Ode to a youth group lock-in, or, "How I lost 10 years off my life this weekend."

At 9:30pm Friday night, we begin our journey to defy the nighttime, to dare the moon to tell us to sleep, to caffeinate our bodies into a delirium, and laugh at the sunrise as the last few strains of "High School Musical" play on the television.

At 11:00, the bowling alley turns off the fluorescent overhead lights, turns up the '80s rock, and turns on the blacklights to begin the event known to an exclusive late night fraternity as "Cosmic Bowling." Previously unseen patterns of shooting stars and bowling pins suddenly appear on tables and floors in the purplish lighting, and bowling balls which, under harsh daytime lighting are simply lime-green, are illuminated with swirls of garish exuberance as they race down the lane toward glowing-white pins. What a sight to behold - an overabundance of stimulation for the senses!

It is a feeling of joy that continues as we arrive at our youth room, where we will be cloistered for the next 7 hours, a sanctuary of scratch-made brownies and processed cheese. A cappuccino maker appears, and the room is electrified with pubescent energy. We scoff at the night! It cannot tempt us with visions of pillows and comforters and sleepy-time tea! We will subsist on the pure liquid ecstasy of Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew! Shine on, shine on, Silver Moon, up in the sky! We pay you no heed! We will play Truth-or-Dare, Jenga, Scattergories, and a recently discovered game of Couch-Pillow Baseball, until well after the sun has again made itself known in the sky.

It is morning, and our quest is complete. We have, indeed, awakened the dawn, amazed to discover that the sun arises from its own resting place at 5:30am. In later reflection as I drift off to sleep, finally succumbing to the safety of my own bed, I can't help but acknowledge the aches in my body. The ironic thing is, I really enjoyed my stint as a youth, so why wouldn't I work with youth groups for the rest of my life? Ah, yes, because I'm old now. That's why.

The catharsis of typing

What is it about typing that is so cathartic? The thoughts flow faster than I can type, yet I'm still clicking away to the sound of my voice in my brain.
And this blog - writing my thoughts for all the world to read - seems to be a kind of faux-intimacy. I think and type without worrying about who will read it and what they will think, because I may never meet these people, and for that matter, maybe no one will ever read this at all.
I guess the challenge is how to interact around the content of this blog with the people who read it. Or, maybe, to say the things I'm typing aloud to someone, or everyone, and use this space as a record of those conversations. For posterity (whatever that means).
NPR's StoryCorps recently made a stop in Durham. Their catchphrase is "Because listening is one of the most important thing you can do." Maybe. But maybe saying it (or typing it) is the most important thing you can do. Like Meg Ryan said on You've Got Mail: "I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void."

I refuse to summarize my first post with a title

In the 24 hours prior to Sunday morning, I'd had 1.25 hours of sleep, said a funeral for a dog, led a woman in prayer on our knees outside the emergency room where her roommate was being held after attempting suicide, met with approximately 35 members of a family whose 3 teenage grandchildren were killed in a car accident on their way home from prom, and I finally started crying in the car as I listened to the radio announcer describe how Barbaro broke his leg.

So I started a blog. A place to release to the infinite blogosphere those thoughts that sound great in my head, but I either forget by the time I have someone to tell, or when I do say it out loud, it doesn't sound as great as I thought. Free therapy for an introverted extravert.