wish

happy birthday, alex.

"But I'm gonna love you anyhow." ---Elliott Smith

birthdays, etc

this is a strange age to be (okay, with me any age is odd). in less than a week (next tuesday to be specific), i'll be twenty six. last year i turned the big quarter century and it pretty much went by unnoticed. but now the thoughts creep in that i never really planned on my life being like this when i was younger. geez, back when i was twelve it seemed so far off. not that i was particularly dreamy and as a little girl never really thought that much of weddings and children. still, this isn't exactly what i imagined. or at all.
not that that's necessarily a bad thing. we're not exactly living in the future of flying cars and talking houses. not exactly. after all, how boring would it be if we did know & could predict all that was going to happen? maybe that's why i've never visited a psychic. life is hectic enough without having to worry about where you'll be in twenty years. i doubt it'll be anything like i'd imagine.

"You're an old time memory." ---Josh Kelley

now the feast...

yesterday i attended late service at zion. it was the first church i visited when i moved to town because it was right across the street from where i lived. it felt right, probably because it was so close to wednesday night communion at concordia. there's just something about the elca liturgy for me. and especially yesterday when we used part of marty haugen's "now the feast and celebration". they were welcoming new members and it made me wonder if i should consider it. i've never felt any real pull to become a full member; i just always sign the register as a guest receiving communion, but it has been 3 1/2 years. then i also think, how long am i actually going to be here in iowa? i do love iowa city and i'll have to get my iowa driver's license (finally!) in the next week since mine expires on my birthday next tuesday. but i hardly feel like an iowan. perhaps i'm just misplaced. i do wonder where i belong. not in a way that i don't belong here, but i feel like maybe there's somewhere else that's a better fit. and then i think, perhaps it's not where you are but who you're with. (apologies for the dangling preposition)

"Now the feast & celebration. All of creation sings for joy, to the God of life & love & freedom. Praise and glory forevermore." ---Marty Haugen

repetition

everything feels so very repetitive lately. i mean, that's life, right? we get up in the morning, go to work, come home, sleep only to wake up & do it all over again. sometimes it's a bit more complex than that, but not by much.
and even moreso it seems like my blogs are repetitively focused on the same things. i realize i've only been posting for a short while, but a pattern does exist there. and i guess that's a result of the repetition of my life. just this past year is a perfect example. deja vu, really. i took the leap & let myself be vulnerable to another person in a romantic sense. prior to that i'd had an unwritten '3-date rule' (for more on that, feel free to inquire). and with that jump, i felt as wobbly & unsure of myself as any newborn calf/colt/fawn (select your quadriped of choice). my uncertainties appear to have been well-founded as throughout the past year it has been a rollercoaster of ups & downs with this same man. i guess it only goes to show that he's in as precarious a position as i am because it always comes back to the two of us again. i just wish that he could see that the reasons we're apart are not so all-consuming as he makes them out to be.
anyroad, all this to say that recurrence of all these events appear to place me at a crossroads. as my mother so crassly says 'piss or get off the pot' and i'm thinking that new beginnings have to be an improvement on the current situation. slowly getting the feel of the new job, so that's a step in the right direction, anyway.

"I ain't getting any younger no, no, no. Stuck in a rut. And only you could get me out of this place." ---Marc Broussard

baby steps

somewhere between yesterday & today i got lost. last night was a terrible night. you know the kind where you wake up at 3:30 in the morning and can't get back to sleep despite your best efforts? then it's time to wake up & you're so weak from exhaustion that you can barely get yourself ready for work. being so tired that you want to cry. yeah, that was last night.
as per yesterday's blog, i was all set to be strong. i want to be. but last night's events (or non-event as the case may be) shattered all of that. maybe i'm just not ready to jump quite yet.
there are a lot of things going on in my life that i haven't told anyone about & just when i feel like i'm going to be able to work past them, it all comes crashing down on my head. the most infuriating part of it all is having someone tell you that they're 'just trying to do the best thing for both of us'. where does my input belong in a situation like that? the decision has already been made & i have no say.
well, it should be fairly obvious to even the most casual observer that my life is not in my hands. apparently, control is not something i'm meant to have. and the one thing i can count on in this world is the abiding presence of G-d. maybe He'll let me steer every once in a while.
prayers for my sanity are always appreciated.

"Every hello seems to echo goodbye. A permanently temporary love. Slowly realizing maybe love isn't enough... The time we had it was barely a time to begin..." ---Christopher Jak

secret

i have a secret.

in all honesty, i have quite a few secrets. some things are withheld from certain people for specific reasons, such as to keep from hurting them. and other things, especially one, is currently kept from all but one person. but i'd like to change things, not be so closed off & unwilling to share. okay, so sometimes i share way too much with some people, but that's not exactly what i mean. first i'd like to start being more honest with myself. it's probably the only way to make that next step.
i once jokingly told a friend 'you can lie to yourself all you want; just tell us the truth.' she was having trouble admitting her fear about going to grad school, whether or not it was the right choice for her. at the moment, i'm so afraid. afraid that i'll make the wrong choice and things won't turn out the way i want them to, afraid of being completely honest with myself, afraid to let other people in on my secrets. afraid of being hurt. again. simply because i love someone.

i think it starts with me. today is a good day to be strong. tomorrow's looking good, too.

"So I fall on my knees
To get back on my feet again
And I cry out for You
Would You please speak to me" ---Ten Shekel Shirt

dull

so this is my life. boredom on the weekends & stressful, anxious days during the work week. i really need to learn to calm down. i'm nearly 26 and i feel as though i can barely fend for myself. it's about time i learn to make it on my own, not depending so much on the opinions of others or my parents to fall back on when things go wrong. knowing that they're there is one thing, clinging to them like i've been cast adrift without a life preserver is a stretch. not everything is an emergency. how can i be an independent woman if i can't rely on myself? i've come so far, yet there's such a long way to go and i look forward to the journey.
well, except for the near orgy i barely escaped on friday night, i spent the entire weekend sleeping & cleaning. fun! (details will not be made available about aforementioned orgy, other than to say that i left when my friends decided to start playing spin the bottle with their 19 & 20 year old downstairs neighbors and the 19 year old tried to make out with me.)

"It's a big girl world now, full of big girl things, and everyday I wish I was small." ---Kendall Payne

again

here i am. figured i should post again, just for the heck of it. i'm avoiding work, as i have been with most of these blogs. partly because the boss(es) left town for a conference in boston at noon & in part because my brain is fried from the breakdown of my car yet again. this time, at least, i had my cellphone on me. when it happened three weeks ago, i hadn't made it out of town & was rescued by some people at a local nursery who let me stay warm in their building while i waited for a tow. so besides breaking down, forgetting my phone (which gives me a 'free' tow with my roadside assistance), my shoe broke when i was walking home from the mechanic 6 blocks from my house. what a morning!
well, this morning i had kindly followed my friend to a town just north of here while she dropped her car off at the mechanic (dumb luck!), then drove her home. i had to wake up an hour early to do this & headed to the highway and early to work. my service engine soon light went on exactly halfway between the two towns & i had to wait more than an hour for the tow truck to arrive. i finally warmed up just now after drinking some hot cocoa. and i still don't know what's wrong with duncan (my car). maybe it's time to seriously consider a new vehicle, despite all the good he's been to me.
this is an unbelievably long & whiny ramble. and i really want a hug from a certain someone. heck, anyone'll do right now so long as it's the actual physical contact, though cyberhugs are always much appreciated.

"Anytime you think you wanna be my love, that's a reason, do what you're thinking of. Anytime you think you wanna come on over, stop asking, get in the car and drive." ---Blu Sanders

sleet & sniffles

i have a cold again. this stinks! second one since I started working here less than two months ago. maybe i'm just not taking care of myself very well. probably the lack of sleep from this weekend & stomping around in puddles & heaps of snow (not on purpose; they're just everywhere!)
i took a nap last night from about 6:30-7:30, got up & ate a ton of stuff (feed a cold, right?), ran to the grocery to stock up on nyquil & dayquil, dosed myself with some liquid green stuff (haven't had the liquid in at least a decade; it does funny things to me: think an eleven year old home alone, running blender blades & a lot of blood. please don't ask), made a phone call from my bed around 9:30 & fell asleep around 10pm when i hung up. i even forgot how the green stuff tastes. all anisette-y.
another sheet of glass wrapped around my car this morning that i had to hack off. wasn't last week's weather bad enough? luckily, i was pretty smart & had no intention of getting to work early (8:45 is good enough)
well this is certainly dull. no insight today, but i have to mention how nice it is to hear 'i love you' last thing before you fall asleep.

"I waited forever for this to get better" ---Blu Sanders

my imagination

it always feels like it's my imagination when guys are hitting on me. case in point, last night i met a guyfriend at a bar to catch up & he brought his roommate. i knew that it wasn't a date with my friend & thought nothing of it, eventually sitting at the 'guys table' with 3 guys & myself (ie- guyfriend, guyfriend's roommate & my ex). always have, always will be able to keep up with the boys in conversation and despite not knowing the roomie, we traded jibes between ourselves and the other two with regularity.
this is where the problem lies. knowing my ex's behavior, i could tell he was making overtures bordering on the flirtatious & two months later, despite my best efforts, i was still not over him. at this time, the roommate is well on his way to being incapacitated (not in any annoying way but just enough so that I disbelieve him). he would get this look of awe and tell me that he was in trouble about at least half of everything i said referencing art, music, a good vocabulary (he used the word 'metallurgist' & spelled it for me, how many people do that in polite conversation?) by the time the band started playing he was telling me he had a huge crush on me & i knew the ex was getting a little annoyed but it wasn't his place to call me on it. all my girlfriends kept telling me to go for it & at closing he pulled me away from the group to give me a goodbye kiss. just glad the ex didn't see that, though he may have been told by the others because i left a couple minutes later, not seeing him to say goodbye.
so the reason for posting this overview of the evening's events is to pose this question to any possible readers: should i move to arkansas? no, the real question is, what is wrong with me that some nice, charming, intelligent guy hits on me & i want nothing more than to take back my ex who broke my heart repeatedly last year? weak, so weak.

"I get all my bad habits, watching you; it's true" ---Michael Tolcher

all by myself

here i am at work. all alone. and it's almost 9.30am. strange, but it's a circumstance of this horrid weather we've been having this week. not that i'm actually working, as you can see.
yesterday, when showing off my shiny new blog, someone made a comment on my lack of capitalization. i'm trying to decide why i do this. it's certainly not a nod to e.e. cummings. in fact, i'm usually quite the zealot when it comes to punctuation and grammar. now i'm quite curious about e.e. cummings' use of such a format. time to research!
the same person who made note of my punctuation also pointed out the narcissism involved in blogging. as if people are actually interested in the daily goings-on of my life. eh, no matter. perhaps in accordance with murphy's law, my life will be less of a raging maelstrom if i record the events. drama is sure to be less frequent, right?
and can i just say that price-gouging gas in the face of a raging blizzard is incredibly infuriating? on my way to work yesterday morning it was $1.54 a gallon & leaving town around 1pm, it had shot up to an annoying $1.75 with the impending storm. golly gee, thanks handimart.
oh look, greg's here. no more loneliness.

"All of the world seems lost in reason" ---EastEighteen

beginnings

as most bloggers start, i don't have much to say, but was convinced by a friend that my musings would be read at the least by her if no one else. this isn't truly my first blog, but i will try to avoid the angst-filled ruminations that plagued my previous blogging publications. (once i'm more adept at this whole thing, i'll consider transferring those older writings here or providing a link to the originals.)
i'm at work right now (shame on me!) and it's quite vicious outside at the moment. i'm rather dubious that the 30 mile trek this morning was worth the effort. but there's snow outside and i do so love the snow. i've been told i was born in a blizzard (1 Feb '79---geez mom & dad, a blizzard not a hospital?) and was riding on a snowmobile by the time i was finally released from the hospital two weeks later. was definitely wishing i had a snowmobile to drive to work today. a fun & efficient method of transportation in such blustery conditions.
now that i've sufficiently procrastinated for the morning, i think i'll wrap this up.

"Get behind my eyes for another view" ---Michael Tolcher