Hey Peeps

I miss you all.

So anyhow this morning, it was really filthy mcnasty out, gray and raining and yucko. I kind of liked it and mostly resented it. Then supposedly it got nice, which has not been verified, i repeat, this has not been verified, because I am still currently on the twenty-first floor. I’m leaving soon, to meet my bud for a beer, which is gr&, and to bum a smoke from him, which is possibly gr&er, and to tell him the reflections I had today on Suttree, which reflections are always important in ways you will never understand but always suspect.

Jesuschristmas is coming up fast, eh?

I miss you all still.

jesuschristmas

This time of year really is fabulous, isn't it. I'm so glad I'm not going to miss it.

Live at The Banks House from United Pursuit on Vimeo.

I hate being sick.

Found these.

The part where you wish you didn't have to breath never goes away i guess. I don't remember what it was like to trust life or even think for a bit that the bridge you were standing on wasn't made of glass. 

Goodbye forever, November 8, 2010

I hope you die a horrid and painful and miserable death. Today was unbelievably blech. Mostly for reasons that I can’t talk about here, which is why i never blog anymore, cause i can’t talk about anything, here. Gah. Retardando.

I’ve been studying for a chem test 2morrow, electron configs and their prospective 3 dimensional shapes. Its all very complicated. If I were to have it explained to me, by a normal person that understood it, I think I might find that it is not in fact that complicated. “Hybridized electron orbitals!?? No big damn deal,” I would say. But tonite, at 11:24 pm, which to my body is 12:24 pm due to the DAMNABLE time change, hybridized orbitals are just awful and I have been studying since 5:33 and I forgot to eat till just now and have had no smokes and no tea and no nothing, even friends, or family for GODS SAKE and I hate this day, monday, november 8, 2010.

Goodbye forever.

ART BLOG

Hey guys.. Read my blog, why don't ya.

An exercise in positivity...er...what?

Things that are good/i like/ppl should like/are encouraging/are cool:

• New paintings
• Old North Abby. It's a cool church.
• Quantum Physics. It's interesting and hurts my brain
• Gray tights with a little lace-like pattern
• Andrea and Will-they are so funny! and they understand me pretty well
• Going to India
• Blogs about street fashion
• I am entertaining the idea of taking Cooper from Jordan and Luke. They don't need him.
• Christmas. I mean, hey, its coming. What.
• Frango Mints (best. ever.)
• New music I like... Ben Sollee... Karima Francis... 
• The prospect of this weekend (dear god i hope it works out)
• Cigarettes. Still good, still a day-brightener, every time.

Well thats the whole list. I know it's weird, two blogs so close together! But I am avoiding doing homework right now so... well, yeah.  Anyhow here's to positivity. 

The Times

I love the ny times. Seriously? It’s so cool. If you want to be awesome, get a subscription for the weekends. Then go out and sit somewhere where ppl can see you, get a cup of something delicious, like plain coffee from Java, roll a smoke, sit outside in the clear october sun, and read it. Yup, pure awesomeness. (shout out- JPH, except the smoking, you are not that cool.)

So lame weekend last weekend. Avoiding details, suffice it to say, I am still pulling out of it, and may still be slightly hung-over, here at the office on monday morning, half physically and half emotionally. Gah i hate emotions. I am so done with them, forever. (As the last nanny in Mary Poppins so emphatically stated upon leaving.) All I can say for this weekend is that the sun shone relentlessly, Lincoln laughed at me, I got some studying done, Patrick likes me again, and Bulleit, as usual, is the best. Focus on positive.

Don’t think, or feel, just keep doing chemistry, that is my motto. Also avoid ppl no matter what. Also my motto. I have several.

Jordan sent me a message early this morning, before work… “It’s a happy day, and I thank God for the weather… It’s a happy day, and I’m living it for my Lord… It’s a happy day, and things are gonna get better, livin each day on the promises of God’s word.” How does she always know? Gah.

Our mom used to sing that to us when we were little, and Lord if we weren’t raised right then I don’t who was…

This is hilarious.

BLOGGING via TYPEWRITER.: Do You Suffer From One of These Writing Maladies?

52hearts:sealegslegssea: travors: (Via AnnieAtkins & Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent)

Yoda Effect: Difficult to read, sentences are, when reversing sentences an author is. Cart before horse, I’m putting, and confused, readers will be.

Overstuffed Sentences: An overstuffed sentence happens when a writer tries to pack too many things into one sentence in convoluted fashion, making it difficult for the intent of the sentence to come through and to follow it becomes an exercise in re-reading the sentence while making the sentence clearer in our brains so we can understand the overstuffed sentence, which is the point of reading.

Imprecision: When writers just miss the target ground with their word using they on occasion elicit a type of sentence experiential feeling that creates a backtracking necessity.

Chatty Cathy: So, like, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but OMG teenagers use so much freaking slang!!! And multiple exclamation points!!! In a novel not a blog post!!! And so I’m all putting tons of freaking repetitious verbal tics into totes every sentence and it’s majorly exhausting the reader because WAIT I NEED TO USE ALL CAPS.

Repetition: Sometimes when authors get lyrical, lyrical in a mystical, wondrous sense, they use repetition, repetition that used sparingly can be effective, effective in a way that makes us pause and focus, focus on the thing they’re repeating, but when used too many times, so many times again and again, it can drive us insane, insane in a way that will land the reader in the loony bin, the loony bin for aggrieved readers.

Shorter Hemingway: Clipped sentences. Muscular. Am dropping articles. The death. It spreads. No sentence more than six words. Dear god the monotony. The monotony like death.

Non Sequiturs: Sometimes when authors are in a paragraph one thing won’t flow to the next. They’ll describe one thing, wow can you believe that thing that happened three days ago?, and keep describing the first thing.

Description Overload: Upon this page there is a period. It is not just any period, it is a period following a sentence. It follows this sentence in a way befitting a period of its kind, possessing a roundness that is pleasing to the eye and hearty to the soul. This period has the bearing of a regal tennis ball combined with the utility of a used spoon. It is an unpretentious period, just like any other, the result of hundreds of years of typesetting innovations that allows it to be used, almost forgotten, like oxygen to the sentence only darker, more visible. And it is after this period, which will neither reappear nor matter in any sense whatsoever to the rest of the novel, that our story begins.

Stilted dialogue:
Character #1: “I am saying precisely what I mean!”
Character #2: “Wait. What is that you are trying to tell me?”
Character #1: “Are you frickin’ listening to me? I am telling you precisely what I am feeling in this given moment. And I’m showing you I’m really angry by using pointed rhetorical questions and petulant exhortations. God.”
Character #2: “Sheesh! Well, I’m responding with leading questions that allow you to tell me exactly what you mean while adding little of value to the conversation on my own. Am I not?”
Character #1:”You are totally doing that. You totally frickin’ are. Ugh! I’m so mad right now!”

The Old Spice Guy Effect (excessive rug-pulling). The character was standing on a rug. He falls through his floor to his death! The rug was actually a trap door. But wait, the character was already dead. He merely faked falling through the trap door. But wait, the trap door was actually a portal into another world. The character was actually alive, he just thought he was dead. Now he’s really dead. Or is he? I’m in a chair.

A quiet moment, with no boss, no phones,

and some reasonably fresh folgers.

Do you guys (that have been there) ever have moments when you are homesick for Great Britain? I know that sounds a little weird...but every so often, I feel this way. It's like, over there, the light is different, the flowers are different, and the tea tastes better. It's combined for me with the smell of vanilla and the idea of walking in the rain, and not trying to hurry out of it. Of looking at the sea because its just there to look at, not because you are on an american vacation at the beach with chairs and heat and sand toys and sunscreen. Of charity shops and music and modernity, in all its heathen glory. Of broken people and carefully arranged cupboards.

Americans are so weird. SO WEIRD. And this country just doesn't hold back, it just blares and blares and is so f-ing in your face all the time. It's so wrong, in so many ways, and so anti-god, with it's self-entitled attitude and constant, ever-present fear. Americans are dominated by fear... don't ever let anyone tell you different.

Not that the UK is better. But you know how it is, sometimes you get a wanderlust, for anywhere but here.

I would just like a garden, please, instead of my yard.

It's saturday....

And lord if I'm not lonely and bored as hell. Irregardlessly.

Earlier today I watched my brother's face, as he stared up at his computer, mixing a song he tracked yesterday.

He had the same look on his face he had when he was 5 years old, building a cardboard box garage for his matchbox cars. So concerned, so intense.

He is just so precious. I guess seeing that look on his face probly made my day worthwhile. Even if I did fail at other significant social interactions and friend-building. Even if I did read AND work on a painting. And write a blog! Oh god its worse than i thought.

this is a test:

TEST

Damn i wish I knew stuff about the internet.

Chattanooga, TN

It's terrible, but

I keep thinking about all that I will do if I ever have any dad-blamed money. First and formostly, a trip with Chlo to anywhere we want for as long as we want. Perhaps to stay in a hotel in France with elaborate wallpaper, perhaps to see the pyramids, or possibly just to stay in Dublin for a week and do nothing at all but get a tattoo and listen to music and drink.

Ahem.

um.

Sitting here at work crying due to having just read Chloe's blog. Don't do it. I'm telling' you.

I just remembered...

"Sometime after this, I just drank the rest of the Bulleit because HELL."

and my day became infinitesimally better.

It's monday and I am 27 years old.

I miss everybody and I want to relax and to have fun. I miss anna laura a LOT okay.

I am scared of life a little bit today...trying to not think about it okay.

I like dwelling on small things today like finishing my little baby podunk child classes and Andrea's new song she and Will are working on, and going to the beach and cleaning my house. Okay.

I like thinking about how something Matt did the other day may be the funniest thing I have ever seen in my whole life, bar none. And coffee. I have noticed that I spend a lot of time thinking about coffee. Buying some, needing some, going for some, drinking some, thinkin about making some. Heh.

I do NOT want to think about 4 years from now, or the USMLE pass rate of medical schools. I do NOT want to think about how I need $400 in 2 days. I do NOT want to think about broken people. I definitely do not want to think about when I go home at night and am too tired from not thinking about things all day to do anything...

I'm about to get a shot of hope right now, here in a sec, when I take a moment to ask for it...

Friends:

A) I am applying to med school.

B) I am applying to med school in the land pictured above.

Lets all hope for the best now. I am still praying a lot about it... but in my heart I already feel like applying is the right thing to do. It would be something of a miracle if I got in, as the school would need to waive my pre-requisites of Chemistry and Physics.

Pros: a measly $4,000 per semester, no need to take the MCAT, its on an effing tropical paradise, I would be done with classes there and ready for my 2 yrs. of clinicals in the states in 16 months, (so 3.5 years to be an MD, sort of i think?) I would be able to make lots of money later if I wanted to. I could save lots of peoples lives later if i wanted to. :) Faith is there and I could live with her and she could show me the ropes and oh, did I mention I would be a doctor?

Cons: I would have to "work through some prejudice" upon my return to the states, according to Dr. Keene my microbiologist professor. (She however thinks it is a fabulous idea and offered to write me a letter of recommendation.)It would take some maneuvering to get my clinicals. I would have to borrow a lot of money. I would have to move to a foreign country and miss everybody so bad I would probably throw up.

Another Pro: I want to do this.

Allright, now I've got the drama all out and over with. Shew enough of that. (Ha! It will never be over! I've tricked them all!)

Fun times.

This is the immune system, in a nutshell. My professor has a penchant for diagrams. Lord help us. This is what the board looks like on any typical night of A & P.

Truth.

Okay. Let's just discuss how target is more tempting than, I dunno, Brad Pitt drenched in dark chocolate carrying a case of dom perignon on his head while offering me plane tickets to Fiji. I mean, how does ONE store harbor ALL 7 of the deadly sins? It's like the dollar bin draws me in like an invisible force. The bag and scarf section? Kryptonite. I really just can't go there anymore.

Mon at 8:06pm via Facebook for iPhone · Comment ·
-Katie Basbagill

mmm-hmmm.

He's related to me. By blood. He is half stuff like Luke and half stuff like Jordan. Can't you tell?

Oh so definitely.

Yeah I am going to the David Bazan show tomorrow night at the Grey Eagle with Anna Laura. Yeah we are driving there by ourselves. Yeah we are going to stop in the middle of the mountains for any promising photo opps. Yeah we will drink beer before the show. Oh yeah we are going to wear really attractive things. And probly make up. Oh and yeah we will get coffee in asheville as soon as we get there, on our way to the book store. Oh yeah did I mention we are leaving at 3 to get there early providing time for beer, books, and coffee? OH yeah we are. Oh and yeah we are coming back late tomorrow night to sleep for a few measly hours and then get up early on Friday to make the bucks and pay the bills.

Cause that's the way we roll.

So glad,

that it is going to be warm soon. It is cloudy today, which is even more depressing than usual because it is so close to being warm. But soon... soon it will be warm and the sun will shine for as long as you want it to, and then maybe a bit more. I am hereby declaring that I will spend as much time at the mountains this year as I want to, and then maybe a bit more.

I declare I will read unnecessary books.

I declare I will get a very unhealthy tan.

I declare I will travel this summer.

I declare I will plant flowers.

I declare I will buy a chair for my porch.

I declare I will make mint juleps, with Knox's recipe, and sit on some porch somewhere and drink them with smiling, friend-like people!

Okay, I feel better now. Shew. And just think of how big Lincoln will be. This summer.

I enjoyed going to AB's yesterday and having country steak with green peppers and onions and mushrooms. And 4 slices of french bread with butter. And chocolate milk in a large heavy glass. I enjoyed hearing her rant about our country, the coming downfall, the economic crisis, and how scary it is that neither she nor Sammie were alerted by the graffiti scoundrel in the ally. I loved the look on John Job's face when Aunt Betty grabbed my Case knife and my eyeliner pencil out of my hand to sharpen my eyeliner for me because I was "just not doing that the right way at all." I loved sitting on the couch with AL and discussing things, confidentially. And coming away with 2 large boxwoods for my front porch. Of course.

We will be having cooking class again at AB's sometime in the coming month. Anyone who is interested in learning to cook is invited, and anyone who is interested in eating the learnings is invited for afternoon dinner. It will be on a saturday, let me know if you want to come.

Window Washer.

He just wants to be RECOGNIZED.

0:16 AM me: WHAT are you doing.

10:18 AM okay fine.

forget it.

10:20 AM Jordan: sorry! working on business taxes :(

me: eew.

Jordan: and somebody is squeaking in the living room.

me: WHAT

spank him!

10:21 AM Jordan: he just wants to be RECOGNIZED.

me: oh blah blah SPANK HIM!

10:22 AM Jordan: he just wants to be HEARD.

me: well.

you tell him you heard him. and then

SPANK HIM!!!

10:24 AM Jordan: i cant he's SENSITIVE.

me: listen.

oh nevermind.

10:25 AM i'll just spank him the next time i see him.

if you want something done...

Jordan: ok. he'll love you for that. "auntie em my favorite!"

me: children appreciate discipline.

"Children appreciate discipline".

You can quote me on that.

Jordan: i will! we'll see how it works out for you.

Well I woke up, this morning...

and my hair was doing this.

Considerations

Watching the snow fall on my car, out the wooden front windows of Java.

Last night I found myself wrestling between the good and the bad in life, wondering again if it is worth it. The bad is so bad! I was wrestling with my aches- i hesitate to even speak of things like that here. I guess I don’t know how.

Anyhow, final conclusions I came to:

1) The best thing you can do in life is love. Selfless, pride-less love. Give yourself away. Love people, love God by loving people, know God by loving people. Let your one passion be to love and serve. Your main request. Your goal, your 5 year plan. Your meditation and your constant prayer. Its the only thing that will feel fulfilling, the only thing you will be proud of, the only way to avoid mistakes, to “cover a multitude”, if you will.  Its they only goal worth having.

2) Being alone is not so bad. Paul was right. When you are in a relationship, you experience all kinds of- shit. It takes a lot of effort. And time. And consideration. And angst. And- and- and- lots and lots of your life is spent being wrapped up in “it” and also your current quality of life while in the midst of “it”. You think about it, feel about it, talk about it. You live it. But in the end, it really does not have that much to do with item A, featured above. You can use it to do A, but you can do A just fine without it. So. Be happy if you are in a relationship, and be happy if you are not. Focus on A.

chikn bizcuits

I miss Jordan at work.

morning.

Its tuesday, feb 16, and i don't know if any of you knew, but its suPPOSE to be snowing right now and my three grueling classes that start in 28 minutes are suPPOSE to be cancelled.

I took a bunch of tests last week, 3 of them, and then the pre-nursing admission test on saturday. I did good on everything, so for the first time in my life, while preparing my homework sheets this morning for class, I knew that the answer to question 7 was sub par, if not totally wrong, and I did not fix it.

I feel like a wild, wild, highly irresponsible (and unpredictable!) person.

I also miss everyone, and the good old days of sitting on the Grainger porch. Well, that also has to do with it being f-ing 21 degrees outside right now, albeit sans snow.

Need to go gather up my lab coat- have a great tuesday everyone.

Realized again today that my heart beats faster, thinking about drawing.

Drawings I did, once upon a time.

Just.

Sometimes I just get tired of fighting everything being about loss. Sometimes I just get tired. I have to fight, on facebook, because there are people I can't talk to, people who can't talk to me, who are lost. But still there...
I have to fight at java, or in the old city, or in Knoxville, because there are people I can't talk to and who can't speak to me, people I used to love, I still love.

I have to fight on Sundays, because there are places I can't go, where there are people I still love.

I have to fight in my home, in my bed, in my car and in the shower, in the night and in the mornings, in minutes and hours and on vacations, holidays, birthdays and every other fucking day, because there is a person who I can't talk to, that I used to love, that I still love, that is gone, not there.

I am twenty-seven and doing much better, thank you, but there are times oftener than I know that I would give all I have to not be fighting any more, to be gone all the way. So tired.

Go look at the whole album.

By: Faith Amelingmeier

A short sad story.

UPDATE:
Due to having to re-add A&P II to my schedule, (that is long sad story) I now work till 5:30 on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Abraham..father of the faithful, friend of God.

Church at TCAK was SO GOOD on sunday! My brain and heart are filled to overflowing with desire to be brave, humble, honest, etc for God! These are bits of what Jamie Goldenburg taught, and my personal story in kind:

Important trials in everyone's life that happen between them and God:

1. Fervor (Separation)
2. Reliance (Circumstances)
3. Honesty
4. Humility
5. Courage
6. Greed

1. Fervor
Abraham was asked to leave his family and home country and just leave... travel... away, alone, to an unknown place... He had to separate from what he knew and just go on a "word" from God. His family probably thought he was crazy...they were probably angry. His wife...she probably cried. His aunts and uncles and cousins and father and mother... they didn't want him to go, I don't think.

I think as far as right now goes... the Lord has asked me to be a nurse. To go to a new school, (yuck!), to take science classes, to pursue a career that I never, ever would have thought of before, and throw the path of my life into a radically different and new direction. Its cool. I only have to separate from the person I was before... And having lost my whole world kind of makes this easier. I feel like pretty regularly he asks me to separate from things. To go to new and scary and uncomfortable places. He has asked me, in the long run, to live in the 3rd world. Hmm. He has also asked lately that I let him heal me... which involves letting down my guard, which I haven't done for a long... long time.

Thats all for today... I will do another soon. Anyone else want to write their own story of when God has asked for fervor from them, now or in the past? If you like, I would love to hear.

more, even

My thoughts are many and scattered.

Went to the tuesday night small group last night. Brittany E began crying and praying for Haiti... Michael K then asked God to help us give up our self-consumed burdens so that we could feel His burdens..for Haiti... Rachel B prayed then that the church in the u.s. of a. would wake up and heed the call to adopt orphans from haiti, thousands and thousands and thousands of orphans from haiti... people sobbed... asking God for mercy for that country, that He would roam the streets like a search and rescue aid worker looking for the lost, trapped, and broken... that He would appear to the 380,000 plus orphans in dreams and visions...sitting with them while they wait for water, surgery, food. That the people would ask for Him. We sang and cried and beseeched the Father and Physician to be father and physician to millions sleeping under sheets and cardboard...

I thought of the friend mentioned in the last post, who does not live here, and wished they could have been here. I was glad I dropped Anatomy and was there at the Banks house instead of in class.

There was another earthquake at 6:03 this morning, of 6.1 magnitude.

Spoke with a friend yesterday who says that he had to "talk his sister out of going" to Haiti as a relief nurse, that he was worried about how traumatizing it would be to her. That there were gangs. That she has no experience with 3rd world aid relief. That it might be difficult for her emotionally.

Read a stat on CNN this morning that up to 20,000 people are dying every day in Haiti due to lack of sufficient emergency medical personnel.

Feel like i'm gonna lose my mind when considering how crazy the above two paragraphs are when compared, side by side.

I would like to sink into and lose myself in pretty photographs, in good coffee and art, in books and in love, by firesides and on mountain tops, hiking or walking or yoga or bikes... But I can't. I know I am still here, just as I have always been, but my heart groans to be there...I ache to know Jesus more in his and theirs and my own suffering...

NOTE: I need a roommate. A nice one with no cat.

Thank you for reading.

"I'll cry forever"

So weird. Last week, i got divorced, 100,000 people died, and i read about mother teresa and how she struggled. shew. I heard from God, about some important things, I made changes in how i live, that are hard, that hurt, and I feel like a different person. I play the electric guitar now, (shout out: JDC trucking), and drop classes because I need to be less busy so that I can spend more time letting God "work" on me. I go to church. I sit around with christian kids and talk about semi-meaningless things. I listen. I value time with my family more, and time with friends. I am in a Microbiology class, which involves wearing a lab coat and goggles, I have $0 in my checking account, and I have black hair. All these things are good, and some are painful.

I was speaking with a good friend (who doesn't live here) via gchat this morning and she said that someone told her during a prayer meeting whilst praying for Haiti not to cry, that "she couldn't carry that burden..". And she said to me, "100,000 people died, and they were telling me not to cry?"

-pause-

"I'll cry forever."

Me too, I will too, its only right- The darkness and hardness of living, for me and for the Haitians, for India and for Jon, for the inmates at Knox County Correctional Facility, for abused wives, and children, for the homeless and the disabled and the poor and the ill and for YOU, it is not to be swept under the rug, ignored, or desperately avoided. Oh God! Let us cry! Have MERCY on us Lord and let us weep with grief!

Mother Teresa carried the burden that Jesus gave her, his burden, she carried it too, and she wept, she lived in a dark place often, but not without joy...just without stupidity i guess.

The things that I dream of are changing... bit by bit. Perhaps he is doing it.

Pray for Haiti...

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/01/earthquake_in_haiti.html

I took these.