Even though my feet ache, I’m still gonna rock and shake!

— Éa, in the middle of a marathon of energetic dancing at Megan’s wedding

I feel better dancing when I’m on a precarious rock wall.

— Sullivan, explaining why he was dancing all by himself on a rock wall outside the tent at Megan’s wedding

One thing that pleases me—well, two: First, Mommy and Daddy snuggles. And second, rock dust on my hands.

— Sullivan

I’m ashamed to say this for my gender, but men sweat 40% more than women.

— Sullivan, responding to Lucy after she pointed out a sweaty jogger while they both rode in the car to her house

Wait, you want me to dance self-consciously? Isn’t that a contradiction of terms?

— Scott

Scott: Are any of my accents good?
Éa: Well, I don’t like them, so I don’t know.

Matt Poehner has the following quotation on his Facebook profile:

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that…will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.

— Marcus Aurelius

I can get behind that.

Clinging to a Man who is no longer perceptibly with us is not a sufficient ethic, as the very fact that we have the term “aberrational Christian or Bible-based groups” attests. It’s too loosy-goosey. People can make stuff up about what He is saying. Therefore, we must hermeneutically extract principles from His biographies.

If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was the day I metaphorically threw my hands up in the air about whether I have a principled reason for supporting Friends & Farmers Food Co-op: I don’t. I support the co-op because I enjoy hanging out with those kinds of people at the kinds of functions they hold.

I could go into my reasons for suspecting that “buy local” is a slogan with slippery ethical foundations (hint: for a start, it smacks of egogeocentrism), but I think I’ll leave it at this: I buy local for the pleasure of it. That’s all. It is a luxury. It makes my community a smilier, more human place.

Completism is not a fruit of the spirit.

I shall not be ashamed of saying God healed the people I read about or that God spoke to Carla about such-and-such. I may have to fall back on one of McHargue’s maxims, but still. It’s better than shying away from calling it God. And I need You, God. It used to be a luxury I was requesting; now it is a necessity. I need to experience You. I can point to my good life and say You gave them to me, but that’s not the same thing.

This journal might as well be called “Scott tweaks his life.”

Personifying the highest good is very motivating, even if it’s false (which I don’t think it is, but it might be).

I thought of a good rule of thumb: I should set aside dinnertime to the kids’ bedtime not only as unstructured leisure time, but also as “spend as much time outside as possible” time.

If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was a day I had intended to go hear Paul McCartney play at the Bryce Jordan Center—his first and probably last concert in State College, PA—but had neither found someone to go buy scalped tickets with (Carla was at a Council meeting) nor communicated well with the babysitter, Molly Hunter, who wasn’t going to have a ride home. Top that off with a $475 bicycle maintenance bill earlier that day, and you get me canceling with the babysitter at 6:30 p.m. It helps that I’ve never cared much for arena concerts and that the babysitter had four big exams happening all the next day.

Such is life when you prioritize: Some things go neglected. And very often they are the things that should go neglected.

I wake up almost every morning these days with a shot of anxiety running through my middle. My inkling is that it stems from always doing and never resting. Is that it?

Carla says when she feels that way, she takes it as a prompt to pray.

There’s plenty of high-quality Christian music out there. Why not spin it more often? Listening to a few Jars and Crowder tracks this evening reminds me that I need not be shy.

The same Red Cross nurse who had turned me away last year for having an open, stapled porthole wound on my pate turns me away again for having apple-harvest scratches on my arms.

My favorite thing is to make that piano reveberate [sic] like an explosive bāss violin.

— Sullivan, pronouncing “bass” like the fish, explaining what he loves about playing his new instrument

No, no, no, your ridicule is quite powerful. I appreciate it, actually.

— Scott, to Carla

Scott: Oh, Carla, you don’t get cranky.
Carla: No, but I do get honest.

Hey, Mom, I don’t know what would be worse: getting punched on the back of your head and falling on your face, or getting punched in the face and falling on the back of your head.

— Sullivan, breaking several minutes of in-car silence at 10 PM on a road trip to Pittsburgh

Carla: What were you dreaming about, Sully?
Sullivan: Different metals that are essential to life.
Carla: Oh! What metals are essential to life?
Sullivan: Well, I wasn’t really dreaming about the names. I was dreaming about their colors and crystal habits.

**Donna: ** Sullivan’s mom would volunteer [in the library] for a Tuesday, but would need to bring Sullivan’s sister. Is that okay?
Mardi: Yep! If she’s anything like Sullivan, she could probably help out too!
Donna: We are a go!

Carla: Are you a thinker or a feeler?
Scott: Well, the facile response would be: duh, I’m a thinker. But I tend to think I’m actually a feeler who is articulate. Just not about feelings.