totally not getting married

I know most of my friends don't agree with me, but this is something that I've considered for the past year or two now. I was just at my cousin's wedding in Detroit this past weekend. It was beautiful, from the rooftop ceremony to the non-conventional breakfast food reception "dinner" to the beautiful couple that is my cousin and his wife. With all the relatives around, of course it was prime time for them to ask me where my girlfriend or date was. Not seeing anyone, I respond. Well when are your aunts from Hawaii going to come back and visit then, they ask me. I don't know. Hopefully another occasion will come.

I have this friend named Jennifer. She's a friend from college. Didn't even hang out with her very much then, but now she's one of my favorite people here in Chicago. She's become a very good friend. I started to teach her guitar about a year ago. She's social enough that I could introduce her to other friends and she would carry on a conversation. I am very comfortable in my own skin when I hang out with her. Sometimes we would talk about relationships in general. She's asked me a couple of times what kind of girl that I go for. I would say the type of girl that I'm friends with and who I trust. Oh, and someone who plays guitar, too, but then she'd be onto me. I should mention that Jennifer met this wonderful man in Africa during her time in the Peace Corps who she is now engaged to. By no means would I get in the way of that. In fact, I'm very much looking forward to the day when I can meet him (he's still in Africa). But that still leads us back to the title.

In Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller says that if you like someone you should tell them. I never brought this up with Jennifer...yet. I will. Even though I have no intention of having a romantic relationship with her at all, I think it's still important to talk about stuff like that.

There really isn't anyone else in Chicago. I was just talking to my brother about this last night. I told him how I'd want to ask out someone who I started become friends with and who I trust. No one else really fits that criteria who is available. It's amazing that despite the number of people that I meet, hardly anyone takes the time to become friends and build some trust.

It was nice talking to my brother last night. We hadn't seen each other too much lately, but we got to have this nice, serious, but short, conversation on the ride home. He really put the whole "relatives bringing up girlfriends and other things every time you see them" into perspective for me. To be honest, it really started to bug me at my cousin's wedding. Don't get me wrong. I still enjoyed myself and was really happy for them, but I couldn't really reach out and be social too much while I was there.

I think I'll end here before I start branching out into a million other things...


blessings

reading

I was never into fiction before, but I totally dig spy novels now. I read Casino Royale and then went through all the Robert Ludlum Bourne books. Obviously the books are better even though I've devoured all the movies. But now I have no more spy novels and I can't decide what to read next. Therefore, I'm going back to read books I've already read. Stupid since I have atleast 117 books on my "to-read" list but I'm getting reminded of why I liked those books in the first place. Said books are Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel and Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. I hadn't been into Christian spirituality books in awhile but as I said, I'm being reminded of why I like those books so much in the first place.

If you're not sure if you should go through those books or not I recommend a chapter in each of those books. I can't remember the exact chapter in Ragamuffin Gospel, but there's a powerful story about a time that Brennan Manning was attending an AA group retreat. In Blue Like Jazz, chapter 7 titled Grace (though almost all of the chapters are good to me) still sticks out the most.

I'l have to get back to you on that chapter in Ragamuffin. Until then, keep reading...