finding exposition

http://lifebreatheverything.tumblr.com/

follow if you want. update your google reader if you want.

i’ll try to up the quality and decrease the crap.

i said try, ok? everybody makes mistakes.

http://lifebreatheverything.tumblr.com/

well, friends, it’s almost that time again… time for me to close down Finding Exposition so that i can start a new blog, a new chapter. i love this part of life, the fresh page, the potential for growth. yeah the INFP really loves it. limitless, really.

anyway, my next blog should be more of how my old blog used to be: more inspiration and less lengthy posts. i mean, i’ll still post stuff that is about me.

also, i’m gonna start recording some songs and posting them. because why not? i like my voice (but then again i like weird music so its whatever). 

wanna help me think of a new blog name? my trendy friend hannah is already on deck. 

do you ever feel so tired that when you lay down, your legs feel weightless? like they could just float up and bob along the ceiling until they restlessly come down to let you sleep? that’s where i’m at right now. i’m excited because i’m going to have an actual vacation for the first time in a very very long time- not a trip home or where i have nothing to do, but a complete change of scenery and a time to relax and think and enjoy life. and i’ll be with some of the best people i’ve ever met and that is just a huge blessing.

so, until my next blog, this might be it. thanks friends, this has been… a journey. haha not always fun but not always bad either. it’s been good: at the end of the day, it’s been good.

currently i’m living in Nashville, TN in the spare bedroom of a friend’s house. it’s hard to say what my days are gonna look like because I really only just got settled and i’m straddling hanging out with friends from camp and unpacking and sleeping on an air mattress and… this isn’t real life.

i’m looking for a job in nashville, for the long term.

well, really i’m looking for a job anywhere.

but i’m also trying to discern if nashville is the right place for me.

anyway, i know most of my friends who read this blog also read the vandygrad blog, so i’m gonna go update that with a few more thoughts.

so a lot has happened in my life over the past few months. unfortunately, one of these months i was at summer staff with YoungLife, where i was tech-free. even worse, upon returning to the world after camp, i lost most of my skill and savvy and i really lost my appetite for blogging. however, i know there is at least one person who is reading my blog (grandma? is that you?) so i figure this update is worth it. if nothing else i’m writing to myself, trying to bottle these memories in a little mason jar filled with fireflies and buffalo grass.

————

to start, i’ll tell you what i did at camp: i was a PM cook. that means i prepped lunch and cooked dinner, along with three other summer staff guys, two interns, and one head chef. for three weeks i made dinner for 700 kiddos every night, seven days a week. that’s a whole lot of chicken wings i had to cook. we had the same 7-day menu, which was:

1. greek chicken
2. pizza and wings
3. chicken fajitas
4. pulled pork bbq (corn, slaw, beans, watermelon)
5. spaghetti and meat sauce
6. steak and potatoes
7. ribs and chicken drumsticks

so these kids were pretty well fed. i especially loved the fact that some of the urban kids were coming from food deserts, where they had no access to fresh and all natural foods. how great the food must have been for them! and for the suburban kiddos, who have parents who serve them pizza or canned food every night- what a delight it was for them to have home cooked food every night. awesome.

my daily schedule was also very repetitive:

wake up, shower, wake up my cabin, go to breakfast, go to bible study
(free time, ~2 hours)
lunch, clock in to work, cook dinner for everyone, clean the kitchen, clock out
(free time, ~2 hours)
bed time 

so, not that much free time and i spent a lot of time on my feet.

but i loved every minute of it.

drew and ellie holcolmb were the musicians at camp, and most of the assign team was from houston. super great people all around.

questions? email or text or call or coffee me.

hey friends.

camp was incredible.

off the charts great.

so great that i’m going back! just kidding.

i’m going to BRETT’S WEDDING tomorrow!

and then denver

and then driving back to nashville

because this is my life.

a long post will happen next week about camp, and life.

but both are really good, and i haven’t been able to say that in a while. well, mostly because i haven’t been to camp in 5 years.

I have to get up in two hours. However, my dog doesn’t care. Instead, she thinks that this is the most perfect time to nibble on my hand or crawl into bed with me. It’s cute but I really need to sleep.

In other news, I’m off to Sharptop Cove for three weeks. Don’t call or email me because I won’t get back to you. If you pray real hard I might be able to hear you.

so i normally don’t post dreams on here, mostly because of a fear that someone will psychoanalyze me, but whatever, i will post a tidbit from my latest dream because hopefully it’ll make you laugh.

i think younglife was having a meetup in a high school gym, on a saturday. there were also two other groups there: businessmen, and a group of students taking a math test. i forget the first half of the dream, but in the second half there was this girl i somehow met- only problem is that i immediately forgot her name in the dream. shoot. anyway, she asked me to go do something like walk with her to her car, and i said yes, and we had small talk on the way there. but upon getting to her car, she wanted to pay me in something. i told her i didn’t need anything, but then she asked if i like donuts. normally, i don’t like donuts really- but i said yes in the dream (because she was cute, i think). she proceeds to hand me one box, about 4” by 4” by 3” high, and it was heavy. surprisingly heavy. she told me that this is the latest trendiest donut in all of LA- and then she spends about five minutes rambling about where the store is located and probing me about if i’ve been there or not. sheepishly i say it sounds familiar, that i might have driven through that part of town, when clearly i had no idea where she was talking about. i was too scared to eat the donut because it was supposed to be that special, plus a cute girl gave it to me so i didn’t wanna destroy it on the spot. when we got back to the gym, i needed to say her name to get her attention but i forgot it… so i just felt really awkward again.

the whole point is: i’m awkward even in my dreams. there is no hope for me (haha just kidding i can change once i get out of this middle school phase of awkwardness)

you guys, going from south central los angeles to highlands ranch, colorado could not be a bigger transition.

highlands ranch is, well, disgusting. a master planned community in 1986, the community was literally the posterchild for urban sprawl in national geographic. “overwhelmingly white” is one of the many superlatives.

it’s also where my parents decided to move, to suit their empty nesting lifestyle.

we walked tonight to get froyo- there’s a stripmall that backs up to the street my parents live on. overall, it wasn’t a terrible experience, but it was… not something i’d ever want. there’s an inherent lack of diversity here- the culture is fed directly by whatever they watch on TV. i saw some kids riding bmx bikes with pegs, looking distinctly LA despite the fact that highlands ranch is nothing like it. with half-worn beanies and skinny jeans sagging below the hip, i had to laugh at how ironic it is that these kids live in one of the most white-washed and cultureless cities i’ve ever been in (literally nothing is organic about the culture in HR), yet they try to assimilate into a culture that is distinctly not their own. i’m not saying that i hate people being ironic or that it’s not ok to register more with another culture (because that’s natural sometimes i think). i’m saying i feel bad for these kids, these people that live through their TVs. if you took away the internet and the tv from these people, they would be lost for what culture is, what is going on in the world. but both in nashville and in la, there were pockets of culture, of people that actually influenced your life. in LA, i never ever watched mtv or the news- because i was mostly living in a city that was emulated on tv. nashville, on the other hand, was distinctly the opposite: no one really tries to be “nashville” in the media (other than country folk. gross), but still, over time, you become more “nashville.” 

so anyway, i just feel out of place in this suburb. it feels like hamster palace, where all the tubes are already constructed and the hamsters done do anything to actually make it their own. 

and oddly enough, i already miss LA. the culture, the diversity, the pace, the authenticity of the culture. i might not have loved the fact that street art was owning the city, but at least something genuine was owning the city.

i doubt any of this makes sense. i’m not really going for a quality post or anything. i just needed to tell you about highlands ranch, and why you should never live here.

First, the business end of this post: yes! I’m alive. Today’s travels went great, absolutely no car troubles or run-ins with the police despite CHP being everywhere and arizona being swamped with po. I had lunch with my friend (and twin brother in BYX) in Vegas- super random but such a blessing- and other than that, the drive was super uneventful. The drive from LA to Vegas is possibly one of the worst four-hour sequences in America. Worse than Kansas. Kansas is bad only because it’s twice as long. Ok, maybe they’re net equal. But after Vegas, the drive on I15 and I70 gets surprisingly beautiful. Also, ZERO roadkill till I saw a dead cat (what?) in Utah. Once the sun went down, it stayed twilight for about another two hours, which was awesome. But once it got dark, the drive got SCARY. The worst part was a stretch of about five miles at 6% grade down a mountain, which was surprisingly windy. The thing about Utah is that they don’t have roadside lights, so it was pitchblack, save for my headlights and brights, when I could use them. The steep grade, the windy-ness, the darkness, and the constant threat of deer crossing the road made it an adventurous ride. All this was in my 11th hour of driving (9-10pm, started at 9am and took a break for lunch).

Anyway, Green River! The weirdest town I’ve ever been to. Not really, but it sure is weird here. My hotel, the River Terrace or something like that, is… quirky. It feels like a normal hotel once you’re in the bathroom, but, well. it’s just a weird hotel. 

When I got here, I had to check in at 10:30pm. Problem? Nope. There’s an 80 year old lady working the desk. I feel so bad that she was up that late! Another family was reserving a room in front of me, and the lady took about 10 minutes to get everything in order. I found out, when I got to the counter, it was because she was doing all the math by hand. Old school. No hate, but seriously, she did 89.95 (their rate) x2 = _____ x (sales tax) +total = ____ and, I mean, I wanted to give her a calculator. But seeing as she should barely program the room keys, I doubt she would want to crunch numbers on a tiny calculator. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m mad or angry or bitter- I just find the situation really funny and I feel bad for her. She should be drinking tea in front of a fire, about to go to bed- not working the front desk at a hotel.

My room is also weird. The door is placed where you’d expect a broom closet to be- at the top of a staircase right after the foyer from the parking lot. There are no other rooms around me. If it didn’t have a little placard saying “211” on the door, I would have looked elsewhere in the hotel.

But, inside the room, it feels normal. I took a long hot shower to scrub the roadtrip grime off of me, and used the funkiest smelling soap ever (reminds me of soggy cardboard, bark, and ivory soap). 

It’s time for bed- waking up in about 7 hours to drive the last leg of the trip, about 340 miles. There’s supposed to be a snowstorm around Summit County, CO tomorrow so I’m trying to plan around that. If you ever need to see the weather along a road, use Weather Underground Road Trip Planner. It’s legit- you plug in your origin and destination and your departure time, and it tells you all the weather along your day’s journey. Tomorrow’s 340 miles should be… nice. Threat of rain the entire time, and for two legs it’ll drop below freezing (that’s the Summit CO portions), but other than that, 50’s and 60’s. I have a ton of music to still listen to, and three of the latest episodes of Wait Wait. Tomorrow should be good. Really good.

Despite the fact that there were supposed to be thunderstorms over me the entire time I was in Utah today, the roads were dry for 95% of the time and I never got more than a spitting of rain. Praise God! I kinda forgot how blessed my trip was until I finished the scary as beans descent into Green River. Thanks, God, for an awesome day of travelling. 12 hours didn’t even feel that long. Maybe it was because I stopped every two hours for coffee and gas, and subsequent bathroom breaks.