Supafly.com

Life goes by fast. If you don’t stop to enjoy it once in a while, you might miss it. It’s a Saturday night and I left the celebration in the streets, and now I am perched on a mountaintop…looking out into my life.

In Arizona, mountains erupt out of nowhere. It’s so steep, I feel like if I stepped forward I’d fall hundreds of feet into the bed of someone’s truck. People are backed up for over almost a mile in each direction, everyone trying to fit on Mill Avenue for a time around town. Everyone has worked so hard to pretty their cars and bods, and they all look the same from up here. A half dozen searchlights trace the clouds all around me, trying to draw in people on a Saturday night. Those lights are always kind of menacing. Maybe Batman will sweep out of the clouds.

Every ten minutes, a plane floats over my head and sets down just a couple miles to the west on the sparkling red carpet. I am so happy to be home.

The wind is whistling through the shrubs around me. To the south, I hear a classic rock band. To the west, I hear a Mariachi band. Harleys and hotrods make their own music. The bridge is shimmering into the water. The trees lining the avenue are lit with Christmas lights. The wind sweeps through and they all dance together.

I just watched a fire truck jump out of the station. Now it’s heading north towards the base of the mountain. I can hear another rescue vehicle to the east, but I can’t see it yet. The fire truck has slowed near a dorm room. I wonder what happened?

It’s game day. I can just peak over the rim of the ASU stadium. There are dozens or workers stooping down, picking up trash as the parking lot empties into the streets.

I can peak into the courtyard of Desert Palms Hotel where I stayed a couple years ago with my Real World buddies…long before I ever thought of living here, long before I ever thought of living in New York City. I was out almost all night, came back to my cold hotel room. I couldn’t sleep. My plane left early the next morning. I don’t even know where I was living at the time.

On the hike up here, the backpack was hot on my back. I got the backpack a couple summers ago for my adventures each day through NY. Feeling the heat on my back brings me down under the city while subways bang and screech.

I miss New York. I don’t.

This afternoon Stephanie treated me to a picnic on the lake. From there we drove to Fountain Hills for an arts festival. I bought metal sculpture of a critter that was so funny, I had to get it to make others laugh. The sun was setting and illuminated the mountains on our drive to Scottsdale art galleries. There is some stunning artwork out there. Ah…I was so inspired!

Phoenix goes on forever. In every direction, the lights keep going. The wind is blowing and it’s cold up here.

On Wednesday, I laughed with my friends on the other side of that mountain. On Thursday, I had dinner with my best friends, over there near the neon blue building. Then we went to a hip hop show about ten blocks from here. Most weekends, I am in the air, on my way to another city.

Matt Maher is a few hours north of here where the lights disappear into the distant mountain range. He’s playing music at a retreat for a couple hundred teens from our church. I really should keep them in my prayers. I know that nights like this can be life-changing.

I find that the further I get from MTV, the happier I am. It is a difficult realization, because the further I get form MTV, the further I get from fame and glamor. That’s fine, I just don’t want to lose my influence.

This society values fame and glamor so high. In conversations with strangers and new friends, I am obligated to explain my past, not share about my future. My stories under the spotlight aren’t increasing. I know my value doesn’t change just because other’s perception of me is warped.

Going into The Real World, I was afraid to mess up a good thing. My life rocked, so why would I risk losing it? But this was a unique opportunity and I had to take it. New Orleans was fun, but it was also bizarre and stressful. During filming and as it aired on television was coo. I wasn’t just the popular kid in my town, my state, or in the country, but around the world. People who would have snubbed me in their selfish pursuit of cool, those individuals had to take me as I am. It was crazy…it didn’t matter where I went, I was the popular kid. If I had different values, that means I would’ve gotten laid a lot. But then again, dogs get laid a lot.

I could avoid this whole predicament if I played time-tested games of ego. I would be materialistic, discriminating, and shallow. I would strut in and out of salons and bars with the air of “do you know who I am?” I would surround myself with pretty people in fancy clothes. I’d spend all my money on a car and a house I couldn’t afford.

I am not going to create a new me to wash away any fleeting insecurities about being on MTV, then not. I don’t want to complicate my life by inventing new ways of acting superior. My life is much too exciting and rewarding to be anyone but myself.

My only dream has always been to find my soul mate. Next to her, nothing really matters. More MTV fame would make it next to impossible to find her. When we were in New Orleans filming the Real World, I was so frustrated that none of us could make any real friends. The people that made their way into our lives were manipulative and shallow. They didn’t care about us, just fame. As long as the cameras were rolling, they would’ve befriended seven tree stumps.

I’ve hung out with enough more-famous people to know that there are millions of women who will hold your hand through life for the wrong reasons. I could be rich and famous and miserable because I would wonder, “would she like me without all this?”

Woo hoo! My sister had a healthy baby girl. Sarah, welcome to life! I LOVE YOU!!!

This is the most exhausting and irritating part of my life: the flight back to Phoenix. Fighting against the jet stream, I swear I will never get home.

I become a wreck. I am stuck on a plane, miserable because I can’t pray my way out of this one. I am tired.

I want emotion, feeling—anything. I am numb. I will flop into an empty bed. I will get up tomorrow, and go back to fighting.

I don’t like these times because I don’t like what I think about. I am too tired to strategize or positive think my way out of this one. I have no will left. I give up.

The flight attendant won’t even bring me any damn water. They push that cart back and forth to pretend they are working, and the ignore me.

It’s time like this when I long for intimacy…sexual, emotional, and spiritual intimacy. I am strapped to this seat with nowhere to go. This too will pass.

I want to be grateful and think of other stuff, but my brain is too tired. Damnit I wish I could turn my brain off. It goes and goes and goes. This flight goes and goes and goes.

I’m on my flight to Columbia, OH, then off to Lima, OH. Yesterday morning I played golf with Fr. Neil. It’s my spiritual advisement, or the 18 stations of the cross. Fr. Neil is a funny man from Scotland with tremendous depth. I didn’t even care so much about my game, but I wanted to figure out which hole my house is on.; Luckily, it’s at the end of the 13th hole, and not too many people will be dropping balls in my front yard.

Then in the afternoon, I came back to the studio to slam the week. I met Stephanie for dinner. We played phone tag, running around trying to meet each other. She looked so beautiful…walking towards me on the sidewalk.

I ran back to the studio, windows down and the heat on. It does get cold in the desert. I listened to Mozart’s “Requiem” (twice) and updated supafly.com. A website takes; a lot of work.; It’s not a glamorous way to break up a Friday night, but it has to be done.

I came home and fell asleep listening to Matt remix Andrea’s first CD.

The further I get away from the Real World, the happier I am.

Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I made it real big after the Real World. I don’t know…maybe as a V.J. then maybe a talk show host or something. Imagine the good I could do!

But, the amount of good I can do is not solely dependent of opportunity. God didn’t need me to be famous to do His work, and he doesn’t need me to be more famous now. Lives were changed long before we turned on our first television.

On side note, I remember when we only had one phone in the house. If you had more than one, it was a sign of wealth. The same went for a television, and definitely a VCR—each house only had one. When will we have a computer in every room of the house? I know many people already do, but when will everyone? I understand computers are fundamentally different than televisions and telephones, because those are only receiving devices. Telephones still haven’t changed much in 40 years, and TV’s are just now starting to evolve in a new direction, with high definition images and slim design. So they become old much faster, but

So I am watching this movie, Who is Elsor Finster or something like that. It’s a movie about a man who loves movies, and they map out a perfect plot line through a movie by telling the story of their lives. There were so many scenes that were so lively and classic, they are only fit for the movies. You know, the cops in full-size sedans parked outside the house waiting for the cops and crooks to come out. That would be so cool to have one of those outside my house. But I did, in New Orleans. I lived in a mansion, and there were cops at our house 24/7 to keep away trouble.

When I was a kid, there was a cheesy Bon Jovie song that mimicked the young love dramas much like Aerosmith did in their videos Crying, Amazing, and Living on the Edge.

We are somewhere over the Midwest now. The land is all patchwork farms sewn with roads and highways. It’s going to be 35 degrees when I get out of the plane. Ugh! I am glad I brought my jacket.