with hearts peeled

That geographical location upon birth can place people into entirely different worlds never ceases to leave me rustled and unsettled. Let's lift up our brothers and sisters around the world that are enslaved by boundaries that only exist in the spectrum of man's reasoning...

Comfort Food

I made plans earlier in the week to coax the domestic damsel in myself out from wherever it is she has been hiding in past cooking endeavors, and am now committed to pulling off a potato dish tonight in the company of Kim and Stiffler. I'm not sure when I decided it would be practical for me to agree to this, but when I began searching allrecipes.com the doubts of my cooking abilities shot out from my computer screen like darts with each Martha Stewarty "quick & easy" recipe I found. The secret about "quick & easy" recipes are they are often not quick at all, nor easy by any stretch of the imagination, unless you think 8.3 ingredients for a simple potato dish can be classified as such.

I just wanted to make some simple form of potatoes to compliment the real main dish Kim is assembling. Mashed or scalloped, whatever. Maybe cheese or perhaps plain, it matters not. Now, however, I have my choice from quite an astounding number of year long recipe for mashed, mushed, smashed, hash, baked, fried, country-fied, wedged, marinated, roasted, rosemary-ed, smothered, Dijon-ed, and most recently (my favorite and a likely candidate!) Schwabischer Kartoffelsalat! Which is actually German potato salad, but why not tag it with a complicated name as an accurate indicator of its complicated nature?

Tonight will be interesting.

"I'm sorry. I only meant to scratch."

Tonight at 'Tuesday at the park!' I became Nature Queen Extraordinare. That's right, your eyes are not deceiving you, I lived harmoniously with nature (including the flitting gnats and ambitious ants) once I donned my head with a crown made of flowers. You know, the small grassy blossoms you make crowns for little girls out of. It's at the end of Possession, so naturally it has always been a goal of mine to be able to construct such a crown. For some reason the ability has always escaped me, but tonight I caught on and gripped tight. I knitted and knotted my tiara together with determination and placed it atop my head. Next I found a piece of coarse sticky grass to wedge between my thumbs and blew through them into cupped hands, creating an obnoxious sound similar to a duck in turmoil. As I was walking home, because 'I am quite fond of walking,' I discovered a perfect stick to hold while I walked. Strong enough that I could hit trees (love hits, not destructive hits) and leaves with it but not too strong that I had a natural disaster type effect on my surroundings. With each step I took down the street another car passed holding my dear park company in it, until I hit the scientific construct and they had all successfully retreated. I took small joy in my brisk walk by porches inhabited by 20-somethings, knowing they could spot my white flower crown that still adorned my brunette hair...I may be 19 years of age but maybe a [more weed-like] daisy chain does make me feel like I am beautiful.

ringing of the bell tower

"'Justification by grace through faith' is the theologian's learned phrase for what Chesterton once called 'the furious love of God.' He is not moody or capricious; He knows no seasons of change. He has a single relentless stance toward us: He loves us. He is the only God man has ever heard of who loves sinners."

Also this

"Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case."

Can you please move your car?

I miss my below neighbor, Mary. <3MARY!<3 She is moving out now, things won't be the same without her. She's just a mom at heart, and I get along with moms at heart. Also, I always felt like if something happened I would have Mary. Oh Mary. Mary Mary Mary. I wonder how many more times I can include her name in this post.

(I LOVE MARY!)

I heard from the trees a great parade

If I could look at any instrument and magically absorb the ability to play it it would most probably be a banjo. I know you may be questioning that statement because of previously mentioned obsessions with pianos and pianists, but you see, if I chose to play the piano I would know all about it and it would not be perfect to me any more. The banjo would serve to entertain the likes of my friends and family while enabling me to cover songs like "All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands" by a most beloved musical artist.

Also, the surgery performed last Friday on my left underarm has been most inconvenient today and yesterday. When I arrived home after leaving Grant last week it hurt, as generally expected, but I refused to succumb to the pain and now I am feeling regret for that. Because maybe, maybe if I had just rested I would feel okay now. Perhaps not. Either way, right now I would like to take a pain killer but cannot due to driving becoming a necessary part of my future. The steri-strips (?) on my wound are coming off and that makes me nervous. I thought when they came off I would be feeling great. A reversal of sorts has conflicted with my need to carry on with the week. Also, I am a terrible person/phonecaller. I have received a million calls since last Friday out of concern and sweetsugarness from various Aunts and have yet to return them. For all they know I am rotting in my bedroom. I am awful. The very truth is that I was just dandy (Not entirely true, but as dandy as one can be after minor surgery) and even partaking in concert-going/keytar-enjoying activities. I am thankful I have relatives who are sweeter than home-made ice cream cones and as thoughtful as 18th century British poets but to place numerous owed phone calls may kill me. I hate phones.

I think I will move back today. This requires use of my arm, but that will have to do. Staying home will only result in further sadness once I leave. I originally thought of staying until my parents returned from their trip, I know they like it when I stay here, but I simply cannot subject my heart to unnecessary pains that would be inevitable were I to remain where I am.

But really,
"What the water wants is hurricanes,
and sailboat to ride on its back.
What the water wants is sun kiss,
and land to run into and back."

Brother

And my wasted heart will love you, until you look like this...

Enough, enough for now.

Elvis movies

There is a strange bump of swollen-ness (ha?) on my bottom lip on the left side. I keep thinking there is something on my lip so I purse them and hurting happens. This is shady, and I suspect the ghost of Strawberry has something to do with it. (Or I got in a fight with Huckleberry Finn but then why would I do that?)

In other news, Kim is bringing me Johnny Buccelli's today. How sweet. That's what my friends are- sweet. And Johnny probably misses me. It's been since last week...

I'm actually considering a DCB show tonight, which is odd considering the circumstances. It is free, though, and I would not have to do much but sit, listen, and absorb the goodness. I would not have to do much except to "Come and Listen," if you will. Though since I am not in Dayton, where the show will be taking place, that use of "come" is incorrect, but if I replaced it with "go" it would not result in the humor that is my action being the title of a DCB song.

The end.

P.S. If you read the paper (Dispatch) you will find hilarity in the adventure that took place in my backyard yesterday afternoon. My brother drove me to Meijer where we purchased a 2 Liter of Diet Coke and two packs of Mentos. We dropped the Mentos into the Diet Coke and ran. Well, in all truthfulness, I hung out a large distance from the experiment to begin with, so I did no running. Chris, however, dropped approximately five Mentos into the Diet Coke and jumped back while the Young family took in the breath-taking display of a Diet Coke fountain (the porous texture of the outside coating of the Mentos reacts with the Diet Coke). It was truly a scene of great wonder.

And seriously, my Ma and Pa thought I would like Elvis movies so they bought me "Blue Hawaii" and "Alcapulco something-ruther" and they left on their road trip to Cape Cod/Nantucket/Bar Harbor this morning. I just got a text from mom saying, "Don't get dizzy watching Elvis swinging his hips" Oh Mom. You make me chuckle.

The real end.

Flecks and nuggets of gold

"How come you can hear a chord, and then another chord, and then your heart breaks open?"
a. lamott

"The thing about light is that it really isn't yours; it's what you gather and shine back. And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you sit still and take it in, it fills your cup, and then you can give it off yourself. So I sat still."
a. lamott

"Baby? Sometimes deliverance is as cool as the air in a redwood grove."

"I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after."
Wallace Stevens

Ohohohohwayohwayoh Do you remember?

She would ask for time, and she'd ask for time, she would beg for time

I'm starting to love driving more and more. Sure, you may attribute that to the new muffler and new radiater, but I think it's more than car parts. (It is nice not to obnoxiously accelerate though...)

Tonight I was driving the simple drive home and a peace fell upon me. Seems recently I'm stressed to certain limits in various locations. I aboslutely love my apartment, but living in it this year has been rough with accompanying pains etc. and it is also home to all the craziness of finals currently. That will be over tomorrow, but as it is, it's not my favorite spot to exist in.

Sometimes there are certain places that bring more comfort. Home, church, a friends house, an apartment, a coffee house, perhaps for now my favored location to be at peace with the realness God bestows upon my surroundings is the transition. The means of travel.
"Some will trust in a chariot, some will trust in a horse, but we trust in the name of the Lord."

The strings I once used to tie thoughts, ideas, and meanderings together have been cut and I feel as though I am incapable of appealing to your mind and senses. Forgive. Though, I guess I always really feel this way. There are too many word combinatons to choose from and not enough time to learn them all to best present you with precise thoughts and concepts.

Check out Architecture in Helsinki. My friends will tell you they are awful, I will tell you they know what beauty sounds like.

I got so emotional tonight listening to Regina Spektor's "Buildings," because it has never struck the chord with me that it did just then. I wanted to weep for the woman and weep equally for the man, and what, because a Brooklynite playing lovely piano told the story just right so that I want both persons to be saved and to not be consumed by the particular fire of which they are conceding to.

Which made me think of my absolute favorite line from Possession, "No mere human can stand in fire and not be consumed." Oh Christabel LaMotte. I would love to watch that now. I am not going to watch it now. I am going to go to bed so I can wake up early for tea and studying until 1:30 when I take my Western Civ exam and sell my books and be as done as possible with Otterbein. Praise Jesus.