On more than a few occasions, and especially tonight, I looked out of my basement window to think I was seeing the moon, shining really bright, through my shudders.

But it is my neighbors' porch light. It is actually an impossible angle for the moon to shine into my window, ever.

But I still find myself checking, each time.

"Thank God for Vegas."
-Martha

I walked into my dark family room after every one had gone to bed and saw light reflecting off of Noah's glasses.
"Oh my gosh you scared me," I said. "What are you doing in here?"
"Well, I am really bored, and I can't find any of my clothes."
"What? What clothes are you looking for?
"Any of them."

This is a typical conversation with Noah.

"What? She only works 20 hours a week?" He said, a half hour earlier.
"That's not bad for a college student," I suggested.
"I work 24 hours a day," he said.
"No you don't," I said. "You play a lot of video games."
"Well I do work til twelve, and then I come home and play video games," he adjusted.
"Enjoy that while it lasts," I said.
"Oh, I plan to do it forever," he said. And for a moment I thought, So do I. Like a teenage boy, I will be living in my parents' basement. I thought, What is so wrong with staying still, with not marrying, with not procreating....when everything will turn to dust and it will be our time to sleep with our fathers in the ground, and after that to face judgment.

I suppose judgment is what is wrong with staying still.

I don't know all the answers, Sharon, but I find myself sleeping through the whole night now.

"Balloons. Plastic. Rubber. Crazy."


-Nick

I started off my day with an early dentist appointment to follow up on a cavity. That might make you shudder, but I really really love my dentist (his lavender scented washcloths, and his demeanor, and the extra mile he always goes) and even though they gave me a brand new purple toothbrush last week, they gave me a pink breast cancer awareness one today.

I knew it was going to be a good day.

I let the Novocaine wear off and ate some french toast and stuffed my iPod with podcasts and indulged in buying an $8 album off of Amazon.
Got to the bus stop at my leisure, and spent a few hours on campus since I had the day off. I worked on my digital storytelling project and had a hamburger.

On my bus trip home, I watched a 9 year old girl get on the bus with her 6 year old brother. I couldn't believe they were by themselves and that she was taking care of him. It reminded me of how Philip and I were when we were younger, and I missed having someone look up to me like that and how everything I said was truth to him. To have someone believe in you like that. She got them on and off the bus safely, and I hope that they are so close when they are older.

I watched a handsome black man in a three piece suit and matching fedora taking care of his adorable little kid, and I watched him exit the bus with a stroller and watched him set it up on the sidewalk as soon as they exited. You don't see that everyday. The man as the primary caretaker. Que quapo. And this is what made me think, I would really like to dress up as a man for Halloween, if I do go to Emily's yearly rager. The matching fedora is what did it. (And I was listening to Sexy back by JT at the moment) But then I thought, what man do I already look like? And this ended in me buying fake beard at Halloween World and gluing it on my face at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Emma took photos of Philip and I for at least an hour. It was a family moment. We made a memory together, and I think Judy will be horrified, but also get a really good laugh out of it.

I dressed back as a woman for house church, but was peeling glue off of my chin the whole time. Derek talked about God's peace vs. our anxiety, and I thought about how blessed I am to not be struggling with anxiety anymore. He had a really beautiful point about how God wants to hear from us, because He chose us, and we chose Him, and how beautiful that relationship is.  
Thank you God that you chose me.

"I'm getting to know you, Rachel."
"I'm getting to know you! Getting to feel free and easy!" I started to sing while he handed stuff out the drive through. I stopped, because I remembered the next words. "I'm not going to waltz with you, Ian."

Missed the first bus. Got most of the way to the bus stop, but then realized I didn't even have my whole book bag. I thought, can I live without it? And then realized I couldn't get on the bus without my pass.

I kinda wish Fall break had been another week. But I have a couple short weeks at work (finally) to work on huge papers and maybe see my friends and other projects I started.
I have a graduation appointment with the advisor I saw four years ago who basically told me I didn't have my crap together. And I still don't have my crap together, but if you keep at it...at college, you will eventually get it done, even if it takes ten years, because you did things like take a few semesters off to watch TV or go boating.

Also, stretching with a purpose is really helping my back and my wrists. YOGA.  I feel so good just from running more and stretching all the time.

rachel gets a massage.

I had a Groupon, and I finally went to use it, since my back has been killing me and I got off of work at 12:30. But it became, kind of an existential problem for me, if that's the right word for it.

A massage is kind of a medical thing, in that the therapist I got was wearing scrubs, and was heralding the benefits of massage, and saying how insurance companies should pay for it. But it felt different from being at the doctor's, because the whole time I was thinking, Does she think I am fat? Does she notice the Dalmatian bruises I have all over my legs? Does she think I am ugly? I thought this last one as I turned my face toward her, and had my eyes covered, and she was standing directly over me. Of course she is staring at my double chin.

"I'm working out." I wanted to say, "I'm trying to lose weight," I wanted to defend myself. "I haven't eaten a single pastry all day," I thought. I had to convince myself that she loved her job, and loved massaging chubby people like me, so I said, "Do you love being a massage therapist?"
"Oh yes," she said, like I think she says to all the chubby people. I tried to think that massaging skinny people would be like trying to pet Celisse's bony dog. It is weird paying someone to touch you.
I kept her talking, so she would have to like me as a person, and in the end she showed me some good exercises for my wrists, since she thinks I'm getting carpal tunnel, which I never thought would happen to me.
I loved every minute, really.

It's nice to work only one job. I'm loving Fall break, on a whole. I'm excited to be half done with the semester, even though I am regretting the end of my education, piece by piece. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year. God is so good to me. Every day.

"I made orange juice from concentrate and showed her the trick of squeezing the juice of one real orange into it. It removes the taste of being frozen. She marveled at this, and I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again. The day felt like a birthday, our first, and we ourselves were the gifts, to be opened again and again."
from Miranda July's Ten True Things. I love how she writes, I get lost in it.

and as Jenny Lewis would say, the days come to me like sailors, and I watch them as they sail away.
I don't have much of my own words to say tonight. I don't get sad, that's good. I still get happy, that's very good. I had a moment of euphoria, even, at work the other day.
The day started a beautiful way of me driving to work when it was just starting to get enough sun to light up the sleepy, crystal clear valley. It is only this way in the cold. And my heater was starting to warm up the air, and I was so pleased to be wearing gloves and a jacket at 6 a.m.
This is a very hard thing to explain, this crystal clear thing. It is like a moment when the colors pop out to you, and you realize how wonderful your life is when you don't have a headache, and you don't have any social engagements tonight, and you can't think of a single sin. It's the moment you clean your glasses and put them back on, and then you realize the world is a lot different than you just thought you were looking at a second ago.
So the moment of euphoria came three or four hours after that. Mixed with sleepy giddiness and one latte, and Jordan wasn't there, I looked around the room and I wanted to say, "I love you. I love you. I love all of you and I want you to come to my party." And at the party, they were going to laugh at all of my jokes, and I would smile, but not smile so big as to crinkle my eyes, and the weather would be like falling asleep in a soft bed. And the music would be Frank Sinatra and Grizzly Bear, and the hors d'oeuvres would be sushi.


It is a powerful thing to have a moment like that. And a very surprising one to have it at Starbucks.

I end up confessing all of my sins to Martha. This is easiest, as she has nothing to do with my real life, and she never judges me. And she is, of course, an eager listener, because who doesn't want to hear another person's deepest secrets?

She has become my therapist. I can tell her anything. I think when I am done here, I will keep coming back to tell her and Misha the secrets. Coming in to say, I like your new haircut. Coming in to say, here is a candy bar, and I really miss you. Coming to say, I married Mike in Vegas, and I'm having second thoughts about him now.


Sometimes in the depths of my empathy towards my poor miserable clients, I still want to lean back and say, "Even though your life is falling apart, you could still probably brush your teeth before leaving the house."


And everyday I get to about lunch time, and wonder why I thought it was a good idea to try to tease my hair into more volume. I end up with bumpy nests in the back of my head, like a drunk 9th grader.

"Thank you for calling ----- Bank, this is Rachel, how can I help you?"
"Wow. You sound like a real person."
"Well, I am a real person. What can I do for you?"
-weird conversation I had with this person this morning who took at least a minute and a half to disclose what her name was

The days are winding down. I am going to miss this place. I'm not going to miss this place. I'm not going to miss Sunday night texts that say, "Please bring your plan of action on how you are going to meet the branch's goals tomorrow," but I will miss putzing my way through the day with two of the coolest girls I have met in a long time. I will miss the pay. I won't miss my boss's mood swings. But I will think of every one there in love and respect.

It is almost autumn. I don't mind the slow transition. It's pretty nice.