one way to describe right now is bummed out/sore back/headache/heart hurt. another way to describe it is living, if you are optimistic. i guess it just hurts to listen to life stories that just need Jesus. it is always so obvious to me, more than anything else, but they don't get it. so i leave work almost in tears, with three free bags of salad.

relaxing weekend. tiring weekend. stressful weekend. happy weekend. full weekend. different weekend. come back to me.

i am so tired all of the time. noah keeps asking me if i ever sleep. afterwards he points out the bags underneath my eyes. maybe i do not need to always be in that same house.

i wanted to tell him that, no, my head was just really hurting, and i was not stupid. but instead i stood there trying to remember what twenty-five minus nine was. sometimes customers just make you want to yell. who cares if it is two pennies off--you will just lose them inside of your truck.

vay.k.shun. that is how i would spell if i was as stupid as you thought i was. and i would not have a job. and i would not stay up all of the time doing homework. but a vacation is what i could use instead. vacation from the dirty air (it's a'comin' back), the cold, and the schoolandwork part of life. time with God. time in sunshine. time in possibly an oregon place in the world.

if i must confess...

...I think that I will be more than a little bit disappointed when the Super Bowl comes around, because then football will be over. What will be left to make of Sundays besides work?

But I guess that is a win-lose, too, because after the Super Bowl usually comes Spring. Break. Vacation, perhaps.

today was the kind that was just not good. it was like the kind where you want to drive around in your car and yell all of the swear words you know to no one in particular. but, right now it is close to three, and i am feeling really happy, even though i've been up almost 24 hours.

i have just been wondering lately, though: is it really a good thing to give up one vice, just to pick up another? you quit smoking so much only to pick up drinking more. you quit drinking soda to pick up coffee the next day. you quit telling dirty jokes to immediately judge others when they do. those kinds of thoughts convict me, late at night. i want to sleep, but sometimes i feel like i need to wrestle with God before sleep can even be worth it.

"he is the golden boy, he wins at everything."
"nope, i tied him at halo once."
-daniel, then scrib, talking about manly things.

poetry freaks me out. 3 hour conversation last night, and i am tired.

so here is my assignment i have to turn in tomorrow: poems about updates i saw on facebook.

Feel like a nobody because I am jobless, nothing like spaghetti and music to unwind
Thought back to the day you told me you liked your men like your coffee
Tumbled in a copper drum, coated with chocolate.
That was yesterday, before I became the human dress factory, before January and February
clocks ticking faster and faster. Where did it go?

Crazy night. Ear ache. Found a lost dog.
Tire blew. Work truck. Craving the mountain.
goodbye lovely Colorado!

The truth of it is that
the Glory of God is so awesome it can be frightening at first.
It is like a trainwreck gets hit by a
plane during an
earthquake
and there’s a
hurricane
and a
tornado.
I am weak, but I am on your side.
I
always
was.
I was born a sinner, opposite of a winner.

"no one is ever going to marry me."
-noah hahn, after doing some crazy thing.

the thing about the weekend is that it was a lot of running back and forth, between sandy and provo and salt lake city. i guess i do love that. my car doesn't really agree though, but i take what i can get. floors to sleep on, walls to paint, and norwegians to sing their national anthem. also, i was able to watch star wars again, after ten years of not watching it. you betcha that if i lived in space, i would be in love with han-solo.

any
ways.


maybe one day i will give up soda again.
maybe one day i will buy a dog, or a bird, or something that is living.
maybe one day the air will be warm.
i am hoping for all of those to happen sooner rather than later.

about 42 minutes into the semester, a man almost fell asleep on my shoulder. granted, i was listening to the strokes, and it was hot inside of trax, but still. i wonder what life would be like, to fall asleep and wake up on the shoulder of the random stranger next to you. what if they smelled awful, or what if they cut your hair? sometimes you just gotta ask these questions on public transportation. hopefully that won't also happen on thursday, because maybe then i will be more tempted to push him onto the ground.

and so that leaves trying not to drown in readings. reading this, reading that; and three of them have at least been able to make me laugh out loud. praise Jesus for that. six down, seven to go, one day in. but God is good to me. i still remember that i have grace for the moment, and that i could be majoring in math. but i'm not, and instead i get to read novels like white noise and funny little stories by men that number their lives, as in

"Number of holes in one, big golf: 0; miniature golf:3. Number of consecutive push-ups, maximum: 25. Number of waist size: 32. Number of gray hairs: 4. Number of children: 4. Number of suits, business: 2; swimming: 22. Number of cigarettes smoked: 83. Number of
times I've kicked the dog: 6. Number of times caught in the act, any act: 64."
-Greg Burnham.

I really like that. and also, lately, i really like sleep, and the silly little text messages i am always getting. good night.

today was a good day: ran some errands, got some hoodies, washed my car, remembered tegan & sara. hot dogs at dinnertime. all those things are generally pretty good good.

the sun was out for a little bit, and that makes me want to have projects. the sun always did make me forget that it was only 30 degrees outside. i was set on putting on a skirt and taking off my shoes. instead i went to the bank, and to the library. the library fuels the project fire every time. so that is it. here are some projects i want to start this year, in addition to the ones i am already doing:
--cooking, baking, blending different things.
--maybe starting a garden in the spring.
--learning how to sew.
--getting into a daily workout routine.

and that is a lot of projects. of course i would want them when i am heading into a busy semester, because that is how things work. today is the last day off before trax, and paper writing, and professors. realizing that i am actually going back sure does scare me. this semester will be challenging, but i love the idea of spring semester a lot. with fall semester the weather goes from good to gross, and in spring semester it does the opposite. you even get out soon enough to go take pictures of flowers and the grass that is turning green. i sure do like that part of life. today i thought it was spring for sure, and then realized that we aren't even in the middle of january. the air is still dirtier than probably even LA (you can see it when you drive, just hanging around like a fog). inversion, inversion, go away, and don't come back and makeitspring. i'll be here waiting, like i usually am.

on a sidenote: i love putting things in my hair all the time lately. i am always buying clips or barrettes or anything i can stick in it. best of all, those things are cheap, and my hair is the longest it has been in about three years.


"though it won't all go the way that it should,
but i know that the heart of life is good."
-john mayer
that is on my mind.

weekend=provo=colorado girls=church=party at nick's=never being 21=crowded=bowling=115 (which oddly also equals winning).

so mainly this week i actually only lived alone for three days, which was exactly enough. they gave me time to be back home--to do laundry and to watch football games and to look up soup recipes. i needed all of those things, i think.

but more, i realize, i need that time with the people around me. people that challenge me. people that speak and are desperate for truth. people that understand what community is. i think that about 5 or 6 times a year i re-realize how beautiful a life in community truly is. sometimes it is messy, and usually it is a battle, but in the process it still manages to be gorgeous. i love watching people dying to themselves and opening up their homes. allowing them to smell bad because so many people are around. making space on their floors to provide a place to sleep. i have watched people do this time and time again, and i want to make a habit of letting that be my life. i don't want to waste opportunities to serve, whatever that may be. maybe it is making french toast and listening to a story, maybe it is driving someone down the freeway, maybe it is even just praying for someone. those kinds of things are the ones that matter, and i love that. sometimes i forget that all other things will burn. they will, and they will create an even bigger mess than what utah's air is. but lives don't burn, souls, eternally.

so that is on my heart. also on my heart is that i hope kurt warner gets to go to the superbowl. also i am wondering when it will be warm again, because i want to ride bikes, and i am wondering why i am being called someone that will be a good wife when i am not even dating people ever.

"well, i obviously don't have the gift of hammering."
-bill young last night, about spiritual gifts [and here you could even insert a joke about some cheesy 80's song]

the thing that makes me happy is this: at 2:30 in the afternoon, getting a phone call from a friend in colorado, and her saying to me "hey, we are coming tonight, can a few of us stay with you?"

and then it makes me happy that i get to stay at the hahn's all night and wait for them. get to go to chipotle with my mom and two brothers. get to forever 21 it up with emma, and sit in a hot tub breathing in dirty air chemicals. and it always makes me happy when i get to eat dairy queen, or when i see a friend's little brother wearing a jersey that says 'evenson'. how we pulled that off, i don't know.

and i still manage to be happy when 11 comes, and emma goes off to bed, and the girls go down to the basement to drink rum. i don't even mind what's left: standing in the kitchen and talking to philip about the Bible. that is always an interesting part of my life. also, sometimes free cardigans come out of it.


i get even happier when we watch flight of the conchords, and i remember how i always did want to marry bret. truth is, i still would, because dude has a good beard.

Jesus is real good to me.

my dad is insane, and it has taken me 18 years to realize that as truth. he called me and told me some vague, incoherent story that he had taken as truth . i asked him what he was on, and he mentioned that it was paint fumes and then started a new story. he also told me that going to bed after midnight contributes to depression, which means that i should clearly be a basketcase. i think we are more similar than i daily realize.

pepsi throwback has returned. i was worried for a minute. maybe one day they will throwback dr. pepper and i can live in calorie paradise. at least natural sugar is better for your life and probably even your soul. it sure does feel like it. these simple things make me happy. i love sugar and pretzels all the time lately. i literally just sit and eat pretzels all the day long. one day my metabolism is going to slow to a crawl, and then i will just become morbidly obese. oh well, if i can hold it off five years, and get married, then according to some people i know it won't matter. that is why i have the friends i do--always encouraging me. i think i am actually going to look into joining a gym. i have always been pretty interested in lifting things and running on machines, and i love it when my heart beats really hard. there is no patience left inside of me for spring so that i can ride bicycles everywhere, and no bicycle in my salt lake life, so the gym seems good enough. it is just a bummer that you have to pay somebody else to stay healthy.

t minus 6 days until i am consumed by books, papers, and public transportation. starbucks better be good to me.

move over, allen ginsberg...

..we are bringing the 60's back, in a few in a series of texts trying to convince me to rent a cabin in the woods for a weekend:

"i think..philip, you, [insert a bunch of names here] and i should all put in like 20 bucks each and go spend a weekend in like a cabin together in the mountains..And use it for taking pictures, playing music, sledding and doing artistic stuff! Before winter is over!"

"I just want to do something cool before we all get to grow up, somethin artsy, and we've all been best friends for a long time! we wouldn't have to follow youth group plans or what parents say..we could just have fun and do cool stuff."

"pshhhhhh..Everyone always gets to go on a college graduation trips..not us! It'd be baller..Man..We could bring home some awesome stuff."

(and after i mentioned that some of us did occasionally have jobs or college)

"Man you are a downer!! You have all life for school and work and blah blah blah blah! But this will be an amazing week with best friends! Memories! Artistic inspiration."

So all of those things leave me wondering when I became best friends with a hippy, because I thought it would always be the other way around. I would be the hippy, walking around barefoot, and he would be the one who looked at everything I did skeptically. Instead, I nervously chew all foods and try to write about my life. My new vice is clementines, because they are so tiny that you can't even see them over a book, but they are a good way to stay occupied.

My life is a happy thing, despite going into a week of living alone. It is pretty hellish, until you realize that you can listen to music real loud, and that the mess in the kitchen is at least your very own. Plus, I've never had much of a better parking spot. Things work okay.

Another thought: If I had more money, I think that I would like to be a chef. How fun a lifestyle, always being in a warm kitchen, always tasting and seeing and smelling new things. My kitchen would be welcoming but not big enough. People would sit at my table and watch me chop things up, slowly from whole to tiny, tiny pieces, and we would talk about all things. I would serve people and watch their expressions change as they tasted my newest creation. That is the thing that I would love about it. What a terrifying moment--to not be sure if they would love it or hate it. What a thrill. What an adventure. Sheer anticipation. Anticipation like what I feel about next semester, reading all kinds of books and learning all kinds of Spanish again. Maybe I am not ready for this, or maybe I just don't want to be yet. Last night I started reading White Noise by Don DeLillo for some literature class. Hopefully it is enjoyable.

(i work with a lady that i vicariously smoke cigarettes through. so that should probably be rephrased as she smokes the cigarettes, and then comes around me after they are all over her. the funny thing is that she doesn't smell like smoke, but the actual tobacco part, like the cigarette is ingrained in her body and blood. i oddly also love that smell, but it is a bit shocking because of the rule that i don't smoke cigarettes. i think it is almost too much for me to handle on the day-to-day)

"but when they forget that you are blair waldorf, remember that i am chuck bass, and that i love you."

-chuck bass, on gossip girl.

well, i have to confess: i'm listening to manchester orchestra again--a lot--just in case you wanted to disregard the rest of anything i ever say.


seventeen long days ago. that is when i last slept in my own bed. a lot can happen in seventeen days. between december seventeenth and january third you can end up inside of a fourteen hour car ride. you can also end up in omaha. in a greasy bowling alley with drunk people. in a liquor store/gas station. in a headache, in a hot tub with broken jets, in yet another hotel. in someone else's glances. i think i like the idea of seventeen days.

after all, seventeen days did make me think about things, about people, about Jesus differently.

anyways. there is a backyard full of ashtrays that i visited once. it was cold there, and my nose kept running. you always were giving me messages, but they were lost in other things. the air was too crisp. the ground was too icy. my hair wasn't wet, because i had a hat on, but my neck still had chills running down it. our communication always did seem a little off, i guess. whatever you had to say, i forgot it, forgot we needed each other (sometimes) until i went back into warm air. another time, in the cold, though, i think i got you. there was ice, and there was snow, but that always did make my eyes more blue, and i liked watching your breath in the air. we walked for awhile, until my feet were soaked, but you were able to tell me all your stories. we settled back into warm air, and it felt good. i always did like being outside though. maybe we can try again one day, when there is a sun. i'll try to stay focused.