and really bad eggs...

i've been thinking about contentment. what makes us "happy".

happy is such a fleeting feeling. it's so temporary, so transient. and it comes from such small things so much of the time.

but i am sitting here wondering why i am not always content. you know, the deep abiding happiness. the kind that feels warm and full even when you step in dog poo and have to push your own car up a hill as people drive by and honk. yeah.

i am so loved.
i am completely free.
i am always provided for.

a song that fits so perfectly into my soul that it molds into my bones and becomes me. a cup of coffee in front of me, and the blessed money to buy it. a bright and romantic future full of adventure and the freedom to chase it furiously. and those are just the big things...

i was genuinely smiled at by a stranger. there's a bird with purple wing feathers on the railing outside. i feel comfortable in my own skin, just for a moment.

i don't mind when people say that i see things with "child-like wonder". because when i lose my awe and wonder i wilt. i feel like i was made to reflect the grandiose, the glorious. the seemingly insignificant things that surround us.

i like to think it's charming :)

i wish you to really see the things around you. contentment is so very possible.

jumbly hot mess of ridiculous

you know how people use the symbol keys to cuss when they don't want to actually write the word? well if this makes any sense...i feel like a jumble of those symbols all together. not with the cussing, per say, just agitated and explicit. i'm feeling explicit.

!@^#!@%^! <-- me

the # feels particularly applicable i suppose. sharp and serious. cross, if you will.

my brain is about to overthrow me, i think. maybe have a recount or just a whole new election (iran, you feel me, right?) (which would make me mahmoud ahmedinejad). (inappropriate over-use of ( )'s) ((( y) ) ((e) ) (s??))

listening to keren ann can only make you so calm, before you begin to resent the beauty of it all. here you are, stewing in a giant vat of ugly, and keren ann has the nerve to croon lovely melodies and catchy chord progressions in your ear. there's something oddly juxtaposed about all of it. but maybe that's how my heart hasn't jumped out and flopped about all nimbly-bimbly on the floor yet. she's lowering my blood pressure.

i sometimes forget that the whole world doesn't know how important i believe every detail of my life is. so when i'm going through something traumatic and staring down a harsh and complicated future, and someone doesn't afford me the appropriate courtesy, i tend to want to snap their head off and play soccer with it.

unfair as it may seem, since this person clearly had no idea how upset i already was, i still had to restrain a POWERFUL urge to rain down the fire of heaven on the head of said person, and remove the bowels with my pinky nail and a hammer.

now do you see why my brain is about to institute a mutiny? when did i ever feel homicidal to the point of bowel removal???

lord preserve my sanity, as i make entirely too big of a deal out of small things, and worry fruitlessly about them until their arrival.

and to you in iran, stick it to the man!!!

badanas (2 year-old for bananas)

this morning i woke up extra early, all by myself. no alarms, didn't get to bed early last night, just ready to be up and around. besides, natasha and the kids were there and i don't get to see them nearly enough. it's funny to live with people and never see them.

it's funny to live with people and miss them when you're in the same house.

if you read this, family, i miss you.

i find myself doing this a lot. i would rather leave a message for someone than talk to them. they might be sitting 6 feet from me and if i can't get up the nerve to say something, i'll email them. from 6 feet away. i'm not saying this has happened before, maybe...
okay it might have happened before.
maybe.

it's just that i am scared of talking to the people i care the most for sometimes. and usually it's when i most need to talk to them that i decide i can't make myself do it. and computers are sooooo easy to hide behind.

so i've decided to start a list of things i would or should say but i'm too scared.
nothing too big. just a beginner list.

and when i grow a pair, i'll write it here :)

time for lunching. avacado and mango...mmmmmmm

ketchup, get it???

well, it's been a couple of months, and neither of them the least bit uneventful, i might add.

i'm living in south wichita now, with two of my favorite friends, and couple of sweet kids. great kids. they light up my entire day, even when they're being ornery. and boy can they be ornery.

i love not being alone. i love that chris brings home the best music from the library. i love that i get to do natasha's hair and help her pick out clothes. and when ester helps me put on my make up in the morning and "brush" my hair. i love it when justice is sleepy and just lays his head lazily on my shoulder in the morning before his nap, staring out the window.

if you don't have a family, you should look into finding one. sometimes the best ones just appear :)

i've been pulled in so many directions these past few weeks. just feeling really lost and out of control. my life seems to be scheduled down to the half hour by everyone else's needs and desires, and i get to decide occasionally if i would rather do what they want or make them angry and hide. so this morning i hid.

i woke up leisurely, to a text from a friend who had imbibed a little extra last night, to put it delicately. she remembered seeing me. gosh, i miss her. then i put on some sweats, and emerged into the pre-wedding craziness in the living room. love it :)

after pulling little pre-chewed pieces of apple out of ester's hair, rescuing justice from the potty stool, flipping natasha's hair out with the straightener, and finally locating the overwhelmed and hiding kinley (dog), my family left for the wedding. god speed.

now i am blissfully stationed at the kitchen table. still in my pajamas at noon fifteen. eating peanut butter toast, drinking bolivian coffee, listening to wilco, and watching the birds out in the back yard. little red flowers are waving randomly in the grass, and the wind is just cool enough that i am contemplating whether or not i can get away with a scarf today.

this is the perfect remedy for what ails me. whatever it is, it doesn't stand a chance this morning. all that's left is for me to get showered and dressed, and head up to watermark books to begin replenishing the parched wasteland that is my brain.

mmmmm.

webster: blog edition

quiet: what happens when you give all your noise makers away.

missing: your television. that you never realised you actually cared about until it was gone...

swiggety-sweet: stealing internet from your neighbor on your friend's computer so that you don't go crazy with the quiet and the missing.

one-eyed jake

i'm sitting at mead's. my beautiful coffee shop. the one of my dreams. the one i waited for. put my whole heart into.

what really brings me to tears is the art hanging on the wall. this place of beauty and quiet and coffee noise and chatter and music has a soul. and the painting looking at me is an old man. with one eye (that you can see). i've decided to call him jake. i feel like he told me that is his name.

he likes it here. so do i. jake and i like a lot of the same things. he likes the wall too. i always loved that wall.

every day i see something else that's new that i love. every time i look up, i take a picture with my eyes and try to memorize the parts that resonate so with my heart. this reflection of god's gentle plea...his invitation to wichita to spend some time in a place dedicated to his glory.

and let no one ever say this place was not born of his glory.

to me, this is beauty. but a lot of things are beautiful.

like the feeling you get when you see tears and you can bring a smile.
like when you realize that you really really love somebody.
like the feeling in your heart when you know god's heart and see who HE thinks you are.

i felt those today.

i made helen smile. someone i really really love gave me a suitcase. and i saw myself in a mirror (my mortal enemy) wearing the dress for the banquet and lost my breath at the sight of god's glory.

have a beautiful day.

slacker...

new music thursdays thus far:

zero 7 - in the garden
listen to the entire album. it's amazing.
cash it in and throw it all away....

and...

trespassers william - having
my favorites are "and we lean in", "ledge", "hands up", and "what of me".

enjoy!!!