good things

1. cowboy boots
2. this weather
3. a God who doesn't play favorites
4. clean sheets
5. fresh paint
6. HGTV
7. my Canon
8. spanish
9. good books
10. daisy mae
11. going home
12. holga cameras
13. jazz
14. scarves
15. waking up early
16. getting off work
17. texts from my brother
18. daydreaming about Argentina
19. twitter
20. following people's blogs
21. jimmy johns'
22. presents
23. the Pink Panther
24. hy-vee chinese
25. good conversation
26. school supplies
27. Christmas
28. cherry pepsi
29. my bed at school
30. joel stein's columns
31. breakfast
32. the feeling after a good run
33. making crepes
34. gerbera daisies
35. cherry bon-bon mochas
36. e-mails
37. improv
38. iowa
39. learning new songs on the guitar
40. taking pictures
41. making people laugh
42. swingsets
43. perfume
44. thinking about the things that were
45. thinking about the things that will be
46. napping on the floor
47. being quiet
48. finding beauty
49. art
50. ideas

La Vida Es Asi

This is one of the lonely days they told me I wouldn't notice. But after the third meal alone, I'm beginning to. A boy was exiting the cafeteria just as I was entering. Before I got to the door though, he said, "Just because you're pretty, I'll hold the door for you" and held it open as I walked in. I wanted to cry, partly because I couldn't believe was serious, and partly because I haven't been told that since, well, almost six months ago. Of course, someone's being pretty is a miserable reason to hold the door or do anything else for them, but it ticked me off how long I thought about what he'd said. Did he mean it? Why did it matter?

Physical attractiveness is the most arbitrary thing in the world. I know that. And as I've said before, there is beauty in everyone that comes from the life within them. And I believe that when you love someone, you find them more and more attractive, the more you know them. The concept of loving someone for their body is incomprehensible to me. I've fallen for numerous minds, one heart--and physical attraction just followed. It was never a starting point. So there is beauty that comes from existence, from being human, and beauty from loving and being loved. And the rest is just fluff. So why do I crave compliments on it?

Maybe I just crave compliments, generally. Or conversation. Is this not my whiniest post yet? I guess I thought friends would just kind of happen in college like they just kind of happened in high school. Then they didn't, and I told myself they would happen when classes started. That was two weeks ago, and nothing. I'm not sure what to tell myself, now. A piece of me wants to absolutely panic, but at the same time I want to reassure myself, tell myself it will come in time. It's not that there aren't any friendly people here--practically everyone is friendly. But when I meet someone I'd like to be friends with, it's usually by chance, and I have no idea how to find them again. My mom says a lot of this is that I'm not taking many typical "freshman" classes. Any gen eds I didn't clep or get AP credit for (like theology, for which there isn't a clep test) are combined into one class for me, since I'm in the honors program. So honors and the 8-week joke called freshman seminar are the only strictly freshman classes I have.

I am of course trying to make it sound like none of this is my fault. It definitely is. That's one thing we're learning in freshman seminar: take responsibility. And when something good happens, you can bet I will.

the room!

Lovely goes to college

I am here! I've been avoiding my blog because it seemed there was so little to say, only to sit down and realize I had too much to even begin to talk about.

I said earlier that we'd come down and filled up my closet and made my bed the night before everyone else was to arrive on campus. Yesterday we went early to get some carpet from an area Lowe's, which was carried up to my second floor room by two kind ROTC guys, who somehow managed to get it under the furniture, which was unquestionably staying inside the room. (I sort of think they placed the furniture before they built the rooms and doorframes themselves, not unlike those ships you see in the bottles). My roommate came a few hours later, and we got the beds lofted and everything arranged before she moved up all her stuff. Then it was time for a late lunch and then back to the ranch to keep organizing.

And finally, it was all done. Absolutely done. Some people were still moving in, but we were frames-on-the-walls, Spanish-Bible-on-the-desk, guiltar-in-the-closet done, beanie-baby-on-the-bed done. My parents and Nate left, and I sat down on my beautifully made bed and wondered what in the world I was supposed to do next.

Facebook, obviously. But no one was really on, so when two girls popped their heads in and expressed warmest admiration for the decorating of our room, I greeted them and asked to tag along on their tour of the dorm. "Just like window shopping," we agreed as we walked from door to door, knocking on the ones that were ajar and introducing ourselves to the girls who answered. I will never remember all those names, but it was good for me.

At eleven was a dorm worship service in the lobby, which was absolutely beautiful. It was just piano and 150 girls singing out to God. I had dreaded going (I was exhausted and would've preferred to be in bed by nine) but God was there, and there was just a sort of peace that fell over the whole place as we sang. I needed that.

The first night wasn't bad, although it took me awhile to get used to the constant flushing of toilets and people talking. I concentrated on the sound of the air conditioner running, though, and was fine.

And then it was morning! I set my alarm for 8:40, figuring that would give me plenty of time before church at 10:30, but ended up waking up much earlier. When I said this room is the sunniest on campus, I meant it. I loved waking up gently to the natural light flooding in through the closed blinds. I'm going to savor it for as long as I can.

And now I supposed there's little else to do except...PICTURES!

I'm sitting on the white hotel bed, waiting for my little brother to get out of the shower. My parents are out, buying carpet with my debit card, and I have a minute to try to wrap my head around the idea of it's being TODAY. We were able to get into my dorm last night, and unpacked the entire trunk before midnight. We didn't do any actual arranging of furniture; just filled the closet and made the bed and threw some stuff onto the desk, but it made me feel a whole lot better.

Today the sun is out, just like I've been praying. Because Gothic conventions seem to apply to my life as well as 18th century literature, I knew that I could never make it in the event of rain. But even with the sun pushing down and in from behind the closed curtains, I know it's going to be weird.

In second year they told us that dreaming in Spanish was a sign that it was all coming together.

Dreaming in Chinese, however--that just means you're pretty much LOSING IT.

And that's exactly what I did two nights ago. I'm not sure whether to brag about this--Chinese dreams after only one year!!--or keep it to myself, for essentially the reason listed above. Oh well.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Goldfish

I've found myself wanting to write things of a more and more personal nature on this blog. I want to write them so that they may be read, and, in being read, validated. I suppose I simply wish to be known. But the only way for this validation of sorts to occur is for people to actually read the blog, which is not common. I have about two hundred thank you cards to write at the moment, and briefly considered slipping a card with the address into each one. But there's a give and take here, too--one I've struggled with before: each additional reader is an additional person I cannot write about. And there's nothing more interesting to write about than people. Nothing funnier, either.

Speaking of funny, I had planned on watching Pink Panther again this afternoon. It seemed like a good routine, watching a movie every afternoon while writing thank you cards. Nearly on par with the Eat a Huge Slice of Chocolate Graduation Cake Outside in the Rain and Call it Breakfast routine, which was thrown off this morning by a lack of rain and the rush necessitated by a nine am doctor's appointment. There is always tomorrow.

When I started this post yesterday, it was much more centered, I promise. I got distracted, however, looking for my poor phone, which has been lost five days now. My phone is of course lost multiple times each week, but never before for this long, and I am beginning to worry. The act of calling myself, though, and hearing my own voice pick up and tell me to leave a message, caught me off guard. I was tempted to leave one--"Hey, Jobs. It's me. Just wondering where you've been the last few days. Go ahead and call me back when you get the chance. Bye." I wouldn't let myself do it, though, just in case someone found the phone and happened to listen to go through my voice messages. But the concept was inspiring, and I ended up writing a long, tearful letter to myself. Oh, summer. I would say I need to get a job, but I have one.

Maybe a little structure, at least. I think it'd be a good idea to start walking, or something, as well. To balance out the cake at breakfast. And sometime this summer, I want to take a morning pottery class. I'm not an explicit morning or night person--I am a flexible person--but I hate the feeling of sleeping in, and it feels like I've been doing a lot of that lately. Which is almost understandable, for someone who has begun to establish another routine of staying up till two listening to jazz and doing paper mache.

And so--to non-decopaged fingers and leftover cake!

Goodnight.

The Search

I bought the book Into the Wild last winter for a friend for Christmas, peeked at it over a glass of water and chocolate chips, and was immediately enamored. I read that book constantly, trying to finish it before I had to give it to him. It was kind of an afterthought, the book--I'd already bought his present, but had seen someone reading the book, thought of him, and found myself at Barnes and Nobles two hours later--so I didn't have much time. I was literally reading it until the moment I stuck the last piece of tape on the red wrapping paper. It was so good.

I am a bit of a hypochondriac. If someone has a headache and says so, I have one, too. I like to think of it as a very keen sense of empathy, but I deep down I know it's just me being pathetic. When I read about the "call of the west," I could literally feel my heart going out, too. The book was messing with my mind, and monumentally. It drove me nuts not being able to talk to Paul about it-- secrets make me miserable. And they made him miserable, too.

"Can I just have a clue?" he begged.

"Alright. It will make you...itchy."

"Itchy?"

"Yes."

"Then I know where I'll open it!"

"Where?"

"Over your bed!"

But it wasn't that kind of itch. I've heard of people getting itchy feet, needing to move, to travel. It was my mind that had begun to itch. The book is essentially a biography about a boy named Alex who in the sixties decided to give away all his money, abandon his car, and head for Alaska. He dies. But the story in between leaving and being found by moose hunters in an abandoned bus is absolutely wonderful. Along with Alex's tale, though, the author threads a few stories of other explorers, revolutionaries, and whackjobs with similar aspirations--and endings--throughout. One in particular resonated with me. It was about a man who'd killed himself on a search for beauty. He was a beauty-seeker, and this reckless love eventually found him dead on a mountain. And it was then I realized--my life has been a search for beauty, too. And moreover, a search for truth.

And what better time to contemplate the differences between the two than summer, when beauty and deception mix fluidly as money and spray tans. What is beauty? The man in the book found beauty in nature--indeed, most of the people mentioned seemed to have found little time for sex, having found something so much higher--but certainly there is beauty in people, too. But where is it?

I was distressed to hear a boy in my government class say that adolescence was the only time a person was attractive, using this as an argument for tanning, despite the risks. "You only look good once!" he said. "After twenty, you know--it's all down from here. May as well look good while you can!"

I don't say much in government (what is left to be said?) but I turned on him now. "You don't think that people are beautiful, simply because they're people?" I asked. "You don't think that people in their seventies are beautiful, just because they're breathing?" He looked at me strangely. I couldn't stop myself, now, though. "I'm astounded everyday how gorgeous people are, just because they're alive. Life is beauty." I was getting awkwardly passionate, so another boy--one I'd thought to be more mature than this--came to his friend's defense. "Well, technically yes, but...."

But what? There is truth in age, truth in nature, truth in wrinkles and unwashed hair. When I was in Peru, I saw truth everywhere-- and beauty was always with it. There was beauty in the children, who had no shoes, beauty in the eyes of their mothers as they watched them play. More often than not it was a painful beauty. But it was beauty nonetheless, because it was simple, genuine, raw and real.

That's what I've been realizing lately. Truth is beauty. Real beauty is truth. And I'll be searching for both the rest of my life.

Stewing

So I realized that this blog has been in existence for about a year now, and there are a total of sixty posts. (sixty-one, after I publish this). I'm not sure exactly where to go with this. One year, sixty posts-- it is either a huge accomplishment or the biggest embarrassment since the realization no one actually reads it.

Sixty posts, twelve months...it averages out to five posts a month. Which averages out to about a post a week. Which is okay, right?

If I actually did a post a week. The initial days of thrice-a-week posting admittedly do bring up the numbers quite deceivingly. Maybe if I promise to do better? Although I've tried that. Ah, well. Lo que sera, sera.

At any rate, it seemed unfair to let the date pass without some sort of commemoration, so--

Happy Birthday, Lovely.

Lovely goes to San Francisco

the lovely whackjob

A certain sense of entitlement
whose source or validity I've never questioned
Perhaps it's a uniquely American feeling
the idea that we deserve for things to all work out
life, liberty, and a guaranteed happy ending
that I deserve to be always happy
that something must be wrong when I'm not
Or perhaps its developed from presidence
Spring will come because it always has before
and indeed--
here it is again

Hace un ano...

No tengo que trabajar esta noche! Tengo que comparar un regalo para Paul--hoy es nuestro aniversario (un ano juntos). Me parece increible--un ano. Tanto ha pasado, y me siento tanta mayor. Recuerdo quien era hace un ano...estaba tan emocionada. Nunca habia tenido novio antes. He aprendido tanto el ano pasado: del amor, cierto, pero mas de la amistad.

En Paul, encontre un mejor amigo-- algo que no habia tenido hace mucho tiempo. Era la primavera cuando nos conecimos. Nos gustaba helado y caminar por el parque, y peliculas de Disney.

No era cierto si el se quedara aqui; su familia esaba aqui para el empleo de su padre, pero el trabjo era solamente para un ano. Recuerdo el miedo-- no queria perderle. Era dia maravilloso cuando decidio asistir a una universidad en mi ciudad.

Y ahora, estamos aqui, un ano mas tarde. No se lo que pasara el ano proximo, pero para hoy, estoy contenta.

La primavera ha venido otra vez, y para hoy, soy solo una chiquita enamorada.

Disaffection

Having finally exhausted about every webpage containing the words "El Bolson, Argentina," I resorted this afternoon to creeping Joel Stein.

Stein is the lucky guy who is paid, as he bragged last month, to write a weekly column about himself in a news magazine. It was in Time (namely, The Awesome Column) in which I first encountered his witty, embarrassingly egotistical prose. I was in love at once. In love, and not a little jealous.

A whole column in a prestigious publication in which to ramble on about his high school SAT score, his consultations with a psychic, and potential names for a child he doesn't have. It was no fair. I could do that.

I want his job.

The more of his work I read though (online, at his website, http://www.thejoelstein.com/), the more I realized that while I'd love his job, I'd hate his life.

Stein has described his career as a desperate search for attention, and after reading about six of the essays posted online (the site is intended to one day be a complete collection of his work (as a resource for the "many of you who are probably writing a PhD dissertation about me," as his introduction states), I was convinced of this being true. His immense egotism, while appreciable in the weekly doses from Time, does begin to grate when read in bulk, and quickly.

It seems he was recently married, too...I cannot imagine. If his self-centeredness wasn't enough, one would think his frequent and entirely unabashed mention of his porn addiction would be an acceptable red flag.

So while the I remain slightly envious, I suppose I can excuse his having a great job, while I'm still stocking Yoplait and Charmin at six am. Because The Awesome Column might be the only part of his life worth being proud of.

Valentines and Influenza A

The title really basically says it all, although it omits the fact that the latter overrides the former. But anyone in my situation would know that.

Yes. Influenza A. This would be Day 4, I think. Although the two days preceeding Day 1 weren't great, either--I'm just hesitant to lump them with the Influenza count, as the symptoms were fairly different.

(As an aside, isn't it strange how sickness brings out the blogger in me? This malnourished blog might starve straight to death if good health was any more persistent).

So today has been spent mostly in cleaning my room, lamenting that I was not able to make it to Paul's swim meet. I feel about awful about that.

And cleaning did not help much. While cleaning, I had a series of self-esteem destroying revelations. They are:

1. I have a lot of stuff.

2. I need to take better care of my stuff.

I have to admit: while the economy has been very ugly for many people, it's been very, very kind to me. This hourly just got a quarter raise last week, to pad an already ridiculous salary. And while I do think I spend a fair amount of it on worthy things, today, going through my clothes and everything, I was disgusted with how much I spend on me.

I may decry yuppie values in public, but I have a pretty yuppie closet.

My free spending isn't honoring to God, and my current habits won't do me any good when I get to college, either. I'm still not quite sure what I want to do about this. Obviously, keep better track of my finances, and try to put more thought into my purchases. Learn to wait to buy things.

What I'm thinking is this: a two-month spending freeze on anything for myself. This means I can still run out and buy flowers for my mom or grandmother when she's sick, or randomly pick up some Wisconsin beefsticks for Nate on the way out of work. When I finally get better, I can go and buy the Valentine's Day present I picked out for Paul on the Internet. I just can't randomly buy anything for myself.

As for the second revelation, it will just be a matter of effort. If I can make what I have last longer, I can cut back even more on buying new things. I don't want to be a materialist. It kills me that I've gotten this close. God doesn't give us resources to keep to ourselves; I feel as if I've broken trust with Him by spending so much on myself. I'm currently sponsoring a little girl in Peru, but now I'm wondering about taking on another.

Ugh, days when you hate who you are. Paul says he doesn't have them. That sounds nice, but I'm kind of glad I do. Change rarely occurs without some prior agitation, and it seems like I've experienced a lot of that lately.

Happy Valenine's Day!

Sunshine and Ravioli

The holidays are over, leaving in their wake a pressing sense of quiet doom. The holidays are over, and everyone is going away again.

Right now I'm cheering myself up listening to Louis Prima singing scat in "Pennies From Heaven," which is such a fun song. I got my first iTunes giftcard this Christmas, and decided that Tuesday was as good as any to sit down and figure out how to use it. I bought Prima's "Pennies from Heaven" and "The Bigger the Figure" first, because I'd fallen in love with both watching Igor. Then I bought a dirty Spanish song. It was an accident; iTunes only gives a thirty-second clip of each song, and when I googled the words I'd caught from the thirty seconds to find the lyrics, a different song came up. The lyrics the site gave me were fine, but ultimately totally different from the ones of the song I bought. It's pretty unfortunate, because it had a really great sound, sort of like Chicago or Huey Louis and the News in Spanish.

Of course I also bought "Hey There Delilah", and cried through it as always. I am going to be such a wreck next year.

The song has changed, now, leaving this good mood entirely unsupported. I had a nightmare a few weeks ago that I knew everyone at college. At least we know that will not happen. I dread being lonely, but I am terrified of being anything else. I've been told there will be plenty of lonely times, but that I should be fine because my personality is such that I probably won't notice. Very funny.

So much I am going to miss. I am trying to rally at least a little excitement by filling up a box downstairs with new things for my dorm that I don't get to touch until next year. So far I have a toaster, a little magnetic picture frame, and a string of Chinese box lights. Which are pretty fabulous, but, I predict, will of be of little actual consolation when the time comes.