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As I said to the Jefa in her beautiful, sunlit kitchen this afternoon, I feel genuinely apathetic to the birthday as an event, but am going to eat a bit of crow here and wax romantic at the end of a day that felt so good (and there have been many of those recently), to say: perhaps I'm hitting something of a stride? In life, that is.

Far more than one should ask of a birthday, but LiveJournal is the place for grand and fleeting pronouncements of this sort. Lauren and I walked about Cambridge today, hand lazily in hand, we went places and made friends, Rosie and Chelsea were there for fajita dinners and I got a bit tipsy for a spell. Never have I had so many birthday wishes, and yesterday's party was lovely and such a mixture of folks and went off beautifully. Also, I took a time out of the day to treat myself to time with someone I care for and admire, and although it was something we do nearly every other week, she put a candle in my smoothie and that made it special. After Rafe and I evangelized in bright scrawling chalk in front of FCS, we rode down to Davis and played knights and zombies on the playground, had a swing jumping contest (a throwback from my childhood), and rode through puddles. As I scuttled out of the house, Jefa said, "thanks for spending your birthday afternoon with our family," and I said, "oh, it was a great present for myself."

And that it was. I love that I have folks and figures who can be a gift to me, and I love that I've reached a point where I can savor that thoughtful time spent with one of them as a birthday blessing and the sort of gift I seek for myself. This one in particular, we seem to get richer each time, and I may never be able to clearly articulate the sundry ways she has blessed me and helped me to grow. But I am appreciative, and realize that she doesn't need to know.

So today was a good day, and so was yesterday what with the barbecue and being liturgist in church - Jefa called it "brilliant" this afternoon before sagely retracting that superlative and offering a half dozen other heartfelt adjectives. Just like an awards show nominee, it's an honor even to be accidentally called brilliant.

There have been other tremendous days which deserve accounting here, but already are slipping from a summer's memory, softening as a quart of ice cream in a backpack on the way home from the grocery store. There was a second (third? second.) adventure with Ms. Becca in there, I recall getting rolling late but diving in to buttermilk waffles - ah, yes - she brought the buttermilk! That's where that buttermilk came from. Definitely need to throw it out, but what a memento after all!

So there were waffles, and then it was just the most boiling day and we had dreams of garage sales, so we ended up trolling around Somerville's streets till she got a stack of dresses and some winter sweaters for $5 from a Tufts alum, and we cooled off with Brazilian Limeade and a lemonade at Bloc. What else could be cooler than the dogwood? We could head to the flower market on Washington and indulge my long-standing desire to make life grow. So we did that, and brought along Mr. Dupont, and were both mocked and somewhat deceived by the man at the register. Becca and I bought a mango, plantains, and chicken sausage; learned Portugese; rode home, planted, barbecued; then parted ways after I remembered a Mexico gathering. And then there was a Mexico gathering! See, what a summer this is!

Laura and I had another lovely day of things just recently, she reveling eloquently in our blessings (though of course she would never call them blessings). But they are that. People we love, food to eat, bikes to pedal about on and get into all sorts of trouble. This is not the life of so many, but it is something I strive to never take for granted. And things keep getting better, friendships (pastoral and otherwise) grow richer, and new things happen. Here's to another year of beautiful new things.

Scattered and unsure of anything but a very warm feeling and an overwhelming desire to escape work for at least one more day.

So we're back from Mexico, First Church and I, from over a week with children, seeing ourselves through their eyes and vice versa. Warming sun and warming lights of love and faith and such remarkable strength and maturity that I want to find a way to admire without romanticizing their poverty. Because they are so poor, with Mothers who call to take them out to a movie tomorrow afternoon and don't show up. But he can't cry, can he? Besides, it's happened four, six times before. But there's faith nonetheless.

And our ragtag group of physicists, teachers, consultants, a doctor, a pastor, a six year old, and this college boy came together and transcended. We pastored and shepherded and parented one another all week long. Support, warmth, tensions, but I think in the end honesty and reconciliation were the balance of it.

I think I'm here, in Eaton whittling away an hour before class with emails, photos, and reminiscence first because this trip had its own LiveJournal, fcsinmexico2008 which you ought to check out, but also because the warmth in my belly and peace I'm feeling has a bit of high school to it. Perhaps?

Molly and I have grown close, especially what with that bottle of wine we split in the O'Hare hotel, with Raphe and Bonnie and such a memorable and youthful night of talking and connecting. Molly just said today, it felt a little guilty but God wanted it after all. We deserved it, I've said, we deserved the massive bill and the time with just us four. God had a hand in sorting that standby list as we waited over the course of 10 hours and 4 flights, watching a few of our eleven get onto each flight, eventually leaving just five to shack up in a 5-star hotel on Jules' corporate account. There was something of a predetermination to it.

And I guess that's ultimately why I'm here. Riding across the quad from dropping off an overdue library book, thinking about coming to this familiar little space of the internet to put down some thoughts, thinking about the faith I believe I found on this trip, through Molly and through so much more, just as I thought of the beauty of it all and spun by Goddard chapel, the bells chimed 5 o'clock and played me a song. And every day since we left, that is how it has been. I could never see it and could never believe it, but when you get a hint, when you see it, you really do. I really do.

Funny how this ties in threads of other self-discoveries over the last few weeks. That I need to see the messy totality of things before I can even understand a part of it. I needed the messy totality of Molly's humanity before I really plugged into her as we are plugging now. And I think I needed to dig into something or have that one-two punch or whatever (I don't yet know) and then could begin to connect the dots on my life and God's role in it. Twenty-one isn't too early or too late, right?

Oh, photos are up on flickr. Funny that after so much disuse, I think this place has as many readers as that darn blog I spend so much time on (here).

I have a real blog now (in a way, at least), and saw that my LJ profile was a referrer earlier today, which has sent me on one of those late night spirals into the antiquity (and melodrama) of one's life that is really unsettling as well as nostalgic in a kind of achey way.

I have to say, though, that even after all these years, when people make disparaging remarks about LiveJournals et al, I still stick my hand up and say, "I really appreciated that outlet, and still do." Go ahead, judge me. If I end up running with this new blog thing (as I think I might, especially as an outlet for academic work on equitable development and race - check it out!), I think that only makes it more important to keep This Old LJ around as a place to write and feel creative in thinking about personal life.

A few thoughts on this evening's mental journey:

• It's odd to have my post about returning to Tufts on the same front page as stuff from a few months ago. Better yet, it's odd to have machinations about an old crush, Ally, on here - it connects me with that time in a much more real way than my memory allows, I think. One the one hand, I romanticize that time at NYU and try to build it up as much grander than the few months it was, but on the other hand some of the stuff here reminds me: no, that really was a significant period in your life, and there really was something to it. Funny, the way reality and wishful fantasy weave seamlessly together in our memories.
  
• A few posts down, I recount a day from early this summer wherein Lauren and I traipsed about Boston and did a whole load of memorable things that I did not realize had all been on the same day. Or at least, didn't think much about it. Again, I love having that. Yay, LiveJournal. Poopoo on detractors.

So it's 2:14 am because Trunk isn't out till 12:30am on Wednesday nights, and invariably Ali and I walk home and debrief on the week and on Trunk, so it's 1am when I get here and tonight I needed a cinnamon roll and to sort of take Trunk to task for not putting us first the way we should. Being President feels so good, but in a way it's like you give up your light-hearted enjoyment of our time together to be the one worrying about things and keeping things chugging along. That's just how I feel about it now, and when I'm writing in the President's spiral at the end of the year (ohhhhhh my, what a thought), I don't think I'll be saying, "Way to take one for the team." Because it is a pretty swell thing, to be the leader of Trunk. Hold my head high and all that.

Alright, off to bed, off to Lauren, I hope our Christmas tree stands up straight and gets lights soon.

There was this Macworld article about overused tricks to speed up your system, and it included weeding Login Items and a fresh OS install, and it's really gotten under my skin - how can those things not work? Where does hope remain?!

These are the thoughts running through my head as I boot up on the flight home to SFO. Middle seat and JESUS does the guy to my right not understand how this thing is supposed to go. Legs all up in my section, arms entirely on my armrest - now he's almost sleeping on my shoulder. I'm the center seat! I got nothing! Help me out here and use your fucking aisle! The other guy gets the window as a pillow, you have completely unlimited air and floor space to your right. I have nothing. Get off me and let me type.

I guess that's what they call air rage.

Cried like a babe during Bridge to Terebithia, which as Kevin Smith said during the lead-in review (since when do Roeper and Kevin Smith do the thumbs?).

Alright, just successfully landed some elbow space. Go team.

Anyway, so I cried and then cried some more like I always do during airplane movies, now it's another 3 hours and apparently I stole a West Wing DVD from home - sweet! Home home home, you're so near.

Two days that felt like memory makers and a long-standing desire to get back to writing, for crying out loud, have me here again.

On the back porch of 124 yesterday morning, Chelsea was off to work and Ro out about town, leaving Lauren and I on a day that was much more temperate than the boiling ninety degrees we had expected, left without much to do.
"I've never had dim sum," she says, completely out of nowhere by my recollection (and who's writing this history?). We discuss Chinatowns of our youth (that would be my youth, since Missoula is a bit lacking in that particular cultural depth), Dim Sum breakfasts, and I say,
"I'm going to go check Yelp!"
We gather a bit of resolve ("Let's do this!"), hop onto bikes, and it's into Davis, runrun to catch the T, and we're off at North Station, orienting ourselves and talking about new jobs and laughing about silly little flirtations and we're holding hands and all I can remember is the yellow and red sign from the photo online.
"Good; yellow and red," she says.
But we found it and we waited without a number or any sense of cultural bearing and talked about how frightening phonemes and foreign alphabets can be, then were led down into another gigantic ballroom beneath the one we already saw and Lauren started ordering things off the first cart that came by. Sesame rolls, pastries, something that looked like it might take fried flight and had what appeared to be leaky sausage bits inside, but that was just the first cart! We sorted things out, springing for mushrooms and passing on chicken legs and had a meal of it; only dropping one sesame ball to roll under the next table (no one saw).

Out and into Chinatown - it's getting warmer, and we discover a few tourists (artfully dodged), a butcher where you pick your own chickens (a bit too soon after lunch - but who plucks them?), and we stopped by the China Trade Center before discovering the Gardens in an effort to walk down Newbury towards Cambridge. Flowers and swans and middle-aged women watercoloring on the other side of Comm Ave, so of course we watched because Lauren is a virtuoso with a wet brush, and I asked if she had plans for retirement.
"I guess we have another phase of our life before we get there, though,"
"Steve, I hope I have five or six phases of my life before I get there," she said.
Touché.

Rosie was coming into Charles/MGH, so down Charles Street and I petted a dog when she wasn't looking, we saw Fig's pizza and I bought everyone drinks at the grocery store, but not the one where Lauren buys wine. That was on the way back down Charles toward the garden, and as Rosie bought a single nectarine and we waited for Lauren to pick out wine, I notice I tall, skinny blond man slinking about. That wasn't -
"Stuart?" I called after him when he went into the next room. He turned around - it was Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of Belle & Sebastian.
"Oh, sorry! I was just - I wasn't sure if it was you... what - are you guys here?"
Cue Glasgow accent.
"Oh, no, we' just bin' goin' about the country, see, and I'm jus' 'ere fer a few days and 'en I'll be goin' back to Glasgow."
"Oh so just vacation - well that's lovely. I don't - you already know - you guys are amazing, by the way. But have a great vacation!"
"Thank you, yea, well, it was nice to meet you!"
"You, too, Stuart."

Then I smiled and we walked with wine and Dim Sum leftovers back to the duck pond to sit under a tree, see the puppy Lauren had missed petting, feed Rosie some sweet rolls, and laze about. Walk into the hippies at Earth Fest, a whole month late - well, walk around the hippies at Earth Fest and over the bridge, laughing about parents and how Dr. Elias thinks we need to get some free love into our veins - we're too stuffy about people in front rooms and, I don't know - drug use?

Lauren wanted to bake a cake when we got home and Ro went to work, so we rode to 7-11 and then to White Hen and then I got cake flour and butter from Shaw's so we could make the pound cake and the cockaigne from the Joy - much laughter at the idea of cockaigne. There was momentary panic during the journey on Lauren's part, and I had a gigantic Arizona Iced Tea aluminum can hurled out an oncoming car window at me, the new Most Fucked Up Thing That's Happened To Me On A Bike. Square on the shoulder, tea all down my side. So it goes in Boston.

We whipped 6 egg whites into stiff (but not dry) peaks, we attempted to food process with a broken food processor, Chelsea came home, we learned new frosting methods and forced wine on our oft-absent housemate, and enjoyed apsaragus, sorrel, and risotto, then cake and cokaigned and were fat and happy, doing Chelsea's nails and reading from Amber Madison's book about masturbation and telling him what feels good.

So there's a saturday for you, and really Sunday was just a thoroughly decent shift at Diesel with some adorable and endearing new employees and none too many customers what with the holiday. Lauren was there and had some of my grilled cheese and did all her reading for summer school like a good girl, and then Mae was visiting and we sat around listening to a cappella and laughing about face blindness and silently devouring the cake.

Leah G and I both overcame individual social awkwardities tonight to call each other and form a plan: bbq and a movie, and follow through. She picked me up and whisked me away in her smokey, pretty new trust fund car to Brookline, where I had a Mojito (sometimes I'm a social drinker, but don't tell Parky) and peaches with balsamic and gelato and Leah caught up with her besties but made sure we were punctual peaches ourselves to see Enter the Dragon at the Brattle, the first Bruce Lee flick for the both of us.
"What happened to the dragon that entered?" I said at the end.
"I think that was him," she said.

Indeed. What a night, with the two best from-the-seat car hugs of my life and a new new friend (yes!) and a weekend of sunshine and some beautiful photos and people. Home to Campbell in another day, and sweet bessie will that be a needed break from some of the emotional stressors of life as of late, but this was a good time and I'm glad I set down to go on about it at length, because I needed to. I'm glad this is here.

I did it! It had finally slipped my mind in the midst of some hustle and bustle elsewhere in my world - and after nearly two weeks off the bike - but my inbox held a beautiful surprise tonight:

The following request to change your USCF category has been approved and processed by USA Cycling:
coolhappysteve - 2006-08-07 17:01
Member: Steve McFarland
License: Track Racer
Request to change category from Cat 3 to Cat 2
Request was approved on 2006-08-18 20:22 by Casey Kerrigan

As in, "And now, folks, tonight's main event: the Pro/1/2 forty lap points race - a $220 prize purse for the top seven riders..."


That kind of Cat 2. This season wasn't perfect by any means, but the upgrade committee believes I've earned it, and I can feel good about that. I've put a lot of myself into this sport, and two years later, I'm a Cat-freakin-two. Yes!

Good God does that Apple mix song stick in the head: "suddenly I see..." Binged on pizza and cookie dough and a slew of useless things but you know what? My fucking brand new cell phone is broken and when I told you over dinner, Dad, that I wanted to find something frivolous to spend a bit of my summer wages on, I didn't fucking mean that I wanted to need to buy a new phone. I hate. spending. money.

The girls are so close and so far away. Google Earth tells me that Rosie is nearly perfectly one mile up Boston Ave from the lovefest at 124. Holy shit, is this going to be the best thing that I ever did. Best decision of my life, calling it right now. Chelsea shouts at the phone in Rosie's semi-drunken message to me from last week and I giggle. Lauren has a haircut and writes harried, grown-up emails from work and is just too hot to handle. Sweet sunshine, that's this fall.

Topher's home, (three day) vacation is over, and cell's screen is out - can't compulsively check for replies or messages or hints or anything of the sort. What's a boy to do? YouKnowWhat is hot; wish I had installed it as my main OS. Kind of. Uncovering new stuff everyday. Did Safari just crash?

I will not weep for those dying days, oh no no. The gentleman on NPR, introduced tonight's topics with so much energy that I almost hated to turn him off. Every sentence! Is short! and brilliantly accentuated! Listen, friends, and gather round! My thumb found its way down to the B's and to Conor for the drive through green lights and past yellow signs on Bascom and every word came tumbling out as if I'd been practicing the lyrics for weeks. Some things never leave you.

Writing from the car because I never seem to get it up to write when I get into my room, there's always distractions and internet connections and one-thousand-one things to do. Tonight, sitting in the front seat reminds me of Christine and silly decisions and things that didn't ever make a whole lot of sense, but certainly were part of the free passes granted in high school. And thank God for those.

Tummy ache and feel like barfing for the second night in a row, tonight because it's one in the morning (Morning Edition starts in two hours) and I had 32oz. lemonade with Apple children at a bar in Menlo Park. Mmm, the Menlo Park summer bar scene. Curly fries, a disgusting amount of lemonade, and young love. Cutecutecute. Last night a bunch of pedal-turning without a warm-up and the need to interact with/impress John Simmons, who holds my potential upgrade in his venous arms.

But those Apple kids, those count as newnew friends. Like the Concretes song, but way more upbeat. Just the tambourines and the four four time. We're dancing. We're apparently cooking next week, too. And Grant and I are going to watch the WWDC keynote on campus Monday morning. Then get lunch at Mac Cafe. Then go on a merchandise shopping spree because the boy - he and I were the only two specialists to get full metrics last month - is leaving in two weeks. But these folks make a summer, don't they?

And Jane and I finally saw each other and were appropriately distressed at the time apart and the impending annual departure, and that warms heart just as it slowly tears it to pieces. Because fake siblings and those little relationships are love. Just like the LJ kids say, Jane is love. Let's put pictures of her inside a rainbow and put it in my user info. I'm moving to VOX, soon, beeteedub, but there will be more on that later. Jane and I carpool again tomorrow, blessedly. And Jenny gets AC. And Jane and I have a date. And then Olivia and Patti are here. And the the Rents and I go to the city. Relationships make my head spin and my heart full and now the Concretes are rocking over my stereo (finally) and it's bedtime. Thanks for catching me up, sir.

I'm sorry, but I love Allison Bransfield. I think that she is over-the-top, incredibly dynamic, and a wonderful, wonderful person to talk to. She really likes me and I'm infatuated with her and we're open about that and I had the best best Thursday night with her in the city. I could listen to her talk about life at the Googleplex for hours, but we find a hundred other connections and though I'll miss her immensely when I get back to the Diesel, it's nice to have her here now.

Then Coralee called out of the blue on my way to the track and asked me out on our planned dinner-and-a-movie date and I said, "yes!" Lady in the Water is a mind trip masquerading as a bedtime story, but we talked all the way through in the empty theater (when did this thing come out? I thought people were supposed to like M. Night?) and I nearly blacked out and we laughed and had ice cream for dinner and pancakes for dessert. She thought that the Mini Gourmet was actually going to be gourmet. Oh, the surprises in store. Gender issues and relationships, churches, and those abounding surprises - Coralee has such a pure heart and is such a positive positive presence. Bless her. I hope I see more of her, too.

This summer, je pense, will be remembered as one of lots of time on 280 & 101, headed north to Palo Alto and further to San Francisco. Of forging connections-and-more with a cast of new characters. I love that. That is so much of what I've wanted, and is so good a change of pace. We're all about changes of pace here, it seems.

A 2 upgrade on the track would be a nice bonus - if people only showed up to Friday nights.

Race to work for an all-hands meeting, eking power out of the engine on Mom's Benz. Borrowing it for the AC to beat this stifling California heat. We're supposed to be temperate, damnit! Racing around that precious track of mine has been curtailed: someone stole away with apparently precious copper wiring and we don't have night-vision. I am not a robot. The season is in jeapordy.

There are a hundred and one things running through my head to tell and share and do and emails to write and people to call and tell, "I'm leaving again. I'm coming back again." That sort of thing. Lily came to visit for a day and we said a goodbye of sorts and now Allison and I - she Googles now - have a date for this week. And so much time with Jane it has been beautiful. We carpool and spare the air and the morning are always so quiet (Peet's is always too full) and the afternoons are such an energizing blessing that I thank God for her.

And then there are all those unexpected tears. That Dana's dad is now "with God" is what got me going on Saturday, my first funeral. I kept going for a while and I think we all are going to and all ought to but as I speed along every stretch of road in this valley and feel so overwhelmed by all those metrics I have to make, I can't help but feel it's all a bit trivial. And fuck if I still haven't bent knelt and bowed my head at the foot of my bed to pray for that girl and her family and my best friend and my ex-girlfriend (if that's what we call it) and their estranged fourth-person. Everything is so confused and helpless for those girls right now and I feel just as confused and helpless when the realization and the reality seeps in.

The Powerbook's back after a week's service and I'm catching up on NNW: Rosie is transcribing Cursive and Jenny lyrics; Laura is talking about cootches, creeps, and poop; Carlo saw the mothertrucking Rentals (!?); and Chelsea is anxious for us to grow roots in Ball Square. Yes, she/we found an apartment (Lauren makes three) in Somerville. Stained glass windows and all, because we're big kids now.

I got good at Apple and then I got good at the track by giving up on giving up on meat. Vegetarianism is out and my cycling immediately thanked me. "Meat!" I shouted across the finish line to third place overall. Floyd Landis just rode to first overall in the Tour, by the way. Always a prime preoccupation for the month of July, the Tour lived up to all hopes again this year. Then the track got shut down and that horror of Dana's loss was thrown at us and now I just eat cake and cookies and wonder what to do.

But show up for work. And sweat and sweat and await Fall in Boston, with two of my best only a room away or a flight up, and that beautiful blonde bombshell, currently enjoying the Diesel Prom I've never had; she'll be on the other side of town but I hope we lure her over for our Tivo and our wireless and our companionship. She is so beautiful. This place is so beautiful, even when the heat blinds and poor decisions and tragedies strike. I'm glad to be here. Glad to be caught up in ways. Glad to be catching up in so many others.

Amanda Congdon to George Soros on Rocketboom, "In the last few months, as you know, the President's approval rating has dropped dramatically, as low as 29% in some polls... what happened in the last year that helped in the last year to really help Americans to kind of get the picture?" "Reality reared its ugly head."

I saw my cousin graduate from Northgate High School in the East Bay on Tuesday night (and am disappointed to have missed LGHS and Leigh the next few nights); it was interesting exercise in reminiscence and daydreaming of what that silly and brief march across stage to receive your diploma really means. Some peopled skipped over there, one student who had overcome a great deal got a standing ovation. And the valedictories told us with one-off imagery about the fabled real world awaiting high school graduates. Over and over again, I heard how different life was from this moment forward.

And it's left me wondering where that real world ran off to. Tufts certainly wasn't it - summer camp with homework and no campfires. NYU , for all the exhilaration (and I do mean exhilaration) of taking the A train to class daily and parading around the island by myself, was noticeably lacking in the rents bills and snow-shoveling duties that come with the quote-end-quote real world.

So maybe it comes after college? Well, things get a lot more real, that much is clear as I watch friends make the second, more grandiose walk in larger, heavier robes and then wonder where all the jobs went off to. The rent bills seem to start pouring in around that time, too. But there's always this subtle suspension of - reality. Parents kicking down checks and old roommates returning to co-op together again; that sort of thing.

The reality of it is that you're not done growing up when you graduate high school and you're still not done four years later. Transferring down and up the Eastern seaboard has made this boy feel a bit more world-weary, but I don't think it clues me into reality any more. I don't miss the point that college - NYU, Tufts, wherever - is at many points every bit as insular and incestuous as high school, but I'm talking myself into being okay with that. I'm making the decision that this so-called real world is the only one with the chances for sloppy decision-making and those beautiful moments that risky behavior allows. Kisses and sledding and all nighters together. You graduate college with lifelong friends because everyone fucked around so much in the four years that there's a lifetime of understanding and memories there. I didn't appreciate that at first. I was better than drunk frat parties and still hunting that reality and grownup rigor promised to me at commencement.

Well, I've been to the end of that road, and I wasn't paying bills or chain-smoking the stress away (which is what I wanted?). And, frankly, the clock is ticking. I'm a junior now. Friends, peers, countrymen, we're only two years away from the end of this little joyride! Dad's coming home and the car needs to be back in the garage by five o'clock - what the hell are we going to do? The answer of the day: hit the gas, grab a hand and - whatever I do, for God's sake - don't look back this time.