Dream Visions

Hip-hop dancing, seven-year-old Shu-Shu beat me in the talent show last night. I remember running around the stage a few times to get warmed up. There was a delay before my act because the waterfall machine, which was powering my church's auditorium, had become disconnected between rows 2 and 12. When they had finally fixed the waterfall by playing Ben Folds to it with another piano they had brought in, it was my turn. I knew Shu-Shu had won before I even went onstage, but I put on my tap shoes anyway because that's the integrity I have. I think I tapdanced to CCR's Suzie-Q. When I woke up, I realized that I had slept right through church, my roommate was shooing the cat off the bed, and my cell phone had alternately rung "Army" and "Suzie-Q."

I should've changed my ring to Magnum PI. That would've brought down the house.

I had the hugest crush on that boy...

That's me in seventh grade, folks, in full junior-high-independent-baptist-volleyball-cullotts-wearing glory. Found this one in a box that deserved fire or worse. Instead, it's death by blog. I'm still purging my awkward stage, I believe. Thinking about bringing back the triangular perm single-handedly.

Coming soon: A vintage photo of yours truly with
the Charlie Hall when he played at my youth group's church camp. Hmm... eighth grade, I believe. Charlie was half of Nathan & Charlie, and I can't promise better hair on either one of us. That is, if I can find it.

Stay tuned...

Here I Am

I find myself wanting to write on this blog is for you, the reader, to like me, maybe even love me. I've told a few people that mine is an anti-blog. It seems a safe thing to say--if you happen to like it, then I can tell myself you like the real me. If you happen to hate it, then it's because it doesn't fit a genre. Summary of the above babble: I've been hiding from you. I want my life, even snapshots of my life, to fit into a box with a neatly-tied bow. I want to be able to explain the ache away. If I can explain it, there must be hope. If there's a reason I ache, then there's a possibility it will go away. This blog began after a breakup, but the breakup is not the reason I ache. I have always ached, and this breakup just allowed me to glimpse it again.

I'm a pro at coverup. I have created an organism of self-protection that lives my life for me. It looks at myself in the mirror and makes decisions about how I should look and act. It surveys the opinions around me and picks one that is unique enough to be noticed but popular enough that it will not meet rejection. Vulnerability feels like suicide. Rejection, a death. I have a deep desire to be needed and wanted that no human I have yet met has the ability to fulfill. I love my cat more when she is loving me. I love my roommate so that she will turn around and love me. Part of me tells you this so that maybe you will love me. But you can't. This ache, this desire, this powerful longing is for a God that aches for me and desires for me to draw near to Him. And then I find myself reading His Word hoping I won't ache. I try to listen and talk to Him so that He will relieve this disappointment and confusion. I seek after the Lover of my soul because I want something from Him. Can't I just want to know Him? Can't I just want to be close to Him? Can't I just want to experience Him? Walk with Him through the ache? Why am I so desperate to be without pain? I used to think the Marines' advertising slogan was craziness or masochism--Pain is evidence you're alive. But it's making sense now. The more I realize how disappointed I am with myself and people in my life, the more I admit to myself that I cannot make it okay, the more I am coming to realize how deep my need for Christ is. I'm scratching the surface of how desperately I desire to know Him and how little I really know about love.

To you, my friends, I must apologize for my selfish and manipulative motivations that I call love. I do desire to seek Him, be fulfilled by Him only, and thus be able to love you more truthfully and completely.

To live as a Christian is to struggle. Jesus Christ died as God's only begotten vulnerable Son. To live the vulnerable life is to die to the dangerously subversive yet subtle sin of self-protection.

(If this subject resonates with you, you might be interested in reading Inside Out by Dr. Larry Crabb.)

So a priest and Natalie and I walk into a YMCA ...

. . . and man are my hamstrings sore!

Big Steps

They're just a whole lot of little steps really . . .

I'd be shivering more if my roommate's cat weren't on my lap. Ope, there she goes. I'm apparently no match for the heater vent on the floor. (Sorry, Fuzzy). I tend to shiver when I'm cold and when I'm discussing subjects that really matter to me. Right now, I think it's because of both.

There have been several big steps made in the last few days. Ben Folds rescheduled his Norman, Oklahoma show for February. I had my first swing dancing experience. My dad decided to retire early from the friendly skies, a job he dearly loves. My roommate Amy's internet boyfriend has come for the first visit. I put in my application for a teaching position in Germany. Kevin and Latonya walked down the aisle to Modest Mouse. I had lunch with him today.

Big steps make me shiver. They come with hope and silver linings. They come with expectations and disappointment. They have yet to be the arrival that I make them. But they can still be good. "09ua akljsj (sorry, the kitten thinks the tuna sandwich smell is coming from the keyboard.) Big steps come with change in all its unfettered, smelly (and in the case of swing dancing, sweaty) glory.

Here's to big steps! May they always be preceded by tiny faithful ones! Prost! (i'm going to put on another sweater.)

Dyeing

funny story: (well now, it just has to be, doesn't it...): I had just had my hair colored--my first all-over color--dark. The next week, my parents drove into town for a family funeral (the whole family hadn't died, just my great aunt). so my brother and my parents and I have been driving for an hour and a half into eastern kansas when i finally spoke up to my mom.

me: "didn't you notice my hair?"

mom: "well, yeah..."

me: "do you not like it?"

mom: "well, no, it's not that..."

me: "well then what? what is it?"

mom: "it's just what i've heard about dark hair dye..."

me: "what? what have you heard?"

mom: "it's just that... well... they think it causes bladder cancer."

me: "bladder cancer?"

mom: "yeah."

*pause*

me: "well, if i'm going to die of bladder cancer, mom, the least you can do is tell me you like my hair."

(i love you, mom. check out my parents' bed and breakfast.)

Hyperbolink

To balance this blog
and ensure it unbiased toward
more famous and
successful members of society, (not to
mention gifting you with adequate
links that need riddlin
for your entertainment), I should like
to inform you, the reader, and/or the
drinker of coffee, about an
up-and-coming colleague of ours.

Star Wars, Among Others

One afternoon at the opera, my boss asked me to drive around the Slavic conductor for Mozart's Don Giovanni. (Picture the Nightfox from Ocean's Twelve).

Suzanne: "Uh, sure. Okay." Suzanne picks herself up from staring into the recesses of the copy machine. Subtly wipes her ink-stained hands off on a paper in her in-box. "Nice to meet you." They shake hands. Suzanne and Maestro leave office and wait at elevator door.

Suzanne: "So where do you want to go?"

Maestro: (with a shrug and very European curled lip) "Hmph?" polite laugh. Elevator doors open, and we walk in. "Vhat is that modern-uh-looking building by the reever?"

Suzanne: "Oh that. That's Exploration Place. It's a, uh, science museum for kids. You wanna go there? You can make shadows of yourself on the wall or rubbings from real fossils!" Maestro furrows brow and shakes head no. Elevator doors open again to basement garage. "So, uh, you been conducting long?"

Maestro: "Vell, vhat's long really?" Silence as we exit elevator and begin walking toward my car.

Suzanne: "Right, uh ... Do you have a favorite opera?"

Maestro: "There are just so many ... Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Wagner, Beethoven, Verdi ... how can I-uh pick-uh?"

Suzanne: "Well, yes. I see your point." Silence. "Sorry about my car. It's a mess." My remote unlocks the doors, and he begins to get in. "What kind of music do you listen to?" Maestro stops and looks at his seat.

Maestro: "Uh, classical ... and John Villiams." Internationally-acclaimed Maestro picks up the remains of my breakfast along with my cds from the passenger seat. Among these, The Best of Queen, Radiohead OK Computer, a sausage biscuit, and Bridget Jones: Beyond the Edge of Reason soundtrack.

Suzanne: "Oh right, Star Wars!"