looking back ahead, janus style

Retail life is winding down at last and I find myself sagging along with it. Now that the mall isn't open till eleven p.m. and I don't have to keep myself going at completely cruel hours, my body is seizing the opportunity to let me know that it is tired. So tired I can hardly drive anywhere. Which is okay tonight, because I don't have to.

I longingly considered staying at home with some DVDs and greeting the new year in bed, but "I have promises to keep" and find that I don't want to spend New Year's Eve alone after all, so I'll be walking a few doors down to a coworker's apartment and hanging out with her and her roommates, nice and quiet. One of her roommates (random!) drinks yerba mate, so maybe I can scare some hot water and sugar up to take over.

My subject GRE scores indicate that grad school is at least a possibility. Truth be told, I'm very pleased with them, so I'll be working on my Notre Dame apps with a more upbeat and hopeful eye.

And -- hallelujah of hallelujahs -- I'm going home! January 7-11 is going to be my little holiday to drive home and see the people I haven't seen since August. I'll get to sneeze at and love up my cats and smell the home smells and sit around in my robe and drink coffee all I want.

Nine or ten years ago, bored with the self-improvement theme of New Year's Resolutions (because I was a constant self-improvement project to myself, if you can believe it knowing me now), I resolved never to make New Year's Resolutions. In the style of make-and-break them, I have broken that one to make a new one: More consistent devotions and a revamped financial plan. I'm saving up for a TV.

And a truly Sarah Peters moment to cap the drivel:

Yesterday I was helping a client look for a suit and she and her mother kept insisting on skirt suits, which of course we had run out of. I asked the reason why pant suits wouldn't work, and the mom said that a man who ran a business in her daughter's field told her he would be more inclined to hire a woman wearing a skirt suit. She added that another man who ran a business said the same thing.

My lips pinched. My eyes narrowed. I said, "Did you ask a woman who runs a business?"


I'm going to lose my job someday.

winter storm warning

About half an hour ago the snowfall was light and swirly and perfect "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" snow. Now it's coming down so thick the Abominable Snowmonster could come up and eat you and you wouldn't see him.

All of this would, of course, be perfect if I didn't have to drive through it tomorrow.

Christmas at the Sommervilles' might be abbreviated if this doesn't let up by tomorrow...which it's not supposed to. I don't care to drive three and a half hours to a strange place through all of this. Plan B is to drive early Christmas morning to get there by noon. Which would suck, but really as darling Jolly said at work the other day, "Honey, it's not worth your life."

Plan C is two or three invitations I've gotten to spend Christmas with various people I've met at work...some of whom I don't even know very well.

I might be going church-hopping again after the New Year...after more than a month at the South Bend Christian Reformed Church, I still feel like a stranger. Granted, my work schedule doesn't lend to my being very involved, but the people seem preoccupied and remote. Even more preoccupied and remote than I am. Like there's some club membership requirement I'm not aware of, and no one's telling me what it is. I have a better family at work, half of whom aren't Christians.

I didn't think I'd miss the evangelical church. But I do. Possibly because it's familiar. Possibly because it's a little warmer, a little more lively.

Okay, I'd better pack. I need to leave way early for work so that I can hopefully get all the fluids in my car checked before I get there.

can that

I'm NOT desperate! I'm NOT a loser!

I say that with a grin. I made, for the first time ever, biscuits. Lacking a biscuit cutter, I used a juice glass instead, and the biscuits are nearly perfect. Okay, a little doughy at the very center, but yay, they're yummy!

Who needs to go anywhere on a Saturday? I have an oven.

Domestic bliss. Now if I just had a cat...

So. There's the note of happiness. Obviously I feel wretchedly guilty leaving a negative post without some sort of yang to compensate for it. I must at all costs appear happy and successful. For the most part it's true, even if "successful" means "selling enough clothes at Ann Taylor to keep my managers happy." Maybe I'm trying to fool myself. Maybe I'm trying to fool everybody else. Granted, I never thought my life would lead me here; as a child I firmly believed that by twenty-three I would be a staid married woman with a child on the way and two books published. Instead, I'm sitting in mismatched pajamas in my own apartment, with the Christmas tree that I decorated by myself, watching the fine windless snowfall and typing a blog about being single, unpublished, and marginally employed.

Well. So here I am.

slump

My feet are cold.

It's a day where all the ends are coming unravelled. Probably I just need sleep; when I feel like an emotional disaster, that's usually the case.

Overworked? Yes. Underpaid? Hell yes. Overwrought? Definitely.

Plus it's a Saturday night and I'm sitting in my apartment. Fun, fun.

So, if you have any Christmas cheer to spare, could you send it my way? I hate this. I don't even feel like being positive. I'm by myself in Indiana and I can't go home.

I want my mom.

christmas commercialism, wahoo.

I keep forgetting what day it is.

This is a bad sign. I figured out yesterday that by the time Christmas rolls around, I will have gone almost exactly three straight weeks without a day off. Without one -- day -- off.

How am I keeping sane? I don't know. I didn't really know that this level of "working stiff" was possible.

Come January, leaving the mall at ten will be a treat. I'll check my watch and say, wow, I can't believe I'm leaving this early. (Well, I'll look at my cell phone; I haven't worn a watch in about two years.)

At least there's an angel on my tree. I can't decide if I want Christmas music or silence.

Is it Friday? Is it really? I forgot again.

yukon, ho!

I hate having neighbors.

I hate hearing noise through the walls. A few minutes ago it was an inexplicable, hesitant tapping on the inside of Marianne's bedroom wall. Now it's the blurry zz-vv-mm-zz of a television turned way too far up.

This was my biggest beef with dorm life in college. I was always pounding on doors and asking, in my loudest voice, if the people inside could turn their music down please, as I generally try to sleep at three in the morning and don't like to feel the subwoofer vibrating the walls. I spent most of college intensely hating my neighbors.

This is making me want a private apartment somewhere, as I can't hope to afford a house yet. Somewhere above someone else's home, where it's quieter and I'm not bordered on every conceivable side by people I don't want to know.

And that is my complaint of the day. On a good note, I found a lovely angel to top my tree today. And a few really cute ornaments. So now my tree looks a little less like I took it out of a box.

Oh yes, and I got out of work two hours early. Also lovely.

and then the silence

What? I haven't posted since Sunday? Oh that's right. I've been working. A lot.

Retail during the Christmas season is its own Charybdis of insanity. The ironic thing is that for the most part I've enjoyed it tremendously. The rush has shown me what I'm capable of, salesperson-wise. Turns out I'm not at all bad. Turns out I rather like it.

Life is funny. I would never, ever, in a million years have seen myself doing something like this AND loving it. It's great to be out here on my own, even with the ridiculous hours (most of next week I'll be getting out of work at midnight. Yes. Midnight), even with having little life to call my own. The women with whom I work are like family, and I get to be around so many interesting people.

I'm even beginning to enjoy Indiana. It will be nice if I can get a chance to leave South Bend and travel/explore a little more extensively, but the Midwest isn't the pit of monotony that I had thought. It has broad open skies, a new phenomenon which I love, and four seasons. The people are generally extremely decent. The pace is slower, but it's not awful.

We'll see where my life goes. I took the general GRE on Tuesday -- oh, was that yesterday? I forgot because I worked till close right after taking it -- and it kicked my ass. I think the verbal score is good enough for Notre Dame, but I'm not sure. Well, if worst comes to worst I'll just reapply next year.

Who knew I'd turn out to be an optimist? There are huge downsides -- like cooking for myself (booooring) and not having anyone to hug (wrenching), no health insurance and no cat -- but on the whole I'm enjoying this very much.

teas are a few of my favorite things

Incredible but true (if someone isn't playing a huge joke) ... Here follows an IM message from Brandon Carper today:

* * *
Here's a funny anecdote for you. A friend of mine is really into Annie Dillard, and he joked on his blog that, since she was too old for him to marry, he would like to marry her daughter instead. So one day Annie Dillard's daughter googled her name, found my friend's blog, and emailed him.
* * *

Now, if this isn't incredible. Too bad Annie Dillard doesn't have (as far as I know) a son.

In other news, I rediscovered the joy of Wal-Mart today. For the past four months, I have relentlessly donned mental blinders while shopping for necessary things like coffee creamer and broccoli and bread in Wal-Mart. I stripped the store of its wonder in order to accomodate my budget. But tonight, Jen, a wonderful friend whom I met through working at Gymboree, got off work at her other job at the Disney store at the same time that I got off from Ann Taylor, so we goofed around all evening and wound up at Wal-Mart. "I just need coffee creamer, eggs, and milk," I said. "I just need trash bags," she said.

Two hours later we left with two cartloads of what can only be termed stuff. A quick tunnel-visioned duck into the food section turned into a leisurely perusal of the Christmas decorations and drunken laughter over coffee and pickles. We wandered aimlessly from department to department, giggling loudly enough to attract friendly stares from the other customers; it was almost like days gone by when I headed off to Wal-Mart for hours of entertainment with Han and Kiki.

I had forgotten that Wal-Mart is one of my favorite places on earth. This is probably because I go to Wal-Mart alone now, and everyone knows that going to Wal-Mart alone is like going out to dinner alone. With a friend, it's as good as Disney World, minus the big scary red-shorted mouse. Something came unhinged in my diaphragm and my laugh was for once light and unforced. It was delightful. I was in such a good mood I laughed out loud and alone when I drove past a huge blow-up Santa passed out on the front porch of the house he was supposed to be cheering.

I am also pleased to report that my spendthrifting is now twenty-five dollars at a pop instead of forty-five like it was in college.

Off for my latest passion, a long saunautic bath with a burning candle and a book. Mmmm.

what a wonderful world

First, allow me to say how much I love winter: I really love winter. Even bare rainy days such as this one when there is no snow, the trees are a darkwet green-silver-grey, and the grass is exhibiting a faded green only from habit. Everything is dead, silent, and asleep, except for the wind. And it's lovely beyond compare.

On to other things. I should start saying "Whatever" more often. It seems that when I do, I get the phone calls I'd been waiting for in agony and not receiving.

And on that note, I have to work (yes, on a Saturday!) and my beloved Earl of Oxford -- a stodgy, harrumphing, middle-aged four-cylinder 1994 Dodge Caravan, to those of you who have not been introduced to Earl -- needs his weekly sip of gas.

boom, baby!

Who am I kidding? If I wind up a bluestocking spinster with eight cats, it'll be because I chose it. And I'll love every minute of it. This, my friends, is my life, written by God and by myself and by no one else. Though I adore its cast of characters, invented and non-invented.

My life is, and will be, good. After all, I am Sarah Peters!

Oz has spoken.

raindrops on roses

I want a cat. I want a lithe, sleek, glossy, self-satisfied mysterious blazing-eyed proud hunter of a housecat. I want to watch it get into mischief in my apartment. I want to tickle its chin and rub its nose. I want to kiss it on the fuzzy wrinkles between its ears and hold it warm and heavy on my lap, purring and rattling and sticking its claws into my leg.

I want a cat. I want a cat. I want a cat.

and then there was (a) light.

Good thing that happened today: After dreaming that I got fired at Ann Taylor for being late, I got there on time and had a great selling day.

Best thing that happened today: Evan Pulgino became my personal hero by sending me The Final Sacrifice and Future War. I was actually so sick for The Final Sacrifice yesterday that I almost cried. It was like missing home. Now I have it in my own living room.

This mildly compensates for my inevitable destiny as a bluestocking barren old spinster with eight cats.

patience comes to those who wait.

This was a favorite saying of my high school youth pastor's. Not "good things come," but "patience comes." His adage, I think, is truer.

I find myself forced to live patiently in another question. I'm not good at being patient, but I feel more strongly than I care to that this time I must be. It's not an option, Smalls. It's hard when the phone doesn't ring, but this reminds me that I have to keep on living my life in the best way possible, independently of anyone else. This means a return to discipline, a rededication to joy and contentment where I am, and a renewal of childlike trust in the Creator who guides my life along paths that are straight in spite of my failure to see it. The fault is with my eyes, with my mortality, with my human limitations; and while God is not angry with me for these, he does require that I put my hand up to his and follow diligently where he leads, surrendering my failures to his care. Faith is the completion of the small or great things that I lack.

It's something like Orual's and Psyche's observations in Till We Have Faces. Brought into contact with divinity, mortality feels keenly its own limitations and is ashamed of them. But "perfect love driveth out fear," and this is what I must remember and hold fast to. And this is what makes faith possible: that the God who has me by the arms and teaches me to walk has my best at heart, out of love. The same love that called the world into being with a word, with The Word, who roped himself in flesh to fill a depth in me that I cannot fathom and to bring many people impossibly together in that love. And who does not hold my empty hands against me, but shows me how to use them, to add a few stones to a kingdom.

Now for the patience. And the trust.

only in Indiana

My egg carton has a Bible verse on the inside lid.

for an' what we have received, thank God.

In about an hour, after I have run to the post office, wherever that is (I have to look for one in Mishawaka; I hate South Bend proper), I will be debt free.

The short version of the story is this: Three years ago almost exactly, I was in a car accident with my mother on the way home for Thanksgiving break from Grove City. As we were passing a car on slippery I-79, it skidded and veered into us at a 90 degree angle, hitting my side of the car (Mom was driving) and knocking my head into the window. The result was permanent damage of a sort to the ligaments and tendons of my neck. So for the past three years we have been putting the screws to the other insurance company for compensation.

Last month it went through, and I received enough to pay off my GCC loan and my credit card bills. Today the check clears and I can make the final payments and celebrate my freedom, mostly by being just as poor as before but without the extra weight of a couple hundred dollars a month.

I'm watching a nuthatch and a squirrel running around in the bare woods. Nice to see something living besides myself.

oh the weather outside is...bizarro.

My zip code according to WeatherBug has a flood warning.

But it's not raining, you say.

But it's Indiana, I reply.

Oh. Well then I'll dig out my galoshes and catch you a lovely bass.

on second thought...

I love my overreactions to everything.

After careful consideration, I think mabye I won't be a hermit. The Rockies would still be nice.

like trees in november

Tired and a little depressed today. Considering the possibility of moving to the Rockies and becoming a hermit. Nothing but months and months of gorgeous, silent, lonely snow.

here, put this on....it's made of lunchmeat.

I'm thinking my malady was/is stomach flu, not food poisoning after all. But I've become afraid of the turkey since Thursday, and so it's still sitting in all its Little Shop of Horrors malice at the back of the refrigerator.

Sometimes quiet, thoughtful acts of kindness are a form of revenge.

Tomorrow I'm going to make another dent in my Christmas shopping. This is not revenge, but pleasure.

a pox on the turkey that poxed me

The title reads better if you say (or think) "poxed" in two syllables, like a line from Shakespeare. Unfortunately no backward accent mark for the "e" on blogger. (This is my only complaint so far regarding blogger.)

Felt better through the day but declined toward evening, which really sucked as I was supposed to go out with guy from church tonight. We're rescheduled for Sunday, though, so all shall (I hope) be well. Damn the turkey.

Although on a best-interest note this does present an opportunity to be well-rested for a grueling work day tomorrow. So it will work out for the best in the long (or short) run.

I bought a new pair of jeans today! The old ones would barely stay on. The new ones are gorgeous and wonderfully long. Nothing excites me more than a fantastic pair of new jeans and fantastic new sweaters. Except for perhaps a good haircut. And since I have all three, my little princess self is quite satisfied.

Clytemnestra has taken a hiatus for a short time. I have no energy to write, and no will. But nothing is lost; it's been an incubation period for several characters and scenes, albeit ones far in the future, and so I think when the Muse decides to sit on me again I'll have something to put to the paper. I don't mind terribly not wanting to write; I have a lot on my mind (such as Christmas shopping and Christmas cards -- ack! -- and the ever-present question of money) and hell, it's the Christmas season: Even if I can't get a real week's vacation, I can take a break from something.

I'm incredibly excited to go to the Sommervilles'. I love their family, and it's going to be wonderful to be part of one for the most crucial twenty-four hours of the year.

And now a request: Would all of you who read this blog and who already know me in person kindly send me your mailing information? Now that Christmas cards have a point, I'm going to do my best to send bunches out to the people far away from me, whom I miss and love. But I can't locate my old GCC directory, and so no home addresses. My IM screen name is prettypuddleglum; I should be online frequently, so send it my way. Help me love you!

And it's bedtime. I finished the First Jungle Book and have begun possibly the eighth or ninth reading of Watership Down. I'm in the mood for animal stories, and Richard Adams does a wonderful job creating a culture and folklore for his rabbits, which he interweaves excellently with an epic tale of heroism and vision. And the chapters are short, which makes for great toilet reading.

turkey sandwich aftermath

So, turkey doesn't even last a week before going bad. Not knowing this, I ate it in two sandwiches yesterday ('tis the season to be broke) and today my guts felt like someone punched straight down on them from somewhere in my diaphragm. The good news: I got to leave work early. The bad news: I'll be out fifteen bucks. Not much, you say? That's groceries for a week.

Oh well. I've made a new dedication to my dietary well-being: Cook more. Peanut butter and tuna fish sandwiches only cut it for so long. Marianne bought a fabulous book of casserole recipes, so I plan to do the poor-and-independent casserole thing. My coworkers have started yelling at me for getting thinner, and I don't want to overdo it. I refuse to shrink out of my brand new clothes.

The problem is that cooking takes so much time and planning. But if I could work cooked broccoli into my regular diet, then surely I can find time once a week to make a big meal.

Bah. I just want to read books.

Okay, blogging is not sleeping off mild food poisoning. Stupid fricking turkey.

wolfling of my watching

I do love Kipling's First Jungle Book. If you've never read it, you should. First of all, for sheer story it's gorgeous. It's nothing like the Disney version -- which, while clever and full of great music, absolutely cheesifies what is a magnificent, raw, rich, and profoundly proud tale. The characters speak in the King's English, a speech of great dignity and nobility, and oh, the stories are wonderful. This book taught me to understand "thee" and "thou" even before the Bible did. I fell in love with Bagheera and Kaa. Akela was one of my childhood heroes. So was Hathi the Silent, reticent Master of the Jungle, answerable to no one.

What I always hated most about the Disney movie is the way it robs these great creatures of their dignity. But thankfully it left a good deal of Mowgli's tale untold, so that it didn't ruin the whole book. There are many tales of cunning, courage, strategy, sympathy, and love beyond the bare bones of the story of a Man-cub raised by wolves who eventually kills his chief enemy Shere Kahn.

Read it. My copy is battered, I've had to tape the covers on several times, and there is a place in the margin, running all through the chapter "How Fear Came," where a worm ate its way a good eighth of an inch into the pages. The pen-and-ink illustrations are marvellous. The paper is old and yellow and brittle and new pieces of corners flake off with each reading, and I couldn't adore it more.

I think there was a short film made of the first chapters, but not by Disney, just as there was a film of Rikki Tikki Tavi and The White Seal. I wonder who made it and if I could find it. I watched them when I was very, very little, and they preserved the original tale-teller flavor and tendency to psalmsong and wonderful characterization of the stories.

In other notes, there is a light dusting of snow on the floor of the woods outside my window and I'm terrifically excited for winter. I love this season of desolate beauty with a fierce wild delight that even autumn doesn't inspire.

Also I've lost nineteen pounds to date since moving. I've never felt healthier. (And yes, my dears, I'm eating and eating well, very balanced and adequate meals, and I still love my desserts. I'm just not eating overly much. Living on the go is like that.) But now all my clothes are ridiculously large and restocking a wardrobe is expensive. Not that I'm complaining. All I need is one more pair of pants and I'll be set for awhile. Thank goodness for associate discounts at Ann Taylor.

an unknown beatitude

Ladies and gentlemen, the duck hair is gone.

I finally got tired of its length and shagginess, so yesterday I pulled out the scissors and gave it the cut I've always wanted. Longer and full on top, short in back, sloping smoothly down the back of my skull to my neck.

According to my coworkers it's cute.

Blessed are the poor in finances, for they shall discover they can decently cut their own hair.

the finer things, oh yes.

I bought lipstick today.

Now, buying lipstick isn't like buying milk. You don't just go in and grab it and leave. Or at least, I don't. Usually it's been so long since the last time I bought lipstick that they've stopped making what I had before. So I have to start from sratch. Which is usually brand name. Do I do Maybelline or Cover Girl? (Both.) Okay, then I squint at the rows of lipstick looking for the right name or color.

I'm too tired to make this terribly interesting, but I want to say three things. 1.) I'm the skeezy kind of lipstick shopper who marks each potential selection on her hand. Completely unashamed, as well. You think that's gross? Why do you try on bathing suits? 2.) I bought two new red shades, one of which I think I like. 3.) Cover Girl had a shade called Port. It looked terrible on my skin. I was so sad.

(I'm spending Christmas with the Sommervilles!!!)

crazy jane

Wow, random. I talked with Erica Palmisano today and may be visiting her family in Michigan for Christmas! Which would be lovely. I wouldn't feel as much of a lost waif then.

I love not believing in coincidence.

What have I to complain about? I am so blessed.

i made you some trail mix out of rat droppings and hair.

Well, I won't apologize for the outburst of misery the other day. (Outbursts, if you also read my Xanga blog.) Suffice to say, however, that I am better today. Probably I WILL spend most of Christmas Day in tears, but I will endeavor to be happy too. I do have some fabulous blessings here, particularly wonderful coworkers who offer to bring me ornaments for my tree and who invite me to their family gatherings for Christmas dinner. This is still new and still strange and sometimes still scary, but I am well looked after and well loved.

My apartment now has pictures -- beautifully matted and framed -- hanging on the walls; Mom brought them, having framed them all herself during her spare (?) time at the Gallery. So now some of my loveliest prints from my old dorm room have taken up a more permanent-looking residence: "My Sweet Rose," a stunning photograph of a tree taken by Erika Szymanski's father, and several Van Goghs.

My parents also brought me a real Christmas tree! I worked in the lights as artfully as I could, and I like the result. Now it needs a few ornaments and some icicles, and it will be truly a pleasure to look at. It smells like a forest and my dryad self is happy.

So I have much for which to be thankful.

A few more ramblings....

What I planned to do today (as it was my day off): S l e e p.
What I did today: Cleaned. All day. Everything. I vacuumed, I dusted, I swept and handwashed the bare floors (not much of those), I CLEANED MY BATHROOM, and did a fridge purge. I wiped out the microwave, did my laundry, reorganized the freezer, washed the dishes, ran the dishwasher, and vacuumed some more. I took out the trash. (Did I mention I dusted?) The moral of today: If you find yourself bitten by the cleaning bug, give in. You'll feel satisfied and pleased, and you sure as hell won't feel like doing it tomorrow, so reward yourself by being responsible. I don't have to work till 6:00 p.m. tomorrow, and I can spend all that day lounging. And writing. I'm renewing my dedication to the craft, and Clytemnestra has been sitting on the shelf for too long.

Isn't it funny that the ancient dorm couch so ugly it's covered in sheets is the only one we really sit on?

I'm rereading Kipling's First Jungle Book and loving it. What narrative. What fun.

A shout-out to Matt Holman: Thank you. :)

since you inquired...

Well, I was right. I don't exactly want to die, but it's close.

I've been wondering about the answer to Matt's question. What am I going to do since I probably can't go home for Christmas?

I have several ideas. Here are a few.

1. Get really, really drunk on Christmas Eve and sleep through as much of Christmas Day as possible. (Discarded because really, what an awful way to herald the second holiest day on the Christian calendar.)
2. Wrap a present to myself. Wake up early on Christmas morning as I have been wont to do all my life and curl up on my couch in the dark watching the lights on my Christmas tree. Cry a lot because my sister isn't sitting next to me and my parents won't be coming down the stairs and my cats aren't lounging on the furniture. Continue crying as I open the present and drink lots of coffee. (I think, sadly, that this is the best option I have come up with so far.)
3. Get a mail-0rder husband so that I don't have to wake up cold and alone on my favorite family holiday. Maybe kidnap a few nice unspoiled children just for the day, to pretend I have a home and a family. (Discarded for obvious reasons.)
4. Find the local homeless center and eat Christmas dinner there so that I don't feel so down-and-out and miserable. Maybe volunteer to work at such a place so that I don't feel like a useless broken thumb on the left hand of society. (Discarded because I'm lazy and have to work my ass off the next day.)
5. Bake five dozen of my favorite Christmas cookies a week in advance. On Christmas Day, eat every single one. (Ugh.)
6. Quit both my jobs and move home so that I don't have to deal with this anymore. (Discarded because home is now a place I want to visit more often than I get to, but where I no longer want to live.)
7. Get myself a cat. Screw expenses, my roommate's hatred of felines, and Hurwich Farms's prohibition against pets. Then I won't be too cold or too alone. (Discarded because I'm a coward.)
8. Cry and cry and cry and cry. Find a moment when I'm not crying to thank God for the significance of Christmas and rededicate myself to faith in a good future. Spend Christmas dinner with the family of a friend from work, so that at least I'm surrounded by people. Cry some more. (Combined with number two is what I think will happen.)

December 26th is the biggest retail day of the year. Please don't shop on that day for my sake, so that I don't lump you into the large group of people that I hate as the consumers who prevent me from going home.

Any other suggestions? I'm open to options that don't waste good Puffs. Tissues aren't cheap.

just shoot me

I think when my parents leave tomorrow (today) I'm going to want to die. I'm tired of being isolated.

la la la...

I got a phone call today. From a boy. Well, I guess he qualifies more as a man. A young-ish one.

My parents drove across three states with a Christmas tree strapped to the top of their car, all to bring their daughter a Pennsylvania tree since she can't be home for Christmas.

Do I have a great family or what?

three's a drag

They've made a third Blade movie. Speaking of awful vampire films.

a small poem

She sorrow went a-manderwanning
quillious quickly in the spraine;
catretchener and tossing robin
cow-du-queried in the rain.
Luminescent silence and
a-haunting kessle thondergrove:
She listened lightly and summered soft
and manderwanning went anove.

An old old one of mine. The weather today is perfect for it.

wow.

happy. quite happy. very full and sort of...ephemeral...and...happy.

and i say to myself...

My period started a week early. Again. I worked sixty hours this week and didn't get the manager position at Ann Taylor. So...I'm disappointed and a little sad -- not horribly depressed, just blue enough to cry on the phone to Mom about how much I want a cat, change into my favorite pajamas, brew a cup of peach tea, light my balsam fir candle, and listen to Piano by Candlelight. (I haven't done any of that in a week or so.) I also rented Spirited Away, which clinched the deal. Spirited Away is the movie I watch when I need a pick-me-up.

Well, I wanted a sign that I'm not supposed to take too much time off from school. Plus I wanted to be able to attend church every week. I guess this is it.

I do love my job at Ann Taylor. I've become the Oliver Twist of women's retail. One of my coworkers, Jolly, a wonderful Bangladeshi woman whose real name is Sayeeda, brought me a bag of food last week. A few days later she brought me some clothes she didn't want anymore. Today another coworker, Katie, gave me a leather jacket she said was sitting around in her closet that she never wore (it's gorgeous and fits like a glove), and my manager Lisa is going to bring me a phone since mine broke. Again. It's like I fell in the lap of some wonderful huge family with lots of things that I don't have. Part of it pinches my pride since I haven't anything to give them back. The mooch in me is thrilled. The impoverished underdressed college graduate is immensely grateful.

Anyway, off to take my bloated self to bed, after a spot of tea and a few scenes of Underworld. (I do love vampire movies. And Underworld isn't as bad as most. Van Helsing, for example. Nothing can approach Interview with the Vampire, ever, but we'll take what we can get.)

a long grind

This is the third thirteen-hour working day this week. Well, the only real one; but I've worked a twelve-and-a-half and an eleven hour day this week, a ten hour day yesterday, and now this.

I am so tired. This is one of the days where I hate what I'm doing right now. It wouldn't be bad at all except that I'm tired. I got home at eleven p.m. last night and have to work at nine a.m. today.

God save me from a life of this.

Where are those grad school applications?

epiphanies of passion

I read "Ash-Wednesday " last night and wept. It was an odd place to weep, sitting on the toilet, but then again, not so odd. There's something about the privacy of a toilet where you can go escape and hang your head and give the semiotic irruption of tears free rein. I believe it's a tendency developed in large families and cemented during middle school.

Something about the love of God has been overwhelming me. The incomprehensibility, perhaps. I have no intention of making this musing a fluffy and nauseating display of puppy enthusiasm that I've hated so much from other people and other people's essays, especially at the Grove (oh God, creative writing personal narratives), but the coffee spoons of the week have featured this unfathomable attribute of the divine regularly enough to be mused on.

It was the subject of Sunday's sermon, and I sat in the pew and cried quietly wishing I hadn't done a purse purge that morning which left me bereft of Kleenex. A freely running nose in church is embarrassing. The love of God is something I haven't quite believed in as applied to myself for the past ten years, when the little bundle of raw nerves that converges into my self heard every week at Youth Group how horrible and nasty and repulsive human nature is to God. Even after I realized that my youth pastor was overzealous, the ideas festered. Anyway, it's been a long time of putting it away and not thinking about it but healing quietly under the surface and it's strange to know that I can be healed. Un-scarred. I've been reading Ezekiel and something semiotic (again that word) about the inexorable passion of God for his people swells in the mind. He says to them, in essence, "I WILL redeem you."

I don't understand the passion of God. I've begun praying on my knees before my bed, because as overwhelmed as I have been, nothing less seems quite expressive enough. I have nothing to give back. My hands are empty. But that's nothing he doesn't already know. Therefore let my devotion be kindled and my hands filled with acts of obedience and love, as my heartfull offering to the One to whom it doesn't matter how little I have to give.



Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

~Eliot, 1930

intimations of immortality

Mystic quote of the day:

"Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split."

That's Annie Dillard, at the beginning of Holy the Firm.

I forget how closely eternity is wrapped in time. I forget how each moment is its own eternity, sanctified to that which is beyond time. I forget that every instant of my being, of every being, of any being, is utterly significant.

It's easier, pretending that each day is mundane, another obstacle to be hurtled, another creek to cross, and that my only aim is to avoid bruised shins or wet feet. It's more comfortable to settle into a mindless routine, to dull my senses and think only of the times when I can go home and fall in bed. It's dangerous, to live in eternity-in-time. The crest of the wave, the question, the threshhold of seen and unseen.

But wow, we can. We're beings of liminality, simultaneously existing in body and soul, held together by mind. A mind that is too often too fragile for the significance of the moment, but the best tool that we have.

Anyway, I'm out of practice with essay writing, but there are my thoughts. My petty resentments needed that kick in the teeth to knock them back into perspective.

all the small things

I think I may break my own record and be in bed by eleven.

TWO young men from church visited me at Ann Taylor today. Not one. Two.

The Muse is riding my soul but the body is too tired to yield to writing and must yield to mattress instead. Thank God for beds.

Sir, I have no husband

Communion was served this Sunday. At the South Bend Christian Reformed Church, the congregation goes to the front to receive the bread and the cup from the elders -- new to my experience, and rather delightful. I had read the line-up instructions printed on the bulletin, where everyone was supposed to exit their pews to the right and return from the left. However, the section of the church in which I was sitting was rather long, so that the line was backed up (I have noticed that churches and Grovers can't maneuver traffic well) while the section next over was smaller and the line therefore shorter. Some decisive people in the rows ahead of me had elected to exit their pews to the left and enter the shorter line.

I was at the very end of left side of the last row, having come in late, and found myself hoping to God that I wouldn't have to make the decision. So naturally I peeked around at the person on the other end to see if they seemed the decisive, take-charge sort. Oh, good, it was a man. A young man. A rather attractive young man. (Thoughts of communion scattered a bit here.) A rather attractive young man who hesitantly caught my eye and refused to make a decision. Damn.

The woman next to me eventually whispered that I should lead the row to the left into the shorter line. So I did, feeling awkward and nervous -- this was only my third time in this church -- and all went smoothly. After the service I noticed this attractive indecisive young man and tried to quiet the bells going off in my head. Did the ring-check; left hand was bare. Hoorah.

Now the embarrassing part. Of course there's an embarrassing part. Between the service and the church school hour are about twenty-five minutes for coffee, cookies, and fellowship, where everyone mills around in the sunny atrium off the kitchen. I went to wait in the coffee line, which was mercifully shorter than the communion lines, and found myself directly behind the attractive indecisive young man. (And God, he was good-looking. I keep forgetting that I can be attracted to someone right off the bat like that. Blue eyes, dark hair, pale skin, and just about my height. Woo-ee.) He seemed shy, but the old man behind the kitchen counter arranging cookies on plates was chatty and asked the young man questions, have you come here long, are you in school, etc., and I of course listened. I learned that he is visiting faculty in the philosophy department at Notre Dame. He poured his coffee and turned to leave; I was smiling at him in what (I thought) was the pre-friendly, waiting-to-catch-his-eye-to-say-hello sort of way, but he didn't quite catch my eye and moved past to talk to some older people across the room. As he passed me I stepped up to the coffee and smiled at the old man, who asked in a not-so-quiet voice, "Are you two married?"

It was like being hit in the stomach with a tennis ball. I lurched at the counter and felt my face go hot and was tempted to blurt, like the woman at the well, "Sir, I have no husband." My internal filter prevented me, however, and I managed a choked-sounding "No -- no. I've never met him." Now, the old man could have spared me further embarrassment by simply shutting up. But he said, by way of explaining his assumption, "Well, you were smiling at him..." I laughed and said I was just being friendly. I ducked to the side to doctor up my coffee. God have mercy.

Now how on earth was I smiling at him? I tortured myself over this for the rest of the day. Was I leering? Looking dreamy and wistful? Stupid? Creepy?

Well, I told myself, if he's visiting someone in the philosophy department, I'll probably never see him again, so there's nothing to worry about. Only to learn, when I laughed about it last night with Marianne over beer, that "visiting faculty" means you ARE faculty, and you're here for at least a year. It's a Notre Dame title. This indecisive attractive young man has a PhD. In philosophy.

Hot damn.

If he even comes back. If he ever talks to the weird young woman staring at him with some unidentifiably creepy stalker expression whom people think he's married to.

Well...I hope he's in church on Sunday. Even though I'll be too embarrassed to look at him. To his face, anyway.

Praising Jesus with a Well-Stocked Bar

Actually the party had no real worship purposes, but it was still like entering a Charlie-and-the-Chocolate-Factory limbo of multicolored weirdness to be at a church function with alcohol. With so much alcohol.

Not that it was even in the church building; it was at one of the member's homes. A Dixon-esque kind of home, with more open spaces in the middle of the rooms. The only kind of alcohol they didn't have was port. As Jen the hostess was showing Marianne and me where to find the food and drinks, she said, "Cider's on the counter. There are a few nonalcoholic things in that cooler, but not many." So it was alcohol or water, baby.

The truly Gene Wilder effect was the overwhelming presence of small children. Mostly toddlers, running around underfoot and rooting through people's purses, while their parents made moderately merry all around them.

No drunkenness that I noticed, which made me feel more relaxed; these were laid-back people gathering together to yak and have a good time. Rather like all of our clandestine alky festivals at the Grove.

But still, coming from a Baptist background where I have to fight for my God-given right to drink alcohol, I found the perfect comfort with the stuff oddly disconcerting.

Needless to say, I'm still attending.

liminalities

This morning is far too bright and sharp for November. The smudgy greenness of the underbrush far back in the woods is shadowy, but the skirt of trees that rim the edge of the woods are standing in hard yellow sunlight, as bright as for a morning in August. The leftover leaves on the pin oaks are glittering in an affronting way, robbed mostly of shadow by the spotlight sun. It looks strangely unnatural, a day caught between seasons, not sure whether to be summer or midwinter, like something from a Ray Bradbury story.

The only thing that anchors the mind in November is the wind stirring the woods. It keeps the day from looking too much like a Dali painting.

premonitions of goodness

Bush won.

I lost my favorite scarf at work -- the one Marianne bought for me in Paris -- and someone turned it into the mall lost and found. I'm still adjusting to the idea that Indianans (I suppose I should start calling them Hoosiers like they call themselves, though no one knows quite why; I've looked it up) are largely decent people. If I had lost my scarf in Erie I would never have seen it again.

I almost had to work through a church party at the home of one of the members of the church I'm attending (it's going to have a KEG), but at the last moment it was changed so that I still have the evening free.

I met this random woman yesterday at Ann Taylor who knows a few grad students in the English program at Notre Dame and called me last night to give me their numbers. She was so NICE.

I've been a whiny little brat this week and God has still looked on me with gentleness. I don't get it any more than I got it when I was thirteen, except to come a little closer to the dumbfounding idea that the basis of all his goodness is love.

election day, election day, won't you speed us on your way?

Ugh. I truly hope that nine months of political contortionism is resolved in a twenty-four-hour period, not the endless hysterical boredom of four years ago.

In other news, I love November.

when in rome...

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