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It’s 4:35 AM and we are driving into New York from Canada to catch our flight home. I’m in the back seat of the minivan with suitcases and guitars stacked around me. It’s dark and hazy out, with truckers and a few cars floating past us on their way towards Toronto.

Night quiets our lives. Businesses lock the doors, commercials stop yelling, and people go to bed. The world stops for a few hours and surrenders to their need to sleep.

Night puts things into perspective.

Tom, Matt, Everett, and his wife are laughing and telling stories up front. I can see their silhouettes against the light of the high way. We’ve been on the road for an hour now, and we’ve been sharing experiences about the past week at World Youth Day.

I’ve heard some powerful, life-changing words this week. I am affirmed and challenged by the Pope to live a life entangled with Christ. The pope said, “You are young, and the pope is old…I consign my hope to you.”

In twelve hours, I’ll drop my luggage on the floor and flop onto my bed. How do I answer the call, for the rest of the day? For the rest of my life?

Last night was a night unlike any other I’ve ever had.

The street, normally covered with cabs and streetcars, was now blocked off for a reenactment of the last hours of Jesus Christ’s life on earth: the Stations of the Cross. The horde of people walked along the street as the Roman soldiers with torches surrounded Jesus. You could hear the scraping of the huge cross over the pavement. After an hour and a mile, the last stations were held in a central location. It was dark by now, and the thousands of people watched the stage and screens. Some were pilgrims at World Youth Day, others were unsuspecting businessmen working late in the sky scrapers around us.

Helicopters hovered above us to capture the scene. I saw overhead camera shots like news stations following a police chase. There were barricades holding back the mob and police lights flashing as a man crowned with thorns was brought to death. It was the ancient story of the crucifixion told in the 21st century.

I saw a human nailed to a cross and hoisted thirty feet into the air. That is a gruesome and bone-chilling experience. What has hung around my neck became terribly real.

It’s almost noon now and I am sitting in my hotel room on the seventh floor. The windows are cracked and the breeze is lifting the sheer curtains. I can hear the city bustling beneath me. It’s quit. I am still trying to understand what happened yesterday.

Do you ever hear God’s whisper?

I didn’t know what to say. My mind was too busy to slow down enough to remember if I slow down enough.

Yes, I believe I’ve heard God’s whisper. But, the past few months have been a blur, and everyone is shouting at me, but God. He continues to whisper.

I am sitting at Coffee Plantation on what was supposed to be a lazy Saturday morning. It’s 10:30 and this place is hopping. There is a PTA type meeting in this room, complete with emptied iced-coffee mugs, pens holding down stacks of papers, and articulate people articulating. This lady used “strategize” and “fortuitous” in the same sentence. Luckily, they scared everyone off and I got to pick spot on laptop lane. From this table, I can watch the world outside through the wide screen window.

In the other room, the dark man with dreadlocks–lost in the desert–is passing time by playing 80’s love songs. The music doesn’t seem to faze my friends as they blab about “membership drives” and “collaborative subsets for students.” A band of lowrider bicycle choppers just rolled by the window. Ah…I am home on a Saturday! I can be out in the morning and the rest of the world is too.

(Strangers get stuck in my journals. They go on with their life not knowing what that kid with the Mohawk was typing over in the corner.)

Last night Carlos had a BBQ to celebrate his birthday. I was hoping for a gangsta BBQ like we had in high school, but I don’t think the crowd would be into it. His family came up from Tuscan and the entire posse came over. Before supper, we prayed. I was rushed with how much I care for Carlos. He is such a good friend and is such a gift to my life. It’s been fun to hang out with famous people over the years, and those experiences make for good stories to share with my real friends.

I would peak out the window at Carlos’s party to make sure some thug art collector hadn’t walked off with 150 lbs of Pop Art gold in the back of my car. Finally—my three Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe prints are framed. Earlier yesterday I layered them carefully in the back of the PT Cruiser. Dale, my older artist friend in Hiawassee, told me an artist should always have a hatchback to carry around his artwork. I suppose a surf wagon works too. I drove home like I had a cup of hot coffee balanced on my crotch.

I pulled into the deck and the Friday night party was banging on Mill Ave. There was a rapcore band playing at the Bash, and they were really good. I carefully carried my sleeping Marilyn to my apartment. I asked a big dude and his girl if they could get the elevator for me. “You look like that dude…” I smiled and he smiled. “…that’s because I am. Hi, I am Matt from the Real World New Orleans…” He said, “…and I play for the Arizona Cardinals.”

He and his honey held back the elevator doors and we talked. They were a friendly couple. They are both from the South just like me. I felt connected to him b/c the studio does all of the graphics for the Cardinals, and a couple of their cheerleaders hosted LT TV. I wanted to invite them upstairs but I could see they were ready for a night on the town.

I leaned the painting against the fish tank, and one of the fish freaked out. He charged towards the end of the tank and jammed himself in between the wall and the pump—with his face out of the water. What an idiot. He was gasping with the “ah sh!t” look on his fish face. I let him sit there for a while so I and the other fish could laugh at him. Well, he must’ve felt as dumb as he looked, so he gave it one final buck and vaulted himself out of his death.

After a couple more trips, I had each of the paintings propped for a makeshift exhibit.  The club across the street played “Dirty Vegas” just loud enough to light up my art gallery. I laid a sheet on the floor and fell asleep.

I am in my new space at the studio. The room is stacked with stuff left over from the LT TV set we had a couple weeks ago. I had to climb through it all to get to the desk. It’s lunchtime and I wanted a change of scenery.

Maybe I’m in my “office,” but that sounds way too stiff. I can’t call this “the studio” b/c that’s next door. I could go back to the “Matt Cave”. That’s what I named my basement room in high school. Or maybe something trendy, like “the DotComDen”. Uh huh, yeah.

Speaking of “uh huh, yeah.” I am quoting PDiddy back when he was Puff Daddy. In the song, “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems” with Biggy Smalls, he always nodded, “uh huh yeah.” I said that a month ago to a group of 350 teens, and none of ‘em seemed to know what I was talking about. That song was only five years ago.

Last night we had a healing Mass for the Church. The parish had been praying for healing all week, and this Mass finished off the week. Every Mass at St. Timothy is good. I don’t care who you are, or what you don’t believe–a Mass at St. Timothy will bother you out of what you presume Mass to be. I am so blessed to be a parishioner there.

After Mass I talked to Michelle for a few minutes. She has such a genuine spirit. Not many people know who they are, so how can they share that with others? But Michelle is so present to you and to herself. I don’t know her too well, so it was nice to get to know her better.

Brandon told me they’d be moving the Life Teen coffee cart over into a nook outside of the church. It’s a cozy corner with a bubbling fountain and cafe tables. They’ll be extending the wall up and putting a roof over it all. That’s good b/c that corner is so cute and no one goes in there. At first I thought he needed help redesigning their sign, but now it looks like we can build out own little coffee house. I’ve been eyeing the coffee cups and have been sketching their redesign. I never thought I’d get to be a part of redoing the whole coffee cart.

I went over to Kevin and Stephanie’s house last night after Mass. Their house is so artsy…wood carvings, mosaics, and paintings. Stephanie is quite talented. Her high school drawings were beyond that of most college art students. She’s third or fourth year in college, and continues to do good work. She has an internship with a hipster magazine on my street, doing a lot of the stuff I do: graphics and webby work. It’ll be fun to learn from each other.

Wow…I’ve already gotten so much done in my unofficial first day in the DotComDen. The small stained glass windows spill so much light into the room. When I get back from Hiawassee, it’ll be fun to move on in.

Oh yeah…I get my three Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe paintings back from the frame shop today. Woo hoo!