another kind of green

"you're not the perfect hand, but i don't hit on 19."

yesterday was great. midmorning, kate and i spontaneously drove to the MOA and we shopped shopped shopped, meaning, we spent over two hours in forever 21 trying on EVERYTHING. i now own the cutest black dress ever and if i don't find a formal occassion to wear it to soon, heaven forbid, i will have to start wearing it on regular days. you know, to hy-vee or the bank or other exciting places. actually, i just realized that i wrote the "yesterday was great" sentence before recalling the entire day, which couldn't be forever filled with spectacular-like finding the perfect dress and getting the last one in stock, on sale.

do not be fooled by the smile, i am a monster. my heart has been void and my words have been unjustly cruel. sometimes, most of the time, i cannot believe that i, a single person, have the great ability to help and hurt so many, so much. lately i feel like i have been doing a hundred times more for the abstract statistics of homeless people in MN than those closest to me. i feel arrogant, guilty, and strung all over the place. i'd like to change this. now.

something that i've been mulling over, not as much or as seriously as i should be, is a guatemala mission trip next year with the fellow church members. i keep myself asking "why the hell not?" and slapping myself for still questioning. i have always had skepticism towards help that does not involve giving something concrete (such as: building a new school or providing clean water). i know i need to understand that what i would be offering is time and warm-heartedness, but to me, it still seems so impersonal and too much like starting to build a house and then abandoning it first thing, which is better or worse than not starting it at all?

i don't know why, but i am so in the mood for metaphors like this:

autobiography in five short chapters by portia nelson
I. i walk down the street. there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. i fall in. i am lost... i am helpless; it isn't my fault. it takes forever to find a way out.

II. i walk down the same street. there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. i pretend i don't see it. i fall in again. i can't believe i am in the same place; but it isn't my fault. it still takes a long time to get out.

III. i walk down the same street. there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. i see it is there. i still fall in... it's a habit. my eyes are open. i know where i am. it is my fault. i get out immediately.

IV. i walk down the same street. there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. i walk around it.

V. i walk down a different street.

blah is a 4-letter word

i am frustrated with many people right now, but mostly, myself. especially for ever believing that extreme emotions are rightly stereotyped as juvenile. what makes me disappointed at the moment, is that there is really nobody around to talk with. the microwave sits in the kitchen commanding me to "press start" while it scrolls and continuously repeats, stuck in the middle of an operation, forced open and intercepted too early. with background music playing, the lyrics sung by musicians declare they are pouring out their hearts to lovers. and i am nauseated by the words swimming around in my own head.

good things are happening, so why don't they feel, you know, good?

tonight while driving south on 52, rochester looked so pretty. the foggy sky and the collection of individual city lights appear like stars. a perfect night for a drive to canada.

homemade coffee cups

it is almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon and i am still in my pajamas with uncombed hair and unbrushed teeth. i just finished watching 'the constant gardener' with my dad. for some reason, it happened that my whole family was home at noon today.

i find things like this so fascinating, even though they are complete crap. the radical beliefs that certain people hold so tenaciously, the unknown everythings, and all the .0000000001% possibilities in this world are some kind of magic.

canto xviii

just recently i have been getting loads of mail from the AARP, addressed to specifically me. so, they've found me out! i swear, it is their super secret senior spies that have discovered that i'm practically geriatric: getting sleepy around dinnertime, loving word games, working with mostly 50+ aged people, etc. maybe all of this fatigue and old folkishness is simply a product of me being just plain too "rosy-cheeked with chills" ill to do much of anything. i really don't feel like doing anything, really. today i sat and napped for hours and was so weepy while drinking my fresca and watching cheesy and depressing rob reiner films about broken marriages. it's stuff like this makes me old- i mean, uber cool.

after someone mentioned the OC (adam brody, my love!) i was motivated to create another must-see list: (obviously, this is something that i always feel like doing)

thank you for smoking
beauty academy of kabul
howl's moving castle
paradise now
american history x
everything is illuminated
casanova
friends with money
eight below

not having to do with any of those movies in particular, i just realized that i can't help but love and enjoy movies where masses of people die, mostly disaster movies. i'd like to think that within tragic dramas my love stems from the unity and connection generated between humans in times of crises, but then again, i might just be that much of a sadist/cinematic sucker.

p.s. I CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO THE FRAY AND SINGING WITH EM!

some season finales

i feel like things have been so random and haphazard this summer. i wake up in the mornings and do not have an itinerary or plan of attack for the day. some days this is exciting and some days it's scarily uneventful.

the other day i fell back in love with running. for the past two months, i have seen running as a disgusting nuisance, like the worst chore on the chore list. i have dragged myself out of bed, the family room couch, plush carpeted floors, and pushed myself to perform like a little mechanical wind-up doll. but the other day, the wind and sun matched my mood and i sprang across the pavement with the clearest head ever. i hope hope hope this continues as a running streak.

tonight was a redwood room reunion (minus 1). i am truly thankful for these friends that i have had for many many years. among other things, we had a mayan chocolate cinnamon ice cream, which is perhaps the best ice cream i've had in my entire life. beforehand, i did makeup and took pictures for prom. my sister and her friends looked so happy and fresh and young, it made me excited all over again to still be young and 20.

i am awake for no reason and will probably skip church tomorrow. god hates me, i know.

hollywood video!

right now i am on the floor propped up by my elbows with my feet dangling in the air. people sit like this a lot in the movies because it looks fun, but it really isn't that comfortable at all.

why doesn't it feel like summertime? okay, besides the sleeping lots, chatting on the phone with everyone not in rochester, and going out with scott and playing boggle while listening to the top 9 at 9... it feels like not summer. the other day i got ambitious and woke up early to look for jobs in the rochester post-bulletin classifieds. ha ha ha! talk about sketch. most of the numbers that i called wouldn't even reveal the companies that they were representing until i passed a 5-minute on-the-phone screening. so far, my employment options are: cutco cutlery salesperson, seafood processor in alaska, and music on wheels DJ. they all want me. i still really have no stellar ideas about what i am going to do with six weeks of this summer. i was planning on losing myself in good books, movies, food, but for now, that all feels somewhat blank?

la te da. i tell everyone how much i hate this dreary weather, but i love love love it.

we didn't start the fire

right now there are two other people in my room (besides amy) sleeping for 5am finals, so i must type quietly and not in my usual elephant way. i guess i'm just so excited for finals to begin that i cannot go to sleep.

so, what is up? lately i've been going through immature little bouts of loving everything and being so excited for the future to being irritated with everyone and fearing boredom. i wish it would stop. i feel too much as if i am 17 again. and my journal is out of blank pages.

this morning i played hardcore tennis with lara and a can of new balls and it was, honestly, heaven. and that would have been a pretty sentence, but the one word "balls" kind of ruins it. then, instead of studying, i spent forever getting angry while reading about the "new" contraception controversy going on because there was an image of a condom on the nytimes cover and who wouldn't click on an image of a condom? the end. goodnight. writing at 2am always feels like a good idea.

p.s. billy joel does rock my world sometimes.

reader's digest

pulling all-nighters is thrillingly dorky: putting on the scrubs, sipping drinking chocolate from england with amy and making fun of horse-donkey sex, turning up some frou frou, and typing out grand statements on humanity. however, as thrilling as it is, i am so thankful to have time now to myself to stop and smell the roses. life is really so much more enjoyable when i am not forcing myself to breath or living with an alarm clock that has dead batteries. finals week/anything = piece o' cake compared with last week. so please, bring it on.

looking ahead, i am attempting to make a summer goals list and realizing that i have very little.

summer goals:
*season 4 of 24
*read all the books i got for christmas (+ gossip girl #9 and brave new world)

i swear i will bulk up this list, soon!

i am a poet

i just finished a paper.
it is pitch black outside.
birds are chirping outside of my window, loudly.
what the hell?

silicon cups to replace tampons

i can't wait for these things to become popular. less pain, less hassle, less money, less unnecessary waste. see, it's a winner.

it's late (in my book) and i have an urge to blab! i have two "new" favorites that i'd like to share with you. mr. & mrs. smith is uh, definitely one of my new favorite movies. why? because it's so so cool. seriously, i love every minute of it. seriously. and! ALL i've been listening to lately is the SHREK 2 soundtrack. why? because it just rocks. it gives me warm fuzzies when school gets me feeling all shitty and square. ...and these are a few of my favorite things.

today began with hard rain and my muddy-up-to-the-knees jeans and my UNTOUCHED BY RAIN OR MUD SUPA CLEAN AND FABULOUS MECHANICAL ENGINEERING FINAL PROJECT that i managed to carefully carry through the weather. thank god.

okay. blab blab. time to sleep in my own bed for the first time in at least 2 days! i am excited?