A little

Well, I was going to stay stuff about funny stuff,
but then I ended up saving it for a story where it will get tucked away on a shelf, and when I die in a few weeks (I always think I'm just about to die) it won't get read for a year or two until my family can handle to start reading all of the sappy stories I've written. Or, if I live, it will go in the arsenal.

And, an aside on my fiction-writing:
I read a piece this week for my final Creative Writing workshop, and when class was over, my new friend Marc said, "It was good, a bit like your other piece though, in that, she was so lonely," and I knew he was right, and I stewed for a few hours over whether or not I keep writing the same character over again. And here's what has happened to me.


a) I re-read No one Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July at Christmas time, and what I realized I knew and loved about her writing, was that deep-seated loneliness that every human being has(man or woman, teenager or fifty-year-old business man) almost all of the days of their lives, and how she shows that without really saying it


b) I started to believe it is a fact that every single person, whether married or slave, or divorced, or perpetually single (ME), or homeless guy, or Prime Minister, or alien from outer space... they are suppressing the loneliness (not necessarily a libido all the time, Sigmund) and that this loneliness is the hole that God wants to fill.


c) Maybe we do all feel the loneliness, but some of us definitely don't admit to it. Or either way, I started writing stories about this same girl who lives alone, surrounded by people, and I don't even necessarily think she is me. I'm just trying to take care of her. But I need to write a couple old man stories, maybe, for Marc, so he thinks I'm just not writing the same white-girl story over and over.


So now that that's over, here are some of the other things that have been happening to me.

I clumsily spilled an entire venti coffee on a really sweet guy one week ago, and I've never been so embarrassed in my life. And you know, dear friend, how little I use the superlatives. I tried to think of my top five most embarrassing moments, but none came close to this.

I took Ceramics 1 twice in highschool. The second time was with my best friend Kelsea, and one day, after walking out of the bathroom and all the way to Ceramics, and then in and out of the storage room, and then sitting down, our teacher said,
"Kelsea, does Rachel know she has toilet paper sticking out of the back of her pants?" because he was never sure what things we were doing on purpose, and I'm pretty sure most of my teachers thought I did drugs.
And Kelsea said, "I doubt it," or something, and then came and whispered it to me, and while my face turned bright red, this did not even come close to the bright red burns that were probably on this guy's thighs when I drenched them in coffee. And then he tried to tip me, which made it worse.


Besides that, I finished college.

"I'm not real big on guys with hats."
-Hannah B., who is making me feel better about my dating standards

A lot of funny/sad/lonely/embarrassing things have been happening to me lately, which is really fortunate from a writer's standpoint, but not so hot from a just-trying-to-live-a-normal-life standpoint.

I will start with Thursday which was funny, and see if I have more energy later for sad, lonely, and embarrassing.

I went to the Art Barn for a reading, and my Jenny Lewis classmate showed up.
  "Oh hey, Jessica right?"
  "No, it's Rachel," I say, not all that shocked that she forgot my name even after our many conversations.
  "Oh that's right, well this is.....Tony," she said, squinting her eyes as she looked at him. "Tony B." (I'm not leaving his name out for privacy, she actually called him that.)
  "Hello Tony, nice to meet you," I said.
  "Nice to meet you," he smiled, looking at me, but not really looking at me.
Jeni was looking around the room. "Nice place they've got here," and pointed at a photograph and started laughing, "Look, it's art," she said.
I was noticing that she still had not said what she was doing with Tony, and if this was a date or not.
  "Is this your first time here?" I asked.
  "Yes," she laughed, and got up abruptly to look around.
I looked at Tony.
  "So you guys been friends long?" Thinking he might correct me and say he was her boyfriend.
  "No. We don't know each other that well," he kept looking around.
  "So you just thought you'd come to support Jeni?"
  "Yeah," he said. I tried to give him room to make up a story, but it turns out that he probably is really just someone she bought pot from, and invited him to come to our reading.

Sometimes I wonder how people get any work done when they smoke pot, but Jeni's rain story was actually more interesting than I thought it was going to be when I first wrote about her a few weeks back.  I always think pot was just a high school thing. I forget people are really still doing it.

But then, I spend all of my time at other responsible people's houses.

"So I've been stalking all the people I went to high school with on Facebook, and 95% of them are married or had a baby or both."
"Oh my gosh, Rachel, that is not creepy at all," Kirsten scoffs while she scrubs the drains.
"You guys, this is really normal."
"OH MY GOSH," is the obligatory Roxanne response that I have come to know and count on in the harder moments of wearing a collared black shirt and chugging bitter espresso.
"Rachel, you know that it's only Utah that people get married so young."
"I know, Kirsten," I tell her, shoving ice from one side of the ice bin to the other with a grande scoop. "I'm trying to tell you that it makes me feel better that at least half of them have gotten fatter."
Kirsten laughs at me.


I had a dream, two nights ago that I I lived in Venice on a boat, and one afternoon got my arm chomped off by an alligator. But I knew it was a dream, as I was getting dragged behind a speedboat and the alligator was relieving me of one of my favorite extremities.
I don't wake up in fear as often.

Tonight, well, I feel a little better about the future. Maybe it is because the sun stays up later, yawning into the evening. Maybe it is a meeting I had with my professor about grad school, and it gave me hope for the months and years outside of my graduating in two weeks.

My parents give me Primetimes in my stocking each Christmas, because we traditionally only smoke on Christmas. But my father lit a pipe tonight so I dug up 3 Christmases worth of cherry Primetimes from my sock drawer and smoked a couple on our back porch.
I blew a few smoke rings into the here-and-there-breeze. I forgot that I knew how. I couldn't remember how I learned until I re-wound to four summers ago when I thought that I could still save the world.


I can't save the world.
 I've learned everything since that summer in black and white. But what I know is, if an alligator chomps me up tomorrow, then that was God's will for me.
And that it was His best will for me.

I think if one of us is going to suffer
why shouldn't it be me?

Blind Pilot

 

I thought, I will sit down. I will collect and organize myself, and then I will get one cup of coffee and close my eyes until class starts.

And then I hear,


"Hey. Hey! What's up?"
And I look up and see Jenny Lewis is talking to me. But it's not Jenny Lewis. I have had not that much sleep, and no coffee yet. I have had a morning as the slowest swimmer in Crossfit, and the slowest burpees,  and no sugar yet, and scrambling to finish my cramming for my Comm test and then sentence-tweaking to hand out my story to my workshop, and here I am talking to Jenny Lewis.
Well, her real name is Jenny, and she looks like Jenny Lewis.
Every class period, she gets up halfway through to go to the bathroom, and I think that She Is So Brave to do that. I always envision a life where you can drink as much water as you want and go to the bathroom whenever you please, and it's a far off goal, and the answer is marrying a rich guy and never working again.
But Jenny comes to sit next to me and I admit that I am nervous to hand out my piece. I picture her leaving in the middle of class to go to the bathroom. I see her lazy, lilting walk, like she was maybe once a dancer, and she is used to having the attention, even though her hair is starting to grey in her mid twenties, and she talks like a pot head.

She starts to explain that she is done with her workshop piece too, even though she doesn't have to hand it out for another week.
She wants to tell me the story she wrote.
She gives me uninterrupted eye contact, which is really hard for me to handle. This is because of history of eye-contacters and also that I know now that certain colors burn out when you look at them forever. I look at the color of her while she tells me, giggling, that her story is about two young girls who get caught in a storm, and then a ditch--
"You want to know what happens?" Jenny asks, her head tilted to one side like my Australian shepherd at dinner time.
"Yes," I say, because it is the polite thing, and I know how to make friends in college by now.
"I'm not going to tell you," she says, eating a piece of chocolate, but offering me some.
"Oh it's okay, I have chocolate too, in my lunch bag," I say, blushing, and looking away to give my eyes a break from looking at her eyes.
Can you get high by looking at someone who is probably stoned?
"Well my chocolate is better than yours," she jokes, even though I've had those Love Letter Chocolate Bars before and the love letters they come with are less than inspiring.
I smile again and look back at her.
"I'll tell you how it ends, because I know it's killing you," she says.
I nod, trying to figure out where she comes from. How do people end up the way they are? What did their parents do to them? What did their lovers do to them?
"Well, the girls gets stuck, but then her brother grabs her hand," she said.
I looked at her.

I looked at her for another second, and then I realized that she meant that that was the end, and I tried to all of the sudden feign surprise.
"Oh he saves her?" I acted very happy to know the end.
"Yeah, well you don't know for sure. It ends with him holding her hand."
"Wow. I'm so glad," I said, in what I believe was a convincing version of me. But then in that split instant I wondered, do people think I am convincing or do they know that I'm just a phony? They can probably tell by my clothes, even though I am the only girl in class with plucked eyebrows and mascara on.
"Yeah," she says, so sure of herself, that I suddenly feel sure of myself. I feel sure of the chocolate brand that I have in my lunch pail. I feel sure of my burpees and sure that I breathe the same air in my lungs that everyone else breathes... but that it feels richer to me in some moments, and when I am sad, it may feel richer to them in their moments.

And the rich, fresh piney air that I thought was just something I smelled during Green Air Days in Utah, was actually fresh mulch that they surrounded the trees in the courtyard that I walk through every afternoon.

But I don't give up.

When people say that thing of how their marriage grows better everyday, well...

That is how I feel about college, which is a really unfortunate thing. I'm enjoying the last of the days.
When I sleep at night, I try to think how I can turn them into more days.

I didn't think I would like Roxanne at the beginning. Sometimes she would do things that would bug me, but now I find myself embracing her strange behavior, and her surprising concerns.

"I think I'm going to go to Bosley, and have them help me with my eyebrows."
"Your eyebrows? What? What is Bosley?"
"You know it's that commercial where they take hair from the back of your head and put it on the front of your head if you need it. But I'm going to have them fill out my eyebrows."
 "What if your eyebrows start growing as fast as the rest of your hair on your head?"
"Well, I will just trim them then."

The thing is, Roxanne's eyebrows look fine, and because she is crazy, I start looking for
whatdoIthinkaboutthatiscompletelyirrational
And anyway. It's probably good that Roxanne doesn't sit down at her computer at night and tell the internet the things that I am saying. 

let's get everybody drunk on sunshine


As my bus started to leave the downtown area, I saw two guys out on the lawn of some closed salon, and they were fishing. They were casting their lines into the lawn, and the sidewalk. Over and over.

I always think I've seen everything until I leave the house. And I'm so glad other people do embarrassing things in public besides me.

I have an embarrassing admission.
I eat sardines and other canned fish.


Tanya is the only person who has ever made me feel okay about this. But the truth is, I'm a freaky eater.
So I always try to find a spot where no one will bother me while I eat the fish (okay guys. Canned fish is a high protein snack that is easy to pack when you are going to be away from a fridge all day. And I am practically a shark, I love fish so much) but today, this guy found me and asked me to take a survey and I looked at him and raised my eyebrows, like, are you really okay that there is a can of fish on the table?
But he survived.

I'm intoxicated on pool water. I'm drunk on music. Maybe I like the spring more than I thought.

I'm having non-fiction writer's block lately. I haven't been able to make my real life seem funny or interesting, because no one wants to hear how awesome my vacation was, or how I went to another wedding where the married couple was younger than me.

So I will just rely on Roxanne, because she is always good for a laugh, or a jaw dropping story, or when you need to break out into song.

Me: The truth is, Roxanne, I haven't had a boyfriend in a long time because I am not good at it.
Roxy: Yeah, me either. My last two boyfriends were an alcoholic and then a drug dealer. But I miss the money and the jewelry.

thoughts on this week

-I am in love with my new Crossfit coach. He is handsome and his voice is hoarse from yelling encouraging things all the time. Crossfit seems to be what makes me get out of bed every day. I know people always tell you that things are life-changing, but Crossfit saves me so much of the time from being a slave to my flesh. I never want to go but I'm so glad I do, and now I can't picture life without it.

-I am looking forward to my "babymoon" with my best friend in California where I am mostly picturing us lying on the beach and doing nothing for six days.

-I am still trying not to think about life after college, because it is horrifying like a Narnia that is always winter and never Christmas.
It is like an entire CD with songs that have no bridges.
It is like soda with no carbonation.
 And I only have seven weeks left before real life.

But I am keeping my heart wide open. God knows where the good goes.

Mariann and me, well we stopped taking the pills at the same time, and opened our faces wide to a cold December.
To a cold January.
To a cold--well it wasn't that cold but I felt myself waking up to my hands gone numb every morning and I would look over at her and how she could sleep with her mouth closed, and I took the suggested vitamins. Told myself the vitamins made me happier but I still ended up cutting off all of my hair as if to say,
well.

I guess I wanted to say that I was a brand new shiny page in Vogue for her.
That I was something she could hold on to, but she broke up with me, and I don't know if it's about breathing with my mouth open, or if I cooked breakfast in the wrong way, or if I laughed too easily while watching the news, or maybe she liked my hair longer,       or if she didn't need me anymore to be free of the pills all by herself.

She would send me these romantic text messages from time to time, afterwards, and I would stop the car to read them, and breathing would get harder for me. I could smell her there in the car. I would lean over and touch the passenger seat. I would clench the passenger seat and whisper the words you told me would help me, and I wouldn't respond to the messages.

And I became a certified camper and would camp all the nights that I didn't have to work in the morning. I would drive myself drunk into the mountains and set up the tent in the dark, and lay in my thermal sleeping bag, and bite off all the nails that I had left. I'd re-read the messages from her. Save them for good, then delete them for really good, then wish I hadn't deleted them and then
I would conjugate Spanish verbs until I fell asleep. In the morning, I could feel alive because it was really cold.
And that's what I was going to tell you, Sharon.

That even though.


That all of this.


That I still have hope, and that sometimes the hope has nothing to do with her, and I know that's a start.

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.

Source: fab.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I drive in to the night, wish for b l a c k in the rearview mirror
 and b l a c k up ahead in all directions, and just my two headlights.

I am surprised most days to have lived to be this age. I never thought that I would make it. And every year it keeps being more of a surprise. And somehow the Hope doesn't die.

I have been sleeping on air mattresses for 11 days. It feels like camping. Or, sometimes the one mattress on top of the other shifts askew, and I lay there rocking, like I am on a small vessel, hoping I do not wake up rocked into the water during the night. The router for the internet blinks above my head, so sometimes it is more of a submarine, silently submerged into sleepy waters. And in here, underwater, I actually dream that you come to get me. That I would be the one you would open up the door and say Here I am.
But I also think, how did I live to be this age, and sleeping on an air mattress. And how can I think I'd be a person that you would burst down the door for.

Some things I realized this morning:

-The only place open on campus to sell me a water bottle at 6:57 a.m. is the bowling alley
-I love Crossfit more than I love sleep
-The girl that leaves my alcove in the locker room right before I get back from Crossfit (smelling like a warthog before my shower), well, she smells like vanilla and candy, and I am so thankful for her.

Roxanne: And ever since I saw that show, I've been an animal lover.
Me: Do you have a dog?
Roxanne: Yes, but I don't like it or play with it that much. It's kind of annoying.

My grandpa has a really hard time hearing, and we all speak loudly to him, which feels kind of silly, if you imagine outsiders watching you yell every little thing.


But yelling every little thing is an act of love.

And I think, looking at my parents, who are just barely greeting their early fifties, It is really hard to imagine you going slowly deaf, but I love you so much that someday I will be yelling every little thing to you, if need be.


And love is a funny thing. It hides underneath the floorboards so that at the moments you feel like you have almost nothing in common with the people you are related to, you take a step and hear it creaking beneath your foot.

Love is exhausting.

"Well, they told me I have Chronic Fatigue, but I don't necessarily believe that that is a real thing. But I have been tired lately....actually I have been really tired (for a few years). Working and going to school, and now working two jobs. But falling asleep at a party does not necessarily mean that I have Chronic Fatigue."
-Hannah. Who is darling because she is usually trying to convince herself of something as she tells you a story.

"I am like them...You ought to see...You don't know me." She hesitated and her eyes came back to him, rested abruptly on his, as though surprised at last to see him there.

"I've got a streak of what you'd call 

cheapness.

I don't know where I get it but its--oh, things like this and bright colors and gaudy vulgarity. I seem to belong here. These people could appreciate me and take me for granted, and these men would fall in love with me and admire me, whereas the clever men I meet would just analyze me and tell me I'm this

because of this

or that because of that."

The Beautiful and the Damned

F. Scott Fitzgerald

My first day of school lived up to everything I was hoping it would be.

Maybe the key to staying happy after graduation is just getting out of the house.
Crossfit was super hard. I thought the whole time it was happening that I was dying, and I was sure it was harder than childbirth without drugs. But then it was over and I was so proud of myself and today my body is made out of China and I can barely move.

It felt good to be out, and be around.

But then I did lose my brand new phone on the bus, which is unfortunate, but something that was supposed to happen for some reason or another. So for the second time in a month, I'll probably be phoneless for five days, and living  in the 60's.

I had a wonderful dinner date with Shannon. I think I probably ate about 3000 calories altogether yesterday, but woke up feeling so skinny this morning, and I'm so glad working out is finally doing something. I think it just takes a couple weeks some times.

My brain feels like it finally woke up and I feel alive again.

The Week in Quotes


"Do we have to call it blonde, or can we call it light?"
-Maddy at our staff meeting on the new blonde coffees. She used to have blonde hair, which is why it's funny to me, and also we had spent the entire meeting talking about the specific way that Sbux was rebranding their coffees

"You know, people say I need to get a human baby..."
-Nick, while looking at Tilly with fatherly love

Me: I'm thinking about whether or not I want to get a Master's.
Heather H: Oh yeah, I should get one of those.




I'm really excited and nervous to try out Crossfit tomorrow. I feel like I'm joining the army. Especially because it's so early in the morning.
I'm excited to ride the bus again.
I'm excited Dan made my 5 year old laptop run like it is brand new, on Linux, and that the WiFi started working again. He is a genius.
I'm excited that it is finally getting cold outside. I sat in the hot tub, and it was glorious.
I'm encouraged.

I say to myself, as I rub my fingerprints off in hot dish-washing water, "Don't go there. Don't think about the past, because the past will only sound sweet right now." 
I swipe the credit cards of other human beings who are hiding stuff.
They could even be hiding as much as I am, beneath the surface.
I think of men and women in other countries who will for the rest of their lives have to hide their feelings beneath the surface. In arranged marriages, in politically oppressed places, in the wilderness, in the poverty, in crappy apartments, in Cleveland, in Tokyo, in Portugal. There are other people going through what I am, and that makes me feel less alone.
There are people going through harder things than I am, and that makes me a privileged young woman.

But in the end, God is good. His grace is sufficient to get through this life, and this life will seem shorter later, when we are staring down our murderer (whether it be man, or illness, or tsunami, or vehicle moving at 72 mph) and we might wish we had eaten more donuts when we craved them or we might wish we had shared the Gospel with more people, or we might wish we had kissed our first true love. But in the end, God is still good, and that is how I sleep at night.

I keep living the same day over and over. But I saw the Moores one day in this week, and that's the only thing keeping me from blowing my brains out.

Today Megan was telling me this story of how she got a nose bleed in her car, and couldn't find any tissue anywhere.
"So I stuck a tampon up my nose to stop the bleeding," she told me. I laughed really hard and turned to Zeth.
"This is why you are gay, isn't it Zeth? Girls are so gross." And he laughed and just nodded.


I'm counting the days until school starts again. I can't pretend that my job is real life, at all.

"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.

and so this is Tuesday

My baby iPod spit out some good things on shuffle this morning.
This is a blessing of a week. Nothing due, only three shifts at work.

Yesterday, Jayme and I spent the afternoon and most of the night drinking mimosas and watching Amelie and Arrested Development. She is watching AD for her first time, and I was mouthing all of the lines along with the characters, which surprised her. The mimosas weren't strong enough to make us silly, but just sleepy all afternoon. These are the days when I feel so overprivileged.

I need to get back to the gym. I quit caring about muscles over Thanksgiving, and I was eating nonstop tacos all the other days of the weekend. But I'm starting Crossfit in 5 weeks, and I'm terrified.

As I was sitting on the bus today, I was wondering about all the dreams I can't remember when I wake up. Wondering about the content. If they are more dreams about Jeff Bridges. Wondering where the dreams go.

I got a Twitter a few weeks ago, when I was sitting next to Matt in our story telling class, (because he basically told me I should) and while I don't fully understand it, it is kind of fun.

The phenomenon that is happening to me, is that I feel like I have friends that don't know I exist.

I forgot about my Twitter account until I was reading this girl's blog post for Hello Giggles (Annie Stamell) and she was so hilarious. It gave a link to follow her on Twitter, and then I figured out this way to get her Tweets sent to my phone. (I am living in the stone age, I do not have a smart phone. I'm trying to make my dumb phone do smart things.)

So the result is, I get her text/tweets in the middle of the night, or when I wake up in the morning, and it is kind of like having a best friend who texts me all the time, and texts me quality, funny things.



So.
I've worked 19 of the last 28 hours. Three shifts.  I think I just put mini travel shampoo on my hands thinking it was a mini travel lotion. I am very ready to go walk the dog, make some tacos, shower, and nap. The Lord is my strength. There is no other reason I could still be so happy but His love. He just keeps answering prayers, yes, and no, and maybe. He is good to me.

Anthony: One morning, over at Elizabeth's beach house, she asked me if I'd rather go water-skiing or lay out. And I realized that not only did I not want to answer THAT question, but I never wanted to answer another water-sports question, or see any of these people again for the rest of my life.

Bottle Rocket (1996)

It just never gets old for me.

Dignan: Here are just a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole vaulting, laughing gas, choppers - can you see how incredible this is going to be? - hang gliding, come on! 

Monday, you wonderful friend


As I sprawled out over our rocking armchair in the basement, eating cake and drinking coffee for breakfast, and watching some recording of Jason Mraz on Palladia, I thought,


a) I am so glad not to be working nine to five, Monday to Friday anymore.
b) God blesses me immensely.

I got through my horrible vegetable/fruit fast yesterday. I was starving after only three hours of it, and no matter how many veggies I ate, or how much protein they had, it just doesn't fill you like bread or pork chops. I was seeing stars by the time I was reading in my bed that night. And my dad told me at 10:30 that Bill said the meeting for this morning got called off, and that I could eat as much as I want, but I was doing such a good job, and getting so much out of it, that I made it til this morning. I don't know how Arminda did that fast so long, because I'd be dead.

When I first worked at Starbucks, I had this coworker named Jamie. And while she was a little wacky, she kind of inspired me, because she would do these weird challenges. Every year on her birthday she would challenge herself to something crazy that she would have to carry out until her next birthday. One year it was not drinking, one year it was being vegan. Stuff like that.

I thought about her this morning as I ate two pieces of cake with my Christmas Blend coffee, and thought about how Uncle Bill asked us to fast and pray for the church building today and tomorrow morning, and I thought, at the very least, I could just eat fruits and vegetables for the rest of the day and for breakfast tomorrow. (I have a hard enough time not passing out even when I am eating.) So I went to the gym to burn off the cake, and on the way home picked up a whole bunch of stuff that grows from the ground to eat for the rest of the day.

I didn't drink any alcohol last night, even though I thought it would help me sleep better. It's one of my favorite lies I tell myself. And I was really proud when I woke up this morning. I won't have any tonight, either. If I did this vegetable thing twice a month, I think that would be good for my heart and my prayer times with God, and my self control issues.

I don't have a paper to write, and I have two days off of work and school. I think I'm going to catch up on the last six months of movies.

Happy Sunday!

The interview went well.


God could not have blessed me with a better subject. Chad interviewed beautifully, and had really strong points about immigration, and hopefully my professors and classmates will be blown away by his story.

The end of the semester: I can't believe it's already here. It's sad and wonderful.
I'm currently reading
One Hundred Years of Solitude  (Marquez)
Across A Hundred Mountains (Grande)

And finally had pho for the first time in six to eight months, with Celisse, got ice cream cones, and watched Bridesmaids again. It's been a good week.

"I would like a glass of alcohol, please."
-Ellie Kemper's character on Bridesmaids

The Freshmen and Sophomore students at the U keep trying to wear tights in new and unusual ways. But wearing a black dress with red translucent tights just makes you look like a star in a horror movie. And wearing leggings instead of pants is just giving people permission to look at your butt and try to figure out what kind of underwear (if any) you have on.

I am really hepped up today.

I had maybe one cup of coffee, but I feel like I could run ten miles, and I think I'll go try. I had a short shift at work, and now I'm really nervous but excited to interview this guy Chad for my digital storytelling class. I'll post the video after finals, if it's any good. But I haven't met him, and I worry that I'm going to ask the wrong questions or that I will look like a fool trying to set my camera up. It's silly.

I have so much energy that I've been pouring into writing and running around and it's giving me a stomach ache, but I like it. 

I've been sleeping less, but last night I had this dream I was an assistant hit man with Jeff Bridges, and the cast of Community was in our movie. Jeff Bridges and I faked our own deaths in an explosion and hid in this cold dark boiler room of a hotel, and I thought I was going to die while we were asleep, but then I woke up, and made sure all the doors were locked. Even though I was the bad guy.

"In my dreams, I can feel the weight, I can just come clean...

I keep it to myself. I know what it means.

I can't have you...I have dreams."

-Brandi Carlile

My favorite coworker is Elaine, I think. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but Elaine is an exception because she is awesome. I think she is everyone's favorite.

She's a fiery red head, with what I can only describe as a deep California voice. 

"What's open at ten-thirty?" She looks at me, walking out for her lunch.

"La Frontera," Alex says.

Elaine fakes throwing up.

"Subway?" I say.

"That's right, you're a good woman, Rachel. I forgot about that."

"You forgot I was a good woman? Or about Subway?" I ask her, but she's already gone. I walk back to the other side of the pastry case and re-brew coffee.

The phone rings.

"Thanks for calling Starbucks, this is Rachel."

I can hear a deep throaty laugh.

I start laughing. Neither of us can even speak for ten seconds.

"What's up?" I ask.

"The milkman is here," she laughs. I keep laughing too, because the best thing about Elaine is she legitimately thinks every thing she says is really funny. "And it's not his baby!"

I can't stop laughing, even though a customer is standing there, waiting for me to get off the phone. 

I can't think why she would call to tell me that. There is literally no reason, except that she thought it was a hilarious joke.

Everything is funny when you get four hours of sleep. I missed this in ways I couldn't remember.

I feel like I'm teenaging again.

"So my brother says to the guy, 'Oh look, your iPhone screen is cracked.' And the guy stands up and says, 'No I don't do crack anymore, I just like the way it smells.'"

-Elaine