I just woke up at the crack of 2pm when my grandpa called checking up on my mom. Apparently she had called and left a message saying she'd call back which she hasn't so he got a little worried. Anyway, he and I had a nice, be it brief, conversation about my new apartment (which I still always spell with two 'p's the first time) and my car and my job and that I'm going to live with my sister for the first week of work.

The dream I had woken up from was an odd one. I wish I still remembered it vividly, but after the conversation with my grandpa, I almost forgot about it. I dreamt I had died the day before my mom's wedding, and gone to heaven, or more like this waiting area before heaven. It wasn't limbo or purgatory or anything. It was like heaven's lobby, like Welcome to Heaven! We have trains leaving every evening sort of thing. So I was there with a bunch of people I knew from church. My mom even showed up at one point. Jesus was there and sort of directing things, and kids were playing in a yard. It wasn't heaven as you'd expect it though. People were sad, and the weather was cloudy, then rainy, then freezing cold and snowy. Christians always talk about questions they'll ask God when they get to heaven. I tried a few of them out on Jesus, and received only questions in return, just like he would have answered on earth. That made me irritated, and angry -- two things I wouldn't expect in heaven.

We went to have dinner in a house, a very large house. I think we flew (in a plane of sorts) to get there. Out the window you could see a lot of land, but it wasn't beautiful. Most of it needed reworking, or had abandoned buildings in decay or burnt down leaving only charred beams sticking out of the ground. Before dinner, we watched or played some video game that was a combination of Mario and Godzilla with the Wiimote. I broke my record for timing this car-jack pumping motion as Mario was trying to bounce Godzilla's mouth open. A couple people that were in my youth group when I was in youth group were watching. I never got the feeling they liked me much except to make fun of me (in real life), and their attitudes hadn't really changed.

Dinner was salad from a bag (the lettuce was a little old and turning white), steamed rice, steamed vegetables, and roasted pig. I think at least most of that came from imagining my mom's wedding dinner -- at least the pig did. The rice and cheap lettuce may have come from the dinner on my birthday when we went to King's Teriyaki.

At some point one of the guys that didn't like me pulled out a laptop that was running Vista, but he had the Windows 95 scheme to it -- those people always bothered me. Also, he had a windowed X11 process running, and I was trying to figure out how he did that, a little jealous that he knew how when I was the CS major. It turned out he didn't know how he did it. One of the other guys commented, "You always did love computers, huh?" That's the kind of thing people say when they want you to feel included but have no idea how to actually talk about the topic they know you're interested in. It also implies that they think that's all you're interested in, if that's the only way they start a conversation with you. We talked a little bit laughing at jokes about the size of computer chips, saying the guy with the laptop was using eight pounds of memory, which translated to like 128K.

At some point, before or after this I don't remember, I was thinking, this isn't what heaven is supposed to be like. Things are supposed to be better. We're supposed to be entirely fulfilled by God's presence, and yet, it felt no different than on earth. We were supposed to see God's face! Jesus was supposed to answer questions, rather than questioning the validity of the question, or even dodging it, it felt. We aren't supposed to feel things like jealousy, annoyance, and anger, because there weren't supposed to be reasons to feel those things. People, myself included, weren't supposed to be harboring grudges from back on earth. I never really figured there'd be "technology" in Heaven. The land should be cleaner, and untouched by human hands perhaps -- not burnt and destroyed and misused and strip-mined. Then a question occurred to me: how would you expect heaven to be? My answer started out sort of stereotypically -- not like clouds and harps and halos and such, but like, clean and beautiful. Then to finish my sentence, I said "and people would help each other, selflessly." But how can people help each other if we have all our needs met?

Of course, I don't expect to see heaven as I saw it in my dream. It contradicts the Bible a half a dozen times. But that last question, that one's got me thinking right now. The new earth we'll live on -- I assume we'll have to take care of it, will get to take care of it, and will succeed in taking care of it, unlike the one we're currently on. But I wonder if there will be needs met by God, but through us, just like on earth. We will work, but will we need to work to sustain ourselves? Will there be money? Will Jesus answer questions like "Did evolution happen?" and "Was Noah's ark a story or history?" Or will he answer them asking, "Does it matter?" If he does, will that frustrate me?

Well, since I'm already halfway through a decent-sized post, I suppose I ought to finish it, recapping what's happened since my last post. It wouldn't be justice to forget those things, right? And it's certainly not just an excuse not to finish (or start) packing. Anything but that.

Saturday the 28th, I went to Seattle to visit Alexander. He lives in a nice apartment with a few of his friends from college. It's sort of in the middle of a busy suburb, and the closest big street, he can only turn right onto. I think that'd annoy me. Can saying something like that be taken offensively? Saying something about an apartment he didn't build doesn't say anything about him. He chose the apartment, with his friends, and he seems to like it, which is all that really matters, so....

After dinner and watching him play the Sims a little bit, and then of course Rummy filled with stories of 21st-year rituals, I headed up to Bellingham to visit. I stayed at Hime's place. Her sister was supposed to come up the same night, so I might have had to go sleep at Hime's house for next year, but she didn't ever show. Around 10 or 11, Hime and I started to get hungry, and she and I badgered Gaul and Cammy into going to Applebee's with us -- because I haven't spent enough money there already. Hime especially enjoyed riding in my car, after three years of driving me around. A thought occurred to me the next day watching her play Halo: Is the reason people call "shotgun" because that seat, in a war vehicle seats someone who shoots as the other person drives? Another question for Heaven. So the four of us were seated, and the waiter thought it was a double date, so we joked that Gaul and I were there together, and Cammy and Hime. While we were waiting for our food, somehow innuendo started that Hime wanted to be on Gaul, and when it got to be a little out of hand, Cammy said somewhat jokingly, "This isn't good dinner conversation." Without missing a beat (and quite honestly without thinking first), I said, "Yeah, we keep work at work." I think it was the quickest funny insult I've ever come up with. I don't really know how Hime took it. She sort of glared at me and said, "Thanks Jordan." I would never mean that seriously.

We went back and talked for a while longer, but went to bed pretty quickly. It was quite hot that night, and even with the windows open, I slept without a shirt or blanket, still sweating, until around 3am, when the heat died down. I'd planned on going to FPC that morning, but Hime didn't want to go, and most of the people I normally sit with were out of town. I was certainly capable of going alone, but I didn't.

That day, whether intentionally or not, Hime reminded me of why we wouldn't make a good couple, even were she attracted to me.

We all watched her play Halo for a bit. Gaul and I played a little bit of Smash Bros, but she's not really played it yet, so she doesn't have almost any of the unlockable characters. That morning I made a Facebook event to see Wall-E that evening and invited some 50 people. I knew most wouldn't make it, because they were out of town or were busy and it was late notice and such. Two that weren't in the apartment I was staying in, came, Bob and Nikkie, and it was a lot of fun. Rosa had gone home that weekend because her parents offered to pay for gas. I had been hoping she might make it back up in time. We got to the theater a good 45 minutes early, got tickets, and walked over to McDonald's. When we got back, the only section of five seats (Cammy had to see it with her boyfriend first) together left available were in two rows, so Nikkie, Bob, and I sat in front of Hime and Gaul. The movie is hilarious. Seriously, it's probably my favorite Pixar movie and I'm a sucker for those.

Pretty soon after the movie, I drove back home. I wasn't in any rush, so I didn't really mind any of the traffic I hit, which was sparse to begin with. Further, there was a spectacular lightning show in the clouds. A Third Day song came on called "Show Me Your Glory" and right as the line, "It was like a flash of lighting / Reflected off the skies" was sung, a lightning bolt streaked from cloud to cloud. The storm must have lasted an hour. Oddly, the drive home was my favorite part of the weekend, because it was the closest I've felt to God in a long time.

Monday was my birthday. I went out to lunch with a family friend, as is tradition, to Silver City. They had changed their menu, and the pizza I normally get was pretty gross. I'm not even sure the root beer was the same. Next year I think we'll pick a different restaurant. Traditions die hard.

That evening, I went with my mom and Jack to see Wall-E again. It was good the second time as well, though no one laughed at the thing I thought was funniest the first time around. Apparently they haven't been around Macintosh enough. After that, like I said, I went to King's Teriyaki.

On Tuesday I met with Eowyn over smoothies. I really should have told them to hold the chalky supplement. Them be nasty things. We talked about all sorts of things. I had asked her via txt earlier how things were going with finding answers about God, and she said it'd be best to talk over those things in person, so I purposely brought it up. I'd been a little worried that she'd given up in her faith, but it turns out she was just realizing that you can be a Christian without being her parents. And she was finding it difficult to act outside of how people expected her to act, which is common, I think, in people her age -- it's the real reason we like to go off to college. And we talked about her crazy roommate situation (left intentionally ambiguous). They were going to have to delay moving in together because of various reasons, and I thought maybe the apartments might let Eowyn move in first into a single-room, and then switch rooms partway through the lease within the same complex. A couple of the complexes I visited when I was hunting offered to do that. Alas, hers does not. She'd gotten pretty excited about that prospect too.

On Wednesday I began to pack a little. I've been playing WoW for nearly a month now, and am pretty bored of it. I leveled from 27 to 39 quicker than I've ever leveled, with much help from QuestHelper. I also met a couple people during a run of RFC, Lipsandhips and Lessie. The three of us were making fun of the other two, who were bickering. One was a Warlock who liked to tank with his grey sword, and the other, who was much better, claimed to be one of the best PvP hunters in WoW. Anyway, the three of us all friended each other and Lipsandhips always talks to me when we're on at the same time. Anyway, on Tuesday or Wednesday I got bored of the 30-39 PvP bracket and leveled to get my mount. On Wedneday I told Lipsandhips that I probably wouldn't be on much anymore because I was starting work and had to pack up my desktop and such. She seemed sad, which I thought was kind of funny, because we really haven't had any meaningful conversation.

On Thursday I discovered Mario Kart Wii online battle. It's the most fun I've had playing a game in a very long time. It's simple and doesn't take long to find a game, and you can be good at it, but you don't have to be in order for it to be fun. It's not laggy. And it's free! No monthly fees! I spent most of that day playing the Grand Prix cups trying to unlock everything. I met a crossroads when Dry Bones was unlocked and I suddenly had to choose between him and Koopa Troopa. I chose Dry Bones, and that decision was solidified when I unlocked The Quacker, which is the most awesome bike there is. Dry Bones in the Quacker looks sleek and deadly, accentuated by the giant duck head acting as a wind shield. Koopa in The Quacker looks silly with a bunch of different colors, when The Quacker was quite obviously meant to be chrome and grey. The one down-side to the combination is that Mario Kart Wii has really messed up physics for bumping into other players, and well, if you tap someone Dry Bones in the Quacker will fly off the track, even against someone like Baby Mario on the generic dirt bike. This leads me to believe that babies should not be driving dirt bikes.

Yesterday I caught up on Last Comic Standing. They didn't pick a few of the people I would have picked, in particularly Stone and Stone, and Mary, but Marcus made it through and he was the best performer that night. Papa CJ did make it through, and I usually like him, but during that performance he didn't tell any new jokes, so that was kind of a downer. That evening I went to Jack's house to watch fireworks. I thought I would like one of his British friends, but he plays smarter than he is, and that was a letdown. After the show, I began to drive home, and there was a firetruck coming toward me. A very wide one, I think, with its lights flashing. I stopped first, and so did he, then I tried to move as far right as I could, and stopped again when I heard a loud pop. After he passed me, I pulled over, and found that I had hit a car with my right mirror, which had popped off, seeming undamaged. It had dented the other car's left blinker and left a scrape, that I hope will be easily buffed out along the side of the car. I knocked on the door of the closest house and asked if the owner of the vehicle was there. He was pretty cool about it and I think he agreed not to call my insurance company, but I'm not sure about that, as long as I agreed to pay for the damages, which I of course did. He also didn't call the police, and for that I was grateful.

That about catches this blog up with my life. Now I need to shower, dress, and hope I can get to Vlist's before it closes so they can pop that mirror back on before I leave tomorrow.