Pearls before Swine

Lately one particular biblical passage keeps coming into my mind: “Do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Matthew 7:6)

These words and the spirit of giving that permeates (but is not limited to!) the holiday season have got me thinking about gifts. Gifts tangible, gifts immaterial, gifts acknowledged, and gifts given only in the quiet of our own hearts. And the value of gifts. A gift has value in the eyes of the giver, and in the eyes of the gifted. If these don’t match, is there any absolute, objective value for a gift?

If you’re raised a Christian like I’ve been, you’ve heard the parable of the master who gave talents to his servants in proportion to their desserts, and rejoiced in the servants that cultivated and multiplied his gifts, but was angry with the servant, who for fear of losing the one talent he was given, went and hid it, and had no more to show than the one talent when his master came back. God, I believe, has an absolute value that He places on the gifts He gives us, and that value is not changed by how other people feel about them, or by how we feel about them. If we don’t like them, we might not use them well, and might derive no more blessing from them, but still they have that value in His eyes.

But I’ve been thinking about things on a more human level.

Back to the pearls before swine. I try every day to be myself, completely and unconditionally. And yes, I’m arrogant enough to see this as a gift I give to the world in general. I mean, I feel like who I am and what I have was certainly a gift given to me, so sharing that with others has an incredible value, at least in my eyes. I want to multiply my talents, instead of hiding them. I’m afraid I’ve done too much hiding them in the past, because I had hoped for different gifts. But I’ve come to value the gifts He’s given me much more. More every day. I’m not always as grateful as I should be, but I try to be, and I try to share. So the pearls, such as they are, pretty much end up flying off of me in all directions. It’s a constant barrage of pearls, some admittedly of greater price than others. But it’s me. I feel like I’m constantly shedding bits of myself wherever I go, and stopping to look around for swine is not normally part of the equation.

Maybe it’s a large component of my innocence that I pretty much fail to recognize the existence of swine in my world. I just assume that people are caring, are conscientious, are compassionate. That they give me the benefit of the doubt, that they want to know me, and knowing me, will of course care about me. I really can’t imagine the person that would have absolutely no value for me as a person, and would trample me under their feet, and turn and tear me to pieces.

But, realistically speaking, these people must be out there. Maybe they’re even people I know, but just don’t know well enough to know that I don’t know them. Or something. Right. So, I would like to firmly believe that giving of myself to people who don’t see the value does absolutely nothing to lessen that value. I am worth just as much with them in my life as without them. And in the immortal (if paraphrased) words of my buddy Tim, “If they don’t care about you, f*ck’em.” (Incidentally, Tim, to find this quote, I searched my e-mail and chats for the F word, and the vast majority of the entries are attributable to you. :-P)

But here’s an interesting question. What if I know someone has a lower value than I do for something I want to share? What if, knowing this, I decide to share it with them anyway, because I’d rather do that than completely shut myself off, and because I’m sure they must have some value for it, even if it’s not equal to my own? Does what I give become cheapened by my willingness to share it where it isn’t wanted, or isn’t valued as highly?

I guess giving advice is a good example. Advice is almost always of more value to the person giving it than the person getting it. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be given, necessarily. It’s just a tricky situation that has to be judged on its own individual merits. I guess that’s the only real answer to my questions above: it depends.

But, to mix biblical metaphors, do gifts cheapen when cast before swine? In some ways, I do think they might. Maybe. The pearls get muddy and broken. But the one talent was no less at the end of the tale than at the beginning. Except in that it was no more. And will the swine really turn around and attack me? I can’t really believe it. I probably never will, unless it happens. I pray to God it never does. But these thoughts keep coming to mind, and I continue to chew them over, if only to keep myself from getting complacent and stagnant and even more arrogant. :-P

Anyone else have any insight on this? I’d be happy to hear it.

Mixed Emotions

Okay, first off...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLL
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the first time since 1961, Rice is going to a bowl game. No idea which one yet, but I WILL be there. No missing this. Amazing game, too. We went ahead 17-0 in the first quarter. The second quarter, not so good. Went down 24-17. Tied it up, then went down 27-24, but twice kept SMU from scoring from about the 3 yard line. Finally made a touchdown with several minutes left, and managed to hold them for as long as it took.

Ridiculously exciting, and very very happy for the team and my school and my band and my friends. Incredibly amazing, with this being Coach Todd Graham's first season.

Then I got bad news. A friend of mine lost her grandfather Thanksgiving night. I've lost so many of my own family, and it's just a terrible feeling. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and my heart goes out to her and her family. What a rough, rough way to spend the holidays. On the one hand, there's the feeling thankful for the fact that a special person was a part of your life, and that you could share part of their journey with them. But you've lost something, too. Something that will never come back. And she was already planning to visit an ailing grandmother, and had to cancel that trip. Who knows if she'll get another chance to see *her* in time. Just, no words. Concern, sympathy, care, love, support, helplessness, humility in the face of a power that can't be gainsaid.

So my earlier jubilation is fairly tempered. I'm thankful for the win and the wonderful opportunity, of course. But more than that, I pray for my friend and her family in their loss. What a day.

Giving Thanks

Pining to turn in right now. My metabolism has retreated into its cave to gnaw on Thanksgiving supper, so I'm cold, and my eyes definitely want a restraining order against my contacts. But I really need to post this before a good night's sleep turns today into yesterday. And today was Thanksgiving.

I'm thankful for so many things.

• The fact that I will soon curl up in soft PJ's in my nice warm bed in my beautiful and comfortable apartment.
• The gorgeous weather today that allowed me to enjoy playing at the Uptown Lighting Festival, instead of making it the miserable trial by shivering that it normally is.
• The adoption referral Jim and Reb got that means they might soon be parents, YAY!
• Joe and Amy's engagement.
• Getting paid to do something I really enjoy, and am REALLY good at.
• Having time in my life for the people I care about and the things I love to do, like reading and music.
• Feeling the grace of God, and the movement of His Spirit in my life, even when I have no idea where I'm going.
• The fact that Rice football actually has a shot at post-season play.
• A wonderful, loving, supportive family, that I really missed spending time with today.
• A life fully worth living and fully lived, loved, and laughed at, even though it hurts sometimes.
• Going out to lunch with wonderful friends, and eating a fabulous pork chop, then helping make dinner for other wonderful friends, who all loved my cheesy chicken casserole.
• ALL of my wonderful friends who have loved me and supported me and put up with me through so much. And that means, of course, that I'm so very thankful for...
• YOU!

God bless, I love you all, and hope you had a peaceful, restful, and thanks-full Thanksgiving!

Good night!

The good news...

Very brief update, for those keeping score. Lab work came back. I’m roughly as healthy as your average clydesdale. :-P

Cell counts all great, cholesterol low. Oh, and I'm O+ just like my mother.

The bad news? The only thing doc can tell me to do about getting sick is to get more sleep, take vitamin C, and have my flu shot every year. And a pneumonia vaccine every 5 years.

Okay, back to life!

New Game: You tool!

Do you want to play a game?

Thanks to OOKaty (or her friend Josh) for the idea. I don't think this is as cool as the rhetorical question thing, but it has potential. It has a *lot* of potential to go south very fast, too, but think the ride will be fun. So here's the question.

If you were a tool, what would you be, and why?

Laura's answer: An eyeglasses screwdriver, because I'm small, meticulous, not very helpful for the heavy jobs, but good for just about any detailed work.

BIG BOX!!!

I got a BIG BOX!!! from FedEx today! I got the FedEx tag on my door, and my eyes grew wide in instant and delighted comprehension. It came it came it came!!! It's here it's here it's here!!!

I scurried down to the leasing office, and as they started glancing over the little shelves where they would have put a little box, I said, "I'm pretty sure it's the BIG one!"

And it was! It's about 4' tall and a little over 2' wide and about 8" deep. Just too big for me to carry comfortably, of course. And being as I scurried right back down after going up to my apartment, I was still in heels and slacks. But I didn't care! IT WAS HERE!

Oh. What was here? Well, just my new strap, stand, gig bag and tuner for my dad's guitar, that's all! :-D

Laura is happy!

Telling myself I'm being irrational isn't helping

Okay. If you don't remember the tests the doctor said he would run, here's the rundown: allergies, infections, thyroid, kidneys, anemia, diabetes...

and leukemia.

I know, I know. He's just running every test he can think of. Dave G. patted me on the shoulder Monday and said he was only doing it because the other doctors would laugh at him if it turned out to be that and he hadn't tested for it. But every time I think of getting my test results back, I keep coming back to this, no matter what, and I'm trying not to be stupid. But I'm scared.

I'm scared that the fevers and the respiratory infections and the strange feelings I've been ignoring because I can't explain them might add up to something big, even though they seem small enough in themselves.

I'm scared because for the next two weeks, no one can tell me I do have anything really bad and scary, but nobody can tell me for sure that I don't.

I'm scared because I'm not in control. There's nothing I can do. I am not okay with this. I know I'm supposed to accept God's plan for me with grace and serenity. But I'm terrible at grace and serenity. I'm much better at fighting and fixing. And right now I can't do anything.

I tried to reassure myself by looking up the symptoms on WebMD. If you ever want to try that, don't. It's never reassuring. There are lots of symptoms listed that I don't have, sure. But some of the ones listed sound hauntingly like some of the things I've bee telling myself were nothing, couldn't be anything.

Fevers and night sweats. I've always been so cold natured, but a couple of times over the past year I've woken up and found myself drenched. And I've had the sore throat things, but I've also run fever at times with no other symptoms other than the achy weariness of the fever.

Frequent or unusual infections. See above about sore throats. Depends on how you define frequent. Every month? Every three months? It's been at least that for the past two years.

Weakness and fatigue. I won't go there. I'm always tired. I think it has more to do with my lifestyle at the moment than my blood. Some other iffy ones like loss of appetite, which I've noticed lately, but then, I do still eat just fine, so that's probably just occasional stress. I'm not exactly easy going. And like I said, a lot of symptoms that I don't have.

And okay, so WebMD does say some reassuring things. I don't really fit any of the higher risk categories. I don't smoke, I've never had chemotherapy, and I have no family history.

Okay, so you'd think I'd be able to reason myself out of this. Yes, I realize I'm being incredibly doomsday about this. Yes I realize that I'm a worrier, and a worst case scenario sort of person. I'm melodramatic and hyperemotional and prone to all sorts of terrors once I let my imagination loose. I'm trying to keep things under control.

But I'm scared. I try not to think about it, but I'm scared.

All I can do is wait and pray and enjoy myself the way I always do. There isn't much else for it. I've given over this space of time to my witless little worryings and whinings. I don't intend to let them spill over into my productivity or ebullience over the next 13 days. I'll be better tomorrow, and I'll do my best not to be a wet blanket. Things always look better in the morning, and no sense not having my usual Wednesday fun.

Curse, WebMD, though. It's going to be a long two weeks.

Monday Morning Adventures

Warning, my morning was a tiny bit on the gory side.

So today I went in to the doctor's office so they could take some blood and run some tests. My bout with strep throat exactly a month ago was really the culmination of several months of on and off respiratory woes. The day I moved into my new apartment I ran a fever, and I really haven't felt completely up to speed since then. I'm still coughing from the strep, and the doctor says I can expect a couple more weeks of that. Fun. So today I went in because we want to know why I keep getting sick, and to make sure this isn't just a symptom of some larger problem. Or even just allergies.

My appointment was for 9 AM, and I got there exactly on time. I walked in, and saw something I'd never seen in my entire life. A completely empty waiting room. Seriously, have you ever gone to a general practitioner's office and been the only person there? It was surreal! I walked over to the window to sign in, and asked the receptionist, "Where is everybody?" She replied, "I know! We've all been wondering if our watches were wrong!" So I got checked in immediately, put on the scale (152 lbs and holding, which is good considering the crap I eat :-P), then shown to an examination room. They took my blood pressure. (100 over 73, should I be worried that it's lower every time they take it, and it's not like I do any sort of cardio work out? Then again, I hadn't had my morning caffeine yet.)

One nurse put me in a chair, propped my arm on the extendable part of the examination table while the other collected the necessary supplies. When she tossed about five or six empty vials down on the table, my eyes got a little wide, and the other nurse said, "Wow, he's running everything on you!" I guess I'm a wimp, but some of the vials looked huge to me. Only one was the size I was used to seeing. The first lady said, "You got good veins, honey?" I laughed nervously and said, "Not at all." I don't. I have terrible veins. Me having blood taken is rarely anything less than a miserable experience.

She looked over and prodded my right arm. Then pulled up the sleeve on my left and looked and prodded some more. She pulled out the elastic band and tied of my left arm and had me make a tight fist (this is when I realized I really should have cut my finger nails), and looked and prodded. The other nurse came over and looked. They went back to my right arm, banded it, I made a fist, more looking and prodding, hemming and hawing. You can see the veins. But you can't feel them, and one suspects you cannot find them with the needle. So the nurse said she was not going to stick me, and we'd wait for Victor to get in. Victor the vampire. Heeehee! Brilliant.

I thanked her profusely for looking first, before sticking me. Can't tell you how many times they've gone prospecting for veins by just jabbing the needle in a likely spot, only to come up dry. The best was the time they went from right to left to right to left, and ended up bruising both my arms. So I was perfectly okay with waiting for Victor the vampire. Besides, it gave me time to clip my finger nails. :-)

So I asked where the bathroom was, so I could clip my nails over the sink, and the nurse said while I was in there, I may as well pee in a cup. Hey, it never hurts. And it would suck to use the restroom and then find out they needed a sample. I've done that. And I've also sat in a doctor's office for over an hour because I couldn't manage a large enough sample for my employment screening drug test. But that's another story...

So by the time I got back to my room, Victor had arrived. He took my right arm, banded it, and ran his finger over the crook of my elbow. He raised my hand and massaged the blood back towards my elbow, and ran his finger over the veins again. He found a fairly promising one pretty far back on my arm, so I had to keep my arm twisted pretty severely. I finally ended up with my arm on the extendable part of the table, and my head and shoulder resting on the other part, so that this didn't hurt. (He did ask first off if I had any joint pain. I don't, but this is the arm I slept on funny Saturday night, and it's been a little sore since then. Oh well!)

So he bands off my arm even tighter, I make a fist, and he slides the needle in and pops the vial into the holder. Eureka! He found it! Thank God. First try and everything. It didn't even hurt! Victor is my new favorite person.

With my head resting on the table, all I can really see is what he's doing to my arm, so it's a good think I'm not too scared of needles, and I'm not bothered too much by blood. But watching the vials fill up one after the other was kind of disturbing. For one thing, blood doesn't flow. It... well... it spurts. So the level in the vial rises rhythmically following my heartbeats. This was kinda nasty, but also kind of fascinating to watch.

I've never had them take that much blood from me. I mean, we're not talking pints, but still. It seemed to take forever, but really it was probably record time. Still, I'm feeling kind of tired, even now, just a little dizzy, and I really want a steak. Can you get those delivered? :-P

Anyways, the doctor came in and talked with me a little about my cough and what sort of tests they'd be running. They'll check for diabetes, leukemia, thyroid problems, anemia, all sorts of stuff, including allergies. They'll go ahead and check my cholesterol (been meaning to have that done) and at my request (and insurance might not cover it) they'll check my blood type. It's something I feel like I should know, and don't. The doctor agrees it's good information to have. My money's on O+ like my mother, though O-, A+, and A- are also possibilities. If a B shows up, we have problems. ;-)

At any rate, I now have another 9 AM appointment for Monday, November 20, to see if my cough is any better, and to get my test results. I kind of suspect I'm a little anemic. My coworker says she was anemic in high school, and she was always cold, and didn't heal very fast, and those both go for me as well. And I do have other allergies. Maybe I have some that I don't know about that make me predisposed to all this respiratory junk. But when he started saying things like leukemia and diabetes, I got a little scared. I mean, I don't have any family history, which is reassuring, but still... Well, I guess I'll find out in a few weeks.

In the mean time, seriously, does anyone know of a steak place that delivers?

Diploma'd!!! Uh... Again!

I have *two* diplomas! Got another one at my new place. Interesting, I must say.

I have very little else to say.

Breath-Taken

This morning the city once again caught me off guard with the sort of soul-piercing beauty that is just so rare when you get this many of your closest friends together in so few square miles. It was a lovely day, of course. And at about 8:45 I stepped out of my apartment to head to church. I got into my car, pulled out of my spot, waited for the gate to open, and made the turn to leave the complex.

And was frozen in my tracks.

The newborn morning is a magical thing. When the sun is up and the world is officially awake, but still young and fresh. When the day hasn't yet started walking around and getting into trouble, but has just sat up for the first time and blinked it's wide eyes.

The sun came from the east over the hill in front of me (an embankment that lifts the street up to send it vaulting over the quarry and the train tracks south of my complex). The sky was blue and the sun shone down on the grass, where the vivid green was almost hidden by a dazzling blanket of dew. It looked like every blade was encrusted with diamonds, and I was struck with a physical sense of wonder, of awe, of worship, and of humility.

My breath was startled out of me, and I began to cry, because of the amazing, incredible beauty of an entire hillside sparkling under the young day.

I don't think I have words to convey the image, or the emotion. But my soul was shocked to stillness. The sort of stillness that comes after the earthquake, after the fire. When suddenly within yourself you hear the still small voice. It was always there, but too much was in the way. When you hear it all of a sudden like that, it can be shattering.

I haven't been to church very regularly lately. Today was my first day back in the Catholic Student Center choir after over a month of weekends home sick or weekends out of town. I was looking forward to this day back as a sort of coming home, even though my voice is still very weak from the strep. I miss my community of faith, and I miss the peace I find in doing things this way. I was prepared to get emotional about it. I wasn't prepared to have the prison walls riven open before I'd even gotten on the road.

But there I was crying as I drove, barely able to catch my breath. All because of sunlight on dewy grass. And there I was confronting the part of my soul that is helpless. I'm a pretty confident person, and I like to do and to fix, not to submit and wait. But this stripped me down to something inside myself that is completely helpless. Something that lies prostrate, is very easily hurt, and has *been* very hurt, and still hurts very much, and can only offer itself up to God and say, make of me what You will. I am nothing without You. In fact, I'm pretty much just lying here on the floor in the dark sobbing my heart out and praying that You will send me strength and peace and joy, because I can't find them alone. I've tried. Please help.

He so often does.

We sang a song in church today that I have always loved. But without the morning's vision, it would not have touched me like it did this time.

He healed the darkness of my mind
The day He gave my sight to me.
It was not sin that made me blind.
It was no sinner made me see.

Let others call my faith a lie
Or try to stir up doubt in me.
Look at me now, none can deny
I once was blind but now I see.

Ask me not how! But I know who
Has opened up new worlds to me.
This Jesus does what none can do.
I once was blind but now I see!

That dazzling light this morning opened up a new world. A world I don't know yet, and don't understand yet. But the eye-opening for me has always been like peeling an onion, or better, the thinning of the veil in slow stages. I'm not saying I have it all right. I have my questions. I have my doubts. But I'm doing the best I know how to do, and this is what feels right for me.

I'm used to feeling these things out in places like Glacier or the Hill Country. In places where I feel like my soul can stretch out as far as I can see without running into anything or anybody. I feel so much freer, less confined out there. But it looks like the Spirit can still manage to find me in the big city, too. It's nice to be reminded that I'm never completely lost in this crowd. And that thought in itself, that I am never lost, even among so many people, can be pretty darn breath-taking, too.

Sick and Tired

of being sick and tired
of dark mornings
of being cold when it's warm outside
of caring so much
of not caring enough
of being told my vote doesn't count
of people who talk about happiness in terms of politics and not people
of narrow minded bigots
of respiratory protective program standards
of the word "shall"
of being the walking reference index for the finer points of Shell formatting
of bulleted Word styles that won't stay put and Word tables that behave in inexplicable ways
of "quick" format edits for people who can't format worth crap
of cars and buildings
of gas prices
of the shifting concrete in the road by my apartment
of the poor customer service at the nearest T-Mobile store
of not being able to sing through my full range
of coughing
of having no breath support when I play
of not having any completely free weekends at home until next year
of having only one free evening a week
of being lonely
of having no time to meet new people
of weighing 15 lbs more than I want to
of my lack of motivation to lose weight
of never going out dancing
of never getting asked to dance when I do
of not seeing the friends I don't see
of incompetance
of mediocraty
of complacency
of my own impatience with others
of fighting losing battles
of being sick and tired

Expectations

Another motif that has been coalescing from scattered elements of my life lately. And has culminated in a big way leading up to the occasion of my ten year high school reunion. Where to begin? This is a huge thing for a perfectionist over-achiever like me. What I've been thinking isn't really news. But it's started meaning something new for me.

Okay, 12 pm yesterday (Saturday) found me performing invasive surgery on a box of granola bars whilst driving west down I-10 at 85 mph listening to Miles Davis. Headed home. For real this time. I didn't stop in Schertz.

I met Mom in northwest San Antonio at the salon where she was having her hair done. When she was finished, we went to visit an old neighbor that we hadn't seen in a while. After visiting with her for an hour, it was time to go to the reunion. But I made one more stop first. I had to see home. I can't drive up the driveway any more, without being weird and creepy, but I made the turn down that one lane, dead-end road.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but nothing had changed. The golden afternoon sunlight through the mesquite and cedar trees. The rusty old mail box and sagging barbed wire around the gate. I could even still see the old pile of unused bricks standing where it's been since the house was built... I took these pictures with my cell phone, cried a little, and drove on.

Our reunion was held in the Spirits Saloon in Rio Medina. I got there around 5:30 PM, and recognized about half the people in the room. And was recognized by about half. :-P Something about having had really long, blond hair in high school and having short, red hair now... I felt somewhat awkward the whole evening with the looking at people looking at me, wondering if we knew each other.

It was fun getting caught up with folks. But I also think I disappointed a few people...

Apparently technical writing is not the glorious future some of my classmates were pleased to imagine for me, Valedictorian and voted Most Likely to Succeed. On girl said, “Oh, wow. I would have thought you'd be a rocket scientist or something.” One of the guys said, “Man, I thought you were gunna find a cure for cancer!” And of course I had to field all of the “Didn't you get married?” questions. Sigh. When you put it that way, I don't really sound too successful. It all comes back to your expectations.

I guess I knew I might seem a little... lackluster... to my classmates. I just happen to know myself a better than they do. And I happen to know that not all really bright people become doctors or rocket scientists. Not all people with 1500+ SAT scores and perfect GPA's go on to change the world in conspicuous ways. Not all of us like rockets, after all. And not all incredibly smart decisions are, by that token, good decisions.

But I'm very glad I went to the reunion. It was fun to see how everyone had changed, or hadn't changed. And I had some great conversations. One of the most musically talented guys in the class immediately asked me if I was still playing my trumpet, and I was happy to say I played in three bands and sang in my church choir. It's a part of my life I'm very proud of, even if I don't make any money doing it and it tears my weekly free time into shreds. But it's fun, and it's a talent I haven't sacrificed to the career gods.

And I had a great time talking to a guy who does graphic design and layout for a small publication in San Antonio. He condoled with me about clients who want to change everything to Arial font to save space, and when I mentioned I'd really like to be an editor some day, he said it sounded like I'd be good at it. Heh, maybe there's hope for me impressing the masses at the 20 year reunion. :-P

So much for living up to my own legend. Fortunately I just don't measure life like that. My friend in graphic design did share something with me that would have made the entire thing worth going to, even if everything else had sucked. He told me how he still remembers, for whatever reason, a morning back in the summer of 1996, just after we'd all graduated. He was driving to work and listening to the radio, and my name caught his ear. Bob Berwick was calling in to the radio station just to say how proud he was of his daughter Laura, and to wish her luck in the coming fall, when she'd be going to Rice University.

I never knew about that. He never told me he'd done it, and I didn't hear it on the air. It's funny, but I'd always thought I'd disappointed him a little by not going to A&M. And maybe I did. And of all the people whose expectations come anywhere close to mattering, I can tell you, my dad is at the top of that list, right beside my mom, and the Medina Valley High School class of 1996 isn't on it. I always knew Daddy was proud of me, but hearing this... Maybe it seems like a small thing, but I can't say how much it made my evening, ten years after the fact. I'm so very grateful that my friend remembered it after all this time, and was able to tell me. It means the world.

Speaking of parents and expectations, I was thinking about this the other day. I met the father of a friend of mine, and he's a pretty impressive person, by my own brief estimation, and by all I hear. My friend asked if I had found him intimidating, and talked about how hard it could be to live up to a father like that. I actually didn't find him intimidating, and I think that's because he seems very good at what he does, which I definitely respect, but what he does is not what I do, and I have every confidence in my own ability to be formidable in my own field.

But I can imagine how frustrating it might be to have any sort of expectation that you would measure up to that, and just not feel like you will, for whatever reason. I know there have been times where I set expectations for myself that weren't realistic. That weren't who I was. And I failed. I set myself up for failure, and sure enough, I screwed some things up. In the end, it's a pretty futile exercise, so I'm doing things differently now.

I know my parents did have certain expectations. I told my mom once I thought it would be cool to be a truck driver. That might have been the only time in my life when my mother was not supportive. "You are NOT going to become a truck driver. You ARE going to college. And you're not doing that well in driver's ed, you know." Dude, I was just sayin'...

At the same time, my mom and dad both always said I could be anything I wanted to be. I always admired them for what they were good at. My grandfather was one of those impressive people, and I idolized him. But I've never felt compelled to live up to any of my family members. I do feel like I've gone beyond some of them in some ways, because of the opportunities I've been given. But in doing so, I was only fulfilling who I was, not trying to outdo anyone else.

Besides, for me, success isn't about who's heard of what I've done, or who I've equalled or surpassed. I finished reading Middlemarch by George Eliot earlier this month, and the very last passage really resonated with me.

“[T]he growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill for you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

I expect most of my acts to be unhistoric. I'm not an ambitious person, and I'm not an activist. I've always found it easier to change my own little habits and exchange deep thoughts with my close friends than to change how society does or sees anything. I might never write the great American novel, but I've been touched and humbled every time someone tells me that they like reading this blog. That something I said, or something I felt, spoke to them. If I in any small way make a difference to someone, that is success. And for myself I want to grow and learn and be touched by every person I meet. Those are my expectations.

And when it comes right down to it, those are the only expectations that matter: my own. What do I demand of myself? What do I want out of life? What do I need to do to be the absolute best ME I can be? Not what do I need to do to make money, though that is a needful thing. Not what do I need to do to impress my classmates at the 20 year reunion (that is not needful). Not what do I need to do to satisfy my mother, or heaven help me, my grandmother who doesn't like my hair and keeps saying how surprised she was that I got a divorce. Not even what do I need to do to honor the memory of my father.

No. What do I need to do to be proud of myself? To be happy with who I am and where I am? What do I owe to myself and no one else? Am I doing this?

The answer is yes, professionally, personally, in every aspect of my life. The result is I'm happy, in spite of the things I'm still working on. After all, life is not a destination. I will never arrive at something I can call my life. It's happening to me right now. I can't make it stop, and I can't hurry it along when it's not getting where I want to go fast enough. But I'm doing my best to make the most of the ride, and to me that means I'm a success, in spite of any misguidedly grandiose expectations there might be floating around for me out there.

But you know, I have friends that design rockets, and I have friends that study cures for diseases. If by being a friend to a person, I make their life easier, more fun, or in some small way let them know they are cared about, am I helping? Do I have a little hand in their great works? Is that what Eliot meant?

If so, then I'm all over that saving the world thing!

Diploma'd!!!

I have my UH diploma! They sent it to my old apartment complex, and I had to go pick it up. BUT!

My name is correct.
My DEGREE is correct (i.e., it shows the degree I actually earned, not the non-existent degree they listed in the graduation program).
It's NOT 8.5x11, so it won't look *too* shabby next to the half rack of lamb my other Rice diploma is printed on.

Now I just have to get it framed. Hopefully less than three years from now.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head

But that doesn't mean my... apartment will flood. I hope. :-P












Is anyone building an ark?

A Little Bit Haunted

Do you ever have one of those days, weeks, months, where things start happening, and they start to bring stuff you thought you’d left behind for a while right back up into your face, surrounding you, and staring at you, demanding attention?

And you get really tired of just looking at them looking at you, and you realize that the only way you’re going to get away from them is to fight your way through them?

I’m fighting. Hopefully I’ll find some breathing room on the other side.

The strangest thing happened to me yesterday. I was driving down Kirby, headed for dinner with friends. I was stopped at the intersection with 59. I was sitting between the Taco Cabana north of Bennigan’s and the building that has the Red Onion in it. And I smelled this smell.

It was a combination of motor oil and Jim Beam and cigarette smoke and… and… and something indescribable, but undeniably warm and human. I guess it sounds fairly terrible, if you didn’t know it, but I did.

It was Daddy.

For a second I was absolutely certain that if I turned and looked over my right shoulder, he’d be there, in the back seat. With that quiet, still look on his face that he’d get when he was concentrating on something, before he’d look up and see his little girl watching, and smile. Why he’d be sitting in the back seat, I don’t know. But that’s just where the smell seemed to be coming from. Which makes no sense. None of it made any sense.

Because he wasn’t there. Not even in spirit. I’d have felt that, wouldn’t I? And I felt nothing. Just the smell, the memory. And the pain. Trying to drive down the road, make my turns, the every day business of getting where I’m going one step at a time. And all the while my soul flailing around about me, reaching here and there like a blind man searching, searching for the warm touch of a remembered hand. Surely it was right there, just a second ago?

And now it’s all back. It’s been creeping up for a while, and it comes and goes like waves on the beach. I guess I’ve seen it coming. Things have just been happening.

I’ve made some new friends. Eventually, somehow, it always comes up. Normally, because I’m still lax in the tense I use when I talk about him, it’s a little uncomfortable. But no matter how smoothly it happens, it’s never easy for me. The tears just fall on the inside now.

Then I went to my friend’s commitment ceremony. I love her and her family very much. I’ve pretty much been part of the family for years. I lost touch with them all a bit when I left home and got married. But Daddy still stopped by to visit them every so often, and Daddy was always willing to help out anyone who needed help he could give.

It was my friend’s father that Daddy was helping when he died. The visitation in Castroville was the first time I’d seen my friend in years. My ties to her and her family will always be inflected by my loss, and my grief. Not in a bad way, because I love them very much, and I love him very much. I don’t think I can even begin to explain. But seeing her and her family brought it a little nearer.

Then last week, a man in the community band I play in, with the same name as my father, and probably not much older, had a light stroke. He’s recovering very well, and was in band on Wednesday, and everyone was so glad to see him. And I hope very much that he’ll continue to improve, and be healthy. But it wasn’t many months before Daddy died that he had what was probably a small stroke. He was driving, and he lost vision in his left eye, and lost feeling in his arm and hand, and ended up taking out a mail box. And it came a little closer.

So all these things, and other things, have brought me here. To a point in time when some stray accidental scent from a city full of weird smells can turn me around into a tight little knot inside myself. Curled around the old grief, and feeling it in new ways.

I’m trying to date again, some. Who will tell any man who starts to matter that the worst and last mistake he’ll ever make is to hurt me? Who’s got my back like that now? Who will ever cherish me like that again? Whose other, better self can I possibly be as truly as I was his. As he told me I was.

He told me, not long before he died, that he knew I understood him better than anyone ever did, because I was like him. But that I was more. I was the person he would be if he could go back and try again.

And I didn’t tell him what I would give anything to tell him now. It was in my heart, but it was hidden. I told him everything I could. But I somehow couldn’t tell him that he was the person I was going to be before it was too late. That I had so many of his gifts frozen inside of me, and that my greatest wish and prayer was to break them loose, thaw them out, and raise them up. That he was full of a life and a love that I was too afraid to fill myself with. That he gave himself in ways that I was too terrified to risk. But that whatever it took, I was going to do it, damn it, because when I die, I want to have lived.

See, when I lost him, I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t. But I couldn’t keep him unless I became all the things I cherished in him, all the things that made me proud to be from him. It was the only thing I could do. I know I can be those things. They were his gift, and I hold them in myself. But it takes so much courage, and sometimes I’m not that brave. It takes so much strength, and sometimes I’m not that strong. Sometimes I’m so damned tired of being strong. It’s worth it to me, but it makes me so tired. And it hurts so much.

It still hurts. Every time I throw my feelings of into the ring, which I do every day to some degree. Every time I invest my spirit and my energy in any sort of gamble, and let’s face it, all of life is a gamble. It hurts. It hurts to drop the chips on the table and step back, and it hurts even more to watch someone else scoop up the pot. But I keep on doing it, because if I didn’t, I’m pretty sure I’d lose even more.

I’ll be fine. I can be as strong as he was. I can be more stubborn than he was. And I lost him in himself, but I found him in myself. And if I hadn’t found him there, I wouldn’t really be alive. But it still hurts so much. I try to keep him alive as much as I can, because it’s the only way I can do this. And I do believe I will see him again. If I had no other reason to believe in heaven, I would cling forcibly to any faith that gave me that chance. To see him and tell him what I didn’t tell him.

I’m not sure I believe in ghosts. I don’t discount them. But he wasn’t in my car yesterday. Not that way. Sometimes, even if it’s a blasphemous wish, I do wish he could be. I want something I can face, even if I can’t touch it. Some feeling of a presence that could never be anything but loving, outside of myself. Something reflected back of all the love I’ve had in my heart for over four years now, and that will continue to build up in the years to come, with no father to give it to.

When he died, a good friend who lost her mother when she was thirteen told me two things. “You’re going to see him. You’re going to see him everywhere. It’s okay, you’re not going crazy. And it will get better, but it will never be really right again.” Those things comforted me, really. To know that I wasn’t crazy, and that it was okay if I never got completely better. Four years and change later, it still can come over me some times. In the strangest ways, for the strangest reasons. Ever day is better, but no day will be what it used to be, or what it would have been. That last is not actually an unmitigated evil, but it’s still hard.

This is what I’ll be working on tonight. This is what I’ll be working on my entire life.

This weekend should be happy. So tonight, I think I'll just go ahead and be sad. It's been coming for a while. And the rain outside seems to be keeping me company. It'll be better tomorrow, and I'll be ready to face it all again.

Ready for a Jail Break

Ugh.

So. I've been sick. For a while now. Depends on when you start counting. Was sick over a month ago, and the residual asthmatic cough never went away. But I counted myself better. Until last Sunday, when I briefly ran a low grade fever. It went away pretty quick, but on Monday I had a sore throat. Which I decided was probably more due to having dyed my hair on Sunday, and then having slept with the covers over my head all night. The throat was much better come Tuesday, and Wednesday I was almost back to normal, with just the same light cough.

Thursday morning wasn't so good, but I got up and went to work. And proceeded to go down hill rapidly, until the boss walked by at around 9:15, looked at me, and said, "Do you need to leave?" I looked up at her, then down at my work, then over at my jump drive, and said, "Yeah." I loaded up some files on the jump drive, drove home, looked up a doctor covered by my new insurance, made an appointment for that afternoon, and tried to keep getting work done. With limited success.

The doctor listened to my story, looked at my chart, told me to open wide, flicked a light into my throat, and said immediately "Oh, you've got strep."

Great.

So I got a shot, a prescription for some antibiotics, and an order not to go to work until he gave the okay and to come back Monday morning.

So. Since about 3PM on Thursday, I have been in my apartment. I have left exactly twice, to go check my mail. Yesterday I finally went all day with only one sneeze and only used one tissue, which was a great improvement over preceding days. I also watched the entire Star Wars trilogy on DVD using my new lap top. It's very much nice. But I'm a bit burnt out on movies now. I know, that didn't take long.

I also finished one George Eliot novel (Middlemarch) and started a second (Silas Marner). I'm a little burnt out on books. I have been writing for work off and on, and have also been working on some personal essay type writings just to keep my brain from eating through it's own synapses. But I'm a little bit burnt out on writing.

This morning I started to sing in the shower. At that point I realized, 1) wow, I can sing again, and 2) wow, I haven't used my vocal chords in over 60 hours. Lovely.

My usual group of hang-out-on-weekends friends are out of town, because they got to go to New Orleans for the Rice vs. Tulane game. I could not. I was sick.

Only, I feel much better now. Just a little weak still. But I bet I'm not contagious. I'd really like some real food (I've lost 5 lbs living on leftover surprise). And for once the introvert is feeling lonely. :-P

I'M ALSO GOING FRIGGIN INSANELY STIR CRAZY IN HERE!!!

The doctor had better clear me for human contact tomorrow, or I may just lose what few wits I have!

Am I a Fool?

Am I a fool because my heart
Does not lie
In a cage of my own building?
Should I only let it sing when all
The doors are shut
And every window closed to keep the cat out,
As if it were a tame and pretty bird
Content with dead air
And too afraid to face the storms?
Would you tell a wild, free thing
Where not to go,
Or teach a lark the tale of Icarus?

If music be the food of love, play on...

Music, for a while, let all your cares beguile...

Standing in the middle of Best Buy, behind two easy chairs set up facing a HUGE flat panel hi-def television with the most sophisticated audio and video equipment arranged beneath, I stood entranced.

On the screen was a live Dave Matthews Band performance, in the middle of a tenor sax solo. These few minutes given over to dreaming, and making all the other weekend shoppers disappear from my world. Only music, only dreams, and behind them, silence and darkness.

I needed those moments. It's been a long day after a long week.

What I really needed today was a new phone. But the T-Mobile store didn't have any old (cheap) phones, and I'm not ready to buy the latest greatest. Besides, I'm not eligible for rebates on upgrading to the latest greatest until three months from now. Wish I'd known when I renewed my contract that my antenna would get lost. I'd have just gotten the new phone then. So, balked in this desire, I turned to something... more expensive.

I was at Best Buy to test drive laptops. I did not intend to buy one this weekend. But frustration of one wish will so often drive us into fulfilling what we can, even if it's the less desirable option. I am typing this entry on a brand new Toshiba Satellite. It's pretty spiffy, really. It only cost a *little* more than one month's rent... And hey, it's not the teeny-tiny Vaio I almost fell in love with. THAT would have hurt. This I needed anyway.

Of course, now I'm going to go on line and look up what phones I *can* upgrade to. Hopefully I'll stop hemorrhaging money by sunset...

Then I'll find more music to beguile away my financial cares.

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.

Bad Otto!

All right, I love my car. I really do. Otto rocks, and I've been known to approach him singing to myself, "Little white car, little white car, little white car!" the same as that cat in the Mutts strip and his little pink sock. But he's got a *few* bad habits, and one of them got me into trouble today. *pout*

This afternoon, as I headed out from Mom's to come back home, it was a great afternoon for driving. It's a lot cooler after last night's rain, and the sky is overcast with those high, soft gray clouds. Otto had a full tank of gas and got his oil changed yesterday, so he was feeling feisty, and he *really* likes hills, which we don't get to see many of here in Houston.

So we came down over a hill, and I wasn't paying enough attention to his paces, apparently. Because we got to the bottom, and I noticed another car going slower, and I braked, but then I saw the sparkly blue and red lights in my mirror. Sigh.

So, I only got a warning (only because the cop's computer was acting up, he said). I'm glad, because apparently I haven't changed my address on my driver's license. I swear I did something about that, but now that I think of it, I don't have a new license yet, so it must not have gone through. Drat.

But my pristine driving record is now a bit smudged, and I have to laugh because for all the stupid stuff I've done, it seems only fitting that I almost got a ticket for driving a hair over 45 mph on a nearly empty road. Ah well. I'm not going to argue with a warning, and I'll just have to be more careful in Schertz, Texas. :-P

Trust

It’s getting late-ish, and I should really put away laundry or pack to go out of town tomorrow. But instead I’m sitting on my couch thinking about trust.

I was driving home today when this came over me. People have commented on my innocence. I try to cultivate innocence. I cling to a child-like sense of wonder and awe. That’s how I want to encounter this world. It’s not ignorance. It’s a choice. It’s what’s helped me bounce back from everything that’s knocked me sideways in my life. The joy of living this way is… what I live for. It’s something I actually work at, because there are so many things going on that could make me bitter and cynical. There would be no joy for me in that.

All of these thoughts tonight congealed around the notion of trust. Whom do I trust? Well, for starters, I’ve been known to have some angry, one-sided, rebellious-teen-ager type yelling matches with God. For a while the only way I could tell I did believe in God was that I was incredibly angry at Him, and blamed Him for where I was in my life. But I always knew that He’s a loving parent, and I could never damage the love He has for me. That it wasn’t even a matter of forgiveness, because that was mine already. Held out freely. And this trust in His love is what saw me through the worst crisis of faith I’ve ever had. I still don’t like everything about where I’m at, and I still pray that he will lead me along the best paths SOON. I prefer my time to His. But I’m willing to accept His, because I trust Him to be right. Even when it hurts.

I also thank Him every day for giving me the ability to trust myself. I know myself better and better each day, and I’m not sure that’s something everyone can say. For a long time I was more interested in changing myself into what I thought I should be than in finding out who I actually am. Like my trust in God, my trust in myself has hit a few snags lately. It’s hard to unmake decisions you were so sure were the right ones. And having to do that shook my faith in my ability to make good decisions. But I know now that I can trust myself to make the best decisions possible with the knowledge, the wisdom, and the love that I have, and that I can’t do any better. They may end up not working out. But I will do my best. Always. It’s who I am. I have a lot of faith in that.

And I trust my closest friends to love me even when I screw up. Everyone’s been so supportive of me, even when I waffle and whinge and whine about the same things over and over. I know they wish they could help, just like I wish I could help them in their troubles. I’d give a lot to fix things for everyone I love. And they do help me so much, just by being there. So I trust them, and I’ve never been let down.

Who else do I trust? Who do I not trust? These are more difficult questions.

I have made a habit of believing that all the people I meet are caring people. And I tend to assume that people are like me in many ways, and getting to know someone has a lot to do with discovering where and how we diverge. Honestly, I’m fascinated by the divergences. I feel like everyone I meet gives me a new perspective, and expands me into something a little bit more than me. There are differences that come out immediately, but some things I only learn slowly, and they can be a surprise. One of these surprises lately has put me into a new sort of crisis of faith. How on earth can I maintain that child-like trust in other people, people I don’t really know, now that I know how badly I can be mistaken?

You see, being single again, I’ve started poking my nose out and sniffing the winds of the dating world. I’ve never really done this before. Since I was about fourteen, the longest I went without being in a committed relationship was measured in months. And each new relationship was with someone I’d known or at least known of for a while. Now it’s been over a year since I really had a someone, and I’m not likely to find a someone among my close friends. Those winds out there can be pretty darn dry and searing, I find. And just when I knew I could trust myself, and was ready to open up my trusting little heart to that world, certain that I could protect it, I got kind of turned upside down.

[...]

Tonight, thinking about trust, I find that one of the things I’m most afraid of is losing the ability to trust. Of not being able to lay my heart in someone else’s outstretched hand in an act of faith as simply as a child does. I’m afraid I’ll be too scared. [...] I feel like a little bit of my innocence has been eroded away. Maybe it was inevitable, but I’m still so sad to see it go. I want it back. But how do I find it again? Is that even possible? Where do I go from here? Besides back inside my shell. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. I’m still pretty sure I can get over anything and still be the same confident, confiding me.

First Breaths of Autumn

It's an absolutely beautiful day outside. This is the sort of weather that always makes me want to jump in the car and drive west. I'll be doing that this next weekend, so I hope it holds. It's warm but fairly dry, and not nearly as hot as it has been. The sky is clear and bright. The sun is golden. There's that certain subtle something in the air that stirs up memories just below the surface of my mind. Texas fall does exist. It's just as subtle. The trees don't change into firey oranges or dazzling golds. It won't get really cold for months probably. But when you grow up here, you learn to know autumn by the way it smells.

It smells like football games with the afternoon sun slanting over the field. It smells like a new year of school settled and underway, with all the busy comings and goings of college life. It smells like carving pumpkins and dressing up to walk over the grass fields at Ren-Fest. It smells like family gatherings and a drawing inward for thought and quiet reflection.

As I walked to my car this morning, images rose up in my imagination like a wave that rushed over me. I was on the field in orange and black out at Fredericksburg for a marching competition. I was on top of Fondren library to see the lunar eclipse through a telescope. I was on a trailer loaded with hay in a black cat costume driving through a neighborhood trick-or-treating. I was reading Plato on a tree limb before musical rehearsal. I was looking over Canyon Lake from the porch of a three-story split level with the smell of Thanksgiving turkey and spiced pies drifting out of the windows.

This tang in the air makes me both sad and eagerly expectant. Autumn starts the end of the year. But when the year ends, a new one begins. A lot of beginnings mean we have to leave something behind. Something we know, we love, we feel safe with. All the autumns I can remember seem tinged with this strand of excitement and sadness. What is it that I'm always leaving behind? What is it that is always just over the horizon?

All That Jazz

So I've never been in a jazz band before. I've been in marching bands, wind ensembles, chamber groups, and played solo, but I've never been in a jazz band. Now after ten full years of sitting in the audience, I've joined the crew. Tonight I had my first rehearsal with the Rice Jazz Ensemble. Wow.

If I don't grow musically through this experience, then my musical pituitary needs to be checked. If I don't grow as a person through learning to feel this kind of music, then I may as well hang it up. Not that I've never felt a physical pull at my gut listening to the blues. Not that I've never wanted to become a musical note my self and slide into the swing of a fast shuffle. But I'm not sure I've ever given myself over to that. Some part of me is held back. And I don't know why that is.

First, improvisation scares me. Like, not nerves or stage fright. Something deep in my soul pulls back into a shell and slams it shut at the idea. It's probably mostly a confidence issue. The structure of music is something I feel I only barely understand. I've gotten to where I can make up my own harmonies in choir by finding the notes I hear that aren't voiced. It's a start. But these chord structures... They aren't your grandmother's chord structures! I was having a helluva time just finding the pitch the music told me to hit sometimes. (Concert F# was being particularly bothersome.)

Maybe part of it is an inner rebellion against being pushed towards it so much by a friend I had a while back. Encouraging a shy person is a delicate business. Supportive is okay. But I remember not wanting to read *books* my Godmother kept saying were so good, just because she kept encouraging me to read them. So if that fine line gets crossed, I tend to flip from shy to stubborn. I still haven't read those books.

There are a lot of things that I don't hold back, but the ones that I do are tied so tightly to something inside me, and on such a short chain, that there must be something more than just my usual shyness going on. I wish I knew what it was. Maybe that's something jazz band can help me learn and understand. Even if I can't conquer the fear, I'd rather understand it than be puzzled and therefore even more shy and insecure every time it comes up. I still don't think I'll take any non-written solos. :-P But in just learning to feel the music more, to let it wind more intimately into my mind and soul, until I flow with it, and understand the tongues it speaks in... That's challenge and reward enough.

Back to something more concrete. Jazz band has already taught me that my reading sucks. Oh. Wait. I knew that. But it's taught me how bad it really is. I fully intend to nullify this with diligent practice. I just have no idea when I'll find the time. I've never been in so many musical groups before. I do, however, have my strengths! Yay! All three of us trumpet players there showed some particular ability that deserved a nod. Erik played really high really well, and expressed the style of each chart with confidence. Even Larry was impressed at how solid he was on lead so much of the time. He's been working on it a lot. :-) I think Zev read a lot of the running eighth notes a lot more accurately than either Erik or myself, and did some fun solo stuff, which both Erik and I were honest about *not* wanting to do.

As for me, at the very beginning of rehearsal, during tuning, Larry commented on my stance and horn angle. I try to stay straight and open and keep my bell up, and he likes it. I was on third part, which, when I wasn't completely unable to find the notes, gave me a chance to really anchor some of the chords, and stretch my ear for chords I'm not familiar with. But the thing I'm personally most proud of? The last piece had one of those trick rhythms that lulls you into complacency, then surprises you into an inadvertant solo. Is it on the upbeat of 4 like the previous one? NO! Hah! It's on the and of 1 this time! Gotcha! Only *I* wasn't fooled one single time. :-D

Now if I could only find that darn elusive concert F#....

No one exSPECS this much beer in Laura's fridge

So I had a small party, at which only Frank drank beer. And he brought his own, and it was a Heineken mini-keg. So now there's that on top of the Newcastle and the Woodchuck pear cider I bought at Specs. Definitely going to have to throw another party...

But it's an ill wind and all. To get the Newcastle and cider I went to Specs. The big one downtown. I've been there before with friends on a mission for specific things. This was my first time to wander the store on my own, with nothing too specific in mind.

First unexpected and thoroughly blissful discovery. Nutella. NUTELLA. OH my gosh. I fell in love with Nutella on a sidewalk in Paris, when it was handed to me surrounded by a warm fluffy crepe. I've heard some regular grocery stores sell it too, but I hadn't really had time to look for it. So when it jumped out in front of me like that, what could I do? I bought some. May have to make crepes next... Heh, and they're so much fun to make! They go FLIP, PLOP, hopefully back in the pan. :-P

Second unexpected yummyness. The cheese aisles. I'd heard they were extensive, but honestly I hardly knew where to begin! All I needed was Brie. But how could I resist wandering the entire section, just to gawk at the myriad of kinds and flavors. That place could very well be deadly. I was lucky to get out of there with *just* the Brie. Will have to go back when I have a clearer idea of what I really want, so I don't end up spending a king's ransom on dairy products.

I decided that now was not a safe time to impulse-buy myself into a mini-bar. After all, not that many people would want to drink hard stuff on a Sunday afternoon. (I was definitely right about that!) Besides, I've got a bottle of wine on the way from California, so I really don't need anything else. Heaven only knows what this almost-teetotalar would have come home with. Grand Marnier seems likely. Maybe next time.

Found the beer fridge, and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to remember, upon examining the pear cider options, which one the folks order at Brian O'Neill's when we're there. So the entire trip was a wonderful success, and tons of fun.

Only no one drank the stuff *I* bought, and now I've still got Frank's mini-keg. Sigh. I suppose I could have worse problems. :-P

Aaaaaand we're back!

I have legos!!! I can't tell you how happy this makes me, or why, and you can call me a doof if you want, but I don't care. For the first time in my life I own my own legos!

And I bought them at DISNEYLAND!!! Along with a pin for my fedora commemorating the 50th birthday of Disneyland. Just think, the 50th anniversary of the park that started it all. And by all, I mean the incessant and inevitable conversations between my father and my uncle Tom in Donaldese. Their grandparents took the three boys to Disneyland once to get them out of their parents' hair during a move, and Tom and Daddy taught themselves some mean Donald impersonations on the way. Sigh. :-) I may have only shopped in Downtown Disney, which wasn't there when Daddy was, but somehow... seeing the desert scrub mountains and palm lined hills coasting down into the pacific as they must have seen it, knowing it was getting closer, close close closer until... WE'RE THERE! Disney must be so much about that childhood anticipation of what you can only imagine, it's so magical, and even my tiny little side trip gave me that.

Teebs is a pill, cuz he stood us up for HOMEWORK that day. :-P Amy and I had to get by with just our own combined levels of snarkiness at the La Brea tar pits. It was incredibly cool and fun and stinky and fascinating, but man, the cheesy educational films and moth-eaten animatronix were ASKING for snark. Don't worry, we were cool, we could deal, we got by. ;-) Would have been cool to chat with some of the workers from pit 91 if they'd been around and chat-with-able. They seemed to have their own dimension of snark, judging from the whiteboard at the excavation. Among listing numbers of fossils found, etc., it answered some very important questions up front.

"No dinosaurs are found in the tar pits. Dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years before the tar pits formed."

"Tar is not hot."

"Fossils are not found in liquid tar."

"We are NOT graduate students."

"What smell?"

When we did finally catch up with Teebs, he showed us around Mudd and Scripps and we got to visit a cool library with a cool expanded stacks thingy, and shelves that you could open and close and move by spinning a wheel that looked like the ones on safes that get cracked in movies. Very fun. Then we ate dinner at Buca di Bepo, sang happy birthday to about three people, and stuffed ourselves in general. Amy and I went home and watched The emperor's New Groove which I had somehow never seen, and I was wearing my Eeyore shirt, so it was a thoroughly Disney day, really.

Monday was my last day in Cali, so we had to pack a lot in. We grabbed caffeine and breakfast in the form of a chocolate chip scone and a cinnamon roll. Then we headed out towards Ventura, through fruit orchards and soy fields. We passed a sign that said, "Free honey tasting, 1 mile on the right," and broke into a simultaneous "Ooooooh yeah."

There was sage honey and avocado honey and orange honey (my favorite). There was buckwheat honey, a little traditional clover honey, wildflower honey, cactus honey, which was really granulated and thick, and finally molasses, which is not honey, and is not made by bees, but which they had some of, so they bottled it. I cannot tell you how happy I was to be standing around eating honey off of little wooden popsicle sticks. It was... divine.

Further on down the road was a sign for a winery. It seemed like a tasting kinda day, so I said, "Hey, let's go taste wine." Amy was nothing loath. :-P We walked into the white-washed cave of a tasting room, walk up to the bar, and were greeted by Rosie, who I don't believe stopped talking for longer than it took to draw breath from the moment she greeted us to the moment we left her with other tasters.

We learned all about her family, her boss (a German-French Ph. D. laser physicist whom she described as working with Sponge Bob Square-pants, AKA Rosie herself), and a little about the wine. Not all of them were very good, but I really did enjoy one of the dessert wines, and even ordered a bottle, that will probably ship tomorrow. I tried port, cuz it was there, and Chuck said I might like it, but I dunno. It might be a *little* too sweet. There was another really interesting wine that was as sweet and heavy as the port, and had a definite taste of chocolate and strawberries. Very interesting, but really not for me.

We were a little light-headed at that point. Okay, *I* was a little light-headed. Amy was pretty much fine. So we decided it was time to head back and eat lunch, since I couldn't remember the exact time of my flight, but thought it was around 5:30ish. We went back and had some very yummy steakhouse fare, returned to Amy's apartment, and found out that my flight left at
6:40.


That meant time for another movie. :-P We watched Drop Dead Gorgeous, a mockumentary about a Minnesota beauty pageant. It was pretty funny. Three movies! Three new movies I'd never seen before! Yay! Then we bundled me off to the airport where the security guard minding the walk-through metal detector grinned and told me I had cute socks. (For those who know, I was wearing my orange/red/pink striped ones with an orange t-shirt.) I met a guy headed back for Houston who's in the Rice MBA program. He looked kinda familiar, so I'll have to see if I see him around.

Then I got home incredibly late, fell into bed, got up way too sleepy, smumbled through a day of work, and here we are!

Go West. . . Now What? :-P

Writing from about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. Sitting in Amy's spare bedroom at the end of a fun fun day. Amy's apartment is wonderful, the surrounding terrain is gorgeous, and the barbecue place about a block that way has made me a very happy camper.

The trip here was fun. About the time we should have started boarding, the sky opened up over Houston Hobby, and the tarmac turned into a wind-tossed sea. Albeit a shallow one. Only a minor delay, though. The second the wheels of the plane left the ground, a weight fell off. I'm on VACATION! This is the first trip in years that I've taken by myself for myself. I'm going to have to do this more often!

About the time we reached cruising altitude, one of the two high school boys sitting next to me asked me what I had been reading. I've started George Eliot's Middlemarch and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. This led to a conversation on my degrees, my interest in Victorian literature and the way it explored the social issues of its day, his interest in film, the colleges he's looking at, Myers-Briggs typing, religious faith, and so on and so forth. For an introvert, I sure ended up spilling a lot my life experiences out to a perfect stranger. But hey, I've learned too much in the ten years since I was where he is to keep it all to myself, and he asked me all sorts of questions.

So, Rice opened the football season against U of H today. We lost 31-30. Drat. I told Amy, "You know, something? Rice football is a lot like guys. It's easy pretend you don't care . . . until you start winning."

Amy and I spent the evening watching Brigette Jones' Diary and eating chocolate ganache. Good times. I feel utterly girly. Tomorrow we'll counter this by visiting the La Brea tar pits and the Lego store. That oughta put things right back to normal. ;-)

What's WRONG with my hair? :-(

So the apartment warming party was tons of fun. I think I'm going to throw another for all the folks who couldn't come or forgot. FORGOT. Forgot ME! The nerve. ;-)

My grandma came, and brought my Aunt Shirley, and that was nice. But then Grandma looked up at me as she sat in a straight-backed antique chair, folded one hand over the other, and laughed, as only a disapproving southern woman can, "What *have* you done to *your* *hair*?"

Um....

Well, I've done a couple of things over the past year. I got it cut a few times. I dyed it a few different shades of red. It's been like this for months. Did she just now notice? Doesn't it look good? Everyone else seems to like it....

I suppose it might have been a compliment, but it didn't feel like it. And when Aunt Shirley said she couldn't see it, and maybe that was a good thing, Grandma didn't contradict. All of a sudden I felt at a loss, guilty, like a child that's gone wrong somewhere, and honestly doesn't know how to put it right, while everyone frowns down. I hate that feeling. I was that child too many times. Every time someone was upset with me, I was that child. So yesterday I shook my hair around and grinned and said, "Hey, I look great!" Certainly enough people have told me so to outweigh one disapproving grandmother. Including my other grandmother! But still, why did she have to say that? Of all the things she could criticize me for...

Or is that it? Is it the things I've done that she *can't* come out and criticize me for, so she has to start in on my hair? She's never said she disapproves... But she's certainly hinted... And I know I've made mistakes. Who hasn't! But dangit, I'm through with feeling small and guilty over them. And dangit, how many grandmothers can brag on their grandkids as much as she can?

Heh... maybe I should get a buzz cut and die my hair blue just to give her some perspective. :-P

Give Me Strength

Give me strength to weep the willow's tears

And bend beneath the weight of passing years.

Until my sorrows ripple on the breeze

And float away among the golden leaves

To drift and spread, and spreading, free my heart

And with each breath of wind breathe a new start.

Night Train

Every sound trains make seems desolate and lonely.

I pulled up to the tracks under the orange glow of the sulphur street lamps. The warning lights blinked like harsh red eyes, and the alarm bells clanged like a funeral knell, only too harried to hold the sublime dignity of a slow toll.

The deep whistle filled my ears with a mournful wail, sweeping over me like rushing water mixed with the thunder and the lightning flashing on the horizon. A rusty screech followed one of the cars like a thin, high, dreary cry. A few drops of rain began to show on my windshield, as the monotonous clatter of the wheels on the rails jarred just off the tempo of the bells.

I sat in the dark filled with a sense of endless, lightless emptiness. I don't know where the train was going, or what it was carrying. Sometimes I've felt like there's a romance in the melancholy, and a gypsy glory to the cars that creak across my path and disappear, only to haunt a blues melody or a rambler's dream.

But tonight the train filled my mind with a gritty, sordid sort of sadness without even a longing for light or joy.

My life isn't like that. Even when I'm down, I can grit my teeth and look up. This isn't a feeling that stays with me. It touches me sometimes, fills my mind, and then winds away as the crossing arms lift and the dream fades.

But what if all my life were like a train in the night? God keep them and bring them to the morning.

Oh, was that rhetorical?

Okay, I've been writing a crapload lately. Now I want to hear from you. Yes this is my new ploy to find out who reads my blog. Why? Because I like to know my audience. You all know me pretty well!

Rules of engagement:

• Pick a song that asks a question.
• Answer the question.
• Provide artist, genre, album, any other info you like, but that's not necessary.
  

Here, I'll start.

"Why do birds suddenly appear . . .?"
Because you're sitting on the beach, and you held a dorito up in the air. (Mine?)

Ready. . . . . . . . GO!

Left Over Chinese Food and Other Good Things

I have yummy chinese food, left over from yesterday, to eat. I have more pictures up on my wall, and drapes hung in the living room. I have hardware to hang curtains over my very stubborn bedroom window, and paint and spackle to fix the stray holes. I have new locks on my doors.

I had a big client meeting this morning, and I wore my little gray suit from Express, and I looked *fabulous*. Very professional and sharp. And I was incredibly competent. I exuded confidence. I mean, the stuff was oozing out from under my fingernails, I felt so good about life. :-P

I'm sitting on my couch snuggled into my soft pillows and my extra soft blanket feeling like today was *mine*. I got a fortune cookie yesterday that said, "You will be a dragon of creative fire this week. Watch your aim."

I'm starting to believe it. Just give me a target!

One Whole Week in the New Place

And it's been one helluva week. I've kept account of it elsewhere while I was finishing up the Glacier journal, and now seems like a fitting time to bring you all up to speed on current events. Here are the entries from my OTHER blog. No, no, no need to run out and find it. I'll continue to put all the important stuff here.
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Sunday, August 06, 2006

Zev, Erik, and the movers did all the real work, so why am *I* sore?
Current mood: confused

I am moved! Relocated! In a better place!

I am REALLY BAD at unpacking. Here was my thought process this morning, as I stood in the middle of my rather disheveled living room:

First I'll unpack books. Oh, cards and stuff go with games. Crap, I hate 52 card pick up. CRAP, now there are only 49 cards. I bet the other three fell behind those video boxes. I'm going to unpack my videos and DVDs, then, and put them there. Oh, but first I should glue that piece of wood back. Ugh, and the glass is really dusty, I should windex that first. Where the hell is the windex? I had it just . . . . Well, maybe if I get some of these boxes unpacked I'll find it. I guess I'll just keep going with the books. Oh, but the bookshelves aren't where I want them. But I can't move them because book boxes are stacked in front of them. Maybe I should set up my TV and stuff. But the shelves have the video boxes on them! Oh Lord.

Meanwhile I've half-unpacked several boxes of books, have undone work I did yesterday setting up my stacking bookshelves, have wandered aimlessly all over the apartment in search of windex, wood glue, and a clue. My dining table is covered with piles of books because I want to organize them before I shelve them, and I keep having to rein my brain in from thinking about curtains and all sorts of stuff that can WAIT until I'm UNPACKED. If I ever am. Oy.

Help? Please? Anybody?

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Monday, August 7, 2006

Why am I sore? Because I'm sick. Yay.
Current mood: sick

Yeah, so I went home Friday from work sick. But I thought by that evening I was better. Then I woke up again Saturday with a fever. But I had to move regardless, so I did. Then Sunday I didn't have a fever, so I figured a good night's sleep had kicked it.

Nope. I now have a fever again. I feel like crap. I'm working from home because I've already need to make up the billable hours I lost Friday. And my apartment is, of course, a wreck, and I can't go to the hardware store, so I can't fix my bookshelf that got a little broken, and I can't really do any of the stuff I want to do to make this place livable. I cant even go to the grocery store to buy soup and vitamin C drops and gatorade. And all the friends Ive called are busy. And my apostrophe just stopped working. This sucks. Hrmph.

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Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Do most hardware stores carry machetes? Current mood: sluggish

Cuz it seemed weird to me. But I got my C clamps, I got a level, and I patronized a family owned business that has been selling hardware for over fifty years, or something. Feels good.

Plus I found out where to buy a machete, should a jungle ever spring up in my apartment. *looks around*

Hmmm. Might actually be useful . . .

Feeling better, but . . . the grocery store will have to wait until Thursday. Hope I'm okay playing trumpet tomorrow. I feel fine, just nooooo eeenerrrrgy.

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Thursday, August 10, 2006

No Beachin' Current mood: sick

Well, I don't think I'll be going to the beach with my mom and sis this weekend. Came home from band last night, and yep, had a fever.

Going to try to make it through the whole day at the office, though. Got my vitamin C drops!

I wish this meant I'd be able to get stuff done around the new place, but I dunno. We'll have to see how much better I get.

Sigh.

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Friday, August 11, 2006

It's Progress Current mood: Ebullient, as Frank would say

I actually sound worse than I feel. Yesterday I nearly lost my voice, but I felt much better! I've got about 75% of my voice back now, and I'm coughing some, but it's not bad. Better yet, I have energy! Not tons, but much more than earlier in the week.

The best part is, I don't think I'm contagious, so while I'm still in town for the weekend instead of at the beach (), I can at least hang out with people as long as I don't feel too tired.

Yay for not being a hermit! Yay for Friday!

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Friday, August 11, 2006

Too much excitement Current mood: relieved

Not, like, *tooooo* too much. But still too much.

I decided to come home right after dinner tonight. Because 1) my friends were being a little boring, and 2) I've been sick, so turning in early sounded good.

So I get out of my car, and I go and get my mail. And I walk back and up the stairs to my door and . . .

It's open. I look at it, with my head cocked and my eyebrows drawn together. I nudge it with my foot like it's an animal I think might be dead. It swings back, and I see that the bolt isn't shot, and the door frame looks fine.

I nudge it again, and reach in and turn on the lights, and peep around.

Then I remember. I *did* lock the door this morning. I *know* I did. I had to go back to get my Hawai'ian shirt to put on after work cuz it's Friday, and Chuck and I always wear a Hawai'ian shirt to Valhalla. And I had my shirt in one hand as I locked the door with the other. I remember looking at the lock, turning the key, and having this red shirt in view. So I *know* I locked it, for sure.

So I turn around, walk back down the steps, and call the complex to see if they have a security service. They do not. I call 311 to ask what I should do, because, mind you, I'm in denial that this is an actual emergency.

311 hands me over to the police department, and they dispatch a car to my location, take my phone number, and tell me they'll be there soon.

So I try to call Kerri. Who doesn't answer. So I try Erik, who doesn't answer. So I try Terri, who doesn't answer. So I just start going down the list and figure I'll call the first person who seems to be a good person to call. I end up with Joe.

Joe reassures me I've done the right thing, and keeps me company while I wait.

In about a half hour the cops show up. Much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of the woman walking her (absolutely lovely and friendly) dogs by on the sidewalk. I wish I had had time to stop and make friends. I explain to them that I came home, my door was open and unlocked, and that I knew for certain that I had locked it this morning. And that I don't know if anything is missing, because I didn't go in, or really look.

It's not a big place. It doesn't take them long to search it (with me hovering frightened outside the door, poised to run if any sounds of a struggle break out). They check all the rooms, they check my doors and windows. And no one is there, and I come in, and my TV, stereo, computer, are all intact.

One of the officers asks concernedly, "Is the the way your apartment looked when you left this morning?" I shamefacely laugh, "Yes, I just moved in." The place is a wreck. It really is.

They laugh, and say okay, and head out the door. No forms or anything. Complete and total false alarm.

And frankly, I'm happier that way! So here's a shout out to the men in blue who made it safe for me to come back into my home. I still love this place, but I'm going to raise a little hell in the apartment office tomorrow, and get my locks changed. Once is enough!

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So that was my week. I get new locks on Monday. I hope to be completely recovered by then too, since I have a big client meeting. To that end, I do believe I'll go to bed now.

Trip to Glacier - Day 9

A long day begins with a long drive. During which we stop to get me dramamine and ginger ale. Just remember, when life gives you drama, take dramamine.

The road is lovely, and after my dose, just seems to float by as I doze, never really asleep, but never really awake. Fortunately this wears off as we near Spokane, just in time for lunch at IHOP, since we're really early for Will's flight.

The IHOP is very crowded, but we have time. Our group takes up a fair amount of the waiting area. We finally get seated, and find that we have been assigned to the waiter on turbo charge. He is a short latino with only one speed - super-fast - and he calls everyone "my friend" except for Amy. He calls her "boss." Twice. Me he calls "sweety" once, and I think he finally calls Mark boss, or at least something other than my friend. But the guy nearly runs around the table, filling water, bringing us a carafe, etc. It's awesome.

We go to fill up the cars before returning them. We figure if we drive down this major-ish looking road, we'll find a gas station eventually. Well, we do, but it's absurdly far from the airport. We console ourselves, as we drive and drive and drive without seeing a station, that at least we aren't lost. We can always u-turn and end up right where we came from. When we finally find a pump, it's a pay first, no credit cards, old school sort of job. But hey, it's an adventure. And it works. And we finally head for the airport.

Will's flight leaves, and the rest of us wait around for a bit. We catch the end of the world cup on TV. Italy wins. We find out that Ken Lay has died of a heart attack. People ask us where we've been that we hadn't heard. It really was fun to drop off the face of the earth for a while. Going back is going to be a bit harsh.

The Houston crew leaves Teebs and Amy behind to wait for their flight. We get to Phoenix, only to find that weather in Las Vegas has delayed a lot of the connections, and the gate area is in chaos. We've got plenty of time, so we find some neutral ground to park in while we wait to find out which gate our plane will actually be at. We pull out the lap tops and connect to the wireless. We all take turns checking e-mail, and it's just about business as usual already.

Our flight is delayed, of course, and by the time we get on it, I'm regretting that I didn't request tomorrow off from work. I'm going to be pretty ragged tomorrow. As I expect, I don't sleep much on the plane. We land in Houston around 1 A.M. and the first thing I notice getting off of the plane is, of course, the humidity. I knew it would be bad, but the air actually *smells* like water. Not to mention feels like a sauna.

We collect our baggage. Mark and Joanna drive me home. I drag everything into my aparment, and, already half asleep, shut out the world and the stray cat that apparently wants to come live with me. I fall into bed at 2 A.M. and my trip to Glacier National Park is officially over.