C'est La Vie
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What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be. Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy. And I use these words pretty loosely. There's so much more to life than words..
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Monday, April 30, 2001
Spiritual Warfare is a very interesting thing.It's amazing how when you make a bigfat important post, it can be lost so easily, while stupid bizarre posts that mean nothing go smoothly from the "post to" area to the actual board. Or how a computer can suddenly freeze RIGHT when you're replying to an incredibly important email from your grandfather. Or all sorts of other crazy things like that. I'm exhausted. Goodnight. (0) comments Sco's blog may not have been updated in a couple of weeks, but it's a good one for using to learn html and steal a bit of creativity from. And the many entries he HAS done are lots of fun, and hopefully he'll start updating it again. I wonder if it's lost its novelty. This blog thing is still fairly new to me. It's got the novelty appeal. Despite the fact that between msg boards and emails over the past several years, I've been doing very similar things, this actual means of doing it is new, and my possible audience is very different from those I've been sharing with for the past several years. (And within those years, the option of a new audience vs. the same usually found the new one winning out. Not that I valued the older friends less, just that to my personality type, novelty carries high appeal.) At any rate, I figure that if blogger.com were to have a contest for the longest-running-and-still-being-updated blogs, there wouldn't be all that many entries. Not that I've given up on sco, by any means. But he and many other friends that I have that have been blogging longer than others all tend to have periods of time when they aren't updating their blog more than once every couple of weeks. And then there's me, with a few entries each night, usually much longer than they have any reason for being. Which is the lesser of two silleynesses? (0) comments Ripping off templates can be lots of fun, and a great way to learn html. (0) comments Sunday, April 29, 2001
Ok.. So I made it through the two bridal showers (last nite and this afternoon), as well as the swing dance tonite. Tomorrow I've got the worship class (about 5-10 people from church meet to talk about various aspects of worship), church service, and a church-wide meeting.. good thing is that I should be able to fit in my once-traditional Sunday nap sometime between all that. Since I won't be getting much sleep tonite, that will help. :) At any rate, the bridal showers were fun, and I'm considering finding someone to throw them for each week to have all that good food! Umm.. ok, so maybe not a bridal shower each week, but a potluck fun time would be great. And then tonite there was the swing dance, which was an INCREDIBLE workout (a friend that was there tonite was telling me that between swing dancing weekly or so, and playing racquetball, he lost 50 lbs in about 8 months!) and the most fun I've had in my memory, at least in a VERY long time. So, it's amazing how our typical college house (I'm not a student, but most of my roommates are, and we'd have a college house anyway since it's roommates and not spouse or family or whatever) could be so well transformed into this nicely decorated room for the bridal shower, with food and flowers and candles and food and music and food and people and food .. oh, so you've noticed that I was happy about the food? We had strawberries and bananas with chocolate fondue, crackers with cheese spreads, after-dinner mints, shortbread cookies, lime sherbert punch, chocolate brownies, cheesecake brownies, a frozen german-chocolate cake, and all sorts of other things! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... yummy! Yup, I really need to go to bed. (0) comments Friday, April 27, 2001
Dream. Dream big.I've heard that a lot for a long time. I heard some particularly interesting comments about it during an art workshop at Cornerstone Festival last year. I haven't dreamed very much at all in a long time. Part of it is that I was just content with life. Finally, I was. I dreamed about things like where I might live someday (geographically, not materialistically) or what I might do as a career.. but I never really dreamed big or in detail. Having decided that I want to pursue the concert promoter career-path, and having decided that to that end I will be staying here for the time being, I have begun to allow myself to dream. Since I used to move every year or so, I had barely settled in by the time I was leaving again, and thus wasn't really there long enough to know what to dream about. There was also little guidance for my dreams, which would have a lot to do with why they usually centered around where I might live. I've still got my locational dreams (My top 5 places to live someday include Chapel Hill, Atlanta, Boston (where I was born and would like to go back), Iowa (the college that I most likely will attend, if I attend any college, is there), and.. well, the fifth spot is kinda open for whatever random spot I've got my sights on that week. .Nashville, Texas, CA, Ireland, Australia, Canada, you name it..) and I've got a few career dreams other than the promoter gig. But I've begun to really dream.. I could open a concert venue! I could book bigger bands than are currently within my reach! I could .. well, there lots of things that I could do, and I've begun to allow myself to think about them. I wouldn't be devestated if these dreams didn't come through, but it's nice to have something to work for. (0) comments Tomorrow (or, rather, today.. ) is bridal shower number one for the weekend. It actually conists of two girls having one shower together.. and then on Saturday I have the other. The first is at my house. No clue (literally!) about how many people may or may not show up. Should have all the food, decorations, favors, games, etc ready regardless, but it's getting down to that time where I'm feeling like "oh, is it already here? Just yesterday, it was still a week away." But it's here. So, a word to those that are currently wearing diamond rings and no bands.. when you choose your bridesmaids, see if you can't get them some little pamphlet on what a bridesmaid is supposed to do. A book that includes how to do it would be nice, but if you've got some more creative ones, the pamphlet should do just fine. I have NO CLUE what I'm doing, what I should be doing, or how much I may be upsetting people with my less-than-kosher approach to doing things.. ie, hand delivering invitations without envelopes, hand-written, to the showers.. just not quite the formal or traditional way of doing things. So I figure that anytime I throw a shower from now on, I'm gonna make a theme having something to do with peasants or poor people or whatever, because that way no matter how ghetto you do things, it's excused because, Hey!, it's the theme! So goes the theory. (0) comments Hey Ishy, if my arms were long enough, I'd wave to you (or even hug you if they were REALLY long) from my half of the globe. Scream a big, loud Konnichi wa to the rest of Japan for me! (0) comments I am a bloggart. I agree with Katy Raymond when she says that she only wants to write when she has something to say. But I'm one of the most talkative people I know. At any given time, there are at least three or four things on my mind, that I am conciously thinking about. Bunney trails are more common than the end of a sentence with me, and I type quickly enough that I can almost keep up with my verbal speaking. So between that, and the fact that a few of you loyal (and much appriciated) readers have complained to me when I went for two days without an entry, and that I'm a creature of habit online.. I've got the order in which I check my email, check my other email, check my other email, check certain message boards in a certain order, and then blog.. well, blog slips around depending on how much I'm doing online that nite and exactly how much really is on my mind that I wanna share. At any rate, because it is one of my regular habits, and because there's not this list of posts from other people (to which I can reply) on my blogger, it's gonna be a whole lot of bigfatnothing thoughts from me as often as my computer, my browser, and blogger are all working when I attempt to post something new. (0) comments Thursday, April 26, 2001
Ok, so I own this ghetto computer.. it was given to me for free, and I'm extremely grateful for that. (I've never liked the word grateful.. I usually, rebelliously, spell it greatful because that's more logical. I dislike the illogical state that prevails in the English language.) It's really a decent computer hardware-wise.. problem is it's had this virus for at least as long as I've had it, and so the clock shows a different random time every time I restart it (currently reads 5:33PM, while it's actually 3:35AM here), the colors are down to 16, and the resolution is forced at the lowest windows allows. I could fix the virus, probably, using the good old boot-disk method. Just haven't yet, because I'm a dork. At any rate, because of how ghetto my computer currently is, I don't know what this blog area, my website, or really anything else I look at really looks like to YOU. I can see colors on my computer almost as well as the guys in the Matrix could read the code.. where the average person not used to these 16 colors would sit down and hardly know what they're looking at, I can usually see much more clearly the face or other image. All that to say: having just spend about an hour updating and changing the template (which I totally ripped off from Kristen's blog) for this website, I still don't know that it looks decent on computers that are less ghetto than mine. Please let me know. You now have links to my email (one of my 5 accounts.. excessive, perhaps, but quite practical), AIM.. someday when I'm more ambitious I'll go out and find a right proper link so you can send me ICQ msgs on my 6 digit ICQ number: 780658. So,yah.. in the meantime, I'll just pretend that the look of this site rocks as much as I do. Oh, wait, that would mean I'd have to change it a LOT to even make it tolerable........ Oh, and for anyone that's interested: when doing an html link, the endquote is mildly important and really kinda makes a web page work a whole lot more smoothly. (0) comments A friend of mine asked me to help her write a 200 word proper-grammar sentance for a class assignment. I can't imagine why she got the idea I might be able to do that. (0) comments Tonight at House Church/Bible study, we got on a bigfat tangent about loving non-Christians vs. loving Christians, and how much easier it is to plan big outreach events and send missionaries to other countries than to love the teen in your church that's in severe depression and really needs some major help (such as I was before moving to CA, and still needed help out of my various situations in CA, on my return to FL and subsequently being kicked out, etc).. or the elderly person struggling with the death of her spouse. The Bible says to care for the orphans and widows. Christ told Peter three times "Feed My Sheep".. some of His last words to one of His most devoted disciples.. Feed My Sheep. Care for the orphans and widows. Why don't we. (0) comments Wednesday, April 25, 2001
Most anyone reading this blog is a friend of mine. To some extent, even if you happen to be a random stranger that just happened across the site, you are still a friend of mine. But there happen to be some people reading this blog that I'm particularly close to. My little feature on Jana *censored* a few entries back, my brief mention of my precious twin brother, and the little tidbits here and there where I mention someone by name don't mean that they're more valuable than those of you that I care deeply about. Well, to some extent they are.. having known Jana for 11-some-odd years, and being that my twin brother is, after all, my twin brother, they're both precious to me in ways that no one else can be. Just as any other relative is the only relative of that sort that I have, and just as each of you fill some particular void that only you can fill.. so are you all as precious to me as you can be, and I appriciate you being in my life. I don't express it very often (for those familiar with the concept -- growing in popularity -- called Love Languages, mine is not words of affirmation. The other four are all pretty strong for me with quality time being the highest, but words of affirmation is about like a scale with a brick vs. a feather, where words are just so far below the others in being a love language for me that it doesn't cross my mind to use them much at all..) but I do think it all the time. I am SO glad for each and every one of you.(0) comments Along with the re-discovery of how neat Library cards are, today also brought an important lesson in how good it is to pay your water bill on time. Not to mention how much those of us living in America or other affluent countries take for granted in the daily posession of running water, electricity, etc. Which makes me not only think about how much I am glad that Compassion (a Christian organization devoted to releasing children from poverty in Jesus' Name -- Formerly Compassion International) exists, but also about how different my life is from that of my grandmother. As a Depression Child, she didn't have very much at all of what I have and so easily take for granted. What an incredible woman she was. (0) comments Library cards are fun and exciting things. I had them in high school for the school library, but didn't make much use of it then. (Generally speaking, too much risk the book would be stolen or deemed unreturnable.) I think I had one when I lived in CA, but again I didn't make much use of it. We used to use ours a lot when I was much younger, but the books were often returned late and the fees were not good news at a time when we couldn't even afford food, so we eventually had to stop checking any books out. Today, I gave myself the joy of getting my library card.. I've lived in this town for two years and never bothered getting one here. Now I have one. It's pretty. Much more pretty than the pink one I had in Boca Raton, FL, which is a very pink town. This one's blue. Fits perfectly behind my license. I used it today, too. Got some good books. Surprised by Joy by C.S.Lewis, Praying with C.S.Lewis by Charles C. Taliaferro, Roverandom by J.R.R.Tolkien, and a book on tape called Patty Jane's House of Curls written and read by Lorna Landrik. The description on this book on tape I'd never heard of included many jokes with friends, including that the main character has my first name, and another major character is named Thor, which just happens to be one of my best friends here, and that it takes place in MN where one of my roommates is from. (How in the world would one more concerned with proper grammar than I rephrase that so it doesn't end in a preposition?) Anyway.. sounds like it'll be fun. I also bought from the used section for a grand total of $.50 (that's fifty CENTS for anyone that can't see the decimal) an older book called The Shape Of the Christian Life by David C. Duncombe. Looks to be pretty interesting. So, just in time to spend my days reading on the roof or stretched out on my sofa, I now have plenty of material and a library full of more options on which to spend my time. Wonderful. Library cards are great. (0) comments Tuesday, April 24, 2001
Meanwhile, I was reading Roaring Lambs (by Brennan Manning) yesterday during my time on the roof.Incredible book, folks. So one of the major themes is how Christians, supposed to be the salt of the earth and supposed to show Christ's light to the world, get overshadowed by the excellence that reigns outside of Christendom and not within it. Such as movie producers and scriptwriters, authors, painters, etc. So many truly excellent people in these fields are non-Christians.. the vast majority. So few Christians show the slightest interest in them, and too many are convinced they're the realm of heathens. So yesterday it was about 80 degrees out. Probably a bit more than that, maybe near 90. Nice breeze from time to time, beautiful almost entirely cloudless sky. Sun beating down on my roof and myself, felt really great. In the middle of a paragraph that was particularly focused on the theme of Christians being overshadowed, a cloud passed between the sun and my little corner of the earth. What a perfect analogy it presented. The physical representation of the words I was reading right at that moment. The very second that cloud began to cover the sun, all the heat and a lot of the light I'd been enjoying disappeared. The few breezes there had been suddenly became a constant chill, and the words on the page were a bit harder to see. Why is it that we, Christian brothers and sisters, let the Light of the World be covered so well by others? We should be magnifying it, and instead we, as often as not, are the wind that blow a cloud in the way. We're the ones that support people who disguise the Truth, people who make it a lot harder to see the Word of God. When the warmth and light of God should be so enjoyable for the world, instead they get the subdued light of bent truth, and the cool chill of conveient lies. Why do we stand for this? Why do I stand for this? (0) comments May tenth isn't far away. Yesterday, Sunday, I had a nice bigfat nap on my roof in the sun. It felt WONDERFUL. I got a little bit of sun on my skin, which my pale self has been bragging about since. :) This was my last weekend day chance to relax for the foreseeable future. Next weekend will include two bridal showers, a concert, and a swing dance (any local people, call Grace Evangelical Free Church for info.) The following weekend will include a concert and some girl bonding time with my current roommates before we all part directions, especially the one getting married. The weekend after that (we're up to the weekend of May 12th now, eh?) is my grandmother's service in LA, where all the cool stuff I mentioned in a previous entry will be happening. Following that, I have three weddings in three weeks. One each weekend. And possibly some other things going on each weekend as well. Wow. Throw in some mid-week concerts, visits from out-of-town friends, and whatver randomness and spontineity may occur, and I'm gonna have a busy, but incredibly fun month and a half. Then comes the summer. It can only get better. (0) comments Sunday, April 22, 2001
Today, I got a call from my twin brother, Peter. Despite that most of the time on the phone consisted of silence, it was wonderful hearing from him. I'll see him in less than a month. Obviously, I could post a MUCH longer entry about Peter than the entry I wrote last nite about Jana. But I won't, because I'm REALLY tired by now. Peter, if you ever read this: I love you. (0) comments Saturday, April 21, 2001
So I was in third grade, and I met this girl in my class named Jana Marie *censored*. (Now, now, it isn't proper internet etiquette to reveal a person's last name without her permission.) Jana and I got along really well, and it was our mutual unpopularity and the occasional (note the sarcasm) problem at home that brought us a very strong friendship quickly. Just before 5th grade, Jana's family moved about two miles from where they'd lived, but that included moving from our school's boundaries into another. I suppose that they may have had the option to keep her in the same elementary school for her final year, but for various (mostly wise from my guesses) reasons they decided to enroll her in the school she was now within the boundaries of. We were living about a mile apart, and I fairly often rode my bike to their new apartment to spend time with the girl I still considered my best friend. In 6th grade, I began going to a school half an hour by car (and over an hour by bus) from my house for a special program designed to integrate the schools. Between the extra distance, my after-school activities, and Jana's family moving again in 7th grade, we didn't get to hang out much. Indeed, her family moved a good half hour away during our 7th and 8th grade years. By the time I was in my sophomore year of high school, Jana had moved to within two miles of me, and we were spending time together again. This was exciting for me. 7 years of friendship. The person that I'd known the longest outside of my direct family (including my aunt's family and my grandparents). The summer before my jr. year, though, I moved to CA. Due to various things that happened there, I ended up spending three months in foster care before moving back to FL. Those three months just happened to surround my 17th birthday. Jana called my father's house (where I'd been living 'till I went into foster care) on my birthday, and I did get the message. I didn't get to return the call as we couldn't make long-distance calls from my foster home, though, and the paper with her number on it got lost in the move. When I realized this back in FL, I was very upset feeling that I had no way of contacting her. Indeed, I moved up to VA and had been here for about 7 months when one day.. I got an email from Jana *censored* in my inbox! Boy, was I excited! I opened it, and saw that she had found my email address from my website, was now in college, and that it really was the very same girl that I'd known since we were in third grade. Wow! This was too good to be true! I literally jumped up and down in my chair when I saw the email, and probably stopped breathing for a while. That night I told my roommates ALL about Jana (I tell long enough stories generally, imagine 10 years of history to tell in one night!) and over the next few months kept in touch with her. When I visited FL during the summer, for my brother's wedding, and had a car, we planned on getting together. Unfortunately, the car I was borrowing had major trouble, and there was just no feasible way for me to get down to where Jana lived or vice-versa. The frustration of this was great, but we did talk on the phone a fair amount. We're going on 11 years of friendship now, and there are few friendships throughout my life that compare to that of mine with Jana. She is an incredible person.. wow, an incredible woman now! We have grown up together even while across the continent from eachother, and we can remember things about eachother we'd be ashamed for others to know, yet at least in my case I'm glad that she knows. I've been thinking a lot lately about how much ten years will change a person. Over ten years of friendship with Jana. How much we've each changed in those ten years, and how much we'll each change in the next! It's amazing. Jana Marie *censored*, I am very glad that I know you. (0) comments Friday, April 20, 2001
Ack and double Ack!! The Over the Rhine date in Chapel Hill, which I was INCREDIBLY excited about, has disappeared from the tour dates page! NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo!!!!(0) comments My major rant for the past few months, and one that I was reminded of again tonite, is the minor forms of road rage. Obviously, no one's happy with the more, shall we say, outspoken or noticible forms, such as pulling a gun on someone that cuts you off. But from a Christian perspective, minor forms *should* be seen as just as bad. What do I mean by minor forms? Well, I have many roommates and friends (the vast majority of people I've ever ridden with, to be more precise) that will be waiting to turn out of a driveway or from a side street onto a busy road, and the oncoming traffic which they must wait for before turning is moving slowly. Take it down a level, there's only ONE car they're waiting for, and it's going about 5 or 10 miles below the speed limit for that street. The common response: "Idiot! Don't you know what a gas pedal is?!?" That, my friend, is minor road rage. Physically, they're not hurting anyone. Humanistically, it's just fine because they're not hurting anyone. Mentally, they're causing themselves more anguish than necessary, and Spiritually they're doing a great deal of damage. It irritates me. The same people that yell, or at least mumble, about how the person ahead of them shouldn't have their license if the person so much as puts on the wrong blinker at the wrong time, will make mistakes driving (or even drive horribly at times out of carelessness or miss-focused-attention) and expect that the people that they cut off or almost hit will be perfectly happy to go on as if this person did nothing wrong at all. Indeed, I was driving with a good friend of mine (well, she was driving) one day when someone was in the wrong part of a dual-turn-lane (We didn't have those in FL, so I'm not sure that that'll make sense to very many people reading this. Ah, well) and thus she couldn't turn into the area she needed to turn into, while the person sat there trying to get back into the regular flow of traffic from whence he came. Not five minutes later, we had finished an errand, turned around, and were in the exact same place. I reminded her that we needed to stop at the bank, and she too-quickly moved into the exact same dual-turn-lane, almost hitting another car, and finding herself stuck in a very similar predicament, in which she couldn't turn where she needed to and the almost-hit car couldn't turn where IT needed to, and thus they were both stuck. How quickly the words from her mouth turned from judging the stupidity of the other driver to begging the forgiveness of this driver. "I'm sorry! I didn't realize where I was! Please don't be mad at me!" This driver could no more hear her pleas than the other her critisism, but it was still very important for her to say each while frantically motioning gestures to back up her statements. My, how quickly we forget. Matthew 12:36-37 -- But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. (0) comments Thursday, April 19, 2001
Ok, so I just wrote this bigfat entry on how much of a Dork I am and always have been, and a few thoughts on acceptance. I pressed post, and recieved an error that I guess has been plauging blogger lately. I myself have lost a good few bigfat entries because of this same entry. So, hopefully it will be fixed soon (and I'm sure it will), but in the meantime I really ought to get in the habit of typing bigfat entries in notepad so if I do lose them, I can just cut and paste again.(0) comments "[This is] how it is with God's love: once you've experienced it, you spread His love to everyone. You want to pass it on." -- Pass It On, Author Unknown by me. (0) comments Wednesday, April 18, 2001
"Someday, I'll stop feeding the hand that bites me." -- Katy Raymond on her very neat blog, http://www.fallible.com/(0) comments National Public Radio is quite possibly one of the best things to have hit the radio in American history. (0) comments Saving the whole world all at once isn't an easy job. Funny how I keep trying. Best part is, it's already been done. In my lifetime, there's never been a point where I didn't know about Jesus and what He accomplished. I didn't always really understand it (i still don't REALLY understand it), but I've never not known. Yet it's so .. natural to keep on trying. So easy to slip back into the habit of trying to fix everything wrong everywhere. No matter what my grandfather thinks of all religions being cults, or what my mother thinks about the lies she's being fed (by herself and others) constantly; No matter what my classmates in high school thought about Christianity, or what my coworkers, past and present, have ruled out of their possible beliefs; No matter who's been burned by the Church Universal, or which people claiming to be Christians live like Christ never came to earth to show us how to live and to die for our sins -- One thing remains true. Christianity, the belief in and desire to follow Christ. Nothing else compares remotely, and nothing else is critisized so highly. "For the sake of the world, I thank the Lord that the Truth's not contingent on me." -- derek webb of Caedmon's Call, Truth. I also thank the Lord that it's contingent on no human being, other than Christ's all human and all God at once being. Goodness, if myself or any people mentioned above (obviously with the exception of Christ) were the maker or decider of Truth, we'd be in a much worse state than we are now. (0) comments Lots of good concerts coming up over the course of the next month or so. When you include summer, there're festivals, too. But just going for the next month, I'll get to see Over the Rhine Bebo Norman Justin McRoberts Sandra McCracken with Derek Webb (of Caedmon's Call fame) and a slew of local artists. Fun stuff. (0) comments Tuesday, April 17, 2001
So my grandmother passed away in February, and was cremated. That was her wish. Gramps will drive the urn with her ashes in it to Ruston, LA in less than a month, and our family will converge there (where her family is from) for her funeral service. She'll be buried in the family plot.Not a happy occasion, but there will be some good things happening: I will get to pay my final respects to my grandmother, of course. I last saw her in June of last year (2000) at my older brother's wedding. I will get to spend some time with my Grandfather, and hopefully have some quality conversations during this time of mourning. I will get to spend some time with relatives I've had no contact with in about 10 years, and meet some that I've never met at all. I'll get to spend time with my brother and his wife, two of the people I enjoy being around the most. I'll get to meet my niece, Sloane Andia, who was born shortly before Christmas of this past year (again, 2000) and who I haven't gotten to meet yet. A picture of her sits on top of my computer. What a beautiful child. I'll get to see Ruston, which I haven't seen in about 10 years, and which is, as I recall, a beautiful place. And finally.. I'll get to spend time with my twin brother, Peter, whom I haven't seen since Thanksgiving of '98. So, out of something that isn't good, at least not from a human perspective, come many good things. (0) comments It can be frustrating when blogger doesn't work. But then, I'm so happy to have it when it does work. (0) comments Sunday, April 15, 2001
Chapel Hill really is a beautiful place.(0) comments This is my entry that I wanted to post the night before last, but was unable to because Blogger was down. It's just about as random as I ever get in a format like this. So, Wednesday night's entry: As a child, I was always somewhat of a tomboy. Quite the tomboy, in fact. I saw myself a lot in the opening scene of Miss Congeniality, which I finally got around to seeing last night. In fact, I saw a fair amount of myself, or the self I was before discovering this strang thing called femininity, throughout the pre-undercover-operation character Sandra Bullock plays in the movie. I've since become much more likely to wear a skirt, and a nice one at that. I've become more likely to wear some sort-of makeup, though that's still fairly rare and when I do it's usually just eyeliner and lipgloss if that. As my hair is growing in from shaving it off in June of 2000, it's opened up all these very simple but very feminine styles that I never could do with long hair. Flattering styles with hair as long and thick as mine was were only produced by a lot more effort than I generally had the energy to bother with, and now I have to think of something to say so I don't end this sentence in a preposition. At any rate, all that to say that I've become a girl. I painted my nails tonight, as has become habit for me. I actually own a fair amount of nailpolish now, though most of it (as with my clothing and most other posessions) was given to me in some way or another. But the point remains the same .. I painted my nails. Not too many years ago, this would have been a once every 6 months or so thing for me. In fact, in fairly recent memory, it was still down to about once every 4 months if that. I'd guess that I now paint my nails maybe once a month. This is, perhaps, similar to addictive nature of cigs and other such things.. start out doing it rarely and saying it's just for fun, but see yourself evolve into a common nailpainter who no one would believe ever painted her nails less. Anyway.. I'm taking a trip tomorrow to NC, and I'm very excited about that. This particular city is one of my top 5 favorite places I've ever been, and can only get better from there. Did I mention that I painted my toenails, too? So, one has to wonder if Sandra's character remains more feminine or goes back to her masculine-shoes and tangled hair once she's settled back at home. Tonight, my former roommate, Rachel, was having a birthday dessert outing at the brand new local Ruby Tuesday's. Shortly after I'd first moved here two years ago, we had a birthday lunch outing for a friend named Daniel. At some point during that time, I picked up a ribbon-bow from a present and put it on someone's head, instructing them to quote a movie to earn taking this off their head. This spawned our "hat game" when the person then passed it to the next and had them do the same. We continued passing it around the table, each person only allowed to quote while wearing the "hat", and quote success being judged on the applause, laughter, and intensity of listening. The game continued until no one could quote a good line. (This same group of friends has a running joke about clearing out areas of the restaurant where we're seated, and about clearing out the whole place within record time.) We played the hat game tonight, using a napkin this time. Movies quoted most included Liar Liar, Miss Congeniality, and anything by Adam Sandler. Throw in a few classic quotes from Sabrina, Pride and Prejudice, and various Audrey Hepburn flicks, and a few obscure quotes from hilarious underground movies such as Cold Comfort Farm, On the Razzle, and Hardware Wars, and you've got yourself a night full of hearty belly laughs and lots of blank minds. I love being able to go out and laugh so much with a group of friends, not having to think about whatever's stressing me out, or whatever concerns I have. I love feeling like I belong within a group of friends, especially when I start something so repeated and so rediculous as the hat game. I wonder if it will spread.. I somehow doubt that, but I do suggest anyone reading this to give it a try and see if it takes off among your group of friends. Better yet, spawn your own rediculous game to become a tradition. "Tradition.. Tradition, tradition." Speaking of movie quotes, Fiddler on the Roof and various and sundry musicals were also popular in our group. Meanwhile, I need to get up in just a few hours (unusually early for me) and prepare to work my shift and then drive to NC, so I should really go to bed now. God bless you all. (0) comments Friday, April 13, 2001
I'm here in Chapel Hill, NC, on a sorta vacation from too much of the same thing. There are amazing nature scenes around the house where I'm staying right now: Flowers i full bloom, trees like I haven't seen in a while other than on my trips to the mountains. This place is wonderful. I think I'm gonna have to visit more often. I got to go to some local pizza shop just off the campus for lunch, and take a little walking and driving tour of the campus afterwards. My mother was here about 30 some odd years ago as a student, and walking around is akin to visiting her past, though she's not here to tell me how different things have gotten. It's a beautiful spring day, as I suspect is probably is in my current hometown, though much easier to enjoy here where it's new and fresh to my senses. I borrowed a car from a friend to come down here, which was incredibly nice. The car and the favor. It's sitting in the driveway here now, but I almost wish I were in it, driving through mountains and trees and lots of pretty flowers. I miss driving. I haven't had a car in 8 months, and only had my car for 4 before my accident. 4 months, 10,000 miles. Lots of driving, not a lot of time. Wonderful thing, driving is. So anyway, I drove down here last nite, leaving about 2 hours later than I'd planned on leaving and an hour later than I wanted to be the latest time I would leave, if that makes any sense whatsoever. In English: I planned on leaving at 4:30, wanting 5:30 to be the latest I would leave, and actually left about 6:30. Stopped to get gas, and got outside my city's limits with a full tank of gas, an Awakening Records Compilation in the player, and a Jones Soda in the cupholder. Good way to start the trip. What should have been about a 2 hour drive, however, turned into pretty close to 4 and a half due to missing a sign somewhere halfway down the road. I didn't mind so much, as I really do love driving, except that that meant I arrived in the dark when the directions were intended for daylight. (Landmarks such as pink houses and dirty white mailboxes become somewhat less effective in the dark.) So, I made it, and am really, really enjoying my visit so far. I'm sure the rest of my time away from home will be great, as well. Chapel Hill is a beautiful place. (0) comments Wednesday, April 11, 2001
"Patty, I'm not doing so well." I could hear the tears about to start. To quote Aaron Tate, one of the writers for Caedmon's Call, one of my favorite bands, "My words fall to the floor as tears drip through the telephone lines." She'd had a fight with her mother and, at 23 years old and 1 month from getting married, had been kicked out. Mind you, she's lived on her own and with roommates before. It's not that she couldn't live on her own. There were some very practical reasons (including her parent's wishes) that she's been living with her parents the past few years. It's simply that she was kicked out because of an argument about the upcoming wedding, and only 1 month from the big event, that upsets me. There are deeper issues in why I'm upset about it.When I was born, my parents apparently didn't take into consideration that the fact they had a child meant they should be good parents, they should love the being they helped create, and they should, ideally, raise me to be a productive and well-adjusted member of society. My brothers (one older, one twin) and I were basically .. well, unwanted. None of us are on good terms with either of our parents at any given time, and certainly not with both at the same time. When my older brother got married, in fact, there was some concern about inviting our parents, and about how they would behave on the day he and his wife made their own vows. Needless to say, I don't come from a good home, and I value the relationships with parental figures in my life, as my own parents have chosen not to be parental towards me. When I see friends that have two loving parents, especially in cases where they're still together, I'm glad. I'm honestly glad for them. There's comfort in knowing that few people come from as messed up a home as I, and joy in knowing that some children and young adults in today's society actually have good family lives. Thus, when this particular friend of mine had a fight with her mother that ended similarly, but not quite so drastically, as this one about a year ago, it upset me. I wished that she had known what a gift she had in her two loving parents. And I wished that they knew what a gift they had in their non-rebellious, doting daughter. Parents rarely treasure their children the way they should, and children rarely treasure their parents. When I heard from her today, I marvelled at how a mother could attempt to get her self-esteem lifted by participating in her daughter's wedding plans, and would push her away entirely when that didn't happen. "They told me not to come over for Easter." The day that we celebrate the rising of our Saviour. The cleansing of our sins. The foundation of our faith as Christians. Something that all Christians should celebrate in unity. The family of the Church should share in together, and individual or biological families should certainly have a special time with eachother. And yet, because of something that (from her side of the story, anyway) was out of her control and not anything she could have prevented or fixed had they even told her about this beforehand, she is unwelcome at their celebration. How sad. How entirely disgusting. With one month left to be their little girl, theirs by blood and rite, before giving her name and her life to her marraige, they have pushed her away. For her last time to celebrate Easter with them without the added extension of her husband (and they shall become one flesh), she will be celebrating apart from her family. If I had a loving family, and especially if they lived anywhere nearby (rather than in CA and FL, where one each of my brothers and my parents live), I would jump at the chance to spend Easter with them. Fortunately, I have friends and fellow Church members who are like family to me, with whom I can share in the celebration. If I had a family, and something so small and so stupid could push us apart at a time stressful enough already and when family means that much more, I can't imagine how I would feel. I can't imagine how I could get through a day like that without dehydrating myself by crying. Value your family. Value the friends that seem like family. They mean more than any gift God can give us in this world apart from Salvation and Grace. (0) comments Tuesday, April 10, 2001
In '97, I went with my best friend, Andrew, to his senior Prom. It was my sophomore year of high school. I enjoyed Prom, and especially enjoyed that time with Andrew and my other friends. Among the favors in the bag each prom-goer recieved was a small bottle of Sparkling Cider. I never opened mine.Until tonight. Seeing as how I've been a little stressed lately, I decided to give myself a romantic date with myself to relax. The funny thing about romantic dates (I wouldn't know about REAL ones, having never had any sort of date other than maybe two quasi-dates, personally.. but my friends tell me about theirs.) is that you can't think of bad stuff. You can't think about all your stress and whatnot. You enjoy the moment. So I set my table with candles and a vase full of flowers. I played my instrumental Celtic Hymns CD. I put out a bowl of Lipton's pre-packaged Pasta and Sauce: Creamy Tomato Parmesan (which is incredibly good!), a cup of tea, and a cup of water. And I opened my nice, chilled bottle of Sparkling Cider from '97. Most people, including myself, would assume it would be about as good as apple wine by this time. It wasn't. I didn't mind. I liked it just fine as the Cider with a bite it was. It went wonderfully with my pasta, and enhanced the romantic mood of the evening. The moon was beautiful, too. I love living in a place where I can see it as well as I can. I'd love to sit out under the moon and actually see the stars, as I do when I go out to one of the farm houses various jr. highers that I work with live in. It's so beautiful in the country. But tonight, the view from my kitchen window was enough. The big old tree behind our house, which has barely begun sprouting leaves again, made for a wonderful, beautiful picture to remember, with the moon shining behind its many branches and twigs. Gorgeous. So, I guess that when you don't have someone to share a romantic dinner with, it makes you tired. At least, it made me tired. In a good way, but tired nonetheless. The good thing, though, is that when you have no boyfriend to entertain, you can just put your head on your arms on the table, and take a little nap right there. And that's exactly what I did. A good hour of relaxation, soothing music, calming candlelight, and some stress-free conversation with Our Creator. I think I'm gonna start doing this monthly. (0) comments |
Hippie: (after hearing Max wants to avoid the draft)You still have options man. "So how do i do normal "It's been known for a train to jump its track. It's ok, so you'll know, most times they come back. It's ok to lose your life, when you finally see your birth. It's ok to say, "I love you," and figure sometimes it's gonna hurt. "As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes, all exciting at first, but then by the end you're sick of 'em!" "Hey, this is weird! I ordered one frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You don't happen to like frozen yogurt, do you?" "I love it!" "You're kidding! What a crazy random happenstance!" "Only one more trip," said a gallant seaman, "It was Flannery O'Connor who said that 'grace must wound before it heals.' Her words help me to separate what is most true about life from the things we want to be true. We want life to be painless. True grace is a hard sell because in order for the human heart to understand forgiveness and love, it must first experience darkness and isolation. A life lived under the rule of grace is a life of need which allows us to receive an appreciate the gift of the giver of grace. This is why we will always have the poor with us; this is why God will not allow us to ignore injustice; this is why we are called to a life we cannot handle alone, which can and will break us in the effort to live it -- because grace must wound before it heals." Regarding 2007: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, I thought Christmas Day would never come. But it's here at last, so Mom and Dad, the waiting's finally done. And you gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up, it's Christmas morning. O little town of Bethlehem, Walk humbly, son Strings of lights above the bed "In a little while I'll feel better "Please tell me once again that You love me. That You love me. Please tell me once again that I matter to You and You really care. Please tell me once again that You're with me, forever. It's not that I could ever doubt you, I just love the way it sounds. I just love the way it sounds." "Every once in a while, a bannerzen posts." "7:30. What kind of people have to be at work at 7:30?" have you seen my love Traveling is significant because it takes so much effort. Either you're going to some place you love, or you're leaving some place you love. Usually it's both. I think I have Bond's ability to get into trouble but not his ability to get out of it. Someday I'll be in some foreign country with 5 thugs with automatic rifles pointed at me, and I'll just.... fart "You had no alternative .. We must work in the world. The world is thus." --- "No .. Thus have we made the world." The summer ends and we wonder where we are And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car And you both look so young And last night was hard, you said You packed up every room And then you cried and went to bed But today you closed the door and said "We have to get a move on. It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead, We push ourselves ahead." Looking out the bedroom at this snowy TV.. ever since commencement, no one's asking 'bout me. But I bet before the night falls, I could catch the late bus.. take small provisions and this Beethoven bust. I could find work in the outskirts of the city, eat some fish on the way.. befriend an old dog for a roadside pal, find a nice couch to stay -- a pull-out sofa, if you please!" Ooh! Get me away from here I'm dying "The trouble with folks like Brownie is they hold their life in like a bakebean fart at a Baptist cookout and only let it slip out sideways a little at a time when they think there's nobody noticing. Now that's the last thing on earth the Almighty intended. He intended all the life a man's got inside him, he should live it out just as free and strong and natural as a bird." "Life is a phantasmagoria .. It is a pell-mell of confused and tumultuous scenes. We try in vain to find a purpose - to bring an order, a unity to life. I suppose that is the appeal of art. Art is the blending of the real and the unreal, the conquering of nature. It is real enough for it to reflect life, but has the unity that life lacks." "in time memories fade. I've always had this feeling about Patty that she's complex and intriguing...I like Patty alot. She's got a good heart and tells terrible squirrel jokes. "Try to remember that world-weariness isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the book of Mark, I think its Mark, Jesus looks at a blind man and sighs. Jesus sighed before even telling the man he would be healed. He sighed, and I'm not sure that there's a much more human expression of frustration than this. Faced with the horrid picture of a cursed earth and looking into the white eyes of a man blind from the day he was born, He sighed. The Creator of the universe in human form was sad "of the evils of this world," the world He created. Your Creator sighed for you in the same way before He healed you and made you His." After the last secret's told After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone After the last child starves And the last girl walks the boulevard After the last year that's just too hard There is love -- Andrew Peterson, After the Last Tear Falls "when you most need people, you don't need perfection - just to know someone gives a damn" "A CALL TO ACTION: "My brother's always [telling me], 'You should be more mysterious--boys like that.' But I'm not good at that. It would just make me more uncomfortable." "Loners want to kill you, but not for any particular reason, and they'd probably like you if they weren't being guided by the violent voices in their head." "No one wants to oil a snake these days!"
-- Her mom: "We're all safe." -- Jamie Bevill and her mother during Christmas-Decorating dinner, December 20, 2002 i'd throw out all my shoes i'd set up cans for friends to dump their shoes senseless shoes a pioneer of callouses lordy-be and bless my soul i'd be a barefoot spaceman the first you'd ever know" "The best way to have God's will for your life is to have no will of your own!" "Generations circle and each one atones. The sins of the father are seperate from my own. In Pilgrim's Progress, it's forgiveness that makes whole, and as time levels and consoles, I place the daisies in your bowl." "For a moment he just stared at her. Then, with an urf-urf-urf of laughter, he turned back to the controls." "It's on the internet.. so, then, it must be true." "Be at least as interested in what people can become as you are in what they have been." Blessed be the rock stars!" Get up for the shower.. wash and scrub and scour every part as if a cleaner man could better bear the shame.. "She was eating gnarly amounts of calcium." Homeless man to girl trying to give him money: "No, thanks, ma'am. I never work on Sundays." "Wow! I never thought I'd need a radar-guided spatula!" "Isn't it great that I articulate? Isn't it grand that you can understand? ... I can talk, I can talk, I can talk!" I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know... I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: "You've turned up in the right place at the right time. You're doing fine. Don't ever think that you've been forgotten. When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "No answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand." CCM: You've spoken a lot more about crying than I ever thought you would. "Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort. A man doesn't grow old because he has lived a certain number of years. A man grows old when he deserts his ideal. The years may wrinkle his skin, but deserting his ideal wrinkles his soul. Preoccuptaions, fears, doubts, and despair are the enemies which slowly bow us toward earth and turn us into dust before death. You will remain young as long as you are open to what is beautiful, good, and great; receptive to the messages of other men and women, of nature and of God. If one day you should become bitter, pessimistic, and gnawed by despair, may God have mercy on your old man's soul." ""Don't go matchmaking for me, Ilse," said Emily wit a faint smile... "I feel in my bones that I shall achieve old-maidenhood, which is an entirely different thing from having old-maidenhood thrust upon you." "I wish Aunt Elizabeth would let me go to Shrewsbury, but I fear she never will. She feels she can't trust me out of her sight because my mother eloped. But she need not be afraid I will ever elope. I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art" "Tomorrow seems like a long ways away. But it will come, just like any other day... Deep inside, where the wounded creatures hide, I am afraid. Maybe I got lost somewhere along the way somehow. Please rescue me... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the dark shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me... Though I fear, though I am afraid, You are with me. Though I'm angry, tired, broken down and confused, You are with me. Though I sin like I've never sinned before, lose myself right out an open door, You are with me." "The invisible people agreed about everything. Indeed most of their remarks were the sort it would not be easy to disagree with: "What I always say is, when a chap's hungry, he likes some victuals," or "Getting dark now; always does at night," or even "Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?"" -- C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader "When People object... that if Jesus was God as well as Man, then He had an unfair advantage which deprives Him for them of all value, it seems to me as if a man struggling in the water should refuse a rope thrown to him by another who had one foot on the bank, saying, "Oh but you had an unfair advantage." It is because of His advantage that He can help." "But, you know, as a Christian, one of the big questions you always ask yourself is, "So we believe in Jesus, we believe in the teachings of the church, but what does that look like when it's lived out?" Because surely, one of the things that Jesus said that I think we often overlook is, "The person who hears my words and does them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock." He didn't say "the person who hears my words and thinks about 'em" or "whoever hears my words and agrees with it." But he said, "Whoever hears it and does it." "find that which gives you breath and grants you more to give "I have packed all my belongings. I don't belong here anymore. This pair of sandles, one pack to carry, this old guitar and this tattered old Bible. And I know I won't be afraid. 'cause I know, I know Home is where You are." "Open up your weepy eyes, everyone is dancing. Angels peer through sweet disguise, through a fire of cleansing. "Long hair, no hair; Everybody, everywhere:
Breathe Deep, breathe deep the Breath of God!" "You may be bruised and torn and broken, but
you're Mine!" "I don't deserve to speak, and they don't deserve
to hear it. It's makin' me believe that it's not
about me." "Kickin' against these goads sure did cut up my
feet. Didn't your hands get bloody as you washed
them clean?" "They say God blessed us with plenty. I say
you?re blessed with poverty. ?Cause you never
stop to wonder whether earth is just a little
better than the Land of the Free" "Computers will know everything in the 21st
century. They'll be like me in the 20th
century." |
