Hello, World of Work.

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.
   
3. 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.

my week in quotes & pictures

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"

God Today

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.

Oh, the wisdom of 2 college women..

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.

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

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?

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.