sometimes paralyzed.

two things i've thought about today:

1. all the lyrics to taylor swift's new songs. my obsession is approaching teen fan girl level.
2. making one of imaginary lives a reality. in case you aren't a member of my family (HAH! like people other than my mom read this..) and haven't heard, i have a number of alternate lives i'd like to live one day, if i ever stopped liking this life i have. it's such a hard decision because i really do like my current life, but i would also like to try out some other things, just for fun. for instance:
- living in a big city, with public transportation, in the center of it all. like nyc or portland oregon or seattle or even just atlanta. right in the city. having a job i could walk/ride a train to. of course, andrew hates cities.. so this is unlikely.
- living on a farm. andrew loves farms. this is possible, later in life, i believe.
- changing careers. maybe an esthetician (person who does skin care/facials, etc). maybe some other medical technologist. maybe one day i could own my own yarn shop. if i ever stopped living in a stupid place where people don't go to yarn shops.

i have a lot of aspirations, but i'm really often paralyzed by the realities of real life. bills, my husband's career, planning for the future of babies and a house and settling down. i've done the art school thing, so i know that being a professional artist is not my thing. but what about alllll these other options? i'm thinking i should at least try a few of them before i'm older and have children and serious things to think about it. a life of regret is not what i want. i don't want to be 50 and wishing i had tried a few more things when i was younger.

so here i go. to carpool to pick up my faux children. HAHA. i'm laughing at my own ironic situation.

MY FAVORITE!

first: I LOVE FALL. reasons:

1. fall air! the most crisp of all the airs!
2. call clothing! the most carefree of all the clothings! layers! if the first layer looks odd, just throw on a jacket and a scarf and looking instantly better!
3. KNITTING! fall knitting is the best, because at last, i am knitting something i might use the instant it is finished. hats! scarves! shawls! a blanket! HAHA!
4. many, many, many cups of tea.

you might notice i'm using lots of exclamation points. it's because i love fall. also, i'm trying to look on the bright side.

for the last .... 4 weeks, i've had the worst cold/flu/sinuswhatever and i've hated it! it's trying to ruin my fall season! today, though, i'm going to the doctor and he will give me some medicine and also a slap to the back of the head for not going to him sooner. whenever i get sick, i feel it is a competition between me and the sickness, and if i go to the doctor, i am admitting defeat. i hate to admit defeat, even to one-celled viral/bacterial organisms living inside my body. (or are they 2 or 3 cells? i have no idea how many cells. step one to becoming a better fighter in this competition... know my enemy. HM.)

anyway, we are coming up on november, which is my favorite month of the year for these reasons:

1. FALL!
2. perfect hair month! the one month in the year that my hair behaves exceptionally well.
3. my birthday! on a wednesday this year. excited for next year when it's on a thursday, because thursday is a great day of the week. actually, wednesday is okay too, but i like thursday better.
4. and now, most recently, our wedding anniversary! we have no extravagant plans.. in fact, no plans at all. we'll probably eat a nice dinner somewhere, and then come home. we are the life of the party, y'all!
5. THANKSGIVING, my favorite holiday! i love thanksgiving! it is the least commercialized of all the holidays, and it exists as a day to simply give thanks for all we have. i love that. there are no expectations placed on anyone on thanksgiving, except being thankful for our families, our homes, and all the blessings we have. in fact, this year, since my brother's move our to portland, we aren't even really having a big dinner. my parents are coming here and we're all going to eat chinese, haha! and then pumpkin pie, because i couldn't imagine a thanksgiving without pumpkin pie.

anyway, i've got laundry to do and a doctor's appointment to go to. i just wanted to write something here because anna inspired me.

.....and one week later, it is WINTER.

HMPH.

ke$ha and dental hygiene

my husband bought me the 120 box of crayons as a surprise last weekend, and i've been busy coloring all week. i started out with a page from a curious george coloring book that i'm not quite sure why i own, and now i'm working on an all out crayon piece of art. or at least, a picture that i'm drawing with only crayons and a pencil. whether or not it is art is something for another generation of art school students to deliberate about. i spent 4 years at art school wrestling with "what is art?" and graduated still uncertain, and i think that was my teachers' goal. HMPH.

anyway, it's fall here, FINALLY. i'm taking to my blog to echo the words of every other blogger east of the mississippi and say "THANK YOU LORD." meanwhile, the west coast bloggers are complaining about their ONE DAY of record heat. to them i have only this to say: welcome to every day of summer in alabama.

i've reached a sad truth in my head. i mean, i have decided that no one reads this blog. in fact, if i were you, i wouldn't read it either, HAH!

things you should probably doing instead of reading this:
1. brushing your teeth (me too. i think i have a cavity.)
2. eating a banana. (POTASSIUM, Y'ALL)
3. listening to any song by ke$ha. (Go. Now. srsly, that girl is wearing nasty boots in every one of her videos.)
4. picking out your clothes for tomorrow. (who does that? really, how old are you?)

so, go ahead and choose a couple of those to fill your time. i'll still be here talking to myself when you get back, because i've already done all those things, including choosing my clothes for tomorow while listening to all of ke$ha's "songs". yes, that's right, tomorrow, i will be making an appearance at the carpool line wearing boots i found in a trashcan at a public restroom and some denim from the early 90's.

platitudes i once believed.

once upon a time, i really thought i was over caring when adults act like high schoolers. i should be over that. i'm an adult too. i really shouldn't care when i'm the last person to find out that everyone's made plans.

oh, wait, why shouldn't i care?

so i'm running through the list of things my mom used to tell me when i was in high school and super unpopular because i had curly hair and was home schooled and bought clothes at the thrift store, among other things (let's not forget my obsession with stargate sg-1 and cats, of all things).

1. if they treat you like this, they obviously weren't your real friends anyway, so don't let it get to you.
2. you're better than this, so don't let it get to you.
3. that thing they forgot to invite you to was lame anyway, so don't let it get to you.
4. you've got big things ahead of you, missy, so don't let this get to you.
5. don't let it get to youblahblahblah.

somehow, as an adult, with a realistic self-image, these platitudes really don't comfort me in any way. let's run through them:

1. this one is probably true. they were never true friends anyway.
2. not true. i'm not better than anyone. i'm an awful person, so i'll go ahead and think maybe i deserve this for being awful.
3. this one's true. it is lame.
4. i think that the direction in which my life is heading probably proves that the biggest thing i've got ahead of me is a whole lot of hand knits and a couple of children. both of which are unrelated to this, so i fail to see how this applies.
5. it got to me already.

i think that there is a certain part of everyone that never stops being the person they were in high school. the pretty girls will always seem to get everything they want, although they'll be secretly unhappy and the dorky girls will always struggle with a debilitating need to fit in, mixed with a tragic inability to do so. as adults, we probably hide our high school selves pretty well, but i know my 16 year old self is still in there. i am still her. sometimes i still want to give up on making new friends because it's too risky. i have my 2 best friends, and that's enough. or so i tell myself.

anyway, i do care. i care that i'm the last to know. it hurt my feelings. but, now that i think about it, and how insignificant it is, i know i'll wake up tomorrow and move on. because i'm an adult, and i do have my 2 best friends, one of whom has stuck with me for more than half of our lives, and the other of whom has promised to spend the rest of his life with me.

so to everyone else, from my 16 year old self:

i'm still here, and i don't care if you notice me. i'm done being a hanger-on. i don't know why i even tried it. i hate going with the flow.

in which i find myself homeless

today i realized something: i'm only funny in small snippets, about the length of a twitter post. for a moment i thought about limiting my blog posts to that length and then i realized that's what twitter is for. HAH.

anyway, as usual, the cooler breezes put me into a thoughtful sort of mood and i've been thinking about jesus and church and my life. a few facts about right now:

- we are church homeless. sort of.

- i've been wandering around near jesus, but staying just far enough away so as to avoid actual growth. i think he would call that lukewarm and i ought to be cast into the fires of hell. um. hm. as i type this, i find myself imagining the agents of god's wrath (they look sort of like FBI agents) arriving at my doorstep with a notice that reads "you are hearby declared lukewarm and summoned for deportation to the FiresOfHell." of course i know that's not reality, and that god's grace abounds in my life, and he says my sin is as far away from me as the east is from the west, but i know in my heart that until this moment, i've been okay with my floating, and that i truly deserve to be deported.

- such a realization really makes all my other issues i have with finding a church and dealing with the dissolution of our old one pale in comparison. (although truthfully, i think i have very few issues with finding a new church, since that's something i've done about every 4 years for my whole life... my issues really lie in what happened at our old church)

that's about it.

1. yesterday was andrew's birthday. he worked.
2. today he worked, too, but then we ate pf changs. A LOT.
3. today i bought 2 cashmere sweaters for 8 dollars and i am in love.
4. i spent most of the day "checking" on them. (i held them up to my face and smiled stupidly while rubbing them all over my face. i would like to meet a cashmere sheep, so i could cuddle with it and bury my face in its fluffy bosom.)
5. today is andrew's birthday, for all intents and purposes, so i must be off to pay him the attention he deserves.