"The world untouched is a brilliant mosaic of existance. To believe you understand everything in balance means you don't know the boundaries. Man has far to go, but will see reward in the journey." - will Hawkins, humanist, author, drug dealer.

favorite creeper quote of the day.

Transfer Steve sits next to me in Tests and Measurements class. Today I feel a tug at my hair during lecture and look behind me to Steve holding a single strand of my hair and saying,
"Now i have your DNA and can make copies of you in my basement."

i laughed so hard! Unfortunately for Steve the other two girls he did it to didn't find it so funny and now avoid him.

the world gave me small miracles today

it might be karma, but i doubt it.
wonder one: my water bottle froze solid in the car but during work today it melted like a little cave captive in this bottle.
wonder two: i've started to eat fruit (that's not the miracle) so i began by eating oranges and the world rewarded me with a pregnant orange. it made 59 cents seem like a steal for an orange and a half.
wonder three: i got hit on in the grocery store (again, that isn't the miracle, thankyouverymuch) nevertheless, in this grocery clerk's attempt to uncover my evening plans he gave me a chocolate bar "to share"..... it was amazing though, 85% cocoa. darker than dark chocolate. i pocketed my gifted sweets and my cashier friend was left with little attention and one less chocolate bar, poor kid.

i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Thursday

we were both in a funk. then we spent some time together and giggled for three hours.

this weeks life and times

where i left off:
Friday, was time well spent, but nothing especially climactic.....that was also the theme for the entire weekend. I ventured to Patina with Cassie the Transfer after class. Car-ride conversation both to and fro were really great. i so appreciate her insights. quick witted is the best way to describe her while still being a gross understatement. Then dinner with Liz was equally as well paced. no rush. we ate dinner at Good Earth near school and ended up sitting there for more than three hours talking. i feel like we are both kind of reaching these transition points and forks in the road, but i am always really comforted by Liz. we decided to call it a night pretty early so i went back to the room to clean up my piles of laundry that occupied the little space that i had. soon Brian and Lisa came into chat (mostly about rap music) but the mystery/miracle was that causally people started wondering into my room out of curiosity or otherwise and soon my room had 10 people in a room hardly built for one. and it wasn't like they were all cramming in to make a clown car kind of situation, but rather they just walked in to find the conversation. (the picture is of all nine (10 including me) in the room). it still baffles me as to how all parties were comfortable enough to stay a while.
Saturday i worked at the toy-store like usual. no Art classes (honestly, everyone who teaches the art classes was sick, including substitutes). Two birthday parties. One was definitely an Edina family, and one was definitely not. Interesting to see the differences in much of the dynamics when the parents are divorced and are clumped into the same room for a birthday party. I'm excited though because the Kiddywampus move is underway. we re-priced a ton of toys. we'll be out of our little quirky hole off of France ave. by the 8th of March and the soft opening of our Excelsior Blvd location will be only 2 days later. then the Grand Opening Party is on the 15th! i'm inviting everyone i know. I can't wait! although on this particular saturday some of my favorites came to visit and play. Lisa, Brian, Caity, and Danielle from Getsch played for over and hour. we built many things and created some masterpieces. speaking of, we are going to be selling this new coloring book that i'm thrilled about. It's Rxart. which is a non-profit that puts masterpieces from some of the greats on the walls of children's hospitals. i think it's a beautiful idea. and Amy wanted some more information on some of the artists so i felt like i spent all day learning. case in point, did you know that Andy Warhol died the year i was born, and on my brother's birthday.....take it or leave it, but there you go.... later that night dad called and wanted to go shopping for Tof's birthday gift at Rosedale mall. The lucky boy got a blazer, a sweater and button-down. He's gonna look sharp. Then i rode the bethel shuttle for an hour and a half while Caity was on shift. and was dropped off at West's shack to visit Sarah Lindenberg until it was unbearable to keep my eyes open.
Sunday, church at Sanctuary with Lisa. waffles for lunch with James, Austin, Brian and Lisa. napped for an extended period of time. woke only to do my homework and go back to bed. ho-hum.
significant thoughts about Monday include Sarah's devotional in staff meeting about "Revival". i think i need to start one. i don't know what my role would be, or to what scale we'd be reviving or how, or even if me. but it seems to be within my best interests right now. i don't feel large enough for that kind of thing. I've been thinking about it recently, about how we can be so broken and unequipped and resonate with the laments of the psalms and then in the same breath God uses us in incredible ways to create something so large like a Revival. also on Monday after it had gone through maybe 6 different treasure keeper's hands, steve hart gives me my Christmas present from Marty. It was a jar full of acorns. so thoughtful. they are perched on my bookshelf next to my Eiffel tower figurine.
less ho-hum than Sunday was my Tuesday night. i had intended on going home on my free night of the week to do laundry and i get home and the only one there is my sister-in-law, Kristi with no baby or husband in tow. she had had class all day near and needed a place to write a paper. soon mom and dad arrive home and we all figure out that we hadn't scheduled a time yet to celebrate Tof's 24th. so dad calls him in Winona and asks/persuades/coerced him to drive to Eagan. Tof and Baby Alethia arrive around 10pm and we threw him a birthday party with cake and presents included. it was beautiful. i missed the family. baby got big. so did Tof.

Phileo, Agape, Eros, and the other one.

• Today I slept through Lethal Microbes class and secretly loved it.
• I then dauned my favorite "i love you" scarf that dad gave me in middleschool, just to be prepared for st. valentine's day of love.
• I spent a significant amount of time in Dr. Andy Johnson's office going through and orgaizing some of his old books, i nabbed a few for myself. sometimes i just like to be a fly on his wall and listen to the conversations that go in and out of his office. never has he been any less than an absolute character. we talked for a long time about the curses and blessings of being left-handed (i am not, he is).
• kyle sent me the homliest picture of our faces drawn in a heart. it was sweet of him. i love him a great deal and people have been trying to comfort me all day because of the date coinciding with his absence, but honestly i feel like although he is across land and seas that i feel no less love than i would had he been beside me all day. the day still felt incredibly complete. That said, i still miss him a great deal.
• sought out Dr. Fredrickson's advice on how to get a smokin' deal on a button maker.
• Tests and Measurments class.... the classmates, good. the class content, bad. it's really just an extention of my psych statistics, and all who know me well know that I had to meet with the Lord between the first and the second time that i took that class. case in point: i've been doing my homework with Transfer Steve and the normal distribution graph on the front of today's homework looked as though it was a shining example, we reolized only while turning them in that we were actually supposed to do a scatter plot in that space. Steve confessed to the class that both he and i had turned the graph into a mountain scene and had used the space to draw mountain men and goats going up that mountain. i turned beat red. math isn't my forte.
• decided to spend my lover's holiday with the girls from my floor. a few of us carpooled to my house and mom and dad welcomed them warmly with a big meal and cookie making. some of our cookie creations included: a cookie face of hannah danielle with a davie crocket hat on, a llama, several to many sheep cut outs, a hotdog, two big cookie faces of me and kyle, a grand piano, peace sign, sloth, and other homely creations (i'll post pictures later).
• pipedream: i'm trying to set up one of my girls with a similar yet distant freshman boy. they both love German films (or at least one, that i know of) and play unlikely instruments (harp and accordian).perfect, right? schemes like this have never panned out for me before, but i'm hopeful regardless. it's probably not even my place to say anything at all. after my introductions he facebooked her, and she casually ran into him in the academic buildings. too sweet. ok, now i'm invested.

Today was oddly eventful. I didn't expect much from this week's hump day, but i was pleasantly surprised with how full my day became.

notes and incidents: -steve, from research class, saw somehthing in my teeth mid-conversation and grabbed a sugar packet to use the corner to try and dig 'er out. the sugar packet was of little use, but all of the aggressiveness toward my gums prompted the abbreviation, 'gingi'- short for gingivitis. and phrases (in accents, naturally) like "me thinks that she suffers a case of the gingi!"
- free dinner for being a leader at Old Spaghetti factory. where on the ride over Ryan was compelled to show us the slide-show he'd recently compiled....it was that Colbie Colet song, 'bubbly' that pre-teens cry over, but all pictures were of sloths. he's found a new passion.
- Lunch was with Thomas and Sarah. T-bone wouldn't stop singing Petra songs that he thought were funny. he'd say crap like,"but Elodie, Petra was the father of contemporary Christian music!"
- RIOT was about love.
- the snow was falling so gracefully outside so Lisa and I took a long walk and a slow ride down a barely steep hill. it felt good to be in the cold but not uncomfortable with it.
- came back to G to talk with some of the girls. it's funny to think of the world goin on around you when you aren't present, but even with my absence in January they are still going through relationship things and the stresses of being themselves in this time and place. i love them great deal.

happenings in Getsch

long story short, i just wanted to share Saturday's adventure of calling the ambulance because Amanda was hardly breathing due to an asthma attack. alls well now. happy and healthy. (see left, amanda in the dumps about her new sexy back-less ensemble)

and tonight Hannah and I went to the film forum and saw a German film, "other People's Lives". It as rich. It's the type of film that makes you feel like you have the power to write a really great novel. then Danielle and I (with the help of others like hannah, amanda, and kelsey k) made a paper chain using the wall street journal and magazines that stretched the length of the hall. (see above, Danielle with chain in our saucer sled) it was beautiful. it's now hanging in the spare room as a symbol of unity (it could also be a symbol of "re-use", or other homely uses). I'm absolutely overjoyed with the girls on my floor. i feel like this is such a great example of how we are created for one another. no lie.

the cast of characters

just thinking about the significant people in my life. there are some that i see day to day and then there are some that i see every couple of years.

Mom, Dad
Tof, Kristi, Alethia
Allison
Curt and Linda et al.
Sophie and Laura

Marty Molly and Liz
Rosemary and Evan

Old Roommates

first floor lovelies

Toy store staff

Will

this list seems like an insufficient explanation of who/what/what/ and why they mean so much to me. my hope is that it becomes evident in my writing.

eat, pray, love

"i want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water" p. 176

so far this blog is a secret.....

as the title suggests this blog is thus far a secret. but i wanted a place to put down my days with maybe a narrative or some pictures. and hey, maybe this will help my spelling, because lord have mercy, i'm an adult that hesitates in "i before e" moments. and maybe if i find myself especially witty i'll pass this secret along to a few loved ones, but for now it is just me and the world wide web at my disposal.

for reference: Hootootoo was my mother's answer for me when i was in elementary school and asked if my Grandma Audrey, her mother-in-law and outstandingly conservative Norwegian, had ever sworn before. Mom told me that Audrey made it up and it meant only nonsense. It was also my first e-mail address in middle school. that wild woman also apparently said, "saggity buxa", Norwegian for saggy pants, on the rarest of occasions. But the crassest rumor that i heard that came from poor Grandma's mouth was when my cousin Anna confessed this last summer that while growing up Audrey had been teaching them how to fart with out being heard. "ssssssssssspah". The story was told with the same pointed then released gesture. Such illustrations were meant to teach my young cousins that if you had to let lose your flatulence to first let out only a small stream of intoxicating air until you were sure that it'd only come out as a gentle puff. sssssssssssssspah! thus was the recipe for womanhood.