so the word i couldn't find on thursday was "restless." now my whole mindset has been tossed up in the air and whacked with a tennis racket. i guess i'm going home for valentine's day. lucky me? i should be so excited. my brain is not working right. i wish i could make better sense of myself.
love is limited by fear. especially for christians, i think. we're so worried about making a mistake. kissing and then maybe having to tell. wasting our time. Ken Myers says about the current "careerism" mentality that "if you settle down too early, the argument runs, you'll probably miss out on the real opportunities of young adulthood, such as traveling, meeting new people and living and working in exciting places." marriage is a limit, career is life-broadening. well.... isn't it? isn't it harder to fulfill individual dreams when suddenly there are two sets of ideas about life that don't necessarily line up? don't you miss out on things when you get married young? isn't it true that you get to be married for the rest of your life? why start so soon? but really... maybe we're just all afraid of committment, as cliche as it sounds. i am. i'm afraid of making mistakes, both in my decisions about career and marriage and relocation and which doors to take and which to let close without even looking through. i have a pile of dreams for myself and i'm afraid of letting them stagnate and rot. i don't want to notice how much they stink in ten years because i didn't pay them enough attention. it's much better to act on those ideas before you're married than to suddenly feel like you never really had the life you wanted when you're 50. but it's all so selfish. that's true of social vs. personal life concerns, too. i find it much easier to pour energy into saving the world (which has very little to do with me) while i have trouble keeping my personal life from chaos (which has everything to do with me). why are we so busy? why are we so afraid? why is it so hard to really understand that i have been called to a life that glorifies not myself and my own desires, but something much greater? i need to grow up.
posted by renee 10:40 PM
Thursday, January 29, 2004
this is the kind of discomfort i like least. i am not sure why i am uncomfortable or what i could possibly do about it. it might be hunger, but i've eaten recently- maybe just not the right thing. it might be that i'm tired, but i slept almost eight full hours last night. maybe i miss micah, but i should be used to that by now. maybe it's misdirected energy. i have been working out almost every day, and sat on my butt for the last 24 hours straight. too much sugar? not enough caffine? not enough sleep? too much sleep? not enough carmen? not enough roommates? i'm nearing the end of my school week. soc stats lab for another hour and ten minutes of weakly contested ennui and it's four day weekend time. i keep thinking about graduate school. new york? chicago? my head is spinning. i just want to learn things and go places and talk to people and make friends who are different from me.
and despite the list of far-flinging possibilities i entertain for my future, the fact remains that sometimes i just miss micah. even though i should be used to it by now. even though i scoff at people who have a hard time not seeing each other for six weeks. we've made it much longer than that. and maybe i've discovered that it's possible, but that doesn't mean i've learned to like it. minneapolis is a fun date town. it's statistically proven. but dating isn't fun when the boy you like is 386 miles away.
but i don't think it's that. i feel that little spiny awareness that something is off... it makes me want to take a nap.
posted by renee 6:03 PM
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
the production of one big mac requires the amount of wheat necessary for five loaves of bread.
70% of our nation's grain production feeds livestock.
if everyone converted to a vegetarian diet and no more food were wasted, current food production would be enough to feed 10 million people.
except.
except that food is a class thing. wonder bread vs. sourdough. boneless chicken breast vs. tofu. cub vs. the co-op. and as upper-middle class white kids, we get snobby and think we have the right to tell everyone else what is good for them and what is not. is it about classism, or environmentalism? when's the last time you met a vegetarian living below the poverty line? what does that mean? it means be careful how you present your case. don't smoke, that's bad for you. we don't sell lottery tickets, because they're bad for you. animals injected with hormones and chemicals all their life will give you cancer if you eat them. wonder bread sucks. well, yeah.... but who are we to decide?
i just realized that it's been a long time since i've had a black friend. maybe this race/class/gender course will be good for me. or maybe it will open my eyes to yet another area in my life in which i am falling short. only 31% of problems in relationships are fixable. probably because only 31% of problems in individuals are fixable. and i really don't try very hard sometimes. i wonder why.
posted by renee 4:45 PM
Sunday, January 25, 2004
working in a bakery near downtown gives me the opportunity to interact with a healthy cross-section of upper-middle class minnesotans... and therefore a variety of temperments ranging from minnesota-nice to i'm-an-only-child-of-two-absent-lawyers-who-gave-me-everything-i-ever-wanted-because-they-felt-guilty. but minnesota-nice has interesting subtypes, one being minnesota-plastic. i think that this state, more than most others, fosters an environment of keeping up appearances. we are all just so nice. granted, the university campus is a progressive hotbed of vocal rage.... but it doesn't seep far into the community. i tend to equate a person's sense of humor to his or her personality as a whole. maybe that's misguided. but when someone comes into work and i can tell they won't be any fun, i usually imagine them as pretty cardboard through and through. and man, are they nice. nice nice nice. i'd rather a little punch. a little boston brashness in their manner.... maybe east coast living would get old after awhile, but sometimes it's like minnesota is one big suburb. everything perfect on the outside, and who knows what going on underneith. it's passive aggressive at best. when people fake it for so long, they forget how to let their guard down. sad.
unrelated: my goal for this semester is to eliminate my sense of entitlement.
posted by renee 5:59 PM
Thursday, January 22, 2004
there is a windchill today of -30F. it makes my lungs hurt. elementary schools are cancelled.
minnesota: the land of frozen snot, columbia or no columbia
Oh.... and brace yourself for Edwards... he's just cuter than Kerry, that's all there is to it.
Johnny Depp for President!!!!
posted by renee 11:05 PM
my TIME from last week was a special issue on love and its implications, physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. one of the articles included a quiz about the degree passion in your love life... it turns out i'm "wildly, even recklessly in love." or maybe i just tend to vote high on quizzes like that. anyway, another of the articles was about the S&M population (although we were informed that insiders just call it SM...) it seemed like the author ended up feeling pretty sorry for the people involved in the movement to legitimize the practice. besides being completely socially taboo, the harsher S&M practices are actually illegal. there is nothing in abuse laws that makes assalt not assalt if the injured party is consenting. gross. and plus, he felt sorry for them because the general population responds to the whole issue the same way: "gross." i remember in my Christian ethics class reading an article about how consensual sex with children was the last sexual frontier..... i realized at that point that some people simply are perverts. and i don't apologize for that belief. but when the day comes that SM support groups demand government protections for their lifestyles... don't be surprised. i could care less if people have weird kinky habits, but heck if my tax dollars should go to keep them from being discriminated against when activists don't want them to come hold big conferences in their communities.
one of the couples they talked about actually live their whole lives in a slave-master format. the man orders the woman around all the time. he treats her like a bad kid, making her stand in the corner when she does something he doesn't like. she lives to hear him say "good girl" when she finally succeeds in pleasing him somehow. they say it's just like the 50s. i say thank goodness we aren't in the 50s anymore.
posted by renee 11:03 PM
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
date in a box was a success... i should perhaps write a book someday about such things:
101 ideas for fun dates and surprise birthday parties
or maybe 137 or however many i can come up with
today i wrote brian an email and i'm not feeling like having any more original thoughts. consider yourselves served leftovers:
"i used to try to get up early in the morning, read my Bible and eat a good breakfast before school. however, as i have watched my determination to keep this good habit falter, i have become increasinly cynical about the prospect's possibility and now have given up completely. i did get to all my classes on time today and i have high hopes of completing various tasks on my list as the day goes on. three classes down, one to go and i'll get home tonight around 10 pm. boo on that. but hey, having a big break in the middle of the day might prove to be a positive thing. for example: i have not set foot inside the doors of the university rec center for over a year. granted, for one semester i was far away, but it's still pretty pathetic. today i will change that. in fact, immediately after i finish this email i will change that. besides that small thing, however, other change is remarkably NOT in the wind..."
i am going to eat a candy bar and go now. to all of you who read this blog back when it was interesting, i apologize for my inattention. too much analysis over too little content is a dangerous thing for me. i am living more instead of thinking about it so much. good good good......
posted by renee 4:39 PM
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
in the box:
2 peppers, red/green
1 onion
1 jar emeril tomato sauce ($0.99)
1 fresh "hydroponic" tomato (don't know what that means)
2 monster cookies
olive oil
300 pieces spaghetti
can olives
8 oz mushrooms
2 white candlesticks
red tablecloth
roger & me
firewood?????
posted by renee 6:06 PM
ha. that's why quizilla sucks. i was interested to learn their insights into my deepest nature... but cool and rational? taking things in stride? they got the wrong girl.
i like days when i have a breakfast date at 8, a dash to the mall food court at 4:30, a knitting lesson at 7 and pie at 8:45.
i don't like days like july 24th, when i am supposed to be a bridesmaid at a wedding for one friend and attending another for a girl i have known and loved since birth....
is it weird that at the two year mark you are supposed to have some sort of realization that you don't really like your boyfriend that much, but i still find mine earthshattering? i am a lucky girl, indeed.
posted by renee 6:01 PM
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
i think a good idea for a new fad diet would be the "get surgery on your mouth diet." the plan would be that you would get them to do something horrible to the inside of your mouth, and then you wouldn't be able to eat anything but applesauce and fruit slushies for the next week. a plus would be that you would be prescribed some powerful painkillers so the stomach pains would not even bother you. and take it from me, unless each of those teeth weighed 2 pounds, it works.
today's goal: macaroni and cheese
posted by renee 11:32 AM
Monday, January 12, 2004
i am the anti-midas narcotics make me emotionally volitile and uncontrollably drowsy. i hope i didn't totally screw up everything i touched today at work. my teeth have a thin coating of squash soup that i can't get rid of because i can't open my mouth wide enough to brush in the back.
love is dangerous.
i need a chocolate shake and a nap.
monday: jim
tuesday: dara
wednesday: brooke
thursday: date in a box
friday: riesha
posted by renee 4:30 PM
Friday, January 09, 2004
so i did it. i sat on the chair and rolled up my sleeves and they stuck a needle in me and said something about how i'd get dizzy and i just blacked out. somehow i got my coat on and got out to the car, but i have no memory at all of it. we stopped and rented movies and got a juice stop smoothie... i don't really remember that either. but i vaguely can remember getting out of the car somewhere and my mom asking me if i really wanted to come, and being sure that i was fine. but i don't remember where that was now. makes me think that i won't remember writing this in a couple of hours. anyway, i have bloody holes in the back of my mouth where my teeth used to be, and i really want to go to sokol auditorium this evening to see my boyfriend rock those omaha kids til they hurt. plus, lisa is gone and abby's leaving tomorrow. i have but a few hours left before carmen will splinter again. and this time, who knows when we'll be together again. this break is different. the three of us might not be together again until next christmas. i think that is far too long and i think we need cell phones. i also miss my minnesota roommates and am looking forward to home number two. my band is recording during the week i get back, and that's exciting, too... now all we need is a good name.... umm.. my jaw hurts and my gums are bleeding. i think i'll go to sleep now.
posted by renee 5:47 PM
Thursday, January 08, 2004
i think my brain is naturally deceptive. yesterday i was using the postage machine at the office to get letters ready to mail and every time i printed an envelope i thought about how easy it would be to forge those stamps. it's just a simple design in all red ink... nothing fancy. and you wouldn't have to buy a stamp for the rest of your life. and then i thought for a moment yesterday that it would be easy to avoid getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow because no one in my house would wake up on time if i snuck around and turned all the alarms off. they'd roll over and look at the clock at 8:27 and i'd still have all the bones in my head that i was born with. i am glad i have the self control to not act on such ideas. i would end up in jail.
did you know that hy vee keeps playing cards in the beer aisle? that's the best idea ever. omaha is fun.
posted by renee 1:33 PM
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
i keep hearing grown men saying lewd things about young women in tight clothing. i find this particularly repulsive and i want to only wear sweatpants around such people. i thought they were supposed to grow out of that. or at least pretend they did so that everyone is a little less uncomfortable. one man: at his funeral they will say about him that he loved elvis, bob sieger, dark beer, girls in tight jeans, and selling insurance. or so he thinks they will say. i hope they can come up with something better than that.
posted by renee 10:52 AM
Monday, January 05, 2004
wireless mice and intentional runons i am having more difficulty organizing my thoughts into interesting tidbits these days. perhaps i give myself too much credit and they weren't interesting to anyone but myself all along... anyway, it's back to whirlwind-head- like medicine head except that your brain is in a balloon being ripped to shreds by twirling airflows when warm southern breezes dare to breech the border of the tundra. and that sentence was too long and probably scientifically inaccurate, but i care even less than usual. some people are afraid of showing their true colors because to have an artificial self rejected is much less painful than to have your real self rejected. i have been blessed in my life to be free from that fear. mostly. i have not had my vulnerable self rejected but a few times. so i think about that. and then m, who has floaty things in his eyes that make him hate reading quotes shakespeare to me. and i think about that. i feel like i am loved by many people and i am aware a little more every day how little i deserve it. maybe that's why i feel safe. i am conscious of how little i am owed and yet how much i have been given, both in the physical world and the spiritual. and then i get distracted by the knowledge of how much sugar is in my mountain dew. and i think about cutting down rainforests in brazil to make room for cows and carbon dioxide and broken chicken legs and pink, anemic veal and fish eggs and the dead zone and heart disease and people all over the world who are persecuted for their faith and my own little piddly life full of pizza outings with my best friends and the potential to get a real job sitting in an air conditioned office someday and eating cucumber sandwiches for lunch every day for the rest of my life. and then i usually stop thinking and start filing and printing and copying and faxing and drinking yellow sugar water and looking forward to getting 8 months of split ends removed by Staci my Stylist at JCPenny's at 5 'o' clock.
i look much calmer than i am. i hope.
posted by renee 12:38 PM
also: i'm glad i didn't put "ceasing dependence on snooze button" on my list of resolutions, because i would have failed 11 times already.
posted by renee 9:31 AM
