no beating around the bush

The high-stakes roller thing I like to do.

The motivation is always when some one is treating me with half-assed attention.

The method is putting out all the dirt in one email and saying if they can't decide whether or not I'm a friend, then I'll decide for them: fuck you.

Sometimes it works really well. Depending on how much I care about the person.

Matthew and I have gotten to be better and better friends with every passing month. I'll know him till the day I die. In a nursing home.

Day after day I don't spend much time thinking about how Joe never talks to me, or about what things I wish I could tell him. But when I see how socially apt my other friends are, then I become frustrated with his ignorance.

Saturday night Ashley brought her new boyfriend to kick it with the whole group. Greg was there - he and Joe were the same experience for Ashley and me - and he was kind. Friendly. Social.

In the bathroom I told Ashley that Greg was commenting to me about how happy she looked with her Mike. Ashley asked me about my friend Joe.

He just doesn't talk to me.

In class yesterday Winter was speaking with me familiarly about my concert the night before. For whatever reason this stood out to Joseph, so he asked me about my night after class was over.

He left, though, without saying goodbye.

So I emailed him, because I figured it would be better for us to put this friendship down together. On the off chance he's oblivious and just needs to be told. In the event this is an accident and he would like the opportunity to mend.

I don't have a time frame for when I expect to hear back from him. We'll be in class tomorrow. But it's a weight off my shoulders.

The email was short, though. To the point. Something like, "call me, and tell me you give a damn."

I'm so glad all my friends aren't like this, though.

I'm so glad most of my friends fight for me. Show me effort. Show me love. Let me know they're thinking of me when I am not present. It makes it easier to not dwell on Joe so much.

But he comes up once in a while. And I'm sick of him coming up once in a while. I want it taken care of. Now.

I'm late today. Just in general.

Rain and soreness in my body.

Bill sent me some books today, and the news that his wife has succesfully defended her dissertation and is now PhDed.

I was hoping he'd send me a few grand from my Grandmother, but that's okay.

My father called last night and we talked for a good hour or so. Strangely enough: the cogsci aspect of my education is along the lines of things he's capable of conversating on since he has an MA in psychology.

He told me he'll never forget when he saw Lake Michigan as a five year old - his swimming trunks were yellow with a sword-fish on them - and the lake was all he could see. The blueness has always impressed him.

Pre-lingual epiphany is so fascinating.

Dad also asked if I want to see The Passion, and I said I'd do it in private if I did.

He seemed surprised, because like most Christians I know he's looking forward to the potential impact a film like this could have on so many people. That it could be just the thing some people need for understanding what it meant to be the Messiah. He said God likes using unlikely means for His purposes, because people wouldn't believe anything else.

"I'm a joiner," he told me. "I like being a part of the group. But my ecstatic experiences with God were all outside of any church. Because he knew I'd find it authentic that way." Just the opposite of what you'd think; so you can't blame yourself.

But as for me, I received the truth of what happened 2000 years ago without ever having to see a thing on a movie screen, and I do not need to watch something now. I cetainly don't need to share it with others.

I know Christ died for sin. And not just for committed sins. People always translate "sin" as being "something you do that you should not do." But Jesus died for all the sinful things I experience (like fear and abuse and self-loathing). He lived a life as a despised wandered. An outcast to his own. The last thing he said before dying was, "daddy, why did you abandon me?" He suffered the feeling of rejection, when God turned his back on him so that he *could* die.

What I know is that there is nothing in this world - no evil intention or feeling or reprocusion or turn of events - that is stronger than the work Christ did when he died at the hands of evil, and then was brought to life.

If he stayed dead then the whole story is lame.

Nothing in this world is stronger than the power of his resurrection. Nothing inside of me is stronger. But I am given His strength.

And no matter what happens, somehow I'll make it. It's not going to kill me.

It killed him.

Fortunately he was the son of God, though, and could do something about it.