6.26.2006

confession

I am a slut.
I am a hypocrite.
I don’t do what I say I will.
I do what I say I won’t.
I gossip, I judge upon sight, and I waste.
I sell myself short.

My heart is full of stones.

6.03.2006

everything

Tonight I watched Pride and Prejudice with some girlfriends. We were talking about how dances back then were so exciting because it was the only time you got to touch anyone of the opposite sex. That must have been so hard!

I've always loved that moment when Darcy helps Lizzy into the carriage and flexes his hand. It's HOT. And then at the end, when they talk in the field as the sun is rising and they don't kiss, all they do is touch noses...

It may seem odd, but I think that might have been enough for them. It may have even been too much.


Sometimes when my ex would kiss me, it wouldn't be a particularly passionate kiss, but it would be SO good. I would feel like I was going to explode. It was amazing. I have never felt anything like that before. I wasn't expecting it, and it took me by surprise - took my breath away.

For Darcy and Elizabeth, finally being able to be together, to say that they loved each other, to be able to touch each other...I'm sure it took their breath away. It may have been so overwhelming that to kiss would have made them explode.
So touching noses, touching hands and foreheads...finally being that close to the one you love..must feel like everything.

5.08.2006

from last year

I wrote this on a folder in an airplane during the holiday season of 2004. I can't remember if I was going home for Thanksgiving or Christmas.


The lights on the tips of the wings flash brightly in the black, black night. Little dashes of white blaze across my view out the tiny window, like static on a television or something electronic. I realize that it is raining.
We pull through the clouds and I see the points of light that comprize a city. too small to be Huntsville.



So many times I am near the wing of a plane. Now I am on top of it. The Exit Row. Can I understand and speak English and assist in the case of an emergency? I wonder what kind of emergency would leave me alive and this part of the plane available for exit. The sign on the wall/door/window says that the emergency door weighs 31 lbs. Even I could move that in an emergency. Right?

Turbulence. Lurches. My stomach protests.

It's been a long time since those tacos at lunch and the chips in the car.

5.03.2006

whipped

You know when Jesus drove the merchants out of the temple?
John says that he made his own whip.
I wonder what it looked like when he was making that thing...
was he muttering under his breath?
was he perfectly calm?
was he talking to his disciples about how the whole thing was just wrong?


It seems like these things could tell us a lot about what Jesus was like. But they're not included. I guess when you tell a story, you bring in what was most important to you. What was most memorable to you. And other things were more important and/or memorable to them.
So maybe they should be more important to me.


In other news, I wish I could play the guitar.

4.06.2006

moral dilemma

Is it bad to hope for death for someone else? One of the side effects
of modern medicine is that people live long enough to become a burden
to their families. My grandmother, for instance. She has had several
strokes, so she can't verbalize complete sentences anymore. She has
fallen and broken her arm in such a way that the doctors can't really
do anything about it, because there is no place to put a pin because
she had her shoulder replaced (several times) already. She is too
frail to go under anesthesia, so they can't opperate. She doesn't want
to use her insurance money to live in an assisted care place because
she shouldn't have to do that. Everyone else in the world should, but
not my grandmother. So, she's in pain, she's unable to care for
herself in so many ways, she is difficult to deal with anyway, and my
Aunt is the one bearing the brunt of it. And she is my Aunt
through marriage! I just feel like things would be better for everyone
involved if Grandmother would just get to go home. She would get a new
body, get to be with her husband, and my Aunt could focus on her family
and her health. Maybe this is ageist of me, but is what Grandmother
is doing really living? I'm glad I'm not God. I don't know enough, or
maybe even love enough, to make those decisions.

3.04.2006

automatic pilot

When I'm in distress, whether it be stress or confusion or unhappiness, sometimes I find it hard to function. I get so wrapped up in my thoughts, in my continuous replay of what happened that I can't focus on anything else. The necessities of life go to automatic pilot.

Other times, I simply can't think. I can't identify individual thoughts in my head. The path is too twisted, too complicated, to intertwined between my life and others'.

Sometimes I choose not to think because the thoughts would be too distressing - I go into denial, in a way.

Today feels like a mix of the second two. I feel like I need to think - to sort things through - but I can't pin down exactly what to focus on. I'm not even sure I want to think about it. I have too much real stuff to think about anyway.

Yeah, relationships - and their ending - are messy.
Even more so when they involve a friend.
And the inability (both literal and figural) to remove yourself from the mess.


2.24.2006

a metaphor

Healing from emotional wounds is knitting.
You make progress - you get better - you go forward a loop or two.
But then you fall back.
But the falling back isn't pointless.
It isn't always masochistic.
The thread must move backward to fix the forward loops in place.
It's reinforcing the design.
And in the end, after many, many, forward-backward iterations, you have something good.
A scarf.
A sweater.
A hat.
A baby blanket.
A whole.

2.20.2006

one of those weird 'I'm-not-fully-awake' moments

In my benadryl-induced haze as I was waking up this morning, I remembered something my ex had done. Some words he had spoken that I had to get over, get around, get past.
And I could see the action frozen in time. A frame. A square. I tried to walk around it - to avoid it on one side so that I could get to the other side and move on with my life. And as I got to a different perspective on it, I could see that it was three dimensional. It was a prism-like solid, deeper in the middle than on the ends. It was bigger than I thought. I could see it rotating on some central axis like in computer imaging programs. I tried to keep walking. I kept bumping into it. It kept getting in my way. I never got around it.
It was frustrating.
If I had been more fully awake, I might have cried.
But if I had been more fully awake, it might not have happened.

2.19.2006

uring

When my parents first got married, they knew a lady who tried very hard to be proper in her speech. She never said runnin' or fixin' - always running. fixing. She was SO proper that she would add a 'g' to the end of all words that ended in 'in' - regardless of weather she should or not.
This produced such gems as:
  • muffing
  • robing
  • uring
It was all my parents could do not to laugh.


Tonight, I saw a guy walking his dog along the streets of Dover. Some contentious citizen had already placed their trash out on the curb for pick-up in the morning. The bright green bag with the Dover city seal was a good enough target for the dog, and apparently it was also good enough for the guy.

In the morning, some poor trash man will have to pick up that bag covered in frozen dog uring.

2.17.2006

pain

I can understand cutters now.

Emotional pain is hard to deal with. When it's really bad, there's no banged toe to hold, no aching back to massage, no headache to avoid light and loud noises for the sake of.
There's just this non-localized, pervasive, almost unbearable pain. You can't touch it or make it go away by what you do.
Being able to say, "I cut my finger. My finger hurts." helps. It is comforting.
Especially when you can say "My finger hurts because I cut it."
Emotional pain is not always clearly defined or caused or understandable. It can leave you confused and hurting even more.

As a psychology student, I had heard about this reasoning, and I realized that it made sense, but now I can relate. Empathy is much easier. Understanding is easier.


Hearing the wind rush around my protruding room while the boards in this old house creak is comforting.

2.02.2006

baby belt


When I was young, I had a belt.
This belt was special. It was made of an elastic band with the word 'jeans' written all the way around. Even better, the buckle was...


a magnet.

I loved that belt. I was just learning to read when I was wearing it, so I took pride in the fact that I could tell that it said 'jeans' all the way around and imprinted on the buckle. I liked to bring the magnet close to the metal and feel the tug of magnetic force as they got closer and closer together. I liked to stretch it when i wasn't wearing it. I'm pretty sure I frequently wanted to wear it with the rainbow suspenders with the yellow, button-like clips.
But most of all, I was proud of myself for figuring out, all on my own, that 'jeans' had to be upside down for me so that other people could read 'jeans' when they looked at my little pot-bellied waist. That way, I knew which way to put it on in the morning.

Mommy's big girl.
I'm sure she was very proud.



A year or two ago, I found the magnet jeans belt at home. I like belts now, (I guess it was the excellent experience with them in my childhood that paved the way), and I have quite a collection. But, of course, there's always room for one more. So...I stretched out the elastic and continue to wear the belt to this day.
Always careful to make sure you don't have to flip your head upside down to read.

1.30.2006

for the sake of posting again

Yesterday when I woke up, I could see, through the curtains, that the sky was red. All I could think about was Legolas saying "A red dawn rises. Blood has been spilt this night." in that breathy voice.
A pox upon you Orlando Bloom! You and your hypnotic, hideous voice!

Earlier, I was washing my hands and looking at myself in the mirror (yes, I'm narcissistic like that), and I realized that I had one eyebrow raised!!! I've never been able to do that before! Not without my fingers, at least. But as soon as I realized what was going on, I lost it. Couldn't get it back.
Weird.

I got some little oil lamps from a friend for Christmas. I finally got the funnel out and filled them up yesterday. I lit them, they burned, and it was nice. But then the smoke detector went off, and it wasn't. So I blew them out. I'm going to have to find a better place for them.

Murphy, the neighbor/landlord's dog, likes to bark at me. When I'm INSIDE MY OWN HOUSE! My room and the bathroom are on the back of the house, so whenever I'm in either of those rooms and he's in the back yard, he can sense my presence with his doggy-senses and he barks at me. Sometimes, it deteriorates into a little sneeze of a bark. It's fun. :(

And now, I should go do actual work. The Defense is coming sooner than I think.

11.04.2005

i wish i were a poet

if i were a poet, i could describe to you the way the blanket of clouds looked as i flew over new england, or the way the clouds looked through the part as the sun illuminated them from below.
if i were a poet, i could show you, in words, how the colors melted from navy through green and yellow to burning orange and shades of red.
if i were a poet, i could map out cities in golden lights that shine through the darkness at thirty thousand feet.
if i were a poet, i could tell you about how my granddaddy didn't smile as he lay there. that can't be my granddaddy.
if i were a poet, i could play for you a recording of my uncle's unchanging laugh or my father's seldom-heard sobs.
if i were a poet, i could impart the peace that i felt as we drove across flat, dark west texas and i could see the milky way and 6 falling stars.
if i were a poet, i could grow for you the water lilies that my granddaddy cultivated in arid texas that were given to us in memoriam.
if i were a poet, i could make you sit through the ride home with the awkwardness that you alone created.
if i were a poet, i could tell better stories.

8.20.2005

chief

Could the presence of a Best Buy be a sign of a "developed" nation?
It's full of things that you don't "need" or can't afford if you're poor.
I know it's a big temptation of mine...all those movies and cd's and ipod accessories and digital cameras and printers and computers and big screen tvs...

things i can totally live without and, yet, seem to snatch up (the smaller items anyway...) like they're food!

I recently decided to sponsor a child through World Vision. This will take $35 from me a month. When I think about it on my summer paycheck, it seems like a lot...but then I just went and spent $25 on dvds!!!

I told myself that I would watch how I spent my money so that I could put my Brazilian child first...



people are selfish.
Americans are selfish.

and I am their chief


8.16.2005

thoughts on leaving bible study

i am really amazed at how, once God brings something to my attention, he continues to do so over and over again.

i am really, for once, actually humbled at the opportunity to be a part of his work. i am so excited about what is happening in the life of my friend.

i'm starting to get annoyed at one of my friends in the study. it's not that she says things that i belive are untrue, it's the way she says them. it's basically my problem. i just feel like she drones on and on when she wants to make a point. and her manner seems forced somehow. and tonight, she prayed and prayed and prayed...
i found it odd because recently we had discussed the passage that talks about letting our words be few before God...sigh. i'm just easily annoyed i guess. and arrogant. i feel bad about saying anything to anyone here, and i'm not mentioning names, and i don't think anyone even reads this...so i can get it out without all the ..whatever.