Monthly Archive

So Bee in Bondi tagged me. I either have to come up with the 7 most infamous or famous people I have ever met, or 7 weird things about me. I’ll opt for the seven things since I’ve never met anyone famous.

1. I almost died at birth. The doctors noticed my heartbeat slowed down every time my mother had a contraction. The umbilical chord was wrapped around my neck and it got tighter with each contraction.

2. Late in the summer one of my favorite things to do is when I’m driving at night alone is to roll down all my windows and listen to swing music.

3. I have been to an anime convention. I’m not huge into manga or anime, but the subculture was fascinating! (I’m going again next year and a scifi convention sometime in the next month or two.)

4. I can’t eat if I feel like someone is watching me too closely during a meal.

5. I have a pet frog named Homer II. He’s an African Clawed Frog. I’m convinced he’s immortal. He’s either immortal or a prince stuck in a 7″ x 7″ x 7″ tank. Poor Homer.

6. I actually get excited when I can link to Wikipedia in a post. (Sigh. “You know you’re in the fishbowl when…”)

7. If something we are talking about reminds me of a song, I will more likely than not burst out in song.

I tag Melissa, M, Lauren, Ashley, and Frogpondsrock.

I was in the living room thinking about what to write for my response to a meme I was tagged for.

I mused this out loud.

“I need to come up with seven weird things about me.”

Within seconds I hear:

“Do you want help with that?”

…always crazy for me.

There’s something about Sunday mornings that unlocks my mind and heart and soul all at the same time.

I end up feeling like I am on the verge of discovering something new. Something about humanity? Something about God? Something about the homeless man that was holding the door open for us at the bottom of the parking garage saying, “Be careful ma’am, the ramp is slippery. Sir watch out, the ramp is icy.”

I always find myself getting closer to something. The something that makes me think that my flyspeck existence means something, or at least could mean something. Maybe I’m just selfish in this.

That man reminded me of the woman who was standing outside of a concert hall in the heart of our dying city. It was sometime in December and huge clumps of snowflakes were trying to act like a heavy rainstorm. She was very obviously cold. I started to pull at the second sweatshirt I had on, and to this day I still wish I had given it to her.

It was almost one in the morning but we still stopped for an early (late) breakfast at Ram’s Horn after the concert. I couldn’t think of anything else except that woman’s face.

“Don’t stew over it,” Emily said to me.

I don’t know how not to stew over it at this point. I couldn’t do anything for that man, and I walked away from the woman.

And I like to call myself a generous person.

How despicable.

I have to do something to help them. I can’t just walk by again. It hurts.

Don’t tell me I look pretty in this sweater. Being pretty is just one more thing people want from other human beings on this planet. Most don’t ask, they simply take.

As angry as I was leaving the house I was surprised to find that the morning was still silent. The noise of the words and swirling frustration in my head was only internal; it didn’t touch the January morning. At the gas station it was completely quiet. I watched the breath tumble out of my mouth and onto the pavement that used to be a dark grey but now is almost pure white because of the salt we use to remove the snow. The silence swallowed me and the sunlight flung itself across the street at me. The sunlight was perfect and beautiful, and it gave me the hope it stores inside the rib cage of the sky.

Why is it always the sunlight that saves me on mornings like these?

I finally had to say goodbye the beautiful flowers that had been sitting on my desk for the past week and a half.

I had been back from lunch for about ten minutes. My phone started vibrating on the desk. I assumed it was a text message, so without really thinking I picked the phone up and opened it without looking at it. I then realized that someone had called me and that I had answered the call by opening my phone.

“Um… Hello?” I said.
“Hey, babe. Where are you?”
“I’m at work. Why?”
“Come out to the parking lot.”
“Okay.”

I left the cube farm I sit in, walked out through the doors, and started looking for the little red car my boyfriend drives. I didn’t see it anywhere.

“Where are you? I don’t see you. Where are you?”

He walked around the corner with these in his hands:

Blogging this year has already created a ton of new connections. I’ve literally “met” people from all over the world just in this first month of January.

It’s fascinating and I love it.

I love being able to step into corners of other people’s worlds.

I love being able to see a little bit into their lives and who they are.

I don’t know. One more reason why I love blogging.

For a couple more reasons and a post that makes me wish I had written it myself because of how well said the idea is, read “What I Think About This Whole Blogging Thing” by Ian in Hamburg.

Today was a day for Chinese leftovers and snowflakes that looked like glitter.

Tonight at youth group the kids and us leaders were asked to tell their name, grade, and the story of their worst injury (or if we didn’t have one we could make one up). There was lots of blood, broken bones, scrapes, bruises, even the occasional arrow in the forehead.

Me? Instead of telling about the time I tried to skateboard and gave myself a three-week long bruise on my hip, I told a story of how I fought a green dragon that took a bite out of my right arm just before I had slayed it.

I’m ridiculous.

“I was just walking along one day in Australia…”

There was a guy two seats down from me that told a story of how he had to wrangle a kangaroo in the Outback for his backpack.

“I politely asked if I could have it back and he wouldn’t give it to me, so I had to fight him for it.”

Needless to say, I high-fived him as soon as he finished talking.

It’s the smell of gasoline left on my hands and the congestion I feel creeping into my lungs that puts days like these on ice.

I saw a play last week that reminded me exactly of all the things I hate about the human race.

The play was intense, highly symbolic, and circular. All the characters quoted each other, most without knowing. It was haunting. It brought all the questions we as people on this rock like to try to keep down our throats. The ones about the meaning of life or the lack thereof, temptation and whim, hate and love, lust and the desire to attain something off limits, marriage and divorce, cheating and death, spring and winter. It’s the questions that you wrestle with and if you find no answer after a while you walk away with your broken hip and try to pretend that they aren’t important.

As much as I try to snuff out the voices of the questions I also tried to douse the effect of the play. It hung in my mind for at least the next two days. I want to read the book so I can at least have the questions to hold on to. I will be able to hold onto them physically with my own two hands.

Yes, it’s a Tuesday in January. I went to see “Anna Karenina” (adapted from the book written by Leo Tolstoy) on Friday, and this is what has filled my mind since then.

I wish you all a warmer Tuesday than what we have here.

This afternoon as I was riding back towards work, I found myself leaning against the window and soaking in the sunlight. It was warm to the touch, hot on contact. A mid-afternoon sunwash.

The movement of the car was monotonous but peaceful at the same time. My mind was working on enough to keep me quiet but not enough for me to talk about any of it. Nickel Creek played softly in the background. I found myself in a very serene place at that moment, sitting in the passenger seat.

It’s little things like this that make my life so beautiful.

It didn’t last long–not much does. I wasn’t even what most people would call “care-free” at the time. It was only a few minutes of warmth, silence, and light. A few minutes was all it took.

“The fact that the T9Word on my phone doesn’t know the word ‘yay’ is the most annoying thing in the world! Well… There is that whole third-world hunger problem… That’s kind of annoying too…”

My post was put up over at Middle Zone Musings today.

(In case you missed what I’m talking about, you might want to read this post to find out.)

Here is what you all have been waiting for:

What I Learned from 2007

So we’re twelve days into 2008 and I haven’t posted any year-end blogs or New Year posts. I told you a few posts back that it was still constructing itself and I was still trying to decide how exactly to approach this year in my writing. Well, I found the perfect solution.

My actual post will be hosted over at Middle Zone Musings.

I’ll let you know when it is posted but until then keep your eyes peeled!

Even though it’s early January and I had a tiny bit of ice on my windshield this morning, the coffee and sunlight are keeping me plenty warm.

I know I’m crazy for getting up at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, but it’s days like these that I feel so incredibly alive. I leave the house about a half-hour after sunrise and go to my favorite coffee shop. I spend the first hours of the morning writing, drinking coffee, and watching the city wake up.

Mornings like these bring me clarity. I have nothing to do today until much later on so I can just relax, enjoy the mint and espresso in my drink and read and write until my heart is full to bursting.

I don’t know what it is exactly. There’s just something about mornings like these.

This morning I can feel the blood running through my veins. I can feel the bones in my arms. I can feel the sunlight pouring in through the window wash across my retinas. I can feel my heart pumping under the skin of my chest.

The morning air is fresh and is a reminder that today is brand new. Opportunities sit at the next table, are walking down the street, and are on the sidewalk across town.

It won’t again until much later in the day, but for right now the sun is cascading through the windows and filling the coffee shop with warmth and light.

These are the days I feel like I could change the world. The days when redemption and beauty and warmth are tangible things. Days when friends who are on the other side of the country and the other side of the world don’t feel so far away.

These are the days when I feel like I could rope down the sun, put it into my pocket and take it and show it to those who are still in the darkness. I want to place it into the hands of those who are physically and emotionally freezing to death so they can receive the warmth through their fingertips.

I’m the girl across the coffee shop from you.

Nice to meet you.

My muse comes and goes. My ability to put anything coherent and worthwhile to the page works like a tide. I dry up and go weeks without a solid piece and then suddenly I will have a burst of inspiration and I can’t get the thoughts out fast enough and I can’t read enough poetry, blogs, and well-written literature.

Tonight it’s back.

I started looking through the folder in which I keep all my writing.

It’s kind of funny the pieces of writing I run across. I find stories that were like the lighting of a match: they exploded in my head in brilliant color and then they faded quickly into a smoke I couldn’t breathe at the time. I find old poems that I either roll my eyes at or wonder if I’m actually the true author. I find musings that were full of ignorant and blind emotion. And on occasion I find a piece like this that is a whole story in two sentences.

“I awoke this morning feeling more rested than I have in a while. The sun is out and the temperatures are steadily rising from their frigid plumbing.”

The worst part for me is when I forget who I’m talking to in my writing. I’ll find a piece that I wrote not three months ago and yet for the life of me, I can’t remember which “you” it was written for. It makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.

“You’re giving me too many reasons to hide and for a moment I wish I could simply walk away and pretend like you hadn’t learned how to hang on my every word.
When the blood rose from my finger I was in the middle of escaping to someplace back in time where we lose the game often and our memories interrupt movies. Whether yanked back to the play I was in or Halloween a few years back or to the headlights in front of me.”

The very next file in the folder has details of a dream that I remember as if I dreamt it just last night. I know exactly who I was talking to.

“I dreamt a few nights ago that I couldn’t hear you, and you didn’t understand me when I spoke. There are lots of things I want to tell you. I feel like you have shared so much of yourself with me and often times I return so little. You can tell when I need to talk and you give me the room to talk. And yet, for some reason, I’m still quiet. At times where I think that you might not understand me. There are days where I feel like I speak a different language.”

I’ve found files that I want to completely delete. I include names and circumstances that now seem childish and unimportant. I find small poems that make me laugh and remind me to dust my old poetry off more often.

“Clean my face until there are no more stains.
You’ve turned my flesh to wood.
I’m mopping the ground with a dry spongue.
And I’m remembering that you aren’t real.”

I discover retelling of shockingly vivid dreams. And then I find pieces like these that remind me that maybe re-reading these might be too much for me to handle right this second and that maybe I should be sleeping like I said I would be three hours ago.

“You stand in line fishing change out of the oceans of your purse. As you fumble for a fourth penny you blame your habit on an aunt who once cooked a meal for an army of men that was never there. Her house makes you cry. It’s been locked for years but we all bet the curtains still wear her perfume and the ghost of the cat still bites invisible guests’ hands. Whether rooms slumber in completed asphyxia or the walls still live and breathe, homes are always partially frozen in our heads and are remembered while standing in line looking for four dollars and one more copper penny.”

Maybe we’re all just like locked treasure chests: we spend our whole lives looking for the person who can see through the wood.

Usually coming home from work doesn’t stress me. Although, if the correct sequence of events happen, plus traffic… It can make for an angry evening.

Tonight was unfortunately one of those nights. I left the house almost the
point of raising my voice. Somehow my sister still finds me tolerable at
times like these.

“Oh weird, look at that car! Oh weird. Ew. Ew ew ew.”

“That is weird. I wonder what kind of car it is.”

“I know, I’m not sure if I’ve ever–I’m trying to think if I’ve seen it before.”

“I’m trying really hard to come up with a comeback for that car and I’m not coming up with anything.”

I shrugged.

“And that’s not okay because then I can’t make you laugh, and I want to make you laugh.”

Even after being extremely rude to her after coming home, she still wanted to make me laugh.

Haley, if you are reading this… I love you to the sun and back.

How can you not love life when you run into conversations like these?

Most of last week we had below-zero degree weather. This weekend we had a sudden jump in temperature to nearly sixty.

Today around 1:30pm I was at Jimmy John’s waiting on the other side of the counter for my sandwich. As my sandwich was being made the guy behind the counter starts the conversation with a smirk.

“So how’s this for global warming? I woke up this morning and didn’t have to scrape ice off my car!”

Later that day we left Dairy Queen and, my sister, having just gone through driver’s ed, was being a passenger-seat driver. She mentioned my stopping a few inches past the line of a stop sign. “They count that as if you ran the stop sign,” she said.

When I was almost to the next stop sign I said, “Think fast!” and pressed the brakes harder than usual. I came to a complete stop just behind the stop sign.

My sister, ice-cream cone in hand, said:

“If my face had gone into my ice-cream cone, yours would have too.”

I ran across an email you sent me a few months back. At the end you said:

“Never give up. Never lose yourself.”

It brought a smile to my face.

We’ve both moved a hundred miles since then.

I hope you still mean what you said. And what’s more: I hope you still mean what you said even when I’m not exactly like the person you wish I would be.

So, I ran across this the other day and decided to join.

It’s a crazy idea, I know. (So is NaNoWriMo, but that didn’t stop me from seriously considering it.)

One of my goals this year was to do more writing. I reckon a good way to keep consistent is to join something like this. Besides, one of the best tips famous writers give is to write everyday. Even if don’t have anything to say, write anyways. It keeps the mind in a writing mode.

So here goes nothing?

(You’re reading this a day late because when I was in the middle of writing this my neighborhood lost power because of the weather.)(Convenient, I know.)

Tonight I wanted to pretend to be a cowboy.

I say cowboy instead of cowgirl because cowgirls usually stay on the ranches. I wanted to ride through the desert, round up cattle, wear spurs on my boots, chop down trees, and do all those westernly things that I read about in books like Shane by Jack Schaefer.

I just bought Dustin Kensrue’s album “Please Come Home”. It’s oldschool, bar-stool piano and acoustic guitar country. It set the perfect soundtrack so I was almost set to become a cowboy.

But, you see, there was one tiny problem:

I don’t remember the desert being this damp.

It doesn’t help that I live in an area known for it’s lakes–though usually I can ignore that–but tonight our fourteen inches of snow was melting fast from fifty-degree weather. There were puddles and mud like we haven’t seen in months.

Oh and I think I missed the memo about the clouds leaving their lofty residences to come down onto the ground to migrate east. When I drove past lakes it seemed like someone had taken a pencil eraser to a map and left a blank spot, a glaring white hole. You could not look out onto the lakes because they had been fenced off by endlessly tall walls of white fog. When driving I could see the clouds rolling out onto the road in front of me like tumbleweed.

The tumbleweed-like clouds were the closest thing to out west I could find.

Oh well.

I’ll just have to save the Western for a (non)rainy day.

I used to love days like these because I could pretend that I was a dragon. I was a winter dragon; one of those arcane, beautiful cold weather dragons because I could breathe smoke when it was cold outside. I would wrap my enemies in frost, catch their feet in ice, and freeze their hearts to pieces. Once evil had been conquered I would go back to my cave in the mountain overlooking the small kingdom below and go into a deep summer hibernation while the people awaited my return the next winter.

I remember pretending I was a dragon as the steam fell from my mouth as a child, but I don’t remember the cold phazing me. It’s kind of funny how we clearly remember what games we played in our imagination as children but weather didn’t even start to take presidence. I wish I could still do that. Trust me! I’d rather be a dragon than notice the below zero temperature and fourteen inches of snow.

For some reason I am prone to panic. Panic is good when it is invoked at the proper time for the proper reasons, but other than that it’s very harmful to a human psyche. Doubt and panic go hand in hand. I’m not sure which I’m experiencing–I just know that I hate arguing with myself. I have to constantly remind myself that someone much bigger than me has everything under control and that the moment I ask for guidance He is right there in the other seat softly, gently giving directions.

I’ve been gone for a while. I didn’t post around Christmas because I didn’t quite know how to say what I wanted to (other than “Merry Christmas”). The same thing goes for New Years (again, other than “Happy New Years”).

So have a Merry late Christmas and a Happy late New Years! There’s more to come–it’s just still constructing itself in my mind.