random sass & musing™

it's rainy here.
i want to play in the run & jump in puddles.

i want to be the morton salt™ girl just 'cause i do. or maybe the coppertone™ baby. although she doesn't have an umbrella.

and off i go.

guess who's back, back again.
/eminem

i'm blogging twice in one day.
is the world about to implode?

hardly.

it's simply that life got ahead of me & my ability to blog about it. my witty candorical observations have been under cover mostly because my gym life has usurped my real life. yes, really. getting up at 5:40 AM monday through thursday has put quite the damper on my social life (in real life & virtually). although, to be honest, doesn't the phrase "in real life" seem to suggest that two people with brains & personalities that are connected by keyboard aren't real? oh to think about how that would weigh on such phrases as "it's disgusting with whom your keyboard has interfaced!".

i wonder if the internet is a phase?

i mean, back in the day, i recall people thinking the internet was a fad. there was the belief it was a passing fancy & people were crazy to pay $20 a month for unlimited aol access. at least we can say aol has kept it real & never really updated from those days. now people pay close to $50/month for high-speed internet service. when people shell out that sort of cash per month, it's here to stay.

the internet has spawned some great friendships in my life. some of them have endured in person, some have faded into the background. some have endured online, some have faded into the background. but it's obvious it's been a great way for me to process some things with words on a screen in front of me. at the same time, it's lacked the personalness(™ audrey from the apprentice 3) to truly understand what a person conveys. tone, inflection, body language & intonation are all true indicators of how we communicate. as long as these are missing from online communications, there will be difficulties in communication.

thus endeth the short delve into online communications.

say hi if you feel like it.

life is good.
LIFE is good.
life IS good.
life is GOOD.

i haven't decided which of those lines i like best.

i haven't decided a whole lot these days, other than to trust God & know that He's got me in a holding pattern for some reason. isn't life so often a "hurry up & wait" deal? i hurry up to get to a movie, only to wait in line for tickets. i hurry up to get to a restaurant to meet some friends, only to wait to get a table (no small feat in raleigh, land of dinner-eater-outers). i hurry up to get to the sportsbar, only to wait an hour for the game to start.

what's with the hurry up & wait of our lives?

in other news, i'd like to redesign this place. i need to touch base with my trusty graphic design people to see their availability for such things. i actually have a good concept in mind now. clean, simple, witty, to the point. i can see it in my head & now to get it on the screen.

or will that be a hurry up & wait item?

in other news, casey has returned from her internet hiatus. smart kid, good eye for design, wicked wit. check it out.

it's almost easter. maundy thursday approaches. in reviewing the days since ash wednesday, i realize i haven't been living exactly with change or anticipation over the approaching of the celebration of Christ's death, burial & resurrection. you'd think as a believer i'd be more excited about it, more attentive to it.

i haven't, but i sense renewal.

this has been my first full-on exposure to lent. actually, i'd be remiss to describe it as a full-on experience considering that i didn't participate this year. i wasn't compelled & wasn't ready, i had to observe the experience from outside, i suppose. i find that there is some quality in it, in that giving up of something or doing something as a reminder of Christ's provision to us.

i have two friends that are/were fasting for an entire 40 days. just juice & water. one got sick last week & had to quit. the other is still going strong & has indicated an amazing amount that he has learned or considered in this time alone, when he wasn't focused on food. it's amazing how the human body adapts to such things.

then again, the human body is a wonderworld, anyhow. or wonderland, per john mayer. i think i'd agree.

i wanted to write about blah-de-blah cakes earlier but blogger was being a stupidhead. i miss writing & i especially miss having blogger ready at my command.

why, blogger, why?! is it because it appears i have abandoned you? because, i haven't. well, not really. i have been otherwise occupied. my brain has millions of words & participles & adjectives, all floaty-floaty in there. they just haven't seemed to make it to the screen. if only i had a keyboard which typed through osmosis.

i've been reading a book entitled the meaning of wife. yeah, go ahead & say it. i'm a girly-girl obsessed with all things having to do with gender roles & studies. it simply fascinates me to understand how others consider things. sometimes due to their gender influences & sometimes because they simply think that based on personal experiences, not hormonal balances.

i haven't finished the book so i can't quite rate it but i have found it to be an entertaining read comparing some biblical beliefs with social beliefs. a rousing read through the decades of feminism & conservatism & victorianism & picassoism & mostanyotherism out there.

so the question has arisen from this & various dicussions ... if you had to explain femininity & masculinity to someone, how would you do it & why would you do it? for serious. points to ponder.

today is friday.
i really heart fridays so much it hurts.
two day work weeks are the spiff, yo!

since i feel like being light-hearted in celebration of my two day workweek, i think we should simply look at pretty things together. a few things catch my eye like this map stationery & this yardstick chair. these, of course, cannot outdo the beauty of the delicious papery goodness here or this lil number.

this post has been brought to you by the letter p for pretty.

in other news, you should all congratulate ralia on her newest project in the works. a baby! in november! (i'm kinda partial to her having the baby early on october 29 because i was due in november & came early on that date. i'm just sayin'. precocious, even in the womb, don'tcha know?)

i am returned from my semi-hiatus!

i have been preparing to be on vacation, away on vacation & then returned from vacation. i should be digging out from the backlog, working away. but technically, i am working. don't tell big brother .... shhhhhhhh.

before we go any further, i simply have to say that no matter how much society denies their intense obsession with appearance, some children just aren't up to par. hey, i didn't say it, i just linkededededededed it.

at any rate, i just returned earlyearlyearly yesterday morning from huntingdon, pa where i visited with eric. pics to follow.

he showed me a good time, which says a lot considering huntingdon's size. we spent plenty of time together, with his friends, & with my friends. not to mention some tours of the campus & a short jaunt for a shopping trip in nearby state college, pa. he got points for shopping.

we still haven't made a determination of our status as we recognize we need to spend some more time together. but i can't say i don't miss him & it's only two days after i left.

on the way home, sarah, darryl & i took a detour to the ikea at college park, md, where we met up with mike for a quickie shopping trip. it's quite amazing the number of things you see that you suddenly need when you see them marked for $2 in a bin at ikea.

i went specifically for
this tv stand & came away with a few additions like wire whisks, magazine storage files, lampshades, desk lamps, & markers (for 35¢!). i would say ikea is of the devil but then i'd be lying. all of that for $52 total (despite the guy mistakenly ringing up my total as $29,456.32 ... no lie).

i heart ikea.
i heart my friends for traveling with me.
i heart eric when he's nice.

i don't heart work but i should return.

i'm happy to report that some of my sisteren (is that the opposite of brethren) have actually breathed life into the concept of having an online women's magazine for members of my church.

my life has been so chaotic of late that i haven't even had an opportunity to really write many articles. many sit half-drafted, unfinished. were i to funnel some of my blog entries into articles, i imagine i'd have a stash to submit. as it stands, i've just submitted one this morning.

ladies & gentlemen, i present to you the dirty dish.

just what every girl needs. a book to document her dating history.

*slight giggle*

shouldn't the mind alone be the best documentation of this aspect of life? nothing for the parents or the future husband or the future kids or the future grandkids to discover & feign over amusingly. i suppose some of my journals, scrapbook projects & collages could suffice to tell those stories.

but they were done my way & that's what's really important. the sooner the world recognizes my superior madly right skillz, the better the state of affairs.

what?

two hours spent at 518 west in celebration of paralegal week. delish, except that it comes at a time when i needn't be gone that long. yet here i sit typing this entry.

distracted? that'd be me.

dreaming of blue skies, clear & balmy winds, a hammock, & the ebb & flow of the ocean. relaxation would be grand.

on another note, i am tired of hearing the age-old cop-out for people whining about how they hate their life yet do nothing to change that. i can't lie & say i haven't been there, but i've learned that to complain about it & do nothing is worth nothing.

ranting is fine, if it's ranting with purpose. if it's constructive & it's supported with action. to quote the hippies (with a twist, of course), "make change, not war". how much change comes from empty rants against TheMan™ if it's nothing more than vocalized disenchantment?

perhaps even in writing this entry i'm doing empty ranting. i'm not changing anybody's minds about this subject, but i haven't been afraid to share my opinion on this matter if people ask. or even those who don't. but when does the opinion cross into the realm of intolerance?

we could apply that to the area of intolerance about particular (im)moral activities. or about someone's clothing or music choices.

it seems the internet has sparked the desire for even the nerd to be the king of their world. perhaps it just elevates the particular parts of their personality to form an entire subpersonality. like a subculture on completely not.

i'm rambling now.

my great-aunt maude passed away thursday night, so i made the trek up to virginia just for the day on saturday. the small town feel of their little town used to be more like a small, bleeding cut. now i'd say it's beginning to hemmorhage.

as a kid, i loved visiting the town. since my parents grew up there & their families still remained there, despite them leaving, i viewed it as a trip to the country. there were farms & wide open spaces & woods to explore & creeks to jump. not that i didn't have the creeks & woods at my house, but it was different. more freeing.

now the town is claustrophobic. when i go visit with family (which is slowly dwindling, the drawbacks to having an older & aging family, i suppose), there is only so much to do. most visiting is limited to sitting around older people's living rooms, hearing of their aches & pains. still, i could sit for hours listening to their recollections of life in this town when they were younger.

they shared tales of hijinks & loves & losses & excitement & fear. they really lived the human life.

maude was a wonderful, spry lady with a nieve outlook on the world. she was such a contrast to my grandmother who was the oldest sister & always had her head correctly on her shoulders, perhaps a bit strait-laced to maude's frippery. maude was still kicking her terry-cloth sweatsuits & blue jeans until december, when she fell & broke her arm.

she really lived such a life, reflecting God's love to others, even if she may not have had the life she wanted. she & her husband were married for about 20 years before he passed away of heart trouble in the mid-1960s. despite her great love for children of all ages, she & clarence never were able to produce heirs, so she had plenty of grandchildren vicariously through her neices & nephews & various friends.

what a testament to a life well-spent. it is my hope i'll one day have a legacy of joy rather than sorrow.

my church has a lent blog in which people post their thoughts & revelations while going through lent.

i haven't done anything for lent & actually this year is the first year i've known people who have actively done it. in the past i've heard of lent & the general reasons of it, but i've never really comprehended or understood it. i suppose that this year, had i been considering it & praying about it, i might have actively participated. as it stands, i have not. maybe next year.

i find reading it a wonderful glimpse into the lives of my little community of believers.

some would consider me a grammar nazi. i generally strive to use my words wisely, though i'm sure i've failed on some considerations with that. there has ultimately been times when i've shouted awful things or written regretful words without chance to take them back. but, i know i've also used words to comfort others, to convey a love that i sometimes don't even understand.

all in all, words are great. but there just remains a lack of ability to convey true feelings with them. how is it that great authors can write pages & pages of black words on white text which can draw you in & make you feel as if you're in another life? how do they convey that depth of feeling & the layers of emotion?

i'm really starting to recognize that words are great, but they are only substantial for a short amount of time when it comes to tangible relationships.