Sunday, 30 December 2007

Be there...

I came to discover something the past day or so. I took a short trip away from Ludington and once again journeyed south to Coopersville and saw ROSS REYNOLDS!!!! Sadly, Nate and his family had gone way up north for a skiing excursion, so I couldn't see them. Ah, no matter-Ross and his family make excellent company and are good enough excuses for a visit. And that's what it was. With no snow (or so it seemed, mostly...), Ross and I had to make up our entertainment: fighting our way through the post-Christmas sales to return a gift to Best Buy and RiverTown Crossings (I absolutely HATE driving in Grandville), giving Ross his Christmas present, playing two cutthroat rounds of 221b Baker Street with his parents, and watching Ocean's Eleven on that schnazzy movie projector. Oh yeah, and there was a bit of shooting the breeze, sharing weird stories, and probably some laughing in there, too.

"Tyler, how do you think of all these stories?"~Ross
"That's just how fast my brain goes."~Tyler

That's the memorable quote from the trip. I'm thinking my brain's setting itself up to blow a gasket soon.

I guess where I felt sort of bad is Ross being so hard on himself for not planning a ton while I came down. It honestly didn't bother me (Ross... if you're reading this: I mean it.). Simply being with my friends is good enough and it's not often that we can't think of SOMETHING. And I think just being there can mean something, too. That's all I think I could really do when we all came tearing across the house when it all started with his grandmother. Thankfully she's okay for the most part now, as far as I know, but I knew I couldn't do a ton beyond just sort of being there for Ross and his family. And now praying for them.

Just sort of being there was sort of the same thing I discovered when I journeyed through the first part of that nasty snowstorm to Spring Lake to visit Ben. No, we didn't do anything in particular besides sip a nice mug of hot chocolate, laugh like crazy at a Mike Huckabee political ad featuring Chuck Norris on YouTube, and catch up on each other's lives. And it was great. It was enough to just sit down together and talk with my good friend, picking up exactly where we left off in July. I expect it'll happen again sometime after May. And I hope it'll be just as sweet then.

Then came the big adventure: I drove through my first massive snowstorm! Ben sent me on my way somewhere between 6:15 and 6:30 and I didn't arrive home until 8. It was nasty, the wind blew, the snow fell hard, I got sprayed with slush by trucks and SUVs, and I even slid around and almost couldn't find the road a couple times, but I made it and didn't get in an accident, either. I've proven myself a true Michigan resident.

Nik shared the amazingness of Flarp over the phone with me. Yes, I was glad to talk to him, we talked about some more serious stuff, and it was good. But considering how tired I was, this was possibly the high point of the conversation (my mother could hear me laughing through two closed doors). Flarp is terrifying... and amazing. If you don't know what Flarp is or does, look up its Wikipedia entry.

Currently Listening Live Unplugged By Jeremy Camp Beautiful One see related