i think there's a pair of scales that weigh the good things and the crappy things that happen every day. the fulcrum is the mood you're in, while the good and bad stuff tip back and forth to determine whether or not the day was a decent one.

the moments when the scales teeter over, from 'crappy day, double plus ungood' to 'kick-ass day' are really, really ones to savor. i had one of those moments around 8:50 this evening, after a longish grumpyish weekend (see yesterday's entry. it seemed good, but there was the grumpy traffic-plus-relationship-foo undercurrent that gave it its nastiness.) today was kind of similar, and i drove off to willow for the axis service. it's been pretty hard for me over the years to find a church setting in which i could feel comfortable and be among people i felt were my peers. it has less to do with age or vocation than worldview, philosophy, things like that.

i'm more comfortable with a group of twelve year olds and fifty year olds who know nothing of computers but are willing to approach the world around them with curiosity, open-ness, and integrity than with a group of twenty-something hackers who aren't willing to step outside of their assumptions about the world and their beliefs. it makes life a little difficult in the average midwestern youth group, something i discovered the hard way in junior high.

long-term, it's made it pretty hard to connect with another group of christians and still be honest about who i am, what i think, and what kinds of issues i'm dealing with in my life. the questions i grapple with are ones that a lot of christians don't even think should be asked.

but anyhow. i digress.

i drove to the axis service and hung out for most of the service. after it broke up, they had a big ol' outdoor party. it's shocking what a couple zillion tiki torches and a good DJ can do for atmosphere.

I did my usual hang around the edges and munch on something while wishing I knew people routine, and it looked pretty hopeless for a while. I'm good at random smalltalk, but unless there's a jumping off point -- a familiar face, a topic I can discuss with a stranger -- I'm no good at it. I just don't start cold conversations with random people very well.

and then, lo and behold -- Jeff Benson, one of the guys from work wandered by wearing the same "Dear Lord, Deliver Me From The Mingling" expression I was wearing. Twn minutes later, we were talking and having some actual honest to goodness non-work related conversation. Scary discoveries include the following:

He grew up in the same Indiana county that my whole family grew up in...
We were both homeschooled
We're both only children
Both our parents raised us while working for philosophically insulated Christian nonprofit groups
We've both encountered the same crises of faith while working through the core issues of modernism and postmodernism (cultural philosophical inertia, childhood environment versus adult beliefs, assumptions for belief, fun stuff like that)
We both have Bad Relationship Angst At Cornerstone stories, and...
We both prefer the Doual Enforcers to the Reaper in Unreal Tournament.

Talking to him and touching base was absolutely fabulous. Like one of those moments where you finally find someone in a foreign city who speaks a language you know. The euphoria!

Anyhow. I'm pretty pumped, and I'm just going to bask in it for a while and ignore all the frustrating relationship foo that is swirling around my noggin, pretend the world is a simple place, and enjoy the muppet DVD.

--the verb