Spring is finally back and hopefully here to stay this time. And I kind of think God gave us those miserable, cold, wet two weeks just so we would fully, completely, rightly appreciate this beautiful sunny Friday.

(these are the views from the computer room......through our dirty, dirty windows.)

True story:

Beginning around 9:00PM last night, the sound of Mary Poppins singing "A Spoonful of Sugar" came wafting through the wall we share with another tenant in the building.

The sound of this quaint song continued--without pause--until we fell asleep around 10:30PM.

No lie.

Now, honestly, who in their right mind would listen to any song--but especially this one--on repeat for this duration of time? Once or twice, sure; it's a cute song. But after 90+ minutes of it, wouldn't it become just a little bit grating?

Erica and I tried to keep talking to each other in order to ignore it as best we could. But, without fail, every time there was a quiet lull in conversation, we would hear the annoying nanny chime in right on queue: "IN THE MOST DELIIIIGHTFUL WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!"

I'm not sure you understand, yet. I mean, we were able to tolerate it pretty well, but we just have no idea how the girl playing it in her apartment could tolerate it. Can you really imagine 90 minutes straight of A Spoonful of Sugar?

Sing it to yourself. Right now. Go ahead.

Now sing it again.

And again.

And again and again and again.

And imagine doing that some more.

There's got to be more to this story that we don't know about.

Last week, after nicely asking him one too many times to stop talking and begin working, a boy told me to shut up repeatedly, then jumped out of his chair and said, "What are you gonna do, hit me?!? You gonna hit me?!?" I was baffled by his response, and did nothing except shake my head in disbelief and send him to the office immediately. He was suspended for three days.

He returned yesterday, and in the middle of class I heard him exclaim with anger, "YO! Who wrote 'WACK NIGGA' on my workbook while I was gone?!?"

Completely deadpan, I responded, "It was me."

He looked up at me in surprise. "What?! Yoooooo...are you serious?!" he asked in disbelief.

I stared at him for a moment to keep the suspense as his mouth gaped open. "No it wasn't me!" I said with a smile.

"Awww, I's about to say, mister!"

And then I busted up in laughter at the thought of me sneaking around the room, scrawling gangsta insults on the personal belongings of students with whom I have a vendetta. It would be a hilarious way to handle disagreements. And somedays, I think it just might be more effective than the typical methods...or at least maybe more satisfying.

China's got their own Sanjaya on their hands...his name is NEVILLE.

I desperately wanted to travel to Philly on Friday night in order to see my favorite Icelandic instrumental quartet, Amiina (the ones who inspired me to pick up the musical saw). But when tickets went unpurchased and I found no one to accompany me, I decided otherwise, and our weekend became very interesting from there.

I insisted with Erica that we do something a little out of the ordinary to keep me out of a typical Friday night depression, and with it being a pleasant evening, we decided to go hiking up at Bake Oven Knob, a small peak located on the nearest part of the Appalachian trail.

Shortly after arriving, a man appeared from among the rocks, face hidden under a baseball cap and a thick, unkempt beard. He was wearing dirty, baggy hiking clothes and drinking out of a plastic water bottle that he clutched like a security blanket. He spoke a greeting in his monotone voice and we returned the gesture. He stood on top of the rocks and stared out into the distance.

We eventually struck up conversation, as he asked if we were from the area and wondered if we knew anything about the house located just below on the mountainside. We ended up asking all of the questions and found out he was our age and had been walking since last February. He started in Florida, walked up the coastline on the beaches to Virginia, came through Washington, DC, and found the Appalachian Trail in Maryland a little more than a month ago. He had no tent or sleeping bag, and simply slept by a fire every night. He wasn't exactly sure where he was headed next, how much longer he'd be walking, or where his final destination was. He dodged the topic of family. Most of his thoughts centered around business, movement, change, and quantum theory. He had a lot of diverse desires and goals for his future plans. Trying to describe him is nearly impossible, as even when interacting with him, the minute you thought you had him pegged, he said something else that completely changed your perspective.

So, we talked about a variety of things, Erica chatting it up and dreaming and offering options and ideas as she usually does so easily and so well and me sitting and listening, taking it in with an occasional chuckle and awkward fidget.

Before long, we found ourselves extending an invitation to him: a ride into town, a home-cooked meal, a bed for the night. He took us up on it with little hesitation, and later informed us it's not something he often does. The majority of peoples he's run into have been unpleasant, angry, bitter, full of animosity, or just plain weird. But he could tell we were reasonable people, he explained.

He apologized ahead of time for his "lovely scent," and when we closed the car doors, we understood. The strong, pungent odor of several months of sweat and campfire smoke was oppressive. But we continued to talk the whole way home, telling him about the area and continuing to talk about his "journey" and other various topics. When we returned home, he showered while I made a large serving bowl full of pasta with chicken, asparagus, peppers, and peanut sauce. Dinner was served around 10:00PM, and we continued to watch him eat for two hours straight, eating several helpings of pasta, salad, several pieces of bread, and finishing off with strawberry shortcake.

On Saturday morning, I took him to the laudromat to wash the few articles of clothing he had. Meanwhile, I gave him a tour of the steel factories, which he thoroughly enjoyed. After getting his clothes, we found a dumpster behind a nearby grocery store. I watched him disappear inside and emerge several minutes later with 6 loaves of bread, 5 bags of bagels, 4 pork loins, a large bag of potatoes, and a bag of donuts. It brought a huge smile to my face! I've heard a lot about dumpster diving, but never expected the sheer elation brought by driving off with a backseat full of free groceries. Later, I showed him around historic Bethlehem, which appealed to his interest in architecture. An Easter bunny was waving to shoppers on Main Street, and both of us were surprised by its hissing-fang-bearing-look-of-terror that we think was supposed to be a jovial grin.

To make a long story a little bit shorter, Wes and I took him back to the mountain late Saturday night and had an epic goodbye on top of the knob.

He was no axe-murderer or fugitive of the law. (I googled him today with no conclusive results.) Sure, he got weirder and weirder as time went on, but it was nothing you wouldn't expect from someone who has been in complete isolation for over a year...nothing you wouldn't expect from a caveman entering civilization...Encino Man, for instance.

There is so much I could say about this short 24-hour encounter, both about this character we picked up and also about our selfish, fumbling, failed attempts in this experiment of what was supposed to be love and compassion and hospitality. I won't go into it all, but I will explain the focus of my thoughts...

When we were sitting up on the mountain and first found out about his journey, I leaned over to Erica and whispered, "I'm jealous." The part of me that is always wishing to be a hermit, always wishing to escape this world with all of its busyness and routine, always trying to avoid awkward socialization, greatly admired this man and his crazy life.

At several points, he talked about the idea of being self-sufficient. He liked the idea, and was obviously striving for it in his simplistic lifestyle. And sure, there is something about self-sufficiency that is appealing to many, perhaps in the way it integrates ideas of independence, conservation, individuality and simplicity.

And while I might have liked the idea before, it didn't take me long this weekend to realize that self-sufficiency is a myth.

If this man was self-sufficient, why was he taking us up on car rides, meals, a bed, a shower, and $2.25 in quarters to wash his clothes?

We need each other. Desperately.

I found it ironic that one of the first things he did when he entered our apartment was ask for permission to read the writing on the windows hanging in our hallway. Written on them at the moment are lyrics by Aaron Weiss and words by the Apostle Paul about our desperate need for each other.

In our world, so many people want to be independent and self-sufficient. In our world, middle schoolers along with so many others proclaim: "I don't need you! I do what I want!" And while so many people think this leads to contentment, it most often leads to isolation, loneliness, and depression. For me, it's been exciting lately to see the stark contrast of God's plan to this attitude, to see the importance of the body of believers, to see our dependence on God, and dependence on the people around us.

So for me, I learned that as much I want to be a hermit, it simply won't be fulfilling in the long run. I need the people around me. And I value my interaction with people much more than I sometimes let myself believe.

And for him, well, who knows what he thought. He admitted early on that, in being so isolated, any human interaction he has stays with him for days, every word ringing clearly in his head as he walks. Perhaps something we said or something we did will help him realize that he cannot be self-sufficient for very long, he cannot do it alone. He desperately needs a mom, a dad, a sister, a brother, a friend, a companion...and they need him, too.

"...What good is just one note?!..."

if any of you have any experience or wisdom to share for traveling in europe--best places to visit, where to stay, cheap ways to get there, and/or resources to use in planning--let me know.

Erica and I just finished watching Stranger Than Fiction. Finally, a movie we could both enjoy at the same time! It was quite good, so this is me recommending it to you. You'll probably be reading my thoughts about it in the upcoming days.

One student's artistic rendering of me, a way to pass the time after finishing the PSSAs...
I was both pleased and surprised by the large, jovial grin with which she chose to portray me. When thinking of what else she could add, it struck her and she exclaimed, "Zits!" She quickly picked up her red colored pencil, but I intervened, asking, "Do you really need to add those?" She reconsidered and, strangely enough, chose instead to add my "mustache growing in." If you look at the large version of the picture, you can see the subtle green dots she added on my upper lip. Such exquisite detail, no?

Perhaps I was just glad to receive a drawing that didn't portray me as a nerd with sweaty armpits or Spiderman, the two most frequent choices.

reading THIS made me awfully sad i was missing out...

Just when I was getting over the pain and turmoil caused by the argyle sweater, I was ridiculed again today for wearing another outfit.

This one wasn't an expected target by any means. I've worn it before, and it's a nice business-casual, under-the-radar, classic option. I would even expect it to earn a few cool points from the kids, at least subconsciously.

It's a green polo shirt. I'm no color expert, but let's say, oh, maybe, grass green. It looks kind of like this, only a little brighter:
I don't know what it is about the color green, but pretty much EVERY kid gave me hard time for wearing it today. There's something about the color green, something every kid in my school knows about, that makes them despise the color, so much so that they are mad at you for wearing it.

I have no idea.

Is green just out of style with middle schoolers at the moment? Am I simply at a low point in the trend?

Or is it the color of a rival gang? (Yes, we have rival gangs at our school; it's a good possibility.)

Or is there some sort of cultural consensus, some superstition or unwritten rule about wearing green?

Actually, I think the last one's the answer...

I laughed when that New York Times article mentioned the audacious question "Are you gay?," because you would not believe how many times I hear it. Actually, most students aren't courteous enough to ask, they just tell me I'm gay instead, insisting on it, giving me no say in the matter.

But last week I wore another green shirt, and one girl said, "You can't wear green today! It means you're gay!" And someone else said, "You can't wear green yet!" Then, today, everyone was referring to it as a "gay color." And once again, the New York Times hit the nail on the head: do you ignore it or discuss it? With one of my classes, I attempted to explain that being gay involves a lot more than wearing a certain color, and that colors themselves, inherently, cannot possibly be gay, and so on and so forth, but I don't think they were picking up what I was laying down. No matter how many times I told them to "grow up," they continued.

(One girl, after ridiculing my green shirt and calling me gay, went so far as to insist that my wife was just a cover up!)

So, I don't really get it, but I do think someone started a certain "Heterosexuals don't wear green on Thursdays" rule and everyone's decided to follow it.

Ridiculous, I know, but let's remember that while you and I never made up the green-on-Thursday rule, we had all sorts of little immature games just the same. A friend recently recalled asking everyone in middle school if they were "PT"...if they said yes, they were a Pregnant Teen...if they said no...they were not Potty Trained. Sadly enough, we all did it. It's a wonderful stage of life.

Couldn't God have wired adolescents just a little bit differently? Just a little bit more normally?