What it's All About

Tuesday night was the Jem concert. It was pretty sweet. The venue was pretty intimate and cool at the same time. Concert stage in a corner of the room and a few tables and chairs set up along the sides in place, but the rest was open and so we stood for the whole thing. It was interesting to see the wide range of ages present to this underground British rock group's show. Most of it was young people, of course, but there were a suprising amount of grey haired couples in the mix. It made me love them and I hope that I can be that open to things when I'm that age. The moral of the story is this... going to a cool concert at a cool little music venue on a Tuesday night has a way of making you feel like you're a cool city person (even if you're really not much of one).

Last night I traveled to Marion, IN to the Tree of Life coffee shop to hear Donald Miller (Author of Blue Like Jazz) do a reading and a bit of question-answer time. The place was packed and I ended up standing in an isle of books listening more than watching, which was ok. As I was driving up I became hesitant about going. If you've read any of his stuff you can identify with how unassuming of a writer he is. Everyone who reads his stuff just assumes that, in real life, he would be one of your friends who comes into your room, sits on the couch and kind of chews the fat with you about random stuff. This is great, and a big contributor to the size of his readership. However, I began to wonder what it would do to me to find out that in real life he was some sort of pompous schmuck. What if he got here, told us all about how amazing he was, how much better his work was than everyone else's, and how wrong other people were if they didn't like it? So, I began to get a little worried and I realized the night was going to be more about not disappointing me than it was going to be about charming or impressing me. That said, I can honestly say that I am of the same opinion of the guy now as I was before hearing him last night. He read and spoke and answered questions with the same sort of unassuming, low-keyed depth that he writes his books with. At the end he was signing books so I went up to get my book signed. I told him that my roommate's mom had written a study to go along with Blue Like Jazz. I asked him if he was familiar with Carol Daubenmire's work. He thought for a second and then he said, 'yeah! Isn't she the one who wrote the good sized one?' I said I wasn't sure what a normal sized one was, but that I'd read through hers and I figured it was the one he was talking about. He got a big smile on his face and told me to pass on a thank you to her for having the desire to write such a work. And with that he signed my copy of the book. How exciting aye? Got to talk to the author, and got to see the author get a bit excited about the work of someone else who im connected with. So, there you are Mrs. Daubenmire, Donald Miller seemed pleased enough with your work that he gave a genuine thank you for me to pass on to you.

Now, on to things that have given this week wings for the days to fly by in anticipation... Tomorrow I will drive to Upland and have breakfast with my little sister. She will, no doubt, spend her time telling me to calm down and not mess up the rest of the day by being a schmuck (We'll talk about other things as well), Then I'll run up on the Penthouse and wake up a few people just to say hi since im on campus. I can't really justify not going up on that floor at any time afforded to me. Then, at about 11:30, I'm gonna pick Angela up and we're heading to Chicago. It's gonna be all day, it's gonna be a lot of driving, it's gonna be alot of talking. I am nervous, however, I am also very excited. I'm trying to figure out how to make things as not awkward as possible, but I'm sure with a 4 hour car ride both ways, it's probably unavoidable. No matter what though, I hope that she leaves the date feeling like the wedding was a reason to spend time with her, and not that she was just someone who would afford me the ability to simply go to the wedding. I mean, I want to go to this wedding cause Sharon's a good friend and I'll look foreword to seeing her get married, but really, everyone there is going to be a mild acquaintance save 2 or 3 people and even those people are all going to have their own things and people to see and hang out with and catch up and all that jazz, so really, im' not even concerned with whether or not I even spend any time at all catching up with any of them. I get to spend the entire day with a sweet girl who I'm dying to get to know as much about as possible because she's done some really genuinely sweet things for me over the past few months and I just have to get to know her more. And THAT is what tomorrow is all about for me.