meta-jaded?

proposition>> i am becoming an old grouch.

supporting evidence>>
exhibit a: teenagers in movie theatres almost universally annoy me.
exhibit b: i think of undergrads as youngsters.
exhibit c: youngster pretension isn't cute to me.

evidence to the contrary>>
exhibit a: dude, teenagers in movie theatres annoyed you when you *were* a teenager.
exhibit b: you sound like a four-year-old when you see a rabbit. ahem: "bunniiiiies!!!"
exhibit c: you spent several seconds today reflecting on how much you enjoyed the shade
of green used for traffic lights. (dude, it's seriously beautiful!)

while the jury deliberates... lemme tell you what i heard on the bus today. two women ("youngsters," if you will) were chatting at a volume which, while not outright annoying, was high enough to distract me from malone's rants against patriarchy. not that this is a difficult task. (the distracting, not the talking loudly.) among complaints about the cost of textbooks and the bureaucracy that is osap, they began to discuss a mutual acquaintance.

----
arts student>> do you know what he says to end a conversation? like, instead of "goodbye"?
science student>> no...
arts>> he says, "have fun!"
science>> really?!
arts>> yeah, it pisses me off!!!
science>> well, i say that, too, if someone's going off to do something interesting. or, sarcastically, if they're going off to do something uninteresting.
arts>> yeah, ok, that's fine. it's about something specific or it's sarcastic, that's fine. but he says it all the time! it just sounds flippy!* like, have fun doing what?
----
* i'm not making that up. other parts are kinda paraphrased, but she definitely, definitely used the word "flippy."

i'm so over early-twenties-jadedness. maybe i'm jaded about jadedness. but, dude, joy is so much better than all that trash. and isn't it potentially awesome that your friend wishes that you'd have fun, whatever you may be doing next?

maybe i'm biased, though, because my parents have typically bade me farewell as follows:
mom>> be good!
dad>> have fun!
i really like taking their advice. especially in combination :)

dare to share

it's hard to forget the sheer terror i felt during one break-up, as i wondered if i was ever going to get my favourite book back. maybe that sounds cold... but the way i see it, losing a friend/significant other is bad enough. losing cherished belongings, on top of all that? pretty brutal.

i tend to track the geography of friendships: where we enjoyed meals, where we walked, where we listened to that band, where we spoke difficult truths, where we bought that gift, where we chatted in your car for hours, where i cried, where you told me that secret, where we sat in angry silence.

in the wake of broken friendships, i take stock of things a little bit, and, inevitably, i wonder if i shared too much. not just too many significant places, but personal treasures, too: recipes and books and ambitions and inside jokes and fears and stories and friends. they're not just mine anymore.

but, listen: the truth is that there's just no way to begin to understand me if you don't read a particular children's book. you have to read it yourself because i can't tell you what it means about me. i just know it's central. when is the time to mention that? (i've learned it's rarely the time to lend out the copy i've had since i was six. see above.)

see, it's not always insecurity that makes self-revelation so damn hard: some things really are diminished when revealed too often, and friendships really are diminished in the absence of genuine intimacy. so, it's not just hard. it's complicated.

i once asked a friend if there was anything i could do for him. he said, "just be yourself." the question is, how much?

wonder ten

janet's hands fluttered, danced, and beat the air as her recorded voice recited. she forced the simple words of her poem into the world of three dimensions. "i am a sister; i am a dancer; i am an office worker; i am a wonderful person."

that evening, after dinner, sharon took a photo of me blowing kisses at my own reflection. janet's words were ringing in my ears: i am a wonderful person.

---

i reach out, offering a kindness, then instantly pull my hand back. something within has sprung up to identify my motive: atoning for sin, winning favour, attaining status or glory, hearing praise, inspiring guilt, or some other manipulation... rather than love for the sake of loving, i am doing good for my own sake.

restlessness takes over and i search my surroundings for a distraction. i don't want to think about how very selfish i am. the stench of hypocrisy nauseates me, and my eyes fill with hot tears. how can i be so full of crap?

---

gazing in mirrors leaves me in awe. my own reflection takes my breath away... not because vanity is my vice of choice, but because what i see is astounding. truly, i am the most beautiful of all God's creatures. and also the ugliest.

my thought life, my prayer, my work ethic, my patience, my compassion, my words, my fear, my touch, my openness, my courage, my purity, my thoughtfulness, my gentleness, my capacity to hope... as they are daily tested, they testify for and against me. and there is nothing like consensus.

---

n.t. wright says the world is awesomely ugly and achingly beautiful, and that we need imagination in order to cope with what feels like a false dichotomy.

i say my head and heart hurt from the effort of trying to sort myself out.

but this i know: within myself i find great cause for hope, great need for confession, and great grounds for forgiving those who fail me. and without? a God who is only beautiful and who wants to come inside.

---

beautiful, you're beautiful
beautiful as the sun
wonderful, you're wonderful
as wonderful as they come
~smashing pumpkins, "beautiful"

so many verbs and nouns

the black king

you are comfortable letting a situation evolve, reacting to it, and exploiting the weakness of your enemy when he over-reaches. your followers are loyal to you, and would gladly fall upon the sword of an advancing rook or queen for you, but you would rather use them to sneak in and surprise the enemy. you are content to let others do your dirty work, even your queen.


what chess piece are you? quiz written by gundark27 on OkCupid.



i'm not sure what that even means. but i kinda think it's inaccurate . . . maybe this quiz is dumb.

unashamed

i stole this from faith. i am ashamed neither of my yoinking tendencies nor of the fact that it's quizzy.

by any other name . . .

1. your rock star name: (pet and current street name)
framm alamosa

2. your movie star name: (grandfather/grandmother on mother's side first name, favorite candy)
maria mars

3. your "fly girl/guy" name: (first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your last name)
m (to the) apo

4. your detective name: (favorite animal, name of high school)
elephant jackson (that doesn't quite have a ring to it... maybe i'd go by "elly jackson")

5. your soap opera name: (middle name, city where you were born)
alexandra bucharest

6. your opposite sex name: (name of dad/mom, cell phone company you use)
george rogers

7. your star wars name: (first 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother's maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet's name)
apotiufra

8. your jedi name: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards)
ardnaxela uitiziv

9. your stage name: (middle name, street you grew up on)
alexandra clovercrest

10. superhero name: ("the", your favorite color, the first thing you see when you look to your left)
the sky-blue tube

p.s. this is a stalker's dream come true. that was a LOT of personal info.

calvin

i have a bible exam at 9am tomorrow, so i thought i'd spend a few moments discussing platonic forms. because i've been thinking about them. why else?

just before i posted about returning to who i used to be, i'd gone out for lunch with kevin and kat. at wendy's, of course. (where else?) ANYway, i was saying that when i was younger i wasn't so focused, but i was happier. coincidence? mmmm . . . maybe not! i played euphonium and did math and debating and writing and i loved it all . . . and i think i knew who i was. well, kat said, "yeah, but you aren't math and euph and debating and writing . . . those are just things you DO." they're things i participate in and they may describe me, but they're not me.

then stu - oh, stu - who was sitting at another booth, made some crack about what we choose to talk about - like love and life and why - and kev said, "it's like a socratic discourse." and then it clicked. and, man, when it clicks, it CLICKS.

forms.

what is the FORM of mara?

instead of focusing on the particulars, i should wallow in the universal. what am i about? not details, but real truths of me.

i struggle with role conflict, but i shouldn't. if divine simplicity is a reality, and i am to be Christlike, then i, too, should be more simple. not in the sense of "sell all your possessions" - although that, too - but in focusing less on having distinct attributes, and more on being a whole.

SO:

instead of thinking and planning and trying to be a good woman, a good wife, a good mother, a good friend, a good sister, a good daughter, a good residence manager, a good student, a good customer, a good neighbour, a good employee, a good Christian, a good role model, a good colleaugue, a good euphonium player, a good writer, a good debater, a good reader, a good roommate . . .

"and now you can say etc, etc" . . .

i should focus on trying to be a good human being. the rest will follow.

can't you see that it's just raining . . .

. . . ain't no need to go outside. except that on saturday skoch and i wanted to go to walmart. so we braved the rain and wind, and ended up having a lovely time. after realizing i didn't remember what i was there to buy, we gave up on wandering the aisles aimlessly and focused on skoch's door decorations. the princess theme came together beautifully. we even (finally!) got pictures taken where we're both, you know, looking at the camera. :) and, because you can't go to walmart without stopping in at mcdonald's, we also had some dinner. over fries we shared our thoughts on the difference between a double hamburger and a big mac. then we finished up the shopping and braved more wind and less rain to go home.

sunday, we donned our uniforms (i'll admit it, mine consisted of my tunic, jeans, and pink t-shirt) and went to church. steve is preaching on spiritual warfare for the next few weeks. now there's a subject not often addressed. the foundation for speaking on the demonic and so on is most often anecdotal, but there's definitely plenty of scripture that illuminates the battle we're in. it was great to see him tackle this touchy - and timely - issue. phil locked his keys in the car and peter and amanda gave skoch a computer, so we all took the train together with a huge box. carrying that home was fun. it's all about teamwork. later, a tonne of us watched "mean girls", which continues to be a movie i love. i had actually picked it up at walmart on saturday. i finally got some reading done, realized (for sure, this time!) that i don't remember much of greek at all, and then went to bed. oh, and this morning i slept in and missed my first class. that was mara's weekend. how was yours?

now that i've done the play-by-play, here's an actual thought:
i'm a different person in different environments. at camp i'm one person, at school another. it's not that i'm intentionally deceptive: both people are equally me. it's just a matter of adaptation. with skoch at rocky . . . it's kinda neat to see two parts of me collide.

yeah, that's what it is: it's not that my worlds are colliding, it's that i'm now free to be as i am at camp AND as i am in the city. it's comfy. i like it.

so, if nothing else, that's one benefit of living in the same building as a friend who has known me for two years. i highly recommend it. also, since the above mentioned benefits are by no means exhaustive, i highly recommend friendship with skoch in particular.

isn't there a song about this?

fred has me listed as "mara" on his links list. everyone else seems to get to go by camp names.

who am i, really?

i'm turning 24 in 13 hours (3am MST, for those who are wondering) and i've been trying to do that whole "things i want to accomplish before i'm 25" thing . . . to no avail. i have no long-term goals, really. i mean, i want to be more content, more reflective, more open, more vulnerable, more fit, more informed, more compassionate, more sensitive, more . . . more. but no "climb mt. everest"-type goals come to mind. is that normal?