"what is that kid there for?"
"who, him? oh, he's been there my whole life."
-my norwegian brother, kim, after i asked him about a child's picture on the BOTTOM of a can of liver.

eyes ache but i'm still awake. even writing rhymes and watching ghost hunter with 4 teenage boys.

confession: i have not seen one episode of gossip girl since saturday night. i am missing the drama all of the time.

more time to read good books though, like the Bible or things by jane austen. more time to balance checkbooks, and clean bedrooms. more time to find the reason for my headaches (which was a bunch of turpentine soaked newspapers). more time to play guitar. more time to cough up everything inside of me and smile because, hey, things could be worse, and because, hey, it's almost Christmas.

"This is war like you ain't seen.
This winter's long, it's cold and mean.
With hangdog hearts we stood condemned,
But the tide turns now at Bethlehem.

This is war and born tonight,
The Word as flesh, the Lord of Light,
The Son of God, the low-born king;
Who demons fear, of whom angels sing.

This is war on sin and death;
The dark will take it's final breath.
It shakes the earth, confounds all plans;
The mystery of God as man."
-Dustin Kensrue. Gives me the chills.

(a long time ago i always used to read books about people on drugs or in rehab. now i just clean my room and can't breathe very well. what happened to the exciting life? i bet the library did, because i am on their bad side again. we are always letting each other down, salt lake county and i.)

...reply to you and say that yes, i am feeling awful. that my body is 101 degrees. sit on a leather couch and shakeandshake cause it is cold inside of a fever. chicken noodle soup and dinner rolls. bottles of pills that all start to blend together. i don't feel anything anymore.

so we talk, about childhood and working. which leads me back to square one: going to bed late and waking up with a bad cough. back to pride and prejudice. back to sore stomach muscles. but i guess i felt better for that little while.

mr darcy on my mind.

fever dream

it was a man in a woman's body, or possibly a woman in a man suit. man in a woman suit? woman with a man's voice? bigmixedupconfusionlatenightshopping. groceries needed always. alfredo in a jar and i know i could do so much better than that. aimee mann at midnight. walk upstairs and you ask how i am feeling.

mr darcy always on my mind.

"a man down on earth needs our help."
"is he sick?"
"no, even worse: he's discouraged."
-it's a wonderful life.

confession: today at work i lied to about 30 old men and told them i was doing good, when really i felt like i was going to pass out. does that make me a terrible person?

a sign that i am really losing my brain (or just getting really sick): tonight, when i got home from work, i thought, 'man, i can't wait to get out of my work clothes'. then, after a good half-hour of walking around i realized that my work clothes were actually pajamas because my boss made me wear them. i wish this headache and sore throat would just disappear into wyoming or something. they can infect the zero people that live there.

i guess i am still happy though. especially i am happy about the weekend, which oddly started and ended with me working at the same store. having two jobs is so strange because of the different routines that you start to mix. but that is the life of a poor college student, i bet, and i sure can't give up my chipotle burritos.

before i had this sickness living inside me though, i got to go down to cutesie little provo. i guess in being honest provo really isn't that cute. it looks a lot to me like cigarettes, drunkeness, and poor air quality, but it is a little part of home. i probably will marry someone who smells like cigarettes, because that smell is comfortable and will always remind me of some neat parts of life. and some horrible ones, too, but i'll take what i can get. anyways, it was nice to drive down with my dad and see some friends of mine. i got to meet my new brother, who is really just a foreign exchange student that lives my life (in my room, even). my parents are always heros of mine and they are also always willing to take in a person that needs a home. so i have a sixteen year old boy sleeping in my old bed. philip and i watched some lethal weapon with him and then took him to wendys. we are teaching him how to be american, step-by-step. obviously america is car chases that involve riding a TABLE down the freeway and eating after eleven pm.

yup, i bet being american involves shooting a gun too, and waiting in line for things. that is why i woke up at seven am on a saturday to meet up with people at cabela's. they had even been waiting since six-thirty in a line of people, in the snow. that store always makes me feel like i don't fit in anywhere in america. no one dresses like me, and, darn it, their kids do NOT mind. i had fun looking at guns though, and fish, and this odd statue that looks like george bush (and talks). we fit four people in the back of my ford, and then headed to nowhere, utah to shoot guns at things. all in all, it was a pretty neat experience. kim got to try something new, and so did i. there is something really great about shooting a shotgun, or a .22, or even a pistol. probably it would have been better if there was no snow involved, cause there was sure a lot of it, and i was cold for always that night, but i got to hang out outside of noisy cities and corporate america with some of my favorite people. praise Jesus for that.

saturday night i got to go to church and hang out with a good, good friend of mine. we drove on the freeway complaining and bought a bunch of candy. he even cooked me some corn dogs. there is a wonderful friendship. some strange part of me gets along with boys the best, and even dresses like them sometimes. or maybe they dress like me, i've never been able to tell.

there is most of it, except sunday, when i got to play with cute cute little kids and wrap Christmas presents. out of all my days, i was clearly the most motherly today. i even made a pot of soup and did the dishes at someone else's house. oh dear.

"I was home entertaining guests, when I fell off the chair and
cracked open my head. Bees flew out, and they flew up their
skirts because they wanted to travel the world."
-The National

I have been eating these cute little packs of japanese
gum all of the time, but i don't think anyone told the
japanese that putting sugar in their gum was bad for
teeth.  if i get cavities, i am going to blame the
whole nation of japan.  i would even take a subaru
as payment.

i think small pieces of my brain are being cut out in my sleep and being replaced with corporate america. i am losing whole entire thoughts in the process of thinking them. the other night i drove halfway to class and then couldn't figure out where i was going. i literally thought i was driving around to waste gas. waste gas, go to chevron, buy more gas. use your chase visa and spend spend spend, evenson. get on it.

this corporate america thing probably describes why i always want burgers lately, too. i never even cared about them in my entire life, and now i can't resist the allure of a dirty BK. burgers. red meat. fast. FOOD. dollar menu. dr. pepper. gossip girl. sharpie brand permanent marker. nightly news. excedrin migraine. chocolate syrup. levi jeans. ge brand microwave. budweiser (heaven knows your desperate if you choose bud light). macbook pro. don't these words know they are going to burn one day?

but until then, here i am, in my gap sweatshirt, typing on my dell, putting on blistex fruit smoothie chapstick, and listening to my apple brand ipod. dell, blistex, and apple: you don't define me. i just thought you should know that, regardless of america telling you that you do.


what really defines me is this. i love Jesus, and he loves me back. i'm given grace, forever and for the moment. i am part of a family that is a couple billion strong.

also, i write narratives. i worry about my headaches sometimes. i don't have a sleeping pattern. sometimes i play the piano. i like to camp mainly to look up at the stars (and NOT to get leeches on my arms). my room usually is a mess but i am a tennessee fan, so i am used to disappointment. i have never shot a real gun (YET). the way to my heart is to love Jesus and also wear nice jeans. i buy too many jackets, and too much eyeshadow, and way too much junk food. i am in love with 1960's bob dylan and would marry him with the invention of a time machine. two of my best friends are boys. i can't really bowl much over a 130, but i like to try. someone out there knows how to make me smile real good. i am into zombie movies occasionally. i like bobbleheads. i drink a lot of coffee. my hair is finally growing long. i've had the same person stuck in my head for twoyearsstraight and it's oddly okay. those things seem to characterize me a little better than the gap could.

Don't tell everybody at the table about your dreams,
They're too amazing, it'll melt their minds,
Take 'em to Hollywood, cut out the good parts,
Become millionaires.
-The National

it is three degrees outside. i did not sign up to live in siberia.

spotted: an old black man, wearing fur boots with track pants. he must have been listening to nelly.

also spotted: a greaser, complete with gold earring, leather jacket, white t-shirt, slicked back hair, a toothpick, and an accent. i promise i am not making him up. i am also not making up the man that wore short shorts, a graphic shirt, and winter boots. like they would really help you keep warm in that situation.


these people are a day in the life for me (and this day was sans public transportation). what does that say about me?

"i will seek you with all my heart, and i'll be found by you. you will bring me home."
that is the very thought that gives me comfort all the time.

well, i am up and running nice and early today, sans any coffee. ask me how i feel about that in an hour, and i'll probably want to beat you up.

I had a love affair with the interstate this weekend. it tried to talk me into driving clear down to vegas, but i told it that i loved utah too much. oddly, i realized afterwards that it was entirely true. the thing about the interstate that attracted me to it was that it makes you realize things: that twenty minutes could be twenty seconds, good friends are the kind that don't leave your brain, and that things will mostly always be alright. even if it is snowing. even if your hair is too short and notcurlyenough and there is a mess inside of your bedroom.

the weekend tried to steal my heart, too, but mainly it just made me tired. it took me down to provo, to remind me of the good times. instead, i fought back tears while a father figure, a friend, a leader, and a hero of mine announced to those in the dark that he has cancer. my heart broke all over again, remembering that it was real life. my God, thankfully, is huge, and he has something inside of this. i know it, and so does this incredible man. when i was ten, he let me come over all of the time, and when i became a teenager he took us on life-changing colorado trips. when he moved to provo, he somehow convinced my parents to come along, and when i moved to salt lake, he kept caring about me. he is the strongest man i have ever met, and i am blessed to call him a hero of mine. God is challenging us all through this. it is rocking us to the core, but ultimately that there is VICTORY in whatever happens.

that leaves last night, shopping and eating lotsofmeat and going to church, and today, sitting in a hot tub and watching someone make a ring. this is a crazy life. maybe i will let the interstate tempt me into going somewhere, but i can't tell it that my tank is running on empty again.


http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/stevemcinroy/
what a beautiful thing there is going there.

"My parents are probably getting a foreign exchange student, because the family he is with couldn't keep him."
"That sounds like the way that we got most of our dogs!"
-Phil Hahn, last night in a too warm living room.

--the thing about college is that there are quite a few men with beards. i always did want to fall in love with a man with a beard, but not one that thinks he is a genius, or one that is 40. those seem to be the only two options around here. i guess that instead i will fall for chuck bass, since i am watching him always anyways (evenduringalecture). he will be a complete ass for a week, but then everything will work out and he will pretend to be charming by buying me a watch. that is how it goes in this world of high fashion and trust funds.

--i am shaking all the time because of the grande americano i drank this morning to stay awake. it was the americano that caused me to try and start my car with a house key, i bet. the americano also caused me to laugh out loud over and over on trax. that probably was because of npr, too. they had a wrestler as their special guest, and he had starred in a succession of movies where he beat people up for kidnapping his girlfriend. now there is also a life.

--last night, as i was driving through sandy, i watched ten undercover cops that were actually US marshalls speed past me. living in salt lake has showed me more police drama than ever before. i've watched a man drive away from the cops, i've seen four men getting arrested, and i've managed to never get pulled over. i guess at least one of those things is good. i've also started to really appreciate driving anywhere at midnight. it's always gorgeous around then.

--sometimes i love standing around a warm kitchen and talking the very most. whether it is about my crazy family or the public in general, that feels like a huge part of home to me. i sometimes miss it when i leave, even if i know that it is just fifteen minutes away (and that i live there on the weekends as well). i'm blessed to know the people that i know, and i can't stop smiling about it all the time.

it's 1 am, and all i want to do is watch one more episode of gossip girl.

i watched him throw handfuls of popcorn to the dogs. some got caught, and some didn't. we stood there, the amount of us dwindling, until it was time to go home. coincidentally, that felt more like home than just about anywhere else.

i have this new thing where i forget to sleep at night, so i am surviving on naps. some days i just throw on an episode of south park for the sake of falling asleep, and two hours later i am deliriously happy. my semester is over next week, and then i have a whole month off of school. that also means a whole month off of public transportation, and painting pictures, and reading books. i should have some good, solid time to seek Jesus and make some money.

so that leaves me right here, with oil paint on my fingers and a bruise on my back, wishing i was chewing gum. it's been a long week, and today is only just monday. the weekend was a mess of work and car rides. sometimes my favorite part of a whole week is just a ride back from provo in a warm ford with a good friend. i need nights like that to keep me from going crazy during an eight hour shift. one day i am afraid i will just snap and quit, or yell at a customer. for the time being though, i just try to find the good in customers. the only scary thing is that, after 10 minutes of seeing them, every woman with brown hair starts to look alike, and i'd be angry too if someone asked me how i was doing five times in one day.

yup, that leaves me right here, wondering about the very state of my heart. i think about paul, when he says that his flesh and his soul are in a constant battle, and i agree with him. my head and my flesh want one thing, and my heart starts to want it too, when i am not trusting. God has a plan that i don't see, so usually i imagine what it is. i assume this, that and the other, and i take matters into my own hands. God is PATIENT though, even when i am not. i want my life to be a reflection of that. i sure do need his help every single second though. to breathe is to want so many things, but i have all that i need at this moment in Christ, and i trust that. He has my heart where he wants it for now, and i am going to rest and be okay in that.

i had a dream that i was smoking copious amounts of cigarettes in the CIA's backyard. one by one they went, and i wasn't even scared that they would be mad at me for breaking the law. i sat on the plastic swingset (the CIA always has one of those) and watched the smoke rise and rise. and then you came. you sat down next to me,
"you shouldn't smoke, it's bad for your health. give me a few of those."

so i did. and we sat there, in the dark, and didn't say anything. we watched glowing ember after glowing ember extinguish, and still we sat. i forgot that i actually hated cigarettes, and also being outside in the cold. you grabbed my hand, and told me it was freezing. i told you i didn't have gloves, so you did the job for me. you started telling me stories. i listened, fascinated, about all sorts of subjects: the war, climbing mountains, and road trips to other states. the CIA seemed childish. we sat for hours, and then you smiled sadly, got up and left. plain and simple, you were gone, without an explanation or a look back.


but i always did love you for being mysterious, i guess. and for defying the CIA at three am.

at 2 am, wes anderson reminds me of a lot of things in my life. like that i don't actually hate to paint. or that i like the kinks and bill murray. or that, sometimes, i just want to be margot tenenbaum. she is so mysterious, with the cigarettes hidden under bricks and the wearing a fur coat everywhere. i wonder what would happen if i packed up, went to indiana, and came back with a wooden finger. now there is a life. usually, though, things like headaches just end up happening on the weekends, and i am finally okay with that.

the bad news in my life seems to come in waves, just like the good news does. it is so strange that things keep happening in extremes, but they do, and that is the way it works here. some things are a lot harder to handle than others, and they don't hit home until later, when it just isn't expected. God has a way of doing things that i will never begin to understand. that terrifies me sometimes i guess. things happen, and things don't happen, but i know that i can trust there is a reason for all of it. i know that God is sovereign, and that is the truth that i will cling to until he takes me home. i will cling to it through scary phone calls, and exhausted nights, and days where all i want to do is praise his name. hallelujah and amen.

and sometimes i just realize that gossip girl doesn't compare to my real life nights, standing in a parking lot, or riding all the miles back to sandy, utah.

an 18-year old boy will spell connoisseur as 'contasuer' and thermostat as 'thermesdat', but he might sometimes still manage to pull off being charming. he may do what is bad for his health, like smoke lots of cigarettes, and drink lots of caffiene, but he will always stay strong and skinny (at least until 18 turns into 40). he will confuse you, and tease you, and make you angry, but he will always be your best friend. that is just the plain and simple truth of it.

i, on the other hand, will not do much reveling in 18. i will still get massiveheadaches and want to sleepforthreemorehours. probably i will spend the next year working, and going to college, and always being addicted to some new tv show (but only if it's already on dvd, and not about a crime scene). but, still, i am excited about what the next year will even mean.

"I still played with Barbies until I was like, 16. I would go on a date then come home and play with my Barbies. They were more exciting than my dates."

-my boss, tonight.

one time when i was 6 or 7 i watched a little boy pick up a cigarette butt out of the gutter and place it in his mouth. i did nothing but laugh and mumble that hemightgetsick.

another time, when i was nine, i watched my cousin fall off a bike onto her face. i rode my bike home as fast as i could to call for help. when i got there i realized she had the key.

at the age of ten i watched a bottle rocket tip over in the street and hit a house a few times.

when i was 11 the olympics came to town, so i got to go downtown and watch people drink a lot of beer.

on my 13th birthday i had been to two different middle schools. by my 17th birthday, i had been to nine different schools.

when i was fourteen i thought i really loved somebody, because i was fourteen.

at fifteen i was in high school, listening to the sound of music and not doing drugs. i was staying up until 6 am, sharing my secrets.

when i turned 16 my hair was purple and we had a party.

yup, at sixteen i smoked for the first time, out there in the winter cold.

seventeen i got a scholarship, and finished up high school with a fizzle, not a bang.




now it's almost time for eighteen, and i don't know where to start, except for in a hotel room in omaha, nebraska.

"He'd obviously hoped to create a moment, the kind that leads you to change your life, but it didn't quite work. If you are a doctor and someone hands you a diseased lung, you might very well examine it and make some radical life changes. If, on the other hand, you are not a doctor, you're liable to do what I did, which was to stand there thinking, Damn, this lung is heavy."

-David Sedaris, on quitting smoking.

this has been running through my mind for the past few days, but it still makes me laugh in the end.

burritos. snapped glasses. ford. piles of laundry. the shining. mascara. watching someone smoke a cigarette. knit gloves. life aquatic. short lines at the dmv. next semester. text messages. the train. naps. the Bible. cute jackets. french press. npr. alligator. bags of green apples. curly hair. perfect jeans. getting a paycheck. ten years later. story ideas.

it's the simple things that just make life more interesting.

some things i have lost in the past few days:

1. my debit card or two.
2. my license
3. my whole entire wallet.
4. my appetite
5. hours of sleep
6. control
7. uncertainty.
8. occasional sanity.

some things i have won:
1. a football game.
2. ten years in utah.
3. free food at mcdonalds.
4. Jesus Christ.

and i want to pick up a bad habit more than ever right now. my flesh, it kills me.

today i learned two things:


that if someone smiles at you big enough, there is no way to keep from smiling back. even if the person is just a boy with blonde hair that has no idea what is going on. it is physically impossible, even if it happens repeatedly and you're used to it.


that you can really get a good cup of coffee for under two bucks without using discounts or coupons or any of that.

a few days ago, i just completely forgot that i was in school, and it took me until around now to remember. today is the first day in about two or three weeks that i have gotten home to an empty house and had time to stop doing anything.i've been doing so much that my head even forgets important things like when my birthday is or the date or why i even live in salt lake, utah. yup, it's the first friday i can even remember in the two months that i've lived here that i've had nothing going on after 7 PM. looking back, that is just plain exhausting, and now i am wondering what in the world two weeks of being in charge of children and houses i could never afford has done to me. but always, it's easy to see that God gives me more grace in the times that i want to run down every orange cone on the road and quit grocery shopping or even cooking ever. and also, he gives it when i just want to run down to provo on my own strength just to sleep in my bed for hours.

the funny thing is that, 5 years ago, i would have never thought my life on a sunday night would be watching a walk to remember with a german girl that has seen it eight times.


but the living in salt lake part doesn't surprise me much.

today started out with a

late
alarm
clock
and a
maddashtotrax.

yup, and that mad dash was worthless after i passed the ambulances and firetrucks and mounts of police just for a full parking lot. and that mad dash led to another mad dash that did no good, and finally to target. target led to the one place that makes me feel like a five-year old, which happens to be across from the first place i attended high school.

welp, after awhile i guess public transportation decided to be on my side, and i was able to go to class and sit next to a middle-aged man during a test. i probably did bad, so naturally i celebrated by going back to my love hate relationship with trains. but this time i had people to share it with. i had another middle aged man across from me reading a book about sexual desires. i had a man behind me with thousands of dollars of tattoos and a heart to make the girl across from him love him. at his stop i heard him tell her he had to 'get out of here before i start stalking you.". i saw two girls dressed like twilight vampires, walking through the park, and sometimes life here makes it too hard to remember i am in utah.

the end of the line, as far as we go.

this semester just seems to drag on and on. i bet it is because one of my professors is a computer. yup, she lives in there, probably, and she has a real fancy last name. it's hard to read for a class where the professor doesn't stand in front of your face for at least 50 minutes some days of the week. sometimes i even forget i am taking it at all.

i guess maybe it could be dragging on because of the face that i have two classes about weather, too. i don't even care about weather much, and i really don't care that one of my professors wears pants up to his bellybutton, or that the other one clearly can't stand her grad-student t.a. i should probably be able to predict what in the world the sky is doing by now, but instead i wake up shocked every morning that it is cold. oh, utah. oh, general education.

but it is definitely not dragging on because of oil painting class, because i only have eight more class days of that one left. my assignments are usually to get oil paint everywhere and make my room smell like a chemical mess, or something along those lines, but that one is pretty simple for me.

today i grabbed the bread from the oven, put the pot of soup down on the table, and thought

'oh crap, i am being a mom.'

some things about summer.

--learning how to use a D-60 that was all my own was pretty neat.

--i saw more money is cash than i will ever see again, unless i become a mafia boss.

--my job description had the word 'control' in it, and pest wasn't even the first word

--hmm. i figured i fell in love with the same person more than once, when, really, i did not.

-- settling down finally became a phrase that meant more than 'stop it, marley'.

--thoughts about God.

--a new future and a new house creeped up on me.

--thinking over campfires, talking about stars and listening to ramsey. easily one of the best nights of my life.

--living a couple nights at concerts with thousands of other people that just want to grind on you or your friends.

--just confessing truth to people did a number of good things for my soul.

--hot tubs feel good and calm nerves even in summer. who would've thought.


oh, and also, it's over.

what might've been lost

i am wondering right now: if we took all of the things or people i thought that i was in love with over the past few years, and bottled them up, would the feelings they gave me still be stronger than the one i get when i let too much turpenoid into my brain?

hmm.

i guess there is something i can answer though, and that is that i haven't really slept in my own bed for a long time.


other than that, life is good to me. i ride trax basically every day, and sometimes i just see the people that i will hopefully never grow up to be. my God is just getting huger in my eyes every single day. he is thundering in my life. i have been blessed by the sunset off of the back porch every night, and these unreal thunderstorms, and even hanging out with german exchange students. last night i spent a few hours learning about soundwaves in regard to physics, even. God has given me a family, a huge one, that i mourn with and party with. i cannot wait to do this for all eternity.

so, goodbye half-loves. see ya on the other side.

sometimes i think high school was such a long time ago, but then i remember that it really wasn't. i guess it's pretty funny, then, that i never actually went to a friday night football game when i was in high school. they are such a funny thing, with kids getting so into it. i didn't even care about much in high school, but now it's important to my brother. so i go, and i yell at the quarterback, and i have fun. sometimes i even forget that i am in sandy, and start wondering why everyone i know is down in provo for a silly game. oh weird.

once upon a time i had a job where i worked the early shift, and most of the days i forgot that i had even worked by the evening.


maybe that will happen again, one day.

today she was gone, because she decided not to come back from vacation, after all. and i am left wondering what it's like to be liberal in utah, and if her husband will find a job in cedar city. i even think that i will miss her complaining, at 8:30 AM. that's what happens when you just count money for a living. things just stop making sense. today i saw harry potter scribbled on george washington's face, even.

but anyways, i haven't thrown back for a few days, and my heart is feeling pretty fine. the other night i learned how to play settlers of catan, so i think i'll be okay in salt lake. now i just need to figure out how to buy good shampoo, and i should be set. the shows at gallivan make it harder to breathe lately. i bet that's what it feels like to be a toy in a machine, even, everything so mixed up. the giant claw still hasn't come for me though, and i am totally fine with that. in fifteen days, i'll be a member of salt lake city. i don't know if i'll ever be able to grasp that, but i think it will be okay. God has something too good for me up there.


for now, i will just think about how weird it is that i'm not in colorado.

tonight i know that i have to sleep, but i am just not wanting to do it.


also, i have not had as much fun in provo for awhile.
i met some neat girls today.
and,
my
head
hurts.

we were seventeen years young.

i am still running, and i wonder when i will ever stop. stop, and give it up for something that looks more like sitting still and waiting for Jesus Christ . sometimes i am just not okay at doing that. sometimes my heart just hurts and i know that God is big and has plans that i can't fathom, and that becomes a rock and an anchor.

summer is still coming, and coming. i love the warm air and the fact that i'm not taking any classes right now. freedom fest is in a few days, and i am ready for it. i am not looking towards anything else this time, like i usually seem to do. all i want is to be a light, one that isn't hidden behind or underneath anything else. i am done living like that. i'm trading in the half loves for the one true love, the one that doesn't ever fail. and i won't even miss them.

"so build me a home inside your scars, build a home inside your songs. build me a home inside your open arms, the only place i will ever belong."
-jon foreman.

"We are TEAM AMERICA!"
"Well, I guess America must be in a recession then."
-Hayden and Stephen Young, during a game of volleyball.

"we didn't do smores. we did coors and budlight. we did beef jerky".

-ramsey d, on his life.

and neko case can still make me cry, and all of that stuff.


and now it is starting to rain, and i have been waiting for this moment for a few days. my laptop is warm on my legs, and i'm pretty much really happy. also, i have had 4 or 5 sodas in the past few days. oh relapse.

then all of a sudden came the sound like the end of the world

so i decide to think about two, three years, ago, and how i am different, and how i am so much the same. and this decision making is always done at night, or when i've had a really long day. and, always, the realization is that there are still a lot of things in my life that i would truly like to shake up.

and my days, they have just been so interesting in and of themselves.

on friday i tought 12 children how to give a teacher a headache, or vice versa. they passed with flying colors, as they were drawing out their ten plagues. yup, i learned how to drive a utah mobile too, to the grocery store with medicine in the candy aisle. we made two batches of alfredo, sans any need for that. i lit off some sparklers using three boxes of matches and no help from the wind.
on saturday, i learned how not to count money and how to spend hours creating error messages on work machines. i drove a mazda at 70 and bought a mint green v-neck at forever 21, in case ten wasn't enough. i watched saturday night live, and became a taxi, and cooked some food, and even realized that i couldn't paint.
on sunday i drank too much coffee and almost forgot my very own name. church taught me how to interact with little kids and be friends with teenage boys. i sat in a hot tub in the cold rain, and then, two hours later, played frisbee in the sun. oh utah. i learned how to hit a baseball and set myself up for three days of dead muscles. i became a mother of two children that just wanted to tell jokes and wear me out, and i didn't even know what to make of it.
and then, on the holiday, i worked, and dealt with angry mothers and confused men, and, by the grace of God, left early.
and today, i was a high school student one more time. i was the girl that ate mcdonald's and regretted. i was jerry lewis and i was bob dylan, as i walked across the stage four times, as i looked at my hair in the mirror. i was a summer night, with ice cream and laughter, and i loved it.

and none of those things would i change for a minute.

"did you know that men can have a mammogram?"

"really? a MAN-O-GRAM?"

"yeah, it's true."

"man, do you get a shirt for that?!"

a typical conversation with ramsey.

"we need to talk."
"about what?"
"about anything: the newest movies, rain on a tin roof, shopping malls. the things we are too scared to say, and the things that we forget about."
"sound good to me."

i am wide awake. i don't feel like i am going to throw up, and my head doesn't hurt, for a new record.

i would love to always live inside of days like today. the more i look at it, the more i am excited for life. i think i'm starting to take the side of an optimist, and it feels great. last night i was able to relax, courtesy of a hot tub and will ferrell skits. this morning i was able to go to church and see some of the people i love the most. i can't even get over this idea of family lately. i am SO blessed by my church. i am so blessed by leaders that want the best for me even when i don't. my heart was ripped open today interacting with CHILDREN and teenage boys. aka
1. helping in Sunday school has been a huge blessing for me. children are such a beautiful thing. i love hearing them talk about God and their opinions on life. i think that teaching will be a good choice for me.
2. i was able to test two teenage boys for an outreach class final today. what an amazing thing! they were so passionate about what they were saying. one of the kids went above and beyond being the child that i used to babysit occasionally, and he turned into a man in front of my eyes. i can't wait to see these guys grow up into men that will love Jesus and their families more than anything in the whole world. they are going to be amazing dads and husbands and leaders and revolutionaries.

so, my God is good, and faithful, and real, and refreshing. even when i hate my feelings, or my sickness, or my flesh. he gives me encouragement and direction. he gives me people to plant my flag and die with. i am so thrilled to look back on my life in ten years and see all that has gone on in my life..who i've become and who's life i've changed. this world is fading fast, and sometimes i get a glimpse of that, and i want to fix it so bad. all else fades away.

i guess it has been a very long time since i've written on here, because i've discovered the lost art of notebooks and pens.

so, if you could read through my notebooks and pens, it would go something like this:

5/6
"and so lately i have just been realizing some things, like that high school plans for my life are ridiculous. like that sometimes the closest people to you are the ones that give you the worse ideas. and now i don't want to be that person, and love God all the more instead. i'm doing better. i've been using new words, topics, ideas in my sentences. i've added variety, and it feels nice. on a complete side note, i saw the inspiration for a dylan-esque song today. this is how he does it. on a country road, through a canyon, was an OLD bus broken down in the middle of the highway. it was a dark brown, sad looking thing, with destination "private function". directing traffic was not the blue and red of police on the side, but a one armed old man. everyithning was in slow motion and carnival stule. i think i saw mr. jones today."

5/7
i guess i can't commit to one form of handwriting, and hopefully that doesn't effect my committment in other areas. i'm pretty sure it won't. well, i fell in love today, except it's with Pho. it made my eyes water a few times, but i love burning lips. why didn't i discover you sooner, sriracha and crushed peppers? you made my day today. maybe we can get together more often. i am remembering that i play guitar all of a sudden. it's something to love and look forward to. i am also remembering i like to play keyboard, if only to feel like david bowie. who needs to know actual chords if you can hit a synth and sound like space? yup, there's a day in the life, minues the loads of laundry and minor sunburn. i am trying to remember that my heart is 'deceitful above all things', but really i want it to be telling me the truth just this once. that would be ideal. i guess that's just part of being human. sometimes my selfishness just wants my desires before God's because i don't always know what his are. who am i, to contradict the maker of mountains, love, and victory? his plans for me are GOOD.




so that leaves today.

my house was made for teenage boys, and i am wondering now how that is even okay? today i spent four hours trying to figure out life in regards to senior pictures, and i also got myself a brand new sunburn. oh provo, i will miss you and the conversations that we have.

it's that time where i'm sick again. where i can't breathe, where my head feels like it is going to burst. but mainly, it's where i would like to think that i can't be held accountable for what i am saying at any given moment, because i won't remember it the next. i feel like i am swimming through a concrete barrier, or at least trying to. the bottom half of my head is doing great, but the top half has gained about 10 pounds, and now i can't hold it up. i guess i am exaggerating, but who really cares about that part? i just feel the need to take a lot more laps and do a lot less work. is this what it like when you turn eighty?

really, i am glad right now that i have tracy jordan to make me a little bit less miserable. i think that if he were real, we would probably be great friends. 0r not. i would just like to hear him yell out every word in his brain, and it would never fail to make me laugh.

today also marks the end of high school. apart from finals and the occasional graduation busywork, i don't have to go back anymore. what a weird feeling. next week i start my job, and then i start at the u in the fall. things move so fast, and sometimes i just don't know what is happening. i am excited to see what God will do with a tired, nervous person like me. i am trusting him for my future. i've looked towards so many other things to make me feel great or complete me, but none of them have been good enough. i'm learning more and more everyday to wait on God. it's not about waiting on love, or changing seasons, or just getting older. none of that REALLY makes it okay. we need to realize that if we ever want to live up to our full potential, and i love that about life.

my eyeballs are going to pop right out of my head, and even then i couldn't express to you just how tired i am.

i need to go on three more spring breaks, and not let myself get worked up about life and all of the things that aren't really going on.

about this time last year, we weren't talking, or something, and i was probably pretty upset.

about this time this year, we still don't talk much, and i keep forgetting about it. there is no hole where my heart once was. i am not upset, and honestly i hardly notice it anymore.

except those times we pass by each other and don't say a thing. that is a little weird, i guess. but, i think i am content where i am. thank you for that.

i'm battling a headache and utah's bipolar weather, and math problems that i don't understand. but, i got a few new spoon songs, so that's helping me out a little bit.

i helped plant carrots on saturday night, and right now i am just hoping that they get a chance to grow.

andy warhol is in the next room.

my feet ache and my back aches and my head aches, and my hearts aches a little bit too, but i've realized that my hair isn't falling out yet. you win some you lose some, i guess. i'm probably going to throw up in a few hours too because:
1) i ate italian today
and
2) people in my life are going down left and right.
so that leaves me here, anticipating, and remembering my hypochondriac self that i really thought had disappeared.


i've been spending my spring break waking up earlier than i usually do, and it's almost even refreshing. God is so good to give me this family and this heritage. we hiked up a mountain and sang songs on top of a Y that has symbolized deception for so many years. i think that something is going to happen that we don't even see. the show doesn't get fully packed so that our friday service doesn't get shut down. the man walking down the street gets his thirst for answers quenched. i would think of more, but i think i'd rather sleep and try not to throw up.

i am exhausted all the time. and, lately, i dream about sleeping in and missing everything. it's funny how all of my dreams are about things like that. occasionally, i dream that i sleep in and miss school, or work, or life. other times, i dream that i can't make a decision, and that people are waiting on me. always, i seem to wake up stressed out. thank the Lord that i am almost done with this semester.

the truth is i don't think about you very much anymore. and i don't think about me, or him, or her, or any of that. mainly i just think about my future, and how i just want to live in an old house with a lot of fields nearby. Jesus, me, and the eventual you, the one that plays acoustic guitar and wants to eat healthy, too. the one that i have never met, probably. and i know that it won't complete me, or fulfill me, but sometimes i just want that day to come sooner. so for now, i'll sit and listen to folk songs, and be happy right where i am. i might even walk around barefoot again.

my little brother announced to me that he wants to be a farmer, and then he asked me to kill nazi zombies with him. i think that i love him even more for that.

i guess nothing is going on except that i can't even make decisions. God is good to me, in the midst of getting walnuts when you ask for rocky road, and even in the midst of the parking lot getting taken by a bunch of men and tiles. He is teaching me how to survive weeks of 3 paper due dates, and even that 1050 won't kill me after all. He is holding my hand and reminding me that breathing is normal, and so is just missing someone real bad. I love him so much for that. plus, i got a tax return this year, so that has to count for something. i am excited for what is to come, whether it be here or 40 miles away.

also, i am itching, even aching, to get a truck, pack it up, and drive to anywhere that is miles of open fields. that sounds like a little piece of heaven to me. i want to wear a dress where the weather isn't bipolar, and breathe in air that isn't cigarettes and pollution, just for one day, even.

it's a funny thing when you finally make a decision.

and then God throws you the curveball you needed.

And today was the perfect way to end a Josh Ritter song, or the other way around.

I watched her try on each of her hats. Twenty-five of them, and two headbands. She had a routine: pull it off the wall, look in the mirror, spin around, and try to throw it back on the wall. I'm pretty sure this continued for about 15 minutes. At band practice I decided to be friends with the bass player since, really, he keeps me together and stuff. And that's where I am at this point. My back is sore (maybe I am not a yoga prodigy) and my eyes are contact free for the first time in 15 hours. I broke my capo, because of course I am playing soon. The air looks clean enough, and God is good.

i've only written a very few times this year, which i guess is a little bit weird, considering.

i am a thousand miles older and have at least ten more hours of knowledge thanks to public radio and the lives of americans. i am road trips of exhaustion and a sick stomach, and i think that i would love for it to be 50 degrees more often.

i found a place that feels a little bit like a third or fourth or fifth home, except that it is in a neighborhood that i couldn't ever afford, with people that i'm not really sure how i am related to. there is some weird comfort in people that have never heard of tonga and think that the world should be run by the mob. there is a weird comfort in a family that keeps a turtle in the backyard for 40 years because their daughter found it wandering down the street one day. all in all, though, it's more comforting to come home to a naughty boxer puppy and family in the middle of provo. provo, the closest place to terrible, USA..besides wyoming. i guess it grows on you though, because it's changed the way i think about things. i might even miss it a litte bit. dang it.

"we got a bird, and i've been trying to teach him to talk, but he won't, so i just call him dummy."-dixie, age 74.

she had a steak knife in her mouth, so i pulled it out because it seemed like the right thing to do.


driving down the road, he asked me what my plans were. and this time, i didn't know what say..so, i studied my hands. they looked 10, 20 years older than they should of, and he kept going on.
'this road isn't made for drinking.'
no sir, it's not. the air was still freezing, and i wondered what was even going on. the stops and the goes, they were pretty unexpected. from time to time we were different people: different people than the summer before, than the week and night before. i think we were older, or maybe we just thought we were older. the song in the background was a broken hearted one, the kind where somebody leaves someone. i'd heard it a thousand times before getting that.
nowhere really had what anybody really needed, so it was basically over.

my hands were still red when we got back. the questions ceased and became reminiscing and the future all in one. my job had been done, enough.




it was midnight, which is hot-tub hour. we left the work for awhile and went outside. it was raining a little bit. we stepped into 100 degrees of pure bliss, and all of the aches of the day disappeared.

all in all, it was a good weekend.

so you're gonna have to show me how that dance is done, the one where somebody leaves someone...

i had a friend tell me that they were going to smoke three packs a day once they turn 19, and i don't know how to feel about that, really.

i just figure it's all downhill from 19 though, so i'll just eat apples everyday, and try to stay away from pollution, and avoid coughing up a lung too often, or throwing up italian (which i seem to do a lot). that's health enough for me.

yes we can.

motorcyclist. child. hairdresser. unemployed. ex-meth dealer. mother of 7. banker. e-bay software designer. smoker. single. coffee master. greying hair. homeless for ten months. football player. college student. alcoholic. musician. armed forces. medical student. sister-in-law.

All of those people, sitting together in my living room. It's beautiful how God can take random words and lives and knit them into a family. All of those people, together, would be a mess. We are a mess. But, continually, we are reminded that we are a family. I've learned the most from the people least like me. Maybe the thirteen-year-old girl writes the song I never could, or maybe the six year old teaches me a lesson on love. Maybe the alcoholic teaches me that we are all, as humans, addicts in some way or another. Maybe the man who has endured living under a bridge teaches me perserverance and generosity. In community my weaknesses become evident.


And that is a radical thing.

today i realized three things:

• that i have 5 classes that i actually need to study for. i haven't really done that for seventeen years.
• that listening to david sedaris sing at a reading is a lot funnier than actually reading it.
• that naps are pretty good for my soul.

and that's what i guess i'm into nowadays.


i have had curly hair for almost a week now, and i am practically in love with it. maybe it's the way i really just don't have to wash it, or maybe it's something else.

some things in my life:

1. I gave up on football. My team loses every year, without fail, and it's just not good for my heart anymore. Goodbye, touchdowns, and field goals, and that loud yelling guy that is always in the background.

2. We got a wiiFit. Now I can learn how to do yoga from a tv screen. I can also be told, daily, that I have terrible balance. Nice.

3. I am starting to, believe it or not, like playing electric guitar. I like sounding loud and angry when I occasionally feel loud and angry.

4. Cooking Asian food is not my forte. Yesterday I tried to make pad thai, and it was effectively renamed 'greasy noodles with brown sauce'.

5. I want to go to the midwest again already. It's addicting.

6. Summer couldn't come a few months early, could it? My feet want to be bare, please.

7. I don't think that I want to be in love for a long time.

"and she was like 'all you have in your fridge is batteries and pickles', and i was like 'really..i have pickles?!" --Ramsey, single man extraordinare.

the new year was more of an after thought, a small surprise after a long day. there wasn't really much time to contemplate the last year, with it's aches and joys and complications and loves. i was too busy trying to become 40.

hotel rooms, exhaustion, and cheap cigars: that is the smell of my life. chlorine and whirlpools; pizza boxes and wind so cold that is practically pierces your soul. so here's to that, and here's to making friends that live too far away, to playing tom petty songs, to the love of nintendo. i think i will miss all of that this week. i might even miss the open road, with it's possibility.

so thanks for always being across the hall, and for letting us hang out in your room every night. thanks for swimming with us in the middle of wyoming. thanks for playing mafia, four on a couch. thank you for being funny. thanks for playing guitar. thanks for walking with me to the lake. thank you for taking pictures. thank you for messing up a few times. thanks for helping me.
thanks for all those hours.

in the past seven days, i have been working on 3 or 4 hours of sleep each night, which isn't really very good for a body. maybe that is why, when i get back to the hotel room at 3 am, i find myself starting to put on makeup. maybe that is why it feels so good to be home.

my head is still reeling from faithwalkers. God is good and big and likes to challenge me. i was refreshed, but it felt more like raw exposure than anything else. it cut down deep and good. the worship was such an incredible experience. 2200 people poured their hearts out at the same time in the same room. that is such an honest thing. joy whitney made me feel like a big baby all over again (the whitney's are good at doing that) and now i am just excited for change. i am excited for that big scary word commitment, and what it's going to do with my life. God is my constant. that is all i need to hold on to, that is all i will ever need.