Permanent Press

Sometimes I think this whole life is a wash. I'm just a pawn to be moved around whenever and wherever God pleases. And that's usually how it goes. And juuust when I start to contemplate complacency, He throws me for a loop. And then another. And another. and so many more than I'm about to hurl corn dogs all over visitors at Magic Mountain because, let's face it, God is weird. And He does weird stuff.

It's been a strange week indeed. I was "ambushed" at work on my lunch break the other day and its had me on a whirlwind ever since. In a place where I thought I had no voice, suddenly I felt crushed by the weight of every question you're not supposed to answer around coworkers.
Politics, religion, feminism, liberalism, Catholicism, activism, ism ism ism ism BAM!

what the hell just happened?
Someone uttered the words "and if anyone tells you that you're wrong, tell them they're just stupid."

I swear you could have knocked me over with a perfectly cliche, fluffy little feather.
I've been trying SO hard to make a difference, so hard to show what I do and why I do it, trying to justify the importance of the work I do and thereby, justifying my existence to a certain extent.
And all I've ever felt was the /whoosh/ of brick walls springing up all around me.

It started with a stranger's tale of tragedy. It blossomed into a crazy idea, it fizzled into conservativism and was somehow resurrected through the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt whose words so often inspire my greatest achievements through her simplest quote: "do one thing every day that scares you."

It started with eye contact, then a hello. Then telling one person my idea and jumping off a cliff to see if it would fly. I fell... but with grace. I suppose it could have been worse. I was ignored, brushed off, written off, misunderstood and underrepresented. This is nothing new in life.
But then comes this hurricane, this left-field twister of "HOLYCRAPGOD'SHEREANDHEWANTSTOPARTY!" and then all bets are off.

Suddenly I'm the one receiving eye contact and hellos, cheeseburgers lead to the most random miracles before I know it, I wake up in the middle of a group of people -- GUYS, no less-- who want to hear what I have to say. Who believe in what I do. Who are defending me to ghosts they've never met.
It's a strange world. At the end, one of them said "I really enjoyed this discussion" and as he walked away all I could do was hold my breathe and wait until I burst into flames. I mean, that's what happens to girls like me, right?

Girls who are called "bitch" for saying no, for saying "you're wrong" for saying "you wronged me." Girls who say "no, I will not settle for your estimation of my abilities", girls who don't conform to societal norms of beauty standards and self-image ploys. Girls who dare to dream further than the horizon shows them and girls who are stupid enough to to keep running until they either fall off the edge of the earth, or come full circle back to where they stand.

I've been told a lot of lies in my life and I was stupid enough to believe them for too long.
It's been a strange week.
I went to three different doctors appointments, received the potentially "worst" news for my situation and couldn't be happier to know that the worst thing I might face is the best thing I could hope for to bring resolution.

I discovered that even once your hair stylist "chops it all off"... there's still plenty more hair she can claim.

I slept the whole night through last night... for the first time since 2007. For me, this is a major accomplishment. Granted, a legitimate full night's sleep left me with a massive headache and groggy feeling all day long, but maybe my body is just trying to figure out what the hell happened that it was able to finally rest.

I got home close to 9:30 tonight and really hadn't been anywhere amazing. I just wandered around one of my favorite stores for a few hours until they closed. I went there to buy a skirt. I walked out with pink satin sheets and a handful of closet organizing devices. There's clearly something wrong with me... :)

As proof, I came home and decided to do an impromptu photo shoot. I haven't done much art in a long time and while I've missed it, I realized the other night how much I need it too.
"He not busy being born is busy dying" ... I'm sure Dylan had no idea the extent his words would someday reach.

I thought a lot about the ambush conversation. About love, life, marriage, all my friends with husbands and babies. I tried to imagine what I'd be like someday if I were there again. I came up with two people.
Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball. I've got all the potential to be beautiful and famous... buried deep beneath a hurricane of DUMBASS that makes me walk into walls, trip on my OWN shoes, spill salsa on my white shirt and hyperventilate whenever I get within five feet of a cute guy.

I've had a prophetic glimpse into my future... it involves a lot of pizza. ;)



Not everyone makes a casserole dish look so classy as a hat. :)

Better to have gone crazy than never be optimistic at all?

People say things like "I hope things get better" and "Well at least they can't get any worse" when they're not sure how to respond to certain situations.

2009 has quickly established itself with a "2 steps forward, three steps back" reputation.
For every "absolutely wonderful" thing that's happened, something horrible has followed. I'm tired of waxing poetic religion on the topic because that leaves me with too many questionable options.

predestination:
1. God is mad at me and smiting me for sin I am blind to.
2. God is smiting me because I was born simply to live a mediocre to crappy life then die and go to hell.
3. God wants my life to suck so nothing I do will improve my situation and I should stop trying altogether.

Other options:
1. the Devil hates me and is trying to make me believe one of the previous possibilities.
2. God is pulling a "Job" and throwing me to the wolves to see if I'm more faithful than not.
3. My true destiny is to be a motivational speaker and I'm sweeping the stock market with all the Character I'm building now.
4. There is no God and this is all random happenstance so I should respond to all these situations the way I want to instead of the way I know I "should."
5. The fact that I would even list #4 as a possibility is proof that I'm deserving of all this "smite" and more because "good Christians" never let anything bother them and just post bible verses in their statuses and skip along down the trails without a care in the world.
6. God really, really, REALLY wants me to finally do something nice for myself and use my vacation time for a REAL vacation because he loves me and wants me to be happy and the only way to get me there is sometimes to break me in half.
7. This will later become a crucial chapter in the book everyone tells me I should someday write about my life.
8. The worse life gets in big ways, the more I remember how much I need to appreciate tiny little things in my life that make me so happy but get so easily overshadowed by big happinessessessses.
9. God doesn't want me to move back to Arizona yet because he's planning to pull a "Hail Mary" in the last 30 seconds of the 4th quarter.
10. Plan A was only ever a fool's dream, The Cards were never meant to win the Super Bowl and my life was always meant to be a roller coaster so other people find entertainment in my different art mediums.
11. This is all just a really bad dream and when I wake up, I will realize the last 28 years of my "life" were really just a figment of my imagination and I am actually a three legged dog owned by a writer, whose ideas I heard in my sleep and worked into this fabulous life story but I cannot communicate to my master because every time I bark, he puts me in a backyard full of potholes with a passive aggressive gopher.

I might not know much about God, life, "religion" or the purpose of my existence, but I'm pretty sure it's either #6 or #11...

I bought myself a diamond ring over the weekend.
It really doesn't solve any of my problems, but it sure is pretty to look at. :)

Words of Wisdom

I got an email fwd joke from a friend last week and he said, "you can't win a fight with God!"

I've been fighting with God for a little over a year now and I think we're in a stalemate. Not because God can't win, but maybe because I won't stop fighting long enough to allow myself to lose.

I want to believe, but all that keeps going through my mind is
"Who the HELL am I and why on EARTH would God want to use ME?????"

And the only answer that keeps coming back is
"why not?"

But I can't figure out where that second voice is coming from. I mean, it makes so much sense and yet, no sense at all. Since I was a child, I've told God and everyone on earth that I wanted to change the world. He's GIVING me that chance and I'm too stupid to move forward because I keep waiting for some long-haired hippie in a white robe to jump out and say "PSYCHE!!!"

It's the only feeling on earth more frustrating than being in love.... ;)

I have no doubt that I could build water wells in Africa or harvest crops in Haiti. I have no doubt I could teach children in the ghettos or use my art to change people's lives. And yet, at the mere though of approaching "God's People" and saying "He created me for a purpose and I can really make a big difference if you could just listen to me for five minutes"

I completely withdraw into myself and admit defeat. Because I don't read Greek. I don't know 57 original root Hebrew words for the word "love." I couldn't point to Galilee on a map if the fate of the entire world depended on it and I'm still too scared to read the book of Revelation.

But the problem is, even if I could do all that... I still don't think they would listen.

I am the daughter of Moses.
God have mercy on my soul...