December 28

I am sitting at work and have tissue paper stuffed up my right nostril. It is now 12:54, and the phone has rung maybe 4 times, but none in the last 2 hours. I have searched craigslist for piano stools, I have looked for Avett tickets on ebay, I have read way back into the ancient status updates on fb, like, to yesterday. I have had echinacea tea, I have had a bottle of water, and I have had coffee. I have read the introduction to my photoshop handbook, because I found my photoshop cd from my college years and am going to load it onto my pute. I have researched labor, the stages of labor, epidurals, the APGAR scale, induced labor, the stages of pregnancy, and the risks associated with various methods and medications associated with all of the above. I have chatted with Jordan, and we have mutually decided that I should wait and take speech in the summer. It is Josh's birthday today, and I am thinking about that about once every twenty minutes. I think about lunch oftner than that. I wonder about my friends, how they are doing. Katie basbagill, in horrid Korea, with a sore throat, sweetie baby. Anna Laura. What is she thinking this morning? Is she happy? Josh. Does he feel loved yet today? Jordan. ????? So many things to wonder.

I need to sneeze this cold out.

My living room is obscured from view by boxes and mountains of stuff from Wood's Edge. Someone, not Jon, painted over a very dear painting of mine that was given to me as a gift. Just partially over it, with brown paint, messily. They painted over the most important part. I cried some when I found it, (how cruel! why!?) in a box of stuff. But I cried more when I found a sealed envelope, never sent, from Jon Rule at Inskip Rd. to the American Scholarship Association. Oh my. I never ever cease to be amazed at the strangness of internal pain.

I am looking forward to Josh's birthday, to Lincoln's birth, to new year's eve... but I hope I am not sick. That will ruin everything!

I have cold chils. I got an ipod for christmas. It is shiny and little. It scares me a bit.

p the l.

I did make A's in all my classes, with one hand tied behind my back. Yes I did.

Wonder how its going to work to do clinicals and work at the same time. Wonder how its going to work when Sam moves out, which she is doing, btw. Wonder how its going to work to be alone at new years and christmas again, for the 3rd year in a row. Wonder how its going to work to take microbiology and anatomy at the same time. Wonder wonder wonder. Thats enough of that.

OHhhh.... good and exciting and wonderful things:

• The christmas party was lovely.

• Sam and Matt told me not to come out of the bathroom on saturday, where I was dying my hair black, so they could wrap some presents,...

and then when i did they blindfolded me and led me to the living room where they UNblindfolded me and revealed... a christmas tree. I cried.

• I got black dye on the rug, on Sam's special towel, and on the mint gelato wall. I cried about that too.

• I read about what Lincoln is doing right now. He's mad about being upside down and squished, so he jabs Jordan's pelvis and organs with his little elbows. Last night he was being really jabby, so I thought about spanking him, (His bottom is available for spanking near the top of her stomache) but in the end just prayed for him.

• I love Jesus in his body. Its nice and cool. I love it in Katie G, I love it in AL, I love it in Tyler and Josh and my mom. I love it in all peeps.

• Speaking of Al. She is special, ya'll know that? (this is what we refer to as a "shout out". )

• Yes dinner party at AB's tomorrow, love that, got to get a present for her and Job, what should it, could it be?

• I have enough money right now.

• Going to a sentencing hearing with Tracy today. Sad but exciting.

• Having a work lunch, made an apple pie, exciting and hungry.

• Doing a show with Joseph on the 26th, opening for a semi-famous person, everyone and their uncles will prolly come, getting nervous already, but thats okay.
  

• Got great christmas presents for my family members. Which is hard to do.
  

• Got really miserable last night, and got over it this morning, p the l.
  

• Tempted to despair recently, feeling like I would NEVER be able to be a faithful and hardcore and perservering saint, like I am hopeless, I can be disciplined in ALL areas except the one that matters, that I am creating consequences on a daily basis that cannot be undone... and....
  

Susie Little came up to me at church and said with tears, that she had a dream so odd, that she never EVER remembered having one like that in her whole life, and that it was about me, and that the gist of it was: that I was doing really good. That God was saying that he had me, he was watching me, and that I was thriving. Susie said she really didn't know if she should even tell me about it, but that it was so real and strange, that she woke up with such a weird feeling, that it stayed with her, that she had never had a dream like that before... so she told me about it.
Ha! I almost died of a strange feeling in my stomach when I realized that God said that, those things. And to heighten it, I have prayed many times that God would do more miraculous things in Mark and Susie, things like prophecy and tongues and healings, so that they could experience the joy of knowing him in those ways, and here Susie has a prophetic dream and its about me! HA! He is so funny sometimes. So funny and so great. You know, you just can't argue with the Father. Yeah, just don't try.

Out the window.

a picture.

It was too cold for his feet.

Welp.

The ole rusty heat pump is givin up the ghost.

The new shiny heat pump is on its way. And for only $2000. Great.

I love owning a house. I do. I love it.

Worst case scenario: I quit nursing school, get a full time, low paying job in order to pay the mortgage, say good bye to my future, and then sell the house at a minimal loss due to all the repairs that keep having to be made. I get depressed and lose my motivation and continue working the low-paying, full time job FOREVER and am really excited to get CABLE tv which i watch every night until I go to sleep. I live in an apartment. I die old. Did I mention the roof leaks?

Best case scenario: I somehow still manage to make all payments, while working part time at a low paying job and attending nursing school, and eventually sell the house (for a little more money due to the installation of a NEW heat pump) and make $$$$. I then pay off my school debt, and move to the third world to save the children and live happily ever after, or until I am tragically shot at 37. My memorial service involves cannons and fireworks.

When the going gets tough..

My heat is broken at my house. Funny how after silver place two years ago, and grainger last year, I told myself that I didn't care if I had to f-ing STARVE, I was not going to be cold. End of discussion.

And here I am. Standing straddled over Samantha's gas heater to type this. Ridiculous.

As you can see, in order to study I need my buddies Starbuds, Jack, and Sampson lined up and in position. Its not just physically being cold...it like the opposite of thriving. Its like, making it. Just barely making it.

I have my down northface boots on, a t-shirt, long underwear shirt, and fleece on, and I've finished the pictured whiskey... and I'm still cold. Hey. This is the tough getting going.

Watchin me get ready for work.

Oh, did I mention he is the only cat in the house these days? Apparently Negrito is much happier at the smoky boys house. And Patrick here put his little paws around my neck this morning for the first time in 3 months. Here's to the changing tides.

incredible.

So i've been listening to Achtung Baby. It blows my mind. Every song. The feeling, the music, obviously I can't recreate that here, but I would if I could. If you know these songs.. sing them in your head for a minute and really feel them. Incredible.

I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you,
woman be still

I'm gonn run to you, run to you, run to you,
woman be still




(This song.. like a creed... so true, so heartbreaking, the truth.)

Did I ask too much - more than a lot
You gave me nothing - now it's all I got
We're one, but we're not the same
Well we hurt each other, then we do it again

You say: love is a temple - love a higher law
Love is a temple - love the higher law
You ask me to enter - then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on to what you got
When all you got is hurt




(Incredible! So friggin' amazing!)
And you can swallow, or you can spit
You can throw it up, or choke on it
And you can dream - so dream out loud
You know that your time is coming round
So don't let the bastards grind you down
No, nothing makes sense - nothing seems to fit
I know you'd hit out if you only knew who to hit
And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah, I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in
'Cause I need it now

Now!

I am registered for classes next semester. I am taking Microbiology and Anatomy and Psysiology II at the SAME TIME. I will just have to be like, hibernating. Seems like I have always found a way to have a life and do exorbitant amounts of school at the same time... I am relying on these old trusty skills to be used once again. How thrilling. Its like, living life on the edge.
Things I am excited about today:

• Going to Nashville and NCY in 3 weeks and 1 day.
• Finishing this semester. With A's.
• Lincoln.
• Christmas. I love love love it. I will have decorations.
• The thought that perhaps Negrito will go to live with Nick and Matt.
• John Job's friend in NYC who can get us tickets to Broadway shows.
• My grass, in my yard.
• Becoming a nurse practioner, PA, or MD.
• Ginger bread latte's are back folks. STARBUCKS.
• Lookin' cute today, haircut, blue coat.
• That my boss buys Aquafina water bottles, of which I may have as many as I like. Yeah water!
• Art. I love art, I miss art, and I am tired of letting stupid people define it for me. No more.
• Large earrings.
• Music. Wrote a song (no words) last night. Really love it. Want to play it and never stop.
• Whoop- whoop!!

I told Sam I had something interesting to tell her as we were gmail chatting the other day, but that I would have to tell her later, because I had to go. She wrote back, "Now! Now! Now! Now!"
It was so funny.

Work is good today.

Absolutely LOVING IT.

stuffhipstershate.tumblr.com

you guys got to see this. make sure you read down a couple pages. HA!

Which wouldn't be so awful...

I feel like maybe when I slide the papers across the counter I will just break into a million little pieces and scatter out over the floor of the city county building.

YES.

We just won... a really big case. One that would have broken my heart over the unfairness of the legal system if we had lost... One we worked on with another attorney, and he came in, and everybody yelled and yelled, and it was great. Seems like this doesn't happen enough.
The president of the knoxville Bar called this morning to congratulate us... so awesome...

I worked on this one by recreating the scene of the accident with words... it took me a while, and I feel so utterly convinced that this car accident was not the fault of the person, (who almost died,) but rather, the fault of the State, and i just COULd NOT be more happy that we won. Shew.

Heh.

Im so-

BORED! AND HUNGRY!

HAHAHA!!!

This unruly, delinquent, disorderly, parole violating child,

uses these substances,
Cigarettes Age of first use: 8 y.o.
Alchohol Age of first use: 2 y.o.
Marijuana Age of first use: 10 y.o.
and now he's in trouble with the law.

Wonder what the hell his parents have been doing.

Sorry, I just get fired up here and have to let off the steam somehow. I'de like to knock some heads. Or love them, I guess. Shew.

November 3, 2009, at 8:30 a.m.

MICHAEL BRYAN DONALDSON


IN RE: JUDICIAL REVIEW-PERMANENCY PLAN HEARING

Please be advised the permanency plan hearing in reference to the above named child has been scheduled for November 3, 2009 at 8:30 a.m.

SEVIER COUNTY JUVENILE COURT



Isn't this just so sad? i think it is. shocking that something so vital in this child's life has been reduced to the words, "permanency plan". I wish I could be every child's permanency plan that is alone. Bless them, Jesus.

Announcement!

So... the Nyquil test?

Well. Apparently I have made a 100 on it. Which, according to the Professor, was last done in 1985. The whole class is p o'd because I ruined the curve. Hee-hee! The joy!

This just in:

Don't ever take NyQuil the night before a midterm. Just don't do it!

Sunshine.

Pretty good coffee here. Best damn brownies I've ever eaten. Some real mad clients, who didn't get updated enough. One Aquafina bottle, half empty. Tennessee October sunshine streamin in the big office windows. The hills of south Knoxville, the river, even Baptist hospital looks pretty today. Calhouns. The sunshine is gleaming off of the place where the 3 rivers meet. I want to enjoy this world today. I feel like I haven't had a vacation in a long time... A vacation where I felt really comfortable, relaxed, at ease, like it was my vacation and I fit there, that I belonged. Like if it were me and MY family. Instead of me and my broken family, (aka me) attached to my extended family.

I don't mean a vacation like to the beach, although it could be that. I mean like a night at home. Or a day in the mountains, or a dinner out. I miss the days of being normal. Guess I'll never be normal again. I've noticed on a lot of legal documents, once you are divorced you are always divorced. You don't get to just put "single". You could have been divorced for 60 years, and you will still have to check the box that says, "divorced".

I'm going to go away someday, hopefully soon. I will miss everyone but I think I miss myself now, more.

me at work today. in my rockstar outfit.

In to work this morning.

Coming in to work this morning, my mind is feeling scattered about. Chloe, my actual mind is faffing about. Yes it is. I need to narrow it the hell down, and concetrate. I did not do so well on my big time serious lecture test. I got the equivalent of a 89.1 on this teacher's scale. This is not an A. This is like a U, but its a B. U stands for UnAcceptable. I have another test in this class coming up on thursday next week. I have six days. Six days to learn the tricarboxcylic acid cycle and EXACTLY how it works. Six days to learn the Electron Transport System and EXACTLY how it works. Six days to learn how when starving people run out of things to make energy out of, they start breaking down their proteins. And EXACTLY how that works. Atom for atom. Element for element. I'm kind of excited, but kind of depressed, b/c i doubt that I will really be able to understand it all. And I want to understand it all! And this time, I need to make an A. Wish I had more time.... But as matt says, wish in one hand and... well, you know. Heh.

But aside from all that drama: My outfit is totally rockin today at work. People should come here, to this law office, just to see my outfit. I should post flyers. Come see her outfit! Come see her outfit! It will be worth it!

Does anyone want me to make them little drawings to give as christmas presents to give to people? I would love to make some small, detailed pencil drawings. They could be $10-$30. Anyone?

Is anybody but me excited that its going to be hot again next week?
Didn't think so. I am a lone reed. (name that quote.)

Is it hard to put up shelves into hundred year old plaster by oneself? Opinions? Anna laura? THoughts?

Everyone: Aunt betty's 85th birthday party is Saturay October 10th at Grace at 2 o'clock. Come. And bring her a present she would actually like, cause we will be the only ones that do. She likes books and antiques and scarves. She likes pots and garden-y things. She likes cookbooks and spices. She likes old country music. She likes us, too.

Everyone: Does anyone want to go to the Secret City Film Festival? Anytime next weekend? Emily?

Dreams: To have a studio and time. OHhhhhh..... groans. I can see it in my mind.

Dreams: To have a photo editing program worth its salt.

Dreams: To go to the third world sometime in '10.

Dreams: To love well.

later taters.

NOTE:

As I sit in the kitchen, at the bar, with my cup of coffee, bobby d's DESIRE blairing in the background to make up for the absence of people on this saturday morning,

Patrick is running from one end up the dining room towards the kitchen and leaping over the top of Negrito who is lying on the ground, and to the end of the kitchen, only to turn around and do it again. He skims the air right above Negrito, who gets very irritated and flustered, and tries to swipe him, claws extended. He's doing it over and over and over again.
Saturday morning fun.

This just in.

Chai latte's from the french cafe on gay street: ummmmm good.

Things I am excited about this morning:

Patrick.
He's real cute, he speaks a funny language to me that I understand, he is picturesque pretty much ALL the time, he is resourceful and likes to attack Negrito. YES. Oh, and he comes to greet me in the morning, runs to my bedroom door, jumps on the bed, meows, and promptly snuggles down under the covers while I'm getting ready. !

MOMIX.
They are coming to ashville in November. Its expensive. But I'm going. Anyone else want to go? I you tubed them... and something in my soul woke up from being sleepy.

School.
Kicked ass on my first test. 97. Only 3 a's in the class. Uh-huh.

Music.
Doing a show with Joseph, on October 16. Tyler is opening, and it is going to be a magical, magical night. Had practice w/ Joseph last night. Even that was magical.

Aunt Betty.
AL is doing most of the heavy lifting now, so I get to just go and visit sometimes, no work involved. I love having AL there. I love having AL and aunt betty and jon the landscaper sitting and talking. I was reflecting on how much I love aunt betty. How she is one of my best friends. How grieved I am that she is 85 and will not be here for my whole life. I am excited just to go and hang out, like I am about hanging out with any other friend.

My house.
I just love being there. Its cool, and friendly, and slick, and homey, and artsy, and has soul. And it has Samantha. And I like her. Oh, and it has my huge brass bed. I love my huge brass bed. I sleep like a baby, thanks to Josh and God. ;)

Christmas holidays.
BABY!! no school! christmas trees! scarfs! boots! fireplace! parties! BABY!!!

Leettle update..

Lo, and be- HOLd! My folgers coffee is pretty good this morning!! Shock and awe.

So. Think I got four or five out of fifty wrong on my test. And then I think I got two bonus questions right. So. Sort of okay I think. I wanted to get 100. But I couldn't remember that "lateral" was the opposing term to "medial". Shoot.

But I sure as hell knew what "hyaline connective tissue" was, and I recognized it in the microscope, and I knew it was in the trachea. Speaking of the trachea... I learned some really interesting stuff last night about smoking. More on that later, when pigs fly. :)

I have a test in the Lecture part of the class this coming thursday. On chemistry stuff. Scary.

This just in...

i'm a lot sad tonite, but i'm pretending i'm not.

Really like this.

One of my favorite quotes.

"I have days that begin with a makeshift hopefulness and then run into the ground, and I have days in which I remember something true in the morning and write it on my arm so that I’ll know what to do when I get lost. Which I will. God, like a parent in the mall, writing down His information on my arm so that I remember who I belong to when I run away and am accosted by strangers."

Thoughts I've been having lately.

So I started school again. I didn't think I would ever be starting school again. I mean, it was in the back of my head somewhere..but I didn't really think it would ever happen. Funny how there is a sense, when you are in school, that there is a big, slow ball rolling towards something. Towards being done. And even though I just now started, and have a long, long ways to go, I feel the ball. I feel a little bit of energy in "getting done". Or just moving forward. There is a goal, an end. I am working towards it. Its such a different thing to have in your life than just today stretching into next week stretching into next year and next decade... Its nice.
I also am finding it really fun and easy to study. Granted, I haven't had any tests yet, so I don't know how good of a job studying I am really doing... but for some reason, I am absolutely LOVING memorizing the parts of a cell. I want to know. I want to know so much more than they are even telling me! I want to know WHY a ribosome synthesizes proteins. I want to know HOW cells know when they need to commit cell-suicide. I want to know I want to know! I want to know about the heart. And why people have such a hard time with them. I love love love reading my books. I can't WAIT to become specialized. In something. ANything.
If anyone wants to go to java or golden roast with me, please let me know. I don't like studying alone...but i'm up for going pretty much any afternoons or evenings.

More thoughts I've been having lately: Church.
So we need accountability. Great. And we need teaching. We need community. Prayer. Encouragement. I go to church, and sometimes I go to small group. I pursue people, to a mild extent. But I don't really get much of any of those things these days... not in the ways that i'm imagining I should...as a part of the body of Christ. Now...this is partially my fault, part of a hole that I dug, a bed that I made. But I really really really wish it were not this way. I don't have any answers to this. I just want to start by observing...getting it out there for me to see. Then perhaps I can begin to think of an answer.

More thoughts: Jesus
Ive been reading John. Really, why read anything else? Ever? And I love it so much it hurts. I just read the part right before Jesus washes the disciples feet...and it says:

Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

Can you believe that!!!!! Incredible. Incredible! Right after this verse is the verse where he wraps the towel around his waist. Then later on he asks them if they understand what it is that he has done. In washing their feet. He tells them to love each other. He calls it a commandment. Then later on, He says that He, Jesus, and his father, God, will come to us, and make their home with us, if we will keep his commandments. I think that this whole concept, that happened here, with this section of the bible, is phenomenal. Right before this whole ordeal he has just raised Lazarus. What is going on... He raises the dead. Then he cleans dirt off of feet. Because he loves us. He would do anything for us. I want to be like that. I want to know him. I want to love you.

Found this during lunch.

The copy man is named Matt. He brings cookies.

me: sweetie.

Sent at 10:04 AM on Monday

Jordan: sweeties.

Sent at 10:05 AM on Monday

Jordan: watcha doin????

me: nutchin mutch.

is T still over there?

Jordan: no she didn't stay. Ralph is in a meeting.

Sent at 11:31 AM on Monday

me: huh.

Sent at 11:33 AM on Monday

Jordan: so...we shold trade out helping each other get settled into our houses.

me: sounds cool. but its hopeless.

Jordan: omg.

even if it is don't say it out loud.

me: duke's song Mystery Man is really a really good song.

i think.

Jordan: it changes my life. how was the wedding?

hold on.
(Jordan come over to find out in person how the wedding was.)

Sent at 11:38 AM on Monday

me: what.

Jordan: what about what?

me: dunno.

need a cookie.

Jordan: Matt owes you cookies from friday.

Sent at 12:29 PM on Monday

me: i know.

but i think he brought some voluntarily another day.

before that.

why are cheez its SO DAMN GOOD.

Jordan: well he was going to bring them friday but i told him to wait until monday.

me: WHAT

lets write blogs.

together.

or make t-shirts.

Jordan: i wrote a blog last week

me: together.

i know i saw it it was great but just wet my appetite for MORE

MORE!

MORE!

Sent at 12:33 PM on Monday

Jordan: well you write on your blog.

together.forever.

me: what.

you mean, write "together. forever." on my blog?

Sent at 12:41 PM on Monday
(jordan comes over to ask about lunch plans. obviously much more important than co-blogging.)

Jordan: ok. we're going on wednesday.

me: k.

Sent at 12:45 PM on Monday

me: COOKIES

are here.

love its when things go according to plan

Sent at 12:49 PM on Monday

Jordan: want to come over here and eat your food?

me: um. yeah.

Sent at 12:55 PM on Monday

me: hang on. i'm comin.

Jordan is busy. You may be interrupting.

hello my dear sweet precious ones.

I want more than anything in the world to post pictures. But I can't figure that out at the moment. I don't have much to say...but i just wanted to tell each and every one of you that I am thinking of you and...well...i hope shiloh loves his school. Love.

My eyes are going blurry from staring at the computer all day long...

They went blurry monday night b/c I talked to Jon on the phone and he was crying and saying things. Unbelievably heart breaking things. They went blurry yesterday morning b/c I opened up the box that holds my ring. They are going blurry now just thinking about yesterday and monday. They went blurry again this afternoon because my friend and our client here at work had to take off his belt and empty his pockets and hug his sister and walk through a door that he will not come out of again for 10 years. I couldn't go to court with them because I knew they would go blurry and run over...
Oh my goodness, life is not just hard for me....

i like knoxville.

i like the smells and the sounds.

i like the hills. and the poke weeds.

i like the politics.

and the weather.

i like it here.

the general feeling of the day...

I hate all de orphan in de whole worl.


I hate dem!

i miss heaven.

huh.

These are from a recent trip to Hilton Head Island.... I decided one evening that come hell or high water i WOULD see the sunrise the following morning. I knew the sun did in fact rise at around six a.m.... but could not manage to set my alarm for any earlier than six-fifteen. Luckily, Will's awful hideous screech of an alarm went off at five till six. I hollered across the room, "Why the hell is your alarm going off? I'm going to see the sunrise!" He mumbled something about how he and Luke were going to see the sunrise, not me. In the end, I had to drag him out of bed so he wouldn't miss his transcendental beach trip sunrise experience, and we met Luke downstairs and silently rode bikes to keep our tryst with the sun. When we got there, we climbed up on the lifeguard's tower and watched...i lit a cigarette and had to put on my sweatshirt. Will and I saw some dolphins right up near the shore, two of them, in perfect time, heading north...and we pointed them out to Luke, who couldn't see them, kept not seeing them, but decided to rip his clothes off and run to swim with them anyhow.

oh man.

tomorrow i get to have...

steak. at aunt betty's... and croquet, and annette hanshaw on the record player... mint julep's... and smoking... and probably a sunburn.

Yes.

Yeah...man.

John Piper is just a bad-ass. Not sure that I have my thoughts all ironed out on this one though... anyone else have any thoughts?

The list that causes the stress that causes the general depression and angst and

i KNOW that i'm twenty six years old and should know by now to TRUST THE LORD! so anyways.

1. Register for classes. somehow.
2. Get financial aid. somehow. (lie, cheat, coerce)
3. Convince myself that student loans are a good idea at this point in my life.
4. Find my passport. Before August 13. (i just love that i have to do this...heh.)
5. Clean my room, do my laundry.
6. Pet my poor sad little cat that doesn't realize that his peaceful existence is about to be BOMBSHELLED by Samantha's fat fighter cat, Negrito. Thankfully, Negrito had to have one of his legs amputated last week, so he may not actually kill Patrick, just wound him. And destroy his life.
7. Pack up my meager existence.
8. Paint my house
9. Find people and offer them outrageous amounts of money to do random things at the house like fix leaks and patch walls, and take trash to the dump.
10. Find and destroy the neighbor kid that I paid $20 to mow the yard 2 weeks ago.
11. Pay my bills. Somehow.
12. Make extra money. Somehow.
13. Exercise regularly. Going on vacation was so great, i rode my bike and swam everyday and felt so good!


Jordan told on the way home that when we got back, "everything will be different. " I wanted to believe it. Even now, I do. But somehow...i am just scared of the sameness. Like maybe it is in charge, instead of me. Huh. I can't really express the depth and passion of the fears and sadnesses threatening to drown me again. Again! Will it ever leave!? Fucking Fuck!!!

This most recent excursion in thought is my prevailing and overwhelming state of being this morning. God, I hope it doesn't last long.

I do love you all.

Anyone want to go camping this friday night?

shoot, c'mon people!

well,

Hallooooo!!!! five minutes and counting.

me today.

work work work

Case 1: So apparently there is a "rarity bay" scandal and a federal buro investigation of developers lying about appraisals to save big $ in tax dollars. Fascinating. A person called yesterday who is a "target" of the investigation and wants us to help. This person can't have j's boss as a lawyer, b/c that makes it look like this person needs one. J's boss is too big. So instead, we have us. (I'm at work, doing work, in case you couldn't tell.)

Case2: (NEW)So apparently this man, who shall remain nameless, is in Blount County Jail for money laundering and conspiracy to distribute charges, (has had his assets in Las Vegas frozen), but whom is innocent, and is paying out big $ for a lawyer to prove it. Could we be said person? Perhaps. I am doing some research on his case.

Case3: So apparently, another man whom shall remain nameless, is being charged with intent to distribute drugs and Lots of Other Things by BOTH the state and federal judicial systems. He got 8 years from the state. Now he is being charged by the feds. And yesterday he received 400 months. You would think this would be what is referred to as "Double Jeopardy", but no, the state and the federal governments are "separate entities", and if they want to, they will separately charge you and sentence you for a single crime committed in their jurisdictions. Which is everywhere. Crazy, huh. Sad thing is, I have to set up a phone conference with him in the penitentiary today so that we can tell him how many years he is going to be there. So hard, and sad, but at least he doesn't have any family....

Case 4: Lacy Fletcher. This man did NOT assault his wife because A. "He wadn't even there. He COULDNA done it." and B. "He don't touch women. It's just not Right."

love you all.

Has Everyone Read Travis's Blog?

Anna Laura is it Travis' or Travis's?

An exercise in knowing oneself.

I like pretty things. I like strong things. I like color. I like coffee. I like men's hands. I like being with Jordan the best. I like good questions, but I like great answers better. I like typing. I like drawing naked people. I like watching a friend of mine set up a photograph. I like roses. and organized gardens. I like running. I like laying in the sun. I like porches. no, I love porches. I like dancing, slightly intoxicated. I like reading. I like pizza. I like looking really pretty. I like people with style. Kind of hate them too. More like though, I guess. I like what children look like. I like lips. and skin. I like fields of grass. I like the mountains. I like Dad dancing, and Will. I like Polaroid photographs. (how could you not? who doesn't? who wouldn't?) I like sushi. I like dreaming about love and romance and adventure and wars and creating and laying in the sun with someone and homes and children and music yet to be written and colors and styles and pictures from the future. Yup I do.
What else? I love my piano. I love the newer Pride and Prejudice. I love Patrick. I love my black short boots. I love photographs and good drawings. I love sleep. I love Jordan and Luke's little pea brain baby. I love the hope of living like a disciple. I love Joseph's music. I love traveling far, far away. I even love jet lag... I love fires, and baths. I love beautiful and tasteful interiors. I love huge beds. I love red hair. I love the idiosyncrasies of my friends. I love stories about miracles. I love hearing about the work of God on the earth today. I love starbucks coffee. (yes i do.)
I hate hypocrisy. I hate snobbery. I abhor gossiping. I hate bratty-ness. I hate pettiness. I hate spiders and moths. I hate false representations of God. I hate lies. I hate it when people believe lies. I hate negativity. I hate the struggle for faith. I hate broken things. I hate how hard life is. I hate bad piano music. I hate being pushed to make decisions by people who refuse to. I hate selfishness. I hate lack of design. I hate bad design. I hate the weird thick cloud of lies enmeshing the western judeo-christian mind, keeping it down, keeping it content, keepin it scared, keeping it powerless. I hate that it has me. I hate when God doesn't heal people that I want him to. I hate bad jobs. I hate bad bosses. I hate that I can't make my posts go all the way across the page of my blog. I hate walking. Okay..... y'all come on back from that dad-burned G.S. weekend now.

so sad...

Hello friends, and people that read my blog. You should really comment occasionally and not just be ghost blog readers. I hate those.
I guess I couldn't really explain to a single one of you why I am so sad this evening. I am thankful, as I glance down, to see that it is already 7:17 PM. That means I can go to sleep pretty soon...like in 3 hours. I only have to make it three more hours. I don't like it when my deep vulnerabilities are brought out where I can see them. When something happens to trigger me being uncontrollably sad, or angry. Or both. It makes me panicky. I know that my heart is not resting completely in Jesus. (please, don't be concerned, yours probably isn't either.) When something can totally undo me, totally unnerve me, have me acting in opposition to what my logical precepts would dictate.... then my heart, my self, is not my own. And that makes me panicky, which in turn stresses me out, so then i'm feeling uncontrollably sad, angry, panicky, and stressed out. I fucking hate emotions. I hate loving. I hate being hurt. I hate need. I hate needing, anything. I hate want, desire, longing. I hate my vulnerability. I hate my weakness. I'm so tired of being hurt, and wanting and not being filled, of needing.....and needing and needing and needing no end in sight. This life, as good as God is, in my opinion offers so, unbelievably much pain and hurt, and the good here is a joke in the face of the weight of the pain. I know God works, and redeems, and brings hope...but are you fucking kidding me!!! I'de take heaven, now, over every thing this life has to offer me today or tomorrow(s). Course I don't really know tomorrow. Never been there. So I speak foolishly, without authority...i know.
Just being honest.
It is now 7:33PM.

Me. (photo by Jon Rule)

I've got two quotes today....

The first one is,

"Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation."

— C.S.Lewis, The Four Loves

And the second,

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, thought the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. "

-said by Ishmael, Moby Dick

I really like these. They both make me think of ways that I and my loved ones deal with life. I think, perhaps, they are both to be avoided. The second one not nearly so much as the first, but still... one can find too much comfort in a joke, find recourse in sarcasm, a home in self-pity and self-focused humor. To pity yourself, even with a smile, because the joke of life is on you, to have the touch of the sardonic in every bit of beauty you find left, will poison you, in the end. Damn you. Just like Lewis said, in the first. And the flip side? What to do? Anyone want to counter these? When your heart is not cold... but broken? When you deal with the momentous head on, earnestly, without humor, and it is too much? The tribulation of the momentous is too much?

(Or I guess I could go back to work.)

"The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run."


This came last week to me in Moby Dick. How fabulous, really. How wonderful. I am just enjoying that book more than I have enjoyed a book in a long time. I hope that this time in my life will be looked back upon and characterized by the reading of Moby Dick. I do that, you know, with the seasons of my life. Find something to attach them to, to associate them with. Helps me stay organized in my memories. Kind of love doing it, too. This book has so much beauty and so much roughness, I can literally feel the wind and the salt water cracking my lips, that songs of the sailors, the fears of the first mate and the wild vengeful anger of Ahab. I am there. I am always there when I'm reading. Perhaps that is why I love to read, so much. I can read this book slowly, soaking it in, paced, and I can't do that usually. I can read it with rain, or with dark, it takes me in so completely and deeply, albeit slowly, that I am gone from now and so exultant to be there, with Ishmael.
I miss my friends this morning. I want to have a party. I want it to be New Years. I want to see Knox and Emily. I want to watch Luke play a game. I want to play red rover with Jordan, Anna Laura, Emily, Samantha, Knox, Marshall, Matt, Josh, Katie Gray, Luke, Will, Ran, Crystal and Britta, Jaden, Shiloh, Dawnie, and perhaps more people that want to play, anyone who wants to play. I want to have a pick-nick in the park, have my Dad pay for all of the food, invite all my friends, and play red rover. And I want Shiloh to win. And me. Too. I want to sit in chairs and talk to the women folk about gardening, and men. I want to see Jaden and Shiloh fly kites. I want to go to the mountains. I want to swim. And have pizza at the pool. And have a handstand contest. I want to count deer in the loop, and walk back into the woods to see that old house, or that old church. I need anna laura to be there, to see the old house or church. Maybe she will have her camera. I hope we listen to music in the car on the way there. I hope I don't have to drive. I hope gas is free that day. I hope nobody forgets cream or foil. I hope we have an easter egg hunt or maybe play freeze tag or whiffle ball. I hope Pastor Mitch is there...he was always there when we had easter egg hunts. In the mountains. It will be so cold to swim in the mountains. Maybe we'll go to the lake instead, and ride on the tube, or better yet watch Jordan and Emily ride on the tube. And they'll be grinning so big and trying to hang on for dear life and screaming and maneuvering to balance the tube against the incline. And I will be getting a tan. And the pickles will be so good, whether we are at the mountains, or the park, or the lake. The pickles will just be so good. Ummmh.

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/swineflu_you.htm

What should I do to keep from getting the flu?
First and most important: wash your hands. Try to stay in good general health. Get plenty of sleep, by physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not to touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flue virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
-Center for Disease Control

I think we should take this seriously, people. I will be participating in doing my part to fight the swine flu at 5:30, preservation pub. Joiners? I will walk there, I will drink, I will eat, I will de-stress, and then I will go home and sleep.

Liberation Theology

These are Congolese children in an IDP camp. Found these photos by Andrew McConnel. I read the forward to "We Drink from Our Own Wells," by Gustovo Gutierrez today. The forward, by Henri Nowen, talked about Jesus. And the freedom that is in knowing and walking with Jesus. It was about how when the poor know Jesus, they have already won. Which is why they know how to dance. And laugh. And be thankful. And have community. You've probably seen them do it... I have... in the dump of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Their joy was bewildering. I have felt so hopeless lately, about suffering, about oppression, about the Dark hold on the earth. It can be simple to forget, here in our bubble, our sliver of insane prosperity, where we think that oppression and death and disease are disturbing and thrilling and merit our attention as much as gardening does. Or perhaps less. We are so confused about what "life on earth" really means. For all of history, what it has really meant. For generation after generation, for billions of people, it means rape, starvation, despair, sickness, disease, slavery, death. Lots of death. The woman in the picture above suffered rape by two CNDP soldiers in the Congo. As is common, her husband has taken her four children and left her.This photo is recent. I have been overwhelmed this week with the pervasiveness of Oppression, even here in our fuzzy slippered nation. There are 20 sex offenders within 2 miles of my home. A knoxville ministry serves fourteen hundred meals every day. My home is broken. My city is broken. My nation is broken. My car, my budget, the walls and ceilings of my new house, all broken. Oh, and I am broken too. So when I read this:

Jesus the Lord loves the oppressor as well as the oppressed and entered into history to set all men and women free. Knowing Jesus in the way the disciples knew him does not allow for a cool and calculated strategy aimed at the overthrow of the oppressor and acquisition of power by the poor. The good news that Jesus annouces is the news that love is stronger than death and that the evils of hatred, destruction, exploitation, and oppresssion can only be overcome by the power of love that comes from God.
...I have to stop. This is revolutionary. At my lunch break, in the sun, with my food sitting beside me, cigarette in hand, and I have to close my eyes. The light and the wind bear down on me, and I pray so earnestly I can know Him. That I can hear Him. That he will have me dancing and singing and shouting the Victory in Jesus over every Dark force and horrific form of bondage that that Capitol Son of a Bitch has to offer the Earth today. That I will love... that love will be stronger than death in my life, could it be? Oh, I am so feeble, so weak, even afraid to hope that this can be true. God! Make me brave like the singing dancing lovers of you that live on that mountain of trash!

copy and paste, copy and paste

http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/
2008/11/children_dying_in_haiti_victim.html

good morning, good mo-o-orning.

Just feel like writing this morning.

Read about how anna laura went to the mountains all by her self. If it had been me, it would have been all by my lonesome, 'stead of self. Wish I had the balls to go and do stuff like that. Why is it that if I am not experiencing something with someone, it doesn't feel worth experiencing? This is a serious disability. I mourn the ability that i never had of valuing life just because its mine.

Miss Katie Gray this morning. She knows me, well. And she's awful attractive.

I am wearing the highest heels I own. They feel great. Emotionally.

I was able to tell someone about the Innocence Mission. Someone that had never heard of them. This person loves it, of course. He keeps sending me text messages about this or that song, this or that album. His life has been enriched, and I am taking the credit. Ha! I am now, with great joy, going to reveal to him the Ps22 version of "There". Ha!

I am thankful for my job today. Gave Joel a ride this morning to town, since I was coming to work, and I parked my gorgeous car and got out in my heels and my D&G bag and walked into the tallest building in knoxville to make coffee, sit at a desk and do this. And Joel walked away to look for a job. A home. A car. A reason to live. Love. He is so precious, and so young. Father, draw his heart into a relationship of intimacy that I can't even fathom. May he be a prophet, an apostle, a healer, teacher, leader. You make the call.
I was writing a poem of sorts in my Most Personal Journal the other day, and one line I liked. "Got to find- something else to live for. Got to live for something else." It speaks so me. You would think that everything you wrote would speak to you. Not so. I realized that I have been living a little crooked. I think God wants for me to be fulfilled. To be alive. So then I think that if I follow God, it is the most sure fire method of me being fulfilled and alive. This is crooked, but it can be subtle. Because my one goal in this, truly, is just to follow God. But, I am following God so that I will get what I want. (Yeek!) 'Cause God created marriage, and children, and adventure, and music, and beauty. Surely it is within reason to expect that he wants me to experience the "full" life. you know, abundant life. And so I will follow him. To get what I want.
Well, this is what I was thinking of when I said, Got to live for something else. I can't live with the same dad-blasted teenage hopes of love and adventure as the highest calling in life. How dumb would I have to be, to keep living with those hopes. I don't have it figured out yet, and I would also have to be dumb to take a pat answer to this. I've got plenty of those. They are shit. Worthless. So. Got to find something else to live for.

I live right now broken cold
Coals glow dusty hot underneath my wood my
Wood is wet now, evaporated want craving
Fire raging up, raging on i want it bigger,
bigger.
Or just to float up with vapors smoking
Steam (atmospheric want) into
Ozone, float free spooked
Dead weightless wantless forever.
(forever.)

fantastic

Anna Laura's little sister, Havah, was assigned the task of writing a story. Here it is.

“Once upon a time there was a girl that lived with her brother, and her brother longed for adventure. One day she found a piece of paper and it said:

Dear Max,
If you find this, do not let Peter give you lime punch at 7:30.
Love,
Alice”

Me today.

told marshall i would write about this...

So here's what happened. I was laying in Josh's bed the other night. It was seven o'clock. I had been reading Memoirs of Geisha, and something about the tragedy and despair of the asian mindset in that book translated itself to me, (shocking, i know). I put the book down and just lay there, in the half dark, and I was able to cry. I was filled with the despair of my own sitiuation and sent my thoughts roving around in the dark fields of my memories and my disapointments. I spend just a few moments crying really hard, you know how. And all at once, as I was crying, going back and forth between crying hard and not, I realized that in one position my face felt comfortable, at home, like it was RIGHT. All screwed and squeezed up around my eyes, mouth open, crying really hard. And when I relaxed my face, my muscles, my tears, well then my face did not feel nearly as comfortable. And then as soon as i opened my mouth wide again and squinched up my eyes to cry...it felt good. It felt right. So fascinating.

Did you know...If you lay on your back on a bed and cry...the tears roll down the sides of your face and get your ears wet.

Thankfully marshall came bangin around and shaking things up on this friday night that I thought I preferred to spend in bed. And Marsh and Matt and I went to Taste of Thai and had a marvelous, wonderful time. Lish.

Something must be done.

Funny thing about cigarette ash. It doesn't really matter where it falls... it dissolves quickly, it breaks into tiny particles that scatter on any surface in the slightest disturbance of air. It is a non-issue, cigarette ash, compared to the butt, which is a continual and ever-confusing issue, people up-in-arms and posting notices and inventing new smell proof containers for them. They are not biodegradable. They are ugly, they stink, they are disgusting when inadvertently mixed with water. Cigarette butts are the embarrassment of the Smoker proper. Even with no filter, when you and God both know for certs that the little bunch of tobacco and tissue thin paper will disappear during the first rain or trampling, Other people don't know. Or they pretend not to, or they just really WANT it to be true that the little non-filtered butt is an odious burden to society. Anyways. Back to the ash. I was smoking last night, alone on the porch...watching the burning glow of the tip as it changed, as it moved and breathed. And I realized how incredible it is that something must be done with the ash. It must be dealt with. It must be flicked. How many hands, how many billion times a day. How lame if it gets dropped on a shirt, or in a car. What a nice trick how you can lick your finger and then touch a dropped ash, ever so gently, and get it to stick until moved to safer territory. How stressful when in the car or on a very clean porch and you realize the ash does not have a near and present safe spot. The ash...is elegant. Gray, white, and black... Once burning and orange, beautiful and alive, it is now soft and powdery and waiting to be dispersed back into the land. Made of old trees and plants. Full of my breath. I was thinking in the back of my head before that it was kind of a chore, but last night I knew that I love having to decide so many times and so many times more where the ash will go.

a story...and a poem.

"I'm hungry. And thirsty. Want a smoke? I do. How bout a drink? No? Well, fine. I supposed we should just sit here, then?"
"Finally", she thought, and sat, and reminisced and organized each peculiar and sordid detail of the morning she spent with the stranger. They decided to go swim sharks for the day and thought about the contours of sea and how they corresponded to the maps of their faces. Why then are crows the only ones what walk on water. But does explain the faint smell of tidal wave at my doorstep the morning you left. Why does everything have to be so confusing? For once I would just love it if white could be white and black could at least pretend to be black. For once what's sinister could stop pretending. For once I could rest, tirelessly, on a lay-z-boy in the sky. Tethered by my hopes for "seconds". Hopes dashed, I speed away in the car to the nearest tree museum in Anchorage Alaska.

by natalie, sam, nick, and matthew.

i wrapped you in
wool that i sheared
from the oracle of
the forest

which made you
smell of salt and honey
the bees and
sparrows followed us
to the city that
ran on corn and was
built on concrete


~samantha farmer

Tryin' to decide if I should go on this trip with Jay and Luke and Katie and Larry. Should I? I put this question out into the void. I feel like I should go, like its what I've been wanting, like its the type of thing I'm called to do. But you know that special, excited feeling you get about visiting somewhere... I don't have that. At all.. I have no affection or thrill for this land, or for these people. I feel so white. So insecure in my meager pathetic efforts to help. Like if I were them, I would kidnap me too. I am afraid. Really afraid. I wonder if I should just push through and go anyways, even though I'm insecure, awkward, and afraid of being there. Is it the "right" thing to do. To just be brave, even when you are scared. Hmmm? Am I supposed to have some sort of fuzzy good feeling about it? Peace? Would that be an indication that I should go? I love to take pictures...and thats what I would be doing. I love children, and thats what I would be seeing. Oh God, give me wisdom!! Okay people that read my blog...its time to comment!! ALL of you!!

Everyone else already has their tickets. I need to get mine. Soon. p.s. please don't mention the name of the place in your commentary. 'tanks.

Jon used to bring in little weird pieces of the great outdoors and "put" them around the house. He put leaves on the kitchen light. He put a long piece of hay in a hole in the wall. He even attached a bumble bee, a large one, to one of the leaves. He used to cook weird concoctions in the kitchen. And then leave the nastiest dish mess. All over the counters.. food everywhere. And the dish rag ALWAYS squished in the corner of the bottom of the sink, covered in food and soaking wet.

He built perfect fires.

I want to be lost with my overalls.

Its my bird-day. I'm twenty-six. So disappointing. But nice for it to be my birthday. I'm at work. Nothing for me to do right now. My boss doesn't mind. The view is nice, at least. And twelve dollars an hour is nice. I just had lunch with my dearests. It was delightful. It was paid for. I am full now, and tired, and want to go home and change out of skirts and tights and high heels. Into overalls. Funny about my overalls... I can't find them. I think about them often. They were light blue with a green zipper. I had them in my Previous Life. They have come to signify all the comfort that has been lost. Lost like, I don't know where they are. What happened to them. I can't find them. I miss them. I am uncomfortable, now. Without my overalls. I can't slip into them and go do comfortable things. There is no garden of linten roses to lounge in, with them on. There is no kitchen table next to a window to look out, with them on. No fireplace to sit by, with them on. No husband to slide his hands behind the big open space in my overalls, to touch my back. Now, not even any warm summer air to bask in, with a tank top and flip flops, under my overalls. But that, and that only, of all these things, is temporary...

I am sorry if you readers of my blog get tired of my grief. I am tired of it. It will not, stubbornly refuses to, go away. I miss you all too, if it means anything to you. I miss myself! OH, so hard today on my birthday to still long with every fiber of my being to be lost and gone, dead, instead of alive, like my overalls.

Good Morning!

9 degrees outside! And God is so good. Tears in my eyes this morning just thinking about the option I have to have my soul near His. Its thrilling. Scary. Wonderful.

May I begin to live in such a way where my soul finds a well beaten path easier to take then a mountainous trek. And as Patrick finds comfort under the flap of my coat, may I take comfort, find sanctuary when I am near to the heart of God.

Lord! I wish I had a forerunner old school worship service to go to this morning! I would dance my heart out! (I tried dancing in my kitchen... just wasn't there.) Anyways...

Today I am going to hide. Probably tomorrow too...

shwewhhhhhhh. officially possibly the worst day of my life yesterday.

i feel: Guilt, terror, anger, a sadness that suffocates, disappointment, grief, confusion that blinds, weight, a desire to die, and a heavy blinding blackness. I have a close knowledge of "evil". Too close. I know more than i want to, more than i asked to know. i have spent much of my life scoffing at naivete, but now i value it, treasure it. I know why adults and parents worry and guard their children or any child's knowledge in this world. I am terrified to have children. Scared of what is out there for them to know, to experience. to be disappointed by. The disappointment is one of the worst things about it, about life.

Pain is so strange. It is itself an objective, physical thing. Like a nose ring. Or a rock. I wonder what I would have to do to make myself immune to it? I don't think that my personal life experience is any sort of standard to measure pain and disappointment by. It has, however awakened me to the possibilities. It is of those that I am afraid. For you, for my future children, for my family, for everyone. I do have hope of experiencing joy again, of living. But today I am going to hide. Probably tomorrow too.

When i think of survival today... i think about Patrick, my cat. And how this morning he sounded like he was dying outside my door, wanting to be let into my room. So I let him in, even though I was hurrying to work, and picked him up, which I knew he wanted b/c he was hanging from my sock with his teeth while i moved about. And after I picked him up he put one paw on one side of my neck, and the other paw curled around the other side of my neck. and then he put his little head down on my chest, just under my chin. And held still.
i think about beer. and how i like the taste of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. how it costs money, and so is an investment. and investment in life, in living. in living and working and tasting on purpose.
i think about my friends. (by friends i mean family too. one group, dammit.) and how they need me, and how i need them. how beautiful they are, how precious. what i want for them. how i want to live because they are living.
i think about music. how i know for a fact that i have music inside of me that people need to hear. that i have things to say, that are already known but need to be heard again. and again. like joseph's music. joseph's music brings us a strange peace. i think its the beauty of it.
anyways.

i always start my day...

dizzy from a cigarette, nauseous from the coffee, and hurting from the heels.

Befuddled. As usual.

Relationships are easy. Its dying to your Self thats hard. Yes, that is what I mean to say. I woke this morning lonely again. With the great Remembrance much to close to the cusp of my conscious self. So close I could see the glow of its big monster eyes spying me from the darkness of the cracked door. Shewf. Terrifying. Will it ever go away entirely, some year perhaps? I was also made presently aware of the War this morning. In a book, in a song, in video, in a conversation. Three times, maybe four. Just since waking this morning, with the terror and sadness haunting me, I have been made aware of the War, of the Greatness and glory and Story, four times. Why?

I do feel more peaceful just with that awareness. more hopeful. wonder why? what does the great war have to do with my sadness? Is it possible that my sadness could be swallowed? Engulfed in beauty, the beauty of a greater drama with a Redemption wilder than my half hearted imaginings? Perhaps if I lose myself... then this external objective "thing" that is my sadness will have no where to exist.. perhaps it will even die. starved of a soul to feed off of. Perhaps.

I don't know if it is wrong, in the true sense, to go off now, away from my computer, and look to fill the loneliness in me... but it cannot be any better to sit here, or in my room, or on the porch, and be washed by it, wave after wave. dunno, really. but, BUT! thank God, I'm hungry. something to do. incoming..text...just now.... my sister. "We've got pizza..." How did she know?