"Can I call you cute?"

I was hanging out with some friends this weekend, when one of their moms, upon meeting me, said (asked?), "can I call you cute?" I'm not really sure what to say to that. I think I went with the Tom Cruise approach: I just laughed. My friend seemed a little embarrassed, and immediately slipped in a "sorry about that." But honestly, that's okay. At least somebody is calling me cute. Actually, I seem to get this on a fairly common basis from moms. Apparently, I am really attractive to women in their mid-life. Maybe I've found myself in a modern day version of The Graduate. Or maybe not. Hopefully not.

On a similar note, I have a profile up on Match again, and in it I clearly say that I am only looking for serious Christians. I mean, it's in my frickin' headline, even! Somehow, girls just don't get it, despite how explicit I am. Today I get a wink from a girl, and I read her profile, only to discover that she was raised Catholic, but hasn't been to church in 4 years. Sorry, but that's not taking God seriously. And I'm not going to date a girl who just goes to church for or because of me. It's only going to work if we both go to church for God, and share that common approach to life. Somehow these girls just don't get it. I suppose they think that God isn't important to them, so this really isn't important to me (which, of course, doesn't make any sense, because in my profile I specifically state that God is central to my life). Alas, more attention from girls that do not interest me. There seems to be a lot of that these days. But the ones I want attention from are nowhere to be found.

Where am I?

I just got back from a 3 week vacation this past Saturday. The vacation was quite necessary. It was great to just get away from things for a while, see old friends, adventure with close friends, visit my college church, hang out with my pastor, and just love on some people using some muscle and sweat. It didn't all turn out quite as I had planned, but I think I made the best of it.

When I finally got home Saturday night, I was absolutely exhausted. It felt awesome - I was overwhelmed to be back in Princeton, but relieved as well. That night I slept like a brick, and woke up with plenty of time to make the 10:30 service Sunday. I was still pretty cooked Sunday night, but then something really freaky happened.

I was sleeping like a brick, when all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, I woke up. It was almost pitch dark, but I could faintly discern the outline of my surroundings. And I had absolutely no idea where I was. Now I have had similar experiences, but much less intense. This night, my heart started racing, and I felt almost a panic stirring in my chest as I wondered where on earth I could be. For some reason I thought my buddy psychlist was also in the room (probably because I spent many a night sleeping inches from him in a tent, and several more in his apartment). Then I started to wonder why I didn't have any clothes on with someone else in the room (I do like to sleep naked, but not normally with others in the same room). Of course, I was in one of those dreamy stupors brought on by deep sleep, and that just made the puzzle of my whereabouts that much more confusing and disconcerting. My very location and orientation within the room made little sense to me. I didn't have the slightest clue where I was, and that is a frightening thing to face.

It felt like forever, as I disconcertingly tried to ascertain my location, but it was probably only a few minutes before I finally realized where I was. A huge wave of relief went through my whole body. I was "home", whatever that means. And I was alone. It took me several more minutes to calm down, and then I passed out again, in peace.