be it ever so humble

There are some things that the absence of is needed in order to make you realize how much you loved it. My cold feet at night remind me of how warm my heated mattress pad made my flannel sheets. The orange-ish red concoction on the main line makes me realize how delicious Dad's turkey soup was. Waking up to the dark and a piercing alarm reminds me of the slow, sleepy awakenings to dishes clanging in the kitchen and light peeking through the slats in my blinds. Icy pellets from the sky onto sloppy muddy earth only slightly resemble the large flakes landing softly on an already existing blanket of whiteness.

Highlights of Christmas break '08:
+ Hiking through 2 feet of snow, burrowing under fallen logs, getting pushed in the snow by Dad who thought it'd be funny to spear me with his walking pole like Moby Dick.
+ the Christmas Eve service...twice.
+ Watching Band of Brothers in my bed.
+ Shoveling snow the first five times...after that it got tiring.
+ The first 300 pages of Anna Karenina...after that it got tiring.
+ Playing the Andy of Mayberry trivia game and speed scrabble with the fam. (Dad: "Do you spell 'slut' with one 't' or two?")
+ Watching Clint Eastwood movies, war documentaries, and Valkyrie with Dad.
+ Staying in my pajamas all day.
+ Baking peanut butter cookies every time the supply ran out.
+ Venturing by foot into unknown, snowy lands in search of the post office and stumbling into it like a dazed elf sutmbling into a ginger bread house on his way to the North Pole.

I miss Bing Crosby. And this:

musings

It makes me sad that someone stole my iron. My last name is printed in big purple letters down the side, so unless someone else has the same big purple last name as I do and took it by mistake, there is no reason why he should have stolen my iron.

It also makes me sad that the books the library sold in their book sale had "DISCARD" stamped in the inside cover. It's like going to an orphanage and stamping "DISCARD" all over the children. How would you like it blatantly printed across your forehead that you're not wanted?

It makes me happy that this weekend I'm going "home" to see my parents and my friends, the latter of which I haven't seen since May and don't know when I'll see again. Next weekend is Vineyard Community Church's "Vinefest" (with hay rides and tackle football and grilled foods), and the weekend after that is a possible Chicago trip with Leiza. Yay.

It also makes me happy that it's autumn, and I wrote an ode to the way the football field looks when the sun is setting on it and casts shadows to the 30-yard line. Glistening helmets, spiraling pigskins, you look happy to meet me.

The chapel speaker yesterday tried to convince us that a relationship with God is not enough, and we, as humans, need human relationships. I was not pleased as he continuously looked out at the auditorium and stated, "God is not enough!" If that's the case, what kind of God is He, who can't fulfill all our needs with only Himself? Not a god I'd want to serve.

Epitomes of autumn in which I have to this moment participated:
~ Anne of Green Gables
~ homemade apple pie
~ ubiquitous pumpkin
~ the marriage of cinnamon and my senses
~ leaf crunching
~ football
~ season premieres of Pushing Daisies, The Office, and House
~ blue skies smiling at me; nothing but blue skies do I see

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Elliot

((Not quite as good as my ode to football...but okay nonetheless.))

reflections of a college student on break

I feel like I'm on death row. I'm trying to get shove all this stuff in before my time is up. I've set a reading limit of 200 pages a day so I can finish The Woman in White before I go back to school. (It's a phenomenal book, by the way. I just can't sing its praises enough.) I'm eating all I can because I know once I get back to school it's Cheerios and stolen milk from the cafeteria. What's that? Someone just gave us home-shot deer sausage? I'm not hungry, it's ten o'clock at night, I've eaten an entire continent already today...but give it to me anyway. (It was phenomenal. Praises, praises, praises.) Maybe I should start setting my alarm at intervals during the night so I can wake up and eat. Deer.

What do you think zebra tastes like?

I think the best part about staying in your pajamas all day is that you don't have to change into them again at night. You're already in them. And if you fall asleep during the day and confuse the night with the day...it doesn't matter. You're in your pajamas.

I met a man at the bank today who made me pretty excited to be opening an account there, if you know what I'm sayin'.

The other day my dad began asking my advice on a dilemma he's facing at work as I sat on my makeshift window seat (my grandpa's WWII army chest that is now home to notebooks full of poetry and pretty stationary with bunnies having tea on it instead of the kraut lugers and bullet-dented helmets it once housed [actually not really, my grandpa was a dentist stationed in Pennsylvania during WWII, but unfortunately the bunnies having tea on my stationary really is a reality]), but I accidentally drifted off, looking at my books on my bookshelf. I heard the majority of what he said but I didn't have any response for him when he stopped talking.
He looked at me in mock belittling. "Are you 21 yet? Do you know anything?"
I simply shook my head. But boy, I can't wait for all that knowledge that comes with turning 21. (These days "knowledge" is code for alcohol, most likely.) 9 more months until I can down a pint of knowledge.

Today my mom came home from wherever it was she went (I'm dazed most of the day, except for when I'm eating) and asked if I'd heard the sirens.
"No..." I said, looking at her over my book. I had just woken up from a nap, and apparently slept through a house on fire down the street. I probably would have slept through our own house on fire, and only mildly complained out of my delirium for Mom to turn the heat down. Except she can't. Because I'm on fire. But at least I got a good nap in. And I'm already in my pajamas! So even death isn't really that bad.

One day between Christmas and New Year's we went to the Chinese restaurant and my fortune in my fortune cookie said, "You will step on the soils of many countries." I liked that fortune. THAT'S a fortune, not those stupid things that say like, "Beauty is red like a rose bleeding love." What the heck. (I just made that up. But I wonder if you can submit fortunes to be put into cookies, because that's a winner.) My brother and/or dad (they're interchangeable sometimes) said that I was stepping on foreign soil right now because the employees had mud from China on their shoes and had tracked it across the floor...anyway. The next week we went to the Chinese restaurant again (our arteries weren't crying loud enough for us to hear) and my fortune from my fortune cookie said, "You will step on the soils of many countries." What do you think that means? Can God speak through fortune cookies?

I also think it's fantastic when you're watching a foreign movie with English subtitles and you can't hear what they're saying so you turn up the volume. It doesn't matter, though. They're speaking Japanese. You can't understand them, anyway.

Taking pills labeled "colon flush" makes me nervous.

I'm tired, and luckily I'm already in my pajamas. I planned ahead this morning when I considered getting dressed. I thought, "No, because I'll be going to bed tonight." Always thinking ahead.