Virginia "Pepper" Potts

Those are the Finest Stilettos I have seen in a long time. The whole time Mizz Pepper was wearing them through the movie Iron Man I couldn't stop staring at her feet.

She makes Stilettos look SEXY.

And let me tell you, for ME that is quite the feat.

In fact, it was kinda inspiring. Something about the way those shoes wrap up behind her ankle and around the top made me want a pair of mine own. Made me WANT to wear heels.

???
I know right?

Well considering all the sadness in the world- I'm not going to lie- it seems a bit shallow to write about how I drooled over a pair of shoes. Finding a pair of heels that make me "feel" like Pepper Potts won't get me any closer to a super hero.
I realize I need to be wearing the shoes AND be in distress for a hero to appear.
Just wanted you to know I have a grip on reality here.

But seriously...

"If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.... It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it." ~Albert Einstein

"As long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long can there be no question at all but that splendor of dress is a crime." ~John Ruskin

Despite the quotes...I think all of us sometimes can feel a little boost of confidence when we feel we look good.
I'd like to think that for SOME of us- it's because we already see God's beauty that is inside of us and it makes us happy to see a little of that reflected on our body.
You wouldn't believe how giddy it makes me to wear my red shoes or how relaxed I feel in my gray sweater (which is NOT sexy I promise you). I guess it's nice to wear cloths that seem to fit our mood because it makes us feel in sync?
Is that Necessary?
No, not at all. But it's nice.
And sometimes when we lose sight of the beauty that is inside- I think that throwing on a pair of stilettos may help us remember that.

CAN YOU BELIEVE I JUST MADE STILETTOS MEANINGFUL????
I am bewitched.

but still...I might just wear heels one of these days just for the fun of it. Just last week I actually dressed all nice to go get some groceries.
Try not to fall over from shock.

Becoming Monsters

I started re-reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller today. And there was a short portion where he spoke about something very…fundamental.

“I am the problem.”

I'm not what you would call a picketer or a social activists that you know....provides roadkill for tractors tearing down historical buildings. BUT like the best of them I can spew out altruistic and political comments that make me sound like I have convictions and I know where the problem lies. But really….do any of us?

Do we look in the mirror and explore

our habits,

our public speaking skill,

our ideas,

and our time management as scrupulously as we explore those in the spotlight?

Granted…most of us aren’t running for president or anything. But does that negate responsibility? If we spend more time judging the actions and movements of others than we do taking stock of our own motives and actions are we really politically or socially concerned or are we just selfish and ignorant?

“I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group thing, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything... The problem is not out there; the problem is the need beast of a thing that lives in my chest”

Not to say that every problem that exists is our fault. That’s pretty ridiculous. But I’m just saying…we sure do spend a lot of time pointing fingers. We need not live in a mirrored house to see how many problems are caused but us as individuals that make up the collective.

We may scoff at the altruist motto “be the change” but well…maybe we don’t think about it often enough. That is after all the only control we have. I cannot control what others do, but I can control me (usually, unless I’m extra ornery).

I can control what I give that others come into contact with. And if I start paying attention to what I put out there….well maybe that’s the only way I can really affect what others do and propel change.

I think if we watch others do stupid things and point our fingers instead taking a cue

-we’ll find we’ve all become the monster we scoff at:

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” Friedrich Nietzsche

Awakenings

If you’ve never see the movie Awakenings it’s a beautiful story based on true events about a doctor who comes across a group of basically catatonic patients who respond to a drug that “wakes” them up for a period of time. I wrote the following excerpt after I watched the movie some time ago when I was going through a bit of a rough patch (not like that’s new!). It gave me just the perspective I needed to latch on to some color and dance around in it:

"I cried through much of the end. It was just what I needed I think to pull me out of my self-centered misery. Not that grieving is bad in my case...
But for someone who believes so much in the beauty of pain- I often forget to live what I write and speak about.

This story reminded me that it is possible to take my pain, and instead of hiding inside myself, I can use it as a way to touch beauty, life, and people.
I have that option.

How can I speak courage to those of a worse fate
when I cannot employ courage at the inklings of pain?

Sometimes it's good to just tell myself to snap out of it.

Stop replaying picture and words and longings. Sometimes I get lost ...and I sit down and weep like a lost little girl. Sometimes I forget to keep moving.
Grieving is not wrong or bad but at some point the tears are no longer an expression of grief but an expression of surrender to things as they are. A hopeless surrender. That is not the way of God, of his love, of his beauty. Pain can be like the silver lining in a blue sky filled with clouds. It highlights the wonder. It sharpens the picture.

The moment a red balloon, a rainstorm, or a star ceases to leave me in a childlike, speechless wonder...
someone please slap me out of it. I am not catatonic. I have a chance.
I don't want to miss it.

The brain takes charge

Gray, boring, dull, yawing, blasé, undeveloped, unintentional, melancholy, haphazard, flippant,

casual, overcast, inactive

Inspiring isn’t?

I have spent the last few months floating along in a sort of limbo (not exactly the edge of hell type though) with the only intentional actions being:

- I make sure I have clean clothes for work

- I clean once a week

- I check out more books that I could possibly read from the library

Somewhere I lost some of my fervor for life and the magic of the little things has slowly been hazed over. I think about writing, I think about art, I think about sitting with a cup of tea and staring out the window or sending a card to my friend

…but so much of that is just like a bird that jumps out of the field and flutters in front of you and then vanishes.

Certainly I am not depressed. I am active, social, do plenty of stuff, I'm happy (though not content). It’s kinda like I’m on selective Jenny auto pilot. My brain knows I like incense so it has me light it at night. But it keeps me from writing under the influence of the smell. It knows I like chocolate pudding when I am pmsing so it has me go buy it- but I don’t pay attention to its chocolate-ness like I normally would.

Perhaps I put myself through too steep a gauntlet earlier this year in trying to figure out the answer to questions that I don’t know yet. I do that. Sometimes I say to myself when I am crying about something

“tsk- you are too intense. Stop the drama”

“But I like the intensity- it’s colorful”

“well sometimes it’s too much color”

“Impossible !” I say to myself. And I go on crying and reading and asking questions.

“This is ridiculous. GET OVER IT” because some part of me realizes that a good slap in the face is more effective than writing writing writing about something over and over again sometimes. Sometimes you just need to take a break from intensity to ENJOY the color it produces. Sometimes you just need a red balloon and a peaceful mind.

So maybe my few months of induced melancholy and a numbed mind was like my brain saying

“hello? Shut up- what you’re doing is impossible. Quite trying to be like a 70 year old sage with a 27 year old brain! It’s like trying to figure out how to do quantum physics when you can barely remember how to do long division.”

And then my brain slapped me.

And I was like

“ok”

Only I didn’t know my brain was having a conversation with me and I didn’t really know I agreed with it like a little kid nodding his head in agreement because all he wanted was to get to the end of the lecture and get a red balloon.

Only I think technically- I didn’t get a red balloon cause the last few months have been a little colorless. I think my brain thought that was necessary for my mind and I should do without.

What does it know? It’s only 27?

So there you have it. Last night I went to a coffee shop and sat and read for a bit and people watched and all of a sudden my fervor returned and I thought “HEY! Where's my RED BALLOON?!”

and my mind was like "you agreed to give it up moron- your brain told you how tired it was"

and i was like "I WANT MY RED BALLOON BACK!!!" and right there in the coffee shop I slammed my book down and yelled and started pounding the table till someone brought me a red balloon and licorice tea and played some really good jazz music.

and I remembered how much I love people, and God, and reading, and learning. REALLY LOVE it.

And my brain just sighed….and was like “whatever. At least I got you to sit down for a bit.”

That’s when I concocted the whole story above -with my renewed creativity.

My little Parsian

Well there she is folks!
My brand new old bike.
She's just perfect. I knew we were meant to be together the moment I set eyes on her black and red rusty features. I couldn’t stop thinking about her Parisian persona, her slender and delicate wheels, her distinctive shifting arrangement, her gentle and steady “click click click” as I ride her in certain gears.

I admit, she has far more experience than I do. She probably is aware of all kinds of methods I am unaware of, accessories that will make riding easier, proper safety measures I am to young and impulsive to heed. The places we will go! The things we will see! The gas we will save!

Take me away my little Parisian two-wheeled gas-saving machine! TAKE ME AWAY!

Regret

If life were a dream, if life had physical representations of what resides in your thoughts and souls- here is a piece.
Something painful has happened.
This mysterious, almost menacing fog has descended on your path.
People handle that grey matter differently depending on who they are. I plunge myself directly into it and sit down. I close my eyes and feel the full course of pain till it has swept through me.

I know the pain.
Then I begin to walk through it. I probe it.

I find whatever beauty I can in it. Like a crocus pushing its way through the snow, or a bite of chocolate pudding during PMS.

I believe all pain carries opportunity for beauty in my life.

“Life is pain highness” said Wesley to Buttercup before he revealed himself.
If life is pain, and life if beautiful, then pain too, is beautiful.

I spend however long it takes to find the beauty, then, I step out of it –and release it.
Essentially, I see the dark for what it is- so when I step outside of it, it dissipates, I know what I am leaving behind, and I let go.

But what happens if you get lost inside?

I tell people that I live my life with no regrets because regrets don't do any good. To be honest, there are two things I regret in this life. I am lost in them. I find I am transporting myself halfway back into my regret and wishing it away. Taking back something that is already done.

It is haunting me.
I have closed my eyes and sat down. It isn’t there *says a stubborn 5 year old or a 5 year old adult*

I realized this yesterday when I went to work. Usually, if I have any unfounded sullen feelings they dissipate once I kick my brain into some other gear. When it’s real- any other gear aside from mind-numbing denial seems to um…push me over the edge a bit (this is what we call a wall/locker kicking moment- the second in my life’s history).

So I’ve realized, my “post-quarter-life crisis” -that I sarcastically and flippantly make fun of myself for- is induced by these two regrets I can’t let go of. I don’t know how other people can let go of things without really knowing what it is. Or how people can hold onto things and still live a relatively normal life with sparks of happiness.

...I apparently do not have that gift.

All or nothing baby. I’m like the pendulum that defies physical science and just never loses momentum from one side to the other.

The good thing about that is… I see beauty in everything.
The bad thing is…when I can’t see the beauty I’m like a puppy looking for their stick with their eyes closed. Stupid.

The ironic things about this all is…. I see the beauty in my collective post quarter life crisis, just not in the individual components. Unfortunately, it's the individual components that keep me here.

So I'm stuck until I find the beauty in these two regrets. ....maybe the question isn't- when will i see the beauty? Maybe the question is, when will I be ready to see the beauty and finally let go.

Note to Self

My friends (Mar and Decks) and I used to play a game called Preach It. We would search our brain holds to come up with some sort of image or event and create a maxim to represent it. We would then present it to the group and leave it up to them to extract meaning, or present a meaningful "sermon" from it ourselves.

Usually it went something like this (paraphrased from my disjointed memory):

Mari: "our relationships with people are like a bird of paridise beginning to Bloom"

Decks and I: "hmmmmm....huh."
Not being the leading expert on flowers like Mar was (she worked in a flower shop) we could not add to that. So Mari proceeded to explain the process of the flower beginning to bud and how gently you have to almost reach in and pull parts of it out at just the proper time etc etc etc...
Ok actually i forgot most of what she said...

But the point is...Here is MY maxim for today

"Just because things are good separate,
doesn't mean they are good together"

How did I come up with this brilliant Maxim?
I made a smoothie today (doesn't it look good up there?) and threw in:Apricots, Plums, Strawberries, Keefer, Ice, Yerba Mate, Apple Cider Vinegar, Ground Flax Seed.
I drank it....but probably just as you were reading that and thought it sounded good till your face contorted when you got to "yerba Mate" is probably about what my face looked like drinking it.

But hey, you don't have to use my Maxim for Smoothie making- you can use it for things like Gum and Peanut Butter OR Driving and reading.
The possibilities are endless.

How to make a quick thousand

Should you ever be in a bind and need some extra cash (can be up to several hundred if not over a thousand bucks), you can sell your body. If that's not good news I don't know what is!
or rather...sell your hair.

Most of us are aware that you could donate it to Locks of Love. Which is wonderful option. And normally I would advocate for the goodwill offering rather than the money option but... $1000 much needed cash could come in handy....

There are a couple sites that are a "yardsale" of hair similar to craigslist (the hair trader). you post pictures of your hair and description and...
BANG
-you market it right and you got yourself a snazzy new haircut AND some extra cash. Course, if you subject your hair to a blow dryer, a monthly color and highlighting, and endless curling and straightening- chances are, you won't get the bang for your buck. But otherwise- it's a better option I think than selling your entire body, an egg, or for some of us (faint faint) our plasma.

Here's how my add would read.

"Virgin, rich chestnut, shiny, 16" hair. Never used heat elements on it, never dyed or highlighted. Washed once to twice a week, conditioned daily. Only used all natural shampoo and conditioner, no chemicals. Treated with care to grow long and healthy. Healthy diet, healthy hair. Has natural wave to it and can be curly if scrunched when wet. Asking price $1000. Paypal only. Must receive payment before hair is cut and sent."

anyone? anyone?

Witch of Portobello

A great book by Paulo Coelho

I was recently talking with a friend about why, after time and time of God supplying what we need and working everything out...we continue to worry? It's as though our human condition relegates that we must worry. Because to not worry, is to admit lack of control.

Maybe worry and accepting stress is our pathetic way of feeling as though we retain control.

I read this passage from the Witch of Portobello and although he is talking about love, it nails exactly what we were talking about. We don't want to be saved the way God saved us. We want to be saved in a way that doesn't require us to sacrifice anything- even misery. Because if we at least keep misery, we still have a psuedo feeling of control.

"surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well being or our ability to make decisions. It means loving in the deepest sense of the word. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion."

Something to think about.

Here is a bonus quote:
"What is a teacher? I'll tell you: it isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows."

Bless your bike

Yes you read right.
And though we've missed it (April 26th, 2008) it's sure to come around again next year.

The annual Blessing of the Bikes

biking as we all know is great for your health and it's great for this wonderful little ball of rock and other geological materials we live on. But lets face it...your um- rather exposed out there.

Why just last month while I was polishing the glasses and silverware preparing for lunch when a hit and run with a man on a bike occurred just out our windows at what i now label the "deadly 4 corners" (you would too if a crane went out of control careening down the hill into this intersection, 2 collisions, a hit and run, and a gang shooting occurred within a month). Not only did the car hit the biker and zoom off- but the biker flew off the bike into another car...kinda like the opening scene to Meet Joe Black. Miraculously (and I do mean that) the man survived with less than a broken bone.... maybe he attended the Blessing of the Bikes?

It's held each spring at New York City's cathedral Church of St John the Divine (or CCSJD as some call it). a little blessing and sprinkle of holy water and your good to go (bring your bike but leave your cleats at the door). The ceremony has a few sacred moments- a riderless bike walked to the front to remember those who died on bikes and a scripture reading.

While at first I was inclined to scoff at this silly little ritual...I actually think it's interesting. Not that I think without the sprinkle of Holy Water your doomed...But it's a nice reminder and awareness of God's involvement in your daily interactions.

Last time I rented a car I spent a lot of time praying while driving it. First I started praying that nothing would happen cause I was racked with fear as I signed "no" to all the insurance options...But then I found myself praying for my friends...and I was more aware of God in my life and suddenly I felt so thankful for everything I had. A little awareness can go a long way. I'm pretty sure too, when I find myself riding a bike, I'll start out asking God for some safety, but next thing I'll know, I'll be more aware of God around me and not just my bike safety.
So go ahead I guess- bless those bikes or - bikers.