I'm talking about . . .

. . . feelings.

There came a place and a time in my life when I came to a conclusion . . . feelings just weren't worth the effort. What brings this topic up at 4:21 a.m.? The movie Leap Year. I know what you're saying . . . What in God's name were you doing watching a chick flick that early in the A.M. Two words . . . Chip Monelli. Oy. So anyway I digress.

Anyway, once again I have found myself in a precarious place. My insides feel rusty, misused, and covered in dust. It sort of feels like the machinations that make up the clockwork of my heart are missing a few cogs. I've wanted so badly again to feel, but I don't remember why. I've tried to improve my mood and the way I behave around people, but my kindness has been misunderstood.

My conclusion: Being kind only leads to being mean.

My reason: You can't be kind to people because they will always suspect an ulterior motive. So in the end, my pessimism may win out. The very people who tried to convince me that be optimistic and kind are the very ones who've now helped to convince me that maybe its just not worth it. I don't know if I can put any kind of theological argument in here to strengthen my case, and this is all more than likely a result of my own bitterness and current distress.

All in all . . . kindness is splendid . . . I just don't know if it works well for me.

I need a complicated, high maintenance girl . . . fml

-Scritch out

They should write a book about me . . .

It seems that I cannot escape my own thoughts. No matter how hard I try and no matter how far I run, it seems that I come right back around to me. I am consumed with my own wants and needs. I am sometimes no better than a devout LeVayin Satanist in how self-serving I am. I'm told that its human nature to look out for one's best interest but I don't know if I can believe that. I think that when God placed human brings within the garden, He did so with the intent that they would serve and be served only by others. We also see how in the New Testament church how everyone served everyone in whole hearted godliness in order to survive.

It's difficult to imagine that I belong to the same belief system that my forerunners did. I know that todays culture essentially requires me to not have full faith within my christian counter parts because not all are as they seem, but it nonetheless wears on me how modernized and desensitized I've become by my culture and it goes deeper than just entertainment. I think that at a base level I have allowed myself to buy into a lie.

A lie that says I need to look out for my best interest while everyone else does the same. I know that as a Christian I am called to serve others but it's just more convenient to serve myself. According to the way things are supposed to be, my brothers and sisters should meet my needs as God meets theirs and I meet theirs as God meets mine, but people are just so inconsistent that I can't really rely on them and likewise I am so inconsistent that people can't rely on me.

In the early church, everyone piled their belongings and met everyones needs as they came. We'd call that socialism and it only works in theory. (And I am by no means condoning Socialism in any form)

My thoughts are cluttered and hard to to define, but I can't help but realize just how blind I am. No matter how badly I want to live in an ideal Christian world where we all serve each other in beautiful Christian unity, I know that it really isn't plausible in today's society. Which is heart breaking because I'd wager that they knew a deeper relationship with Christ and with each other than you or I will ever know . . .

"They should write a book about you [me] because you're [I'm] so selfish it's funny."

-Showbread

-Scritch out

Leaving is the hardest bit

"Leaving is the hardest bit, but you go you'll be glad you did."

- All Left Out

I discovered two days ago just how depressed I am about graduating. Yeah I mean, sure I'm thrilled to be away from the rules and logistics of living here on campus but in reality it's really hard letting go. Hilariously enough, this revelation took place while walking passed Bong [the building not the drug implement] on my way to the theater for rehearsal. I began to think about the years I've spent here on campus and the number of times I'd walked past that building on my way to the theater. I thought about the friends I had as a freshman, and the friends that I have now. I though about the number of times I spent in that building and how I'd been there five times since then.

I remembered the time I called my mom just to say, "hi" as I walked back from the gym. I remembered the time Wes Burkett climbed the brick wall outside while hanging out with me, Travis and Travis' future wife, Harmony. I also remembered most fondly the time Larry, Dan, Travis, Chip, and I marched around the lamp post outside singing "Yellow Submarine" immediately after Chip had climbed up it twenty feet or so.

I guess this is all part of the nostalgia, but nonetheless I find it's getting harder and harder by the day to be here only because I know how hard it's going to be to leave. My life is here. My friends are here. When May comes around though, everything is going to change. I'll be thrust cruelly into what adults call "life." I learn through my own mistakes as much as others. I'll learn to be self-dependent or die.

I know that more learning is what's next for me. I know that I'll eventually pursue a master's degree of sort some sort., but until that time God only knows what I'm going to be doing. With all of the stress and looming sadness however, God has given me a word. I need to just concentrate on my life one day at a time, and He's going to fill in the blanks. I don't know exactly what God has for me, but I do know that I'm merely a child in comparison to him and I need to trust him as if I were still a child in human comparison.

Come May, I know I'll be ready to go. There will be tears and it will be sad, but I know that for my friends and mentors it'll be bitter sweet. Because whereas we know that we are parting and that we may never reunite in this life, we have the hope that we'll be together on the other side in that cafeteria table in the sky.

God is good.

-scritch out

This is waaaaaaaay too many bits

Do we posses the ability to truly be expressive while hiding beneath the weighty thumb of censorship? The optimist inside of me that often tears at the walls of my mind and screams loudly wants to answer "Yes." The pessimist who lurks cleverly in the corner of my mouth, however, inevitably answers, "No." It's actually quite difficult to act within confines. We are told by our leaders to be expressive and to embrace our God given gifts, but when things begin to creep outside of their realm of control, we're stifled in our attempts. Is this a bad thing? Meh. Sometimes I think that control is needed. I mean, without some law and guidance we'd more or less float off into a space of anarchist hulabaloo. That's right, I said it. . . hulabaloo. Right?

But lack of control is just as bad as too much. When people are given unlimited power, anarchy ensues. There is no control and everyone either falls into chaos or all follow after one person which places that person in the role of controller. So control is inevitable, but the confines which a person applies to another are manageable.

In the right hands, creative control can be a good thing . . . a guiding force . . . a jedi master . . .

But in the wrong, it becomes too restricting and causes the discomfort and eventual rebellion of others.

So all of this to say, "Beware those of you who have power . . for someday, you will have to answer for how you treated those who were beneath you . . . whether it be to God . . . or 20 angry people with metaphorical pitch forks, torches, and strongly worded letters."

This being said . . . Macbeth auditions next week . . . Look for my sign . . . or e-mail.

-Scritch out

The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of

So I just finished my screening of Sam Raimi's latest horror flick Drag Me to Hell. Despite the fact that Raimi has spent twenty years out of the horror genre, he hasn't lost his stride. Drag Me to Hell lines up nicely with his other works of horrific genius and is filled with multiple "Evil Dead" moments.

Christine Brown is a soft spoken young woman who works as a loan officer. Her rural upbringing causes her to be insecure at times, but she none the less is a self-motivated go getter that causes the audience to pull for her from start to end.

Christine has a difficult situation. In order for her to receive an important promotion (that she rightly deserves) she is forced to make a difficult decision. Should she grant an old repulsive woman named Mrs. Ganush, an extension on her loan or should she deny the plea and secure her promotion? Staring down the barrel of the decision and glimpsing ever so quickly to the empty chair she wishes to occupy, Christine makes up her mind nice and pretty and denies the old woman an extension.

This decision would have been all well and dandy if not for the fact that Mrs. Ganush is an evil vindictive freaking gypsy! Mrs. Ganush, in one of the most comical horror sequences since Army of Darkness, places a heavy curse upon Ms. Brown's head, a curse that turns the next three days of Christine's life into a living hell. An evil bounty has been placed upon the head of Christine Brown and the Lamia is coming to collect.

DMtH is filled with enough gross out antics and one liners to feel like classic Raimi, but is also balanced out with enough frightening moments to please even the most casual of horror fans. Whereas the film may be only rated Pg-13, this isn't one you'll want to let younger audiences watch. The depiction of unnamed characters being torn through the floor was slightly frightening even to me which may be due to my beliefs, but none the less DMtH isn't the sort of movie that should be viewed by anyone under the age of 13.

Being a fan of good horror and a big fan of Sam Raimi (and Bruce Campbell) I give this film a solid 8/10. The plot is original and strong enough to hold an audience and is precariously intriguing and well paced from start to finish. The cinematography and special effects weren't stunning but were believable.

Raimi is back with a vengeance and it would be a disservice of me to this film and to it's author(s) if I were to not recommend you watch it as soon as possible. Be wary, however, ye who enter here and abandon all hope for where it may have it's moments of lightheartedness in its own right, Drag Me to Hell is the stuff that nightmares are made of.

-scritch out

Don't even try

I don't expect you to follow the train of logic off a bridge or off a cliff to the market where I expect you'll find the man you want to be . . . who you'll spend your entire life as. The filthy mudbloods echoed softly to themselves as they leapt from building to building with such ease that it would have made superman look like a small squid that found himself served on a dish. Which is in no way relevant to the argument over all, whereas an octopus might hold some bearing or weight on the conversation as a whole. Don't get me wrong, I'm of the opinion that the candy cane path leads to the chocolate sunrise and circumstances notwithstanding may actually be a wielder of truth, justice, and the American way. But why the American way?

I found myself lying next to the American dream once. She left a bad taste in my mouth when I kissed her sun stained lips. Her sin was bleached like the whitest piece of lined parchment. She had a smoker's lung in her left hand and a cigarette in her right. She led men to their demise by simply offering them their hearts worst imaginable fantasy. For a man, you see, dreams of such fierce things that even the least wicked of these would cause a schoolgirl's eyes to blush.

The red was more vibrant than anything I'd ever seen!

So let's hypothesize or theorize, if you will, that when the Sun sets the Moon takes it's place like a skeletal monster hanging ominously in the night sky taunting the wolves and the coyotes with promises of sexual gratification. I need to be in bed. It must be the lunar cycle.

I burst forth from my clothes as the lychanthropy took control. I slashed and tore at the sheets as the vampires descended. They had no right to the Blood God . . . He was mine!

Thank you.

-Scritch out

The Undead and You

It is a true and universal truth that zombies indeed wish to eat your brain.

What do we know about the reanimated corpses of the ones we love?

We know that they should be six feet below the ground being devoured by time and tiny organisms, but for whatever reason they find themselves on their feet mucking about in search of the only thing that seems to satisfy them . . . human flesh. For whatever reason, someone decided that it was typical of reanimated bodies to desire the flesh of the living. I suppose this wouldn't be a huge stretch of the imagination. We as human beings naturally desire that which we cannot have should it really be any different for the reanimated dead?Whether it be for demonic purposes, voodoo magic, or some creepy corporation trying to make people better, zombies seem to be rising (pun intended).

In the case of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy, the evil deadites (as they're known in Army of Darkness) are demonically possessed corpses hell bent on world domination. Why? Who knows!?! These zombies seem to break the mold a little bit in the sense that they don't appear to be trying to om nom nom whoever they come in contact with. Instead, they take the higher path of just scaring the living Hell out of Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) while on their way to World freaking Domination.

Whereas the stereotypical Romero zombie would simply be inclined to eat the nearest person in the vicinity. These zombies are unintelligent, nonchalant, feeding machines and whether they mean to or not are trying to take over the world or at least exhaust their dwindling food supply.

Now, the scariest freaking zombies in my personal opinion, the zombies from 28 days later . . .

These zombies fit pretty well into the Romero mold where the disease is passed through bodily fluids (biting, scratching, spitting, etc.) save for a detail that keeps me awake at night. These zombies can run . . . fast. They rush and swarm their targets overwhelming with such fierce rage and violence that all you can really do is yelp and be torn to ribbons by the throng of violent murderous freaking zombies.

Now for my least loved zombies, the evil corporate zombies. Case in point, Resident Evil. An evil corporation decides to make a super-drug that makes everyone better in every imaginable way. This is a very dangerous move, because now if anything goes awry . . . everyone dies . . . and then everyone is reanimated . . . and then everyone eats everyone . . . and everyone dies . . . sort of. (See Foamy the squirrel)

Am I the only one who thinks that these hypothetical drugs are just contrived and unwise? Not possible. There had to have been at least one person who stood up at the board meeting and said, "Hmm. Perhaps we shouldn't try to screw around with nature? Maybe we shouldn't give an experimental drug to people that may or may not turn them in to incomprehensible killing machines?"

Perhaps . . . but perhaps that person was hot on sight for daring to suggest such a thing especially since there was money to be made! Congratulations, Mr. Big Shot CEO of unnamed corporation you suck at life and you've doomed us all! Mr. Stand up to the man. We salute you!

My advice? Zombies are a very fictitious and ominous threat! We need to be prepared just in case.

As for my fellow Christians who think God wouldn't allow a zombie apocalypse, I respond"Don't put my God in a box!'

Arm yourself!

Buy a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks and memorize it as soon as possible!

Also, get your hands on some good close range weapons: machetes, axes, swords, etc.

Guns are good but are as only as effective as the ammunition you possess. I suggest you stock up but always have an auxiliary weapon that runs on concentrated rage and tremendous amounts of kick ass.

If you feel so compelled, it would also be wise to invest in a cabin or a house with limited access in low population areas and in the case of a zombie apocalypse, bunker down and pray for a quick end whatever that may be.

I am as prepared as I can be on Christian college campus . . . are you?

-scritch out