Source: etsy.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Art by the Terrific Nan Lawson

Maybe once a week--or four times if I'm honest--I look around at all these married people and think

"How in the world do two people get so lucky to like each other at the same time...
and then love each other at the same time
and just so happen
to find themselves married

to each other?"

It seems an awfully hard thing to be capable of,
and yet,
so many people are ending up married all the time. I think to myself, why do I (and my friends X and Y and Z) find ourselves
i n c a p a b l e
of being given in marriage?

It seems like a miracle, that two people could end up... together.
It seems like an impossibility that they could procreate and move forward through life educating an offspring about the way it could be more like them.


I have moments in the car where I catch myself thinking I could see myself with a four year old child. Could fill its cup with apple juice, and make it eat broccoli like I make my dogs eat broccoli while we watch Downton Abbey together, and then I can see myself standing in the bathroom making this kid brush his/her teeth seven or eight times a day and then make this kid memorize John Donne and Bible verses and listen to NPR in his/her pre-adolescence.

And then I shake myself out of it. I switch the windshield wipers on and off, and remember that I am incapable.
That I am an aunt, at best.
I give my phone number accidentally to pot-head snowboarders some nights so that when they leave me voicemail, I can pretend that my dance card is full.

But what Roxanne says, is that we are independent women. That we are going to college (although she hasn't actually taken classes yet).
But as I sip my iced tea, what beats under my black collared t-shirt, down in my heart, in my sore burpee'd out chest is this:

I want to find myself married against somebody who wants to have children that brush their teeth eight times a day as well. That I might be capable of this. That we could make coffee for each other in the morning (in an alternating fashion) and that somehow we could make one world out of two selfishnesses. That we could sew the two worlds into one Frankenstein monster, and still be happy that we are waking up next to each other.

Roxanne snickers.
I know I will keep suffering my horror dreams alone for now.

Source: cdn.indulgy.com via Hansol on Pinterest

If I had been born in 1938...

Well, maybe I only made it seven days without enjoying some wine with my good friends on Saturday night. But my goal is ultimately to just drink wiser, and not let it interfere with Crossfit and stuff.

What's Up?

I just took a trip to Ft. Collins/Denver with my friend Megan. It was my first vacation since I came back to Utah last August, and it was really refreshing for my relationship with God. Getting to spend time with other believers in Colorado helped me see the bigger picture. I realize I have been really unplugged for the last, oh, six months.
I have been hanging out with God, but listening to Him in the same way I listen to someone talk about football statistics. I learn to nod my head and say "Mmmhmm," in the appropriate places.
But I want to feel that fire again. 

I am not drinking for 21 days, and today is Day 5.
This is all due to being broke, and falsely hoping it would improve my memory and brain function.
I've been looking around thinking, "What do I usually do at this time of day?" 
I wait for someone to tell me it's bed time.

And.
As usual, I owe the library more in fines for dumb movies that I haven't even watched than I've ever owed Blockbuster for hanging on to brand new movies that just came out.

Also Babies.
Tegan and Sara had their second kid today, which is really cool, and really weird, because I kept thinking he was going to be born as Leo a second time, but they ended up with a different kid. It's so weird.

"Valentine's day is the WORST. I have three examples why. The first one is love."

-This guy in Crossfit this morning, to another guy, while they were stretching. I love that at absolutely no prodding, he had an essay ready to recite.

one last Valentine

I still do not know why I love this day so much (besides it being Celisse's birthday, and a day set apart for candy). It's not my upbringing, or being romanced by my past admirers.


"I can't figure it out," I thought, watching Philip help me polyurethane this year's paper Starbucks cup. "I just love it."


My sweet, gay coworker Zeth bought us chocolates, and it was really slow at work all night. I ate half of a Nothing Bundt Cake for breakfast. I caught up on Once Upon a Time and Downton Abbey. (oh em gee)


Tomorrow will be the 15th, and I will have to work off at least 600 calories at Crossfit, and I might even have caught strep throat from a different coworker. 
But I am happy. 
Life is pretty awesome, and I trust in a God that is really loving and really beautiful.

Source: etsy.com via Traci on Pinterest

"There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep.
Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks
then it walks, it walks with my legs
to fall, to fall, to fall at your feet.

And I love you so much, I'm going to let you kill me."

Florence and the Machine

Source: Uploaded by user via Rachel on Pinterest

Today we went to the Special Collections floor of the library, and got to see all these cool Art Books. I got to handle a book made of glass. There were a lot of cool ideas and I wish I could have taken pictures. But it was really inspiring.
We've been talking about how there isn't really money to be made in Fiction (unless you are writing Twilight or Hunger Games type books) and my professor is really reinforcing how I already kind of see writing, which is.... a hobby. That needs to get done so you can keep going. But seeing all these different rare books today made me see the book as a piece of art. And maybe you build it, and only one person gets to keep it, like a painting or a sculpture.

And the second thing we've been discussing is e-Literature, which has made me want to learn Flash.
We watched/read this story: Traveling to Utopia a few weeks ago. It's kind of fun. You have to watch it two times. Unless you know Korean, and then you have to watch it three times.

And the third thing he asked us was, why isn't your book a film? So there's a whole 'nother can of worms.

This semester is moving too quickly.

Source: etsy.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Like I said last year. I'm always single on Valentine's day, but I always love it anyway. I love the entire month of February, and I love the decorations, and I love any excuses for candy and mail.

I love love. I even love like.

These are the worst nights as I remember them

The top worst night of my life was in 2006 at a club in Ogden that I went to with Ashley, to see Billy play with Fear Before, and I hadn't slept for almost 40 hours, and I was sick, and she disappeared with Billy at some point, and I remember thinking in the bathroom with hardcore music thrashing through the walls, that if there was an easy way to kill myself I would have done it, because I didn't have enough cash on me to take a taxi back to the suburbs or even SLC. It's hard to describe how you can get in a mindset like that, but there I was.

The second worst night of my life was driving home from my grandmother's funeral in September of 2009, with the weight of everything that was happening at that point in time, and it was raining, and I was driving down the canyon, and I didn't want to end my life so much as I couldn't possibly see a way that it was going to be able to keep going.

Last night was probably the third worst night of my life as I sat freezing on the side of the interstate for hours, waiting, and embarrassed, for my dad to come and save me from car trouble, and also to release my brother of his duty to me, as he was having a freak-out session of his own. Jacking the car up over and over, and nothing seeming to work.

But this time, I think I was calmer (at least, more than Philip was at the moment), and what I am learning is that
God is sovereign and in control of everything.
In the end I am a spoiled white girl, and even laying in my bed, still shivering for an hour afterward, I was so glad that I had a father who came to save me: the daughter who stayed out too late and had no recourse. I also have a Father who has saved me, the sinner, from the wicked life I've built for myself. At three a.m. I saw this picture of unconditional love.

And the answer is that, God is good, even though I want to close my eyes to it so much of the time, and I want my own timing. He shows up in ways I can't believe.