the 24th week

"A pair of monsters!" - Brandy Rae Galloway

Monday. Dave & I opened, and after an afternoon of hanging out with Blake and Traci and Ams & Isaac, I went to The Anchor. It was almost too hot for coffee. The rest of my evening was spent at the Loth House watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Tuesday. I opened, went to The Anchor, and spent the evening dicking around with the Internet. All of a sudden it’s stopped working. Ams came over, and we played Call of Duty since we couldn’t watch Netflix.

Wednesday. Another day absent internet, so I went to The Anchor to get online but their internet was out, too! What luck. So I cruised through downtown to hang out with Amos at the Loth House for a while.

Thursday. I forewent The Anchor: the cable guy came over and fixed our internet. “Weirdest thing: your upstairs neighbors seem to have somehow gouged out your internet box by running into it and smashing it with their car.” The culprit diagnosed and dealt with, it was nice having internet back. I went to the Loth House for a while but didn’t stay long.

Friday. Ams had to move out of her house a week early ‘cause her landlord’s an idiot. After opening with Eric (such a slow day), I jetted up to Dayton to watch the dogs while Mom, Dad, and Ams were in Georgia for Alex’s graduation party. Tyler came over, and it was so good to see him: he’s living with his girlfriend, is in love, has a great job, life’s going great for him. I fight the envy. We got Wendy’s, chowed down on ice cream, watched Arrested Development, and chilled out in the kitchen. He headed home and I spent the evening hanging out with Tanner and Sky and contemplating, once again, the goodness and love of God. Reading Romans 1, we find that God “gives people up.” But he doesn’t do that to his own children. His love isn’t just seen in what he gives us, but also in what he keeps us from. He sabotages our own self-sabotage, as I put it several days ago. He stands in for us when we’re weak, thwarts those aims that will leave us in a far worse place. It’s an incredible thought: for all my issues, for all my waywardness, for all my sins and shortcomings, God genuinely likes me and is looking out for me when I’m not looking out for myself.

Saturday. Stephanie and I got breakfast at Bob Evan’s. We’ve decided we’re best just being friends, though we did explore (at least verbally) a romantic relationship for a bit. Truth be told, I’m still hung up over Mandy K. The hang up cost me a relationship with Mo, and it’s possibly keeping me from a great relationship with Stephanie. But until I deal with these… feelings… for the Wisconsinite, I’m in no place to date. I’ll just reinforce my reputation of leaving broken hearts in my wake. I spent the day writing before heading to Columbus for John’s bachelor party. As I was nearing the city I got a call from Josh: the party was cancelled. John’s dad is in really bad shape: apparently the lymphoma’s back (he was declared clean a few weeks ago), and it’s worse than ever. Both John and Brandy cancelled their respective parties to high-tail it to Dayton to be with John’s dad. It’s awful, simply awful, sickeningly awful.

Sunday. Oh man. WHAT A DAY. Not only did the fourth season of Arrested Development come out, but I went to North Park and sat on the log down by the ravine and Mandy K. texted me, initiating a 4-hour talk about “us.” She dropped the equivalent of a bombshell: she wants to try again, or at least is thinking about it. Basically she likes what I want, she’s still interested, and though she isn’t 100% sure, she wants to try again. She said timing in 2011 was off, but we’ve both done a lot of growing since then, and she wants to pick up where we left off: Skype, phone calls, visits. She wants to really explore this, see if it can work. I’m excited, hesitant, scared, disbelieving. I’m on edge, half-expecting her to call everything off come sunset and sunrise. So I’m just going to see what happens. I headed down to Cincinnati to watch Clover (John & Brandy spent most of the day in Dayton, and Amos is in North Carolina with Blake & Isaac getting tattooed). When John and Brandy returned to the Loth House, they gave us the scoop: chemo isn’t working, they can’t do a bone marrow transplant without successful chemo, and they say Jim has days or weeks to live. He’s being set up in hospice and then he’ll get care at home. We cried, we consoled one another, and we took steps to just shut down our minds. All of this, the hope of Mandy K. and the tragedy of Jim, just makes me feel… numb.