writing

This morning, I looked in my closet. Many of you have asked "how do you choose what you're going to wear on Wednesday's?" Every Wednesday, I wake up, walk to my closet, and decide what I'm going to wear. It happens the morning of, raw and uncut. Mistakes happen. This morning, I looked in my closet and realized something: "I'm really going to miss this." Last week, I wrote about the blog and how it has lost its priority-ness over the years. (If you missed it, take a look: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2013/03/advantage.html) My passion for the blog has been lessening as time has gone on. But, as I looked in my closet this morning, I realized my passion for dressing up on Wednesday's has not dwindled. I realized that I really like the creative challenge of creating a new never-before-worn-by-Morgan outfit out of clothes I have owned for a long long time. I really like the creative challenge of creating unique color palettes, pushing the boundaries, mixing pattern/color combos. I realized I don't do this for attention, I don't do this to get a rise out of friends, family, coworkers, fellow academics, or you, the faithful blog reader. I realized I do this because it's a creative outlet that only works within the school context. Once I graduate, I will likely stop dressing up on Wednesday's, not because I'm done and sick with it, but because there will be no venue for the artwork. I won't have the consistency to promote the continuation of this 6 year long habit.

Another aspect is the people surrounding me. I feel 100% comfortable wearing anything and everything on Wednesday's around campus, it doesn't phase me. Throw me in a working context when I'm right out of college? Eh, drop that 100% down a few percentages. I'd love to be transparent and transfer my comfortability into any working context that's thrown my way, but, honestly, that is going to be incredibly difficult to do. We'll have to see what happens.

All that to say, I am going to really miss dressing up all crazy and stuff. I've been doing this for 6 years, it's become a habit, it's consistent. I have taken 162 pictures of Wednesday garb. One hundred sixty-two. If you're interested, peruse them ALL here:

college: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.143439557753.137074.714162753&type=3

high school: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.34414107753.57636.714162753&type=3

Looking through these pictures is fantastic. Every single one of them is tied to a memory or a group of memories. Every single one is tied to a specific blog post that has these memories recorded for years to come. This fact is legitimately fantastic. Can't wait to show my grandkids this stuff.





In other news, last Friday, March 22, Ms. Morgan McGannon and I hit the town. If you recall from last week (Once again, ff you missed it, take a look: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2013/03/advantage.html), she and I babysat three balls of energy for an evening. Not only was it a crazy evening and will be remembered for quite some time, we made a few bux. We decided we wanted to do something fun with, a date of sorts. But what should we do? After we did some fantastic brainstorming (we played off each other's ideas very nicely), we arrived upon the perfect thing: Universal CityWalk and we HAVE to spend all the money. CityWalk is one of those strange places where there is so so so much to buy, so so so much memorabilia, touristy items, random gifts, but do we ever buy it? Hardly. So what if we went to CityWalk with the challenge to spend all the money we had? Sounds like a date night to me.

After we watched my sister Lacey absolutely kill it in her jazz choir performance at Fullerton College, we headed to CityWalk, used our earnings to pay for parking (boo) and then headed inside. We decided to get some food from the food court. Ms. Morgan McGannon picked up some Flame Broiler which proved to be a great choice. I, however, chose to go with Pink's Hot Dogs. Now, I have had only good experiences at Pink's, but this time was different. I order the "New York Hotdog." On the menu, it said "hotdog with spicy red onions." Sounded decent and safe, I like onions. Turns out I had no idea what spicy red onions were. This hot dog was quite possibly the worst food item I have ever purchased. I couldn't even stomach it, I tried. I tried to eat it, I really did. I couldn't do it. Ms. Morgan McGannon was kind enough to share some of her meal with me, bless her heart.

We continued on our way. Here are some pictures documenting our journey.

Super fun. And we got some super fun memorabilia out of it. And some super fun pictures. This girl is one of a kind. She rocks my world time and time again.



In other news, this week has been wild. SO much going on. Here's a review in tweets.

And that is the end of this edition of "It's Wednesday!" Lots of writing, lots of reading. That hasn't happened in a while. Writing is such an interesting concept: recording things, whether that be words, numbers, drawings, images, from your head onto another surface that can either be temporary or permanent. This writing I am doing right now will likely last until the end of the world. It's being permanently embedded into the recesses of the internet. It's like an engraving. Incredible. I'm writing about writing and as I write about writing, the writing is being written onto the written history of the world. Incredible.

Write something this week. Grab a piece of paper and a pen and just start writing. Go into it with an open mind. Let your mind wander, explore, investigate. Write it down. Seriously.

Advantage

Oh, Wednesday's. The famed Wednesday. I've been dressing up on Wednesday's for 6 years now and have been writing this blog for 4. Four years. There are 243 posts on this here blog, documenting the life of this random dude Mr. Morgan Lott. 243 Wednesday's that preserve memories that will last longer than I will be alive (if the internet sticks around, that is). Friends, I am in a rut. It's been 4 years and my drive to continue this blog is growing thin. Not to fear though, I will definitely be continuing this li''l' Wednesday tradition into my college graduation. The reason I say all this is for this reason: it's amazing how our passions change. I used to be passionate about this blog. I'd get super amped to write about the crazy shenanigans my friends and I would get into. I would write posts like this: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2010/12/story.html or this http://emliv.blogspot.com/2008/12/be-ready.html and I would be so jazzed to share it. I would look forward to Wednesday's because I knew I could think about the week and write absurdities about it, saving it on the interweb to look at 40 years from now. "It's Wednesday" created a great outlet outside of the lull of school and homework. Nothing else was going on. Fast forward to today and my passions have shifted. I am basically out of school, homework is minimal. Most my time is spent working on films, weddings, freelance. I have a girlfriend now, she's fantastic. I'm responsible for my food, my rent, my utilities, my house. My friends are always busy/unavailable/moved away and they typically aren't down to do super super random stuff like what I talked about last week: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2013/03/skipp.html. And, to be honest, neither am I. We've grown up, we've matured. Our passions lie other places. Now, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy a random adventure now and again, because they happen all the time. My priorities have shifted a tad, that's all.

So, ALL that to say, this blog has also experienced a shift. You faithful readers probably know what I'm talking about. Maybe not. Who knows.

How have your priorities changed in this last 5 years?


In other news, this last week has been a rollercoaster. I can't go into too much detail. I do have one story though:

I went to Temecula for a couple days with Ms. Morgan McGannon to visit her family. It was wonderful: swimming, enjoying the HEAT, food, food, food, getting work done (surprisingly), PF Changs with her brother and Oz the Great and Powerful with the rest of the fam. On Saturday night, we babysat three of the neighborhood kids: two sisters named Kassidy and Kaylin and the neighbor boy Shane. These three kids are all under the age of 7 and, in my opinion, the PERFECT age to have an absolute ball. The reason? They're old enough to carry on intelligent conversation, laugh at jokes and tell jokes back, run fast enough to where "freeze tag" is a workout, the list goes on. And they are NOT old enough to be "too cool" for imagination, for fun games, for burning energy, for being overly disrespectful. So, to say it lightly, it was a BLAST. Shane and I teamed up as "the boys" and we conquered a fort, making sure the girls didn't get it, because, well, boys rule, girls drool. But, the evil girls had the ball and we needed to get it. Good thing we had our invisible weapons though because without those the girls would have taken over our fort. The girls had a secret animal and always had secret meetings, so Shane and I grabbed some testosterone and RAGED. We ran around the house, threw stuff, lounged on the couch. Then we watched tv. Here's a pic Ms. Morgan McGannon snapped:

 

And then, once we settled down, Kassidy and Shane started gettin' all in each others bizness. Ms. Morgan McGannon has the play-by-play (read from the bottom).

Simply fantastic. It was a great weekend. So much learned. Holy cow, so much learned.

In other news, here are some social media snippets from the rest of the week:

Bam boom bing. HERE WE ARE. RIGHT NOW. 

Take advantage of every day. Every day is a new day. Every single day is a single new day. A unique day. A day never experienced before. A day that will never be repeated. A brand spankin' new set of 24 hours. 

Take advantage of it.

skip_p

We be cr-azy. If you are a consistent follower of this blog, you will have noticed there was no post last week. Last Wednesday was rather unique. I was given the opportunity to play cajon in the main chapel for the Day of Prayer, a day devoted to prayer. A small band of us led worship for the Biola community, a concept I often take for granted. We were leading our fellow believers in worship to our omnipresent, all-loving God, the Creator of the wind, of emotion, of honesty. Absolutely incredible. Following chapel, I headed to Downtown Disney with Ms. Morgan McGannon to eat lunch with her mom and brother at the famed Rainforest Cafe. This was nothing short of a riot as we experienced Kat, uncooked chicken, and an adventure through a cave to discover the facilities. Following an incredible ice-cream cone from Häagen-Dazs, we ventured through the extravagant hotel that is the Grand Californian; the place is marvelous. After some goodbyes, I headed to Wingstop with some old pals from yesteryear: Mr. Michael Warnecke, Mr. Ben Jacuk, Mr. Ben Coulton, and Mr. Scott Gamelson. We completely obliterated a table-full of wings and felt a good amount of sickness following. Nothing but good times, soo good to chill with the dudes again, felt like freshman year. This is the crew that JAMMED at the Ashley Tisdale concert. And Black Star Canyon. And many many other adventures. Miss those days big.






A picture was taken last Wednesday though, here it is:

Now, THIS Wednesday throws everything for a loop, because it's MISSION'S CONFERENCE. Now, what's so funny and ironic is that EVERY Mission's Conference is SURROUNDED by CRAZY things. Crazy crazy stuff always tends to go down around the conferences here at Biola. Don't understand why, perhaps never will. Here's links the the last 3 years:

2012: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2012/03/paint.html
2011: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2011/03/shack.html
2010: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2010/03/patty.html

This year is no exception. It's been straight nutty over here, but it's been immensely important and growing. SO many great conversations as of late, so many great examples of God's provision through difficult circumstances, incredible circumstances, friendships, relationships, education, creativity, LIFE.

Also, one of the BIG projects this last week was the Mission's Conference Promo:



This video? Quite the wild experience. I will never for as long as live forget the experience of filming this piece of work. We chose to film it in the Tropicana pool, the pool in my former living environment, a pool that is not heated, a pool that has been sitting through the winter undisturbed. Folks, this pool was COLD. We filmed for two nights and it was absolutely frigid, even while wearing full wetsuits. It's hard to explain how cold it was and I honestly don't know why it was. The way I've described it is: the pacific ocean is really cold. But what happens is you, especially while surfing or boogie-boarding or whatever, moving around and there's lots of energy in you and your body and the air and everywhere. There is an adrenaline while in the ocean that keeps you warm. So, in the ocean, it's freezing, you numb up, and then it's a blast. In the Trop pool, there was no energy, it was at a standstill. There was no surfing, it was at a standstill. We numbed up and it HURT. It was unreal, but hey, we got the shots, and the video turned out sweet. Oh, also, it's very hard to hold your breath while under freezing water. 1 second feels like 30 seconds. And then, when you put a bed sheet over your head, the intensity grows. Filming this bad boy was a BEAST. Turned out well. Mr. Cody Ramaekers and Mr. Frank Maldonado joined me in this shenagian. It's a picture of us after we wrapped.

It was so cold. I can't get over it.




Here's some tweets from last week:

LASTLY: My good friend Mr. Patrick Greene married Ms. Alex formerly known as Casey this weekend! This was the first wedding I have attended in which a good friend has been the one exchanging vows. I've been to a lot of weddings in my day but I've never been so excited and so curious on what this wedding would be like.

Okay, I have a story (if you are Patrick or Alex or anyone else at the wedding and you didn't know about this, sorry). I received the invitation a long long time ago. I read it once, didn't look at it again. The ceremony was at 5 in the evening on the 8th of March, 2013 in Camarillo, CA. I told my date, Ms. Morgan McGannon, we would leave at 2:45pm so we would have an hour of wiggle room in case of traffic. At about 2:40pm, I go to look at the address so I could get directions. I look at the invitation: "Ceremony begins at 4 PM." 4 PM?!?! Not 5?! NOOOOO! We leave immediately because if there was absolutely no traffic, we would make it just barely. There was traffic though. A lot of it. So we pull up, walk in. The ceremony had already ended. BOO! BUT, the reception hadn't started, we arrived right in the middle, so nobody knew! Well, maybe not.

So, we missed the ceremony. The worst.

The reception though? FANTASTIC. There were so many of my high school friends there, some of which I haven't seen in four years. It was so good to catch up and relive the "glory days," seein' our bro Pat get married. Super surreal. Ms. Morgan McGannon was a dancing queen, the dance floor was poppin'. There was even a mosh pit of sorts, we were tearin' it up. Such a good night. Can't believe Pat and Alex are married, we're getting older; old, old, older.

Here's some other random events/videos:

WOW. What a post. Certainly was not expecting that. Super dig. Super dug.


Have a pleasant week. Take some time to smell the roses. They're beautiful. And they smell great.