moment interrupted

my gran died yesterday. i don't really know what to say about it. i keep acting like everything is fine...i doesn't feel fine.
gran lived with us for a few years, and it wasn't easy. i know i loved my grandmother, but i can't really say that i liked her all that much. i don't think i ever really understood her. she had a hard life: her father was imprisoned, she had to work from a young age, she never finished school, she and her family were the pariahs in their little texas town, her husband died when her children were quite young, she had to wash other people's clothes for years. their dirt became pennies in her pocket. her life was all about dirt: her's and everyone else's. all of this stuff is so foreign to my simple, charmed life. i've never known the heartache of the loss she experienced.

about a month ago on my 30th birthday she sent me a card with a note and some money. she always sent money. never forgot even one of my birthdays. in her note, she apologized to me for things she had done to hurt me while she had lived with us, and before. it was touching. it was genuine. it was unexpected. so, i wrote her a note to let her know how much i loved her, that i forgave her, and that i wanted to see her in heaven someday. we tried so many times to give her the gospel, and we just didn't know if she ever understood it...

i never sent it.
it's still sitting on my dresser with a stupid little smiley face on it to mock me.
i never sent it.
she doesn't even know i forgave her. i couldn't even give her that one last pleasure. she had such an awful life, and she never even knew i forgave her. i wanted to give her the gospel one last time, and tell her i forgave her.
i never sent it.

you know in the play "our town" how emily realizes all the things she didn't notice while she was alive? how she missed out living every moment? "do humans ever realize life while they live it? every, every minute?" i love this play. i yell it from the rooftops. i shout it everywhere i go. you know what: i failed. i failed when it mattered most! i couldn't even do the big thing. the easy thing.

this is where i am:
i will go to her funeral.
i will mourn with everyone there.
i will grieve.
i will grieve my loss.
i will grieve her's.

but right now i have to do my laundry (this is hope).

of a monday eve

i did my favorite thing ever last nite...

i came home at 6:30, and crawled into bed in my school clothes. yes, i was completely clothed under my covers--a truly lovely sensation let me tell you. it feels utterly lazy and frivolous-like your mother is going to come into your room (when you're 7) and say "erin, what are you doing! get up and change your clothes!" no one came in. no one told me to change my clothes. no one noticed. i vacationed for two hours.

lovely, lovely laziness.

a bit more on the box of bubbly bars

“This may be the grand task of our life: to be the unique person you were meant to be.” —Albert Rossi

autumnal reveries

today is the first day of autumn: oh what soul bliss in the air!
thought i'd include a list of my favorite autumnal items:

● the smell of pumpkin scented candles from target
● the color orange can be bought with money
● the satisfying sound of popping acorns underfoot
● i can finally see the wind
● shivering mornings
● warm afternoons
● stuffed baked apples
● apple cider
● the rush of sleeping leaves
● the crinkley sound of folks wearing jackets
● getting to use the word "autumn" rather than "fall" when wishing one good will

joy, joy to autumn...

swab the deck me mateys...argh!

today is international talk like a pirate day:

watch for scurvy all ye land lubbing bilge rats...

lookin for the lasses

this goes out to all my single friends (sounds like i'm going to request a song for you all). i know we are all interested in finding that perfect man, so i would like to present you with an option. no, eharmony it is not, but i think it's a close second. we've all dreamed of living in europe with some exotic man (i have to say a uk man would probably be *my* first choice if he was to be european), and i'm almost positive this is our best means of getting him. the "lads" featured on this website live in the small town of alston-moor, and their village is in crisis. yes, ladies you heard it: a genuine homegrown crisis. they are in need of women. apparently, the ratio of men to women is 10:1. does this not sound like a paradise for attractive, intelligent women such as we? here are a few tidbits about the lads in the lovely alston-moor:

1. jonny edgar: "looking for a lass that likes fast cars, fast bikes and fast men like me."
2. butch: "now then, i'm butch and i'm a trucker in fact i'm not just A trucker I am THE trucker. "
3. ben: "i'm a plumber so i have good prospects as well. "
4. patch: "i'm training to be a hairdresser so can offer all you ladies free hair styling and beauty advice."
5. martin: " i have my own car!"

and my favorite...

6. george: "i'm looking for a woman who's a good cook and who doesn't mind a bit of hard work round the house like cutting logs and gardening."

now everybody don't try to go at once. there are plenty of men to go around...

(one word of caution: if you look at the pictures of the town, you could very genuinely be tempted.)

vanity, vanity

i would rather get a typhoid shot than shop for a new swim suit. yesterday i started swimming again with a friend after a 4 month hiatus. my "pool" suit had been sleeping in the bottom of the laundry basket for the duration of that time waiting to be pulled out for use. so, yesterday i packed it up with my towel and other swimming ephemera (with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head) so that i wouldn't have to come home after work to retrieve it (gas prices being what they are). when i went to put the suit on, it felt a little loose. i know i haven't lost that much weight during my summer hours of inactivity! (ah, how beautiful they were) when i got into the pool, i realized it wasn't my shrinking body that was causing the problem, but my ever expanding suit. whatever spandex that was in the suit is now swimming with the fishes. miraculously it made it through one swim, and was quickly tossed into the trash. hence, the desire for a typhoid shot. i've decided only 6ft 9in sports illustrated girls look good in a swim suit. they are terribly unflattering, and the "athletic" suits are even less so. heaven forbid you look well porportioned when you swim laps! (my vanity speaks) they are either too short in the torso, or too wide across, so i get to choose between being drawn and quartered or over exposed. neither is a good look for me.
so, i paid way too much for a swimming suit that will only be worn when swimming laps, and will lose its ability to "spandex" in a matter of a few short months.
ah, the high price of beauty...

clara barton

my mother says i'm running the red cross.
she tells me i have to stop trying to fix everyone.
she's right, but i don't know how to stop...

"You must never so much as think whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it."

ladies who lunch

lunched with some student/friends the other day, and i was tangibly reminded again why i do this. why i get up at the crack of dawn for a pay check that is hardly legal in any state, and still am amazed that someone pays me to do this everyday. there are so many wonderful souls that you get to touch when you teach. students whose brains are filled with ideas and questions: some i'm still asking.

they keep me sharp. they keep me digging in the dirt. they keep me inspired. they keep me from taking my life too seriously. i revel in the mental challenge of academia. i love the search for new ideas and interpretations. i relish the wide open spaces of creativity.

but it's the individual souls that wake me up every morning.

sunday salve

a little water for my weary soul this evening at church...

Some times I feel discouraged,
And think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again.

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin sick soul.

curiouser and curiouser

yes. he may *look* innocent...




that is his charm.

zaza tigress princess of the underworld

"are you kidding?
talk to the tail stupid..."

kat

chalk bored

someone gave me a box of chalk today. this *cannot* be resisted...so, i went about with my piece of alabaster joy to write secret greetings on the sidewalk. it was to be covert. i wrote a few greetings here and about. i was *not* caught. i passed out a few pieces to other hack journalistic souls. they were told to write something memorable, and to keep the secret....

i will venture forth tomorrow with deeds of great daring.

"be well"

....

you know what i love?

punctuation...

they've even numbered lunch

today my sister said: "now lunch has a number. lunch has never had a number!" all of this was in the context of a conversation about the way her school day is divided. i find it very strange that she begins the school day at 7:30. mind you, she is not a college student! no, she is simply a sophomore in high school, and her day starts out with drama at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am! when these shenanigans first began this alleged 7:30 class was called "zero hour." ok, what is zero hour? it exists right? you have to show up to class? this is *not* optional. so, why do they call it "zero hour"? so they've started numbering every single little bite of the day, including lunch (it's number 8 according to her schizo schedule), but the piece de resistance is this: they've even numbered *after* school. yes, they now have quantified that time after school that's supposed to belong only to you...

it's number 12.

i still can't believe they numbered lunch...

have a beautiful first day frey joy....

A Crawling Time (ACT)

as one of my "extra-beginning-of-the-year-we-want-to-make-you-terribly-miserable" duties i had to proctor the ACT test today. if you must know, i'm not particularly good at following detailed rules, so the idea of spending four and a half hours making sure a group of 18 year old college freshman have the TI-83 plus calculator rather than the TI-83 super-super plus calculator does not sound like the stuff of a relaxing saturday afternoon. had i been able to do something other than watch number 2 pencils fill in little mind numbing ovals, the time would not have been entirely wasted, but as it was the time was *nearly* wasted. my only entertainment was in deciphering which one of these students i was when i was a frightened 18 year old newbie. there is no way i was one of the numerous box blondes in their cutesy little pink sweatshirts. nor was i the spike-bracelet social misfit in the second row with the migrane and beautiful smile (she was my favorite in the room however). how about the honest faced girl in the back row with the hoop earrings and flipped up brown hair--no, too cute-cute. i was definitely not cute-cute. more like laura ingalls wilder meets joan of arc.

so after all the searching--no luck. hate to be anti-climactic, but i wasn't there.

my musings of a crawling time at the ACT.

like a weaned child rests

in the service tonite i couldn't breathe. i think i was on the verge of a panic attack. i looked down to my Bible, and saw this passage:

psalm 131
1. O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; nor do i involve myself in great matters, or things too difficult for me.
2. surely i have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.
3. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forever.

i rested....