Supafly.com

I can’t believe one week from today is Good Friday. I know I am obsessive/compulsive about my spiritual life, and I always give myself a hard time about what I am doing right and wrong. This is a trap because I spend more time sorting-out my sins when I should be looking to God for grace.

The sun is rising earlier each day, and it’s getting hotter in the tent. Before I left for New Orleans, I turned on my sprinkler system to get the grass started right for spring. It scared the hell out of me this morning because my tent is five inches from a broken sprinkler. The little head popped out of the grass and then vomited water all over the side of my tent.

We got back from week away in New Orleans last night. To be clear, I did not sleep in a tent while I was out of town. The first night we stayed at the W Hotel in New Orleans. They just completed the hotel when I lived there, and I knew I loved it as soon as I walked into the lobby. You just feel like you are in your own rock video. It’s just too cool! Ever since then, I’ve been waiting for an occasion to spend that much money for just one night.

Since I was back for my unofficial five-year-anniversary of doing “The Real World”, I couldn’t resist staying at the W Hotel. It was kinda sexy booking a hotel room with my hot girlfriend standing next to me. The hipster gal behind the counter frowned when she looked at the computer screen, then she looked up to me and explained, “I’m sorry, we do not have a room with a king-sized bed. But we do have one with two beds.” I smiled and told her it sounded right. What I wanted to say was this:

“See this hotty? This is my girlfriend Candyce. She and I are waiting until we are married to have sex. It’s not easy, but we’re doing just fine. So let all of your rock-star coworkers know that this reality-show graduate kept his morals!”

I did keep my Lenten sacrifice though. It’s easier to sleep outside on the dirt than it is to sleep in a bed by yourself when your girlfriend is five feet away.

I had trouble falling asleep last night because I had so much on my mind. Candyce and I leave for New Orleans tomorrow, and I have so much to do at work. A website is like a needy child: you have to lavish it with attention and affection. Since I’m going to be gone for several days, I have to make sure there is enough content to keep the site fresh for a week.

You wonder what keeps other people up at night. I’m about to travel back to New Orleans where I went on “The Real World” five years ago. Then I would stay up worrying about how the show would turn out. After we moved out and the show was airing, I had trouble sleeping every Tuesday night after each show aired to the world. I had to get up the next day and deal with whatever story MTV decided to tell.

My friend’s brother just lost his two-year-old son. He drowned in the bathtub. How do you deal with that? You leave the room for a couple minutes and you come back to find your son’s lifeless body floating in the water. My heart aches for their whole family.

The idea of Lent is that you give up something so that you can grow closer to God. When you go without something, you come to appreciate it. If you are young in America today, Lent may be the only time of year when you are not spoiled. It’s more than being grateful and humble and more about knowing how much we need God.

This morning I had trouble sleeping because my foam pad is getting thin. It started out as thick as a fluffy pancake, and now it’s thin as a tortilla. I’ve had these pillows for four years, and they are almost as flat. It’s becoming easier to wake up because my sleep isn’t as deep.

I came inside at seven, then fell on my bed. Oh wow…this thing is soft! Loving your bed is nothing new. Most people have an emotional connection to their bed because it’s a happy place where the worries of your day disappear. Although I do enjoy sleeping outside, I do miss the comfort of my bedroom. But that’s what Lent is all about.

I’m not supposed to be writing this from Arizona because I was supposed to fly to Ohio yesterday. But the people who booked my travel purchased a ticket that flew me in too late, and I would’ve missed the event anyway. So I worked my booty off all day yesterday on my yard.

It’s a cool feeling going to bed in the middle of my yard, surrounded by the fruits of my labor. Normally you go to bed in you room. If you are doing in projects to make your room more livable, it’s usually about furniture, paint, and soft things like curtains and pillows. At best, you’ll have a couple of plants to make it feel more lively.

My bedroom is my backyard. It’s alive and thriving with beautiful flowers, trees, and singing birds. Since I started sleeping out here, I’ve been more concerned with keeping my plants tidy and healthy than keeping my house scrubbed clean. This is so weird for me to say, because I LOVE a tidy house.