around the world in many days

Stay off the Internet and take lots of naps

2011-12-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

This was the advice my doctor gave me in early October after I complained about being under a crushing--and worsening--fatigue I'd been under since May. I was relieved my worse fears--something horribly permanent like MS or pernicious anemia--couldn't be confirmed at that point. I all but thanked her when she told me I had mono, a significantly less serious, though permanent--the body heals, but the virus that causes mono stays with you your whole life--condition.

My doctor knew by the concerns I expressed that I'd been feverishly researching anything that could cause fatigue. And I, the hopeless dramatic, had let my imagination get the best of me.

But what did come as a surprise was just how much mono could interrupt life...and particularly work. I sunk last summer into a fatigue that I couldn't snap out of. A writer with a strong work ethic--and a driving type A personality--I've been in the habit my whole life of running myself to the ground 'til I can't go any farther. But I've always recovered. Until May.

I knew after a couple of weeks of being unable to function normally that something was wrong, but I never thought to talk to the doctor about mono.

The condition worsened over the summer. I struggled to cover press conferences and debates because I couldn't take notes on important details and quotes delivered just a second earlier. My concentration was just gone, and no amount of caffeine would bring it back.

This year I've struggled to trim the hedges in a week's time, a task that's always taken me about a day. I've had a difficult time carrying groceries in the house, opening pill bottles, holding the newspaper. For about six weeks this fall I constantly felt like I was walking chin-deep in a lake. And even now I'm afraid to walk further than one-eighth of a mile from my house or my car because I don't know whether I'll be able to walk back. I still often have stabbing pains in my sides from where my internal organs were affected by mono, a condition which, from what friends say who've had mono, probably won't abate for at least several more months.

What's it to you? Probably not much, I know. Except sharing all this helps clear my conscience. I feel like I've abandoned my beautiful pink lap top and my job, political writing, which I dearly love and miss.

The moral to the story is, to all you overworked, caffeine-addicted politicos out there, take care of yourself. You're no good to anyone in the hospital or dead.

As for me, I'm still avoiding Web MD, the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the like as if they were the plague. I'll probably have to take at least a nap-a-day for the next year or so. And I'm trying to avoid sugar this holiday season--except for maybe a sugar plum or two.

today's musings

2011-07-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

"The great thing is to always be reading but not to get bored--treat it not like work, more as a vice! Your book bill ought to be your biggest extravagance."
C.S. Lewis

The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Prov. 16:4

2011-05-23T20:07:00.001-07:00

I'm reading Hunter S. Thompson's "Hell's Angles, a Strange and Terrible Saga." In it, I found the following quote about reporting attributed to A.J. Liebling--

"A good reporter, if he chooses the right approach, can understand a cat or an Arab. The choice is the problem, and if he chooses wrong he will come away scratched or baffled."

That's quite a task for reporters everywhere, especially when it's nestled in a story by Hunter S. Thompson and written by heavyweight journalist, Liebling.

When I'm really feeling uncertain...

2011-04-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

...I'm thankful for this guy:

"Remember that one's gift carries with it an instinct and ability given to you by nature to do the thing effectively and persuasively, or to figure it out as you go along.

Passion and gift are the thing.

New Testament word for "spiritual gift" is "charisma," which is a loan word we got from the Greeks. In our own lexicon, it is a thing that draws, certainly, when exercised toward others without our thinking so much on the gift itself.

The rest is detail.

Yo Dad"

If love were a leaf

2011-04-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

If love were in the form of a leaf, it would be a chocolate mint plant.

I can't wait until the little guy is big enough for me to start collecting some of his leaves for teas and other creations. I picked this plant up at the new farmer's market in West Columbia, along with the oregano I picked up to add to my collection.

Other gems that mom and I carted home with us include chives, lemon thyme and orange mint. I'm trying to propagate the plants by cuttings so both of us can enjoy the bounty. After the chocolate mint, my second favorite is the orange mint. It gives off a sweet, fragrant smell.

Chicken and purple shoestring potatoes

2011-03-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

I always put off roasting a chicken when I have one on hand. Between the thawing and the basting, it seems like a much bigger undertaking than it is. But it's the easiest thing in the world to make. All you need is a few simple ingredients for the marinade, and into the oven it goes. Don't forget to baste every 20-30 minutes.

In my opinion, rosemary, orange juice and zest, and lemon juice and zest are must haves for any roasted bird. The bird also has more flavor if it's allowed to marinate for several hours.

Here's a variation I used tonight on a recipe I use all the time...even at Thanksgiving.

For the marinade:
1 tsp. orange zest
1/8 c. orange juice
1 tsp. lemon zest
1/8 c. lemon juice
3/4 tsp. cardamom
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. ground ginger (fresh ginger is best if you have it on hand)
1 tsp. sea salt, ground
1/2 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper
stir together with 2-3 tbsp. olive oil

Using three bone-in, skin on chicken breasts, separate the skin from the breast just enough to create a small opening. Spoon some of the marinade into the opening and spread the mixture around using your fingers. Cover the chicken with the remaining mixture. Add 1/4 c. white wine to the bottom of the roasting pan. And roast at 500 degrees for 30 minutes, basting after the first 15 minutes.

To check for done-ness, insert a probe thermometer into the deepest part of the breast before cooking starts. The bird should be done when the temperature reaches 165 degrees. If you must cut into the meat to check for done-ness, let it rest for five minutes before cutting it open so the juices have a chance to redistribute.

For the shoestring (or matchstick) potatoes?

(oops, it looks like another side dish slipped in there)

From three purple potatoes:

Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. When the pan is hot, place about 1/2 the batch in the pan at a time. Add salt and pepper to taste. Allow the potatoes to cook for 3/5 minutes or until brown on each side.

Enjoy with your favorite dip!

So I guess I'm a bibliophile

2011-03-26T09:08:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have rediscovered the library. Some of the books in the photo above are mine, and are gifts I've received or strays I picked up at a bookstore.

Being surrounded by rows and rows of books takes me back to my childhood. I grew up in a small house in West Columbia. And my family had a dining area that doubled as my dad's library. My dad was in the habit of leaving books all over tables and chairs, wherever he could find a place to bookmark something he was working on at the time. The habit drove my mom nuts. It still does.

Well it looks like I picked up on that habit...to a slightly less sloppy degree...only slightly.

I have an older friend who has given up driving, but who loves books as much as I do. And since we live in the same county, we take library trips together. Seeing who's going to lug home more books has become a sort of game.

My friend gathers up all the mysteries and Christian fiction she can read in two weeks. My bounty is a little more diverse. Yesterday, I collected all the books by C. S. Lewis, books on health care and recipe books my arms could carry to the library counter. I even found a space for "Essentially Lilly: A guide to colorful entertaining" by Lilly Pulitzer and Jay Mulvaney.

Conspiracies and what to do about 'em

2010-07-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

I love Gary North. Rather than complaining about the fiscal quagmire we're in nationally, he offers practical solutions. Below are a few of my favorite excerpts from a recent article he published about conspiracies.

"I enjoy reading books about conspiracies. I especially enjoy reading heavily footnoted, carefully documented books about conspiracies. I enjoy books that do three things. First, they follow the money. Second, they follow the confession of faith. Third, they follow the media. If you show me what leaders believed, how they financed their beliefs, and how they got out their message to the general public, you have shown me what I really need to know about the history of any organization, any society, and any government. I don't care whether you're talking about conspiracies or the good old boys who were aboveboard about everything. You have to show me what they believed, how they financed what they believed, and how they got their message out to the voters...."

Here comes the solution...it's so simple, I wish I had thought of it first. A tapeworm can't survive if you don't feed it.

"...If there were no power and no money from organizing to capture the government, conspiracies would have to raise their own funds. They would have to get their projects implemented by persuasion rather than power. They would just be another special interest group.

Secret or not, they could not get into our wallets unless we allowed them to. It is the essence of the conspiracy to persuade the public that the right and moral thing to do is to allow the state to help some group. As soon as the conspiracy persuades the public of this, the game switches from persuasion to power. It switches from donations to taxation. It switches from liberty to tyranny.

What I'm waiting for is a march on Washington with young people caring signs that say "I'll give up college if you'll give up Medicare." I want to see old people carrying a sign saying "I'll give up Medicare if you'll give up college." That would be a real threat to the conspirators. I cannot imagine anything that would be a greater threat to the conspirators. Take away their control over the education system, and the game is just about over. To get rid of that control over education, Social Security and Medicare recipients will have to accept a quid pro quo. They're going to have to get off the dole.

They are not willing to get off the dole. So, the conspirators will continue to exercise power, the bankers will continue to get bailed out, and the deficit will continue to grow."

A life organic

2010-02-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

Chris and I watched Surrogates recently. It reminded me or the substitute lifestyles most of us are living--attached to our Blackberries, Twitter accounts, Facebook, even email, which is becoming the new dinosaur of communication. Checking messages is a necessity, but it often turns into compulsion. We don't even know who we are without our wireless services. We are possessed by our possessions.

I can't determine whether an electronic life is something we pursue because we're bored with a simple life, because life seems easier when we hide behind the glow of a monitor, or because we've simply become addicted as a society.

But I know leaving our mobile devices behind for a while is worth the risk.

Steinbeck, too, had something to say about machines in "The Grapes of Wrath." When the landowners reclaimed their land from the tenants who had worked it for generations, he wrote, "But let a man get property he doesn't see, or can't take time to get his fingers in, or can't be there to walk on it--why, then the property is the man. He can't do what he wants, he can't think what he wants. The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big--and he's the servant of his property."

Kansas sang it best in terms of our physical substance, all we are is dust in the wind.

So, while I plan to spend some time with the dirt from whence I came (gardening) this Spring, I'm going to close the MacBook for tonight, listen to David Gray and spend some time with my imagination--in a good book.

My latest distraction

2009-10-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

We're living on a tighter budget these days, which, for me, is an adventure. As it turns out, we Americans don't need to spend nearly as much as we do.

So lately, I'm looking for ways to get crafty by using swagbucks, free samples at shop4freebies, and, yes, clipping coupons.

We may benefit more from a simple life, but freebies certainly don't hurt.

Phrases that make me squirm

2009-09-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

Chevron: "Human Energy"

Quaker: "Go, humans go"

Human Resources--yeah, I said it

Things about humanity that bother me more than I had originally thought

2009-08-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

It surprises me the things we're willing to give up on in life. We try out commitments like we try on shoes. And we say the things we feel in the moment--things that are permanent.

It's even standard for relationships to be temporary. Too bad people are forever.

Pack Mentality

2009-05-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

Our little beagle had a meltdown today. She does this every now and then when our german shepherd ignores the rules of the pack. It all started when Chris accidentally hit her in the face with the tennis ball. The beagle punished the shepherd with a menacing growl.

She did this again tonight after we brought the dogs to my in-laws' house. We had to keep them chained together to keep them from eating the hydrangeas. But our beagle got a little testy.

People get a little testy when pack members flout the rules of the pack sometimes, too. We become angry when we don't know who's in charge and when who isn't in charge asserts his or herself over us. We show our teeth to say, back off, or to say, look, I'm in charge.

I've learned a lot from my beagle. And from working in the real world. Let's just say, I'm no german shepherd.

Unnatural: Life on Earth

2009-05-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

You start to realize that life on earth is unnatural when your job is nothing more than a job that usually drives you crazy, when you're more than 2,000 miles away from your family whom you love, and when you're not able to spend most of your time using your talents and abilities to impact the world.

But this is no surprise. The Bible says that God has set eternity in our hearts. This is what's so confounding to me about atheism. Christians point to natural wonders as proof of a God. But more powerful than nature, more permanent than a feeling is whatever God has written in our hearts.

An atheist says if a good God existed, bad things wouldn't happen to good people. This argument only proves humans created in God's image know there is something abnormal about separation, both from God and from the people we love.

We spend so much of our time in a hurry, then regretting that we let time slip away from us. But we can be thankful that hope lies beyond lost time and this unnatural life on earth.

Notes to Facebooks: Look at Me

2009-03-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

I have a confession--it's something I've never told anyone else. I've always wanted to be a TV star. Since pre-adolescence, I've picked various popular songs through the years for my theme music. I had various themes for the show. I even had an inner monologue like JD on "Scrubs." This self-fascination supplanted the typical fixation many children have on others (I wanted so badly to be Anne of Green Gables at one point--I told my Mom I wanted to be an orphan.)

Within this desire to be observed, appreciated and DVR-ed (though I've grown to let go of the day dream and faced the facts that I'm not super interesting) is a fundamental need I think we all have--to be understood. This basic human desire has existed throughout eternity, but it's more evident than ever before in this the height of Facebook's popularity.

I have another sad confession--when I request a new friend on Facebook, I scour my profile. I want to see everything they will see. Even more sadly, the majority of Facebook friends aren't going to scour another user's page.

So what is this state of self-fascination?

Well, my Dad always quoted some wise-acre as saying that to be great is to be misunderstood. Perhaps even more than death and the dentist, we all fear going through life without being understood, or worse, without being appreciated.

Facebooking is our ultimate expression of what we want others to think of us. This is why we post exactly where we are, who we're with or what we're feeling multiple times per day. Aside from being dangerous and a bit stupid, these updates might be the saddest confessions of all.

The last lost sense

2009-03-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

I predict a future in which our sense of reality is lost. I say this after observing our world for the past several weeks and considering the psychology behind our Brave New World, a world that demands sensation and can no longer distinguish fact from fiction.

The Wii has taken the place of actual exercise and fresh air, movies are increasingly being played in 3-D, journals-like this one-are public domain online, and we Kindle rather than reading a good book.

Perhaps we are losing the sense of reality so interwoven with our sense of touch. Many scientific experts say that if you want to remember something, you have to write it down, not merely to see our writing as a reminder, but to send a message to our brains to remember what it is we're writing.

I think God has designed our minds to depend on our sense of touch. We, like He, are designed to work separately as mind, body and spirit. But, starve one and the other two suffer because the three are intertwined.

So as we trade in our books and newspapers for our laptops, blackberries and ipods, we have to ask ourselves what kind of societal deficiencies we're creating for future generations.

Compromising: on Character Flaws

2008-12-31T07:42:00.001-08:00

Observing the generations before you and learning from their mistakes are two valuable skills required for self awareness. Unfortunately, when we see the childish errors of our fathers and their fathers and so on, the picture of what we are is usually a little uglier than we'd like to admit.

It used to make me crazy when my mom would tell me that I was just like my dad. But there is something to be said for the character flaws of our parents bugging us because they are a reflection of our own weaknesses.

I was reminded of this inconvenient truth yesterday as I was talking to my grandfather. The human race is infamous for its grudges and insisting that people come to us on our own terms. My family is no exception to this tendency.

But there comes a point when I personally have to decide if I'm going to reciprocate this stubbornness. Some behaviors just have to be overlooked if we're going to enjoy human relationships to their fullest extent. And when it comes down to it, while God doesn't simply overlook our wrongdoing, He is awfully forgiving. What right do I have to demand that someone has a relationship with me on my terms.

On the other hand, some character flaws ought not be overlooked. Maybe I'm selfish in this view, or maybe I've just grown the slightest bit wiser over the years, but slander or gossip and a broken trust are two character flaws I cannot overlook. After all, don't we need friends to support us in those views we hold dearest? Don't we need to know our friends respect us and accept us for the quirky people we are? And how can we maintain friendships with those in whom we cannot confide?

As the days go by, I hope to grow a little more selfless (don't tell Ayn Rand this) and a little more understanding of where people are coming from because I think we all covet that kind of acceptance in our relationships. But I also value myself, my heart and the things I have to offer to a forever friend.

Now that I'm not 15 anymore, being a little like my dad isn't such a bad thing.

Sincerely,

Properly Compromised (I hope)

Kiss Me! I'm Celtic

2008-12-30T14:17:00.000-08:00

I was listening to Coldplay earlier today, which isn't surprising considering a large percentage of my music listening is to Coldplay (no really, I'm too embarrassed to tell you the percentage...really, it's almost unnatural,) and a thought occurred to me.

Follow my twisted logic for a second (haha...get it?)

My ancestors come primarily from countries where there's lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain. And I enjoy my fair share of melancholy. But they also come from countries where there's lots of imperialism. Lots and lots of imperialism...and on both sides of the equation.

So, based on a conversation with a friend who's a language nerd like me, a couple of new cds and my simultaneous and unrelated lines of thought, something occurred to me.

And that something is: (at last, my point) maybe all this Celtic blood running through my veins is the missing link in the equation to explain my life...as a journalist.

You see, that direct, instant, pointed form of communication is unnatural to me at times. I've gotten used to the more American tradition of stating your point and then proving it, a tact essential to journalism.

But journalism is about what happened, is happening or what will happen. It's a static form of communication. Eventually the happening is over and gone. And I simply don't want to write static. Yes, that's me over here bucking tradition (not my calling, just the tradition.) But journalism (and e-communication) in all its static is ironically moving all the time.

But over here is this literary category, where all the greats have stacked their works that make sense of the terrible days in which they lived. Yet, when I open them, I see today.

Maybe it's the Celtic part of me (the part whose people don't even speak their own language anymore) that wants to stack something over in that corner for those generations to come who will stumble upon it. And maybe for one second, generations after generation next will feel not quite as alone in their immovable, static, constant, everchanging world.

And, Wikipedia is right, by the way..."Viva la Vida" is refreshingly more abstract than those Coldplay albums that came before.

Almost 25, and I've still never bothered to buy a lottery ticket

2008-11-04T04:48:00.000-08:00

Lots of things in life with age requirements are things I had big plans for until I got there. My friends from high school and I would always say we'd buy a lottery ticket on our 18th birthday just because we could. After turning 18, I never bothered to buy a ticket. Never really saw the point. It was the same way with piercing my ears and drinking alcohol. My mom wouldn't let me have pierced ears before I turned 13, no matter how much I begged. But when I turned 13, earrings just didn't matter to me...until college (now I have a ridiculous collection of and addiction to all sorts of earrings.) I didn't bother to get drunk (that's probably a good thing) or even sip a glass of champagne when I turned 21. I only enjoy the occasional glass of wine.

But I didn't miss my first election. I bought the idea that my vote does count and that it's patriotic to vote, along with other notions of freedom and patriotism.

And according to our laws and ideals, our vote should count. But there's an interruption in the American patriotic continuum. It's called voter fraud and it's almost impossible to counteract when you entrust your freedom to a manipulatable machine or when even paper ballots are ("were," really, since we no longer use them) thrown in the garbage.

I've been off the past few days---even more so than I normally am when I'm this busy and stressed---because I feel, admittedly and ashamedly as a Christian, this utter sense of hopelessness. Not one thing I do for a good man or woman in politics will make one bit of difference on the national stage. The political machine as we know it today doesn't allow good people to make a difference.

I drove by my precinct this morning (I'm gonna have to try voting this afternoon) and, at the sight of the line that was so long it met the road, my heart broke. My heart goes out not only to those people who see our political system in the light of the truth, but also to those voters standing in line thinking they still have the freedom of choice, when really they're voting for the same team of politicians either way.

Face it, voters. Your great white hope, the GOP has done nothing to drastically reduce abortions for 30 years, nothing to reduce excessive expenditures over the last eight years, and not one thing to guard your civil liberties.

And progressive Democrats, your party has done nothing to curtail foreign intervention, nothing to bolster the middle class and nothing to protect our economy.

I feel let down by this promise of prosperity and freedom. And no matter your politcal stance, I hope you'll pray for our home and, yes, even for our ideals. No matter what happens over the next four years, the next few months, the next day, I hope we can be grateful for our God-given liberties and that we can come to a clear understanding of what libery really means.

Dr. Pepper in my shoe--a string of semi-related realizations

2008-10-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

Some days are moments of truth for us. Today was certainly one for me. I have Dr. Pepper in my high heels to prove it.

I learned a few things about myself tonight. The evening started with a cocktail party I needed to attend for a publication I occasionally submit to. I am not a mingler, this I knew already. Standing around and sipping a glass of wine while pretending to take an interest in those around me and finding someone to be interested in really just isn't my thing. Of course, whose type of thing is it really?

I tend to do best when I'm in a small group, one-on-one, or addressing a crowd. But when I'm surrounded by a combination of strangers and colleagues or acquaintances, I'm at my most selfish.

I made this discovery when a perfectly fine human being began talking to me about what she was doing in Columbia, her sick mother, and how she knew my editor. You could say I initiated the conversation. But at some point while she was talking I realized I simply didn't care. You see, I wasn't quizzing her because I was profoundly interested in who she was. I wasn't displaying an interest in her out of mere manners. I was motivated to find out more about her out of relief---perhaps the most selfish motive of all.

So relieved was I to find someone at that moment who was looking for someone with whom she could exchange more than 30-second pleasantries that I had to know more about her. Everyone's afraid of standing awkwardly in the midst of a crowd. Perhaps the fear of being alone in this way is akin to the fear of rejection. It's uncomfortable when you realize that, out of more than 100 choices of people to talk to, no one wants to know you beyond the point required for minimum politeness.

This line of thought makes me uncomfortable. And the discomfort, in turn, makes me act uncomfortable. Then I think I'm acting awkwardly. And finally, I act awkwardly. It's an ugly little domino effect.

It's kind of funny that when I'm in a line with other strangers, or sitting in the airport, or some other public place I don't crave that genuine interest from other people. I'm human and, therefore, a bit of a puzzle.

And then I spilled soda all over me and sat in New Brooklyn Tavern for two hours with Dr. Pepper in my shoes
For some reason, after I dropped my drink on the table, I decided to open it. I still smell like cigarette smoke and sugar.

Ah, yes, my point. Lives are funny things. We can let the mishaps of life shape us for the better or we can allow those mishaps to control our lives for the worse.

I'd like to think that, at this point in my young adult life, I've learned a few things and become a better person--except for that whole being insecure in crowds thing. Like tonight when I sat in Dr. Pepper for a long time--that's me having learned to be flexible and not allow quite as many stupid things to ruin my day.

That insecure-in-crowds girl I mentioned a few grafs above had a lightbulb turn on in her mind during an Angie Apero song. What is a girl like me who's well-traveled, well-read (though admittedly, there are still a few holes in my formal and self education--I plan to fix that), and well-educated doing stuck behind a desk, answering phones? (I do like my job and the people I work with, by the way. It's just not my dream.)

You see, like many of you, I've always been my own biggest obstacle. In all fairness, the job market for print journalists isn't promising in central South Carolina. But I have plans and goals. I've always been a planner and a thinker, not a doer. That get-up-and-go personality most reporters have doesn't come naturally for me.

I always seem to get distracted from my God-given ability to do a thing well by my own inaction. I plan until I'm confident in every step, which keeps me from action. And the inaction poses as a lack of progress, which wrecks my confidence. This is another ugly little domino effect.

So, here's my plan B. This weekend, I'm turning my thoughts and ideas into plans so that I can begin to act. I hope through action, I can gain confidence and fulfill my purpose in this world.

I made someone's day today

2008-10-18T18:14:00.000-07:00

Every now and then the way of the world gets us all a little down.

It's been a tough week at work. I have more to offer the world around me than simply creating publications my boss (with no background in publishing) recreates after I've finished without discussing the recreation, answering phones and telling most of the people on the other end, in effect, they're not qualified for anything we're recruiting for. I know this well, and most days during the last couple of months it's taken everything I have not to go outside and beat my head against the brick walls of our building.

Add to this the slowdown in the economy, which does impact the staffing industry in which I work and crush unqualified workers' hopes for employment.

It's a tense time in the history of the universe (not to mention a lot's at stake this election year).

But a stranger in the walmart parking lot reminded me there's hope--temporally speaking, since I know our ultimate help rests in Christ.

So, I wore my Ron Paul t-shirt today. No need to worry about my false hopes. It's only that I paid for the shirt and I still support his campaign for liberty. He's kind of one of my heroes. (Oh, and it's cute...it says "vote for pedro" with "pedro" crossed out and "ron paul" written underneath.

My shirt made that man's day today, or so he told me. In the two minutes we exchanged pleasantries, we found ourselves kindred spirits. He had felt feelings of a loss of a republic and of hope. I had too. But he reminded me that we're not alone. Scary for the powers that be, I hope.

My thoughts on the bailout and other unrelated thoughts

2008-09-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

You remember that scene in The Titanic when the ship is sinking and people are falling off the deck as the ship goes nose-first into the sea? I feel like the main characters hanging onto the rails for dear life watching other slide helplessly, rapidly into the side rails. Turns out, God himself could have sunk the ship if he wanted. Turns out, no bank is truly too big to fail.

Also, it hit me today that I've been living in our house for longer than I've lived anywhere else for a long time. I might actually be starting to get attached. I'm not sure what to think about that.

Once again, my heart is full

2008-09-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Seasons in everyone's lives exist in which they just have to suffer. It's all part of the curse...no perfect life can be lived. But, to be a romantic for one second, eventually, the rainclouds clear and the world is once again ours to enjoy.

I'm at the place right now where (oh my this is starting to sound like a Statefarm commercial) there's not a cloud in the sky. Every once in a while we all face a bad and/or failing string of relationships. It seems like a string when we're suffering, anyhow. I feel like I just woke up one day this weekend and left a string behind.

(How can I tell you a thing without saying it outright? I'm going to attempt, anyhow.)

Don't misunderstand, I love every person dearly that has ever been a major part of my life. But human-inflicted scars run deep. I've surely inflicted my fair share. And I think that sometimes our emotional wellbeing demands that we love, but still move on.

I don't feel terribly afraid anymore...you know that feeling that keeps you from getting "attached" when you meet someone who kinda sticks with you? I don't feel it anymore. God has allowed me to struggle just enough to have learned not to place my hope in individuals, but to still reach out to others.

I don't think I can ever move back into many of my past relationships the way they were, but I no longer feel paralyzed when looking at the friendships I'm currently so blessed by.

2008-09-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Fall was in the air...today...I can feel it...and I know these things.

While spring is overwhelmingly my favorite season, there are a few things I love about the fall. It's always a bitter sweet time of year to me because I love the longer days. I can feel summer leaving like I can feel emptiness in the house when a guest has left.

But 75 degrees in September feels different than it does on a cool May day.

The air smells a little sweeter, feels a little lighter, my creeping lantana stop blooming.

And I always look forward to long sleeve t-shirts and sweatshirts, pumpkin and cinnamon, awaiting the first crunchy leaves and the pecans that fall from the tree in the driveway.

I've always been a little bit different

2008-08-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

I think that deep down, all that any of us want is just to belong somewhere. Lately I've been feeling out of the loop at work. I only work there part time and I know I think differently than the girls I work with.

But I've always wanted to be different from everyone else without being willing to pay the price.

Even the oddballs of the world want to belong somewhere.

Human Resources?

2008-08-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

Let me preface the following by asserting that I really do like the people I work with. And I don't mind what I do so much. But sometimes I feel there's a flaw in the logic of the individual tasks I do, ie, collecting social security numbers on a daily basis because the state government says so.

Lately, I've found a new term to dwell on with a kind of disgusted horror that I can't escape because, well the term is the business I'm in.

Human resources. Defining the term is simple, coming to grips with the reduction of the human soul's value is not so much. And I even feel myself looking differently at our interviewees. I, like all of us in our office, quickly tire of their irresponsibility, their ignorance, their lofty expectations in contrast with their poor work ethics. And I look right through the human soul if I know it has no value to complete the task I know we need it to complete.

If the human's resources are low, it is of no use to us. It's like a dried up oil reservoir.

I do believe that people have to take responsibility for their actions. If a client demands job stability that they do not exibit, they should not expect to be handed the job. But sometimes I wonder if by seeing the human being sitting across the desk the way I do, I'm adding to their waning ability to be resourceful.

2008-08-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Aaah. To be surrounded by people, yet completely alone. (I'm sitting in the window at Starbucks watching all of you people)

The case for ink

2008-07-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

I truly have a love-hate relationship with blogging. Some days I feel like it, others I don't. I love when people comment on my blogs or mention an article I wrote that had an impression on them. But I loathe the fact that my livelihood as a writer depends on technology, particularly since print journalism is a dying art. Alas, I write, therefore I must deal with keys and clinical computer screens and emails and on the list goes.

But I feel that we as intelligent beings have a deep need for words that have specifically been penned on paper...much the way a newly born baby has a deep need for a human embrace, else it will die (according to various scientific studies that I refuse to take the time to link to--hey, there's always google).

I've been wondering lately if--in a movement, not towards, but deeper into technology--our intellects are decreasing. And, in response to that line of thought, I've also been thinking that we've merely entered into an era where an entirely different form of intellect exists...and that intellects today have less in common with those of 50 years ago than any two types of intellegence have ever shared at any given points in time in the history of the world.

...speaking of confusing you with too many prepositions...

I wrote a letter the other day that I read at least half a dozen times before printing out and reading in paper format. My first sentence was ambiguous because of an excess of prepositional phrases that my mind had dismissed until I held the hard copy in my hand.

(This Ernest Hemingway character is looking more and more saint-like, with his bent towards concise sentences).

I gave up on any other alterations because no piece of writing past, present or future will ever be perfect. But my point is this: we were created as sensual beings. And what we learn from an actual book will (in my view) always extend far beyond what we can learn from glaring at the same message with mere characters on a computer screen, though there is something to be said for this never-ending computer age we're in.

You cannot touch a google book, you cannot hear the faint scratching sound pages make as your fingers pass the edges of a newspaper when reading thestate.com, and chances are, you will miss an excessive use of prepositions in your word document if you do not first read it off a sheet of paper.

Then there is this thing of intimacy in reading and writing. Right now, I'm living my private life in public before you, as this is a personal online journal and not an academic or news-related one. Today is the day that we're all a part of the facebook/myspace generation. It's the day where we have a toothache or a heartache and we invite the entire world to know about it. Today is also the day where print journalism is so close, but so far. It's a day where every last character logged into cyberspace can never be erased.

And, as I've been mentioning, it's a day where a glass (or plasma) screen separates us from the words that shape our mind. My suggestion: go hug a book today (or an old-fashioned news reporter).

2008-07-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

My planner eludes my cat. How funny! He keeps trying to climb inside the pages, thinking the planner is a box for him to curl up inside.

Screaming for Quiet

2008-07-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm a knowledge person. As an aspiring reporter, I, as many others, feel it is literally my job to know just about anything that's going on at any given time anywhere in the universe. While the ridiculous amounts of caffeine help me to sometimes feel like I'm kinda keeping up with the rest of the world, sometimes I realize I just can't take it.

And every once in a while, everything within screams, "stop! you can't keep this up." I need to leave the ipod at home, ignore the email, not return some phonecalls (sorry Janelle) and just be. That's God talking, I think, telling me just to be still and know...

A whole lot of kicking and screeming going on

2008-04-30T22:43:00.001-07:00

A resistance against our current establishment is going on. The kicking and screeming of resistance members is being stanched out by watch lists, media, "public opinion," threats of terrorism, you know, the normal stuff that scares us into silence.

But regardless of the decible level of the screams and the impact of the kicks, the resistance is there. And that resistance seems to terrify those on the other side of the perverbial fence.

When we, as average human beings, employ our faculties, our simplest powers of logic, we can cut through all of the crap that composes our daily mental diet and remember that we are in the following position:
-we have a chief executive who has proven only that he cannot keep his word (like most other politicians we know, but wait...)
-we have a chief executive who has broken the constitutional laws of this nation and illustrated an overall disrespect (verbally, on an ocassion or two) for the men and women who've dedicated their lives to this middle-east-mystery cause.
-our economy is tanking (come on, even you know that)
-the list never ends, so I'll quickly make my point.

The smallest demand for liberty lies within every human being, I'm convinced. While it can be instinctive to follow the leader (and I think, perhaps, this is where the undying, deadly loyalty of the neo-conservative Republican party comes into play,) it's in our nature to crave freedom--for our own selves, at the very least. The liberty craving is instinctive and God-given.

But our natural desires for liberty have been mired by a tract that has convinced us of our freedom, while enslaving us in a steel cage and painting the word, "liberty" on the bars.

Here's where my hope for you and your future lies:
I have a strong feeling in my core that our liberty instinct is telling us all that something has gone terribly wrong. Some of us are confused, some are angry, but I think we all kind of sense it.

My hope is that we can reason together, despite our many disagreements, convictions and failures to grasp what's central to the issues that touch us all (we all have these failings, and they vary.)

My hope is that, when the time comes, we can set "semantics" aside, and defend our freedoms and each other. Keep this in mind as you battle your coworker in the next cubicle about the coming election tomorrow.

The lies that bind us

2008-04-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

What strikes me about views, whether in politics, religion, morality, is the arbitrary nature of the things. Of course, when you reduce a philosophy down to logic, with the exception of faith perhaps (faith being unbound by the rules of logic,) you begin to realize that a lot of ludicrous, insidious views are out there. Thank God for the human ability to reason.

A move to abolish free thought is a-foot. It has been for countless centuries, actually.

It's a move that has manifested itself in most recent history in dictatorships such as Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. I'm beginning to align myself with my father's view that the flat-world-view of placing fascism on the far right and communism on the far left is a broken one. "They'll both blow your brains out," he says.

The tyranical reigns of Hitler, Stalin, many dictators who came before and many who followed have established a pattern. The pattern is one that we as a nation have fallen into step with.

What I am continuously grappling with is the way in which people will defend these steps, as they were put into place to "make us more secure." I have worked to find a law of logic that says sacrificing your liberty--your right as a human being to move about freely on public property, your right as a human being to not have your conversations overheard, your right as a human being to run your life as you see fit, so long as you do no harm to anyone--will make you free.

Isn't this the issue? Really, at the heart of the matter, we are fighting a war, giving up our rights to privacy, whittling away at the "American way of life" in order to make ourselves secure. And we grasp at this security that we may protect our American way of life.

The practice of sacrificing "Americanism" in order to protect it is, itself, Un-American. The practice works against the fabric of logic.

And I am here to tell you--to cry out and beg you to try and understand--that as long as you are afraid, you are bound. You are bound, not only by fear itself and by the way in which the fear starves your normal daily life, but you are also bound as a mere instrument, useful for the enabling of the world's enslavement.

As Gov. Mark Sanford wrote to the Department of Homeland Security last Monday, "the greatest homeland security is liberty."

Cats don't put on aires

2008-03-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

...At least not most of the time. At least not like people do.

My cat scratches my couch, bed and other things he's theoretically not allowed to destroy. And I pop him, and he growls at me. Minutes later, I pat his head, and he purrs gladly.

He brings a little frustration into my life, but all of the joy in the world. I love Montag. He can't hurt me.

People are just not that way. We scratch each other and forgive each other. But we tend to repeat the process again and again.

When people scratch, scars are left behind because the scratches are meant to hurt.

I probably have as many scars to show as I've inflicted on others.

The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one

2008-02-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

I have a problem. On one of the end tables in our living room sit eight coffee table books. Seven of them are mine.

Janelle gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card for my birthday, assuming I'd spend it on some brilliant classic. Well, I got Montag a baby book and purchased a book on Ireland instead. Perhaps the book on Ireland was brilliant, but not a classic in the least.

And I kept seeing more coffee table books I wanted. If this keeps up, I might need five or six coffee tables. Books on natural wonders within the U. S. and abroad, books about famous lighthouses and books about cities worldwide that I want to visit abounded. Add to that list books about funny animals and books about coffee I'd like to have in my collection.

I could open a store that sells coffee table books.

But my interest in a variety of topics to be found in 11'' x 17'' sized books is as diverse as my other addictions. I love knowledge and great photography like I love to consume a variety of other products.

Coffee and politics and old books and dishes all fall into the category of "addiction" for me. Well, I'll never be bored. I mean with all my addictions, I ought to have plenty of meetings to attend in the evenings.

Dealing with Disappointment

2008-02-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

It seems like self-loathing is a terrible way to deal with disappointment, not only because of its bent towards destroying whoever employs it, but also because it enables cowardice.

I suppose it takes more courage to "stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact...'," as Paul Varjak in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" would say.

Yes, it's much easier to pretend you don't care, while your insides are all twisted and miserable than to actually deal with and admit to your disappointment. If you admit to it, then you are left with the choice of once more being optimistic. And optimism is one of the most frightening things in the world.

The food chain: a natural progression of propaganda

2007-11-26T14:32:00.001-08:00

If you scare them, they will cave.

Then you can protect them, then they belong to you, then, when you have what you want, you kill them.

Language like water

2007-11-13T21:58:00.000-08:00

We all know what Mark Twain had to say about the right word and lightning, the almost right word and the lightning bug.

Perhaps Twain's philosophy and understanding of words is of the utmost importance this day and age. We seem to get a mixture of story versions when it comes to politics, religion, world occurances, etc.

And the nature of language as both science and art lends itself to a fluidity that, like water, allows it to take the shape of its container. Another factor in the versions of the truth that are out there is the capacity of the human mind to adopt what it hears over and over.

False words, like water, bend or wear down our minds like water wears down a stone, when it is constantly running over it.

With this in mind, at some point, we have to take inventory of our thoughts and ask ourselves where they came from, why we hold fast to certain ideologies when facts and hard evidence stare us right in the face. We need to have the courage to question, to doubt, to challenge, and to demand answers and truth.

We need to demand the right words...and all of them.

2007-11-01T05:46:00.001-07:00

Why is it that people are always walking in and out of our lives, as if it were just a swinging door?

2007-10-17T06:12:00.001-07:00

Whew!!! Old Dad's off the hook.

I'm sitting here at the computer ready to leave, your picture with your
Irish friend the two of you sitting on the dock of the bay watching the tide
roll away, sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time. I think to myself,
what a beauty she is. Good thing she takes after her mother these looks.
Pity the poor girl her bent for the written word, the painful things they
are created in us in time, we wrest them from the marble, we sculpt along
those lines that we discover already existing there, these images we draw,
ourselves, just write what you see, yon Meg of Irish lore, just write what
you see.

-from David Cross

A Response to the jumble that's come post 9/11 in the form of a, hopefully, convincing letter

2007-09-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

My friend and former manager recently sent me afew opinions of his on the upcoming election and its candidates:

Matt,

Hope your golf tournaments are going great!...and that you have a great time in Costa Rica. I'm doing well also. Auditing a copyediting class this semester and learning tons. But my professor would probably frown on this email...tons of mistakes ;) Not much to be said for laziness, I suppose.

Politics. Now, we both know that's a can of worms ;) My feelings about this election are mixed. I'm excited about and sold on Ron Paul and his slogan, hope for America. I like that he's not afraid to answer the questions with truths that we may or may not want to hear. I respect him as a strict constructionist. And I can rejoice when I hear him speak only, as he wants to provide for the responsibility of Americans to stand up for and protect their rights to live as they see fit. But I am afraid we the people have bought into the media's portrayal of Paul as extreme, wacko even.

I believe the only hope for this nation, and any group of people, for that matter, is to educate them on the political process and inner workings of the current government, and to allow them to take ownership of their government as much as possible while protecting against anarchy. This is what the constitution was designed to do. But when capitol hill promises to fix our problems, we chip away at our ownership and responsibility and, therefore, our God-given liberty. We are gradually sliding from ownership of our freedom and nation to being owned by the leaders of our nation.

I won't get into what I believe are the ethics that reflect a just war. After all, you did once have ties to the military, right? So did I, so I understand the touchiness of the subject. It can feel personal when one disagrees on the matter. And, just so you are aware, I am not anti-war. I am, however, anti-war on Iraq for a whole set of reasons.

But my biggest reason for the belief that we should pull out of Iraq (other than the fact that we've had our fingers in the middle east long before 2003) is that I don't believe that this is the People's war. America may have been close to split down the middle on its support of the war in the beginning. But it's no secret that the war on Iraq is daily losing American support. We can find no reason and justification for dropping bombs and being bombed. Lives are being snuffed out every day and, what of "progress?" How exactly are we making progress? I genuinely do not understand. Noone seems to have the answer, not even General Petraus, that I can see.

Lives will be lost if we stay or if we go. Arguably more if we pull out now on both the Iraqi side and the American side. But I believe it's time to rip the bandaid that's been covering this ugly mess off in one swift motion.

And our President and representatives are not doing what we hired them to do. This is, after all, still one nation of the people, by the people and for the people, is it not?

You and I do not belong to George W. Bush. He belongs to us. And we need to reclaim him. If indeed we do belong to him, then we must be living in a dictatorship.

Okay, off the soap box now. I get carried away, I know. And my intent is not to offend or necessarily to argue, unless absolutely necessary. One of my aims in life is to offer people an "Ahahhh!" moment, a different point of view that makes too much sense to ignore and perhaps just enough sense to get angry with me about. I find, after all, that it's often what makes us angry that either frightens us the most or contains an irritating grain of truth.

Until later,
-Jessica-

2007-08-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

Here I sit, writing a letter on my dad's behalf, trying to solicit business for him. And I'm trying to think of verbs and nouns that will grab the attention of a prospective client.

The nature and power of language.

We let bland terms slip into our vocabulary when we describe things, either because we want to avoid linguistic confrontation or because our minds are lazy.

Holocaust.

The word rolls off the tongue simply and without thought. But think. The origins of the word refer to a burnt sacrifice or a burnt whole, as if the victims of the Holocaust were martyrs.

But the victims weren't martyrs. The term, martyr, is indicitive of a choice, a self-sacrifice for the sake of one's beliefs.

I prefer the term, slaughter. I see the Jews, led like sheep to the slaughter, recycled not for their human value, but for what their bodies would produce.

Just a correction in our ideology and attitude towards what we rave about as being "injustice."

......You see, the right word matters. And you think what you think, not necessarily based on truths, but based on the words you've been told make up an instance. Consider that next time you read or hear something on the news, from a friend or in a book. If you choose to investigate, if you insist on using precise words to describe an event or situation, who knows, you may be involved in preventing/avoiding the next great Holocaust.

2007-07-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder why dogs always seem so doggone happy all the time? There's something I admire about the species...it's a dog's ability to let things go.

I've long considered myself a loyal person. But the last couple of years have tested my loyalty, one character trait I most admired in my ("humble") self and others.

Life must be easier for dogs, I'm convinced. Not simply the getting petted all the time part, but the simple fact that they are soulless. I believe that all dogs have spirits, or as Chris calls them, "animalities." But they don't have a sin nature with which to contend. Which means that instincts prevail in the canine species.

We humans have instincts. But we also are capable of and expected to reason. It is rational for us to avoid the person who harms us, emotionally and otherwise. Regardless of the intent, sharp remarks, stark changes in personality and stations in life are sufficient means of permanently damaging any relationship.

But the tricky part for me is loving the one who harms me. That love is supernatural. I'm finding that I don't have it in me to trust or care for the person who makes a big mistake, or a series of small ones. (The confession looks much worse in print that I expected)

But I have to love. That's what friendship is. It's what it does. And it's what I've been asked to do....not to be a doormat (not that I feel I am) but to love, regardless of feeling, circumstance, screwup.

I'm glad there's hope even though I cannot do it.

2007-06-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

You know, it's as though we have to choose between isolation and suffering.

I, for one, am not entirely sure of when it was that I stopped wanting to get attached. And yet I do. I mean with my "ideal" friend. How vile! As if I can command the universe to create for me exactly the type of friend that I have in mind: someone with whom I share many things in common, someone that will care enough not to push me, someone who will not turn away. Silly, I know, but there you have it.

I feel as though I need a pot of boiling...something, and three wierd sisters.

2007-06-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

I don't mind change, not so much anymore. On this last trip to Europe I was even a little impressed with how much more flexible I've become.

But there are some forms of change which rend your heart, which parts of any human will not survive. We cannot learn to adapt to it all, not without isolating ourselves and shutting out the human touch.

To stalk you in the name of your protection

2007-06-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

FROM PAGE: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/privacy-and-personal-liberty/

..."Financial privacy? Right now depositing $10,000 in your local bank will generate a “suspicious activity report” to the federal government.

And then there’s the so-called Patriot Act. As originally proposed,

-Expanded the federal government's ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight;

-Allowed nationwide search warrants non-specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight;

-Made it far easier for the government to monitor private internet usage;
-Authorized “sneak and peek” warrants enabling federal authorities to search a person’s home, office, or personal property without that person’s knowledge; and

-Required libraries and bookstores to turn over records of books read by their patrons.

I have fought this fight for many years. I sponsored a bill to overturn the Patriot Act and have won some victories, but today the threat to your liberty and privacy is very real. We need leadership at the top that will prevent Washington from centralizing power and private data about our lives. "

Heaven forbid that you should ever read books such as "1984" and "Atlas Shrugged" and become suspicious of governmental surveilance.

2007-06-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

Believe what you will. But not what someone else will tell you to believe. Know why you think the way you do. If you think a certain way simply because a given person told you how to think, red flags ought to be raised in your mind. Watch how others say something is true in contrast with your view of the truth.

Question Every Thing.

2007-06-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

June 4, 2007

With recent news of Rupert Murdoch's vested interest in the Dow Jones Industrial Corporation/The Wall Street Journal, I've been motivated to take inventory of the ways in which the media manipulates the thought processes of the American People, myself included.

We do ourselves a service to remember that the apparently vast media is in actuality balanced in the finger tips of just a few, as Charlie Chaplan balanced the globe on his fingers in 1940.

If a free an independent press is quietly being stamped out, we must at least engrave in our minds the fact that an un-free press at least threatens the freedom of independent thought.

Please pay your attention to the fact that the supposedly unbiased media has crossed over the bounds of slantedness. I dare say that the media, as a thriving business, is counting on you and I to fulfill our expectations as desiring to be spoonfed, ignorant, lazy, self-indulgent. And we have been faithful suppliers of the media business that feeds, not off of handing its readership the bare facts, that it may make an educated decision about what to believe, but off of manipulation and a blind dependence on proposed, contorted accounts. The accounts may be there, but it is folly to believe that those accounts are without splashes of opinionated color.

How on earth, you ask, can I be such a diehard skeptic? I am certain of what I write because in the media, all the old addages come into play. Money, fame, power are all at stake, and are all corrupting and corruptible substances. And the minds of the American People, and any other minds in question, are the battle ground. I must say, the ground is ready for the claiming.

Our minds are one of the only things over which we ought to have total control. Yet we submit our opinions to those so-called experts, vying for money, power, fame at any cost, in complete faith that the facts they present are not shape-shifting.

The next time you change your mind, ask yourself why. Bother to ask where the thought came from. Did you think the thought based on what you know for a fact, based on what you can see and touch? Or were you told that the thought makes sense to you before you bought it?

Perhaps when politics and a world view are in question, it is not time to excercise faith.

But to be educated beyond media requires a sacrifice. A fact based knowledge and understanding requires us to buck against our American bred attitude of entitlement. (Remember that the money-making media is counting on our entitlement, giving us the answers we think we deserve in the manner it sees fit.)

To know the truth, we have to work. The truth is expensive. It requires a touch of skepticism, a willingness to look a little foolish by believing the truth when no one else will, and time.

But we have two choices:

We can make the sacrifice. We can read the journals and sources the "experts" quote with our own eyes. And we can give of our time. Because if we deserve anything, it is to know the untainted truth.

Or we can be boiled to death like frogs. That's how you kill a frog, you know, you boil it. But slowly. You first place it in the cool water and gradually let the water heat up. Before the frog knows it, its boiling. All because it became comfortable...and, of course, because we humans are more intelligent than frogs.

The media thinks it is more intelligent than we. And we are so comfortable that we are sure to meet our demise, before we know it.

So, there you have it--your best defense against buying into a mere version of the truth is work and discomfort. But that sure beats being boiled to death.

2007-04-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

Since when did our personal information (that is supposed to belong to us) become a commodity?

"All of their mouths agreed..."

2007-04-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

It takes a child. Or the simplicity of a child, anyway. To see the truth plainly, when no one else has the courage to.

Why blindly accept philosophies and ideas as fact simply because a government or powerful, well-educated individual or political party presents that philosophy or idea as fact.

We need to become sober and aware of the fact that our own government, often times, is allowing us to walk around nude while we convince ourselves that we are fully and nicely clothed.

If, for example, you choose to accept the philosophy that none other than a two-party political system has a fighting chance in this country, you have then convinced yourself that there are no other choices. But stop to consider your system of beliefs. Do you really believe that this nation is free and that it belongs to partly to you? Then you must clothe yourself and take responsibility and affect a change, when change is called for. Following this example, if you believe that we've no other choice than a two-party system here in this United States (which you accept as free,) then you must accept the fact that the land of the free has begun to look a bit like a dictatorship.

Your country is not yours, and you are not free if you readily accept (without questioning the virtue thereof) any system, virtuous or not. You are, in fact, a slave to a nation, naked and naiave, without employing your ability to question.

So the child, who sees the naked truth, begs you to clothe yourself and to question those aparent virtues, which you, in your gut, know to be vices, and to take action against those vices and begin to institute change.

"All of their mouths agreed, though none of their eyes had seen anything."
(Hans Christian Andersen---The Emperor's New Clothes)

2007-03-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

People are fragile. Like a mosaic. The broken pieces are held together in order to form a pretty picture.

We are broken, fragmented pieces of glass. And all these fragments of us that make up our lives form beautiful pictures. Sometimes. When the pressures of life, relationships, hurt smash us into little bits we think we're dying. Sometimes. Something comes from those pressures, and our lives are formed into a mosaic.

How sad that we don't always get a clear view of the picture.

2007-03-09T16:23:00.000-08:00

I wonder, do butterflies hurt when they're changing from caterpillars to butterflies?

We focus on the beautiful creature that comes out of the cacoon, but we never stop to consider what goes on in there. I wonder, does the caterpillar think it's dying when it turning into a butterfly?

Maybe nothing can be beautiful without having to suffer.

2007-03-07T07:29:00.002-08:00

Ok, so life's not really that tough. I woke up this morning feeling that way. And I know my tendency to be a tad dramatic.

Simple things like my facebook wall remind me that I have plenty of buddies and a few good friends.

But I want more. I have succumbed to all that is human and discontent. I want to sit across from a table with someone and know that we connect on a level that transcends merely having a few things in common, including a history and inside jokes. I want to know that even if we both change and grow in different ways, head in different directions, that we are not bound by time and distance.

And I know that there is a job out there for me that I am fully capable of enjoying. The land of "if only" is not a healthy place in which to live.

more later. i'm distracted at my place of non-work

2007-03-07T07:29:00.001-08:00

Ok, so life's not really that tough. I woke up this morning feeling that way.

2007-03-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, so aparently I'm a deserter. Blogger has changed everything in the past 3 months.

I feel like I've been tired for the last 4 yrs. First I'm busy recovering from a broken heart, then I find all sorts of things with which to distract myself.

I'm busy and drained. Wanting to be alone all the time, often feeling alone when I'm not.

And I'm overwhelmed by this feeling of not wanting to do anything. Still want to change the world, don't worry. But I feel paralyzed and unable to move and...directionless.

Directionless does not discribe me. I want to be so jazzed about life and living it and I can't seem to get there.

I don't really even love and cherish what I once considered to be close friendships. There must be, on my part, a willingness to accept some of the responsibility for that. But we fell apart. All of us. And I did not cause that on my own.

Why is it that people and relationships fall apart? It's as though growing and changing as a person is a symptom of a disease that deteriorates relationships. And I was always so invested. At least, that's my perspective. I'm certain that if you were to ask other "interested" parties that they could tell you differently.

Bjo was right. People are fragile.

The center CANNOT hold. Things really DO fall apart. So do people.

2006-12-12T13:59:00.000-08:00

So, I'm experiencing this thing right now where, well, you know how you feel tired and busy and rushed and overwhelmed, so you keep going about your business in a rush to get what you have to get done done. suddenly it's done and you take a deep breath and realize like you feel like you've been running from a lion or panther or cheetah or something really fast and it stops chasing you and you look down and there's nothing for you to stand on (and you have really poor grammar apparently).

Really, I've been in school my whole life. I'm not sure I know how to be anything but a student. I'm not sure I want to be anything but a student. What's more, I realized today after I turned in my last paper how every social or professional network I've ever been in within the last 4 years has some connection to USC. In essence, my life for the last several years has been wrapped up in my school. I feel like I'm being ripped out of the fabric of my life.

So, then I remembered that having my identity so wrapped up in my classes and friends and my major, even, means not being defined by or dependent on God. And I'm still bummed. You'd think I'd feel sorrowful and repentent, but no. I'm still going to miss school just as much as ever. And I still feel the need to go re-find myself or whatever it is that young adults do. But I know that it is okay for me to feel sad to leave as long as I remember to Whom I belong.

2006-11-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

How small, how intricate is the human heart...and how great is its capacity to ache.

Walking produces thought

2006-11-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

November 15, 2006

...So I should walk to my car rather than wait on the bus all the time.

You know how it is when you're driving at night for any number of hours and you suddenly realize that you can't remember a single thing about the last 30 minutes of the trip? It's like the road is hypnotic. Over our discussion in class about "confessions of an opium eater," I began to be deliriously tired. My eyes were wide open, but it's as though my professor, quite undeliberately, had hypnotized me. Coffee just isn't enough some days.

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

So, I'm going to miss this overwhelming feeling I get from being in my English classes, this loud calling to know and see more. I hope I don't lose that after graduation. I hope that this is only the beginning of my real education and that the last 17 years of life have merely been preparing me for a greater knowledge and understanding that bears some level of influence....

...from some time in my thoughts last week

2006-11-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

What motivates me towards my discontent is this desire to have accomplished and to have influenced people's minds through the written word. I want to see everything and to wrap my mind around it. I want my brain to grow so huge.

2006-10-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

But oh what a sad thing for your entire life to be governed by a snowball of a belief.

Just as sad to be so wrapped up in an issue that you can't even use your actions to discern your own heart and mind.

Atheism.

2006-10-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

God, they don't know you at all. They're staring right at you but can't see who you are.

I want to write the whole entire
world down on a piece of
paper. Then I want the world
to read it and maybe it won't
be such a sad and empty place.

My Modern Brit Lit professor was giving the historical context for the second half of the course. The context happened to be fascism and communism, and naturally, he showed us how Jesus' sermon on the mount was communistic in its philosophy. Excuse me, he actually said that Jesus was one of the first great communists. Ha! There's not really anything else to say to that.

Prov. 26: 4-5

On a different sort of sad note, there seems to be a thin, tarnished thread woven through every account of extreme communist or nazi activity. It's the same shred of material that binds us up and causes us to be more than we ought. Pride. It's a destructive sort of thing. Take a second to think of the power it had to kill app. 6 million Jews, strangers. Or even more so, the power it had when it dug its claws into Stalin, causing him to slaughter over 60 million of his own people.

We've been discussing shades of racism throughout the semester in my Modern Am. Lit class too. We've reached the point of the Harlem Rennaisance, and we're in the middle of a book called "Passing." Nevermind what it's about. That's intrinsically another post. Anyhow, one of the rationales we came up with as a class for understanding the motivation behind racism, particularly public and scheduled lynchings, as one of fear. A girl in the class was talking about how driving outside of the southern city, one can see the delapidated trailors with rebel flags attached to their homes. Professor Forter expanded her point to discuss how there's something in those who are "lower" in society that creates within them the need to abase someone else in order to feel validated. I would argue that that desire is not within some of us, but in all of us.

Look at what racism at its most base form is. It is literally looking at someone else and, whether it be denying them their humanity altogether or of their self worth as a fellow human, "saying" to them, "You're not good enough becuase of x,y,z" or "Look at how much better I am than you." We all say this, never out loud, but we all say it. I am convinced that Lucifer himself danced along the piles of ashes that were once Jews, thinking, "Someone finally gets it enough to want to eface an entire nation. I WIN."

I want to write the whole world.
I want to write the words
that are spoken in the low voice
that revolutionizes the mind of
the world's most important person.
I told Bonnie I want to win
a Nobel Prize, but really I meant a
Pulitzer Prize. Why can't I
win both. Or be so great as to have
a prize named for me.

Not all of us have within us the desire to be god of the world. But we all desire to be a god...of our own lives, of others, of something.

Conrad's character, Kurtz, ate human
flesh and let the Africans
make a god out of him.

Orwell killed an elephant without
just cause and allowed the
Asians turn him into a god.

Imperialism, Fascism, "Racism," Inferiority Complexes, The Desire To Be Great, Atheism: Pride.

2006-09-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

9-20-06

Oh, to be a cat, and eat and sleep and play with your owner's drawstring pants all day.

I feel like the only times I blog anymore are at 1 am...when I should be finishing a paper.

**********

I am the type of girl...

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

10-27-06

Here's to unfinished thoughts. Busyness is over-rated. Down with the personality that is type A...and the teachers and bosses that foster it.

Here's to naps...lots and lots of naps...every 3 hours...like, a cat!

2006-09-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

So, it's 1:44 am. and I'm working on an explication paper (due tomorrow) and I'm suddenly making a song out of the rhyme scheme: ababb. Before I know it, I'm singing "old macdonald had a farm"...substituting the rhyme scheme for the chorus, of course.

2006-08-31T13:49:00.001-07:00

coffee gives me a false sense of security. It makes me feel better than I actually am...like I can fly. Somehow, I'm okay with all of this

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

The word no is an interesting word. It's something that I apparently need to find within my vocabulary.

(Kevin once told me that he could never figure out whether I needed a day off to catch a break, or whether taking a day off was bad for me because it bumped me out of the swing of things).

I'm finding myself to be a deeply conflicted individual...like many of the modernistic writers and characters I'm currently reading about. You see, I love to be busy. All this excitement is what I live for. But I know I'm doing too much. Reading too much, writing too much, definitely not sleeping too much.

Hey, at least I'm keeping myself out of trouble! That's poz.

So there are 168 hours within a week. Here's how I'm spending them (in theory anyhow...I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat just waiting for me to tell you every intricate detail of my life):

168-28 hours studying

that leaves 140
140-18 hours in class

122-49 hours asleep (give or take)
73 -18 hours of timed work
55-14 hours of primping (this can never be sacrificed)
41-7--9 hours in church/bible study/personal study
32-8-10 hours of article writing
22-5 hours spent driving to and fro

leaving a grand total of a little more than 2 hours per day to wash the dishes, eat, clean house, get dinner, visit with wonderful people, rest.

and all I can say is Eeeesh!

what a challenging and interesting time in life. although I must admit, my use of time spent working, in class and studying makes me wonder why not VECTOR.

But I think I'm living the life I'm supposed to. So I must find some way to cope.

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

coffee: it's what's for dinner

caffeine is the opiate of the masses

coffee in the mornin', coffee in the evnin', coffee at dinner time.

2006-08-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

I accidentally burped in Brad Leake's face today.

reptiles and other things

2006-08-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

August 26, 2006 (very early) Saturday

I wonder if snakes and other reptiles hurt when they're shedding their skin.

The old me is falling away, and I'm afraid. Walking around campus is bitter sweet (I suppose it would help if I had my class schedule straight.) I'm in an older, yet young, and ever-changing place in life.

My skin hurts. It's shedding...and I'm transforming daily into someone I barely recognize. Thus is the process of living, a never ending process I suppose.

And I have a friendship that's ever changing in my life, too. Today I recognized more things about her that frustrate me. And I began to wonder tonight, were those character traits always there? Have I changed so, that I don't recongize those redeeming qualities of her humanity that I used to? Have those qualities become invisible, irrelevant?

It's odd to find things to be of changing importance to myself.

My skin hurts.

Dear God, please, please help me to find enough and all I need in you. Help me to supppress self. To be patient with youthful personality traits I find despicable. To embrace what you've told me to do. To be who you're making me into. To see every day as a present from you. And to see people as you see them.

Help my skin not to hurt to badly in the process. Remind me that you are sufficient.

Songs on my blog from out of the blue

2006-08-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2006, Wednesday

K, so I realize that this song is partially about war. But it's one of my favorites...when I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed and sad about the end of wonderful things, it clears up blurriness and I remember what I have to do.

I can do this whole saying goodbye to school and doing too much thing...I have to...this is the path I've chosen and committed to.

There is freedom within, there is freedom without,
Trying to catch the deluge in a paper cup
There's a battle ahead, many battles are lost,
But you'll never see the end of the row while you're travelling in here

Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over,
Hey now hey now,
When the world comes in, it comes,
It comes to build a wall between us, we know they won't win

Now I'm towing my car, there's a hole in the roof,
My possessions are causing me suspicion but there's no proof
In the paper today tells of a war in a ways,
But you turn it right over to the T.V. page

[Chorus]

Now I'm walking again, to the beat of a drum,
And I'm pounding the steps ot the door of your heart
Only shadows ahead, barely clearing the roof,
Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief

2006-08-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

Learning not to be the Queen of Vagueness and Ambiguity.

2006-08-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

So many people lead insignificant lives. And they repeat themselves each day, each bad day.

Perhaps that's why adjusting to the US and Columbia was such a chore for me.

Ireland felt significant. Winston-Salem felt significant. Columbia did not feel significant....

Day 1

2006-08-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm already sick of the bragging. If someone is going to talk about you in third person, they could at least wait til you're not present!!!

Sorry I'm grouchy today. I don't know what's wrong with me except for the fact that I'm overextended. They're ought to be five of me, but alas there isn't.

I'm also feeling impossible because we moved an estate into the auction gallery yesterday. 3 hrs of heavy lifting and moving. My arms feel ouch!!!

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

I had a very sad thought the other day...a realization if you will.

It came to me why I liked writing with a pen in a book much more than typing my thoughts onto a page.

The thoughts are like flowers. They die...or float off into cyberspace or something.

So what, there's a new generation of bloggers. William Shakespeare didn't blog and look what happened to him.

Something about a pen and paper just seems so permanent. Maybe that's why books seem to be dying off to some extent in our world. People don't like permanence.

I don't suppose the crummy jobs and bragging will last forever either. Hmmm.

But I'm still sore and tired and grumpy and complaining way too much...I feel better now.

All good things must come to an end

2006-08-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

Being a student

Being single

youth

life

certain friendships

Columbia Lights

2006-07-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

July 29, 2006, Saturday...way early:

Okay, so it's no NYC, but it's my home. I'm remembering what it's like to feel at home.

On the way to Cayce, I saw a cab driver. I was peering at him; he didn't notice. People always notice when I watch them. He looked lonely. And I wondered if he felt at home.

Columbia is also no Appalachain Mountains, but it has its share of hills. Standing on the roof of Joel's soon to be old apartment, peering at one's city arrests the breath. Columbia is oddly pretty.

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

It's all coming back to me. Loving home is starting to become a natural thing for me. But sometimes I still feel I have a divided heart. I always want to be somewhere more grand. Just like I always want to do something more grand than whatever I've been given to do.

But I will learn contentment. I will. I must. It's part of that peace that passes all understanding. It's something Jeff's friend never learned. Perhaps he needs to step away from Columbia's lights and stand on a mountain top. Perhaps he needs to think, "how else could this have happened, but by design?"

***** *****

The lights are a sort of emotion. They remind you to appreciate what you have in people. Joel's leaving for Atlanta soon. Hanging out with him and friends tonight was special, small, rare. It made me want to hold onto the moment and watch it forever.

***** *****

The lights make me think. So does heat lightning. The lights are man's poor imitation of God's imagination. Flashes of light strike aimlessly while we (intelligently) stand on top of tall city buildings, wowed by the view of the mid-sized city. And our city's lights remind us to feel at home. But God's flashes of light remind us to feel at home wherever we are.

2006-07-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

P.S. Emily-Kate is coming :)

In order to have all of the answers:

2006-07-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

July 28, 2007, Friday

You have to experience everything. Or so is my thinking. I am oddly convinced that I am the one and only appointee to do everything that has to be done.

Truly, this makes me mean. Especially when I feel I am the only one. I go into this weird mental and emotional state.

For me, it's about fighting for control. When I don't have it I frantically flail about and try to fix things. They often end up broken any way.

What specific ties does this have to anything going on in life right now? Not much of anything really. It's just a self diagnosis to address the odd things I think, do and feel.

You see, the year has been quite the roller coaster for me, what with Vector and Ireland and people moving on with their lives. And there have been many challenges and consequences, academic, financial and personal.

And I'm consistently viciously fighting for all of the answers. I want to do everything, see everything, know everything. I can't. I cry, get angry, pout, feel sorry for myself, all the while still tugging on the rope that I firmly believe to be mine.

But I have to go to that place inside of me, that place of introspection that God has given me, and cry honest and humble tears. I have to let go in order to have all of the answers--the ones I need at least. And I have to learn to be content and patient and humble.

Whenever I go there (which is too seldom) is when I find the peace I'm looking for. It's when I stop tugging and fighting that things start to make sense.

Col. 4:6

2006-07-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

Trying to solve the mysteries of heaven with miss Libby...

I can't wait to be old.

2006-07-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

Jessica, these are both excellent. A few grammar mistakes, but those can be easily fixed. Keep up the good work.

Why don’t you try doing a real story for The Columbia Star? I think you are ready. You find the story and write a 500 word article. Remember, our audience is only Richland County. Don’t let it be timely so we can work on it until it’s perfect. I am very proud of the work you are doing.

Mimi
On Jul 21, 2006, at 11:50 AM, Jessica Cross wrote:

Mimi,
Now this is an experiment. I'm not exactly sure of the best way to organize/approach the facts. But it really did happen, and I thought it might prove to be interesting. I did change things around a little bit, though.

article: "6 pound 8 ounce Madeline Clair Jones was born at 7:47 on Thursday, July 19 of this year. Her mother, Sarah Jones, experienced an easy delivery that lasted less than 30 minutes. The infant hardly even cried. Her silence is what alerted doctors to check her blood oxygen levels. Nurses and a doctor kept watch over the quiet baby while they gave her oxygen and tried to extract fluid that may have been in her lungs. Later that evening, an xray showed that Madeline had a rare form of hernia called diaphramatic hernia. "I knew that everything had gone to perfect. Something had to go wrong," says Sarah Jones. The baby's diaphram had a whole in it and it had pushed most of her organs out of place. The situation was even more serious because of the pressure those misplaced organs were placing on one of her lungs. The less than one day old newborn underwent a two hour surgery in which her organs were put back in the usual place. Madeline survived this complicated surgery and will continue recovery at X Hospital until she is able to hold down food and breathe normally. But the baby's grandfather, Ron Jones, expects a quick recovery. He says that she seemed to be doing well after her surgery and that she was screaming to let everyone know that she was not happy with the xrays she had to undergo."

fiction: "Whether Michael and Sarah Jones were ready or not, Madeline Clair Jones came. Sarah was relieved because of her quick delivery. She had heard horror stories of deliveries lasting for long stretches of time. She was most greatful for the health of the baby, or at least what she knew of it. But her mind was not at peace; she felt that Maddie's arrival had been too good to be true. After an exhausting day of labor and entertaining visitors, Michael and Sarah settled down in Sarah's hospital room to relax. This relaxation came slowly for Sarah, a nervous feeling hung in the air for her. Then came a knock on the door. Doctor James came in to tell them that their perfect newborn, Madeline, had a rare form of hernia in which her organs were out of place and pushed up against one of her lungs. Within three hours, the new parents greatest joy and worst fear were realized. A dozen family members gathered at X Hospital the following day to wait to hear how Maddie's surgery went. The time dragged. After two hours of waiting and crying, the surgeon came to tell the new parents how the surgery went. The rest of the family got the news second. No one can elicit tears quite like a doctor can. Maddie was a perfect patient and the family no longer felt a need to hold a breath."

2006-07-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

Good article. Try not to use words like genre. Show the grin rather than telling it.

In the fiction your analogies are not realistic. For example: eyes as wide as baseballs????Fold hands so they are not free to do as they want?????Held chin up to the air????....

....Mimi
On Jul 14, 2006, at 11:47 AM, Jessica Cross wrote:

Mimi,

Here's the scenario: A new local artist recently had some of her work displayed as a featured exhibit in an art museum. The new artist describes what it's like to be featured for the first time.

Article: "27-year-old Sarah Jones scans rows of historical South Carolina portraits with a grin. Jones says that this genre has always been a passion of hers, but "there's nothing like seeing your name next to a piece of art for the first time that lots of people are also going to see." Head museum curator, John Smith, boasts of the new exhibit because "Local artwork is so common that it rarely carries a special quality that we're looking for at the Cayce Museum of Art, but to see such a young artist deliver accurate interpretations of local history is refreshing." Jones' portrayals range from the year that South Carolina and North Carolina were split into two territories to the year of Sherman's invasion of the South during the Civil War and beyond, but her focus is on Civil War History. "I'm so excited about my work being open to the public because I think it's important for people to be able to see beyond the slavery debate that has become central to Civil War History; it's important for people to see the whole story before they can gain a real understanding of history in general," says Jones. She says that her goal is to educate and challenge people through her passion of painting."

fiction: "Her eyes were wide like baseballs as she reached out to touch the oil works. Sarah couldn't help it; her name and the paintings sparkled under the lights of the museum. At once she remembered that she was in a museum and folded her hands together so that they were no longer free to do what they wanted. The museum curator had already told her that her work showed promise and originality. His words added to the excitement she experienced from seeing her name publicized for the first time. As she walked down the stairs away from her masterpieces she held her chin up to the air. She knew she had worked hard to experience her success, but what thrilled her the most was the pride in knowing that she was going to challenge many art lovers to think differently about a period of time. She would be a cause of a better educated society."

Thanks for the pride in my determination. I figure anything I can do to learn is of value right now.

-Jessica-

big fish/small pond

2006-07-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

July 10, 2006, Monday

I'm an English major...I've always loved stories...especially odd ones...ones that arrest the imagination and make me think about life in an unusual way.

I've found a new favorite movie; it's called Big Fish, and is a story about stories.

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

"Kept in a small bowl, the gold fish will remain small. With more space, the fish will grow double, triple, quadruple its size. It occurred to me perhaps the reason for my growth was that I was intended for larger things. After all, a giant man can't have an ordinary sized life"

The thought that I'm supposed to do and be something great has always been a quiet murmer in the back of my mind. Maybe that's why the opportunities that I was given last summer to match the size of my wide open eyes were so impactful to me.

After having gone through a semester of readjusting to my home town last spring, the realization that my textbook and childhood education is about to come to a "screeching" halt has been in every place that I look.

I'm working for my Dad this summer. Not quite as grand a thing as being responsible for running an office. And I'm about to graduate. In comparison to my years at Grace, I'm sort of dreading graduation. I've enjoyed my college years; I've become who I am and who I've always wanted to be. This time is over.

While I can feel pretty hopeless at times, not knowing how to get exactly where I know I'm supposed to be, I eventually remember that the story of my life does not end with college. What a simple concept.

The point is: I don't know exactly what story God is writing in my life. Sometimes it appears a boring one. But, God willing I live that long, I can't wait to be sitting in my rocker as an old lady remembering the story He's written. And what fun it will be to tell that story.

Sometimes....

2006-07-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

July 7, 2006, Friday

...God just allows us to be knocked on our rear ends...only to lift us up again and allow us to be encouraged.

2006-07-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

You are getting better. The article is very good. Use words you use in conversation. The police did nothing (not denied protection). Adverbs make sentences weak. Take out quickly.

For the fiction
Be punchier. Sweat poured from his brow. Rewrite this like you're describing it to a friend. Write like you talk.

I am proud of you for keeping this going. You really are dedicated. Mimi

On Jul 7, 2006, at 11:37 AM, Jessica Cross wrote:

Mimi,

You asked for a scenario of a man who enters a jewelry store in order to check it out before robbing it. So, here it is both in article and fiction form:

article: "Friedman's Jewlers on Highway 1 received a visit yesterday afternoon from 32-year-old Richard Jones prior to its robbery last night. Store manager, John Deer says that Jones walked into his store yesterday carrying a large bag and examining every corner of the store with his eyes. Deer says, "I've seen shoplifters before, and they always look like they're scoping the place out. But I was sure that he was up to something when I asked him if I could help him. He just mumbled no and bowed his head as he quickly walked out of the store." Deer says that he alerted the police to the incident, but they denied protection, saying that there was no proof that his store would actually be robbed...."

fiction: "Richard took a deep breath as he opened the door to Friedman's Jewlers. The sweat from the heat of the day and from his nervousness dropped from his eyebrows; he was sure all the people in the store were watching his every move as he entered. He scanned the store for alternate exit routes and the alarm system. His heart rate matched the uneven rythm of the nearby saleswoman's tap of her fingernails against the glass counter as the manager approached him. "Can I help you," asked Mr. Deer. Richard bent his head towards his feet and murmered an almost voiceless "No." Keeping his head bowed, he held his arm out as he staggered towards the door."

thanks,
-Jessica-

2006-06-27T13:20:00.001-07:00

Oh, how I miss you faithful blog. Can I ever learn to say no? Be irresponsible? Stop caring about some things?

Never fear, there will be some sort of update very soon.

Love you, faithful reader(s)

2006-06-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

"the canvas can do miracles just you wait and see...

...sailing takes me away to where I'm going...soon I will be free"

2006-06-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Oh, and how I feel like it's just me and God when he sends us Irish rain for a few days.

2006-06-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

June 15, 2006, Thursday

There are moments (we all have them--I think) in which we finish a task or reach a destination when suddenly everything seems to make sense. And we (we being I) dance around the room in circles...just because we're able.

I just finished my article for Lex. Life Mag...when I've turned in a piece which I feel is complete, I feel complete (in a temporal sort of way.) Everything seems to make sense...I feel fulfilled and understand my purpose. Plus trapsing around the country side asking questions, seeing things, playing, then writing about all of it helps me to get a big kick out of life.

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

I'm a testament that life is never quite what you expect. If it was, it would have to be called plan or prediction--something like that. But I suppose with my logic, may as well go ahead and call it wierd or surprise.

Anyhow, I'm just amused and wierded out by the fact that twists and turns in life are the only dependable thing. If I weren't a Christian, I don't know how I'd cope.

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

Ah, another post in which I was so sure I'd much more to say.

But I do apologize for any vagueness. That too is something that is to be expected...from me at least, until I know what I'm doing

Life's mysteries...hmmm.

"Kiddo"

2006-06-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

More randomness on an eerie june evening:

June 4, 2006, Sunday

Everything always seems to make so much more sense to me when it rains.

Tonight has been windy and chilly and not as hot as is customary this time of year. I can feel the rain coming in and I'm getting excited about that rain. But waiting for it is agonizing--who knows how much it'll rain and for how long, who knows if things will be cooler or hotter (certainly not the weather man). The wind taunts while it waits for the rain to follow.

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

And so do the changes in life follow that pattern. There's always this waiting for blessings and adjustments and answers. And we really don't know what the rainfall will be like.

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

I can see my friendships changing form before my very eyes and there's not one thing I can do to maintain a level of normalcy (as I know it) in them.

I'm graduating soon. I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do with or about that (concerning preparation for the "real world").

I'm going to marry a man some day...thus independence is gradually losing its value.

And everything is unsettled and blurry.

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

But the fact remains that it will rain...I don't need to know how. God will bring the rainfall. That's all I really need to know.

2006-06-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Excellent. I like all of it except the last sentence. That means to me anger killed the victim. Is that what you wanted to say? Mimi
On Jun 1, 2006, at 11:41 PM, Jessica Cross wrote:

"The feeling wraps itself around one's neck like an anaconda, tightening upon its victim and debilitating it. Anger's prey cannot breath or swallow. Anger's prey cannot speak except in helpless retaliation. And the end for the victim is a life without air in either case."

-Jessica-

Even more randomness than before

2006-06-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

June 1, 2006, Thursday

I've always loved Thursdays---the day before Friday---the day before Saturday. It's not so much the weekend I cherish, but the anticipation leading up to it. I have to fend off anxiety over Monday being a couple of days away when the weekend actually arrives.

Sometimes I wish I were one of those people that didn't mind being bored. Maybe then I wouldn't have to torture myself with all the business I bring upon myself. But I suppose it's my way of being super woman. When I was a child I wanted to fly like Peter Pan and Wendy...I thought that if I wanted it badly enough and if I tried hard enough, I could do it. Then I fell on my knees. So here I sit, chewing more than I'm able. But I have to admit that I love experiencing as many flavors of life as I can.

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Changes, on the other hand, are icky. This summer has brought with it less of Chris and more of my Dad. Chasity is gone having the time of her life. I'm in an office. Excuse me, but can we just talk about that for a minute! I'm not a desk person...but for now I'm supposed to be a desk person. I want to write and travel and play and try new things and meet new people....

2006-05-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

"It's times like these you learn to live again...It's times like these you give and give again..."

2006-05-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

Cool drops rush...
Drops form a pink puddle on the skin leaving a sweet trail behind.

Verbs are stronger when not watered down with ing.

Describe for me an extremely angry man coming into my office. Do not use the word angry. Show me.

Suggestions: Read every book you can on writing. (I have many you can borrow) Take writing courses. READ, READ, READ. When you are riding around town, listen to books on tape. Throughout each day when you see things, think about how you would show them in words. Mimi

"Cool drops come rushing out with the push of plastic against a spring. Tons and tons of drops form a light pink puddle on fresh skin. The puddle is hidden, rubbed into the skin, leaving a sweet trail everywhere it travels."

Realizing that I have so much to learn before I've learned to write tightly, I want to know what else I need to be learning/focusing on. What suggestions might you have for me putting myself in a good position for a successful writing career (no matter how long it may take to get there)?

-Jessica-

2006-05-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

p.s. Did I tell you I might go to Germany for a bit next summer?

It all seems so---so up in the air.

2006-05-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

May 25, 2006, Thursday

I want to go strawberry picking and horseback riding and spend time at the beach and go to silly puppet shows...

It occurred to me last night that I'm spending my LAST summer of undergrad working with my dad...behind a desk...confined to an 9-5 type office. Uggh. I'm not even spending it going out with a bang at Vector (that was last summer) or learning about journalism through an internship.

The shock of the reality that these days of college are quickly coming to an end for me makes me so sad. And it seems to be reflected most through the changes in my relationships. My friends are growing in different ways and making new close friends and this is quite the challenge. But the truth of the matter is that I'm in the same place relationally. It's just odd...it's a new place, a place that I was never prepared to be in. And it's scary...to watch the "going our separate ways" go on.

So, the little sobbing episode I had in the middle of church last Sunday--the debate is was I crying because I missed Chasity more than I thought I would and wanted more time to make things like they used to be, or was I just jealous of her adventure. These last few days I've found myself a bit homesick for Ireland...maybe that's why God's given us so much rain lately.

Then of course, Chris has moved this week. I'm not quite sure of how I feel about that just yet. I just can't shake the feeling that we'll be spending less quality time together.

I felt I'd more to say, but alas...
I wonder what this might look like minus the word "I." Huh. (I can hear Justin Kandler laughing at me now.)

And yes, Global Night Commute was successful. Let's just say there were bongos at 4 am involved.

2006-05-21T17:39:00.001-07:00

My best friend and sister just left this afternoon. Who am I gonna fight with?

Oh, and I really want to go back to Ireland.

Lesson 3

2006-05-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

This is good. You’re getting the idea. Don’t give too much information. Let the reader visualize. I would change the one sentence to His ears shoot back. He crushes the bug, cocks his head, and drags the kicking roach around the kitchen. Keep it up. You are now showing, not telling. Mimi

On May 19, 2006, at 3:22 PM, Jessica Cross wrote:

Mimi,

"His eyes spring open as he spots the roach scurrying across the kitchen. It stops. He flattens his ears so that they form a 90 degree angle with the side of his head. He calculates the second at which he should attack. He moves towards the bug and crushes it with his pink nose and his teeth, only injuring it. The cat cocks his head, curls his paw and dribbles the cockroach around the kitchen."

I hope you feel better soon.
-Jessica-

Lesson 2

2006-05-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

She jams on the clutch to stop the car's choking and breathes quick, shallow breaths. The car ends its steady hum anyway. The two cars behind inch towards her and the stop sign, urging her to move. She shuts her eyes, grits her teeth and starts the car, feeding the car gas as she eases off the clutch and pulls through the intersection.

2006-05-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

She said: "Your greatest strength is desire and persistence. Many people can write, but they are too lazy to work on it. Thomas Edison said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If you have the desire to learn, to take criticism, and practice and practice.....you will become an excellent writer. You have the idea, but the words have to be real and make sense. Where the boy has been will be a paragraph, and the father will be another paragraph.

This paragraph is just about the apple eating. In it you want to show the boy’s age and exactly what he looks like eating an apple. Try not to use backwards sentences like After taking a chunk out of the apple, the bite stretches out the boy's cheek, and the juices rush onto his chin. Use short precise sentences using the active voice. When you excel with the short sentences, we will add a few other kinds. The paragraph you are working on does not have to tell a story. We’ll get to that later. It just has to paint a picture.

Example:
The boy holds the apple with both hands. He bites a chunk out of the apple with the few front teeth he has left. Juices drip down his chin. Pieces of apple cover the face of the clown on the front of his T–shirt. A bee lights on his shoulder.

Keep all of your work so you can see how you are improving.

Also, we may need someone to do some typing once a week if you are interested, but we will pay you to do that. Let me know. Mimi"

Me: Ouch

2006-05-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

p.s. I feel like I'm behind what with the Invisible Children campout and friend's graduations and lunches with friends and end of the semester occurances, etc.

So, I hate for this to be my 100th post...

2006-05-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

This is how my life as a writer begins: a tortured wordsmith. And I think I'll explain later when I'm not looking through the grayness of cynicism at 2 a.m.

...After cinco de mayo at steve's house and everything.

Lesson 1

2006-05-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

May 4, 2006, Thursday

Mimi,

"An apple falls to the ground, catching the attention of a small boy. He looks from side to side before he devours the fruit to see if his father is watching. The apple covers the width and height of his hand, so that he has to gnaw at the top of the apple first. After taking a chunk out of the apple, the bite stretches out the cheeks of the little boy and the juices rush onto his chin. The liquid sugar sticks to his mouth and fingers as he sucks on the core of the apple, draining all its juices. The boy's father later asks him where he's been, but he knows. The evidence is all over his chin and hands and shirt. He smells of apple, and there are little, white chunks inbetween his teeth."

I am prepared to accept any criticism you may have to offer, but I need to know what ability I have that most stands out so that I can develop it as well.

thanks again,
Jessica C.

2006-04-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

FYI: not blogging until at least a week from today (for those of you that do keep up with my scattered thoughts) so my scattered thoughts don't overshadow the death of Lauren Jones and the Invisible Children campout. (but I haven't forgotten about YOU)

Rain and things

2006-04-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

April 22, 2006, Saturday

Sometimes I'm so convinced that God allows rain storms just as a present to me. Perhaps that's a bit of a self centered view, but He knows how much I love to wake up to the booming thunder of His voice and cool raindrops being blown into my window by the wind.

Yes this morning was a perfectly Irish morning...sometimes I still get Ireland sick...I miss it....and God sends me some Irish rain. Of course I didn't miss it when I was there, though I got all the rain my heart could desire.

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So they found our missing person. She was never really lost. Not physically anyways.

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Today I was reminded of the fragility of life by someone I've never even been formally introduced to. A young woman by the name of Lauren Jones died from a car accident today. I've probably passed by her dozens of times in church without actually knowing her at all. But her life was snuffed out today...just like that....48 hours ago she was probably laughing with her friends...now I hope she's laughing with some other friends, friends she hasn't seen in a long time.

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So odd to be in such a strangely familiar place, feeling like a stranger that is perfectly at home---forest drive, columbia, sc

"A city for the Jews..." Theresienstadt

2006-04-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

April 20, 2006, Thursday

It must have been a beautiful and convincing place, for the Red Cross to have waited for over 50 years to apologize to the Jews for the false publicity of the place. And how clever of the Nazis to create a false concentration camp for the entire world to lend its approval to the Nazis for creating concentration camps for the Jews. And worst, how "innocent" of the rest of the world to have okayed the very concept of concentration camps.

Did they all really not know?

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"home, Home you'll be home again soon. Where someone is waiting to hold you...."

The children must have been confused. From Auschwitz to Theresienstadt(in exchange for medicines and things like that) and back to Auschwitz--their last home.

And the world didn't know.

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The Invisible Children walk and campout at the state house is in a week in order to gain recognition for those young children in Uganda who are at risk for being kidnapped and militarily brainwashed. These children walk for miles to sleep in their city center each night in hopes to avoid being kidnapped.

And we can't pretend we don't know.
6,000,000 Jews would have told you that we have a responsibility to know and to do something as their lungs were collapsing from a lack of oxygen during their last living seconds in the gas chambers.

"...and they're not going home again."