I bought a bed today. Actually, my fiance and I bought a bed. There’s something strange and hindering and burdensome about buying a bed. I don’t think I’ve ever owned such a large piece of furniture before that was wholly mine. I’ve owned Salvation Army furniture, but it just doesn’t have the same feel. When you lay down a majority of a pay check for a piece of furniture, there’s something substantial in that. The sad thing is I don’t have the bed. It’s not leaning up in some hidden corner of my apartment. I won’t have it until December, when we actually get an apartment to put the bed in. Crazy, isn’t it? There’s something wild and strange about it that I just can’t explain. But it’s good. There’s something about knowing we have a bed to sleep on that I find encouraging
Monthly Archives: July 2000
A Justin McRoberts T-shirt
And you’ll know we are Christians by our T-shirts.
Jeanie Part 4
Jeanie’s mom kissed her forehead when she said goodnight. Jeanie forced a smile and said goodnight, as pleasant as she could. She sighed when her mother left. The last time her mother kissed her on the forehead she was leaving for prom and her mother didn’t know what else to do. Her mother never knew what else to do.
Jeanie Part 3
The distraction worked, and two hours later Jeanie pulled into her parents driveway. She shut the car off and sat in the silence for a few minutes. Her parent’s house. She had moved out six years ago, and hadn’t been back for more than a weekend in all that time. Everything seemed just as she left it, the quite house at the end of its street. In the distance a lone dog barked, and Jeanie wondered for the first time if coming home would really solve anything. She slumped against the car and looked up to the night sky.
Jeanie Part 2
The officer turned and walked away, slowly shaking his head.
Jeanie forced herself to crank the window back up, and with eyes glazed over she pulled back onto the highway. She tried to realize what she had just said. That sob story had been building up inside of her for days. But what was that last part?
Her eyes glanced up to the mirror and down to the speedometer. Pregnant. She hadn’t thought of that before. A deep dread filled her as she thought about it. Of all the things, that was the last thing she needed. But what if?
Her eyes drifted off at the thought and she started counting days. But the count got too high and she pulled off the highway in search of something to drink, something to distract.
How Do You Respond to Public Harrassment?
Today a girl at work was talking about MTV’s The Real World and said they put those people on TV so we can look at them and judge them, talk about whether their hair is ugly and how they made a stupid decision. She said this in defense to a roommate’s comment that she’s judgmental. I couldn’t help but laugh.
Today as I was riding my bike across the Robert’s Street Bridge to the parking lot where I park my truck, I saw something I wished I could stop. Several hundred feet ahead of me a high school aged boy was riding his bike along the sidewalk. People are always walking along this sidewalk towards the cheaper parking lots on the other side of the bridge. Every time this kid passed a woman he reached out and pinched her butt. Most of the women jumped in shock and fear, and the kid rode on, snickering to himself. The women continued on to their cars, looking flustered and upset. I wanted to yell at this kid. I wanted to catch up to him and do something. If I was close enough to him I don’t know what I would have done, but I would have done something. I’ve never felt so powerless before. By the time I reached my truck I was very tempted to peel out after the little hoodlum and run him down. I just don’t understand some people.
Everybody Likes the Hobbit
Sometimes while driving multiple hours on end I like to write stories in my head. That’s what the little story about Jeanie from yesterday was about. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll take the time to continue her tale. But for now you must forgive me, I have other stories to tell. I finished reading the Hobbit tonight, and am most eager to continue with the Lord of the Rings series. All summer long I’ve been taking books to work and reading them during my lunch break while I eat. More people responded to the Hobbit than any other book put together.
Flooded Basement
This past weekend my fiance and I took one of our many trips to her hometown of Green Bay. Friday night it rained and I woke up in a flooded basement. Nothing like waking up and find that you’re a refugee.
NASCAR Driver Kenny Irwin Dies
And on to graver news. On Friday morning Kenny Irwin was killed in a race car accident in New Hampshire. To most of you that probably doesn’t mean anything, and I admit that it doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. Now don’t misquote me, of course it means something. We all lower our heads and slowly shake them in sincere sympathy. But honestly the world is too large for one stranger’s death to have much effect.
Jeanie Part 1
Her name was Jeanie, and I love her. Of course she didn’t know it. Nobody ever does. It was early autumn and leaves should have been bright reds and yellows, glorious oranges like the sunset. But they weren’t. They were brown and green or somewhere in between. The sky was even gray to match, and nothing seemed right. But that’s the way things were going. Jeanie’s little two door Toyota flew along the country highway about as fast as it could go, but not quite as fast as Jeanie wanted to get home.