And Then She Chortles

I catch sight of myself in the mirror and start chuckling. Not because I've sprouted another nose (which would be more mortifying than entertaining), but because of my new glasses.... I feel like I like them a lot. They make me laugh. A lot.

And that's about all my news.

August starts tomorrow....

Oooh.... Navigation!

Yesterday was a majorly adventureful day for me.

I know, that sentence shouldn't even exist - way too many made up words and a much too cheerleader like tone.

It was, none the less, a majorly adventureful day. Abbi and I were going to bible study like usual, y'know, I get off work, grab some food, scarf it on the way to Abbi's house, we leave from there to drive to Madison, the same ol' routine every Thursday night.

Only this time, when we got to Madison, there was no one at the pastor's house. No one. Not a single person. They have a bajillion kids - you would think that at least one of them would be around. But no. Not a single person visible or answering the doorbell.

So, being the geniuses that we are, we decided to go see a movie at the Huntsville theatre. We haven't seen one all summer, and it's, like, a tradition to go see a movie every time I'm home from school. We didn't know what movies were showing, what the show times were (although it was close to seven, so the odds were good some movie would be starting soon), but Abbi knew where one of the theatres was, so that was cool, and we got there.... only to realize it didn't have any movies we wanted to see.

Oops.

So then we tried to figure out what to do, and finally she got this brilliant idea - she called home, talked to her dad, and got directions to the other movie theatre. Neither of us had any idea where we were going, what we were going to see, or what time we were going to see it at. Sounds like fun to me.

Through some miracle, we managed to get there, and we only had to turn around twice.

The sign, unfortunately, said the movie we wanted to see was only showing at 9:50. Now, normally, I'd be cool with that.... except that I had to get up at six the next morning, run up to Calhoun to get my Biology grades (which turned out good by the way), then go to work for eight hours, and there's no way I'd be able to do all of that on five hours of sleep. Not. A. Chance.

Our alternatives? Well, we weren't too creative after that, although we had a good time. We went to the mall that was nearby. I found a copy of the Westing Game for $3 (if you haven't read it, you need to. It's a great book). We went into Bath and Body Works, which was pretty funny, because obviously we had to try out all the scents and lotions. We came away smelling like a perfumery - which had just undergone a dramatic explosion. Oddly enough though, there were two smells I really liked. I admit it, I'm picky when it comes to smelly things. Really strong scents give me a headache, and I don't like smelling like a piece of candy or lemon meringue. I don't like really flowery or heavy scents either. I like a nice, clean, light smell that's got maybe a little hint of flowery about it. Not dramatic, and not overdone. It was also ironic that the smell I liked best was called "serenity".... Something my life could use a little more of.

Oh! And today I picked out a new pair of glasses.... I go to pick them up tomorrow. Yay! Contacts are all well and good.... but to wear them all the time? No. I've been wearing my broken glasses anyway, but it's so off-balance that it's giving me a sore on my right ear, so that wouldn't have worked for much longer. They're a little bit.... well, no doubt I'll post a picture. They're a lot different than anything I've ever had before, so it's an experiment. I think I like them a lot though. They're kind of a bold choice for me.

And "the fam" is here too. Not all of it, but two of my aunts and two of my uncles, so that's cool. Grandma fed us really amazing food for dinner today, and promises to repeat the feat tomorrow, so I'm totally looking forward to it. I haven't seen any of my extended family in about two years - I didn't go to the wedding on the one side or the 50th anniversary celebration on the other, and those were our big gatherings for the year. It's good to see them again.

And.... that's a wrap. I think I only began two paragraphs with "so" and two with "and" this time, so I feel like my grammar is in good shape. Or at least better than it usually is. = D

Toodle-pip old beans.
It's off to bed for me.

Oh wait. Two funny Dad quotes:

Me (I come bouncing up to him, right after shopping for glasses): "Daddy! I'm so excited! I got new glasses!"
Dad: "Hm, they look good."

(if it doesn't make sense.... think about it, and then realize that I only ordered the new glasses today and won't pick them up till tomorrow.)

Me: "So I hear you almost got hit by lightning today."
Dad: "Yeah... I wasn't too worried though. I know the guy who makes it."

Iiiiiii changed a diiiiiiipeeeee......

OK. So I tried to put the diaper on backwards the first time, but in the end, I changed that poopy diaper like... a complete amateur. It did, however, get changed, which was the important thing.

Today wasn't quite the madhouse I thought it would be. It was crazy, yes, and I didn't get all my work done, and Paxton didn't sleep and was hungry and fussy and pooped a lot, but I got home at 7 and got a lunch break, so it was all good.

I think, though, that I'm a closet tea addict. Or not so closet. I've actually started taking tea bags to work with me, for about 2:30 when I'm stressed beyond belief and need just something. Let me tell you, at about 2:30 (eight and a half hours after I begin my day) with a typically fussy baby on hand, people from all sides making demands and yelling instructions at you, and the knowledge that you'll be at work for at least another four hours, tea seems like a godsend. It's a little bit of sanity, a little something warm to hold onto when life is completely spinning out of control.

Ooh. Now I need more tea.

They Take Forever And Are Idiots Besides

So heres I am again, typing at the end of a long day, for heaven knows what reason.

Tomorrow's going to be a nightmare of a day. I have my last bio test (mwahahaha... *ahem ahem*.... *giggle?*) and then work. I have a ton of work I didn't get done today because I was covering for Barbara, and work that I didn't realize was there to be done because no one told me, and clinic is going to be absolutely wild, plus Paxton on hand. We have patients scheduled from 12:30 and going until 5:15 (normally it's 1-5), and half of them are the really difficult ones who take forever and are idiots besides, not to mention the patients who call in sick after not having seen the doctor for three years and we have to schedule extra time for that.... Yeah. Dr. Kathy's going to shoot me when she comes in tomorrow, unless Mom beats her to it. We'll be there until 7 at least. The Mom and Dr. Kathy might be there until 9. *sigh* If the Law of Office Misfortunes holds true (a little known corollary of Murphy's Law), I'll forget my lunch, the phones will also ring off the hook, three more sick patients will call in and need to be seen, and Paxton will have a hernia - or at least four temper tantrums. I can feel myself tensing up at the very thought of it. I only hope I don't come down with a smashing headache besides.

'K. Wow. I really did get tense there. My left shoulder is now killing me. I'll have to see if I can get that fixed.

Dirk Gently and the Holistic Detective Agency - I recommend it, although I don't actually remember much about it, other than I laughed a lot.

Tatas,
Gustav.

those who know don't have the words to tell/and those with the words don't know too well

Today was a very long day. Not much happened. I woke up late. Barely made it to work. Went to work, spent eleven hours there. Came home. Ate dinner. Read the paper. Now I'm blogging. Fascinating.

Tired.

Decoupage.

Ha. It went over so well last time that I thought I'd say it again.

The best quote from work today (thank Barbara for bringing it to my attention): "He has spaghetti in his foot and needs to be seen right away."

Alabama summers have only three temperature variations: Not Bad, Hot, and Well Nigh Unbearable. We're into Unbearable territory now. The heat index in the past couple days hit 113, and then the next day it hit 105. And we're not even into August yet.

Ooh, irony: a patient called in today, and I thought it was hilariously ironic that he had an accent almost identical to the one Matt used in his movie... except that it was completely natural. Yeah. That was pretty funny.

Loves to all.
Kenzie.

"Why should I be any less susceptible to foolishness than anyone else?"

Decoupage

Decoupage really has nothing whatsoever to do with my life or with this blog, but it's a fun word to say, and hey, I have latin for my blog title, so I might as well play around with other languages for my post titles. I mean, why not? Anything to break up the monotony of doing the same thing over and over again every day.

It's hard to keep up on a blog when 1) nothing exciting happens on a regular basis and 2) you don't do all that much thinking. If I thought a lot, I could write about thinking, and then it wouldn't matter if nothing exciting ever happened. If exciting things happened, then I could write about them and not worry that I don't think very much. But with a lack of both.... well.... It makes for difficulties.

Well, Avery's back home now. And Dad and I started on the chair, which is cool. Not like we're making lightning fast progress, but I learned to use a new tool today, and also how to read a ruler. I know, talented. First grade mathemataics always did escape me.

Mm. I think I'm going to go read or play computer or something.

I was standing dazzled with my heart in flames....

So yesterday, as you might have guessed from the photos, was kind of a big day for me. I got my hair cut and... broke my glasses. Might as well make it a complete makeover, right? =) The hair doesn't really look like me, but I think I'm at peace with it. It was least feels very nice - cool, light, and sort of flippy. And the glasses.... well.... beyond repair I think. I guess they just couldn't survive five years of abuse and then being sat on by both me and Paxton in a six month period. I wonder, should I go retro for the new ones? = D

Tomorrow's going to be a big day too. I'm getting off work especialy early and going with Mom to meet the Wilkies in Indiana and bring Avery back home. That should be cool. I'll get to see Jenn again and flex my driving skills, in preparation for driving up to PA this fall. And, of course, Avery's coming back home.

Today I took my last lab test and had my last actual class period. Now I just have to take my final exam next Wednesday and that's it. I'm done. For. ev. er. At least with Biology.

People in my class at Calhoun keep asking me questions about the course. For instance, "We don't have to come in on Tuesday, do we? We just have to come in for the exam on Wednesday?" And it struck me as funny: just because I'm doing well in the course, people assume that I know what I'm doing. What they don't realize is that half the time I'm just winging it - like last night, realizing at nine p.m. that I hadn't studied for my test at ten a.m. the next morning. Just because I happen to get good grades does not mean I know what's going on. Which also strikes me as hilariously funny. = D

I finished a rough draft of a story the other day. And typed up some poems that I've been working on. I expect I'll inflict them on you all fairly soon. If you want to read them (or the story at least. I'm not sure how much of the poetry will become 'public'.) leave me a message or send me an e-mail or something and I'll send it to you. I feel like I accomplished something - most of my story ideas don't even make it into a fully written rough draft. Ironically enough, I write a lot of poetry very badly and a few stories that people seem to like a lot.

Louise Gluck:

THE WHITE LILIES

As a man and woman make
a garden between them like
a bed of stars, here
they linger in the summer evening
and the evening turns
cold with their terror: it
could all end, it is capable
of devastation. All, all
can be lost, through scented air
the narrow columns
uselessly rising, and beyond,
a churning sea of poppies -

Hush, beloved. It doesn't matter to me
how many summers I live to return:
this one summer we have entered eternity
I felt your two hands
bury me to release its splendor.

Issues, Once Again

Paxton is so funny. He recently discovered my nose ring. He reaches his hands up and makes noises until I put my head down, and then he pokes at my nose and chuckles. Hahaha. I had no idea that a nose ring made good baby entertainment, but hey, I'll take what I can get. = D

So I was thinking. Can we actually create anything beautiful without ourselves being, in some fundamental way, beautiful? Like, in the spirit, or something. Random I guess, but I was thinking as I was driving, which always leads to a few random synapse firings in the ol' brain.

Great quote: "You're going to meet with criticism no matter where you go. The question is whether you can maintain your own sense of direction while still listening to what people have to say." My answer? No. Nope. I don't have a sense of direction anymore. I find myself thinking, ooh, that would be cool, I should paint that.... but then I stop, completely terrified that I'll do it wrong. Without someone looking over my shoulder, telling me what they expect, giving me immediate feedback on request, I have no idea what I'm doing. Which is a completely unnerving experience. After years of thinking, OK, I'm going to be an artist, now suddenly.... um... well, I don't know what to do. I don't understand what happened to that sense of "Yeah, that's right, that's good." Or even that sense of "ooh, bad. Stop there. Fix it." Poof. Nada. Sigh.

And Mackenzie's Competent Moment for the Week: I a)checked the oil on Gustav, my faithful if old and odd car, b) bought the right kind of oil, and c) put that oil in. I also a) realized the coolant was low b) asked Dad what kind of coolant we needed c) bought said coolant d) mixed it up in the proper proportions, and e) added it to the car. I felt sort of grown up. And by that I mean sort of competent. Of course, I have yet to drive Gustav after adding the coolant. Let's just hope he doesn't decide to spontaneously asplode.

Ok alls. I've once again ranted about my confidence issues, my inspiration issues, and my just plain issues. I feel that my duty here is done.

Oh My George

It's been almost a week since I posted. Can you believe that I managed to shut up for that long? Haha. I was mostly too tired to post. This week's been... well... yeah, hectic would probably cover it. "Hectic" just seems like such a short word for what seemed like a really long week.

I did my last biology lab this week, which heralds the ending of the entire class. Really just two weeks. I'm really excited, but I'm also wondering what I'm going to do with my mind for the rest of the summer. Homework I won't miss. Lectures I won't miss. But I feel like my mind will be a bit bored nonetheless. I told Mom, "On good days my mind feels like a formidable weapon which I wield against biology with great fervor. On bad days, I feel like my mind is a blunt weapon I feel like bashing people with." And that pretty much describes my biology experience. Along with these quotes regarding one of our classes (which basically dealt with genetics and childbirth):

"Nope. Your x's are clean."

"They don't show any of that on Sports Center!"

"Oh my George!"

And, famously,

"I wish I coulda caught a bass that big!"

Hahaha.... Yeah, that was a good class.

I have this problem at work. I'm in the south, right? And I have to be polite. Which means using words like, "Ma'am" and "sir" which don't usually find themselves in my vocabulary. I frequently find myself with this problem:

"I just said yes ma'am to a boy!"

Oops.

Dad and I are making a chair. Or, to be more accurate, a chair-like thing. It really isn't exactly a chair. Neither is it exactly a stool. Nor is it exactly a set of bookshelves. It's sort of a combination of the three, on wheels. I know, hard to picture. But, God willing (don't I sound like an old-timey politician?), you shall all see it this fall at school....

Ok. That's enough talking. I'm off to adventure!

the sheer irrationality of the thing pleases me

I think that if I were bald, my head would look extremely small. I wonder if there's a word for the irrational fear of bald, small-headed women?

I told Jenn that if I keep on with my current rate of my image-changing rampage, I'll end up with a peg leg and four arms. That's by way of introducing my new topic: haircuts. I want to get my hair cut. Short. I think. In theory. In theory, it would look fantastic. In actuality? Well... reality's a little harder to pin down. Input, anyone?

Today was a gorgeous day, thanks to hurricane Dennis (which is, I bet, not something often heard....). It was the perfect temperature - by which I mean you could wear a sweater and jeans and be exactly comfortable, even enjoying the breezes. Oddly enough, it reminded me of April....

I've discovered that when I talk to people I don't like, or extremely stupid people, I get very tense. And by very tense, I mean very very tense. Like, enough tension in my shoulders to hold up the Golden Gate Bridge.

Ok, honesty compels me to say that's a wild exaggeration (plus I'm not even sure the Golden Gate Bridge is held up by tension). But you get the picture.

Sigh.

I guess it's off to tea and exhaustion for me.

Goodnight all. Sleep well. Enjoy weird dreams.

------------------------------------------------------------

Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Ed's game. He was on some lord's lands when the following exchange occurred:

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: (Pause) It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: (Pause) It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: (Pause) I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow (roll to hit). What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: (Whimper) But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: (Long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.) I run away.
ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least the gazebo wasn't on a grassy gnoll.

Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.

Here's some irony for you:

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.

It gives me the almost, but not quite, complete opposite of hope for humanity.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So, today the axe fell on my book order. Which means that I got the bill.

Which was also the only thing approaching any sort of productivity that happened today.

Sad, is it not? But I'm no longer feeling any sort of guilt about doing nothing. I refuse. My guilt glands have suddenly and apparently permanently atrophied.

And, as a result of my wonderfully adult-ish and achieving day, I have absolutely nothing to write about.

I know, it never bothered me before. But I simply cannot seem to come up with a few hundred words to say about rain and nothingness. I only got this many, and I'm rapidly approaching the end of them.

I close with a Get Fuzzy quote: "What the... Sweet Beagle Biscuit! Can it be?!"

And Watched the Day Go Down in Fire

Francis Bacon:
One of the most influential minds of the late 16th century. A statesman, a philosopher, a writer, and a scientist, he was even rumored to have written some of Shakespeare's plays.
How he died: Stuffing snow into a chicken
One afternoon in 1625, Bacon was watching a snowstorm and was struck by the wondrous notion that maybe snow could be used to preserve meat in the same way that salt was used. Determined to find out, he purchased a chicken from a nearby village, killed it, and then, standing outside in the snow, attempted to stuff the chicken full of snow to freeze it. The chicken never froze, but Bacon did.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Today I had two cups of chai tea - one hot and one iced. I went absolutely nowhere, and did absolutely nothing productive except a little brainstorming. I read. I nothinged. I watched flashing images on screens.

It was all quite utterly blissful.

If a little unsatisfying.

It's true. I needed a break - I enjoyed my break. But really, there's nothing soul-satisfying in doing... nothing. You need it sometimes, but not all the time. And I think I'm at peace with that.

Peace out, y'all.

-Mackenzie

When Paxton Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

Introducing: The Most Half-Assed Day Of My Life.

Ordinarily I wouldn't use that word. You know which one. The one that made most of you wince. This is, after all, a G-rated blog, as I have reminded my rapt audience many times, but really, this is the only word capable of expressing my utter annoyance with and contempt for myself. Mom says not to dwell on it. Ha. So I get over a week and a half of being seriously depressed, not to mention biting the heads off of my entire family and PMSing, only to completely screw up biology. I won't rant about it again. I've ranted many times today and the refrain is getting old - and you'd probably all be bored. It's enough to know that I have screwed up just about everything I could possibly screw up in the past two weeks concering my biology class. I've been even stupider than that day I backed into my grandparents' car over Thanksgiving break. Yes, I've been that stupid.

At least I was able to work off some of my contempt for myself on the annoying, pushy, seriously donkey-headed patients who came in today. Honestly, what kind of person grows up thinking that an entire doctor's office is going to cater to their specific schedule and put them ahead of all other patients, although they arrived twenty minutes later?

No, don't worry. I wasn't rude. But I was firm. I'm getting quite good at misdirecting and shifting responsibility. There's a special amount of time you wait before giving in on some little thing, whatever it may be, so they feel that they've won a concession from you. Be courteous. Be apologetic. But simply say that it's not possible. Say, I know. I understand. I apologize. I've done as you asked, ma'am, I'm sorry, I'm not responsible for that. This is the chain of command and after the note leaves my hands, there's not much I can do. I can find out for you. Yes ma'am. No ma'am, I'm sorry, but there's no way we can do that. Patient confidentiality, I'm sorry. I don't make the laws.

I've also observed that patients don't really like humor. Don't blame them I guess. Who wants jokes when you're sick? All you want is to see the doctor.

Babies are a great distraction factor though. Even when he's cranky (as he was today - oy oy oy was he cranky - ) people are almost ashamed to be butt-heads when he's around. Although the particularly annoying patients don't always let that deter them.

I feel like he's the main conversation piece of the office.

Ah well. I feel the need for my hot drink coming on. I've taken to drinking something hot in the mornings and something hot at night. A comfort thing I guess. It's probably not particularly healthy, but at this point, who gives a crap? I've already gained fifteen pounds. And i'd rather be comfortable right now than think about gaining weight, especially after the day I've had.

Night all. Here's to happiness!

{Mackenzie raises her mug in sarcastic salute}

...Someone pass me the tranquilizers.

Conclusion:

Exhaustion is not very conducive to writing. At all. Let alone writing articulately or with Style....

Did I spell that right? Is that how you spell style? Because it looks so wrong right there. On the line above. In case you didn't know what I was talking about.

And that's pretty much how my thought processes have gone for the past two days. Frenetic. But, as busy as things are, I think I'm glad to be back at work. I actually, believe it or not, get much more done in the way of creativity when I have to work at something that requires no creativity. I guess I should keep that in mind for someday when I actually have to decide what I want to do with my life. Eight hours a day. Five days a week. Until Eternity.

For the past two days I've felt like water. The water, to be precise. The only water I see at all during my days, unless you count bathwater or bottled water, and those have been so purified that they really ought to be called something besides water. Some scientific, un-germified sounding name. The water being, technically I guess, the Tennessee river. Or Wheeler Lake. I can never keep them straight. But I think it's the Tennessee river. I drive over it on my way to and from class at Calhoun. On Tuesday it was gorgeous - a deep deep ... well, frankly, I don't know what color. It defied description. It was grey, then green, then blue, with these fantastic bits of color in the furrows that disappeared or changed within fifteen seconds. Anyway, it was gorgeous. Yesterday the water was just a sullen gray, which also fit my mood quite well.

I took a 200 question test. Full and ominous stop. I did miserably. This is one of those times in my life when I'm just hoping and praying I didn't get a C.... Because if I did, I'm going to break down crying right in class. Then I went to work, which was a madhouse. Three sick people called in on top of the nine patients we already had scheduled, and I was dealing with annoyed druggie people and sick patients who showed up for their appointments an hour early and expected to be worked in earlier and annoyed pharmacist people and annoyed nurses and a stressed out doctor and two receptionists who wanted to go home but one of which stayed after hours with me because Paxton was definitely in full blown cranky/teething/sick/knocked-his-head-on-the-table-freaking-hard/
desperately-wanting-his-mommy mode. I was there until seven o'clock. Altogether, I was gone for twelve straight hours, none of them easy.

Whew. And if that paragraph sounds like it should be read all in one breath, well, it should. Because that's about how fast things kept flying at me. I went to bed at nine last night. Nine. What self-respecting college student goes to bed at nine? Apparently the really really exhausted ones do....

And tonight I'm just hoping Paxton isn't cranky. Because it's Jackie's turn to stay after with me, and she won't stay till 7 like Barb did, and we have about the same number of patients as we did yesterday. At least it's Mom working tonight. She'll help me with Paxton if she gets a couple free minutes, and she deals with cranky/druggie/whining patients quite firmly... if I do say so myself. Me? I just try to be as courteous as I can in order to calm them down and let them know we're working on whatever the crap their imagined problem is and then let someone who has actual medical knowledge shoot them down. Hopefully intercepting enough of these crazy-imagined-problem calls to actually give said medical-knowledge-people enough time to actually do something about all the imagined problems.

Ha. Who says a Dr.'s office is boring?!

Probably the same sort of person this comic refers to:
Irregular Webcomic 892.

"Never Mind What the Government Said... They're Either Lying or They've Been Misled..."

Boo for Freaking Big Test tomorrow.

Yay for babysitting cool kids tonight.

Boo for studying for two hours.

Yay for lots of food and fireworks.

Boo for needing sleep.

Yay for understanding friends who don't mind me ranting at them periodically.

Yay for no more being ridiculously depressed.

Yay for good long distance phone plans.

Yay for letters and packages.

Yay for random James Bond movies. And random cable. And random songs stuck in my head.

And you know what? Life is good. Quite good right now, despite the Ridiculously Big Test of Doom.

Abnormality

So today is the fourth of July. The day everyone in the U.S. celebrates our freedoms, remember those soldiers who died (or managed to kill everyone who was trying to kill them and so survived) to give us said freedoms. They fly American flags. Except the pacifists.

Oh, we do normal fourth of july-ey things like cooking tons of delicious food and family get-togethers, and now that we live in the middle of nowhere we even set off bottle rockets and firecrackers and stuff. My brothers love that. I even love that! = )

And we do also celebrate our freedom, but I always get the sense that we celebrate with a "matter-of-time" attitude. It's only a matter of time until our freedoms get taken away. It's only a matter of time until the southerners find out we're pacifists and burn us at the stake (figuratively speaking - for at least the present time, burning people at the stake is illegal). It's only a matter of time until there's a draft and half our relatives have to declare conscientous objector or end up in jail. It's only a matter of time until our government totally screws up and gets us involved in an unjust war - oh wait, haha, we done that already.

So I know that this will be a really unpopular post with most of you. A lot of my friends come from family military traditions and have a great loyalty towards the United States government and its president. But can I just ask one thing of all you people, before you start flaming me? Don't let your loyalty be blind. I saw one woman raise her hands in worship to the national anthem. Don't let loyalty to your country usurp the place reserved for Christ. Simply because we're under a certain government's authority (and we are told to submit to that authority, unless it interferes with our faith) doesn't mean you have to unequivocally approve of all its decisions and actions. Is not the greatest loyalty and love the one which sees faults and seeks to fix them, to make the nation loved greater than it currently is? Is true patriotism loyal to the people of its nation, the government of its nation, or one man - the president of its nation? I'm going to point out one more thing. And then let the flaming begin. We're not the chosen nation, sorry. We, as a body of believers, have been grafted into the nation of Israel and its salvation - but we, as a nation, have not been grafted into Israel's place as the chosen people.

Thank you, I'm done. I could, as you who know me well know, rant on for hours about governments, faith, seperation between church and state (which frankly I'm all for), unrest, agitation, national security, and politicians. But I won't. I'm stopping, because I want to have a few friends left after the fourth of july.

I'm going to make one more request - that those of you who have serious grievances/issues with this post e-mail me at mm1296@messiah.edu with them, so that I can reply in a format much more convenient than the comment section of my blog.

Happy eatings of food, hangings with family, and celebratings - whatever you choose to celebrate and however you choose to celebrate it.

When You Be Beside Me I Am Real

Today I feel like a plant.

No, I'm not going crazy - er. I'm not going crazier.

It rained, so I stood out in it. And then I saw a pretty magnolia bud, so I walked over and picked it. And then I felt bad, because magnolia blooms die really soon after they're picked, and it's one of the last ones. Magnolia season is over. So I decided to let it go out with a bang. I picked some other flowers and made an arrangement so it could have a nice funeral, appreciated and attended by my whole family and the neighbors, albeit unwittingly.

Then I stood in the rain some more.

Then I decided I felt like a plant. In actuality I decided my excuse for standing in the rain was feeling like a plant. I think standing in the rain is really some obscure coping mechanism that we lost track of when roofs were invented (roofs have not been around as long as stew).

Now I'm drinking fantastic hot chocolate (some of that extra fudge land o'lakes kind that I found in the back of our cupboard), sitting on my couch typing up insanity, and listening to Christmas music while wrapped in a blanket.

Quite frankly, I have no idea why I'm doing any of this - the hot chocolate, the blanket, the typing, the standing-in-the-rain-thinking-what-a-plant-would-feel-like, the Christmas music (especially the Christmas music). Except that it seems like something to do, and when you can't write, well, you've got extra time on your hands. I suppose they too would fall under the category of obscure coping mechanisms.

It was a little lonely standing in the rain though.