"Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell."
-Emily Dickinson

Happy birthday, Norvelle. It cannot be too soon until we are together again.

good old babies.


My dear Bryan and Celisse had their dear baby Wesley. With every pregnancy, it is just so weird to go from seeing it as a bump, to Suddenly There Is a Baby.

"You should have a baby. Or three. It's pretty easy," Celisse told me, her usual self last night. She was referring to the epidural, not their current situation of Wesley being in the NICU. But one thing about Celisse is that she can usually see the whole picture when everyone else is running around with their hands in the air. She knows everything will be fine, and Wesley is doing better every hour, it seems like.

I worked another double yesterday. I'm pretty sad with half of my friends gone to Faithwalkers, and pretty tied down to these stupid dogs. Work almost feels like a social life, right now.

The dogs wake me up at 5am to eat, (why would anyone train their dogs to be hungry at 5am?) but as I was scooping dog food out of the big bucket on the back porch, I realized it was raining, and I sad a thank you to God for letting me be awake for it. I always have better days when I know there has been precipitation. I also took a fistful of pills because I could feel a migraine building behind my eyes.

Anyway. Rush dug herself under the porch and got stuck there. She probably wanted some time to herself. That was an adventure.
And my medicine finally kicked in and now my head feels like a balloon. I put on the saddest M. Ward CD I have, and baked a cake.

I might be wasting my winter break a little bit, but pretty soon I will be graduated and have nothing but time, and I will try to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with the time then.

A couple Tony-isms

"There were no undo's."
-Tony, on the original Photoshop

Tony: "See that is terrible advertising."
Me: "I hate Wal-Mart."
Tony: "Yeah....but they actually had a good commercial. It was when you went to the bathroom."

--------

I feel like I've been letting myself become an island. 

And it's probably time to stop doing that.

And a strange thing is waking up and not knowing where you are. It didn't happen all summer at the farm or in Iowa, or in all the houses that I've house sit for all of these months, but this morning when I woke up, I looked at the headboard of the bed I was sleeping in, and I actually thought I was on a boat. 

Two separate occasions in the night, I woke up and thought I was at sea.

It was a wonderful illusion.

the sins of a hermit


I lived without a phone for a few days this week. I killed it early Monday morning and went without it for the rest of that day. I renewed my contract with my cell service provider and they sent out a new phone, but it didn't get here until basically last night. But that's not the point of this story.

I dug up my old orange enV and got it to run enough to look at all the old things I had saved on it from two and a half years ago. All the memories came back with the saved text messages and things I'd written in my notepad. It was like a diary.

I smirked to myself that the most romantic relationship I've had in four years was my imaginary one with MK. I wrote this, when I was 19, and I'm sharing it because it is ridiculous. "I mostly figured that we were both looking at each other, in love, and that one day he would take me in his arms, and I'd be all tan and have long hair, and he'd say "This isn't going to work" but I think that when he is like, 40, and I'm also a middle-aged and famous writer after several marriages, we will bump into each other on the street in Chicago or LA or Cleveland and the age difference won't be so severe. It will be true love then, my darling."

I think I have been living on too steady a diet of Jenny Lewis, since I was sixteen. And now when I see MK smoking a cigarette at the U, or walking with other students, I still think he's a genius, but my heart doesn't stir. And perhaps he will never get interviewed by Doug Fabrizio either.

Tomorrow is my last day of living here and sleeping in all the time, and taking my meals alone and looking out over the beautiful golf course. I will miss this hideout. It would be very easy
to
become
a
recluse.

Troy: I think I'm failing psychopharmacology.
Britta: Why are you taking that?
Troy: I thought it was a class about crazy farm animals.

Community, Season 1

When I woke up this morning, my hair was a white-girl afro. I've been working on it for three days. I was going to wash it this morning, but I might just hold out. It is getting bigger and bigger the more dry shampoo I use.

I watched a few old episodes of Pushing Daisies again, and realized the show was older than I thought. Maybe it is actually Zooey Deschanel who stole style ideas from Anna Friel's character. The set design is also so beautiful. It reminds me of how I think Roald Dahl would have done it.

and...I cracked open my drawing pad last night. I need to use that part of my brain more. And I should be practicing my Spanish. I'm losing more of it every day.

I wake up with the old songs stuck in my head, and wonder where they came from.

I open my eyes and want to keep them shut the rest of the day. I think of Regina Spektor, try to make my lips move. Try to make my legs move.
"Like a soldier, one foot in front of the other."


I miss my routine, so I make coffee and slap my own face to say, "You can do this, you can pull it together for a few hours to go to work to pay your bills." 
I think that maybe it is the right time for this vacation to be almost over. Or at least, for the inversion to be over. Every time I leave the house, I say to myself that it can only last for so long.

I went back to my house tonight to eat egg rolls with Noah and my dad. Noah and I sat on laptops opposite each other, and made small comments. I listened to him hold his breath while he watched TV online, and let it back out periodically to inhale again. I thought how it was a little bit nice to have someone else in the room. We could talk or not talk for hours, the two of us.

Things will be good. I am so blessed to celebrate the birth of my Lord who saved me. Who picked me to spend eternity with Him. What a wonderful God.

sundancechannel.com

I could watch Midnight in Paris over and over, and I probably will. I'd like to see it one more time in the theater after tonight.  I have such a girl-crush on Marion Cotillard, and listening to Owen Wilson talk is like sitting with an old friend who knows all of your secrets.

I got a free bathrobe when I bought a bottle of perfume today (or yesterday, rather). It's white and fluffy, and I am make-believing that I am at a resort. 

It is not that hard.

What is hard is realizing I have to go home someday.

What is hard is realizing I'll have to go back to day-shifts again, and not sleep in til ten every morning.

A hard thing is that finals are over, and I should be eating vegetables and going to the gym again.

I'll take it one step at a time.

eventually, I will shut myself in a room and just write.


Today is not that day. Just a blog update.

I ended up having a Treat Yo Self day while I was trying to buy Christmas presents. I bought a new fragrance, a Nothing Bundt Cake, and a Chipotle burrito. I went to my local library and got the last couple Gilmore Girls episodes I haven't seen, some music, and a book that might be fun. Fun? Yes.

I got back in the car and felt ashamed. But I have a few more days to finish gifts. We're having very low key gift giving in our household this year. I think the most "Christmas Spirit" I've had so far comes from the Community Christmas episode when Shirley sings "Happy Birthday Jesus". Also, singing about the Lord at Starbucks is pretty cool too. I don't remember so many Christ-centered songs playing on the Holiday Mix in previous years.

And finally, as I sit here, I feel like there is something I need to get done, but there literally isn't.
I finished everything, and when I drove into this apartment complex this morning, I couldn't believe I wasn't catching the bus next Tuesday for class. It made me a little sad.

I talked to Judy for an hour, had a third cup of coffee, and then I vacuumed...
I think I need a project.
Ideas are brewing.

More to come.

December Finals: a love poem

Humidifier, running.
Iowa state hoodie on, reheated coffee in hand.
Pizza, toaster strudels, Starbursts

All I can see when I close my eyes is Cherrie Moraga's
Loving in the War Years
All I want is to finish the first draft so I can watch
Sunday night TV OnDemand.

Taking too many Facebook breaks
And wondering what the outside world looks like.
I will miss this too.

And now...another procastinatory blog post

My professor slid my previous paper and a grading rubric, and other notes to me across the table, and after my ten minute meeting with her, I was terrified to start this paper. She is more intense than even my Biblical Poetry professor was, and I don't want to write another canned paper for the final.

And then I realized, this is my last really analytical paper I'm probably going to be writing. Next semester I'm taking a fiction workshop, and a 2000 level Communications class, so I'm not going to have any literature or theory to pick apart.

It is very bittersweet.

I've been in college for five and a half years so far, but I never really thought that I'd see the end coming so rapidly toward me.

"Good old babies."
-Noah, commenting on Isabel's fake baby that she has to take care of this weekend that was starting to cry

I told my friend Emily a week ago, how we kind of do courtship/dating at our church. I narrowed it down to basically seeking counsel from your wiser friends, praying, and then waiting around (it's even foggy to me, sometimes, because I have screwed it up in the past). Over the last couple years she would periodically ask me if I am dating anybody yet. But yesterday as we were slowing down at work she said, "So are you consulting about any boys yet?" 

I thought it was hilarious that she got "consulting" out of seeking counsel. It's cute. And kind of right. Like you are consulting a panel of people you trust the most about whether or not you should end up with this person.

Also on the note of Starbucks friends, I was thinking today about Becka, and her huge wedding ring. She would always have these guys commenting on it when she was ringing people up in the lobby about how big it was, and how can a guy afford something like that these days. Sometimes she would say something modest, like, "It's just the lighting in here," but sometimes she would say, "Oh this? This is the one I wear to work." I laughed to myself on the bus.

I wonder which of my friends I will still be so close to when I am 30 or 40 or 50. And most of the time, I just hope it's all my same friends from now.