Through a Glass, Darkly

Alisa and I have been trying to read books around the same time and then talk a bit about them. It was her turn to choose, so she chose Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner (a re-read for both of us, actually, but a very timely one). Last night I sent her an insanely long email detailing my thoughts on the first half of the book, but don’t worry, I’m not going to go chapter-by-chapter through the book on here. There are a few things I will probably mention at a later date (like the discussion of weddings which is on my mind as our fifth anniversary rapidly approaches), but one of the things that stuck out to me the most was in the introduction.

Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity . . . for Jews, the essence of the thing is a doing, an action. Your faith might come and go, but your practice ought not waver. (Indeed, Judiasm suggests that the repeating of the practice is the best way to ensure that a doubter’s faith will return.) This is perhaps best explained by a midrash (a rabbinic commentary on a biblical text). This midrash explains a curious turn of phrase in the Book of Exodus: “Na’aseh v’nishma,” which means “we will do and we will hear” or “we will do and we will understand,” a phrase drawn from Exodus 24, in whcih the people of Israel proclaim “All the words that God has spoken, we will do and we will hear.” The word order, the rabbis have observed, doesn’t seem to make any sense: How can a person obey God’s commandment before they hear it? But the counterintuitive lesson, the midrash continues, is precisely that one acts out God’s commands, one does things unto God, and eventually, through the doing, one will come to hear and understand and believe.

As I said to Alisa, last night, I can see how just doing has made a lot of difference in my life lately. The problem is that it doesn’t always turn into more doing. That’s not completely true, actually. I’m just wishing that I could have a return to the days when I would willingly get up at 5:30 every morning and read my Bible and drink my coffee, but I am not yet willing to work to get to that point. So reading spiritual books turned into checking my Bible for a few things, which is slowly turning into reading more in the Bible, which I hope will turn into even more (regular) Bible reading. Don’t they say that if you change too suddenly, it probably won’t stick? I hope my changes, slow as they are, will stick.

I think one of the reasons that liturgy and prayerbooks and just doing things means so much to me is that I never regularly went to a denominational church until about two years ago. My grandparents are Baptist, and we would visit their church, so I feel versed in Baptist lore, but my home church was always nondenominational (even in the - dare I say it - Charismatic/Vineyard vein). Mike also grew up in nondenominational churches, and while neither of us feel that there’s anything wrong with those churches, right now we feel more at home at our Baptist church. Unlike any Baptist church I’ve ever been to, our church does a bit more “high church”-y things like following the church calendar and responsive readings and prayers and things. And the doing of all of that has been very helpful to me.

One point that Lauren Winner didn’t make is that spiritual disciplines often help take away from the individuality I’m-going-at-this-alone that evangelical Christianity often gets trapped in. When your doing is rooted in community (others are praying these prayers with me, others are practicing these same disciplines with me) it reminds you that you are a part of something bigger. You can see the faith of those around you, even when you’re not sure you can muster it yourself. In that way, as Jesus said, the faith of your friends can heal you. Because it can help you keep going, help you believe when you are weak.

I don’t have it all figured out, but I’m going to keep pursuing, because I truly believe that as I do, I will understand.

They show that iPod shuffle commercial a lot during basketball games. You know, the one that starts out, “Life is random?” This weekend, several of us agreed - if we wanted to listen to songs in random order, we’d just listen to the radio. We decided that Sony Walkman should have a commercial just like that - “Existence is in no particular order. Get a Sony Walkman and listen to the radio.” hehe.

Church yesterday . . . well, it stunk. We weren’t at our church, so I kind of hate to trash someone else’s church, but the people we were with weren’t pleased either, so I feel like it’s okay to say that. Easter is exciting. There’s the anticipation - the buildup of Lent, culminating in Holy Week and its services. There’s the new clothes - the rustle of spring dresses that it’s not quite warm enough for, and yet we wear them anyway, because part of celebrating is putting on our finest. There’s the sugar rush from eating candy before church. There’s family and friends and flowers and the church is packed (Mike’s least favorite thing about Easter, actually. You know you’re a Baptist when you hate it when someone’s sitting in your row). There’s “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and “Low in the Grave He Lay,” which take me back to Easters of my childhood, and sitting in the pew next to Grandpa, hearing his deep voice chime in on cue. And there’s joy. Easter is the cornerstone of our faith, and we celebrate it because we actually believe these things that maybe don’t make sense on paper, but that we know in our hearts are true. That’s exciting! It’s exciting that we believe these things, and that we can come together to celebrate them. It’s amazing that they are true, and it’s even more amazing to think about what they mean for us!

The sermon yesterday missed all that. The 20-minute introduction to the sermon about why you have to believe the resurrection is literally true. But, see, the thing is, I already believe that. I was there to celebrate it, not hear a lecture about it. During the other 20 minutes of the sermon, I pretty much tuned out, but all I remember are digs at Presbyterians and Episcopalians. Which, in my mind, is not so cool. Every denomination makes mistakes, and one bad church/pastor does not a bad denomination make.

During the sermon, my friend leaned over and said, “I hate it when people try too hard on holidays.” At first I didn’t agree that that’s what was going on . . . if this was his way of trying to reach out to visitors/non-Christians, he was doing a pretty sucky job of it. But then I realized she was right - the pastor had gotten so worried that this was his one chance to reach out to people that might not normally go to church that he freaked out and missed the entire point. I don’t think church services should be geared towards unbelievers, especially on holidays. Holidays are a time for the church to celebrate, and if our celebration is authentic, I personally believe that is going to say a whole lot more to visitors than any 20-minute lecture on a literal resurrection. I hate that the pastor was so worried about defending Jesus’ resurrection that he forgot to be excited about it.

I love Easter, so it was sad that yesterday’s service was such a downer. I felt like it took all the wind out of my sails yesterday morning, and it apparently started my week off on the wrong foot. Today I’m in a funk, and my car is doing weird things, and I just want a do-over. I want to be able to be at my church for Easter, with the hymns and the organ and the flowering cross. And the celebration of what it means to believe these mysteries of a manger, a cross, and an empty tomb.

Last night I was talking to my oldest friend, Kim, while I was packing for our trip this weekend. I met Kim in the first grade, and we have been friends ever since. Both of us hung out with another girl who also wore glasses, and we called ourselves the Owls. Are you ready for our slogan? Wait for it . . . “Owls are wise and have big eyes.” Impressive, no? We played Barbies and watched The Real Ghostbusters and played in my treehouse.

When I moved from Charlotte after the third grade, we continued to communicate by writing tons and tons of letters. Looking at them now, it amazes me how much of my life I have on file just from reading her responses. I complained to her about my classmates, talked about the music I was listening to and asked her what she liked, we talked about what we were reading . . . our parents managed to arrange it so we could go and visit each other occasionally, and after I got my license, Charlotte was the first “far-away” place I was allowed to drive to visit her (although my parents insisted that I borrow my uncle’s big honking cell phone. Man, they just don’t make cell phones like they used to).

In college, we both got caught up in our own lives, but we were still in touch from time to time. Sometimes now she will mention things from college that I don’t actually know about, and I always wonder if I should admit I don’t know or just fill in from context clues. Regardless, we’ve been through bad boyfriends, my wedding (I told her recently that I don’t have lots of regrets in my life, but I do regret not having her as my maid of honor. But I did the best I could at the time, what can I say), weird parental issues, the angst of youth, her trip to Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps, and late-night emails. I am thankful to have her constant presence in my life, someone who has known me since I was six years old, and thankful that we’ve been rekindling things since she got back from Turkmenistan.

Last night we talked about work and Anna Karenina, our families and our friends, and laughed over the packing problems I was having. (Mike is not a big person, but his clothes are so much bigger than mine. I have these small t-shirts and these small jeans, and he has these big MAN CLOTHES. It was making us giggle). She teased me (as usual) about being the daughter her parents tried four times to have, and I teased her about how my dad says she’d better bring her boyfriend Sam for approval as soon as he gets back from Turkmenistan. We celebrated her recent acceptance to Chapel Hill for their Public Health program, and made plans to talk again in a couple of weeks. Whenever we talk, it ends up being for too long, but I can’t say I mind all that much.

I went to visit her close to her birthday in February, and it was so good to see her . . . but I didn’t really have the words to write about it. There’s just something about sitting across a table from someone who has known you for so long, drinking tea she brought back with her and dipping cookies in it, being really honest with one another . . . it’s like a warm embrace on a spring day.

Today at Wal-Mart, I was trying to reach the Granny Smith apples, but they were on the top flat of a table that was slanted away from me. I stood on my tiptoes straining for them, but they remained just beyond my reach. I glanced around for the produce guy or something to stand on, but no solution was presenting itself. So I just stood there for a minute trying to figure out what in the world I was going to do.

Luckily, a tallish woman dressed in red pushed her cart by me just at that time, and I turned to her and said, “You’re tall. Could you possibly reach the Granny Smith apples for me?” We laughed as she helped me pick out three or four apples, and I told her that any time she needed something from a bottom shelf, she could give me a call.

I have had to ask tall men for help before at the grocery store, when the Rice-a-Roni is all the way in the back on the top shelf or something. I usually ask men who are with their wives/girlfriends, so it’s clear I’m not hitting on them and that I just need some help. But I’ve never needed help in produce before. I have reached a new low. (Insert your own short joke here.)

If you look at a window, you see flyspecks, dust, the crack where Junior’s Frisbee hit it. If you look through a window, you see the world beyond.

Something like this is the difference between those who see the Bible as a Holy Bore and those who see it as the Word of God, which speaks out of the depths of an almost unimaginable past into the depths of ourselves. -Frederick Buechner

My pastor lent me Wishful Thinking and told me to read the entries on Hope and Despair, and I enjoyed it so much that I am reading the whole thing. It’s been very encouraging. The library has a copy of Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale that I’m going to peruse.

In case you were wondering, I didn’t give up reading for Lent. I tried to spend this time reading more spiritual/theological books (which is quite a discipline for me, because it takes me much longer to read that sort of thing than it does to read even a very long novel) instead of reading for escapism like I was talking about in that entry. And, you know what? It was hugely successful for me personally. I feel like I really turned a corner spiritually, and that corner has been a long time coming. (It’s encouraging to hear that Susan also feels like she’s making progress, since we’ve both been in similar places.)

Sometimes people ask what the point or purpose of Lent is, saying that giving up chocolate or soda or something doesn’t really bring people closer to God. I think it’s not so much about what you give up as what you do to replace what you give up. I am sure that giving up reading would be a valuable discipline, and I can’t say for sure what I would have gained from it. But this year it was incredibly valuable for me to be more disciplined about what I was reading. An added bonus was the community factor. So many of my friends have given or suggested books to help me, and talked me through the things I was wrestling with. Yesterday our pastor said that when we accept God, he takes the keys to our heart and makes copies for Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the church - those we are in community with. I loved that, because (in theory at least) I love the importance of community in our lives. I feel that the encouragement I got from my friends to wrestle with the issues I was dealing with, to talk about my fears honestly, was so crucial for me, because it reminded me that my faith doesn’t exist in a vacuum, that going at it alone doesn’t work.

I don’t have any deep thoughts about any of this, though I feel like I should as we enter the Holy Week. I am reminded of what I said last year about Lent , and, as this year’s Lent comes to a close, it is again my prayer that I will have a Lenten attitude year-round, and that the discipline that I have practiced over the past few weeks will both continue and spread to other areas of my life.

This entry didn’t go where I thought it would, and it’s certainly much longer than I intended. I have felt as if some of my entries lately were a little dry, because I have been reluctant to talk about the things I’ve been pondering. So, here are my thoughts, such as they are.

When we were planning our honeymoon, it was quite common for guys to ask us why we chose PEI. The girls mostly knew why without any explanations necessary, so they generally responded with squeals of delight and excitement for me, but the boys tended to be pretty clueless. When we explained that PEI was somewhere I’d wanted to go since I was nine years old and I first read Anne of Green Gables, and that it was a beautiful island quite similar in appearance to (but much cooler in July than) our Outer Banks, we generally got polite but bewildered smiles.

One “friend,” though, upon hearing where we were going and that we’d be going to see the Anne of Green Gables play while we were there, turned to Mike and said in a voice loaded with sarcasm and disdain, “You must really love her.”

That’s the kind of remark that’s okay between genuine friends, you know? When there’s genuine affection, it’s not such a big deal. Brian or Scott or Josh could say that same thing to me (although none of them would use that tone) and I would simply stick out my tongue at him. This guy, though, tends to make a big deal about being forced to watch chick flicks or the like, and going to see the Anne of Green Gables play would really have threatened his manhood. I am thankful that Mike isn’t like that. I let that comment get to me, though, let it make me feel as if I was somehow being unfair to Mike, even though he was excited about our decision. And now, five years later, almost five years after our wonderful time in PEI, I still react out of that same fear of being “that girl.”

We went to the movies last week. Bride and Prejudice opened on Friday, and I knew I wanted to see it, but I didn’t want to make Mike miss something he’d like to see, like Be Cool. With that long-ago comment in my mind, I even suggested that we go to separate movies. Mike rolled his eyes and bought tickets to Bride and Prejudice. And you know what? We both loved it. We had fun matching up the parallels to P&P, and we both like Bollywood-type movies, and he had the extra added bonus of getting to see Alexis Bledel. On the way home, I tried to express to him some of what I’d been thinking - that one of the reasons I had been so neurotic was because of my fears of being unfair to him in the eyes of others. Of course he didn’t remember the original comment, but he understood what I was trying to say. He reassured me that he didn’t feel steamrolled by me at all, and that he genuinely likes a lot of the same things that I do.

In pondering the original event and the way it made me react last week, I had planned to post a tirade about guys who make a big deal about chick flicks or the like, but then I realized that that wasn’t the problem. I don’t care if guys honestly don’t care for that type of movie, just like I honestly don’t care for violent movies. The problem is in me - why did that comment get to me? I think it got to me in part because I never feel completely sure about my place with this guy, never quite sure if he actually likes me or just tolerates me. More than that, though, I tend to rate myself as second-class. This guy with his confidence and his quick wit is obviously first-class, and if he thinks my plans are stupid, well, maybe they really are. From that fear, I quickly move to resentment (”What right does he have to judge my plans?”) and frustration at myself (”Why do I even care?”), but it’s important to note that the fear is there. It’s behind so much of what I do. It’s why I clam up around some people - I still see myself as that girl who’s not invited to sit at the cool table. I feel as if there are rules about coolness that I don’t know, so how can I know if I’ve violated them? I get so focused on myself and my worry and my fear of fitting in and abiding by the rules that I can’t be myself.

Mike and I talked about a bit of this yesterday, and I think it boils down to learning to be more comfortable in your own skin. Not needing validation from others. There are ways in which I am quite good at that, but not when I am feeling second-class or unsure.

For me, admitting that this is how I operate is always a huge step. Now that I see clearly that I do this (I mean, I knew before that I did it somewhat, but I didn’t see so clearly how much it affects me), I hope I will be able to start changing some of the things I tell myself. Not in the, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough . . .” sense, but in the, “There are plenty of people who like you the way you are. Stop paying attention to the people who don’t. They don’t deserve so much power in your life,” sense.

When I was unpacking after the trip, I decided to pull a bunch of sweaters that I don’t often wear out of my drawer and put them into a storage container in my closet. On a whim, I got out the stepstool and pulled two shoeboxes off of the top shelf. I opened the older one first, and breathed in the smell of summer, of sweaty feet, and of wearing Chuck Taylors sans socks.

When I was starting high school, Chucks were popular again, and all the preps wore them, so of course I didn’t have a pair, even though I’d always wanted some. After about six months, though, their popularity faded, and I can’t remember if it was during my junior year or the summer after my junior year that I went and bought myself a pair. I do remember buying them, though. I wanted some that were distinctive, and the canary yellow pair I found for $9.88 fit the bill.

I’m not sure if I was known at school as “the girl with the yellow shoes.” At Governor’s School, some of my friends called me that, but I don’t know that anyone at school really noticed. My friend Anne-Marie and I were the only two girls in the school who wore Chucks (hers were a tan color), and I at least saw them as a symbol: we weren’t the kind of girls who hung out on senior hall or wore all the right clothes. We marched to the beat of our own drum (as much as two high schoolers who are actually the goody-two-shoes type can) and we were proud of it. My “outstanding senior” picture in the yearbook is of me in my yellow shoes, and I specifically wore them that day so they’d be in my yearbook for eternity. (Along with a shirt that said “freak.” I’ll go ahead and answer the inevitable question: Yes, it was one of those shirts. Except mine was red. I feel so exposed now that my dirty little secret is out. I might need a hug.)

Looking at them now, the shoes are rattier and dirtier than I remember. They have writing on the sides (never on the canvas) that either I or my friends put there, some of which I remember and some of which I don’t. They remind me of easier times - my summer at Governor’s School, eating lunch in the courtyard of my high school with Anne-Marie, going to my friends’ band practices (an actual band, not just high school band). I remember some of the t-shirts I always wore with those shoes - my Math shirt from GSW, my (I’ll go ahead and say it) Third Day shirt with the alien on it (this entry is deteriorating quickly), my Quiz Bowl shirt with Dilbert on it. I still have all those, because they’re more than just shirts. They symbolize a time when I was more confident about myself and my faith and my future. Most teenagers don’t love high school, and I certainly didn’t, but I knew who I was. I was a girl who wore yellow Chuck Taylors.

I stopped wearing them in college, who knows why. Maybe at least in part because they were so ratty looking. Maybe I was trying to put childish things behind me. Maybe my fashion tastes changed. I must have worn them at least a little, though, because one of my friends bought me a new pair of yellow ones at some point. They were a brighter yellow, and to my eyes were almost garish. And, wearing brand new Chucks would make me sort of a poser. I could be spotted as someone who recently bought a pair, not the kind of girl who’d had hers for a while, who’d been places in her Chucks. For whatever reason, I never wore them. I thanked her and put the box high in my closet, not wanting to get rid of them.

I opened that box the other night, too. The yellow didn’t seem as offensive as I had remembered it, and I thought about my friend who had done such a nice thing for me, and I thought about that girl who used to wear yellow shoes. I kind of miss her. In some ways, the past few weeks have helped me start to find her again. And so, I told Mike last night, I am going to wear yellow shoes again.

Just saying that makes me feel like I’m about to start a new adventure.

One of my least favorite parts of staying at other people’s houses is navigating the breakfast mine field. Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but it’s also the most difficult for me.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. Scrambled eggs. Hate ‘em. I used to love them, but somewhere along the way the smell really started getting to me. I very rarely eat scrambled eggs, and then it’s only because I really really feel like I need the protein or because someone puts them on my plate and my mama raised me to be polite. I had a friend whose house I hated to stay at, because her mom would spoon up tons of eggs on my plate and I’d have to force them down. So I’d eat them first, saving the delicious things like bacon and toast for later, and she’d think that meant I wanted more. Bleh. The only eggs I can abide eating are over medium. And I like hard boiled eggs in egg salad and devilled eggs. And almost every time Mike makes them, I try a bite, because I’m trying to like them. (So far, it’s not working.)

I like cereal okay, especially with fruit, but when I eat it, I am hungry again in an hour, and I have cut back on so many starchy things that I would really rather not start the day with something that’s going to make me crash in just an hour or so. Same with pancakes and waffles. They honestly aren’t my favorite (except maybe for snow days), but I can eat them. The problem is that the whole time I’m eating them, I’m thinking how they’re going to sit in my stomach and make me feel heavy for hours, and I’m just going to need to eat again soon. I used to eat a lot of potato-type things, but again, since I have cut back on a lot of starches, I don’t really like to eat hash browns (or tots) first thing in the morning and get hungry again before lunch. And I don’t eat toast much anymore, either.

I love bacon and sausage (patties not links), and I will even eat fried liver mush. I just have to have protein in the morning to get me through until lunch. I used to just eat an apple or banana or toast or something, but it wouldn’t last.

Lately, I have been eating half a granny smith apple and some cheddar cheese for breakfast. I would eat bacon or sausage every morning if I could, and some fruit to go with it. I feel like these are good choices (okay, not the bacon/sausage, but it’s not really all that easy to get protein in the mornings) and I don’t usually get hungry before my lunchtime at 1:00.

The reason I’m thinking about all this is because I hate to be picky. I hate it. And so, if you put those things in front of me, I’m probably going to eat them without complaint, but I will not enjoy it. I don’t want to make a big deal about my likes and dislikes, because I don’t like to think of myself as picky. Picky means being disagreeable, and I like to be as agreeable as possible [read: so people will like me].

Okay, so here’s some honesty. The real reason I’m thinking about this is because one morning last week my aunt and uncle made eggs and a bunch of other stuff and when they were serving them up, they asked if I wanted eggs and I said, “No, thank you,” and they seemed shocked. My response to this was one of chagrin (I hate making people upset) and frustration (I haven’t regularly eaten eggs in years, so it’s not a surprise). It made me feel bad, both that they had made these eggs for me and that I didn’t want them. It really did feel like a mine field, and I wasn’t sure how to navigate it.

Here’s some more honesty: since I don’t like these things, I think that one day I’ll be a bad mom, because I don’t really know how to cook things like eggs (and, ew, standing that close to the smell makes my stomach turn just thinking about it) and pancakes. I want to be a good mom. Good moms make eggs.

I wish I liked eggs.

Mike and I joke that when I get pregnant, all I will crave is scrambled eggs, day and night. hehe.

During the myriad of basketball we watched last week, we kept seeing ads for the new special edition of Hoosiers. The ads quoted ESPN, which named Hoosiers the best sports movie of the past 25 years. Mike kept asking me, “Is it really the best sports movie? Better than Rudy?” I don’t like to make claims like “better” and “best,” but I assured him that I could completely understand why they would say that. Since we actually own a copy of it, we watched it last night. Ultimately, I think he wasn’t convinced that it’s better than Rudy, but he did seem to enjoy it. (If he hadn’t, I would know that he has a heart of stone!)

Speaking of lists, a few weeks ago Entertainment Weekly put out a list of the 50 greatest love songs of all time. Per Mike’s request, I made a copy of the list and brought it home to him. His response? “I have never even heard “God Only Knows [which came in first].”

“But it’s the Beach Boys. How can you not have heard it?”

Last week, as you might imagine, we heard quite a lot of the Beach Boys. Every time we’d hear a song, I’d say, “Have you heard this one before?” and Mike would roll his eyes and usually say that he had. It got to be quite a fun game - fun for me, at least. I just couldn’t understand how he’d never heard “God Only Knows.” I’m not saying that I agree it should be the number one song . . . just that I’ve heard it.

On Tuesday night, we went to the Philharmonic to see The Ten Tenors. I will go ahead and admit that we weren’t thrilled about it, but we were given the tickets and they were box seats and it would have been rude not to go. As it turned out, we were the only ones in our box, which meant we could crack little jokes. Like when the Tenors were singing “Funiculi, Funicula,” I quietly told Mike of the Slim Goodbody song to that same tune. The words were, “From tiny holes called follicles, hair grows on your head!” Then we had to keep from looking at each other so that we didn’t get the giggles.

During the intermission, we acquired a pair of binoculars, which made the second half much more interesting. We played games like, “How many of the Ten Tenors are gay?” and, “Which of the Ten Tenors is the cutest?” and, “Which Ten Tenor looks the most like Art Garfunkel?”

The highlight of the evening was when they did a Beach Boys medley, which did in fact include “God Only Knows.” Much like my final acceptance of Fun Dip, Mike could no longer deny the existence of the song. (In fact, we heard it again on Saturday just before we left Florida, so it was quite an exciting week for him!) (And, if we’re discussing the 50 greatest love songs, I am quite partial to EW’s choice for number two: “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.”)

Overall, The Ten Tenors really won the crowd over, and by the end we enjoyed ourselves a little more than we’d expected to. Whether that’s because of the game or the music, I’m really not prepared to say. hehe.

This morning I’m back to work, and I did think off and on this week about the things I’d have to do when I got back. Not in a bad way, mind you, but I knew my office would be overflowing with gift books and requests and lease books that came in while I was gone. I didn’t sleep well last night, but when I got out of bed this morning, Mike said, “I hope you have a good day at work,” and I responded, “I am sure I will.” I am glad I like my job.

“So, how was your vacation?”

“It was great. Except for Wednesday. Wednesday, right? Wednesday was the bad day?”

“Wednesday was indeed the bad day.”

“Yeah, it rained and it was really cold, and when it rains, everyone in Naples wants to go to the same places, so we went to the mall and it was really crowded and we went to The Cheesecake Factory but we decided not to wait because it was crowded and we were going to see Finding Neverland but it was only 2:00 and it was already sold out for the rest of the day. And Kari had been fighting a cough all week and didn’t sleep well the night before and was feeling both gross and a little grubby because she didn’t bring the right clothes for that freezing-cold weather and she overreacted to the whole thing and was not very fun to be around.”

(Okay, so he didn’t say all of that. But it’s true.)

I was thinking this morning about the “bad day,” and, you know, while vacations are fun, they can also be stressful and weird. Like, how often do I get to spend seven straight days with Mike 24 hours a day? All that time together honestly means we can get a little fed up with each other, and I think Mike got a little fed up with me (justifiably) on the “bad day.” He expressed that not by yelling or putting me down, but by simply telling me that I wasn’t being very fun to be around.

One of the things I appreciate the most about Mike is that he doesn’t let me get away with crap, even though he also hates conflict and confronting people. Today, for example, he expressed to me that he thought I was overreacting about something when we were shopping after church today. As it turned out, there were a lot of things that he didn’t know about that were affecting the way I was feeling, and we had a good conversation about that after we got back in the car. It hurt my feelings that he thought I was overreacting (which was my fault for not expressing how I was feeling earlier), but I paid attention to it. I listen to what he says because I know how hard it is for him to say those things. I once dated a guy who thought everything I did was great. While it’s nice to be adored, it was too easy for me to walk all over him, and I hated that. Mike doesn’t let me walk all over him.

Vacations and time together like that can be so refining, because we’re forced to confront those issues. Wednesday was indeed a bad day, but it was only one bad day. And it was made better by the fact that Mike, who I know is on my team, let me know that I was out of line. That, to me, is what marriage really needs to be about.

And, lest it sound as if our vacation was all hard stuff, let me just give you a list of fun things we did: Watched tons of basketball, ate amazing food, saw Gilmore Girls every afternoon on ABC Family, checked our email on crappy dialup, went to Jungle Larry’s to visit the tigron (unfortunately there was no tigron, but we got a picture of a sign that mentioned it), finally got to go to The Cheesecake Factory and had two very fun waiters and some delicious cheesecake, got a teeny tiny bit of sun (it was kind of rainy), I read five books and Mike read three, saw episodes of Friends that we had never seen before, got some new clothes, and took some awesome naps. It was a great week, and I have a few other things to say about it, but I will save those for later in the week.

It’s good to be back! I need to go do some laundry now. hehe.

I have recently realized that my right leg is longer than my left leg. At first I thought it was just this one particular pair of pants, but I have realized it’s not. It’s my leg. I know by admitting this, it’s practically an open invitation to stare at my shoes/pants to see the difference. Oh well. It’s probably only noticeable to me anyway.

Mike and I used our last giftcard to go to Chili’s last night. We got out the door and realized we’d left the doggie bag on the table, so Mike turned around and went back to get it . . . and it was already gone. A minute. They had super-fast busboys last night, we suppose. They kindly made us a new plate of food, so both of us got to eat my leftovers instead of just enough for me.

I went to a scrapbook get-together last night and finished my most recent scrapbook. That’s my third book in almost four years. Go, me!

As a special tax return/early birthday present, I got one of these yesterday. What pushed me over the edge was an old CD I pulled out last week that the CD player in my car (not actually installed in my car . . . just a tape adapter with a walkman CD player that cuts off if it moves at all) wouldn’t play. Like Alisa, I am pretty sure the little guy needs a name. I wanted a pink one myself, but there was a silver one in an opened box, so we went with the 20% off. And just in time for the plane rides and lounging by the pool.

Last weekend I watched 13 Going on 30, which was okay (I have really high standards for my romantic comedies, and in the end it did pass, but I get really uncomfortable when I’m supposed to be rooting for a couple and one of them is engaged to someone else), but since then, Liz Phair’s “Why Can’t I” has been stuck in my head. Despite the crudeness of some of the lyrics, it’s a fun falling-in-love song.

Mike’s doing house-cleaning things today, because I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to. I always feel guilty when he has to spend a Saturday cleaning, even though it would be a perfectly acceptable way for me to spend my day off. hehe.

As far as the packing goes, I did some more this morning when I should have been getting ready for work. Now I just have to check a few last things and get my bathroom stuff in the morning. How foolish is it that I am planning to wear flip flops to the airport tomorrow? I know that it will be too cold. I also know that they will be super-easy to get through security and that when I get to Florida I’ll be glad I did.

See y’all on the flip side.

I am terrible at packing. Terrible. For a weekend, I’m okay, because I can just pack complete outfits, but for something like our trip to Florida, when the weather is unpredictable, we’ll have to dress up to go out to eat a few times, and we’ll be gone a week . . . that’s hard. My packing has gone something like this: I go to my closet and pull out a pair of denim capris, two pairs of jeans, a skirt, a pair of dress pants, two pairs of khaki capris. Then I pull out some shirts and some twinsets. Then I get shoes and the bathing suit. Then I look at the mess and put half of it back. Then I get frustrated and quit. Right now I have a decent amount, I think, except I haven’t decided which shoes I need to take.

I tend to be an overpacker (you think?), and I used to apologize for that, but at this point in my life I am beyond caring. You know what? It doesn’t hurt anyone but me (well, okay, it hurts Mike if I make him carry my suitcase, but it has wheels!) if I overpack. And I would rather have choices than be limited. So go ahead and mock me (keeping in mind that I’m not bringing everything listed up there), because I will be the one who is dressed appropriately for every occasion. hehe.

I’m excited about this trip. Our only vacation last year (apart from mini-breaks) was with three other couples (and four babies), and while it was definitely fun, it will be nice to be more on our own. We haven’t been to visit my aunt in Florida for two years, and it’s always been a good time for us. Two years ago when we were there, we were in a hard place emotionally, and it was so good for us to get away. We’re also looking forward to doing some talking about how we’re doing, checking in on a few things . . . but not too much. I have a tendency to want to evaluate how we’re doing a little too much, so I asked that we set aside some time during the week but limit it to that time. Our plans mostly involve stuffing our faces and lounging by the pool. We also like to walk at night, but life is so busy here that we hardly ever do it. So I’m hoping to be able to take some nice walks - that was always one of my favorite things when we were engaged. Walking at night under the stars.

Today and tomorrow will be spent organizing my office so that everything will be ready to proceed without me next week. It takes a lot of work to go on vacation, but I am just glad we’ll be getting a break.

The scenery will change and I’ll feel better
You can’t hold me down for too long
With your hand in mine and our hearts in the right places
We’re a long way from home
And things look brighter from here - Martha’s Trouble

Yesterday I got a frantic phone call from my aunt, who was on the golf course in Florida. She was playing in some tournament or other, and they had been given some sort of game where they had to list all the characters in Alice in Wonderland. They weren’t allowed to look it up, but they were encouraged to be resourceful and use their brains. My aunt said, “My brain is telling me to call my niece who is a librarian.” I looked up the characters, asking important reference interview questions like, “Do you just need Alice in Wonderland, or do you also need Through the Looking Glass? Do you want Alice’s sister as well? She’s not actually in Wonderland, but she is mentioned in the story.” We managed to get all the blanks on their form filled (with some extras, even) and when I talked to her later on last night, she crowed that she was sure they were going to win.

Sure enough, I just got a phone call from her and her team was victorious (she said they didn’t do so well in the golf, however), and she saved her part of the prize for me. She said some people were asking her if she cheated, if she got on the internet with her cell phone and looked it up, and she said that she responded, “Did you think to include Through the Looking Glass? Did you remember Alice’s sister?” and that apparently shut people up.

I am undecided as to whether it’s actually cheating or if she just made good use of her resources. Either way, I am pretty proud of myself for coming up with all the characters. hehe. (And, since this is statistics month, I got to count it as a Reference transaction!)

Yesterday was a “phone it in” kind of day. I feel like everything I did was kind of half-hearted, including my blog entry. So, today I have been racking my brain for something interesting/funny/compelling to blog about. I still feel kind of like a dud, though. There are things going on that aren’t fit for public consumption, which means that most of my ponderings lately aren’t blog-friendly.

When I was getting my hair cut this morning, I asked my hairdresser about her son who will be starting high school in the fall. Another customer came in, and her daughter is apparently a freshman in high school, and we were all discussing teachers. Some of the ones I liked were totally trashed by these two women. “He is a butt! And he’s so negative! And mean!” I really liked that guy. hehe. And some of the ones that they mentioned positively, I didn’t really care for.

It concerned me a bit to hear these women talking so poorly about the teachers. I do remember one of my brother’s teachers that my dad Did. Not. Like. But generally, though our parents made it clear that they supported us and would take our side against injustice, they also made it clear that we had to respect the authority of our teachers, and that they weren’t going to help us be disrespectful in any way. They stood up for us if we were being treated unfairly, and they helped us take problems we had to the teacher, and I am pretty sure my dad had it out with a couple of Joseph’s teachers, but they didn’t encourage us to be disrespectful.

I noticed something similar last night, when Mike showed me RateMyProfessors.com. Some of my favorite professors (like the aforementioned Dr. Allen) weren’t rated very highly, because their classes were hard. I didn’t care if the class was hard, as long as the professor was willing to give me a little help/advice if I had some questions. I don’t have a lot of patience for busy work, but I guess I am able to separate the difficulty of the class from my like or dislike of the professor or teacher. Most of the classes I disliked weren’t about the work but because I thought the professor was an arrogant jerk.

And that’s kind of how I operate in my life, too. What’s really important to me is when people are nice to me, when they answer my questions without making me feel stupid, when they give me their full attention, when they ask things that let me know they see me as a person, when they have compassion. The teachers I remember more fondly from all stages of my life are the ones who did those things, even if they didn’t know a whole lot about me personally.