The Progress Of Ryan

Here's a newsflash: talking to a girl over coffee of even over voicemail reduces me to Jell-o. I'm thirty for Chrissakes, this is not supposed to be. I don't have this problem with ALL girls, just the ones that are devastatingly cute and Christian. If I wasn't attracted to her, I'd come off as smooth as can be. It amuses me in the most dreadful of ways. It all reminds me of that first girl; Emma Thompson in grade nine, of being faced with dancing with her at the freshman prom with "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" blaring in the gym (how apt). Or maybe it was "More Than Words" by those gay Nelson brothers... both tracks were big that year.

Le sigh.

I don't intend for this to be a personal venue for my wacky hijinks with the fairer sex. But c'est la vie. I'm just more than a bit frustrated at the moment because I don't know where I stand... I have a target and I'm prosecuting that target to the best of my ability and in the most responsible, mature Christian-guy way possible until I'm either foiled, successful or dead.

Feelings Unexpressed

I have tried to organize what few blogs I follow anymore with Google Reader so all the new posts just show up in abbreviated form on my ever handy Google homepage. It is really useful and helps me to keep track of the lives of the few friends that regularly blog (A-hem, you know who you are). But when I am scanning, I frequently mistake an entry from one of my friends with the blog of Shane Nickerson, seeming actor and link off of Wil Wheaton. It usually takes me a few seconds to realize in my confused state that no, Nickie really isn't dropping the 'F' bomb in her post... that would be a tad out-of-character.

But this is the point that I am trying to drive at; he (Nickerson) wrote something so beautiful and direct. It's one of the many times that I read something and whole-heartedly relate to and wonder if someone has not been inside my head. "I could have written that, but now I can't because that would be intellectual poaching and just... lame." So my duty then is to point it out and say what a wonderful spot of writing it is. Which it is.

Grandma

Every once-in-a-while God reminds us that we are not the centre of our own mini-universe by pulling out the rug beneath our feet. The past few days, I've been on that high (planning coffee with a gorgeous Christian girl will do that to me) and just starting to notice it. And God decided to reset things a tad this morning when I received a call and e-mail from my Mum explaining that my Grandmother (my Dad's Mum) is going to have her leg amputated because of gangrene in the toes.

We knew this was coming and my Grandma seems 'OK' with it. She is eighty and when I visited her in July (photo) she seemed so unimaginably frail and somewhat Hobbit-like. I felt as if I would break her by putting my arm around her.

This is a good thing, really. When the gaze wanders from Jesus and other people to yourself and your own petty concerns it needs to be 'reset'. As if God has a universe-encompassing Etch-A-Sketch and just shakes it to erase the image to start something better.

So, reset. And where is my bible?