this is me

this is who i am-

i never have a whole bad day, things just hit me at the end of the night.

tonight was one of those nights.

i alternately love and hate my job. i love talking to people about their day, and i love when people tell me exactly how it went when i ask them. i love closing a particularly large sandwich; its satisfying to me. i hate people at my job who tell me i am going to get fired and that i am not doing a good enough job. sometimes i can't stand the drama in the workplace, and how people will get mad at you if you tell them you can't cover your shift. i dont like when the owner fires people that were my friends.

i love getting presents for people. i love seeing something (homemade or not) and thinking of a particular person the moment i see it, and getting it for that person, because they will really be able to appreciate it and love it. It makes me excited. When i find something for someone like that, i can't wait to give it to them. Sometimes i don't. i just do it.

i like when people are real and love me for who i am. i love my true friends. i like talking to them because i know that they won't judge me, especially since there is so much in my life to judge. those are the people that know me and love me anyway. they are the kind of people that remind me of that Bible verse that says that a man with no lasting friends has no one to pick him up when he falls down, but a man with lasting friends will have a helping hand when he's down.

i want to be that kind of friend too.

im thankful for josh. i like that i have a boyfriend who will let me have a bad night if i need to, or can't help but to. i like that i have someone like him who will not only let me know how to fix my problems, but will also help me through them. i like/dislike that he's become so much closer to my than my own family; he's become more family to me than my own parents. it makes me sad that things have become this way between me and them, but i guess if you can have the most amazing guy in the world in your life, you don't need much else.

we are like a puzzle.

i love to laugh.

i hate going to school.

i am sad that my parents and i have the relationship we do.

sometimes i wish that i would never have to come home sometimes.

i am buying things to decorate my future house/apartment with.

when i retire i want to own a shop that sells buttons and ribbons and strings and cloth, and nothing will be organized except by the categories mentioned in this sentence. people will get bags in the store and there will be a scale and they can put whatever they want into the bag and however much it weighs will determine the price it is.

i wish i didnt have to wait until i retire.

i love playful cats, and i love dogs that will lay their head on your hand when youre upset.

i love sleeping under lots and lots of blankets in the wintertime.

at night when i should be in bed, i really feel like sleeping and i really feel like staying up. and i never know which to go with, so i usually end up waiting until i cant possibly keep my eyes open any longer, and then it is pretty late but i always wake up pretty early.

and i think that if i didnt have as many problems as i do, i would close my eyes and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.

someday, that is what i am going to do.

i am ok with who i am.

and if you are arent... im ok with that too.

and that is me.

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The work-a-days were propping the bar quietly erasing the week
and I was in a corner booth thinking (pretending to read)
about the impossibility of one to love unconditionally
and the words that we drive into the ground:
their repetition starts to thin their meaning.
Then everything got frighteningly still as they entered and intersected the floor
and I tried to choke my stare at perfection that others would kill for.
But all of the parts are the same on every face -- few variables change.
The differences pale when compared to the similarities they share.
Finally there is clarity and there is purpose after all.
But every night ends the same as I'm collapsing once more by your side.
Finally there is clarity: this tiny life is making sense
and every drop numbs the both of us, but I alone am staggering.

the world forgetting, the world forgot.

i watched Up today. I had to; everyone said it was so good.
they were right.
it was an emotional movie, really. Not really sad and happy at the same time (which is how i tried to describe it at first), but emotional. My favorite part is when the old man is sitting in the house, finally overlooking Paradise Falls, and he opens his wife's adventure journal to the page 'adventures i will have'. he expected the pages to be blank since she never got to paradise falls, but instead there are pictures of their life together. I cried, because it was so sweet. She had such dreams throughout her life, but i know she would have traded even mere thoughts of them for the life she ended up living.

it was beautiful.

do you ever get scared? of big things.

of life.

i am scared.

i dont know where im going, but it feels like its nowhere. im not doing well in school and i cant make myself do better. im so tired of my job, and i feel like i make nearly nothing at all. the hardest thing in the world for me right now is enduring school (i should be doing it right now). a close second is trusting God in these things. im so afraid of misintrepreting him and making a mistake, though i know it will be alright in the end. Shane Claibourne was right; God has a way of ruining plans (of course in order to rebuild them into something better). its just the strangest feeling when he does. kind of shocking, really.

still, i am afraid. i want to be like peter and walk out into the unknown with faith. i will probably sink too, but at least i will have tried. people always look down on peter a little, saying that he was dumb and made a lot of mistakes. ive heard lots of people say that about him, but he's like a hero to me.

there are so many things i want to say that i cant. things i wish i could say here, but im not going to. theyre too personal. i want to share things that have happened to me, especially recently; pains i have and joys i experience, the things that i am deeply and truly afraid of and what i hope for and desire the most. i want to, but it would be too much for me. (i dont know if it would be too much for you). i feel strange, as if i dont share whats inside of me right now i will explode, but i might wither up into nothing if somebody knew. when i feel this way i usually write it down in this old notebook journal i kept over the summer (mostly at camp) that i keep in an old drawer. Just out of the way so that no one would really think to look in and read the pages, but close enough that someone might one of these days, and then it would be out of my hands, and i dont know how to feel about that.

because i want to say that it would be alright with me, but i dont know that it would be.

i am so sore.

yesterday when i woke up, one of my first thoughts was of laura. i missed her. so i called her up and talked to her for over an hour. She's coming home on wednesday for thanksgiving.

then i went on an adventure with Josh and we ate some wendy's, and we went and played football in the park for a couple of hours (which is why i am so sore). Afterwards we watched monsters vs aliens, which was a really cute movie. we cleaned up and went to church for the service and to watch a friend get baptized. After that we went and ate dinner with evie at dions, and talked about important things and things that are not so important and old memories that we will hold forever, and things that we are thankful for. it was good. Then josh and i went to his house for awhile and talked to his mom and evie went to her house to get a movie (eternal sunshine of the spotless mind) and some things, and we met at my house to watch it.

i liked it, a lot. more in retrospect, actually.

you should watch it.

(i would like to see it again, too).

After the movie i talked with josh and evie and my brother till late, and crawled into bed around 2am, trying to sleep while listening to clinton shuffle around in the next room. (thats going to take some getting used to. but it is definitely a good thing).

i love saturdays.

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what can wash away my sins?

nothing but the blood of jesus.

what can make me whole again?

nothing but the blood of jesus.

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How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

sunbeams and some beans

a story that a little girl wrote for Josh that made my day:

A Boyfriend Named Matthew

Once upon a time i had a boyfriend but he broke me so i got another boyfriend and i am in love with him so much.


i think its really cute.
Clinton and i used to write stories all the time when we were little. my mom saved them all and put them in a binder, and we decorated the cover together.
We tried to write a bestselling novel together 3 or 4 times growing up, but we gave up by middle school years. i was supposed to do the art and he was supposed to write it, but i suck at drawing so we switched because he was better at art. Then the story sucked because i couldn't come up with a good enough plot. I always did have trouble saying what i want to say (what i need to say). oh well :P

i went to Josh's sociology class last night. It is way, way (waywaywaywayway) cooler than mine. In my class, there are about 150 people. We all sit and stare at the teacher (who is from croatia and has a thick accent) and "listen" to him drone on and on about stuff we know we should pay attention to somehow can't. I wonder how many kids actually learn in that class. I think ive learned next to nothing compared to my other classes. If someones cell phone so much as beeps, that person gets a stern lecture and a, "Hey you! be quiet up there!" If people are quietly talking (even if theyre talking about the material), the teacher tells them to " go somewhere else if you are going to be disruptive."
In Josh's class, they watch movies and write papers about them addressing the sociological issues brought up (no papers in my class; we have 3 tests and a final. how boring). They are allowed to (and feel free to) discuss sociological issues that come up for them and that they observe. They don't even raise their hands, they just go for it. i miss cnm. I feel asleep when i go to my sociology class, and i feel alive when i go to josh's.

I got scared this morning because i got a phone call about my financial aid; apparently it wasn't active and i didn't have a loan (which means i couldn't sign up for classes or anything). Apparently i never filled out an Authorization to Pay form, which lets the people know that yes, i do want a loan. I went to the student services building after my sociology class (ugh), but i didn't really know where it was so i kind of got lost. I guess i went in the back, which led me to the basement, which led me down all these winding halls. i hate getting lost. i hate being a freshman. the people at the financial aid office were really nice though, and now everything is all worked out.

im going to bryans house tonight for a birfday party. i hope he gets a kick out of his presents. im going to frost his barbie cake with pink icing.

two of the best things josh has taught me:
1) things are only awkward if you let them be
2) never be afraid to take risks

clinton is coming home on saturday.
im excited :)

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The flower said, "I wish I was a tree,"
The tree said, "I wish I could be
A different kind of tree,"
The cat wished that it was a bee,
The turtle wished that it could fly
Really high into the sky,
Over rooftops and then dive
Deep into the sea.

warm.

just got back from a friends house. I love spending time there. Its very comfortable. Its such a home.
Have you ever been uncomfortable in someones house, like you are afraid of damaging something or being rude or doing something offensive? I hate that feeling. I feel that way sometimes at lauras house. Even though we've been friends for over 12 years, i feel uncomfortable spending time at her house because its big and expensive and we are not supposed to run or touch the walls or anything. I always tell her to come over to my house to hang out.
I love walking into a house and immediately feeling comfortable. I want my house to be like that- i want everyone who walks in the door to feel at home and not be afraid to get something from the fridge, put their feet on the chairs, be at home.

Ive been cracking down on making pocket pals, because they're going to be selling soon with a company called d1str1ct clothing (co-owned by Josh and our friend John). Their site launches on December 1st, and the shirts they'll be selling are supposed to come in sometime this week or next, which is very exciting. Pocket pals will be sold for around $20 ish dollars (we havent decided on a concrete price yet). Also the first 4 or 5 shirts sold will come with a free pocket pal. I'll put up the link to the site when it launches.
(so excited! :))

my cousin Bryan's birthday is tomorrow. He will be 26 years old. I got him a coloring book and some crayons and gummy bears. I made him a barbie cake too.

call me crazy, but i am in love with these dolls-
http://www.thisisblythe.com/


and now....
sleep.


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Phony prophets stole the only light I knew,
And the darkness softly screams.
Holy visions disapear from my view,
But the angles come back and laugh in my dreams;
I wonder what it means

to have squeezed the universe into a ball

my parents are coming home today. its probably going to suck since they pretty much hate me now.
I knew they wouldn't like the fact that i got a tattoo, but i thought they would be ok with it like they were when i got my ears peirced or when i dyed my hair or when i started wearing makeup. i was wrong. lets just say its been a week since ive talked to my parents (namely mom). Or rather, its been a week since they've talked to me.
So right now, im kind of afraid. Because their silence is tolerable from a few states away, but when theyre here (when i havent seen them or talked to them in awhile) it hurts me. Especially when i get sick and they don't return my calls or emails and dont even seem to care.

Seems they don't like much about me anymore anyway. I feel like they judge me for the way i act and the things I do, even little things.


i like the weather lately. Its been perfect. Though i have to say the thing i miss most about summer/fall are leaves on the trees. I love the sound of them in the wind and the shadows they make on the ground and especially their color.

Josh's hair is curly, so it gets knots in it pretty easily, and they get ripped out and fall on the ground and it makes me think little bugs are crawling around everywhere.

last night i had a nightmare. I was looking over a city and suddenly war broke out. There were flaming arrows flying and burning to my left, and explosions were going off in the distance to my right. I went inside a building, which turned out to be a bar. The people inside had no idea what was going on, and they didn't listen to me when i tried to warn them. Then a flaming arrow hit the building and it turned everything red. We ran, and there was such hopelessness in the streets. People became mindless and stood in rows across from each other, shooting the opposite line with flaming arrows until they were all dead.
and then i woke up.

im baking my dad a cake because it was his birfday on sunday.

my tattoo is peeling. it itches and i keep slapping it because you're not supposed to scratch.

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And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,	90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—	95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

__

(my favorite poem of all time)

like lions do

i wasnt planning on getting a tattoo this week, but things fell into place.
Well, originally i would have liked to get the tattoo this week, but i didnt think it would happen. Evie and Josh convinced me not to go to Sachs becasue it is apparently unclean there and the artists aren't as good as they should be, and i called Star Tattoo but they told me that my tattoo idea wouldnt work and basically hung up on me.
Danielle suprised me on tuesday night by calling me to say she had talked to the receptionist at Addictive Ink (which is where Dave Martinez works), and they could get me in the next day or the next or over the weekend, which was really exciting because the next day had been my original appointment at Sachs (which i cancelled). So I picked her up the next day and we went in together. I had August Thompson do the tattoo. We went online and looked up pictures of birds, and we found one like this and marked all the ones i liked and that he said would work. Some of them got blown up and some of them got made smaller, and then 7 birds were transferred onto my wrist and august went to work.
it didn't hurt too bad. theres nothing really to be said to describe it, because the pain is very unique. I cant say that it didn't hurt, but the pain wasn't unbearable.

I didn't tell my parents before i got it, because 1) i didn't want to listen to all the stuff they would say about how im making a wrong desicion and ruining my life, and 2) i was kind of afraid they would "forbid" it, and i was afraid of what i would do after that. It would have led to massive conflict, though i can't say thats not happening now. I emailed them about it the day after i got it to let them know, because i knew they would be more angry if they found out themselves. my dad emailed me back but not my mom, which means that she is super pissed off and is not talking to me. (it happens). And dad said that 'they' are angry and hurt. Im hoping that they will get over it before they come back sometime this week, although that seems unlikely since i called my mom today and her phone was turned off as though she knew i would call. And so im getting a little scared, especially about what Josh said yesterday: maybe mom will come back to live with me while dad stays in oregon.
which i really hope doesnt happen.

is what i did rebellious?
i hope not. i dont think so. im an adult. i made an adult desicion.

On another note, josh is shooting a wedding tonight. Actually, he is shooting it right now. Its his first wedding, so he's nervous and im excited. Elliott is helping him. Theyre both wearing nice clothes. Not every day you see them boys wearing a tie!
Anyway, i know it will go beautifully. cant wait to see the pictures.
(and i absolutely love weddings. i thought about being a wedding planner one time, but then i would have to deal with people being like, this is my day, the best day i will ever have in my life, and i dont really like that kind of attitude. It could be an amazing day but i think the days after would be amazing, and then theres lots of best days of your life after that)

i went to buffalo exchange today to get winter clothes, and ended up getting a summer dress instead. Thus goes my life: i complain about being cold in the winter but i hate winter clothes. haha. oh well.

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and doesnt laura look like aaron gillespie??
see, told you.
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sea sick in a rope,
all the jokes that i keep making and forgetting.
here's one that i know, but i lost the punch line two years ago:
"friend says to a foe, im just acting on an impulse like my brother"

i wish that i could just make up my mind.
what a brilliant lullaby that you and i can write;

i wish i could just make up my mind,
to tie this anchor tight, and tell the world good bye.
"goodbye."

Nov. 4

7 mo.

more in love.