Easy A, Get It?

Ok, so I just watched the cutest movie. I updated my Facebook status to reflect that so for those of you who are my friends on FB sorry, but you just heard me say it's a cute movie twice. I love the main character, I love the girl who played her, and I love that she referenced all the movies I watched growing up. And seriously, I love that I now know that Patrick Dempsey was the guy in Can't Buy Me Love, a movie I haven't seen since like 5th grade but I still have practically memorized vaguely remember.

If you haven't seen this movie and you want a nice light no-actual-sex-scenes-but-some-really-funny-sex-sounds movie, this is the one for you. And if you're a fan of Redbox, let me give them a free shout-out and say it'll be the best dollar and eight cents you've spent all week.

Now.

I do have two thoughts that have come about from watching this movie.

First: How does one "lose" their virginity anyway??? OK, so I'm not the first or the last person to say this but it needs to be said because maybe out there somewhere is a girl who has not yet "lost it." Call it the V-card, your flower, whatever the heck it is, you cannot lose it. Unless you are so very very drunk that you cannot actually remember a single moment of the three-and-a-half ten minutes it takes for your first time, you will know exactly where it has gone. And chances are, the next morning you'll wish you could go there and take it back. And don't be too quick with giving it away, either.

Ok. Stepping off the soap box.

Second: Are all of the Christians in high school really that obnoxious? Was I that obnoxious? Am I that obnoxious? I'd like to think that once little miss Christian Cheerleader of America goes to college and experiences some real life, she'll figure out that the Jesus she loves really kinda doesn't groove on that self-absorbed, holier-than-thou attitude. But still, why the stereotype? Ok sure, it's a movie rife with them, so I guess it's ok. Not trying to knock the movie here, {SPOILER ALERT-GO TO NEXT PARAGRAPH} because other than the fact that our heroine is still cool with the idea of giving away her V-card at some random time in the future, she did not, in fact, do so during the entire film. Kudos to her.

But you know what I'd love to see/read? I'd love to follow a story about a girl who goes to high school and loves Jesus but gives her boyfriend blow jobs because they figure that's not really sex, right? And how she goes to college and finds out that whoops--it was. And how she swears, and wears slutty clothes every now and then because even though she loves Jesus her self-worth is still tied up with what others think of her--or what they think of how she looks, anyway.

And no, that is not an autobiography. What it is, is an authentic story about a Christian girl who's still living in this world, and doesn't quite get how to be a part of the next.

Perhaps it's a plot treatment for something I should write.

But here's the rub--literally--if my audience is high-school kids, and I'm trying to undergird the whole story with the love of Christ... should I write about the blowjobs?

No really, I want to know. What do you think?

And... have you read any books like this?

Oh Where... is My Camera?

If my camera worked under water, this is what the photos it took would look like.

Yes, it is true... my camera is lost to Davy Jones' Locker. Well... assuming that Davy Jones has a locker at the bottom of Lake Geneva, IL, anyway. 

So here's what happened: I was at a women's retreat, learning about how to worship God fully. During the afternoon break, a friend and I decided to walk to the lake, taking pictures along the way. It was a beautiful fall day, and my photos were amazing. I had a great eye that day, and was catching moments of beauty all over the place. I even remember saying "This is the best photo I've taken!" after taking a shot of a canoe at the edge of the lake. The funny thing is a voice whispered in my ear "That's prideful, you shouldn't say that!" so I tried to amend it to "This is the best photo I've taken today!" Not that my friend would have cared I'm sure, but I felt like someone was telling me "Oooh, you shouldn't be so proud of what you're doing, that's bad." 

And then 5 minutes later, right as we were getting into a paddle boat for a quick ride, I lost my camera. It was  a nice pocket-sized camera, so of course it was in my pocket. In its case, in my pocket, clipped to my jeans, to be exact. And yet, just when I was stepping into the boat it popped out--the whole case--and bloop! it fell right into the water. 

And I mean it when I say bloop! It was a nice loud, satisfying sound, the kind of noise that a medium-to-large sized stone would make when you drop it into water. Or, say, a camera in its case. Oh, and I also had my spare battery and about 4 SD memory cards in there.

So my first reaction was to swear. And my second was to stare into the water and flutter my hands. You know what I mean, right, that rapid flexing of the wrist that shows how incompetent you really are but somehow we just have to do it? As if fluttering my hands at the lake would make it regurgitate my camera dry and perfect. Yeah, right.

What really happened is I called our on-site manager, Joel, who came over right away and spent 45 minutes trying to find the camera. Because here's the thing: even though it only dropped right off the pier, the bottom of the lake wasn't a nice clear pebbly bottom. Oh no, the bottom of the lake was about 5 feet of mud, plants, and more mud. So every time we swept a rake through the water trying to catch the camera, we'd have to wait 10-15 minutes for the water to clear enough to look for it.

I'm sure you're hoping that I found it. I was hoping that I'd find it, because there's a chance that my warrantee may have covered water damage, but replacing a disappeared camera? Yeah, not so sure about that one. 

The 45 minutes Joel spent trying to find my camera were amazing, and terrible. I say terrible because--well, you know why, duh. I spent pretty much the whole time crying. That camera was like my baby, it was like my left hand. I'm sure you understand, if you're a fan of photography. It may not have been a professional-grade camera, but I believe I've taken more than my fair share of beautiful photos. See my previous post about things I see on the way to the train for a few shots that I took a week before the retreat to see just how much I was in love with finding the beautiful--the extraordinary, if you will--in the ordinary.

But back to those 45 minutes. Why were they amazing, you might be wondering. They were amazing because I have never had people I didn't know rally around me so much. Not only did Joel faithfully spend a full 45 minutes trying to find the camera, but a group of people, who had been intrigued as to why two people kept staring off the pier, came over and started looking for the camera themselves. Two of them even flopped down on their bellies and stuck their faces into the water in an attempt to see better. We're talking October, cold water!

Then all of a sudden I knew it was over. I was done. I couldn't ask Joel to stay away from all the other teams that were staying at the conference center for any longer. The camera, which likely was only about 6 inches away from where we were looking the whole time, was lost. Joel drove me back to our meeting room, where the session I was supposed to lead was just wrapping up. I felt like a failure. I had lost about $537 worth of camera stuff, not to mention the pictures I'd taken that day, and I'd missed the chance to continue my leadership development by leading a personal testimony session at the retreat. 

And yet.

And yet, I felt peace. I felt comfort. I felt God saying "I know the pain you are feeling." The speaker who did our morning and afternoon sessions spoke about how everything we do should be worship to God, and that we should give Him our all, our everything. When I walked back into the meeting room, we sang "I'm giving you everything I am, and everything I have," and I thought "God, I just gave you my camera." 

I will admit, I cried when I thought that.

But then something else the speaker said came back to me. She'd talked about how when we do good deeds on earth, we build up for ourselves treasures in heaven. But she doesn't think we're going to get to heaven and sit happily on our pile of gold. No, once we see God in His full glory, we'll be so overwhelmed that we will throw down our treasures before Him, because nothing on earth or in Heaven is as amazing, as fantastic, as holy, as praise-worthy as God. And it will give us no more pleasure than to cast our crowns down before Him as an expression of how His love is all that matters, His glory unapproachable. So next to all of that, what value my camera? And what helpful part does bitterness or anger play in getting over its loss? None, to both.

I will admit, when people prayed for me that the camera would be returned to me two-fold (as in, twice as good, not twice as many) I had an internal battle. Because getting a camera twice as nice as that one would be awesome. But I can't expect it, right? So would thinking about getting a new camera ruin my chances of actually getting one? And while we're at it, did I lose my camera because I had those prideful thoughts earlier?

My goodness, it's amazing how evil that thought was. Was losing the camera somehow connected to my pride?

I don't think so at all. I think if anyone had tried to find exactly the right way for me to doubt myself, and doubt God's sovereignty, that is the way to do it. Which is precisely why I do not believe it. I do not believe that losing my camera was God's way of getting back at me, and I do not believe that it happened without his knowledge. What I do believe is that He will, and has already, work this out for good. I mean, He already helped me to not tie up my entire sense of well-being with a physical object. He helped me to accept that sometimes things happen, and we can't live in the past, wishing we could turn time back to about 5 seconds before the accident, but that we have to move on.

I'm not really sure what "moving on" will look like, but I know one thing, God spoke to me very clearly that weekend about my writing. If a picture is worth a thousand words, and I can take 300 pictures in about an hour, I've got a lot of writing to do. Maybe that's why I'm not encumbered with a camera right now. 

Well, that's 1400 words down. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Turn Down the Music

I want to share my new favorite song with you. I heard it on Pandora yesterday, which had much better sound quality than any of the clips I could find on YouTube, but hey, I think you'll get the point. Plus I'm going to give you the lyrics. :)

To give you some context, and in case you've missed (or rather, not missed) me for the past few weeks, I've been going through a rather trying time. You know, one of those "Who am I supposed to be?" times when you realize you're so busy trying to just get back into bed that you don't do anything fun or fulfilling with your day. You get up, you work, you work late, or maybe you do make it to something in the evening, you get home, and it's bed time. And then you get up again.

But where is the music, the worship, the joy? Where is the writing, the creativity? Where is just sitting outside in the sun, soaking it in?

I lost it somewhere. But lately I've been feeling the call, the call to worship God more, the call to write (Oh my goodness the call to write!)

It churns inside of me, it drips down my fingers when I type, it comes out my nose and my eyes. Yes it's a messy thing. But it's something I haven't felt, really felt, in a long time. To try to explain it, I love love love to write. Before I took my break from non-regulation blogging (and by that I mean the scheduled things like Curny Thursday, Wit & Wisdom Wednesday, Fictionary Friday and Be My Guest Monday--by the way have you noticed how I managed to almost fill my week up with stuff just so I could avoid writing any non-regulation posts??) I enjoyed blogging, I really did. I loved having the chance to be creative and get my thoughts out there, and even read other people's thoughts and their reactions to my thoughts.

But what I was missing was this deep down "if I don't do this now I might just die" feeling. That hunger that eats you from the inside out. Yes, it's that bad. It's the kind of hunger that makes me wish I had more in my savings account so I could take a leave of absence from my job and just experience life and then write about it for a solid month.

Short of bankrupting myself, however, I will find new ways to fit in time. I am getting up an hour earlier than I need to, which technically I was doing since the beginning of the year, but what I did was "listen" (sleep to) worship music, and then blog at my other home, Moments of Majesty. Well, an hour of sleeping to worship music was nice, but when I realized that I didn't hear any of it after the amount of time it took me to walk from the "on" button to my couch, yeah, that wasn't right. So now I'm on day two of getting up an hour early and just coming straight to the computer. Will I be able to keep it up? I sure hope so, because it's been nice having the time to write two blog posts before I even take a shower!!

And it's been fantastic writing to you guys again. I missed you.

But I want to lead back into my new favorite song. I think one of the things I was missing when I didn't have the Hunger to write, was a reason strong enough TO write. But I have that reason in and around me all day, every day: Jesus. The God who made me died to save me. He is the reason that I even have the ability to write, and I must use these gifts to worship Him. I want to write a new song to Him, maybe something just for Him and me, and maybe something that I can share with others, to bring others into Worship with Him as well.

So what I need to do is turn down the music that we're so used to listening to, day in and day out, and listening for God's voice in me, directing me on where to go, and who to be. And allowing myself to sing that Song which He gave me.

Check out my new favorite song here, and with luck, maybe sometime soon I'll have a clip of a song that I've written to share with you. :)



Turn Down The Music
Shane & Shane

If you were hungry would we give you food?
If you were thirsty would we give you drink?
If you were a stranger would we let you in?
What would be a song we’d sing to you when there in need?
Would it be an empty hallelujah to the king?

Turn down the music
Turn down the noise
Turn up your voice oh God and let us hear the sound
Of people broken, willing to love
Give us your heart oh God a new song rise in us

And if you were naked, would we give you clothes?
If you were an orphan would we give our home?
And if you were in prison, would we visit you?
What would be a song we’d sing to you when there in need?
Would it be an empty hallelujah to the king?

Turn down the music
Turn down the noise
Turn up your voice oh God and let us hear the sound
Of people broken, willing to love
Give us your heart oh God a new song rise in us

Let it be our worth shared
Let it be our true religion
In this world of ?
Holding on to our confessions
Let it be your worth shared
Let it be your true religion
In this world of ?
Holding on to our confessions

Turn down the music
Turn down the noise
Turn up your voice oh God and let us hear the sound
Of people broken, willing to love
Give us your heart oh God a new song rise in
A new song rise in
A new song rise in us

You Make Me Want to Write

Thank you! Thank you all! Really honestly, thank you.

You don't even know why, do you?

Well, here's the deal. I've been a very very part-time blogger the last few weeks. When I realized that you could have comments emailed to you, and then respond to them through your email instead of bouncing around your blog, I was so excited and planned to anwer every one in a timely manner. Um... yeah. If you've commented in the past month, you're probably still waiting for a response, huh? But I really really am planning on it, because I think the Blogosphere just might be the place for me.

Why is that? Two reasons:

First: I have won my very very first award ever. Huzzah!!!

Thank you so much to Ally and Lela! Please check out Two Normal Moms. I absolutely love that they blog together and have been friends for 35+ years (which clearly means they're each not a day over 36, right? just like how my bff and I have been friends for 25 years--since we were in the womb, of course.)

The rule to this award is you have to pass it on to up to 15 blogs that you love. Please forgive me for only highlighting a few, but here they are, in no particular order:

1. Chicago: A Daily Photo Blog Beautiful city, beautiful photography. Brilliant black & whites.
2. Me, Myself & Pie Strangely enough, it's about cooking. But you won't find many sites with such witty stories and phenominal food photography!
3. At The Meadows What makes life great at the meadows? Lots of stuff--you'll always find something awesome there!
4. Nouns Make Verbs One of the first blogs I started following. And one of the most profound.
5. Strangers in a Normal Land Ok it's been a bit since she's written because her boy is sick and she's newly preggers. But she's one of the best out there and hopefully this will lure her back in!!! :)

And Second (Second? What? Oh right, this is the second reason why I'm thankful):

I'm so very thankful to you because you make me want to write. Really, you do. I was finally able to read a few blogs tonight and post a few comments, and those blogs and my comments gave me ideas for posts. And with how busy and crazy I've been over the last few weeks, it's been hard to see the extraordinary behind the film that daily life leaves on everything. Plus, the fact that you're still commenting on my posts even though I'm woefully behind... that makes me want to try harder. Because if you're up to reading, by golly I'll be up to writing.

So thank you, thank you all!

The Affect/Effect Disorder

I was just reading a delightful post by Call Me Cate about people with whom she works who use... let's just call it "creative grammar."

I began to write a comment, then immediately opened a new window so I could type this, because let me tell you, grammar is soooo one of my buttons, and I thought you'd appreciate my shoving this tripe down your throat sharing my thoughts with you. I'll be the first to say that I don't always get the laid/lays/lying thing right (just ask my mom) but I've grown up around proper grammar. My mother is an editor, two of my aunts are English teachers, my favorite teacher in high school was my English teacher, and in college I minored in... wait for it... English.

So yeah a lot of writing, and proper sentence structure. More full disclosure: when my Mom was up at 4:30am writing the conclusion while I slept on a nearby chair helping me finish my English papers, she wasn't exactly taking the time to explain to me what a gerund was. I still couldn't tell you. But, short of a phrase subtlely using laid/lays/lying improperly, I can spot a badly written sentence at 50 paces and have it fixed before you can figure out the whole laid/lays/lying problem anyway.

Now, proper grammar does not a millionaire make (unless you sell a lot of how-to-write books). It does not make you more good looking, and doesn't give you funny stories to tell at parties unless you hobnob with other word geeks literati. But proper grammar can often be the cherry on top when you're at a job interview, trying to get a book published, or just trying to avoid making your literate friends' heads explode. So here is a very short list of some of my favorites, in no particular order:

• Homonyms: Those are two words that are spelled and pronounced exactly the same but are different words. Plane and Plane... one is a flat and level surface, and one is a verb that means to glide or soar.
• Homophones: These are words that sound alike but are not spelled alike. Plane and Plain.One is a flat surface, and the other is fairly uninteresting-looking.
• Homographs: These are words that are spelled the same but are pronounced differently. Try this one: "Yesterday I read the book you told me to read." Go ahead, say it out loud. You'll get it.
• The Affect/Effect Disorder: Beware of words that are really really close in both spelling and pronunciation but are different words, like affect and effect. The first causes the second. The weather affected my sinuses, the effect of which was a headcold.
• You/Your/You're Outta Here!: Three different words, people. "You're so sweet, I can't believe you gave me your favorite purse."
• Laid/Lays/Lying down on the job: Yes this is my achilles heel, but if I think hard enough, I can figure it out. You lay something down, you yourself lie down. If you are laying yourself down to sleep (praying the Lord your soul to keep) then your body is actually the object in the sentence that you are laying down. But if you say "I'm gonna go lay down," a superior grammatically-enhanced person will ask you what you are going to lay down, and possibly where.

I could go on. My favoritest English teacher Mr. Lester gave us a list of close to 200 rules for writing proper papers. I may not follow them all the time, but believe me, it helps me be a better person. Or something. :)

Discipline

Discipline is writing something every day.
Even if it's only a little.

What I want to be when I grow up

18 Days. That's how much time I have left to get married, have two kids and a dog, finish (and start) grad school, and have the job of my dreams. And a 401(k).

Whatever.

As I round out the last year of my 20s (ok officially this will be my Third Decade celebration because it sounds cool, but thereafter I will set my status to 29 and just keep repeating it)

Wow, long sentence. Starting over.

As I round out the last year of my 20s, I have had many horrible terrible awful thoughts coursing through my head. What am I doing? Where am I going with this life? Why am I still single? It's pathetic how most of the people who took my Facebook "How well do you know me" quiz thought that what I wanted most for my 30th birthday was a husband. And you know what, I was totally fine being single until I realized that everyone else is wondering why I'm still single.

But that's not the point of this blog. The point is that I'm writing this at work, on my lunch break, thinking "Oh God, why oh why can't THIS be what I get paid to do today?" The point of this blog is that I'm realizing for like the 38th time that I actually have yet to figure out how to become what I want to be when I grow up.

I'm still 10 years (and 18 days) away from my one and only life goal: To be a college professor by the time I'm 40. I'm not one for 5-year plans. I made this one back when I was only 20. And I like it, because I firmly believe that going from college to grad school to teaching college isn't always the best for the teacher or the students. I want to approach classes with the understanding that I've been out there, I've lived, I've "done life" and now I'm teaching others how to do it. So technically I'm still in my 20-year plan, doing just fine.

But how do I get from 30 to 40? Because the secret caveat to my 20-year plan is that I'd be a published author by the time I begin teaching other people how to write. I mean, come on, I need credentials. I need to be able to say that I have actually been there, done that, and millions of people have bought MY T-shirt.

This post is going to be open-ended, because I don't know how I'm going to get from 30 to 40. But I know that if I keep finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary, somehow my little life will change, and my 20-year plan will unfold like a butterfly from a chrysalis.

At least, that's my fervent prayer.

Stop Trying So Hard

Ok, here I go. This is my first unscripted post. The first few were ideas that jumped at me, and I started writing them wherever I was, typically by tapping them out on my BlackBerry and emailing them to myself, after which I could edit, adjust, and re-write to my heart's content before I posted it. Super-cool yes, but I've suddenly realized that I haven't posted anything since. Why? Because while I have had some spectacular ideas, none of them have actually been written yet.

So this post is my confession to you, dear readers. (Please let it be plural by now) :)

I think that I have many important things to say. I really truly do believe that God has given me an insight into the Ordinary in the world, that I may see and share how it actually is Extraordinary. That is important! So very important are these revelations, however, that I cannot share them with you.

Qué? Come again?

Well, that's what it seems like, doesn't it? I'm holding out on you, because these amazingly wonderful missives from on high just aren't good enough until I've written the crap out of them. Forget simply expressing my ideas. These must be practically choreographed.

Ok, hyperbole over. The funny thing is, in all of this I'm realizing the lesson for today really and truly is this: Stop Trying So Hard! (You can add ", Stupid!" at the end if it helps.)

Really, truly, honestly, if God is trying to say something through this post He sure as shooting is gonna do it whether my words are good or not. The irony is that if I write nothing because I'm waiting for most amazing way to say something, I'm in actuality not saying anything. But if I get over myself, throw a few words down, read it once for grammar and clarity, and move on, you might actually get something out of it.

The true irony is that I wrote this to teach myself a lesson.

My first...

Eat every meal as if it were your first.

Too often we eat as if it's our last, so those calories (or dollars) are somehow forgivable. But if you pretend that you've got another fantastic meal coming along soon... in oh, just a couple of hours, then maybe you'll wait before scarfing down that second loaded baked potato. Many of us, however, seem to believe that each and every opportunity we have to ingest calories could in fact be the very last time we may ever have them again--or at least that's how we act. I mean really, who NEEDS a giant tub of popcorn at the movies? There will be popcorn again the next time you go, I promise.

But if I were to sit down at the beginning of the day and say "OK, I know I've got dinner planned at my favorite Thai place tonight, and they serve a lot, and I'm gonna want to eat it all because we're going to the movies afterwards and it'll go bad in the car... so maybe for breakfast I'll have a bowl of cereal instead of eggs, and for lunch I'll have a salad and one small baked potato. Then I can indulge in the Gyoza and Pad Thai." Now, that's a pretty healthy attitude towards food. And at each meal when I would rather have the eggs, or the two loaded baked potatoes, I can remind myself that I have the big dinner coming.

But take it one step further... what if once I get to my dinner I think "Well you know, if we're going to the movies afterwards I'm probably going to want some popcorn, so perhaps I'll offer to--gasp--share this appetizer with my other three friends, and maybe even split the entree with another person, so then I'll have room for a small popcorn." Hm. See that? I approached my meal as if another one were coming! Amazing. I still get to eat everything I wanted for dinner and at the movies, and yet I won't be going home with a distended stomach from all the overeating. And I would be well prepared to digest, and start the next day fresh and ready for a new gastronomical adventure.

Ok. So let's take this in a different direction, because this is an interesting concept for writing too:

Write every story/blog/status update as if it were your first.

Since one would think that you only get better with time your last piece would then be your best, your magnum opus... so wouldn't I want to write each piece as if it were my last? Yet that gives the impression that this post, well, it's the best I'm ever going to do. Because it's my last post, you see. So even if it is my best, well then, i'm done. And besides, isn't that just a ton of stress to put on each and every thing I write? Thank goodness some of what I write gets deleted. If everything were my last, I'd be awful darn worried about what my family would find. "It was the last thing she ever wrote... a shopping list. But man, it was the most beautifully written list ever."

While with your first piece there is hope and possibility, an eager excitement and faith that things will only get better from here on out... not to mention that your level of committment and willingness to really dig in to your research and grammatical precision are quite possibly at their peak at the beginning, before you have the chance to become disillusioned or lose your passion.

Perhaps, then, I do want to write knowing and expecting that there will be more. For if I know that I have, God-willing, many many years ahead of me to hone my craft, well then it sure does take the pressure off of trying to make this first post the best thing I've ever done, doesn't it? And besides, dear reader, I would like to keep you around for a while. And if every post is potentially my last, then why would you bother coming back?

So this is my goal: to do each good thing as if it were the first time. Full of energy, excitement, and a willingness to try new things and pick myself up when I fall. And knowing that I've got nowhere to go but up, and I'm ready for every step of the journey.

Why don't you try too? Write as if it were your first blog. Run as if it were your first race. Paint as if it were your first canvas. And just as you'll realize when you start eating, not as if it were your last day on earth, but rather your first, it can only get better from here.