I don't PMS often (it's not really a verb, but we use it as a verb), but when I do, I make it count. I've always been one of those girls that thinks hormones are no excuse for erratic behavior, so I still try to keep the wrath of mine to myself, but it manages to come out in the silliest of ways.
(I'm also the type of girl that thinks talking about periods and anything related to them is pretty unnecessary, but...here I am...)
For starters, I'll blame PMS for my having impulsively bought heels on Friday while in Duluth for a women's conference. Women's conference. Bad timing. Everything that was sad or moving in its nature, made me gasp because I was so suddenly overcome with emotions from it.
The kicker, and what I would say is the epitome of my version of PMS, was today. I was having a really tough time getting through work today; just long, difficult projects. So I decided to pursue a vending machine ally, and for some reason it was M&M's. I don't usually care about M&M's. If they're there, I might eat some, I might not. Today, I had to have M&M's. I get to the vending machine, and there's only peanut. Which I weirdly loathe, - but again, I'll eat them, if I have to. So I relent, buy the peanut ones.
On my drive home, I'm at the traffic light, driving by target thinking, I really want regular M&M's...those peanut ones just didn't cut it! And I feel myself getting ready, to get ready to cry. I realize I need to drop off my netflix, the post office is on the way to target; a great excuse. So I go in, get my big bag, thinking I can share with my small group.
As I'm in the car, at a light waiting to turn out of the parking lot, I grab the bag of candy - because naturally I need to eat some in the three minute drive home. On the back is a deceptive ad for their Dark Chocolate version. Now, I am not a dark chocolate fan, and I see this, and I let out an albeit, over-dramatic yell of frustration that at the time felt justified...NOT dark chocolate! I turned them over with a sigh of relief.
PMS is a monster virus that lives in women and rampages the world. (Sorry if you are a man and read this and you didn't want to, but it's probably time you knew.)
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
[Re]Gaining Confidence
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-poston-bicycle-20130219,0,7268780.story
This is something I would write; I like it, I thought about half way through the article. If this guy can do it, so can I.
It's a nice little read, not very complex, but enjoyable. To me that's one of the most important things about writing: if it's not enjoyable, even if only in some sort of masochistic, make-you-cry or light-the-fire-of-justice-under-your-butt-way, then why write it? It's a little slice of one's perspective, and that may just be a preference of mine, but I also think it's important, too. Reading to gain perspective; writing to share it.
And I just thought to myself, if this [midwestern] guy can go make it in L.A. writing the equivalent of some of my blog posts for one of the country's biggest news organizations, I can write for a living too.
It's not too much to ask.
But this is how I feel today, right now, in a moment of the inspiration of an approachable playing field...ask me what I think again tomorrow.
This is something I would write; I like it, I thought about half way through the article. If this guy can do it, so can I.
It's a nice little read, not very complex, but enjoyable. To me that's one of the most important things about writing: if it's not enjoyable, even if only in some sort of masochistic, make-you-cry or light-the-fire-of-justice-under-your-butt-way, then why write it? It's a little slice of one's perspective, and that may just be a preference of mine, but I also think it's important, too. Reading to gain perspective; writing to share it.
And I just thought to myself, if this [midwestern] guy can go make it in L.A. writing the equivalent of some of my blog posts for one of the country's biggest news organizations, I can write for a living too.
It's not too much to ask.
But this is how I feel today, right now, in a moment of the inspiration of an approachable playing field...ask me what I think again tomorrow.
Monday, February 18, 2013
When I Fell in Love With Minneapolis
I first fell in love with Minneapolis in the snow. Not just in the winter, when there was the usual Minnesota build up - the falling snow. For lack of a less cliche way to say it, there's something just magical about it. My city, she wears it well.
Tonight, driving toward the skyline with the fluff barreling down on a highway cast in the haze of red tail lights from overly-cautious drivers, I was reminded of that feeling. The blissful, warm, simmering love that stirs up when you've forgotten but are reminded; the little bubbles of I don't think I'll ever leave you, rise to the surface and burst, like an exhale.
Magic.
See, I was a suburb kid. My magic was in long, windy roads with no sidewalks or curbs, houses of all kinds that had big green yards. It was in the creek you could lost in, just a ten minute walk from my house. It was in smiley, sweet old neighbors who gave us candy and we never once questioned them. I never thought outside of my safe little world, knowing from a young age how to get from one edge of town to the next. And if all else failed, beauty could always be found at midnight, in the dead of winter, looking up at a star-filled velvet.
I had, of course, been to the city long before I fell in love with it. I guess it goes the way of many love stories; I didn't even like it at first. It scared me - intimidated, is the right word. I didn't understand the appeal to broken glass, worn-down buildings, or the crowded-ness. I think it rocked my comfortable little ways, in a manner I didn't quite appreciate.
This is not to say I didn't like getting out of the little 'burban bubble. We traveled, when I was growing up; mostly to places with even more nature, and less signs of man than the quaint neighborhood where we lived. The great exception was New York, whose - looking back on it - greatness I was too young to fathom. The If I Can Make It Here brand outshines my actual memories of the city ten years later. I'd really never thought of myself as a city girl.
Fast-forward only a few years from that trip to New York, and I laid eyes on what stole my heart: a gritty, tough city beautifully masked in an increasing dusting of a purifying white. And that was when I knew, this is a place I love and always will. Even my first stint living here, (and on my own) my courtship, if you will, began in winter. There's something so disarming to me about this city in a fresh and building snow. It's suddenly so quiet and peaceful, and all its flaws and blemishes are hidden away, under a sparkle.
It's my running joke in the winter that I don't know why we live here. The truth is even though I don't believe in luck, whenever it snows in Minneapolis and I get even a glimpse of it, my heart races and I think, I'm so lucky to live here; this is why I live here.
Tonight, driving toward the skyline with the fluff barreling down on a highway cast in the haze of red tail lights from overly-cautious drivers, I was reminded of that feeling. The blissful, warm, simmering love that stirs up when you've forgotten but are reminded; the little bubbles of I don't think I'll ever leave you, rise to the surface and burst, like an exhale.
Magic.
See, I was a suburb kid. My magic was in long, windy roads with no sidewalks or curbs, houses of all kinds that had big green yards. It was in the creek you could lost in, just a ten minute walk from my house. It was in smiley, sweet old neighbors who gave us candy and we never once questioned them. I never thought outside of my safe little world, knowing from a young age how to get from one edge of town to the next. And if all else failed, beauty could always be found at midnight, in the dead of winter, looking up at a star-filled velvet.
I had, of course, been to the city long before I fell in love with it. I guess it goes the way of many love stories; I didn't even like it at first. It scared me - intimidated, is the right word. I didn't understand the appeal to broken glass, worn-down buildings, or the crowded-ness. I think it rocked my comfortable little ways, in a manner I didn't quite appreciate.
This is not to say I didn't like getting out of the little 'burban bubble. We traveled, when I was growing up; mostly to places with even more nature, and less signs of man than the quaint neighborhood where we lived. The great exception was New York, whose - looking back on it - greatness I was too young to fathom. The If I Can Make It Here brand outshines my actual memories of the city ten years later. I'd really never thought of myself as a city girl.
Fast-forward only a few years from that trip to New York, and I laid eyes on what stole my heart: a gritty, tough city beautifully masked in an increasing dusting of a purifying white. And that was when I knew, this is a place I love and always will. Even my first stint living here, (and on my own) my courtship, if you will, began in winter. There's something so disarming to me about this city in a fresh and building snow. It's suddenly so quiet and peaceful, and all its flaws and blemishes are hidden away, under a sparkle.
It's my running joke in the winter that I don't know why we live here. The truth is even though I don't believe in luck, whenever it snows in Minneapolis and I get even a glimpse of it, my heart races and I think, I'm so lucky to live here; this is why I live here.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Who God Is Not
I've spent my entire life, more than less, in Christian circles. I've managed never to be brain-washed, though that's not to say I haven't heard things I'm sad to know are perceived and perpetuated as part of the belief system I claim as mine. That's beside the point. I've learned a lot about God and I'm constantly developing my sense of Him, and the more I learn the more I come to realize how much He is misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted.
The point that gets so often missed, and I missed until I was about 15, is that it's about relationship. God is not showing himself through Fox News (no matter what they or anyone tells you), not through Obama, not through celebrities who make award speeches about changing the world, not through funeral protests, not through suicide pacts, not through bible-thumping street preachers on ladders, and not through men in funny hats who make up new reasons that you are not enough. We get so lost in all the things people [we] make God, that we kill and bury the fact that He is about relationship. One could attempt to argue this, but one thing that I can assure can never be argued otherwise is that the bible is all about love. Love is a relationship.
I've known about God my whole life, I've known God for what I would say is going on seven years - though there is what I would refer to as evidence of Him in my entire life. And I still constantly forget that He is about love. I forget that He's good. I get sucked into the worldly portrayals of Him as a King Triton-esque man who sits on the clouds and strikes people with lightning that He's "done" with.
Christians tend to put their rules first, instead of the relationship. The bible calls them first to lending an ear or a hand, not pointing a finger - yet this is what the world sees, and it's not a figment of anyone's imagination.
Jesus spoke of the least of these; He taught about giving the most you possibly can. When He was in mourning, He still cared for others. When He brought correction He did so with gentleness and grace. He served as one of his last actions of freedom.
Upon having the slow-building realization that Jesus' life is almost nothing like what the church is known for amongst non-believers today, I wanted to know what I can tell people who've been hurt by the people who are meant to be emulating the life of Christ. People who shy from church, or the bible or the mention of God, because they've been force-fed some watered down, filtered version of the message of Christianity!
So I started asking myself, what does the bible say this whole thing is really about - what does Jesus teach with His life?
Though my growing up was thick with teachings on the bible, I'm still constantly learning from it. I am still turning it upside down, trying to figure out what does it really mean. Not pulling verses out of context and creating some picture of God that fits the image I've made Him into - but really reading, discussing, and internalizing the words.
See, the bible is the only concrete thing we can have as a common thread between Christians, and even then there's arguments over translation, synonyms, what have you. This is where enlightenment comes in. For the purpose here, enlightened meaning knowing God in a personal way, in which your spirit connects to His. Also referred to simply as interactions.
The only two things that I see as shaping my perception of God's character are reading and internalizing the word, and what I know of Him, from my life. Not what I know from what people tell me, or claim He's saying, or wants, or is doing, or will do! No. None of those, though as faith matures one may learn what is true of God that is being presented to them, and what is someone playing Him.
Because God is about love; about relationship, His interactions in our lives combined with the history of His character and the story of His Great Act of Love are the only possible picture we can have of God. He is not a painting of a bearded, white man with pretty blue eyes, or an old man, in a toga with a sceptor. He's not a judge in a black robe with a heavy, swinging gavel. He is not a protestor at a funeral or a wedding. He is not mother nature. He is not a dictator.
Many may not have anything other than a basic knowledge of the bible, but will likely have an immediate thought of God's interaction in their lives, so the question is begged: Who is God?
The point that gets so often missed, and I missed until I was about 15, is that it's about relationship. God is not showing himself through Fox News (no matter what they or anyone tells you), not through Obama, not through celebrities who make award speeches about changing the world, not through funeral protests, not through suicide pacts, not through bible-thumping street preachers on ladders, and not through men in funny hats who make up new reasons that you are not enough. We get so lost in all the things people [we] make God, that we kill and bury the fact that He is about relationship. One could attempt to argue this, but one thing that I can assure can never be argued otherwise is that the bible is all about love. Love is a relationship.
I've known about God my whole life, I've known God for what I would say is going on seven years - though there is what I would refer to as evidence of Him in my entire life. And I still constantly forget that He is about love. I forget that He's good. I get sucked into the worldly portrayals of Him as a King Triton-esque man who sits on the clouds and strikes people with lightning that He's "done" with.
Christians tend to put their rules first, instead of the relationship. The bible calls them first to lending an ear or a hand, not pointing a finger - yet this is what the world sees, and it's not a figment of anyone's imagination.
Jesus spoke of the least of these; He taught about giving the most you possibly can. When He was in mourning, He still cared for others. When He brought correction He did so with gentleness and grace. He served as one of his last actions of freedom.
Upon having the slow-building realization that Jesus' life is almost nothing like what the church is known for amongst non-believers today, I wanted to know what I can tell people who've been hurt by the people who are meant to be emulating the life of Christ. People who shy from church, or the bible or the mention of God, because they've been force-fed some watered down, filtered version of the message of Christianity!
So I started asking myself, what does the bible say this whole thing is really about - what does Jesus teach with His life?
Though my growing up was thick with teachings on the bible, I'm still constantly learning from it. I am still turning it upside down, trying to figure out what does it really mean. Not pulling verses out of context and creating some picture of God that fits the image I've made Him into - but really reading, discussing, and internalizing the words.
See, the bible is the only concrete thing we can have as a common thread between Christians, and even then there's arguments over translation, synonyms, what have you. This is where enlightenment comes in. For the purpose here, enlightened meaning knowing God in a personal way, in which your spirit connects to His. Also referred to simply as interactions.
The only two things that I see as shaping my perception of God's character are reading and internalizing the word, and what I know of Him, from my life. Not what I know from what people tell me, or claim He's saying, or wants, or is doing, or will do! No. None of those, though as faith matures one may learn what is true of God that is being presented to them, and what is someone playing Him.
Because God is about love; about relationship, His interactions in our lives combined with the history of His character and the story of His Great Act of Love are the only possible picture we can have of God. He is not a painting of a bearded, white man with pretty blue eyes, or an old man, in a toga with a sceptor. He's not a judge in a black robe with a heavy, swinging gavel. He is not a protestor at a funeral or a wedding. He is not mother nature. He is not a dictator.
Many may not have anything other than a basic knowledge of the bible, but will likely have an immediate thought of God's interaction in their lives, so the question is begged: Who is God?
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
navigating boredom
fingers dance a rhythm on my lips
to pass the time
knuckles crack
and muscles stretch
toes they tap
head bobs
mind is drowned in a sea of thoughts
with no attempt to stay afloat;
no mental breast stroke
no cerebral butterfly
just sinking
to the depths;
where lies what floor -
i don't know.
to pass the time
knuckles crack
and muscles stretch
toes they tap
head bobs
mind is drowned in a sea of thoughts
with no attempt to stay afloat;
no mental breast stroke
no cerebral butterfly
just sinking
to the depths;
where lies what floor -
i don't know.
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Til I'm In Pieces
I love you to pieces,
- I love you til I'm in pieces
and it does no good at all
it does nothing but hover
waiting to cling to you when you're around.
It's not the type to profess
rather, the quiet, deep, knowing sort
that's seen your good and bad
but still keeps you;
I keep you,
as much as one can keep another
at such a distance.
I can only go on hoping
Some day you'll come to know and understand
Why I loved you when you were my rock
and I loved you still when you were broken
and that I will love you
til I can't love
anymore.
- I love you til I'm in pieces
and it does no good at all
it does nothing but hover
waiting to cling to you when you're around.
It's not the type to profess
rather, the quiet, deep, knowing sort
that's seen your good and bad
but still keeps you;
I keep you,
as much as one can keep another
at such a distance.
I can only go on hoping
Some day you'll come to know and understand
Why I loved you when you were my rock
and I loved you still when you were broken
and that I will love you
til I can't love
anymore.
12 Great Things in 2012
Trying to recall the best parts of a year is difficult. This year, was difficult. There was lot of turmoil, and I didn't exactly set myself up well when, on New Year's Eve last year, while everyone was chatting about how excited they were for a new year, I was biting my tongue and thinking to myself, I don't want it; it couldn't possibly compare to 2011.
And in my memory, it doesn't. There was a lot of grit, and a lot of stretching for me in this year, that though harder, I also know was for the better. But it had many good things, I know and so I've challenged myself to coming up with the Twelve Best Things of My 2012...
(disclaimer: this is not written in any sort of writer-ly fashion, but rather for the sake of a list)
March 27: Saw William Fitzsimmons in concert AND met him after, where we chatted hebrew tattoos!
-- Purchased a really sexy new bike!
April 22: Wrote two articles for The Wake Student Magazine
April 24: Witnessed a book with my photos in it, being printed
May 13: Graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelors Degree
May 20: Made the Dean's List
July 29: Laid my very own eyes on the Grand Canyon
July 30: Was in four states at once (the Four Corners)
July 30: Exactly a year after we said goodbye, reunited with my dear Courtney
August 10: Saw Coldplay live on my birthday!
September 15: Witnessed my brother Joey get pinned as a Navy Chief
December 28: Saw Linsey, Melanie and Amber (my DTS gals) in Seattle! (& Lydja in B.C.)
So this time, I will be welcoming the new year with open arms, ready for whatever it holds!
And in my memory, it doesn't. There was a lot of grit, and a lot of stretching for me in this year, that though harder, I also know was for the better. But it had many good things, I know and so I've challenged myself to coming up with the Twelve Best Things of My 2012...
(disclaimer: this is not written in any sort of writer-ly fashion, but rather for the sake of a list)
March 27: Saw William Fitzsimmons in concert AND met him after, where we chatted hebrew tattoos!
-- Purchased a really sexy new bike!
April 22: Wrote two articles for The Wake Student Magazine
April 24: Witnessed a book with my photos in it, being printed
May 13: Graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelors Degree
May 20: Made the Dean's List
July 29: Laid my very own eyes on the Grand Canyon
July 30: Was in four states at once (the Four Corners)
July 30: Exactly a year after we said goodbye, reunited with my dear Courtney
August 10: Saw Coldplay live on my birthday!
September 15: Witnessed my brother Joey get pinned as a Navy Chief
December 28: Saw Linsey, Melanie and Amber (my DTS gals) in Seattle! (& Lydja in B.C.)
So this time, I will be welcoming the new year with open arms, ready for whatever it holds!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)