Ducolax - Stool Softener (what a pleasant phrase for a dirty thing)

I'm partially pleased right now. I'm disappointed to wake up and find that Victoria Day has deferred my payday but... I will live. I promise I will.

I can't say I thought it would be this way or I would feel this way this morning, I really can't. I'm so discombobulated at the moment I just don't know where to start.


It's good (it's a blessing) to wake up and think you have time. (18) I didn't wake up until 7.26 when I heard a housemate milling around. Part of me was disappointed that I hadn't been the first one up but seeing that I was really only 11 minutes behind schedule, I was OK. And finding the housemate in the shower when I actually got out of my room helped, too. (When I have overnight guests, I have this bad habit of cooking pancakes in the morning.)

When I stepped into the bathroom for a moment, after something was on the grill, I thought to myself, "She doesn't have to leave for work for at LEAST another half an hour, maybe 45 minutes," and since I know she didn't go to bed too long before I did (I believe it was around 1) I concluded: "She must like having time (to get ready) more than sleeping."

Me, I prefer the sleep. Le duh. But on those mornings where I either accidentally get up early or get up on time and something else is pushed back to cut me slack, I find great happiness in having extra minutes to do things like eating breakfast, choosing jewlerry, making my bed, etc. that I really would have liked to have done in my morning but don't mind leaving enough that I'd sacrifice 20 minutes of sleep.
Anyways - I'm starting to get it now. It's all about what you value and what you CHOOSE to have. God gave each of us enough hours in a day and enough responsibility that we can handle so we can definitely chose where we take our breather moments, I do declare. (What complicates this notion is that we are fully capable of taking on more responsibility than we have time or brainspace for - and we can even think God green-lighted it - when we have actually bitten off more than we can chew. Enter Frustration and Burn-out, upstage left.)

Everything's complicated.

I got bit by the Take on the World! bug again last night (it happens pretty much whenever I spend extended time in conversation with a Christian, especially close to the end of the day) and had the same, "Well what do I do with this?" moment last night.
The night before is one thing but the awakened self is often a totally different person. I don't feel different but ...something happens. I don't know what to say. I think maybe I'm too easily thwarted. Anyways, the kids last night they were big talkers. They...said things that I had forgotten over the past little o'while. I ...believe in fresh rememberings.

Here I sit at 8.49am, my house just now empty, trying to figure out what I'm doing today. I am definitely feeling the sleep-a-little-more vibe...But beyond that, what?

I dunno....it's easy to throw in the towel when you convince yourself that you've actually tried. It's easy to humanly expect little from life, little from self and little from God. But what kind of life is that? Where's the victory? Where's the purpose? Where's the glorifying? We should...claim, I think. We should expect much. We should have joy. I'm looking. I'm trying to figure this out.

This is not how I thought I'd feel this morning. But, at least I know that I'm different and I do still have a few pieces in my pocket from last night. The sense that I get (or that I had when I first started typing) is that of capability. It's not that I... feel like I'm invincible or feel like I'm better today or anything else preposterous like that. But rather I KNOW that the things I need and the things I desire are in my grasp AND, seeing that love keeps no records of wrong, today may as well be the first day I started trying. I need to settle into that notion, that yesterday can be written off - cleaved from me. On top of this, I am training myself to re-remember that supernatual things are possible with a supernatural Someone. Time is no real obstacle, je suppose.

I'm leaning forward pretty hard right now.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare you kidding me??!!! are you kidding me??!?!


This new Hancock film that's coming out...I don't....I don't have words for my excitement. WOOT! I've been wondering when the next Will Smith Independence Day weekend film was coming out.. ahhhh July 2nd, 2008 I will BE THERE with bells on. It's not even funny.
What I can't really deal with is that it looks like and of the main supporting actors is Jason Bateman and uh....Jason and I are pretty good friends. I'm excited.

In other news, I noticed the first obvious bit of CG on the Simpsons during the season finale today. It made me just a little bit sad. Things change, even still.

I can't believe the Simpos have been on the air for 19 years...

That's preposterous.

I also can't believe that the Eastern and Western Conferences are copying eachother. Game 4 for Philly and Pittsburg was fun to watch, I declare, especially the last 40 seconds which seemed to last 10 minutes because of the fighting. The orange sea of fans was CRAZY riled up, especially after the empty netter (which I must admit looked gorgeous) and they kept cheering and banging on the glass which didn't help the players' tempers, I'm sure. They were all frustrated and tired and I guess no one really cared about the remaining minute...I feel like it was 4-on-3 by the end. Anyways, I enjoyed.

Also...that season finale of The Office boggled my mind though I'm not entirely sure why. Well... I know it was just a whole bunch of BIG things crammed into one episode. Just SO much ..and enough to make me realized that the handful of episodes I've missed this season (five or six) is making a significant difference. BUT, with the end of a season, comes the release of a season DVD set so....I figure I can get caught up soon enough. I'm excited.


I don't know why I wanted to write this post but I did. :

Oh, and I love my house. There are so many little things that make it wonderful and I can never keep them all in the same bucket...I just realize them as I go. And if it's not a specific realization, I definitely have an overlying (?) feeling of pleasure for being here. I like it and it's SO RIGHT for me right now. God...God knew, I guess. So many things. I'll make a liszt someday.

Jeffrey Winterbaum

a whole wack of stuff just happened in a short moment a second ago and then when the dust started to settle I said in my head,
"Really, God? Really?" in a very...let's say acerbic* way.

I'm sitting here at a computer that doesn't belong to me in a place that isn't as close to my house as I would like it to be trying to figure out something that SHOULD be easy, that I have piled up all my energy and patience to attack and finding myself frustrated upon frustration. (Why isn't this working??!? Why can't I do things right the first time? What took me so long?)
Then I realize that I'm getting absurdly tired - absurd for HOW tired I am, as well as what time of day it was and how much I slept last night. Then I wonder what is wrong with me since I've been hit by this same wave of tiredness the last three afternoons. Then I start wondering if this is an inkling of something some people call depression. I've never quite been convinced and I honestly don't want to go down that road again. I don't. The road of consideration, that is.

HmmMMMMmmm.
So I think about getting some food either from my bag or the vending machine to distract myself and even possibly boost the energies. (I think maybe I could have just done with a break from this compy screen and sitty position. I'm looking forward to the hockey game tonight.) I didn't really feel hungry...and eating on campus often makes me think I should just "go home anyways" which is dumb and deluded.
I'm feeling beat and beaten and a little slouched here.
Then a girl walks up to me, waving and high-pitchedly saying hello and I prepare myself to put on the Nice face. :)
I have a Nice face sometimes. It's not fake, just temporary...sifted, if you will.
I look up and it takes me a moment to recognize - or even to focus on her facial features as something more than a blur (what's WRONG with me??) - and I do realize that I must have looked ridiculous in that split-second, trying to get my bearings and all.
She asks what I'm studying, I close the coiled notebook and show her that it's Ministry Partner Development LITE. She gets excited and asks if I'm staff or joining staff. I tell her it's short-term. She asks where I'm going; I say l'Écosse and she says it'll be exciting. I tell her either, "I hope so," or, "I think it will be," (as if I'm some kind of expert). [I'm having a shapeless Gordon Korman flashback in this moment.]
She tells me to send her a letter, "I can't [give] you much but I'd like to," and I say, about 1.5 seconds behind, absorbing her words as I'm responding to them, "Sweet - sounds great."
She looked a little confused, maybe because she was aware that I hadn't comprehended what she was saying right away. Perhaps my general BLAHness was showing through. It's either that or I looked like a snob at her "not much." I'm not. I snob nor snub no one. I do not.

I love....I love the initiative. I love it.
I love that I barely know the kid but she wants/
to give.

It's cool.
In the next moment I'm only half processing it, figuring whether it'll be an electronic or regular post letter she receives (I hope for the latter) and then I realize how profoundly humbling and wonderful this is. THEN I'm realizing that God....probably? God probably chose that exact moment for this random kid to walk up to me, just when I was trying to throw in the towel. I'm not sure if I'd have actually done it (I'd like to think not because today is a WEIRD day) but it's good to be blind-sided in this way.

God, is this Your way of telling me, "YES, I want you to go, just ACCEPT IT already!"? Is that what You're trying to say? My skull is thick, what do you want from me?


*2. harsh or severe, as of temper or expression
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/acerbic

mordechai

What shall we say about the fact that within two minutes of eachother, two friends told me they pray for me regularly (unsolicited-like)?
What shall we say then...?


One thing I know I'm looking forward to:
Wearing a dress that perfectly matches my husband's tie when we attend a wedding together. O glorious day.

where hath my appetite gone?

Today at my good friends' wedding I realized that I need to be more patient. I'm sure I've had this revelation before, at other weddings but it sunk in quite well this time. It's a raising of standards, too. I realized what I don't have and what I want...I realized that I truly do want to wait for the right guy and the right time. I can't stress the truly do part of that desire enough.

In other news, I really don't understand why I haven't been eating properly lately and why yesterday and today have been almost void of and appetite. What the deal?
I know I'm lazy and that moving house has tricked me into thinking there's "nothing" in this place so maybe I'm just getting sick of walking into the kitchen and being exasperated. Truth? If I'm hungry enough I will find and make something out of nothing. Apparently I'm not hungry and I don't know why.
Last time I felt like this it lasted a few weeks; just as long as my influenza friends thought it was funny to stick around in my system. THAT'S understandable. Else? I've lost my appetite when I was mentally distraught either in an instant by someone who's trying to get on my nerves and succeeding more than they realize OR by a situation that creeps upon me and accosts more of my faculties than I am accustomed to doing without. I've also lost my appetite because of a boy but.... then my stomach's filled with les papillions which has not been the case these past few days. (Otherwisely, it's quite Similac.) I wonder.
Bed!

I love that I could see the leaves perk up 10 minutes after a glass of water. :)

Why is today so stupid?
Why was yesterday so awesome and today the equal and opposite reaction to it? I suppose it's not a causal relationship, no. That was a fast drop.
And it seemed to happen in just a moment. 8.30 til ~2.30 was OK and then something turned. What gives? What gives??

I hate this. And I definitely hate flip-flopping. I really thought I was onto something. Thank God for the little graces. I pray God for a better tomorrow....And for a better me.

I don't think I have a childhood imagination

9.44am my brother calls, asking for $25 because he's stranded at Union station.
11.17am my brother calls about mother's day.
2.44pm my friend (future co-MC for a wedding) calls to iron out some details.
3.23pm my good friend calls to check in (we had an accountability deal).
3.38pm my friend-of-friend-now-friend texts to confirm a phone date.
4.55pm my friend, former housemate, calls to tell me she got into the grad school of her choice.
5.26pm my crunchy friend calls to say YES, she'd like dinner.
6.33pm my I-don't-know-how-we-became-friends friend calls to ask where my house is.
10.44pm my friend-of-friend-now-friend calls to catch up.

It's been a great day
and all of those things above only contributed about a quarter. I am pleased. I wish I had brain space and energy to say more.

avant minuit

Stephen....Stephen, how I have missed you!
I decided a while ago that I needed to go off my Colbert diet.... I don't really know how I lost patience with him....I think part of it was the time I watched three of the same episode in the same day (they air like that on different channels). And another part of it is knowing that he is so much more famous than he was when I first met him and that's somehow a turn-off.

Anyways, I chose to watch the show last night (chose over a different émission) and this is one of my flavorite lines:

"Donkey Kong?! Oh sure, it's OK when a gorilla does it but when I throw barrels at an Italian plumber, they call it a hate crime."

four years to the day

On 5th May 2004, I moved out of my mother's house for good. It's a weird anniversary but I'm a fan of celebrating rando things, I really am.


What I Realized on Sunday:

One of the chansons that we sang that morning a l'eglise made me ask myself, "What would you be doing instead?" When 40% of me still doesn't want to go away, I am constantly searching for that one "Aha" moment that will tip the scales. I wish I could remember the line..I know it was the last two of a verse but..the words elude me. The point is that I don't really have anything better to do with my eleven months starting in August. Serious.
YES, I would find productive things to do and I would be happy here in Canada. BUT this opp is a great, concentrated way to drop into the Great Commission and I probably won't ever do it again.

I can't quite articulate my thoughts but I know I was hit hard with the notion that I couldn't be doing anything better.

It wasn't the revelation I'd have expected. I wanted God to say, "THIS is why I want YOU to go." I was looking for the specific, "Jesskah Farquharson, YOU specifically should do THIS because of THESE REASONS that are unique to you." Those reasons exist, you know...
But instead He said (a) if you don't go someone else will.
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!"
"I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."*
and (b) anyone could do it, so why don't you?

It's not like He's telling me I'm one of many and not important to Him as an individual. On the other hand, He knows that it LOOKS that way and that feeling like I don't matter, feeling like I wouldn't make a difference is the perfect (reverse-psychology?) way to motivate me to say, "Oh, oh! I'll do it! Oh, me! Pick me!" Yes, I'm that idiotic.


I told a friend of mine the other day that I was not feeling the rah-rah! excitment of my coworkers about the task that lays before us. He directed me to a few Old Testament friends and asked which of them didn't start their journey full of dread. I take heart in this. I am OK with being dragged kicking and screaming. I guess I'm OK with this because I will be the one doing the dragging.

*Luke 19:39-0

My brother (21) and my cousin (15) looked great in their suits.

Black with white-cornflowerblue-white pinstripes with a metallic grey shirt; diagonal grey, black and thin cornflower striped tie --
Charcoal grey with white pinstripes with pale lavendar shirt; deep purple and black diagonal tie --

I appreciate. I love it.
Last time I was at a family funeral I was maybe 12 or 11 years old and I don't remember much at all. The woman was my grandfather's aunt ...I'm not sure I ever even met her.


Anyways, I appreciated the lightness of mood. I didn't feel as ________ as I did last time. I love my avuncular second cousin. He is awesome and he really is my mother and aunts' brother...like it.


final remarks:
a kid on the bus (15-years-old?) said that he kept those travel one-pack Vitamin C tablets on his person because they speed the body's intake or reaction to Ecstasy.

newbie!

Wow, it's been a very long time since I've seen a new-to-me episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Tonight's the night!
How magical....God knew that I needed some kind of pick-me-up. He's never given me something like this before. There were a few other little things that made me smile today, things that were simple and useless that instantly made me think they were God's doing. It's nice.

This episode had Tom Jones guest starring and he sang an "It's Not Unusual" parody with Carlton. It was great for so so so many reasons. I am always impressed by how good Alfonso Ribiero sounds when he sings live. Like, it's one thing to know your voice, to be loud/strong, to have a pleasant sound but to actually be ON PITCH the WHOLE TIME, I mean, that's awesome. I wonder if he has to work as hard to find that as us lesser mortals. Maybe it gets easier with time..! That would make me happy.

Also, I've now discovered that I have never listened to Tom Jones for more than - I'd estimate - thirty seconds. Turns out that I have no idea how he really sings, talks or looks. Weird for someone with whom I consider myself to be relatively familiar. I can't say I ever noticed the accent before...and definitely didn't know the man was born in Wales. The things you learn.
The man impresses me, just a little. If I'm ever feeling weird or can get it without paying, I'll procure myself some Tom Jones album. I'm interested. That and I really want to give the guy his props.

I have a gag reflex.

It's been a long time since I brushed back far enough to make my body think it needs to start vomiting and I just did it by accident last week and again today.
Both times I was reminded of a story I heard of a girl whose gag reflex was so damaged because of how often she brought her food back up. She ended up going to the hospital because something like a spoon had been pushed so far down her throat - to find the reflex - that it was stuck.
I thank God that my gag reflex is still as sensitive as ever.
I thank God that I have never felt the need to induce vomitting.

Deep down, without knowing any of them, without having first-hand experience, I have real sadness for the girls (and boys) who go through this stuff. I don't know what it's like but it reeks so powerfully of sin that I don't even need to understand it to feel sincere pain and wrongness.

spinaci...funghi...mozzarella...

If my present self was going to learn a language, I think she'd be most interested in Italian.

Today (and yesterday) I have confirmed this...and it surprizes me because I know French and my personality typically would think I should finish learning one langue before moving to the next.

So, I specified that it was my "present" self meaning that it's the one who has a working knowledge of French and lives in a bilingual country/province, not my theoretical self learning a first second language.
My theoretical self might go for Francais but it's so hard to say.


Anyways....I realized that I want to learn Italian at my own pace. Right now I feel like so much about it - Italian culture, that is - is hallowed and I approach with so much reverence and very little touching that I don't expect to get very close until I'm 50. I'm OK with this. I'm OK with a slow and delicate romance that matures no faster than it should. Ohhhhh I look forward to my future in this aspect, I do.

I'm not THAT interesting

I'm not sure whether I think it's a good thing or not that no musician (or otherly artist) becomes perfect at what they do. Most of them know that... It's a continuum.

You reach the point where you can play some uber difficult piece perfectly...but that doesn't mean anything. There's still ______.