good dog, bad dog

bad dog: late last night, we snuck into a convention of jaded, goateed youth leaders, hiding our absent name tags with huddled coats.

good dog: we did this to see Over the Rhine. over the friggin rhine! with 50 other people!

it was amazing. they are amazing. it was just the two of them. a suitcase and their guitar cases and two musical and poetic masterminds made their way from cincy to san diego on a delta flight only to have almost all of the convention goers go to bed early.

don't believe me?

the serb
the other day, i thought about this guy i briefly dated at the end of college. i was a shuttle bus driver on campus, he was one of my regular passengers. he always said "thank you" and smiled to me as he left the bus. my boss at the time mentioned to me that there should be some rule against those sort of "interactions," but laughed it off anyway.

this all happened a month or so after the end of a two and a half year relationship. which started as friends. which followed another long relationship which started as friends. this said, i was very much out of shape in the "asking out strangers" arena. frankly, i can't exactly remember how it all started, who asked who, how phone numbers were exchanged (or maybe it was email. email is painless these days). but long story short, this guy was beautiful. he had long red hair. great hair. the kind of hair that makes girls cringe from jealousy. he was serbian orthodox and spoke in an unintelligible language to his family, which added another layer of mystery and fascination.

all his friends and roommates rode the shuttle as well, and i had these weird fantastical notions that perhaps they'd talk about me at home. they'd say stuff like "dude, steven has a date with the blonde shuttle driver with glasses who has great taste in music." okay, the great taste in music part was a stretch, but a girl can only dream.

the romance was a whirlwind. the only whirlwind anything i've ever had. we didn't talk too much. after school was over, and i had graduated, he moved home for the summer to laguna beach, about an hour and 15 minutes away. i used to drive up and see him or he'd drive down, and we'd hang out and make out. i used to read aloud to him - things i'd written. until he'd silently sneak out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to get home before anyone noticed his absence, including myself.
finally, we just stopped calling each other. i remember a moment when we were whispering to each other late at night when i told him that he's stupid for wanting to be with someone like me. he's on the fast track for heart break. i had a bad track record. this was a long time ago, but i remember telling him that i felt the free-est i'd ever felt in the last few months, and i wasn't ready to give that up just yet.

four months later: he was friends with my roommate, from orthodox christian fellowship or something. they were having an event at our house, when i wasn't there. i mentioned to annie to pass a "hello" onto steven. anyway, he interpreted that as "call me." so we chatted for a while, i told him to call me back later in the week and we'd hang out.
fast forward to later in the week. erik had since walked (or walked back, however you want to think about it...) into my life. we weren't quite dating, because he still wasn't all that interested in me. but i was over at erik's house, and we were cooking dinner. my phone rang. it was steven. i let it ring. he left a message, and i vividly recall the urgency in his voice. it was bizarre.

i never called him back.

the height of wuss-ness
i had to have a splinter surgically removed yesterday. definitely something to add to my list of "things to be ashamed of, volume XVI."

but really, it's not as bad as it sounds.
i had called my health care provider's "nurse hotline" sunday night, after Giant Piece of Wood made it's way into my body. finger, if you're keeping score. i was able to pull half of it out, but it broke off inside the skin, leaving about a 1/4 inch fragment. the person on the other end of the phone (perhaps she was stifling laughter, but she was very cordial) checked everywhere in their procedures database, but to no avail. she just told me, in a very motherly tone, that "splinters have a way of working themselves out." now, did she mean "working out" figuratively, or that the actual shard of wood would wiggle its way out of my skin? i didn't ask. shame, again.

cut to monday afternoon, approximately 3:40pm, at the Sassafras street on-ramp to I-5 south. wait, i mean Kettner. i digress. the phone rings... my doctor's amazingly ornate and effervescent nurse, charlene, was calling on behalf of the doctor to "follow up on the splinter thing." i felt an instant of betrayal. my Good Friend the nurse last night had blabbed about my embarassing predicament. so charlene asked me about the splinter. i described it, taking care to be quantitative, rather than using words like "huuuuuuuuuuge" or "giantest."
then the question: "when was your last tetanus shot?"

i can't even remember one. the last shot i remember was a TB jab upon entry to the united states. before then, i recall having to line up in the school assembly room, watching each of my classmates faces as the needle pierced their pastey english flesh. so she instructed me to "come in by 4pm so we can take a look at it and get you a tetanus shot."

luckily, the bizarre freeway structure of san diego was in my favor. oh look, there's a northbound on-ramp right here! while I'm south bound! again, i digress.

sooooo, to make a short story long, they used an 18 gauge needle to flick the skin open, and tugged at the errant piece of erik's bed until it came out. this all could have easily occured at home, with a sewing needle and slightly less iodine and anasthesia.

now i'm just a band-aided wuss with mostly a wounded ego. i'm the person you scowl at in the urgent care waiting room.

mental health
yesterday i took a sick day, basically to preserve my mental health. i had a really busy, non-stop weekend, and i hadn't finished getting the house ready for the people who are staying with us this week.

now, i'm feeling like it was a big fat mistake. the stress that i'd planned on relieving yesterday never went anywhere. and the little package of stress i leave at work each night had grown like fruit flies on ager. auger? i don't know. i just remember that stuff smelling really foul in high school science classes.

so of course, in my infinite stress-induced wisdom, i'm wasting more time blogging. this petri dish is starting to stink.

okay, so trash that idea.
quick way to pop the paris honeymoon bubble:

(paraphrasing, but it looks more authoratative in quotes...) "last time i was there was in high school, and i have some bad memories that i wouldn't want to relive on our honeymoon."

okay, i'm sold. that's enough for me.
although now that i think about it, we'd better save hawaii until after the honeymoon, too. and santa cruz. oh, definitely kentucky and philadelphia. that's about it.

this isn't bad. this is just us opting to forge out a new place. blaze a new trail that's ours and only ours. sweet.

dreaming of a parisian autumn
or, an autumnal paris.
i'll take either or both.

somebody posted a recipe to mimic the hot chocolate served at angelina's in paris (which i'm somehow led to believe costs 74 francs.) this got me going. all of a sudden the plans for a yosemite and grand teton honeymoon were washed away with a hot cup of chocolat made with heavy cream (!). paris. this is it.

i've been to france quite a few times, as a child, when it was just a hop over the channel. well, more of a 3 hour ferry ride than a hop. but never once did we veer amidst the parisian bustle and sidewalk cafes and cigarettes and poodle droppings and magnificent buildings and romance.

it's time. i'm going to paris. if nothing else, just to get it out of my system.

a room is almost unveiled
after much disaster, much stupid-blue-tape-problems, the first of our remodelled rooms is almost ready to, well, live in.

actually, they're not disasters per-say. they're just ridiculous results of amateurs like us trying to act cool. the blue tape was a real problem, though. note: don't use on textured walls. or with Safecoat paint.

it was a great feeling last night as we carefully peeled away the last of the masking and finished painting the door of the master bedroom. now all we need are curtains and some help moving furniture, and we'll be all set! "...and she looked around, and she was pleased..."

we opted for taupe walls, white trim, and super dark engineered wood floors ("maple coffee" by harris-tarkett). the curtains will be ivory linen. lovely! we're still debating taking out the bathroom door and just using a screen or a curtain, but i really do enjoy privacy.

next on our list? more Fun With Blue Tape as we paint the dining room and breakfast nook trim, and tackle the Tile vs. Carpet debate in the living room. i'll post pictures as soon as we connect to the internet at home. oh, and buy a digital camera that happily interacts with windows XP. (i.e., one from this century).

remodelling may not be fun, but it sure is rewarding.
that's all for now. :-)

the top three worst places to tailgate:

3. near your neighborhood
2. near your place of work
1. near your church.

just don't do it.

sure he's real.
last night, as i was trying to remove that damn blue masking tape from our freshly painted walls, i mentioned to erik that i thought the newly "discovered" audio tape of osama bin laden was a fake. but a fake in the sense that it was planted by our government. sure, this sounds rather freaky lone-gunman conspiracy-obsessed of me, but it's really quite logical. america needs it's own country and the rest of the world to stop complaining about the "possible war with iraq" (a phrase that was dropped over 11 times in less than 30 minutes of All Things Considered yesterday)... they want to make known the credible threat that would trigger a publicly-supported war. how can we make this terrorist-obsessed country of ours fear iraq? i know! let's make OBL say something that undeniably connects himself to the iraqis!!! it's so simple!

erik managed to one-up me and say that he didn't think osama bin laden existed anymore. perhaps he never did, but erik suggested that given the monetary reward for his head, and the amount of international intelligence seeking him, he's probably now not quite alive. that's a little extreme, erik, but still feasible.

think about it: the one thing that does get this country all rallied up for war is a tangible enemy. not a nation, but a person. frankly, sadam isn't bad enough right now. we all know he's "capable," but we need some super asshole in order to loosen the bomb strings. it's not completely outlandish to think that desperate people would create or enhance an image of the asshole to inspire "american unity" and to all-around warmonger.

if i'm wrong with this, there's also something about osama's tape suggesting that a) he's with the iraqi people, b) he hates america, and c) he doesn't like the iraqi dictatorship either. except for the whole hating america thing, that's pretty similar to our platform. in that case, their attempts to make this tape proof that war against iraq is totally necessary are a little flawed.

try harder next time, guys.

what is education anyway?
quicy troupe was on our local NPR station's "The Lounge" program last night.

when speaking, he ends his sentences in prepositions.
he mumbles and doesn't prepare himself for interviews.
he faked his education in order to be accepted into a post-graduate program, teaching the wide-eyed psuedo-liberal literature and writing students at UCSD.

when he read his poetry, i sat in my car long after i pulled up to the house, enraptured.

this man, education and grammar aside, is the most amazing poet ever to read their overtures aloud.
i wanted to be in a class learning from quincy troupe. i lamented that higher education let that slip through their fingers.

bob talked me down
i'm not going to drink at starbucks. don't worry.

i was just concerned, because at my little independent coffee shops and not-quite-as-independent coffeebean&tealeafs (which, incidentally, use the same font in some of their marketing schtick as we're using in our wedding invitations) - i am drinking unorganic milk. they offer that at starbucks.

so instead of giving a little leeway in my convictions against the pathetic monotonous stripmall culture of chain stores and franchises, i've decided to ask for organic milk every time i order my latte from Rebecca's coffeeshop or the bagel shop down the street. "we don't have organic milk, I'm sorry." "well, you should." "i'm sorry, it's too expensive, we can't keep it in stock." "i'd pay more for it." "okay."

i promise, i'd pay more. i pay more for organic apples and organic frozen food (mmm). this generation is now taking one for the team. we're paying more for our organic stuff, and our fair trade stuff, so that the supply will increase to match this demand, and the future generations won't have any difference in price between conventional and organic.

i'm going to take one for the coffeeshop team, and be embarassed everytime i order coffee. "well, julia, you just asked yesterday, and we still haven't made a decision to provide organic milk." "okay. i'll keep asking."

just don't tell my friends.
so, i'm reconsidering my boycott of starbucks.

more to come.

how can god be everywhere?
for the last two years, i've taught 4th and 5th grade sunday school.

two septembers ago, we had our first class. we began the lesson with introductions, and talked about our expectations for the year. we had expectations of the students, and we wanted the students to voice any expectations they had of the class and of their teachers.

katie, a then-4th grader, raised her hand, "so if god created everything, who created god? and how can god be everywhere?"

so i looked at erik, scott, and sarah, the other teachers, and said, "hm, anyone?"
we basically talked to her a little about faith, and how god can be in the trees and the wind. she didn't buy it. then she said, "okay, well when you guys figure it out, will you tell my dad, too?"

now, a year and a half later, she has asked that same question every single class. the classmates groan. we try to get her to acknowledge faith and understand the holy spirit. every sunday.

this girl is one of the most devoted and spiritual 5th graders i know. in fact, she's one of the most devoted and spiritual human beings i know. her insistence to ask questions such as this annoys the hell out of me, but shows that in addressing her doubts, and questioning what she has believed, her faith is years and years and years beyond that of her classmates and her teachers.

i should mention that she always raises her hand, and says, "i have a question! well, it's more of a comment really."