dear melter of smurfs,

Really, what on earth was that gak-like substance melted in your stove? Bet it smelled awesome!

Well so here I am. Right eye twitching and occasionally leaking out the far corner. It's Set Up for Vacation Bible School week. Which does tap into my crafty spirit, although the marble wall did thwart me. Yesterday we made a well out of a table wrapped in last year's paper brick wall, and I rimmed the top edge in sand and thinned-out glue.

I'm in that phase of feeling like Facebook is impossibly stupid, full of inconsequential drivel, so I either need to change whoever's showing up in my feed or stick to the short-short list (because I don't want to miss out on gak, that's the good stuff) or just not check it so much at all.

There's a very good chance I'll finish the book I'm reading, which is not even the usual fluff-fare. Amazing. I feel all bookish again. And I'm excited that we've picked another book to read together!

Three weeks without satellite dish and I miss it not at all. Hulu and Netflix together are more than adequate (I say until ProRun premieres. How did you access that??)

I've painted my toes two weeks in a row and have been wearing borderline cute clothes, maybe to make up for my complete lack of chutzpah. It's raining a lot, so as to invite children's loudness and puppy's boredom and also garden soil's fungus gnats. J.Lo is having an especially bullshit time at work, fixing an impossibly long list of broken things. And let's not forget that terrible daily puzzle of tingling limbs and lost words and whether or not I'm actually losing my mind. That'd be nice to solve. But right now I could really use some pretzels.

Typhoon Balven? is coming or somesuch?

Humidity at 100%. Everyones a bit grumbly but i dont mind the rain quite yet as we has a pretty dry summer by all accounts. I really do enjoy the new names that typhoons bring.(khanun for instance) I never was at all impressed by the US hurricane names. The russian curmudgeon thinks going through two of them is enough. And i wasn't particularly impressed with the first. A downpour yesterday left a good water spray puddle on my floor and a small moat in my double window sills...

I knew there was something more i had to say as i was about to pass out from boring myself- I tested negative for the 6 other allergans- like the things i eat everyday sort of thing. Besides chocolate which will come back soon? Or something? Anyway weeeee. Also i still have a higher level of whatever present which indicates something is still undectected. My rather ambivilant doctor stated that it "could be anything" and suggested that I just try and spend my time taking care of myself and relaxing. I can't fault that assessment. He says, life as a foreign teacher is very stressful- and intimated that i might be allergic to stress. I like it. Further "research" is required but the couple articles i've read  seem to suggest that stress can heighten allergic responses and prompt sensitive areas like sinuses and the skin to an allergic response- like hives, blocked airways, and excema- which i all occasionally have... so there you have it. Of course i could really be allergic to air or something but let that go. I'm not going to keep spending money on them not fully testing me for stuff. I already feel a bit like- ach, to that $80 i just spent on top of the $60 because of course it didn't find anything. Finding out i was allergic to pork and cockroaches..pretty priceless right? And though i need a chiro i'll probably wait until the states for one too. And do yoga like a goodgirl should? I dont know somebody remind me. The nerves still pinched and the neck feels like its about to go on strike. What do you mean that's all indicative of stress... hunched shoulders and the what knots.

NEXT.

What else. I'm reading that book on Corrie TenBoom. She's pretty frickin' amazing and pretty inline with what i'm discovering here. How much life is about Jesus and Jesus alone- LOVE. How to love through, because of... and all the rest. Though i don't really want to be at home with God anywhere at the moment. I'm usually all for that but right now... not so much.

Other than that i really should begin to plan the wheres and hows of going to SEA in Feb. Seeing you. Jobs? I mean at this rate though I wonder if i'll get my head in the right order to do any of that. I hope so. I'm sure I will but i'm too busy blogging, eating fruit, drinking lattes and working. And then there's all that relaxing i have to do.

You feel better you. And take care of yourself. Lots of the laughing and chocolate and the goodthings for you my friend.

All my love,
xo- M.
(here it comes, here it comes, look how it rains. it sounds over the radio and the repeat of csi. it says, i am all around you. i encompass. )
 

pre-autumn rainy world

Pennypancakes,

Yesterday was pretty good. I had that: and thus the day progressed type feeling. Watched some netflix, ate some fudge and pondered the clutter of my room as I composed letters, and minute meeting notes. Massaged the consistent tingly feeling of the left side of my right knee. It's just a tad angry i've escalated the working out. The hiking, the moving dirt here and there, but its still better than before, worse than way before that. I just want to say hangon body hang on, we're getting there. But i feel good about going back to acupuncture to. Which I plan to schedule sometime next week.

The praying everyday for an hour is going fairly well. I think there are days that I just hang out with God and not much happens and some days like last night, in contemplating sin that I seemed so tired I might have fallen asleep right away. The night before last though one of the meditations was why do so many suffer because of sin, and i suffer so little. The result being- why am I being saved from my own self-destruction. And the word that came back was "you were mean't to face the sun"- and I was a big pink daisy in the middle of a vast grassy field. I like that. It doesn't explain it but it seemed some fact.

It's raining again. Its happened so often in the last month I might believe we are in some mini el nino cycle. How exciting. I haven't taken it for granted yet though. And it is a nice scene- all the birds lined up on the wires of the patio lights. Mom's gang of finches that she feeds.

And the rest of my day might go something like this list: necklace, necklace, xfiles?, book, book, ipod. Tomorrow I swim and help Kerry clean. So it's like, yes, i'm in need of a shower... but tomorrow?!... oh and as soon as i unplug the ipod and replug in the wire for the phone i can update you properly on babysitting thorne and such. and such and such.

m.

um, by pen

It’s currently raining out there WAY more than that alleged hurricane a few weeks ago. Which is fine, really. I like rain. I like chillier temps. Except, IF THE POWER GOES OUT TONIGHT,

I WILL NOT BE HAPPY.

It IS only the biggest night in television.

Something to keep in mind, Universe.

Yup, it rained anyway.

"Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic. I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it." -Professor McGonagall, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Substitute "weather forecasting" for "Divination," and "science" for "magic?" And that is how I feel about it all. I am never consulting weather.com again. It just makes me crazy with all its predictions and percentages and accu-weather bollocks, and you know what? It's all just going to unfold the way it's going to unfold and you can't do a thing about it.

I know you guys like weather.com, and that's fine. I promise not to judge you. But I find it very, um, "wooly," and I am done.

30

For some reason Pen is taking 30 a bit hard. (Still a few days away for her) It's an even number. I don't really get it I confess. I loved 30, but I have to admit 31 has been a bit obscure. The idea of it anyway and I've just begun to wonder about 32. So perhaps we work in the reverse. And because of her make believe children and an imaginary cold and a fantastical trip to NY, I haven't been able to pin her down. No emails, no answered phonecalls, and have just been able to yell at her via email and CAPS. I haven't even told her a thing about my job. Sure I haven't written the promised chapter and I owe her expressions of my love and affection from auspicious occasions dating a year back, I'm glad she still speaks to me most of the time despite whatever annoyance she harbors for me but doesn't tell me about.... anyway I hope Pen sees her way clear to a fabulous birthday. I told her she deserved chocolate and pina coladas in the rain and I wish I was there and she wasn't a figmament of my imagination.

affirmative

in my hand
holds a pen

in my outsides
it is rain

sparkling fits
of a grey sky

we prayed (like)
old israelites

uplifted you and i
and it poured down

an arch of passion
upon parched land

we
praised answer and

the green came refreshed
and the wind changed
the character of the clouds
of blue sky new born

and a longing sprung up
trickled, gushed forth
cut its course my heart

for more.

we laugh
join chorus

deep-ached
and wanting
to belong.