You know how I feel about posting twice in a row, but this is too big to be quiet about. I have a job(s) in Portland, and I'm moving down there over the next two weeks. I put in my two weeks at work today, and I dropped off my month notice to my apartment complex, so it's been one of those big-deal days today. I get to live with a Michael-Patrick-like guy that goes to my church in a house for significantly less than I pay for my stupid apartment. And my new job is full-time, and not six days a week, and not nights, and not making picky people's sandwiches. Of course I won't eat as much, and it will actually cost me money to eat Quiznos now, but I'll be making enough to actually pay for it, maybe. And I'll be less than two miles from my girlfriend's campus! I get a girlfriend, a job that's not best suited for high schoolers, I'll be living in a house and maybe riding some mass transit to work, or something. I'm so grown up. I know all of you have been doing this for like six years or something, but I'm slow and awkward, so it would take me this long to be an adult by nature of income and living situation.
Not as fun as my usual blogs, I know. I've gotta go clean my apartment. My young lady might be stopping by, and I'm waiting to unload crumbly/lazy Steve on her until later. Well, she's seen lazy, but untidy, that can wait. Just like love, and patience. True patience waits. Sorry, I didn't sleep much, thinking about quitting my job and stuff like that, so I'll find somewhere else to drop all this stupid until one of you guys has something important (or not) to talk about on here. Later.
P.S. Kurbis - can you explain Australian rules football to me? Ms. Australia herself has me watching games, and it's confounding, so if you have some time, please help me seem less like the unathletic loser I am, at least in front of the girlfriend. Thanks.

Figured I'd make good on a promise, though I don't have a lot of time.

1. One book that changed your life – In the Presence of Fear by Wendell Berry

2. One book that you've read more than once – Camus, The Stranger

3. One book you'd want on a desert island - Complete Shakespeare, Oxford Compact Edition, The Tempest would then become #2

4. One book that made you laugh out loud – Chesterton, Orthodoxy

5. One book that made you cry – Giacomo Leopardi, Selected Poems

6. One book that you wish had been written – Stephen Hubka's Doctoral Thesis on philosophicalegonomicescoterians.... right.

7. One book you wish had never been written – The Beginning of the End, Tim LaHaye

8. One book you're currently reading– Anthem, Rand, and wanting to finish Freakonomics.

9. One book you've been meaning to read – Orlando, and Last of the Mohicans.

Any updates on my life center around books these days, since the only thing of importance that I've been doing is finishing my master's thesis. Boring, I know. There are a couple of other exciting things going on, but everything's so up in the air right now, I'll just wait and post about it when things are more certain. So for now, everyone should take a few minutes and follow Brad's lead: He posted this list of "one book" sentences on his blog and asked others to do the same. I think it's fascinating to see what others value in books (cause I'm a nerd like that), so here's my list and I'm looking forward to seeing others... (no pressure).

1. One book that changed your life – Robert Coles’s 5-book Children of Crisis series

2. One book that you've read more than once – I’m currently reading The Professor’s House by Cather for about the 16th time…

3. One book you'd want on a desert island - Writing the Sacred Journey by Elizabeth J. Andrews

4. One book that made you laugh out loud – Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories and Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.

5. One book that made you cry – Wasted by Marya Hornbacher, Lucy Gayheart by Cather, and Center of Winter (also Hornbacher)

6. One book that you wish had been written – Anything with the words “By Lynnea Faith Erickson” on the cover

7. One book you wish had never been written – I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and most math or science-related books I was forced to read in college (don’t kill me, Tyler).

8. One book you're currently reading– (see answer #2), but I’m also working my way through Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Calvino’s Cosmicomics, and Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (William Zinsser, ed.)

9. One book you've been meaning to read – Oh my, those weighing most heavily on my list (for obvious reasons) include Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and Joyce’s Ulysses. One of these days.

(Yes, I know that I cheated by listing more than one book for most answers, but it would have taken me about ten times as long to try to narrow it down). Your turn!

Well, Kurbis is getting fiesty, and I do have some big news. Hopefully it'll be solidified a bit better tomorrow night, but... I'm going to tell the story from the beginning. Some of you may have already heard about this because I was too excited not to send some random e-mails, but if this is the first you've heard, don't feel left out. Or do, and give me a call. Or give me money. Wardrobe suggestions. Anything really.
I went dancing last Saturday after a grueling split shift at work. In less time than it takes the average person to competently fill out the first page of their taxes, I was home, showered, changed, and walking into an Elk's Lodge to have a good night. There weren't more than thirty people there. I danced with a few different girls. Whatever. Then I noticed two girls off to one side of the room. Cute girls. You know how I feel about cute girls. I asked the first one to dance. She was pretty darn good. The next song, I asked the other one. She said this was her first swing dance and she was still working on the basics. We had a good dance, the song ended, and I thought I was socially required to keep cycling through the other dozen girls there when this one particular girl asked if we could just keep dancing. I, of course, said no. Ha! I'm not that stupid. For the next two hours, I danced almost constantly with this one girl, and we talked, and the music would stop, and we'd be standing talking, and another song would start and she would say "can we dance and talk at the same time?" and she smiled a lot. I'll admit I was a little smitten. Oh, and she's got an Australian accent with about half her words (grew up in Australia), so that's hot. And she goes to a small Christian college in Portland, almost the same size as Crown. Yeah, she's a tutor. College sophomore. I asked her for her number with some awkward adage about going out for coffee. She gave me her number. She left. I drummed on my dashboard almost the entire drive home.
Luckily the story isn't over. I called her yesterday (held off as long as I could), we talked for a long time (and you know what that means if it's me saying it), and we're going out tomorrow night. Now this is how dating is supposed to work!
Oh, I guess that's not a good subject to keep this thing rolling. What can I say that's antagonistic enough so that Kurbis is happy? I'll write a syllogism:
Hilary Clinton is all evil.
Hilary Clinton is a Democrat.
Democrats are all evil.
I love this logic stuff. I'll try another and really get Kurbis going.
Duerkop is good.
Duerkop is a Republican.
Duerkop is not Hilary Clinton
Therefore Duerkop is not in it for his own glory.
Let's try one more:
Hubka is really excited about his date tomorrow night.
Hubka is not taking Hilary Clinton out.
Hubka is happy about that.
Bill Clinton is not.
Hubka forgot the rules of logic.
Hubka does not care because he has a hot date tomorrow night.
Therefore, Hubka is done writing.
Kurbis, it's your turn.