and this is what i was....

'do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. and that is what some of you were. BUT you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.' (1 corinthians 6:10-11 - emphasis mine)

mercy, Lord...what mercy.

the 99 'most important' questions (courtesy of this guy's site

1. dark or light chocolate? dark
2. sunrise or sunset? sunset
3. black ink or blue ink? black
4. CDs or records? CDs
5. ballpoint or roller? roller, if it's a good one.
6. digital watches or traditional? traditional
7. fish or steak? BEEF, it's what's for dinner.
8. French or Italian? hmm....this is a toughie. italian.
9. bar soap or liquid? liquid for hands, bar for the shower.
10. vanilla or chocolate? vanilla with chocolate in it.
11. Muldar or Scully? i wasn't an x-files fan, but i'm going for scully.
12. black and white or color? for photos, b&w; for movies, color
13. Coca Cola or Ginger Ale? coke is it.
14. long or short fingernails? for men, short; for women, medium length
15. Mick or Keith? um...neither. they both skeev me out.
16. typewritten or handwritten? handwritten
17. lights on or off? on (i'm sure this question has deeper meaning, but i'm choosing the surface answer)
18. coffee or tea? tea
19. Rodan or Godzilla? eh?
20. cotton or silk underwear? cotton
21. black or white? both
22. glasses or contacts? glasses
23. morning or evening? morning
24. cats or dogs? cats
25. Bogart or Bacall? seriously, who cares about this?
26. dessert first or last? last
27. leather or wool? depends on the object. for a coat, wool, but there is nothing like the smell of good leather....:)
28. Doberman Pinscher or bulldog? yellow lab:)
29. rain or snow? rain
30. meat sauce or marinara? meat
31. John or Paul? paul
32. ice cream or sherbet? ice cream
33. Casablanca or The Third Man? i've never seen 'the third man' and 'casablanca' wasn't that great of a film.
34. peanuts or cashews? cashews
35. Boy George or Curious George? curious george
36. taste or smell? you can't have taste without smell
37. sooner or later? depends....some things are worth waiting for:)
38. trains or planes? trains
39. cut grass or woodsmoke? cut grass
40. lipstick or chapstick? chapstick
41. Frankenstein or Dracula? frankly, neither, but i guess dracula if i have to choose
42. khakis or jeans? hmm. it's a toss-up.
43. paperback or hardcover? hardcover
44. steam or sauna? isn't a sauna a steam room? i'm not feeling that. i prefer being in water.
45. video or TV? dvd all the way
46. subway or bus? subway
47. bath or shower? i like baths, but i still shower at the end of them
48. New York or LA? new york
49. e-mail or snail mail? snail mail
50. portraits or landscapes? landscapes
51. big mouth or big eyes? big eyes
52. books or movies? books
53. neat or comfortable? comfortable, which also involves some neatness
54. summer or winter? autumn
55. mountains or beach? mountains and ocean
56. silence or noise? silence
57. pants or skirts? pants
58. music or silence? music
59. you and I or me and you? you and i
60. long or short hair? long
61. perfume or perspiration? perfume, but only some kinds
62. comedy or horror? comedy
63. jam or butter? both:)
64. velvet or silk? silk
65. country or city? country
66. Persian carpets or hardwood floor? hardwood floor
67. cake or pie? pie
68. Monroe or Madonna? neither interests me.
69. wool or cashmere? cashmere
70. regular or premium? regular
71. boxers or briefs? boxer-briefs
72. garters or pantyhose? neither
73. car or motorcycle? car
74. bagels or toast? bagel
75. Hitchcock or Poirot? hmm....i like them both. i loved poirot as a child:)
76. red wine or white wine? red
77. beard or smooth? smooth
78. sail or swim? go swimming and then for a sail:)
79. modern or antique? if we're talking furniture, some of both. appliances, modern.
80. grass or sand? grass
81. movies or films? films
82. lemon or lime? lemon
83. bed or couch? bed
84. stockings or bare skin? bare skin
85. inside or outside? inside looking out
86. opera or rock 'n roll? jazz
87. sneakers or boots? sneakers
88. London or Paris? paris
89. flats or pumps? flats or chunky heels
90. pencil or pen? pen
91. crosswords or editorials? crosswords
92. cinnamon or spearmint gum? cinnamon
93. Old Star Trek or Star Trek, The Next Generation? ask michael:)
94. tent or hotel room? hotel!!
95. drip or espresso? espresso, but then make an event of it
96. rafting or boating? boating
97. elevator or stairs? elevator
98. convertible or sunroof? sunroof
99. love or lust? love

i'm fairly certain i do not have the words for this

if i could let you inside my brain, this would be so much easier, but i had a fantastic weekend. to the untrained eye, nothing 'earth-shattering' happened. i attended a conference in north carolina, ate some bbq, hung out with michael and my folks, and then came home. in my soul, however, things are different. i am different. my view of my life is...well....different.

i've known for awhile now that God has called me to minister to those who are struggling to know him but are held back by their hurts and fears. specifically, i feel led to reach out to those who are sexually broken. this would seem to include a lot of people - and it does - but i guess specifically, i have a heart for those who are struggling with homosexuality and/or the after-effects of sexual abuse. i know i haven't spoken very openly about a lot of my views thus far. perhaps times are going to be changing, because i do have things to say about these issues. and while my opinions are very strong, my beliefs are even stronger. and i do know one thing: God has all of this well in hand. not just my life, but the state of this country, and of all humanity. and there are those whose lives He has changed and rearranged - the once hardened hearts that have been broken by His cords of loving kindness. this includes people from every background, every experience, every nation, tribe, and tongue.

i'm so excited to see where in this puzzle i might fit. i'm looking into some opportunities to serve locally and am praying about where to go next. it's a daunting task, and much of the church doesn't want to deal with these specific issues head-on. but no matter, because i believe that God does, and in the end, He is the one whose opinion matters in all of this.

a lot of hatred has fueled a lot of hurt in this world, and there is a battle being waged even now. that hate may try its hardest to swallow all of humanity, but it is love that will triumph in the end. it is that love that drives me forward. love came here. love walked here. love lived and died and rose again.

love won out.

i have four words for you....

oh my heavenly goodness.

i have a weird scar on my hand

i'm not even sure why, but some little bump i had about 6 months ago never really healed, and it left behind it an even weirder bump. sometimes it fascinates me, and i wonder if, when i'm 80, it will still be there....

my grandmother's sister died last week, but i didn't get to go to the funeral, because i was completely exhausted by the new part-time job i'm doing. i had been up basically all night on thursday, and i realized something: i am FAR too old for this kind of behavior. gone are the days when i could stay up until the wee hours of the morning and then bounce back after one good night's rest. now, i feel groggy for a good three or four days on end. i'm recovering even still....

and in other news, i've joined a book club with salimah and some other friends. our first book looks to be a good one, and amazon should be bringing it my way any day now....

in other, OTHER news, i scored some fun stuffs at target yesterday for my upcoming birthday festivities, and i am looking forward to sleeping tonight.

and now, as randomly as i have come, i'm out....

countdown

exactly one month from today, i will turn 29. i will warn you (a.k.a., the 5 people who actually read my blog) that it's likely all retrospectives and reminiscences from here....

if you had told me then, i would not have believed you....

about once a week, in a random moment, i find myself reviewing the geography of my life over the last five years. like, for instance, how in may of '99, i was SO over this town. it seemed fortuitous, then, that salimah and i, after both feeling led to move to gaithersburg to become part of a church, packed up all our belongings and left baltimore (i thought, perhaps, for good). and then, by summer of that same year, how i had already started to feel the pit in the center of my stomach, fearing a bad decision had been made. but in my stubbornness, i refused to believe this and pushed forward with my dream of fitting in at this place and finding a husband there and settling down with our children for the rest of our lives.

and how i was some degree of unemployed for months on end. and how we had no food in the cabinets and how it was a LITERAL miracle that my bills got paid.

and how, even after two full years of trying to make things work - even after getting decent jobs and a better place to live - everything still felt wrong.

and so, after three years of what now to me feels like exile, we returned to charm city (whether or not for good, who knows). and my lungs opened up and let me breathe again.

it is no wonder to me that every time i drive back into monty county, i begin to feel a kind of sick washing over me. it is not that i regret leaving baltimore the first time. i think that, ultimately, it had to happen for a LOT of other things to be brought about in my life. and for that, i am immeasurably grateful. but still, if i am being honest, i will admit that there are a lot of experiences that i had down there that i would, if i could, take back and erase from my memory. and in my heart, i do not ever want to live there again.

but today, i will drive there with salimah to meet up with two of the small handful of pleasant memories that came out of that experience. and then later, i will return to the one home i really feel i have at this point. and i don't just mean my apartment. my life is here. my heart is here. even in uncertainty, i want to be here. at least for now....

dirge

i could not extract myself from the hot shower just now. i mean, really, i tried, but it kept pulling me back into its comfort. it is the only place these days where i feel i can think clearly. everything occurs to me in that little 'room' of walls and glass. i pray. He speaks. i listen. i feel....

and so it was that, under that river of clean, i began to think about death and how its occurence is necessary for anything to truly live. i find it so beautiful and fitting that it is the decay of mulch and fertilizer that produces such radiant flowers, vegetables, and other growing things....the sacrifice now that yields the beauty then.

and, in a way, it is the dying of our child-selves that makes room for the emergence of who we are as grown people. but it isn't as though we become something wholly new. there are still shadows of our 'former' selves lingering around, waiting for an opportune moment to peek in and remind us of the place from which we came.

it occurs to me that not everyone experiences this death in the same way. some people have such a gradual progression into adulthood that the transition is seamless and without effect. others have age and experience thrust upon them and they are left to grieve and mourn the loss of innocence taken too soon. some people are living with one foot in either world at all times.

as for me, i don't know that i was ever really that young....i mean, i know i was, but i have felt the weight of anxiety and typically 'adult' concerns pressing into my heart since i was probably 4 or 5 years of age. and now, as an almost 30-year old, i live in a world that i'm desiring to see through those young eyes...to gain the perspective that was never mine to lose.

when i came to know Christ, there were parts of me that experienced immediate finality...a new life had been birthed inside my soul, and it was necessary for some ways and thoughts to die in order to make room for what had begun. God, i feel that i need a refresher course in dying. i want to see what you see. i want to live wholly and without regret. i want to be pushed deep into the earth, only to return renewed and more beautiful than before.

so bring on the mourners; it's funeral time....

'she's got her ticket...i think she gonna use it...think she goin' to fly away....'

when i was a little girl, the world and all of my wishes stretched out in front of me like some kind of sears & roebuck catalog; anything, it seemed, was possible...available to me. as the years have progressed, very few of my childhood dreams have come to pass and, as a result, i wound up spending my early 20s rationalizing to avoid disappointment and talking about 'some day' with this vague hope that perhaps i would have a few of the things for which i hoped (maybe even by the time i was 30?).

well, i'll be 29 soon, and i've made a decision: this IS 'some day.' i'm tired to death of talking about how things will be when i have enough money or when i'm ready or when you're ready or whatever. i'm tired of maybe i will and won't it be nice when. i'm ready for it today. i'm ready for it now.

and just to be clear: i'm not talking about impatience. i'm talking about living; i'm talking about fishing or cutting bait. i know what it's like to remain ever in the realm of the theoretical. and i'm over that.

the verdict: either get on board with what is true and let's sink our teeth into this adventure, no turning back, or get me off this train. i'm not going down this track.

not now.

not anymore.

all i want

is to relax and feel the cool sheets on my toes and hear the fan swirl and churn the air.

is for my stomach to stop hurting and work correctly, please!

is to know that you're thinking about me tonight.

is You.

'i could while away the hours....'

while all the permanent employees on my team are in the midst of company meetings to discuss their bonuses, i'm sitting here at my desk feeling annoyed and wishing i could bust up outta here right about now. i found some jobs for which i'm going to apply, and i will admit that the prospect of something bigger and better is exciting me to the point of distraction. we'll see what happens....

my stomach is churning from nothing but some goldfish crackers for the last 24 hours. why do i do this to myself? note to me: eat dinner tonight, please!

i procured a hand-me-down entertainment center from my friend karenina this weekend. it's shorter than the stand i had my tv on before, so it has created some intimacy in my living room. very nice and understated. fits my components well.

in other news, i'm wanting to sort through some of my stuff and get rid of it. i do that once every few years, and though i wasn't due for a session anytime soon, salimah has inspired me and now i must expel. delete. expunge. you get the point.

i'll tell you what i'd rather be doing right about now: anything. no, not anything. i'll have a comfy chair (with ottoman), a lovely beverage, a favorite person, and a quiet place to rest. yes, that'll do me just fine....

let's recap, shall we?

so yesterday, i got to leave work early, since i had finished all my weekly hours by noon. after departing the office, i drove over to this little shack for some nachos (at the recommendation of karenina) and then headed home to feast and watch some t.v.. i also had a nap in the works, after i watched oprah interview the friends, of course....

about 2 minutes into my slumber (i had dozed off during oprah), i was awakened by the news breaking into the show. they announced that 5 or 6 people had just been shot at a nearby high school and that the shooters were on the loose. i immediately snapped to, only to find that they had headed towards where i lived. within moments, i heard low-flying helicopters and began to realize that the place the suspects had ditched their vehicle was about 1 minute from my apartment.

the phone rang. it was my coworker, who also lives in this area. a few minutes later, i learned on the news that they had apprehended a possible suspect at this clothing store. hmm....why do i know that sign? i thought to myself....a few seconds later it dawns on me: the store is LITERALLY RIGHT UP THE STREET. if i walked out the front door of my building, i could practically see it. needless to say, this did not make me feel very happy.

so, as of this morning, i believe they have some people in custody. frankly, i'm not 100% sure of the latest, because after awhile yesterday, i forced myself to shut off the t.v. and stop thinking about the fact that there was a killer potentially hiding out in my neighborhood.

more importantly, i hope those students are going to be okay....

s'wonderful

i have had such a pleasant 24 hours! yesterday, i did manage to vacuum after all, and i got all but one load of my laundry done before shona arrived around 4:30. i made a marinated chicken parmigiana with sherried mushrooms and spinach for dinner and then we watched 'a beautiful mind' and later had pecan chocolate chip cookies (break and bake all the way!) and milk.

this morning, i arose without my alarm at 7:30, showered, and had some oatmeal while working in the quiet of my dining room. my new red curtains are the best, by the way. they make me very happy:).

after shona woke up and showered, we went to toys-r-us to buy some baby shower presents for a friend and then she took me to lunch, which was delish. while there, i also bought some 9-grain bread and 2 croissants. afterwards, we were off to buy fun girl stuff and i managed to get several foot-soothing and softening products. must ready the tootsies for summer shoes!

so now i'm back home and feeling accomplished and i think i'll have a bit of a nap, do some more editing, watch the food network and then later have some leftovers for dinner.

i'm so thankful to God to have such wonderful friends with whom i can spend such relaxing times. i'm almost feeling ready to go back to work tomorrow....

*ahem*

okay, sorry...let's not get ahead of ourselves here!

dust in the wind....

i have not vacuumed in weeks and it is starting to get unbearable in here. i tried dusting my bedroom furniture earlier and it nearly sent me into a sneeze attack. i'm running laundry and editing and thinking about running my dirt devil all around this place, but if i'm being honest, i'm not in the mood.

the good news is that my friend shona is coming to visit me today and i'm wearing a red kerchief and the breeze is blowing and i'm thinking of days gone by and clothes lines and bike rides and strawberries and laughter and tall grass and afternoons like this....

i close my eyes
only for a moment, then the moment's gone.
all my dreams
pass before my eyes, a curiosity.
dust in the wind...
all they are is dust in the wind.

home improvement

i am seeking out more of a sense of 'home' for myself. i feel that i've existed too long without much in the way of decoration in the places i've lived (other than art on the walls). so i am devising a plan to bring fun and ambiance into my apartment. as of tuesday evening, i now have RED curtains hanging in my dining room....i hung them up myself:). next, i may look into painting my bedroom (perhaps red and taupe?) and rearranging my furniture a bit. but at the very least, i hope to purchase curtains for that room (and maybe my office will get a shabby chic look) and create a reading area for myself so that i actually spend time in my bedroom doing activities other than sleeping:).

anyone have any fun ideas for decorating your place without spending the big bucks?? i'm taking suggestions....

the beginning of the end

well, in approximately 8 weeks, there will be resolution of my work woes: i will no longer be employed at my company. i found out today that, at the end of may, i can no longer work full-time hours. i will be cut back to 20 hours a week and then, at the end of june (should i decide to stay that long), i will be out of a job.

my boss took me into the conference room to deliver this news, and i can honestly say that it was much harder on her than on me. to be honest, i've been preparing myself for this for about 6 months now. frankly, i'm kind of over it.

besides which (and i told her as much), i know that if i'm not working there anymore, it's because the time is over for such things. and i'm placing my trust in God, because He's the only One who's kept me afloat all this time. and i really feel mostly calm about it....but i also don't feel calm. i'm fine and yet not fine.

Lord, please open a new door. a wider door. a door leading to better places than where this road is currently headed. i know you can do this.

if not You, then no one.

what they don't know....

i'm performing clandestine blogging maneuvers while here at my job. speaking of which, people are getting hired left and right, but not me. honestly, between that and the fact that i don't qualify for a bonus (since i'm not permanent) even though i've been here nearly a year, i'm feeling rather poo about my work life just now.

last night i wrote the first poem i've penned in ages. who can predict when the mood will strike? apparently tuesday at midnight is a good time for my creative juices to get all floetic and what-not, so i had to forego sleep in favor of something more higher-roadish. my puffy eyes and dragging butt this morning would beg to differ....

i have just started a monsta of a course - first grade reading & writing. i may go blind before this is all over. but for now, a respite, a few words thrown out into the void.

hello, dear void. is anyone listening??

exchange of goods

feeling bummed about my lack of music-playing abilities in my house, yesterday, i got a great deal on this. it doubles as a dvd player/stereo system (has a radio and a 5-disc changer) and the sound coming off of it is quite good for my needs. anyway, salimah, who has been wanting a dvd player, will get the one i had (only a year old) and can start adding to her dvd collection in her new place.

now i can rescue all my cds from their exile in travel sleeves and put them on display. let the listening begin!

post resurrection musings

well, i was sick all weekend. it was seriously the dreariest easter i've had in awhile, but even in the midst of a lot of stomach pain and seriously wet weather, i experienced joy and was able to focus my mind and heart on worshipping God in all His majesty. 'the passion' was an overwhelming but completely worthwhile experience - both cinematic and spiritual - and i am grateful to God for the very large-scale reminder of His inestimable love.

i'm starting to feel better (finally!) and am just taking in the ability to eat again. now if the stomach cramps would just cease....

nevertheless, the Lord is so good to me. as always, there is a breakthrough of sun after the downpour.

and what the rain yields will be just lovely....

i have nothing else to say but this....

when i survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died,
my richest gain i count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

forbid it, Lord, that i should boast,
save in the death of Christ my God!
all the vain things that charm me most,
i sacrifice them to His blood.

see from His head, His hands, His feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down!
did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
spreads o’er His body on the tree;
then i am dead to all the globe,
and all the globe is dead to me.

were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

--isaac watts