iPod iBlog iGo

it should be classified as an obsession, but given the fact that it's only lasted a few days i am glad that the fever will pass. what fever is that you wonder? the one that has kept me up till at least 1:30am the last few nights. loading my new iPod. it is a terribly tedious process converting all my existing files and then ripping album after album from their scratched plastic discs onto my now quite congested hard drive, only to wait for them to assimilate in thier shiny white new home. elmer. i named the iPod elmer. i don't know why exactly except that when i went to name it as i was promted by the installation process to do calling it ''julie's iPod'' just wouldn't do at all, and elmer was the obvious alternative. so elmer it is.

elmer and i will be leaving in 8 hrs (yes, i will try to sleep, shower, eat and drive to the airport in that time) for Toronto together. the company during my 12+ expected hours of traveling will be a delight, though it will only put the smallest mark of a thought of a dent in the ''earning it's worth'' required to equal the bucks shelled out for this my newest of technological aquisitions.

well that's enough prose for 1 o'clock in the morning. off to bridesmaid endeavor 2005 #2 - Rhiana (already) Ehara awaits me. so off I go.

toronto via minniapolis, detriot, and buffalo; both greyhound bus and consequent taxi ride not to be forgotten.

iPod, iBlog, iGo.

Goodnight.

not this season

You're just behind me. I swear if I just turn around you'll be there.

My phone is about to ring. You're on your way to meet me right now, I'll only be waiting a few more minutes.

My phone stays silent and still. Eventually I finish my coffee, turn off my laptop and go home, alone. Maybe next time.

I don't really feel impatient, I'm content to wait for you to come at just the right time. This week I just feel on edge, like you just might come up behind me and poke my side. With a quick gasp that would lead immediatly into a blush I would turn around and this feeling of my heart holding its breath would go. Then there would be two coffees and conversation and....

I'm only guessing. Usually I try not to think about you at all. But today you feel too close, no more near to me than your usual absense, but somehow close.

These days I enter a room and instinct has my eyes scanning the room before I realize I have no idea who I'm looking for.

One coffee. Just my laptop, my coffee and me.

What's better than one cup of coffee?

Nothing.

Unless I could stop wishing for two.

Bartender

I love winning! I LOVE winning!" he said laughing loudly over the bar. And he was a man, she knew, who had come to love winning because he always, always, did; except once. Or at least once when it mattered most. For that loss he had found no forgiveness, it was obvious in the tone of his voice that begged someone to defy him. He had a daughter once, from his first marriage. She died when she was three months old. He had told her as much among other details woven into the afternoon’s stories.

"Tell her the one about that time you...." his companion would say as she laid a hand on his arm. Without missing a beat, another story of this party or that woman would flow seamlessly with the preceding topic of conversation. So for what seemed like the better part of the overcast afternoon she listened, often laughing for lack of an appropriate response to his tales of less than appropriate behavior. More often though she strove to school her features and control the blushing that so frequently gave away her innocence. He was a shameless flirt and, if not altogether forward, the older man had no qualms about talking of lovemaking and mistress-taking among other things.

Yet they talked of other things too. Travel, culture, family and, breaking nearly every rule a bartender should wisely follow, they even spoke of ethics and religion. She was never shy to plainly state her chosen direction in life and talk about the person who inspired her to do so. Yet regardless of the fact that he knew her beliefs it could only be described as surprise, pity and respect wound together in the man's eyes when she quietly asserted that, despite his heartfelt advice to embrace youth and love with as many as she could or would, she intended to love and be with only one man.

It was humbling, she admitted to herself, to take such an unmoving stance on a subject which she was by far the least educated or experienced among the three conversing. Even believing herself to sound idealistic, something she left behind years ago, and in that likely sounding quite foolish as well, it was without embarrassment that she gave no hint of second guessing herself; that, she did not do. For she truly did believe, even in that humbling moment, that she would find just one.

"I'm so proud of you," he began. "That your religion is so important to you. I think it's just such a great thing. I am not a very religious man, at all. But I think it's great for you."
It was not the first time she had heard him say this, except this time he went on.
"It used to be different for me though. But when my daughter died of leukemia we parted ways and it's been that way ever since. You don't mess with me," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "You screw with me and that's it!"
With an emphatic slap on the bar he took his wine glass in hand, as if to portray a casual confidence in his statement, and continued.
"God took my daughter away from me which He should NOT have done. Jesus f$%^&*# owes me one!"
He looked away, sipping the chardonnay with none of the heat and emotion in his voice and words affecting his outward appearance.
"Explain to me how God would let a wave come up out of the ocean and kill 200,000 people if he was really out there anyways?"

Immediately the conversation shifted as he, again without pause, joined the conversation that had started nearby. She, however, was still leaning against the counter on her side of the bar speechless, just as she had found herself throughout his entire exposition. Bitterness and grief had hung so heavily to his words that it was not a nervous blush she had worked to conceal but the tears that sprung unbidden to her eyes. Carefully she had been able to keep them from showing as he spoke looking directly at her. He did not want her pity, she knew, and neither were there any words, had she thought of some, that would have reached his ears while he spoke of this long-harbored grudge against God and the injustice done to him. Still taken aback by the open door she had just seen into this man's past, it was the surge of compassion that came with her tears which found resolution in taking this man up on a request he had made earlier. He had commented on her religious beliefs before, but the first time that day he had brought it up was to say, "Next time you talk to Him, tell God I could use some help." After this explanation of their estrangement her answer, though not out loud, was to reply simply, "I will pray for you Jack. I will."

It is not every day you see a piece of a man's soul, even less often the bound and tormented pieces of one who is the picture of success, wealth and freedom. She did that day. She saw the truth that a man who loved winning had tragically lost a daughter, but truly he had chosen his own greatest tragedy and lost so much more.

Quote for today:

Love is like pop rox and coke.
It makes your stomach tickle, and
sometimes hurt, but you always get better.
They never explode you.

- Jean Scott Rockenmacher

rain

All last night I woke up on and off, somewhat frustrated by my lack of restful sleep (par these days), but each time I heard the rythmic drone of rain outside my window. When I woke up this morning the rain was still there. All day it has continued to pour, and now at the end of the day it is still raining and I look forward to whatever measure of sleep I can obtain being accompanied by the steady pace of drops from the eaves and a breeze of cool fresh air.

The consistancy of the rain was comforting as I feel very little of that quality in myself at present. Certain things remain in me which entertain no doubt, while others find me speechlessly humming and hawing to myself, rapidy spinning life itineraries and juggling possibilities, or just getting lost in the jungle of cyber-space trying to find information that will somehow abate whatever my current feverish curiousity may be. In the same breath I can express my satisfaction with the status quo and my desperate desire to be ordinary while in complete contradiction, with no space audible, I will tell you that I am in every way insatiable with the endless possibilities and indiscernable paths my life can and should be taking. Though God is still unchanging and consistant in his offer for peace and relationship I can not lie and say that the God-part of me is not likewise plagued with unpredictable emotional opinions just like the rest of my life.

From inhale to exhale I feel differently about the world, about my role in it and about what decisions I want to make and those that I must. I feel lonley, I feel comfort, I feel distress, I know peace, I want adventure, I am eased by routine, I lack resolve, I am unmovable, I am ... utterly unaquainted with myself in this state of instability.

But I'm glad it rained.

I had coffee with the friend closest to my heart. I got new headlights for my car. I went to the library. I wandered around a book shop. I bought a map of Europe. I bought a book for my brother. I had coffee again. I looked a plane tickets on the internet.

The hurricane is on the inside. Outside is just the steady comfort of falling rain.

Sunset Sundays and Margarita Mondays

Update on my current employement for the summer. A subject which has caused me no little amount of brow wrinkling and prayer I am pleased to announce that I have now a fulltime job at The Raven in Woods Bay, MT. The whole Bartender/Missionary role is admittedly incongruous, yet it is at least a little amusing to see the looks on the faces of people I know from church or the Christian high school I attended when I'm shaking a martini as they walk in the door. Now I'm not going to lie and say there's nothing about his job that I don't like, but I am just very pleased that the matter is settled for now and I can start getting used to my new schedule.

I am also pleased to announce that I earned my first sunburn of the summer yesterday while I was reading out on the back deck. Oooh, and it is a tender one. Memorial Day weekend is off to a great start weather wise, and while I have still not enlisted the friendship of any boat-owning locals, I am still looking forward to enjoying the sun again tomorrow. I'd like to say that maybe I'll just wear sunscreen so as to avoid further discomfort, but it's practically unheard of with my sisters and I, especially when we've been waiting since last August to have sunshine worth laying out it in again.

Happy Summer everyone!

Chapter Closed

The wedding is over, the honeymoon well on it's way, my job is done. Bridesmaid adventure number one for 2005 complete. Congrats to Jessica and Sean Kuipers!

My friends have graduated, my ties and the season in which to keep them tied has run out. Goodbye Moscow, Goodbye Pullman. I don't suppose I'll 'see you soon' again.

In the face of all that has changed in me over the last four years I am at a loss to recount the rise and fall of the story, but after this time I feel that the chapter is officially over. My first 'other' home, my first year of 'on my own', my first apartment and a whole long list of other things I gained and lost (none the least of which included some unforgetable people). 18 months to begin, 2 1/2 years to finish. It's a place that's part of who I am, but it is no longer part of where I'm going. To my surprise I don't mourn the passing, even if there are a few things I would change.

I am realizing this year that life is full of new things all the time, yet it cannot only add, there must be endings to things before others can begin. I am sad that sometimes I look back and realize I have completely forgotten how some things used to be in light of their current status, but I'm determined to be without regrets, so I will try to remember and to learn.

Old but appropriate song for the moment:
"Closing time, one more call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer......Closing time, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here. So gather all your jackets, move it to the exits, I hope you've found a friend....Closing time, every new beginning is just some other beginning's end"
- Semisonic -

This is the Flathead Valley where I live.I just discovered Google Satellite Imaging. It's so sweet! Isn't Montana beautiful?

Click image for larger view

So Long Gone

I have been so long gone, and the entirety of the reason still escapes me. I've been in some sort of "slump" or "phase" for the last three weeks....but I think that's changing now. Since being home from Denver the thought of the effort to be social and make plans with people has been exhausting and unappealing. I loved being there and the people I got to spend time with all mean a lot to me - it was more depressing than I expected to come home and not have them here. It's not that I don't care about my friends in Montana or anything like that, I think after the week there I've just been feeling emotionally tired. And for someone who until recently had only rare emotional moments, it's possible that I've just been plain worn out. Who knew it could take this long to recover? Seriously there have been changes in me over the last 6 months that I'm still learning the repercussions of.

Example: About two months ago I was trying to help my older sister with a project that was really frustrating her. As it became increasingly more obvious that this project, needing to get done that evening, would have to wait, my trying to help wasn't really helping the situation at all. It ended up that she snapped at me and told me that it would be better if just wasn't there. I agreed and went to my car. Here's the part that surprised me though; my feelings were so hurt that she didn't want my help and that she'd been mean. I can't even remember before that being upset over hurt feelings. I've had my heart kindof stepped on before but in a completely different context. Before I drove off she came to my window and apologized, but I was holding back tears the whole way home. Bewildered by my own reaction; that's all I can say I was thinking. I remember being surprised that I 'had feeling to BE hurt'.

That's just an example of how this girl I'm turning into is so very different from the girl I've spent so long being. Often I think of some of my friends who have known me for a long time now and I am so surprised that my idiocy didn't scare them away. I guess that's real friendship. That is something I need to remind myself that I have. It's really hard when the people that are the closest to my heart either live far away or are impossible to get ahold of - or both. Part of this "phase" I have been in has been seeming to feel unimportant to people who are important to me. I hate it. It's depressing and it makes me feel rejected. It's not true, I know that, but I've been haing trouble believing it. God has, in turn, been faithful to remind me of the people who care about me. In the last week I've been able to have real, meaningful conversations with two of my closest girl friends that I haven't seen in a long time. Talking on the phone isn't my favorite thing only because conversation usually ends up staying on the shallow end of pool, and good friendship lives at the other end. Like I said, being able to reconnect with these two girls has blessed my heart incredibly and it's helped get my thinking back on track too. I hate to blame hormones on my moods, but it would by lying to say that they haven't contributed to the weirdness a little bit too.

In all of that I have tried a few times to post and not known just what to relate. I wanted to sum it up somehow and it just wouldn't come together in my head. This hasn't been a summary in the sense that it's short, but it does shed a little light on the 'emotional' (and subsequently somewhat new for me to express) side of my life over the past few weeks of blogger silence. I have of course stayed very busy in the meantime; working, taking care of my brothers while my parents are out of town, painting my brother's room, and trying to track down information on the school I want to go to in September. If my lack of social enthusiasm gave the impression that I've been sitting on the couch for the last three weeks moping, that is not the case. For now I sleep, tomorrow another busy day.

to my lifeless blog

May 7th. It's been almost two weeks since I last posted. If somehow I had a plan for fitting the mass of my thoughts in a post short enough to read in a sitting I would have probably written earlier.
Since returning from Denver I have found my enthusiasm for social activity to be quite cool, if in fact it is not non-existant. Neutral at best. I am not entirely sure of the reason for lack of regard for interaction, I just..... don't feel the need.