The Art of Being at Common Grounds...

I used to hate this place. My past Baylor issues made it hard for me to come here without being extremely uncomfortable. Rarely was there a place I felt more out of place. Kyle loved this and exploited it at every opportunity he could find by suggesting we meet here to hang out. When I would walk through the front door, apprehensive look on my face, he would be sitting in this very chair I'm in right now, ready to pounce on my insecurities by giggling at me being where I never thought I belonged. As we talked, he had a great time with how tense I felt.

I've been coming here on my days off for the past few weeks. I'm learning how to be here. It will never by my place as it was Kyle's place, but I feel I can at leat be myself among the burlap and sorority girls talking about how awesome God is.

There truly is an art to being here and Kyle was a true artist. He shared some of his knowledge with me, and I am trying to make good use of it. He said this chair was the best because it was in the middle, so if you work hard enough you can hear every conversation going on in the building. You also have a good view of the door. If someone walked in you wanted to talk to you can just wave your hand and they have to see you. But when people walk in, it takes them a bit of time to scan the room before their eyes make it to you, so if you would rather not talk to them, you have enough time to look down and look engrossed in your work. It's a quite deceptive scandal, and I feel a little guilty for betraying the secret of his skills. But that's how it is.

You've also got to know how to tell stories here, so I guess I'll practice by telling you one:

I've been picking Jude and Sutton up from school on Mondays and hanging out with them for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Yesterday we went to Poage park to play. I brought Jane along and we had a rip roaring good time. When the boys got in the car I leaned back to help them fasten their buckles and noticed Sutton's pants were soaking wet. As happens from time to time, he didn't want to go to the restroom because that's just too much time to take out of playing, so he pissed his pants rather than missing another trip down the slide.

"Sutton, what happened here? Why didn't you tell me you had to go tee-tee?," I said.

He replied, "Oh, it's not tee-tee."

"Well then what is it?"

"It rained today at school, when you weren't there."

(Me fighting back laughter,) "Oh, it rained? Well then why wasn't Jude wet when I picked y'all up?"

He said oh-so-matter-of-factly, "It didn't rain on him. I was the only one it rained on."
__________

Isn't this how life happens sometimes? It's raining and we're the only one's getting wet.

Here's hoping you can play hard today doing whatever it is you love. But take a break and do the things that need to get done. You never know when a thunderstorm may come with you as it's only target.