happy birthday

i'd like to introduce you to andous. he's one of my best friends.
he's the one who taught me about courage and hard work.
he's currently performing miracles in argentina and will probably not read this.
but, here's my birthday wish to you, dear andous.


i wish you many more miracles in south america. i wish you blueberry muffin mix and seinfeld episodes in abundance. i wish you a safe return home to your mom, who loves you so much.

can't wait to see you again.

i got this text from this lovely person this morning.
"what if i served in virginia? there'd be fireflies! :)"

four of my favorite things:

missions.
virginia.
fireflies.
and sadie.

maintenant.

i am so obsessed with this song right now.

current updates:

life is so okay. for whatever reason, as soon as the clock turned 12 on january 1st, i was ready to be rid of the things on my back that resided there for most of 2010 (let's just say it's time to give muslim back his book).

figure drawing = awesome. i will get better. i will be good. just being able to call myself an art major is enough.

saw condoleezza rice yesterday at the marriott center. cross that off the bucket list.

this guy (kc) comes home today. excellent. probably get to see him monday. double excellent.

we were so little. i was probably seventeen.
i'm not even sure how this picture was found.
everybody was just super cuddly that day
and everybody was all up in everybody else's business.

and maintenant: i'm going to take a nap. see ya, peeps.

des soucis

Tonight was oh-so-lovely.

There are times when I look at the lot I've been given in life and ask, "Why me?"
We all do. We're human. We consistently look for what's missing instead of seeing what we've got.
Boy, do I got a lot.

Let's start with the father always willing to help with my poor Stella (who had a mishap a few days ago) (and Stella's my car).

The mother I call from outside the auto repair shop, stranded, with my credit card declined, and she laughs at me (I soon join her).

Then the wonderful people I'm blessed to call friends. The missionaries. The roommates (past and present). And the girls (who I had the chance to be with tonight).

Even as I sat tonight, hearing Transatlanticism come on twice in the movie we were watching, I remembered the people who helped me out when things were down. Everybody mentioned above. And more. Then Your Song was playing on my stereo when I got in the car. That takes me back. And that makes me realize that no matter what happens, those people will be there for me. They're the rocks. The ones that will never fail. Come marshmallow guns and killer sprinklers, I will always have those people.

"It's not time to worry yet."
And even if it was, they'd all be there.

la Suisse

"It's not time to worry yet," Atticus reassured him.






It's not time to worry yet.
Metaphorically, I am Switzerland. (No, this is not a veiled reference to a terrible YA book that I won't even deign to mention on my blog.)

I have not gone one way or the other.
I am neutral.

(although it doesn't stop me from hoping.)

(P.S. A certain missionary comes home tomorrow.)

today:

i'm eating honey nut cheerios from my obama mug (see below) and thinking about a year ago from this week.

also thinking about 12 days from now.

and also thinking about how much the lord has blessed me with good, solid, wonderful people.

insomnia revisited

couldn't sleep.
i was experiencing one of those in-between sleeps, where you're mentally aware of everything, but you are sleeping. the fan in my room was abnormally loud tonight. then the second you decide to turn over, you wake up again. not pleasant.

i think it's because the sunburn on my neck is mildly unbearable. that and perhaps the nap i took yesterday. but even with naps, i can usually sleep well.

so here i am. on the couch that is easily more comfortable than my bed. i have ice in a pink sock on my neck, held there by a scarf that whit leigh gave me last wednesday. sort of contemplating life, i guess. which is a really long way to disclaim that anything that formulates from my typing fingers may or may not be logical at this early hour.

i'm kind of thinking about the missionary; whether or not i'll hear back from him, and whether or not it will be a positive response. either way, though, it doesn't really matter. i was justified in writing what i wrote to him last time well, two times ago now and i wouldn't take it back.

kind of thinking about muslim, too. his book is on my coffee table. a little more worse for the wear than when he let me borrow it. for whatever reason, he was in my mind a lot yesterday while i was at church. i let myself relive things that i haven't relived in almost exactly seven months.

what's particularly disheartening about thinking about these two individuals is that i really am content with my life right now. i don't feel like i need a man. i'm happy. i don't feel like i'm missing out on life right now by not being married or in a relationship like so many of my friends and acquaintances from high school. i mean, i'm twenty years old. i've got puh-lenty of time. i'm not even really interested in anybody right now, to tell you the honest truth. let's just say that the events that transpired seven months ago have left me a little more worse for the wear than muslim's book. we'll call it even.

yet here i am. thinking about the missionary. and muslim. although he's a little more in the back of my mind, but still there.

thinking about what's going to happen with my life not exactly with the missionary, just in general.

endlessly. thinking.

man. i just want to sleep.
alas, work is nearing in about 45 minutes.

today's mail

i opened my front door and looked around suspiciously. i probably looked like i was going to torch the place or something.

i started walking to the mailbox and almost got sick. not physically. emotionally.

see, supreme court and i new person! both had dreams last night about the missionary regarding the last letter i sent. i figured it was a sign.

she's kind of his cousin. and by kind of i mean she is.
she's also kind of one of my best friends.

so i walked over to the mailbox. opened it up with the key. and there, staring at me, was and ad for this.

"for a clean you will notice!"

.............

rather anti-climactic.

collage

my laptop is back in business!
my charger decided to take a permanent hiatus by sparking ferociously at me like an angry [electrical] animal and then just dying. in my hands.

and now the obviously cheap knock-off of a charger that i ordered on ebay is here! and i don't have to borrow my neighbor's charger. he's a saint. he's saved my life on more than one occasion.

here is a song that i'm mildly addicted to right now:

of course it's billy. you should not expect any less from me by now.

life is splendid.
i've been arting it up recently.
i arted it up today while watching titanic. [and maybe crying when they started playing nearer my god to thee]
it was good to be back.

also still waiting impatiently for a letter from le missionaire.
always. always always always have to bring him up.
and still praying.

always. always always always praying.

happiness

miracles so far for today:
emailing back and forth with this guy for ten minutes or so.
yes. he's wearing church clothes. in a hot tub.
today is a branticus day. one of those days where i really just needed to talk with a guy.
but! happy news!

hota hota is coming back in three months!
count 'em....THREE!
then they'll just come back quick. i hope.

list of what is wrong

there was a time when this song was my anthem. not because every lyric seemed to be a page from my life, but because i loved the song. the fray is one of my many weak spots.

now this line keeps running through my head and seems especially poignant to me right now.

i pray to god he hears you. and i pray to god he hears you.

man, how i pray that he hears me. i've been praying with all my heart since the moment that letter left my hands at the post office.

eff. oh. ex.

i'm calling it a night with this.

[caramel cone ice cream.

the best ice cream.
introduced to me five years ago
when the missionary broke my heart
the first time.]

and with this.

[meg and tom.
as kathleen and joe.
i do love that his name's joe.
and that they're writing
to each other.]

and i'm enjoying this song.

"sometimes i wonder about my life.
i lead a small life. well, valuable, but small.
and sometimes i wonder, do i do it because i like it,
or because i haven't been brave?
so much of what i see reminds me of something
i read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?
i don't really want an answer.
i just want to send this cosmic question
out into the void.

so goodnight,
dear void."

victory

whether it was the fact that it was raining last night,
or the music i was listening to, thanks to dad. and thanks to nirvana.
or my drive while thinking about the missionary and how i'm mildly upset with him right now,
or a combination of all of that.
i had the best run of my life last night.
four miles. although i did take a detour at my grandma's for twenty minutes, it was still four miles.

awesome.
and i did it again today.

eat that, men.


photo via we heart it.

at least i know i'm alive

it's been a heck-of-a day. as you can see, my watered down swears are back to normal.

my floor and i have a very good relationship now. except maybe i scrubbed it a little too hard. sorry floor.

i ate three pancakes and had ice cream.

i took a three hour nap on my buzz lightyear pillow with my phone on silent.

slow down you crazy child
and take the phone off the hook
and disappear for a while.

i cried. a lot.
i swore off men.
then i stopped crying
and just swore.

well, did i ask too much?
more than a lot?
you gave me nothing
now it's all i got.

meanwhile, the email i got festers in my inbox.
a thorn that i don't understand.
but that he doesn't either.

there's so many words that we can say
spoken upon long-distance melody

vin-di-cate [vin-di-keyt]: (v.) absolved. freed from any question of guilt. justified.

some'll win. some will lose.

there was a time, five years ago today, that i was sitting in branticus's dad's office with sexy sadie and french frei. we were folding pamphlets. i decided to like the missionary.

we even saw him that night. after a dairy queen run (more like a walk, since we didn't drive at the time) we saw him with his two good friends. they hung out with us that night in french frei's basement.

fast forward a year. exactly.
i hate being in a swimsuit. as much as i love vulnerability, i don't love that kind of vulnerability. where you feel literally naked instead of emotionally naked. unfortunately, branticus surprised me by having me come swimming with him only to meet the missionary there instead. i hadn't seen the missionary in almost a year.

fast forward three years from that. exactly.
i got a letter from switzerland.

fast forward five years from 2005. exactly.
mr. calvin informed my mother as to why he sat the missionary and i together in that art class. so they could learn from each other because they were both the best in the class! boy. we learned. glee did a journey medley. journey is basically our theme music. and i rocked out to don't stop believing in my car.

it was also five years [exactly] from 2005 that i realized i really do care.

oh missionary.
june 8th wouldn't be the same without you.

reminiscing

i was reading in my journals from years ago over the weekend. i found this gem.

[june 22nd, 2005]

"well, if i could tell the missionary stuff, i'd tell him, 'missionary, i like you more than any guy i've liked for a long time.'"
let's remember that he wasn't a missionary back then. but to protect his identity (and my pride) that is, in all reality, his name. and let's also remember i was fifteen. my writing skills? non-existent.

and then this one.

[june 28th, 2006]
"i need to have a real heart to heart with the missionary. i know things need to be brought up in the open and said on my part or i am going to go CRAZY!"

then:

[january 25th, 2009]
"i called him to see if he wanted to talk, but it ended up snowing like crazy and he had family come in, so i couldn't."

and now.
it was sad to read all of that, knowing that i'd have to wait a year, two, even five years until i got my moment. until i got the moment to say exactly what i wanted to say to the misionary.

but that moment would indeed come. did come.
and now i'm waiting to know his end of the conversation.

tick tock. tick tock.

laughing thoughts

can we please just bask in the irony that is the missionary? (i'd go into detail, but for the sake of my own privacy...i won't. those of you who know me well will understand what i'm saying...)

[basking in irony]

okay. basking done.

in other news, hope you all had a lovely sunday! mine was full of cookies, food, englishmen (just one), the gospel, and legitimately realizing how much i love people.

see you peeps tomorrow. ta, loves.

signs

i'm in the middle of writing a potentially important letter to the missionary right now, and yes. my favorite song came on and this blog's namesake.

it was a nice reminder.

sometimes life can't be controlled.

competition. but not.

i'm mildly addicted to this song right now.
it's making me feel better.
not that i'm not feeling great.
just conflicted.
it's like a tug of war in my mind, but with
strengths and weaknesses on both sides.
stalemate.

anyways.
even though this song may be overplayed on the radio
i love it.

hey, soul sister.

peter pan syndrome

of the limited choices i have when it comes to doing my hair at five in the morning, i opted for pig-tails today.

as i walked to work, i started feeling like a little kid. the pig-tails always make me feel ten or thirteen or fifteen years younger. definitely what happened today.

i felt like i was still in the second grade, learning cursive and collecting erasers i still have most of that collection, by the way. stashed away in the toy box that my stereo has now taken residency on.

i didn't feel old enough to be walking to a job at a university i attend. i didn't feel old enough to have to deal with the letter i got the other day or with any of the other boys namely one plaguing my mind. i don't want to grow up.