i wish you all

liked him. knew him. anything close to either of those would be nice, you know. it saddens me to hear your opinions based on thirty-eight second conversations about nothing. especially if you were antagonizing him. then you say "as an adult he should be well equipped to overcome such statements" thats not a particularly adult thing to say either. how can you be so quick to judge? why don't you trust my judgment even? you know i'm smart, and i don't just go on whims-most of the time. and if this were on a whim, don't you think it would be over by now?

are you sure you're not just being selfish? wanting me back and laying your opinions out there over and over again about how there is nothing out here for me, and everything for me over there? i have the right to make my own life decisions, and i should have the support of my friends. its not sin, so why do you relay it back to me in a way to make it sound like i'm being childish and wasting my life? i don't do that to you, any of you. you do what you want, and i support you in it because i believe your desires are important and valid, even if i wouldn't choose them for myself or don't understand them. you should be happy for me, instead you just make me feel bad, sometimes even guilty, but i am NOT guilty of anything. man, so i don't have it all figured out, i'm not pursuing some snazzy degree, making money, with some millionaire/lead guitarist or whatever you want. but i am learning how to function in the world, and how to say "enough" and discovering what i want and trying to make realistic goals of how to get there. i just want to love and please God, and be with someone who wants the same. i don't want to sit in portland the rest of my life and do nothing. i love it there, and i love you all, but i love God, and i love people and places, and architecture and history, and love. i want to travel and minister to people, show them the love of Christ, see where Christ was, get greater understanding and appreciation. i know i'm not doing a whole lot of that now, but God will make me bold, he will make me strong, he will make a way. God always gets his will.

the point is, i'm hurt that i don't have your support, all i have are your opinions, which don't line up with my own.

he is good to me, you know. he is a gentleman, he watches his mouth, walks me to my car, and is respectful of my body and purity. he steals my heart when he is protective of me and my reputation. he is so sweet, he tells me how he feels about me, tells me of my beauty, and even so, where my real worth comes from, or at least, who it comes from. he loves the Lord his God, and does all he knows to, to please and serve him. i can't tell you how much i admire that, it breaks my heart sometimes, because i don't often see that in people anymore. he wants to know God and God's truth so bad, it stirs me to be more passionate. sometimes he is strange, but all the more mysterious and enticing because of it. his mind works differently than mine. he has a wealth of information stored up, sometimes it leaks out and i learn, sometimes it eats at him and i am moved to compassion, sometimes it shows itself through his actions, so different from my own, and i begin to see certain things differently than i knew how before. true, sometimes he is awkward, sometimes aggravated, unhappy, cynical, sometimes he even needs alone time, ooooooooo its not the end of the world though, i can handle it, and if we have good communication and are open to one another still during those times, why are they bad? everyone has those feelings sometimes. don't pass judgment, it isn't fair, and much less is it accurate.

hoohaa

i love reading my old blogs. i think i've mellowed out a bit...and i'm not quite sure i like that, but maybe its just me "growing up"? nah, i think it's mostly just because i never write anything anymore. but guess who??? it's mine and jef's 6 month anniverser today!!!! i'm sure everyone is jumping up and down and wetting their pantalonies and all that, but hey, i'm excited, so don't be a poopsnack. i think my verymostfavorite quote from my past blogs having to do with jef (out of those i read in the last 15 minutes) was "Ok. Enough of me being cynical, I need to see this how God sees it. So do you, before I kick you. Quit being so cynical. There is balance." and the rest of that paragraph from june of last year (towards the bottom). haha, i crack myself up. i miss my violent tendancies. im sure all of you do as well. hark ye, worry not, i shall strike again. i really don't have time for this right now. i am shaking my hiney off cause my roommate likes air conditioning. i mean, who in their right mind actually likes air conditioning in the middle of june no less. ps(h)ycos. i tell ya. and i have a daaaaaaaate tomorrow :D sho happy... and guess who with?? thats right, my squishmonkey :D i just made that one up. its quite sad really. i have been dreadfully uncreative in coming up for names for him. i think i was put off at one point years and years ago when he told me he was not attracted to his own cheeks, and due to this information, as badly as i wanted to, i stopped myself from calling him "sweetcheeks" and thus abruptly put an end to my creative abilities. until today MUUUAAAAHAHAHAHA! squishmonkey it is, and you know it not yet :P tomorrow you shall find out in public and slink your head back into your shirt like a turtle due to embarrassment. don't worry, its good for you. plus i'm sure you'll actually be relieved. i probably will too. well, for futures sake, so i remember my life: i currently live with melanie, and have since february, work at peets again to prove to myself and the world that in the buissness setting i am really not a "high risk individual" and despite my extreme lack of money (even after my newly found hobby of dumpster diving and discretely selling my treasures) i am off to the land of my youth for a week of delirium involving my whole family and lots of rahal as she prepares to be a wifey. i need sleep. the end. ps, nix that thing i said about "mellowing out" i definitely was right the second time.

$14.62 extra for me for no reason...or death.

Sooo, today was a bit odd. I woke up planning on going to water world with the fam, but at around noon I was informed that they were all leaving for Wyoming today instead of tomorrow. I changed, and I dried my hair and left a few hours later with no real plans other than spending my target gift card on toiletries and whatever else I could find, which for once happened to be nothing. I then searched high and low for a camera store for much longer than necessary, seeing as how Wolf Camera is right across the street from the Denver West Target. I got me a spendy little battery for my camera and took a whole entire one picture, can you believe it? Yeah. Well, I don't want to waste my film. Or something. Then I drove down Colfax looking for one of those odd Colorado car washes where you actually have to wash your own car, but I decided to be picky and only go to one on my side of the street. Oddly enough, all of the car washes were on the opposite side of the street, so after driving for about 25 minutes I finally decided to give in to the left side. Here is where my odd experience began. I knew I was in an undesirable part of town, so I sat in my car for a sec to oganize all of my stuff and get my dollars out to get changed into coins for the machine, when a man came up and knocked on my window. He was a middle aged man, and didn't look harmful, so I opened my door. My first thought was that he worked there and was going to tell me that certain bay wasn't working or something. Instead hepointed to his blazer and told me e was dead out of gas, his car wouldn't even start. He asked if I had any gas and of course I didn't so I said no but I offered to go get some. He took up my offer and as I went to get back in my car he shoved a twenty my way. I laughed and said "why don't I just go get a can of gas and you pay me when I get back?" He said, "no, just take it to pay for it" and we went back and forth like eight times and then I said " I don't want to take it because what if you're not here when I get back? What if someone else helps you, you don't want me just running with your mmoney..." But he assured me that he would be there when I got back, and told me that this was a very bad part of town and he was happy that I was so nice, and that he was sorry I had o be in this part of town for longer than I had planned. I went to a gas station and got me a can and a gallon of gas and arrived at the wash about ten minutes after I left to find nooooo trace of the man. I was really confused. I walked aroung a bit, and called a friend, and while I was on the phone saw a blazer stop on a side street for a sec...I am wondering if that was him seeing if I really had come back or not. I don't know whether to fear for my life cause he set me up for something, or to feel blessed by a random nice stranger in the equivelent of the bronx...

The rest of my day was fairly boring and I have a headache from watching tv for the last 3 hours. I am going to stop now.

My heart hurts. It seems like it should only be for one reason, but really I can't even begin to understand how many there really are. You are at the center of it though. Maybe that's not even true. Maybe I just want to think that. Maybe it's just that a majority of the reasons it hurts are somehow manifested in you. Maybe I'm making that up. Maybe you even make it up. Maybe we all make it up. I want truth. Tonight for some reason my lines got blurred, there wasn't even any one event that I would think to have that effect on me, but as I thought and tried to connect dots in my mind, it seemed the opposite thing happened. I thought I knew things about how the world works and why things are the way they are, and what is good and what is bad and how we could make things better, or how I could. I thought I knew what love was, or at least what caring was, and I even thought I was pretty good at it. I guess I am good at being a manipulative monster who controls people into what I think is the best for a person to make me feel better.

I wish we could just go home now, you're right, it's hard to be optomistic. Do I really do it all for myself? Kill me now. I thought I cared about people, I thought I cared about you. Is compassion bad? How can you love someone and not have compassion on them? Not want the best for thier life? Not want to help them and care for thier brokenness? What is love if having compassion is either looking down on them or some form of satisfying your own desire to be needed? I don't understand how to love. I don't understand what you would feel or where your heart would be if it is real love. The bible doesn't ever say love is a feeling though, come to think of it. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres. Love never fails. I don't particularly like how more than half of those are what love isn't. I don't want to know what it's not like, I want to know what it is. Is it not selfless to give of your time and heart and life to see another person see the heart of the Father in a new way? Why is that tainted? Can you ever even do anything that is not tainted? If we can't, then how is God ever going to have his way in any situation? I think I'd kill us too. It makes me sick thinking about it. If helping someone is just as tainted and Godless as hurting them, why even bother helping them? How can God use us, we are so vile.

What does God want, and what are we realistically capable of inside of ourselves ? I believe God for big picture stuff, but for some reason right now I can't believe in the purification of any one person. We can't live pure, right? I mean, sooner or later we are going to mess something up and taint whatever God wants to do through us. Why does he use us still, knowing we are going to somehow ruin what he is doing? Why are we all so broken? I used to think being broken without being fixed was a bad thing, but what is it to be poor in spirit? How long must you mourn before you are comforted? Is that a lifestyle? Is it the kind of lifestyle God wants? Why is the line between that and agreeing with the enemy so thin? I am going to look this stuff up in my concordance tomorrow but I am tired.

"Fortunate, receiving God's favor, good, happy and blessed are those who are of few resources, who are culturally considered oppressed, despised and miserable, who are not lacking in spirit but have the positive moral quality of humility, realizing they have nothing to offer God, but are in need of free gifts in their spirit, heart, mind and the immaterial part of the inner person that can respond to God, for theirs is the harmless rash of YAHWEH, the one true God who exsists and causes exsistance, whom they have personal or covenant relationship with who strengthens and builds a base and mast for them." Thats prettymuch what my concordance says for mt. 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Most of it makes sense, but I can't for the life of me find out what a "harmless rash" really means from the Hebrew. Webster says harmless means: "Not causing or incapable of causing harm. Not intended to harm or offend; inoffensive. Free from loss or legal liability. Not producing any toxic effects. Not threatening to life or health." Rash is: "Characterized by or resulting from ill-considered haste or boldness. Quick in producing a strong or marked effect." So apperently "kingdom" in this sense means to in a very hasty or bold way produce a strong marked effect not intended to and downright incapable of causing harm, offending, producing toxic effects, or threatening life or health. Hmm. I am having a hard time grasping this. so this is the kingdom...is the character of God the Kingdom? I am so confused as to how to put this together. It doesn't seem to fit there. If you are poor in spirit...you end up with this, the character of God because of his favor on you? hmm. Then I go back to the whole no one's capable of perfection thing and then it makes less sense then it already did.

Ok. Enough of me being cynical, I need to see this how God sees it. So do you, before I kick you. Quit being so cynical. There is balance. Of course we can't be perfect, and of course we can't do everything that God wants us to in the way that he wants all the time. That's why there is grace. We are capable of doing pure things, when we live in the new man it's not really us that live but him in us. Maybe we can't do it for long spurts of time, but like everything else, you get better as you practice. You can't just say that eventually you will screw something up and/or taint it and so just not try for it. For those few moments that you choose to walk in the new man God is changing others and He is changing you. It gets easier to stay there longer the more times you attempt it. I'm not done yet. I hope you read this.

Aneurysms and what Started Out as Dr. Seuss...

So I got two and a half hours of sleep last night. And I didn't shower today for the first time in like 4 months. Aren't you proud (I feel disgusting)? I saw the sunrise out my *picture* window...beautiful color the sky was...and then went to bed. Oddly enough, I wasn't tired most of the day today. I successfully drove small children to practices and games and gas stations without killing a-one. I suppose that's really horrible of me to make light of it. I am an irresponsible person and I have no idea why they continue to let me nurture their children. I suppose you don't have to be responsible to nurture though...so maybe it's not that odd. Child “B” had some fits today, they were quite hideous. They were messing around for like a half an hour and then I said "we are leaving in ten minutes" and child “B” asked, "are we coming back before my game?", which was conveniently 1 hour later than when we needed to drop child "A" off for his practice. I said "no", considering it takes us 20 minutes to get to each of the places we needed to go, aaaaaannd...he had a meltdown (he has recently become comfortable manifesting while I am in charge...he used to save it for his parents, but last week he resolved that I was worthy of his pandemonium and everlasting fire). Apparently it is immoral to put your soccer cleats on in the car, or at least it is utterly impossible.

*eww I deleted it*

It was a lot less charming and artsy than that thuur poem though. In times like those his whole head turns red, and he sabotages everything he possibly can. He screamed bloody murder till we got in the car, and then he blamed his brother for every little thing that ever went "wrong" in his life. And then I witnessed something I haven't ever before. They started hitting each other. Cat fight between the boys in the back seat. They don't even know how to fight...since they never do. I raised my voice. It didn't work. Then finally they stopped most of the rivalry, and I left well enough alone until child "A" safely exited the vehicle and we vacated the premises. Everything was dandy for a time. At child "B"'s game, I met another small child. A little girl. She was enthralled with me. She was about 3, her name was Miranda, and her favorite colors were "pink, bwuw, puwpwe, aaaand pink." We played roll (where we sit with our feet together and put all the soccer balls we can find in between and role them around eternally and will for absolutely no reason allow anyone who owns one of those balls to so much as look at it without severe disciplinary action) and we played restaurant, and crab fight...because all they had at the restaurant was crab, and they weren't boiled yet, and they liked to eat human hair. Mostly mine. And we played "don't cwap when aww da aduwts cwap becawse we awe to bizzy to pay attentun to da sawwcuh game" She was a little on the obsessed with world domination side, but cute none the less. She attached to my leg when I was about to leave, and wants a play date...or at least wants me to be her babysitter when I am not nic's babysitter, because she doesn't like "boys cawwd nic".

When we got home, child "B" had another melt down because of a computer game. I explained what an aneurysm is, and how it just isn't healthy to deal with his anger in such destructive ways. We discussed healthy alternatives, and he mellowed out a bit. The rest of the day was spent as their own personal theatric musical. Song and dance are never absent in our house.

Last night I lost four hundred and twenty brain cells. It was a sad, sad death, but I must move on. There were adverse affects on other areas of my body though. I don't know what I did to my left shoulder, but the closest assessment I can come up with is that I dislocated it some small degree. It hurt like a mom. I normally have right shoulder problems, but this was with the left, and it was poopy. It popped today though, and feels a bit better, but still not top-notch.

This is probably either the most boring post you've ever read or the most frighteningly freebased sounding post I have written...anyway, I am zonking out...sooo...that's my cue to go.

movies and books and games

So yesterday it hailed the size of nickel's--only sphere like--of course. That was interesting. It was probably the most eventful thing that happened in like 2 or 3 days. Actually that's not true. I watched American History X for the first time the other day. I am undecided as to how I feel about it. It is an intense movie, but I think some of the acting was a little lame, and I found there to be a lack of sufficient plot/background for certain events that occurred. Mostly the end. Daniel never touched the guy as far as I knew, so I don't get why he shot him. In school none the less. It's not like the black kid could get away and enjoy his life without Daniel or anything, he had to go to jail cause how the crap would you kill a kid in a school bathroom with one way out and not get caught immediately? Anyway, I don't know how to describe how I feel about it other than it was intense and sadly true in certain areas and I guess I liked it.

I am reading Brave New World atm (rahal I hope you're proud) and it is interesting as well. I'm only in chapter 4, and I'm sad to admit (but I'll do it anyway just to spite my pride) that there have already been like 20 words that I have no clue what they mean. I started a list, and I'ma look them up so I can get smart somehow ;) That guy cracks me up. I also just finished Captivating. I think that is the first book I have read all the way through since like 10th grade...how sad is that. I just get bored towards the middle of books, I don't know why. I think I have ADHD. I think I just never noticed it before cause I was around all you Portland crazies =P Hopefully I can read BNW all the way through too, cause I am getting tired of this getting dumber crap. Then I need to read like Fahrenheit 451 or East of Eden or something that everyone should have read by my age already. Maybe it's not to late to grow a brain. Maybe I won't need kid sized sunglasses anymore.

Ok, so toooooodaaaaay...guess what I get to do??? I am going to the "16th st. Mall" downtown, which isn't really a mall for those of you in Portland who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's just a street...with free buses and restaurants and crap. Anyway, you wanna know why I'ma go there? Cause I'm going to play capture the flag for like 2 hours with 400 people!!!!!! YEAH!!! That will probably be the most fun thing I have done here thus far. Hopefully we don't get rained all upons, but even if we do it will just remind me more of home. Well, that doesn't start for like two and a half hours, but I'm gonna leave now anyway cause I need to buy shampoo before I start to stink. Cheer me ON!

heh, woops.

Oh man. I crack myself up. So now I just got done reading aaaaaall of my blogs at 2:30 in the morn-hing...and I am still bright tailed and bushy eyed cause last night I was up listening to political ramblings till about this same hour at the "Xavier house". There should be one of those in Portland. I shuppose the closest thing would be the Mullet's, save that house is all upons the girls, and this one is all upons the guys. There is a mysterious character who lives in the basement though. I am told it is a "he," but his name is Dee (which seems unprecedentedly suspiciously feminine to me) and I have yet to have a run-in with this illusive fellow.

Yeah, so anyway, there really were two points to this blog. Numero Uno was that uh...yeah...if you haven't read my blogs, or it's just been a while, it would without a doubt heighten your spirits to a soaring altitude and let you in on the death-defying dullness that is my life. If you are looking for a laugh, I guarantee at least one and three quarters, but if I said any more, I might be overestimating because there is an overwhelming chance that the only reason I find them funny is because I wrote them. I would, however, greatly appreciate it if you arvadians and denverites and littletonians and whonots and blue fish and red fish and anyone else cat in the hat like would read just sos you can get some background on the newly transplanted moi. If you don't care to know anything about me, then feel free to skip the blogs ;)

Numero Dos (or however you spell it) is that...uh...yeah...I was wrong. Frighteningly wrong. Disturbingly wrong. Violently wrong almost. It disturbs me. It makes me feel like I never observed the city I dwelt in for my whole life, save the last 4 months. My dog is snoring vigorously. But that is a side thought. The point is, the Denver metroplex is actually only 300,000 people larger than Portland metro area. I was informed earlier tonight that Portland is roughly two million people, and Denver is roughly two million three hundred thousand people. This information baffled me. I had no idea. I could have sworn that Denver was at least twice the size of Portland. I obviously have very poor perception of things, and for that I am truly sorry. Merry May Day two days ago to all, and to all a good night.