Too tired to think, really, but here's a list:

1. i love the word "marmalade."

2. we got the apartment in Louisville and that means the move is official. That also means that when I get back into town, I have one week to pack, clean and transport all of my junk to a new city. Ahhh. Freak out.

3. I'm scared and emotional.

4. My cousin and his wife took me out for lunch today as a late graduation gift and treated me to fresh sushi. It's only my second time to eat the raw stuff, but I'm absolutely hooked. Soooo good.

5. Still trying to finish Harry Potter IV

6. My brother has a girlfriend. Weird. Today, he talked to her for a good hour and then when they finally ended the conversation, he started texting her. Ridiculous. Ahh...the fruits of young affection.

7. I think that's all.

8. Oh! I graduated! Praise Jesus! And my parents threw me a surprise Graduation Party. Awesome. I felt so blessed and loved this weekend by my beautiful family and friends.

Ode to Seam Rippers and Invisible Zippers:

I hate you.





I spent five and a half hours in the sewing lab today, four of which were filled with the oh-so-original and elegant lyrics/tunes of country music. Doesn't get much better than that.


On a brigher note, I think we decided on a place to live. 1455 S. 2nd. Street, I hope you're ready for a little Bowling Green flavor. :)

And then there was sun...

beautiful, bright, and yellow sun.
And the swell of spring and possibility
made breathing a little easier--
a little lighter
if only for awhile.

I met with the book club a few nights ago and discussed Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale. The "tale" is nothing short of disturbing. In the book, a religious sect establishes a community of fear, entrapment, and hopelessness. The main character, whose name is never mentioned, a fact that strongly reinforces the degradation she has recieved in society, often struggles not only with her environment and unfortunate situation, but also with the danger of her own will. Atwood is also commenting largely on gender roles and political power. I still don't have it all figured out in my head, but I can give the author props for her storytelling. The work is saturated with imagery, symbolism and goregous language. In fact, (this won't give too much away) the women in the book are acutally denied the right to read. Atwood's ability to excercise her impressive vocabulary is ironic in light of the limitations of her characters. Favorite passage:

What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your skin like a map, a diagram of futility, crisscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be. (143)

I think maybe a balance has to be accomplished between wishing for future perspective and living in the moment. We don't know what God has planned, but to never anticipate or prepare for anything would probably make us all incredibly idle. Or maybe it would make us all incredibly reliant on the Him...'tis a mystery. That's something that's been difficult lately. Lord, what do you want? When we don't know....I guess we just take a leap...

maybe??

Letter to a Friend

Dearest Harry,

I feel the urgent need to extend my deepest condolences for shamefully neglecting you. With graduation and a move on the horizon, the past few months have felt rather like a blur. Not to mention, I've been preoccupied with, shall I say, more scholarly endeavors. You know, papers, tests, and the like. Your adventures at Hogwarts and the Quidditch World Cup took a prolonged back-burner position in my life, and for that I am...terribly...sorry. I do hope you will accept my apology. I promise to resume reading with relentless fervor.

Yours truly,
Lacey

P.S. I do hope Draco Malfoy grows a sense of humor, poor chap!

Thing I hate most about running: Wedgies!

Mere mortal ponderings

Just finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. The material is absolutely heart-breaking. The non-fiction piece investigates the year following the sudden death of her husband, John. Much of the book consists of Didion working things out in her own head. The reader comes to face to face with a very personal grief process. Although the book is focused solely on death, mourning, and how individuals deal with both, her writing is beautiful throughout. The following is perhaps the most poignant and tragic section of exposition in the whole text:

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes....Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaningless itself. (189)

After reading passages such as this, I have no choice but to cling to I Thessalonians 4:13: "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep."

I don't think our grief is diminished as Christians, but in the midst of loss we're reminded that God has promised eternal salvation and glory for those who love Him. We're more than friends, siblings, daughters, sons, husbands and wives; we're children of the living God. Our hope is in His promises. This world is passing away and so are our fragile bodies. Despite knowing these things and perhaps repeating them for comfort in times of tribulation, we will still encounter pain, loss, the death of loved ones, and eventually our own peronsal unravelings. We are in fact incredibly and undeniably, human. Even C.S. Lewis after the loss of his wife makes it very clear, that as followers of Christ, death can shake our faith tremendously and make us question the very foundations of the world.

Didion mentions Lewis at least twice in her work...

I'm currently in love with the first chapter of Colossians, particularly 1:15-20.

mondays and migraines.

Most of the time moving seems like a great idea, the only idea, really. I can't stay here. But at times, I think about the moments when the new of everything will wear away. I know it's going to hurt...bad. I know I'll cry...a lot. But, this is what I have to do. I love my family, so much. I can't even mention boxes to my mom without her getting teary-eyed. I don't want to hurt them and I don't think they understand. It's not about them. If I could, I'd pack them up and take them with me. :) Maybe. That might be a little weird. Anyway. I will miss them and all of the others that are so dear. God give me strength.

I feel like there's so much to blog about, but I think my really long blogs are annoying. so, i'm trying to keep it short.