Hello strangers.
Too long, no write.
Bleed Like Me by Garbage is playing. Good song. Look it up. John Mayer's next, I believe.
Lately has been. . . crazy. Drama, food, love, and other pieces of debris that make up the whirlwind of Annie.
This is a Winter Solstice/Christmas present for my man, who should never, ever, ever eat soy again.
Batman, this is for you:
Diet cherry pepsi and rum that’s spiced
Reminiscent of blue raspberry vodka and
Lysol but this time it was McDonald’s fries
And you tried to force them into my mouth
Like straws but they bent; flexible and salty.
Sucked on the salt you said but I remember
CALORIESCALORIESCALORIESCALORIES
Everywhere and you said it was ok and again
You whispered beautiful. But beautiful is a
Fucking lie and so is this hope, love, oneness,
Togetherness and good. Good is a lie, right?
Ran after deer in the moonlight in a cornfield
And I didn’t twist my ankle because even drunk
I’ve got immunity against accidentally hurting
Myself so that I can have more time to purposefully
Hurt myself. Oh you said it’s funny now and I
Just want to take care of you but what did you
Say when I was begging you to kill me with
Fries suspended in the middle of the orb of my
Mouth and tears floating like a blanket above
My eyes. Even now with rum and vodka not
Running through my system I can’t begin to
Tell you how sincerely honest I was about death.
“What’s one word you would use to describe
Yourself, JP?” Protecting, you said and broken,
I thought. Maybe strong, but mostly broken most
Of the time. And I was a toddler stomping out a
Temper tantrum Morse code message on your
Dashboard with my muddy flip flops but I’m
Not sure what I was trying to communicate.
Alcohol inhibited and uninhibited my brain.
Like your cigarette and deodorant smell
Uninhibited my eyes to you. And how will
This end?
I have this sense of knowing how this will end, almost like I skipped to the last chapter just to peek because the mystery and intrigue was too much to handle.lo The ending is good. It reeks of green beans, mixed tapes, rockband and most of all love. I like the way that sounds, how about you?
Sometimes life takes my breath away, wraps it in Christmas wrapping paper and a pretty bow and hands it back to me. Those times are amazing- and they are neverending when I'm near you.
L<3ve.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
"oh, how pretty is the middle of june."
Oh June.
You are hot and cold and warm and fuzzy and you are you.
You come and you go, just like all months do,
And you bring good and bad, like all things do,
But still I like you more than other months.
Why, June, why?
June you are apple martinis and caviar,
You are a hometown boy with Budweiser and chicken fry,
You are home sweet home and miles away
But still you are with me, with me still.
How can you do that, June?
Magical, magical June.
You weave poems out of thin air, June,
Poems about July and sometimes August.
You tell us of whats to come,
Of crisp air and tangy breaths and clouds that form our words.
But not yet, not yet- first there must be
The burning out of the old before the
Coming of the new.
"Oh how pretty is the middle of June,"
He sang, and I listened and waited and imagined
The pretty things that come with sun and ocean and
Sky. How pretty you are, June.
But I'll forget you when I fall in love with
July.
You are hot and cold and warm and fuzzy and you are you.
You come and you go, just like all months do,
And you bring good and bad, like all things do,
But still I like you more than other months.
Why, June, why?
June you are apple martinis and caviar,
You are a hometown boy with Budweiser and chicken fry,
You are home sweet home and miles away
But still you are with me, with me still.
How can you do that, June?
Magical, magical June.
You weave poems out of thin air, June,
Poems about July and sometimes August.
You tell us of whats to come,
Of crisp air and tangy breaths and clouds that form our words.
But not yet, not yet- first there must be
The burning out of the old before the
Coming of the new.
"Oh how pretty is the middle of June,"
He sang, and I listened and waited and imagined
The pretty things that come with sun and ocean and
Sky. How pretty you are, June.
But I'll forget you when I fall in love with
July.
stillness
Stillness is terrifying.
When I was young I used to imagine Wizard-Of-Oz-esque witches waiting to grab me and turn me green like themselves. They’d lurk in the corners of the darkness, where the stillness bounced off the silence. Sometimes I’d scare myself into a weird kind of crazy where I thought that those same witches would reach their hands up from the dark caverns of the toilet while I was going to the bathroom. I would pee really loudly, to get rid of the nothingness then.
Stillness is home.
While music is home, sometimes silence is home too. Night is comforting; it wraps it’s heavy blanket around me and bids me rest for a minute. It’s comforting. Sometimes within the nothingness of crickets or leaves breathing I piece molecules together and they dance around me and assure me life will go on. Sometimes I believe them.
Stillness is God.
Be still and know that I am God. Listen. Shut up. Forget the mundane. Watch the trees sway, they’re speaking old truths. Stop your mind from turning. It isn’t a prayer wheel. Let it rest. Let it meditate on the touch of the air against your cheeks and the ground beneath your feet.
Stillness is death.
Rigor mortis leaves you cold and hard and unfeeling. You’ve been here before but this time it’s so final; so eternal. Even hope doesn’t pink your lips.
Stillness is life.
Sometimes we find newness in the strangest places. Birds’ nests grow amidst dead leaves and hope springs eternal, even amidst death. Treasures in hidden places, you know? Just don’t forget to remember the stars.
Be still.
When I was young I used to imagine Wizard-Of-Oz-esque witches waiting to grab me and turn me green like themselves. They’d lurk in the corners of the darkness, where the stillness bounced off the silence. Sometimes I’d scare myself into a weird kind of crazy where I thought that those same witches would reach their hands up from the dark caverns of the toilet while I was going to the bathroom. I would pee really loudly, to get rid of the nothingness then.
Stillness is home.
While music is home, sometimes silence is home too. Night is comforting; it wraps it’s heavy blanket around me and bids me rest for a minute. It’s comforting. Sometimes within the nothingness of crickets or leaves breathing I piece molecules together and they dance around me and assure me life will go on. Sometimes I believe them.
Stillness is God.
Be still and know that I am God. Listen. Shut up. Forget the mundane. Watch the trees sway, they’re speaking old truths. Stop your mind from turning. It isn’t a prayer wheel. Let it rest. Let it meditate on the touch of the air against your cheeks and the ground beneath your feet.
Stillness is death.
Rigor mortis leaves you cold and hard and unfeeling. You’ve been here before but this time it’s so final; so eternal. Even hope doesn’t pink your lips.
Stillness is life.
Sometimes we find newness in the strangest places. Birds’ nests grow amidst dead leaves and hope springs eternal, even amidst death. Treasures in hidden places, you know? Just don’t forget to remember the stars.
Be still.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
and the air is just too still
You know when you’re walking and all of a sudden it’s not you walking anymore, it’s a figment of you. Your feet pound the pavement and avoid the cracks but you can’t feel the vibrations. That’s what numb is.
She was only seventeen.
Seventeen and two weeks.
Seventeen and negative two years.
Plus two months. It was like numb.
It was like novacaine. It was like heroin,
It was like forgetting and it was like remembering.
Novacaine.
Bars on the windows foreshadowing the soon-to-be
Preacher staring between two metal bars and
His holey underwear. Briefs, not boxers,
Because boxers let his junk just sit
There and he didn’t like that.
But he liked.
She was only seventeen.
Seventeen minus two years.
Seventeen minus two years plus two months
And minus the novacaine and remembering.
There was no need to remember then.
You know when the rain hits your face so hard that it stings and sometimes it even hits your eyeball so
You squint for a few steps and readjust your umbrella and then the world is okay again? That’s resolve.
It was his blue Mazda.
His blue Mazda and him.
His blue Mazda pride and joy.
With pictures of him when he was
Just her age and needing a passport
Tucked into his glove compartment.
He was climbing in and there were people
Everywhere and they were saying farewell and
Goodbye and we’ll miss you and have fun and be
A good boy and good riddance and hold your breath
And promise me you’ll kiss me one last time before you leave.
Far away.
Have you been here before?
Have you sat in these cold blue seats?
Do you remember the November you carried me?
Was that you or was that just a figment of you that was
Numb.
I’m sure you’ve brought your little one her before,
When she was bleeding from the head after she fell
Off the metal chair in the gym and I carried her-
Screaming, twisting, contorting, bleeding- to you and your arms.
You brought her here in a hurry.
There has to be resolve.
Dear Judgie said the Larry, Moe and Curly
In her head. Say Dear Judgie but she couldn’t.
“Honorable Judge Sharon Armstrong,” she began.
How do I describe this? Just tell her how he ruined your life.
Ruined.
You know when you’re chopping vegetables and you’ve got a rhythm going and it’s taptaptap and then suddenly it goes out of synch and there’s blood on the sink and on the carrotcucumberlettucetomato and
A steak knife.
From the wooden cube knife-holder thing.
Up on the shelf away from the children and
Still close enough for me to grab
And asfastasIcan make three, four,
Five, okay maybe ten cuts, gashes,
Lacerations, mutilations. Wash it
Fast with Ajax dish soap and put it
Back.
Resolve is like that.
Resolve is like looking into someones eyes and saying:
Numb.
Numb is what he made me feel.
Or maybe I felt numb before, she said.
Maybe I was always numb.
Maybe I slid out of my mother
Completely bloody and numb and
Crazy from the beginning.
At four pounds seven ounces I
Was already crazy and bloody and
Fucked up and numb, she said.
What else?
What else? How do you say everything
Without writing an plethora of words and
A million pictures that speak a thousand words
Each? How do I describe that everything
Inside me went
Numb.
It was like resolve. It was my veins
Becoming easier to find and my food
Tasting like sawdust and my everything-
ThighsarmsstomachasswristsribsfaceFAT.
It was like that.
It was like a story with no end.
Just a “to be continued” and
No second volume.
No resolve.
You know when you write and write and write until your fingertips hurt from hitting the keys too often and too hard and finally you don’t know what to say or how to say it. That’s called numb resolve.
People say it’s easier after you remember,
After you fold it into an origami masterpiece, seal it with a kiss
And listen to it’s metallic ridged self bounce around the bottom of the
Wishing well.
But, she says, I’ve remembered.
I’ve remembered his fucked up hands,
His fucked up face, his fucked up erection,
His fucked up smell and the way he wrapped me
In his coat and carried me to the emergency room.
I remember too much.
It’s all good and it’s all bad and because it’s both it’s
Nothing.
Numb.
<3
She was only seventeen.
Seventeen and two weeks.
Seventeen and negative two years.
Plus two months. It was like numb.
It was like novacaine. It was like heroin,
It was like forgetting and it was like remembering.
Novacaine.
Bars on the windows foreshadowing the soon-to-be
Preacher staring between two metal bars and
His holey underwear. Briefs, not boxers,
Because boxers let his junk just sit
There and he didn’t like that.
But he liked.
She was only seventeen.
Seventeen minus two years.
Seventeen minus two years plus two months
And minus the novacaine and remembering.
There was no need to remember then.
You know when the rain hits your face so hard that it stings and sometimes it even hits your eyeball so
You squint for a few steps and readjust your umbrella and then the world is okay again? That’s resolve.
It was his blue Mazda.
His blue Mazda and him.
His blue Mazda pride and joy.
With pictures of him when he was
Just her age and needing a passport
Tucked into his glove compartment.
He was climbing in and there were people
Everywhere and they were saying farewell and
Goodbye and we’ll miss you and have fun and be
A good boy and good riddance and hold your breath
And promise me you’ll kiss me one last time before you leave.
Far away.
Have you been here before?
Have you sat in these cold blue seats?
Do you remember the November you carried me?
Was that you or was that just a figment of you that was
Numb.
I’m sure you’ve brought your little one her before,
When she was bleeding from the head after she fell
Off the metal chair in the gym and I carried her-
Screaming, twisting, contorting, bleeding- to you and your arms.
You brought her here in a hurry.
There has to be resolve.
Dear Judgie said the Larry, Moe and Curly
In her head. Say Dear Judgie but she couldn’t.
“Honorable Judge Sharon Armstrong,” she began.
How do I describe this? Just tell her how he ruined your life.
Ruined.
You know when you’re chopping vegetables and you’ve got a rhythm going and it’s taptaptap and then suddenly it goes out of synch and there’s blood on the sink and on the carrotcucumberlettucetomato and
A steak knife.
From the wooden cube knife-holder thing.
Up on the shelf away from the children and
Still close enough for me to grab
And asfastasIcan make three, four,
Five, okay maybe ten cuts, gashes,
Lacerations, mutilations. Wash it
Fast with Ajax dish soap and put it
Back.
Resolve is like that.
Resolve is like looking into someones eyes and saying:
Numb.
Numb is what he made me feel.
Or maybe I felt numb before, she said.
Maybe I was always numb.
Maybe I slid out of my mother
Completely bloody and numb and
Crazy from the beginning.
At four pounds seven ounces I
Was already crazy and bloody and
Fucked up and numb, she said.
What else?
What else? How do you say everything
Without writing an plethora of words and
A million pictures that speak a thousand words
Each? How do I describe that everything
Inside me went
Numb.
It was like resolve. It was my veins
Becoming easier to find and my food
Tasting like sawdust and my everything-
ThighsarmsstomachasswristsribsfaceFAT.
It was like that.
It was like a story with no end.
Just a “to be continued” and
No second volume.
No resolve.
You know when you write and write and write until your fingertips hurt from hitting the keys too often and too hard and finally you don’t know what to say or how to say it. That’s called numb resolve.
People say it’s easier after you remember,
After you fold it into an origami masterpiece, seal it with a kiss
And listen to it’s metallic ridged self bounce around the bottom of the
Wishing well.
But, she says, I’ve remembered.
I’ve remembered his fucked up hands,
His fucked up face, his fucked up erection,
His fucked up smell and the way he wrapped me
In his coat and carried me to the emergency room.
I remember too much.
It’s all good and it’s all bad and because it’s both it’s
Nothing.
Numb.
<3
Thursday, November 19, 2009
snap, crackle, pop
Snap, crackle, pop.
Frosted flakes in your clear cereal bowl float like bloated bodies on the foam of the sea.
“Do you want some?”
I want it all. I want to eat the bed and the comforter and your fuzzy blue blanket and
The walls and the music and most of all the air.
“Sure. I’ll have a bite.”
Food is nourishment, or so they say but I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
It is a lie and it engrains itself into my very core and chokes life out of me.
You seem so comfortable around it, like it is your friend,
Like it has never hurt you, and it probably hasn’t.
Life is so unfair.
There’s us- the Barbie dolls and Twiggy’s and porcelain doll skeletons
And you- the thick, the strong and the immovable.
While we’re supposed to fly away in the wind; be the wind,
You are supposed to be the earth- never moving.
There was a time when I was the wind, and I was happy
With my hollow bones and my clavicles and my basket-ribs
Sticking out through my clothes.
Eighty whole pounds, I said. Eighty whole pounds.
It was too much but it was the least.
Snap, crackle, pop.
Crack your wrists and your knees as if they were dislocated and had to be brought home.
I wish I could break.
You said that you agree, flying through the air would be tremendous.
Flying- and for once we’d be weightless and free and I would be the wind.
What about you, Mr. Earth?
You should save yourself, because falling for you would mean the
Destruction of a beautiful soul, and I, Mr. Earth, I love you.
Snap, crackle, pop.
Bounce like lightning bugs shot out of a lightning bug cannon on the concrete.
Bounce- the fat encompassing me making me
Bounce- higher and higher until I
Bounce- evaporate into thin air and I am
Wind.
And you are
Strong
Beneath me.
Frosted flakes in your clear cereal bowl float like bloated bodies on the foam of the sea.
“Do you want some?”
I want it all. I want to eat the bed and the comforter and your fuzzy blue blanket and
The walls and the music and most of all the air.
“Sure. I’ll have a bite.”
Food is nourishment, or so they say but I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
It is a lie and it engrains itself into my very core and chokes life out of me.
You seem so comfortable around it, like it is your friend,
Like it has never hurt you, and it probably hasn’t.
Life is so unfair.
There’s us- the Barbie dolls and Twiggy’s and porcelain doll skeletons
And you- the thick, the strong and the immovable.
While we’re supposed to fly away in the wind; be the wind,
You are supposed to be the earth- never moving.
There was a time when I was the wind, and I was happy
With my hollow bones and my clavicles and my basket-ribs
Sticking out through my clothes.
Eighty whole pounds, I said. Eighty whole pounds.
It was too much but it was the least.
Snap, crackle, pop.
Crack your wrists and your knees as if they were dislocated and had to be brought home.
I wish I could break.
You said that you agree, flying through the air would be tremendous.
Flying- and for once we’d be weightless and free and I would be the wind.
What about you, Mr. Earth?
You should save yourself, because falling for you would mean the
Destruction of a beautiful soul, and I, Mr. Earth, I love you.
Snap, crackle, pop.
Bounce like lightning bugs shot out of a lightning bug cannon on the concrete.
Bounce- the fat encompassing me making me
Bounce- higher and higher until I
Bounce- evaporate into thin air and I am
Wind.
And you are
Strong
Beneath me.
vodka did this
Blue and green and mustard.
Concrete floors and bruised foreheads.
Vomit and blue raspberry vodka.
Lysol and Walmart.
And you.
The best thing about tonight
Is that I got to sleep cradled
By your strong arms and I
Felt safe.
Forget the heaving and the
Lettuce leaves and the
Cucumber slices floating
Around like baby green
Ships on your floor.
Forget the headache
And the unsteady legs
Because you were
My safety.
No, no. I am too
Vulnerable and I
Want to die and I
Shouldn’t be weak-
Lamb eyes, doe eyes-
It will get me ravaged and
Torn and broken again and again.
Listen, listen. I just wanted
To forget that I shouldn’t
Remember. And remember.
I cried to you, you said.
I told you about malformed hands
And bug-eyes and holey underwear.
I cried. I haven’t cried about that
Ever. Ever because I had been weak
And I needed to be strong. Stronger.
But I cried that night.
While you held me and
Breathed in my vomit-crusted hair.
Beautiful, you said.
“Beautiful,” I cried ”is a fucking lie.”
And you exuded truth, but I am scared.
You and your soft, baby-blonde hair
And white ear whispers.
Maybe if you told me the truth
I will listen. Maybe if you told me
The truth and held me in your arms.
Because safety is in honesty.
Concrete floors and bruised foreheads.
Vomit and blue raspberry vodka.
Lysol and Walmart.
And you.
The best thing about tonight
Is that I got to sleep cradled
By your strong arms and I
Felt safe.
Forget the heaving and the
Lettuce leaves and the
Cucumber slices floating
Around like baby green
Ships on your floor.
Forget the headache
And the unsteady legs
Because you were
My safety.
No, no. I am too
Vulnerable and I
Want to die and I
Shouldn’t be weak-
Lamb eyes, doe eyes-
It will get me ravaged and
Torn and broken again and again.
Listen, listen. I just wanted
To forget that I shouldn’t
Remember. And remember.
I cried to you, you said.
I told you about malformed hands
And bug-eyes and holey underwear.
I cried. I haven’t cried about that
Ever. Ever because I had been weak
And I needed to be strong. Stronger.
But I cried that night.
While you held me and
Breathed in my vomit-crusted hair.
Beautiful, you said.
“Beautiful,” I cried ”is a fucking lie.”
And you exuded truth, but I am scared.
You and your soft, baby-blonde hair
And white ear whispers.
Maybe if you told me the truth
I will listen. Maybe if you told me
The truth and held me in your arms.
Because safety is in honesty.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
lately every breath feels like i'm kissing death
Ah, Jon Foreman. He always has something that goes perfectly with my
mood- always.
I'm back. Hello, world.
College is crazy. I feel like I've learned so much and yet nothing at
all. . . It's strange. Maybe it'll sink in.
This'll be a short blog, since it's two in the morning and I've got to
get up at 7:25, but I felt like I couldn't put off writing any longer.
It's in my blood, after all.
Here's a short piece, more of a reminder really of all the things that
were (gasp!) happy about my childhood that I'd like to give my future
children.
mood- always.
I'm back. Hello, world.
College is crazy. I feel like I've learned so much and yet nothing at
all. . . It's strange. Maybe it'll sink in.
This'll be a short blog, since it's two in the morning and I've got to
get up at 7:25, but I felt like I couldn't put off writing any longer.
It's in my blood, after all.
Here's a short piece, more of a reminder really of all the things that
were (gasp!) happy about my childhood that I'd like to give my future
children.
When I have kids, I'm going to tell them to sleep tight and to not to
let the bed-bugs bite. I'll say "later gater" and "after a while
crocodile". I'll tell them that the stuff in their eyes when they wake
up in the morning is called sleep. I'll take them to the ocean every
chance I get. If they're scared of the seagulls I'll hold a cracker in
my hand and feed them to show my kids that they should be afraid of no
living thing. I'll let them take risks; let them fall and get back up
again and I'll kiss their boo boo's and they'll know, for sure that I
love them.
Sorry this is so short and sort of wierd. Just wrote it, while
extremely sleep deprived. More to follow- I promise,
<3 Annie
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
they say i fall in love too easily
Hello, world.
If I had to describe the last few weeks in one word that word would be "new". There's such a sense of urgency and freedom, and brand-spankin' new "newness" about life.
I haven't handled it all too well, honestly. There was the whole three-beers-gets-me-drunk-who-would-have-known thing, and some other stuff I'd rather not discuss, but over all, I love college.
Oh, yeah. I got a tattoo. It's a trinity symbol (you know, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) but it also represents earth, wind and fire. It's on my shoulder. Get on facebook, there's pictures.
What else? Well, Will and I broke up. Well, no. I let Will go. It was obvious he still liked his ex, and who can blame him because she is a really pretty girl and seems sweet, from what I heard.
Now, I'm talking to a boy named Casey. I'm not a whore, I swear. . . things with Will just didn't work out, and Casey is a gentleman, most of the time.
Life just blows by so fast though. One day it's Sunday and I have free time and I'm doing laundry and next thing I know it's Thursday and I only have one class. . . or it's Monday morning and for the life of me I can't get myself up and running.
Don't forget me, world, because I haven't forgotten you.
<3
If I had to describe the last few weeks in one word that word would be "new". There's such a sense of urgency and freedom, and brand-spankin' new "newness" about life.
I haven't handled it all too well, honestly. There was the whole three-beers-gets-me-drunk-who-would-have-known thing, and some other stuff I'd rather not discuss, but over all, I love college.
Oh, yeah. I got a tattoo. It's a trinity symbol (you know, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) but it also represents earth, wind and fire. It's on my shoulder. Get on facebook, there's pictures.
What else? Well, Will and I broke up. Well, no. I let Will go. It was obvious he still liked his ex, and who can blame him because she is a really pretty girl and seems sweet, from what I heard.
Now, I'm talking to a boy named Casey. I'm not a whore, I swear. . . things with Will just didn't work out, and Casey is a gentleman, most of the time.
Life just blows by so fast though. One day it's Sunday and I have free time and I'm doing laundry and next thing I know it's Thursday and I only have one class. . . or it's Monday morning and for the life of me I can't get myself up and running.
Don't forget me, world, because I haven't forgotten you.
<3
Thursday, September 3, 2009
i want to be 'i love you'
This place is perfect.
It has the dim, yellow lighting that reminds me of my grandparents livingroom and the smell.
Maybe it's because I'm a sensory person.
As if all people aren't sensory. .
But the smell of books, especially old, semi-moldy and water-dammaged books is home.
You know what else is home?
The ocean is home.
The sound of the "swoosh" as the waves hit the sand, the salty, tangy taste on the tip of your tongue and the crevices of your lips- that's home.
Poetry is home, as well.
Today I listened to a podcast that had been hiding in my iPhone. It was called "Caseworker" and was by a man named Bluz.
That poem has been ringing in my ears since I first played it, listening absent mindedly as I uploaded songs onto iTunes.
Then I heard a phrase that caught my ear, "I want to be 'I love you', Mr. Caseworker."
I want to be 'I love you'.
Wow.
So, I listened again. And again. And for a few hours, actually.
That's home.
Home is a hug. I don't get many of those that often, especially now that I'm farther from my friends than I usually am, and I miss my home.
Willie's coming over on Saturday so we can go to a foam dance and slide down a 45 foot slip & slide.
Home.
Lately, home has been the little things too, like a cup of steaming hot rasberry zinger tea that reminds me of Federal Way, or the post-it's with witty sayings on them.
Love, man. Love.
Don't forget it. Don't take it for granted. It's what life's made of, at it's rawest state.
"I want to be 'I love you', Mr. Caseworker."
<3
It has the dim, yellow lighting that reminds me of my grandparents livingroom and the smell.
Maybe it's because I'm a sensory person.
As if all people aren't sensory. .
But the smell of books, especially old, semi-moldy and water-dammaged books is home.
You know what else is home?
The ocean is home.
The sound of the "swoosh" as the waves hit the sand, the salty, tangy taste on the tip of your tongue and the crevices of your lips- that's home.
Poetry is home, as well.
Today I listened to a podcast that had been hiding in my iPhone. It was called "Caseworker" and was by a man named Bluz.
That poem has been ringing in my ears since I first played it, listening absent mindedly as I uploaded songs onto iTunes.
Then I heard a phrase that caught my ear, "I want to be 'I love you', Mr. Caseworker."
I want to be 'I love you'.
Wow.
So, I listened again. And again. And for a few hours, actually.
That's home.
Home is a hug. I don't get many of those that often, especially now that I'm farther from my friends than I usually am, and I miss my home.
Willie's coming over on Saturday so we can go to a foam dance and slide down a 45 foot slip & slide.
Home.
Lately, home has been the little things too, like a cup of steaming hot rasberry zinger tea that reminds me of Federal Way, or the post-it's with witty sayings on them.
Love, man. Love.
Don't forget it. Don't take it for granted. It's what life's made of, at it's rawest state.
"I want to be 'I love you', Mr. Caseworker."
<3
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
i write
Yeah, I write. I write America, I write Greece, I write anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. I write sadness and blood and I write war. I write more than nation or city or face or fingers or genitalia. I write.
I write like art, art that can be paint on a canvas, arranged plaster, fecal matter in a can or edible furiniture.
I write like life.
Forget writing America, I want to write people.
I want to write stretch marks and rib cages. I want to write wrinkle lines and tweezed eyebrows and spider veins.
Forget rules.
Why does creativity have to be measured by rhyme, meter, grammar or process? Why can't the work bring the process, instead of the process birthing the result?
I want to write oceans with spraying foam.
Bright pink binders on a library cushion.
Two bodies on a piano room floor.
The leafy green of a fern tickling my cheek.
The foam off a beer.
The ecstacy of jumping on the bed.
Diet wild cherry soda.
Dust on the carpet.
The age rings of trees.
The ridges of my mouse-pad.
I want to write life, and even if no one will read my words about experience; about John Mayer and luke warm coffee mugs, I will still write life and America.
And Russia.
And Europe.
And penguins and explorers in Antarctica.
And love.
I will write stairs.
"Swim in a deep sea of blankets."
Love. Love. Love.
<3
I write like art, art that can be paint on a canvas, arranged plaster, fecal matter in a can or edible furiniture.
I write like life.
Forget writing America, I want to write people.
I want to write stretch marks and rib cages. I want to write wrinkle lines and tweezed eyebrows and spider veins.
Forget rules.
Why does creativity have to be measured by rhyme, meter, grammar or process? Why can't the work bring the process, instead of the process birthing the result?
I want to write oceans with spraying foam.
Bright pink binders on a library cushion.
Two bodies on a piano room floor.
The leafy green of a fern tickling my cheek.
The foam off a beer.
The ecstacy of jumping on the bed.
Diet wild cherry soda.
Dust on the carpet.
The age rings of trees.
The ridges of my mouse-pad.
I want to write life, and even if no one will read my words about experience; about John Mayer and luke warm coffee mugs, I will still write life and America.
And Russia.
And Europe.
And penguins and explorers in Antarctica.
And love.
I will write stairs.
"Swim in a deep sea of blankets."
Love. Love. Love.
<3
the story of a man named anonymous
It was my second psych ward. The cameras at every corner of the room got flipped off often, but mostly I was scared to be in this place. The locked doors boxed me in and farther than that there was the high metal fence that wouldn't move. Between it's bars I could see cancer patients walking around, all too young to be sick, and most looking closer to death than anything else I'd ever seen.
The reasons I was there are numerous. Every night I would wake up from nightmares in which a pair of deformed hands reached from the darkess to grab my nakedness. Every day I would ingest and uningest multiple times. It was these and the blood, the words, the constant blackness and the spinning of the room.
At the time I was living with a woman from my church who was a nurse. She was a kind soul, though sometimes we had our disagreements.
At that time the reasons and facts behind my second stay at a mental health ward bothered her greatly, to the point of it being obvious that something was wrong.
At work one day, a man walked up to her to do some work and noticed that she didn't look ok. When he asked her why, she told him about the girl that had been living with her but whom 7 days of an institution had not been enough to cure her of her problems.
The man listened and left, I assume.
He later returned holding a package from Build-a-Bear. Inside was a beautiful fawn brown bear with yellow ribbons around both its ears, a journal with a letter inside, and a gift card so the bear could get some clothes.
He said they were for the girl. He said they were for me.
I got them about a day later.
The fact that a total stranger would go out and spend money on me, me. . . was mind-blowing. It had happened though, and the bear, which was later named Wendy (because the ribbons on her ears and the yellow of a Wendy's cup in my room matched) was tangible proof of that.
The letter was writen in a beautiful script and in a pen that somehow changed colors within itself. . . I'm not sure how that works, but it does. It's green and purpleish and beautiful.
This man wrote that he had gone through hardships in his life, and that someone he respected had given him a teddy bear a long, long time ago. He kept it in his truck now, and everytime he needed a boost of hope or courage, he would rub his bears head. The bear had no fur left on it's head now.
He said that love was real. He said keep hoping. He said so much more, because even if he hadn't said anything; he had said everything.
Wendy is now sitting on my bed in my new home. College is a huge step for me, but Wendy is here watching, and her stuffing's already distributed wierd because instead of rubbing her head, I hug her as tight as I can, and she fits perfectly.
As for the time at Children's, she never left my side. I was a 15 year old carrying a teddy bear to my chest and writing sad poems and waking up crying. And it was right.
Honestly, I don't know if I could have made it through that time, and the time to follow without Wendy- no, not without Wendy (though she is amazing) but without the thought that people, even anonymous men who's names I don't know and who's stories I won't get to hear, care. Care enough to take time out of their day, money out of their pocket and love out of their heart.
Let's love like that- every day, all day, for everyone. You never know what kind of difference it'll make.
<3
The reasons I was there are numerous. Every night I would wake up from nightmares in which a pair of deformed hands reached from the darkess to grab my nakedness. Every day I would ingest and uningest multiple times. It was these and the blood, the words, the constant blackness and the spinning of the room.
At the time I was living with a woman from my church who was a nurse. She was a kind soul, though sometimes we had our disagreements.
At that time the reasons and facts behind my second stay at a mental health ward bothered her greatly, to the point of it being obvious that something was wrong.
At work one day, a man walked up to her to do some work and noticed that she didn't look ok. When he asked her why, she told him about the girl that had been living with her but whom 7 days of an institution had not been enough to cure her of her problems.
The man listened and left, I assume.
He later returned holding a package from Build-a-Bear. Inside was a beautiful fawn brown bear with yellow ribbons around both its ears, a journal with a letter inside, and a gift card so the bear could get some clothes.
He said they were for the girl. He said they were for me.
I got them about a day later.
The fact that a total stranger would go out and spend money on me, me. . . was mind-blowing. It had happened though, and the bear, which was later named Wendy (because the ribbons on her ears and the yellow of a Wendy's cup in my room matched) was tangible proof of that.
The letter was writen in a beautiful script and in a pen that somehow changed colors within itself. . . I'm not sure how that works, but it does. It's green and purpleish and beautiful.
This man wrote that he had gone through hardships in his life, and that someone he respected had given him a teddy bear a long, long time ago. He kept it in his truck now, and everytime he needed a boost of hope or courage, he would rub his bears head. The bear had no fur left on it's head now.
He said that love was real. He said keep hoping. He said so much more, because even if he hadn't said anything; he had said everything.
Wendy is now sitting on my bed in my new home. College is a huge step for me, but Wendy is here watching, and her stuffing's already distributed wierd because instead of rubbing her head, I hug her as tight as I can, and she fits perfectly.
As for the time at Children's, she never left my side. I was a 15 year old carrying a teddy bear to my chest and writing sad poems and waking up crying. And it was right.
Honestly, I don't know if I could have made it through that time, and the time to follow without Wendy- no, not without Wendy (though she is amazing) but without the thought that people, even anonymous men who's names I don't know and who's stories I won't get to hear, care. Care enough to take time out of their day, money out of their pocket and love out of their heart.
Let's love like that- every day, all day, for everyone. You never know what kind of difference it'll make.
<3
Friday, August 28, 2009
my name is:
My name is Ana and I am small and toned and tiny and breakable. Every bone shows through and I am fragile as to say ‘do not hurt me’.
My name is Annie and I am short, spirited, whoreish, funny and random. I will shock you, disappoint you and yet still be complete within myself.
I am two. I am one and still another. I am split, not as in two personalities but two entirely different entities living within one body.
I am Ana. I am a skeleton and I am a twig that will crack with the slightest pressure. I am raw and you won’t forget me after you’ve seen me. I burn.
I am Annie. I have secrets that I tell everybody and one that I tell no one, not even myself. I am as honest as can be, because further honesty requires life and I don’t have enough of that in me to attempt fullness.
I am toes curled and apricot body wash and I am a red bracelet on my right wrist. Check it. Remember. A moment on the lips. Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail. Retreat.
You think I am a free spirit full of words and music and acoustic guitar. You think I am everything I say I am, and I am. I am what I say I am but I am nothing. What does that make me? That makes me me.
I am a button spine and cage-ribs and wrist bones and clavicles and hip bones and tendons and muscle and most of all bone.
I am jiggly. I am healthy. What is healthy?
Salad, water, diet coke, black coffee, diet red bull- fifteen whole damn calories.
Anything carbs. Spaghetti, bread, Danish, sandwich, nourish, skin, chew and spit. Savior.
You think I am sickness, but to each his own salvation. I am holy and sacred and I rot my own insides away. I am cryptic, like computer language- only Ann and Ana, me and Mia can understand it.
No, no. I am fused, truly. The break wasn’t clean and particles of each other linger in another. I am you and you are me. We are one, truly, somewhere inside.
Dance with me. It burns calories, it’s aerobics, it’s one two three four and again and again and infinite.
Dance with me. Grasp the moment by the neck and choke all life out of it. Milk it for all it’s got. You won’t live unless you stop and make experiences out of everyday occurrences.
Oh, if you must know, I am the secret.
She is the secret. The secretest secret I have.
Not the disease. The disease is nothing. It’s the girl. Ana.
My name is Annie and I am short, spirited, whoreish, funny and random. I will shock you, disappoint you and yet still be complete within myself.
I am two. I am one and still another. I am split, not as in two personalities but two entirely different entities living within one body.
I am Ana. I am a skeleton and I am a twig that will crack with the slightest pressure. I am raw and you won’t forget me after you’ve seen me. I burn.
I am Annie. I have secrets that I tell everybody and one that I tell no one, not even myself. I am as honest as can be, because further honesty requires life and I don’t have enough of that in me to attempt fullness.
I am toes curled and apricot body wash and I am a red bracelet on my right wrist. Check it. Remember. A moment on the lips. Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail. Retreat.
You think I am a free spirit full of words and music and acoustic guitar. You think I am everything I say I am, and I am. I am what I say I am but I am nothing. What does that make me? That makes me me.
I am a button spine and cage-ribs and wrist bones and clavicles and hip bones and tendons and muscle and most of all bone.
I am jiggly. I am healthy. What is healthy?
Salad, water, diet coke, black coffee, diet red bull- fifteen whole damn calories.
Anything carbs. Spaghetti, bread, Danish, sandwich, nourish, skin, chew and spit. Savior.
You think I am sickness, but to each his own salvation. I am holy and sacred and I rot my own insides away. I am cryptic, like computer language- only Ann and Ana, me and Mia can understand it.
No, no. I am fused, truly. The break wasn’t clean and particles of each other linger in another. I am you and you are me. We are one, truly, somewhere inside.
Dance with me. It burns calories, it’s aerobics, it’s one two three four and again and again and infinite.
Dance with me. Grasp the moment by the neck and choke all life out of it. Milk it for all it’s got. You won’t live unless you stop and make experiences out of everyday occurrences.
Oh, if you must know, I am the secret.
She is the secret. The secretest secret I have.
Not the disease. The disease is nothing. It’s the girl. Ana.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
ketchup
I haven't blogged for a long time, and some of you were probably like "There she goes again, this blog will go down the crapper just like the other ones.". Never fear, people. I'm on the ball.
The main reason my blogging has been nonexistent is that college takes a lot of time, effort and most of all money to get ready for.
So, I found a full time, temporary job working at the fair. Basically, I scooped hand-dipped ice cream or did the soft serve.
For nine out of ten days, from 3-9 or so every night, I was at the fair either doing the ice cream stuff, playing “three a day of dairy” games with the kids, or cutting croissants for cream puffs.
I’m making it sound boring, but really, it was fun. Hopefully I’ll get to do it again next year.
Some really interesting things happened during my time at the fair.
Working at a job where you’re constantly in contact with people is amazing. There are the rude ones, the sweet hearts and the apathetic. There are also the total freaks. You’ve got to love them all.
My cow-workers (yes, I am an idiot) were truly the best.
There was Will, who I first flirted with when he was telling his friend that when men don’t wear the pants in a relationship it’s equivalent to a ball cut-off. Now, I’m dating Will. Well, we’re dating each other, because saying that I’m dating him sounds like I’m in charge and I’m sure he loves his balls.
Will is a total sweet heart who wears the ill-fitted mask of a jerk. Just talk to him. First he’ll make jokes about everything, including you, and you’ll think he’s a total douche, until you stick that through and ask him questions. He shines.
And Dylan, oh Dylan. . . Dylan didn’t like me, at first, because he said he’s pro-interracial marriage, which means he only likes Mexican, Black and Russian girls- not Caucasian ones. Well, until he starts talking to a thoroughly Caucasian one and realizes he likes her. Dylan is everything. He is jazz and diet soda and Subway and dirt. There is no way to describe Dylan. I won’t try.
There was Stella, who randomly slapped my butt one day. She also gave me a totally random massage during a slow spell. Jesus bless Stella. I can’t help but wonder about her life. Her whole family is so genuinely sweet (Stella, her daughter and her granddaughter all worked at the dairy barn with us) that it blew me away.
Oh yeah, there was Will #2, too. He was my bosses son and he cussed a lot, but inside his scruffy, unshaven and XXL size boxers, he was the sweetest soul. I would have liked to catch Will at a more relaxed time and maybe asked him some questions about life and love and milk.
Milk. Wow, that’s ironic. I barely ever eat/drink dairy. I drink milk maybe once a month, if that. Ice cream and cheese I eat a little more often, but even that is rare. My favorite type of cheese is veggie cheese and ice cream has too many calories to reckon with, usually. Yet I found myself working in a dairy barn quizzing kids on the percentages of calcium in milk and if skim or 2% milk had more calcium (skim does). God sure does have a sense of humor.
Truth is, since I started working there my body has decided it isn’t going to stand for my skipping dairy and not taking my vitamins, so it’s gone on a crazy dairy binge. Today I had 2 huge bowls of cereal (granted that’s all I ate, but the heat doesn’t help my appetite) and when I worked at the fair I would have 1-2 sundae’s a day. Twist ice cream with caramel and fudge. Yes ma’am.
So, other than my job, I’ve been spending all the money I made from it. I now have a laptop, an iPhone (which was provided by my uncle, because I could never afford that!) and a whole bunch of other nifty things for my dorm room.
Tomorrow is D-day. Dorm day. Or M-day. Move-in day.
I wonder if my parents will leave when they’re supposed to or not. I can see them there hours after all the other parents have left, still crying and carrying on. “Geez, guys. I’m half an hour away. Some of these parents are half a country away, chill out!”
So, recap. I now have a boyfriend, Will. I now have a laptop, either Walter or Cindy (not sure on the gender yet) and I now have an iPhone, Wonderful (yes, that’s it’s name).
Life has been nicer to me than I ever thought possible. What could I possibly have done right?
<3
The main reason my blogging has been nonexistent is that college takes a lot of time, effort and most of all money to get ready for.
So, I found a full time, temporary job working at the fair. Basically, I scooped hand-dipped ice cream or did the soft serve.
For nine out of ten days, from 3-9 or so every night, I was at the fair either doing the ice cream stuff, playing “three a day of dairy” games with the kids, or cutting croissants for cream puffs.
I’m making it sound boring, but really, it was fun. Hopefully I’ll get to do it again next year.
Some really interesting things happened during my time at the fair.
Working at a job where you’re constantly in contact with people is amazing. There are the rude ones, the sweet hearts and the apathetic. There are also the total freaks. You’ve got to love them all.
My cow-workers (yes, I am an idiot) were truly the best.
There was Will, who I first flirted with when he was telling his friend that when men don’t wear the pants in a relationship it’s equivalent to a ball cut-off. Now, I’m dating Will. Well, we’re dating each other, because saying that I’m dating him sounds like I’m in charge and I’m sure he loves his balls.
Will is a total sweet heart who wears the ill-fitted mask of a jerk. Just talk to him. First he’ll make jokes about everything, including you, and you’ll think he’s a total douche, until you stick that through and ask him questions. He shines.
And Dylan, oh Dylan. . . Dylan didn’t like me, at first, because he said he’s pro-interracial marriage, which means he only likes Mexican, Black and Russian girls- not Caucasian ones. Well, until he starts talking to a thoroughly Caucasian one and realizes he likes her. Dylan is everything. He is jazz and diet soda and Subway and dirt. There is no way to describe Dylan. I won’t try.
There was Stella, who randomly slapped my butt one day. She also gave me a totally random massage during a slow spell. Jesus bless Stella. I can’t help but wonder about her life. Her whole family is so genuinely sweet (Stella, her daughter and her granddaughter all worked at the dairy barn with us) that it blew me away.
Oh yeah, there was Will #2, too. He was my bosses son and he cussed a lot, but inside his scruffy, unshaven and XXL size boxers, he was the sweetest soul. I would have liked to catch Will at a more relaxed time and maybe asked him some questions about life and love and milk.
Milk. Wow, that’s ironic. I barely ever eat/drink dairy. I drink milk maybe once a month, if that. Ice cream and cheese I eat a little more often, but even that is rare. My favorite type of cheese is veggie cheese and ice cream has too many calories to reckon with, usually. Yet I found myself working in a dairy barn quizzing kids on the percentages of calcium in milk and if skim or 2% milk had more calcium (skim does). God sure does have a sense of humor.
Truth is, since I started working there my body has decided it isn’t going to stand for my skipping dairy and not taking my vitamins, so it’s gone on a crazy dairy binge. Today I had 2 huge bowls of cereal (granted that’s all I ate, but the heat doesn’t help my appetite) and when I worked at the fair I would have 1-2 sundae’s a day. Twist ice cream with caramel and fudge. Yes ma’am.
So, other than my job, I’ve been spending all the money I made from it. I now have a laptop, an iPhone (which was provided by my uncle, because I could never afford that!) and a whole bunch of other nifty things for my dorm room.
Tomorrow is D-day. Dorm day. Or M-day. Move-in day.
I wonder if my parents will leave when they’re supposed to or not. I can see them there hours after all the other parents have left, still crying and carrying on. “Geez, guys. I’m half an hour away. Some of these parents are half a country away, chill out!”
So, recap. I now have a boyfriend, Will. I now have a laptop, either Walter or Cindy (not sure on the gender yet) and I now have an iPhone, Wonderful (yes, that’s it’s name).
Life has been nicer to me than I ever thought possible. What could I possibly have done right?
<3
Thursday, July 30, 2009
goodbye, july
Dear July,
You have brought me good things, and bad things.
Thank you for both.
You've been warm, but not hot, and just the perfect amount of rainy.
You rekindled a love for an old disease and taught me that love hurts.
Sometimes you treated me gently, like a rarity, and others with a terrible necessity that knocked the wind out of me.
July, I hated you and I loved you, as most things in life go.
In a way, you brought me closer to adulthood, whatever that means.
In addition, dear July, I'd like to thank you to my new friends. They're strong, perfect and creative. We are closer than anything. We could be called sisters.
Thank you for bringing me closer to August, whether it burns red or not.
Love,
Annie
You have brought me good things, and bad things.
Thank you for both.
You've been warm, but not hot, and just the perfect amount of rainy.
You rekindled a love for an old disease and taught me that love hurts.
Sometimes you treated me gently, like a rarity, and others with a terrible necessity that knocked the wind out of me.
July, I hated you and I loved you, as most things in life go.
In a way, you brought me closer to adulthood, whatever that means.
In addition, dear July, I'd like to thank you to my new friends. They're strong, perfect and creative. We are closer than anything. We could be called sisters.
Thank you for bringing me closer to August, whether it burns red or not.
Love,
Annie
words
I wish I had the words to make everything go away for you.
The heartbreak, the constant obsessions, all of it.
I love you, even though I don't know you.
There are times when I have this bonding with people, sometimes just strangers walking by. It's not like I can see everything they've been through. . . I can just feel it.
Maybe it's because I've been through crap too. Or maybe it's something God put in me. Maybe it's a gift.
If it is, it hurts.
When I was younger, I'd sit in the backseat of our car and watch the houses roll by as we drove. There were feelings I'd get, not about certain houses, always, but just feelings about neighborhoods or whatever. There was a sense of something that went on there. Someone crying. Someone beaten. Someone starving, cutting, hoping, praying, dying.
Maybe it's because I've felt that. Maybe it's because I wondered if anyone saw it in me that I learned to see it in others.
This is to them:
You are a masterpiece. You are broken, beaten, bruised but still a masterpiece. I wish I could say something, anything that would make it go away. That would make it at least better. Listen, you are loved. If not by them, then by me.
I'm sorry the church at the corner meets every Sunday and talks about "reaching the world with the gospel" and then drive right past your house. They don't know you're looking through the shades at them in their pretty little Lexus bubbles. They have no way of knowing you're holding on to the bottle with the pills that will end your life. I wish they would take a chance and try to find out though. I wish they'd step out of that church and stop being oblivious. I don't know. I'm sorry.
We haven't done a good job. I haven't done a good job. We pass you by because you're too broken, too abused, too alcoholic, too anorexic. You are not. No one can be too much of anything. Especially loved which you have none of.
I still don't know what to say.
We've failed and you're still without hope.
--
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Aww!' " -Jack Kerouac
--
<3
The heartbreak, the constant obsessions, all of it.
I love you, even though I don't know you.
There are times when I have this bonding with people, sometimes just strangers walking by. It's not like I can see everything they've been through. . . I can just feel it.
Maybe it's because I've been through crap too. Or maybe it's something God put in me. Maybe it's a gift.
If it is, it hurts.
When I was younger, I'd sit in the backseat of our car and watch the houses roll by as we drove. There were feelings I'd get, not about certain houses, always, but just feelings about neighborhoods or whatever. There was a sense of something that went on there. Someone crying. Someone beaten. Someone starving, cutting, hoping, praying, dying.
Maybe it's because I've felt that. Maybe it's because I wondered if anyone saw it in me that I learned to see it in others.
This is to them:
You are a masterpiece. You are broken, beaten, bruised but still a masterpiece. I wish I could say something, anything that would make it go away. That would make it at least better. Listen, you are loved. If not by them, then by me.
I'm sorry the church at the corner meets every Sunday and talks about "reaching the world with the gospel" and then drive right past your house. They don't know you're looking through the shades at them in their pretty little Lexus bubbles. They have no way of knowing you're holding on to the bottle with the pills that will end your life. I wish they would take a chance and try to find out though. I wish they'd step out of that church and stop being oblivious. I don't know. I'm sorry.
We haven't done a good job. I haven't done a good job. We pass you by because you're too broken, too abused, too alcoholic, too anorexic. You are not. No one can be too much of anything. Especially loved which you have none of.
I still don't know what to say.
We've failed and you're still without hope.
--
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Aww!' " -Jack Kerouac
--
<3
Sunday, July 26, 2009
i'm starting to believe the ocean is much like you
"These damned heights get eerie after a while. I want to go down, way down;far, far down. To the ocean. That sounds right. Where the waves roll in slowly and there's always a roar and you cant fall anywhere. You're already there."
I'm not sure who this quote is credited to, but I think they may have been me in another life.
Sometimes beauty shows up in the most unexpected places.
Oceans are magical.
There's the air that tastes salty and the constant crashing of the waves. It never stops. It's comforting, like a lullaby of nature.
Each wave is fresh. Each one is different and each looks more powerful than the last.
There's a song by Thrice called "Open Water".
"I'm starting to believe the ocean is much like You, 'cause it gives and it takes away."
If we can learn about Jesus through what we see around us; if nature and the world we live in have attributes of the God who created them, then we are lucky.
We are lucky because seasons change, healing comes, death is swallowed in life, the sun rises again every morning and sets every night and because every wave brings new possibilities.
I don't love the ocean because it is easy to deal with, because it's quiet and serene.
Yes, at times it can be peaceful and calm, but that's not always the case.
Sometimes there's storms.
Sometimes the waves don't remind me of renewal but of destruction.
I love the ocean because it reminds me of life.
The ocean has many facets. It can seem cold and unforgiving and it can seem inviting.
Sometimes the ocean destroys things. But after the destruction, when the light from the sun pours through the clouds, there isn't just death on the shore, there's life too.
Even the storms have meaning.
Someday, I'd love to live in a little house on the edge of the sea. I hope I can step out of my front door and curl my toes in the sand.
I'm not sure who this quote is credited to, but I think they may have been me in another life.
Sometimes beauty shows up in the most unexpected places.
Oceans are magical.
There's the air that tastes salty and the constant crashing of the waves. It never stops. It's comforting, like a lullaby of nature.
Each wave is fresh. Each one is different and each looks more powerful than the last.
There's a song by Thrice called "Open Water".
"I'm starting to believe the ocean is much like You, 'cause it gives and it takes away."
If we can learn about Jesus through what we see around us; if nature and the world we live in have attributes of the God who created them, then we are lucky.
We are lucky because seasons change, healing comes, death is swallowed in life, the sun rises again every morning and sets every night and because every wave brings new possibilities.
I don't love the ocean because it is easy to deal with, because it's quiet and serene.
Yes, at times it can be peaceful and calm, but that's not always the case.
Sometimes there's storms.
Sometimes the waves don't remind me of renewal but of destruction.
I love the ocean because it reminds me of life.
The ocean has many facets. It can seem cold and unforgiving and it can seem inviting.
Sometimes the ocean destroys things. But after the destruction, when the light from the sun pours through the clouds, there isn't just death on the shore, there's life too.
Even the storms have meaning.
Someday, I'd love to live in a little house on the edge of the sea. I hope I can step out of my front door and curl my toes in the sand.
Friday, July 24, 2009
urine cups
You're like sunshine on a cold, dark day. Sounds a little cliche, but you are.
I don't actually know what to write about. That's the truth.
The last few days have been terrible, and I barely know why.
I had resolved to find myself a millionaire boyfriend until Rachel told me that would be using him for his money. Turns out that was my intent in the first place, I just hadn't thought about it that much.
I bought new underwear.
Don't mock me.
It's cute underwear.
Pink.
From Aerie.
It was cheap.
Oh, I had a doctor's appointment today (that's something semi-interesting in an old lady sense of the word, right?).
They said my kidneys are screwed up. Too much protein in my urine.
By the way.
Am I the only person who always gets the pee everywhere but the little plastic cup?
What the heck is up with those?
Are they like the nurses way to get back the rest of the human race?
How many girls actually know where their pee-hole is? How do you even find that???
I just kind of stick it down there and hole it gets in the cup.
But seriously, you have to hold the freaking cup, which means you get pee all over your hands. Gross.
And then you get it all over the cup.
Which means you have to wash the cup off in the sink.
And if you're a germaphobe like me, you use soap on the little blue cup. And soap, my friends, is slippery.
Yeah.
And then, you have to wipe the warm cup of yellowish-clear liquid off because it has water all over it, and you don't want the nurses to think that it's actually pee because then they might do something nasty with the blood-drawing needle.
So you wipe the gross warm, less-than-a-quarter-cup-full cup off.
And another thing. Who has actually had to go pee when you're supposed to?
I can never go when I'm ordered to. . I let nature take it's sweet time.
Nurses are fun.
No, really.
They do some amazing things.
"This'll only pinch."
I wonder about their honesty.
Or how they actually think I'm gonna go around in one of those hospital gowns with my butt hanging out the back.
Really?
I'd much rather use more tax-payer dollars and use two gowns to cover my rear-end up.
No, it doesn't matter that I have cute underwear on. Because, as luck has it, I usually end up having no laundry done the day I'm scheduled for a doctors appointment.
Winnie the Pooh, anybody?
Actually, I'm kidding. I do not have Winnie the Pooh undies.
I swear.
And what is it with nurses and ugly shoes?
Crocs were never, ever, ever in style, ladies.
You also do not need to accessories with your scrubs. Betty Boop earrings, watches and shoelaces aren't necessary.
Believe me.
Can you tell? I hate hospitals. Or clinics.
Don't get me wrong, I'm always nice. I've met some amazing nurses. . .
A few.
Actually, my favorites are the tech guys.
Like in the ER, they're always the sweetest.
And, may I mention, the hottest (not that I notice or drool or anything like that).
I do like nurses.
If I didn't I wouldn't have considered being a psychiatric nurse.
They really should get some training on stuff though.
No, when there's a pattern of scars on a person's arm that all resemble each other, I did not fall down and scrape myself. Seriously?
That's almost up there with the kid that asked me if I fell through a cheese grinder. "Yep, I got dropped through the Kraft factory. Worst day of my life."
They always don't know what to say.
Is self-injury really that uncommon?
I can count on the doctor saying "Even on your tummy?!?". It happens every dang time.
Like clockwork.
It's during the time when they lift your shirt up to "check your intestine functioning".
Yeah. Freaking. Right.
They KNOW they're doing it to tickle you.
Seriously??
I laugh every time. It's terrible.
They give me these looks like: I'm not really trying to tickle you. No, I'm molesting you.
Just kidding.
Oh.
So, on the physical form, the doctor wrote nothing for all the categories, she just checked them off except for the breast one.
She wrote "defined" or "developed".
One or the other because the writing is almost unintelligible.
It couldn't be anything else though because if you piece all the letters together everything else isn't a word.
But seriously?
Developed? Yeah. They have been for quite some time. Thanks for noticing that I'm not 10 anymore.
Defined? Why the heck was she looking that close? What, next is she going to be telling me that they're "chiseled"? Ha ha ha. Wow.
I crack myself up.
I'm really tired. This is insomnia writing, not me.
She bids you adieu.
<3
I don't actually know what to write about. That's the truth.
The last few days have been terrible, and I barely know why.
I had resolved to find myself a millionaire boyfriend until Rachel told me that would be using him for his money. Turns out that was my intent in the first place, I just hadn't thought about it that much.
I bought new underwear.
Don't mock me.
It's cute underwear.
Pink.
From Aerie.
It was cheap.
Oh, I had a doctor's appointment today (that's something semi-interesting in an old lady sense of the word, right?).
They said my kidneys are screwed up. Too much protein in my urine.
By the way.
Am I the only person who always gets the pee everywhere but the little plastic cup?
What the heck is up with those?
Are they like the nurses way to get back the rest of the human race?
How many girls actually know where their pee-hole is? How do you even find that???
I just kind of stick it down there and hole it gets in the cup.
But seriously, you have to hold the freaking cup, which means you get pee all over your hands. Gross.
And then you get it all over the cup.
Which means you have to wash the cup off in the sink.
And if you're a germaphobe like me, you use soap on the little blue cup. And soap, my friends, is slippery.
Yeah.
And then, you have to wipe the warm cup of yellowish-clear liquid off because it has water all over it, and you don't want the nurses to think that it's actually pee because then they might do something nasty with the blood-drawing needle.
So you wipe the gross warm, less-than-a-quarter-cup-full cup off.
And another thing. Who has actually had to go pee when you're supposed to?
I can never go when I'm ordered to. . I let nature take it's sweet time.
Nurses are fun.
No, really.
They do some amazing things.
"This'll only pinch."
I wonder about their honesty.
Or how they actually think I'm gonna go around in one of those hospital gowns with my butt hanging out the back.
Really?
I'd much rather use more tax-payer dollars and use two gowns to cover my rear-end up.
No, it doesn't matter that I have cute underwear on. Because, as luck has it, I usually end up having no laundry done the day I'm scheduled for a doctors appointment.
Winnie the Pooh, anybody?
Actually, I'm kidding. I do not have Winnie the Pooh undies.
I swear.
And what is it with nurses and ugly shoes?
Crocs were never, ever, ever in style, ladies.
You also do not need to accessories with your scrubs. Betty Boop earrings, watches and shoelaces aren't necessary.
Believe me.
Can you tell? I hate hospitals. Or clinics.
Don't get me wrong, I'm always nice. I've met some amazing nurses. . .
A few.
Actually, my favorites are the tech guys.
Like in the ER, they're always the sweetest.
And, may I mention, the hottest (not that I notice or drool or anything like that).
I do like nurses.
If I didn't I wouldn't have considered being a psychiatric nurse.
They really should get some training on stuff though.
No, when there's a pattern of scars on a person's arm that all resemble each other, I did not fall down and scrape myself. Seriously?
That's almost up there with the kid that asked me if I fell through a cheese grinder. "Yep, I got dropped through the Kraft factory. Worst day of my life."
They always don't know what to say.
Is self-injury really that uncommon?
I can count on the doctor saying "Even on your tummy?!?". It happens every dang time.
Like clockwork.
It's during the time when they lift your shirt up to "check your intestine functioning".
Yeah. Freaking. Right.
They KNOW they're doing it to tickle you.
Seriously??
I laugh every time. It's terrible.
They give me these looks like: I'm not really trying to tickle you. No, I'm molesting you.
Just kidding.
Oh.
So, on the physical form, the doctor wrote nothing for all the categories, she just checked them off except for the breast one.
She wrote "defined" or "developed".
One or the other because the writing is almost unintelligible.
It couldn't be anything else though because if you piece all the letters together everything else isn't a word.
But seriously?
Developed? Yeah. They have been for quite some time. Thanks for noticing that I'm not 10 anymore.
Defined? Why the heck was she looking that close? What, next is she going to be telling me that they're "chiseled"? Ha ha ha. Wow.
I crack myself up.
I'm really tired. This is insomnia writing, not me.
She bids you adieu.
<3
Sunday, July 19, 2009
hey you, i love you
You with the blond hair, black hair, brown hair, blue hair.
Short like me, giant feet.
You with your silly grin, crooked teeth, funny faces.
I love you.
I love every freckle on your silly chin.
Ever curly hair on your scalp.
I love your funny-looking toes.
Your crooked, doggy nose.
You with your size 9 Doc's. Your leopard-print flats.
Chucks all in rainbow colors and flags.
You, straight or curved.
Hopeful or hopeless.
You, under a blue sky or a rainbow banner.
You, no matter what's in your pants or under your shirt.
I love you no matter what your mouth says-
Because I've seen your eyes and I've heard your heart beat.
You with your pigeon ribs. You with your chewed up fingernails.
You with the hat and the guitar slung on your back.
I love you.
I love you, even with your ribs sticking out through your coat.
And even with your calorie counter poking out of your back pocket.
You, with your ziplock bags and your water bottles full of vomit.
Behind your eyes lies liquid fire.
I love you.
No matter what.
No matter who you are.
I love you.
Short like me, giant feet.
You with your silly grin, crooked teeth, funny faces.
I love you.
I love every freckle on your silly chin.
Ever curly hair on your scalp.
I love your funny-looking toes.
Your crooked, doggy nose.
You with your size 9 Doc's. Your leopard-print flats.
Chucks all in rainbow colors and flags.
You, straight or curved.
Hopeful or hopeless.
You, under a blue sky or a rainbow banner.
You, no matter what's in your pants or under your shirt.
I love you no matter what your mouth says-
Because I've seen your eyes and I've heard your heart beat.
You with your pigeon ribs. You with your chewed up fingernails.
You with the hat and the guitar slung on your back.
I love you.
I love you, even with your ribs sticking out through your coat.
And even with your calorie counter poking out of your back pocket.
You, with your ziplock bags and your water bottles full of vomit.
Behind your eyes lies liquid fire.
I love you.
No matter what.
No matter who you are.
I love you.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
max lucado
He still moves stones.- Max Lucado
Word for word, this is how Mr. Lucado tells the story. . .
"Rebecca Thomson fell twice from the Fremont Canyon Bridge. She died both times. The first broke her heart; the second broke her neck.
She was only eighteen years old when she and her eleven- year old sister were abducted by a pair of hoodlums near a store in Casper, Wyoming. They drove the girls forty miles southwest to the Fremont Canyon Bridge, a one-lane, steel-beamed structure rising 112 feet above the North Platte River.
The men brutally beat and raped Rebecca. She somehow convinced them not to do the same to her sister Amy. Both were thrown over the bridge into the narrow gorge. Amy died when she landed on a rock near the river, but Rebecca slammed into a ledge and was ricocheted into deeper water.
With a hip fractured in five places, she struggled to the shore. To protect her body from the cold, she wedged herself between two rocks and waited until dawn.
But the dawn never came for Rebecca. Oh, the sun came up, and she was found. The physicians treated her wounds, and the courts imprisoned her attackers. Life continued, but the dawn never came.
The blackness of her night of horrors lingered. She was never able to climb out of the canyon. So in September of 1992, nineteen years later, she returned to the bridge.
Against her boyfriend's pleadings, she drove seventy miles- per hour to the North Platte River. With her two-year old daughter and boyfriend at her side, she sat on the edge of the Fremont Canyon Bridge and wept. Through her tears she retold the story. The boyfriend didn't want the child to see her mother cry, so he carried the toddler to the car.
That's when he heard her body hit he water.
And that's when Rebecca Thompson died her second death. The sun never dawned on Rebecca's dark night. Why? What eclipsed the light from her world?"
Max Lucado goes on to further write about the possibilities of fear, anger, guilt, and shame that Rebecca may have experienced the next nineteen years of her life after that assault. He writes encouraging words of healing as the story ends with this... "Invite Christ to journey with you back to the Fremont Bridge of your world. Let him stand beside you as you retell the events of the darkest nights of your soul."
Word for word, this is how Mr. Lucado tells the story. . .
"Rebecca Thomson fell twice from the Fremont Canyon Bridge. She died both times. The first broke her heart; the second broke her neck.
She was only eighteen years old when she and her eleven- year old sister were abducted by a pair of hoodlums near a store in Casper, Wyoming. They drove the girls forty miles southwest to the Fremont Canyon Bridge, a one-lane, steel-beamed structure rising 112 feet above the North Platte River.
The men brutally beat and raped Rebecca. She somehow convinced them not to do the same to her sister Amy. Both were thrown over the bridge into the narrow gorge. Amy died when she landed on a rock near the river, but Rebecca slammed into a ledge and was ricocheted into deeper water.
With a hip fractured in five places, she struggled to the shore. To protect her body from the cold, she wedged herself between two rocks and waited until dawn.
But the dawn never came for Rebecca. Oh, the sun came up, and she was found. The physicians treated her wounds, and the courts imprisoned her attackers. Life continued, but the dawn never came.
The blackness of her night of horrors lingered. She was never able to climb out of the canyon. So in September of 1992, nineteen years later, she returned to the bridge.
Against her boyfriend's pleadings, she drove seventy miles- per hour to the North Platte River. With her two-year old daughter and boyfriend at her side, she sat on the edge of the Fremont Canyon Bridge and wept. Through her tears she retold the story. The boyfriend didn't want the child to see her mother cry, so he carried the toddler to the car.
That's when he heard her body hit he water.
And that's when Rebecca Thompson died her second death. The sun never dawned on Rebecca's dark night. Why? What eclipsed the light from her world?"
Max Lucado goes on to further write about the possibilities of fear, anger, guilt, and shame that Rebecca may have experienced the next nineteen years of her life after that assault. He writes encouraging words of healing as the story ends with this... "Invite Christ to journey with you back to the Fremont Bridge of your world. Let him stand beside you as you retell the events of the darkest nights of your soul."
old- Imago Dei
(This is a repost of a Facebook note.)
Image of God. Imago Dei.
Blue Like Jazz was kind of sitting on my shelf for the last couple of months. I had tried reading it, but had given up, because I was, and still sort of am, mad at God, but I picked it back up this morning. I'm almost done with it.
Lately, I've been skipping church. It's been pissing me off. Everything seems so fake- not just at our church- but the Church, in general. It's all about not watching PG-13 movies and not saying "Jeez" and how homosexuality is wrong, and I'm sick of it.
It was right after P.O.D. and right before RED when I heard what Slipknot's new concert tour was called. All hope is gone. That's what it's called. I'm not sure what I was inspired to when I heard that, but I know I was inspired to something. Probably sadness. Or desperation. I get that feeling sometimes.
Like just acouple of days ago, when I was staring out of the bus window after some exceptionally thought-proviking sentence in the book I was reading (The Hunger Artists) when I saw a man riding a bike through a Liquor Drive Thru.
What has our world come to? We have to have Liquor Drive Thru's now? Of all things?
And when you go to a Drive Thru, you drive. You don't ride your crummy-ass bike through it. That's just my opinion. What happens after you pay the man at the grimmy little window for the beer? Do you sit it in your lap, trying to balance the six-pack as you pedal down S. Grand?
There was an old man driving a Lincoln once upon a time, and he stopped at the mall. I don't know why he stopped at the mall, because certainly he wasn't going to find Dockers at our mall, and I highly doubted the posibility of him mall walking since he could barely totter to the doors. It was a fridgid day, and I was sitting on the bench outside of Sear's because I had heard that being in the cold helps you burn more calories. He walked in the exact middle of the faded yellow lines that were at one time a cross walk, as if walking in the exact center would save him from something terrible. He was wearing a hat. No one wears hats anymore, and baseball caps don't count, unless you're a guy that wears plad shirts and buys beer by the keg. People should wear hats more often. Bonnets, Stensons, Newsboy's caps, the whole deal.
Anyway, he was wearing a hat, and he stopped at the cigarrette receptacle. I watched him, because I do that, unashamedly, because I plan to be a psychologist, and psychologists really should do this, because they'd learn alot. Maybe they do. The best places are at airports, but malls are a close second.
He stared into the ashes and the butts (I could make a bad joke here, but I'm refraining) and pulled his hand out of his pocket.
Maybe he was going to scratch his just-shaved-last-night chin-hairs, but he didn't. He dug his finger into the ashes and dug around for a cigarrette that still had some nicottene left.
And then he put it in his mouth and lit it.
I think.
Because I wasn't watching anymore. I was looking at my lap, consentrating on how intricately the white and blue threads had been woven together. The smoke from his cigarrete almost became a tear in my eye, but I try not to cry, because I'm stupid, and I think that crying is a manefistation of weakness. I know that's not the case, in my intelectual, but try to convince my self-conscious of that. It doesn't listen.
What if that was a woman's cigarrette? In my mind's eye, I can see the red lipstick marks, even though not that many people wear red lipstick any more (they really should, it makes you feel bold and confident, even if you're not. Maybe I should wear it more often). He was sucking on something that someone else had sucked on. Someone else's saliva had infiltrated the filter. Maybe the last user had had a nervous habbit of chewing on the filter. . . . .
It was like rape.
And I was watching it.
And I couldn't help it.
And I was furious.
Aren't older people supposed to be mature; the one's us youngsters are supposed to look up to? I guess not. They're too busy riding their bikes through drive thru's to buy cheap booze, and puffing on someone else's death to have any time to speak wise words any more. Those days died off long ago, when people stopped wearing hats in everyday life.
But God.
God is mystical and works in the weirdest ways, through oceans and eyes and tears and blood and dirt and eggs and hate and gays and vegeterians.
He sent me beautiful things- to remind me.
He sent me Jamie, the founder of TWLOHA, and his words. If you've never read Jamie's blogs (http://www.myspace.com/jamiewrites), you need to. It's amazing.
He sent me Blue Like Jazz, and the concept of Imago Dei, and finding a church where people use art to worship, and use love to speak. I'm going to live in Portland some day, and go to Imago Dei (http://www.imagodeicommunity.com)- that's a promise. I want to be part of that community.
He sent me Dontrell, who is funny and reminds me of Noodles every time I think about him. I don't know what God sent me through Dontrell, but it's something. It's a surprise, and surprises make me smile, because God loves surprises too- like surprising us with grace. It's awe-stricking. And Dontrell is too, I've heard, when he runs fast. He's like the wind. . . you feel something moving, but you can't see it because as soon as you turn to look, it has passed. God is like that too. Dontrell isn't God, but he reminds me of Him sometimes. Now if Dontrell starts talking about how the poor are blessed and how they're going to inherit something someday, a surprise maybe, I will be worried, because I've always thought God was white. Maybe I was wrong, I'm wrong about alot of things.
He also sent me Erin. Erin is amazing. She's sunshine through the rain, Dairy Queen Waffle Bowl Sundaes, coffee and music. Erin inspires me too. She gave me something special today- a thought, and so much more. Someday, I'm going to meet Erin, and I'm going to shriek so loud that I'm probably going to pee my pants, but that's okay, because she's not the one to judge. She'll probably just laugh and hug me. I hope I don't get pee on her, I always do things like that. God sent me Erin to tell me that I'm doing the right thing today, and that I should be like her. Unexpected, suprising, and love.
Because love is what it should always come down to, right?
See you at Imago Dei.
Image of God. Imago Dei.
Blue Like Jazz was kind of sitting on my shelf for the last couple of months. I had tried reading it, but had given up, because I was, and still sort of am, mad at God, but I picked it back up this morning. I'm almost done with it.
Lately, I've been skipping church. It's been pissing me off. Everything seems so fake- not just at our church- but the Church, in general. It's all about not watching PG-13 movies and not saying "Jeez" and how homosexuality is wrong, and I'm sick of it.
It was right after P.O.D. and right before RED when I heard what Slipknot's new concert tour was called. All hope is gone. That's what it's called. I'm not sure what I was inspired to when I heard that, but I know I was inspired to something. Probably sadness. Or desperation. I get that feeling sometimes.
Like just acouple of days ago, when I was staring out of the bus window after some exceptionally thought-proviking sentence in the book I was reading (The Hunger Artists) when I saw a man riding a bike through a Liquor Drive Thru.
What has our world come to? We have to have Liquor Drive Thru's now? Of all things?
And when you go to a Drive Thru, you drive. You don't ride your crummy-ass bike through it. That's just my opinion. What happens after you pay the man at the grimmy little window for the beer? Do you sit it in your lap, trying to balance the six-pack as you pedal down S. Grand?
There was an old man driving a Lincoln once upon a time, and he stopped at the mall. I don't know why he stopped at the mall, because certainly he wasn't going to find Dockers at our mall, and I highly doubted the posibility of him mall walking since he could barely totter to the doors. It was a fridgid day, and I was sitting on the bench outside of Sear's because I had heard that being in the cold helps you burn more calories. He walked in the exact middle of the faded yellow lines that were at one time a cross walk, as if walking in the exact center would save him from something terrible. He was wearing a hat. No one wears hats anymore, and baseball caps don't count, unless you're a guy that wears plad shirts and buys beer by the keg. People should wear hats more often. Bonnets, Stensons, Newsboy's caps, the whole deal.
Anyway, he was wearing a hat, and he stopped at the cigarrette receptacle. I watched him, because I do that, unashamedly, because I plan to be a psychologist, and psychologists really should do this, because they'd learn alot. Maybe they do. The best places are at airports, but malls are a close second.
He stared into the ashes and the butts (I could make a bad joke here, but I'm refraining) and pulled his hand out of his pocket.
Maybe he was going to scratch his just-shaved-last-night chin-hairs, but he didn't. He dug his finger into the ashes and dug around for a cigarrette that still had some nicottene left.
And then he put it in his mouth and lit it.
I think.
Because I wasn't watching anymore. I was looking at my lap, consentrating on how intricately the white and blue threads had been woven together. The smoke from his cigarrete almost became a tear in my eye, but I try not to cry, because I'm stupid, and I think that crying is a manefistation of weakness. I know that's not the case, in my intelectual, but try to convince my self-conscious of that. It doesn't listen.
What if that was a woman's cigarrette? In my mind's eye, I can see the red lipstick marks, even though not that many people wear red lipstick any more (they really should, it makes you feel bold and confident, even if you're not. Maybe I should wear it more often). He was sucking on something that someone else had sucked on. Someone else's saliva had infiltrated the filter. Maybe the last user had had a nervous habbit of chewing on the filter. . . . .
It was like rape.
And I was watching it.
And I couldn't help it.
And I was furious.
Aren't older people supposed to be mature; the one's us youngsters are supposed to look up to? I guess not. They're too busy riding their bikes through drive thru's to buy cheap booze, and puffing on someone else's death to have any time to speak wise words any more. Those days died off long ago, when people stopped wearing hats in everyday life.
But God.
God is mystical and works in the weirdest ways, through oceans and eyes and tears and blood and dirt and eggs and hate and gays and vegeterians.
He sent me beautiful things- to remind me.
He sent me Jamie, the founder of TWLOHA, and his words. If you've never read Jamie's blogs (http://www.myspace.com/jamiewrites), you need to. It's amazing.
He sent me Blue Like Jazz, and the concept of Imago Dei, and finding a church where people use art to worship, and use love to speak. I'm going to live in Portland some day, and go to Imago Dei (http://www.imagodeicommunity.com)- that's a promise. I want to be part of that community.
He sent me Dontrell, who is funny and reminds me of Noodles every time I think about him. I don't know what God sent me through Dontrell, but it's something. It's a surprise, and surprises make me smile, because God loves surprises too- like surprising us with grace. It's awe-stricking. And Dontrell is too, I've heard, when he runs fast. He's like the wind. . . you feel something moving, but you can't see it because as soon as you turn to look, it has passed. God is like that too. Dontrell isn't God, but he reminds me of Him sometimes. Now if Dontrell starts talking about how the poor are blessed and how they're going to inherit something someday, a surprise maybe, I will be worried, because I've always thought God was white. Maybe I was wrong, I'm wrong about alot of things.
He also sent me Erin. Erin is amazing. She's sunshine through the rain, Dairy Queen Waffle Bowl Sundaes, coffee and music. Erin inspires me too. She gave me something special today- a thought, and so much more. Someday, I'm going to meet Erin, and I'm going to shriek so loud that I'm probably going to pee my pants, but that's okay, because she's not the one to judge. She'll probably just laugh and hug me. I hope I don't get pee on her, I always do things like that. God sent me Erin to tell me that I'm doing the right thing today, and that I should be like her. Unexpected, suprising, and love.
Because love is what it should always come down to, right?
See you at Imago Dei.
Monday, July 13, 2009
spacetaker
Things I love:
Things I love lists.
Jon Foreman.
Postsecret.
Bottle caps.
Staplers.
Etymological dictionaries.
Mini New Testaments.
Spinny chairs.
Bottled water.
Mt. Rainer cherries.
Perez Hilton.
Calculators.
Glitter Veins.
Quotes:
Subcategory:
"I think I figured it out, we're meant to be together, like the shore and the sea."
Toes.
Carpets.
Hard-wood floors.
Cherry wood.
Vintage clothing.
Desk lamps.
Storage bins.
The way garages smell.
Rain.
Castles.
Europe.
The world "manhole".
Stars.
Woodpeckers.
Cameras.
Tape.
Pencils.
Unicorns.
Texting.
On/off switches.
Book holders.
The smell of old books.
Cassette tapes.
Bricks.
Tires.
Acoustic.
Noah Gundersen.
Subcategory:
Jesus, Jesus.
"Jesus, Jesus, if you’re up there won’t you hear me
‘Cause I’ve been wondering if you’re listening for quite a while
And Jesus, Jesus, it’s such a pretty place we live in
And I know we fuc*ed it up, please be kind
Don’t let us go out like the dinosaurs
Or blown to bits in a third world war
There are a hundred different things I’d still like to do
I’d like to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower
Look up from the ground at a meteor shower
And maybe even raise a family."
textsfromlastnight.com
Trampolines.
Eyes.
Comments.
Hands.
Peeing.
White-out.
Dyslexia.
X]
Things I love lists.
Jon Foreman.
Postsecret.
Bottle caps.
Staplers.
Etymological dictionaries.
Mini New Testaments.
Spinny chairs.
Bottled water.
Mt. Rainer cherries.
Perez Hilton.
Calculators.
Glitter Veins.
Quotes:
Subcategory:
"I think I figured it out, we're meant to be together, like the shore and the sea."
Toes.
Carpets.
Hard-wood floors.
Cherry wood.
Vintage clothing.
Desk lamps.
Storage bins.
The way garages smell.
Rain.
Castles.
Europe.
The world "manhole".
Stars.
Woodpeckers.
Cameras.
Tape.
Pencils.
Unicorns.
Texting.
On/off switches.
Book holders.
The smell of old books.
Cassette tapes.
Bricks.
Tires.
Acoustic.
Noah Gundersen.
Subcategory:
Jesus, Jesus.
"Jesus, Jesus, if you’re up there won’t you hear me
‘Cause I’ve been wondering if you’re listening for quite a while
And Jesus, Jesus, it’s such a pretty place we live in
And I know we fuc*ed it up, please be kind
Don’t let us go out like the dinosaurs
Or blown to bits in a third world war
There are a hundred different things I’d still like to do
I’d like to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower
Look up from the ground at a meteor shower
And maybe even raise a family."
textsfromlastnight.com
Trampolines.
Eyes.
Comments.
Hands.
Peeing.
White-out.
Dyslexia.
X]
Saturday, July 11, 2009
this is what you'd call a secret
Secrets-
Shh, don't breathe a word,
Dear ED, for you and I are the best of friends
And we'll keep each other's secret until death do us part.
No one will ever know,
Even when I am just skin on bones
And you are the lie that suffocates me.
Because all I see is fat hanging on more fat
On the carnival mirror that is you.
No one will notice,
Even when my teeth show through my cheeks
And I eat nothing but air
And sweet, sweet lies from you.
Oh, Ana, you are my bestest friend.
All bone and air and art and masterpiece of will,
And I love you and pray to you.
You're my little secret, my ED's skeletal daughter.
And no one will suspect that I harbor your fragile soul
Within the cage that has become me;
All bars and ribs and bones.
No one will know.
Me and Mia, sister to Anne and Ana,
You are my first escape, my deadly secret.
I shove my mouth full of sin
And hold my impregnated flesh
Until I am sick all over your porcelain altar.
You're my capsules and pills inscribed with salvation,
My only escape when I look for truth.
You are my only truth.
I cannot run away,
Do not let me run away.
Because I long to be captured, tethered, caught
Within your gilded cage, your web of steel,
I want to be your skin and bones,
Your home sweet home,
Your purest sanctuary.
Emaciate me; strip me down; leave me empty-
Oh, emptier still.
I want to become you.
Shh, don't breathe a word,
Dear ED, for you and I are the best of friends
And we'll keep each other's secret until death do us part.
No one will ever know,
Even when I am just skin on bones
And you are the lie that suffocates me.
Because all I see is fat hanging on more fat
On the carnival mirror that is you.
No one will notice,
Even when my teeth show through my cheeks
And I eat nothing but air
And sweet, sweet lies from you.
Oh, Ana, you are my bestest friend.
All bone and air and art and masterpiece of will,
And I love you and pray to you.
You're my little secret, my ED's skeletal daughter.
And no one will suspect that I harbor your fragile soul
Within the cage that has become me;
All bars and ribs and bones.
No one will know.
Me and Mia, sister to Anne and Ana,
You are my first escape, my deadly secret.
I shove my mouth full of sin
And hold my impregnated flesh
Until I am sick all over your porcelain altar.
You're my capsules and pills inscribed with salvation,
My only escape when I look for truth.
You are my only truth.
I cannot run away,
Do not let me run away.
Because I long to be captured, tethered, caught
Within your gilded cage, your web of steel,
I want to be your skin and bones,
Your home sweet home,
Your purest sanctuary.
Emaciate me; strip me down; leave me empty-
Oh, emptier still.
I want to become you.
Monday, July 6, 2009
church
Question: Since when has the word church (in Greek: ekklisia) evolved from a word meaning a group of like-minded individuals who strive to live for the glory of God to a building made of stone and brick and drywall?
I am officially considered a radical threat to the church for asking that.
You're welcome.
Not once in the over 110 times this word is used in the New Testament is it used in the context of a building.
Duh.
It doesn't mean building. Not the way Jesus used it.
It means a group of people.
Jesus doesn't live in a building- He lives in our hearts. At least, He can live in our hearts if we let Him. The letting is up to us.
Question: Why do we go to church to sit in pews facing the front, watch the pastor talk for an average time of 32 minutes and then go home? What God's name does that have to do with the original Christian meetings where people got together in someone's living room on throw pillows (or the 1st century equivalent of them) and discussed the Bible, prayed and ate a "love feast" (which, on a side note, was what Communion is supposed to be. The sacrament wasn't a cup of an alcoholic beverage or a plastic thimble of grape juice and unleavened bread or crackers- it was supposed to be a huge affair. With talking and mingling and little kids shitting their diapers)?
Huh.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately.
And by the way, if you're reading this to check on my love life, click the little red x on the top right corner of your screen. Get out. You're seriously not appreciated. It's a little sickening.
Back to the point.
There has to be some reason I can't stomach even 10 minutes of church. I've walked out the last, oh. . .3 or 4 times I've gone.
Right after worship starts, I have to leave, which is weird because worship has always been my favorite part.
It feels so wrong now.
Because it is wrong.
Enter: Frank Viola's book, Pagan Christianity?. Read it.
That is some crazy shit in that book. It will rock your world.
I read it and it went freaking kaboom in my head. All the questions that I've been asking in Sunday school and texting Calvary (which they haven't answered on their website or on Sunday nights as far as I know) are legit! I wasn't just imagining people totally avoiding my question and giving me an answer that had nothing to do with the freaking question itself. . they were really doing it.
Not because they were purposefully trying to deceive me. No. Definitely not.
Because they have no clue what the answer is themselves.
Sometimes, because they don't understand the question. It can't even cross their mind, it's so forbidden.
Whoops. Wittle Annie's asking too many questions again.
I seriously can't help it, though.
Have you thought about steeples? I have, and so has Frank. What the heck do steeples have to do with anything in this freaking world having to do with Jesus??
Hmm. . . well, the only thing in the Bible that remotely resembles a steeple to me is. . the Tower of Babel. They were trying to reach God.
According to some historians, steeples are used to make us feel, ahem, closer to God.
How about, say, uhh. . tithing. Did you know that the whole 10% thing came way after Jesus died. Not sure when, if you want I can get you approximate dates, but it was like centuries later. You know why 10%? Because that's the same exact percentage the Romans used in their taxes. Huh.
The only thing the Bible says about tithing money is found in the Old Testament. Apparently Jesus thought it was okay to give whatever you thought you should, and geez, probably the Holy Spirit will tell you to give more than 10%. The Widow gave 100%.
That, my friends is pure crazy giving.
And Jesus, well. . Jesus was all about crazy.
He disagreed with both of the main religious parties of the day.
The Pharisees added to the Bible all these random laws. They totally made up this extra mini "Torah" for their followers to do.
The Sadducees took chunks of theology out of the Bible. They didn't believe in angels, demons, resurrection and stuff like that. They were like the pragmatists of the day, boiling everything down to the mere 5 books they called the Torah. Everything else, they tossed out.
Funny, this all seems mighty familiar. One added, the other took away.
Human nature doesn't change.
We still do this today.
We don't have the freaking cool Jewish names, but we still do it.
Jesus was like, "Hey, I'm in between. I hate the fact that you added all this crap to the Bible, and I hate that you took tons of stuff away. I'm right between you two. I'm balanced."
And they hated Him.
Actually, they hated Him and then they killed Him.
There are two sides.
There are the people who sit at home and watch TV and sip beer and say "Dude, I'm still a Christian. I don't cheat on my wife, I don't get drunk, and I don't do drugs- I just can't stand the stuffiness of church" and there are people who dress up in funky gowns that, wow. . . greatly resemble and basically imitate Catholic priest's gowns and make everything a ritual. There's two extremes.
One takes away everything but the basic "I-believe-Jesus-died-for-my-sins-and-repented-of-my-sins" and the other relies on two candles on the sacrament table to keep his relationship with God straight.
We're just humans.
But if we can make some things right. . . why don't we?
So.
Until I can find some like-minded individuals who can't stand siting through another well-organized liturgy when they know there's chaos and pain going on right outside this "churches" walls. . . I'm just going to stay home from the building that has come to be wrongly known as church.
And, no. I'm not going to have a set time of prayer or worship or Bible-reading. Not anything more than I do every day.
Why?
Why, Annie, do you refuse to go to church on Sunday morning and then on top of that won't wake up and conduct a worship service?
Why? Because I'm tired in the mornings. I can't keep my freaking eyes open.
Oh, you want a spiritual reason?
Fine.
Because I think "worship services" are stupid.
Why do we have to have a service to do something we're supposed to be doing every breathing moment??
Why a designated time?
When did worship evolve into a time when people play music, anyway?
And has anyone else noticed that the music and lighting and prayer is all used to evoke emotions that will help the pastor in his goal to get us to come up to the altar to either a) confess sins or b) give our life to the Lord???
WHICH- Since when has that been the goal of a Christian? Since when do we talk about Jesus, sing about Jesus and talk to Jesus so that we can get more notches in our Christian belt/bedpost? Yeah.
Oh, and the altar call.
Don't even get me freaking started.
What the hell?
Do you ever see Jesus giving an altar call in the Bible?
Yeah- no.
I didn't think so.
And when the poor people, the flock, finally do go up to the altar. . . the emotions that they've been conditioned to experience finally hit them, and they think they're having a spiritual encounter with the one true God (don't get me wrong, Jesus can still work at altar calls. I'm not saying He can't . . . Geez, He made heaven and earth. . ).
But, usually (again, not always!), it's just these emotions that are caused by the awesome music, the cool colors and all this stuff that Plato said makes us have a connection to God through our souls (or something like that). It's usually not real.
In my case, every single time I've gone up for an altar call that's what it was.
It sure as hell felt like something that Jesus was doing.
But I'd get up the next morning and I would still feel like shit, and I would still be no closer to God.
And that made me loose faith in God Himself.
And it wasn't even God who was to blame.
It was centuries of people who changed one thing because it worked, which in turn changed the whole idea of what Christianity and the Church is supposed to be.
Wow. I can't believe I thought less of the Jesus that saved me and who loves me and who I love- because my emotions let me down. . . because they wore out.
Again. Emotions are not bad.
They certainly are used by God and they are an amazing tool!
I'm one of the most emotional people I know. That's why they sometimes call me a bitch.
Emotions are what fuel my writing. They help me give praise to God because I feel how much I love Him.
But they aren't a spiritual experience.
Okay.
That was a lot, wasn't it.
Digest it.
Leave me a comment telling me what you think of all this.
And seriously- read the book Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.
I trust this dude. He knows what he's talking about and he's done research.
<3
I am officially considered a radical threat to the church for asking that.
You're welcome.
Not once in the over 110 times this word is used in the New Testament is it used in the context of a building.
Duh.
It doesn't mean building. Not the way Jesus used it.
It means a group of people.
Jesus doesn't live in a building- He lives in our hearts. At least, He can live in our hearts if we let Him. The letting is up to us.
Question: Why do we go to church to sit in pews facing the front, watch the pastor talk for an average time of 32 minutes and then go home? What God's name does that have to do with the original Christian meetings where people got together in someone's living room on throw pillows (or the 1st century equivalent of them) and discussed the Bible, prayed and ate a "love feast" (which, on a side note, was what Communion is supposed to be. The sacrament wasn't a cup of an alcoholic beverage or a plastic thimble of grape juice and unleavened bread or crackers- it was supposed to be a huge affair. With talking and mingling and little kids shitting their diapers)?
Huh.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately.
And by the way, if you're reading this to check on my love life, click the little red x on the top right corner of your screen. Get out. You're seriously not appreciated. It's a little sickening.
Back to the point.
There has to be some reason I can't stomach even 10 minutes of church. I've walked out the last, oh. . .3 or 4 times I've gone.
Right after worship starts, I have to leave, which is weird because worship has always been my favorite part.
It feels so wrong now.
Because it is wrong.
Enter: Frank Viola's book, Pagan Christianity?. Read it.
That is some crazy shit in that book. It will rock your world.
I read it and it went freaking kaboom in my head. All the questions that I've been asking in Sunday school and texting Calvary (which they haven't answered on their website or on Sunday nights as far as I know) are legit! I wasn't just imagining people totally avoiding my question and giving me an answer that had nothing to do with the freaking question itself. . they were really doing it.
Not because they were purposefully trying to deceive me. No. Definitely not.
Because they have no clue what the answer is themselves.
Sometimes, because they don't understand the question. It can't even cross their mind, it's so forbidden.
Whoops. Wittle Annie's asking too many questions again.
I seriously can't help it, though.
Have you thought about steeples? I have, and so has Frank. What the heck do steeples have to do with anything in this freaking world having to do with Jesus??
Hmm. . . well, the only thing in the Bible that remotely resembles a steeple to me is. . the Tower of Babel. They were trying to reach God.
According to some historians, steeples are used to make us feel, ahem, closer to God.
How about, say, uhh. . tithing. Did you know that the whole 10% thing came way after Jesus died. Not sure when, if you want I can get you approximate dates, but it was like centuries later. You know why 10%? Because that's the same exact percentage the Romans used in their taxes. Huh.
The only thing the Bible says about tithing money is found in the Old Testament. Apparently Jesus thought it was okay to give whatever you thought you should, and geez, probably the Holy Spirit will tell you to give more than 10%. The Widow gave 100%.
That, my friends is pure crazy giving.
And Jesus, well. . Jesus was all about crazy.
He disagreed with both of the main religious parties of the day.
The Pharisees added to the Bible all these random laws. They totally made up this extra mini "Torah" for their followers to do.
The Sadducees took chunks of theology out of the Bible. They didn't believe in angels, demons, resurrection and stuff like that. They were like the pragmatists of the day, boiling everything down to the mere 5 books they called the Torah. Everything else, they tossed out.
Funny, this all seems mighty familiar. One added, the other took away.
Human nature doesn't change.
We still do this today.
We don't have the freaking cool Jewish names, but we still do it.
Jesus was like, "Hey, I'm in between. I hate the fact that you added all this crap to the Bible, and I hate that you took tons of stuff away. I'm right between you two. I'm balanced."
And they hated Him.
Actually, they hated Him and then they killed Him.
There are two sides.
There are the people who sit at home and watch TV and sip beer and say "Dude, I'm still a Christian. I don't cheat on my wife, I don't get drunk, and I don't do drugs- I just can't stand the stuffiness of church" and there are people who dress up in funky gowns that, wow. . . greatly resemble and basically imitate Catholic priest's gowns and make everything a ritual. There's two extremes.
One takes away everything but the basic "I-believe-Jesus-died-for-my-sins-and-repented-of-my-sins" and the other relies on two candles on the sacrament table to keep his relationship with God straight.
We're just humans.
But if we can make some things right. . . why don't we?
So.
Until I can find some like-minded individuals who can't stand siting through another well-organized liturgy when they know there's chaos and pain going on right outside this "churches" walls. . . I'm just going to stay home from the building that has come to be wrongly known as church.
And, no. I'm not going to have a set time of prayer or worship or Bible-reading. Not anything more than I do every day.
Why?
Why, Annie, do you refuse to go to church on Sunday morning and then on top of that won't wake up and conduct a worship service?
Why? Because I'm tired in the mornings. I can't keep my freaking eyes open.
Oh, you want a spiritual reason?
Fine.
Because I think "worship services" are stupid.
Why do we have to have a service to do something we're supposed to be doing every breathing moment??
Why a designated time?
When did worship evolve into a time when people play music, anyway?
And has anyone else noticed that the music and lighting and prayer is all used to evoke emotions that will help the pastor in his goal to get us to come up to the altar to either a) confess sins or b) give our life to the Lord???
WHICH- Since when has that been the goal of a Christian? Since when do we talk about Jesus, sing about Jesus and talk to Jesus so that we can get more notches in our Christian belt/bedpost? Yeah.
Oh, and the altar call.
Don't even get me freaking started.
What the hell?
Do you ever see Jesus giving an altar call in the Bible?
Yeah- no.
I didn't think so.
And when the poor people, the flock, finally do go up to the altar. . . the emotions that they've been conditioned to experience finally hit them, and they think they're having a spiritual encounter with the one true God (don't get me wrong, Jesus can still work at altar calls. I'm not saying He can't . . . Geez, He made heaven and earth. . ).
But, usually (again, not always!), it's just these emotions that are caused by the awesome music, the cool colors and all this stuff that Plato said makes us have a connection to God through our souls (or something like that). It's usually not real.
In my case, every single time I've gone up for an altar call that's what it was.
It sure as hell felt like something that Jesus was doing.
But I'd get up the next morning and I would still feel like shit, and I would still be no closer to God.
And that made me loose faith in God Himself.
And it wasn't even God who was to blame.
It was centuries of people who changed one thing because it worked, which in turn changed the whole idea of what Christianity and the Church is supposed to be.
Wow. I can't believe I thought less of the Jesus that saved me and who loves me and who I love- because my emotions let me down. . . because they wore out.
Again. Emotions are not bad.
They certainly are used by God and they are an amazing tool!
I'm one of the most emotional people I know. That's why they sometimes call me a bitch.
Emotions are what fuel my writing. They help me give praise to God because I feel how much I love Him.
But they aren't a spiritual experience.
Okay.
That was a lot, wasn't it.
Digest it.
Leave me a comment telling me what you think of all this.
And seriously- read the book Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.
I trust this dude. He knows what he's talking about and he's done research.
<3
swearing
A note about swearing.
And how I do it.
Some people think it's a carnal sin.
I think that swear words are. . . just that. Words.
If you have a problem with it, guess what? Just don't read my blogs.
It's as simple as that.
I don't write these for you, I write them for me.
It helps me get my thoughts all straightened out.
Okay. I guess that's it.
I'm out.
<3
And how I do it.
Some people think it's a carnal sin.
I think that swear words are. . . just that. Words.
If you have a problem with it, guess what? Just don't read my blogs.
It's as simple as that.
I don't write these for you, I write them for me.
It helps me get my thoughts all straightened out.
Okay. I guess that's it.
I'm out.
<3
Sunday, July 5, 2009
vomit
Today, I lay on my bed with my best friends ultra-amazing puppy, Heidi, and took a nap. She just looked so cute and peaceful asleep that I figured maybe some of it would rub off on me if I lay really close to her.
It did.
You know when you're asleep, you kind of drift? Well, I was drifting and then a dream happened. I saw Hotmail, and I saw myself clicking on the unread messages tab where it said 1 unread message. I saw his name in the sender's name place thingee, and almost peed myself (not in real life).
The email was short.
It said something really close to but not word-for-word like:
"How could I not love someone who says 'crazy bastardly benifits'?
I love you."
And I woke up right then.
But, there was a huge smile on my face.
Until I realized it was only a dream.
That crash back to reality hurt like hell.
So, because I can't stop thinking about him, I checked his myspace (just a few seconds ago). He was on 4 days ago. He felt adventurous then, or whenever he updated his mood.
I (stalker) looked at the few pictures he has. One is a tag from me, from his Mormon prom. I'm really tempted to untag him. It doesn't seem right, now.
As I was looking at the other two, I felt the urge to vomit.
It hurts so bad.
I couldn't sleep.
So I drew a picture of someone I thought would be his dream girl.
She looks nothing like me.
She is beautiful.
Her hair is wavy, and soft and floaty.
Her eyes are huge. And she has a really pretty smile.
Damn my art.
She's almost perfect.
She's wearing a cameo. Not that I know he likes cameos. It just seemed to fit her totally feminine persona.
You know. . . a girl who would never wear skinnies. A girl who's favorite color was dusty pink.
Wow.
I'm totally scaring myself.
I swear, I'm not a freaky stalker girl. I've never done this before and it's even creeping me out.
Ouch.
His birthday is in 3 days.
18.
I'm a moron.
Goodnight.
Shoot me.
<3
It did.
You know when you're asleep, you kind of drift? Well, I was drifting and then a dream happened. I saw Hotmail, and I saw myself clicking on the unread messages tab where it said 1 unread message. I saw his name in the sender's name place thingee, and almost peed myself (not in real life).
The email was short.
It said something really close to but not word-for-word like:
"How could I not love someone who says 'crazy bastardly benifits'?
I love you."
And I woke up right then.
But, there was a huge smile on my face.
Until I realized it was only a dream.
That crash back to reality hurt like hell.
So, because I can't stop thinking about him, I checked his myspace (just a few seconds ago). He was on 4 days ago. He felt adventurous then, or whenever he updated his mood.
I (stalker) looked at the few pictures he has. One is a tag from me, from his Mormon prom. I'm really tempted to untag him. It doesn't seem right, now.
As I was looking at the other two, I felt the urge to vomit.
It hurts so bad.
I couldn't sleep.
So I drew a picture of someone I thought would be his dream girl.
She looks nothing like me.
She is beautiful.
Her hair is wavy, and soft and floaty.
Her eyes are huge. And she has a really pretty smile.
Damn my art.
She's almost perfect.
She's wearing a cameo. Not that I know he likes cameos. It just seemed to fit her totally feminine persona.
You know. . . a girl who would never wear skinnies. A girl who's favorite color was dusty pink.
Wow.
I'm totally scaring myself.
I swear, I'm not a freaky stalker girl. I've never done this before and it's even creeping me out.
Ouch.
His birthday is in 3 days.
18.
I'm a moron.
Goodnight.
Shoot me.
<3
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
davinci had a code?
"As long as there has been one true God, there has been killing in his name."
There has obviously been a lot of controversy over The DaVinci Code and, more recently, Angels and Demons.
Those are amazing movies. Some of my favorites.
It's a story. Fiction. So shut up and enjoy some great story-telling.
Not only are these two movies (and I hear, books) great mysterious tales, but they are full of absolutely amazing quotes.
Take the one at the beginning of this blog. I rarely hear words more honest. It reminded me of Blue Like Jazz (if you haven't, read it! That's an order!), where Don apologizes for the Crusades. Reading that made me what to go set up my own confession stand.
I'd tell them that we've fucked up badly. We've focused on the filth of man and refused to acknowledge the divine traits God has endowed each of us with. We've looked at the outward, and disregarded the heart. The wellspring of life. The core.
We've kept ourselves quarantined in our pristine churches and chapels and failed to go outside our brick-layed walls. But outside is where we are needed. Outside is where we are called.
Every Sunday we stand in our pews with either raised hands or hymn books and we sing. We cringe if the song-leader misses a chord. And somewhere out there there may be a teenage girl about to overdose on anything she could find. Across the street might be a man on the verge of raping a girl. Somewhere around the corner may be a needy soul who is crying out for someone. "Jesus, help me." But Jesus is paralyzed, boys and girls. Jesus has His hands and feet tied up inside the pristine chapels, the glass houses of the church.
"As long as there has been one true God, there has been killing in his name." And it's still going on.
I'm going to go as far as to say there's blood on my hands, on yours- on ours as a church. "Go unto all the world" was the command, not stay in your pretty manicured churches and listen to a man preach.
There is a time and a place. And we've gotten too much of preaching and sitting down and listening.
That's all we ever do, is listen. We don't act.
If we do, it's inviting someone to church, our social club, or telling them "I will pray for you, dear sister" and then forgetting her name. That's a "step of faith" and a "witness" to this dying world? Seriously? Grow up.
We're not little children any more. We shouldn't still be fed milk. It's time for the meat (says the vegan), and with meat come bones.
There is evil in the world, though sometimes I think there's more in the church. We have to come face to face with evil to do any good. Where light is, darkness is not- but they touch at the edge. They have met, and they have overlapped.
We have to get our hands dirty to cleanse our hands of the blood we may have unwittingly shed.
I for one can't stand the church as it is right now, at least the ones I've been to lately. I have to walk out. I can hear the cries of souls waiting to be loved, and yet I'm expected to sing some pretty little song about how Jesus saves. Jesus can save without us, but He sure could use our help. Jesus would move a whole lot faster if He had hands and feet, don't you think?
Don't shove a dollar in the homeless man or woman's cup, take them to lunch, hear their story. I bet it'll bless you. I bet they have an amazing story to tell. I bet they're wise beyond their life span.
Don't make a wide circle around the prostitute. Ask her if she's hungry. Tell her there's hope out there. . there are stars. They still shine. She doesn't have to sell her body to find her soul. There is love and it doesn't only exist between two sheets and two bodies who are struggling to breathe.
Don't dismiss the child as being a fool, because they are wise beyond their years. They understand things that even adults struggle to comprehend. Listen to them. Look at the drawings they draw for you. They care deeply and unconditionally. They don't know a straight man from a homosexual, they hug the body none-the-less, no matter what he chooses to do with his sexual orientation.
Please, please listen.
Love.
Come on.
You've heard me say this before, hear me say it again.
Jesus summed it up in this:
1) Love God. Love Him with everything. Heart, mind, soul, body. Love Him because He is worth and awesome and mystical.
2) Love others the way God loves you. Love them no matter their skin color, eye color, sexual orientation, hair color, clothing style or religion. Just love them. Love them the way you wish someone would love you. Bake them cookies. Make them mixed CD's of their favorite songs. Write them poems. Tell them they're unique. Most of all, tell them there is love out there for them, and it's true, and they can have it. It is reachable.
Hug them.
It's not that hard to comprehend, but it's hard to do. It just starts with trying though. If you don't try, you won't get very far.
Start by loving God. Don't love Him for His gifts to you, because that's selfish. Love Him because He is beyond comprehension and immovable, insurmountable, and a mystery.
God is love. We're supposed to strive to become like Him.
"We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out time and time again until we are called home." -Jamie Tworkowski
<3
There has obviously been a lot of controversy over The DaVinci Code and, more recently, Angels and Demons.
Those are amazing movies. Some of my favorites.
It's a story. Fiction. So shut up and enjoy some great story-telling.
Not only are these two movies (and I hear, books) great mysterious tales, but they are full of absolutely amazing quotes.
Take the one at the beginning of this blog. I rarely hear words more honest. It reminded me of Blue Like Jazz (if you haven't, read it! That's an order!), where Don apologizes for the Crusades. Reading that made me what to go set up my own confession stand.
I'd tell them that we've fucked up badly. We've focused on the filth of man and refused to acknowledge the divine traits God has endowed each of us with. We've looked at the outward, and disregarded the heart. The wellspring of life. The core.
We've kept ourselves quarantined in our pristine churches and chapels and failed to go outside our brick-layed walls. But outside is where we are needed. Outside is where we are called.
Every Sunday we stand in our pews with either raised hands or hymn books and we sing. We cringe if the song-leader misses a chord. And somewhere out there there may be a teenage girl about to overdose on anything she could find. Across the street might be a man on the verge of raping a girl. Somewhere around the corner may be a needy soul who is crying out for someone. "Jesus, help me." But Jesus is paralyzed, boys and girls. Jesus has His hands and feet tied up inside the pristine chapels, the glass houses of the church.
"As long as there has been one true God, there has been killing in his name." And it's still going on.
I'm going to go as far as to say there's blood on my hands, on yours- on ours as a church. "Go unto all the world" was the command, not stay in your pretty manicured churches and listen to a man preach.
There is a time and a place. And we've gotten too much of preaching and sitting down and listening.
That's all we ever do, is listen. We don't act.
If we do, it's inviting someone to church, our social club, or telling them "I will pray for you, dear sister" and then forgetting her name. That's a "step of faith" and a "witness" to this dying world? Seriously? Grow up.
We're not little children any more. We shouldn't still be fed milk. It's time for the meat (says the vegan), and with meat come bones.
There is evil in the world, though sometimes I think there's more in the church. We have to come face to face with evil to do any good. Where light is, darkness is not- but they touch at the edge. They have met, and they have overlapped.
We have to get our hands dirty to cleanse our hands of the blood we may have unwittingly shed.
I for one can't stand the church as it is right now, at least the ones I've been to lately. I have to walk out. I can hear the cries of souls waiting to be loved, and yet I'm expected to sing some pretty little song about how Jesus saves. Jesus can save without us, but He sure could use our help. Jesus would move a whole lot faster if He had hands and feet, don't you think?
Don't shove a dollar in the homeless man or woman's cup, take them to lunch, hear their story. I bet it'll bless you. I bet they have an amazing story to tell. I bet they're wise beyond their life span.
Don't make a wide circle around the prostitute. Ask her if she's hungry. Tell her there's hope out there. . there are stars. They still shine. She doesn't have to sell her body to find her soul. There is love and it doesn't only exist between two sheets and two bodies who are struggling to breathe.
Don't dismiss the child as being a fool, because they are wise beyond their years. They understand things that even adults struggle to comprehend. Listen to them. Look at the drawings they draw for you. They care deeply and unconditionally. They don't know a straight man from a homosexual, they hug the body none-the-less, no matter what he chooses to do with his sexual orientation.
Please, please listen.
Love.
Come on.
You've heard me say this before, hear me say it again.
Jesus summed it up in this:
1) Love God. Love Him with everything. Heart, mind, soul, body. Love Him because He is worth and awesome and mystical.
2) Love others the way God loves you. Love them no matter their skin color, eye color, sexual orientation, hair color, clothing style or religion. Just love them. Love them the way you wish someone would love you. Bake them cookies. Make them mixed CD's of their favorite songs. Write them poems. Tell them they're unique. Most of all, tell them there is love out there for them, and it's true, and they can have it. It is reachable.
Hug them.
It's not that hard to comprehend, but it's hard to do. It just starts with trying though. If you don't try, you won't get very far.
Start by loving God. Don't love Him for His gifts to you, because that's selfish. Love Him because He is beyond comprehension and immovable, insurmountable, and a mystery.
God is love. We're supposed to strive to become like Him.
"We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out time and time again until we are called home." -Jamie Tworkowski
<3
Monday, June 29, 2009
happy birthday bastard
Hello Bastard,
This is your birthday note. Happy 29th birthday. I hope you have a blast. I hope you remember all the good times.
I hope you remember your youth group. Your devoted followers. How we looked up at you like you were the center of the universe.
I hope you remember the first time I called you daddy. You were caulking the bathtub. Hell, even that was an omen, huh?
I hope you shrug on your worn leather jacket that reeks of you and remember that I used to wear it. I wore it home every time I'd leave school after lunch. Remember?
You came to find me once. I had locked the door. Locked and bolted, because my goal had to be accomplished. I had to be clean. I couldn't let you find me with red eyes and smelling of puke.
When I walked out to the enclosed porch I could smell you. Aftershave.
You came to save me. Or something like that.
Big strong youth pastor to the rescue. Taking care of the flock. Nurturing the sheep. Loving the unlovable. Planting seeds (what kind of seed?).
Remember your daughters birthday? She was one. Her face had just been mostly cleared of chocolate cake and I said I'd take her to bed while your wife was talking to my parents and your other two were playing downstairs. She was being so good. You weren't. Helping me, huh?
How could you do that stuff while your daughter was in the room? She wasn't old enough to understand, but it felt like she was.
How about your wife? She is beautiful. But she wasn't enough. She was insecure. . . so you found a girl who puked her guts up for self-esteem.
She was a faerie, your wife. She was my best friend.
And you were a vampire. What are you now?
Have you repented, like you told the judge? Forgotten your sins; let Jesus clean your heart? Psalm 51.
Happy birthday.
Do you remember the night I came over to figure out a plan to stop my cutting and purging? You showed me all the pictures you could find on Google images of deathly looking people. You read me the symptoms. Heart attack. Death. Infertility.
And then you put a condom in your pocket, just in case you got lucky with a 15 year old girl.
Bastard.
And the thing is I don't hate you. I feel sorry for you.
I feel sorry for you because you wore holey briefs and you stunk of sweat and cheap hair gel. I felt sorry for you because your phone kept vibrating as your wife called. I felt sorry for you when you finally got done because you were ruining what you said was everything to you.
Everyone reminds me of you.
Everyone with funny fingers, funny faces, funny noses. Everyone who cares.
What really hurts is that I haven't been able to move past you.
Everyone who touches me has your deformed hands and your glassy eyes. They all fake love.
When you carried me home in your arms after I'd OD'd, was that because you didn't want to see a girl die, or because you liked the way a vulnerable, quaking little girl felt in your arms? When you endured smelling like puke as you waited in the emergency room, was it because you really wanted to make sure I would make it, or because you wanted to know that I felt like I owed you something?
I question everything, you should know that.
I also say I'm sorry too much.
Did you choose me because I was someone who you wanted to get to know, or because I was the most vulnerable? Did my writing really intrigue you, or was it just another way to gain my trust?
You were the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me, Joseph Aaron.
I hate you.
But I can't hate a soul.
You must be tormented. At least, I hope you are, or else there's no hope for you.
How can you look at your children and not feel pain? You deprived them of their father for years. They don't know what happened now, but sometime in the future they're going to ask why daddy has a criminal record and why they can't have their friends spend the night. What will you say?
Are you going to tell them that there was a girl named Annie who wrote sad stories. Are you going to tell them that I loved them more than anything? Or are you going to tell them that there was someone; there was a mistake, and she's gone now?
Was I the mistake, or were you?
Life's unfair.
But you know, I'm happy.
You taught me that no matter what happens, even the worst thing I could dream up, it all has a purpose. People become stronger when they're faced with challenges, and when you break, you eventually heal.
I think.
And now, PJ, I can smile when I think of that year, because it was also my best. I met friends in the weirdest places and it's all thanks to you.
Really. Who knew loony bins were so darn cool?
Who knew I'd learn who I wanted to be?
Or that I'd finally fly?
Screw you.
And thank you.
And I'm sorry.
Happy birthday.
-Mistake.
P.S. The kids from Bethel still talk about you. You're a legend. They will never trust again, and half of them don't want to step into a church. They've lost the faith because the one who showed it to them lost himself.
I found myself through your breaking me.
I hope you've found yourself, or something.
Say "Hi" to Trish and the kids. I think of them constantly.
This is your birthday note. Happy 29th birthday. I hope you have a blast. I hope you remember all the good times.
I hope you remember your youth group. Your devoted followers. How we looked up at you like you were the center of the universe.
I hope you remember the first time I called you daddy. You were caulking the bathtub. Hell, even that was an omen, huh?
I hope you shrug on your worn leather jacket that reeks of you and remember that I used to wear it. I wore it home every time I'd leave school after lunch. Remember?
You came to find me once. I had locked the door. Locked and bolted, because my goal had to be accomplished. I had to be clean. I couldn't let you find me with red eyes and smelling of puke.
When I walked out to the enclosed porch I could smell you. Aftershave.
You came to save me. Or something like that.
Big strong youth pastor to the rescue. Taking care of the flock. Nurturing the sheep. Loving the unlovable. Planting seeds (what kind of seed?).
Remember your daughters birthday? She was one. Her face had just been mostly cleared of chocolate cake and I said I'd take her to bed while your wife was talking to my parents and your other two were playing downstairs. She was being so good. You weren't. Helping me, huh?
How could you do that stuff while your daughter was in the room? She wasn't old enough to understand, but it felt like she was.
How about your wife? She is beautiful. But she wasn't enough. She was insecure. . . so you found a girl who puked her guts up for self-esteem.
She was a faerie, your wife. She was my best friend.
And you were a vampire. What are you now?
Have you repented, like you told the judge? Forgotten your sins; let Jesus clean your heart? Psalm 51.
Happy birthday.
Do you remember the night I came over to figure out a plan to stop my cutting and purging? You showed me all the pictures you could find on Google images of deathly looking people. You read me the symptoms. Heart attack. Death. Infertility.
And then you put a condom in your pocket, just in case you got lucky with a 15 year old girl.
Bastard.
And the thing is I don't hate you. I feel sorry for you.
I feel sorry for you because you wore holey briefs and you stunk of sweat and cheap hair gel. I felt sorry for you because your phone kept vibrating as your wife called. I felt sorry for you when you finally got done because you were ruining what you said was everything to you.
Everyone reminds me of you.
Everyone with funny fingers, funny faces, funny noses. Everyone who cares.
What really hurts is that I haven't been able to move past you.
Everyone who touches me has your deformed hands and your glassy eyes. They all fake love.
When you carried me home in your arms after I'd OD'd, was that because you didn't want to see a girl die, or because you liked the way a vulnerable, quaking little girl felt in your arms? When you endured smelling like puke as you waited in the emergency room, was it because you really wanted to make sure I would make it, or because you wanted to know that I felt like I owed you something?
I question everything, you should know that.
I also say I'm sorry too much.
Did you choose me because I was someone who you wanted to get to know, or because I was the most vulnerable? Did my writing really intrigue you, or was it just another way to gain my trust?
You were the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me, Joseph Aaron.
I hate you.
But I can't hate a soul.
You must be tormented. At least, I hope you are, or else there's no hope for you.
How can you look at your children and not feel pain? You deprived them of their father for years. They don't know what happened now, but sometime in the future they're going to ask why daddy has a criminal record and why they can't have their friends spend the night. What will you say?
Are you going to tell them that there was a girl named Annie who wrote sad stories. Are you going to tell them that I loved them more than anything? Or are you going to tell them that there was someone; there was a mistake, and she's gone now?
Was I the mistake, or were you?
Life's unfair.
But you know, I'm happy.
You taught me that no matter what happens, even the worst thing I could dream up, it all has a purpose. People become stronger when they're faced with challenges, and when you break, you eventually heal.
I think.
And now, PJ, I can smile when I think of that year, because it was also my best. I met friends in the weirdest places and it's all thanks to you.
Really. Who knew loony bins were so darn cool?
Who knew I'd learn who I wanted to be?
Or that I'd finally fly?
Screw you.
And thank you.
And I'm sorry.
Happy birthday.
-Mistake.
P.S. The kids from Bethel still talk about you. You're a legend. They will never trust again, and half of them don't want to step into a church. They've lost the faith because the one who showed it to them lost himself.
I found myself through your breaking me.
I hope you've found yourself, or something.
Say "Hi" to Trish and the kids. I think of them constantly.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
live life loud
Life life loud, live it unapologetically. Life fiercely.
Take the moment; grab it by the neck and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of it.
Don't look around you and wonder what people will think. Don't let others opinions of your actions stop you.
Go ahead.
Twirl.
Head bang.
Sing the "Singing in the Rain" song in a downpour.
Hell, even twirl one of those ridiculous yellow umbrellas around. (You know you want to! Where would one buy a yellow umbrella, anyway?)
If we lived our lives wondering who's watching and what's running through their heads, our lives would be normal.
And who likes normal?
Normal is everyday; it's mundane. . . it's boring.
If it doesn't go against your morals and it wouldn't go against others (stumbling block) do what your heart demands.
I've been known to break into song in the middle of grocery stores. It drives my best friend crazy, but you know what? She's loosened up since I met her. The first time I did something like that near her I thought she was going to have an anurism. Thank God, she didn't, and now she kind of appreciates me for my crazy weirdness. I don't think she'd want me to be normal. I think she'd be bored.
Most of all, I'd be bored.
I was normal once. And, God, did I hate it.
Now? Now it's great. I can dance around the house in my underwear and my parents don't even notice anymore (unless it's a thong, then they notice). They almost expect me to say something silly. I swear there are these ultra-awkward silences that follow anything anyone says in my household. My theory: they're giving me time to respond.
Like after my dad said something about how it's not a "butt" it's a "rear end" and I told him "Fine then, would you please scootch your arse?"
Believe it or not- he laughed. The man laughed.
I don't think I've heard him laugh at anything but knock-knock jokes. Ever. Especially something "crude" like that. It was great. I actually felt like his daughter for once.
Once.
Live life loud. Make people notice. Whether your cause is the environment, how Bush was really a great president (shout out to my best friend) or like me, love, make yourself known. The world isn't changed by people who sit back and hope that someone else will say something they agree with on tv- it's changed by those who speak to their friends, their family and any general public who's there to witness the soap box.
Come on now, people. You aren't dead yet! Live like it. Sometimes I wonder if people in the church haven't been slipped a little sedative before walking in. I wonder if I'm the only one who disagrees with the pastor. I wonder if they believe in anything at all.
Most of all, I believe in a loving Jesus. No matter what religion or deity you believe in I'm sure that somewhere deep in your heart your wish is that Jesus does truly love you.
I met someone a couple months ago who has become one of my dearest friends. Her name is Emily. She smokes more pot than Bob Marley did, recently got her nipples pierced and is bisexual. Emily has an eating disorder and claims she hates Christians. They made fun of her in high school for being bi. She says she'd never want to be one of us.
You know what? Neither would I.
Emily believes in Jesus though. She tells me she reads the Bible and that she likes the Jesus she sees in there. She sees a contrast, though, between the one that's in the Bible and the one we preach and supposedly emulate.
She's absolutely right.
We've come so far, they say. Yeah, we have. In the wrong direction.
I'm not saying that Jesus would pat Emily on the back for liking girls and liking sex. I'm just saying that Jesus wouldn't make a girl cry, even if that girl sinned.
Everywhere in the Bible I see Jesus comforting, loving and healing. I don't see anyone with a right heart being turned away.
We've come a long way, baby. Now we turn people away at the doors, refusing them entrance into God's house because of how they look. What would God say?
If I ever start a church, I'm going to go find the "scum of the earth" and bring them in. Be they prostitutes, transvestites, gays, lesbians, televangelists that look like Barbie on speed, self-injurers, anorexics, murders, liars, cheats. They'd be part of Jesus' church too, if He started one here in the United States today. You know why? Because when He sent the invitations out to all the preachers and deacons and Episcopal priests they were all busy.
They were all working on their ticket to heaven. They were all wearing their golden crosses that just kept their neck weighed down and their eyes cast to the ground. They were too busy to come see the true Jesus, just like most of us Christians are too busy now.
So Jesus sent His servants out to the wayside to find guests for His party, didn't He? He got the homeless and the dirtiest. And I bet they had a blast. I would have given anything to go that party. Because it was real and honest.
I bet there was a lot of rejoicing going on there. A lot of healing. They probably never got around to the fattened calf.
Can you see Him? He's surrounded by people begging to be healed of their sorry sins and their ravaged hearts. And He's healing them all because they are broken.
Come on, people. Wake up. Jesus wouldn't hang out at our churches. He'd be down at the corner of 5th and Capitol at that abandoned Lutheran church drinking coffee with the homeless. He'd be drying the tears of a prostitute. I'm thinking He'd only step into our churches to tell us we're like the white-washed tombs. We might look nice on the outside, but inside- we're dead and rotting. We're stinky.
I don't wanna stink. Especially when I finally meet Jesus. I wanna smell good!
Philippians 4:18b
How do you smell to Jesus? Minty fresh? A little B.O.?
Living life loud means standing up and being counted.
Let's live life loud, and let's release a good fragrance unto the Lord.
(When did I turn into a black preacher?)
I, for one, renounce Christianity completely. I don't want to be part of this social club. I want someone who heals hearts, and that's not the white Jesus with the beard I see as the head of today's churches.
I'm waiting for the Jesus who's dirty and ragged and who was bloodied for me.
Nope. I'm not a Christian. I'm just a lover of people.
Can I get an Amen?
Take the moment; grab it by the neck and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of it.
Don't look around you and wonder what people will think. Don't let others opinions of your actions stop you.
Go ahead.
Twirl.
Head bang.
Sing the "Singing in the Rain" song in a downpour.
Hell, even twirl one of those ridiculous yellow umbrellas around. (You know you want to! Where would one buy a yellow umbrella, anyway?)
If we lived our lives wondering who's watching and what's running through their heads, our lives would be normal.
And who likes normal?
Normal is everyday; it's mundane. . . it's boring.
If it doesn't go against your morals and it wouldn't go against others (stumbling block) do what your heart demands.
I've been known to break into song in the middle of grocery stores. It drives my best friend crazy, but you know what? She's loosened up since I met her. The first time I did something like that near her I thought she was going to have an anurism. Thank God, she didn't, and now she kind of appreciates me for my crazy weirdness. I don't think she'd want me to be normal. I think she'd be bored.
Most of all, I'd be bored.
I was normal once. And, God, did I hate it.
Now? Now it's great. I can dance around the house in my underwear and my parents don't even notice anymore (unless it's a thong, then they notice). They almost expect me to say something silly. I swear there are these ultra-awkward silences that follow anything anyone says in my household. My theory: they're giving me time to respond.
Like after my dad said something about how it's not a "butt" it's a "rear end" and I told him "Fine then, would you please scootch your arse?"
Believe it or not- he laughed. The man laughed.
I don't think I've heard him laugh at anything but knock-knock jokes. Ever. Especially something "crude" like that. It was great. I actually felt like his daughter for once.
Once.
Live life loud. Make people notice. Whether your cause is the environment, how Bush was really a great president (shout out to my best friend) or like me, love, make yourself known. The world isn't changed by people who sit back and hope that someone else will say something they agree with on tv- it's changed by those who speak to their friends, their family and any general public who's there to witness the soap box.
Come on now, people. You aren't dead yet! Live like it. Sometimes I wonder if people in the church haven't been slipped a little sedative before walking in. I wonder if I'm the only one who disagrees with the pastor. I wonder if they believe in anything at all.
Most of all, I believe in a loving Jesus. No matter what religion or deity you believe in I'm sure that somewhere deep in your heart your wish is that Jesus does truly love you.
I met someone a couple months ago who has become one of my dearest friends. Her name is Emily. She smokes more pot than Bob Marley did, recently got her nipples pierced and is bisexual. Emily has an eating disorder and claims she hates Christians. They made fun of her in high school for being bi. She says she'd never want to be one of us.
You know what? Neither would I.
Emily believes in Jesus though. She tells me she reads the Bible and that she likes the Jesus she sees in there. She sees a contrast, though, between the one that's in the Bible and the one we preach and supposedly emulate.
She's absolutely right.
We've come so far, they say. Yeah, we have. In the wrong direction.
I'm not saying that Jesus would pat Emily on the back for liking girls and liking sex. I'm just saying that Jesus wouldn't make a girl cry, even if that girl sinned.
Everywhere in the Bible I see Jesus comforting, loving and healing. I don't see anyone with a right heart being turned away.
We've come a long way, baby. Now we turn people away at the doors, refusing them entrance into God's house because of how they look. What would God say?
If I ever start a church, I'm going to go find the "scum of the earth" and bring them in. Be they prostitutes, transvestites, gays, lesbians, televangelists that look like Barbie on speed, self-injurers, anorexics, murders, liars, cheats. They'd be part of Jesus' church too, if He started one here in the United States today. You know why? Because when He sent the invitations out to all the preachers and deacons and Episcopal priests they were all busy.
They were all working on their ticket to heaven. They were all wearing their golden crosses that just kept their neck weighed down and their eyes cast to the ground. They were too busy to come see the true Jesus, just like most of us Christians are too busy now.
So Jesus sent His servants out to the wayside to find guests for His party, didn't He? He got the homeless and the dirtiest. And I bet they had a blast. I would have given anything to go that party. Because it was real and honest.
I bet there was a lot of rejoicing going on there. A lot of healing. They probably never got around to the fattened calf.
Can you see Him? He's surrounded by people begging to be healed of their sorry sins and their ravaged hearts. And He's healing them all because they are broken.
Come on, people. Wake up. Jesus wouldn't hang out at our churches. He'd be down at the corner of 5th and Capitol at that abandoned Lutheran church drinking coffee with the homeless. He'd be drying the tears of a prostitute. I'm thinking He'd only step into our churches to tell us we're like the white-washed tombs. We might look nice on the outside, but inside- we're dead and rotting. We're stinky.
I don't wanna stink. Especially when I finally meet Jesus. I wanna smell good!
Philippians 4:18b
Your gifts are a soothing aroma, a sacrifice that God accepts and with which he is pleased.
How do you smell to Jesus? Minty fresh? A little B.O.?
Living life loud means standing up and being counted.
Let's live life loud, and let's release a good fragrance unto the Lord.
(When did I turn into a black preacher?)
I, for one, renounce Christianity completely. I don't want to be part of this social club. I want someone who heals hearts, and that's not the white Jesus with the beard I see as the head of today's churches.
I'm waiting for the Jesus who's dirty and ragged and who was bloodied for me.
Nope. I'm not a Christian. I'm just a lover of people.
Can I get an Amen?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
for you, poet boy
This is stubborn.
This doesn't want to come out.
This said it will kill itself before giving up.
This said it hates me.
This told me it was because I am fat, ugly, worthless, stupid, a liar, a whore, a liberal, Christian, female.
This hate that I'm writing this.
This knows I tried writing this blog 40 times in the last 3 weeks and 2 days.
Everyone's telling me I can do better. I can find myself a prince that glows in the sunlight and will sweep me off my feet.
I hate that. I hate it when they say "you can do better".
They are wrong.
I can't do better than you.
You probably invented the word better. In my world, you certainly did.
You did sweep me off my feet, and you do shimmer and glow not only in the sunlight, but also in the moon beams.
The emo quote girl inside me says: You've taught me one thing if you've taught me anything, poet boy. You've taught me that I have a heart, because I can feel it breaking.
It's never been like this.
It's never been insomnia, hungerlessness- it's never been. . . love?
I said I wouldn't fall. I said I didn't fall.
But I had fallen so far down I couldn't hear myself scream.
I think of you when I brush my teeth, when I blink and especially when I check my email.
For a second I wondered what I was supposed to do. How does one act when this happens?
I thought of stories I'd heard. Suicide.
Then I thought, no. It would break you. And I would never do that to you.
Then I thought again, and I said, I don't even want to die.
And I don't. Not only because dying would hurt you, but because I know, for the first time ever, I tangibly know that there are people that love me.
I don't because I have a purpose.
One thing really bothers me though.
It always has.
I never cried.
No. When I finally realized what was happening, I just stared in front of me and focused on the pattern of breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
And I'm not angry.
Ok, yes I am.
But not because you just stopped. No. I'm not angry because of that. It's your right.
But it's my right to know why. Just a reason. Nothing more.
"Because you're a whore."
"Because you're too fat for me."
"Because I changed my mind."
"Because you're too clingy."
"Because I could never love you."
"Because I'm going off to college, and there are plenty of better girls there."
Anything, damn it.
Just a reason.
That's why I'm mad.
I'm mad because I thought you were a man.
I still think that.
Contrary to any evidence otherwise.
Like the fact that you just ignore me.
Why can't you just stand up and tell me the truth?
Or is that too hard?
Write me a poem then.
Write me a poem and tell me I'm a cyst.
A ball and chain.
A weight.
A menace.
Something.
Oh, but what hurts the most is that I still love you.
Not as a lover, because it was never that strong in that way,
but as a friend.
For a while, I considered you in the top two. Because Rachel could never be trumped.
I thought that we were soulmates- if not in the usual sense, then in the sense of I wanted to know everything about you. I wanted to feel your soul. Because I loved what I saw.
Well,
All things must come to an end.
Even good things.
I am sorry if I'm anything wrong. Any of it. If I was too touchy-feely, or if I told you too much.
I'm sorry.
<3
This doesn't want to come out.
This said it will kill itself before giving up.
This said it hates me.
This told me it was because I am fat, ugly, worthless, stupid, a liar, a whore, a liberal, Christian, female.
This hate that I'm writing this.
This knows I tried writing this blog 40 times in the last 3 weeks and 2 days.
Everyone's telling me I can do better. I can find myself a prince that glows in the sunlight and will sweep me off my feet.
I hate that. I hate it when they say "you can do better".
They are wrong.
I can't do better than you.
You probably invented the word better. In my world, you certainly did.
You did sweep me off my feet, and you do shimmer and glow not only in the sunlight, but also in the moon beams.
The emo quote girl inside me says: You've taught me one thing if you've taught me anything, poet boy. You've taught me that I have a heart, because I can feel it breaking.
It's never been like this.
It's never been insomnia, hungerlessness- it's never been. . . love?
I said I wouldn't fall. I said I didn't fall.
But I had fallen so far down I couldn't hear myself scream.
I think of you when I brush my teeth, when I blink and especially when I check my email.
For a second I wondered what I was supposed to do. How does one act when this happens?
I thought of stories I'd heard. Suicide.
Then I thought, no. It would break you. And I would never do that to you.
Then I thought again, and I said, I don't even want to die.
And I don't. Not only because dying would hurt you, but because I know, for the first time ever, I tangibly know that there are people that love me.
I don't because I have a purpose.
One thing really bothers me though.
It always has.
I never cried.
No. When I finally realized what was happening, I just stared in front of me and focused on the pattern of breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
And I'm not angry.
Ok, yes I am.
But not because you just stopped. No. I'm not angry because of that. It's your right.
But it's my right to know why. Just a reason. Nothing more.
"Because you're a whore."
"Because you're too fat for me."
"Because I changed my mind."
"Because you're too clingy."
"Because I could never love you."
"Because I'm going off to college, and there are plenty of better girls there."
Anything, damn it.
Just a reason.
That's why I'm mad.
I'm mad because I thought you were a man.
I still think that.
Contrary to any evidence otherwise.
Like the fact that you just ignore me.
Why can't you just stand up and tell me the truth?
Or is that too hard?
Write me a poem then.
Write me a poem and tell me I'm a cyst.
A ball and chain.
A weight.
A menace.
Something.
Oh, but what hurts the most is that I still love you.
Not as a lover, because it was never that strong in that way,
but as a friend.
For a while, I considered you in the top two. Because Rachel could never be trumped.
I thought that we were soulmates- if not in the usual sense, then in the sense of I wanted to know everything about you. I wanted to feel your soul. Because I loved what I saw.
Well,
All things must come to an end.
Even good things.
I am sorry if I'm anything wrong. Any of it. If I was too touchy-feely, or if I told you too much.
I'm sorry.
<3
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
ghost
Vampire, sweet teeth, venom-dripping ivory tusks- bite me.
Legend, story after story, written on parchment and paper and glowing screen,
Quill pen, ball-point, typist's speech,
You are a ghost.
A mirage.
Here today, disappeared tomorrow.
Like a song echoed from far, far away on Spanish soil, you are.
Oh come back, ghost, I want to touch your shaven face and run my hands through your unruly hair,
I want to show you truth.
But you are a vapor, and all that remains is poetry, your smell and a stripped fedora on the concrete, right next to the edge of my party dress.
Oh boy, oh ghost, you are far away now, ran away, running still.
Halt for a second and listen to what I'm saying.
I don't mean to tie you down, tether and ball and chain and scriptures have I not.
I am a bird but I am small and weightless, and I have strived to become this.
Don't leave me alone, because I am scared of the dark even more than I am scared of you.
I am scared of loosing you more than I am scared of being completely consumed by you.
Come back, ghost, and rest your translucent hand upon mine, and feel my beating pulse.
Trace the white lace of scars on my arms.
Watch the wind tousle my curls.
Hook your hands with mine and pleasure me.
Let me look into the deep pools of your eyes and let me remember what it's like to be safe, and you, you can look into my eyes, and tell me if there is sanity still reflected inside them.
Don't leave me now, for it will not do you any good, and it will break me.
You have already wooed me with your soft lips and your river words, you have already branded your name to the heard on my sleeve.
Come back, boy, for I am just a ghost, a figment, a shell without your mirror to show me I am beautiful.
Come back, and I will smile for you, I will twirl in the sunlight and the moon beams and I will make you happy.
Come back, for I am your ghost.
Legend, story after story, written on parchment and paper and glowing screen,
Quill pen, ball-point, typist's speech,
You are a ghost.
A mirage.
Here today, disappeared tomorrow.
Like a song echoed from far, far away on Spanish soil, you are.
Oh come back, ghost, I want to touch your shaven face and run my hands through your unruly hair,
I want to show you truth.
But you are a vapor, and all that remains is poetry, your smell and a stripped fedora on the concrete, right next to the edge of my party dress.
Oh boy, oh ghost, you are far away now, ran away, running still.
Halt for a second and listen to what I'm saying.
I don't mean to tie you down, tether and ball and chain and scriptures have I not.
I am a bird but I am small and weightless, and I have strived to become this.
Don't leave me alone, because I am scared of the dark even more than I am scared of you.
I am scared of loosing you more than I am scared of being completely consumed by you.
Come back, ghost, and rest your translucent hand upon mine, and feel my beating pulse.
Trace the white lace of scars on my arms.
Watch the wind tousle my curls.
Hook your hands with mine and pleasure me.
Let me look into the deep pools of your eyes and let me remember what it's like to be safe, and you, you can look into my eyes, and tell me if there is sanity still reflected inside them.
Don't leave me now, for it will not do you any good, and it will break me.
You have already wooed me with your soft lips and your river words, you have already branded your name to the heard on my sleeve.
Come back, boy, for I am just a ghost, a figment, a shell without your mirror to show me I am beautiful.
Come back, and I will smile for you, I will twirl in the sunlight and the moon beams and I will make you happy.
Come back, for I am your ghost.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
tikkun olam
Tikkun olam (Hebrew: תיקון עולם) is a Hebrew phrase that means, "repairing the world" or "perfecting the world." Wikipedia
NORAH: That reminds me of this part of Judaism that I really like. It’s called Tikkun Olam. It says that the world is broken into pieces and it’s everybody’s job to find them and put them back together again.
NICK: Well maybe we’re the pieces, you know, maybe we’re not supposed to find the pieces, maybe we are the pieces.Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
God contracted the divine self to make room for creation. Divine light became contained in special vessels, or kelim, some of which shattered and scattered. While most of the light returned to its divine source, some light attached itself to the broken shards. These shards constitute evil and are the basis for the material world; their trapped sparks of light give them power. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ethics/Caring_For_Others/Tikkun_Olam_Repairing_the_World_.shtml
Basically, Adam was supposed to fix everything, but the mess he and Eve got into made that impossible, thus trapping all of us, his descendants into the shards of light too.
This all means that it's our turn. We have to go and collect the light that has been scattered and the souls that have been lost. By doing so we will separate this physical world, the tactile stuff from the spiritual, mystical stuff of life, thus causing the world to go back to its sinless state- the way it was in perfection. In other words: heaven.
I find this concept beautiful.
It makes me want to go dance in the rain.
I'm not Jewish, but I certainly accept this in its entirety.
You might hear more about this in blogs to come.
Tonight, I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, thus the quote. I had actually heard of Tikkun Olam before, in Bee Season (great movie) but had sort of forgotten to Google it.
The movie was great, by the way. The music in it makes me want to run out and buy the soundtrack right now.
This blog is about nothing in particular. Just felt it was time to blog again.
<3
NORAH: That reminds me of this part of Judaism that I really like. It’s called Tikkun Olam. It says that the world is broken into pieces and it’s everybody’s job to find them and put them back together again.
NICK: Well maybe we’re the pieces, you know, maybe we’re not supposed to find the pieces, maybe we are the pieces.Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
God contracted the divine self to make room for creation. Divine light became contained in special vessels, or kelim, some of which shattered and scattered. While most of the light returned to its divine source, some light attached itself to the broken shards. These shards constitute evil and are the basis for the material world; their trapped sparks of light give them power. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ethics/Caring_For_Others/Tikkun_Olam_Repairing_the_World_.shtml
Basically, Adam was supposed to fix everything, but the mess he and Eve got into made that impossible, thus trapping all of us, his descendants into the shards of light too.
This all means that it's our turn. We have to go and collect the light that has been scattered and the souls that have been lost. By doing so we will separate this physical world, the tactile stuff from the spiritual, mystical stuff of life, thus causing the world to go back to its sinless state- the way it was in perfection. In other words: heaven.
I find this concept beautiful.
It makes me want to go dance in the rain.
I'm not Jewish, but I certainly accept this in its entirety.
You might hear more about this in blogs to come.
Tonight, I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, thus the quote. I had actually heard of Tikkun Olam before, in Bee Season (great movie) but had sort of forgotten to Google it.
The movie was great, by the way. The music in it makes me want to run out and buy the soundtrack right now.
This blog is about nothing in particular. Just felt it was time to blog again.
<3
Saturday, June 13, 2009
revolution
I promised more, so here it is.
Christianity has evolved into a monster. It has morphed from it's original state- love for God, love for others and hope, the good news, the Way. . . into a deranged thing. It seems that now, all we care about is numbers, money, and making it seem like we're doing the right thing while we're actually doing whatever we feel like, right or wrong.
And that sickens me.
What sickens me more than the selfishness is the way we (Christians) treat people "out there", which is a bad term to use, but I can't think of another one that seems to fit better.
The outsiders, heathens, and sometimes "seekers".
We have code words. We will "witness", "evangelize", "plant seeds".
Some people have good hearts. . they really do want to usher these people into a better life, but I say that they're naive and misled. They don't know.
The church, and thus Christianity itself has bothered me for a long time. I used to think of a church as a sanctuary, a safe place, a haven, even. . . until I started paying attention. The church was still all those things I just mentioned, but only when it was empty. When people were inside it, it turned into a confusing, scary place.
Not only did people either ignore me because I was young, they also shunned me because I was someone who questioned their beliefs, or because I was screwed up.
Because I had scars on my arms and scars in my heart. Because I was someone who had been raped by one of them- and that scared them. What scared them more is that I could see right through their games.
When they were on a platform, they were God's holy and chosen people, "sanctified" and "set apart" but when they stepped off, they were jealous, angry, discriminatory, and sometimes shit-faced. But people tried to ignore that stuff. Covering up your brother's nakedness.
Sometimes women from the church would take an interest in me, a wayward child, and try to get through to me. We'd go out for coffee, or lunch and talk. Problem was, they didn't like what I said. It confused them.
Rape, self-injury, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, hunger.
I said things they didn't like. They were bad words, they were supposed to be unspoken. But I spoke them.
I didn't call them "homosexuals", I called them friends. I said words like masturbation. I knew that it had wrapped it's chains around the feet of too many of my friends.
So, after our talks they would say something like "We should do this again sometime" and then they'd leave.
When I'd see them at church, they would avert their eyes and walk on the other side of the hall, or duck inside some random Sunday School room.
What would Jesus think of that, I wonder.
Poor Jesus, His gospel has turned into a marketing plan, and His followers have now turned into bloodsucking leeches, they get their fill of whatever they want, money or gossip, and drop off, never to be heard from again.
It breaks my heart.
I hate it.
I propose a revolution.
The two greatest commandments are 1) Love God, and 2) Love others. It's pretty simple really, though I'm still working on it. If we just did those two things, the world would be a lot better. Peace would certainly reign among us.
Revolution.
Let it be so.
<3
Christianity has evolved into a monster. It has morphed from it's original state- love for God, love for others and hope, the good news, the Way. . . into a deranged thing. It seems that now, all we care about is numbers, money, and making it seem like we're doing the right thing while we're actually doing whatever we feel like, right or wrong.
And that sickens me.
What sickens me more than the selfishness is the way we (Christians) treat people "out there", which is a bad term to use, but I can't think of another one that seems to fit better.
The outsiders, heathens, and sometimes "seekers".
We have code words. We will "witness", "evangelize", "plant seeds".
Some people have good hearts. . they really do want to usher these people into a better life, but I say that they're naive and misled. They don't know.
The church, and thus Christianity itself has bothered me for a long time. I used to think of a church as a sanctuary, a safe place, a haven, even. . . until I started paying attention. The church was still all those things I just mentioned, but only when it was empty. When people were inside it, it turned into a confusing, scary place.
Not only did people either ignore me because I was young, they also shunned me because I was someone who questioned their beliefs, or because I was screwed up.
Because I had scars on my arms and scars in my heart. Because I was someone who had been raped by one of them- and that scared them. What scared them more is that I could see right through their games.
When they were on a platform, they were God's holy and chosen people, "sanctified" and "set apart" but when they stepped off, they were jealous, angry, discriminatory, and sometimes shit-faced. But people tried to ignore that stuff. Covering up your brother's nakedness.
Sometimes women from the church would take an interest in me, a wayward child, and try to get through to me. We'd go out for coffee, or lunch and talk. Problem was, they didn't like what I said. It confused them.
Rape, self-injury, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, hunger.
I said things they didn't like. They were bad words, they were supposed to be unspoken. But I spoke them.
I didn't call them "homosexuals", I called them friends. I said words like masturbation. I knew that it had wrapped it's chains around the feet of too many of my friends.
So, after our talks they would say something like "We should do this again sometime" and then they'd leave.
When I'd see them at church, they would avert their eyes and walk on the other side of the hall, or duck inside some random Sunday School room.
What would Jesus think of that, I wonder.
Poor Jesus, His gospel has turned into a marketing plan, and His followers have now turned into bloodsucking leeches, they get their fill of whatever they want, money or gossip, and drop off, never to be heard from again.
It breaks my heart.
I hate it.
I propose a revolution.
The two greatest commandments are 1) Love God, and 2) Love others. It's pretty simple really, though I'm still working on it. If we just did those two things, the world would be a lot better. Peace would certainly reign among us.
Revolution.
Let it be so.
<3
velvet elvis
I've been reading all night.
It started with New Moon. . . which, in my humble opinion was far, far, far too sappy and didn't resolve all the way. The story is still decent, as was the first book, but it leaves something lacking. Maybe it's the fact that Bella is selfishly concerned about other people's needs (meaning: she acts like she's doing it for their good but there's always something in it for her, and she knows it and likes it).
Second in the list of tonight, since I finished New Moon in a matter of hours (this is how you win reading contests, too bad they don't have them for kids over, say 12) was Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.
It confused me at first, and then I kind of stopped thinking about what he was saying- stopped dissecting it, and just read. Ah, it was great. I'm about half-way done with it, and am probably going to finish it today, unless I suddenly get sleepy, which rarely happens.
He talks about so many things. . and I don't have time to really hit on any of them, since I'm deathly afraid my mother will come find me typing away (she doesn't understand that I feel the most inspired when I'm sleep deprived).
More tomorrow- I promise, but for now, suffice to say that I am giving up on Christianity as I have known it to be so far. It sickens me to death. I hate it.
Goodnight,
<3
It started with New Moon. . . which, in my humble opinion was far, far, far too sappy and didn't resolve all the way. The story is still decent, as was the first book, but it leaves something lacking. Maybe it's the fact that Bella is selfishly concerned about other people's needs (meaning: she acts like she's doing it for their good but there's always something in it for her, and she knows it and likes it).
Second in the list of tonight, since I finished New Moon in a matter of hours (this is how you win reading contests, too bad they don't have them for kids over, say 12) was Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.
It confused me at first, and then I kind of stopped thinking about what he was saying- stopped dissecting it, and just read. Ah, it was great. I'm about half-way done with it, and am probably going to finish it today, unless I suddenly get sleepy, which rarely happens.
He talks about so many things. . and I don't have time to really hit on any of them, since I'm deathly afraid my mother will come find me typing away (she doesn't understand that I feel the most inspired when I'm sleep deprived).
More tomorrow- I promise, but for now, suffice to say that I am giving up on Christianity as I have known it to be so far. It sickens me to death. I hate it.
Goodnight,
<3
Friday, June 12, 2009
oh, butterfly
You are cunning, crafty, and far beyond wise.
When I look past your long, curling eyelashes I see an old soul, far older than my own, but one who is struggling to breathe.
Maybe you have become too old, and it's time for you to be laid to rest- or maybe, you are experiencing a new birth.
You hide from me very well, like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower and hiding behind leaves and petals- you are mysterious, always leading me on.
Hey boy, you have me in your hand, and breaking is unavoidable. You can't enchant a girl and then tell her to go away, it doesn't work that way.
Hey boy, I miss your liquid eyes and your funny hands and your words.
Your words, they are full to the brim of meaning and intuition and magic, and you spin them; sentence after sentence of magic. You let them dance around me for a while, so I could watch it reflect the sky, and then you pulled them away, leaving me breathless.
Come back, butterfly, your cocoon is far too warm and welcoming for it to be a challenge, and you cannot fly if you don't spread your wings.
You are far too honest, at times, as am I. You told me the truth, and I was left standing there waiting for your face to be close to mine, again, and for your breath to fall on my palm.
Come back, boy.
Flying away is sometimes easier than staying. Turning around is the hardest, sometimes.
You may find your biggest nightmare waiting, but you might also find life.
Hey boy, it's your turn to choose. Read this and think about it as you always do, and either write me a love song for the moment, or write me silence in the stars.
Carpe Diem doesn't mean not being scared of the moment, it means embracing the fear and the expanse of everything around you- maybe even me.
Butterfly, I'm sorry if I crushed your wings. I am thoughtless and I am hasty and I like to take more than to give.
Butterfly; boy, if you need to fly away, take my blessing with you, and if you want to remember me, please do.
Either way, butterfly, I'll remember you.
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