i dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

9.30am: awoke, stumbled from room whilst fumbling for my red glasses, ate stupid coco-pops, read a bit of who magazine to get my mind off the whole cereal thing, showered, plucked eyebrows, got changed.
10.30am: grabbed some rockin cds--everything from joss stone to sons of korah to silverchair to the streets. closed up the house, locked the doors with my awesomely kitschy pink patterned keys, threw on my earphones and let switchfoot drown out the sounds of the motorway and of my feet as i trudged to the station.
11.02am: caught train to central.
11.34am: caught train from central to parramatta. an experience since i don't think i've ever really been there before.
12 noon: met random boy. ok, not that random. and no, i didn't like get myself raped in parramatta or anything. not to pay out rape victims. eep. anyway. i met pat at a friend's eighteenth the other saturday, and we hit it off. or at least we argued about christianity and discovered a mutual love for drama, coldplay, and the chili peppers. both of which needed to be explored further. pat's a country boy (i forgive him, just!), from the blue mountains, so parramatta was the go due to the whole travelling distance thing. i had mixed feelings about spending the day with him, not apprehension as such--a bit of bemusement, because, after all, we were both coming a fairly long way to see each other even though we'd only met once and spent at least half that time arguing. but hey, pat's hella cute in the tall, well-dressed way that i so like, so i definitely wasn't dreading seeing him. (read: alix is in a truthful mood today. watch out.)
12.15pm: followed pat's intition all the way to parramatta westfields, an atm, and a pretzel world outlet. ate pretzelly-goodness and reminisced about the cruise. wandered around the shops aimlessly, stopping only when i sensed a cd store coming up. went to a clothing store pat reccommended, where i convinced him to buy a (very) pink top that i promise he'll pick up in. mm go my persuasiveness.
1.30ish: meandered (love that word) down to the very ugly poo-coloured parramatta river. sat down and started pouring over cds, but...this guy doing evangelism work came up straight away and pat agreed to listen to what he had to say. i'm telling you, the kid is interested, even if only so he can disagree about christianity in an educated way. but still. i didn't even have to work to get the conversation around to the important stuff. we talked life, we talked death, we talked sin, we talked creation groaning, we talked sacrifice, and we talked love. it was pretty draining. but those are the conversations that matter; and, even if pat's lack of understanding about the true extent of hell's horrors and of god's unfailing love is preventing him now from grasping what a big decision he's making by turning his back on his creator--maybe these are the conversations that will eventually lead him to renege that decision. maybe.
3ish: got subway, ate subway.
4ish: caught different trains to different destinations.

we're pretty similar really. ok, so there's a fair bit of disparity between our respective uais, but then there's an almost equal amount of disparity in the amount of effort we respectively put into the hsc. drama students. music tastes. height. style. oversized sunglasses. a penchant for pink shirts (hehe). a love of bowling. on-pitch vocal cords. a talent for holding a conversation. strong views. a stubborn streak. i'm finding myself wishing he would just hurry up and become a christian so i can consider liking him. because he's very nice, and pretty damn fine. but i've seen friends travel down that path, and i know better than to put anything else before god's love. it's the harder, more frustrating decision, but it's the decision that accords with god's wishes for my life. and how better can a decision be than if it has the sanction of the lord?