kylegilbert

Lately, I’ve been staying up very late most nights.  In fact, there were two nights this past week when I tried to go to bed early, and I ended up laying there unable to sleep until after 1:00 am.  I guess my body is adapting to less sleep than I really need, and that concerns me.

What also concerns me is that I’ve started to wear my lack of sleep like a badge of honor.  What’s up with that?  I guess it’s just another of the strange ways I try to justify my existence and prove my worth.  Instead of basing my worth on my adoption by God through Jesus, I’m still trying to prove it in silly ways.

Father, help me to trust you and see my worth through the cross rather than trying to prove myself.

One of the senior adult ladies at our church gave me an alarm clock for Christmas. It’s got a giant digital readout with red numbers, and it even has a projector so I can shoot the time on the ceiling, or the wall, or Keri’s sleeping face.

I love it, but Keri thinks it’s satanic. I think it might be because it has this weird flicker (imagine it occasionally switching from 2 to 3 and back again multiple times in a second), and because the projector randomly turns itself off and on. The best part is that sometimes it projects strange mangled digital contortions rather than the time, and when it does that, you can’t turn off the projector.

I love my alarm clock, and it makes me laugh. Fortunately, Keri puts up with it. She’s pretty cool like that.

Maybe I’m just stupid, but I think that part of my frustration with the mall has something to do with the confusion I feel when I walk into many stores.  It’s sometimes very challenging to figure out where the men’s section ends and the women’s section begins.  

I mean, there you are, looking at jeans, and the next thing you know, you’re right in the middle of the women’s section trying not to feel like a cross dresser.  It’s embarrassing to pick up a shirt when you’re not sure if it’s a guys shirt or not.  Maybe it’s just me, but I’d kind of like a big black line down the middle of the room. 

Am I alone here, or can somebody else relate?

Tomorrow Keri and the kids are leaving to visit some friends over in the Dallas area for a few days.  That leaves me home alone with nothing to do except clean the house and work on websites.  So, I need some help:

1)  If anybody is in town and wants to play disc golf Monday or Tuesday evening, let me know.

2)  I need some recommendations on good movies to rent.  I’ve got a couple in mind, but I’m very open to suggestions (I’m also open to company, if any guys want to come watch a movie with me).

Please give a brother some help and post a comment!

Forget Duplos!  Now, we’re playing with the real deal in our family!  This is a day that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

Well, tonight I finally gave in and got a haircut.  It reminded me that I really hate haircuts.  That’s a little strange, because really, I like the feeling of having less hair on my head, especially during the summer, but that benefit doesn’t outweigh the negatives.

You see, I don’t go to a fancy haircut kind of place.  No, I go to the place down the street from my house, and every time I go in there, there’s usually someone new and a little frightening, and I’m talking about the employees.

There was this one lady who was kind of huge, and without intending to, a significant portion of her body was always in contact with me while she was cutting my hair.  Besides that, she worked me over like she was shearing a lamb (I think she had me in a headlock at one point).  Even when she used the trimmers, she did so with incredible force.  I could feel all the little plastic teeth of the guard etching along the surface of my skull, knowing that she would draw blood at any moment.  I’m pretty sure she viewed haircuts like a race (like roping calves in a rodeo), so the whole haircut only lasted about three minutes. I only had her a couple of times, but I always gave her a good tip (mostly prompted by fear).

There was another lady that looked like Elvira.  She stood outside smoking and then walked in behind me.  She smelled so strongly of cigarette smoke that I’m pretty sure I’ll get lung cancer in a few years just from the one exposure.

What’s really weirded me out lately is that tonight (and several nights in the past), when the person finished cutting my hair, she asked me how I wore it. Maybe that shouldn’t be strange to me, but it seems like she would remember what it looked like when she started cutting on my hair a few minutes before. I would think that would be helpful information for her while she was cutting my hair, not afterwards.

But probably the worst part about getting a haircut is that I always hope to walk out looking super awesome, like some movie star or something.  As if the $12 experience would somehow transform me into some rock-star-looking dude.  But instead, I walk out looking like myself, only with a bit less hair.

Well, back in the days before I started getting into graphic design, I used to draw and paint a little bit.  I was digging through some of my old stuff the other day, and here are some drawings and paintings that I made during Junior High and High School.

Keri showed me this thoughtful review of the new Batman movie the other day, and I thought it was very interesting and worthwhile.  It certainly gives some insight to our nation’s wreckless consumption of media, and it will probably make some of you mad.

Sometimes you come across something that seems too good to be true, and I’ve had that experience this weekend.  We discovered a small new public water park at one of the parks where I often play disc golf (when I have time to play disc golf, that is).  Now, I’m not talking slides or anything like that, but what they’ve got is perfect for Brynna on a hot summer day, and it’s free.

We went there today, and I expected it to be packed out with kids because of the weekend and the heat, but there was only one other family there.  Woohoo!

Special thanks to Wendy & Jari Mema for putting on a great mystery meal at small group this past Sunday.  They had each adult in the group order four courses of food by guessing at cryptic Bible references.  What resulted were weird combinations (such as beans and dessert salad) and sometimes having to eat food with either the wrong or no silverware.

It was a lot of fun!  Thanks, guys!