I Have a Tendency to Make Myself Laugh

"Girlfriending"

Shama-Llama

I Hate Art

Nick Cave Will Father My Children

Babe I got you bad
Dreaming blood-wet dreams
only madmen have
Baby I got you bad
I wish to God I never had
And it makes me feel so sad,
O, Baby I got you bad
Yeah, Babe I got you bad

I long for your kiss,
for the turn of your mouth
Your body is a long thing
Heading South
And I don't know what I'm talking about
All of my words have gone mad
Ah, baby I got you bad

Seasons have gone wrong
And I lay me down in a bed of snow
Darling, since you've been gone
well my hands, they don't know where to go
And all of my teeth are bared,
I got you so much I'm scared
Ah, baby I got you bad

With the sweep of my hand
I undid all the plans
that explode at the moment I kissed you
on your small hot mouth
and your caramel limbs
that are hymns to the glory that is you.
Look at me darlin' it's sad sad sad
Look at me darlin' it's sad sad sad
Baby I got you bad

Smoke bilowing from the bridges 
and the rivers we swim in are boiling
My hands are reaching for you everywhere
but you're not there, or you're recoiling
and a weary moon dangles from a cloud
Oh honey, I know it's not allowed
To say I got you bad.

And no more shall we part 
The contracts are drawn up, the ring is locked upon the finger 
And never again will my letters start 
Sadly, or in the depths of winter 

Skeleton Luge Curling

The Phoenix Dance, Longevity, and Mel

The World Revolves Around Val

Untitled For A Reason

So, its been awhile since the last blog -- which was the overexcitedness of my roommate's balloon-moving powers. Yeah, that was popular on campus for a good 2 days -- gotta love the short attention span on twentysomethings.

There's little I have to share -- partly because its all internal, and partly because  I don't think there's a large swell of people who want to know all those internal struggles. So for this, I'll cleverly divert your attention to...

The trees on campus. Don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this. I just stepped outside to take a phone call, and as I did, I was struck by the amazing beauty of the Simpson campus. If there's one thing I can say, my tuition is being put to good use at least in the area of landscaping. All around, there are these wonderful blooming trees with soft and brilliant blossoms already peaking out, and every afternoon the skyline just above Mt. Shasta mimicks these beautiful shades of pink, purple and red so the blooms fade into the distance in an orchestrated mess of color and wonder.

Maybe everything is more in the red color scheme in my mind's eye anyways, because today is Valentine's Day. Ya know, not to put a downer on things, but red is not my favorite color. If I could choose, I would take the colors of St. Patrick's Day, and give them all the connotations assigned to Valentine's day, so it would be culturally defined as romantic to wear my favorite color [green], which is also the color that looks the best with my skin tone. Red makes me look red -- not flattering.

Lindsey: Today the cafe was playing Jamie Cullum's new CD. Even though it's their CD, I was the only one here who knew who he was. Sad for them, happy for me.

Moving on... I'd like to say that with all the understandable discord in my heart over my recent malady so closely preceding Valentine's Day, I'm making a concious decision to be happy for the people who can enjoy this holiday in all of it's romantic undertones. However, after reading a friend's blog earlier, I would like to point out, that this holiday has about as much relation to the authentic idea of love as it does the color green. People whom truly love each other don't wait for Valentine's Day for such professions of affection, nor do they need grand gestures of romance to convey their true feelings. Even when I did have a Valentine in the past, I always saw the holiday as something that at best is a shallow-yet-accurate representation of America's fickle flirt with romanticism rather than embracing the widths and depths of God's true and abiding love for everything it has to offer.

What's more, is that all the things that are associated with Valentine's Day don't mean the things to me, that our culture would like to think they should mean to every woman. Roses, chocolate, dinner, dancing, jewelry and love poems are all things that I can get or do for myself; and so can anyone else. These don't represent love to me.

You know the people that I really feel happy for? Those that give and recieve love and affection to each other appropriately throughout the entirety of their relationship... those I don't feel happy for, are those that build up to Valentine's Day as the one apex of romance every year -- to live in a desert for one day of rain seems awfully hopeless to me. Whenever I get into a relationship, I don't expect Valentine's Day to be anything special -- because he should already know my love and affection for him before that day, and after, as will I know of his.

That's the obligatory love rant for Valentine's Day -- no more, for the sake of my audience.

I will end with this -- I have never needed something more, than how much I need to be home right now. I hope this doesn't sound callous, but its not my house, or even so much my family, as it is the comfort of familiarity and security. Its the togetherness of community I had built around me; that rest I find in the presence of others who let me rest with them, and know me almost as much as I know myself. The end of this week will fair much better than it has begun, I'm sure, when I can take that freedom flight home, and just breathe again. Hopefully it'll still be snowing -- a Seattle girl can only take so many consecutive days of sun, especially in February.

KT

My Full Moon Was Yesterday

• Baked three types of cookies
• Watched The Notebook, Moulin Rouge, Romeo+Juliet, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sabrina, Roman Holiday, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Three Coins in a Fountain
• Thrown up twice
• Cried for at least a collective five hours
• Slept far too much
• Showered seven times in the last three days
• Listened to waaay too much Simon and Garfunkle
• Listened to "Only One" on repeat for three hours
• Been to the gym four times

• Destroyer, City of Daughters
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, No More Shall We Part
• The Cure, Galore
• The Decemberists, 5 Songs
• Iron and Wine, Woman King
• The All-American Rejects, Self-titled
• Vivaldi, Gloria- Nulla in mundo pax sincera

Biloxi

• Listened to "The Only Living Boy in New York" 234 times.
• Baked two trays of peanut-butter cookie bars
• Baked a tin of chocolate mini-muffins
• Vacuumed, twice
• Cleaned my room
• Read four issues of Time magazine
• Watched Romeo+Juliet (With Leo Dicaprio and Claire Danes, not Zaffarelli's version)
• Watched ski jumping on the olympics
• cried

the best blog you will read yet... and its 100% true.

Monologues

The Adventures of My Tennis Shoes

okay... I only named my blog this, because when I clicked in the 'title box', this phrase popped up, and I thought it was so delightfully random and funny that I would work with it. However, if you were looking for a short antic about courageously brave footwear, this is not the blog for you.

I haven't blogged in awhile because I haven't been able to, for many reasons. Time is always an enemy, but more so in the last week than ever before. I managed to stay up 30 hours straight one night/day (Sunday 3pm to Monday 9pm), slept 13 hours that next night, then was plagued with only 1 1/2 hrs of sleep last night (you never realize how precious rest is until its stolen from you).

Another reason I haven't been able to blog, is that I have been paralyzed by events that have quickly and painfully transpired all too suddenly in the last 4 days. I don’t give all credit to this week alone-- in all honestly, this is just bursting forth from a culmination of bad decisions, built on top of each other, until devastation can't help but ensue. In layman’s terms, what’s happening now is all my fault, I screwed up, and if I wasn't so caught up in myself I would have seen it coming.

I think this theme is obvious in my previous blogs --I obviously knew of my faults. However, God decided that I was [and am] finally ready to get over it, and so He induced that labor... or more aptly, purge. It happened through way of my Lord Jesus God friend first, and quickly moved up my spiritual life's hierarchy to a Pastor who has meant an innumerable measure in my life.

Let me pause to explain the worth of a personal spiritual mentor. Indispensable, irreplaceable, essentially indescribable, and unforgettable. From here on she will be referred to as P. L , for the sake of my lazy typing habits, but this does not detract from the respect and love and admiration I have for her. This woman was the first to care for me, first to ask after me, first to pray for me, she was the one God chose to reveal to me my calling through [although she didn’t not know it, and may still not know], and her and her husband were the first ones who confirmed it. She has believed in me, rebuked me, pruned me, prayed for me, forgiven me, heard me, been my friend, and been my mom -- even though there is a scant 7 [natural] years difference between us. If you don't have someone like P. L in your life, I implore you to begin to pray for God to reveal such a support for you.

At any rate, when I felt the impending doom that is the consequence of my sin, she was the only one I could think to call. Before I said anything, she told me God had put me on her heart to call the day before, and He had laid a dream about me in her mind weeks before. You may think that's coincidence -- but if you do, I would think you are blind to the intricate orchestration God has in every human life; you questioning whether He sees and foresees us. He does -- end of discussion.

So... now.... Im just moving with someone now helping me, where I had been planning on struggling on my own. Going anywhere on your own is dangerous territory. This reminds me of the phrase/book title No Man is An Island by Thomas Merton. Check it out, if this is something you've ever struggled with, or independence is a strong hold in your life like it has been for me. Despite what our culture values in independence, we were not created for that environment; we were created in God's image, and God is communal -- He Himself is a community of sorts, within the Trinity -- His whole oneness is founded in that community. How can you deny the divine nature that you were created to be a mirror of? It will kill you.

I'm going to go relax, pay my roommate back the 60 cents she doesn't know I owe her [love you Tonya] and go to dinner. Hope all of you have a good night.

KT

Sadie Hawkins is too Retro

So I have this friend...

She is a beautiful, fun, spunky little friend, and I got to know her best when we were interns at a church we attended together called ANCC [way back in the day... holla back SIC...lol]. To all of you who aren't from Seattle, you are totally confused by that last sentence... and thats okay.

Every morning before internship really started, we would open our day with at least 1/2 an hour of prayer. All 7 of us interns would stand in our circle, and pray out loud popcorn style. You didn't have to pray, but we all usually did. I think it's safe to say that it was in this time that many of us learned a lot about prayer.

I used to kind of tease this friend of mine, because during these prayer circles, when she would get really passionate, she would repeat one particular phrase in her prayer often. She would pray as such: '...thank you Lord Jesus God for the day that you've given us Lord Jesus God and I pray that you would move in a mighty way today in Lord Jesus God...' and so on and so on. This phrase so easily slipped off her lips, and with such rhythm, that it was hard for me [someone with a flare for the obnoxious and cursed with the absence of tact] not to mimic her if we were just joking around. She didn't mind, and found ways to repay me for my antics...

Well today, as I was doing my homework, this phrase caught me again. The reason being, is that the phrase Lord Jesus God is a larger statement then I think many Christians realize. It is truly an affirmation of the foundations of what it is we believe... because the divinity and lordship of Christ is a critically vital part of our belief. In looking at the interaction of Christianity with the world, particularly other religions in history, this idea, and those close to it, are the beginning of the great divide. Even within Christianity, this has caused a parting of ways in doctrine, so as to create completely new 'sects' [for lack of a better term]. Possibly the 3 largest religions in the world (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) are irreconcilably separated because of this. I don't intend to upset my friends of different faiths by busting out an endless spout of theology and doctrine... thats not 'how I roll', nor do I think it's within my capability to undertake what has been an international debate for thousands of years. Rather, I want to make sure we all understand what it is that we pray and say about Jesus -- because it is out of the mouth that comes the overflow of the heart.

To my Lord Jesus God friend whom I know reads this blog... good job. I won't make fun of you anymore... at least, not about that.

KT

Ughh..

So today has been one of those days. I don't know.. I woke up on time, spent way too much time on my hair [its straight again as of last night... which requires more maintenance], and got to class. but as the day dragged on, class after class [I have 5 on MWF], I began to become a little lack luster about everything.

By the time I got to Spiritual Formation, I was drained; and for anyone planning to take that class or anything like it, I would suggest you don't put your most spiritually demanding class at the end of the day. It's a catch 22 really... I mean, it's nice to have nothing after it, so what was talked about can marinate, but at the same time, you're ready for the day to be over before you even get there.

So anyways, we had planned to do this exercise that is supposed to set the stage for the rest of the semester in the class; and that is, to pick a word that can describe/contain/define/elaborate on the issue of 'spiritual formation' in our own life, and write a 6-8 pg paper on that, over the course of the semester. I had many words ready for this day, but thats not what ended up transpiring in class.

The instructor, Mark Carter, is also the campus pastor, so right there ya know it's going to get heavy... and it always does. He changed things around today because of what happened in Monday's class period, where we reflected about the textbook we read [A Ragamuffin Gospel]. A lot of us were profoundly affected by this book, in such a way that he was compelled to really change the direction of this class in order to eventually take us where we need to be. In laman's terms, a lot of us were feeling really crappy about ourselves after reading the book, and he wanted to take us 'around the corner of grace to transformation'. Good choice.  

So he opens by playing this song by Rita Springer, 'I Have to Believe,' and then we just went straight into prayer. Yeah... I cried. He cried. Many of us cried. This class kills me. We composed ourselves and went into heavy scripture about how much God's grace doesn't end at acceptance of us, but leads to transformation. Maybe as Christians we forget that... that grace is without purpose, isn't just meant to be an unmerited gift, because of our blatant need and lack of spiritual aptitude. It also isn't just to 'tide us over' until we get our act together. I got a lot out of this class -- as always -- but it still left me with a lot of things I'm still dealing with, and I don't know that I'm really at that place where I am able to turn the corner. I mean, I want to, but it feels like I don't have that ability... ugghh...

Another thing pressing, is that I am now being hunted by an gangle of health professionals. Actually, just 1, but that one wants me to go to 2 others as well-- and this means I will have to take a lot of time out of my already crunched week to devote attention to all the things wrong with me. Another uggh...

Yes yes... complainer. I'll shut up. :)

KT

Semester Deux

• I have a date (Tabron Vorrath)
• Shay has a date (Joe Harder)
• Mattie has not asked my brother, yet
• Nat and Ian are going together
• Mike is not going
• Les and Jaime are going together
• I'm not going with K-Swiss

1. Global Studies, Muskat
2. Lit. and Comp., Coffey
3. Band, Swanson
4. French 1, Sirovy
5. Chemistry, Clark
6. Geometry, Herrick
7. Health 1, Miller
8. AT, Floyd

Stretch

So... I have an idea of what I want to say, but no idea how I want to say it.

It's been a crazy year... and this semester has already overwelmed me. I don't say this to complain, I say this as an encouragement to myself. Sometimes, we need to be reminded how limited we really are -- and this has definitely been the theme of my spiritual season. My own humanity has been constantly butting heads with everything I used to believe about myself. Does anyone else ever feel like that? Maybe I'm totally in left field, but I have a strong belief  that this is because God wants to rebuild me, and thats why I'm struggling as I am -- this is the only hope I've got at this point -- but I could be wrong.

There are few things I have learned.

1) The uncontrollable nature of grace is frightening. You mean, I can't determine how and when and for what reason I can attain grace? My efforts are fruitless? Faith without works is dead, isn't it -- so how can grace be so unmerited? I've been wasting all my time chasing after the chaff in the wind? Yes, that's what I've learned... and as much as we all say we know that -- does your heart know it? Does your heart recognize God's grace when you fall as an automatic and imminent gift, or do you allow or require of yourself some repentant guilt first? No guilt required... grace is sufficient.

2) I don't care how strong you are -- you're weak. Yeah, there are some pretty heavyweight Christians out there. None of you are fooling anyone... I've been there, done that... give it up. Why do I have the audacity to say this? Because I'm being honest with myself, that's why. If you see yourself as a strong Christian,  you are not being challenged, and therefore are not strong, but complacent and comfortable. A really honest Christian will realize that any strength that's conjured up in them is from that well of strength in Christ, only accessible when you are aware of your own weakness. In fact, the weaker we are, the more strength God affords us. If you come against a battle and find that it was easier than you expected -- take a second look to see if you've been victorious, or if you're decieving yourself.

3) There are very few people who care about what you say as nearly as much as you do. There a few exceptions to this rule, but your first assumption in speaking, especially public speaking, is that whatever you say, you should make it short and sweet-- because not too many people really want to hear it in the first place. For instance... maybe some of you have already began to skim this blog; there are even some that quit after they saw how long it was... or that it wasn't light and funny. One of my new goals is to listen and remain attentive to others as much as I would want for myself. It's harder than you think.

4) There are some things insatiable in life; learning, growth, appetite, and love. Yes that's general -- leaves it open for you to fill in where and how for yourself...

5) I don't mind people taking pictures of me nearly as much as I used to. Hooray  for Annetta.

I haven't much else to say, other than I'm tired of where I am, and I want to be done struggling... I know it's not going to happen that neatly, but I'm definitely ready for when it does happen. Thats it!

KT

Apathy at Eleven-Thirty

9:35 AM