the saga of the rubberbands

yay, no one's shooting at us.

i suppose it’s charlie brown’s fault, really.  after all, he’s the one who gave me the package of rubberbands as part of my 84th birthday gift (i gave him some charlie brown things, naturally).  and it was perfect timing, too, since i’d scoured all the drawers in my cube only to find nary a rubberband.  a telephone, yes, empty slide film holders, yes, but no rubberbands.  not that i really use them for anything at work, anyway, but i wanted to pull my hair back out of my face. 

so charlie brown gave me this bag of rubberbands.  and, as i related in the previous post, i tried to shoot one and failed miserably.  ashley, one of the girls with whom i work, very kindly took pity on me and taught me how to shoot them with high accuracy and force.   

i, in turn, taught susan, our free spirit, how to shoot rubberbands the way ashley’d shown me.  susan threatened to shoot chuck but mercifully didn’t.  then chuck threatened to shoot susan.  it’s quite fun to hear the random comments the other guys in the office will make about all the rubberbands.

i hope we’ll have a full-out rubberband war one of these days.  that would be priceless.

so thank you, charlie brown, for your marvelous gift to me of rubberbands.  my work week would have much less levity without them. 

all aflunters

from the bookshelves: the word museum by jeffrey kacirk

this book is pretty cool. it’s full of odd, quaint and queer old words that most (“normal”) people don’t use anymore. being such, it gave me the perfect word to describe the shrubbery also known as my hair: aflunters. kacirk says it means “in a state of disorder.” yep, that’s my hair, all right. even when i take the time to blow it dry or use the curling iron or flatiron on it, it still looks more-or-less shrub-like. but there are more important things in life than hair to worry about!

definitely all-aflunters

they finally fixed the boiler at work and got the heat turned back on. the temperature rose ten degrees and some of us started to sweat. i came all decked out in tights and many layers of shirts in order to combat the arctic frigidity … and then got to feeling rather warmish toward the end. but at least i don’t have to break out the fingerless gloves just yet. evidently my predecessor was quite the knitter and had many pairs of fingerless gloves. she also knit all her own socks. me, i just stick to the knit stitch and do it really well.

i suppose i should introduce to you my coworkers chuck and sam. chuck is not exactly our boss, but he knows how to do everything and knows everything that’s going on, so he’s essentially the supreme fountain of wisdom as far as our department is concerned. sam and i ran out of things to do about an hour or so before going-home-time, so chuck created two projects for us.

sam: so which one of us do you want to do which?

chuck: oh, i thought i’d let the two of you battle it out. i wouldn’t suggest using rubber bands, though, because she got a whole bag for her birthday.

sam: mm.

me: pulls rubber band out of bag, loads it on finger, shows it to chuck.

chuck: ah!

me: don’t worry, i wouldn’t shoot you.

aims at sam’s cubicle. rubber band goes flying. cue hysterical laughter from chuck and i at my inability to hit my target.

brian: hey, be careful!

me: where’d it go?

sam: i don’t know. it flew over my head.

brian: it’s all good fun until someone loses an eye.

me: and then you’re a pirate.

perhaps i should explain that i sit diagonally across from sam and we can’t see each other because our computers are in the way. i like to think that this is the main reason why i couldn’t hit him.

… i guess i could always try again tomorrow, though …

horizon lines

tunage: cities by anberlin

tonight as i was driving back from the gym there was a light mizzling rain that made the roads dark and shiny.  the streetlights reflected off the pavement red, green and pale gold.  the air was slightly nippy, but it felt refreshing after my vigorous run.  the trees are starting to turn colour and they look as if they’re on fire.  it’s beautiful.  and it reminded me of how much i love autumn. 

the office where i work is freezing right now because they’re doing some painting on the floor below and the management kindly cranked up the air conditioning so we’d all freeze to death rather than dying of paint fumes.  very considerate of them, i’m sure.  no, seriously, it’s not that bad.  although i do think i’ll need to invest in some more tights and a pair of fingerless gloves.

i feel very content right now.  lately i’ve been battling bogeys like jealousy, discontent, wounded pride, etc. and so forth, but they’ve let me alone for a while.  i read or heard somewhere that people who don’t do much physical labour get fatigues and weird neuroses and things like that because, while their minds are exhausted and just want to sleep, their bodies are restless because they’ve been sitting all day. 

my limbs have felt all queer and achey recently, so i decided it was time for some exercise.  my chief method of exercising, while sometimes supplemented with weight lifting and/or resistance machines, is mostly to run until i can’t breathe.  i’ve found this to be very effective in both awakening and exhausting the body.  so i returned home, properly exhausted.

by the way, if you haven’t been able to tell by now, i have no idea where i’m going with this post.  my brain exhaustion has caught up with me. 

i feel, in a way, as though i’m being pushed inch by inch closer to the edge of a cliff off which i’ve been

footbridge, moline, kansas

instructed to jump.  i know i’ll land and be all right, but i don’t know in what i’ll land or what sort of all right i’ll be when i get there.  either i can get over my fear of falling and embrace whatever it is God has willed for me in my future, or i can be afraid and stubborn and wimp out. 

i really don’t like falling.

but i like opposing God even less.  one of the first things i know i need to do regarding falling is fall madly, passionately in love with Him.  i love Him, but my love tends to fluctuate with the seasons right now.  it needs to be steady and un-adversely affected by trials or blessing.

on the note of not opposing God, though, i learned something about myself today.  i realized that if i can’t see something, or just prevent myself from seeing it, it’s like it’s not even there.  i knew i was good at ignoring people if i really made up my mind to want to, but this worked better than i would have expected. 

expect reports from day two of operation learn to ignore tomorrow.

he goes, she goes

queen of bohemia? well, maybe just imagination.

taylor swift sings a song called called teardrops on my guitar.  i am not a huge fan of country music, but i kind of like this song.  especially this lyric:

and there he goes, so perfectly

the kind of flawless i wish i could be

only until just now, when i looked it up online, i thought she sang “lawless,” rather than “flawless.”  and i actually rather like it better my way.  but whatever — she’s the songwriter. 

then there’s this other song i like, there she goes, by the la’s. 

 

there she goes

there she goes again

she calls my name …

what called all this walking to mind, besides these being a couple of my favorite songs, was watching someone walk out of a building and thinking, “man, he really walks well.” 

don’t go staring at me with your eyebrows all wonky, now.  i see you over there trying to pretend you understand what i just said. 

okay, here’s what i mean — have you ever known one of those people for whom living just seems effortless?  anything he or she does is more-or-less perfect.  the walking, the clothes, the style, the panache … the living.  yeah. 

so it doesn’t make sense if you don’t know someone like that.  but i’m sure you do. 

he glided out of the buildling smoothly …

and i clip-clopped out behind, cordurouy pants making cricket noises with every step, scamp sweater blowing in the wind, pippi longstockings braids sticking straight out from my head.  i thought about the perfectly groomed businesswomen i’d seen and known. 

but i decided i like being a scamp. 

although he is fun to watch.

love, husbands and humidity

good news from the land of littlepeace.  my job has gotten less stressful each successive day.  well, okay, thursday was a bit stressful, but that’s because it’s production day and we had just two people to design the whole paper.  and yeah, i’m still learning how that works.  but it wasn’t so bad, all in all.

i re-decided today that i’m going to marry a man from the british isles and we are going to move there.  i say “re-decided” because i made up my mind on this point several years ago, but i just remembered it full-force again today.  i think it’s the weather and the approaching of october.  we always went to germany in october, and it’s often misty and cool in england (though it was blazing hot when we were there — but that was in july).  i love drinking tea!  i love wearing sweaters!  oh, how i am home-away-from-homesick for germany and england and holland and wales. 

and lately i’ve been very content for it to just be God and me right now, but for some odd reason today was a day of yearning for the unknown and the new and different and i wanted to be anywhere but here, in kansas, in the hurricane-induced humidity.  (note:  never catch me on a particularly humid day.  i’ll probably be grumpy.)  it’s frustrating seeing your friends go thither and yon when you’re just … stuck.  but soon it will be cool again, and i shall be happy as the grass is green again.

punchin’ my card

i started my new job yesterday.  oh boy.  it is a great job, and i’m ever so very grateful that God gave it to me, but it’s … stressful right now.  not major “oh my gosh i’m gonna tear my hair out!” stress, mind you.  more like “oh my gosh why do i feel like such an incompetent idiot!” stress.  i’m having to learn how to use quark (version 4.1).  it’s a cool program.  it lets you do a lot of things.  but oh my, are there ever so many details to learn.  it’s like working at the kansan all over again, only this time i actually get paid and i don’t get newbie-level instructions. 

knowing that every morning i am going to get up at 6:30, get dressed, eat breakfast and take my five-minute drive to work is quite a strange feeling.  in college i had a routine, sure.  but this is soroutine.  i’ve worn panty hose and wedges two days in a row now.  it is not yet a soul-inspiring job, but it is a job that will inspire discipline, something i need desperately.  already i’ve been going to bed a lot earlier. 

until i figure out this new schedule for my “new life” i probably won’t have huge amounts of time to blog here or on my poetry blog,  but i’ll be sure to fit creative writing in somewhere.  unleashing my insanity is what keeps me sane, after all.

the religious, the spiritual and the christophers

during today’s Bible study (which was supposed to be over colossians 1:8-14, but also included 15-20 and a wide variety of other topics) the term “spirituality” came up.  to me this seems to be the new pet term for describing the fact that you’re something other than an atheist.  you might not know what the heck exactly you believe, but you believe somethin’, baby. 

so i asked michaelangelo, n8 and bekah what they saw as the difference between the terms spirituality and religion.  basically the answer was that “religious” people are seen as hard-nosed, legalistic, frumpily-dressed types who adhere to a strict set of rules and never have any fun or say any cusswords.  they also drive buicks, vote republican and don’t dance.

okay, maybe i expanded on what they said just a little.  but i’m sure you’re thinking of “religious” people you’ve known who fit that description to a t. 

“spiritual” people, on the other hand, are all about experiences and emotions.  they laugh, cry, yell or do whatever they have to in order to express themselves.  they wear dreadlocks, have multiple piercings, smoke cigarettes (or, gasp, hookah) and listen to rock music or weird african tribal stuff.  they ride bicycles because they’re hippies and can’t afford cars, or don’t want to pollute the environment; vote democrat or for ralph nader, or don’t vote at all, and have a happy stream of choice vocabulary words.

yes, i am intentionally exaggerating in order to get my point across.  the truth is, though, that both of these terms are loaded and no one really seems to know what they mean.  persons formally known as “religious” adopt the term “spirituality” to describe their faith because they don’t want the bad taste of “religion” (which does indeed require the little air scrunchy-fingered apostrophes) in the mouths of the people with whom they’re trying to share Christ’s love.  and the “religious” people who want to stay “religious” (heaven forbid they should ever understand the concept of grace through faith) think that anything with the term “spiritual” reeks of incense, pot and free love.  then they shield their children’s eyes.

am i being judgemental?  oh yeah, i totally am.  but i’m trying to explain the reasons why i don’t find either of these terms to be particularly my cup of tea.  i suppose it doesn’t really matter whether i like them or not, though, because someone is always going to consider me one or the other without first consulting me about it. 

in the end, however, whatever we believe is not supposed to be self-centric, but Christ-centric.  and here comes the term i do happen to be quite fond of.

christopher. 

“that’s a term?” you say, a look of incredulity on your face (don’t try to wipe it off — i see it there).  “i thought that was a name.”

yeah, it is.  the same way that “christian” is also a name.  christian, as i’m sure you know if you’re up on your latinate endings, means “little Christ.”  as Christ’s followers, we’re supposed to be “little Christs” in the world.   

christopher, while having a similar construction, means something slightly different.  it means “Christ-bearer.”  the catholic/anglican story is that a fellow actually carried the Christ child across the river on his back without knowing Who it was he was carrying, and that he became known as christopher after his adventure.  i don’t know whether that’s true or not, but my oxford names companion says that the name became popular in the early church since people were meant to bear Christ’s message to the world. 

gandhi is supposed to have said that he would’ve believed in Christianity had it not been for the christians.  at bible study we also discussed how the term “christian” in itself has become ambiguous and no longer necessarily denotes someone who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who came to earth as a being fully God and fully man, took the sins of the world upon Himself, was crucified, buried and rose again three days later.  today, someone who calls himself a christian might mean that he went to church as a kid, was baptized or vaguely believes that there might be a God up there somewhere. 

maybe we should save ourselves the trouble and just say we’re christophers.  i’d like to see the looks on people’s faces upon hearing that. 

(note:  i consider myself and call myself a Christian.  i’m not seriously quibbling with the term; i’m just trying to point out that all names we name ourselves are equally corruptible no matter how much sense they make in the beginning.  and i’m trying to say that “religious” is usually a term associated with works-based belief, that doing enough good things earns you a place in heaven.  and that “spiritual” is associated with the very emotive, holy laughter and writhing on the floor crowd.  neither of these terms, of course, is associated with these stereotypes all of the time.  i’m just illustrating by use of extremes.)

too late for inspiration

too late at night, that is, to write posts that would give credit to the thoughts rolling around in my head right now.  there were two tremendous high points to today, however.

the first was that it was in the low 60s temperature-wise and it rained all day.  that might sound miserable to some of you, but it was beautiful after temperatures in the high 80s, lots of humidity, and no rain.  besides, i love wet, chilly weather like this.  i was really excited because i got to break out my green cord writer’s jacket, my long black scarf and my atrocious black earflap hat.  it was superb.

and, as if God hadn’t blessed me enough today, He also gave me a job!  that was thrilling, especially since it’s my first job and i’d gotten a little disheartened after repeated rejections.  but i actually got two jobs offers!  the one i accepted is a five-minute drive from my house and is full time with a great salary, especially for someone just starting out in the journalism field. 

He does exceedingly abundantly, beyond all we could ask or imagine.

when avril was cool

today i was sitting on the floor of the gym i go to, panting from exertion, when a song i didn’t recognize started playing on my ipod.  what is this? i thought to myself.  is this an avril lavigne song i don’t remember?  turns out that it was actually michelle branch, whose album i picked up at half price books for $2 a couple of months ago.  but she really did remind me of avril lavigne and the whole love-sick punk chick subgenre of music.  when these girls grow up they either become angry rocker women like alanis morissette, or they just go plain weird, kind of like avril has.

but her first album is not pop-goth cussing weird.  i listened to it earlier this summer with lyssa as we were driving to a party.  we cranked the volume up, rolled the windows down and sat there in her parents’ minivan, headbanging to sk8ter boi.  i think her brother nick found it all very disturbing.  to me, however, that didn’t really matter (sorry, nick).  i felt very nostalgic and started thinking back to my mid-teens where i suddenly realized that there was music other than classical and fernando ortega.  avril lavigne was probably my first foray into the pop music scene. 

and oh boy, did i think i was cool because i listened to avril.  i wore black chuck taylors (had nothing to do with avril and i’d had them before listening to her music) and just about burst with pride when i bought a black terry wristband with a silver star on it.  i was punk, man.  all i needed was a skateboard and a sense of balance.

well.  the wristband turned out to be kind of cheap.  the star fell off, the terry was really thick and the whole thing threatened to cut off my circulation.  i didn’t dare buy black nailpolish (this was before ashlee simpson had made it preppy to look punk), and i could never figure out how to apply liquid eyeliner.  my punkiness was a sad failure, but i still thought songs like “tomorrow” and “complicated” were rockin’ awesome.

listening to let go  now, i feel nostalgic.  and then i wonder why the heck i thought this stuff was cool in the first place.  i mean, sure, it’s upbeat and peppy, mostly.  but it’s kind of silly at the same time.  “all of her friends stuck up their nose/they had a problem with his baggy clothes.”  oh, brilliant.  her friends have a collective olfactory site?  i’d like to see that. 

five years later, i finally have black nail polish (although i prefer to wear grey).  i now wear green chuck taylors.  i still haven’t mastered liquid eyeliner, but i discovered that it’s fun for drawing on your face.  i think i finally threw that wristband away.  and now my music tastes are strongly in the folk/world/ancient/jazz/indie genres.  i’m no longer a love-sick wannabe punk chick.  i’ve grown more into the unique person i’m meant to be than the crowd-following teenager i was, way back in the day when avril was cool.

ancestor hunts: weird is relative

tunage: gershwin: rhapsody in blue, etc. by andrew previn

my friends all think i’m morbid and slightly strange. there are probably lots of reasons for this, and several valid ones, but the reason i’m going to talk about really does nothing to prove either thought about me. if you look at it from my point of view, that is.

my family and i decorate the graves of our relatives on memorial day. and my friends think this is insanely weird. when my parents were growing up, though, that was how you showed respect to your parents or grandparents or whomever else if they were dead. you put flowers on their graves on decoration day. so, since both of my parents were born and raised in kansas, as had been their parents (for the most part) and their parents, we consequently have lots of relatives buried in the state in which we live, which makes the decorating part a lot easier.

both of my parents are also really big into genealogies and tracing their ancestors back to the countries from which they originally came (i’m a 13th- or 14th-generation descendent of george soule, one of the mayflower pilgrims). the upshot of this is that my dad is constantly finding info about which of our as yet unlocated relatives are buried where. we then utilize national holidays to go find these graves. our fourth of july trek involved my grandparents, ticks, a random guy who may or may not be related to us, a family gravesite on the edge of what’s now a golf course, lunch in a smokey bar and a digital jukebox (which cost a dollar a song).

since yesterday was labour day, we decided to go up to the area around liberty, missouri, and find some of my dad’s mom’s dad’s ancestors. we went to three cemetaries in total, but none of them was the one we were actually looking for. it’s kind of hard, though, to find anything when you have such sketchy directions as “it’s located northeast of cooley lake,” and you can’t even see the lake from high up on a hill because the oxbow is completely filled in with lillypads and cattails and is more marsh than lake. oh well — we had a great time, and we did find some of the children of the folks we were looking for.

since i fancy myself to be a photographer, i also took a lot of pictures. i take lots of pictures every time we go to a graveyard, so i have quite a collection now. it includes graves from the bruton parish churchyard in williamsburg, virginia, the village churchyard in condicote, gloucestershire, england, and many random graveyards i can’t remember at the moment. but this is why my friends think i’m weird. i like to hang out in graveyards. with lots of dead people. i actually am excited about visiting graveyards. and then i take lots of photographs of the tombstones and turn them black and white and make them look creepy. but no, that is not weird in my book.

in my book, being obsessed with cillian murphy’s eyes is weird (ahem!).

and that i am most certainly not.