Tuesday, March 31, 2009

"Taffy stuck and tongue tied..."

Brittany would rather count crows than listen to the Counting Crows, but I will always love them partly for sentimental reasons, partly just because I think they're awesome. Tonight my Pandora station played "Colorblind." Man, I haven't heard that song in so long. It brings back so many memories.

So friends, there's lots to say, but no organized way to say it. The only way I know how to get my point across sometimes is to leave you with impressions of how I'm feeling...and today has been full of emotion. Hmmm...am I making any sense?

First, how could something so adorable be so terribly evil?









we do not typically allow her to drink out of coffee cups.

Random interplaced thoughts:
I like the smell of crayons and Play-Doh.
Today has been a good music day...
"those baid-aid children chased your dog away..."
and this song, which i might add, inspired the title of this blog:

Latter Days

What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be. Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy. And I use these words pretty loosely. There's so much more to life than words.
There is a me you would not recognize, dear. Call it the shadow of myself. And if the music starts before I get there dance without me. You dance so gracefully. I really think I'll be o.k. They've taken their toll these latter days.

Nothin' like sleepin' on a bed of nails. Nothin' much here but our broken dreams. Ah, but baby if all else fails, nothin' is ever quite what it seems. And I'm dyin' inside to leave you with more than just cliches.
There is a me you would not recognize, dear. Call it the shadow of myself. And if the music starts before I get there dance without me. You dance so gracefully. I really think I'll be o.k. They've taken their toll these latter days.
But tell them it's real. Tell them it's really real. I just don't have much left to say. They've taken their toll these latter days. They've taken their toll these latter days.

--Over the Rhine

There's a creative endeavor in the making. Brittany talked about making a collaborative effort of my writing and her drawings. I am at liberty to fashion stories from the mud of my mind and she will, in turn, supplement acclectic, breath-taking aesthetic. That's the plan, at least. For some reason, images of Amelia Earhart and seashores are flashing through my head. I think we'll focus on women....OH B! if you read this...Anne Grinstead! Dang...and so the fun begins. Excited.

I'm taking a plunge into the unfamiliar waters of spirituality for my creative writing class. I find it hard to talk about spiritual matters in most of my classes where most of my classmates have been burned by the church or adamantly voice a clear disdain for any sort of religious adherence, but I'm doing it....and I like it. It's about time I'm honest with my readers. Right? I've been feeling like a liar in the past, you know? Like I'm hiding the most important part about myself. The ideas of "leaving" and "losing" are also playing a major role in my up-coming piece. Here are a few excerpts:

"Your feet are sinking into the pavement.
And I'm running faster down Parkway Dr. past the neighbors's tree.
Then I rest into a steady pace beside the old rubble of a house, long forgotten, and finally run beyond the last mailbox on the right before the road slopes vertically to the main strip of street that leads to surrounding cities. You're behind me somewhere....

That's why this morning when I go jogging and you go walking and you fall behind because you can't move so fast anymore, it feels like I'm gone already. And I focus on the rhythm of my shoes against the ancient world beneath the beating--the sound of going. The sound of leaving. Breathing. The pull, the push, the inahle one, two, three, four and the exhale one, two, three, four of it. The life, the death, the moving forward."

"I lived like a walking apology--on tiptoes and with eyes wide open, always looking over my shoulder..."

This is a good tree:


Blah, blah, blah. I just talk about myself a lot.
Despite my arrogance and self-indulgence, God remains constant and ever-so good.

Monday, March 30, 2009

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Aghgghghgh!
Frustrated.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

We measure our minutes in peppermints
and pencil shavings.



"You can only be a pirate if you have a patch and a parrot perched upon your shoulder."

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Thoughts on captivity

Sometimes I feel like a polar bear in a Florida zoo--out of place and misunderstood.




Extended thought not really related to the first: Maybe Christians are like polar bears born in zoos. (Of course all metaphors can fall apart at some point, but bear [bear! ha] with me). We are not of this world. We long for our true home, heaven.

Yes. Captive polar bears long for snow, ice and freezing water--things for which they were born to experience and Christians long for the Father and completion in His presence. This is assuming, of course, that my suppositions on the thoughts and longings of polar bears are correct. Maybe all humans, in our fallenness, are born with a sense of lack or longing? Maybe some just refuse to acknowledge it??

The other day I was having a conversation with God in the car and I was like, "God I need you more than air." And then my brain was like, "Lacey, do you really need God more than air? Really? I mean without air you die." Then I thought or God inspired, "Yes, of course you need air, Lacey, but who gives you that air? God. Bam. And God can take away that air at any time. And then when there's no air, there's death and what do you need not only in life, but most certainly in death? God, of course." So needless to say, God is the end all of all things. Thus, everyone needs him more than air, more than bread, more than anything else that seems overbearingly important at times. God trumps all my cards.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

don't you like when you're fleeing?

I'm a bit blue today and I don't know why.
Being down also makes me feel guilty for not being happy.
And that,
just makes things worse.
:(

Saturday, March 14, 2009

I was born to ramble

I was suprised by joy the other day when I snagged a hard-back copy of They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves at a cute little bookstore for five bucks. Lewis wrote this poem in memory of Greeves:

"That we may mark with wonder and chaste dread
At hour of noon, when, with our limbs outspread
Lazily in the whispering grass, we lie
to gaze out fully upon the windy sky--
Far, far away, and kindly, friend with friend,
To talk the old, old talk that has no end,
Roaming--without a name--without a chart--
The unknown garden of another's heart."

:)

Not the best poetry in the world, but I've felt especially blessed by friendship and comradery these past few weeks. So, this poem kind of hits home.

I also read a bumber sticker today on the back of a van that stated, "Somedays I just want to be a missing person." I can sympathize with that lately. Sometimes I get this sudden urge to run away from the impending uncertainty of my future. (I just imagined some lady throwing her hand to her forehead and fainting). I need to stop being so dramatic. God in is control. God is sovereign. God is good. God knows the plans He has for me. Fret not. Faint not. Oh dear.

We celebrated Pa Doug's (my dad's dad) birthday today. He turned 82 and he goes non-stop all the time. Literally, we had to meet early for dinner because Pa Doug had been invited to play at this bluegrass get-together thingy. I love it. I really hope if God chooses to bless me with old age that I'll be as energetic and full of life as he is.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

All Things New or All Things Old...

I had forgotten how much I love simple homeade sandwiches. Today I hung out with Cody and we made turkey sandwiches for lunch with fresh cut tomatoes and lettuce. He also shared his spicy barbecue chips and slightly frozen key lime pie. Yum. Cheap, fast, good. It also made me think of Sunday summer afternoons with my family. We'd leave church, run to the grocery, buy fresh bread, chips, and cookies and sit around the table for over an hour sometimes just munching and talking. Makes me miss my brother and who he used to be and reminds me that everyone and everything is changing. Dare I say I'm feeling nostalgic?

Spring break is at hand and I feel like it's simultaneously going slow and fast at the same time. If I'm completely honest, I'm restless, bored, and un-motivated. Why didn't I plan to travel somewhere? I wish I could just pack my suitcase, right now, and go somewhere far, far away from here. I mean far. I've been playing Over the Rhine's "Suitcase." The lyrics don't really match what I'm feeling, but they make me think about leaving nonetheless...."What'cha doin' with a suitcase? Trying to hit the ground with both feet running...? Stealing away on a sunny day." Hmmmmmm. Anywhere but here.

It's been a year since I've watched the Beatrix Potter movie and I'm fighting a big urge to buy it and watch it again.

I watched Changeling last night with a new friend from work and I liked it. It was about three hours long and I wanted to scream out of frustration the whole time, but it was powerful and had a lot to say about women's rights and struggles in the twenty's and the corruption of the law enforcement system at the time.

I met with the jail book club tonight. One woman broke down right there in the room. :( Everytime I leave those grey walls and locked doors I breathe a little deeper remembering what it means to be free to choose what I eat, where I go, when I wake up every morning. There are some major inequality issues between men and women in some prisons/jails. I'm thinking of ways I can help to change it.

Nana sliced three of my fingers today. jerk.







Sunday, March 8, 2009

all things considered

Buffy, our family dog of fifteen years, may be on the down hill slope of health. As of yesterday, she couldn't move the lower part of her body and she's been rather fragile the past year or so anyway. Almost two years ago Buffy lost one of her front legs to a tumor earning her the infamous nicknames "Tripod" and "I-Lean." She struggles with arthritis and is almost completely blind and deaf. It breaks my heart, but I know she's an old dog and she's had a good life.

Phrases from the past week that I don't want to forget:

"For the love of the flu."
"I am the soil."
"Eeep."
"I got my swim trunks. I got my flippy floppies."

Hmm.

By Friday the 20th I will have read over 250 student submissions or at least that's the plan. If I succeed, I'll automatically be an editor for the school publication, Zephyrus.

Last year at this time, I was in L.A. with Miss B; this fact depresses me slightly.

God is good. I am not. That is all.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Alright, alright.

So I got some stories and I be laying them down right here on this page. ah. i am so not gangster.

I know this looks insanely long, but READ it. Some parts are funny/entertaining, I hope. :)

anyway.

so my friend jason at the tutor lab is in a wheelchair ( i do not define him by that disability...i hardly even remember that he has one but it's essential to the story) and yesterday morning we were all sitting around with nothing to do. he started clanking the front metal part of his chair into the tables and saying in a very serious, meditative tone, "Sanctuary. Sanctuary." so, all day today when things got really quiet I would take a pen or some other object and hit under the table and make that really funny bell tone. It's not that great of a story, I understand, but it has really made my day and it made me laugh a lot--So much yesterday that I almost blew hot chocolate out my nose. It was really just snot but that makes the story sound so much better.

On that note, I have been extremely gross to be around the past week or so given the illness that took over my unwilling body. Ah...dramatic, I know, but that's how it felt. Anyway, all weekend I was with these really cool, trendy high school girls and I kept having to blow my nose because I couldn't talk or breathe otherwise and I know that it grossed them the crap out. They were probably all thinking, "Dang. This frumpy, frizzy college girl needs to get her gross, sick butt home and take some fashion lessons." they even somewhat insisted on straightening my hair Sunday. I felt like Mia from the Princess Diaries or one of those awfully dressed people from "What Not to Wear" or something like that. They were all crowding around me and saying things like, "Yeah...you look totally different now," and "Yeah, you should really wear those glasses today. Girl, we're gonna' get you some digits." I'm not even joking. I think I developed a slight complex...:( Maybe I'm just not aware of my self-presentation. Maybe I just don't care.

Back to the tutoring lounge.

So this girl needed help with math the other day and I sit down beside her, let out a big yawn, and ask her what wants to go over. When I look to my side she's staring down at her homework assignment. So, I naturally look down and realize that I have yawn spattered all over her papers. OMG. I didn't know what to say. So I go, "Did I do that?" Of course, I totally knew that I had at that point, but what else am I supposed to say? She looks up and solemnly nods her head. OMG. I'm so emabarrassed at this point. I take my sleeve and hurredly wipe off her papers. "It'll dry....I am sooooo sorry. That's really gross." then I jump into an explanation of fractions and hope that she gets so caught up in numbers that she forgets all about it. Ah. The horror.



Tangent:

Here are some quotes from the literature that was given to me for the weekend. I personally feel as if they're theologically skewed in very serious ways. So I'm listing them here and if anyone has thoughts on them, please share.

"Satan won't tempt you with something that you know to be clearly wrong, because he knows the you won't give in to it."

False. I think most Christians know when they're committing sin.

"When you are lukewarm, it affects no only your life, but also all the lives around you. Suppose you have two or three friends who are lost, and they see your lukewarm lifestyle this year. You may prevent them from ever entering the kingdom of heaven and coming to know Jesus Christ as Savior. Well, perhaps there are two or three next year, and two or three the next. The result after years and years of living a mediocre Christian life will be that you have caused many to fall away from Jesus Christ. But if you had lived a cold Christian life and didn't even profess to be something that you were not, only you would suffer the consequences."

I understand the importance of Christians leading lives that follow the standards that Christ gives, but I think this quote is placing WAY too much importance on the individual. God does the calling, not our actions. Plus, I've never seen anyone come to Christ based off of human actions. True salvation comes through hearing the Word/Truth. Right? Thoughts?
I mean, I know Jesus served people physically a lot of the time before he helped them spiritually (although the two are obviously connnected...you get my point) but I think this is a different matter, entirely.

"You are always either drawing others toward God or causing them to fall away."

This just seems so weird to me.

And because I have feminist tendencies and get fired up really easily:

"By the way, did you know that there is only one way a young lady can dress to draw others to God? She must dress to accent her eyes and expression. Any other way, such as tight tops, or short shorts does nothing but push others away from God. She becomes a stumbling block."

Don't get me wrong; I love modesty and understand why Christian women should practice that, but the implications of this passage are limitless. It sounds like the author might acutally support modern-day abayas. Really, was this comment necessary? And I feel like all of these excerpts place way too much blame/guilt on the person acting out these things. What about the choice of the other person? does that makes sense? Am I wrong? I don't know. It just confused/angered me. I talked to a good friend about it and he's actually having the leader of the weekend write the publisher about some of the issues. Kind of cool.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

oh my goodness.
oh my goodness.
there's a movie with a character that says that. Hmmm?

anyway.
oh my goodness. what a weekend.
I thought I might die friday.
And I shared the Good News Gospel of Jesus all freakin' weekend long.
And!
The word "propitiation" played a very important role in an intense game (the name surpasses me) of questions/chair nabbing. Doesn't get much better than that, friends.

Oh boy. fun stuff.

more later, maybe.