I am usually not one of those people who can easily figure out which part is right and which part is wrong.

I meet Darrell, or Becka hours and hours before the sun comes up. They accidentally peel each finger down slowly counting, one, two, three, four.
And you sort of hope that by accident, by 50/50 chance, you will do something right. Open or shut mouth at the perfect time.
Take down notes
feed yourself lists
remember to set alarm clocks
and you pray, "God, who knows my name, how big thou art. How strong and sensible. How you know where I am and tomorrow, and the next day." And still you forget to take out contacts from your eyes at night.


But then. There is the small glimmering mile by mile.
i-80
highway leading back to joy, to sorrow, to the only real.

In my mind I see the stretches, and for sure, I will do the only thing I possibly know is right.
Get back in a van.
Go back to Iowa. To Illinois. And fall deep into the arms of someone who needs to never let you go.

"And high above,
Through a lit apartment window
Appear the ceilings and moldings,
The corner of a frame
Hung high on the wall
By someone you'll never meet

And you start to miss her too"
-Dave Smallen



I am nowhere, and my bones are melting into a person who used to be more surviveable.
I am in between walls and walls.

I miss the way you'd sigh yourself to sleep

Maybe its corny to admit that the death of a loved one brings you closer to God. Or not corny. But something like that.
But it's kind of true.

Of course I think of predestination. Everyone around me talks about it constantly. But I just settle myself out to think, "Rachel, whatever happens, God already knew it was going to happen, and people did pick it for themselves."
What the heck am I saying.
I think that all this happened at the right time, and for the right reasons, as screwed up as it is.
My grandmother died after I'd been in school for just two weeks. I drove 40 sleepless hours in 5 days. I became ill. I just happened to be taking a course that the main text happens to be the Bible, but taught by a Jew. A smart Jew who knows Hebrew and can chant Song of Songs by heart. She is crazy and wonderful, even though I don't agree with half of what she says. But this class has taught me to appreciate the Old testament.
And
what
I see
is
a God who was desperately in love with a people
(for thousands of years)
that constantly turned their back on him
in the height of his love and abundance for them.
An adulterous nation wearing Prada, sleeping with Chuck Bass, and texting on an iPhone.
And he loved them so painfully that he sent a son to die for their sloppy pitiful excuse of a thing called Loyalty.
And they turned their head and pretended like it wasn't all over CNN and in the New York Times and on Google news.
Gritting their teeth, they rejected a Messiah, long awaited.

Or what I'm trying to think is that the Old Testament means more to me now. And this strange predestination season has a lot of cold dark roads left, but
I've got chicken noodle soup and
crisp thunder storms.

It's fun to close every once in a while, because I usually get to work with this lady Channin. (said Shannon) She is probably in her early 40's, and is really cute because she is sassy.
She uses Starbucks as her screening process for whether a guy is dateable or not. All these guys who usually look the same as the last one, come in and she suddenly says, "Girls," to me and Kelsey G. "I am going on my break." And then she disappears. The funny thing is that there are like 6 or 8 of them. I don't know how she meets so many dudes, but it is kind of hilarious how our store has become a revolving door bringing in many middle aged guys at like 7 or 7:30 at night. I like it.

Originally uploaded by thethingis99