- Carondelet park and it's trail, and how they are only a few blocks from my house
- elderly couples I pass while walking who say "Afternoon" to me - in those moments it feels like Jesus is giving me an afternoon greeting
- food stamps
- Reese's peanut butter eggs
- how food stamps will buy me Reese's peanut butter eggs
- dogs, specifically Effy and Cooper and Bruno
- jean jackets and sweaters and weather that accompanies those items of clothing
- Skype
- extreme weather (like hurricanes or tornadoes or wind storms. especially wind storms)
- my literacy
- how roughly 1980 years ago, Jesus died on the cross for you and me and was dead for three days and then ROSE AGAIN and that one act was more than enough to cover the sin for everyone who ever lived ever
24 April 2011
17 April 2011
Happy Birthday, Jeremy!
10 April 2011
as fast as I can
I live with two other girls. One of them got engaged this past February 4th. The other one got engaged this past March 6th. After No. 2 came home with a ring, I made the joke that - in order to keep the pattern going - I would have to get engaged on April 8.
This was an unlikely task. I don't have a long-term boyfriend nor am I dating anyone. To start a relationship and get engaged within six weeks is possible, sure, but improbable. Well, ladies and gentlemen, April 8th was this past Friday and I am still ringless.
At my church, Pastor Noah talks a lot about people getting married. Like, just about every Sunday. He talks about all the married people in the church and how they should love each other well and go make lots of babies. Then he talks about the single people and how they should get married so they can love each other well and make lots of babies. And I agree with him that it is God's plan for many of us single folk to get married and love each other well (and have lots of babies). Tonight when he talked about men loving their wives enough to buy them back massages, I thought "heck yeah! I want to be married so my husband can buy be a back massage!"
But that's just it, isn't it? There are some days that I am lonely and miss having a boyfriend and want to be dating someone attractive and smart and funny and nice (not too nice yet not a liar) but there are many more days that I think of marriage in terms of the financial benefits that would be open to me if I had a husband with a "real job." In those moments of indulgence, I know that I should want to be married to share my life with someone, not because I could travel on his dime. In those moments, I am thankful that I'm not married. If I were married right now, I wouldn't necessarily be able to do half the stuff I do. I wouldn't necessarily be able to jet off to Haiti for a month to live in and serve an orphanage. I wouldn't necessarily be able to think about getting a second Master's or even a PhD because, well, why not? I might be able to drop my entire life in Virginia and move to Missouri but I definitely wouldn't be able to spend the entire month of July and half of August lounging by the pool of my brother's apartment complex, recuperating from grad school and the stuff life threw at me.
As my friend Emily once said, it's a different type of adventure. Some people choose to stay put and get married. Some people move to Scotland and trek around Europe making the rest of us get crazy wanderlust. It's just a different type of adventure. So right now I am having this St. Louis adventure, and I think probably I'll get married sometime in the future, and that will be a different kind of adventure. If it happens that I start dating someone tomorrow and get married in a year, hey, that's cool, I'll just start that new adventure pretty soon.
On the days I am super frustrated about not being married now, I often think of a specific episode of How I Met Your Mother. I thought of it in church tonight and when I got home, it just happened to be on TV. It's that one in which Tony breaks up with Stella and she appeals to Ted to talk Tony back into marrying her (he was the one who talked Tony out of it, after all). Stella and Ted are sitting in the car after getting Barney out of jail and Ted, in a moment of vulnerability, spills to Stella that he wants what she and Tony (and Marshall and Lily) have. And Stella tells Ted that somewhere out there is a girl who will be that person for him, who will give Ted what Stella and Tony have. Stella reassures Ted that that girl is getting there as fast as she can.
I'm getting there as fast as I can.
This was an unlikely task. I don't have a long-term boyfriend nor am I dating anyone. To start a relationship and get engaged within six weeks is possible, sure, but improbable. Well, ladies and gentlemen, April 8th was this past Friday and I am still ringless.
At my church, Pastor Noah talks a lot about people getting married. Like, just about every Sunday. He talks about all the married people in the church and how they should love each other well and go make lots of babies. Then he talks about the single people and how they should get married so they can love each other well and make lots of babies. And I agree with him that it is God's plan for many of us single folk to get married and love each other well (and have lots of babies). Tonight when he talked about men loving their wives enough to buy them back massages, I thought "heck yeah! I want to be married so my husband can buy be a back massage!"
But that's just it, isn't it? There are some days that I am lonely and miss having a boyfriend and want to be dating someone attractive and smart and funny and nice (not too nice yet not a liar) but there are many more days that I think of marriage in terms of the financial benefits that would be open to me if I had a husband with a "real job." In those moments of indulgence, I know that I should want to be married to share my life with someone, not because I could travel on his dime. In those moments, I am thankful that I'm not married. If I were married right now, I wouldn't necessarily be able to do half the stuff I do. I wouldn't necessarily be able to jet off to Haiti for a month to live in and serve an orphanage. I wouldn't necessarily be able to think about getting a second Master's or even a PhD because, well, why not? I might be able to drop my entire life in Virginia and move to Missouri but I definitely wouldn't be able to spend the entire month of July and half of August lounging by the pool of my brother's apartment complex, recuperating from grad school and the stuff life threw at me.
As my friend Emily once said, it's a different type of adventure. Some people choose to stay put and get married. Some people move to Scotland and trek around Europe making the rest of us get crazy wanderlust. It's just a different type of adventure. So right now I am having this St. Louis adventure, and I think probably I'll get married sometime in the future, and that will be a different kind of adventure. If it happens that I start dating someone tomorrow and get married in a year, hey, that's cool, I'll just start that new adventure pretty soon.
On the days I am super frustrated about not being married now, I often think of a specific episode of How I Met Your Mother. I thought of it in church tonight and when I got home, it just happened to be on TV. It's that one in which Tony breaks up with Stella and she appeals to Ted to talk Tony back into marrying her (he was the one who talked Tony out of it, after all). Stella and Ted are sitting in the car after getting Barney out of jail and Ted, in a moment of vulnerability, spills to Stella that he wants what she and Tony (and Marshall and Lily) have. And Stella tells Ted that somewhere out there is a girl who will be that person for him, who will give Ted what Stella and Tony have. Stella reassures Ted that that girl is getting there as fast as she can.
I'm getting there as fast as I can.
06 April 2011
an anecdote of my house being burglarized
Last night I came home from work to find some of our front windows smashed in.
It's a very surreal experience, having your own house broken into.
They hardly took anything. In fact, the only thing we have identified as missing is my monogrammed jewelry box that my mom gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. Let me tell you, those robbers were not smart enough to realize that any girl with a plastic dresser does NOT have expensive jewelry.
The cop who was dispatched to respond to my phone call walked around the house for a while until the crime unit came (in the form of a stocky man named Harry who mumbled things that sounded hilarious) and dusted for finger prints. It was all very uneventful. Roomie/landlord was pretty pissed and had to get wood from Lowe's to cover the smashed stained glass windows. We all had plans to be productive that night and instead were relegated to waiting around for the police to finish and then eating everything in sight since it was 8:30pm and, seeing as how we hadn't eaten dinner, we were quite hungry.
Thankfully, those crazy robbers didn't take the TV or any computers or anything expensive like that. My guess is they got spooked when the alarm went nutso after the 30 second grace period and, as they fled the scene, the top of my jewelry box flew open to spill contents all over the front lawn (it took me a while to collect my things. Earring studs hide well in grass and dirt). Thankfully, my grandma's pair of glass mosaic earrings were one of the first I found in the grass. My fleur-de-lis earrings were neary (this is actually the second pair of fleur-de-lis earrings I have from New Orleans, the first pair having mysteriously disappeared in my parents' house).
Things that unfortunately went missing: assorted necklaces and earrings people have given to me after traveling to far-off places. My hieroglyph name cartouche from Egypt. The pearl necklace and earrings from my mother as well as the matching bracelet I wore to my sister's wedding. My Randolph-Macon class ring.
We have concluded that it was someone inexperienced, probably a couple of kids. This makes me really sad. And mad. It breaks my heart that we still live in a society where it is acceptable to teach children the art of breaking and entering so that they can steal people's memories.
Me and my roommates, we got lucky. We didn't lose much materialistically, and what we did lose is easily replaceable. But I think we all also lost our sense of safety. And that might take a while to get back.
It's a very surreal experience, having your own house broken into.
They hardly took anything. In fact, the only thing we have identified as missing is my monogrammed jewelry box that my mom gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. Let me tell you, those robbers were not smart enough to realize that any girl with a plastic dresser does NOT have expensive jewelry.
The cop who was dispatched to respond to my phone call walked around the house for a while until the crime unit came (in the form of a stocky man named Harry who mumbled things that sounded hilarious) and dusted for finger prints. It was all very uneventful. Roomie/landlord was pretty pissed and had to get wood from Lowe's to cover the smashed stained glass windows. We all had plans to be productive that night and instead were relegated to waiting around for the police to finish and then eating everything in sight since it was 8:30pm and, seeing as how we hadn't eaten dinner, we were quite hungry.
Thankfully, those crazy robbers didn't take the TV or any computers or anything expensive like that. My guess is they got spooked when the alarm went nutso after the 30 second grace period and, as they fled the scene, the top of my jewelry box flew open to spill contents all over the front lawn (it took me a while to collect my things. Earring studs hide well in grass and dirt). Thankfully, my grandma's pair of glass mosaic earrings were one of the first I found in the grass. My fleur-de-lis earrings were neary (this is actually the second pair of fleur-de-lis earrings I have from New Orleans, the first pair having mysteriously disappeared in my parents' house).
Things that unfortunately went missing: assorted necklaces and earrings people have given to me after traveling to far-off places. My hieroglyph name cartouche from Egypt. The pearl necklace and earrings from my mother as well as the matching bracelet I wore to my sister's wedding. My Randolph-Macon class ring.
We have concluded that it was someone inexperienced, probably a couple of kids. This makes me really sad. And mad. It breaks my heart that we still live in a society where it is acceptable to teach children the art of breaking and entering so that they can steal people's memories.
Me and my roommates, we got lucky. We didn't lose much materialistically, and what we did lose is easily replaceable. But I think we all also lost our sense of safety. And that might take a while to get back.
04 April 2011
everybody dies but not everybody lives
On Wednesday and Thursday mornings, I volunteer at a local elementary school's morning reading program. Normally the drive is as you would expect: 7:15am, sort of light out, some traffic on the road, to-go coffee in the cupholder to aid in the process of fully waking up.
Last Wednesday was different.
There was still traffic on the road, still coffee for me to drink, still 7:15am, but there was a stillness. I remember it being warm enough outside that my car window was cracked to feel the morning air. I was driving northeast on Gravois when Nicki Minaj's "Moment 4 Life" came on the radio. I love Nicki Minaj. I love this song. And it was just then that I got to my favorite part of Gravois - when the arch emerges from behind that incredible church on the corner of Lynch. The whole downtown skyline in front of me was shrouded in fog. It was so thick I couldn't see the top of the arch.
"I wish that I could have this moment for life, for life, for life. 'Cause in this moment I just feel so alive, alive, alive."
It was a perfect moment, captured in my mind forever.
In that moment I thanked God for bringing me here because I love St. Louis.
Last Wednesday was different.
There was still traffic on the road, still coffee for me to drink, still 7:15am, but there was a stillness. I remember it being warm enough outside that my car window was cracked to feel the morning air. I was driving northeast on Gravois when Nicki Minaj's "Moment 4 Life" came on the radio. I love Nicki Minaj. I love this song. And it was just then that I got to my favorite part of Gravois - when the arch emerges from behind that incredible church on the corner of Lynch. The whole downtown skyline in front of me was shrouded in fog. It was so thick I couldn't see the top of the arch."I wish that I could have this moment for life, for life, for life. 'Cause in this moment I just feel so alive, alive, alive."
It was a perfect moment, captured in my mind forever.
In that moment I thanked God for bringing me here because I love St. Louis.
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