take from each experience what you will

I got a copy of A Cricket in Times Square at The Book Thing on Saturday (awesome). Then at church the next day, I saw a cricket crawling across the carpet. I started calling to it in my head, Here, cricket cricket cricket! It started coming towards me. I watched it over the course of several minutes, willing it to come closer and closer. A man in the aisle in front of me got up. Aaaah, I thought, Don't crush the cricket! He's my friend! Not seeing my insect companion, the man in front of me walked right over it, narrowly sparing the cricket's life.

Whew. That was a close one. The cricket was deterred for a moment, reversing its course. I called to it again in my mind. Slowly but surely, he turned around and regained his journey toward my chair. I was really enjoying this church service, thinking about the connections between literature from my childhood and my love for nature - the countless lessons in compassion and perspective that people all over the United States and the world have learned from books like Charlotte's Web - the stories that every person and every living thing carries, sometimes shared with others and sometimes known only by God.

Then the guy behind me got up, crushed the cricket in a tissue, threw it away, and sat back down, probably very satisfied with himself for doing everyone a favor and getting rid of the pesky bug.

I'm not against killing bugs. I just thought it was a little presumptuous.

this summer I...

• played musical chairs to Jenny Lewis in a church basement
• grew attached to a new lake
  
• farmed
  
• swam in the frigid Potomac
• honed my Sharpie tattoo skills
  
• went to good concerts, outdoor movies, and festivals
  
• attended a Welsh poetry reading
  
• walked full-force into a screen door
• ate birthday cake on a boat
• maintained Massachusetts traditions
  
• swam with thousands of tiny minnows surrounding me
  
• checked myself into a motel for the first time
• met some people from Ace of Cakes
• house hunted
• was spontaneous
• swam in the Pacific
• surfed, one time successfully
• rolled down the hill at the Getty
  
• went to the ER with my injured dad
• moved into a beautiful house in Baltimore
• watched David Bazan perform in Becky's parents' living room
• moved Poopers into a beautiful new home at my school
• lived my life

see you at BWI

One really good way to meet older men is to get flat tires all the time. However, I am not interested in meeting older men, so that is not the reason I get flat tires all the time. I just do.

This makes number 6. It sets a new record, I think, because it is the same exact wheel on which a tire blew out about a month and a half ago.

By now, I've given up on the dream of being able to change my own tire. The knowledge is there, and the willingness to get dirty, but the strength just isn't. Even Sean, the BWI security checkpoint guy who stopped to help me, had a hard time. He had to put the jack handle in the end of the wrench for extra leverage.

I would say Sean was in his late thirties. The facts about him that I gleaned from our conversation are that he grew up in Ellicott City, lives there with his mother, drives his mother's Cadillac, is Catholic and Italian, and enjoys going to Cancun Cantina after work.

He was very helpful, not at all like Creepy Dave. However, there was the classic awkward exchange at the end of the whole thing.

Sean (peering over his sunglasses, as if to get a better look): How old are you?
me: I'm 23.
Sean: Wow, that's really young.
me: Yeah. I am young. (read: Too young for you. No disrespect. I really appreciate you helping me out. Too young for you.)
Sean: Well, would you ever want to go out for a drink? No pressure at all.
me: I don't think so.

All in all, he was a nice guy, and several steps up from Creepy Dave.

Narnia

Woke up. Made panakuchen for the roomie and guests from Philly. It was the first breakfast and the first set of overnight visitors. Walked to The Book Thing. Got a coffee table book called Manners Can Be Fun, original copyright 1936. Life is good.

I'll have to post pictures of the house as soon as we get it looking awesome.