Yes!
I've had an epiphany. Sometimes I feel totally unprepared for the effort that it takes to write blog entries. Then I realized that I spend my entire day sifting the tube and posting things to fuh-book. I could easily start posting things here instead. See how smart I am?

So I have replaced my desk chair with an exercise ball, as promised. I found this article on why you should. I will admit, I was googling "exercise balls as desk chairs" to see if the shooting pain I feel in my left side is normal, but since it apparently isn't, I am going to pretend that I don't feel it. Problem solved.

So far, today on the internet I have read this article about how Charlie Sheen's rants just sound like David Bowie lyrics, and I created a totally superfluous wedding registry on Williams Sonoma because I found a blog contest that wins you 150 Williams Sonoma dollars, which I would use to buy these beauties. I feel a little bit like I am cheating with the registry thing, but the contest rules didn't say you couldn't make up a totally fictitious fiance named Thor Bullionbarg just to try to win a gift card. If I win I will consider sharing it with Thor.

Also, on the radio this morning NPR (my only real news source) told me that Providence, Rhode Island fired ALL of it's teachers. Also, blogger doesn't recognize the word "Rhode" in Rhode Island as being a real word. What the lump? The most interesting part about that story was, to me, the realization that Providence is a major urban center with 80% of it's students being black or Hispanic. I don't know what bubble of ignorance I've been living in, but this is what I pictured all of Rhode Island to look like:


So now, I suppose, in my head it looks more like this:
But without the teacher. Lame, Providence, Rhode Island. Super lame.

I did end up going to the small group on Tuesday instead of making the beautiful Nourished Kitchen molasses custard. I am not totally sure I made the right choice. I was griping about church etc. with the woman who is in charge of me in my office. She said something insightful, which was rare enough and sort of made me listen up. She said, "Sometimes it isn't about what you are getting out if it, it is about being obedient." This is a totally generic, christianese thing to say but, despite all of that, it is true, and I suppose I needed to hear it. Regardless, I don't think this small group thing is for me. At least not right now. Instead, I am going to attempt to use that time away from D to do the other things I want to do. Like learning how to make marzipan, and perfecting the lotion making, and sewing. And watching lots and lots of bbc miniseries.

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"We laugh to remind ourselves that we are not machines. . . Laughter is our very protest against a tragic world. . . ."

So much happens in just a few days around here. We have co-mingled lives and they are heavy and poignant. So much happens.

The Beehive Collective came, represented by David. The turn out was small at the actual presentation but the experience was perfect and I think enough people came. Our little knot of individuals sat close and nodded vigorously. My sister, brother, and his girlfriend came down. I don't think that they actually enjoyed or agreed very much at all, but it was nice to see them and, actually, kind of nice to have a dissenting voice. Later, David wandered Waco. We showed him the farm and he spent a while talking with our village store interns who were really excited about selling posters and things. This is good. After that, TJ took him out to the remains of the branch davidians, who are apparently living and well. And fascinating.

THEN, we all met at Bangkok (the favorite restaurant), all thirty of us, and waited for Justin to show up with Jessica which he did. And then he proposed. And they are engaged. And we all celebrated with dinner. And good times.

Then, I met up with my new friend Matt for what, it turns out, was our first date. Or something similar. I am pondering this new situation.

Then! I got a text message very early this morning saying my best friend had just gone into labor with her first child. No word yet on that one. I've heard these things can take time. But, ideally, by tonight we will have a new baby boy to celebrate.

This has been a heavy, busy two days and it promises to be a similarly crazy weekend.

Life! We are living.

Update update update update update.

That last post is fairly unattractive. I suppose I should bump it off. Since its been a while, we shall do a brief recap/update in list form.

- I am reading The Once and Future King and enjoying it.
- Haley and I invested many hours in the BBC miniseries "Bleak House" and loved every minute of it. We were disappointed (possibly more than could reasonably be expected) when it was over. There were extenuating circumstances.
- Haley is going to have her baby boy sometime in the very near future. He keeps twisting around in there, surfacing every so often very much like Nessie.
- I am on my the missions committee for my church and we had our first meeting on Saturday. I am excited about being a part of planning the every-so-often gathering of the four Shalom Missions communities in October.
- The Beehive Collective is officially coming to Waco on February 4th and presenting at Common Grounds. I need to begin promoting it.
- I am working close to 35 hours at my primary job this next week. However, they do not start until Wednesday.
- It is darling Sharons birthday and we are celebrating with a dinner party tomorrow night. We have spent several fun hours together this week while she is in limbo between her pre-bachelor degree life and her post-bachelor degree life. We mostly watch videos on youtube and laugh until we cry. I need more of this in my life.
- It seems that many of my friends are having babies. It seems like this has been a steady fact for the past six years.
- I realized that this blog was born of my boredom during last Christmas break but was not contributed to at all during this Christmas break.
- Our house has become the house where all the boys play video games. It started with the game cube and has moved to various interactive computer based games. We have become the popular hang out place as a result. If playing video/computer games can be considered hanging out.
- I went with my future roommate, Grace, to the dollar movies this evening and was joined by current roommate and current roommates boyfriend. We saw Australia. Grace and I enjoyed it. Jessica and Justin did not. It was pretty much the plot of Out of Africa which is a favorite of mine. Terrific.

Autumnal

I am sleeping under blankets again. Weather is so fluxiuary in Texas (take that Steven Colbert or G.W. Bush). It was 80 degrees at 2pm today and then by 4:30pm it was 61. It is the season of multiple light layers or a change of clothes constantly on hand.

There are a lot of small things happening. Joyful dances, good dinners, intentional communing, harvests, funerals (a raccoon got one of our chickens), homecomings, blossoms, bees, bounty, color, space, laughter, children, and wind. Lots of small things. My life is an obvious sum of its parts. I am very glad. I think a lot of people strive for that sort of life.

I am finding a lot of joy in freerice.com. They have several trivia type pages which allow you to donate rice through the UN by your right answers. One of the trivia pages is on artistic masterpieces. It may sound silly but even this small addition to my life makes me deeply joyful. These paintings have been speaking to peoples souls for hundreds of years. They speak to mine now. I am learning.

Roommate Kris is home from California finally. I missed him. We are still working our research job for Baylor with very little enthusiasm. Its a disheartening project. We will keep on, I suppose.

All of the sudden I see myself with adult friends. I know this sounds silly. I am twenty five. My friends have three, four, and five year old children. We quite obviously have been adults for a while. It is just recently that I feel like an adult in my church, and adult in my work (at least one of them), and an adult within my friends.

I'm not going to talk about politics, though I feel like I could. There is a lot of dissension amongst the people that I love. I am voting early, voting strongly, feeling very content in my choice, but I am hoping that, once this is all over in a couple weeks, we wont have to talk about it anymore.

The Hours

TJ and I watched the hours last night, a movie we had both been wanting to see. We made cazones and had tea with honey that was harvested by all those lovely farmies that very morning (best cup of tea I think I have ever had). And then we settled down to our movie.

Two things.

There is a conversation that Clarissa has with her daughter Julie where she talks about the one moment of happiness in her life. Not that she had only been happy that once (I don't think) but that that one moment was the happiness. She thought it was the beginning of a life full of it, but, she reiterates, it was it. It is a memory that you never get to see but that they reference over and over, Clarissa and Richard on the porch, early in the morning, and, to me, this happiness was understood and understandable. I don't know if you can understand, but it was very important to me. I think maybe I live in the opposite expectation from young Clarissa. Always I expect this to be the last happiness. A frantic grabbing for the current happiness because I know there cant possibly be more.

This makes me think of what C.S Lewis says in Perelandra about how rejecting the happiness that comes in favor of the happiness you have is a form of sin. To hold onto the previous happiness shows your contempt for the gifts God brings.

Secondly, there is a scene between the afore mentioned Clarissa and Richard which is their last together. He is on a lot of drugs and acting crazy and she is finally willing to see his life as he wants it and let go of her control over him. I want you to have seen this movie but am a little afraid that you didn't react like I did. I usually cry in movies. Its true, I do. I don't usually feel like I have been kicked in the stomach. (I once actually was, which is a long and different story). I don't really have all that much to say, I just wanted to mention it.

In reference to the current happiness, TJ is outside listening to Neutral Milk Hotel while staining some tables that he built for our house. Jessica is sitting at her piano playing Ben Kweller and Damien Rice songs. Kris is playing his guitar in the living room. We all watered the garden this morning.