A Lifetime Loving You

Random thoughts I don't have time to develop

Spring is cruel. All the trees are coming to life with yellowy-green leaves that get thicker every day. Pink blossoms cascading from branches and white poofy ones that look something like cotton candy. I've never been a huge fan of spring. It's muddy. But this place looks like something from a greeting card. And then there's my house with with 8 trees out front as bare as winter would have them. They are the only leafless trees on campus and have become quite depressing. But I will have my revenge. I went out last week and bought a half dozen potted plants. Now when I look out my window, or at my windowsill rather, I see green and feel a little less neglected by the season.

I bought Ocean's 12 and 13 recently because I found them on clearance and someone told me I would like them. I refused to watch them until I had seen Ocean's 11. I finally got around to watching it online this weekend. The Japanese subtitles were kind of annoying, but I couldn't find any other sites that were free.

I've been back from Maranatha for a week now. It was a fun weekend, and I've been meaning to put together a happy list from it, but life got busy again the moment I returned. I had a wonderful time talking to Miss Betsy, watching the Mormon Pride and Prejudice with Chelsie and RuthAnn, singing Head and Shoulders in my old 2's and 3's class, playing violin at Calvary, attending the play. I went to all my old haunts with a notebook and came up with some interesting thoughts which I will not record here. I guess it was weird being back just to visit. But I'm glad I went.

I met the sweetest lady last night. Her name is Irene. She's the kind of character I would write into a book, quaint and happy, talking a mile a minute with something good to say about everyone and everything. You know she must have had a bad day somewhere along way, but you would never hear about it. There was something about her that seemed more fictitious than real. Now my mind is actively trying to determine how many roles I could work her into.

I'm going to Sight and Sound this weekend. I can't wait. I'll try to post something about it.

Life is getting out of control

The little things that interrupt my daily routines are the first cues that something needs to change. Granted, I'm not addicted to routine. I like change well enough to keep life spicy. And I scorn traditionalism. But everyone needs their thread of sameness that connects one day to the next, and my thread is unravelling.

1. My bed is unmade. This is a personal pet peeve. There's no excuse for an unmade bed. It takes all of 30 seconds to pull up the cover, and that single act makes anything else that is out of place look a little neater. I live alone. An unmade bed is no one's fault but my own.

2. I found a potholder in my underwear drawer. Clearly, I didn't have time to sort my laundry. What's worse? It's been there for 3 weeks.

3. My book shelves are still not alphabetized, and all the newly aquired books are growing in verticle stacks on top of the horizontal ones. I live the disjointed personality of an analytical (highly organized) and an artist (highly disorganized). So life is always a little out of kilter, but unalphabetized books are really upsetting my balance.

4. My plant died. I watched a movie that said you're not ready to be in a relationship until you can keep a pet alive, and you're not ready to own a pet until you can keep a plant alive. The moral was something about responsibility and caring for someone/something else more than yourself. I was trying to care for my plant. Honest. My grandma puts used coffee grounds on her plants to help fertilize them. No one told me flavored coffee would kill one. Guess I'm not ready.

5. uh number 5, I don't have time to finish this post, but if I don't post it now, I'll never get back to it...

Nevertheless

I'm an ignorant brute. ~Ps 73.22

Things to do on a plane

I'm flying to Alabama in a week for Spring Break. This list is compiled in preparation for the trip. Soon to come...Things to do in an airport.

• Create a new identity. Carry half a dozen passports, each with a different nationality. Sort through them before handing one to the attendant. To add to the display, wear sunglasses and carry a briefcase handcuffed to your wrist.

• Bring a portable DVD player and start a movie marathon of plane crash movies. Keep the volume loud enough to attract some attention. You might include Flight Plan, Snakes on a Plane, Flight 93, etc.

• Wear a wide brim hat and request a middle seat

• Evaluate at least 10 nearby passengers and determine what role they would play in the event of a plane crash on a mysterious island in the Pacific. You may want to question them concerning their leadership skills, styles of conflict resolution, past histories, and criminal records. This will give you a head start on who to save as you salvage through the wreckage.

Quills

If you ask me, it's just tragic.

Jane Who?

I picked up this delightful little book. It's called Overheard at the Bookstore. And that's all it was, just a little thing with a quote on each page of things people have said while browsing through shelves of books. As much as I love books, watching people is just about as much fun. But watching people with books combines the best of two worlds.

Here are some of the better quotes:

• You'll never finish that here--why don't you just buy it?
• I think I could probably write this book.
• Do you have anything for dummies?
• I don't know the title or author, but the book's purple.
• It doesn't make any sense--it's called modernism.
• This was such a good movie.
• You definitely don't have it, or you just can't find it?
• I'm afraid I have to disagree with the reviewers.
• These are the two that I'm going to buy, and these are the twenty I'm not.
  

I laughed because many of these I've heard myself. Sadly a few of them were spoken by my mother. So I was reading through them out loud when my parents came over to visit my library. I was already laughing when I read to them my all time favorite--

• Should I buy a Jane Austen or a Stephen King?

I don't know--somehow that one just hits me funny.

"Wait a minute," mom said. "Now what did they write?" My jaw dropped, and I am still greatly distraught every time I think of it. Don't get me wrong. I love my mom, and she is a very intelligent woman. We just don't read the same things. I directed her to my bookshelf. Ironically Jane Austen and Stephen King were sitting next to each other. (It's the one shelf I haven't alphabetized yet.) And though she was very attentive through my emergency literary lesson, I suddenly feel as though there is this great chasm between myself and my parents that can't quite be bridged.

Alphabet soup

I found a quote that I really liked.

"Interpreting modern art is like trying to find a plot in alphabet soup."

Okay, so I really like modern art. It fascinates me, and it bugs me to death. It seems like a style of art that would be easy. See I like art, but painting is time consuming. To me, modern art is like instant expression. Splash some paint on a canvas, give it a title, convince an audience that it has a meaning, and there you have it--Modern art. Accomplishment without effort. Some of you who read this would take offence if I said, forget the years of study. Bang a few notes on a piano. Make it loud and disjointed, and call it 20th century. Yeah, I get that there's more to it that that. So even if some modern art looks like something my 4 year old niece could do, it just doesn't work that way. I've been playing around with paint for a long time. Realistic art takes time, but is doable. Impressionistic I find easier but takes more initial thought. Expression is just plain fun. Abstract? I can't do it. But I'm determined, and will probably waste considerable amounts of paint and canvas in the effort. If I ever do make something I like, I'll be sure to post about it and include a picture.

For now, I suppose I'll stick to alphabet soup. I like to make words and sentences. Who doesn't? Has anyone else ever tried to write a story? My soup got cold.

Contentment On a Moonlit Night

I watched the lunar eclipse tonight. It brought back memories. The first time I ever saw an eclipse of the moon, I was in 4th grade. I was living in Africa that year. It's actually one of my strongest memories. We and about 5 other families set up lounge chairs in the yard and watched the eclipse, the entire thing from start to finish. I remember as a child not daring to look away from the sky for a second for fear I'd miss it.

Africa was a different world. There wasn't a lot to do. We didn't have electricity let alone TV. Even then, I loved to read, but with no libraries, you can only get so much from reading the same books over and over. Creativity had a different meaning back then, and my brother and I were masters at it. Watching the eclipse was one of the biggest events for us that year. There we sat, mesmerized, all facing the same direction. The Africans would walk by, look at us, look the direction we faced. What are you looking at? We pointed to the moon. Monsieur and Madame has never seen the moon? And they walked away shaking their heads.

Sometimes I wonder if I could still be that content. Could I live someplace that hard again and still love it? Could I give up internet and cell phones and paved roads and clearance racks and ice cream and libraries and Starbucks and every other amusement? Could I give it up and have as much joy as i did that night? I don't know.

But tonight I watched the lunar eclipse, and I remembered. And I called up my family, my parents next door, my brother 4 hours north, my sister 3000 miles west. And I told them to look. And I wonder if they remember too.

Pet Peeves

I have taken great care with this list. So before I write them out for you, I need to explain a few things. There are far to many irritating forces in this world to list them all as pet peeves. The boundaries must be narrowed and refined.

1)Pet peeves shared by everyone cancel each other out. They are not pet peeves, thy are commonplace nuisances. Of course I hate hair in the sink and runs in my nylons (which by the way I no longer have to wear--and there was much rejoicing). Of course I hate soggy bread and mosquitoes, but so does everyone else. It doesn't qualify.

2)People are not pet peeves. People are annoying, and they do stupid things, but they are not pet peeves. Calling them such would just admit I was too lazy to identify the specific characteristic which annoyed me in the first place.

3)Pet peeves should not include moral issues. Those are more accurately called standards or convictions. Listing them off as pet peeves usually fulfills an ulterior motive. ie: I hate gossiping; therefore, I believe I am above gossip. I hate legalism; therefore, I believe you are legalistic/Pharisaical. You get the idea. Don't go there.

But here are a few legitimate pet peeves.

1)Amazing actors appearing in dumb movies
2)A book cover that doesn't match book's contents
3)Towns lacking coffee shops
4)Libraries that only allow you to check out 3 books
5)Arriving at a book sale after RuthAnn and Joanna have already cleaned out everything good
6)Museums featuring crooked art work (excluding anything found in the modern art gallery)
7)Limp handshakes

Ending Bad

Nothing gives me greater respect for an author than having the courage to end a book badly. That is not to say they ruin an otherwise good book by ending poorly. I mean when they stray away from a customary happily-ever-after and allow an alternative solution. When the girl doesn't get the man she loves. When the happy couple dies young. When the hero saves everyone but himself. When good intention becomes miscommunication.

After all, what is realistic about a fairytale ending? It's depressing really. It sets an absurd expectation that real life should some how parallel the blissful sunset scene. And when it doesn't, the fuzzy feeling accompanying a good book fades into resentment. But bad endings have a way of stirring things up

Of course, this can't be done carelessly. It has to be done with purpose. And it has to have some other form of resolution.

With the exception of Romeo and Juliet, I love the Shakespearean tragedies. (And Romeo and Juliet has some great lines and some really wonderful adaptations, but I just can't take them seriously). Shakespeare had a gift for knowing when to kill everyone to make a point.

How can you trust an author who never kills off a main character. You can attack the hero with any combination of calamities and hang them suspended in the most impossible circumstance. Your reader will breath easy. The character is safe. But have the courage to brutally kill someone the readers love and you will have earned their fear, and ultimately their respect. And that is the beauty of a wonderfully bad ending.

Turkey Tragedy

It's too funny to be tragic.

I'm sure imagining it is funnier than the actual event. The only thing funnier is wondering what the headlines tomorrow will read.

This morning, kids from all over the valley started pouring into the park across from my grandmother's house. They were preparing for the annual Thanksgiving day race. Joining the festivities was some poor girl convinced to dress up in an outrageous turkey costume. The thing with these big costumes--you can't see anything. So what most people were interpreting as a grouchy turkey was just a blind bird. All the kids were running up trying to high five the Thanksgiving turkey, not too easy for a bird that can't see.

So picture the turkey, standing at the finish line. Everyone's excited. She's jumping up and down, flapping her wings. All of the sudden, the winner crosses the line and, victorious, runs over to hug the turkey. She never saw him coming, and in one foul swoop, he knocks her to the ground. She hits her head on the curb. And the ambulance comes and takes her away, feathers and all.

Now I'm not one to find an injury humorous, but I can't stop thinking about a turkey showing up in the emergency room on thanksgiving day. It doesn't help matters that our town's school mascot is the redskins. "Running Bear takes out turkey on Thanksgiving."

Things I did this week that I've never done before:

• Bought a book I had never heard of just because it was on the New York Times bestseller list
• Watched an entire movie in Chinese, reading the English subtitles
• Made fried oreos
• Subscribed to receive dating tips via email and unsubscribed 10 minutes later because I thought it was stupid
• Set a picture of a total stranger as my desktop background
• Attempted to solve a Rubik's cube backwards to see if I could return the pieces to their original messed up locations (I'll never know if it worked)

A Midnight Inspiration

I've had several teachers tell me that the best ideas come in the middle of the night, and I should keep a notebook by my bed so I can write down all these things that end up forgotten by morning.

What they don't tell you is that in that semi-sleep state, the mind generally talks itself back into sleep before any action happens in the writing aspect. One time, I did half wake up thinking I should write down some random piece of thought, but I couldn't see what I was doing. I guess I was too asleep to think to turn on the light.

Last night, I woke myself up with profoundities and determined to record these gems of thought before they slipped away. I did manage to get the light and find a pen. Odd thing is, in the morning, none of it made any sense.

Maybe it works for some--I think I'll stick to writing when I'm awake.

Unfinished

Twenty-five pages between myself and the conclusion of the book. I've raced through the climax, rising and falling with the intended emotions. The antagonist still lives, but I am confident his fate is settled.

All that remains is the explanation. It is the point of no return in a book. It is the downward slope from here to the end that will only accelerate, gaining momentum until the final word.

This is the revealing in which the characters fianlly learn the why and how, the moment that finally uncovers the story behind the story that has kept the reader intrigued since about page 50.

Twenty-five pages remain, and I am already two minutes late for work. I cannot justify taking a moment more. I am condemned to a few hours of agony.

Many years back, I picked up a book that facinated me. It was a mystery, some sort of library reject I had picked up for a quarter. I came to the end only to discover the last chapter and a half had been torn from the spine. I was cut off mid sentense, left in a dreadful suspence that was never satisfied. Title and author have been lost to time, but I cannot forget the settled unknowing.

Kind of an odd time in life. Feels like I'm suspended in that point twenty-five pages from the end. I've passed through all the elements of a story, seen the conflict, the rise of the climax, observed the character changes. I've stood face to face with the enemy. He still lives, but his demise is decided. I've endured the sacrifices, but can safely assume the outcome.

All that remains is the revealing. All I need to know now is the why--why the events transpired as they did, how good is to be rewarded, how evil will be destroyed.

And what if God decides never to tell? What if like a that childhood memory, I never know the final chapter? Perhaps through indefinite agony, all that remains is to trust God's sovereignty.

Purpose

I crave purpose.
I want to do something
to be something
to mean something.

I want to rise to the expetations others have imagined for me
To recieve the nod of approval, acceptance
And to know somehow it's enough.

I want to look back on previous years without regret
And towards the future with anticipation.

I want to leave a legacy in flesh and bone.
I want to create a masterpiece that breathes.
I want to touch a life that in time will touch another and in so doing, fulfill a purpose that never dies.

You know you're a lifer when...

• Three to four years doesn't seem like a long time to invest in a new degree
• Your freshman roommates are now your professors
• You know the people that the buildings were named for
• Dinner conversation consists of first hand knowledge of how the rules have changed in the past decade
• You wish you could get a t-shirt that reads "I'm from the pre-Radford era"
• You don't rent out books anymore because they are four or five editions too old
• You remember when CSR's were filled out by pencil on bubble forms every Monday
• You can't imagine your life not broken into semesters
• You've seen the same jokes in the Tantalizing Tidbits at least three times
• You survived lice fest

At war

Heart wringing, mind crushing, soul burning battle. The ceaseless war, ever fought, never won--hopeless, cruel. The mind and the heart at constant odds, unable to resolve their differences. And I caught in the middle, subject to both petty discrepancies and the full, lash out thirst for blood.

Heart, once nurtured, cease to feel. Your embrace, once gentle, begins to strangle. I suffocate. Mind, once pursued, cease your reason. Your thoughts, once stimulating, grow wearisome. I stagger beneath the weight.

Heart and mind, will neither win? Will you reach no resolution? Then at least release me from your tiresome charade. I want no part of either.

Purple Like Rap

• There is a distinction between being unteacheable and standing firm in your convictions
• Those who claim to be openminded tend to be closeminded towards those they percieve as closeminded
• Arguing seldom solves an arguement
• Everyone judges; if they do not judge, they will judge judgers
• Correcting a wrong with an oposite extreme creates an equal wrong
• No two minds can be completely agreed
• There is absolutly no substitute for truth
• A right can hide a lot of wrong just as certainly as a wrong can hide a lot of right
• And yes, there is a real issue beneathe all the surface problems but who remembers it?

There has to be something more

I know that God is omnipotent. Every time I heard the Jonah story in Sunday School, I heard the application that accompanied it: You can't hide from God. That's pretty amazing. My parents would tell me to think of the biggest thing I could possibly think of it, and my childish mind would stretch it's limits imagining huge oceans and cloud penetrating beanstalks, and they would say: God's even bigger than that. That's pretty amazing. The silly little song lyrics minimize it horribly: God can do anything but fail. But it's still pretty amazing. So now, thinking about it with an adult mind, is God really as big and powerful as we always said? If so (and of course I believe so), why aren't I tapping into that?

I was driving home the other day, my mind as it has been a lot lately, thinking about future plans, decisions, etc. And I asked myself the question: Do you really trust God? I was disturbed by the question. Of course I trust God. I was raised to trust God. I've trusted God a thousand times before. To be honest, trust has become so memorized, I don't know how to not trust God. But if I really had a concept of the enormity of God, would it be possible for me to worry? I'm missing something here.

I guess I've been distracted by trying to get God to fit the mold of my expectation. By wanting God to be present or absent at my convenience. By worshiping a God who is neatly packaged as the invisible motive for my good deeds.

But what if it's all true? What if God really is everything we always said and more. What if he is that big, that powerful, that amazing. What if it were more than just words and we actually believed it? Wouldn't that change something in the way we think, in the way we approach each day, maybe even in our churches?

I guess I'm tired of being satisfied with a God who is nothing more than the figurehead of my faith.