Happy Normalday.

Today is a day like any other, except that I was born. I've been conditioning myself to believe that for the past few years now. Any significance someone gives to this year's transition to that score-and-four thus feels unexpected, perhaps even undeserved. What better birthday can you have when you realize everything you get is a gift? Consider this,then, my thank you card.

Thank you Facebook friends, for taking ten seconds out of your day to wish me a happy birthday. The act itself is fairly trivial and banal, which makes it all the more puzzling why you would choose to do it, and makes me all the more grateful that you still did.

Thank you "Friends," for the card. I came home to be stunned by changes to the house and thrilled by the long awaited home-cooked meal; only to be floored by this colorful welcome wagon in addition.



Melron put together what she titled "Words From Friends," a collection of notes each featuring one word they thought described me and why. It's all too clever, a kind of appreciation mosaic of how people have been individually affected by your life. I enjoy receiving clothes, shoes, gift cards, electric toothbrushes, whitening strips--even books these days--but expressions of encouragement and affection like this trump them all (of course if you wanted to get me anything C.S. Lewis in addition, I certainly wouldn't mind).

Thank you Dad, for picking me up and waiting with me for a good half hour before realizing that the poor abandoned suitcase wandering the baggage carousel was actually mine. Thank you for the Chinese food lunch, the drive home, and probably one of best conversations we've ever had. Thank you Mom, for, in your own customized benevolence, bringing home generous amounts of Aveeno lotion. If in fifteen years my skin is retaining a remarkable amount of elasticity I'll know it's because of you.

Thank you Melody Cruz, you are always a good reason to come home. I consider myself someone generally able to articulate well and express myself creatively, but oh the many moments when I stand before you and find it difficult to speak. Your kindness, your patience, your gentility, all springing from your firm planting in the joy we have in Christ--they render my words inert in describing my admiration. Thank you for putting together such a thoughtful and touching gift. I love you.

Thank You God, for the way you strive to please a sinner who has too often rebelled against You. Thank you for the chasing me down, staring straight into my soul and with the wonder that is Jesus' sacrifice revealing Your heart to me. Thank you, for although I was once dead in my sin I am now alive in Christ.

Here's to twenty-four, here's to many more,
Here's to seeking out what God has in store.
Whatever I lose, whatever I win,
All praises and glory and honor to Him!

Thank You Father, for the miracle of today...there's nothing normal about it.

Meet the Vices.

My vices dropped by last week, unexpected of course. They were vigorously intent on making up for lost time. It's been months since I've spent any real quality time with them--but you know how it is with vices, they always think it's been too long, you always think it hasn't been long enough.

Late-Night was the first to visit, which makes sense because he's particularly fond of overstaying his welcome. Shortly after came Late-Morning, who was invited by Late-Night because he swears it's always more fun when they're together. Forgetfulness was the next to arrive, I'm not sure when exactly, but by late last week he had already provoked me to lock myself out of my apartment twice--one of those times being in the rain, without an umbrella, on my way to an audition. Bingey would not stop bugging me about getting frozen custard, which we made two consecutive trips downtown to get, and I'm pretty sure he's the reason why my Golden Oreos keep disappearing. Impatience even stopped by...it wasn't that bad, though, he didn't stay for long.

I thought by then I had seen them all--when lo and behold, lurking in the corner stood an old vice…Anxiety. I was probably most surprised to see him. I mean, I still hear about him through friends, but it's been years since we've hung out one-on-one, so it was definitely an awkward hello we exchanged…well mine was agitated more than awkward. Just when I thought I was finally getting real closure on the sucker too.

It wasn't long before I had enough. I wasn't going to subject myself to this again. I confronted the vices and told them frankly that they came uninvited, and while a day or two is okay, I don't have a place for them to stay, not anymore. It's taken me months to dilute their influence, and I wasn't about to lose that progress and let them wreck the place.

"The difference between a virtue and a vice is that a virtue you have to think about."

- N.T. Wright

It's official, I'm a writer.

Expect typos...

I had long rebuffed the profession. I was always afraid of the pressure it came with, the expectation to be brilliant and technically sound, two things I've always had trouble maintaining. In high school I wrote two successful pieces of writing that would later come to haunt me. The first was a scene that I wrote for my friends and me to compete with at a theater competition. There was a technicality that disqualified it, but took it to the school talent show later that year and won, and after I graduated they entered it into another competition which they also won. The second was a personal essay I wrote as an assignment for my English class to prepare for our college applications. The teacher liked it so much he read it in class and posted it on the wall. Friends started to ask me for advice on their essays after that.

But then…that was it. I couldn't muster up another good piece of theater, or even flesh that scene into anything longer. My personal essay didn't trump my poor GPA, and when I took the writing exam my freshman year at UC Irvine I placed in the lowest level. Even then, my teachers complimented my creativity but because I wasn't as stellar in formatting or research I lingered in mediocrity. Even the blog took a dry spell, and for most of my college career I found myself with nothing to write about.

Then a few years later, I wrote a post that got me an overwhelming amount of response, spurring on a whole series. But in that I came to realize how rusty I had become. I felt like a boy who got on his soapbox only to find he'd come down with laryngitis. I had not exercised my voice in so long I felt it nearly gone. While I feel regret over not being a better writer then, that was the spark the jump-started my heart for this craft, if only in blog entries. Soon after I dedicated nearly every week to writing a post, and looking back at that year I could see my writing steadily growing again. But still the wonder remained, could I really make this anything more than a weekly op-ed piece among my peers? The question was left unanswered as after moving to New York, my writing dropped the consistency and suddenly became haphazard again. Those old fears quickly followed.

The start of the new year brought a lot of change for me, my most cherished accomplishment is a joy for reading, which is a very new experience and has given me a sharper mind, not to mention some literary heroes:

C. S. Lewis

Neil Simon

It also brought a new inspiration via one Gary Dontzig (head writer for Murphy Brown, Suddenly Susan, & Becker) who started his spiel as a guest speaker in my acting class with a very simple send-off:

"Every actor needs to be writing."

About as general as it can be uttered yet still I felt it speak directly to my situation. I started looking more into the profession, and after talking to a few playwrights and screenwriters I realized something very important--they get scared too. Writers are just like actors in that they don't escape the fear…they work through it. Reminds of something my acting teacher once told me:

"Being a professional isn't about how much experience you have, it's about how much commitment you have."

So that's it. I'm a writer. It's time to trust in the Lord and the gifts He's entrusted to me. There are days when the creativity flows out, and other days--weeks even--where I just can't get a hold of it. Nonetheless I'm going to commit to writing, exploring, experimenting, discovering. I'm not going to worry if brilliance will come, I'm simply going to work for the Lord and let Him show me if I'm going to get there or not. I mean it's His gift in the first place anyway. All the while I'm going to keep working out the muscle in daily committed writing--and get this, regular. blog. posts. After all, consistency is the theme of the year, right? Seems silly to not apply it to the vehicle by which I announced it. I even finished writing my first monologue.

It's going to take some time before I find my stride, but after all these months of auditioning and searching for that custom-fit role...I figure making one of my own is a good use of the wait.

Oh, and Melron, you're a fantastic editor.