There is a house down the street, and the people living there do not have enough rooms. So some of them sleep in a tent under an overhang garage.
Strange, but resourceful. A lot of Americans seem to have lost this resourcefulness. There are other ways to live.

Dear Renee,
I am tired of trying to guess what you are like. I am tired of trying to learn about your more mysterious self, or even your day-to-day self.
You tell me nothing, the more I ask and plead with you. It should be obvious by now that I have been trying to make you be my friend, and that you want to live in your world of not answering my questions in full sentences.
I don't know your goals, or if you have them, because you are hiding all of them.
I will remain your sincerest of barely acquaintances even though we have spent most of the hours of the last year together.
So goodbye,
see you tomorrow,
and here's to me giving up.

-Me.

"My eyes are bigger than my stomach."
"That's because you have glasses on."
-Amalia (my mexican mother) to me, at KFC in Los Angeles

I am pretty suppressed because I only have 7 episodes left of Samantha Who? and I will be so sad when it's over for good.

To do this week:
... work a lot
... go to small group
... play a show with the youth band
... go to the Tolman wedding

And perhaps spontaneously buy a ticket back to Des Moines. My heart is hurting, and the midwest is like a big band aid, with weak coffee and strong love.

I was thinking last night, as I was taking off my fake eyelashes, that I should probably get married while I still have some energy. Like, maybe this week.

"Oh Rachel, whatever will I do?"
"Without me?"
"Oooooor in general."
-Darrell

I'm hoping for your sake I change; hoping for my sake I manage to remain the same.
Josh Ritter

Not being in school is essentially like heaven. Sometimes I look around and feel guilty about watching a lot of TV these days, but there is still enough going on every week to make me feel tired, so I'm probably shouldn't even feel that guilty.

Celisse's wedding was beautiful, and is over now. But there are more weddings to attend to and more hours to work retail, and Megan is here, and I am looking forward to a California trip next month, and always to my "trains" nights with my Ashleigh and Dan. To the final episodes of LOST. To new CD's coming out. To longer, lingering nights and sipping wine on the back porch. Things keep going, and I'm not even writing papers.
How did this happen? I think this Spring is going to be the beginning of Good.

Paul,
I am thinking. I should learn to sell myself to something farther down the road. After proven worth. After love returned. I am figuring out that when the lights are all green, all the way down the road at night, this is not always a good sign. It doesn't pave way for someone soft lying next to you til morning. It does not always put money in the bank account.
I am learning things, I suppose, Paul.
And if you don't care, then I don't care too.

-Me.

I've been watching Undercover Boss, and in result, crying a lot this week. My family got on Demand, so that basically took over my life for one day after work. This man, on the Waste Management episode really struck a note in me. He was super happy about cleaning up porter potties, every day of the week. He was really joyful doing one of the crappiest jobs in America. It made me realize that I could be him. That yes: I have a crappy job, but no: I do not have to let this bring me to miserable.

I think why this show makes me cry the whole time is, that there is a deep unrealized ache in me about working a low class job. When people ask me what I do, where I work, I whisper, "Starbucks," ashamed, humiliated. I love to watch the CEO's and COO's of these huge businesses come down on our level and these single moms, people on dialysis, former "artists"-all forced into sad jobs. And they realize that we need to be treated better. That the world runs off of us.

So what I'm trying to think is that I can be joyful no matter where I work. And that the world wouldn't keep running without poor people like me.

Although my brother cleaning the porter potties, it said at the end that he realized he wanted to bring his joy to way more people and started a job at a hospital. So, there's that.