I like this rainy day weather, especially when I have the entire day off to look forward to and I already ran the dogs bright and early. It gives me an excuse to be lazy. Or, if not lazy, at least not productive in the practical sense. I like how dark it is outside my window. I like the thunder telling me not to come out. If it weren’t for my normal Wednesday basketball game (and potentially the church softball game later tonight) I could quite happily spend the whole day playing video games or goofing around on my computer.

Sometimes when I get home from work, sleepy and tired, after an eight hour shift and greet my dopey dogs who’ve been cooped up for close to nine hours, I let them out to do their dirty sinful business, then race back inside, lie down face first on the basement carpet, and proceed to let 150 pounds of dog frolick all over my back. They wrestle and claw and growl at each other or at me if I poke my head up. I love it. There’s something so peaceful about their exuberance. Maybe I just associate it with being free from work for a little while. Sometimes I even fall asleep underneath all the excitement, usually waking to some sort of dog tongue to the face.

I was driving to work this morning watching a sparrow race along side my car when abruptly I remembered my dream from last night.

In my dream I was standing underneath a crucifix in the sanctuary of some tiny darkly-lit church talking with a kid and a staff from work. I turned sort of angrily away from them and walked toward the back of the building. As I walked, I looked down and saw blood on the floor. Lots of blood. My blood. My first thought in the dream was, stigmata. I checked the palms of my hands and saw a few red smudges that presumably could be construed as blood, but certainly nothing profuse.

I turned around again back toward the front where the other two were standing and suddenly felt this rush go through me. I was jolted slightly from the floor and was lifted a little hesitantly from the ground. I stretched out my arms with the palms open and began floating upward and toward the front of the church. As I did so I felt this scream coming out of my chest, building in pitch and intensity and in the pressure it seemed to be exerting on my rib cage. It didn’t feel exactly like my own scream though and felt very much out of my control. I reached the front of the church, where the scream stopped and I yelled out “See? Now do you believe?”

That’s all I remember and it was all very bizarre.

Holy crow, let the sun stroke begin! It was like 112 degrees today. So, given the brain-melting temperature, I did the only sensible thing. Picked up a gallon of paint from Lowes, planted myself directly in the afternoon sun and spent five hours scraping, priming, and painting part of our house’s peeling exterior. I literally lost eighty seven pounds of sweat. Magnificent!

Picked up some OT at work today and worked pretty much from sun up to sun down. Was able to break up the day fairly well though by swinging out to Grand Haven State Park for most of the afternoon with a few of the kids.

You know, generally I find all the strutting and posing and preening of the teenage beach scene thoroughly irritating, but today all that shallowness struck me a little differently. I was watching a pack of teenage boy, presumably high schoolers, drifting about in knee high beach break (with their much too shiny, much too small surfboards). Missing wave after wave, but never an opportunity to catch someone’s eye.

Anyway, I thought to myself, they may be going about it all wrong (turning opportunities for real athletic joy into peacock feathers), but there really is something to be said for the lifestyle they’re enjoying. Hour after hour every day spent not worrying about anything of real importance. Just running around having fun, trying to keep skin exposed to the sun, trying to feel loved.

Sometimes I think I did everything all backwards. I was one of those driven high school kids (goals: future patent attorney and high school state wrestling champion) who pretty much pushed aside friends and goofing off in pursuit of achievement. I missed one day of school in four years of high school and that was all but West Nile Virus status. I stuck to a strict wrestling diet, did my homework during lunch hour, trained liked crazy after school, trained even more after getting home, did more homework and went to bed. I had sports acquiantances but no real close friends. I think I was sad a lot, but counter-balanced that with feeling good about A’s and winning at sports. I remember the relief I felt after my last wrestling match Senior year when I realized how much extra free time I would have and how I could final stop looking so closely at nutritional content.

I went to college and bailed on the patent attornery thing almost right off the bat. I slacked a lot and spent four years figuring out how to get grades that made me happy without sacrificing any of my fun time. And also figuring out how to make friends and enjoy their company (stuff I suppose I probably should’ve picked up in middle school). But also how to enjoy the massive amount of alone time I need without coming across as standoffish or isolative.

Sometimes I wonder how if maybe I could’ve got my goofing off out of the way a little earlier (surfing and preening at the beach instead of running an extra six miles) than maybe some of those high school work habits would’ve popped out again in the later years. Instead of leaving a twenty-seven year old who still hasn’t quite figured out what he wants out of life. Success or fun. Really this twenty-seven year old wants both and is kind fighting a losing battle with each one.

Or maybe I would’ve just smoked a lot of marijuana and would be living in a hostel in Mexico right now. Hey man, can I get a buck?