Under the Influence

I just watched Revolutionary Road. If ever there was a time to Do As Beth Does, THIS IS NOT IT. Don't watch it. It depressed me for a couple days. Basically this is the plot - we are a young, vibrant couple and our life will not look like others' do but then we get stuck in suburbia and it gets worse and then we get entrenched even more in suburbia even though we hate it and then we die. Seriously suffocating. At the end this is what went through my mind: I just bought a freakin' pastry blender. What the crap is happening to me? What was I thinking? But for reals, folks. My life will not look like that.

on the other hand...

Dear Jesus,

It would be really crazy awesome if you could make me (well, hopefully he's already made) a man like Daniel Craig's character in Defiance. Mmmm-hmmm. That loves you a whole lot. Because Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski + Christ follower = the man I want to marry. Like you didn't know that already. But I'm just sayin'.

Haunt

You know when you have one of those dreams, that just feels so real, that hangs around you the rest of the day? It's like an aura, and my eyes take on that deep, haunted, far-away look, and my chest sinks in when I breathe, and I can close my eyes and feel that person I dreamt about. I am enveloped. Wanted.

This isn't helping.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet,

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

W.B. Yeats

complex

I'm aware this is a complex issue. These are just my thoughts.

Ok, so I know that men are basically autonomous beings. They think in relation to themselves, to reason, and hopefully, are directed by God. Women are more relational and most often think in relation to other people. These two things make sense to me, and it's visible everywhere. At the base, we were somewhat designed that way.

I have many brothers who believe in submission of wives (in the best sense) to their husbands, and that men should lead women in all things spiritual and otherwise. Hey, it's in the Bible. I believe it too - it's just in the application that it becomes perverted. These men truly love Jesus and are seeking to follow him. They have my respect. But this is one of their big points and they stand strong on it.

So why, when we women come off as dependant on guys, or caring a little too much about what guys think of them, do these men fail to understand where it comes from? I know that, once glorified, we won't care what anyone thinks of us except for Christ. And we should be working to get to that point our whole lives long. But really? Doesn't it just make sense that the way we were designed at our core, from the beginning, would be the one thing that sin and Satan would pervert the most? Obviously Eve being made to support Adam made her a relational being from the get-go. And he was to lead her from the get-go. And so it is, that since sin entered the world, we are unable (duh, the nakedness) to relate on that perfect level. And women, being on the more relational side, have the hardest time with it. Of course we are going to care what men think. If you, men, are in the camp that says you're supposed to lead us, it should be obvious we are going to look to you for opinions on everything, especially ourselves. We're not so easily separated from man as he is from us. It's all wrapped up together. Intertwined.

Ok then, kiddies, let's all start leading and supporting each other the way we should. And perhaps a little more compassion for the beautiful half and our identity issues?

Fast Car

Obviously my car does not like driving as much as I do. Friday it decided to just, oh, not start for several hours. My car was nice enough to let me drive to the gas station on the way to work so that I could receive the caffine required to put up with it's shennanigans for the rest of the day. But then it wouldn't start to get me to work. Wait twenty minutes; still won't start. Call a coworker for a ride, come back before lunch; STILL won't start. I had it towed to the shop and then it graciously decided to wake up and start.* It's been starting ever since. Tricky.

So it was not a pretty day. I felt ugly and I reacted ugly. Still... (hellooo Emery), the music seemed to continue to follow me. Tiny Dancer on the radio at the end of the day, and while waiting (for ever and ever) for a work contact, Tracy Chapman's Fast Car on in the lobby. Amazing. When that song was over I gave up on the work contact and went home.

Many great and wonderous emotions poured through me (but not on my face, jeez, a girl can't change overnight) during this trial at the end of a very long, trying week. Their story will have to wait another day to be told, as it is wrapped up in it's own story and will require a separate post.

Otherwise this weekend was phenomenal. Satuday was spent in a heady combination of getting to know a new friend better, hours on my own in a bookstore, and girl's night in with old friends. Holly and Sam, you lifted my spirits more than you know. Thanks. Sunday was spent with churchy people and an evening of service. I literally spent all day (9am-11pm) with one or more of my big kids. It was pretty rad, yo.

More to come this weekend with Sarah and Jill and Naph coming to town! I feel like I won the lottery!


*For which I am very greatful as funds for repairs would not be so easy to find at the moment.

O What a Beautiful Morning

So far this morning, I have:

lain awake for THREE hours listening to our landlord's dog bark. Not sure how the landlord slept through it or how the dog managed to bark so long without even stopping to take a drink of water.

realized I never did call my best friend on her birthday at the end of the day yesterday like I'd planned.

hit my head (hard) on the shower faucet.

hit my head on my car door as I was getting out of it, effectively knocking the sunglasses off my face.

been hit on by a so-smooth old guy in a maroon camero. eeeewww.

tracked mud on my bathroom floor from the boots I put on for work.


lookin' forward to the rest of it. if Carrie Underwood sings "Get Out of This Town" and Little Big Town sings "Lost", it will more than make up for the crappy beginning.

Gifts

When I was 6, a boy threw a pencil at me. Probly 'cause I threw one at him first.


When I was 13, a boy got down on one knee and sang to me.


When I was 14, a boy sang "Baby Blue" in a school concert, for me. He found out later my eyes are more green than blue.


When I was 15, a boy peed my name in the snow.


When I was 16, a boy bought me flowers.


When I was 17, a man rubbed my feet.


When I was 21, a man stared at me like he was viewing for the first time something other, and worthy of contemplation. Woman.

When I was 23, a man wrapped music in a crossword puzzle and left it in my car.

When I was 24, a man bought me peanutbuttery chocolates.

Last week, a man bought me a tank of gas.*

It's the small (and apparantly strange) gifts that get to me. Intentional. Just because. To start things off well. For the end. Any of those will work. It doesn't have to be perfect, cost money, or be exactly what I need. Because sometimes I don't even know exactly what I need.

*thanks Dad.

THIS

has been staring at me through my floor-ceiling office window for several weeks now. We think it was brought here by the stray dog we fed for a while, and someone thought it would freak me out. I actually was freaked out that they were video-monitering my work progress until I realized no one cared. Or at least is dedicated enough to stuff a tiny camera into a nasty dirty stuffed animal.

Desert Rats

I love the desert. It's strange, I know. But there's just all that... emptiness. It's a lonely place, beautiful in all it's strangeness, and largely unchanged in the last thousand years. It has cool rock formations. And long straight highways where you can go really, really fast.

The desert attracts odd creatures. Odd human creatures. Societal outcasts, ranchers, serial killers, you name it. And the desert lets them be themselves, and live however they want. There's such an autonomy out there. It's like an unspoken code that if they can stand to live in that remote corner of the world, they can pretty much do whatever they want. No one cares in that dry, empty landscape.

In one of the several odd jobs I had before landing in my current position, I spent all day monitering a waste-bin site (read: dumpster lot) in the middle of the Mojave. Very hot. Very few people. But the ones that did stop by, man, were they worth the wait.

A man and his woman, he in rolled-up overalls sans shirt and she in a bikini, rolled up the lot. About four trash cans, ready to be unloaded, were stuffed in the windowless backseat of their little hatchback. Small talk ensued:

"So you like living out here?"

"Yeah, usually we like to take off all our clothes and chase each other naked through the desert."

writes

I was staring at my handwriting today while trying to concentrate on work, and I noticed something strange. My words slant all different ways. One word goes left, the other right, one is pretty much straight up and down. Sometimes all words on one line are the same way, and then the next line each word is a little different. Numbers in sequence are first curvy, then straight. I cross one seven but not another a few rows down.

What does this say about my personality? Take that, Criminal Minds.

pACE

NOT THE PICANTE SAUCE.

Pace is important. I've never been good at it. I'm a sprinter. I hike in spurts, weaving along the trails. On the treadmill I have to hold on so I can run in the straight line necessary to not fall off and provide mass entertainment for others at the gym. I think they should give really clumsy people major discounts at the gym for providing that type of service (entertainment) to the other customers. It could even be an advertisment - "see the clumsy people". Ahem, back to the original topic.

Lately my pace of life has seemed a bit... fast. And spastic. Feels like I'm headed in all directions. If it was me giving the advice, I'd say, focus on one or two things, and do those well. It's kind of my life philosophy. The problem is, the things that I feel like I have to do, those I don't want to focus on. Like my full-time job. My family. Even friends sometimes (let's be honest).

The thing is, I'm doing pretty much everything on my list. It's just that each of those things are adding up to a lot more than I was thinking. Except I haven't moved yet, which I'm shooting for November first, but I can't see how that will completely turn things around. It will help a lot, I know. But other things still have got to change.

And it's September. One of my favorite months, I think. The weather's starting to cool down here (in the 80's - my perfect temp); people slow down, get more organized, and settle in; I can wear long sleeves outside and make all kinds of hot soups; it's my birthday month; the Fair happens. Cheesiness, but it's the time of year I would want to fall in love. Winter my skin's too dry and spring and summer? I question if it's really real. Or perhaps I'm just influenced by Sugarland's Hello. This is probably why I feel the most lonely in the early fall months. Same thing happened last fall. I hate being in a funk in September. And now I feel like even this post is spastic. ick.

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities
HEY. I am not one of those celebrity freaks, but you know you always wonder... Now I KNOW. My long lost twin is the Queen of Salsa.

My friend Holly and I are forever finding ways to prolong our childhood. We decided the other day that we would make a craft-project type gift for our mothers for Christmas this year and drag our other siblings and siblings-in-law into it too. I won't say what it is because AO and Suz* read my blog and they need to be completely surprised (since delight may not be part of the equation, at least some emotion will come out).

In researching our proposed Christmas present; I found THIS:

BABY HAND Plaster Statue Kit

You can make these:
Or these:

Or these fine gifts (for adults).

That's just plain CREEPY.

If you'd like to creep out your folks for Christmas, check it out at:

http://www.castingkeepsakes.com/baby-hand-plaster-statue-kit-p-1.html


*My mom and Holly's mom.