Optima Dies . . . Prima Fugit

Some Things I Learned in 2006

2006-12-30T00:19:00.000-08:00

1) No matter how thin you slice it, some men are just scuzzes. Flee such men. Some men are also awesome. Keep those ones. Learning to differentiate between the two -- now that's a growing up thing.

2) Moreover, we're all capable of being just a little bit scuzzy.

3) It is a stupid and artistically stunting idea to direct the same show twice in eight months.

4) It's the friends who will feed you peanut-butter-and-chocolate bunnies and Irish whiskey at three o'clock in the morning after you've been dumped by the love of your life who are the ones that matter.

5) You should never trade long-term happiness for a few cheap kicks.

6) If you've got a dream, you should go for it and worry about its practicality or lack thereof another day.

7) It is a depressing fact of life that there are no 7-11s in the greater metropolitan Atlanta area, and no workable substitute.

8) God really doesn't give a flying damn about chapel veils and the problems of Vatican II; go solve world hunger and fight to end the culture of death, then maybe you'll have time to worry about whether He wants you to wear a doily on your head.

9) Nothing ever works out as planned. Get used to it. What we call curveballs, God calls opportunities for grace.

10) Don't ever bring your cute best friend to any wedding where hot guys potentially are.

11) Mountain Dew Amp is the greatest invention since the wheel.

12) You can love someone a hell of a long time after they're gone.

13) People die, suddenly, frequently, and often. Make sure they always know you love them -- just in case it's the last time you ever get to tell them.

14) Your mother really was right.

15) Teachers do not go home at 3:30 p.m., no matter how easy you in your naivete think their job is. Teachers go home at 10:30 p.m. -- and then work for a few more hours.

16) You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better know something.

17) Call home.

18) Credit cards are the devil.

19) Furniture is overrated.

20) Boys are also overrated.

21) Shoe shopping is the greatest therapy the human condition may ever know.

22) Lindsay Lohan is a talentless hack, and she looked better as a redhead.

23) Romances between two people who both work in theater do not bode well for anybody.

24) Eleven hours is not too long a drive for a hug and a homecooked meal.

25) I have accumulated some really scary ex-flames over the past year. I have also accumulated some very cool ones.

26) Do not rekindle old flames unless you're sure you can handle the conflagration.

27) Your high school friends have known you since you were like, fourteen. If you're going to trust anyone's judgment of your character, trust theirs.

28) Keep at least one friend around who tells you the truth when you least want to hear it.

29) Don't text and drive.

30) Stay away from brainless hot jocks.

31) Most decisions made after midnight are stupid ones.

32) Prank calls never, ever, turn out well, particularly when alcohol or ex-boyfriends are involved.

33) Posting everything about your personal life on the internet is asking for trouble.

34) Everyone has dated a Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. If he boils your small pets, run.

35) You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many socks.

From Ahaz to Zerubbabel

2006-12-25T00:27:00.000-08:00

Come Christmastime every year, we often hear these oh-so-familiar seventeen verses from the first chapter of Matthew at church:

"A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ."
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From an English teacher’s standpoint, the story of salvation history, for being God’s bestseller and the greatest story ever told, begins with some majorly plodding exposition.

As a little kid at midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, I would of course let loose my few requisite giggles at the funnier names like "Jehoshaphat" and "Uzziah", then, when roundly berated by my parents for giggling during Mass, promptly fall asleep through the rest of the genealogy. My next real exposure to Matthew’s genealogy was at seventeen when, during my freshman year of college, my then-boyfriend and his friends adopted "Abijah", son of Rehoboam, as a sort of celebratory interjection akin to "Dude!" (Ex.: "Abijah! I just kicked your ass at Halo!") And even when studying Scripture in college theology courses, I would typically skirt over the genealogical passages in order to get to the good stuff. I mean, seriously -- what with a mysterious star and singing angels and visiting shepherds and wandering Magi and fleeing into Egypt, whether or not Shealtial begat Zerubbabel seemed an awfully superfluous point.

Yet, in the words of the incomparable G. K. Chesterton, “If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe. If you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.” Tonight, at Christmas Eve Mass, I found my eyes restlessly wandering down the page of my missal during the interminable litany of the ancestry of Christ. My gaze came to a full stop on verse 5: “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab . . .” The name “Rahab” rang a bell. I paused to filter through my atrophied knowledge of random Old Testament trivia, and vaguely recalled her as some prostitute who helped save Israel by offering hospitality to spies sent by Joshua, Moses’ successor.

Intrigued, I moved on to verse 6. “David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.” David, of David and Goliath fame, of course we all know. The “man after God’s own heart”, who in a moment of weakness, succumbed to his lust, slept with Bathsheba, knocked her up, and then sent her poor husband Uriah to sleep with the fishes to cover his own tracks. Yet here in Matthew chapter one, we find that the incarnate God of the Universe Himself chose to descend from the lineage of this sometime slipshod adulterer and murderer.

In verse three, we find mention in the lineup of “Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.” While a seemingly innocuous listing, a few minutes of Old Testament reconnaissance will reveal that Tamar disguised herself as a temple prostitute and was impregnated by her father-in-law Judah with twins Perez and Zerah. We are talking some terribly twisted and bizarre people with whom the Savior of the world chose to share bloodlines.

Uzziah, whose name I found so amusing in childhood, started out all right but, on a serious power trip in 1 Chronicles 26, recklessly appropriated the office of the High Priest, burst into the sanctuary, and burned incense himself.

Ahaz, another of Jesus’ great-great-great-granddaddies, was a wicked king of Judah (check out 2 Kings 16) who brought about his own kingdom’s ultimate subjection to the Assyrians by choosing to ignore the warnings of the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah. He died a tragic death at thirty-give, and Scripture tells us he was such a wretch that he wasn’t even permitted burial in the sepulcher of the kings.

Baffled, it suddenly dawned on me by the middle of the Christmas Eve Gospel reading, with my kid sister beside me snickering over "Jehoshaphat" and "Uzziah", that a disproportionate number of the ancestors of Jesus Christ were heathens, prostitutes, murderers, foolish rulers, and worldly failures.

To me, this revelation means two things this Christmas season that I wanted to share with you.

First, that we have a God Who is so gloriously nondiscriminatory about His offer of salvation that He rolled up His sleeves and entered into grubby, dirty human history to die a grubby, dirty death on grubby, dirty Calvary Hill for the sake of a bunch of grubby, dirty bipeds who really, at the end of the day, didn’t deserve such an awesome outpouring of divine humility; that He has called to Himself not only the pious and unsullied and innocent of the world but also the St. Peters, the St. Thomases, the Mary Magdalenes, the St. Augustines, the Tamars and the Rahabs, and used all of them, whatever their walk of life, whatever their failings, whatever the enormity of their past sins, to fulfill His plans and accomplish His purposes; that, fortunately for all of us, God wants to take us as we are, where we are, beaten and bruised and lazy and flawed and sinful and wallowing in the muck, and with the transformative workings of His grace, make something beautiful of us; that He has chosen the weak of this world to shame the wise, and that His power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Second, that sometimes God’s plans take a seemingly haphazard and roundabout path to reaching their culmination, and we often fail to recognize them because they don’t come to us in the packaging we expected. Yet if Jesus Christ Himself was descended from a bunch of hookers and hit-men, none of God’s more convoluted workings in our own daily lives should ever take us too much by surprise. I know in my own life, if it weren’t for some painful and unhappy detours which the past two years of my life took, providential happenstance would never have landed me in a random city six hundred miles south of home finding the most amazing job of all time. I am thus eternally grateful for some of life’s dodgiest curveballs sent in love by one who knew what I needed better than I knew myself, and for the incognito workings of grace that ultimately got me where I needed to be. “For we know all things work together for good, for those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

I guess, ultimately, this is all just to say thank you, each of you, for touching my life so markedly in the unique and individual ways you have over the past days and months and (some of you) years. I love you all.

Have a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!

The hardest job you'll ever love

2006-12-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

I got the role of Shelby in Steel Magnolias -- which means I have 260 lines to memorize in the next week. When I get back in January, I'm not only doing this show, I'm also directing Guys and Dolls at the high school, flying to D. C. to help chaperone the kids on the March for Life, going on a missions trip to the poorest area of West Virginia over spring break, teaching five classes, and possibly going to Honduras at the end of the semester.

On that note, how can I possibly sum up the last five months of my life in Georgia thus far? As you know, I've been an inconsistent blogger, at best. The only explanation I can offer is that in my declining years (all twenty-one of them), I've begun to shy away from some of the more flagrant forms of emotional exhibitionism of my salad days. I guess I've just become more aware of the fact that some things are sacred, even in the twenty-first century. I guess I'm changing, in some little, unforeseeable, nearly unnoticeable ways.

In the last week or so, I've written finals, graded finals, posted grades, shipped report cards, and have in some quasi-official capacity or another become at last entitled to the appellation "high school teacher". What have I learned thus far?

It's been busy. Insanely busy. I've barely had time to breathe. I've been, for all intents and purposes, Dougie Howser, Ph. D -- the youngest member of the faculty with the most to learn. I spent a good 50-70 hours a week at the school. I've had parent-teacher conferences. I played Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. I directed a Georgia State High School Association award-winning production of Midsummer Night's Dream, taught The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, and Huck Finn, explored Plymouth Rock with the Pilgrims, wandered in Walden Woods with Thoreau, and learned about the American Dream from Jefferson, Paine, and Patrick Henry. I rolled my eyes at my students' interpretive dances of rafting down the Mississippi and their expository essays about getting an XBox 360 for Christmas. I've stayed up till 4 a.m. chaperoning coed retreats and 2 a.m. making donkey ears for the fall play. I had a whole lot of fun and (hopefully) imparted at least a little bit of knowledge. I listened to woebegone sixteen-year-olds cry to me about their breakups, chaperoned high school dances, sang karaoke with my kids while setting lighting cues for a show, wept at their defeats and rejoiced in their triumphs. I've learned to field intricate moral conundrums like "Is getting drunk a mortal sin?" and "How far is too far?" like a pro. I've made some amazing friendships with my awesome colleagues who continually inspire me to strive for the highest and to continue to touch these kids' lives. I've watched my students buy shoes like mine, make "your mom" jokes because I do, read Gone With the Wind because it's my favorite book, and pick up my facial expressions, favorite vocabulary words, and mannerisms. I've laughed. I've cried. I've learned that whether I notice or not, they're watching and emulating my every move. I've taken some small part in causing starry-eyed faces to light up in amazement over a sudden glint of understanding of Gatsby's green light or Hester's scarlet A. I've had sixteen-year-old boys who would rather be playing Halo and sixteen-year-old girls who would rather be painting their nails stop by my classroom after their finals were already done with to discuss individualism, existentialism, moral theology, Dostoevsky, and their everyday lives -- just because they want to talk to me.

I started this semester praying to be delivered from the pangs of broken hearts and unrequited love, beseeching God, O Divine Master, grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. As a result, I've tried to instill charity in all that I've done, even when it's been at its most insane and hectic, to love, even when there is no return. I've failed, often. I've gotten stressed and cranky and unhappy and mean. But for all the craziness and the spasticness and the 15-hour workdays and the crying students and the irritable parents and the conferences and the red tape and the zany moments, there's a quiet joy underpinning the whole endeavor that I'm not sure, having once tasted, I could live without.

Sure, it has its wretched moments. But I love my colleagues. I love my superiors. I love my students. I love my job. Right now, this is my life, and right now, this is where God wants me to be, right smack-dab in the middle of podunk Fayette County, Georgia, doing what I'm doing. No, I'm not the person I ought to be yet, and I'm not claiming to be, but these kids make me realize anew every day how much I need to be better, for their sake -- but most of all, for my own.

Steel Magnolias

2006-12-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

Midsummer was over, Christmas break was coming, life was finally calming down...

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bloggernacle...

My Miracle Worker director -- who's friggin' awesome -- is directing Steel Magnolias this winter and I'm auditioning for him after work tonight. (I think he's having me read for the Julia Roberts role?)

I'm officially a glutton for punishment.

Help: Angsty and Stuck in a High School!

2006-10-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in my classroom. I've spent 25 of the last 36 hours here.

The whole school has strep throat and so do I, I've given out more detentions this week than I care to think about, I've been working my tail off because the one-act competition is next Saturday, parent-teacher conferences were all last night, I've been at school for going on twelve hours now today helping decorate for homecoming and showing other schools around our sound and lighting board alternately (and I have to stay at least till halftime at the game tonight because I'm announcing homecoming court)... I'm dead and exhausted and want to sit and cry and have someone hug me.

I had an awesome time last night hanging out with one of my coworkers, though. I desperately needed to get away from school and chill after all the P/T stuff, so we went and wandered around a local park and explored it (we fenced with sticks - I felt about five years old again), and then hit McDonalds. It was sweet.

I'm just so... tired. If you don't hear from me, or I owe you money or something, I'm really not avoiding you. Well, I am, but I'm avoiding everybody, so take solace in that.

Peace, love, and pixie dust. To my friends: I love you, but don't expect to hear from me till Christmas. :)

2006-10-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Walker Percy (great Catholic-literary-revival-novelist) is the man. I'm currently reading The Moviegoer. He's a singularly brilliant thinker. Concise, but brilliant nonetheless.

"We love those who know the worst of us and don't turn their faces away."

"You can get all A's and still flunk life."

'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam...

2006-09-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hurray! I'm going home tomorrow for a three-day weekend in Maryland and Virginia -- woot! In the words of Bon Jovi's unlikely country-music duet with Jennifer Nettles, "Who says you can't go home? There's only one place that calls you one of their own."

On that note, I have several friends who I think have literally dropped off the planet. It's really disturbing. All I can figure is that the rapture must've happened and I got left behind.

But, once I find that they are, in fact, alive, all will be well.

Life is good.

Exhaustion reigneth

2006-09-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

I love my job.

But I am so... tired...

Can... no longer... string... coherent... thoughts... together......

"Immortal Horrors or Everlasting Splendors"

2006-09-22T06:32:00.000-07:00

"It is curious—curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare." (Mark Twain)

I am slowly learning that genuine courage is generally not the stand-up-and-take-notice sort of thing that you find on the screen at the cinema or in the squalor of the battlefield; most of the time, it's simply learning the rather tame and unremarkable art of daily stripping yourself of your own swollen, insolent self-will. How many men, I wonder, throughout human history, could conquer civilizations -- but not their own bosom sins?

And how many of us must count ourselves in that number?

As time goes by, I'm beginning to recognize that within my story, the divine Pen is the narrator, but I am both protagonist and antagonist rolled into one. Tricky business, that.

And if I've come to know myself at all over the fourteen-and-half months that have elapsed since my house of cards collapsed, I know that I'm never content with mediocrity, that for me, the chaotic neutral, the passionate drama queen, it's either supreme sanctity or the sordid depths of sin. There is no via media. There is no turning back. The salvation or damnation of my immortal soul is utterly dependent on a million insignificant yet eternally significant choices I make each and every day. A being of infinite worth hangs in the balance.

The way is clear before me, but do I dare? How can I possibly aspire, with all my angst, with all my past errors, with all the powerful potential for wickedness that I know lurks just behind the deceptive brightness of my big brown eyes -- to be a saint?

But more importantly -- how can I afford to not be?

Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved Thee.

Great quote.

2006-09-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

"People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant progress is achieved." ~Annie Sullivan

Great Movie Review. Wish I had written it.

2006-09-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

My students are reading the SL right now, so I found this review entertaining.

The Scarlet Letter (1995)

Attempting to justify this film's gross departure from the novel, Demi Moore once said, "Hardly anyone's read the book." Never mind that this isn't true -- what kind of reason is that?
It would have been ok had the movie's new material been as interesting and compelling as what was cut out. But sheesh -- this isn't a movie, it's a soapbox. As I said in my At-A-Glance Film Reviews review, "The original novel was a biting statement about Puritanical society and the devastating effects of its unforgiving nature. This film, on the other hand, is a rallying cry for 1990s morals, feminism, and melodramatic acting. It's as eloquent and sophisticated as a rallying cry, too."

Let me expound upon myself for a moment. Would you believe that in the end of the movie, when Reverend Dimmesdale has been publically revealed as the father of Hester Prynne's illegitimate child, Prynne (Moore) and Dimmesdale (Gary Oldman) actually deliver, from the scaffold where one or both of them may be hanged, a liberating, supposedly moving 1990s speech about tolerance and feminism? All I can say is, they're about two hundred years ahead of their time, and how on earth did they come to adopt those ideas when clearly no one else around them had? And furthermore, whom do they expect to convince? You can't undo generations of cultural and religious teachings by saying "we should be allowed to do what we want" and expecting everyone to nod and slap their foreheads and wonder why they didn't think of it before.

The book is a compelling exploration of hypocrisy, that is, if one can wade through Hawthorne's flowery writing style. In the movie, layers of complexity are pealed off by removing Dimmesdale's hypocrisy. He doesn't believe he sinned, doesn't preach against it, and therefore becomes the two dimensional character of a free love champion.
Robert Duvall plays nasty old Roger Prynne, Hester's lost and estranged husband who returns and acts all mean. As Roger Ebert said in his review, "The movie's morality boils down to: why should this sourpuss stand between these two nice young people?"

With that pathetically silly moral question looming in the background, the filmmakers fill the foreground with action scenes and shameless sensuality. The act of adultery, which takes place before the book begins, is moved to the middle of the movie, and the end is clogged up with new elements such as witch hunts and indian fights. And what self-respecting adaptation of "The Scarlet Letter" would be without the obligatory happy ending, where Reverend Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne ride off into the sunset to forge a life of their own?

Here's my theory. The screenwriters were all sitting around a table on day one, sipping coffee and brainstorming for ideas. Nobody really likes any of the ideas that get thrown out, and it's beginning to look like they've got a long haul ahead of them. Then one pipes up, "You know,
Hawthorne would have been a lot better if his books read like Harlequin romances."

And the rest is history.

2006-09-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

UUUUUUUUUUGGGGHH!

"Another opening, another show"

2006-09-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

I love my creative writing class. The assignments are so fun, the kids are so great -- it just altogether rocks.

Oh. Yeah. And Opening Night of MW is tonight.

AAAAAAAAAAUGH!

Ingenuity reigneth

2006-08-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

I absolutely hate coffee.

But the soda machine wasn't working, and I was standing desperately in need of caffeine.

Thus, ergo, q.e.d., I have invented Sugarsludge (TM): one part coffee to eight parts granulated white sugar. Stir; enjoy.

Well, they say necessity is the mother of invention.

Stop and smell the pumpkin spice cookies

2006-08-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly learning that God often writes us love letters when we least expect them. I was stressed to the limit today, with my final dress rehearsal tonight (my lines being far more shaky than they ought to be), about thirty papers on The Red Badge of Courage left to grade by tomorrow, and functioning (as has been the norm for the last several years) on about two hours of sleep and two liters of Mountain Dew.

Then, along came one of my drama students into my study hall. "Miss S., I brought you a cookie!"

A yummy, delicious, homemade pumpkin spice cookie. Singularly delicious. I just finished it.

Yep. Unmistakably a love letter from the divine Pen. There's an old platitude that says something like "courage is just fear which has held on one moment longer"; as a corollary, I'm rapidly learning that joy is just angst which has taken a nap.

Pensees

2006-08-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

So, it's official.

I'm directing A Midsummer Night's Dream. Again. Performing in December. That'll make twice in 2006 alone. Oi vey.

I'm also utterly exhausted. The Miracle Worker opens on Friday night, and I've been at the theater every night for the past pretty much... forever.

Life is hectic.

Today (8/28) is the feast day of St. Augustine, which means Joe and I got engaged two years ago today. It's sort of a weird, trippy feeling. I've been missing him a lot lately, for the first time in a long time.

I'm beginning to realize how desperately I've been trying to supplant Joe in my life for the last thirteen-odd months, and moreover, how silly and futile that is. I opened one of my C. S. Lewis books yesterday at random and stumbled upon a passage about how we often refuse to take happiness on its own terms -- how, as human beings, we tend to stubbornly fixate on some point in the long-distant past, telling ourselves that that is happiness, and that anything which is not that cannot possibly make us happy. In this way, we self-destruct and sabotage the gifts God sends us which do not come in the packaging which we expected.

Two years ago, being engaged to Joe made me happy. Right now, this moment, in Atlanta, Georgia, that is not what God wants for me. That is not what He's trying to give me.

What is he trying to give me? That's the real question.

And more importantly, why am I not accepting it?

If the idle mind is the devil's playground...

2006-08-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

I must be approaching all sorts of new heights of sanctity.

Busy.

Busy Busy Busy.

Pray for me.

Some days, even your lucky rocketship underpants don't help.

2006-08-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

I needed to give the kids in my Theatre Production and Creative Writing classes syllabuses (err, syllabi) for tomorrow.

Which you'd think wouldn't be so hard.

Donna was dead to begin with. Dead as a doornail. She had been chaperoning a retreat at school, and high school girls being high school girls, they decided to stay up until 6 in the morning.

So, I got three hours of sleep. I'm running on empty. I need these syllabi for my first period class in the morning.

But my printer is in Virginia at my old roommate's house, and I don't have a jump drive.

So I thought, that's fine, I'll just do them at school while I'm there chaperoning the retreat.

Only our server is down, so I couldn't print them at school.

And I don't have the access code to the photocopier at school.

So then I think, it's okay, I'll go to Staples and Xerox them this afternoon.

So the retreat's over and done with, I go home. Can't find a Staples. Anywhere. Apparently Atlantans don't believe in them -- at least South Atlantans don't.

Then I think, fine. I'll go to Best Buy and buy a printer.

But Best Buy is all out of the two models I can afford.

Then I have to rush to play practice, an hour and fifteen minutes away. The theatre has a photocopying machine, so I ask my director, hey, can I use it? Why, sure, says my kindly neighborhood director.

But the photocopying machine is broken.

Finally, in despair, I crash a friend's parents' house down the street from my apartment at 10:15 p. m. after an exhausting rehearsal (the big fight scene between Annie and Helen - I'm covered in bruises) begging to use their printer ...

To which they kindly agreed.

But the black ink just ran out.

So I've had it. My drama kids can just deal with having green syllabi.

Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will, and in the worst possible way.

My new favorite quote

2006-08-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

"The fact that the world is a thousand times more scandalized when a Catholic does something wrong is only proof that the world expected so much more." (Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen)

A happy kind of exhaustion

2006-08-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'm really not ignoring all of you, I promise. :)

I don't have internet in my apartment, I wake up at 5:45, I drive to school, I teach, I sign out at 3:30, I drive home, I eat, I drive to play practice (1 hr 15 minutes away), I plan lessons, I crash on my air mattress in my non-furnished apartment at midnight, and then I start the whole thing over again. Tonight I'm helping with an event at school.

It's crazy, it's busy, it's scary, it's new, but it's awesome. I'm loving it so much.

Oh, and thanks for all the birthday wishes from everybody.

Except for John, who was two days late with his and has incurred my eternal and undying wrath, and all the rest of you who forgot. :-p

How well do you REALLY know Donna?

2006-08-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

Go to... http://seekinghisface.friendtest.com.

I'm...

2006-08-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

exhausted, that drained-good kind of exhausted.

But I love my job.

I love the other teachers.

I love my play.

I love my friends.

I love fresh starts at life. "To make a beginning is to make an end - the end is where you start from."

I'm so glad I'm here. Huzzah for life 'way down yonder on the Chattahoochee.'

Epiphanies

2006-08-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

To take a page out of Jen's book -- these are my discoveries of the day.

1) My boss is the most awesome one ever.

2) It is a feat of no small impressiveness to navigate Atlanta traffic in a pastel-colored dress while eating Taco Bell.

3) Sleep is my favorite thing ever. I will miss it sorely this year.

4) Loving people is much more important than charming them.

5) When all's said and done, in spite of everything, la vita e bella.

Just to remind myself...

2006-08-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." (Helen Keller)

My Show :)

2006-08-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

Meant to Live - Switchfoot

2006-08-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he's bid for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly, fly

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside
Somewhere we live inside
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we've been living with our eyes half open
Maybe we're bent and broken, broken

We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live
We were meant to live

Cat on a Waxed Floor

2006-07-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

What is faith? Really, what is it? I'm not sure I know anymore. Feel free to tell me if you know.

On that soaring epicky abstract note, I'm having to do all sorts of grownup things today, like talk to my boss, go get car insurance (which I'm procrastinating about, bleh), and drive through horrid Atlanta traffic at rush hour to honor my commitments and go to play practice in friggin' Acworth, which is at the other end of the universe. All with a persistent loud nagging in the back of my head... it's unpleasant. Loud, painful, and unpleasant.

I've been reading the Introduction to the Devout Life the past day or so, which strikes me as rather ironic as I've lived anything but a devout life of late, but I suppose that's where the "introduction" part comes in. Francis de Sales could be a total wack job by times (sorry to my shocked and appalled Christendom readers, but the man condemns the theatre, dancing, and playing cards as jeopardizing one's eternal salvation -- fuggedaboudit), but he's really on the money in other spots. His reflections about friendship, relationships, and the necessity of severing bad ones to maintain one's relationship with Christ made me break down and cry the other day (not that that's a terribly momentous statement, since everything makes me break down and cry these days).

I'm beginning to realize that while in some sense, deep down, I crave stability and security, it also terrifies me beyond all rational justification. I've noticed myself not wanting to get too emotionally attached to Atlanta for fear something will change and I'll have to pack up and go, and I've realized that this fear is acutely representative of my fear of relationships which has arisen since last summer. I'm always projecting commitmentophobia on the guys around me, but let's face it - I'm just as bad, if not worse, than any guy I know. Flirting is fun, but as soon as genuine interest is conveyed or any attempt at seriousness proffered, I find myself skittering away like a cat on a newly waxed floor. (Tell me that wasn't an impressively Southern analogy - I'm acclimating quite well to my new idiom. :) )

How long can one spend hiding under the bed from the thunderstorm, though, before you have to emerge and face your fears? I can't keep this up forever. Yet I hate people leaving, and I hate them hurting me, and I fear it more than anything else in the world. My solution, thus, for the last year, is to make every effort to drive them away in the first place, so I don't have to worry about any more loss, any more change. And the moment I do lower my defenses and let someone in, they too leave, and set me off once again in the old familiar tailspin. So I keep hiding.

Obviously, this isn't right. My old chum Lewis would have some choice words about it -- indeed, did:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

Ouch. Touché.

Give my regards to Broadway

2006-07-30T18:51:00.000-07:00

Theatre -- my anti-drug.

Tonight, I had Miracle Worker rehearsal. My director was completely frazzled and had been stuck in traffic and left his script at another rehearsal, so he asked me to write down all the blocking and do some menial busywork for him at the Xerox machine. Then we did a brief rehearsal, in which I rocked (do you doubt it?).

And it's just amazing how for that blissful hour and a half, I completely forgot how awfully everything in my life is screwed up right now. I even forgot that I'd been sobbing like a baby in a ball in my room not four hours earlier -- and I was functional, and coherent, and cheerful, and happy. Fulfilled, I think, would be the way Aristotle would've described it.

I wish I could be inside a theatre all the time. It's my safe haven, my sanctuary from the storm outside. It keeps me sane.

If only I never had to face reality.

Me and my baby sister

2006-07-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floor of silent seas

2006-07-29T06:06:00.000-07:00

I hurt.

So much.

Why can't I just drink of the rivers of the Lethe and stop regretting the loss of things that aren't meant to be? Wake up, kid, and quit chasing pipe dreams.

God, it sucks so bad.

How do you move on when you don't want to, when the last thing you want to do is forget, when your own feelings are the tangled web in which you are inextricably enmeshed?

Ha!

2006-07-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

And because it was too good not to repeat:

a friend: you are like shirley temple from hell
a friend: in the best possible way

Hellbound in a handbasket

2006-07-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

Ha.

I'm exploring Atlanta. The zoo today, a Braves game tomorrow.

I turned a corner driving home from play practice tonight north of the city, and the Atlanta skyline at night as I drove through the heart of the city on my way back south completely took my breath away. I think I'm in love. After all, Atlanta and I have a lot in common -- she, too, is young, fickle, whimsical, independent, adventurous. She suits me well, I think. To a T.

Wow.

2006-07-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

Wow. One of my former flames had the unprecedented gall to publicly slander me in a film diary on the internet. Wow.

Wow.

There really are no words.

Except, perhaps, "grow up."

"And Pooh said to Piglet , 'Life is so much friendlier with two.' "

2006-07-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

"It's the friends you can call up at four a. m.," Marlene Dietrich once said, "that matter."

Over the years, I've learned that this is an apt hallmark of a true friend. When the whole world is crashing down around your ears, and it seems like nothing in the universe will ever be all right again, friendship is the Godlike ability to put aside one's own self entirely for a time, all for the good of the loved one. True friends will wake up, disoriented, at your deliriously excited four a. m. phone call and drive ten hours to Georgia with you through the night so you can audition for your dream show, or to Canada so that you can escape your rapidly collapsing world, or to New York City on New Year's because you've always wanted to see Times Square. Conversely, they'll wake up for the weepy four a. m. phone calls, for the inevitable deaths and breakups and crises and toothaches of life.

They will put you on speakerphone during dinnertime as they burn a dozen hamburgers, get up at three o'clock in the morning and feed you chocolate and let you sob on their shoulder after an ugly breakup, take you on mad midnight Wendy's runs when they really ought to be studying metaphysics, and perform great feats of daring just to provide you with your requisite caffeine.

They will pick you up and drop you off from airports and listen to you laugh or weep after life-altering experiences, order you Chinese food and force-feed it to you when you're about to pass out from exhaustion, hunger, hard work, and hypoglycemia, attend your performances multiple times, and plan a cast party for you and pick up your pizzas at great personal inconvenience, and in spite of the fact that they had nothing to do with the show, when you're too frenetically upset to think.

They will let you sleep on their dorm room floor, simply because you can't stand being alone, for an entire semester despite the fact that you snore horribly, graciously allow you write your thesis in their room despite your unfortunate habit of haphazardly strewing Mountain Dew bottles and Twizzler wrappers everywhere, make you soup at midnight if you haven't eaten all day, and drag you to the chapel at moments when you least want to talk to God but most need to.

They will visit you in the hospital, hold you in the middle of the night when the world gets too hard to bear, roll their eyes at your tattoos and piercings, censure you for censurable behavior, and rejoice at your victories, small though they may be.

I have lost countless friends in the last year, but I have been blessed with some truly amazing ones. What price can you put on such a friendship? I've been a horrible human being for the last year, and yet for some inexplicable and deeply baffling reason, there are still people out there who love me, who will always love me, and who want desperately to see me be a good one. I can't quite get my mind around it, but I feel an overwhelming sense of humble gratitude and wonder when I think of the people who have blessed me by their reflection of Divine Love in the life of a girl too fearfully stubborn yet to directly approach the Eternal Love.

In the words of Walt Whitman, "I no doubt deserved my enemies -- but I don't believe I deserve my friends."

To all of these nothing-short-of-incredible people in my life:

I'd like to be the sort of friend you've always been to me
I'd like to be the kind of help you're always glad to be
I'd like to mean as much to you, each minute of the day
As you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way. (Edgar A. Guest)

Nostalgia

2006-07-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

I'd entirely forgotten what terminal wack jobs my friends are. I miss you guys so much.

Oi vey is mir!

2006-07-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have decided that in honor of all my neurotic weirdo ex-boyfriends, I'm going to rent Fatal Attraction tonight. This will make me grateful for small favors, like the fact that none of them have boiled any of my small pets lately.

EEEEEEEEEEEUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH!

To those of you who are not neurotic weirdos at all, and in particular those of you who are ex-boyfriends but not neurotic weirdos (all two of you), thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

The Donna goes down to Georgia on Monday for my first Miracle Worker rehearsal. Woot!

Ups and downs

2006-07-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

So, Theresa and I went down to Georgia (they should write a song about that... oh, they already have ;) ) and I auditioned, and more importantly, got the role. I'm going to be playing Annie Sullivan for the entire month of September at the Cobb Playhouse... you should all come see it. There are really no words to convey how happy I am about this, so I won't even try. :)

Jonathan and I went fishing on the Potomac tonight. I really needed to detox and watch the sun set... it was good. Really good.

In spite of the audition, I'm freaked out and agitated and upset at the moment and could really use a hug. Or a virtual one, anyway, for those of you who are far away.

Pray for me.

Obstacles

2006-07-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

I just realized I have got to audition for this show.

My slight problem is that I have barely enough money to get down there, and I really don't want to sleep at a truck stop.

This whole follow-your-dreams crap is harder than it sounds.

Gadzooks

2006-07-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

I was going to drive to Atlanta tomorrow to audition for The Miracle Worker, but I'm too damn tired from the bacholerette party I was just at. Whatever. There are more auditions on Monday if I change my mind.

It seems that everyone and their dog is getting married these days. With the sole exception of myself and one other girl friend, every single other one of my female friends (we're talking like, many, many girls here) are now either seriously dating, engaged, or married. My oldest Christendom friend got married last summer and is seven months preggers. One of my other best friends from school got married four weeks ago. My college roommmate, Trish, and one of my closest friends from high school, Joy, are both getting married next Saturday (at noon and 4 p.m. in West Virginia and Maryland, respectively). And at the former wedding, my dateless self is going to have to socially interact at a wedding with Joe and his girlfriend for the first time. I would seriously rather snort barbed wire or clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue than to show up at this thing without a date.

Uuuuuuuuurgh. In the words of Hamlet, "I say, there shall be no more marriages!" I seriously am having issues coping with all of this change and mayhem. How does one learn to go through life not wanting what other people have, and being content with one's own lot? Other girls get married; me, I move to Georgia. Hardly equitable accomplishmants.

So not fair.

I have now been single for three months. I think that might be a personal record.

A brief tribute to my favorite Canuck

2006-07-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

For some reason, every time I hear this (grossly overplayed) song on the radio, it makes me think of John. Maybe it's because he's the self-proclaimed safeguard of my sanity and ever-faithful companion on mad midnight Wendy's runs, or maybe it's because he's my friend with the greatest knack for making me laugh through tears, or maybe it's just because he gives me chocolate and a shoulder to cry on at three in the morning when my boyfriend's just broken up with me. In any event, John, if you're reading this, thanks, man. Thanks for turning my bad days around, and keeping my spirits up in the bleakness of the last year.

Bad Day

Daniel Powter

Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on
You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces every time
And I don't need no carryin' on

'Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Well, you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on

You had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I'm not wrong

So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

'Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You've seen what you like
And how does it feel for one more time
You had a bad day
You had a bad day
Had a bad day
Had a bad day
Had a bad day
Had a bad day
Had a bad day

On Second Thought

2006-07-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

I posted a truly brilliant, scathing post tonight, all resplendent in its caustic glory, complete with clever, biting acronyms and a delightful smattering of Italian profanity -- and then realized that by posting it, I was merely playing into the hands of the people who had elicited such a kneejerk angry response from me in the first place. And so, instead, I deleted it... but only with reluctance, as it really was incredibly brilliant (albeit uncharitable).

I leave you with these words of wisdom instead:

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." (C. S. Lewis)

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway." (Mother Teresa)

"The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything." (Theodore Roosevelt)

"Love is what you've been through with somebody." (James Thurber)

"When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God." (Charles L. Allen)

"We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials." (St. Teresa of Avila)

"Those who have never rebelled against God or at some point in their lives shaken their fists in the face of heaven, have never encountered God at all." (Catherine Marshall)

"God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me, which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am; I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about. " (John Henry Cardinal Newman)

The old, human way

2006-07-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

Loving people and hating them at the same time sucks. There are only a few people in my life I feel that way about. Two, to be precise. One of them I saw tonight, the one who threw my life for such a loop a year ago -- but it's the other one, the one who means more to me than anything, that I can't get out of my head.

This is tearing me apart. Sometimes I feel like I can't physically stand it anymore. I'm sitting here, crying my eyes out over a twitching computer screen, meaninglessly, fruitlessly, aimlessly. You can't make people love you. I know it. I know it. Why can't I accept it?

"God loves Karel - even more than you do - and if you ask him, he will give you his love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy . . . Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, God will show us the more perfect way." (Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place)

Why can't I just love people and not care whether they love me in return? Isn't that the more perfect way? O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

But it hurts. Oh, Daddy, it hurts.

2006-07-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Breathe in, breathe out, God is in control.

My "enter" key on this keyboard is actually working tonight -- a rarity -- so that makes me happy. My kid sister and I also ate Reese's mini-cups, Sour Patch kids, and cookies'-and-cream Haagen-Dazs until we put ourselves into a sugar coma tonight while watching the 1997 animated version of Anastasia. I also kicked her tail at Scrabble, although she did garner an impressive 147 points for vinclafnowabong, a word she invented all by herself, on two triple word-scores (I think she was perhaps retaliating for my picking out the tiles I wanted from the bag on my turn).

My 'date' tonight got cancelled due to a wedding today he'd forgotten about. Suckiness. Oh, well, life goes on.

"Romance is dead - it was acquired a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece." --The Simpsons

Whatever.

2006-07-07T23:21:00.000-07:00

You know what. I've had it. I trust no one anymore. Even the people I've trusted the most and told the most to about myself, the people whom I've literally bent over backwards for trying to be a good friend over the years, are all either (a) talking crap about me behind my back or (b) manipulating or conning me in some way to sow seeds of chaos and provoke social unrest and excitement, or (c) (if they're male) pretending to be interested in me when they're not for some ulterior motive -- the schmucky ones because they're trying to make a move on me and the ostensibly 'nice' ones because they're busy trying to save me from myself. Either way, being used by your "friends" sucks, and I've had enough. I'm done. I'm taking a good hard long look at all my friendships, and seeing if I actually have any anymore that are worthy of the name, because I'm not sure I do.

Vanilla People

2006-07-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Theresa and I decided that there are two kinds of people in the world: chocolate people and vanilla people. Chocolate people are the slightly crazy, the adventurous, the theatrical, the entertaining, the social butterflies. Vanilla people are the sort of bland background sorts of people, the kind of people that if we were all in some sort of vast cosmic school musical, they'd be the chorus. Admittedly, vanilla people are at times necessary, as they are the glue that holds the rest of civilization together, but they're not the sort of people you want around on a Friday night. They don't have hot-sauce-eating-contests or play Spin the Bottle or take random trips to New York City or Toronto on a whim or dance in the rain. I tend to surround myself with chocolate people, and have very little patience for vanilla people. Unfortunately, every chocolate guy I know seems to have a propensity for dating vanilla girls, which is growing rapidly irritating. I don't quite understand the phenomenon.

On a different note, I've decided to sell my wedding dress. I need money, and it's time to move on and stop clinging to my last vestiges of ... well, the Boy.

Life is good, I guess. Up again and take another.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know..

2006-07-06T00:23:00.000-07:00

You are a SOMETIMES EX. You're sometimes an ex, and sometimes you two are back together. And while your ex may seem like old news right now...You've got to wonder why you keep getting sucked back in

What Type of Ex Are You?

You are a SUPER FLIRT. You love to flirt, so much so that it gets you in trouble. In almost any situation, you find yourself flirting - even when it's inappropriate. You tend to embrace all flirting styles too.. from coy to sexy to playful to serious. And if someone flirts back, you'll crank it up even more!

What Kind of Flirt Are You?

People envy your CONFIDENCE. You have the attitude and self esteem to take on anything. Failure is beyond not an option for you - it doesn't even cross your mind. People envy your ability to take on any challenge ... and they're secretly afraid you think you're better than them. You don't. You're just sure of yourself.

What Do People Envy About You?

Your Extroversion Profile:

Activity Level: Very High

Assertiveness: Very High

Friendliness: Very High

Cheerfulness: High

Excitement Seeking: High

Sociability: High

How Extroverted Are You?

You are 72% Sociopath. The good news is that you're devastatingly charming. The bad news? You mostly use those charms for evil!

Are You A Sociopath?

You will die at age 55. Not bad, considering your super wild lifestyle. Want to live longer? Try losing a few bad habits.

What Age Will You Die?

You are almost ready to date again. You're over him... well, mostly. Truth be told, you still think of your ex on occasion. Enough to affect any new relationship you may start. Give yourself time and space - you are 90% there. And don't swear off men, just make sure to play the field.

Are You Ready To Date Again?

You are not a player, but you dabble in the game. Sometimes a girl just wants to have fun- and when it's fun you're after, you get it.But when you want a relationship, you seem to score that as well. What you want changes from day to day? and from guy to guy. Luckily, you've got the skills to get whatever you want - and pass the leftovers on to your friends.

Are You a Player?

You are 80% Flirt

How Much of a Flirt Are You?

You've got guys lined up around the block. While your little black book isn't as thick as Paris Hilton's... You get the most dates of any girl you know. It's your whole five star package that attracts men -Your looks, your charm, and your ability tie a cherry with your tongue.

Are You Attractive?

The movie kiss that best represents you is in The Empire Strikes Back. "Captain, being held by you isn't quite enough to get me excited."

What Famous Movie Kiss Are You?

You are a Relationship Ruiner. You've got a killer instinct, for killing relationships. Your total fear of intimacy points to you being let down before. In any case, relax a little and be nicer to your love. That's all it takes.

Do You Ruin Relationships?

Sleep is highly overrated

2006-07-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sane people do not watch Gilmore Girls at 3 a.m.

I have never been a sane person, so that is precisely what I am doing at the moment.

I beat Jonathan at Scrabble again tonight, 293 to 275, thanks to a well-placed "COVEN" on a triple-word score followed by "AX" on a triple-letter score, garnering me 63 points collectively and bringing me up from 30 points behind to 30 points ahead in five minutes. The final blow to his ego was my clever use in the eleventh hour of "mu" and "nu", letters of the Greek alphabet...

I so rock.

Why do I never sleep?

Sigh

2006-07-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm bored. Someone take me on a date this weekend.

One Year Later...

2006-07-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

I rolled over this morning, propped open my cell phone, and realized -- it's July 2nd, 2006.

My best friend walked out of my life forever a year ago today.

I feel oddly vacant inside when I think about it. It doesn't hurt, or grate, or gnaw; I'm utterly devoid of any of the emotions I would anticipate such an "anniversary" producing inside of me. I'd half expected today to be excruciatingly painful, but I guess it's like Lewis writes in A Grief Observed -- the old haunts and the significant moments are no more painful after a severe loss than the ordinary ones -- when you've been denied all salt for long enough, you're not likely to notice its absence particularly more on some foods than others.

What cheezy life lessons can I honestly say I've learned in the last year?

1) You can't force anyone to love you. Some people are just not going to. And it's not because of anything you did wrong, or because you're somehow intrinsically unlovable. It's just life. If it's meant to be, he won't have to be coerced into staying.

2) Rebound relationships don't hasten the healing process; they merely prolong it.

3) No matter what, this, too, shall pass. The edge of even the most mind-numbing, heart-wrenching of suffering dulls with time, and eventually goes away. Mankind will never believe this while actually undergoing it, but it's nonetheless true.

4) Cherish the moment -- the best days are the first to fly. Love people with everything you've got, because today might be the last day you ever get to spend with them. Make those phone calls you've been avoiding. Hang out with the friends you've been putting off seeing. Forgive the people you're still pissed off with. Be honest about your feelings toward those you love, even if it's scary. Accepting one's own vulnerability is a prerequisite for achieving maturity.

5) Life is too short to brood over what might have been. In the words of Fr. Considine in Confidence in God, "My life is as it is -- in that I am to find the material for serving God."

6) God only denies us that which wasn't for our spiritual betterment to begin with. He really does know what He's about better than we do, and a priori, that means His decisions don't make sense to us. But once you have "faith-walked-it" far enough away from the pain that you can look back and see clearly, you'll inevitably see the finger of God at work. We all ought to hit our knees daily for the gift of unanswered prayers.

7) There really are more fish in the sea.

8) It's an unfortunate but unavoidable fact of life that sooner or later, death or absence will separate you from everyone you love in this world. The only person who's got an eternal claim on your heart is the One who made it in the first place. As Augustine puts it, he alone never loses one he loves who loves all in God.

9) Quit blaming yourself and/or others for things that go wrong. Sometimes it's your fault, sometimes it's someone else's, sometimes it's nobody's. The score evens out eventually. We all make mistakes, shit happens, we all hurt each other, and as soon as we all recognize it and stop pointing fingers, we'll be a whole lot happier in the vast configuration of things. Just let it go. Forgiveness is the key to wholeness.

10) "Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens." (J. R. R. Tolkien) Life has its dark moments -- dark years, for some of us -- but the people who really love you will stick around in spite of your best efforts to drive them away. And the ones who don't were never worth it in the first place.

11) Never dial an ex's phone number while (a) imbibing alcohol, caffeine, or sugar, b) on a road trip with crazy friends, or (c) insomniacking after two a.m. Any combination of the above could be especially lethal. It may seem satisfying at first blush, but sounding like an idiot does not settle any old scores; it's just sounding like an idiot.

12) When in doubt, flee the country. Canada is your sanctuary. Embrace it.

13) Don't play fast and loose with other people's hearts -- and don't tolerate people playing fast and loose with yours.

14) Dating is highly overrated. Singleness provides all sorts of exciting opportunities for independence that you will never have again. Take the plunge.

15) Don't buy that funny T-shirt that says "I'm not with stupid anymore. We broke up." You will only look horribly bitter and piss off your ex, and you'll probably never wear it anyway.

16) Platitudinously but truly, never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you. See #2 -- Rebounds = bad.

17) Even when you plumb the depths of sorrow, life is inestimably worth living. Don't ever lose sight of that.

18) Attaching the main title theme from Alfred Hitchock's Psycho to your ex's phone number in your cell is a cheap, safe, and socially acceptable form of catharsis.

19) Every ending is merely a commencement, the dawning of a new and brighter adventure. "To make an end is to make a beginning," writes T. S. Eliot. "The end is where you start from."

20) "It seemed like a good idea at the time" is fully going on my headstone.

Oh -- and men suck.

Actually, I didn't learn that one this year -- I already knew that. :)

Hopeless extortion

2006-06-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

The past forty-eight hours, I have been indulging in a form of low-level extortionism. Don't worry, it's perfectly legal. It's called "sending out graduation announcements".

Since graduating from college is one of life's few excuses for blatant out-and-out begging, I proceeded to dig out the big fat grey address book and sent an announcement to everyone over the age of 20 in it who I was pretty sure was not dead and whose name I vaguely recognized -- and even some I wasn't sure if they were dead or not and didn't recognize their names. I even got bored and sent one to Tom Monaghan, c/o Ave Maria University. I figure if anyone really ought to send me money, it's the world's foremost Catholic millionaire. I mean really, what's more important in the grand scheme of things -- founding a freaky little Catholic-commune town in Florida, a la The Village, or keeping me in shoes? I ask you.

I'm sending one to Ted Turner next.

Material Girl

2006-06-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Forty-three pairs of shoes and seventy-two pairs of socks. Does anyone, anywhere really need forty-three pairs of shoes and seventy-two pairs of socks? Whatever possessed me in any lifetime to accumulate forty-three pairs of shoes and seventy-two pairs of socks? (In point of fact, I'm actually missing nine pairs of socks since my last official count, which was over six months ago -- I think the dryer gnomes are at work again)

I am fully going to need a U-Haul -- or three -- when I move to Atlanta. Otherwise I'll have to resort to becoming some sort of poseur Franciscan and run around barefoot in a shapeless brown sack, carting all my material possessions around on my back.

Unfortunately, Christendom guys would probably think that was hot.

Oh, and my first credit card payment ever is due on the one-year anniversary of Joe's and my breakup (that is, July 2nd, 2006). No one will convince me that this is not the work of a vast left-wing conspiracy. I mean, seriously. We all know that in the vast configuration of things, I'd much rather lose another few fiances than part with $96 to the Old Navy Corporation when I could be buying a forty-fourth pair of shoes.

For, in the words of the Philosopher, men may come and go, but gold wedge sandals ($9.99 on clearance at the Gap) are forever.

All right, so Aristotle never actually said it, but he would have if he'd thought of it first, dammit.

Clarity and Catharsis

2006-06-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Of late, I've been praying a lot for two things. One is clarity, that I may see my own flaws and failings, gifts and talents, problems and trouble areas, feelings and emotions, as they truly are -- to see myself without blinders on, without my dragon scales, not to put too Voyage-of-the-Dawn-Treader of a point on it. Character, platitudinously but truly, is who you are in the dark when there's nobody there but you and God. And I've been working hard to uncover, for better or worse, my true character, my true nature, my true Self. It's quite an adventure. You discover the damnedest things. I keep dredging up character flaws that I hadn't noticed, and feelings I hadn't admitted to -- and I'm slowly working through them. "Human kind," Eliot says, I think in The Cocktail Party, "cannot bear very much reality." That's why I'm exposing myself to it slowly. :)

I've also been praying for catharsis. I'm not called the trouble-child for nothing -- I'm a creature of many and varied emotions, and I have an unfortunate tendency to act on them without pruning them first. Hence the prayer for catharsis -- the purgation of emotion that Aristotle talks about in the Poetics. I've been praying that I may learn to control my emotions, in order that I might be spared some of the major heartache they often cause me. I'm angry with too many people -- I hate too many people -- and as a rule, I'm attracted to guys that I shouldn't be. All of these feelings, when entertained, generally end up tearing me apart, and so I've hit my knees again and again the past week or so trying to learn how to temper my passions with reason. It'll be an interesting journey.

Life is not bad. I went over to an old friend from high school's house on Saturday night, and he and I had the Scrabble Match to End All Scrabble Matches, which went till 2 a.m. and from which I emerged victorious -- 278 to 276. It was a sweet victory, and very nearly compensated for that composition paper he beat me by two points on in the tenth grade . . . nearly. :)

Sunday night I made my dad watch The Omen, which I finally bought (the original kicks tail). Then I couldn't sleep for a good nine million hours, and in the morning I got up and made cheesecake, a more exciting venture than you'd think. Monday I took my kid sister out to lunch, and then went over to Dane's and subjected him and Dittert to season 7 of Friends . . . which was vastly raunchier than I had remembered . . . oops . . .

Tonight T. and I watched NewsRadio and went shopping with money I don't have (hurrah for my Old Navy credit card) . . . and I bought a new shirt for the . . . (drumroll please)

TIM MCGRAW AND FAITH HILL CONCERT THAT MY WONDERFUL, AMAZING, AWESOME GODHUSBAND IS TAKING ME TO ON THURSDAY NIGHT!

In any event, it's been uber-rainy here in Maryland -- flood warnings and all -- and I've spent the better part of the last two days stuck in traffic in the rain (why do all my stupid friends have to live in Virginia?) . . . which is an interminable drain on one's mood, but as with all things, soon the sun will be shining. I battle periodic bummed-out-ness and grrowks, but overall? La vita e bella, God's in His heaven, all's right with the world. AND I GET TO SEE TIM AND FAITH IN CONCERT THIS WEEK! I LOVE YOU, DAVID!!!

I Have a Dream

2006-06-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

So I went to see Click with my best friend and some other friends last night, and then out to dinner at Chili's. Included in the group was a guy whom I haven't seen in a year or so. All went well, we all had a good time and whatnot.

Then, climbing into the car to go home, my best friend says to me -- "You'll never guess what [N.] said about you when you got up to go to the bathroom. You'd have kicked his ass. I almost kicked it for you."

Knowing [N.] to be pretty much an intolerable jerkwad with no respect for women whatsoever, I asked, "What?", fully expecting it to be some off-color double entendre about my having asked the cute waiter for extra whipped cream, or perhaps a snide remark about how I then proceeded to eat my tortilla chips with whipped cream. But instead, they were those five unforgivable words which every woman from puberty till natural death dreads hearing: "God, she's put on weight."

I blinked in astonishment. It was just so utterly ludicrous. I mean, I suppose it's true, in a technical sense. Three pounds. I just got on the scale, and I do, in point of fact, weigh a lousy three pounds more than I ordinarily do. Pardon my French, but WTF? This is the same guy who rails about how unattractive Hollywood waifs are and drools over curvy cuties like Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johannson -- and he has the unbelievable gall to call me overweight as I sit there in my size-six jeans. Talk about your double standards.

It's been fourteen hours now, and I'm still seething with anger. I'm desperately trying to get my health back on track, and prats like that are really not helping me. And so, I've had it. I'm through worrying about turds like that. I'm a pretty girl, and if [N.] and his ilk are too brainless and/or retarded to recognize that -- whether I'm three pounds up the scale or three pounds down -- that's their loss. I don't need some guy ogling me to validate myself, and I certainly don't need to have a protruding ribcage to be beautiful. I'm not built to be tiny -- I come from good, robust English-colonist and German-peasant stock. I'll never be a waif, and guys can deal with it. I'm not going to put my body through hell and back again anymore for the sake of attention from jackasses who I'm better off without.

I have a dream that someday my little girls will live in a world where they will not be judged by the size of their waistline but by the content of their character...

"This is Your Life" -- Switchfoot

2006-06-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you’ve broken
Don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes
This is your life and today is all you’ve got now
Yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger, and you had everything to lose?

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger, and you had everything to lose?

Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger, and you had everything to lose?
And you had everything to lose . . .

"We are half-hearted creatures"

2006-06-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

"We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." (C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)

As most of you already know, I have a real Thing for Lewis. I'd have married him, if it weren't for that whole dying-twenty-two-years-before-I-was-born deal, which did put somewhat of a damper on our relationship. In any event, I think he's one of the finer thinkers of the twentieth century and the finest prose stylist of the last century (with all due respect to Chesterton, who runs a close second in my book). Ergo, Q.E.D, tonight I'm rereading bits of The Weight of Glory for my haphazard-ADHD-dosage-of-nighttime-spiritual-reading, the latest Grandiose Plan for Self-Improvement (I apologize for the Random Capitalization -- who do I think I am, A. A. Milne?) which I'm currently attempting to implement. Still, realizing that man cannot live on Lewis alone, I've also been moonlighting reading Corrie ten Boom's He Cares for You -- a Christmas present from Liz several years ago -- and Fulton Sheen's Peace of Soul.

Sheen is really something else again. In Peace of Soul, he's got a chapter on the psychology of conversion which is really riveting. In it, he articulates something which I've been trying to comprehend for the last several weeks -- that in the end, you can't wait for some random external emotional impetus to push you over the brink of conversion -- that when it comes to doing a 180-degree turn and getting your life back on track, the spiritual life more closely resembles the Nike slogan: Just Do It. In fact, I'll let the man speak for himself: "True conversion has nothing to do with emotional 'uplift' or with a moral veneer of social action; it is a hard game, an arduous battle, a travail of soul from which emerges a new dedication of self. The Christ mind must become the soul of our thinking, the Christ vision the eyes of our seeing, the Christ truth be in our mouths for speaking, and the Christ love in our hearts for loving."

In light of this, I've been struggling to eradicate some of the Egregiously Bad Habits which have both subtly and not-so-subtly infiltrated my life, and replace them with Good Ones, in spite of having no emotionally-charged inclination to do so. My sanguine soul being especially prone to sins of the flesh (read: gluttony, avarice, and lust), I'm rapidly learning that avoiding temptation is rarely a powerful spiritual experience of cinematic widescreen-Technicolor quality, but typically an altogether rather humdrum, prosaic, unimpressive affair which involves gritting one's teeth and getting through it. Most temptations, I've discovered, can be cured or at least reduced remarkably by dropping and doing fifty stomach crunches. I mean, really, who has time for shopping, binge eating, or kissing boys with a throbbing ribcage? (I think St. Benedict might have been onto something with that whole hurling-oneself-naked-into-thorny-bushes deal, but I'm not quite that pious yet. Still, let's just say I've been working out a lot.)

I've dusted off my Rosary the past few days, gradually working the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet back into my daily regime for the first time in years. Today I was meditating on the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, and it suddenly struck me that there's a really vivid metaphor for the spiritual life going down there -- namely, that even in those moments when Christ seems the most absent, the most distant, in our lives, in those lonely moments when our Faith seems the most vapid and arid, He is really ever close at hand, about His Father's business. We too "find the Child Jesus in the temple" when we realize that He is never truly lost to us and that someday, we shall see the finger of God even in those times when we were utterly lacking in concrete spiritual consolation. This is all very abstract and rambly; I apologize.

Been watching a lot of horror movies of late. Struck me today that perhaps man's fascination with the genre ultimately proceeds from his innate longing for what the Inklings might have called the Numinous -- the mysterious, the transtemporal, the Unknown God. We all thirst for the supernatural; somewhere deep inside, we all have an inborn sense that we were created for something beyond this present world. And whatever complaints one might have about horror flicks (and there are many legitimate ones I will grant you), one can hardly argue with the fact that they are all brutally honest about one premise, and that's that there are genuinely forces of good and evil at work in the cosmos, battling for the souls of man. Which, if treated properly, can point to Truth just like any other genre of cinema.

My soapbox I think is drawing to a close for the night. My only parting words of wisdom are -- don't lose heart in the battle for self-improvement. You will fall off the wagon more than a few times in the process, there will be moments when it all seems hopeless and you've screwed up yet again, but don't let that be a deterrent. Don't forget Mary Magdalene was a hooker, Paul persecuted Christians, and Peter denied the God of the Universe. We all have our shining moments of stupidity, but fortunately, we have a God who's so nondiscriminatory about His offer of salvation that he loved even screw-ups like them, so we've got no excuse at all for accepting failure and mediocrity as our status quo. "Why do we fall, sir?" one Dickens character rhetorically posits. "Why, so that we might better pick ourselves up."

Lest we forget.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor souls, who neither enjoy much or suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." (Theodore Roosevelt)

I've decided...

2006-06-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

I'm actually going to make a real, genuine attempt at self-betterment. I haven't done that for a long while. I suddenly found myself so enmeshed in sin that I've really got no other option -- finally got to the point where I was so fed up with myself for my heathen-ness and so tired of giving into various and sundry temptations that I realized -- being bad is easy. And it's boring. What's actually an adventure is being good. It's like in Chesterton's Manalive:

"No," said Gould, with an unusual and convincing gravity; "I do not believe that being perfectly good in all respects would make a man merry."
"Well," said Michael quietly, "will you tell me one thing? Which of us has ever tried it?"

And I Caught the Bouquet

2006-06-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

The wedding was beautiful. Of all dramatic irony, I caught Rach's bouquet. And Rachel and Peter are married at last. I've spent 37 hours of the last several days in the car. And Theresa and I are currently watching Friends.

I'm freaking exhausted. I'll be articulate and say interesting things later.

The Wedding Weekend

2006-06-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

After the ceremony, Dane decided it would be relaxing to soak his feet in a vat of Bud Light. I kid you not.

Joe, "chillin' like a villain" while not traipsing up and down aisles.

Hanging out, watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with Dane and Joe (yes... The Joe) in their hotel.

Rachel, getting ready at her house.

Rach and I at the house about three hours before the wedding. :)

Just moments before she walked down the aisle.

Me and Rachel about thirty seconds before the ceremony... isn't she the most beautiful bride?

There's no place like home

2006-06-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

I put money down on an apartment lease today... (application fee, &tc)... we'll see if I get approved.

I'm praying... hard.

I really desperately want this apartment. It's so beautiful.

Peripheral-ness

2006-06-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing I've never been able to stand, it's being peripheral.

Ask anyone who knows me well. My existence inspires strong emotions. People either love me or hate me at first sight -- I'm just too ubiquitous to be ignored entirely.

Of late, though, it's been to my real detriment that I've been attracted to several guys to whom I was peripheral in their life. Guys whom I just didn't "fit into" the scheme of things as they intended it. It's not their fault, it's not mine, it's just life. But why why why why why?

More whining later.

Meanwhile, the apartment hunt is on. Pray for me.

Carpe diem

2006-06-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may; Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.~Robert Herrick

All I have to say is I have a far too responsive and functional "carpe-diem" gene. I do stupid things -- a lot -- simply because I can and they seem new and exciting. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.

But at least I'm enjoying them?

Sigh... the problem is, people who say they're living their life with no regrets rarely are. Because such a life does not exist. We all feel rotten over dumb crap we've done. But all we can really do -- especially once it's forgiven -- is keep slogging along and make the best of a sorry job. I shall pass this way but once. And I'm admittedly having a damn good time. Most of the time.

Except when I reach even more gargantuan levels of stupidity (which I keep thinking is not possible!)

I'm a being in conflict...

It's not easy being this cute... :)

2006-06-04T12:13:00.001-07:00

If I Were You -- Collin Raye

2006-06-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

You want to know where we go from here
So many roads, but none that seem clear.
Is what we have enough to last a whole life through?
Who knows? . . . Who knows?

So you're asking me, "What do we do?"
'Cause time moves so fast,
And the chances seem so few.
Is it too much to think that we could have it all?
Who knows? . . . Who knows?

But if I were you, I'd promise to live life for all it's worth.
Take all that you've been given and leave your mark upon this earth.
Trust your heart to show you everything you'll ever need.
And if I were you, I'd fall in love with me.

So hold me close, I'll kiss away your tears.
I won't promise the moon, but I promise to be here.
And what if together it gets better every day?
Who knows? We may never know...

But if I were you I'd promise to live life for all it's worth.
Take all that you've been given and leave your mark upon this earth.
Trust your heart to show you everything you'll ever need.
And if I were you, I'd fall in love with me.

SWF ISO Tall Dark Handsome Man for Moonlit Guitar Serenades, Gross Overconsumption of Mountain Dew, and Long Walks on the Beach

2006-06-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

Last night, after some hours of crying in my bed like a girl, cuddling my Velveteen Rabbit and watching Bridget Jones 2 for the umpteenth time while eating cold leftover Popeye's, I texted a friend and before too long was complaining about unrequited love and having what might arguably deserve a spot in the annals of history as the whiniest conversation of all time.

"That's it. I'm becoming a nun," I said. "I'm joining the Sisters of Charity in their little convent outside Vatican City and..."

"You and I both know that's not the case," he informed me. "Talk about Sister What-a-Waste. You're intelligent, you're cute, you're fun, and as soon as you de-heathenify yourself, we'll find you a good guy."

Sigh. To quote the greatest movie musical of all time, I need a hero.

"Probably I shall be bad again"

2006-05-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

Today the boys are having four (count them... four) friends over after school for an all-afternoon water-gun-fight. Pray for me. :)

I went to see X:Men 3 last night with Dane . . . it was a pretty sweet flick. All I remembered about the first two was that I fell asleep on Joe's shoulder in both (I'm a total narcoleptic in movie theaters), so every thirty-seven seconds I was rudely asking questions about the plotline and continuity and such... but I had fun anyway. I can't speak for Dane.

We ended up sitting on the tarp-covered sofa outside the Academy and talking until one. There are only two people in the world who can literally read my mind, and it's really very convenient because I never have to tell them anything -- because they already know. So we sat out there for a while under the stars in the warm breeze, the kind that only a dusky summer evening in the Shenandoah Valley provides. There's nothing in the world quite so comforting as an old friend, who knows all about you and loves you anyway. "Friendship," as George Eliot put it, "is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words."

And so I stared up at the stars and thought out loud to him for a while about how deeply unhappy I am, about how lost and alone I feel, about how messed up my life is.

And he pointed out something -- that my abstract grandiose plans for self-improvement (always "someday" plans) are simply too broad and sweeping in their current formulation to actualize.

"Donna," he said, smiling. "You don't have to fix everything in your life all at once. Just change one thing at a time. Do one thing differently, and stick to it."

So that's what I'm doing today. For the next twenty-four hours, I'm eating healthily -- something I haven't done for nearly a year. Maybe it's small, maybe it's not the conquest of the darkness, but it's steeling me for bigger battles with myself to come.

"How can I tell what I shall do? You know the whole of me. You know I am not one for a life of mourning. I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from his mercy . . . One can only hope to see one step ahead. But I saw today there was one thing unforgivable . . . the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I am not quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's." (Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited)

"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself." (Francis de Sales)

Desperado

2006-05-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

Item: I got my tragus pierced. Unfortunately, I cannot spell tragus, and have resorted to referring to the locale of my cool new piercing as as that "sticky-out part of my ear" (which really doesn't clear things up all that much for anyone because, sadly, in my case, that's my entire ear)

I just put the boys on the bus, and have the house to myself.

I feel really oddly hollow this morning . . . detached. Something inside me is all spent . . . empty . . . gone. (You're losing all your highs and lows / Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?)

And there's just this engulfing wave of sadness that I haven't been able to shake for weeks. I know I need to snap out of it, but easier said than done.

It's funny. I was thinking yesterday that thematically, one of my all-time favorite motifs in love songs is that of the persistent guy following a girl all over the country to be with her - Collin Raye's Little Red Rodeo:

Oh, how fast can I go?
Gotta catch that little red Rodeo.
She drove off with my heart
I gotta let her know.
Need the girl in that little red Rodeo.

Or my current favorite, Jack Ingram's Wherever You Are:

Wherever you are
No matter how far
Girl, I'm gonna find my way to you
Through rivers of rain
Over mountains of pain
Do whatever on earth I've gotta do
I'll follow the dream
I'll follow my heart
Girl, I've gotta be
Wherever you are.

Mind you, I've never really had that sort of relationship. (I think Joe might have driven to Pennsylvania once to visit me.) As a rule, guys don't tend to drop everything to come find me and tell me they want to be with me. Which is fine. I don't expect them to. But regardless, I think there's something in my fascination with the image that speaks to the human condition. Everyone wants to be loved - to be wanted with the sort of urgent immediacy that comes from a man in love realizing what it is he wants for the first time - to be desperately, passionately sought after.

The day after commencement, Fr. Heisler gave an amazing homily in which he quoted (of all things) James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". He told us that Christ too, like the guy in the song, looks at us, beholds us, fathoms deep in love -- "sees our face in a crowded place", as it were -- and tells us . . . "you're beautiful." But he said that the tragedy of the song lies in the last line - "It's time to face the truth / I'll never be with you." It indicates how the world, while desiring a love like that: real, abiding, persistent, passionate . . . has despaired of finding it, because they have never experienced an encounter with the Divine Love.

Just the day before, the same priest told me that Christ is deeply in love with me -- that His eyes light up when He thinks of me. And I started crying. Because I understood, for one brief, fleeting moment. I remembered the way Joe's face would break into smiles when he'd been waiting at a crowded dance for a while and I finally walked into the Commons. The way so many boys over the years have looked when they told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world. Most of all, I thought of that look a boy gets in his eyes when he really, really wants to kiss you, when for one blissful moment the whole world stands still and you're the only two people in it. And I realized that all of these things are just a pale reflection of something so much more permanent, so much more substantial, so much more passionate and real. That the greatest love story the world has ever known was already written on Calvary Hill.

And then I get this achy feeling in my stomach that this longing, this damnable craving which I've been experiencing for years, but ever more and more urgently since Joe left - is for something deeper and more inexorable than any human love can ever provide - something which is only going to be fulfilled by one thing. I'm caught in a frenetic whirlwind of seeking after imitation Christs, but it's all leaving me so hurt, so alone, so empty. (These things that are pleasing you / Will hurt you somehow)

I'm still running from Him, but I can't run forever. Maybe guys don't chase me all over the map, but Christ has definitely followed me, calling me, to hell and back again this year. When will I wake up and listen? (You better let somebody love you before it's too late.)

I guess Augustine summed it up best in the Confessions over sixteen hundred years ago: For Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord.

Unfortunately, like Augustine, I find myself praying all too often these days, "Make me good . . . but not yet."

Snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails

2006-05-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

I love my new job. The boys are great -- they're teaching me how to play with Kinex (my engineering genes from my dad somehow failed to kick in properly, I'm afraid), I'm teaching them Miss Mary Mack, and we're all having our horizons expanded a little bit.

I've discovered a few things about the Male of the Species in the last 48 hours.

1) Head-butting and socks in the stomach are signs of affection in Boyspeak.

2) Any object within 30 meters will, inevitably, be turned into an assault weapon or projectile of some sort within fifteen seconds or so.

3) Boys always think they're right. Girls actually are.

4) Excrement is always funny. The same goes for vomiting, dismemberment, and gruesome deaths.

5) Boys have an uncanny ability to unearth an infinite number of permutations of puns on the last name "Shute".

Of doubts and doormats

2006-05-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. --Anais Nin

It's funny. I don't like to be honest with myself. People tend to think of me as an effusive, open person, and in some ways, I am. I mean -- I'm honest with them. Just not with myself.

To everyone else, I'm (as one friend put it) "really dumb for a smart girl" -- the kid who graduated with highest honors a year early last week and is perennially talking about deconstructionism, Dante, the decline of modern civilization, and debunking The Da Vinci Code -- but capable of getting into massive quantities of trouble. I'm the spoiled brat with the heart of gold, the effervescent center of attention with the smile that could melt steel. My energy is "exhausting", as Dane kindly put it recently, and as JJJ said the other day, I can be a "real b----" - but to know me is to love me anyway for some inexplicable reason. I'm quick to laughter but equally quick to tears, I make friends easily but I lose them easily too, I can debate apologetics with unsurpassable alacrity and yet more often than not live a life in violation of all that I stand for, I rail about modern culture's obsession with feminine perfection yet habitually subject my body to cruel and unspeakable torture because it doesn't look like Mischa Barton's. Go figure.

In me, choleric and sanguine fight for dominance, arrogance and low self-esteem peaceably coexist, and deep-seated narcissism is tempered by the self-loathing that lurks just beneath it.

And yet somewhere in between the big brown eyes and the asymmetrical smile, the liters of Mountain Dew and the drama-queen antics, boys fall in love, or at least very deep like, and I reel them in and then drive them away, because... hell, I'm so afraid. I've been afraid of people loving me ever since Joe went away. And sometimes it feels like it's better not to trust people at all than to trust them and have them walk out of your life and take your run-through-a-paper-shredder-beaten-to-a-bloody-pulp heart with them.

I'm used to having the world at my doorstep, boys wrapped around my little finger, guys who tell me what I want to hear. And I fill the vacancy within me with plenty of such quasi-romances. But the doormat guys who I seem to attract have never loved me for me -- they've just fallen in love with a construct of their imaginations, the superficial likability that is me, but as soon as the bad, shitty reality becomes apparent, they're gone. That makes the pulsating voice resound in my head, the one that tells me I don't really deserve to be loved anyway. And sometimes, I buy it. And I curl up into a ball and cry. In the end, I control the boys around me because I fear what they will do to me otherwise. Every once in a while, the facade cracks and I genuinely fall in love with somebody. But that scares me shitless more than the rest, for then I start feeling weighed in the balance and found wanting, and I'll end up doing anything in my power to prevent people from leaving. In the end, they all leave anyway. And I pretend I didn't want them there in the first place. It's a vicious cycle.

And it's so not what I want anymore. I'm too old to play such childish mind games with myself. I can't go through life fearing people because they might leave me -- because it keeps turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm through with controlling and manipulating and pleading. The next man in my life will have to actually be a man, will have to damn well prove to me that he's in it for the long haul whether I like it or not, that he wants me for who I am regardless of the stupid mistakes of my past and the flaws I have now. I want a guy who will say "Damn it, woman, I love you and I'm going to be with you and you can freaking well deal with it." I'm waiting for that elusive guy who stays because he wants to stay and not because I asked him to, the Great Non-Doormat who will wrap me in his arms without being wrapped around my little finger.

Someday. I figure it'll take a good decade and by then I'll be worthy of such a guy.

Our doubts are traitors / And make us lose the good we oft may win / By fearing to attempt. --William Shakespeare

Hell is oneself, the other figures in it merely projections

2006-05-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

If I could use one word to describe how I feel, it's tired.

My body is tired. My mind is tired. My soul is tired. I just want to relax in the gentle tide, ebbing and flowing, stationary and peaceful, to partake in the numbing waters of the Lethe, but alas, a la Jay Gatsby, these waters only ceaselessly bear me back into the past.

I'm sick of it. I'm spent. I'm in pain. and I'm just sick of being hurt. All I want is a future, a new future, bright and beautiful and clear. Behold, I make all things new. Even me?

I don't know how to forgive. And I don't know how to let go. I hate too many people. Too many people - especially guys - have hurt me too many times in ways too big for me to even begin to process in my current state of mind. I'm angry, unbearably angry. And yet I feel like God is trying to use me in some way, trying to offer me something, but I'm like a grubby child with a fistful of candy that's bad for me, refusing to give it up. I'd rather fester in my own little black pool bitterness than aspire to anything better. It's easier, anyway.

I'm battered, I'm broken, and I'm alone. How easy it is to embark on a philosophical foray into solipsism... there's just me. And if there's just me in this massive, unfriendly universe, what difference does anything make?

Why should I bother loving people? They never love me back.

Whatever. I don't give a crap anymore. I'm done loving people. There's no point.

Finals!

2006-05-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

Help, I'm about to fail all my finals!

Gah...

Must... graduate... eyes on the prize...

The best days are the first to fly

2006-05-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Optima dies prima fugit. The best days are the first to fly. It's from Virgil's Georgics -- it's also the epigraph to Willa Cather's My Antonia. It's one of those vaguely nostalgic, carpe diem, cherish the moment, ubi sunt? kinds of sentiments. I like it. It'd make a sweet tattoo. Hence, the title of my new - and improved - blog. :)

I've decided the whole artsy debauchery thing really is only attractive and appealing in a guy -- think F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, etc. It's one of those unfortunate but unavoidable double standards.

Anyway, I'm a girl, and I'm starting to realize I really don't pull off the whole materialistic hedonist thing well.