What a wonderful day. It's been pure, peaceful enjoyment from beginning to end. God decided to let me have a day off, and I took it. Birthdays, I suppose, only come once a year.

My roommates and I, and four of our guy friends, drove up to Maryland for a Renaissance Fair this Saturday. At first I did not want at all to take the time, since I have numerous papers to begin writing, but God intervened. I had to delay the one paper I was intending to begin this weekend, because the book from which I had chosen to analyze sources can't work. I have to find another and ILL in more of its sources, but meanwhile I can't get started. So I could instead please my friends and myself and enjoy this unique experience.

We left at about 7:30 AM, and drove for an hour and a half. We then met with the aunt and uncle and cute little autistic cousin of one of our guy friends and went on to the fair. There we designated several meeting points throughout the day and split off in our various directions. I headed off alone, as is my wont, and throughly enjoyed myself by visiting all the shows that contained jugglers, and by joining the small group of people teaching little kids to juggle. I convinced one tiny and very shy girl to try, which alone was enough to make my day worthwhile, and several people told me I should perform in a show. :D

At 4 PM we headed back to the uncle's house in MD, and I found Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy to read from off their numerous bookshelves, while everyone else played "Settlers of Katan," or something like that. I don't know how to spell it. The uncle then took all of us out to eat at Chevy's, and since we claimed we were celebrating my roommate's birthday, which was today, and mine, which is Monday, the employees sang to us loudly and gave us straw hats and free desserts. We conversed about everything under the sun, from personalities to books, and some things which are not wholly under the sun, such as God. Dinner was a success.

Today fed my soul. I quietly absorbed the Renaissance fair by myself, and then I was able to exercise my extroverted side with my friends. But sometimes I feel lonely, in the end, after I've absorbed everything. Everything's in me then, very deeply, and I haven't shared the getting. I ache to share experiences sometimes, even though I feel unable to do so with most people. Perhaps that's why I have to write. I can put it all down at once and look back over it to see if I got it right. I don't have to worry about people interrupting and throwing me off track in the middle, so that I'm left knowing I didn't properly communicate a feeling.

Still, even writing can't get it all. What I need is somebody very much like myself, who can quietly absorb the same things. Someone who understands so much of what I understand that much of the terrible weight of preliminary communication for a feeling is removed.

Like my older brother. I miss my older brother, and I can't ever have him back again, because he's getting married next June. Still, I highly approve and all. If siblings didn't get married, how would one ever have nieces and nephews? Life is so confusing sometimes. :P

I suppose now I had better stop typing, before this gets even more random. I pray that God will change America's heart and that, like Nineveh, it will repent from its evils.
  ¶ 9:26 PM (0) comments

  My imagination has scarcely had time to wander this past month. It feels trapped among details of everyday life. I look at objects and they're just things, sitting where they belong and leading off into no flights of fancy. I feel dry, and a little dull.

On the other hand, the here and now has been quite fascinating lately. I am enjoying every one of my 19 class hours this semester, and I am doing Chorale (college choir) and starting a martial arts club, as well as participating in Ultimate Frisbee league. I am quite busy.

Still, I feel lost. I have to write fiction. I have to. It's a huge part of me, and I regret more than ever that I don't know yet what it is I need to write. I also regret how little fiction I've read lately. It's like college is changing who I am, and I'm letting it suck away one of the honest pleasures in my life with all its work. It's this blasted sense of responsibility. I can hardly read anything just for itself any more. I feel obligated to make it something Worthwhile, as though a story can't be good in itself. Perhaps this is why I haven't written lately.

God, help me find a way, and thank you for all your mercies to me and how well school is going.
  ¶ 7:04 PM (0) comments