On Speculation

It would have really been great

2011-10-07T06:32:00.001-07:00

to have you around last night. It's difficult being half a unit. When Jo needs something...it's just better to be two. I understand now more fully why it was designed that way.

Anyway. It would also be really great if you gave up the battle and conceded to the sadness. I can't judge, because I have been running...and denying...but every so often I feel real again and my TRUE feelings are there, the ones I've been denying. I know more than anything else I know that you are in that same place, because I know you better than most, maybe better than all. I understand you have many people in your life and many are close to you and care deeply about you, but no one has ever felt about you or been able to read you the way I do. Even you can't see the things I see. If they loved you at the level I do, they would hold you accountable. I know how amazing you can be. I also know how lazy, selfish and stubborn you can be. I know you the same way I know Tara or Katie or my sister - it comes so easily. I know most of all how much you love me. I'm willing to bet, if you let yourself, there are occasional times when you're close to recognizing the heartbreak, maybe you even feel a little of it, that suffocating, heaviness in your chest when you remember what there was and what isn't and can't be anymore.

All I am saying is that I am right here, going through so many of the same things, and that I know you. ...That is all.

Truth

2011-09-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

Truth is, I've been on a real "cheating" kick lately. No, I have not actually been cheating. That's not what I mean. Really, it all happened by accident.

My friend Wendy and I were sitting on her porch smoking and bitching about our men (an activity that pretty much sums up the extent of our friendship) when she mentioned the book she had just read. It's called "The Truth About Cheating: Why Men Stray and What You Can Do To Prevent It." Well, I had the same initial thought my sister did when I told her about the book: Sounds to me like the author is blaming women for the cheating, or at least suggesting the men had some excuse for being unfaithful. Yes, I had the same thought (a big turn-off) as my sister, but I also have been one to cheat, and I know that the majority of relationships that fail are due to the misgivings of both parties involved, not just those of one. Usually it's a whole mess of things that finally leads to a painful end - in my case, adultery.

Wendy said she read the book in one night, as did her mother, and swore by it. So, when I ventured to the library one evening while attempting to waste time until my boyfriend finished band practice, I found the stupid book. I also finally checked out Elizabeth Gilbert's answer to "Eat, Pray, Love," a major, life-changing favorite of mine. Her new book is called "Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage." I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Gilbert the first time, so of course her new book was on my list of must-reads.

Needless to say, Gilbert happens to present the topic of marriage - or, the topic of man/female relationships. Specifically, she discusses attraction, gender roles, trust and, obviously: faithfulness.

So I'm reading the "Why Men Stray" book at work so my bf doesn't see me reading it and get weirded out about it in any way and I'm reading "Committed" at home because it's less damning - to either gender - for the most part and is therefore safer to openly discuss/study. The result of this coincidental collision of two books with similar (and similarly painful/frightening) observations is that I cannot think of anything other than relationships, whether that be in a general sense or about those in the past (painful) or those possibilities of the future (frightening).

The more specific result is that I am turning into a nut, really. I am being educated and therefore feel safer, in one sense, because I know now what to look out for (turns out I truly already knew those things naturally, but at least now my beliefs are confirmed by research/history/surveys) and I know what I can do to ensure I am a caring girlfriend/wife/whatever, but on the other hand, I have so much to worry about!

There are a MILLION tips, especially if you do what I did, which is to research the topic even further. I went to Cosmopolitan.com, which is obviously a terrible idea given Cosmo's reputation; the magazine seems to suggest through all its articles that a woman must be hot and extremely sexual, etc, etc, in order to be appealing. But still, I was curious. Cosmo, like the Stray book, suggested a bagillion things to look out for when determining whether or not your man is cheating, along with a bagillion tips for keeping your relationship hot/secure.

Here's my take-away so far: I can't possibly keep up. Sure, there are probably things I can do to make sure my guy knows the affection and commitment I feel for him, but I shouldn't do those things for the sole purpose of ensuring he doesn't cheat on me. The fact is, if I seriously have to work that hard and put in that much thought and effort just so he doesn't do something extremely damaging to our relationship and to me, he is likely the type of guy that would cheat even if I was what the media (*cough*Cosmo*cough*), Neuman (author of Stray book) or anyone else would consider "perfect." Because the fact is, everyone and everything has a different idea for what "perfect" even is. And even the same person's idea of what "perfect" is changes from day to day based on their needs, desires, fears, etc.

This is not to say that a person can't change. I am a prime example of that. Having cheated in the past, I now recognize the unhealthy mindset I was in at the time of the cheating and am now doing everything in my power to not only not cheat but to stop that kind of mindset from creeping in again. I have taken the time to study my own past and pick out the parts of my personality and the setting and the relationship I was in to determine what led to such a terrible decision and make sure I remain far from such a scenario in the future. Many, many people would read this last part and think "Yeah, right. People SO CANNOT change, and you are fooling yourself." To you people that feel that way, I say to you: You don't scare me. Because I was you, once. I was the most cynical person alive (no, seriously, I could defy literally anyone that brought reality and positivity in front of me). I am not that person now. I do, however, agree that change is rare and that it may take a very specific and nearly miraculous event for that change to occur. BUT I do believe it is possible.

Now, applying this to my current relationship of one year, I have to admit I am not certain Buddy is cut out for that job (that being the job of being faithful). On one hand, this admission is a red flag that I should immediately end the relationship. On the other, though, my lack of trust could primarily be the consequence of my own lack of reliability and/or my own experiences with betrayal in the past. Perhaps I am projecting much of my own fears onto him and placing the blame where it doesn't belong? So far, I don't have any concrete evidence that he shouldn't be trusted. There are grey areas, yes, but nothing that truly shows he has been or will be unfaithful to me. In fact, most of what I know about him is very conflicting. Sometimes, I sum up his character as a really great guy (the same words his peers use to describe him) because his actions show he is a good, compassionate, responsible man. Other times, I am convinced his sister must be sorely misled when she asserts "he isn't a womanizer."

In conclusion, I don't know all the answers yet. I only know that I have only so much power. So, where I have the power, I will attempt to use it wisely and with humility. I am taking active steps to be a better girlfriend/mom/friend/person each day in all ways I can figure. But I still live with fear every day. I fear I will be made into a fool. Most days I'm entirely sure of it, if for no explanation other than karma. But I cannot control the actions of others. I can only control mine. If he cheats, he cheats, and I will hate him, yes, and probably hate myself for not seeing it, yes, but I can do very little to control what he will do.

Here's to hoping that, this time around, I am loved and that I not only love well, but well enough.

Project

2011-09-01T13:16:00.001-07:00

I am going to start a project. I keep putting it off, but it keeps reminding me and bugging me to start it, so I'm freaking going to, damnit.

I'm afraid. It will be a big, vulnerable, painful step, but hopefully it will be one made in the right direction.

I have had a rough couple of days. My boyfriend is away too much. I am the other woman to a studio, to music. I have wished death on many people lately. I must be evil. Or maybe only desperate. But I'm going to start a project, and I hope it helps me and everyone else.

Dreams are coy creatures.

2011-08-26T04:43:00.001-07:00

I'm headed to Delphi in an hour or so to see my mother in one grief and my friend in another. I'm not sure I can handle all of it - or any of it - but I think it's within my responsibility to try.

Last night I had a dream I was on a moped of some sort driving through the country trying to find my way home. With every hill I wheeled over, I felt closer, confident I was on the right path. Each time a building came into view, it comforted me with familiarity until I realized it wasn't one I'd seen before. When I pulled up for gas and gatorade, the girl at the counter of the white clapboard station tried to help and console me. More strangers appeared, having stopped along their own known paths, and attempted to provide directions. They knew where they were going and they recognized the importance of it, sympathized with me in my disillusion. My body, even in sleep, took on the discomfort of masking fear by projecting confidence, covering up reddening cheeks with a bandana, as I remounted my shaky bike with shaky hands. The strangers huddled together to watch me leave, and I could sense their uncertainty with the path I'd chosen, and I knew they could just as surely sense mine.

It's a reoccuring dream, and I always wake up before it reveals where I finally arrive. I hate to see it as this, but I've known for a long time that dreams are witty, coy creatures. I know the dream is toying with me, taunting me with the truth of how I feel: that I am at a loss - with who I am, with what I have, and with where I'm going.

2011-08-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

I only know I'm "depressed" when I can't move. That's how I was today. I'm not like that often, but today, I couldn't move. I was curled up on Johanna's bed and stared at her when she came in the room. She asked, "What?" and I couldn't respond.

I've learned grief takes many forms. I've learned depression sneaks up swiftly, and that if it were a visual something, it would perhaps look like a violent car wreck that happens when you've been driving around carefree. And before you can run away from the feeling, a monster made of helplessness and hopelessness crawls on top of you and pins you on your back.

I hate coming up with titles.

2011-08-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

Buddy is in a band and pretty much anyone cool is in a band, I've learned. We saw a girl, the female vocalist of some crappy Huntington band, when we were driving home from KFC yesterday and he told me she sucks. I said she is in a band though, so she's cooler than me and he said "Like it's hard to be in a band." He said all you have to do to be in the band is be "The Shit" and that I am poop but not quite The Shit yet. One of my favorite things about him is how easily he manages to be honest without being totally brutal. His opinion may be harsh, but at least it's not void of hope.

He is a good lyric writer, but his strength is in producing. He's best at putting words to music, and I am horrible at that, so I try to perform for him with what I can, like writing good words. The trouble is, I'm not so great at that either. The ones I've managed to write always start out being about him or some general lesson in life and always end up mutating into something very obviously about Jake or my own confusions, words I can't share with him because they are too deeply personal or would be unfair to him.

Today, for example, I keep singing my own song in my head. It's slow and melancholy, and it's basically a plea for acceptance. The chorus starts "It sneaks up like a haunting, it leaves me always wanting you to say ... " and then proceeds to ask of the receiver to accept and forgive, say he can't remember, say I'm still the one he wanted.

Yesterday Katie and I had a cry-fest, as we like to call them. She bawled about her unreliable, demeaning father and I about my error in only showing a few people the person I really am - and my even greater error in having shown that to the wrong people, people who have forgotten and have turned their backs on me.

I've shown it to Katie and my sister and sometimes to Johanna, but it's hard for me to show it even to my daughter because she is still so much a part of them, and they've hurt me. I'm terrified of her and her potential to be that way, to turn her back on me too and roll her eyes and give up.

So that's what I write about, or refuse to write about because it's too convoluted and traumatic, but it is really all I have. It's this big thing that takes over all my brain cells and leaves no room for new material. I would like to be Buddy's girlfriend and contribute to his art by creating my own, and I know I could, but I'm totaled - as in a car, I think. I am so not The Shit.

Last Minute Thoughts of the Day

2011-07-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hey, guess what?
Sometimes, beautiful things just HAPPEN. But not always. Sometimes we have to create something beautiful.
Today, beautiful things happened in a place where terrible awful things could have reared their ugly heads. I am oh so happy to have been granted this reprieve.
BUT I want to make sure I start PURPOSEFULLY creating beautiful things for myself even when everything around me seems too dusty and dry to harbor anything flowery.
And I'm starting with me.
To Jake: You reminded me today why I blew up our marriage with a nuclear bomb. I pity you for trying to pull (another) one over on me.
To Rachel & Dan: You are the family I always should have had. You are real-live grown-ups. (They do exist!) Thank you for making me realize that I have been walked on for far too long and that I deserve so much better.
To Johanna: Mama Bear is back, my darlin'.

G'night!

Eat, Pray, Love

2011-07-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know when I first learned the art and bad habit of only noticing what is missing from the architecture around me. Each day I am surrounded by a million things and I can see them in whatever way I want to. Some days, there seems to be more sunlight in my view, and everything seems to sparkle with some kind of pleasant magic. More days, however, clouds brood above my window. Most days, I sit within my small room made smaller by all the clutter, and I despise everything in it and myself for allowing it to become so inhabited. That attitude usually (and by that I mean nearly always) follows me into whatever other rooms I venture to, including those of others and even outside in nature. Who taught me to be so negative? What is it that causes me to wish I was somewhere else, believe I should be doing something else, pray I was someone else?

Some days I wake up and can sense, both from my own mood and the mood of others around me, what kind of day it is going to be -- either sunny or stormy. Today, I knew my mood was in the right place from the moment I awoke at 5:30 a.m. to the blood-curdling screams of my 5-year-old. Despite her mood and the mood of my lover, mine was steady. I handled the situation like a professional, and even thought to myself "I should be given awards for actions like these." No one else wanted to play along, though. Buddy awoke angry and tried to fight it all day. Johanna awoke emotional and needy. Howie, our 7-month-old Peke-a-chin awoke horny and nearly overheated himself trying to hump a bigger, more masculine cousin.

But in my alone time, I popped in Eat, Pray, Love, and regardless of others' critiques, I still believe it to be a part of my story as much as White Oleander. By that I mean that it is an inspiration and an emotional journey I can relate to. Only a third of the way in, I am writing. Hallelujiah... I am writing, and I am doing it because the mood of the movie is pleasure-seeking in a healthy, not animalistic and selfish way. As I watched and reveled, my eyes drifted to the pile of shoes thrown helter-skelter into the back corner of my room. Before, I would see them and become depressed, thinking of the messes I make and my lack of motivation to clean them up due to my innate focus on the destruction rather than on the potential for improvement. Today, I look at them and see an old tattered Nike that belongs to a boy and inevitably endured hardship and, if it had had a camera attached, most likely would have recorded exciting adventures. I see cheap high-heels mixed with expensive work boots and I smile at it, because I see it for the beauty of chaos that it is instead of seeing it all as a mess and a failure.

If only I could take that image with me throughout every second of every day and see the world, my world, for it's beauty and potential and simple pleasure.

Rat Race

2011-06-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up in the middle of walking to my car like a hamster on a wheel. Hamsters probably don't think as philosophically as I did today and do sometimes -- but maybe they do... who knows?

I'm sure there have to be others who do this -- just... WAKE UP. Today I looked into the heart of downtown Fort Wayne at all the frantic cars and upper middle class women tiptoeing on heels in skirt-strides and men looking stately in ridiculously (I'm sure) priced suits and I had a spidey-sense kind of vision that behind their designer sunglasses is a cynical confusion. For any one of them, there's that temporary blissful thought that crosses his mind - "I look good" -- but there has to also be "Shit... I really don't want to sit at a desk all day under fluorescent lights in front of a glaring screen and wait for so-and-so with their such-and-such problems to drain my mind with their ..." and so it goes. I can't even write about it, it's that boring. Is anyone having any fun at all?

I know I, for one, don't want to be here. I can attest to Linda, also. Her boyfriend is a drain and though she loves him on an accepting level and he's her best friend, she's sick of him. The job bores me after three months, so surely it bores her after 11 years. And Rob. Rob HATES this hamster wheel. He's got an amazing wife but he's a dad and a worker and he has to crunch numbers all day long and avoid "the man." Carol is so overrun by her controlling nature she actually thinks she LOVES her job and her life. Rachel's getting out but just getting right back in, and even deeper. I could go on.

The thinking started when I took my second smoke break of the morning (any excuse to remove myself from the monotony for any precious blip of time) and thought "Gee, I'd really like to be white-water rafting right now or anything else relatively stimulating." The insanity then kept circling and building. Next was "What are we doing here? What's happening? Why are we killing ourselves?" And then "Oh yeah... we have to make money to survive." And then "Survive for what? To die?"

The hamster wheel. The rat race. But there's more. We settle down with one singular person. Then we realize that's insane also, so we cheat or we break up. We have children because we obsess over having someone look like us or fantasize about the sweet idea of buying tiny shoes and then we curse ourselves later when the children are still there but less cute and more obnoxious and demanding. We commit to jobs, people, credit cards, classes and the list goes on until we're running and running and running and we fail to acknowledge the only thing ever truly certain and proven and so obvious it cannot be and will never be proven wrong, that being time and change. And with time and change, regret. And the impossibility to predict either. If change falls out as time rolls over, and there is no fool-proof way to determine what change will appear, regret is inevitable. I am suffering from it and everyone else is too in some capacity even if they're slow to admitting it. Who can be judged for being impulsive when impulsiveness is the only way left to control the time and the change even for one moment of it?

Final thought: this is no preach. I believe in what I just said about as much as I believe in anything else - very little. But that, as with anything else, could change.

Lunch Break? No... but shh!

2011-05-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

I sort of worked through my lunch break here at the new job, but then again I sort of "break" all throughout my work all the time, too...hehe.
I am going to start writing everyday, by the way. HA, how many times have I said that? A million, at least, but I'm saying it again and I mean it. I'm going to really try this time. Why not? The least I could do is write something short about my day on this blog every day, right? Right!

So anyway, the first thing on my mind is that my status just now was this:

Carrie Gardiner Bragg: pms doesn't make you irrational, it just makes you more sensitive to experiences that would (rationally) upset you anyway. with that said, i sure hate it when other people pms harder than i do, especially when they're male. it's my week, people. how am i suppose to get in some bitch time when everyone else is stealing my thunder??

I wrote it because I'd just gotten off the phone with my boyfriend and he was being really mean because he thought I was being mean because clearly he is ultra sensitivo today because I was, in no way, being mean, and in fact if you had heard the conversation (like his sister did) you would have told me he was being a jerk and that I should hang up on him (which is what Rachel, his sister, said, and I did (hang up on him, I mean)).

Well that sure was convoluted. I just felt like sharing. Mostly because he is like this very very often and, unfortunately, I understand why he does it and forgive it. Forgiving it is okay, I think, except forgiving means I still have to deal with it, and OFTEN. Hate it.

Anywhosies. Another thing on my mind is that Linda, the other assistant, got really sick today and the ambulance had to come take her away from the office. That was the emergency that was going on in the background of our phone conversation when Buddy got mad and thought I was talking to other people and wasn't paying attention to him and was being mean and blah blah blah. See what I mean? Irrational.

I don't know if Linda's okay. I am hopeful she is even still alive.

So Rachel's at the hospital with Linda now and Carol already left, so I'm the only person in the Property Management Department right now, and yes, this is what I'm doing. I'm not irresponsible or anything, it's just that there is so little to do and I am so efficient at doing it that I have to spread out the work in order to fill my day productively. It makes sense, I promise.

The last thing on my mind for now is that I want to write Jake a really long letter, because I want to tell him about the moments, moments like just a few minutes ago when I randomly thought about all the little notes and crafts and things I used to make him when we were together -- I must have really adored him because I was always thinking of him and making him little things to show him I cared -- and I remember his reaction was always a smile and a polite "yeah I like it, it's nice" and then that would be it... and he never made anything like that for me.

I think maybe I adored him and he must not have adored me back. I'd like to tell him about moments when I realize things like that and instant tears come. There's a hole in my heart where he used to be. I wish he could understand that. Regardless of how it ended, every day feels like an extended nightmare when I think about how different life is now. I can't believe two people can share so much and then suddenly, it's like they un-remember and un-experience it all. Well, I haven't un-experienced anything. It's all still with me, and it's heartbreaking to think it never even happened for him. Imagine remembering an entire life vividly that no one else seems to recall or will own up to. I feel alone, but I can't help believing that the whole world could disappear and if he'd just remember again, everything that's upside down or misplaced in my life would magically realign.

This isn't to say I haven't moved on. It's just to say I'm no longer unsure of what I felt for him. Surely nothing but love could have held on this long and this lonely. I have moved on, but that doesn't mean I'll ever heal, or that the hole will ever fill. I am irrevocably changed, like a survivor of a life-threatening car wreck who lost all her limbs.

Easter

2011-04-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

I got Adele 21 and Jo got Justin Bieber 2.0 and Buddy got new white Nike shorts :)
Oh yeah, and lots and lots of candy!
It was nice. I didn't feel weird the way I always did with Jake's family. I don't know why I always felt that way with them... I may have blocked out all the details of that past as a symptom of PTSD.
But I'm really happy. I have a solid job (I think) and a great boyfriend (aside from occasional storms) and my friend/family base is growing. It doesn't take much to make me happy, contrary to all my haters' beliefs. I do miss school and art and poetry and my friends and being irresponsible, but life is good and my heart rarely hurts, so I'm not complaining.
I'm perfectly happy as long as my heart doesn't hurt.

Realization

2011-03-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Very soon, I will no longer have to work weekends or nights and I'll have a real, solid schedule. I won't have to deal with the kind of people that make me feel bad about how I act around them (they're so ridiculous they bring out the ridiculous in me).

That's not the point of this post, though. Just felt like sharing it.

The real point (if there is one) is that last night both Buddy and I got really drunk and fought about absolutely nothing, but that's not really the point either. The point is what I woke up thinking some interesting things this morning.

We fought and I cried and he didn't care and was being cruel and wouldn't be cool and then I fell asleep (somehow) and he woke me up a little later and wanted to have sex. That simple. Then we went back to sleep and it was as if everything was fine this morning, as if we didn't almost break up or I didn't tell him to leave or anything. I thought about it... Maybe I consider everything fine with my relationship as long as the guy I'm with will have sex with me. Maybe because I know that he must be REALLY disgusted and TRULY not like me in that moment if he would turn down sex, because guys don't care about anything but. Isn't that nuts?

Every day I wake up or put myself to sleep with weird realizations about myself that tell me my psychology (at least about men) is more broken than I could have imagined.

I dunno why I do this

2011-03-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

Because nobody cares. About writing anymore at all, it seems. I just spent the last year writing because "people care" supposedly, but it's not true. I do, though. I care about words and what they can do or undo.
I was looking back over old messages I'd sent or that had been sent to me and it's nuts the way people change. My perspective then, I thought, was utterly confused and cloudy, but looking back on it, I realize the only thing I was confused about was my own self-worth. I think I've at least figured that out now.
I don't need the approval of a lot of people anymore -- and especially not that of perfect strangers. I have gurus now and they keep me grounded. I know who I want to be and what my intentions are and I think I'm close to being able to love myself. Growing up is hard, but it's beautiful.

Joanie

2010-12-26T10:08:00.001-08:00

Joanie was a girl who rested in the sound of a referee's whistle. She collected Barbies her brother stole to use as model-tall girlfriends for their robust G.I. Joes. Their hair got tangled in the wrists of lonely soldiers. Hers got caught in the carpet on the floor she'd place her head on as she waited for rescue of a kind she couldn't describe. She lived in a tornado, ever-whirling, in the eye. The eye is where it seemed most calm, but one self-gratifying stretch in any direction would shred the skin from her young arms. She read to retrieve herself. The words were tiny doctors of the heart. The kittens she'd accumulated through tears of manipulation, her audience, her adorers, and their purrs, gifts of flowers and candy tossed to her feet where she balanced on an invisible stage. In the eye, she willed the wind stop so she could reach across the wall's barrier, but it held her in and all others out. She was happy cats could climb the spinning dome of her home and land like gymnasts on the 'x' of the monster's circular center to be her comrads. But they climbed and lept, just as easily, out, as her legs went numb in their Indian-style posture and she observed cats' ripe cores lifted and heaved by graceful, fuzz-covered limbs up and out of the cage of spinning debri in escape. They'll come back, she'd say aloud with neck tilted up toward the circle of evading light at the top of the junk-blistered tunnel. Joanie always spoke out loud, by way of conditioning. No one could hear a small girl of such youth mumble remarks from inside the heart of a vacuum.

2010-12-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

I look back and I had followers, I had fans, I had supporters, I had anything I wanted, but I wasn't ready yet.
There was too much emotion to juggle. I cannot be in an environment where everything goes too smoothly. It unnerves me, and I unhinge.
Alice might be pregnant.
Rebecca won't call back. Who can I interview for a 'Your Neighbor' with a sick 4-year-old? Nada. No one.
We live in a blog-eat-blog world.

I look back

2010-12-24T05:01:00.000-08:00

while in the shower or in the car or when I'm supposed to be sleeping, odds times because they are the only times, maybe, that my mind is allowed to rest. I don't get clean, I don't get sleep. I get ghosts.
I had thought my heart was an empty room, but now I know it must have served as safekeeping for something valuable, and I'm not sure I have it anymore or not...and I'm not sure I even know what it is.

Hello, World of Work.

2010-11-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

I went red during the school board meeting tonight.

One porky, asthmatic member thanked President Kevin Patrick for the article about how well HCCSC treats their soldier employees. It was, of course, an article I had written, and dear Kevin, of course, turned the attention to me. I can do attention, but not of that flavor. And knowing that the red is growing upward from my neck to my temples only makes it come quicker and hotter.

So that was nice.

In other news, I would very much so enjoy a new job, not for the injustices of hours versus pay or because my boss annoys me to the point of school shooting (though these things are, unfortunately, too true), but because of the unethical and inconsistent values portrayed by the company...perhaps, in particular, this office, or maybe more particularly...just my editor. What do I mean?

She wants too much local coverage for how much she is willing to personally cover. Specifically, if an event is not something she will already be at (for a club or organization she is involved in) or won't get her supreme recognition or is beyond her 20-step walking capacity, I must go.
She pitched and has successfully implemented a "Your Neighbor" column that runs each and every day and features someone new from the community. Under her advisement, we were to seek out "anyone, because everyone has a story." So we interviewed, literally, anyone. One time, I even interviewed a child so young he couldn't yet talk beyond a few suggestive grunts, allowing his mom to interpret his answers. Another time, I interview three heathen young cousins and received several emails for days after to suggest I had either a) Manipulated the boys so as to make fun of the answers I forced them to give or b) Honored the boys' bad behavior and as such placed our community in danger, because these boys would surely live lives in and out of the county jail. Most recently, I interviewed an old homeless war veteran, someone suggested to me as a "great" and "interesting" man. My editor lectured me this morning for taking a photo of the man in a bar, though the only clue to our whereabouts was a blue light in the corner of the picture and Nik's slightly squinting eyes. "Was he drunk?" she asked me while showing me the picture. "I don't know. Did you read the article?" "Well...no, not yet." Of course not. She never actually reads articles and when she does, it's a skim only if you can even count it as that. I go on to explain to her that, sure, appearances "matter" but I printed nothing to suggest the man was drunk nor an alcoholic and I failed even to mention that he was homeless for fear I might disrupt the fragile mind of the "important" in our community and that his printed answers reflect a deeply compassionate, reflective man who has simply endured a rough life. Her retort: "Well, you're right: appearances do matter." Ask me again why I smoke. It's for moments like this, when I need to do something with my hand and my mouth and my lung in a switch and consistent motion to calms my nerves so I don't get myself fired and/or arrested. Wendy and Doug joined me out back so I could vent, which primarily consisted of screaming the words "Fuck that!" That's the main thing about this job that I cannot stand. I can't stand the idea of working for people who are that a) inconsistent b) shallow c) ignorant.......etc. No, YOU are right, Rebecca. Everyone does have a story, just as long as they are white, above the age of 30 and make at least $100,000 a year.
I don't remember the rest. There's a lot of it. I don't know, what else can I add...low office moral? Check. Poor treatment of employees? Yeah. Overcritical and self-important employers? Oh, yes. We got in another tiff tonight about a photo. She criticized, I said it was a matter of opinion and told her why my choice for the photo was completely acceptable despite her bitching, and then I walked out.

Like I said, I would really love a new job, one where you're appreciated for the 10 hour days you put in almost every day and admired for your creative choices and unexpected initiative and where everyone in the community you write for is considered to have equally high worth.

compromise

2010-08-21T20:49:00.001-07:00

Maybe I have a hard time being happy with who I am because all the people I most want to approve of me have the hardest time accepting the way that I am.

I think he hates me because I am a writer. I think he hates my inability to close my mind just enough so that it all doesn't seep out at all the most inconvenient times.

I love Johanna, but the hardest thing in having her will be in not revealing the difficulty of her existence in reminding me so much of him and of the peace I feel I will never find as long as he, and his disdain for me, exists.

I thought I'd found the peace, but one word from him and my heart is unhinged. And his words...they will never stop.

"amantes sunt amentes"

2010-08-21T20:47:00.001-07:00

"You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul." -Julie de Lespinasse

He's the only one I can hate that much..he's the only one who can unhinge me.

I hate being unhinged, the way it makes me feel desperate and hopeless at the same time (the way I can miss him and wish he were dead all at once). How could a girl so naive have found her way to something like this? I wanted to love. I chose blindly, foolishly. I found myself in the hardest of so many potential places.

I don't ever want to feel that way about anyone ever again. One time is agony, and even this one source seems as if it will never set me free.

"lovers are lunatics"

crafty

2010-08-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

i think you have to be crafty to survive life.

i've been crafty this week in colorado. i found an old box at goodwill and re-papered it to hold letters. i found old wooden bookends and repainted them to put on the shelves above my desk. i bought fabric and sewed 3 throw pillows for my couch in the living room, and tomorrow i'll attempt to sew myself a new wallet. i need another suitcase to hold all this stuff..as always when i come to colorado.

i'm going to be crafty in passing time and finding a purpose. jo's starting school next week will be great and horrible at the same time, but i can't wait to have less free time and more structure. i suck at making the most of free time unless there's little of it. soon it'll be jo and work and then working out and decorating and writing and people. people last.....that will be nice. i hate having people first.

gotta go to bed..thought i'd write more but i just don't care enough, and i really am tired. i'll probably read pride until sis comes home. i need a new book!

castes

2010-08-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

I understand the point of caste systems, now. They are inevitable. The people who suffer know of suffering in such a way that those who haven't suffered can never possibly understand, no matter how hard those who suffer try to make them understand it. I think I now believe that those who haven't suffered should be left alone until they have to call upon those who have suffered in order to help them get through, and those who have suffered should stay away from those who haven't. What the hell was Jesus doing, then? He forced himself to suffer so he could understand those who had also suffered? Then what the hell are all the people who aren't suffering doing? They claim Jesus and preach we should be like him, yet they live comfortably and without suffering as much as possible and, instead of placing themselves in miserable situations in order to understand the hurts of the suffering, they attempt to take the suffering from where they are and make them understand what it's like not to suffer, even though once you've suffered you can never forget? We cannot understand each other. But one thing seems to be true... those who have suffered cannot forget the suffering, but those who haven't suffered can eventually experience what it is like to suffer. So since the suffered are too soiled to be un-suffered, shouldn't the un-suffered be forced to suffer through something of weight so as to actually understand not only what it is like to suffer but, consequently, those who suffer? Isn't that how we must all be the same? Jesus freaking Christ. Jesus freaking Christ is right.
But then we'd all be suffering. But at least we'd be together... for once? At least we'd all, finally, be like-minded? Is like-mindedness, with so many, ever really even possible?
Jesus Christ.

billsssss

2010-07-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

paid like a trillion bills today, on pay day. so many that i only have 50 bucks to last me the next 2 weeks. but that's okay, because at this rate, i'll have all my medical bills and all my credit card bills paid off in only about a month and a half. amazing. i'll have that huge weight off my shoulders and have so much more money to use for cooler things like redecorating and buying jo cool things or just going out or OOH buying bigger gages :) and hair dye :) but RESPONSIBILITY FIRST. i know. i'm working on it.

gotta work early tomorrow. it's my weekend, but i'm really getting the hang of this :)

nighty night world.
p.s. this was a really good day for once in a long ass time thank JESUS i needed it.

big storm, no power, no light, no one

2010-07-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

Pale Weather
I wish I could paint a
world that made sense inside
the blank behind my eyes, of the
deepening sorrow I can't will away,
that I had a cigarette that never
burned away, so I could say 'I am
never without a friend,' but I live
a fool of romance, and I
dance when I'm alone, caught
caring about a thing too large, something
I could not hold or, make stay, so I
burn my throat because
I breathe too deep, and I
swallow too hard and swell
too big, and float, on the pale weather waves
of the too many things I cannot
do to make myself, my fails,
go away.

Boroughs
The old man with a
pockmarked face can see
far enough at me
to see the reflecting light
that lights my eyes, but he can't
see the thunder that
shakes me, can't hold me steady--and wouldn't--
enough to empty out the boroughs
tethered inside, can't
imagine, at his best and with
his most wrinkled brow
the grout I've pressed in
to keep the hurt
from seeping out, can't
make me better than
I can never make myself.

Quickly Slowing
I lied, to the old (well,
not so old, but TOO old) man in a
chair with wheels, I told him
that my life was
squeals of joy, leaving out
the part where they turn
to screams and scare even me, so
it seems, I lied to me, too.
What good will it be when
I can lie on an arm not my own,
can feel at home with my mind
and tell time to
fall sweetly,
not in beat, anymore
with my quickly slowing
he--
--art--.

No Stranger
I am comtemplating,
as my cheeks--yes, those--fall numb,
what to do when the power
doesn't come back on in time
to juice up the life of
my only last lights, what my hands
will touch without the lust
of these keys, what my voice
will say to the brown, Carle-reeds
in the space around my cat-commanded bed,
--and my head--what my lips
will touch when two Kools aren't
"cool" enough, like the cheap box of a home,
and the time spent alone, what
will my thoughts do with
too many to twist into, with no light,
no paper, no smoke, no
stranger. What will I do with
just me, in the dark?

At Bay
I am going to bed at 9 tonight.
I won't wake up--not in time
to put another eager letter under the evil clip.
My phone won't stir, with nothing to feed her, maybe
I'll sleep nude in just my silence, in a perfect
bliss of not missing a thing,
until my mom turns over my bed with her
butting head, wills my pain, at bay, with
a happy girl--my world--calling
out to me, saying things she doesn't mean
the way they mean to me, like:
Where did Mommy go?

I said, "You do."
You do not exist.
You can say, "I am still here,"
And tell me I can feel you,
but I cannot feel a thing, since the day
you felt the urge to walk so far away
in the wrongest of directions
and they hid you in menacing bars,
you are the menace of my heart, and
I can hate you, if I want to,
If I wanted, I could curse you, If I want,
I can pretend--it's easy, you know--that
you don't exist. I could and I should
because you don't, except--no,
I won't, keep on waiting where
there is no light at the end,
keep believing you can mend my
flitting seams, stretch beyond the teams
of men coalition-ing you in, I won't, you can't, I
could forget if you hadn't--I wish!--that you didn't
exist--I wish!--that my life hadn't
led me to where
you never even bothered to be, that you NEVER
existed in me! I could do it, believe it,
believe you're not in my soul, will away the
laugh that got me,
everytime, the way you are always
brought to mind, I could wish, I could pretend, I
could end it with you.
I could believe you never existed, except that
you do.

ending her life

2010-07-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

I covered the breeding rabbit show last night at the Huntington County 4-H Fair, and today I am covering the sheep show. The sheep show is disgusting because there are a bunch of moaning lambs fighting their owners and pissing all over the place, and the handlers have to stick their fingers into the anus of the sheep to get them to walk straight. Nasty... I walked away from the beginning of the show today confused about why anyone would want to go through hours and hours in the heat dodging sheep piss. But then as I walked through the fair grounds, I could see all the camaraderie and how everyone there is like one giant family, and it made me smile. They are hicks, but they have each other.

Kelsye and I were legitimately talking about suicide last night (as legitimately as you can talk about it without actually going through with it). We both feel alone and undesirable. We come from different places in life and we're different people, but we found comfort in knowing that someone else felt just as hopeless about life as we did.We both agreed that, if we could, we'd go back to being 5 and we'd start it over and do it better, but then, a lot of people think that, right? I guess we are shocked because we never thought we'd be those people who regret their lives so much they're desperate to go back or not have to go forward. We thought about how, if we'd maybe made one decision differently, the present might not be so pathetic.

I think about that a lot, but thinking, I have finally figured out, does nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is someone who cares, and no one really cares about anyone else's thoughts anymore, unless she is alone at home and contemplating ending her life.

tears

2010-07-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

I have hated you beyond my
soul's own recognition. I have
cursed the moments I gave to
you for free. But I read, tonight,
about a time when you didn't care
what was wrong with me,
and you scooped me out of my
hopeless state, kissed my
forehead, and fed
me a Hostess cake,
and held me, without a threat,
only holding on while I
let go, and in
my current, hopeless state I
cannot help but sit and wait
and hope that some day not
far away, you'll scoop me
up again, lift me to your chin,
kiss my heavy head with
the lips I've lost, and ask for
nothing but my weight in your arms
and the weight of my heavy heart
in the palm
of your healing hands.

I wish you were here to hear the sobs
that take unrelenting charge of the unsettling silence of my empty days.

I wish you could ride on the waves of my thinning veins, deep into my gushing heart,
and taste the lead of the regret that weighs me down, down, down whenever
I think of you.

I could turn around, but maybe the only thing I've waited to see is you running after me when I know I'm no good at turning back.

If I could tell myself a great enough untruth, like: that I was ever good for you, that I could make all the pain I've put you through be worth the holes I've dug in you,

I would carry my hollow bones, in a bag, to your feet, lay them down in defeat, I'd wish you well but tell you you're better with me in a hell of Without You than anywhere near your heaven of Truth.

I'd cover my clouding eyes, retreat to my tomb,
and I'd tell you I'd never known love until
I lost it with you.

NADA VIDA

2010-07-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm writing a story about county pipe reconstruction for farming drainage and one about the current county reassessment...woohoo. So super interesting.

Not so bad is the one I'm writing about these kids who raised money for back-to-school supplies for needy kids in Huntington, and the one I'm writing on Operation Backyard, a community service project involving almost 200 kids. But still, it's work.

I have to go BACK to Markle to take ANOTHER picture because my boss is a re-re and didn't plan ahead. We're all a bunch of re-res in this job though. It's the best kind of job to make you feel like an idiot 100% of the time. (I love that my boss is a fat possible-lesbian though because she is always bringing me ice cream treats out of no where.)

--------

Okay. I made it through another day in the life of a journalist. I always make it through, somehow.

I listened to La Dispute a lot today. Ever heard of them?? They're pretty SWEET. Here's them:

Aren't they awesome looking? Seth likes them a lot. Our favorite of theirs is "Such Small Hands" with lyrics

I think I saw you in my sleep, darling,

I think I saw you in my dreams you were

Stitching up the seams on every broken promise

That your body couldn't keep.

I think I saw you in my sleep.

I thought I heard the door open, oh no,

I thought I heard the door open but

I only heard it close.

I thought I heard a plane crashing, but

Now I think it was your passion snapping.

I think you saw me confronting my fear, it

Went up with a bottle and went down with the beer and

I think you ought to stay away from here

There are ghosts in the walls and they

Crawl in your head through your ear.

Anyway, aren't those words bad ass? I love them. You should hear them sing it. It's rad. YOUTUBE IT NOW!

Soooo I love La Dispute. And Alexis on Fire. And my hair is a combination of blackish and dark reddish. And my ears are now gaged. And I now have a second tattoo. I'm sorta unintentionally on my way to becoming a rocker. It must be all the freedom to BREATHE that I've been missing and now have FOUND. Except it comes with loneliness. There is always a friggin price to pay for anything.

I didn't watch Lovely Bones last night because I talked to Courtney for hours about life and God and babies and told her I was going to watch Lovely Bones and she said it was creepy, and I was already have minor panic attacks at every twitch I heard because I have high anxiety when I'm alone and was sure I was going to be the world's next rape/murder victim. So I didn't want to be more freaked out by a movie about a girl who gets murdered (and raped? Idk because I'm too sissy to watch it). But it's daylight still so I think I'll try it.

I HATE Kelsye for having friends and leaving me here alone. Blah. Living in a new town by yourself sucks.

I "almost" quit smoking today and then magically appeared in my car driving to the gas station to buy Kools. I scolded myself but said out loud (in response to myself?? I'm going nuts being alone like this obvs) "Dude relax I just went a whole hour without inhaling, clearly I can live life without smoking if I just did it for a whole hour." As if that were an even SOMEWHAT legitimate argument. Ohh the excuses an addict makes..

I want to go to Staten Island. Anyone down? Or anywhere. I'll pick a weekend I don't work and do all my stories ahead of time and take a Thursday off for a four-day weekend and go somewhere and couch surf (www.couchsurfing.com) seriously please someone anyone I'm a bird that's meant to flyyyyy. Come be in the sky with me (to quote Alicia Keys and the b.s.e. (best song ever) UNTHINKABLE (that's for ma girls, the Katies).

Jake is going to see JACK JOHNSON tomorrow. Thank God he's letting himself live a little. Wish I could go and he wasn't such a douche bag.

Anywhosies. That's going to get a smile from someone :) (me if no one else)

Going home to.................find my cats that hide all the time and continue to avoid the giant sink-full of stinky dishes?? I have nada vida.

Update (long overdue)

2010-07-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. It has been a long time. A lot has changed.

I got a "good job" from my editor today on a story I wrote about the Huntington County 4-H Fair's Cat Show. She said I made it sound more interesting than it actually was. Honestly, it was SO uninteresting anyway that it wasn't much of a challenge to make it sound better.

I received praise on my story about a theater production that was shut down, too. I wish I felt like I was actually working for the praise, but the effort goes into the information-gathering rather than into the writing process. By the time I've interviewed and shot photos and driven around everywhere, there is little time to spend on the craft. I really shouldn't complain about compliments, though, huh?

I wish I could say I love my job, but I don't love my job. I love aspects -- like meeting tons of new people and hearing their thank yous and wearing pencil skirts to work (actually I hate wearing the skirts and heels... there is nothing more uncomfortable... but they make me feel somewhat important at least). I don't love everything, though, like the fact that my boss is deaf and I therefore have to repeat everything I say (anyone who knows me slightly well knows how much I hate having to repeat myself), and the stress of meeting a deadline in one hour when you still have four stories to write, and the fact that everyone around here is always getting fired for no reason other than the fact that this company is scandalous and money-hungry.

I love Wendy. I love her especially when she makes karate motions at her crotch whenever she wants to take a smoke break. I love it that she has no problem supplying me with a cigarette for every one of our smoke breaks. She's hilarious. She makes working here more bearable.

I love that Drew is, admittedly so, like an older brother to me, and I, his baby sister. We've only know each other for a few months, but we've bonded together. I never thought I'd find that missing relationship within my workplace, in a grumpy and cynical, atheist yet disgustingly optimistic coworker. I love that it's usually just us in the office, and he sits across from me playing some stupid game or being way too overeager to write (the part he loves best) and occasionally says, "What's your deal, Carrie?" or makes disapproving noises at me for no reason, to which I respond with "Nada, what's your problem?" or make fun of his tendency to say retarded wangster things constantly (and he is OH-SO-WHITE too). I can tell him everything -- and I have (mostly) -- and he tells me I'm an idiot or that I'm "such a stud," depending on the story I share. I love that, for the first time, there is no awkward I'm-sorta-attracted-to-him/her-but-want-us-to-just-be-friends-but-it-never-works-out-like-that kind of situation. I know that Drew and I will never cross that line because he's too dorky and I'm too careless and he cares too much about being a work-horse or sleeping and I care more about actually having friends.

I'm glad Kelsye is here. I still find it crazy that she is, but I haven't shared so much laughter and so much in common with anyone besides the Colorado girls EVER, so it's great. I finally have an ally in the state of Indiana -- thank JESUS.

I don't like that I'm alone when she's gone, though. That I have no mom & dad's house to go to and no one to come home to, when Jo isn't here. I don't like that I have to shove a "Parenting" magazine as far under the couch as it will go before I start to cry with regret and the temptation to hope for things I have realized will never come to be.

I know I've always been this depressed. I'm annoyed at it. I started out with stuff to hate and cry over, though. What do you want from me?

I'm at work, writing this. I cleaned the house a little. I tried to play with the two new cats, Alice and Sopapilla, but they're both too wary of each other and my house and me to come out or come downstairs. I called my sister, but our schedules never coordinate to when I ACTUALLY really do have something to say and need someone to listen. I called Jake and tried to convince him to let me let him go see Jack Johnson, even without me, but he avoided it. That's just the way he is. It will always piss me off.

We're going to talk about custody and divorce on Friday -- isn't that gross? We'll probably get no where, because we can clearly never get anywhere together.

All the people I thought were only there because of some hidden motive are all gone now. Is it because they really did have hidden motives and I wouldn't play along, or is it because I drove them away believing they had motives when really they were trying to love me and I didn't understand it? I supposed I will always wonder. There are a lot of things I will never know.

God, there are so many! Like........ even people I really DID open up to have disappeared, people I thought legitimately gave a shit about me. They're all gone. I mean, my mom is still here. And my sisters. And Kelsye's still here but give it time. She hasn't been around long enough, probably. It's whatever, really. It's sort of a jab back at them for fulfilling my intuitions. I told them I was fucked up and too complicated and too hurt and I guess I was all those things, enough, that they got too tired to keep trying. I didn't believe in them, that they'd be able to handle it, so they all got fed up. It's pathetic. Isn't there anyone out there who is actually as strong and as patient and as considerate of someone beside themselves who gets it? I can't believe I was one of those charities for them. I can't believe I used to treat people that way, too. What a mess. It makes me want to vomit everywhere thinking about it and them and their extreme arrogance about sucking SO HARD.

My sister isn't like that. She's more like me. She wants to slaughter them all too. Hahahahahaha. Okay, not slaughter, but it makes us so freaking angry, to be pitied by people who are so freaking pathetic.

Shout out to STEPHANIE though because she's still a loyal fan apparently and that's hard to come by in a world that's so selfish. But then again, Stephanie has always seemed to me to be so above all that bull. Thank God people like that exist.

God is a crutch. Here's the thing: I have never met so many joyful and vulnerable and life-loving and confident and considerate and honest people in a people-group than I have in Atheists. They're the best thing ever. They all have these things in common and I BEG someone to tell me these aren't admirable qualities: They all believe in the truth beyond all else. They all believe in being honest and not lying. They all believe in enjoying life and doing great things and taking care of business. They have great work ethic. They LOVE love love to laugh and they do it heartily. They avoid tears and prefer strength and growth. They aren't afraid to be obsessed with comic books or to cuss in public for fear they might "offend" someone. They're not afraid to just BE. They stand for what they believe in without question and they do what they want because they KNOW that NO ONE knows what the hell is going on anyway. They don't judge unless it's surface and harmless or extremely deserved. They are kind and friendly to everyone and have no problem opening up.

I've realized my problem. I have always been surrounded by people who pretend like they actually believe they have an answer. The great thing about atheists is that the only thing they know is that no one can really know, anything. So they just full-fledged go with whatever they know the most and DO and BE and CREATE. It's beautiful. Again, I'm so disgusted with allllll the people who treat atheists ESPECIALLY as charity. They're such idiots. Seriously. (I can hear my sister echoing "seriously" right now, like she always does when we're on one of these rants about assholes.)

Anyway, I have to get off this subject because I'm beginning to sound like one of those assholes.

I should probably go home and watch "Lovely Bones" because I've had it rented for like 12 days and it's way overdue. I'll probably be scared, and cry. I'll probably write. (I'm working on THE book :)) I'll probably think of Jo and miss her too much for my heart to handle and I'll think of Jake and wish he wasn't one of those assholes and would let me love him, and I'll think of Seth and how afraid I am to commit to anything ever again. I'll probably call a bunch of people to keep from feeling lonely.

This has been good. I needed to do this. It has been too long. It will help me get healthy. Thanks, Stephanie.

Reading Pride & Prejudice

2010-06-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

Why can't we all have such a simple love story?

We all start out with broken hearts, or if we don't, we start with hearts too whole to truly understand and be willing to forgive.

Huntington is very quiet, especially when you are the "soft, cute, feel-good features" writer according to your editor.

I miss Joie a lot tonight. Being with her for the past couple of days non-stop was great. But now, her pink happy self is everywhere, including my office, and she is not. I wish she still was. I wish they both were.

How do you tell someone that they were and are everything you never knew you had? And how do you tell someone else that they weren't and are not what you need, but are still sort of partly what you want, but aren't wanted enough?

I forgot how to write. I forgot how to love. I forgot how to love myself.

I can never be myself. How can I when I'm stuck in hell?

It's funny to me that I can always seem to find all my thousands of work notes, but the one time I'm desperate to find the notes I took in church today, I can't see them anywhere.

Basically the part I really needed to hear was "There is value in what is lost." The shepherd left his flock to find the one lost one... because it held worth to him. There is worth in the lost. And if I am the lost, there is worth in me. I don't want the worth anyone else sees. I want him to see that worth. I don't know that he ever will, but I wait. He has been my knight many times before.

What I wanted

2010-06-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

I got what I wanted. That's what I told myself, today, in the mirror. It's what I tell myself every day.
You sick sorry girl.
"Let me live without this empty bliss, selfishness, I'm so sick."
I got what I wanted.
Jake, remember I used to tell you all the time how I hated relationships, they only hurt me? I wanted nothing but the surface. It hurt you. I wasn't careful what I wished for.
I had my reasons... I just wish I had known how insignificant they'd seem in comparison with the destruction of my self.
I just wanted justification, vindication. I don't care about any of that now. It's so small to this biggest of disasters.
God, how I miss you. I've missed you for so long and this monster in me wouldn't let me but I was missing you all along. God, how I wish you could hear her, the girl I hear inside fighting to be seen by you instead of the terror that took over.

God, I don't understand you...

2010-05-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you are so present and you drop on me such purity and remind me what is golden, but you have been so far away for so long that I don't want to get comfortable with you. I protect myself even from you.

You know my heart, and you know that it is broken, even though I regret it and wish it didn't exist, whole or shattered or with the potential of being restored.

Gosh, I miss you. Where have you been for so long? Or have I been the one missing all this time? I know it has been me.

But you are unlike anything or anyone else. You never get tired of me or too hurt by me no matter what I do to try to harm you. You never turn your back or backstab to get back at me... You are so unreal to me. You are who I need and who I have needed. You are the answer I've been dying for.

Thank you for never giving up on me, even when it is logical or easier. You know my heart, God. Please don't ever stop.

Just so everyone's clear (not that anyone will ever be, but one can hope)

2010-03-10T06:28:00.000-08:00

From now until I leave, I will be posting pictures & other such evidences of Fort Collins so as to better explain my deep love and desire to be thereeeee:

Because at Mugs, we get to have dance parties in the basement.

And stand on the bar while partially drunk & participating in latte art competitions.

Because people love reading & bicyling there SO MUCH that they combine the 2 on particularly inventive occasions. (Tricycle Zine)

Because its bookstores are way cooler than any other's. Matter Bookstore, for example: not-for-profit & volunteer run & has a book club & is really cute.

I want to play catch up on these hellooooooo summer in FoCo?

2010-03-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

Matter Bookstore's Top 51 Favorite Books (as of January 2010)

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

3. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

4. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

5. Dalva by Jim Harrison

6. Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

7. Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

8. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

9. Doris Book by Cindy Crabb

10. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

11. Even Cowgirls get the Blues by Tom Robbins

12. Farm Sanctuary by Gene Baur

13. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

14. Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

15. Hayduke Lives! By Edward Abbey

16. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

17. Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

18. O Pioneers! By Willa Cather

19. Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

20. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

21. Owls and Other Fantasies by Mary Oliver

22. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

23. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

24. Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson

25. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol

26. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

27. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

28. Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut

29. Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Elrich

30. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

31. Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

32. The Baroque Cycle trilogy by Neal Stephenson

33. The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

34. The Essential Rumi by Rumi

35. The Gift by Hafiz

36. The Host by Stephenie Meyer

37. The Hours by Michael Cunningham

38. The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

39. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery

40. The Lorax by Dr. Suess

41. The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

42. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

43. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

44. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

45. The Stranger by Albert Camus

46. This is Water by David Foster Wallace

47. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

48. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

49. White Noise by Don DeLillo

50. Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

51. Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx

no point

2010-03-10T05:21:00.000-08:00

in writing because no one is listening anyway, and those who could be...they don't understand.

with a bottle of red wine

2010-03-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

I wish wine could just mean what wine used to mean. Red. Bitter. Intoxicating. Potentially romantic. It's still bitter--a bitter memory, a mistake chalked up to broken humanness (something I'm equally sick of).

What's Important

2010-02-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

Is being able to write important? Having a job? Playing a sport, or being able to coach it? Is it important to have friends? To attend church? To not get divorced, or is feeling secure in your relationship more important? Is seeing your daughter everyday, potentially unhealthy, more important than seeing her rarely, while happy? Is it possible to be happy without her, even when everything else is near perfect? Can anything be near perfect? Does anything last?

The obvious answer I'd expect is, yes, God is perfect and his perfection lasts. BELIEVE ME I wish I could see it through that lens.

Am I going to just be another example of childhood gone awry? Will Jo?

What does it mean to be reasonable? How can a person be reasonable under this kind of pressure, when there's this much at stake? How can a person remain logical and sane and compassionate?

How can I give up the feeling of being adored, when I've been starving for it all my life? To finally feel adored, cherished..and to have to lose that to hold onto your child, despite the unfairness, despite the vindictiveness and hypocrisy........unbearable.

What do you give up? The respect of strangers, monetary support, time, convenience vs. self-respect, the joy in simple things, opportunity, a fresh start? How do you choose between 2 completely different scenarios, both of which contain such deeply good and such deeply bad things?

I want her. She came from me. She is just as much mine. It should not be a given. The fact that it is being treated as a given is enough to kill me. It's the most pain I've ever felt in all of my life.

He says I should "write it all down"

2010-02-18T20:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, Seth, I'll try.

Segmented? Yes.

1. I never meant for it to be this way. But doesn't everyone always say that? I guess that's been my biggest problem, and maybe a good reason as to why this has gone all wrong. People do things they never thought they would. We can all agree on beauty in its black and white, because we all have an eye or an understanding of it. Yet sometimes, without meaning to, we create something that is ugly. Some people might say that the ugly product came from an ugly mistake, an ugliness inside, the intention of ugly, but I think we're all looking for something beautiful, and I think we all want to contribute to that something beautiful. We just aren't the greatest at it, that's all.
What I mean is, I wanted something beautiful. But I'm human. We all chalk it up to that, don't we? Being human. But it works to say it because we all know that there's some kind of gene in us to screw things up. I can look back now at every action, and when it comes to most of them, I can see where I could have done better. But I can also see why I didn't do great, too, and in seeing the why and how of what went wrong, I'm intelligent enough (as most of us are) to acknowledge the fact that I will most likely make the same mistakes again without even knowing I'm doing it.
I know I haven't done it the best it could have been done. And...that's hard to be okay with. It's hard not to feel like a failure. But how can I? If I've wronged others in the past, isn't the best thing to do to try to make it better now? But what if, in trying to make it better, I'm still doing it wrong? This is what haunts me. And here, I could lose my daughter.

2. Seth says he understands, and I think he does. I made him feel bad tonight because I told him he didn't get it, but people have been telling him that his whole life, and while I was fuming, scrubbing my anger out on dishes thinking to myself he must be too immature to deal with all this, he was understanding in the very moment. He understands more than I thought, more than I could comprehend at the time. He knows what it's like to feel unheard, to feel like no one believes you or thinks you're capable, to feel like you're the only one defending yourself and how scary and brave that is because the very notion of being the only one defending you insinuates you're not worth defending, if you're the only one doing it. And so, while I was thinking he couldn't possibly understand what it feels like to feel that alone, I was making him feel that way, too. His response to my making him feel alone was to tell me he loves me, to open my door for me, to buy me cigarettes with money he steathly borrowed for my sake, even though we're trying to quit. He wanted to prove to me that he really did understand, and he succeeded. He fought anger with actions of love. Maybe that's not so different from what everyone else has been doing, but it translated a whole lot better. It radiated selflessness and humility with a clarity I haven't witnessed in too long. He speaks my love language.

3. Bob. Bob. Well, Bob..huh. Where do I begin, let's see, he gets it, doesn't he? What good is it that I get to talk to a man in a room once a week? What good is it when Bob cannot give me my daughter, cannot win me my life back? Will they listen if I explain to them the importance of an outsider, who is a Christian even, understanding the how and why of my actions? And not necessarily thinking I should stay, or trying to convince me to, not necessarily thinking Jo wouldn't be better off with me? And maybe she wouldn't be, but it is certainly worth discussing, isn't it? Aren't I worth a discussion? Isn't her well-being worth it?

4. I couldn't handle the way Jake went about it tonight. It did not feel like love or much like concern, for me or Jo.. It felt the very same to me as when my mom gave me that homemade Bears jacket in exchange for the real one I'd really wanted. It felt cheap and lazy. It made me feel second rate, like a necessary casualty. I was left with no choice but to choose what he wanted. I don't think I have to disect that last sentence for a reasonable person to understand how that, right there, is essentially no choice at all. Either accept his terms and "agree" to them, or he'll make me by hiring an army. In the end, either way, I lose. Ron, my brother, I understand it a bit better now..what you have been going through. I'm sorry I didn't care, then. (I'm so weary from being human today. Of hurting and feeling hurt all so unintentionally.) We don't care much when we don't have to, do we? And we don't have to if we're feeling comfortable. This is why all the brokenness exists..when we have nothing to make us feel strong, we have no choice but to feel weak, and when we feel weak, we feel desperate for something to make us feel strong again, and that's when we remember what really made us feel the most strength, and we recognize what was most important all along, and we become willing, in that most sorry state, to do whatever it takes not to feel so sorry anymore. (Is it ever completely unselfish?) Well the fact is that I do not have the resources, monetary or emotionally or even spiritually, that Jake does, and therefore I am at my most vulnerable to be take advantage of, to go unheard. I am rendered hopeless in this moment at that realization, because the penalty is the essential loss of my flesh and blood, God's most precious gift to me, the best thing I've ever done. It makes me wish I'd run when I could have, that I'd let him keep playing basketball and I'd let them hold on to their wishes for adoption and that I'd done it on my own, because then, I had some kind of power and now, I have none. I am so sorry, my baby, that I've allowed myself to become so weakened so that now I am of no use to you. I don't think I've ever regretted anything more.

5. Final thought.. I cannot make anyone understand who does not already. The only way any of us ever really understand anything enough for it to matter is when we go through it ourselves and come out on the other side of it so that we can look back and reflect (the art of memoir..) I hope beyond hope that the wait won't be too long--I miss her already as it is.

new poems

2010-02-17T18:54:00.001-08:00

Where I Once Belonged

It was pretty once
Like a soft pink bud soaking in sunlight
Or what it thought was the light from the sun
Perspiring under a heat lamp of hope from everyone else

A new rose soon to bloom
Not realizing there was no room
On an old sheet soaked by the future's tears
Where the years had laid offspring too plump to roll over

This separate mess so simple
A thorn lying in wicked wake for mutiny
A bitter-bird plotting to come along and consume
A baby lying in a bundle sprung from nature to arise into
Something unnatural even for a robin's flight or an armored night

Should she give it one last try
Break up the spikes in her side, or ride
On a feather's flight until she reaches the plight
Of someone else's fantasy, should she reach it tonight or

Will she awaken soon
To the subtle sound of it's bloom
To its success at finally finding the room
To raise up among thorns so vulnerable that
she'd wither and
die?

Black Light

Soft glow
sits the harsh world down
Numbs the lookers-on
in alliance with the incense
While they sit silently
listening to music too bold
For any kind of competence
that could stir up an intuition
Neon glow grows up
from the white-painted walls
Reflects to them all
the pride they once highlighted with pride
Blue now through and through
melting down around the room
Watch as it begins
to bleed onto them, too
They stare long into
a purple-lined bloom
Go blind until
sunlight shatters this tomb.

A Rose Blooms in Winter

A rose once drawn upon my hand
The sun too shy to stay too long
It grows from skin and blood and sand
And when it blooms, so does a song

It curls to you to hear you sing
A deeper red it shades for you
As roots begin to form a ring
And veins bleed with a brighter blue

If ever you should choose to stop
And take from her the air you breathe
Each petal of her frame would drop
And crumble, would she, should you leave

Electric Kiss

Staring long into a purple-lined bloom, I
Wait for you, the
Waiting feels like falling, the
Falling feels like the lights are cleansing you, with
Blue and pink and mango reflections on the
Wine glass, wet from where you left a
Red wine, I'm
Shining like the green glow that
Shades the rings formed from my mouth, my
Tongue is pulsing out a beat of strings that
Run to you like a tiger cub still in
Love with his mother's touch, take
This tree-ribbed tube and tie
Me to an electric beat, I
Hear it waltzing down snow-blanketed streets while
The only leaves still alive
Wrap around my frosted skin and from
Me drips a whale's worth of sin, I'm
Riding a ray of light, see
A mini yellow me light up your black rimmed eyes, you've
Made me into fire, burnt
Your lips on each square inch, I'd
Walk along the boulevard of a Keystone brew, dive
Myself right into you, if you'd
Shine your purple-lined bloom into
This room forever

Face

2010-02-08T00:33:00.000-08:00

We're listening to the Enya station on Pandora, Joie & I, while Seth watches the "boob tube" because he claims he isn't tired. He told me the other day, when I complained that he always has to have a movie playing or something in order to fall asleep, that he has a sleeping disorder. I don't believe him. I don't believe much of anything he says. The weird thing is that not being able to believe the guy I was with used to bother me to the core, but now, I try to feel and cannot. Mostly I just get annoyed enough with him that I have to hold myself back from fisting a wall. I got angry like that with Jake, too, but it always hurt me deeper. Do I just not care anymore? Do I just not care about Seth? Or have I just gotten better at numbing myself to the things in life I'll never be able to change?

It's silly how similar he is, yet how different. He makes me laugh more, more consistently. I sometimes think of Jake's laugh and his goofy face and how I used to kiss it, but the feeling that comes after the memory removes my heart for awhile, so I snatch it back and shut Jake out like I've slammed a door. And I remind myself that he'd be a reality had he not deprived me of that face during times when I needed it most. I wish I'd thought harder about this. I wish I'd realized before now that having a face you love for only half of how long you want it is better than having given it away completely. I wish I knew, now, how to get back what I barely had in the first place. Because at least then, it was mine.

I'm always busy making a list in my head of things Seth has done that would count as a good excuse for a breakup. None of them so far really cut it, but I figure that if I give it long enough, I can add them all together and hopefully he'll concede defeat and walk away for good. I've been trying to get rid of him for so long, but he's been too close to the kind of guy I've been missing, so I've let him stick around. But I don't think I'd die for him...not yet.

I'd die for Jake. But I can't figure out the reason. Is it the four years? Or the trials we've been through? Is it all the talks or the fact that he knows every depth of me? What about him can make me hurt him so casually, yet cause me to feel a thick skin of sadness all day that I can't shake, just because he's not here? I think that I'm forgetting. I think that missing him and him being sad all the time and all the things his allies are saying is making me forget what got us here in the first place. It just wasn't right. And trying again won't make it right this time.

Jo refused to sleep and talked about Daddy instead. Because she wants to marry him. It took me like 20 minutes to try to explain to her exactly why she cannot, eventually, even when she is older, marry her daddy. When I told her that daughters and daddies don't marry, that she'd have to find a boy that she loved and could marry him, she said she didn't want another boy, she wanted Daddy.

Yeah, baby, I didn't want another boy, either. All I ever wanted was your daddy, but such is life.

The test of a first-rate intelligence...

2010-02-06T00:41:00.000-08:00

F. Scott Fitzgerald claims in his essay "The Crack Up" that the "test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." This, I think, is the answer I've been looking for all along.

I've had two opposing ideas in my mind for...centuries, if I'd lived that long. But the ability to function? Must be missing on me. So, the answer to how all this got to be what it is? That I really am as stupid as has been suggested so determinedly throughout my life.

I'm disappointed. But this realization doesn't matter much because the point of writing everything down everyday is to have more resources from which to take in determining just how to function under opposing perceptions.

Things that stick out to me from today:

>I skipped my 5th class of the week. And it's the first week of the semester.
>I worked 3 excrutiating hours at the KSAC, during which I barely moved..but skyped with my sister and ate a feast, as I hadn't eaten since yesterday's lunch. I updated her on anything new with this new fiasco, but there wasn't much new so mostly we just sat there silently, each playing Bubble Spinner addictingly. She eventually got bored and went to nap. I wrote the blog preceding this one.
>Cleaned and showered. Jake came home early, unexpectantly. He cried, so did I, because we talked. He asked me if I had already decided......I hadn't. There was some yelling. I called him selfish. Told him that was at the root of this. He came in to my room and asked me a question meant for one-on-one, but Seth was standing off to the side pretending not to be noticed, and Jake talked on as if he wasn't there. I threw laundry when he left.
>Jake came back in, pulled me out of the room, cried some more, so did I, and held my hands. And asked me what to do: fight for me or let me go. I told him that, yet again, he was asking me how to love me. But I don't want to be asked how...I just want to be loved. He said he'd get back to me with an answer.
>I threw more laundry.
>People came over. Lots of them. Too many of them. And Conan talked to much and asked too much and pried and judged. Said he likes me because I'm a "clever son-of-a-bitch" and because I see to the heart of him and because he's interested in me due to this situation, that I'm a tough one to crack. He has his opinions, and he wanted me to explain my side of this twisted story, but I couldn't tell a stranger when even a participant cannot sometimes understand. So I just yelled at him instead. He liked it.
>I am sitting here trying to remember what runs away. Mostly I'm just falling asleep and wondering how much sadness tomorrow will let me feel.

Journaling makes you remember even things you wish you could forget.

Reverand Francis Kilvert

2010-02-05T11:49:00.000-08:00

He was an English curate (I'll look that up for myself in a minute) in the Welsh Border region, and he wrote everything down in a journal, everything from 1870-1879. "Why do I keep this voluminous journal! (apparently his grammar wasn't best, as here he posed a question with an exclamation tacked to it...) I can hardly tell. Partly because life appears to me such a curious and wonderful thing that it almost seems a pity that even such a humble and uneventful life as mine should pass altogether away without some record such as this." His journal was published in 1941 as Kilvert's Diary.

I used to write everything down. Then living life got to be such an effort that writing about it would have given it a limp. But I want to start writing every day again, because there is no doubt in my mind that, if I am to ever write, these recent years will serve as substance. And besides, I miss those conversations with myself.

So I'm going to write again, every day, on here. Starting tonight.

Dear Johanna, my tiny baby sweet precious princess child:

2010-01-30T00:05:00.000-08:00

Hi there. I cannot talk to you tonight. You are half a country away, by my own choice, and so I know I'll have to settle with writing down my heart for you to read on your own time later.

Josie, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. About you, and me, and Daddy, and how this all began. From the way it looks now, there were no good intentions, there was no sacrifice, and there has been nothing but selfishness that bred this bitterness that is left of a beautiful dream that lived in me, for you. But it existed, baby, and I hope that no matter what happens in the next days and months and years of your precious life that you will have been told the truth about our story.

I don't know how to ensure that, baby, but to keep you within arm's reach. It has come to the point where we must choose to leave you or to take you away from the other, not forever, but maybe something like it. My first instinct, I will admit, was to let you remain in your father's care because, despite the slow drawl of his love for you, he has shown that you hold his heart, and I know you have given him yours even at 3. You love your Daddy, and that is something I will not give you a chance at forgetting. My fear, though, baby, is that if I walk away, you will not know of my love and will let go of my heart, and because it is yours, it would go on floating into a dark, lonely, childless sadness forever. I cannot not have you. Please remember the time when it was only you and I, because I do, and I regret nothing more than that I risked losing the one thing that had ever meant more to me than anything else. In my womb, you were of me, and I was of you. It was a bond that had to be broken for you to grow, but the bond that had formed during your life was my responsibility, and I let it fall from my fingers. I stepped away so that he would take steps toward you. And it worked. And now, all there is, is the present, and it looks to the world as if I have not enough love to give to my blood, my flesh, my child. But, baby, please know that I only wanted him to love you too. His love was never mine, but I knew that if I gave him no choice, he would have to love you, because you were perfect. And it didn't take long before he was all yours, baby, because that's how lovely you are. But don't forget, please don't forget, that while I walked away, I never left you. I was always just a few steps away, watching out to make sure you were loved like you should be. And you were. There has been little fault in your father's manner of care. His actions are not the reason I must make the decision that I have decided to make. I've forgiven all sins, I can see his love for his daughter, but there's something deeper that matters more that I haven't let myself acknowledge until now.

For at least 2 years now, I have been told by nearly everyone around me that I am incapable of love. They told me that I was afraid to love you, because you meant more to me than the world and I knew it and to love you would have meant the possibility of heartbreak and I was too scared for that, too broken to risk it. I believed them, baby. And I let myself believe that I was too broken to love something that mattered so much. And for that reason, I almost walked away from you for good. But then I remembered one thing: Whenever I am with you, and I walk out of the room or onto the porch, you would cry or get worried and yell for me. "MOMMY?!?!!" you'd say and begin to crumble, but I would always peek back in and I would tell you, "Baby, listen, Mommy will NEVER leave you. I promise. Do you trust me?" And you would calm down and nod your head reluctantly. And now, when it's hardest of all and when walking away means leaving you behind for most of your beautiful life, I cannot, and I won't. You are my world. And I may have forgotten or believed in the lies I was being fed while I was weak, but I am stronger now and I know that, even if the only way to be strong is to leave your Daddy and his allies behind, I will do whatever it takes to find my ability to love again, the ability they took away from me when they made me believe I was nothing. But I am not nothing. If I am hardly anything else, I am your mother, your mommy-I am the one who knew you were there before the doctors, before our families, before your Daddy, before the test had even told me, I felt you deep inside me somewhere and I knew my world would be better even if it was different and scary. I'm the one who fought for you when no one else would consider keeping you, the one who refused to even spend one second considering giving you away because I knew I could not live without you. I am the one who left behind my life and my known world so that you might have a present father, the one who refused sugar and stress and coffee, 3 of the things I have been most unable to avoid in my life, so that you would have the best shot at health possible while you were depending on my body to support your growth in the womb. I am the one who pushed you out in a record-breaking time of 23 minutes, the one who cried for weeks while I waited for my busted body to heal from the miracle of life it had supported and birthed. I'm the one who slept rarely so that I could stare often at the most amazing, tiny little, most fragile and fascinating creature I had ever seen while you took from my body so gently, yet desperately, as if there was nothing else you could ever want or need but to be attached to me forever. I was the one who read to you, taught you that orange juice, something you asked for much too often, was "jus d'orange" in French and made you say it till you got it right. I'm the one who read entire books about baby care so that I wouldn't unknowingly harm you and researched websites besides so that you could have the best potential shot. I filled out baby books, filled up pictures, spent hours planning extravagent birthdays that others tried to convince me you wouldn't remember, but I told them it didn't matter, that your lack of memory didn't make you deserve the best any less. I planned your outfits and squeezed our budget so that you'd have what you needed and be called "the most stylish baby" by everyone who saw you, envied by even college students. I was the one who deliberated over your preschool and hand-picked the best there was to offer, made your snacks and found you a lunch box I knew you'd love. You know what else I did? I spent too long overthinking and over searching for the perfect name, and I only rested when I found one that would be as unique and as beautiful and as meaningful as I always knew you be, and you are, my princess, you are everything that could ever be anything close to "God's grace". You are the closest I have ever come to a hug from a heavenly Father, the closest I have come to the hands and heart of God.

There have been regrets. I regret that my attempt at elephant ears for your 2nd birthday party was a miserable one, like much of the rest of the food that year. I regret that I was too confident in you and too in awe of you when you first began to walk that I let you stumble off the porch steps. I regret that I trusted your smart little butt too much while I was watching dishes and didn't hear you wander outside to go exploring with the puppy everyone was pissed at me for getting, as he might cause harm to you. I regret that I have yet to paint your room, and that I've been hateful to your father, a true love of your life, because I want to protect what you love and I haven't always done my best at it. I regret, most, that I let the miscalculated judgements of those around me to infiltrate my feelings for you and to disarm me at being the mother you've always needed and deserved. But I will not go on regretting it, Josie, because I have healed a bit by now, and my heart has been mended enough to remember that the very thing it has loved most since that very first day I felt a little funny and knew in my soul that I was no longer one, but one plus another better, more beautiful and more fragile other, was, by the grace of God, my own, my heart, my love, my very breath, my daughter....you. And I know that my heart could not take another blow, that my heart needs you in it and near it in order to keep on beating. And so, I will do what I have always promised you I would do, and that is to never, ever leave you, even if it means leaving behind for a time some of the things that you love, so that you will have even more things to love, so that you will know how to love, because loving, baby, is the only thing worth living for. I hope that you will forever keep on loving me, as I will always and forever love you, my tiny baby sweet precious princess child, my heart my hope my faith my love..my life.

I miss you so much, beautiful, and I love you even more.
Sweet dreams, sweetie pie.

-Your Mommy

Let me climb under your skin or let me in..

2010-01-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

I want to come in, Mister, you know I'd hang on every word.
I'd wrap around you, but you've surrounded yourself in thorns,
now I can't touch you without bleeding.
You say that I'm the one walking away, always running away from love,
yet I'm here still, silently bursting, like a bubble, I'm so fragile,
waiting for the word, but there are no words left in you,
if you only knew
how easy it'd be just to fight for me.
You say you're fighting, that you're tired of doing this dance,
stepping toward me as I pull away,
but I've been pulling you back
to me all this time and you've been turning your head,
and I can't have your eyes
so close to mine if they won't look at me.
They say a miracle starts with the beat of a heart
but mine has beat itself out waiting for one love to take it in.
You've been sleeping, I've been dreaming of you, of the you you used to be when you used to look at me like I was all there was,
but somewhere along that line you lost it, that interest, didn't you?
HEY Mister, you know everything changes, before I knew what had been done,
before you knew it I'd come undone,
now, is there anything left to do?
I can't spend another minute convincing myself you love me
when my heart's convinced you don't want me,
that you've wanted someone else all along.
Still, I can't let go of what I know,
the way you used to hold me and never wanted me to go,
you said you never would, now that's all you can do for me,
either be my king or let me leave...
But you're letting me go so easily.

Things I want to do this week:

2010-01-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

1. Dye my hair red or black..ish. (will next weekend with Katie!! and i did cut it this week :))
2. Make it to all my classes.
3. Have my sister buy me a plane ticket to FoCo for J-term break. (she's working on it.)
4. Have the house not looking like a meth lab anymore. (who knows how long this will last..)
5. Order something from Ruche. (would have except that the website is being stupid.)
6. Get Seth's stuff back to him. (Except maybe the blanket..)
7. Read Crazy Love with Jacob.
8. Find a map for my heart.(who knows if this will ever happen)

*black=done.

It's the hunger.

2009-12-26T23:54:00.000-08:00

Sam is here tonight. We've watched the first disk of OTH (if you don't know what that stands for, you are missing out on some true pleasure in television-watching.) But I can't stay up watching how life should play out; all I can do for right now is write about how life doesn't. It just doesn't.

I have a "book" I am supposed to review for Hensley, and I don't know when the due date is, but I'm sure I should start working on it. The only problem is that it is (ideally) a soon-to-be devotional for married couples, and at this time in my life, I know nothing about marriage.

There have been a lot of people working on interventions lately, for Jake and I, trying to save us, but I'm having trouble figuring out what they're trying to save. I can sort of see it, as if it's off in the distance up in front of a car in a morning fog, but it's not quite clear. How can anyone save something they don't really know? They might have the want-to, but unless you know how to save it or what's really threatening it, how can you have any chance at being it's hero?

The appeal of Jesus for some is that he "saved" us from our sins before we even existed, before he ever knew who we were because we hadn't even been born yet, but we're told often, as a deterant from believing that we're completely alone and uncared for, that God knit us together, that he knew us before we knew us, and we're taught as part of a Christian education that Jesus was with God from the beginning, that God is omnipresent, and that Jesus is God. If all that we've been taught is true, how could he not have known, from the beginning, exactly what he'd be saving? Those who are attempting, lately, to do the saving in our lives claim to be followers of Jesus, yet they know nothing about what they're so determined to save.

I wish I didn't see all of the between-the-lines bullshit, I really do. But I do. I was taught from an early early age that the between-the-lines exists, and after living so long in a life where the lines couldn't be trusted, all I know now is what reveals itself to me in between the words people say and claim, and I can't help that. Now, when people speak with tenderness, I see the hypocrisy and self-gain from their "care", and I really don't think it matters how long or how hard someone fights to form the words, I will always see the lines for what's between.

I don't even know who or what needs to be saved these days. All I know is that there is no touch of a loving savior and no intervention worth believing, not here.

Question #10

2009-12-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

(This question is my own.) What is love?? (Seems simple..but.........)

Does anyone really know what love is? What did the linguists mean when they first uttered the word love? Did they have any idea how explosive this word would become? Were they so unable to comprehend the magnitude, the plethora of meaning that would too soon be jammed into a single syllable? What about all the different kinds of love? It's a verb and a noun, even in its simplest form! People hate it and love it (but what does it mean to love love??). Some say love hurts. Some say it's what makes the world go 'round. Maybe it does it all. But whatever it does, we all seem to agree that it is important to believe in one's own definition and to love in that way. So I find myself wondering, what kind of love do I believe in and how will I, too, love?

I look to some of the greats, some of the wise, to find a love that will work for me. I'm giving Bob Marley the first word, because he says there's "one love" and I'm interested in the simple. Despite his short lapse of confusion in his song "Is This Love", I believe he is one of those closest to really getting it, or at least really getting anything I could agree on. (Feel free to look up the full lyrics, but for now I'm breaking it down for the sake of being concise.) In his song "One Love", he seems to imply that there is only one love and that one love is synonymous (or, perhaps, deeply and fully connected) to one heart. But whose heart? The rest of the song implies that the "one heart" belongs to a creator, to "the Lord" whom he praises and, subsequently, "feel(s) all right." (Note that it is not saying that he feels "alright", which would conote a feeling of sober contentment, but he writes it "all right", as if to say that he can feel no wrong when praising the Lord, the One Heart, the One Love. This song provides a definition of sorts for the noun form of the word love, but does it efficiently provide a definition for the verb form? One could suggest that in order to love, one must praise the Lord and furthermore, "together to fight this Holy Armageddon." I can guess that if I were to approach Bob and ask how to love, if he were act consistently and not betray the song, he would advise me to love the Lord, and having referenced the Armageddon made known in Revelations, he would surely suggest I read the Bible in order to know just how to love. Hmm...who could have predicted that the face of an illegal narcotic is an evangelical Christian at the core? (I'll have to remember to reference ole Marley in my upcoming article about how much God loves pot..)

Next up is Lady Gaga, because her hidden face is one of the biggest faces of current pop culture. A little bit of background: she's crazy (like actually crazy), really blonde, has some of the strangest music videos you've ever seen and certainly the craziest outfits you've ever seen, she's possibly a hermaphrodite, probably bisexual, and she's pretty much my music idol. As for what she says about love, though, well...it pretty much sums up our nation's overall mindset. Or at least my generation's mindset. Basically, the Gags thinks love=sex..& revenge, as she equivocates the two in her latest hit "Bad Romance". There's plenty of hip thrusting and crotch grabbing and creepy violent advances.....idk she's just crazy, like I told you.

Third word goes to Shakespeare, because I'm a writer, and he was a genius. I think anyone knows how Shakespeare felt about love. He was passionate, compassionate, dark, lusty, deeply romantic, emotional.....his love is like throwing all of yourself into someone else and taking up all of them too until there is no more distinction, just a beautiful, swirling and throbbing bed of colors. His kind of love is the kind that breaks hearts. And leaves people resenting him and each other, and closed off with walls up.

I know each kind of love well. I've contributed to them all..I've participated. I can't say that a single one has come through for me, in the end, though. If I could rate them in difficulty, Lady's would be least (all you need is a bit of intoxication + a male + a female = love game aka sexy time) and Shakespeare's would be next difficult to do, although hands down is most difficult to recover from....and Bob's would hold the greatest difficulty (yet the greatest longevity?)

It doesn't take much to lust. It takes a little more to love. It takes a lot to choose love. That's the difference, I think, between the three..and even as I sit here knowing which ones will fail (Gags & Shakes) and which will fulfill (One Love) I find myself sick with the feeling that I will never (again) be able to latch onto One Heart after going so long off the inertia a simpler (and sadder) kind of "love".

Question #9

2009-11-20T12:04:00.000-08:00

In one of his organization's polls, Barna found that only 22 percent of non-Christians have a positive view of evangelicals.

What can evangelicals/born-again Christians do to change the negative view that non-Christians have about them?

Christians seem to want to fill a quota. They don't seem to care about the people, really, and they tend to judge rather than actually know. Christians look at people like me, aka people who don't adhere to the "rules" laid out by Christianity and they judge us, which is stupid, because the whole reason they are prone to JUDGE rather than UNDERSTAND is because they DON'T...understand. The Christians people like and actually listen to are the people who understand rather than judge, empathize rather than try to control. This statistic is surprising to me only in that it is as high a number.

Christians can't and shouldn't do anything besides be the kind of people they're trying to make everyone else into. Be loving, forgiving, be good stewards..etc. Non-Christians are coming from perspectives of betrayal and abuse and disappointment,and having some higher-than-thou prep come up to them and tell them what they're doing wrong is so very obviously not the cool way to go, let's be real. Yet that's how too many Christians approach non-Christians. You don't know, you don't get it, so don't pretend to. Just go about your way, do what YOU do right, and we'll probably notice, and if we notice that it's working for you and that you're a better person than us and have a more fulfilling life than us, chances are we're going to want that too. It's something as simple as going to a party but only have 1 beer and then taking care of your drunk friend, or going out to smoke with a group of friends but not smoking..just talking..and not judging. It's those little things that Christians can do that mean a much bigger thing to non-Christians, because when we see those little things we learn something huge: you care more about being around me, care more about ME, than this or that rule or what your friends will think if they see or whatever agenda your church has put you on. And it also tells us that you're not some jerk that thinks he's got his life more together than me and therefore knows exactly what I need and has to tell me so that his amazing knowledge can save me. Gross. Seriously. Because that kind of attitude is like saying that you're somehow immune to what's happening to me..to this weakness in me that needs a drink, like you could never or would never or you know better. Disgusting. The fact is, we're all susceptible, and congratulations for not having this temptation or not having had to experience something so devestating that the only thing that makes it go away is 7 shots of rum.. but you've got something worse, in my eyes, and I'd rather die early of cancer from cigarette smoke than live a life being an arrogant prick like most of today's Christians.

my week in quotes & pictures

2009-11-20T08:41:00.001-08:00

Sunday

"After a certain age, there's no one left to turn to.
you've got
To find the small crack
between here and everywhere else all by yourself.

How could it be otherwise?
Everyone's gone away, the houses are all empty,
And overcast starts to fill the sky like soiled insulation."

-Charles Wright

Monday

"You're a miracle, Ronnie. We're all miracles. Know why? Because as humans, every day we go about our business, and all that time we know... we all know... that the things we love... the people we love, at any time now can all be taken away. We live knowing that and we keep going anyway."
-May McGorvey to Ronald James McGorvey in Little Children

Tuesday

"Far away far away, I want to go far away
To a new life on a new shore line
Where the water is blue and the people are new
To another island, in another life."

-Ingrid Michaelson, "Far Away"

Wednesday

"I want my will, and I want to be with my will
as it moves towards deed;
and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times,
when something is approaching,
I want to be with those who are wise
or else alone."

-Rainier Maria Wilke

Thursday

"Don't you know that when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not?"
-Julie, played by Cameron Diaz, in Vanilla Sky

Friday

"When something bad happens
we play it back in our minds,
looking for a place to step in
and change things...But even the hero
who stands up to chance has to feel
how far the world will bend
until it breaks him."

-Lawrence Raab

Saturday

"I'm a diva, you best believe her, you see her, she getting paid. She ain't callin' him to greet her, don't need him, her bed's made."
-Beyonce, "Diva"

Color Me Katie makes a tent in her spare time.

2009-11-17T14:36:00.000-08:00

I wish I had as much energy as this girl...

Question #8, revisited because Saunier didn't accept my one word answer, dangit.

2009-11-16T08:56:00.001-08:00

To review, the question was: What would the world be like if Adam and Eve had not sinned? My original answer was: "Better." Saunier (my teach) wants more, of course. Teachers always do..

So anyway, the reason I was bored with this question to the point of not answering it is because I am a discontented mess at all times, so I've thought this whole original sin concept through in my mind approx. 20 billion times and my thoughts go all over the place and it makes me want to die, the thinking, because ultimately I end up hating the answer I finally rest on (but it's the only answer my mind will let stay.)

But fine, whatever, I'll talk. Just be warned that when I talk, I really talk..aka this is going to be a long one so prepare yourself.

Alright. For starters, as I was walking around the Kesler Center aka the gym(ish) that I work at, I noticed this 40-something guy who is always in here, literally always, and I just got really sad and I want to tell him to go away, that he's obsessed, and that it's not like he looks any better than before anyway (and I can say that cuz seriously, I've seen him in here at least once if not twice a day everyday for the past 3 years that I've workd here and he looks the exact same and yeah maybe he's simply avoiding obesity, but in that case..well..just stop eating??)

Anyway the point of that is that it got my crazy mind running on and on about our human obsessions and how we're all so flawed which led me to think about the really bad stuff like rape and murder and even the hidden habits like bad thoughts or cursing God...and in Christianland these things are considered to be the worst, and even if we preach that all sin is the same, we don't practice that, be honest. But I was thinking about how sad it is that those things don't even matter because the real issue is that, even at our best, we've forgotten how good good really is, maybe because we've never seen it the way it could have/should have been, the way Adam and Eve saw it before they F-ed it all up. There's a line of one of my favorite Saosin songs that goes "We seem so far away from these things we used to know/We seem so far away from everything we are."

As for Adam and Eve..they had something to know. They knew goodness at it's most pure. They had uninhibited access to the God of the Universe. He was their lover and friend and confidant and...God. They had a world where it was safe to be stripped down to one's most bare self, a world without the need to buy products like makeup to cover up our shame or toys to push away pain..they had a oneness with animals and plants, nature, and everything was pure. I bet the air felt so good to breathe in, cool and refreshing.....you know the kind. There was no lonliness or greed or abuse or any of those things that each of us now carries around like we're carrying backpacks filled with bricks, like we're lugging around cars and mountains as mere humans. Now, well....we're so far away from that place that we don't even have anything to remember.

Fortunately, we have the hope (and the common sense) that each of us knows, in the core of us, that God exists and that's He's our dad. We're told in Psalm 19 of a general revelation that has been revealed to all creation, so that all of us have "heard word" of what's right and who/what we're supposed to be and of a special revelation that has occured in each of us..He was written on our hearts. Unfortunately, we're reminded in Romans that we choose to suppress these revelations and exchange the knowledge of God for idols. (People say the Bible doesn't make sense but I urge them to not give up on it, because someday..it will. How true are these passages in describing our hurting world?)

So the fact that we all have the knowledge is great, but the problem is that we know something is missing and we know something is not right and we kill and rape and become addicted to exercise or pornography or we commit suicide because we all know that this world is off..really really off from what it is supposed to be.. but we are so lost because we don't have a clear picture of what it's supposed to be!!!!!!!! Adam and Eve had a clear picture, they held a precious, immaculate painting and were careless with this unimaginably important work of art and spilt crap all over it, as if they were dancing in all their merriment and danced right into the punch bowl and now there's a big, ugly fruit punch stain all over God's world, and yeah, fruit punch tastes good, but not on canvas, and as it sits there it starts to mold and turn icky poo brown and erode the medium, just like their stupid original sin has eroded all of us and everything around us. Not to suggest that someone, eventually, wouldn't have messed it up anyway, and it only took Adam & Eve, what, like a day?? So yeah, if they hadn't done it, someone probably would have eventually done it, so sin was probably inevitable, but didn't God give us a chance to be more careful? To keep and take care of and forever remember and experience what was once so pure and so good? We had a chance to be more careful--it only takes one slip, one trip-up to knock over a punch bowl and stain the world, but just as accidents happen, they can also be avoided, and clearly we were capable of avoiding or else he never would have given us the chance to avoid it all in the first place. He never would have given us such a beautiful work of art. This leads me to a somewhat related thought:

He knew we'd mess it up, but he gave it to us anyway?

Well...why do I buy Jo expensive clothes when I know she'll stain them and grow out of them too soon? Because it gives me joy to see them on her even if they're only clean for a second, and because I want her to have the best that I can offer. God wanted to give us the best he could offer, and it saddens him to see it go, but isn't a stained beautiful shirt still a beautiful shirt underneath? Aren't some things so beautiful that not even the biggest, moldiest thing living on top could make it unbeautiful? Don't we blame the mold, not the beautiful shirt? Maybe God still sees his painting at it's best..maybe we, this, is so beautiful that it's worth it to have risked it being stained or altered from it's original design. What a loving and caring and involved and understanding and passionate Artist!

So the world doesn't suck so bad, in God's eyes, but I think that all of us have faced a time when we wished we would have watched our step, been a bit more careful, so that none of the beauty we'd stained had to be covered up.

The world would have been better. Better. If only we'd been more careful.

Things I like today:

2009-11-11T12:59:00.000-08:00

retro homemade hats

unique business cards

recycled fabric

custom bikes

funny stickers

gorgeous market bags

eighties sweatshirts

What do you like today?

I love Ruche!

2009-11-09T11:37:00.000-08:00

Question #8

2009-11-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

What would life be like if Adam and Eve had not sinned?

Better.

(I'm sorry, Saunier, but there's just no other necessary way to say it, and part of being a writer is being effectively concise, right?)

One night,

2009-11-06T09:18:00.001-08:00

Jacob was feeling particularly rotten about our choice.. and to lay it out there, by "choice" he means: the day we partook in the kind of sex that produces a fetus that then must be accounted for to the point of an entire life recon resulting in marriage and adulthood aka a tornado or "the mistake" or "their sin" or whatever verbiage you'd have in mind to attach to the ever-lengthening label on our lives.

Anyway, my response was this:

"We're not God's Plan B."

What I meant was: It's not as though God had a Plan A, aka life before "the mistake", and then when we had sexual intercourse he was all like 'Oh no! What to do..what to do...? Well, I suppose I'll have to do this (Plan B).'

I'm sorry..I don't know everyone's theology, but mine says that to think God has Plan Bs is completely inconsistent with believing he's omniscient and omnipotent, and aren't those characteristics the foundation of what we believe about him? Are we supposed to pick and choose which things we are to believe about our Creator?

When we look at it like this, simplified & amplified, sure.. it seems silly to believe conflicting things about God, but the thing is, people, we do it anyway. All the time. I mean..I see it everywhere. We walk around proclaiming all these truths, when the reality is that, added together, they don't add up to Truth. He can't be in control while at the same time onlooking with tears in his eyes about what we didn't let him control. He either is, or he isn't, and I choose to believe that he is.

God wasn't scared or surprised when we did what we did and, in fact, I'm not entirely sure he wept. Maybe he wept for how we felt, how afraid we were, and the pain we felt when others couldn't even look at us because of our sin, but he knew. He saw it coming. He had this planned, because he doesn't need a Plan B. Jacob isn't some guy I got stuck with and we just happen to be making it work because of our discipline and prayer and commitment to one another.

Why do I say that? Well, take a look at this realistic assessment and decide for yourself..

Discipline: We don't pay bills on time because we're too busy watching episodes of scrubs or grey's anatomy. We leave the stove on overnight sometimes because we forget to turn it off after we cook up our midnight snack of frozen chicken wings. I don't come home until 4 a.m. most nights, and Jake doesn't always brush his teeth. Oh, and we've both got tires forming around our middles.

Prayer: I don't pray. I don't believe it to be necessary until I do, and then it is. Jake might pray, but not often enough to hold up my end too, and we don't pray together.

Commitment: We've both cheated in our own ways. Yup. How's that for honesty?

So..what do you think? You think our marriage is still intact (and not only that, but our love for each other, too?) simply because we've been doing what it takes to make it work? There is no other explanation of our current relationship than: God wants it. He wants it and he wants our daughter and he wanted it from the beginning and he's making it happen. Maybe we help him out, make it a little easier, every now and then by doing what he says, but ultimately..this was no surprise to him. He is in control.

We're not God's Plan B.

And I really wish everyone would stop looking at us like we are.

Stalling

2009-11-03T08:09:00.001-08:00

Yes, I'm stalling. I don't want to finish this book nor write it's review. Some writer, right?

I think I need to talk something out first. Like this:

I have friends who walk around saying one thing and doing another, and I think that'd be fine, except that it has been affecting me personally lately, and maybe that'd be fine, too, because I could probably get over it, but when it affects the people I love, like Jake, it's just not okay anymore, because then I'm left feeling like I'm the one who harmed him, and I never want to be that person (though I know that I am sometimes..but if I'm going to harm him, let me do it myself--don't do it for me. I do a mighty fine job on my own, thanks.)

Anyway, this is vague and weird, I realize, but it's been bugging, and I'm hoping it can serve as some kind of warning to those who've been doing this..hopefully they'll know who they are.

I might seem like I enjoy being walked on, but did you ever think that maybe it's not that I like it, but that I don't feel it?? Maybe I just don't let myself feel the pain of being trampled--maybe I've felt it for so long that it doesn't feel much like pain to me anymore, but when you walk on someone I love, you're cutting right into the heart of me, and I don't just let that happen, ok?

Fine, I'll admit it, you don't have to be careful with me, but that doesn't make me weak, it makes me calloused...but mess with those I love...and you'll see how truly strong I can be.

(end rant..)

I'm sitting here trying to watch this recorded game..

2009-10-30T11:19:00.001-07:00

(game 1 of Pacers) and it's a real challenge. I can barely keep my eyes on the screen. Funny, considering basketball was, at one time, my only love.

Where did the love go?

On a better, and more exciting note, Carley & I are heading to Indy tonight to shop for our Halloween costumes, which will (hopefully) be this:
(post left unfinished for the weekend..and then returned to on Monday:)

Oh wait..we were that. Except that no one really knew who we were. Well okay to give us more credit approx 2 people guessed correctly right away. But it doesn't matter cuz we looked seriously legit!! It was sweet. We even scared the scarers at the Fright House..they were like "wait is there a person? I think there's a person coming buuut..." haha..awesome. And the owner people (Mr. Tim Couch..he's cool) took tons of pics of us and loved it.

Speaking of Mr. Couch, I saw him come into the ksac when I was working today and he acted weird and I just now realized that it's probably because he didn't recognize me without all the black paint..hahaha..oops.

(See....wasn't that a lot more interesting than some big boys running around jumping and throwing a ball and wearing ugly colors?? I'm sensing an epic fail on this first challenge..encouragements appreciated..)

The Beginning of a New Carrie

2009-10-28T14:35:00.001-07:00

I want to be a lot of things.. every time I see someone being something I'm not, I get really pissed.

...a dancer..a politician..a mountain biker...

The jealousy has gotten to be a little unbearable.. so I figured.. why not just be those things you want to be??

So, I'm gonna. Starting now.

But I can't do it all at once, so I'll start small (only not so small at all, because the firsts will be a challenge..you'll see why..).

I'm going to make myself into an NBA fan. Yup. This is a big deal, if you know me at all, because I tend to hate overpaid, arrogant assholes.......... which seems to define many of those involved in the NBA, at least through my lens. But I have this husband who loves this sport (and too many others..) and he's sorta pursuing this whole b-ball coaching thing, so I figured it's join or die. And now's the time.

So...who is it going to be?? Which team?? I asked the Hubs & he denied me of Bron-Bron, suggesting I be a home team follower--The Pacers. My reply was that I've always hated their colors...but alright...I'll do it.

Their first game being tonight at 7, I suppose I'm going to start out as a pretty crappy fan, as I won't be watching it due to class (that's a reasonable excuse, though, no?). Unfortunately, Hubs just suggested he record the stupid game on our stupid DVR (hate that thing sometimes..) so now I have to actually do this thing.

This is the beginning of a new Carrie.

(more on this later..)

Question #7

2009-10-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Should Christians divorce their spouses? Why or why not? What does the Bible say about this?

Ideally, no person should divorce his or her spouse, Christian or not, but that'd be a lot easier to consider if people got the marrying part right in the first place.

But they don't...seemingly ever.

But there's no changing that just like there's no changing world hunger. It's not that it isn't possible; it's that we don't care enough. People don't care enough to not eat even if it means someone hungry gets to, just like they don't care enough to not get married even if it means avoiding a life essentially void of any real meaning or happiness. Yay for a life of despair.

Why do we choose what we know we shouldn't?

Because we're wicked and evil? Nahhhh. That might be part of it, but it's probably not it. Maybe evilness is a symptom, but where is it coming from? Weren't we all set free here, by God, with a destination inscripted on our hearts? Yet we wish to avoid it?

No..I don't think so. I think we're afraid. I think we're like fish out of water. So we flop ourselves into the nearest shallow puddle of muck even though God's tapping on the glass telling us to flop on, that we'll find our glorious pond. We're suffocating in this unsatisfying earthly air and we've no reason to trust each other and therefore no reason to trust anything else. The only thing we can trust is our own fins to get us from one evaporating pool to the next.

Just today, I finished a 27 Dresses/Redeeming Love-like book called Never the Bride by Cheryl McKay and Rene Gutteridge in which God literally appears as a handsome 30-something in order to convince a modern, independent woman to release control of her life and love Him, and even with Him there breathing, she couldn't believe Him, couldn't trust Him fully, without first cursing Him and turning away. He was trying to write her love story, but she wouldn't let Him. Why not? Because she was afraid.

We dive into small loves even when we know they won't be deep enough to hold us, even when we know the water will drain, eventually, because the alternative is to keep hoping for feet when we've only got fins, to believe in something our world tells us can't possibly be true.

Can we be so blamed?

And if we can't be blamed much for sucking in the wrong love too quickly, can we really be blamed for releasing ourselves back into the love-less wild? Because it seems love doesn't exist beyond the safe harbor it's tied to. But love is like air to a human the way water is to fish, and it gets a little hard to breath without it, even if what we're breathing isn't clean.

Ideally, love exists and we can find it. And if we can't find it at first, maybe we can create it. But what if we can't find it? What if it's not there? What if it is but it isn't all right? What if we're hit or abused or used or even something less extreme, like held back? Is divorce okay then? Does God care more about a union of a couple than the individuals involved?

That's the real issue. Marriage. What is it and why do it? Marriage the basic right we get wrong that causes us to clean up our wrong with more wrong, isn't it?

My sister and I have often said that our lives probably would have been better if our parents hadn't focused so hard on being together and had shared some of that attention with us. Were they so dissimilar and disconnected that making it work together meant neglecting the four children they'd made? In that case, would divorce have been okay? My parents have survived marriage and avoided divorce for over 35 years, but what have they lost in the process?

Back in the Old Testament, or at least according to Deuteronomy 22, virginity mattered more than marriage. I don't agree with that, and neither does Mark Regnerus in his article "The Case for Early Marriage" which I'll let you read on your own time (great points to consider..) Do I agree that God considers marriage to be sacred? (Well, despite my old youth pastor's assurance that the Bible mentions the sanctity of marriage a million times, BibleGateway doesn't seem to think so as it couldn't provide me with crap..) Yes, I do, but not for the reasons our pastors have shared with us.

I think the bottom line is that God loves us and wants the best for us, just like the best kind of dad. But the best kind of dad doesn't do things for us, and he doesn't condemn us when we don't do what he wants. In my most humble opinion, God doesn't either. And the best kind of dad doesn't treat every kid the exact same, because he's aware of each kid's personality and differences and therefore knows that each circumstance needs to be handled specifically and uniquely. In my opinion, God handles His kids, His creation, the same way. Divorce is permissible, but it's not what he would have wanted for us...but a bad, sad, unproductive and drowning marriage isn't what he would have wanted either, because nothing is more important than us, not even something so sacred as marriage.

He sacrificed Himself through His son......is it really so hard to believe that He'd sacrifice an idea for us, too?

(Not that we should abuse His willingness to sacrifice, but we certainly shouldn't take it for granted either..)

thanks for this tara :)

2009-10-25T19:43:00.001-07:00

This makes me heart soar (ha. i almost typed it "sore"..but no..not that one)

If ANYONE is interested in some kind of recreate..let me know. We will make this happen.

P.S. Who wants to do a Tomatina with me??

I mean..seriously.. who wouldn't want to be smack in the middle o' that???

I want those kind of people around me.

And where the heck is Indiana's annual food fight?

(You know who would do something like this with me? Muggles, that's who. Oh how I miss you!)

Giant Seagull

2009-10-24T20:58:00.001-07:00

Go ahead. Laugh your face off.

Seriously. Do it.

Why I Love Fall

2009-10-23T19:28:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Jo & I baked up some delicious fall cookies.

Today, Nana & Papa (my parents) came to visit and took Jo & I to Hainlen Orchard, where we braved the muddy tree-lined paths and ate perfect apples we'd picked ourselves in order to explore this wonderland of nature. Jo had a blast but ate way too many apples. We took home a gallon of their tongue-edifying Cherry Apple Cider and a couple pumpkins, which Nana & Jo painted together once we were home.

...I can't think of a better way to spend a rainy fall day.

Thanks for hosting a beautiful day, Hainlen!! See you again soon :)

confessions (true life?)

2009-10-22T11:49:00.001-07:00

I'm supposed to be a Big Brother Big Sister..sister..but I haven't seen or talked to my "little sister" since, I think, at least last fall.

Why? Well, I think it's because I'm lazy. And selfish. And poor. And never have a car.

She lives in Marion and is (I think) a sophomore there now.. and I'd have to go there to see her/pick her up.. and she never really responded when I'd email her. We also had nothing in common. And she scared me, all young and vulnerable and moldable. It's bad enough I'm in charge of a 3-year-old.

I still get the Big Brother Big Sister event emails and feel like crap everytime I get one.

qotd :)

2009-10-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. " Dorothea Lange

Question #6

2009-10-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

Do you think people can "earn" their way into heaven? Why or why not?

We just studied Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Christian Belief.

One of the issues we were presented with in this study was that many people choose Pluralism over Christianity because they cannot come to terms with the concept of someone such as Gandhi going to Hell when he did so many good deeds.

Our answer to this conundrum was that, as sinful humans, even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags when presented to a holy and perfect God. In the Bible, Isaiah felt unclean in front of the Holy. Peter fled from God, stating that he was "a sinful man." In the Bible, we are told that it is not a question of good or bad but of the direction of our lives. Are we turned toward God or away? God tells us that he does not want good deeds, he wants our hearts, however soiled, and he wants them wholly. He wants us to repent.

If God were to make his final decision of us based on how much good or bad we did on earth, there would surely be some cases in which a person was only 51% good, while still 49% bad. Or what of those who were just 1% away, one good deed away, from being good enough? God doesn't want a tally or a rank, he wants a relationship.

In John 14v6 (NIV), Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

If Jesus existed and if his resurrection is true (and according to evidence and solid research, it is) then, to be safe, we should heed what a once-dead-now-risen manGod has to say, and he has answered this question by saying that nothing but a relationship with him will save us. Through him, not through our kind actions, will we be gifted an eternal afterlife of joy and peace.

lights out = nights out!

2009-10-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

Karaoke! Brea, Brice, me, & Buzzy (he's the red sleeve) at B-dubs in Marion singing Song of the South (which I did not know the words to, by the way..hence my looking like I have downs..)

Hookah! A pretty light at The Egyptian, Jen & I, Brice & Brea (Joanna & Nate & Amanda & Landon, not shown)

*all photos courtesy Jen "Jb" Halls :)

Twitter Fun

2009-10-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

Owl City: "Hi. I am an egg salad sandwich. I am loaded with cholesterol."

Me: "Mmm. You sound delicious."

My favorite shitmydadsays posts this week:
*shitmydadsays is a twitter dedicated to the things one kid's 73 y.o. dad says. and it's hilarious.

"You're being fucking dramatic. You own a TV and an air mattress. That's not exactly what I'd call "a lot to lose." 5:57 PM Oct 3rd from web
"We didn't have a prom. Dancing wasn't allowed...What's Footloose?...That's the plot of the movie? That sounds like a pile of shit."10:57 AM Oct 6th from web
"That woman was sexy...Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won't screw you, don't do it for them."9:10 AM Oct 12th from web

P.S. LaurenConrad: "At the gym. Just looked up at the TV and saw BREAKING NEWS : BOY FLOATS AWAY IN BALLOON! What???" about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry

hahaha

Question #5

2009-10-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

Do you believe Christians should tithe? If so, at what level or percentage? If you're so inclined to respond...do you tithe?

Yes, I do believe Christians should tithe.. but I fear I don't know a lot about it and therefore am not sure I have much authority on the matter. But, coming from the perspective of someone who has rarely tithed or has been partnered with those who rarely or stingily tithe..I have always found it to be a beautiful goal to give 90 percent of one's earnings for the church's use while living on only the remaining 10 percent. But where does the money go, exactly?? I really don't know.

I'd be cool with it if some of the funds went to the church itself, to things like maintenance and keeping it clean, etc. (Not okay if for needless plasma screens and stuff.. or for becoming a mega church like Joel Osteen's..) I'd want most of it to go toward projects, however, for making the world better, like funds for a mission trip or a mission project somewhere.

Isn't the expected level 10%? Maybe the "requirement" should be that we give 100% of our heart..and then the money would follow suit..? I think so. That's what God really wants, anyway. In Revelation 3:16 we're told that God wants us to be hot or cold, at least, just anything but lukewarm. So if we give the recommended amount but aren't particularly fired up about the actual process of giving, God will just "spit [it] out of [his] mouth."

I do not personally put money in the passing basket. Jake does occasionally place a prepared check in there, but rarely, during these days with our hardly grown-up lifestyle. (We don't plan ahead very well even for paying bills on time, let alone for giving any extra gifts to the world.)

"Hot as hookah at a home party's Friday night rave."

2009-10-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Well, we weren't at home this time, but we did do hookah last night (although it wasn't much like a rave..)

If you've never tried hookah or if you think you know what it's all about, I encourage you to give it a second or third or even fourth thought. It's this amazing thing that not a lot of people don't prefer (I've de-hookah-virginized many a compadre and not one has disliked it yet; even my stubborn husband has converted).

One of my favorite places to go on the weekend is The Egyptian Cafe & Hooka Bar on Carrollton in Broadripple. It's a great place to go with a big group when you'd like to just chill and chat and chew the fat (I only said that cuz it rhymes).

The Egyptian is legit, my friends. It's one of the only hooka bars/providers in the area (Indianapolis) and from what I've seen of others, it's one of the best.

Imagine a smokey cave where your eyes don't burn and your lungs don't hate you. The "smoke" is basically fruity, misty air and it smells amazing and exotic.

99% of the people that work there are legitimately of the origin of hooka (I don't know where they're actually from and won't pretend to, and no, the answer is not necessarily Egypt, but thanks). Oh, except for the bouncer, this grinning black guy named Jared or Jason or something (he got Cat's number once), and he thinks he a b.a. but we all know the truth, J.

I would tell you who the best waiter is but I've never been told his name and they all look the same, so it wouldn't help any, but he's awesome.

The FOOD is OUTRAGEOUS. My faves = the homemade baklava, and our group always gets a couple things of the homemade pita and hummus (best you've ever had) and the Egyptian fries..holy shmoly so good. They also have Turkish coffee, which they serve on a tray with your own little individual tea set. Beware though, because it's tar, let's be real. Delicious, hot, steamy tar.

Oh, yeah, and of course the hooka is bomb. We usually order 3 bowls for a group of 8 or so and it's enough for 2-3 hours. Last night we ordered the Egyptian Blend (get it. it's a given. a bit more expensive cuz it's a special blend, but worth it.) Apple (tastes like black licorice & no one ever likes it so I'm not sure why we got it actually..) and Strawberry Mint, a mix of 2 basic blends that tastes like candy. The strawberry gives you the fruity delicious flavor and the mint gives a cool, smooth sensation.

My friend Jen took a ton of pics (the ones on here are from the website), so when I get those from her, I'll put them up.

Conclusion: "You can't hate it if you've never tried it." and also, I always "hate" things all the time but who are we to completely give up on anything? Even if you've had a bad experience, try again. I've done that with many things and I'm so glad I did, because I've changed my mind on several occasions and in the end gained something more to be thankful for.

And as for your lungs, etc, it's not like cigarettes, it's more like a pipe, only even better because the power behind hookah is the water in the bowl, making it more of a steam than a smoke, and yes, most have an element of tobacco, but it is minimal. So get over it, already, and experience "all that is good" because I'm telling you, hookah is goooood!! :-) The only thing to prepare for is that you might be a little overwhelmed the first time (I thought I might or might not have been dying that first night) because it is pretty smoky, but a quick step outside takes care of that!

So check it out, see what you think. You never know when you might discover something beautiful.

The photos I submitted to the Parnassus

2009-10-06T18:18:00.001-07:00

Imagination

Being A Girl

The Side of Him I Love

The Red Balloon

A Little Yellow

In His Image

The World In A Window

I'm not sure why they turned out so pixelated.. I took them with my Nikon d60, so they should be nothing short of stellar. A possible reason could be that they have been transferred several times to different locations in hard drive, etc. Either way...I'm sad.

God Today

2009-10-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

God, today, told me that I am his daughter, that he loves me more than I can imagine.

Here's how the convo went:

Me: "Why can't I feel you? Why are you so distant? I don't want to sing it without feeling it. I don't want to merely 'get it'."

God: "Any acceptance of the 'world' is a rejection of me."

Me: "Frick..I know. I don't know why I do it, and I don't know how not to. I just want to feel you again....always."

[So he gave me some feeling, during communion, during the "Oh, the wonderful cross" song. And the cross isn't what usually gets me, but he used it today, to fulfill my request. And then I told Jake about it. I told him about my frustrations with fighting my humanness and hating it and being bored with how dumb I can be. And then...]

God: "You're my cherished daughter, and I want what's best for you, and I'm trying to show you, but you keep choosing your own way. I know what your heart wants.. I know what it's missing.. and I want to give those things to you but I can't do that unless you stop trying to do it for yourself."

And I cried, a lot, because I know it's true. I know that, until I give him control and let him bring the things I long for into my life, unless I stop trying to gain those things for myself, I will only have cheapened, unfulfilling versions of the Real Thing. I get it..but again...I'm afraid to lose what I already have (even if it's not that great), because it's something and something feels better than a possible nothing, even though I know in my heart that God doesn't fail to come through, that he won't break his promise to take care of my heart.

Maybe I'll eventually explain my struggle. Maybe I'll eventually give it a title and its own post.......but for now I'm too sensitive and have way too much school crap to do. And my current struggle is falling asleep too soon!!

But I love God, and I love that he's my dad. I just wish he could come to Parents' Weekend, that's all.

I like to read.

2009-10-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

25 books I want to read by September 8, 2010 (Emily Dearest's Birthday!)
(not necessarily in this order..except for the 6 Austen's, as that's the order in which they were written.)

Bold=done.

Sense & Sensibility
Pride & Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Emma
Northanger Abbey
Persuasion
Mere Christianity
Harry Potter 6
Harry Potter 7
Never the Bride
Wuthering Heights
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Lolita
Othello
Shoeless Joe
The Shack
The Weight of Water
The Shipping News
Song of Solomon
Passing
Treasure Island
The View From Saturday
The Ragamuffin Gospel
The Devil's Wind
Nineteen Minutes

So hold me accountable!! Whenever you see me, ask me what I'm reading these days & remind me of this commitment. Thanks :-)

Question #4

2009-10-02T11:41:00.001-07:00

What would your parents or other family members say if you brought home a person from a different race than yours and said you were in love with that person and thinking about marrying him or her?

First of all, I'm already married and pretty disconnected from my family, so this is a really weird idea to think about. I have, however, dated black guys in the past, and when I "brought them home" it wasn't because I was in love with them or was thinking about marrying them; it was a lust kind of thing.

I dated one my sophomore year and he only came over a couple times so that we could make out. My dad didn't like it and was a nutcase the entire time, but I'd never really brought a guy over before, so it probably wasn't about race, but more about gender. And he didn't really care/wasn't really involved otherwise--he served only as the P.D.A. Police when necessary.

The other guy was a kid from Texas that had been adopted into a white family and only came to visit his Christian dad every summer and some holidays, like Christmas. I met him my seventh grade summer while I was swimming at my grandma's pool and he was working outside at his dad's used car shop, which was right behind my grandma's house. Whenever he came back to Indiana, we acted as if we were boyfriend/girlfriend again, and when he left, it was like neither of us existed for the other. It was weird.

So maybe that's why my dad didn't like the black guys. It's hard to tell..especially since the black guys happened to be horny players and the only other guys I brought over were white, square, Christian virgins I dated in order to get over the black guys. Who knows.

But I do remember growing up arguing about race with my dad. He would never admit to being a racist, but he carried the attitude of one. He would never have dressed as a KKK or anything, but I don't think he would have loved Derrick or Cole if I'd have. And I can sort of understand why; the only other black men my dad had experienced were either arrogant pricks or wife-beater-cheaters (my cousin's old husband & my sister's new one) and both Derrick & Cole acted similarly (unnecessarily disrespectful, overly physical). I think it was those things that had my mom a little on edge too.

But in the end, it didn't matter anyway, because I found myself marrying the All-American blonde-haired, blue-eyed white boy, and in that way, I think I avoided the disaster my father was afraid of, even if it had nothing to do with color & more to do with consequence.

Interview with Me

2009-09-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Do you want your life to stay the way it is right now forever?

I think I'm finally happy with life. I've been discontented for too long, and now I'm actually smiling that real smile you only smile when you're falling in love or just got a major A. I love that I'm almost done with college, that I've made some great friends, that I got to experience college life a little and still be a mommy and wife, and that now I get to be a real Mommy and Wife and get a grown-up job. I'm excited about the future!

Are you cheating on someone right now?

I'm not, and I only thank God for that. Jake and I have been to some low places in the past (nearly) four years, and we've hurt each other in ways we never thought we would, but all those hideous moments we would have rather hidden from view are moments that God has pulled out for a reason--to sharpen us, to purify us, and to mend us together tighter than we could have for ourselves. And these trials have made us that much stronger and that much more equipped to love each other and others.

When is the last time you hugged someone?

Jake and Jo and I snuggled a lot last night. Yesterday was Jake's birthday, and snuggling is all he asked for :)

Do you still talk to the person you were dating 4 months ago?

I haven't officially dated anyone besides Jake since my sophomore year of high school, and Jake and I are still kickin' it, yup!

Are you nice to everyone?

I'm really not, and I can't decide if that's okay or not. I know what my pastor would say..that we should love everyone, but sometimes I look back on all the people who were mean to me and I'm glad they were, because I was acting in such a way that they should have been really pissed off, and if they hadn't been, I might have kept acting ridiculous. I think love can come in all kinds of forms, and sometimes a person hears what you're saying best when it comes out a little harsh. I know I've appreciated it, in the past. But at the same time it's important to love overall, to scold but not turn your back completely, and to walk with someone all the way.

Ever kissed under mistletoe?

You know, my first reaction was to say no, but I have this fading memory of Jake and I at my Aunt Leta's house standing under the arch between her dining and living room and us kissing there, with her watching, and her smiling, and saying something cutesy. Gosh, I miss that lady..

How many hours of sleep did you get last night?

Not sure. I don't remember when we went to bed, but I went to bed earlier than normal, and I love that. I think that's part of what's making me happier, going to bed at the same time as Jake for once.

Ever been cheated on?

I have. It's not fun.

How do you feel about teenage pregnancy?

I feel great about it! (Ha.) No, but seriously, people take things too seriously. Those who looked at me and saw a tragedy were making a fool of themselves. There is no predictable tragedy, only those you don't foresee. I knew I would be fine, and I was, but only because I didn't let what all the haters said get to me, and thank God for that. It could have been like a self-fulfilling prophecy, only set off by those who judged us. I hope someday they'll understand how wrong they were, not just because we're beautiful and going strong but because it's never right to judge another's situation. It's an arrogant thing, to think you know better than someone else when you've never been where they're going (and heck, even if you have).

How is your heart lately?

Uhh..it's dragging a little due to the smoke inhalation of late (it's only social, and I'm stopping..don't judge me) but other than the physicality of it, it's happy. I've got a great life for it to rest in.

Next time you will kiss someone on the lips?

Whenever Jo wants to pucker up or when my handsome hubby gets home. Or maybe if Early or Gemma decide they want to smooch :)

Do you understand football?

Mmm...mostly. I think it's a little overdone, but I'm okay with it. It makes my favorite boys very happy, and it's cute. We have our fashion; they have their football.

When was the last time a member of the opposite sex hugged you?

Last night Jake and I hugged a lot. We hung out just the 2 (/3) of us like we used to in the good ole days.

Will this weekend be a good one?

I'm sure it will be. I don't have any real plans..besides officially quitting lacrosse :( But the weekends when I don't have plans are my favorite. There are so many good things that can happen with a little time and fall weather.

Do you have a reason to smile right now?

I do. 4 in particular. I love my guy and he's good to me and he knows me more than anyone and that's important. I love my girl because there's too much to love for it to be any other way. She's beautiful and smart and talented and sweet and I love watching her grow up and being a part of that. And I love my cats because they're great little pets and they make me feel more at home. And I love fall..ohhhhh how I love fall!! There's a lot to love about life right now.

Can you go a day without music?

I'm sure I can because I'm sure I have..but there's music in other forms and that gets me by.

Will you be in a relationship in the next couple months?

I'll be in one, in particular, that matters the most, and I know I always will be.

What was your last text messaging conversation about?

Me to Jake: Can you grab some more milk and cereal, preferably some cool kind of cheerios again? I love you my bacon-bringing-home husband.

Jake to Me: lol yes I can

Me: Thanks lover

Jake: You're welcome, most sexy lady o'mine

Favorite number?

It used to be 23 because back then, it was all about me, but now my favorite numbers is 3 because that's how old Jo is and that's who/what it's all about now.

Did you deny or accept your last friend request?

I'm sure I accepted. I used to reject a lot but rejection sucks, so I accept, these days.

When was the last time you had a late night phone call?

Cheeze called at 12:45 the other night, but I was already asleep. I've been calling it in early the past couple days, and they're not used to it yet :)

How has September been for you?

It's been..........informative. Yes, that's the best word. I've learned a lot about myself and others and God and I really like what I'm learning. It's been kinda like Fall, actually..ironically enough.. (and I loooove Fall..) The old has been falling away, and I'm loving the new.

What were you doing right before you began this survey?

Writing in my "Jo Journal". It's the journal I started especially for Jo the month she was born. I want her to be able to look back on her life through the eyes of someone who loved her, so that she can never say she wasn't loved and watched and protected and admired.

What if you had a baby with the last person you texted?

You know......I would love that. I think I'm ready for another of Jake's children. He makes good ones, after all. (Except I'm hoping the next one looks a bit more like me so I don't have to keep feeling so.....brunette...around here.)

Could you go a month without talking to your best friend?

My best friends live with me, really, so I suppose I could.. but it would be certifiably heart-wrenching.

Is it more common for you to follow your heart or your mind?

For too long I've been confusing the two, but I think I'm finally starting to get it right, and God uses both of them to speak to me and through me, so I'm not concerned with following one over the other, I'm just concerned with getting them to finally work together.

Do you think age matters in a relationship?

Before typing this answer, I would have said that it didn't matter, but I really think it does at a point. Around 10 years or so.. maybe not.. but when it comes to the point when you could have fathered/mothered a child, well... that's when it gets to be a bit unnatural, I think, and natural is what God intended. Not to say it would be wrong necessarily, just that it wouldn't be all the way right.

Who did you last take a picture with?

The hubs. We took a picture together so that I could blog it, actually. A picture of us on his 23rd birthday, last night.

How far away are you from the person you like?

I like a lot of people, including Jo, and she's just in the next room. (Jake's at work in Marion, though :( )

When is the last time you were at a beach?

Spring Break '09! Cocoa Beach with Jake & Jo on our first little family vaca :)

Your ex calls wanting to hangout, what do you say?

I'd sing the JoJo song..what is it again?...."You're just a little too late, a little too long, and I can't waihaaaaiitttttt" Ha, no. Maybe not. But I'd say he's gotta move on because I have and it's definitely the way it's supposed to be.

Did you have a dream last night?

I think so, but they're always so hard to remember in the morning and it's now afternoon. Cold move, Survey.

Do you think you'll be married in 5 years?

Yes, I do, and I'm very happy about it :)

Would you go out with someone right now if they asked?

I think y'all know the answer to that one..

Do you think someone has feelings for you?

I know it!

Are you anything like you were at this point last year?

I think I'm a little like her because there's a part of me that's been there all along--she's just been too afraid to come out--and now she's finally showing herself and she's really quite stunning, actually.

Think a lot before you fall asleep?

Some nights, yes, but last night I konked out right on the couch while Jake was watching football. I've been a sleepy girl as of late.

Do you know anyone who's having a baby?

No, but I wish it was me, I think.

Last kiss?

Jake kissed my sleepy-head this morning before he left for work. So sweet.

Regret it?

No chance.

Have you ever been called heartless?

No way. And if I have, that person really really didn't know me, because the people that truly do know me sometimes think I have too much heart.

Who was the last person to give you a hug?

Joie-Baby

Will you talk to the person you like tonight?

I will be with them, yup.

What is something you disliked about your day?

I don't think I've disliked anything, really! Fall has put a happy-spell on me.

Do you think you'll have the same best friend a year from now?

I consider Jake & Jo & my cats to be my bffs and, unless they run away or something, we'll be tight as ever in a year. Otherwise, I hold hope that the rest will still be just a text away, at least.

Current bother?

I'm taking too much time loving this day and not getting done the stuff I need to..haha...so I'm starting to feel a little anxious, but I'll make it.

Last time you cried?

A few minutes ago, just a bit, but God took care of it.

Have you ever kissed anyone whose name started with a J?

I kiss two people whose names start with J, and I do it daily :)

Have you ever kissed someone and never saw them again?

Basically, yes, and it breaks a heart.

Have you accidentally sent a text to the wrong person?

Yes, but it wasn't a horror story or anything like that. I'm very meticulous.

Do you hate the last person you kissed?

Definitely not.

Have you ever received a text message that made you cry?

I can recall a few times, yep.

Does the last person you kissed have anything of yours?

Everything.

Are you a mean person?

No. But I can have an attitude.

Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night?

Sorta. Jake and I talked until we got too tired and then we fell asleep together.

How bad are heartbreaks?

They hurt the worst, but they're the best to get over.

Is there someone you don't ever want to be out of your life?

I've got plenty of someone's like that, thank God.

Who have you kissed with the name starting with a R?

Just some boys. They're old news now.

Last time you were really happy?

These past 2 days. I even got kicked out of my counselor's office, which I consider such a great thing.

Could you go the rest of your life without drinking alcohol?

You know, it's gotten to be like a food you ate too much of for too long--after awhile it gets old and you want something entirely different for a change. But I mean, I'll drink again. There's no doubt.

Ever given your all to someone who walked away?

I have given my all, but only to one: Jacob. And he's the only one besides God who has seen it all, and he's walked away but never for very far and he always turns around with a smile on and with his arms open. And that's what makes him mine.

Have you ever felt like you weren’t good enough?

I've felt that way many times for too long, but it's a lie. What is "enough"? Enough for him or her or them? The only one worth being good for is God, and if you can figure that out and figure out how, you'll be good enough for yourself, too, and after that, nothing else matters.

i hate how blogger auto. realigns copied-in writing. not cool, Blogger.

2009-09-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

But anyway.. I really really like this: (though it's not in original form, due to Blogger's selfish & controling nature..)

Tuesday
Sep. 29, 2009

LISTEN
Stadium Traffic
by Daniel Donaghy
You're on your way homewhen a thousand carspour onto Broad Street:the ball game's over.No one's going anywhere soon.It's mid-July: eighty and humid.You smell like all the crappies in the Delaware, wear the ache of dock crates in your back.Your buddy lost two fingers tonightto a jigsaw: boss said go home early,stay late tomorrow night.These people don't appreciatewhat they have: time to go to ball games.You get out among blaring hornsand hustlers hawking T-shirts,walk the yellow lines like a tight rope,arms out for balance,all the way to the corner and back.Broad Street still as a parking lot,wound tight as a fist.You pop the trunk, fish a beerfrom your cooler, and pound it.Back in your car, the radio's recapping the game:your team pulled one outthey would have blown last year.You've blown the last year workingnights while your lady works days.Night work means bad lighting,and you've had enough close calls.You've had enough overtime.You've had enough.Something has to give.Somewhere in the distance a dogis barking, a husband is coming home.
"Stadium Traffic" by Daniel Donaghy, from Start with the Trouble. © The University of Arkansas Press, 2009. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Wilting

2009-09-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Wait for a word to fall from someone else's lips, now.

Wait for your name to be called when they've all given in.

Wait for a reason to lift up your head, and take back what you said.

You didn't mean it, but you'll never tell.

Watch for a wind to blow everyone's houses down.

Call the witch to come strike what you love to the ground.

Hope for a reason to wander off to somewhere new.

You didn't mean it, but you'll never tell.

Walk the streets still waiting for you, parting their lips to engulf you in.

Walk the streets, don't think of me, don't let yourself be anything but cold.

You're growing old now...

Take care of you now, or, who else will?

Tire of the abuses.

Let no light back in.

Seek out stronger excuses.

Swear off taller men.

Wilt away at any day that beckons you to bloom.

Flee from your fears and sign up where there's room.

Take up your time

wait in line

and walk it till you die.

You can say you didn't mean it,

but you know you'll never tell.

Grey's Anatomy Season 6!!

2009-09-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite shows that I watch pretty religiously is Grey's Anatomy, and I will until it dies.

I missed the 2-hour premiere on Thursday for no real reason other than I just didn't realize it was this week. Lucky for me & Jake (because he is, now admittedly, just as addicted as I am) abc has the episodes online woot woot!

I know that George died, though, because the episode summary said so. Awesome, Episode Summary.. anyway.. I can't tell you how devestated I am. George has always been my favorite. I mean look at the guy! He's presh.....he's funny & a good friend & yeah, he cheated on his wife, but he got over it and so did we. In conclusion, the only way I'll be okay with this is if Burke is brought back in. (Of course I'll still watch -- I just won't be very happy about it.)

Anyway, if you're a fan like me, here's the link:

http://abc.go.com/watch/greys-anatomy/93515/235549/good-mourning

Enjoy!! I know I will :-)

today I'll start #100

2009-09-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Number 100 on the blog list is something about making up a list of things I wanna write about and then doing it..so I'm gonna..starting now!

A List Of Things I Wanna Write About (& Then Do)

A monthly posting about world issues, perhaps: "Things We Should Be Doing Something About" & listed in volumes. They'll start at the 1st of each month & that whole month will be dedicated to the research, writing, and benefiting of that particular issue. Yaaah?? (Possible topic numero uno: Child exploitation)
The All-Taylor Girl - for a whole month (or maybe a week..cuz not sure I'll last longer..) I'll attempt to follow every rule at TU & actually study as much as the syllabi say. And read the student handbook. Ha. And record how much I hate it & can't wait for it to end. Human misery! Woo!
Editorials. Because profs & campus safety & girls make me mad sometimes & it'd be sweet to vent publically & shamelessly.
Frustrating linguistics: WTF is the difference between lay & lie & lain and who even says lain?? No one. Let's explore, then, why the Founders Of English decided on something so silly. And other such silly things.
Stuff about clothes. Because I enjoy clothes.
Book/movie/music reviews as I happen upon them.
Things I've learned lately

We'll update this regularly.. I mean, let's be honest - it's a big world out there and there's LOTS to cover so I'll be here awhile & I hope you will too!! :-)

Question #3

2009-09-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Do you believe in a literal heaven and hell? What happens to people who die without a saving knowledge of Christ?

This idea has always been difficult for me to grasp.

My instinct is to say that, no, there is no way Hell exists.

And it really aggravates me when people emotionlessly quote the scripture verses that point to the existence of Hell.

And it really worries me that maybe we're taking all of this a little too literally.

I'm not trying to lead into a crazy anti-Christ spiel or anything spectacularly hippie but I'm really not into the whole fire & brimstone stuff of today's churches either.

If you take even a blurry look at it, you can see that it is so very inconsistent.

Is it not hard for anyone else to comprehend a God who can one minute be the taught definition of love, a God who supposedly "created my inmost being; knit me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139v13 NIV), and the next minute He is this almighty damner who allows the very creation which he "knit together" to be viciously likened to "snakes" and a "brood of vipers" whose only fate must be to be "condemned to hell" (Matthew 23v33 NIV)??

Well that's where I fear we got it wrong. I think the God-breathed words of our God-called brothers of the written Word let a little of their emotional side slip in when they cursed their flesh to hot fate, and I understand the anger--I do. I understand the anxiety about getting it wrong and about messing something up forever, because that's what we, as humans, do, and it gets to be a little frustrating and we tend to get a little frantic...but to turn on each other and to insist that the same God who created us in His image and for His purpose is as finicky as our species in changing His mind, that He is as capable as we are to forget His promises and ignore His own teaching and turn His back on us, throwing us into a fiery pit forever?? That's taking it a little far, and it's a little sad that we have taken it that far for as long as we have.

Why did God send Jesus? To die, right? Could it not also have been to speak to us in a way we would better understand? To enter into our world as one of us and to speak our language so that we would better know what he had been trying to say all along? He dumbed himself down for us, and we got it! We understood it so well that we killed Him because it made too much sense, and it scared us because to believe it would have meant caring about it and caring about it would have meant following it and following it would have meant failing (because that's what we always do) at the very one thing that meant the very most of all. So we killed Him. And God knew it would happen, but He did it anyway, because he wanted to save us. He wanted to die for us. He knew it because he knows us.

Because, remember, He created our inmost being. And if we're not all good, that must mean He created the bad, too. Now, I'm not about to say that this is a big game to God and that He set us up for failure or any of that--I believe God loves us and that He has a purpose for us--but if I looked at the Bible the way some of my peers do..if I made myself believe some inconsistent bullcrap they feed themselves, I would fall. Hard. I know that because I did. I'd either fall or I'd be fake. And so I tried faking it. I "believed" everything the Church taught me about God through their interpretation of the Bible and I saw it's riddles and I couldn't make them out so I chose not to solve the puzzle, because that's what they told me to do. "Just believe! That's where faith comes in."

Uh huh... okay. Or how about this: How about we let God speak for Himself for a change?

How about instead of interpreting the Bible and molding it and shaping it and giving it excuses so that it all fits together and looks a little less inconsistent and instead of just shoving some faith & belief in where there are gaps, we stop shaping it and we take God's word (which can be found in other places besides the Bible, believe it or not) through the people He places in our lives, through our experiences, through our world, through nature, and through our communion with Him, through all the things that speak Him (whatever is good, whatever is pure...sound familiar?) and let Him say what He wants to say, let Him make himself known to us instead of us trying to make Him up. How about we do that?

Because the God that I know has shown Himself to me to be real, and in those moments when we were closest to each other, I could feel His heart, and it isn't one of hatred and anger and damning. He loves us. Every single one of us. Just like I love my daughter (only better). (She came from my womb, so you could say I had a hand in knitting her together.) I could never send her to Hell. I'll send her to time-out, sure! I'll even spank her now and then and goodness knows I yell. But to send her to die and burn and be saddened and tortured for all of eternity?? Heaven's no! I would die for her first! And.....huh..... isn't that what God already did for us?

So, no, of course God does not send people to Hell. There are hells on earth. There are moments that are hellish. There are times when we feel trapped in an emotional or physical or relationtional torment, but to live there forever? No. We are promised otherwise. We are promised that, as long as we believe, we will be forgiven and loved and will live with our Father in Heaven. And we all believe. Even if we don't know it, we do. Each of us was built with eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3v11 NIV).

Maybe there's a little tiny temporary Hell down there somewhere and it's really just Satan's shack or something and God sends some of us there when we're too thick and hard-hearted to change, but do you really think any of us are going to continue to blaspheme God while we're down there with our flesh melting away? Do you really think it's in the nature of our fallible race to stick anything out that long, even when it's clear what we've been denying is actually so very very true? Blah. The idea of it is laughable. And do you really think that, if God were to send one of his kids to Hell (or timeout, if you will) and they were to, while they were there alone with their sadness and their hopelessness and their scalding body, turn toward God with tears in their eyes and a genuinity in their heart and apologize, plead to Him, cry out to Him for love........is your God the kind of God to turn away??

Mine isn't. And if He was, to me, He wouldn't be the kind of God worth loving..worth following. The resurrection would be moot, just like Paul taught us. He would have saved us without really saving us and.... what the heck kind of Faith Story is that?!

[Disclaimer: I do not claim to know it all...I only share what I think I know at this moment in time. This is, after all, only a blog.]

How much do you love this outfit??

2009-09-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

This is, by no means, going to be a fashion blog, and in fact, this single fashion-oriented blog took me 2 weeks to finally get around to finishing (lowest priority) but I fell in love with this outfit and started jacking around during class one day, so this is what I came up with. P.S. LONG LIVE FOREVER!

Do you love it enough to spend over $668 on this one outfit? You might say, "Why yes, actually, I do!" And so do I, I just don't happen to have $668+ to spend on such a luxuriously wonderful setup such as this. Most unfortunately.

However, I could potentially afford a cheaper (yes, cheaper in quality as well as price, but no one's going to be examining my wardrobe for percentage of cashmere - not even me) version of this lovely collection.

Enter Forever 21. (Oh how I love thee..)

With a little research, I found a few pieces that, when put together, make up a fairly similar and nearly equally adorable get-up, for much, much less.

First, for the sweater:

At Anthropologie: this cardigan would cost us $128 plus tax, whereas this Forever version:

would only cost us $34 plus tax.

This button-up only costs $18.90, versus spending that & $60 more at Anthropologie.

These Forever shorts? Only $15.80 as compared to A's $78.

The tights can be found at Forever for just $6.80; Anthrop's = $18.

This belt = $3.50. Theirs = $68.

Finally, these kicks are a kickin' $22.80 versus the $298 others.

Our total, then, at Forever, finishes out at only $86. Definitely affordable. Definitely practical. Definitely doing it. (And getting accessories, too!)

Oh, the wisdom of 2 college women..

2009-09-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

A List of (36) Things We've Learned Lately
by Carrie Bragg & Sarah Wright (written sometime between June 27th of 2007 and March 3rd of 2008)

1. Middle School girls grow up FAST.
2. Things change.
3. Gas will never stop being expensive, but seeing people you love is worth the money.
4. Gerunds are sweet & diagramming compound, complex sentences is harder than you may think.
5. Friends are the family you choose for yourself.
6. We truly were meant for community & fellowship.
7. People love you more than they tell, and they need people to love them back, and they all want to hold on to the person they were in elementary school.
8. Life is less stressful when people wash their dishes right away.
9. Pop & candy rot your teeth, and that sucks because they are simply delicious...
10. Reading & writing = My Heartsong.
11. Sheila was one of the biggest blessings we'll ever have.
12. Self motivation is the key to making anything great happen, and we were lucky to have it.
13. I could never say no to chocolate. Ever.
14. We're all just trying to say the same things, just in different languages.
15. Someday we'll look back and say, "Why the hell was I so worried? Everything worked out."
16. Pickles really do taste good on hamburgers.
17. One of the coolest things in life is looking back and seeing the mark you've made.
18. It's really hard to discipline someone else when you aren't disciplined yourself.
19. Home can be anywhere you feel loved.
20. There are some people that you will be friends with for life, even if you barely talk to them, and those friends are hard to find.
21. Canker sores hurt really, really badly.
22. People hear you better when you talk a lot, but especially when you talk a lot without words.
23. Your experience at college will be drastically different than an experience at a different college.
24. It hurts to be honest and call your friends out.
25. "If praying were enough, it would have come to be." - We have to make things happen.
26. Our environment & experience determine so much of who we are.
27. If you just keep running, life will get simpler, God will become more apparent, and you'll get sweaty & tired.
28. Finals will always suck.
29. Every new second is a new opportunity to recreate yourself.
30. Music is one of God's greatest venues through which to speak to His people.
31. You always run out of tape right when you need it most.
32. God really does have a purpose for me in YL, and I didn't waste 2.5 years of college.
33. Laughter is a kiss from God.
34. I miss Sarah Wright!
35. Lists are the best way to find out what really matters to people.
36. I miss Carrie more.

A toilet-seat cover for Sheila, from the girls she brought together.

Stage Three of Grief

2009-09-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

Wait one more minute.
Take my breath back
to where I lent it
to you.
Wait another day
for the love you let fade
to come back
to you.
Wait another hour or so
before you let this go,
before you leave behind everything we had.
I want to be mad,
but I'm too sad,
I'm too broken and burdened
on you.
Wait for maybe one more day
when I come your way.
Maybe then you'll see it..
that thing.. (you felt it).
Remember me and the touch of my hand
and my lips on your skin
and the way you felt like falling
all over again.
Maybe you'll see it then,
if you come back my way.
Wait one more day,
give it one more moment
before you let yourself surrender
what I know you felt for me.
Don't tell yourself it's over.
Don't say you didn't mean it,
or that I didn't mean a thing.
I know you meant those
words you said to me.
Tell me this is just a dream
and when I wake,
we'll be back there to where
you lifted me up into you.
Say it isn't true -
that the only lies are the ones that say
we're through,
that I'm the girl for you and
that you're my man, too.
Say it's simple.
Say you'll have me
always, and
say these days without you
are over,
that we're not over, and
say you meant to say

forever.

How do you say "Reese's Pieces" ???

2009-09-18T12:32:00.001-07:00

cuzzzzz just recently (on our long long trip back from our NJ roadtrip) I realized that I and pretty much everyone else I know have always pronounced it "Reesies Piecies".

Why did we do that?!

We know (& many love) Reese Witherspoon and, also, I'm pretty positive that all of us are literate.... soo.... why did we add an i where we know it isn't there?

And plus, we know how to pronounce "pieces," right?

Are we just all a little cutesy and secretly/subconsciously would prefer it if everything ended in a high & peppy "eee" sound? Did our parents do this to us? I feel like I've been the victim of years of lies and deceit. Our parents let this happen! Finally I'm coming into my own and this what I find out? That they've withheld the truth of pronunciation and have let me walk around confidently crooning to my candy's equivalent of love, and all along I've been saying it wrong?

Maybe I'm just ultra sensitive to this because I pay grave attention to grammatical detail and I'm a total english geek, but however dramatized, the pain is real.

I don't know if this is old news to you or if you're world is as rocked as mine right now but this situation completely blows my mind.

Ever had a really, really bad morning?

2009-09-18T05:06:00.001-07:00

Well, I wouldn't say it was my bad morning to claim, but my husband Jacob certainly would be fair in claiming it..poor guy..

I can't tell you how it began, and that wouldn't matter anyway, but I can tell you that it ended in broken glass, glass that I had to pick up the pieces of once he'd gone.

My initial reaction was one of distaste, but the angrier I got, the more I thought... And suddenly (or should I say finally) I made a connection. And I thought to myself, "Could it be that these simple misgivings, these subtle mistakes that build up and shatter at the most inopportune times.. could their presence in our lives be a sign of a greater break, found deeper within than we'd been looking?

What I mean to say, simply, is that it doesn't feel much to me like Jake's and my ways, theories, actions, opinions have been flowing alongside that shimmering, holy and divinely flowing path of God.

It feels much to me like we are off track.

Even what could be seen as tiny mistakes, unimportant decisions... are no longer tiny and unimportant when the aftermath of our decision presents itself in the most unpleasant of ways. Our failures become clear, our faults seem to have been changed by default to bold instead of the light version of the font we'd originally selected.

Apparently these are little reminders (that too often feel like the end of our world) that we should be seeking sanctification with God. Or at least that's how I see it, for right now. And unfortunately..as much as I'd like to say that I hear His message loud and clear......He and I and everyone else knows that I'll need those continual reminders and maybe even sometimes a little broken glass.

Company in the Dark

2009-09-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

It's this time of day that
you find
me near you
whispering in your ear like
some phantom
in the distance
and i can be sure
you feel it
when the wind becomes cold and
all your old defenses fail you.
(They fail me, too,
when you come near.)
It doesn't take much
for rain to come
these days when
I'm supposed to be stronger,
when we've gone longer than before without
touching
without
talking
but i know you still hear my voice
at this time of day
when everyone else is away
and our shadows fall into each other
bump
into each other
when there's no one in between to stop it
and i find you in the old places
when all the other faces fade and
it's
just
you and me
and your arm is around my heart
and you smile and tell me something that
should mean nothing but
It means
everything
to me
at this time of day,
when daylight fades,
and those words remain
to cover me
until i find you
right where you were
when i went away and left you with
my heart to keep you
company in the dark.

Question #2

2009-09-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

If sanctification is God's responsibility, then why don't we see more "sanctified" persons around us-especially among older adults, those who are supposed to be more mature Christians?

Conversely, if sanctification is primarily our responsibility, does this possibly explain why we don't see more "sanctified" people?

As I said before, I believe sanctification to be primarily our responsibility versus it being the primary responsibility of God. And being fallible, sinful beings, I certainly believe that we have lacked in our responsibility from the beginning of our existence and continue to do so everyday, which explains why we don't see more "sanctified" people.

Just to review (because I, myself, needed to be reminded of its definition), sanctification refers to an alignment with God, a oneness. Ways in which we can sanctify ourselves are through prayer, reading of scripture, attendance of sermons, participation in worship, and fellowship with other believers. These are the primary things that we have been taught to practice, as Christians, in order to better connect to our Creator. That isn't to say these are the only ways to feel God's presence (God has often spoken me through insects and dreams), but they are the fundamentals of our faith, the tools for re-teaching us the foundations of what we believe and why.

This morning, I finally returned to the basics. I opened my Bible, and while my foremost interest was in completing a reading assignment for Contemporary Christian Belief, God didn't care why I was there-He just cared that I was there-and he used the time to teach me things I had forgotten or had not previously understood. And though my brain is tired and overloaded with school work and important meeting times and I feel like it would kill me to try to remember what I learned from Corinthians this morning, I know that God will make room in my mind for those lessons at the time of my day when I most need them, because in making the effort to engage in His Word, I opened up an exchange between us and a route to santification.

And I know that, unless I give Him ways through which to speak to me and unless I train my mind and heart to listen to what He has to say in His time, I won't know what He's saying.. and I won't know how to interpret it properly when it comes. That's why it is so important that we are disciplined in our faith and that we are continually fulfilling our responsibility to seek sanctification with God.

Favorite FB Statuses of the Day

2009-09-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

You know what I like about these? These people are saying things that everyone always says, only way better. Except for the 3rd one - that's not better, just sadder. [bold mine]

B rittany Tyner just wants to booze already. Gah.

Brady Cooper is feelin sick...bluh...could be lack of sleep...in tandom with sludgely coffee...cool thing is i have class all day then work all night...bluh

Brandi Paige has been at work sence five and has had no sleep....home at one

the star at seven....so much to do haha

Katy Cox best idea ever: Philadelphia cheesecake spread on toast!!!!

Kyle Bixle r The moon & Jupiter were amazing this morning followed by a

brilliant sunrise....God is good!

Brittney Abbott school ; then who knos?!! ; text mehhh!!! = ) ily ats*♥

Jenilynne Jones . Post Office, PX, Commissary. I'm sure I'll want to rip my head off by the end of the day.

Brittney McBryar super duper tired

Kelsye Lewis Some people are just born with tragedy in their blood. --

Donnie Darko

Things I've Already Done That I'm Happy About

2009-09-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

touched down in IN, IL, OH, KY, TN, MS, AL, GA, FL, SC, PA, NJ, MO, MI, KS, NY & CO (only 33 more to go!! blahhh)
touched down in Mexico & Canada (only 192 to go!! woo!)
biked to school, and during school to each of my classes, all day one day my junior year, without getting in trouble (when I passed the pricipal, he just stared at me blankly)
wore a plastic toy army helmet for one period of school (junior year) before being called to the office
managed to "peer tutor" during a whole hour for a year is HS, when really all it meant was having our own student office that we got to decorate and eat lots of candy at.
enrolled in a tennis class
got a second kitten to be Gemma's friend (his name is Earl :))
enrolled Jo in a private preschool
created a blog that is fully public (now it just needs to be popular..)
went on a last minute road trip to NJ
walked the streets of NYC/saw time square/bought wonderfully cheap, illegal goods
joined the Parnassus staff (TU's creative arts journal)
was an Echo page editor (sports-for TU's student newspaper)
own TOMS
got a crazy face piercing (eyebrow)
was the mvp of a girls football team
played on a lacrosse team (midi/A-wing)
own UGGS! (soo comfy..no matter how dumb people think they look)
own a non-mac laptop (never thought..)
understood napster!
beer & strawberries in Quebec
cheesecake & wine coolers in Montreal
saw Tori Amos live (she's crazy)
saw a concert at Red Rocks in Denver (Counting Crows/Augustana)
worked/interned at an independent coffee house (Mugs in FoCo)

My cats taught me a serious lesson.

2009-09-09T23:38:00.000-07:00

Jake took me to get a kitten last year, for my birthday, because I'm obsessed with cats and wouldn't take no for an answer.

She was the only orange one, both in looks and personality. The rest sat still, no sound..no life really..and Jake of course begged me to choose one of the black boring ones..but I wanted the fireball.

And I sure got a fireball.

I named her Gemma and boy was she a brat. She peed everywhere - on my pillow, on our comforter, on our beautiful faux-suede orange couch - and I daily threatened to end her life and/or punch her in the head. Whichever I felt at the time.

Nothing changed her. I gave her treats. I changed her stupid poop box. Gave her stupid food. Scratched her stupid punched-up head (even then, she was only reeling me in enough so that she could strike me with her evil claws or chew on my fingers with her evil teeth).

She thought she was a lioness. We thought we wanted to abandon her on the side of a road.

Approximately 1 year and 3 months later, in came Earl, a tiny impractically adorable and impulsively-picked grey baby kitten. Yup..Gemma & Earl. Why, you ask, would we bring in another one of these horrid, unpleasant, couch-ruining creatures? The answer is simple. He was the most freakin' cutest thing we'd ever seen practically ever in our entire lives.

So he came home and guess what he did? He poohed in all the wrong places, including on our laps (and during one unfortunate encounter, on Auntie Caitlin's finger) as he was mesmorizing us with his teensy grey precious wittle Chinese kitten baby eyes.

But, being the self-punishing people that we are, we kept the little punk. So we now had a pee-er and a pooh-er. Dumb. Did I mention that we already have a 3-year-old who takes care of both of these categories pretty thoroughly as it is??

Gemma hated Earl. She wouldn't come downstairs unless it was to hiss her life away at the little grey rat. The closest she ever got to him was to attempt to punch him in the eye every once in awhile, despite my rebukes.

Now, though, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we're all glad we stuck it out. Sure, Caitlin felt a little taken advantage of when she learned she'd been used as a human stool, but she still loves the lil' guy and guess what?? He doesn't leak out of his sphincter anymore!! And, perhaps even more miraculously, Gemma has taken a pretty convincing hiatus from peeing all over our otherwise dry lives, and it's been weeks since I've sustained a domesticated-lion-related injury!)

And furthermore, the felines love each other. Gemma eventually warmed up (I'm not sure when the change of heart took place, but one day she gave up hissing..maybe for Kitty Lent?) and now she'll just lie there, letting this little ball of grey waste his day away trying to catch her fast-flicking, matronly tail. Sometimes, sure, she's unable to resist the urge to pelt the kid (one time I caught her tackling Earl while he was mid-jump, snatching him from the air and reminding him who really owns this house and the litterbox) but ultimately it's clear to everyone that knows her that she loves this new addition, and that we've finally found the answer to her bladder control problem.

Watching them one day inspired me. If cats can reconcile, can love and appreciate each other despite differences in age, size, personality, and behavior.. what the heck is our problem? Gemma could have continued fighting it, but it's as if she recognized that Earl wasn't going anywhere, and changed her attitude as if she knew that it was the best way to handle this unexpected and somewhat unpleasant situation. We're human and how often do we get this right?

And people wonder why I like cats so much.. psshhh. They make more sense than we do most of the time.

(so far) 52 Things To Do (asap)

2009-09-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Bold = done.

skydive
ride an elephant
explore africa
write a novel
practice yoga in India
learn Italian (yeah.. i stole a lot of these from Elizabeth Gilbert, so what?)
speak French in France (legitimately)
speak Spanish in Mexico (actual sentences. and sing, too)
know myself enough to write 100 things to do without struggling as much as i am right now
learn how to play tennis
read all the Jane Austen's
adopt a puppy
adopt a child
get all A's my senior undergrad year (this is going to be a toughy, for me, as i've never actually gotten all A's)
touch down in all 50 states
publish a photobook of the beautifully broken
create a blog that is public & popular
own a mac desktop when i'm grown up
work for a newspaper at least for a little while
put Jo in dance
write a stellar book
contribute to the research & understanding of a certain topic
be published in the Parnassus before I go
touch down in every country (done: U.S., Canada, Mexico)
train for & run a mini-marathon
get the new TOMS
own green Grecos
actually follow every rule at TU (for a time, & record)
get the tattoo
get the triagus piercing i keep not getting
open & run my own coffee house/bookstore/music venue/ary gallery
join the masses with a keyboard phone
add dslr photos to my blog
explore Latin America
own a Great Dane (or 2 :))
cookout @ a TU baseball game
play The Sims 2 open for busi & uni
live with nothing & write about it
see a hockey game live
practice yoga religiously
own a VS swim suit & note if it actually does what it's supposed to
attend La Tomatina in Spain (august)
go hiking/camping in the mountains of CO (see Nate Reynolds for the hook-up)
white water rafting!!
make my own ice cream
grow my own veggies/fruits
go all organic
make Jo a quilt of her childhood fabrics
get braces
own a beautifully sleek SUV when i'm a real mom
re-une at our dream lake house

Question #1

2009-09-09T11:10:00.001-07:00

Is sanctification our responsibility or God's?

First of all, I was puzzled when I read this question because I wasn't entirely sure what "sanctification" meant. So I looked it up via google: and according to gotquestions.org (looked like the most legit option) a Christian's understanding of sanctification is the "practical separation unto God," which I took to mean that we "sanctify" ourselves (as Jesus requested in John 17v16) when we bind ourselves with God and his word and his teaching, making ourselves wholly (and holy) his. If this is the correct idea, the only thing left to do is to figure out what we need to do to latch onto God and remain there. And how do we find that out? Listen to our parents' pastor, the one they've been taking us to since before we could hold memories of anything different? Or just whatever our parents tell us themselves? Or just read the Bible and interpret those guidelines on our own? Is it even our responsibility, or is God supposed to go all the way and complete the work he began in us? (I can't remember the exact verse where we are given this promise, and biblegateway.com sucks at doing its job..)

Personally, it's hard for me to assign God responsibility..you know..considering that he is God and all. Who am I to assign him anything?

But seeing as how God created us and designed this whole thing (at least if you share my current world view) then hasn't he already done his reasonable part?

I know I'm just asking questions rather than answering one, but this is sorta what I do when it comes to God and the world. I'll try.

Simply, I believe that sanctification is our responsibilty, that God is constantly moving and working in and through the world and it is our job to recognize his movements and listen for his voice and receive his guidance and the more we do this, the more connected we become to him and the greater our sanctification. And it doesn't really matter how we do this..whether we receive guidance in this area through our pastor or our parents or the word... but ultimately I believe that the most beneficial and efficient way to know God and to be unified with him is to realize that he is within each of us, that we are already so much like him as we are made in his image, and that he reveals himself to us even in the small things (and that sometimes, the small things make more sense than all the complexities created by religion.)

My Bff Brice

2009-09-07T22:57:00.000-07:00

9/7 12:22 a.m.
B team: What you be up to!?

9/7 2:19 a.m.
B team: Fine dont respond.im sorry for not answering the other night. i was balls deep in work. i will tell you about that later. anyways i am coming over tomorrow whether you are there or not ha ha. i promise!

Me: you better or i'll cry!!

B: I will. can you pluck my eye brows?

Me: haha i would love to!

B: What you doing up?

M: idk just can't sleep..you?

B: Cant sleep!

M: What's wrong with us??

B: nothing lol it's called awesomeness :)

M: oh yeah sometimes i forget how stellar we are :)

B: ha ha yeup.

M: do you ever really have to pee but you just don't want to get up so you're just like..nah. this is what i think about when i can't sleep lol

B: Ha ha oh my gosh lol. yeah i do. sometimes im so tired i pretend to get up and pee and feel good. then i realize i didnt and i'm back to square one

M: Haha i've heard about the pretending thing but i hear it leads to bedwetting..Brice do you have a bedwetting problem cuz if you do you can tell me..

B: you know what i did have a pee problem when i was younger! i used the pee pad when i was young ha ha

M: wait there was a pee pad?! dang i wish i would have known about that sooner..

100 ideas for this blog

2009-09-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

1. reign supreme - tell them what i'd do if i ruled the world (http://www.hchamp.com/)

2. fess up - talk about how i fail

3. give them something - tell them about the presents i'll remember forever(http://www.superherodesigns.com/)

4. exploit the youth - tell them about my interactions with children

5. be a sage - talk about the advice i've gotten & offer more

6. count my blessings - tell them what i'm happy about

7. examine my paperwork - share old journal entries (http://www.queserasera.org/)

8. talk back - comment on the stuff out there, what annoys me

9. transform myself - talk about my bad habits

10. get nostalgic - talk about what i miss from youth (http://www.jenville.com/)

11. curate the web -refer to other sites i like

12. play favorites - keep running lists of my favorites (http://www.kottke.org/)

13. act on ceremony - talk about my traditions

14. watch my language - talk about the words i love, hate, or want to create

15. fill in the gaps - find memory triggers and tell their story

16. mine consumer culture - talk about the items, ideas & resources that are important to me (www.kk.org/cooltools)

17. dial a post - save & share the voicemails/texts i love (http://www.studio.odeo.com/)

18. spill everything - examin my purse or my wallet & explain its contents(www.flickr.com/whatsinmybag)

19. give them my scraps - don't throw away anything without first sharing

20. make them gasp - share stories about weird places, weird people, or weird experiences

21. address the public - write a letter to my city, town, family, or strangers

22. play their games - pitch in on a community project or start one up(http://www.askmetafilter.com/, http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com/)

23. define my inscrutables - talk about the details of what makes me Me

24. make it easy - offer productivity tips (http://www.lifehacker.com/)

25. offer classified information - write unconventional ads

26. share my expertise - teach the masses my secrets (http://www.43folders.com/)

27. show some love - talk up my friends

28. blow my budget - dream big and tell them what i'd do with 10 million

29. place myself - make maps of the places i adore (http://www.platial.com/)

30. be myself - tell them the quirky things about me (http://www.brittney.typepad.com/)

31. dig in - tell them about my perfect meal

32. break it off - talk about my relationship deal breakers & past experiences

33. spread the words - save stuff from what i've read & share

34. give a tour - tell them about where i live (http://www.burritoeater.com/)

35. show some skin - talk about my scars (www.blogjam.com/name_my_scars)

36. swallow my pride - tell them about my miserable earlier years, share miserable photos

37. find the objects of my affection - tell them what i'd look for in a fire

38. start here - write consistently, maybe 500 words a day (http://www.nanowrimo.org/)

39. choose my words - write the shortest story imaginable (http://www.mightygirl.com/)

40. cower before them - tell them about my irrational fears

41. show some family pride - create a well-timed tribute to a loved one (http://www.dooce.com/)

42. make my timeline - make a personal timeline of my past

43. show them a good time - tell them about my parties & give tips

44. take inventory - photograph my collections & explain (http://www.grocerylists.org/)

45. ante up - point them to charities & tell them how to donate

46. review my resume - tell them about my job (www.dashes.com/anil)

47. promote truth - outline 10 truths i believe to be universal

48. hang my head - outline my gravest humiliations

49. engage in finger-pointing, snickering - make fun of something (www.a.wholelottanothing.org/2006/05/macbook_man.html)

50. clean house - get rid of stuff, but photograph & share their stories first (http://www.fussy.org/)

51. risk everything - tell them about the biggest risk i could take right now

52. wear it well - talk about what i'm wearing or what i've worn & what it meant to me

53. categorize my readers - test people (www.quizbox.com/builder, http://www.evany.com/)

54. get defensive - defend what i love/the indefensible

55. take sides - do some research on something & take a side

56. go places - write about the places that mean something to me & why

57. say thanks - post thank you notes to those who have helped me

58. think back - tell them where i was during historical moments

59. offer survival tips - tell my life's survival stories

60. ask science - conduct silly experiments (www.michaelbuffington.com/cc2k1, http://www.cockeyed.com/)

61. collect the greatest hits - provide fall-back posts for when i'm off my game (http://www.defectiveyeti.com/)

62. hit the stacks - talk about the books i've read (http://www.librarything.com/)

63. make contact - exchange snail mail & post the results (http://www.20things.org/)

64. get dibs - start an online virtual collection of things i'll never afford

65. rope friends in - find a group of creative types & ban together to do something crazy

66. keep track - make lists of things throughout my day & use them later

67. tell them what i've done - record every mundane moment of my day/week (http://www.childsplayx2.com/)

68. let them cheer me on - share my struggle with something & track my progress (http://www.dieold.org/)

69. send a message - sort through old files/emails & post the good stuff

70. put it aside - create an online timecapsule

71. become an expert - put some time into my passions

72. do the right thing - find a cause & proclaim it..then make reachable goals & meet them. use my powerful words for good.

73. collect people - interview people, research them, write biographies (www.leahpeah.com/blog, www.suburbanbliss.net)

74. present my memories - make a "live scrapbook" of trips/events/etc (www.tothevolcano.blogspot.com)

75. be neighborly - share info about my neighborhood/town (www.sfstories.com)

76. change everything - tell them about my plans for big change & take them along in my journey (www.electrolicious.com)

77. show them my b-side - share the soundtracks of my life (both the ones actually present & the ones the should have played)

78. go multimedia - post videos (www.skinnycorp.com/video "Marmite Taste Off", "T-Shirt Gun Testing", & "Let's Have A Break Dance Party"

79. say cheese - get a free Flickr account & share my photos (www.flickr.com)

80. keep it in the family - seek out family history & post it (www.aperiodic.net/phil)

81. exit the comfort zone - start saying yes. seek out unusual opportunities & book them.

82. get it down - carry a notebook around to write down ideas

83. start reading - read other blogs for ideas & skills

84. break the news - blog about new info, breaking news

85. branch out - write differently than normal, offer another vantage point for readers

86. use what i have - use my surroundings as a jumpstart to a writing idea

87. do what i love - post about my passion/things i care about & dedicate a site to it (www.mightygoods.com)

88. choose my company - decide my audience first & dedicate my writing to them

89. inch my way there - take a picture for every day of a year for a story (www.pbase.com/darter02/picture_a_day_for_a_year)

90. keep it up - produce fresh content at least a couple times a week; do it before anything else, every morning

91. take up stalking - do some people watching (www.mightygirl.com)

92. look harder - pay closer attention to the things around me, for inspiration (www.textism.com)

93. share the joke - take note of the things that make me laugh

94. find like minds - give opinions on new developments (www.veen.com/jeff)

95. mine my media history - sort through old computer files & journals, etc; pull out anything amusing

96. lend them my ear - eavesdrop & share!

97. leave the house - go spend a random day out in the world

98. gripe - vent my pet peeves online

99. obsess - photograph everywhere i go for a week, record everything, make note of everything (www.geoffbadner.com/blog, www.themorningnews.org/archives/stories/appetite)

100. just write - make my own list of things i want to write about & then do it!!