Smile like you mean it.

The words do not flow freely anymore. Unless I'm almost getting hit by cars in Hollywood, in which case there is no shortage of obscenities and gestures being exchanged across the asphalt intersections.

The last series of posts were rather depressing, and rightly so. I've been suffering from tendinitis for almost 6 weeks now, so acutely that I had to stop playing in the middle of the quarter at MI. So because of such hindrance to my practice, I've had all too much time to sit around and think. I'm predisposed to be critical, and its not an excuse, but it is true. The nice thing about regular colleges and universities, you dont have to perform all the time, your concentration is book learning. You read and you write, you talk to people all day. You're in an environment where the greatest of thoughts and theories can be lofted before they drop dead in the real world. Your food is already paid for and cooked. Your security is a non issue. Such luxuries I really miss. I would go on about my sob story, but basically, the opposite is found here. While finances are taken care of, I constantly ache for community, and cannot find it.

Maybe I'm just waiting for sitcom circumstances to occure, or hoping I can run into it. I want Jerry and Kramer and Elaine and all the stupid insignificant arguements and laughter and awkward situations. I've never found a more lonely place than this town, even with its crowded issue, over 2400 people per square mile in LA county.

I went home for thanksgiving. Was swamped with people, and with extreme fatigue because of flying overnight to Cleveland. I think that is the last time I attempt to fly red eye for a short weekend trip. I was almost delusional at one point. But the state of mind when deprived of sleep is absolutely fascinating. Not that there is some clarity to see through, but everything is so confusing that a whole new world of ideas and thought become available, like new colors and shades being formed by paint thrown against a canvas in an artists fury.

Things with Sara are going really well. I'm so glad I did not just write her off, but gave things a chance, to allow the walls and presuppositions to fall crumbling to the ground. We've always been an odd pairing, from the first days we started talking almost 2 years ago. But we've been good friends for a long time now, making this early stage easier to work through.
I don't like delving into it in such online forums as this, more for her sake, and frankly, if you're not around or don't call, much of what I write is not that relevant anyways (unless you're one of those I told I would call back, and haven't, sorry). This is the one part of my life I don't like delving out, even for all the joy that she brings me. I don't even know who pays attention anymore.

One last series of disconnected thoughts. SoCal's attempt at Christmas is genuinely laughable. If it's 85 degrees in november and december, dont make cute winter wonder land backdrops and all the things that the northern states get to enjoy and suffer through this time of year. I'm happy to have warm days all the time, and wearing shorts in December. The snow and cold is nice for about 7 seconds, and then it really sucks. So why attempt to make it out that it's not? The sun sits higher than 60 degrees in the afternoon. But maybe it's the thought that counts.

One last last thought. A church group parked a truck outside the school, with a band situated on the bed, playing contemporary church music for all in hollywood to hear. I was walking with Val past all of this, wondering what in the world was going through their heads that made them think what they are doing is a good idea. It was funny, because Val and I were just talking, among many things, about our issues with the modern church and the culture of ignorance and insensitivity that has gripped it. Admittedly, I am disenfranchised, dissasociated with it all. Ironic because we both know how that the church provides, in its pure context and execution, a community unavailable most anywhere else, but how utterly some things have come to offend us.
But for some reason, passing this caravan of well meaning people, blaring with unabashed fervor a series of medocre songs, I felt well, frankly embarrased. I dont think these, or many, people understand Hollywood, or the world. They pulled up in front of the premier contemporary music school in LA, singing out of time and out of key, blasting full volume into our cafeteria. Immediately, they've proven that everything they stand for is only half ass, no matter how wide the smile, how real the joy may feel. The demograph, if any, that they were trying to witness to, has no homogenous link. People come to hollywood because they're star struck, they're looking for some semblance of the celebrity that will, for a few seconds of they're lives, let them know what it's like to be apart of the cult of cool. These tourists are in a hurry, out of their homeland, and out of touch, with eyes set on some of the most tempest and temporary things this world has to offer.

what I'm trying to get at, is if your going to try and the meet the world head on with your faith, you better have something to show for it, and not just the morals and principles your parents handed down to you along with all the meaningless praise for all the mediocre things done in the name of Christ.

Harsh? maybe, but there is a world dying out there; and it's not at the corner of Hollywood and Highland.