Supafly.com

I’m a big fan of the female body. I always have been and always will be.

I was in Philadelphia a couple years ago with Danny when we met someone else from New Orleans. We were on the Real World, she was Playboy’s June centerfold. She was uneasy walking around, because she just got back from the doctor. She confessed that her implants were sliding or imploding or something-so they had to open her up and reshape the plastic bubbles.

The whole concept of boob jobs is ludicrous. The thought of having a splinter stuck in my skin freaks me out. You get a germ in your system and your body goes in to seek and destroy. Now, what does your body think when two Jell-O molds get sealed up in our chest?
–what if a boxy butt became desirable? Not many people have boxy butts, but everyone wants one. So we slice open our skin and slide in a Teflon platform. We sew her back up and send her on her way to “sexual appeal.”

People are too busy staring to even consider what’s going on inside of her. I can’t imagine what the whole ordeal is like. You have been fooled to think that the real you isn’t good enough. You have to change who you are to feel desired and to please other people. Before, they wouldn’t give you the time of day, but all of a sudden they want to be your friend. Wow, now you are surrounded by guys who really don’t like the real you. That’s worse than before.

Most people don’t care because “hey she’s hot.” She’s another trophy in a consumer world. We think we’ve come so far as a society, but we are more inhumane than ever. We applaud each other as we objectify women. In rap videos, females are parked next to cars, yachts, and mansions. They fit nicely into the collections of things to get. We wonder why so many women are raped.

And those “guy magazines” are wrong, but everyone is too horny to admit it. Those pages are plastered with images tweaked cars, tailored suits, and modified women. Real women aren’t good enough anymore. I see the covers on the newsstands wondering, “will there be any female celebrity who won’t get naked for more attention?” It’s the same thing as group of guys cheering on a girl while she undresses at a party.

All this is going on, and the feminists don’t say a thing.

On the way to the airport, we passed dozens of Amish families in their carriages. It’s strange to be in such a technological mentality, and to pass by people caught 200 years ago like the Quaker Oats family. I guess you’d have to see it, but it was like we are in the Matrix and they are on “Little House on the Prairie.” My driver told me an Amish family live behind him and they were kind of weird.

He told me they aren’t supposed have technological stuff because it complicates life. But, his neighbors are rebels and have a telephone. So they don’t get lazy and start ordering in Chinese food, they have the phone strapped to a fencepost in the back yard. He says it rings so loud you can hear it on the whole block. All four of them will come charging out of the house like there was no tomorrow. I guess they don’t have voicemail.

I spoke at a retreat here this weekend. It was a little intimidating knowing I’d be around the same teenagers all day. I usually am in and out of their group in a few hours. It was cool being a regular core member again, just a dude trying to help out on a retreat. We had honest discussions in our small groups and grew as a community. We spent most of our afternoon in a vicious shuffleboard tournament. You never know who’ll be good at shuffleboard. That mystery is easy to ignore in favor of fun sports.

I am in such a daze. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep for anything. I’m praying that I can fall asleep on this flight and wake up on the west coast.

I am on a flight to Baltimore and just got finished watching a stupid movie: “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Everyone talked about how great the story was…a fun and fun tale. I though it took forever to get there. I mean, I like chic flicks every so often. I think “You’ve Got Mail” and “A Walk to Remember” are cozy movies. But, if I had to watch another movie like this, I think I’d choose to go blind.

I’ve seen Lay-Z-Boy advertising in Metropolitan Home magazine. It didn’t seem to make sense because I think of Lay-Z-Boys as being the average American man-throne. I had twenty minutes before I had to be at the airport, so I stepped in the Lay-Z-Boy store and took a seat.

Man, I need a man-throne. I did not want to leave that store. After an endless train of flights, talks, and the studio, a Lay-Z-Boy made it all worth it. They had several hip, plush models that recline like a real Lay-Z-Boy. I am in love.

Design a line of T-shirts, design a new brochure, make a Greyhound bus into a mobile party, and design V2 of lifeteen.com. I have a lot to do this fall. The T-shirts designs are fun, and I am leaving those for flights and early mornings at the coffee shop. It’ll be my indy, non-studio project. A doctor donated a Greyhound bus that was used as a mobile hospital. It is white and sterile and needs love. It will be a rolling billboard for Life Teen, as well as a backdrop for inner-city evangelization. The inside has to be funktified. It’s going to be a big project like nothing I’ve ever done before. The brochure will be challenging but exciting. I’ve only done a few start-to-finish print media projects, and I’ve learned so much I want to apply. And then there is the big e-monster: V2.

I’ve spent the last two and a half hours designing the layouts and navigation. A concept for a website is easy to talk about, but carrying it to a complete and polished experience, that is a work of art.

This is the fourth or fifth weekend in a row that I’ve been on the road. My plane is about to land in Baltimore. But when I get back, I’ll have two weekends free. I might go buy a Lay-Z-Boy.

I’m on the seventh floor of a hotel in St. Louis. My recliner is a patterned pink and my computer wallpaper is patterned purple. The sky is so blue and the trees are so green. The coffee maker is popping to get my attention.
It has been a slow week at the studio. I am frozen by my inability to write code. With out a solid programmer to write the ASP backend for our site, I get frustrated.

A programmer (code writer) is like an architect of a nightclub. His job is to plan and build a solid and functional structure. The designer takes the bare building and makes it cool and desirable so people want to come in and stay. If the staircases are in the wrong place or the doors too narrow, it makes the designer’s job difficult. If the dance floor falls through when too many people show up to the party, then all the nifty lighting and sofas mean nothing.

I am not an architect, but I’ve had a year of experience trying to run a nightclub that wasn’t built right. There wasn’t enough planning ahead of time, the construction was weak, and some things weren’t even finished. It’s been a tough year.

So, as we prepare to build a whole new LIFETEEN.com nightclub, I’ll be the project planner, and we’ll hire out someone to be the building constructor. My blueprints won’t be perfect. But with his experience and knowledge, we’ll make necessary improvements and the site will become what is should be.

In just a few days, it will be one year since I moved to Phoenix. I have learned so much!

I’ve learned that I am a real grown-up who can do real grown-up things. (And oh it’s so much fun to do real grown-up things!) I may listen to punk rock, have a new-hawk, and live the MTV life, but that doesn’t mean I am a little kid who can’t play with the big boys. In college, there was always the holy grounds of “the professionals.” We turned in homework and got an A, they turned in real work and got paid lots of money. We were learning, they knew.

You do know, don’t you? No, there are a lot of people in the work force who suck at what they do. At our first meeting with the web development company last September, they used technical words and talked about projects they knocked out of the park. I confessed I only have done supa-fly.com. They applauded me for my student effort, then used some more big words.

After months of headaches, they finally handed over the finished site, our custom-built nightclub. The place sucked. No one would come here. Did you all notice how ugly this thing is?

One day at a time, I cleaned up the mess. Some rooms I had to tear done, others I had to redesign, and some I had to build from nothing. Those months were long and stressful. So now lifeteen.com is a lot happier of a place. People come and hang out, read, and learn. But, it’s nowhere near where it needs to be.

We will become the top teen site on the Internet. There is a real need, we have the support, and most of all, we have the blessing from above. These aren’t just fluffy words or a campaign promise—this is my passion. My passion is a reality, not a fleeting enthusiasm.

“Say not that you are too young.”

It was another drive to the same airport. I’ve read all of these magazines already, and haven’t bought one yet. I hope they are going to at least play a movie.

This is the best flight I’ve ever had. In the past hour, I’ve seen the so many different kinds of clouds pass beneath us. They are prettier than all of my OS X wallpapers and screen savers.

We are flying east, and the sun is disappearing behind us. The land beneath us is a cool blue while the sky is fiery, pales, then blues again. It’s the blue of the Blue Ridge mountains in the early fall. We would play forever until the sun set, and would run back in the house. We didn’t know how cold we were until we stepped in the back door next to the wood stove. By the time I am finished with this journal, it will be dark outside, and clear enough to see the stars. There couldn’t be more than fifteen people on this entire plane. It’s so quiet and uncluttered. If they played a movie, I’m sure the flight attendant would pop some popcorn and show us the secret Lay-Z-Boy seats.

I took my unused cream and sugar to the back, and I came back with a handful of cookies.

This book is blowing my mind: “Everything Belongs, the Gift of Contemplative Prayer” by Richard Rohr. I tried to read it months ago, but I couldn’t focus through the first few pages. It was pseudo-intellectual fluff. Monsignor Dale savored every page of the book, so I decided to give it another try. I knelt and prayed in the Blessed Sacrament chapel and opened to page one.

(The flight attendant just warmed up my coffee. She’s such a nice lady.)

Now I am on page eighty-one, and I’ve underlined something on every page. It is one “ah hah!” moment after the next. I understand that so much of who I am is determined by the society I live in. Those who deny that this is true are most fooled. With quick but profound words, Rohr helps me see through the decorations of our society.

“Success is defined largely by the media and by passing material objects. The self, therefore, is always outside, and we live in constant dissatisfaction. What a tortured way to live! Even worse, it is of our own making.”

I already know this book will lead me out of some mangled parts of my interior life. I am a reckless work in progress.

(It’s dark out now. I can’t see the stars yet, but I can see the blanket of lights on earth. The horizon is still burning.)