Panther

It's weird when you talk to people your own age and realize just how much younger than you your husband really is.

And by you I mean me, of course. 

Yes, he is only 4 years younger than me, nearly five, and most of the time, it is no big deal. We both think alike, we both share the same interests, the same goals, we both want the same life, etc.

It's the little things, like what grade he was in the first time he heard Korn's debut CD or not knowing who Carol Burnett is, or not remember my generation's Doctor Who (#4, played by Tom Baker) because his tenure ended one year after he was born (granted, it ended when I was 4, but given that I caught up when I was 13 and my husband 9, I think you see my point). 

The thing that reminds me the most of our age difference is the years he remembers doing things. In 1994, I was running down Comm Ave in Boston, MA listening to the first Korn album, a freshman in college. In 1994, my husband was stomping pie into the new band room carpet because his band director hated him, a freshman in high school. Again, I think you see my point.

I'm not one to talk, mainly because I'm completely anachronistic. I listen to music from the 20s to today. I know television programs that existed decades before my birth. I watch shows generally delegated to the young and/or the elderly. I have odd habits that put me, at different times, with different groups of people. It may explain why my husband and I get along so well. Sure, we don't have a vast age difference, like some people do, but we do have a little trouble communicating culturally when I have to explain Tim Conway's ad lib style on the Carol Burnett show because he's never seen it. 

Musically, my husband is just as anachronistic. He knows music from the 60s and 70s like people who lived during those times. I'm out of the loop when it comes to the music he loves, but somehow, we make it work, even if he doesn't know who Mrs. Wiggins and Mr. Tudball are. 

Moving Again...

Anybody want to help?

Well, it's that time again, when a young couple's fancy turns to saving money. They have to move out of their lovely apartment to a different apartment and now they needs to find someone to rent their old lovely apartment.

Does that sound like something that should happen every spring? I'm hoping one day the "big move" will be the permanent one. But also, I love to travel and if I had to keep moving, I don't think I would mind. I just wish I had the moola to pay someone to move the big stuff.

It's been a long few weeks (months?) since I last wrote. Nothing much has happened. How do you make nothing interesting?

I mean, the most interesting, devastating thing that's happened is the tornado(s) that ripped through Macon, causing a state of emergency, an 8pm curfew (which I have yet to adhere to) and lots of destruction. I haven't even seen it all. I haven't been on Mercer, I don't know what Monroe county looks like, I haven't seen what my families' houses might look like, it's ridiculous. The worse we got is lost power for more than 12 hours and a piece of bark on the sunroof of the car. It was a big piece of bark. The front yard of the parent house (the house my current landlords live in) looked like the trees shed their skin or something, but the street I'm moving to, Magnolia, looked like nothing happened... well, almost. 

Washington Park looked a bit messy, but not too bad and a couple of branches came off a few trees at the top of the street. Yet just a mile up, destruction, no power, no water, and looting as people took advantage of some people's lack of power. A friend of mine works for a Big Store and she had to go to work that day - no one was about and the boss didn't understand. It couldn't have been that bad, he said, because it wasn't on the news. Well, I didn't have power, I wouldn't know. All I know is that I got lots of checking on me calls that morning and I sent out a few of my own. 

It was a good day for sleeping and when we couldn't sleep anymore, we went to a friend's house, later played kickball in gale force winds trying to figure out where we would run to if a tornado touched down again, and then going back to eat, sore, exhausted, ready to go home once the lights came on. 

So yeah, nothing much has happened. Maybe I'll have something interesting to say in August when I get back from South Africa. 

Speaking of Babies...

Lauren or Michael?

Damnit!

Baby Shower

I was invited to a baby show. I don't usually go to those things because most of my friends are guys and guys don't usually GO to those things. But this particular friend has a fiance like me (which may be why I like her) and she had a shower that was both sexes.

The night before, I find out that a friend of mine and his wife will be there. He and I were chatting and as we discussed the shower, we hoped there would be beer. Then we realized that, for what we might be about to put up with - a baby shower, possibly only knowing each other and the mom and dad, and a baby shower - there had better be beer. 

The shower turned into a reunion of sorts. It turns out that A., the mother, knows some of the same people I know. So we all grab a beer, Newcastle (A., the dad's, favourite) and we stand around the food table talking and laughing. All the guys but one were husbands of someone. all the girls but 2 were the wives of someone. Every woman at the shower were all women who don't usually have other women as friends, so it wasn't so bad. I lasted nearly 30 minutes laughing and talking in the living room with them before I started to yperventilate and went outside to hand with the guys. They laughed at me, then we went in to watch A. open her gifts. I would like to say that part was fun, but we stood around in the back of the room talking undour our breath and drinking more Newcastles.

My gift was not in a pretty bag with a card. I realized then that I need a wife who would make sure that all that stuff was right for other people. As it were, my gift was more last minute than I would have liked. I mean, I was sick for two days preceding. That should be some kind of excuse, right?

In the end, it was a great time. I got to drink a few beers with friends, I got to eat some great food, had some really excellent chocolate cake (it was a baby face, complete with pacifier - very cute, if you're into that sort of thing) and to say a good time was had by all would be making light of a great time.

Being Away

First of all, I am typing on a keyboard that is set up very different - the outside keys anyway. I can't connect to the internet because neither one of us knows the other language well enough to get the same information from his windows computer to my mac.

Anyway. you know how it is when you are away from home. You like that you are gone, you enjoy your environment, but you really miss the things of home. Not things like food. but things like hanging out with your friends every Thursday and watching LOST together and waking up snuggled next to your husband or just walking around your own house.

We are on day 8 of our 10 day trip and although I love being here (here, right now, is France!!!!!!!!), I really want to go home.

No Fun

Lately, all I've done is work, do extra work to make some money for my trip, and sit at Joshua Cup doing all my web surfing while my husband works. 

I watched the show Quarterlife and I think I'm going to start a videoblog as well. Although mine won't tell about the lives of all my friends, because I don't have any.

I'm only kidding - all my friends read this blog, so eventually, they will comment and out themselves with only slight nudging from me.

I'm too excited about going to Europe. And then after that, I'm going to Africa with commenter bigben and his lovely wife. 

I'm becoming addicted to word games. I've been playing Scrabulous on Facebook with a couple of friends. I have three games going. One I'm doing okay, the other I just started with the guy who graduated as the salutatorian of our high school... I graduated #7. Then I'm getting my ass kicked by someone I met online a long time ago. The score is 273 to 237 and I have seven letters which all have a base score of 1... basically all vowels and I've been adding them to words here and there. That game sucks... I've already lost one game (also against bigben) and that sucks even more, because it shows the score and if I lose them all, then what kind of writer am I? I feel like I'm lagging behind, even though I still consider myself a word nerd. 

I'm also playing this game called Eight Letters Word Game. That's getting to be addictive. And always, when I'm on whatever is the highest level and I can't figure out what the 8 letter word is so I'm trying to string together as many words as I can to make my points, someone comes up and talks to me. Even in my own home. I hate feeling rude, but I gotta increase my score! It's a fun little game though.

So, yeah, all I do is sit and do things at the computer. Sometimes that includes writing, sometimes not. I got good advice from Chris Offutt and that was to write for one minute every day. I can do that. It doesn't seem like a lot and it keeps stretching into longer periods of time. I mean, there are days when I'll be writing for hours, but then there are days when I don't touch the keyboard for the purpose of storytelling. So one minute a day is getting me into a habit I should have developed long ago - writing something everyday.

Okay, I'm done boring you.

The God I Believed In Part 2

So, of course, you don't realize all the ways you have become "churched" while you are in the midst of it. My rude awakening came when I moved to California.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God told me to go there. There has always been a God voice in my head since the first encounter with Him and the cavalier way he'd asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. As I explained, the God voice has been there amongst all the voices, but now, I was no longer 4 or 5 with only my mom's ideas or my own drifting in and out of my head. I was filled with the words that had been taught me for the past 9 years I'd been engaged in religion. Like I said, God's voice is lost in all of that, but occasionally, He would tell me to do something.

I remember one night, I was working for Americorps. I was doing a reading program at this inner city school. Someone came to the school looking for me because they needed information that I hadn't finished. I had to go back to my office. At that time, I was the only body in my office. I told them I would get them the information tomorrow and planned to go the next day. But The Voice told me to go that night. I walked into my dark office and the radio was on, which put me on alert. I turn off everything when I leave for the day. The person talking was the director of the writing program I eventually applied for and I was accepted. I spent a month in California learning about writing for television and I found a church there that I loved. This church was full of information, like my church at home, but for the first time, when I sat through a service, I didn't have that familiar tightness in my chest. I didn't feel as if this church was about striving or determining things for others. The people that invited me to go with them loved God, but I met them over drinks at a restaurant, then we went to a bar to play pool and continued drinking. They weren't worried about what others were thinking of them and they weren't afraid to talk about God and religion to us or anyone around us.

When I got back to my southern town, I knew I had stared into the beginning of a lesson about God that I am still in the midst of. I knew that nothing was the same. I was no longer satisfied with my church, with what I was being taught. I wasn't instantly better, but the series of events that led to me going back to California gave me what little insight I've been able to offer about myself and how I believed in this series of posts.

Even going to California was one of 5 total times where The Voice said something to me. Only once would I say The Voice ever came close to being a physical voice. Every other time, it was an inclination so strong that I didn't know where it came from and it was for something that had not been a concern until that moment. Living in California was one of those time.

Churched people always tell you that if God tell you to do something, that He will provide for you. If He doesn't provide for you, then maybe you didn't hear God. In California, I was on welfare, sexually harassed at the first job I got, had to go back on welfare, finally got a part time job that paid enough, and got in a car accident. Those are the negatives, the things I remember first when I think about that year in Cali. I did go back to that church that was so restful to me, I made new friends whom I loved, I connected with old friends whom I loved and I solidified my relationship with the man who is now my husband. When I wrecked my car, one of those old friends gave me a car, which got me back home when it was finally time for me to leave. But despite the good, the overwhelming tone of my time in Cali was negative. My mom told me that if it was that bad, God must not have told me to go, I heard wrong, and I needed to pray.

But I know, even in the middle of my confusion, that the only reason I was in California was because of God. He wanted me to know that what I had been told about Him was only half truths, dogmatic beliefs of people who didn't want to know Him, even as they bragged about their comprehensive knowledge of Him. They wanted to be an authority on the Bible and, even as I fought this thought, even as I clung to my churched beliefs, I began to know that what my church family of 9 years knew about God was less than what I'd learned in those 9 months... that my knowledge of God grew in that short time more than it had in the past nine years. I was finally getting back to that God I first believed in.

Saving My Life

I recently went to an event at the local college where Chris Offutt talked to us, ostensibly to talk about writing for television (HBO in particular), but really about how little he knew about writing for television (this was his first foray into that world). He learned how episodes were outlined on the board, learned how the writer's room worked and learned that if he asked for gatorade and chocolate, that it would magically appear the next day.

He was very entertaining. He'd written a few books, a couple of books of short stories, a novel and a memoir. I bought a book of short stories called Kentucky Straight and had him sign it. He wrote "To a fellow writer - keep writing. Writing will save your life and keep you sane." When I first read it, I almost laughed. Writing is driving me crazy. All the things I want to say, I can't articulate with my fingers. If it came down to it, my thoughts and ideas would disappear into the ether rather than reveal themselves for immortality on paper. But the very next second, I knew he was right. I thought about my blogs and how they have been my glue. Even if I couldn't write a short story or a spec script to save my life, I could always come here or to my previous incarnations and talk about it. I could talk about the crazy things happening and sometimes, even make fun of myself when in real life, that was very hard to do.

Saving my life... that's something I would never had said about writing before, but in a way, every thing in my life has been processed through writing. I was first and foremost a journaler. I wrote about the things going on just to gain some sort of insight into myself. It never came right away, but it did come as I re-read my journals from years ago, the juvenile things that happened even after I'd long aged to maturity, the hopes and dreams I had that I didn't think would be realized, but have. The friends I've lost are forever captured between those pages, recalling times that I want to say were better but which I know for a fact were not.

Now, if only I could talk to people without putting my foot in my mouth or making them feel dumb (which, to those of you who know me is completely unintentional - I promise!), maybe I will feel like I'm getting somewhere.

The God I Believed In

In the world of Christianity, especially the small world of Bible Belt southern Christians, there are two worlds. Churched and Unchurched. Now, people will tell you that Unchurched people can be "saved" that ever ambiguous term that Christianity clings to with all its soul, but most will agree that it is highly impossible for someone to be "saved" and not going to Church.

For the first year of my Christian life, I was Unchurched. I was in college, making friends, partying, going to classes, the normal thing, but there was a difference. I made friends easier, I was nice, I truly enjoyed being around people and they truly enjoyed being around me. I started helping out at our Catholic ministry on campus (all protestant services were off campus) with my roommate, I loved the people I met, the Catholic priest that ran the ministry was very unorthodox to say the least and he welcomed me as well. In a sense, it was very like the thing you would think God wants from us, to get along with everyone, to really enjoy being with people, anyone from classmates and roommates to the homeless people we ministered to. I don't know how many times I got asked out by homeless people because I was as open in talking to them as I was to my friends. When I left school that year (financial and personal home crisis abounding) I came home a depressed woman. I missed the freedom and ease of being there. I was going to church but getting nothing because my goal was no longer just gathering information. I wanted to be impactful.

I wanted people to feel at ease around me. I wanted people to not feel judged. That first part of my salvation was a breath of fresh air from God, the part that made me love being a Christian because I could be there for anyone and I didn't judge anything. I didn't know how. I didn't have those tools in my Christian arsenal.

We decided to leave the church we were going to, which I was glad of and started going to another church. This church was so welcoming and they were different. The pastor didn't scream and yell, he had insight into the Bible and went deeper than face value. He taught us how to read the Bible. He told us he wanted us to be able to discern truth from fiction. These were learned men teaching us "the Word". I had a few disagreements (I have never been anti-gay, although I did learn Church speak so that my fellow parishioners wouldn't realize that and, eventually, couldn't separate what I should believe as a Christian from what I actually believed).

Somewhere in there, while I was trying to learn, I became Churched. It was more than showing up on Sundays and Wednesdays, teaching a class, being there, basically, whenever the doors opened. Yes, I went to church. But I became Churched. I learned how to hate while saying that I was doing something in love. I learned how to judge others, the standard being me and my understanding of God's word (which, also, was in accord with the rest of what my church believed). I learned how to use the Bible against people. I learned how to use the Bible to help me. I was discerning and I used that against people, getting my way because I was learning the tricks of the trade. Being a Christian could be powerful.

There were still a few things in there, things I learned outside of my church. My church taught me that just because someone didn't believe what I believed didn't mean they weren't Christians. This stayed with me and made me much more tolerable to others than I should have been. I believed God could interact with me personally (my church believed God only spoke through the Bible) and my prayers, although I see it now as being a bit self focused, my prayers were answered. I will say always answered because I do not remember any prayer that was worth something going unanswered. In my life, I have gotten everything I've prayed for. I have been sustained financially even though I'm bad with finances. My health is good, I am in love with my husband and he is smarter than me (in many ways) and funny. I don't hate my dad anymore and I have love and patience in my heart for my mom and the rest of my family.

But I was very judgemental. As I look back now, I didn't even realize how easy it was to appear humble even as I made myself the standard. I worked hard to be this way or that way, according to God's Word (the Bible) and God's standard. You should too. You either did things the way I thought they should be done, or it was "on you" when you had to suffer the consequences of your own bad decision making. I would tell people who they should or shouldn't be with, I would tell people what they should or shouldn't do. I even told people what God would or wouldn' t do. I would make sweeping proclamations against anyone and anything that tried to step on the God I believed in.

I promise you, that God was very different from the God I started out with.

New Post

Because you've waited long enough.

And by "you" I mean I. I've been working on the next segment of the saga of my life. It sucks that I'm working so hard and all you'll get is whatever comes out in the end. And by you, I mean I.

I'm dealing with a bunch of shite, mainly self imposed, but I'm working on loosening my own mind to let me just be, to learn to grow, to not be so worked up, as I most often am.

My husband and I have a sign for when I'm all worked up. It can happen anywhere. In the car, in the coffee shop, in my home, on the job. It starts with idiots and it always ends with my head exploding (to borrow a phrase from a friend). If my anger was my superpower, my head would be aflame, like Ghost Rider. Okay, the sign is my hands going beside my head and then me miming that my head is catching on fire, complete with the whooshing sounds of a fire catching (that's my favourite part).

Anyway, my journey to look at my spirituality comes at a time when I don't even know what I believe. I mean, I have a few things I'm holding on to, but to let go of the things that I feel has led me so completely off track, I have to go back to the very first time that I began to have a glimpse into something spiritual. I have to replay where it led me, I have to replay where I stepped off of the road. I have to decide if I've even stepped back on. I have to decide if there is even a road.

I'm trying to be completely naked, but there is something about revealing yourself in a way you haven't even revealed to your own self that makes things like blogging risky. I mean, if my mom, God bless her, were to actually find this site (I hear she's emailing now), I'd have a lot of disappointed lecturing to endure (mainly because of this sentence). We already don't agree that the Harry Potter books will go into the annals of history as one of the greatest works of child lit ever.

Well, I have to try to shave a few inches from my thighs. And by "my", I mean you. You know who you are. I'll check in with you all later.

Halloween: A Story in Pictures (and words)

Finally, after wasting much time, I have put together the photo album for my pictures for all you nice people. 

Salvation

The road to salvation is paved with as many good intentions as the road to hell.

Basically, if you answer yes to a series of questions asked to you by a pastor, you are saved. With less than one year of church under my belt, I was answering yes because I knew that's what I was supposed to do. My mother, at that point, was gentle. She was in love with Jesus. It made her more loving herself, more understanding, more patient. She was, in deed and action, the best her that I'd ever seen. Even dad saw it, and at the time, he didn't see much past what he wanted to see. Jesus was powerful and we witnessed that power.

My home had not been the best place to grow up. I held resentment for many years because of that environment. Jesus Christ came in and changed my home environment. In that first year alone, we had a peace I had never experienced, a home that I was ready to go back to. I didn't have to stay late after school coming up with reasons to delay my journey. I could go home.

To say anything more would be telling the stories of those who should reveal their secrets themselves. But I want you to understand that when I say that Jesus changed everything, I mean everything.

As much as I wanted those changes to happen in me, something was off and it stayed off for a long time. I went to college, I studied more, I read stories that had some of the same accounts as the Bible and when I read them, instead of thinking that every society had their stories, I read them as validating what I was told in the Bible.

I began to have a personal relationship with God, who I had been taught for the past two years, when I was 19. It was during the summer after my first year. I'd gone to visit Cleveland, the home of the guy I was dating, for a few weeks before returning home. When I got home, I realized that all the resources I thought I had for school, I really didn't. So I spent a lot of time praying to the God I only knew of in word. One night, I finally broke down before God and said that I had nothing to offer and no reason to get what I prayed for, but that I knew none of that mattered if God wanted to bless me. I fell asleep in my tears and woke up the next day to answered prayer. God wanted to bless me and had. My gratefulness knew no bounds. That was the first time God communicated with me on a level that was nothing short of miraculous. It was the first time I actually felt the peace of God that so many people had spoken of. It filled me and became me and suddenly, I truly did not think as I once did or see as I once saw.

That's when I started to believe God could do anything and He wanted me along for the ride.

Church

When I was a little girl, I always wanted to go to church. Oh, we did the occasional Easter, me and my sister dressed in finery and lacy socks with black patent leather shoes, the boys uncomfortable in suits and clip on ties with shoes they would outgrow before the day was over.

When we moved, the summer after 6th grade, we moved to a house. Across the street from that house was a church. We never visited that church. I wanted to, longed to. On the times I actually woke up early on Sunday, I would sit and watch all the people go in. I was doing two forbidden things. Sitting in the living room and longing for church when it was not welcomed in our house.

I don't know if church began to grow in my mind from there. As I grew older and treasured my sleep, I was glad that we didn't do anything like that. When I could hide in bed reading on a Sunday afternoon instead of sweating it out in a service that didn't end until 3pm, I was grateful for our stance.

When I was 17, something happened. I don't know what happened, but suddenly, we were going to church. We went to the church that my dad's family had gone to for so long. Initially, we were welcomed with open arms. I approached church the same way I approached school. Learn as much as possible. Know more than anybody else. After all, this Bible was simply a book and what did I know better than anyone at my school? Books. So, in Sunday School, I knew every answer, read every assignment. Nothing was esoteric. Everything had a right or wrong answer. We played Bible Jeopardy and no one wanted to play against me, except the foolish people who had once dominated or the older people who thought they knew. They didn't know me. I won. I always won. Mothers wanted their daughters to look up to me. Mothers wanted their sons to marry me. I was a paragon and I was a fraud.

The day I was baptized, dressed in the white clothes, a towel over my hair, making a public statement that I had accepted Jesus into my heart, I was fervently praying that I had, in fact, accepted Christ into my heart. I took my dunking with grace, eyes closed, breath held, praying that when I came up, I would be different.

I was not. Everyone cheered and I went on perpetuating the fraud. And the more of a fraud I was, the more I saw it in others around me. We knew what we were doing. We were pretenders. We didn't know what else to do. We understood the Bible, we understood what had to happen, we just didn't know how it would happen to us. We holed up in our enclave of intellectual belief, hoping that one day, the love of Christ would grow in our hearts and we set to work convincing ourselves that, in fact, it had.

It would be two years before I actually understood what it meant to be saved.

What Can I Say?

Not much.

In a way, this has been a great holiday. I haven't worked since December 21st. I will go in for a bit tomorrow, but for the most part, I am off until Jan. 3. Our Christmas presents are ones we will open later. We saw some family, we saw some shows, we are planning on spending NYE listening to some bands in Atlanta and then hanging out with another couple - ice skating on Jan. 1.

I turn 32 on Jan. 2.

Last year, on Thanksgiving Day, my uncle Freddie told me that he had "a spot on his lung". Of course, having anything on the lungs is not a good thing. He told me not to worry. I saw him for Christmas and then, as I was planning to see him again (I usually go for my birthday, but I missed a couple of weeks), the day before I was going to head there (I had to plan my free time then), I got a call from my aunt telling me that he was dead.

What the hell??? I felt like I walked around in a cloud of confusion and I pushed the anger and sadness to the back of my mind. I hated going to sleep because when you're laying there in the dark, the only thoughts that come are the ones you spend the whole day pushing back.

This Thanksgiving, we decided that we were going to stay home for the first time, celebrating Thanksgiving as a family instead of shuffling between our families. So we make our phone calls and when I talk to my dad, he sounds like someone thought it would be fun to stump on his throat. I tell him he sounds horrible and I hope he's going to the doctor. I'm joking but I know. Even then, I know even though I know my dad would never tell me. The Wednesday after Thanksgiving, a day after his doctor appointment, my aunt called me to let me know that he had throat cancer. The kind caused by smoking and drinking for most of your life. Stage 4, caught late. I want to have hope, but I'm a worse case scenario person.

A tracheotomy, 3 of 5-7 days in the hospital, and disillusionment of my mother later, we are looking at a long haul for my dad. Chemotherapy, radiation, possibly losing his voicebox, and depending on the biopsy of the tumor, a few months to live. To my family, I only talk about the best case scenario. In a few days, we'll all know.

I don't know how I feel. I don't want comforting words. This isn't that type of post. This is just an update, this is what's been going on. It's not an easy thing for you to read or for me to write, but there it is.

Starting Over

It's that time of year, the time when an old girl's fancy turns to age.

I'll be 32 in a couple of weeks and a few days. I'm not really sure what to do with that.

So, it's time for things to happen. We (the Honey and I) are in a growing phase of our lives, where everything as we know it has been turned on its head and we are rolling with some punches, making new plans and solidfying the ones we are keeping. It's not a rollercoaster, it's more like the Dumbo ride.

**********************************

So, starting over means more than just a few words here and there. It means I have things to do, places to go and stories to write about it. First off, I'm going to Italy. Now, when I say I'm going to Italy, I mean, I barely have enough for plane fare (and that is supplemented by my very, very, very, very smart little sister whose 4.0 GPA earned us an extra $1000 to use on our trip) and I have stopped crocheting my scarf long enough to write this blog. Yes, crocheting a scarf so that I can sell it for whatever I can make to add to my trip. And The Honey is being a really good sport about the idea of me going to Italy, but I know he wants to go to. It just, what's the easiest way to make $3000 in 2 months that doesn't include nude dancing or finding Robert Redford? I'm lining up a couple of jobs... I can work 3 hours a night at minimum wage as a janitor for approximately $60 bucks a week after taxes. I wanted to make about $100 extra dollars a week (not including what I make writing) to help with this little trip. But what I make writing and any extra I make would just pay for me. I'd have to write double what I'm writing now and The Honey and I together make $200 a week to supplement his going on the trip as well. I would say I'd pray about it, but that's another story in itself that will be told in bits and pieces in a remembering sort of way.

I feel a little bit like Italy will be about me finding myself. I know that sounds trite and kind of 21 year old angsty, but it's true. There are a lot of things I want to understand and it is hard to understand those things in the midst of the bustle of life. It's not impossible. I don't need Italy for that, but my dream has always been to go to Europe. Italy, and just outside of Rome, is a good enough place as any to start. We may even fly into Paris so that we see France and Italy. To be able to grab that dream when it was offered... it's amazing. I have an amazing husband who would sacrifice his time with me and his wish to be there as well to see my dreams take place.

Okay, so enough smarmy.

The house we live in now, I love it. The one thing it has that is in part cool and in part very irritating is the scary house lights. When you turn on the lights in this house, they flicker on, as if you were watching a scary movie and the lights got doused in water and now you're watching them flicker, expecting to see the killer or his shadow right in front of you. Very creepy. Oh, I know it's some technical name for why it does that, having to do with temperature and something that reminds me of striking a lighter, but for right now, it is a neat way to be greeted by your house.

Worrying About Your Beard When You're About To Lose Your Head

So I'm finally watching The Seven Samurai. Oh my WORD the translation is awful, but the acting and the story is so... brilliant. Man, I love movies about honor. Most war movies have the distinction of being about honor, but I'm not the biggest fan of war movies, or so I tell myself. But as I watch this movie, its slow progression towards a bigger fight looming, I realize that there are a lot of war movies in my repertoire that I would watch again.

I don't like war movies. Movies and television provide escape. In those fantasy world, the characters that are compelling shouldn't die, but in war movies, they do. They always do.

Man, old movies kick new movies asses!

It is my nature and maybe I'm coming to see that it is the nature of many others, to worry about the little things in the face of something big. I guess we don't know what else to do when we feel so helpless. I'm not a "big picture" thinker. I think about right now. I think about the line I just wrote, I think about the thought in my head. I think about what I need to do tomorrow, but I don't see it all in one fell swoop, just waiting to be done so that I can orchestrate my actions. I hope it all works out in the end, that the sentences come together, that the work gets done, that I express myself to others in the right way. It's beyond me how to change that part of me. It's something I want to work on. I want to see it all and then orchestrate. I don't want to pick at the pieces anymore. I want to see the sculpture in the rock and chisel away the unnecessary parts.

I want to stop using metaphor, but I'm not just talking about one thing. I'm talking about an entire way of being. It's enough to give me a headache.

In other news, I am doing well as bassist and singer in the imaginary world of Rock Band, where "Angel", as I call myself, is taking the world by storm. I'm somewhere in Russia right now singing songs I didn't even know existed and trying to get more than 3 stars every time. I will hate to move to the hard level. And as much as I hate shopping, I love dressing my Rock Band character. Every time I win a new item for my wardrobe, I get just that much more excited about the game. Next, I'll create a character on the drums. Yes, I will have my own band soon. And I will ROCK!

I Need To Make Friends...

There are a lot of good things about being married.

A. Lot.

But one of the bad things is that no one wants to hang out with you. Well, let me correct that. No one knows they can hang out with me. Oh, I am still pretty tied to my husband. I still do a lot with him and we definitely love our alone time. But there are times when I want to be out with others.

I don't have any female friends that I really hang out with. I went to Alabama to hang out with a friend who goes to Auburn and her best friend and we had a really great time. I was glad to visit her, glad to get home, but it made me discover something. I don't have anyone to hang out with here.

With The Honey's work schedule, I have a lot of time to myself. Time to go out. Time to have some fun. Time to do something other than sit at home.

Do you know what I do instead of hanging out? Work late.

Work late, people!!!

That should not be. I should be "out there". I'm relatively young. I probably could stand to lose a few pounds, although I would rather just eat the chocolate cake. Okay, so an oldish, slightly overweight woman wants to go out for a night on the town.

Riiiiiight. Actually, I just want to hang out with a bunch of people who talk about television, books, things going on in the world, conversation that spurs me on to read, to write, and to learn to communicate better. I've been in a fog of conversation, each one as if it were life or death almost. I want to get to a point where I am conversing for fun, laughing and joking.

I feel like I should want to hang out with a gaggle of women. I don't know why I would, but I feel like I should. I have been out with a group of girls before, what feels like a really long time ago. I had female friends once. We went camping together, we talked together and had actual sleep overs. We didn't talk about the intricacies of our wedding days (although, in hindsight for me, we probably should have). We didn't talk about boys (okay, so we did... GOD! I was a girl!). We planned Anti-Valentine's Day parties.

"We" no longer exist.

If I am not with my husband, I am alone. It's a bit daunting, especially when I'm not used to it. Oh, I am typical in that I like being alone. That is the best time for writing, after all. So I'm going to hang out. I'm going to accept invitations I might have turned down. I'm going to try to get in touch with those people I care about and hopefully we can get together.

If You Know Me

The first thing you need to do is stop by the coffee shop, pick up the food and culture magazine and read two articles by yours truly... three if you count my monthly coffee column.

Just do it!

So, I am doing Nanowrimo. I have written a lot of words. And yet I am so far from my word count, it is ridiculous. Okay, I'm just complaining now and slightly procrastinating, but I will get to 50,000 words by the end of the month if it kills me.

The loaded baked potato flavoured Pringles are just okay.

I can eat two bite brownies in one bite.

I get more excited than I should when the clock says things like 11:11 or 12:34 or 5:43.

I'm bad at video games because I don't have the patience to get better.

I wish my hair was longer than it is.

I didn't vote today because I haven't changed my address. And for that, I am sorry.

I finally found the nails and the hammer and I still haven't put up our paintings, clocks and photos.

Okay, just a random post to keep you busy until I have something good to write... or until tomorrow.

Finished!

This week has been the most hectic week that I've had since taking a job and still trying to write for pay. It is becoming harder and harder to be fair to my regular paying job when it comes to writing.

I had 6 assignments due this week, all for next month. I need to start paying attention to the business part of this. I mean, I am keeping up with receipts, but I am not trying to figure out how to optimize my time so that I am getting the maximum worth out of the time it takes to write my articles versus what I get paid.

I have been pulled all out of sorts over how hard this week has been trying to get everything done. The Honey asked me if this was not what I wanted and I found myself smiling because this is EXACTLY what I want. I want this struggle to find the right words and put them to page. I want to receive that compliment from my editor, where her touch is barely there because my words match the style of her magazine or matches the tone that he wants in his magazine. It is not getting easier, but if I am right, it is because I am still trying very hard to be better and better. I think it would be easier to write the way I've always written.

Or it could all just be horrible and it's taken me longer than it really should have to get my articles written. But praise be to my good and fluffy Lord that I am done and ready to relax.

This is what relaxing looks like today:
Little Sister is coming to town today. We will drive around town trying to find clothes for an 80s Prom party and for her Cruela DiVille (sp?) halloween costume. Then we will go to IHOP (International House or Prayer - not Pancake) which she is being forced to go to so I agreed to go for morale support. Then we are going to the Prom. I have no clue what we will be doing after that.

Tomorrow is Arts and Jazz and then another birthday party. I like to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time!

But more than that, I am not going to think about any of the things that are really swirling in my mind. I will give myself permission to rest and to have fun. That's the least that I deserve.

Necessity is the Mother of Reinvention

I heard this second hand, but I thought it was funny and a friend's post about bookstores brought this to mind.

A couple of guys I know were at the bookstore, grousing about the prices of books. The one guy says to the other, "Man, wouldn't it be nice if there was a place you could go where you could get any book you wanted without paying for it and then when you're done reading, you'd give it ba..." He stopped himself in the middle of his sentence, laughed and then said, "Fuck! I've reinvented the library!"

I don't know why remember the telling of that conversation always makes me smile, but it does.