate seems to know when someone is "weird", so of course this would be no different than in my dream world either. For some reason, the music gets louder, and suddenly a ton of people that Dana "knows" show up on the other side of the kitchen.

Dana is sitting in a chair, doing Algebra homework at a crowded party. Nate and I noticed this and thought it was weird. Seems to be a recurring theme, eh?

Now the other side of the room is teeming with people. All who know Dana. Drew and I hear the music (as if for the first time) and start swayin back and forth in unison. Pretty soon, Nate and a bunch of other people are doing it with us. I see what's happening here. There's about to be a dance battle.

The grossest song ever starts playing. "Oochie Wally" by who knows, because I don't care and I'm not going to look it up. Drew Crowson goes bananas. Dana throws her books down and walks across the room to me, simply says "let's go", and I go. The kitchen, along with the entire house we were partying at, has been transformed into a gigantic dance hall, complete with disco ball and balconies everywhere. We start dancing like crazy people. I'm dancing with my back to her front, reverse grinding across the floor, when she knees me in the butt and sends me flying. I sprawl out across the floor and get ticked. So I run over to her and start grinding with her, dancing furiously. Slowly but surely we move across the whole floor.

At this point it becomes a real battle. She's grabbing my hands and trying to throw me down, as if me hitting the ground indicates that I've lost. So I one up her, and as soon as she knocks me over I start breakdancing. Crowd. Goes. Bananas.

I walk over to a staircase on the far side of the dance hall and go up to a balcony where there is tons of food and more K-CO people. Josh Casey is carrying a conversation with Nate Friend, Luke Parrot and Steve Miller. I decide that I'm hungry, so I climb this weird scaffolding style structure up to a place where there are sandwiches. I start making myself a sandwich on a plate that already has macaroni and cheese on it for some reason. I cover the macaroni with another plate and start assembling my sandwich.

Nate Friend: "You know the food they have here is terrible, right?"

I don't really care, even though Steve is leaning over a railing with his head in his hands. Apparently this is the place he's having his wedding reception, and he's ticked the food stinks so badly. I put a piece of turkey, a tomato, another piece of break, so roast beef, more tomatoes, and mustard on my sandwich. I spill mustard EVERYWHERE, all over my arms. I realized I'm wearing my white basketball shorts, and I immediately became concerned I would get mustard stains on them. So I walk (somewhere) and throw them under a porch. For safe keeping apparently.

I realize I need my shorts back, as now I'm not wearing pants. What the heck.

So I run down a flight of stairs to a door, open it and it takes me under the porch. I get my shorts, throw them on, and see something else under the porch, much farther away. It's a dufflebag, and it's full of my stuff. So I go crawling on my hands and knees to retrieve the bag. Pretty soon, I'm stuck under the porch.

I see Josh Casey from under the porch. I start yelling at him to help me get out. The holes that lead under the porch are too small for me to squeeze through, and the only one that might be big enough to get through is covered in spider webs, spider eggs, spiders, etc. Gross. Josh leaves, but never comes back. So I'm laying on this dirt floor. It has become night time, and it's nearly impossible to see anything without the help of the two very dim lights installed in the bottom front side of the porch.

After I wait for what feels like several hours, I look to my right and realize there is a door. The same door I used to get under the porch in the first place. I'm an idiot. So I walk out the door, and up the stairs. At the top of the stairs I run into some random girl, who politely smiles at me and goes up another flight of stairs. I find two halves of a ping pong ball on the floor and pick one of the up.

As I walk around the front side of the porch, I'm suddenly inside. Huh. The house I've walked into has nice hardwood floors. For all I know, this could be the house that started out in my dream with the party. I hear that sound cats make when they're fighting, and two felines fly out of the nowhere. One of them is making crazy noises, and the other one is just chilling. Not too worried about the other cat I guess.

I throw that half a ping pong ball at the crazy cat and nail it, sending it running. I walk through some nice wood and glass doors and hear my father's voice. As I turn the corner into the room, I see my dad at a desk, with papers piled high. There's water all over the floor.

"What the heck!" I say to all that water. I should have said "Look at all the water around".

"Oh yeah, my cat did that" says my dad. He hates cats in not dream world. So do I.

Turns out my dad is talking to my little sister on the phone. He tells her that I'm there, and then hands me the phone because she wants to talk to me. So I take the phone and say "Hello!"

Nothing.

I ask her how her boyfriend Jon is doing.

No response.

I think about whether or not I can call him "Jonny".

Then I woke up.

John C. Reilly?

2009-04-13T06:12:00.001-07:00

I'm standing in a street with buildings on either side of me. The street moves rather slowly down a hill. Suddenly I'm on the back of a cart being pedaled down the hill. There are cars passing by us on the right. We (the person pedaling the cart and myself) pull up into a right hand turn lane next to a man driving an ice cream truck.

Man in ice cream truck: "You'll never outsell me!"

John C. Reilly: "This Rolling Stone ice cream is the best, there's no way we won't make a killing!"

Man in ice cream truck: "It's way too hot out there! All your Rolling Stone pops will melt!"

This goes on for a few seconds/minutes/hours. John C. Reilly is pedaling the cart around the corner, and I'm jumping up and down on the back of the cart to make it do wheelies for some reason. The cart flips over, and John C. Reilly starts crying, because all the Rolling Stone ice cream is everywhere in the street, and it's ruined. We can't sell it any more.

Yes, the Rolling Stone ice cream was the heads of the guys from the Rolling Stones on wooden stick, with gumball eyes and everything.

Awake.

...also, the President of the United States got a Portuguese water dog. Those things couldn't look dumber. I know they're supposed to BE smart, but they look retarded.

I also heard about a lady who willingly jumped into a polar bear tank. WHY DID ANYONE RESCUE HER?

Thoughts?

A demon in the light, a demon in the ceiling

2009-04-10T18:17:00.001-07:00

This is not dream related.

This actually happened to me.

If you don't like stories dealing with visions, or premonitions, or sightings, or "visitors", or whatever you like to call them, don't read this post.

Here we go.

What I have to say here will (sort of) tie into what (I think) happened to me last night.

When I was about 7 years old, maybe 8, could have been 9 (shoot, maybe I was 12), I saw something absolutely ridiculous in my room. I can only describe it as demonic. I don't know 100% if it was, but it sure wasn't Santa.

If you picture my bedroom when I was a kid... well, why don't I paint it for you.

If you were to walk into me and my brother's room when I was a kid, here's what you would see. A bunk bed, stacked long-ways across the front of a double window that looked out into our front yard. At night, the only light in the room was the yard light my dad had put up years before, just to keep things illuminated I guess.

We had a skylight in the room too, through which that yard light shone every night of my life from the age of 6 to the age of 18. It was always shining on the same spot, every night. Depending on the poster on the wall, I could see Ken Griffey Jr. or Tony Hawk or whoever.

On this particular night I had awoken looking out the window. I have no idea what time it was. I rolled over to try to get comfortable, facing the wall where the light shone in.

There was something standing in the way of the light. The thing was enormous. It was taller than my dad for sure, and he's over 6 feet tall. It had arms and legs, but no recognizable head. Where the head should have been was a lump. It was as if the shoulders just had a huge, hulking bump, no neck or anything. Just a mass.

This thing was as dark a green as it could have been. Any darker and it would have been black. It didn't move, I didn't hear breathing, I couldn't see a face.

The worst part: the light from the yard light wasn't lighting it up. It was standing directly in the path of the yard light, shining through the skylight, and it wasn't illuminated at all.

What if you shined a light on the wall, and you could look into the flashlight and see light coming out, but the wall remained dark?

That was the worst part for me. I shoved my head under my pillow and tried to hold my breath for as long as I could, and when I did have to breathe, I took short, choppy breaths so I wouldn't move. I passed out after a while I suppose. I woke up and there was no evidence anything had even been there. I never told anyone in my family about it for some reason.

Last night 04/09/2009

I'm house sitting at a friends place, watching their dog and cat. I decide to hit the sack around midnight, which is pretty usual. I put the cat in one of the rooms on a bed, leave the dog on her bed, and crawl into one of the beds upstairs, shutting the door behind me.

About 20 minutes after getting into bed, I hear what sounds like labored breathing and growling/vibrating coming from directly above me.

I don't know much about houses, or ventilation systems, or any of that stuff. I just know that when I went to sleep, the only thing on the ceiling was an autographed hockey jersey. You know, for decoration.

Normally when I hear sounds at night, I don't really care. Footsteps, doors opening and closing, it's all pretty usual.

When I hear heavy breathing and growling above me, in the middle of the night, in an empty house, that freaks me out. Just a little. My heart is racing, and no I'm not kidding. Something felt really evil for a minute there. I remember I was kind of cold when I had gotten into bed, even 20 minutes after I had gotten into bed. Once I heard that sound, whatever it was, I was sweating bullets.

I started reciting scripture, as quickly as I could. Still not kidding here. Psalm 119:9-16.

"How can a young man keep his way pure?

By living according to your word.

I seek you with all my heart;

do not let me stray from your commands.

I have hidden your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you."

Etc, etc. I start praying like crazy. No, I'm not kidding. The breathing/growling/vibrating stops after like 15 seconds. I continue to pray. I don't move for about 30 minutes.

Finally, I decide I'd better turn a light on and see what is going on. I flip the bedside light to find nothing but a hockey jersey, still tacked to the ceiling.

What the heck could have made that noise?

I didn't fall asleep until 2am. I stayed awake with the light on, staring at the ceiling. I guess I was waiting to see if it happened again? Maybe I was scared to turn the light off and pass out?

I feel like because I've finally decided to start rejecting my sinful nature in favor of rejoicing in God's will for my life and His word in my heart, maybe Satan isn't too stoked on it.

What the heck did I see in my house when I was a kid? What did I hear last night in bed?

I have no idea. What I do know is this: I love scary movies. They don't scare me. They crack me up. And while I prayed last night in bed about this noise above me, I smiled. I smiled because I asked God to lift me up and protect me. Sweet Moses, it was that easy. My heart rate dropped, I stopped sweating, and I smiled. It still took me a while to turn the light on, ha.

For some reason 2 weeks ago (yes, it was only 2 weeks ago) I figured I might be the subject of some spiritual warfare when I decide to turn away from all the crap I'd decided to get myself into and start living for something permanent. Awesome. Bring it on.

Does it freak me out? Hell yes it does. Shoot, before I moved into the K-Life house, I was renting out a basement room from a friend, and one night I was laying in bed getting ready to sleep and suddenly I couldn't move. I struggled for a minute and then began to feel myself being pushed into the bed itself, as though a few dozen people were restraining me. I cried out loudly "NO!" and the weight lifted. I jumped out of bed and searched my room. Nothing.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess... just pray for me a little. Whatever you want to pray. I think it's funny that I walked away from all this crap in my life, only to have the Great Deceiver attempt to suck me back in through fear.

Some Christian leaders attempt to use fear to bring people to Christ, and they reject it.

If Satan wants to use fear to draw me in... seriously? He's the ultimate example of someone who knows the truth, but can't speak an ounce of it.

Mrs. Decosta?

2009-04-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's the dream I had last night kids...

I had an English teacher my sophomore year of high school named Mrs. Decosta. Sweetest lady, hardest English class I've ever had.

Well this dream takes place in her classroom, but the hallway attached to her room exists in the school in which I went to second grade. I'm walking down this hallway, and there in the second grade classroom is Mrs. Decosta teaching a high school class.

One of my small group kids is in that class. His name is Matt.

For some reason, he immediately starts making fun of me. This is what Matt does in real life also. So I walk up behind him and slap the crap out of the back of his head. He starts crying. I slap him again and tell him to man up, slap him one more time, and walk to the front of the room.

Mrs. Decosta asks me to help her with some boxes in the back of the room, so I do.

I'm filling boxes with packaging peanuts, whole blocks of styrafoam, and pink and brown tissue paper. The whole class is watching me, as this is not a quiet task to perform. The paper is crinkling, the stryafoam is making that noise styrafoam makes, and Matt (my small group kid in the dream) is talking smack.

I slap Matt around a little more.

Suddenly, I'm in front of my car (the green Honda Accord) with a baseball bat. I start smacking the junk out of it until the water pump falls off the engine. I look under my car, and there's a huge hole in my engine. Coolant is pouring everywhere.

...and I'm awake. What?

reflection...

Apparently, Matt drives me nuts and I want to kick the junk out of him for being a goober.

Apparently, I feel as though Mrs. Decosta gave me a job that I could perform only with an insane amount of noise. In high school, this might have been yelling and screaming.

Apparently, I wish I could hit my car with a bat and fix it like that.

That would be so stinking awesome.

Love you.

The Dream With David

2009-04-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

I had a roommate when I first moved out here named David. He's a great guy. I lived with him for a year and a half, and we had some great times. Anyway, somehow he made his way into my dream last night. There was a lot of stuff going on before David came in, but I'm going to do the part with him because it's the only part I remember.

I'm on an island, and it's sunset. I'm swinging in a hammock and on the horizon, I see mountains for some reason. Nothing too crazy, the ocean and the mountains, visible from the island I'm hanging out on.

Enter David. I see Dave walk towards me and ask me if I want to go over to those mountains. I look towards the mountains and see that they are now ON FIRE. The mountains are on fire. Ridiculous.

...that's it. That's the whole dream that I remember. David shows up, the mountains burst into flames. Retarded.

I guess that's all I've got for dreams kids.

Tonight we'll see what happens. Just so you know, I'm going deeper into my Bible, and trying to get my relationship with the Lord a little more solid. Trying to tune my ears to what He has to say to me. I've been really sick and tired of living life on the edge of committing to God.

Living lukewarm = bad idea. Don't believe me?

I lived my life for the past 7 months since kamp got out struggling with a desire for pornography, drinking, and trying to discover who I was in Christ. What was I supposed to do? How could I stay motivated with my music, the thing I was CERTAIN when kamp ended was supposed to be my calling?

I finally see that I need to be in God's word, so His word can live in me.

It's a living word.

It's given me new life.

Two weeks. For the last two weeks I've been digging in, memorizing scripture, talking more openly about my life as a follower of Christ with my Christian friends and my friends who have a harder time understanding my joy.

I started tithing.

I asked God to change my heart, to fix me from the inside out. He's doing it.

Just thought I'd let you know! Ha! I'm as joyful as I could be.

Sharks?

2009-02-13T07:48:00.001-08:00

Mmmmmm sharky.

Alright alright, finally another dream worthy of blogging.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

I'm running down a beach, wearing only lifeguard shorts, and swinging a gigantic chain in my hands. There's a kid about to get in the water. I know there are sharks in the water, and if that kid gets in, he's going to get ripped to shreds. Just as he's about to enter the water, a gigantic shark pops it's head out of the water. The shark is barreling down on this kid. Just as the shark is about to make lunch out of this kid, I swing the chain and hit the shark in the face, sending it skipping across the water.

Other sharks enter the area. For some reason, the shore drops off almost immediately where the ocean touches it. Dozens of sharks are swimming right up to the shore, so I run up and down with that crazy huge chain, smacking them in the face and turning them away. They're not happy. They're yelling at me. One of them gets a chain link right on the nose.

"That didn't even hurt" said the shark.

"Oh? Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, that wasn't that bad" replied the shark.

"Well I don't suppose you'd a like a massage?" I asked.

"Oh I could definitely go for one of those" said the shark.

"Well I charge $20 an hour" I said.

If talking sharks aren't weird enough, here we go.

The shark comes out of the water, gets on the beach, and starts hovering everywhere. His underbelly is a hovercraft, perfectly blended with his body. Ridiculous. He shoots along the beach, curls through some people, and hovers back into the ocean. At this point I die laughing. I can't believe, even in my dream, that a shark can hover in the sand of a beach.

The next thing I see is a mother walking her two children into the water. I try to warm her that it's not safe. That there are sharks in the water. That I've apparently been using a gigantic chain to murder sharks left and right on the beach. She ignores me, but I hear a voice come from the water. "I'll take care of it" the voice says. What?

A right whale is sitting just off the shoreline, this ridiculously deep shoreline. The mother literally tosses her kids in the water, and the whale simply nods his head, sending a wave over the children who are swept up on shore and start laughing. I pick one of the kids up. He has barnacles all over his face, just like the right whale. He even has the same hair as the whale does. Yes, for some reason, this whale has a combover.

"This kid looks just like you dude" I say to the right whale.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" the mother asks the whale.

"The whale looks at me painfully and says "That's impossible. I don't know you". Surely he meant to tell the mother this, but I'm not certain he actually knew me either.

I look at the woman, who is quite attractive. I look at the whale and say "Come on dude, it's OK".

I'm not entirely sure what was "OK", but I did spend the next few moments trying to explain how it would be possible for a beautiful human woman and a gigantic right whale to have a kid. The little kid with the whale head and the human body didn't seem to mind.

That's all I can remember. There was more to it, but that's all I've got. Have fun with that.

Aliens, a semi-truck, and a girl I used to work with.

2009-01-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

The dream.

I'm watching television in the house I grew up in, back in NH. There are videos of UFO's flying all over the place. One of them crash lands in Denver, taking out the entire freaking city. It's all very strange how the spaceships are flying all over, some of them synchronized, others helter-skelter, all over the place. I decide, in my dream, to go to bed.

I wake up and there is an alien, a very small alien, grabbing me by my foot. He wants me to come with him to his spaceship. I'm not agreeing with him very much, so I kick him and he runs for the open window through which he came. I chase him towards the window and realize it is day light, probably 4pm. What the heck is an alien doing trying to abduct me at 4pm?

The alien jumps out my window, runs across the roof of my parents house, and starts to get sucked upwards by his little UFO. I grab a snowball off the roof (which was covered in snow for some reason) and throw it at the alien, hitting it in the butt. It makes that noise a bullfrog makes when you catch it. If you've ever caught a bullfrog, you know what noise I'm talking about.

The alien escapes in his spaceship, and I decide to head downstairs, ultimately heading for the front door of the house. When I get outside, I see my dad working on a semi-truck, a gigantic black one. He's rotating the tires and checking the oil, as well as doing other stuff only my dad knows how to do. I walk up to him and say "An alien just showed up in my room. I think it wanted to abduct me". He looks at me and says "Yeah, I've seen UFO's flying all over the sky this afternoon". I look up and see dozens of ships shooting all over the place, going bananas. I think in my dream I watched this happen for about 30 minutes.

I end up in a city (I don't know which one), and walk towards a building. Inside the walls are a deep purple and the floor is really really dark green. I see some people standing around, one of them being this girl I used to work with at Urban Outfitters. I come to find out that the aliens that are flying around in the sky are looking for Quaker Instant Oatmeal, the kind with the magic dinosaurs inside. No, I'm not kidding. They wanted all the magic dinosaurs for some reason.

There's a woman who claims to be a captain. I don't know what she is supposed to be the captain of, but she says she's the captain, and I agree with her. She says she needs to fly a ship full of those little magic dinosaurs to some other ship, where she will then drop those magic dinosaurs and everything will be fine. Somehow, the girl I used to work with and I are in charge of finding the magic dinosaurs in the boxes of Quaker Oatmeal, getting them out, and delivering them to the captain. So we walk out of the building with the purple walls and dark green carpets hand in hand to the grocery store across the street.

The end.

No, I have never done acid or X. Please stop asking.

My weblog is now a dreamblog. Go figure.

2009-01-11T14:21:00.001-08:00

Lion man.

So I made an executive decision. Due to my ridiculous ability to have insanely vivid and wild dreams, along with Luke and Nate noticing that I have this ability, my blog is going to become almost exclusively about the dreams I have. I don't have them all the time... which might make it easier to keep up with the blogging. By that I mean I won't have to do it regularly, because I don't always dream. When I do, the dreams are bananas. Here we go. First one.

Yes, I actually dreamed this.

So I'm driving my car on a county road by a grocery store near where I grew up in NH. This kid is driving in a car next to me with his mom in the passenger seat, and he cuts me off right in front of the store. I get ticked off of course, but out of nowhere a police officer pulls me over right in front of the store.

The cop walks up behind me, comes to the window and looks in at me. His hair is long, greasy, and black. He has aviators on and I can't see his eyes. His stubble is thick and black, and his teeth are really gnarly. He asks me for my license and stuff, I give it to him, he leaves, comes back, gives me my stuff and sends me on my way.

I pull into the grocery store and walk inside. I see that kid who had cut me off, and he comes over to me to apologize, which was weird. His mom smiles at me, and I walk away towards the seafood section of the store.

The seafood section is enormous. There are tanks with animals in them everywhere. One of the tanks has an open lid with these little critters flipping around on the surface of the water. One of them flew out of the tank, and a man walking by stepped on it and killed it. There were little dead critters all over the floor, like dozens of them.

The rest of the tanks of sea creatures were all lined up, all about 4 feet deep. The tank next to the little critters tank had some weird cuttlefish thing in it that changed colors as I got closer to it. I backed away and it got dim, then I approached the tank and it got a brighter and brighter color. The next tank was the weirdest by far.

Same kind of tank, but with a wire covering over the top. Inside of this tank were lions. Underwater. Two lions, living underwater for some weird reason. I was standing about 5 feet from the tank when a man walked by the tank and one of the lions busted the top of the tank open, bit the guy on the head, and sank back into the container. The guy jumped back and his bald head turned into the head of a lion. So I ran away.

I ended up at the front of the store where I saw that kid who had cut me off again, only this time he was different. He kept throwing these little balls of light at people, and when they would hit the people they would just disappear. No more people. So the kid spots me and starts throwing light at me. I start dodging it like crazy, like I'm a professional dodger of things or something. This goes on up and down aisles, all over the store. Finally we end up in the toiletries section. I looked to my right and grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol to throw at him. When it hit him, it blew up and knocked him down. So I grabbed other stuff and started throwing it at him.

Everything I threw at him hit him directly in the crotch. Every time.

So he got mad and yelled "I'm going to tell my mom!", which made me freak out and run away, again.

I'm running through this store trying to find a way to get out that isn't the front door. So I dive behind a counter (which happens to be a Starbucks inside the store) and crawl to the back door past two girls whose faces I can't see. In the back room of Starbucks is a door. I go through it.

Simultaneously, I get a flash back to the cop that pulled me over earlier in the dream, only now he's wearing a trench coat and chasing me. About the time I'm going through the back door, he's running into the store to get me.

I get to the top of the staircase, open a door, and wind up on the roof of a house which was built on top of the grocery store. There are hundreds of twenty-something young adults milling around, listening to some crappy Howie Day-ish music. I get a flashback to the guy chasing me through the store, and he's at the back door of Starbucks. I have to hide.

So I slide down the roof to another roof and hide behind a fence. I know this guy is coming for me. As I look through the cracks in the fence, I see him come busting out the door. He runs all over the roof looking for me, then comes right up to the fence I'm hiding behind, looks right at it, and screams "WHERE ARE YOU!?"

Then I woke up.

Perplexed.

2008-12-08T21:59:00.000-08:00

I don't know where to begin this thing... things that have happened in the past couple days/weeks are starting to wear me out a little bit.

One of my small group guys, Luke... his dad died, on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving! Why God? Why did that have to happen on a day devoted annually to family, love, and... well, thanksgiving?

Luke, Rat and I went to Ben Graebel's funeral. The guy was only 53 years old, five years older than my father. The church they held the ceremony in was packed out completely, with standing room only outside of the sanctuary. I was pleased to see that he had touched so many lives that deeply. Still, the question remained in my head: why? Ben's 10 year old son Will asked the same question in a letter he had written to his father, read to the audience at the end of the ceremony. Why?

Today... I found out a guy who grew up in the same town as myself, Rob Theori, whose older brother is my age and graduated in the class of 2001 from Pinkerton Academy with me, died in a car crash last night. On the road I grew up on. Maybe even on the curve my mom and dad decided to build their house. Rob was only 22. The guy he was with died too. They were speeding and lost control of Rob's BMW. The car hit a tree and literally split into two separate pieces. Why? Why did Rob have to die at 22? For a goofy decision like speeding?

I'm off on this kick again, wrestling with relationships. I've been reading and studying and memorizing 1 Corinthians 13, which was kind of the battle cry from kamp out in Durango this summer. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal". Love is something I've struggled with time and time again. It's making me crazy. Lust is not love, yet it lives in my heart and desires to drag me into sin, which in turn wants only for me to die. Love lives in my heart too, but I don't feel like real love can live with lust in the same place for very long.

Which brings me to the point I'm... sort of trying to make. I'm sick of hurting people with my inability to love them the way God does, and I'm putting myself in a position again to either get it right and see what happens or screw it up and become insane once more. After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, right? I need to know how to love something more than myself. I would almost vouch for hating myself, if that wasn't so darn narcissistic.

I want to love like the love demanded of me in 1 Corinthians 13. I just don't know how. Yet.

I'm working on it. Be patient with me. I just want to know why it has to be so hard.

I want to know why Ben Graebel and Rob Theori had to die the way they did.

Family Times, pt. 2

2008-11-28T23:40:00.000-08:00

Erin got in on Wednesday night around 9:30pm Central Time. Awesome. Yeah I know it’s Friday, but we’re just running down the events of Thanksgiving. You’re welcome.

Erin and I had to share a room at the Worley’s (Beth’s parent’s house), which was kind of fun because we got to talk a little bit. I told her she could use my computer if she wanted slash needed to. I woke the next morning to find her on it... looking at engagement rings.

Holy crap.

My little sister, the princess of my house growing up for as long as I could remember, the one who ran to me when boys were being mean, the one I taught to throw a football properly... looking at engagement rings. She said “I love you” to her boyfriend John on the phone when she was talking to him later on Thanksgiving Day. She’s been dating him for 10 months now. Erin has never dated a guy that long. Sheesh.

On top of all this, before Jake and I shot to the airport to get Erin I got to meet a lot of other friends and family from Beth’s side of the family. All of them were either engaged or married, many of them younger than me.

So of course, I started to get bummed out.

Then on Thanksgiving, I met even more young couples either engaged to be married or already married. This wasn’t all that big a deal, mainly because I was there to hang with Jake/Erin/Beth. We played football (Jake and I were on the same team, so of course we won. Boldin/Fitzgerald have nothing on us ;) ), ate ridiculous amounts of food, drank Dr. Pepper until we smelled like DP, and of course, watched football.

I got into bed last night and started thinking about my lack of a significant other. Bad idea.

After laying in bed for a while feeling sorry and stressed out, I just passed out. I was exhausted from being social, playing football, and being such a pathetic wreck on my own in my bed. Lame.

When i got up this morning, Nancy (Beth’s mother) had prepared two verses for Erin and I and wanted us to hear them. So I sat down with a cup of coffee around 11:00am and just listened. I knew something was up. I had gone to bed feeling miserable inside about how I was supposed to enjoy my relationship with the Lord while simultaneously not feeling jealousy towards my friends and family who were both satisfied in Him and their earthly companion.

Nancy gave me Ephesians 2:10. God... is too good to me, and too good to us on the whole I suppose.

“It is God Himself who has made you - and who has made you what you are - and given you a new life in Christ Jesus and long ages ago He planned that you should spend your life in helping others.”

If this gives you encouragement, awesome. If it doesn’t... well, don’t worry about it. The wisest words one can speak come from the Bible. Get into it, and let the Lord speak to you. If you’re lucky like me, maybe someone will speak those words to you and act as a medium for revelation. Or you could be that person to reveal something to someone in God’s name.

It might sound nerdy, but look at your Bible tonight and make some time to get into it.

Love.

2008-11-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

Jake invited me to play basketball at a church with some guys (it actually turned out that half the guys in the pick up game where Asian, but they could drain 3 pointers like nobody's business haha), and we got to play like 5 games before Jake strained his quadriceps. Anyway.

We were in our 4th or 5th game and this really big guy joined the other team. He was probably 6'2" or 6'3", and could almost dunk. Well Jake's friend Corey was playing defense on him, and he was no bigger than I am. This guy was kicking Corey's butt, to the point where Corey wasn't even stepping out to defend him and just letting him shoot wide open shots.

I decided something needed to be done, so after the big guy shot and scored another wide open three, I told Corey he needed to step out on the guy and contest his shot so it wasn't so easy. This, apparently, was not the right thing to do. Corey got upset and started telling me that the guy would just run around him if he got close. So I offered to switch guys and defend the tall guy. This was also a bad idea.

Corey grabbed the basketball and threw it at me, so I caught the ball and told him to calm down. Another bad idea. Corey was walking at me and posturing like he needed to assert himself as the king of the court of something. I didn't back down, but just smiled and told him to take it easy. Jake got in between myself and his friend, and Corey started calling me an "asshole" and told Jake that he thought I was one of those several times.

When Jake told Corey that in reality, he was the one being the jerk, Corey couldn't believe it and walked off the court to get his stuff and go home. No one really knew what to do at that point because now we were down a player, and I was kind of embarassed because I had a part in setting him off.

Point is I guess... I didn't do anything aggressive towards this guy. I always talk about people talking smack and getting aggressive with me and how I would deal with it (with aggression and counter-smack), but I didn't. I just let things happen and didn't raise my hands. I don't know. Maybe God's doing more work on me than I'm capable of seeing. I kind of hope that's the case.

Family Times, pt.1

2008-11-25T07:30:00.000-08:00

Just got to Dallas, TX last night. My brother Jake picked me up in his Kia sedan and proceeded to take me on a crazy trip through snaking highways and tollways. I'm pretty sure we hit 65 mph going through an automatic toll, which was bizarre to me because I'm used to stopping at a toll and dropping .50 cents in a bucket. Needless to say, it was a great ride from the airport. Lots of catching up, laughing, and goofing off. Grabbed some Cici's Pizza buffet as well. Per usual, Jake ate too much cheesy bread. Dude loves his cheese for sure.

We drove by his old apartment in creeperville before finally getting to his newer, nicer place to watch some Monday Night Football and goof off some more. Jake's wife Beth was out and about doing a photo shoot with a family. Beth had my nephew Shepherd with her, but as soon as she and Shep came in I got to see a side of Jake I had never seen before.

My brother is a lot of things to me. He's an athlete for one thing. Some of our conversation last night involved our athletic endeavors of the past couple of years. I told him about having played soccer on the professional pitch at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Denver, and he told me about the last time he played tackle football and how sore he was as a result.

My brother is also a husband, having been married to his wife Beth since March of 2006. It wasn't even that weird to see him get married right before my teary eyes (yes, I cried at Jake's wedding, I'm a huge sissy). He and Beth go together great. I've gotten to hang out with Beth a few times, and I'm really glad she's part of my family.

I haven't ever known my brother as a dad though. When Shep came in, Jake was still hilarious. He just turned his attention to his son and Shep was happy to recieve it. I was so happy to see the interaction between a father and his son... it was just weird to see it with Jake. I'm glad he's got Shepherd and Beth in his life.

Shep did take a little while to warm up to me, but after I let him play with my phone and computer (which was probably not a great idea, somehow he almost shut it down by just pushing random buttons, and keep in mind he's only 15 months old). This morning he crawled into my lap while I was sitting on the floor and just sat there scratching my leg with his little baby fingernails. Hilarious.

One of these days... huh.

Erin (my younger sister) will be here Wednesday night. Jake and I are going to pick her up from the airport. Gah! I can't wait. I don't even remember the last time all three of us Dreyer kids were all together... probably Thanksgiving 2006 or something. My memory is terrible at the moment for some reason. Needless to say I'm stoked to be with Jake, Erin, Beth and her younger brother Ben for the next couple of days. People I love and haven't seen in a while.

I hope you're making the most of the time you're spending with family and friends right now.

So worried about the dumbest stuff.

2008-10-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

Why can't we look to leadership that actually stands for something good? Leadership that won't make up stuff, that keeps "promises", that says one thing and then does it?

We have a leader that can do that. His name is Jesus. Duh. It makes me nuts that everyone gets upset about such black and white issues like how to spend money, who to treat equally, what places we should be spending most of our time. Why don't we just look out for each other, buy what we need and give away what we don't? Why do I waste my days occasionally just doing nothing in particular, wasting my time, doing whatever I want, disregarding my friends and my Lord?

The vice-presidential debates tonight were miserable, at least for the first 5 or 10 minutes I could handle watching them. Palin said "corruption on wallstreet" something like 8 times. What does that even mean? The sounds coming out of Biden's mouth reminded me of a pack of wolverines trying to tear through a chain link fence. Straight political aggression just spewing out. This person can do a better job than that person because of this reason.

Jesus laid things out pretty well. Love God, love others. Now we have to politic, prance around and say all this crap to get people to believe us, believe that we, fallable human beings, can possibly make the kind of national and international decisions that affect people everywhere. Can't we keep things simple...

Just love. We miss out on that so stinking much, because we get wrapped up in our lives, the lives that were given to us by God Himself, that we think we can control. We move through our so called lives, filling them with stuff! Stuff that distracts us from what God's plan is calling us to do. Stuff that pushes us closer and closer to loving ourselves and only ourselves, and moves us away from loving others and serving God. He gets pushed out of our equation every day.

Christ is the one we should be following, not the freaking talking heads on the television worried about foreign policy and where we'll get our energy for the next 50 years. That's not to say those things aren't important... but when we get the little things and the big things mixed up, life gets a whole lot more difficult and complicated.

Andy Braner once put it to me and whole bunch of other cats at K-CO like this... if you fill up a pitcher with say, 5 big rocks, 25 pieces of gravel, and a bunch of sand, what's the best way to do it? If you put the sand or gravel in first, then try to cram the big rocks in, they'll be pouring out of the top, and chances are only 2 or 3 of the big rocks will be inside the pitcher.

My friends are one of my five. My family is one of my five. School is one of my five. God is one of my five. Music is one of my five. I think school and music, and maybe even God sometimes, might not be fitting in my pitcher. So many other stupid things are fitting in this pitcher that aren't (in the grand scheme of things) important. If I put those 5 things in first, then the gravel, which will fill in the crack between the 5, then the sand, which will fill in every other crack, I might even have space at the top of my pitcher for something else.

The important stuff has to happen first. Loving God and loving others, not struggling to convince other people that we know what's right and what's wrong. The truth is, if our leaders aren't being lead by something good, then the only direction we as a country and as a people have to go is... I think you have the idea.

Geez, I'm sick of this politicking. I'm not telling anyone how to live their life... I just know that life gets a lot easier when we stop making such a big deal about little things. Like freaking video games and fantasy football. I'm an idiot.

Love you guys.

There's a time to fight, believe it or not.

2008-10-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

I have recently come to the realization that I hate war. I absolutely despise it. I abhor it.

For some reason, I supported the presidents decision to go into Iraq and bring down Saddam. I figured what could be the harm in taking out a known tyrant? That kid in the picture up there, with tubes running out of his body, there's the harm. The man with the desperate look on his face, probably running to get help. This image sucks.

My great friend Carolyn Wanberg told me the other day that someone had gotten shot near her house. She initially told me at was a pellet gun, then it changed to an actual firearm. She asked me to pray for him, so of course I did. What the heck!

For those of you who know me pretty well, you know I talk about fighting sometimes. I boxed a little at kamp this summer and some of my kampers wanted to box with me. It's alright to defend yourself as far as I'm concerned, especially if some maniac just runs up on you and tries to mess you up. I'll fight anyone who comes up to me with the intention of hurting me. I feel like I should never start a fight, but always end it.

I don't know why I think that way. I just do.

I hope nobody thinks I'm a crazy person. I'll be honest... I let my old roommate David punch me in the face just so I'd know what it felt like. The last time I was in a fight, it wasn't even a fight. Some random 16 year old kid blindsided me while I was sitting in my buddies car, all because I told him earlier to step off for posturing at a gay friend I had in high school.

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's our intolerance, our fear of things we don't understand that leads us to become violent. There are certainly instances where violence can only be returned with violence... I'm not trying to walk away from someone trying to kick the crap out of me. Anyway... we need to stop being so intolerant. Why should we be afraid of people who are different than we are? If we're following in the footsteps of Christ, or at least walking along with Him, then we won't get anywhere being afraid of "different" things. Christ was hanging out with tax collectors, who were practically robbers back in the day. Jesus was kind to the Samaritans, who everyone regarded as crazy people. It doesn't matter if you're from Iraq, China, Russia, wherever. We're different colors, nationalities, and different believers.

Forget fear; we have the opportunity to serve an omnipotent God. Christ came to change the world; He's calling us to live a "different" lifestyle anyway. Don't harbor hate for your brother, and don't talk behind the back of your sister. Let's just love man. Unconditionally. That's the same love Christ poured into thousands. There's nothing greater.

...but seriously, I love a good fist fight. Just gets some stuff out, ha!

Love.

The desperation of America's high school goobers

2008-09-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

Kira Weiland decided that I needed to hear this song by David Archuleta called "Crush", which I don't understand. I could have gone my whole life without hearing this song, as I've already heard several hundred different versions of it, including but not limited to Dashboard Confessional's "Screaming Infidelities". That song is amazing, by the way. I could play that song for any high school guy or girl 20 years from now, and by the end of it they would either:

a. have goosebumps
b. be crying
c. start talking about some failed relationship

This song "Crush" by Archuleta is essentially the same idea. He's digging on some girl, she doesn't know apparently, and he doesn't know how he's going to relay this information to her.

As soon as I figured out this premise, I got goosebumps. Needless to say, I'm a little ticked about it. The music isn't good, and certainly isn't something I'd ever spend more than 15 seconds of my life listening to. I hate this type of music. But something in me was crying out to comiserate with these lyrics. Why?

I'm still at a point in my life where I feel a desperate need for relationship with someone else. That doesn't make sense to me though, because I know that I don't NEED any relationship other than the one I have with Christ. How the heck can I let something as trivial as a physical relationship with a woman compromise the relationship I have with the savior of my freaking life? And when I say physical, I mean actual, like something someone other than myself can see, not having sluber parties with your girlfriend. That never got me anywhere good anyway. It certainly didn't improve my relationship with the Lord, since I was way too busy pleasing and serving myself and not Him.

I see all these kids, high school kids, at the mall I work at. They hold hands and kiss and laugh and goof off. They think the books with sexual names are hilarious. I saw a girl just staring at her boyfriend while they were walking hand in hand, a huge smile on her face. What makes them so happy? Is it ignorance? And if that's the case, is that ignorance based in a lack of knowledge of the true love that comes from the Lord? I know a lot of high school guys are only thinking about one thing. I was one of those guys. Sometimes, I turn into that guy. I never chose to shut it off in high school, because all my buddies were pursuing some feeling or moment to brag about later. Why are we so crappy to women as men? Why do women let us do it to them?

We as people need to desperately seek to love one another the way Christ loves us, and we need to do it now. Those songs, from the likes of Dashboard 10 years ago and David Archuleta today, might express the feelings we have for others accurately, but they just amplify them to the point of despair.

So don't cry if you don't get the girl. I'm 26 and still don't have the girl. I've thought I had the girl several times in the past, only to get stuck listening to the love mix CDs I made them a few months before. I met a man tonight at work who was buying a boatload of clothes for his daughter. I asked him what his plans were tonight, just to strike up conversation while I ran up nearly $250 in clothes.

"Oh, not too much. Just going home to see the love of my life."

Huh. Wasn't expecting that.

"Really? That sounds awesome man", I said rather unconvincingly. I smiled at him, but was a little jealous of him, until he dropped this one on me:

"Yep, waited 43 years for her."

Sheesh! 43 years!? Are you kidding me?? High school kids, you get all bent out of shape. Your girlfriend of 6 months dumps you and you freak out, acting like you'll never get another one like that.

a. chances are, you won't
b. that's just fine

Don't try to control your life, or your relationships. Live in love, and God will return that love to you. It'll happen one of these days. If you're waiting on anything, waiting on the Lord is pretty alright to do. And by pretty alright I mean probably better than waiting on winning lottery tickets. Don't think that God doesn't love you if you haven't got someone in your life on a romantic level. Just let it happen man. I had to deal with it all summer, and I'm still dealing with it on some level. But I never turned it into some miserable song that everyone ages 15-35 can relate to on some superficial, hyper-emotional level. Just let it go.

In other news, I'm not entirely sure about what I've just written. Feel free to comment away about it. It's ridiculous, and it's midnight. Also, I love you. Unconditionally. Ha! Heeya.