prose manifestations of past loves, part III
the other day, i got an email from someone from The Past. the email mentioned my pending nuptials (a phrase i picked up like a bad habit from greg) and, i quote, "I have to admit that news broke a piece in the back of my heart."

i'm not quite sure what to make of that. either way, i'll tell the story, because it makes for damn good blogging:

justin and i met in july of 1997, at the general convention of the episcopal church held in philadelphia. i was in my first year of college. we had a sort of mutual friend... someone i'd briefly met the year before at episcopal youth event, but had emailed back and forth. he had tasked me with meeting up with justin, and justin with meeting up with me. and no, "to task" is not a proper verb, according to my grammatical snobbery.

well, we met, and something amazing happened. i can't remember if we shook hands, or if we ever stopped shaking hands, or if we ever broke eye contact for the entire week in philly. thenceforth, a major letter-writing campaign took place. real letters, some emails, some instant messaging, but mostly his beautiful cursive girly handwriting on thin, crisp white paper, and long expensive phone calls very late at night. even later for him. he'd also send me cases of Ale-8, a native kentucky beverage that's "like ginger ale, but better."

i was convinced that this was it. as soon as i'd graduate college, i'd move out to kentucky for a few months to give it a shot. if things worked out, i'd stay. that fall, he came to visit me, and, after having months pass by, building this amazing bond from half-a-world-away, we knew we were going to be in for some physical manifestations. "plot complications," as we'd later call them. i was conviced this guy was my soul mate. i spent three weeks straight with him that christmas, and was finished. i was mere putty in his hands. he sang john denver songs to me, had this amazing little drawl, and told me that i was his everything and that he loved to hear me laugh. yes, wet, sloppy putty. we spent a week snowed in at a friend's house, watching south park, playing guitar, dressing up and giving each other gangster names for a fake-poker night... (i was "fifi l'amour", if you must know)

the day before i left, we told each other that we couldn't love each other without making too much of a sacrifice in our lives. and any relationship we'd try would be riddled with compromise. so i left. he kissed me goodbye and whispered leaving on a jet plane in my ears as i waited until the last possible minute to board (and subsequently had to hold all my personal belongings at my feet instead of the overhead compartments). i knew the chances of seeing him again were very slim.

for the next 3 years or so, i compared everything, everyone, every moment to justin and my time with him. he was a measure against which nobody else could mean anything to me. i had saved a box full of his letters, and i'd read them secretly, unbeknownst to boyfriends or friends. until finally, i DID graduate from college. i was out of work. i was single. i confessed to my roommate julia (yes, it did suck) about everything. we had a very teary conversation, and she told me that i was stupid for even thinking about staying in san diego. i believe she even started looking online for airfares for me. but i didn't go. i hadn't talked to justin in years, and i was afraid of finding out that he was just a normal guy. i was afraid of shattering this fantasy of perfection, of discovering that soul mates are a strange ficticious meme.

so i got a job, and tried to forget about kentucky. 3 or 4 months later, erik walked into my life. about 1 or 2 months into our courting/relationship, i realized something great was happening, something life-changing. why? because i noticed i hadn't measured erik with the justin-o-meter. i hadn't compared anything. i hadn't even thought of justin. erik had freed me from the chains of a tired clingy façade of perfection. and this was before we even fell in love.

and we will all keep still
Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about.
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
--Pablo Neruda

you can't say that on television!
make that "american" television.

erik and i, with our newly acquired mental pollution, were watching canadian news. they showed footage of rumsfeld talking about the US POWs and mentioning stuff like violations of the Geneva Convention. then, they switched over to videotaped footage of the taliban and AQ prisoners at guantanamo bay. the anchor mentioned something about how the Geneva Convention was no big deal to america then... as far as i know, the removal of the prisoners to guantanamo bay is a violation in and of itself, and videotaping prisoners is right out. i'm no international law scholar, though.

this would not happen on CNN or any US network news show.

the inaugural cable modem blog
here i am! at home! it's sunday!

until this point, my weekends were merely blogs waiting to happen. prose opportunities, witty thoughts, and thoughtful banter fluttered around the inside of my head from around 4:30 on friday until nine monday morning. inevitably, they'd flee my mind like passing scents on a breeze. i'd be left with a indiscriminate hint of a memory of a smell. did that just smell like turnips, or my grandma, or both? or maybe it wasn't even a smell.

now, with the luxury of cable, the gorgeous shiny new profile will be my portal to the scratch-n-sniff sticker realm of the blog.

i promise to be insightful and witty, and like, smart and stuff now. or maybe i'll just be a productive employee at work. either way, the world is undeniably a better place with instant, guilt-free internet right here whenever i want it. on a functional computer, too. life is good.

diversions from war, part 1.
here are some quick and easy steps that you too can partake in to take your mind off the war and the endless streams of associated political debate.

1. try printing addresses directly on tiny envelopes. it's also best if you purchase laser printer clear labels first, then realize you have an inkjet printer. that way, you'll know it's your own damn fault that you have to insert tiny envelopes one-by-one.

2. attract ants to your house. this works best if you live in a condo or apartment, and you ask your next door neighbors to fumigate their houses for ants. that way, they'll all come to your house. create a battle scene of your own. chemical warfare is allowed.

3. concern yourself with meditative issues like, "even though i fully believe that clear inkjet labels exist, i also fully believe in a peaceful marriage, so i won't blame anyone in particular and just be okay with printing directly on the tiny envelopes," and "even though my car got hit, and i didn't even get any free drinks from mulletguy out of it, i'm okay. my car is still fine, and she liked the attention..." and "even though the House passed a $2.2 trillion tax cut riddled budget plan beneath the shadow of the war, it's still okay, because the old rich white people will assuredly donate their tax cuts to the ailing inner city relief programs, education, health care, and other organizations with slashed funding."

4. don't read psalm 91. that puppy is all about protecting during "terror" and "arrows."

that's about all i have. practice these steps daily and fairly soon, you will be more frustrated with your own life, and quickly not concerned with the thousands of lives and the state of peace currently being trampled upon elsewhere in the world. anyone else have any tips?

a new way to pick up women
since everybody is warblogging today, i'm going to leave one last important tidbit of information:

the person who hit my car last night had a mullet. and he asked me out for drinks.

"no, i don't go out with mulleted people who hit my car, thanks."

so yesterday sucked, eh?
i hate war.

this is all riddled with the ever-increasing feeling that i am Julia or Winston from 1984. i'm figuring out that the government is feeding me a lie (i.e., that the US is "reluctantly" going to war, or that they tried every method of diplomacy...). i'm figuring this out, and there's nothing i can do.
my cool little "crevice" in the room - the only place winston and julia could hide from the giant eyes of big brother and the unforgiving "telescreen" - is my wounded pro-peace, "anti-war" community that i've found. that's all i have. rather than finding strength and support, i'm just finding a safe haven. and a temporary one at that. we are mourning this war, the failure of our country, the failure of all things sensible. yes, i think france failed us, too. yes, i think people who hold signs that say "no war for oil" failed us, too.

i'm very uncertain about the future. i'm uncertain about anti-americanism. i'm uncertain about my choice to become an american citizen. i'm uncertain about the flights i'm taking next week. i'm uncertain about getting married and starting a family and raising children in such an awful climate. i'm uncertain about the state of democracy. i feel unstable and helpless, because world leaders - democratic leaders pledging to represent the people enabling their election - are disobeying that pledge. they're disobeying the wishes of the people and wordsmithing their speeches to make it sound like they are. i cried last night. NPR played some beautiful lachrymose solo viola music immediately after the president's speech at 7:15 PST. relatively speaking, i am the most personally un-affected human being by this war. i don't have any loved ones kicking any ass in the middle east. why is it disturbing me so deeply, then?

i also found out this morning that my beloved caramel latte has about 500 calories. and my car got hit last night. and i still hate war.

point by point, lie by lie.
read this. all of it.

wow.

thanks to traci for this one.

x-treme bull
at the irish pub on st. patrick's day, the TVs were set to the always irish sport of "Xtreme Bulls."

erik and i, only 1 guinness down, were quickly hooked.

after much mockery and the people around us commenting on the darwin award-esque nature of the sport, i noticed that the bulls actually had names. one that stuck out was "diamond cutter."

erik thought this was a bit wussy, so we came up with a few more intimidating names.
- Family Dejeweler
- Manhood Eliminator
- Swimmer Killer

really, it was college humor at it's best. and all we really needed was a pint of guinness each.

on a sad note, some guy actually got his hand stuck in the handle thing, and was dragged around the still-bucking bull for a while. frankly, it's their own damn fault for tying their hands to the handle in the first place.
another guy fell off, and as he was standing up to run away, the bull came and head-butted him. in the butt. we laughed. the TV broadcast replayed this. we laughed. then a third time in slow motion. we laughed some more.

good times, good times.

not that i support Wendy's, but...
rebecca, the loquacious one brought my attention to this "moral authority". they're talking about last thursday's episode of Will & Grace. apparantly, TWO BOYS KISSED! holy crap. actually, i watched the show, and missed the kiss, because i blinked, or looked at my dinner, or something that managed to avert my eyes for a fraction of a second.

"Will & Grace has not shied away from the subject of homosexual sex, as the main characters have frequently talked about male genitals, homosexual promiscuity and even anal sex. The two main male homosexual characters, Will and Jack McFarland, did share a kiss in a previous episode, but it was merely an attempt to get the attention of a television camera crew. Other network sitcoms have occasionally shown a same-sex male kiss, but the context made it clear it was for the purpose of generating laughter - and not as an expression of homosexual affection."

today's big controvercy is that a) will kissed another guy, and b) it was just a casual kiss that generated no laughter. the fact that it was heartfelt and affectionate is apparantly a big No-No for this organization, "OneMillionYouth," or "OMY." they're calling on their members and supporters to flood Wendy's, a fast food company that aired advertisements during the episode.

the one thing that bothers me about Will & Grace is that homosexuality is often just the butt of jokes. (yes, no pun intended). rather than tackling a serious social issue, they're just joining the ranks of the intolerant as they make fun of gay people too. so when there was actually an affectionate gay scene in the show, i was impressed, and OMY was outraged. Oh My. the kiss was nonchalant, and uneventful. it was a peck. the kind of kiss that married people share every day after 20 years of marriage. this should be great. this should be a wonderful step for gay rights movements. but instead, organizations like OMY are fighting it, threatening the advertisers. it's only okay if we're making fun of it, because man, we all know that sort of behavior is moral.

advertising should not dictate our social and political climate, nor should it dictate what sitcom smut we choose to pollute our brains with. knowing that the prospect of advertising backlash had kept something like will and barry's kiss off the airwaves would inflame me much more.

while i'm still disgruntled by the influence of television on our lifestyles and opinions, i'm happy that sitcoms are not dumbing down their portrayals of life for fear of losing sponsors. keep it up.

read what bitch magazine has to say about buffy's willow and tara (lesbians) HERE.

gay people kiss, too. get over it.

"all we are saying, is give peace a chance"
we went to a "peace vigil" last night at balboa park in san diego. we didn't really think about it before we went, but as we were parking, next to this giant circle of people, faces aglow with candle-filled dixie cups, i said, "wait, do you think there are going to be people speaking, singing, or what?"

yup. they were singing. over and over again, the meditative refrain "all we are saying, is give peace a chance" echoed around the circle. it was very pretty, and peaceful. (i'd hope).

however, aside from a few short periods of personal reflection and meditation and even prayer about peace, i was mostly just looking around and playing with the way the wax dripped from the candle into the cup. i did take something important away from this event: the sheer volume of participants. i was sincerely struck by how many people turned out. it choked me up to see old people, families, babies, and 6 year olds amongst the usual kill-the-man twenty-somethings and college students. oh, and people were burning sage, which smelled REALLY good.

i felt that the singing, which was just short of the cum-by-ya chants we know and love (and make fun of), was not quite what we needed. while it was repetitive, the core of the Taize philosophy of meditative worship, it just didn't seem like enough. i kept having to remind myself that any "product" of this, or any vigil would be to be a visible, peaceful, protesting presence, and to instill meditation and even prayer in the participants.

lots of vibes were sent in the way of peace last night. but i just have an itch that the right-wingers found humor in our little sage-burning, cum-by-ya-singing hippie circle.

anyway, after this morning, we should change the refrain to, "all we are saying, is give multi-lateral UN support a chance."

adolescence
from the age of 10 until about 16 or 17, i was a hopeless, lost child. i was infinitely more complex and compassionate than anyone else could understand, especially my parents and stupid slightly-older sister. more importantly, i was infintely more complex and compassionate than them all.

eventually, i found my match. did i find this in my peers? no. not until at least mid-high school. did i find this in my family? hell no. did i find this on television? hahaha.

i found it in novels. nowadays, we place a very low literary value to such cheesy works of fiction as the "Babysitter's Club" series, and Judy Blume's groundbreaking pieces... "Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret..." and "As Long As We're Together." i just can't measure how important these were. i saw other people, usually girls, going through the same stuff as me. what are the friggin chances that someone else got stuck with stupid parents and siblings and friends that really weren't all that friendly too!?!?!?! then there was the Life Changing tromp through j.d.salinger's amazing coming-of-age masterpieces. (yes, i read them all. no, "read" is too weak a word. i inhaled them)

this week, i plowed through this amazing coming of age novel, "Brave New Girl," by Louisa Luna. i don't know what good this would have done for me at age 14 (the age of the foul mouthed pixies fan protagonist, doreen). with the prolific use of the F-word, i can't picture this book being taught in high schools any time soon. but today, me, an adult, about to get married, totally settled and basically at peace with my "fucking stupid" family, this book amazingly, fully struck me.

i realized what i had wanted. i wanted to share everything with the world. i wanted to be a character in a coming of age novel. i wanted to be franny. i wanted to be margaret. i wanted to be holden. i wanted to be doreen. i wanted to be someone that a helpless adolescent and teenager found comfort and relation in. i wanted to vent my frustrations with growing up, dealing with parents, losing some virginity, hating friends. i wanted to show the other end of the antagonistic pest the world saw. i wanted to let everyone know that people that age are not hooligans and nuisances.

i suppose this all roots back to the fact that i denied myself a childhood. i grew up too fast because i felt like i personally bore the weight and responsibility of convincing the rest of the world that kids, adolescents, and then teenagers weren't that horrible. i thought, "shit, my stupid siblings and friends are ruining it for everyone. nobody is ever going to take us seriously." so i faked maturity. i faked something i didn't have, and squandered the youth i did have.

i would have made a great coming-of-age novel, eh?

of all the passing whims
the inspiration for me to train for a marathon is the passing-est. oh, i think it just passed. away.

here's where i found it, courtesy of webraw's 31 Flavors of Blog project: the MARATHON blog.

anyone who eats "tofu pate" for lunch each day is a hero of mine. wait! make that LITE tofu pate.
really though, i set out my running clothes last night, in order to go running at 6:30 this morning. well, it didn't happen. at 7:08am, i finally stopped hitting snooze, took a shower, and was somewhat late to work.

i really did go through a huge running phase recently - a few years ago. trail running. it's definitely a big time committment, mostly because after you're done, you're filthy. stinky, sweaty, and covered with splattered mud down the back of your legs. i used to run for an hour-and-a-half a pop. i ran up and down mountains like they were speed bumps. and not those annoyingly huge speed bumps. those soft easy ones, for which low-riders don't even need to slow down. it was physically and spiritually enrapturing. then i started dating again, and needed to be ready to go out at nights without stinking.

now i'm letting unfounded fears of kidnappings and rapes by mountain-dwelling sickos be my Good Reason for stopping.
anybody need a running buddy? i run fast, and burn out even faster.

warning signs...
really, my stomach hurts from laughing now.
emergency

"jesus christ, brought to you by cingular wireless."

so, a certain church in which i'm on the elected leading body (i.e. vestry, if you're down with the episcopal lingo) discussed an "unsolicited" proposal from a certain cellular phone company. they want to put antennaes on our property. our church! our steeple! okay, not really the steeple, but pretty close to it.
why would this even be considered?? because they're going to pay us. a lot.
as you have probably already guessed, this makes me a tad irrate.

first of all, and on top of all things - regardless of whether the antennae (which apparantly is a horizontal bar these days) is visible, or regardless of whether it is completely harmless to our health and the health of the preschoolers, this is like blood money.

i'm tasking myself (since everyone else on vestry seemed to nod in agreement of how wonderful this whole proposal is) to put together a report. i'm going to call it the "Jesus Christ, brought to you by Cingular Wireless" report. i'm going to delve into whatever i can get my hands on. shareholders reports. miscellaneous muckraking about the company. i think our church has a right to know this stuff. if we no longer care about sacrificing the sanctity of our worship space, we can at least make sure the profits cingular are giving us don't come from exploitative labor practices or pvc-esque frivolous environmental waste policies.

it's not like they're going to stick a logo on our rooftop. it's not like they're giving us money to advertise, or even to help our ministry grow (which would entail a "corporate underwritership.") they're just paying us rent. way too many churches to count are already doing this.

it just burns me, that's all. we're selling out. it's hard for me to trust something that's riddled with corporate money. and if i can't find trust in the house of my god, then what?

CSA
so i just sent in an order form for a Community Supported Agriculture Program. what's that, you ask?

basically, i just learned about this too.
it's a program where members of a community can purchase a "share" of a farm, usually an organic farm. why usually an organic farm? because they're into crunchy stuff like this.
and by "share," i mean, they give (deliver!) you a share of the crop. you can pick either a large share or a small share, and even get it delivered biweekly.

we're going with the Be Wise Ranch. they have a relatively large CSA program. wait, relatively gigantic. we just signed up for the trial period. it'll be interesting to see how it works out, and if we use all the produce.

here's a few pros and cons that i know going into this endeavor:
Pro- we get fresh organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs, etc., for a fraction of the cost of Whole Foods or other organic stores.
Con- i'm almost certain we'll waste some stuff
Pro- we'll now always have food in the house. we'll always have something to throw together for dinner. thus, we won't eat out as much, and we'll be much happier and wealthier.
Con- we'll have to figure out how to cook obscure vegetables we'd never think of buying in the store.
Pro - we'll have to figure out how to cook obscure vegetables we'd never think of buying in the store.

well, i can't really think of any more cons, so here's another pro - we'll learn to eat, cook, and live more seasonally. that's very sustainable of us.

i'll be sure to document the process here.
mmm, vegetables. now if only they'd deliver tofu, edamame, bread, and toilet paper, i wouldn't need to step foot in a grocery store again!

okay, i promise, i've really had enough of being sick.
this marks the 5th new bout since the beginning of december.

and of course, everything was alligned in favor of me getting sick.
- i'm not very good about taking vitamins everyday.
- i'm very good about drinking a latte everyday.
- i've been unbelievably stressed out recently.
- and... i consequently haven't been getting sleep.

so friday night, right as i was preparing to spend all night and most of saturday preparing for our engagement party saturday night, complete with a ton of fancy hors d'oerves that i'd prepare on saturday... i felt a wicked sore throat come on. it was one of those "damnit!" moments, because i knew i deserved it.

and why am i here at work today? well, mostly for the free internet. i'm actually going to go home soon and work on the house, and our pending internet connection!!!! erik and i made a vow not to hook our TV up ever (since we're reading and conversing so much now), but there's no way in heck we can live without the info-net. my productivity at work really does depend on the availability of the internet at home.

and with that, i'm going to try to get some work done.


...okay, who am i kidding? i'm going to play on the internet.

shift of emphasis
did anyone else notice the lack of the word "nukular" in bush's speech last night? it was only mentioned when talking about north korea. the inspectors have stressed that iraq's nuclear/nukular threat isn't, well, a threat. so the bush administration is focusing on biological and chemical weapons now. which are a threat. i probably wouldn't have noticed this shift in focus much if it weren't for his highly distinguishable way of pronouncing nuclear. (note that distinguishable is different from distinguished). the speech bush gave a few weeks ago had nukular as every other word while yesterday, i heard it only a few times. this is very interesting.

what's more interesting is that i still crack up when i hear him say it.

my relentless wit
i just have to document how damn funny i am.
this was in a message advertising a regional young adult event --
"We will be discussing simplifying our lifes, materialism, and how we have to approach the "dropping everything and taking up the cross" idea in this day and age. This will be a discussion "led" by Julia, who tries to simplify her life and be non-materialistic, but still catches herself reading catalogs more than scripture. The focus will mostly be on sharing each other's ideas rather than listening to a discussion leader. a free DINNER WILL BE SERVED."

i am working on the catalog thing, by the way.

remember that you are ash
...and to ash you shall return.

thankfully, i found out last night, during our ashed-foreheaded girlie bonding session (over some very unlenten tirimisu), that i'm not the only one who was a little disturbed by the notion of being ash.

i thought we were important! important to god at least. you know, god's children and all. that's more important than ash.

but i'm starting to get comfortable (thanks to Dear Friend Sarah) with the fact that my body is ash. my temporal life is ash. the material world is ash. these things will disappear, disintegrate, scatter. upon my death, when my body becomes ash again, i will not. i will continue.

i still haven't mastered this enough to be fully comfortable with it. but hey, if i did that now, i'd be bored for the rest of my life. discovery and constant learning are the essence of growth, sanity, and spirituality. i don't want all the answers all the time, but i am glad to know that i'm not ash.

what, you guys only comment on my wedding stuff and ridiculous conspiracy theories?
perhaps i should change my format. everything on this blog could revolve around wedding rantings complete with superfluous use of salingeresque Capitalization For Satirical Emphasis, and wry conspiracy plots.

not really, that would get boring. maybe i'll write a conspiracy plot about weddings some day, using lots of capitalization. stay tuned! comment on the boring stuff!

until then, how's this for interesting..? peace off, man (yes, say it out loud)

DNR
so i guess erik's grandmother had "signed a DNR," or so my good friends on ER say.

i had always wondered about that process. i generally envisioned super old women who were widowed already, or young, hip, progressive twenty-somethings. those YHP20s may have a terminal disease, but that really wasn't part of the picture i created. but at what point did they sign that form, and how did they feel about that? was it a liberating swoosh of control-via-squandering-control? or was it i-know-i'm-doing-the-right-thing-so-why-the-lump-in-my-throat?? the big form, which, in my picture, looked much like an INS application for naturalization N-400 form looming the giant sans-serif all-caps lettering of "DO NOT RESUSCITATE." well, the spelling wasn't part of this visage.

i'm sure i would be in the latter group. i wouldn't see it as liberating. of course, i'd know i was supposed to be liberated, and i'd most likely have some sort of terminal or almost-terminal condition. i wouldn't feel at peace with my DNR form. or waiver. i wonder if it's even a form, now that i think of it. perhaps it's nothing more than a single checkbox with a line for your signature. one of those lines that aren't big enough, smushing your gorgeous, well-practiced signature into one indistinguishable word.

i wouldn't be able to sign one. mostly because i can't understand death. i can't understand eternity. i'm not quite there.

perhaps i need to focus on understanding resuscitation first. i could understand what my un-life would comprise. nothing. vegetation. beeping. tubes.

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."

making peace with food
that's a big task. you can think of it in terms of being able to happily eat, without worrying about how you carry all your weight in your stomach or just having that guilty feeling at all. you can think of it in terms of eating as an event, as almost a ministry, instead of just filling your tummy and satiating your hunger - the preparation, the eating, the cleaning... it's all done as a family or with friends, and it's fun.

but there's more to that. the body is a temple. you're going to be wary of what you put in my mouth. that's very easy to do, and it's an easy feeling to have. like the way you feel poisoned after drinking soda, until you drink enough water so you pee clear again (okay, that's kind of neurotic). like knowing that you'll be a happier temple if you're eating spinach and tofu instead of a greasy hamburger. no brainer.

you are also wary of how you treat the earth which yields its fruits to you.

okay, we'll stop saying "you" now. this is all julia.

i have this growing connection with the soil. the earth. my home.
when i was 12 years old, my family and i went to england for our first trip back since moving here. we'd had a year of american culture and media. at my friend's house, i opened up a magazine to a random page, and saw a PETA ad, or whatever the british equivalent is. it was some gruesome picture of the treatmeant of pigs in meat farms. there were several vivid ads like this throughout the magazine, which was directed at young people or gossipy women. can you imagine what would happen if People magazine had some graphic picture of about-to-get-slaughtered pigs?

anyway, it was enough for me. i swore off eating poor little animals. for the next however many years, i was a Vegetarian and Liberal and Proud. i wore shirts that said "Against Animal Testing" without really understanding what it meant. (although senior year in high school, i whipped it out again, along with a "Cats Against Animal Experimentation" shirt to wear while my zoology class dissected fetal cats) and my vegetarianism, as passionate as it was, consisted of eating around whatever meat my disgruntled parents made for dinner, and absorbing complaints from my mother that i wasn't eating well enough. around my junior year of high school, when i was trying really hard to be a better cross-country runner but still sucking, we realized i had an icky case of anemia and all around malnutrition. the Disgruntled Parents got their way, and i let chicken and tuna back in my diet. (of course, i still sucked at running).

after college, i revisited my convictions. i realized that, rather than being passionate and trying-to-be-a-cool-hippie, there were no reasons for me to continue eating meat, or any animal products for which you have to kill.

i realized that what i consume, what i spend my dollars on, is my strongest vote. this led to an over-awareness in what was going into the food that went into my body. what sort of labor practices? do they use pesticides? are they owned by some corporate scum? thus began my organic regime. i pay a little more, of course. but eventually, i'll be settled in the new house and able to cook more for myself. this will be great - i'll be spending way less than eating out, and i'll be in control of what goes into the food.

i still drink coffee. i still eat weird complex-ingredient genisoy bars. but i'm taking steps. i'm transforming. this is the way i make peace with my food. i find it peaceful, i try to connect myself to it's creation, and i make everything i consume be a miniature, daily protest.

locke the software guy

i really expected you to speak in some heavily russian or eastern european accent. you didn't.
instead of russian, you say things to your monitor like "where the hell is the Vision screen?!" and yell for help from melanie-the-software-girl over the cubicle wall with a indiscriminate "Mel??!!" not waiting for or needing an answer. i wouldn't take her for a "mel"... she's definitely a melanie. nor is she the type to be hollered at over the cubicle wall. but that's me. i'm no locke.
you wear sweater vests, but not in the right, well-dressed way. just in the "i love wearing sweater vests and i don't give a rat's ass how i look" way. or maybe it's the "trying to be well-dressed but it's not working" way.
your glasses are thicker than magnifying glasses with pale tortoise-shell frames. they're quite ugly, but that's okay.
you write things like "buy theraflu" on your white board, amidst complex code and equations.
you have a strange collection of mcdonalds coffee stirrers. you keep them in a paper cup with your pens and pencils and scissors. maybe everyonce in a while, you reach for a pencil and find yourself trying to write with the white plastic M.

you are the most helpful person a tech writer has ever worked with. we can deal with the Vision screen later. i don't care.

coincidence.
there are the jokes, the humming of the twilight zone music, the jinxings, etc., etc., but i don't suppose i've ever really had something bizarre happen that wasn't meant to happen.

i think that certain things happen for a reason. if i were to get a fortune cookie that said, "take chances, things will work out for themselves," i would say something like, "what a freaking coincidence!" and get all spooky. perhaps i'd even hum the twilight zone music. but mere spooky coincidences have no value on their own. for me to take something from that experience, from the "chance" that i was in the right chinese place at the right time, and the right food prep person put the right fortune cookie in the right bag of food at the right time, and handed that bag of rightness to me, i'd have to take it to a level more serious than coincidence.

i'm not saying that god has the time or detail-minded approach to act out elaborate fortune cookie placements. but i am saying that divine intervention is involved. if i were to open that fortune cookie, at the end of my meal, while i was contemplating ordering some cream cheese wontons, i'd think that the "taking chances" referred to the wontons, and the "things will work out for themselves" referred to the empty calories and garlic breath. but if that fortune made it's way in my hands while i was contemplating the biggest career and lifestyle change of my life thus far, the cream cheese wontons wouldn't even be on the radar screen.

the same chances, the same bizarre happenings can easily mean either absolutely nothing or the "sign" or "nudge" you were looking for. if you're at a crossroads, coincidence will have an effect on you. if you're not, maybe it'll make you buy those wontons, and that's about it.

and no, i didn't get that fortune yet, but i did have some delicious and garlic-y cream cheese wontons yesterday.

this one's for the cubicle dweller.

after all this, i now realize it's worse when you actually DO figure stuff out
meaning, what your calling is. "calling" as in what god is calling you to do in the world. anyway, so recently, i'm pretty sure i've figured that out. (all joking/dreaming aside about being leigh nash or a yoga instructor or a televisionwithoutpity.com writer...)

in the last few years, i've taken on the most important role yet in my life with the church. i've been directing young adult and campus ministry for the episcopal diocese. this is all volunteer, mind you. over the past few years, i've developed two new major programs for young adults throughout the country, and am working on installing the third starting in lent. (3 programs are enough, mind you, which will be some important theme in some important book that i'll someday, importantly, write.) we had zero programming (outside of renewal movements) for years and years before. so basically, i've done a lot. i put a lot of myself into this role, because it's where i feel i've been granted a gift.

i understand this stuff. not just on the level of *being* the constituent demographic... someone in a church youth group is obviously going to know that youth group is only going to be fun if there's cool music, snacks, and capture the flag. there are certain levels of understanding. i think i just have this grasp on how to minister to young adults, regardless of my age. i think it'll be the same when i'm old and wrinkly. of course, we'll see.

anyway, so this means a lot to me. we're about to embark upon a huge fundraiser now to get a chaplain for all young adult and campus ministry AND a lay person (someone who isn't ordained but takes on a leadership role in the church). when this was all brewing, i thought "DUDE. that's IT. that's my job. that is what i'm called to do." now i'm doubting my convictions for stupid, stupid reasons.

my reasons? first: i don't feel like i'm educated enough. this is the stupidest of all reasons, really. of course i'm educated enough. they're not looking to hire some amazingly experienced and educated person. but i have this instinct that i need to go back to school... to get a MA Theology. i want knowledge. i love school. i crave it sometimes.
second: money. i guess this isn't THAT stupid of a reason, but it's very significant. there's the whole wedding thing. right now, i make a comfortable salary at my job... at which i'm quite unsatisfied. we created a budget for this wedding and bought a house with this salary in mind. Major Life Mistake #1. okay, i suppose more like #38, but we'll start fresh. so me taking a 50% pay cut might not be the best solution for the next 8 months.

i suppose those are my only reasons. so what's the big deal?, you ask. just wait until after the wedding... save up for a while... take the job. do what you love. lower your standard of living. those things, i tell you, are easy. i can do that. i really can. i'm prepared to devote my life to the church, and take all the fixins that come with working for a non-profit, including a crummy salary. (mmm, i said "fixins" and "crummy" in the same sentence. it makes "salary" look like salad. mmm, salad, with crumbs and fixins.)

here's the rub: they want someone right now to fill this position. as soon as possible.
now this sort of offends me on another level. they want the diocesan young adult and campus ministry program to be running strong when they bring the chaplain in in the summer. so to do that, they'll hire the underpaid lay person. part of me wonders why they don't think the program is running strong right now... anyway, that's just a bitter side note of mine.

this woke me up at 4:30 this morning, and the nagging still hasn't left me.
i have no idea what to do.

top ten things right with the world
today i'm going to talk about all the positive things in the world today. i just noticed that i rant and grumble too much on this site.
in the true webwriter fashion, i'm going to break it down into an easily digestible list.

the Top Ten Things Right With The World:
10. stuff like non-dairy, non-fat mandarin orange sorbet exists
9. the smell of black licorice hasn't changed since at least 1979
8. some friends of mine drive hybrid cars
7. babies
6. the anna nicole smith show is no longer being taped
5. edamame is available pre-shelled and ready-to-eat
4. instant messaging isn't on our IT department's radar yet
3. my car looks somewhat clean even with 6 months of encrusted dirt
2. jesus died for me
and finally...
1. ranters like me can voice their opinions and commentary on the public domain.

proof that i'm marrying my soul mate
setting- chillis restaurant. saturday, surrounded by miscellaneous superbowl-bound tourists clad in red and black and silver (not all at once, god no!). erik and i. discussing our friends' plans to see the Major Cool Superbowlesque fireworks that night

julia: "so the only reason i want to go to see the fireworks tonight is to hang out with our friends."
erik: "i don't want to deal with traffic trying to get down there."
julia: "okay, let's not go."
[brief pause]
erik: "i'm sure fireworks don't have a very good environmental impact or anything."
[brief pause]
julia: "okay, let's boycott."

erik smiles.

television without pity dot com
just found this site the other day, and subsequently spend a good chunk of my afternoon at work yesterday trying to stifle laughter and fake coughs so that people wouldn't think i was internetting on the job... (tsk tsk, little do they know).

i may never watch tv again.

i'm re-evaluating my dream job now. hmmm... go to seminary, become some amazingly intelligent and spiritual theologan and devote my life to the church.... OR ....become a televisionwithoutpity.com writer and watch tv and be devastatingly witty.

funniest. comment. ever.
someone has to make light of the whole Save Sarah Hatter dealy-o...
and this could easily be me, hahaha.

"Hell, I take a break every week. My reader never gets too upset." --Grant

form N-400
as i drove to meet my mother, i glanced down at the "Application for Naturalization" on my passenger seat, with the edge of "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of the American Empire" peeking out from beneath it. i had one of those moments of smiling irony and verklemptness. i seriously had a moment of doubt. i had already gone ahead and checked "yes" for the "i oathe that i am, as required by law, willing to bear arms on behalf of the united states." i just have to keep reminding myself of the importance of voting before complaining.
i wonder if i'll be classified as a naturalizedcitizen instead of just a citizen... i mean, i sound and look like an american. i don't eat like one, but that's a different story. but you hear about it all the time. when they arrest some guys for buying funky bomb-making chemicals, they always manage to qualify the citizenness of them with the "naturalized" part. like, "america isn't lame enough to create jerks like this, but we're lame enough to let them in anyway."

that's me. about to be let in anyway. :-D

yes, i changed my title
there's nothing better than a world that accomodates the indecisive.

roe v wade
i don't exactly know how i feel about abortion. i'm torn. and i have a big fat hunch that the majority of americans are the same way. so, until we make up our minds, WHAT RIGHT DO WE HAVE to tell women who happen to have made up their minds or doctors who happen to have made up their minds that they cannot perform abortions??

does anyone else know what the heck a vestry is?
i do, of course. i'm episcopalian.
as of yesterday, i'm on the vestry for our church. i could come up with a laundry list of mr. burns "excellent"-worthy benefits of being on the vestry of the church in which you're holding your wedding, but i'll save that for later. what this really means is i now have a voice and a vote (!) at st. david's.

oh, and did i mention we're amidst a major and somewhat controversial capital campaign???

this is going to be an interesting three years. i've served (and currently still do, oops) on enough committees and task forces and councils in the church and the episcopal diocese to know that this political experience isn't going to damage my relationship with god or make me feel any angst towards christianity or the church in general. i'm just mostly excited.

first on my agenda: getting our church to subscribe to this.

peace and stuff
this is apparantly the hot weekend for peace rallies.

i don't know how i'll participate. i live in a military city, basically, and it's hard to gauge the mentality around here. i certainly doubt there'll be much of a peace rally, but i don't know if we'd get a negative reception from the military families. most of them are alone now, after 7 ships deployed this morning. i think a lot of them have a "chin-up" approach to dealing with deployment in a war-threat time. they're regurgitating a spiel about how their husbands / wives / fathers / mothers / brothers / sisters / sons / daughters are defending the free world. they're regurgitating pride. they're regurgitating confidence.

i just wish we would step back from the national safety aspect and look at it on the human level. this should happen by default when there's even the slightest chatter of warspeak coming from the capital.

will a painful, bloody war benefit the human beings in iraq? will it free them from the dictatorship of sadam only to leave them in unspeakable poverty and disarray? will that poverty be a brief depression before blooming into a prosperous, free, happy democracy?

what about the human beings in the supposed united states ally nations? europe? heck, look at britain and france. right now they're calling the USA names that reak of imperialism. right now they don't trust george w. bush any more than they trust sadam. if this is only a little alarming to you, it's not alarming enough.

what about the human beings in america? we don't want another 9/11. we don't want another 9/11. we don't want another 9/11. say that a few more times and it's a slogan for war and mass-destruction of our own. however, people who are rallying for peace this weekend and each and every weekend in their lives ALSO don't want another 9/11. we just don't want to send our sons and daughters off to die while killing other people and perpetuating the myth that has plagued the world for far too long: that war is the only answer to strife between countries.

there are too many reasons not to go to war. i don't know if the president is aware of this or not. it's not like pacifists get paid to be pacifists. we're all at our day jobs when the war-mongerer lobbyists are in washington.

i'll be holding a little peace rally of my own on saturday. i'll probably just meditate and pray a little and go online and send some letters and sign some petitions. and then i'll emo the night away at the casbah. (unrelated to peace rallies.) (although emo can be pretty peaceful.)

bridal crap
so i've come to the realization that i don't need everything to be perfect. in fact, i know that it won't be. something will go wrong.
i haven't been planning my wedding since i was in elementary school. i don't want to look like a princess.
i just DON'T WANT OUR WEDDING TO BE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE'S!

so instead of bending over backwards to get everything just-so and princessy, i'm bending over backwards to be different. i want people to go to our wedding and say "wow, this is really creative and beautiful and touching."
i want our invitations to be cool and hip. that's part of reflecting the style of the church and the reception site (boutique hotel and modern art gallery), but it's also because it's the first thing people see about the wedding. if it's the same old ho-hum fancy scripted font on embossed paper with a pearlized border, they'll expect the same old ho-hum fancy scripted font wedding.
anyway, that's my Bridal Obsession of the hour. the invitations. and figuring out how to word the usual crap to fit a cool oversized ampersand in there...
so that's that. the heart of it is i want to be unique. but i don't want to be unique like everyone else is being unique. i feel like an awkward adolescant. please tell me i'm creative and beautiful and touching.

corporate underwriting at it's worst
monday morning, i was listening to NPR's Morning Edition as usual. lovely show. however, in a break, they announced Starbucks as a corporate underwriter. STARBUCKS! come on! low blow!

i'm still feeling a little betrayed, and it's been over 24 hours. i know that NPR has been criticized for it's corporate sponsors who aren't all that socially responsible, but i was okay turning the other cheek as long as they presented a not-all-the-way-liberal-but-close-enough source of news that was unbiased and unplagued by the whole fear and sensationalism schtick we see on televised news or other music radio morning shows (good lord, don't get me started).

but now i have to listen to the Starbucks blurb? "get YOUR Morning Edition at Starbucks!" aaaaaargh. "what's, like, coffee? is that, like, the same thing as, like, starbucks? i want a cup of starbucks now!"

i really feel like there has to be some other way to send news to the people. does it have to ooze with sponsorships and corporations and advertisements? TV news punctuates whatever real news or traffic reports they may have that day with whoever recently got kicked off of their network's reality show du jour. music radio morning shows are generally just a bunch of schmucks.
i just wish my NPR was perfect and uncorrupted!!!!!!

the official "get off your ass" post
this is me, julia, getting off her ass to blog in the new year.

really, there's been a lot going on. i think i'll can the deep introspective post-age and just write a freaking diary today.
so erik and i got the keys to our house. it's lovely and quite large. and it's in a place called Wateridge. i can't remember how many times we swore we'd never live in a freaky master-planned community with a name like "forest glen" or "wateridge." wait, forest glen is wine, right? mmm, wine. regardless, wateridge. perhaps there WAS "water" there, before they developed. and now it's only a "ridge" because they bulldozed it a little and sliced the top off the hill. and what happened to that second "r"??? shouldn't it be waterridge?
no really, it's a lovely area, and it's MIXED-USE. that's the little thread that's still hanging, allowing us to feel a little socio-conscious still.

so ALL of the first week of the year, before my trip to the bay area, was spent tracking down paint colors. we decided to use Safecoat (and if i was on the ball, i'd drop a link here.) Anyway, Safecoat is apparantly, flukily, a san diego company. but how many stores sell it in san diego? 1! yes, one. that's open until 5 on weekdays and closes at noon on saturdays.

and this weekend, we painted. and painted some more. it turns out that a gallon and a half of paint already on the walls is really not quite the right color. warning: Silver Birch looks neither silvery nor birchy. it's really more of a pastel pale green. it's quite nice, actually, for a bathroom or a baby room. but not for our dining room and breakfast nook. oh my goodness, we have a breakfast nook.

we're also putting bamboo wood flooring in soon (again, we're trying to cling to the last threads of ecological worth). oh, and some real tree wood, too. but it's maple. the canadians have plenty of trees.

i also spent a whole weekend (the aforementioned bay area trip) discussing god and progressive christianity and relationships. it was very affirming for me to be around a bunch of liberal hippies who love jesus. more on this later.

plus size my ass!
no, my ass isn't plus size. well, who knows. i haven't measured it in a while, but that's not what this post is about.

i've been browsing online wedding dress designer sites recently and noticed a growing "plus size" selection. that's great... a lot of bridal gowns were designed with the painfully thin models in mind. however, the somewhat recent move towards plus size advertising taking shape right now hasn't been as kind to the concept of "plus size" as people may have intended.

somehow, a bunch of photographers and clothing manufacturers and businesspeople and marketing wizzes sat down together in a room with those glass water dispensers and maybe one of those space-age-looking conference call phones in the middle of the table to discuss how to market this stuff. still thinking they were doing the world a favor by letting un-waify women embrace their bodies and also get clothes that look good, they started trying to get models. perhaps someone even said, "we can't have an ugly fat person in our ads." of course. not all fat people are ugly. not all skinny people aren't ugly. fact of life. instead, they just decided not to get fat people altogether. now, we have these size 8 (EIGHT!) women modelling plus-size clothing. any minimal arm flab they may have is quickly erased on the computer image. and another thing: they aren't just called "models." we don't hear about Emme the model, we hear about Emme the Plus Size Model.

i can't stand it. rather than empowering women of all sizes to feel great about their bodies, they're just broadening the self-esteem gap. now us once-happy little size 8-ers are feeling pressure to remove ourselves from this category. instead of changing the way the media thinks about size (oh yeah, that'll be easy), we feel fat. we believe what they tell us. now we're plus size, and the only way to change that is to obsess about our bodies and get skinnier.

this is appalling, disheartening, and unbelievable.

music that rocked this year
inspired by our new annual cd-making tradition...
JULIA'S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2002!!!
1. ed harcourt, "here be monsters"
hands down, the most solid album of the year. a wonderful beautiful melodic man that definitely fills the jeff buckley void. i'd move to shanghai with you!

2. pete yorn, "musicforthemorningafter"
i should specify that i mean the release that included the bonus disc. that DID come out this year!! pete's cover of "new york serenade" chills me. i saw pete twice this spring, including a <10 person recording.

3. beth orton, "daybreaker"
represent. beth orton has been a solid "favorite" for the past 5 years. daybreaker is by far her least depressing CD, which is nice. i love the presence of ryan adams, the recording fiend.

4. elbow, "asleep in the back"
one of the most amazing new bands in the universe! this CD is so beautiful, so pounding, so charged. it's one of those rare fluid CDs where you can never remember song titles or track numbers because they don't matter.

5. doves, "the last broadcast"
although we had downloaded a few doves songs early on in their fame, we hopped on the bandwagon pretty late. this CD is beautiful. i especially love #9 and #12. some of the songs are a little "alternative punkish trendy radio" for me, but i don't mind skipping them.

6. jason mraz, "jason mraz"
the live stuff. the first release. the toca sessions. this is the jason mraz that the san diego hotties know, and this is the jason mraz that we like. special favorites are the cat sex song and the rand mcnalley song... nowhere to be found on his real release...

7. coldplay, "a rush of blood to the head"
coldplay is probably the newbestbandintheworld. move over U2. move over DMB. erik and i are just thankful for 2000 or-wheverer-it-was when we were mere steps from the gang at the tiny little mayan theatre show in LA...

8. norah jones, "come away with me"
nobody makes those "omigod i want that song played at my wedding" songs anymore... except for the lovely norah. this is one of those CDs that, upon hearing for the first time, you quickly inventory all the people in your life that need to hear it. scott and sarah! shawna! my dad! my dad?!

9. andy stochansky, "five star motel"
i'm really pleased with my discovery here. andy has the voice of an angel. well, an angel that rocks. and he's canadian! a canadian angel! i can't wait to see this guy make it big.

10. dar williams, "out there live"
calm down, i know this didn't come out this year. but it came to me this year. dar performs barfoot and is a hemp advocate...need i say more. one of many concerts shared this year with scott and sarah, our new musical soulmates :-)

11. jennifer knapp, "the way i am"
yes, this is an odd list. my "top 11." but jennifer knapp, second to jewel, really got me playing guitar and writing songs. this CD has some jewels of it's own on there. i love "sing mary, sing." an amazing song that puts the whole birth of christ thing in a really cool perspective. jennifer knapp rocks out a little too much in concerts for my liking, but her CDs are a nice mellowed balance.

i know i'm forgetting some good stuff, but that's what the edit feature is for.
music is one of the most important things in my life.

blogger and baby
day two of life. (not my kid, calm down)

that's an affirmative
so affirmative action and i have a love-hate relationship
here's why... the dawn of lists on jde blog:

HATE: it essentially departs from a quest for equality.
LOVE: it provides opportunities for those struggling out of decades of oppression.
HATE: everyone thinks it's the same thing as "equal opportunity" employment tactics.
LOVE: it gives poor unfortunate students a chance at the life reserved for rich smart kids.
HATE: employers are bound to practice affirmative action tactics if they have government contracts or customers.
LOVE: that companies are rejecting government contracts or customers to follow their own "equal opportunity" practices.
HATE: it gives the white male something to complain about.
LOVE: it gives the white male something to complain about.

all-in-all, i don't want to get rid of affirmative action. i think it should be instituted earlier in the education system - at the primary level. but if schools weren't funded based on the surrounding property taxes, we wouldn't have problems with under- or over-funding of schools, and that's a whole other blogstory.

brandishing martyrdom
yesterday, i was supposed to play guitar and sing carols at the downtown jail. i've done it two years in a row, and it's always really strange for me. i feel like the whole experience is negative for me. i backed out.

each time we go in there, i feel like i should have an apologetic look on my face. i feel like a smug, rich, happy white person, rubbing in the fact that my life is perfect. i fear that the inmates just think "oh, we're so glad we provided the happy smug perfect girl an opportunity to feel better about herself." when we get to the women's floor, they always sing along, but they always cry, too. they CRY! not out of sheer appreciation for beautiful music (haha), but because they can't handle this glimpse of what they have denied themselves. i felt like i really needed to evaluate why i participated each year before i continued. i just firmly believe it's more about trying to martyr ourselves.

friday night, we'll be playing at the juvenile hall. i have a different feeling about that one. i feel like i won't so much be rubbing in my perfect happy christmasy life to the kids. i feel like i'll be giving them hope, and providing them with the love that they won't have in their lives. that's supposed to be the schtick for the adult prison, too, but there's no hope. the kids have more of an opportunity to stop the cycle and improve themselves. i'll have to see. this will be my first time going to juvenile hall..my first experience outside of cheesy 80s movies.

right now, i'm pretty good about making donations not to feel good about myself but to actually make a difference. i just didn't feel like it was the case with the prison thing.

welcome to the world, little one
today i met a brand new person. he is so precious. a beautiful string bean with his daddy's nose. i can't seem to remember a more magical moment than when i touched the palm of his tiny tiny hand with my contrastingly gigantic index finger and he clutched it in that way that babies clutch.

i used to think that we were drawn to babies and all-things-baby because we wanted some key member of the opposite sex to make some coy smile at us as we together envisioned our future in a little slide-show. ...the wedding will have a lemon cake and a swing band, and then we'll start trying to have babies and registering for baby stuff at target together... i know that has been the case for me.

but not now. seeing baby lucas today for the first time made me realize that there's no social implication or flirtation that can match the wonder of a brand new piece of life. a brand new human. hearing about the birth story (and watching mom and dad feed off of each other's excitement and finish each others' sentences!)... watching mom touch the baby's cheek... watching dad see the baby yawn, instinctively reach for the camera but stop as he just enjoyed his baby's developing personality with both eyes... helping put little mittens on the tiny hands (the mittens were too big, so they were outlawed)... it was all nothing short of miraculous. i started to envision luc as a 8 year old, or as a teenager. then it'd be normal. then it'd be understandable that this person was real. but today, a tiny, pink, wrinkly newborn just seemed beyond reality.

babies aren't just cute and dribbly and hiccupy and adorable. they're magnificent and full of wonder and awe.

blog related twitching
i kid you not. on the plane this weekend, i actually wrote something on paper. friggin paper! i wrote it with the full intention of typing it up and posting it here.

right now, i'm sick as a dog, even though i've never seen a sick dog before.

beauty, revisited

babies, weddings, and homeownership, oh my
seriously, it's happening. we're growing up. four or five sets of couples in our group own homes. everyone's getting married. yes, even myself. and now, there's going to be a baby. don't worry, not me. shawna, the amazingly gorgeous pregnant woman, is going to send forth a new ball of life on saturday, give or take 2 weeks.

as much as we're all (mostly shawna and her husband) afraid that this baby will change our dynamic and interfere with our usual community antics, i don't really forsee a noticeable change. well, except for the adorable little dribbler at whom we'll giggle and tickle and ooh-aah every once in a while. i think we'll just blend into all these new changes, but still have the same niches for those who haven't yet reached the major life-changing events, and who don't intend to anytime soon. i value this so much about my friends. i value that many of us are in such different walks of life. i cherish that while there are only a few who are walking along with me, everyone is holding my hand. i am so blessed to have this community that regardless of the changes, the departures, the arrivals, i will always have people who will hold the christ-light for me in the nighttime of my fear.

gust
the wind is blowing, the leaves are falling, pumpkin pies are baking, and grocery stores are packed. welcome to my favorite time of year.

however, i say that at the changing of every season. the first bird chirps of spring, the delicate morph of spring into summer, the long balmy evenings of late-summer's rendesvous with fall, and now, this peak of fall. other regions call this the beginning of winter, but we still have green leaves on the trees here in southern california. but really, it's not the seasons i love, it's the promises they bring at their onset. it's the hope of something fresh, something different.

i don't love fall. i love seasons. really, i love change.

meteors
there must be another term for an indian summer when it stretches well into november. i feel trapped in a seasonal purgatory, unable to wear either pastel springy clothes or wooly snuggly fall ware... unable to feel anticipation for the holidays... unable to shake the feeling that the 4th of july was only a few weeks ago... unable to fathom the freezing rain and snow storms but a few states away. this time last year, we drove miles and miles east and braved sub 30° F temperatures in the middle of the night to watch the "last spectacular leonid meteor shower we'll see until almost a century from now." surreal. beautiful. freezing. west-bound traffic jams, 5am, sunday morning. hour long wait at denny's.

yesterday: no wait! this year is going to be even better! bundle up! head to the mountains! peak is at 2:30am! perfectly clear skies! unobstructed view of the leonids! next showing this spectacular will be in 2099!

afraid of missing the this-time-we're-serious last spectactular meteor shower, we set an alarm and drove east, just in time for the peak. i saw two or three really beautiful, lingering tails. we had maybe 5 separate instances where we had more than one meteor in a minute. mostly, i was amazed at the moon. the full moon, in all of it's uncooperative glory. the perfect clear sky, the perfect meteor shower, but the moon so bright we could read.

i would like to do this more often, without the lure of some astronomical event. without the promise of something spectacular. without purpose. oh, to just park the car, follow some trails until the yellow rings around streetlights can no longer find me, until the red flashing lights on the radio towers are specks in the distance, in a different world, until it's so silent that i'm afraid.

next november, indian summer or not, i'll head out for the beginning of 96 years' worth of unspectacular leonid visits, and have this 2am silence to myself.

completeness
i firmly believe that the whole jerry maguire/austin powers "you complete me" spiel is a crock. a remarkable woman and friend, heidi k., was talking about this recently, and i fully credit her for the movie allusion. i am the only person that can complete me. i am the only person i need to be around, other than the constant presence of god for my spiritual and mental sustanance. having a soul mate is different from being complete.

recall in Say Anything... diane court comes to visit lloyd dobbler, post-break-up, at his kickboxing studio. lloyd is shocked to see her, lloyd gets kicked in the nose, director creates an amazing scene with hugs and tears and bloody noses. anyway, diane tells lloyd, "lloyd, i need you." lloyd is stoked. they hug for a moment, but he pulls away. he asks her, "wait. do you need me, or do you just need anybody?" and then tells her to forget it, because he doesn't want to know the answer.
i had always been disturbed by this. (nobody messes with my john cusack!).

real life. the cast: girl, boy. the scene: the 3 month hiatus after a broken 2 year relationship. the mood: needy.
i spent that summer in a rollercoaster of freedom and loneliness. of happily dating and resenting my involved friends. of hating to go out to dinner by myself...
i did not go back to Boy because i wanted to be with him. i needed him. i needed someone. i needed not to be lonely. major mistake #8 in julia's life.
it was only a month later when i would break his heart again.

i didn't allow myself to fall back into the cycle of loneliness. i kept myself busy and surrounded myself with wonderful friends. then i met erik. my life quickly became more amazing than nutella crepes or that discontinued cheesecake factory white chocolate lemon-raspberry swirl cheesecake. i had found my soul mate.

it was a sad day when i realized that i didn't need to be near erik constantly. i was 21 years old at the time. i remember wondering, "does this mean that i don't need him? does this mean that i don't love him?" i knew back then that i was going to spend the rest of my life with him, so perhaps you can imagine my sense of alarm. it took me a few days to realize that at that very moment, i grew up. i was no longer a clingy, needy girl that used people. i became my own person. i realize now that i want and choose to be around erik constantly. i want and choose to spend the rest of my life with him, and i know that my life's trajectory will be incomplete without him. my life would suck without erik, but the only thing i really need is the air that god breathes into my body.
i hope that other people can make this realization and ask with confidence! for that Table for One before they commit themselves to marriage. before they take that insane next step with someone who might only be a comfort from loneliness... from someone who might not mesh with the New Me, the Power Lloyd... Iceman.

i am so lucky for erik's presence in my life. i am so thankful that i am not just comfortable with him, and that we allow each other to be our own selves. dependent and complementary, but not reliant and parasitic.

folkin' hell
so i thought i'd never see a love song with the phrase, "jumpin' jesus, holy cow" in it.

my quest is over: be mine

peace
it just doesn't seem so possible.
today i feel like the only person capable of a deep meditative peace is me. (capability being notably different from actuality.)
nonetheless, i feel alone in a need for calm and forgiveness. by no means have i found that grail, but i think accepting the need and the task is by far a greater achievement. i want every person to feel a spiritual sense of oneness and satiation. i want every nation to feel part of the brotherhood and sisterhood and motherhood and fatherhood of all nations, of all beings, of all essence. the connection that transcends all separateness - separateness from differences of mind, body, element. the connection that lends itself to peace.

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.
--gaelic rune

primary school. love.
a memory. first love? hardly. but i had a crush on you from the day we met until the day i left. did you move in late, from newcastle? memory fails me there. but i remember. from second grade until even a little after i moved away for good in 7th grade, you were really the only boy i even thought about. there was that brief stint with someone else in 7th grade...... my friends told his friends (you. oh the irony) that i liked him, and you told my friends that he liked me, and that was the end of it.

but you. remember in mrs. blight's class... i had short hair at this point, and just got glasses. (this was even before the brief, failed attempt at correcting my imbalanced vision with an eye patch.) you said, direct quote burned into my history: "you look like an alien."

you were always the first to make fun of me. come to think of it, we spent a lot of time together, with our mums leading girl guides and you and i, too young (or too male) to participate would play stupid games and crack each other up underneath tables and you had no idea what it really meant to me.
but when you would tease me, i didn't see it as the playful reciprocated flirting. but, strangely enough for me, i didn't cry about it. i just laughed with you.

but do you remember the time you ran away? it was after swimming lessons. i noticed before we even got on the bus to go back to school, but i was too scared to tell anyone. i was scared that someone would figure me out. "why were you watching him anyway?" i remember lining up to go into lunch and worrying more. lost in the vast depths of egremont while everyone else, oblivious, went on with their daily duties of lining up outside the slippery wood-floored assembly room several miles away. the collective oblivion may have fed your loneliness, or whatever inspired you to run that day. if only i could have told you then that i noticed. that i was sad and frustrated at my incapacity. i had no idea where you had gone, but at that moment i was afraid of never having a chance with you.

but then it was my fault. the whole thing in 7th grade. chris simcock. what a fiasco. i was too scared to even speak to him. was the whole thing - me following through on my petty attraction to the boy with big ears and unfortunate last name - because you had a girlfriend who wasn't me?
but going to wyndham changed us. no more gallivanting around the mission during girl guides. no more interaction. i don't even remember telling you i was about to move. i remember feeling the jealous reward of retaliation, picturing someone mentioning that i was gone, and wondering what thought would cross your mind... whether your heart would skip a beat maybe, or you'd swallow hard and try to calmly change the subject so nobody would notice that you missed me even just a little.

the people i remember most vividly from thornhill are emma, nicola, and you. emma with fondness, nicola with resentment and a little fear still, and you - you with a glimpse of that giddy young obsession, wondering if i really ever knew you at all.

did we just have a moment?
me=blackbean-eating rubios-goer
her=cashier at rubios with a cool whaletail pendant

the conversation:
me: i'd like a bean and cheese burrito, but with black beans instead of pinto beans, whole wheat tortilla instead of flour, and no salsa.
her: okay
me: i love your necklace.
her: i love your burrito.

careful where you stand
what is it with politics that leaves me thoroughly dissatisfied? also, why can't i ever be bothered to look up the correct spelling of dissatisfied? two s's? one? does it matter? good.

so, politics... voting day is tomorrow. and, as i try not to disclose too often, i will be painfully impotent tomorrow. a resident alien, an in-valid. it's fine being a loyal Subject of the Queen 364 days out of the year, just not tomorrow. i feel like my impassioned pleas for radical social change and environmental focus end up being just this side of hypocritical, because i can't do anything about it. the letters, the arguments in which i participate with friends, the boycotts, the lifestyle... all of it distills to the fact that i'm not a constituent of any of those folk in the capitol, so how can i be incensed when nothing goes my way?

but i remind myself that most real i-voted-for-ya constituents live their lives mostly unnoticed by their elected representatives. letters are read and responded to, but special interests are the way to a politician's heart. or, stomach? wait, i'm getting my proverbial sayings jumbled. or am i just being unfathomably witty and charming?

so maybe i'm no less impotent than the next guy. (hahahahahahaha, okay, i'll find a new word). in the end, our dollar is our strongest vote. i don't mean giving the dollars to the politician. that can be pointless, unless you have an extra 10 million of them to compete with the Massive Corporate Donors. i mean, using it wisely. don't like Massive Corporate Donors? don't give them your money. don't like the starbucks evil empire? don't give them your money. don't like the fast food industry? don't give them your money. we'd all probably save money and weigh less if we were more concientious about what we spend and where we spend it.

don't forget to vote tomorrow. i'm not saying that voting is useless. (although sometimes my internal defense mechanisms get that way). voting is the essence of democracy, and if we can choose between a candidate who puts their own needs (and the corporations' needs who paid their way to the elected seat) ahead of the nation and the people OR someone who will make a difference, or maybe someone who doesn't accept corporate funding, then we are suddenly very powerful. we can't elect someone as a "representative" unless they're really going to represent us.

okay, enough out of my impotent limey gob.

better living through chemistry
so i'm sick. i'm on the verge, which is enough for me. it will inevitably get worse. the sore throat usually takes a good two weeks to turn into a full-fledged cold. then, i'm sniffly and hoarse and achy for a week or so, and then deal with the sexy phlegm and residual sore throat for another two weeks, until i gradually recover.
but i am armed with the marvels or ancient medicine. echinaccea tea and elderberry extract. echinaccea tea is soothing and tasty, and *apparantly* boosts the old immune system. but we're not allowed to be quoted on that. elderberry extract, on the other hand, is putrid. "your mother is a hamster and your father smells like elderberries" was infact a horrid insult not unique to british people impersonating french guards.
do these herbal remedies really help? can we quantify it? not really. can we believe in it? sure. i believe.
i wonder if this belief is the same as the belief i have in ghosts and/or aliens. it all boils down to the fact that i'm afraid to say either one doesn't exist, so i say i don't not believe in them.
i'm a little afraid of doing absolutely nothing here, so i'll plug my nose and swallow that foul elixer, washing it down with a nice steaming henna patterned mug of echinaccea tea. hmmm, and maybe a spoonful of honey. you know, they say honey is nature's antibiotic....