On the Road Again

As much as I hate to say it, our apartment search has, once again, begun.


Zak and I love the home in which we currently live. We love the people we live with. My two best friends are under the same roof. I get to walk to work.

I see this from our front porch.

And we get to walk five blocks to this.

We're really spoiled. This house is huge. We have a bedroom that's twice the size of my bedroom at my parents' house. We can see the GG bridge from our bedroom window (on a sunny day, anyway.)

We have a porch and a living room and a working fireplace that makes the SF winter (and summer) nights bearable. 

I know it's time to move on. I know we need a place of our own, and a home space filled just with us. That doesn't make the change any easier. That doesn't make it any more fun to search for hours on Craigslist, looking at posting after posting of rentals that are too expensive, too small, to far away, too dangerous, too sketch.

Last time we were moving, God stepped in and stitched everything up nicely. I know He will take care of us this time around, too. We're playing the waiting game again, and He's in control of the clock. 

We watch the sand descend, grain-by-grain, into the cup. 

Manic

Mills people are really awesome. Every time I interact with any of my Mills friends, I just get so stoked that I decided to go there and got to meet all those genius individuals. No words to explain it.


And, my equally awesome housemate Erin just asked Zak if he wanted to be a polygamist so she could use his gym discount.


I am so blessed.

:P

Self-Improvment Plan Part 1: Like List

Lately, I've been reading this book called 

Character Makeover 

which I got from the Hume bookstore. It has a few good points but overall it's not really what I was hoping for. Mostly because it talks about improving your 'self' as something that's super easy to do. "Oh yeah, just stop doing x, y, z and pray more."

Good advice, yes, but not for the person who does x, y, z, a little bit of t and a regular dose of j. (Just to be clear, those variables are not drugs. This book in particular focuses on confidence, pride and humility, honesty, those kind of things.)

So I am taking their ideas in principle and applying them in a way that makes more sense to me. 

Step 1 in my Self-Improvement Plan is working out/getting fit. That's mostly because once I become this awesome person, I want to live long enough to enjoy it.

Step 2: Make a list of things that I like 

This reason is one-fold (is that a thing?). I don't really know what I like. I know what other people like. So: what do I like? (in no particular order. and I'm purposefully leaving out human beings because if I start on those I'll never stop.)

• the ocean and all the creatures in it. But mostly dolphins.
• pirates
• lists (obviously)
• the color blue in the grayer hues
• coffee and caffeine in general, though the word "caffeine" is on my ultimate list of "words I hate to spell"
• the desert heat - so dry. So not San Francisco.
• the permanence of family 
• Grey cats and black labs
• graph paper. I like to color in the boxes
• organizing (particularly labeling things.)
• Buying junk
• doing other people's hair
• taking pictures
• vodka
• researching anything
• the early morning
• sand in my hair. I like to feel it rub against my scalp. I also like sand under my nails.
• nostalgia; it is like a drug.
• cooking, but not necessarily food. I just want to make stuff and force-feed other people.
• reeeeally tall bookshelves
• the ring of fancy crystal
• collecting things (spoons, cows, bells, thimbles, books, notes, bookmarks, plates .. I could go on for days)
• anonymity
• silver hair

I might have to spread this out over a couple posts. I am discovering that I like many things. And some of the things on my list should be there multiple times.

Also, how perfect is this?

The length of this post is one of the reasons why I'm not a famous blogger.

That First Anniversary Tradition

For some reason unbeknownst to the average individual, wedded couples participate in a bizarre tradition: the eating of the wedding cake one year later. For most newlyweds, this means reaching into the way-back of your freezer and pulling out the top layer of your $1298379q85948w65 wedding cake. Some people even keep the little figurines in there (which I think is kind of cruel).

But for us, if you were at our wedding, you know we didn't have a traditional cake. We had tarts. Delicious fresh fruit tarts from Whole Foods. Are we spoiled or what? Unfortunately, fruit tarts can't be frozen. We also ate all of our personal tart while waiting to board the plane to Costa Rica.

Even though we don't understand the tradition, Z and I decided we were participating in it. We went to Whole Foods, purchased a tart, and proceeded to re-enact the practice of feeding it to each other.

I think we'll make this an annual thing.

Until next year ...

My "Get Fit Quick" Plan

My plan is to lose 5 pounds by July 15. How, you ask? Well. Let me show you:

1. Drink a lot of water. Here's why: CNN, Health.com
2. Do something physical for 20 minutes each day. A walk, a run, tae-bo, yoga. Anything.
3. Eliminate most sugar from my diet.
4. Keep accountable through Shape Magazine's Virtual Trainer.

5. Eat a 300 calorie breakfast. It keeps the hunger down and provides more energy throughout the day. Protein in the morning: WIN, WIN!
6. No alcohol. NONE! Already started this one and I feel AMAZING.
7. Eat more chicken/turkey than red meat. Eat more veggies than meat at all. Get protein from other source.

We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted! Now for step one: make that 400 calorie meal. You scoff. It's REAL. Lots of veggies!

Silver

I found my first gray hair today.

It's long. It's really long. It's not just one of those "Oh, hey, I'm aging at the root" kind of gray hairs.

It starts at the root, and extends all the way down to the tip of my hair.

It's not just gray, either, and that's how I found it. It was shining. It's a shiny silver hair, thicker than all the rest of my hairs.

At first I thought I was hallucinating. I stopped dying my hair altogether in December, hoping to grow out the fake color and return to my natural (free) color. Since I made this decision, I've been worried that my head will end up being covered in a flat, boring brown, so I've taken to being out in the sun, hoping that I'll uncover/grow some "natural highlights."

Therefore, when I saw this shining strand, I thought I'd grown a highlight spun of gold. I seized it and looked at it in the light. It was then I realized it was silver.

I was going to pluck it out. I've seen others my age do this; yank the first evidence of aging from their scalps, because unlike wrinkles, gray hairs can be eliminated. I wanted to pluck it out.

But it's just so shiny.

I've decided to keep it. I just hope it doesn't think that means it can invite its friends.

"So make the most of this: your little day, your little month, your little half-a-year."

Today is Thursday.

Halfway through the day, it finally registered: I am a week into April. April 2009. 

Where was I a year ago? 

Finishing up a semester wrought with idiocy, sprinkled with cleansing, and climaxing in a production of Redemption. Clueless and determined, I was about to enter into Love's tumultuous dance of possibilities, about to begin a journey without a map:

on a road sometimes paved clear for ease of tread, 

sometimes dug in the dirt so wagon wheels wobble on the occasional rock, 

sometimes cut through the grass of a green meadow where the blades whisper on thighs and sight stretches for miles, 

sometimes wading through waves as the tide rushes in,

sometimes hiking directly up the face of a cliff with no glimpse of the zenith,

sometimes standing breathless on that summit: in awe of the worlds spread at our feet.

Empty-handed I enter today, unsure of what comes next: a plunge to walk on the ocean floor? Wading in the shallow end of a pool? Treading on air? Quicksand?

So many of these options imply drowning, the suffocating fear of uncertainty and clueless twitching of the feet. Which way now?

He says that every story is either about a journey, or about a stranger coming to town. I am that Stranger journeying through a multitude of destinations: the Pilgrim without a Pilgrimage. "Lord, have..."

Mercy? I wonder.

Grace? 

Patience?

A sense of Humor?

A Purpose for me?

A Purpose. 

Lord, have mercy and in that mercy: Purpose. On me, a

Dreamer

Hoper

Dancer

Singer

Breather

Wisher

Thinker

Planner

Mourner

Worrier

Seer

Namer

Sinner.

Lord, have a purpose for this Weaver.

This Lonely Creature.

Time for a Fresh coat.

I am exhibiting the signs of a mid-life crisis.

Today I tore apart my family's living room and painted over the hunter green sponging, transforming the space into a soothing, gray-green antique. 

Living alone has taught me so many wonderful life skills. I can change a tire, put chains on a Samurai, drive stick shift, teach high schoolers, fix a sink, kill spiders, clean better than a paid maid, prep and paint a room, change the oil in a car, jump start a dead battery, plow snow with a shovel AND with a "lawnmower," do my own laundry, chop wood, sweet-talk the cable guy, change the filters in a spa, cook and bake some interesting dishes ... 

the list goes on. 

Today's endeavor: teach my mother to paint a room.  I have drywall dust caked in my nose from sanding and my fingers are dried out from dipping them in and out of paint but I am satisfied and content, dragging the roller up-down-up-down the wall while the paint slides on the surface like icing on a cake. 

As the space transforms, so does my soul. New color, new room, new space. New life.

Mom: A study was done recently that proved farts lower blood pressure.

(long pause filled with high school giggles).

Mom: I wonder who paid for that.

Me: That's your tax dollars at work. 

----

My spring break thus far has provided new friends, new perspective, and new goal-setting: all-around a much needed Peace.

And I got a dress for a Kentucky wedding.

Again, I go: Unnoticed

"Liturgy"

Snow-capped priest nods, sighs:

absorbing my confession as I lie

prostrate in the shadow of Silence.

Trees, tithing in needles, bow boughs

over my crooked neck while my knees

sink, deeper, with the Earth. 

(c)krp

"An Ending"

Shake. Shake while twitching stars

bathe your shivers in Silver

strides, treading heavy steps

across trembling shoulders.

And the stars' trailing fingers caress

cheeks: where silken threads descend

in remembering.

(c)krp

I blinked at it was 3am.

Mmmm. 

And suppose I had predicted the events of tonight's early evening? Would I still pick up the phone? Would I have a choice?

At times I am convinced the world has forgotten to continue turning and the sphere waits:

suspended on the black stage while the stars twinkle the cue--"Keep moving."

What started as a descent ended in a Godsent-near-stranger: a friend appears while fogged (confused) eyes blink through the foreign mist. I am still clueless as to why we watched Quantum Physics cartoons in the kitchen while my new houseguests munched on salads and cracked open coconuts.

That is not a metaphor. Fresh food has leaked into my kitchen and the world smells alive again.

And X-box ministered grace in a racetrack. 

My heart is tired but my Soul is full. And that--my friends, my Beloved Listeners--lifts the sun from his bed of snowcapped peaks, that he may drip sleepy eyes over the waking world:

and into me. 

Cuddled alone in the Cave again

I've returned to the mountaintop after a quick dash to the desert, where I was expecting sunshine and warmth and instead got hail and rain. But my sister is back from college for a week, has brought her amiable boyfriend ( :-> ), and my heart is filled with joy from the reunion. On top of that, I touched base with two of my closest companions--Heather and Beth--and am now wishing I could have swung a trip to see Bre at the beach as well.

It was a good couple days. My scrapbook from my London trip (two years ago) has finally been completed, and I toted it home so I could leave the fat thing on the kitchen table in my parent's house. Next project: painting. I brought back up here all of my blank canvases, all my paints, my overpriced paintbrushes, and am trying to come up with something to use as a makeshift easel.

It's snowing white chunks all over the car outside and sometimes I think I can hear them hit the pavement, though I know it's just my imagination giving their sparkle an impossible weight.

-------

I am purposefully not addressing a traumatic experience I had this weekend but I feel I should bring it up. My personal laptop has crashed and died, taking with it to its grave some of my longest journal entries, some of my oldest poems, some new words I've inscribed in the last year, and nearly all of my photographs from this life. 

I feel as if something inside me has died and I am in the first stage: Denial. 

Denial that I will never see some poems again, because I never gave them to anyone else but my screen.

Denial that those frozen images of ghosted relationships will never be lovingly caressed by my nostalgic eyes.

Denial that some of my creative stories have vanished, and taken their worlds with them into the nether of the electronic age.

Down with technology. Down with internet and typing and hard disks that crash. 

I almost thought I wouldn't be able to get onto my blog, because I couldn't remember the password. But I made a lucky guess and here I am. 

-------

I'm excited for this week. Even though "snow" is on the forecast for the next five days.

Holding on to Everything

There are people in the house.

I must not talk to myself.

In the past few days I have taken on the habit of verbally conversing with myself. I'm an aural processor. I like auditory things. So I talk to fill the spaces between the walls where people usually go. Yesterday I had a conversation with the stove, insisting that the attitude with which it was refusing to cooperate over the baking of tortillas into chips was not acceptable.

It shaped up.

But now that the house is actually FILLED with 15 Biola females, I must not talk to myself.

This may be the least of my worries. I also like to sing very loud and have perfected the art of projecting my voice through all the walls. I have whole concerts in the shower. Last night it was Phantom of the Opera. Tonight's rendition of Les Miserables will have to wait.

Who was it that once said "Cellar door" is the most beautiful phrase in the English language? I must agree.

Another tidbit from the life of a hermit: I am allowed to repeat my favorite phrases as many times as I like. Roll them on the tongue for the full flavor.



----

On top of all of this, I have so many things going on inside my head that I want to talk about with somebody but there are fifteen strangers instead of one close friend.

God's being strange lately. I don't know how to read Him and I can't tell if He's reading me, or if He's just waiting to see what I do next. I feel at a loss for direction, for purpose. but mostly just for direction. I wouldn't need a grand, sweeping Purpose if I just had instructions as to where I should put my feet in the morning.

I try getting out of bed on different sides so that it'll switch it up a bit and make Him start to pay attention again.

No such luck.

As soon as I begin to depend on one thing, it vanishes and I'm left with the empty hands just barely beginning to close those tired fingers around an already absent Comfort.


What does He think He's doing?


I'm endlessly perplexed and we have many conversations on the matter. One-sided conversations, of course. But we talk. When nobody's around.

I talk too much.

"Oh no, I've said too much. I haven't said enough."


It'll be nice when I return to civilization and people start talking back.

I teach Guud.

Not yet, actually, but I will. I just completed my 8th grade history lesson plans for next week--my first week of teaching! Woo. Civil War. It's gonna be a fun one.

And I should probably figure out how to teach everything else. But it feels nice to have SOMETHING done.

It snowed this morning while I was walking to work: tiny little crystals stuck on my shoes and in my hair and on my nose, chilling wherever they touched bare skin. Rosy and red, I spilled my way into the classroom and through the day--a day filled with exciting new ideas and dreams of what's to come when I sit up there and project my ideas, my joy, my knowledge, and my ignorance (haha) upon the classroom of students.

Anyone have interesting ideas for "Journal Topics"? I'm going to have them write journals everyday. And a vocab test every week. Muhaha. Ahem.


By the way, these students are brilliant. They engage with the subject, they soak up information, they read a ton, and their verbal vocab is better than some college graduates I know (namely--me). :)

"This is where the kingdom of God originated—in an underground revolution"

I bet you can't go a month without spending money.

In Jeff Peak's latest "Round Robin," he mentioned a challenge the Amate House has begun: a competition between the members of the household to see who can spend the least amount of money within the month of February. It involves public tracking and a dinner prize.

This particular adventure strikes a sweet chord in my heart; I've been reading Jesus for President, a book by Shane Claiborne about ... well, society, politics, and the ways the Christian community has diverted from God's original intentions for the lifestyle of His kingdom. As I progress through the text, I become increasingly frustrated with feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. No, I'm not helplessly stuck in the consumerist society, "slave to the system." But I am, by my own vices, stuck.

"Folks didn't go to the desert simply to escape the world; they went to the desert to save the world." (Claiborne, Jesus for President 79).

Christ didn't come to reform society. He came to create a New Society: a New Kingdom in His name and modeled after His lifestyle--separate from the corrupt world. A City on a Hill. A Light in the Dark, removed and completely alternate from the norm.


My life is far from Christ's conservative, humble example.
And I bet you feel somewhat the same.


What if we spent just a month, free of the tyranny of our credit cards, of the cash in our pocket, of the ATM's angry face? Christ retreated to the desert for a little over a month, and returned to begin his "underground revolution" among the poor, the quiet, the meek, the heavy-hearted. We know where His revolution led, what it accomplished, and continues to accomplish even in the whispers of the Saints.

And it all started in a desert. We're supposed to be set apart. Are we? Or are we just surviving, searching for a balance, struggling along between Temptation and God's calling?

My goal: exercise the spirit of Jeff's "Frugal February."


I think you can do it, too.
I know I'm tired of feeling like a slave.

Walked in Ankle deep snow without Snowshoes.

Cold toes.

As you can tell, I neither tumbled off the side of the mountain, nor got lost in the snow storm. I also did not help my dad put the chains on the tires. But I did help him dig the car out of the driveway when the tires spun in maniac circles, digging an unbelievably deep ditch out of which there would be no driving.

Exciting.

Tomorrow morning begins my next adventure. It's snowing (pretty) and it is cold (.. you know how I feel about that). Through the pretty white devils (snowflakes) I will traipse, making my way down the mountain in the wee-hours of the morning (8am. Wee to me) and beginning my initiation into the role of "Teacher."

Educator.

Responsible for the brains of children.

Heaven help us all.




What will I wear???



P.S. Who lives in West Hollywood?

Though I'm holding my breath, my heartbeat is calm

The day after tomorrow, I throw my life in the back of a car and make the trek once again into solitude. I approach this realization with mixed feelings.

- I'm about to teach my favorite subject--ENGLISH!!!-- and my favorite period of history--World War II--to a classroom of students I've never met. Memoirs of the holocaust (both perspectives) are stacked on my desk and my notes from Night have been resurrected from the underbelly of my closet, eagerly awaiting re-use.

- Faced with shelves of my cherished novels, I have to pick which ones should make the journey up the mountain, and join "Ms Parkinson's Library": an 'extra-credit' book collection that will be used in conjunction with "Book Bingo" to encourage free-reading outside the classroom.

- Though I have a closet full of clothing, I am carefully selecting my most "Teacheresque" garments. You wouldn't believe the stuff I've come up with.

- Memories of the lonely basement and the dark, silent nights are beginning to creep their way back along the corners of my mind. Whereas the whole point of my last adventure was the loneliness, I thought I could handle it because 1. It was on purpose 2. It was the point and 3. It was temporary. But my isolation is now a casualty of a brilliant opportunity ... and I'm already longing for a companion. Moments like these make me realize that no matter how poetic I might think it sounds, I would never want to live the rest of my life alone. I learn life in companionship.

- My room at home is no longer "my room." After I move out at the conclusion of my trip to Ireland this summer, it will be converted to an office for my dad. I've already re-painted the walls, covering over every childhood memory, every tack-hole in the wall, every place where poster tape had peeled off the chaotic paint. Soon, even the decoration scheme will be altered, from the noisy floral to a soothing "Beach."

- Even if I don't have home in a place, I have home in a heart. In many hearts, in fact. Beyond the current Blessing of my (pardon the phrase) "love life" (warm smile), I am surrounded in spirit by family and friends and friends who are family--all of these, relationships that have nestled in my chest and blossom daily through prayer, thoughts, laughter, embraces, and sweet telephone conversations. I will always belong with these people. That's why, even when I go away for months and return, I know I can still text Beth and say, "What the heck you doin?" And we're out ransacking the town two hours later. That's why, when I text message Bre, it's always a message of love, missing, and the memory of incessant, joyous laughter. That's why, when I pick up the phone to call Alyssa, she always will answer no matter if she's on a date with Matthew, or getting her hair done at some obscure salon in the middle of a Beauty College ( :) ). That's why, when I arrive on the streets of San Francisco in the middle of an early Sunday morning and Zak lifts his head in surprise, my stride across the street is a sprint into his heart and an embrace that sends a smile through his eyes and into the deepest part of his soul.

That's why, when I get a letter from a professor it's like a whisper from a friend.
And when I curl myself up on my parent's bed, my mom instantly runs her fingers through my hair and listens to me rattle on about my hopes and dreams for the future, about my fears for tomorrow, about my joys of today.

And when I open Scripture, Paul's admonition of relationships and of love and of Charity all seep themselves into my life and I see Heather in Corinthians; I see Westmont in David's Psalms; I see today in the Lord's Prayer; and I see Tomorrow: in the Hands of God.

Palmdale

I took the CBEST today (that's the teacher-test) and ... couldn't remember how to add fractions.

Ridiculous.
A. When am I ever going to do math without a calculator?
B. When am I ever going to use math?


Sigh.

And I wrote an essay about drugs.










But it was part of the prompt.

And I'm not getting a cat. Hume won't let me.

Still Furry-Friend-less

I found the cat I wanted but I didn't bring it home because I don't want to die at the hands of my parents. Although Beth was very persuasive. Note to self: don't take her to a pound cause she'll make you want to bring them all home.


Twenty one years old and still can't own anything cause I am borrowing every living space.

Don't be a Cheese.

Today was filled with friends and family and I am surrounded by joy.

Blonde hair is a greater hit than the brown was--mainly because it's proof that even though I'm surrounded by my old world, the new "Me" still survives, still thrives in the familiar environment.

Beckie Ruggles appeared in my driveway today and I haven't been able to stop smiling since I saw her beautiful face. I really don't think that woman ages. Her eyes sparkle with the joy and hope of twenty-something. I can't wait wait WAIT to see her again.

Went back to my cousin, Kyle,'s house tonight with Heather and we baked banana bread and masked the drywall dust smell with the warm aroma of baking. There really is nothing like the bond of family--the camaraderie, the familiarity, the trust built on a lifetime of relating and understanding and growing together. And the love that transcends all conflict, all turmoil, and perseveres. If anyone needs an example of what God intended for our Love relationships--look to my immediate and extended family.

My bags are packed with every professional outfit I own. Heels and all. I can't wait for my pumps to go clickety-clack against the pavement of the streets of San Francisco. I think my hotel's in a sketchy area though. Better bring some mace. Or just my fist. baha.

My heart's struggling, my friends. Pray for strength and understanding and compassion and wisdom. I pray for new excitement to infiltrate your everydays :)

---

W. Somerset Maugham is funny:

"The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes; he makes the best of us look like a piece of cheese."