Facts and Figures
After re-reading my 1,195 word long metaphorical post I realize I managed to avoid talking facts and figures. I'm so terribly bad at doing that.
Josh saw my post and was like, "It takes you that long to say, 'hey guys, I'm not going to blog for a month, see you later?'.
I have no defense. No matter how short I write a post in my mind it always takes on a completely different form when I write it. But yes, facts and figures (yet again my muse is trying to deviate from responsibility).
I'm not going forever. My current plan is only to run away for the month of March. Rachel thinks I'm crazy to try this cold-turkey, but it's the only way I think it will work. I find that if I allow myself little threads to hold I end up just hauling back the whole blanket.
I'm not going off writing (Rach H. rest assured). I bought a new journal last month and all those lovely white pages beg to be filled. Strangely, however, there seems to be a deffirence between blogging and journaling pen and ink style. Mentally it's less consuming. With a lot of prayer I'm still trying to figure out how to make blogging like that.
On a really earthy practical level, there's also another reason why I need time out. On Monday night I made tea (dinner) like I commited myself to doing and it just felt so good to have been able to it and still have strength to go for a walk afterwards. I had to sit on a stool while I cut up the meat and veges and while I was doing most of the cooking, but I still managed to get through it. This is just such a big step for me. I haven’t really cooked anything like a whole meal for seven people in two years.
To keep the momentum of good things like this coming I realize I need to concentrate more effort on my health than I have been the last few months.
I need to work specifically on my sleep routine and my meals. I’ve been eating ok, but I know my dietitian, Jo, wants me to work on getting some new foods into my diet and I always lose a bit of strength trying to do that. I’ve just been skimping a bit too much with my meals lately, eating too many of the "get me through" ideas.
Too boot my sleeping routine is wacked. I’m going to bed at two in the morning and getting up at twelve. I've kind of been putting up with at the moment because I hate having to stop and have three or four terrible days where I can't do anything to try and fix it up. I dread how half way through I could have one big allergic reaction that will just muck it all up again.
But I have to try. Now that I'm less consumed with being sick, it's been nice to get out of it for a while, but I need to stop ignoring it. My body is such a disobedient child it never gets far unless I push and prod it.
Having said all that I'll still be online. Well, e-mails mostly. Write me! I love e-mails and I do reply. Cross my heart and hope to die.
Slow Dance the Day Away
The melodious melody of a song from the Life is Beautiful soundtrack plays through my speakers. An old jounal of mine from three years ago lays open on my lap. I read the words: the short snippy paragraphs, the long rants of confusion, and I marvel at how the things I wrote so long ago come back to me at the most random of moments.
I sat down to blog a moment ago and a line came to me, a title I believe of a song: slow dance the day away. I can't remember the band. I can't even remember the song. But somehow the title had struck me and in my collective habit I had written it in my journal.
Out of the blue it came back to me. I went searching through my journals and there it was. One line. One thought. One moment.
Slow dance the day away.
I love the sensation such an image brings to me. I love how words do that. To me words are pictures and feelings and struggles. I see the word dance and I don't feel dance, I don't even hear dance; I see eyelashes lying in sleep upon flushed, creamy skin, I see laughter and kisses and shades of pink and blue flittering back and forth like breaths of light through the wonder of spinning gozemer scarves.
In essence I am not a poet. I can't spin the words in endless images of disjointed descriptions to tie in matrimony at the end of the piece. I don't live in abstraction; I live in clarity.
One lady once recalled, when asked about her cousin's friendship with Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind: "My cousin always said that when Peggy would spend the night, she would get up in the middle of the night and write things. She was always obsessed with expressing herself." I find myself the same. My greatest desire has always to be understood.
I'm not very eloquent in voice and terribly out of tune in song, but words--words are my love and my hate. Many a time they are my friends, I write the lyrics and they sing the songs. Then the song gets louder, the words build in tone and strength until all else is blotted out and life is no longer life anymore. All my living becomes words; anger is no long just anger, pleasure is no longer just pleasure, my life no longer becomes life but the expression thereof. Things like love are no longer just love, they're words and posts and thoughts.
Lately this has been my curse. My blogging has become my life, a hobby that has blotted out my living.
I'm a nostalgic kind of person. I hold onto the past and never want to let it go. Lovely things will happen to me and all the while I'm in it I'll be longing for a camera to capture it or searching for the metaphor to describe it.
I can't find the direct quote, but I remember reading an interview with Liv Tyler once where she mentioned a similar thing. "Special moments are so precious to me." She said, "I find myself forever taking lots of photos and then having to remind myself I need to stop being afraid of losing the moment and just concentrate on enjoying it."
I'm having to learn that myself right now. Sometimes writing about a moment or a feeling (and I'm not just talking about the good ones) doesn't actually make them any better. Lately I've found it makes it worse. When I write things down I remember them, even five little words from three years before.
I've found some interesting verses in the Bible lately, two that especially jump out and grab me:
After Job fell sick at Satan's hand, three of his friends came to comfort him. The author of Job says that upon seeing him they began to weep and tore their clothes and covered themselves in dust. "Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was."
Further on in the Old Testament I came upon Ezekiel, the prophet in exile with God's people in Babylon. After five years of their capture, God revealed to him an "appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." Only an appearance mind you, this was not the full power of the real thing, this was only the sensation, the feelings and images like that which come to us when we read words. However, after seeing this incredible portrayal Ezekiel says, "And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days--overwhelmed."
It's the two words "seven days" that strike me. When have I ever let a sensation overhwhelm and forfill me that long? When have I ever swept away the clutter from my life and enjoyed, unadulterated, the simple joys and trials of life without having to explain or express them? When have I ever learnt to just be?
As I mentioned in a recent post, I struggle with just being. I'm not very good at just letting things be in whole what they are. If I'm angry I want to know why. If I'm happy I want to know why. If I'm sad I want to konw how to fix it.
Slow dance the day away.
There are other reasons why I need to leave blogging for a time but in this moment this is the biggest one. I have been reading a book called The Road to Reality lately and realizing just how far from that reality I am. The largest point of that being my new years conviction to work on praying more. My prayer life barely limps along when I've been blogging as intensely as I have been.
Rachel suggested I try blogging just once a week but I just couldn't do it. If I know I can blog a little I still spend just as much time thinking about blogging as I did before. It ruins the whole purpose.
I haven't wanted to come to this point. The last few weeks I've been fighting it, praying, "Do I really have to give it up?" I love blogging and since my readership has gone up after getting the I Want to Be a Mum post "published" I almost feel a responsibility to post.
But prayer was my new years conviction, I realize, not blogging. Blogging is expentable, prayer is not. Nor loving, or laughing, or obsorbing life to the fullest. I have been living in two disjointed worlds, reality and description, and in this moment I've come to the conclusion that to find complete peace I need to leave one of them.
I need to, I realize, turn down the bright lights of whirling thoughts and take a moment to just breath and spin in effortless wonder at the sensation of happiness. In all essence I need to to just be, allowing the laughter to intertwine with the spinning blues and pinks of time.
Slow dance the day away.
Another Funny
Just to continue the scandalous connoltations of late I have to show you this.
The Big Ad.
It's so funny. Matt rang the other night and was raving all about it when I remembered this must be the exact same ad visitors we had earlier had told us about. It seems the whole continent is talking about it.
Alas, Australians have a thing for beer.
Oh, and see the "This is a beer ad that should only be viewed by adults 18 and older" warning? That cracks me up the most. This, an ad, they've been playing on prime time TV for months.
Apparently it's been such a hit they've made an even bigger one now.
Shop 'Til You Drop
In my frustration I went surfing online last night. I typed "modest clothing" into Google and more links came up than I expected. There was a fair amount of Jewish and Islamic links but surprisingly an almost equal amount of Christian ones. Not that I necessarily have anything against buying off a Jew or Muslim, but their clothes usually portray a middle eastern or Kosher feel about them and if possible I'd prefer to avoid that image.
My favourite website by far would have to be the Modest Clothing Directory. It took all the click and back click out of shifting through the links that Google brought up.
In the way of styles I love what Shade Clothing offers. I remember finding their website through the YLCF website a while back and their idea of undershirts to enhance modesty is ingenius. I've tried camisoles to fill in long 'v' necks before but a whole top under a sheer top, wow, it's so effective. I'm currently waiting for them to get back to me on whether they ship to Australia. If they don't I found Impel Clothing and Down East Basics to sell similar tops.
In the way of general: Below the Knee has some really cute denim skirts and Funky Frum has some cool designs. The problem in most cases is the jolly prices. Specialty shops are so expensive.
I've thought before about dwindling my wardrobe size and buying more expensive items, just owning less. I'm thinking I'm probably going to have to invoke that thought a little more than I have. In almost every case that I've paid a higher price I've always been happy. They feel nicer, they wear nicer, they last longer. In most cases that actually end up as cheap or cheaper when compared to how often a cheaper item has to be replaced.
Then there's always sales and Direct Factory Outlets. Yes, yes. I'm currently eyeing off this long brown Bohemian Skirt from Ezibuy, hoping it'll hit the clearance section soon.
Scandal
Oh my goodness, my darling brother flamed the new jeans. Big time. That little "um...ah...nah." If he thinks they're really bordeline what's my Dad gonna think.
Now I'd hate for anyone to get the impression that I begrudge the responsibility to dress modestly, I really don't, I find it a challenge, it's just I'm completely and utterly frustrated with my last year of clothing experience. I doubt you guys can relate to this at all but I'm sick to death of having to look just one more time, having to find just one more shop. It is impossibly hard to find anything anymore.
Well yeah, sure you can find anything, but stuff that's cute and trendy as well? You might as well look for an excellent movie that doesn't have at least one swear word in it. One of the best movies ever, in my opinion just happens to be Schindler's List and that movie has swearing, violence and sex.
Rachel, I tell you, I don't care if it kills us I'm going to every place that sells jeans when I come down. I'm determined there has to be a pair of jeans out there that have cute flares, that aren't too tight, that are high enough but aren't frumpy. I'm convinced.
And let's look at skirts while we're at it. I saw the best one ever in Colorado while I was in Dubbo. I just hope the end of summer sales have hit by the time the end of March hits. Long denim skirts. I need to look at those. Hannah is going to ship me off to be massacred by the indians if I "borrow" hers much longer.
I wanna try that mini skirt over jeans thing too. I like what Rebecca St. James (who incidently just happens to be Aussie) did in her Expressions of Your Love music video. I've seen a few Muslim girls do the mini skirt over jeans think and it looks really effective. I had a dream once where I saw such a girl and asked her where she shopped and she took me to this huge shopping centre of cloths that magically fitted perfectly, looked great, and were all modest.
If only...
I'm discouraged. Completely discouraged. I know there's a few guys who just happen to read my very girly, rambly blog. I have a few questions.
1. Immodesty is so rampart is there any point in me even trying?
2. What do you personally find immodest.
3. What's one thing the modern girl wears that you wish could be outlawed?
4. And lastly, this is a complicated question, but is there any extreme you've seen any girls go to for modesty that you think is unnecessary?
In Which I Talk Girly
In general I enjoy shopping but sometimes I detest it with a loathing so bad I almost begin wishing there was such a thing as a girl-only island upon which I could unashamedly wear bikinis all day. Such radical dreams usual begin to taunt me on the days I order an item of clothing from Ezibuy and it arrives looking or fitting much differently than the catalogue led me to believe.
Today was almost a bad day. I say almost because I put the jeans on and they did fit. This is a small miracle in and of itself (I'm so thin jeans usually fall off me or are, at the other extreme, fit but end up five inches too short for my long legs).
Today the height problem was on the other end entirely. They were hipsters that ended up being less than promised. I stared at my reflection questioningly. When on earth did hipsters stop being on the hips and ended up under the hips? I honestly thought it hadn't been that long since I'd bought jeans.
With much intrepidation I showed my mum. She leaned back, told me to turn around, lift up my shirt, then pursed her mouth in that little 'um' expression and announced forthright and blatantly, "I saw Eleanor wear jeans like that once. She looked like she was trying to seduce every man in the room."
Bomb shell. Trust mums to state the truth. My cousin Eleanor just happens to work as a door girl at a strip club. The reference did not bring up nice, cute, modest images, all of which in my clothing choices I try to portray.
All my hopes of upgrading my wardrobe from one nice pair of jeans to two plummeted. Where does life get the right to be so cruel? Finding jeans that look good on me is like trying to find an elk with only one antler. It's long, disappointing work. I have three pair of pants I did buy that sit dejectedly on the bottom of my draw and countless others I've tried on and returned to the rack.
I thought I'd be in luck with this pair because I just happened to have bought the same jeans from the same shop three years earlier. I love them to death (here's a shot here) 
and I've spent all of the last three years looking for a similar pair but without luck. When a pair of jeans with the same name came up in the Ezibuy catalogue I thought my stars had changed. The price had gone down but surely that couldn't mean they'd changed that much about them.
Word to the wise: price does matter. Ten bucks can mean three extra inches.
I learnt this the hard way once before. We were away on holidays when I ran across a pair of cute turn-up three quarter shorts. They looked great on the rack, they were cheap, and they were just what I'd been looking for. We were in a hurry and I didn't get a chance to show either of my parents so I just picked them up.
The next morning I walked into my parents hotel room with them on. The reaction was not good. "um...Lyd." My Dad's tone could only mean one thing. I tied my jacket around my waist for rest of the day and at the first chance I got listed them on ebay. Thankgoodness on ebay it's easy to get your money back on items that are vertally brand new.
With the possibility of such a repeat ending echonig in my head I went back to my cupboard to ponder my dilemma. It wasn't that they were too tight, it wasn't that they were uncomfortable, it's just they were too low. Well, too low for this shirt. What others did I have? I scavenged around, finding two that might work. I put the red one on and showed my mum. "Is it at all feasible?"
Mum took a double take, "That actually works."
"Yeah?"
"Hiding the belt loops makes it look less obvious how low they are."
"I have two shirts this long. Know the white one with the pink beading? That one and this one. Is it worth keeping them just for two shirts?"
"How much did you pay?"
I stated the very reasonable price I'd bought them at.
"It's worth it."
I dearly hope they are. I'll give my dad a showing and wear them around a bit before I decide for good. It's insane how jeans can change with just a few wears and a wash. In the meantime, I wish I could put on weight (and so widen my choice of jeans) or find a shop that sold mid-rise jeans as cute as Ezibuy's. Maybe then the ridiculous girl-only island idea wouldn't sound so enticing.
I Find This Funny
I did a search under "ice skating winter olympics". Nothing I liked.
I did "worship". Nothing nice at all.
I did "funny". Corbis threw me a whole page of old fat ladies in a swimming pool.
Admit the Truth
I got an interesting e-mail tonight. Someone I've never met wrote, asking a very simple question. "I'm a friend of such-and-such," It began. "I was hoping that you could give me some advice on how to best help her through this time, any books to read, etc, as she struggles with M.E."
I was completely blown off my feet. This is the sweetest thing I've seen someone do for someone else in a long time.
It got me thinking about all of the doctors I wish would have said that to me--how many people I've wished would just say, "I have no idea how to help you but I'd like to try."
So many of the doctors I went to over the years have just taken one look at me and given me that dubious look that I knew ment they weren't going to take serious a word I said. There seems to be some unwritten rule in the medical world that if nothing shows up on the blood test then the patient must be lying. I used to get so angry when yet another test came back 'normal'. The doctors would shift impatiently in their big, high-backed, padded chairs; they'd clear their throat in that apologetic little way, and no matter how many evasive phrases they used I could see the truth in their eyes.
"It took me six years to become a doctor," I could hear them saying, "Four years studying, two years in field practice. I know everything there is to know about the human body. Your symptoms don't correspond with any disease in any book I've ever read. If I don't konw about it then it mustn't exist. Baby, go home. Snap out of it. It's all in your head."
By the end of the first year I didn't care so much anymore about finding a doctor who could help me as much as I just wanted to find one who had the guts to admit they had no idea what I had. I have a friend who has had severe Fibromyalgia, a form of M.E., for over thirteen years and she said she got to the same point. In the end we know the system can't help us, but oh, how nice it would be if the modern medical system would just shut it's big mouth and admit it.
Strangely enough, it hasn't been the other people with M.E. that have helped me the most but my closest very healthy friends who have said, "I have no idea how to help you, but if there's anything I can do please tell me." Words like that mean so much to someone who is chronically ill.
The one friend that has helped me the most was in fact the one who, in physical terms, never did anything. She told me straight out she could never give me advice, but that her inbox was always open to me and that whatever I wrote to her about she'd pray. She never told me what to do, she never told me how I should feel. Most often her replies were usually one line, "Know that I've read this and am praying."
In the end, though, it was her friendship that got me through the darkest times. Knowing she admitted she'd never be able to really understand what I was going through gave me the security to pour out my little heart and know I wasn't going to be ridiculed. I knew she loved me enough to listen, enough to admit she didn't understand, and enough to admit she'd give it all to God.
So often this is all that any of us ever need. We don't need someone with all the answers, and we especially don't need someone who thinks they have all the answers. Often all we need is someone who has the wisdom to hold us close and just listen in simple silence.
I find this especially hard myself. I'm a perfectionist, someone who is always trying to second guess meanings and questions. For a long time I've struggled with learning how to just let things be. When someone asks even simple questions I like to have an answer, to think I know something they need to hear.
"I don't know, please give me advice." He said.
I think about how those words make me feel and I wonder just how many hurts in this world could be avoided if you and I, and every other person, could just swallow our pride and have the guts to admit once in a while, "I don't know."
Be Happy
They come out of the woodwork. Thank you nice people for consoling my nerves. I'm sure the self-doubt meltdowns must be a writer thing. It's a lonely, fearful world we live in, vulnerable to the ever cruel whim of a temporamental audience. Indulge us. We need reassurance.
I need to remember Mr. A's advice, "They come, read and learn . Keep on writing. Don't worry, be happy! Adeus."
Yes...happy, happy, happy.
I'm moving on in my life at the moment. I feel I've finally conquered the emotional cock-and-kabuttle I was fighting and it feels like my life has finally come back to simple plain living. I've heard people talk about being on holidays and wishing morbidly for the routines of home. Right now I'm emphathizing with that thought. Though I wasn't on a holiday per say I was on a tangent of wild emotions and it's reassuring right now to be waking up, eating, and getting on with my life.
What is it the ever-wise moderator of the Sonlight Teens Forum, Mrs. A (no relation to the Mr. A of above), kept saying? "Pick up the broken pieces of your life and move on." I need to remember this also.
I've taken three steps to implement this new direction in my life:-
1. Send away for the Christian Writer's Guild Starter Kit. I've been thinking and praying about this one for a while and so far the door seems wide open. I'm not sure exactly when I might be able to sign up for real but I like the idea of having the forms to which I can gaze lovingly, show my parents, and dream about.
I'm hoping I might be able to sign up once we've shifted up north. I don't know how I'll cope physically with the shifting and settling in, so I'm kind of dubious to commit myself to a two year course before I really know. The course is by correspondence, though, and is designed to be done part-time for working adults. I'm hoping this will give me enough lee-way to be "sick".
The other big thing I love is the two annual writing conferences they hold in America every year for their students. They look so utterly tempting, not only for writing purposes, but as an excuse to get on a plane to the states. And, dear American friends, this is no promise but trust me a very, very big hope. Pray, ok? I'll need a big leap forward in my health before I can seriously consider the thought for 2007.
2. Book a trip to visit Rachel. I love my older sister and I just couldn't conceive the thought of not being able to see her until after the baby was born. I haven't, either, traveled by myself for almost two years. I've been back and forth, intrepid about the idea, but with enough talk I've convinced myself I should be well enough and even if I'm not I don't care. I'm still going. I need this trip to convince myself I'm getting better as much as to see Rachel.
I'll be going for ten days at the end of March. The weather sounds just delicious and I can't wait to get the chance to run around town with my to-be-very-pregnant-sister (keep growing Bub!).
3. Commit myself to cooking tea every Monday night. This one has been a year in the waiting (actually, make that two) and I finally decided I needed to believe I'll be strong enough and make the commitment. It was this or be dragged back to the washing dishes roster by my very indignant-at-big-sisters-being-sick-privileges brothers and sister.
Making dishes sounds a whole lot more enjoyable. And tonight on the menu is chicken stir-fry (pray the fox hasn't gotten to my chicken before I can employ a younger blood thirsty brother to be-head it).
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Please
I have a grave problem. You see, Mr. Holmes, I have a report card that hits my inbox once a week, bearing facts I cannot comprehend. First it says I have fifty visitors a week. Then it says hundred. Now it says I'm averaging fifty hits a day. Where are these people coming from? More importantly I want you to find out why they aren't commenting.
Now I know you're first thought is to accuse me of obsessively checking my blog for comments. No, I outlawed that habit. In fact it wouldn't matter if I hadn't. I made sure my counter ignores my visits, I even gave it my IP address.
Are these just random Google people? I really didn't think my blog could turn up on that many searches. My friends alone have a hard enough time remembering how to spell "cafe de flores". My mother, in fact, still makes me e-mail her my blog address everytime she wants to read my posts.
Am I famous? I can see you're smirking already. I don't write political or controversial stuff. I'm not even humorous enough to be counted a regular humour column.
What then, you might understand, I wonder. Am I a curiosity? This could bear thought, but only if the general lay people are so short on life they find it comforting to snicker over the misfortunes of a toilet-paper-sample-collecting fruitcake.
No, there must be something more. I'm sure of it. The FBI must be tailing me, drenched in belief I must be an undercover Russian spy. Or it's MI6. Mr. Bean has been into their records again and mistakenly mixed my files up with those of a notorious French bombing agent.
Me? Throwing bombs from the middle of nowhere? I tell you, sir, it's preposterous. I can't even throw a cricket ball straight.
No? You think I'm a paranoid toilet-paper-sample-colleting fruitcake? Ok, I admit it...the impulsive blog checking goblins from the INGOC support group must have targeted my blog again. Dang it. I would have liked to have been famous--or a Russian agent.
Wriggles, Wobbles, Crashes
This is a strange feeling. I can't see my blog at the moment so writing like this I feel like I'm throwing words into a gaping black hole. I'm in the mood to write, but somehow in one of those moods where I don't feel like saying anything.
I saw the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony tonight. Yay for us! My Grandma is a legend, she sent us the opneing ceremony and the first day of highlights in fast post.
What can I say about the opening ceremony? It was kind of cool, somewhat very weird, and kind of lacking in something I can't yet figure out. The best bit was probably when they did that human skiing thing, that was the best. I can't imagine how they managed to do that.
Now I have an idea...maybe the whole ceremony felt kind of dettached and wanting because it just didn't seem like a winter ceremony. Ok, yes, everyone was rugged up to the ears looking like seal pups with wild hair does perched decoratively on top, but there was no real skating. At Salt lake city they were pumping out the skaters as fast as the musicians and it was much more emotional.
Maybe I'm just picky. I did enjoy it while I was watching it. But I feel like I do after reading a mediocre book, it's good, but not striking; pretty, but not beautiful.
The first day of highlights was fun, the watching of which I've concluded must not be undertaken without the riotous company of siblings. Because Australia is so lacking in the face of Winter sports, whenever a competition came up not featuring an Australian we all chose a different country to barrack for. I chose Canada (no prizes for guessing why), Hannah went for Russia, Caleb turned traitor and cheered the Americans, and Aaron and Josh turned completely Nazi and barracked for Germany (the which of who--lamentably--won two gold medals wherease Canada didn't even get a showing. Bother it. Canada will rise to glory yet! *throws exploding bananas at Caleb*).
I'm determined I shall learn to skate yet. I don't know how this will be achieved. My family has a history of weak ankles (going by my experience with high heels I conclude I am not lacking in this gene) and despite my best efforts my determination to learn how to roller-blade landed me flat on my back with a cursing tailbone. That was not a nice day.
Ice seems nicer than concrete. I'm not sure yet why this is. Perhaps the cold environement dulls nerve endings? This could be a valid point and one I will consider worth celebrating. That is if I can get rid of my bambi legs. My last glorious display on ice also landed me flat on my backside, certain body parts smarting despite the overlaying of thick, cushiony clothing. What hurt more was my wounded little pride having to watch my two youngest brothers scooting around on the ice like ice hockey gurus. Now why can't I have that gene?
I Don't Want to Post
Before I go into a lengthy grumble about my present life I'd like to bring up a dear friend of mine, Heidi. She's going through a lot of really hard stuff with her parents and her health at the moment. She's currently having to work through the possibility of having M.E., the same disease as me. If you pray at all for me, then please pray for her. I feel she could really use a lot of extra prayer covering at the moment.
Talking with Heidi lately has brought up a lot of painful memories of the emotions I went through early last year. The last few days I've been trying, line after line, to articulate what all these feelings were like, but it's as if I'm so overwhelmed with a whole different set of emotions right now that my internal word processor can't process or organize the thoughts into readable metaphors.
Right now I'm feeling very, very confused and very, very lost. I'm battling a whole heap of normal day emotions that I can't seem to disengage from my currently messed up M.E. hormonal ones.
When I'm upset I strike out, hurt the people closest to me emotionally, suddenly see all my blessings and end up overidden with guilt. This once sparked a good thing, the writing of my poem I Saw... One day, however, I'm certain my muse is going to abandon me and I'll end up writing a guilt-induced song as odd as Rich Mullin's Screendoor.
"It's about as useless as a screendoor on a submarine
faith without words, baby, it just ain't happening
one is your right hand, one is your left
it takes two strong arms for you to hold on tight
some will cut off their nose just to spite their face
well, I think you need some works to show you're not a fake."
I remember last time I got like this I started collecting toilet paper samples. I'm serious. I started this "collumn" in my pen and ink journal titled Simple Pleasures. Whenever I came across a cool roll of toilet paper I liked I teared off a square and glued it in my journal. I have a few that still make me smile: one from my grandparents house featuring cute pictures of a little dog, and another from Rachel's place covered in purple flowers (it still smells of lavender).
I haven't found myself stealing toilet paper squares for years but now, in it's place, I find myself writing about things that embarrass me no end just so I'll have something to laugh over when I'm eighty.
Do other people do stuff like this--or am I just strangely morbib?
Japanese Moon
I saw the moon today. We went walking at dusk and in the late light it sat, heavy and orange on the horizon. I saw it and--in that strange abstract association that sometimes happens--I exclaimed instantly, "A Japanese moon!" I can't really guess why I thought that.
Despite having never seen a real Japanese moon, my sub-conscious has somehow managed to erect a predermined image of what one should look like. Glowing like a thousand party lanterns on low, I see it looming behind the spreading branches of a cherry tree. The ice blue of it's glory shows up the fragile blossoms like sugar-tipped fairies dancing demurely across it's graven face.
Our moon was orange and there wasn't a pink cherrry blossom in sight. A band of sheer cloud floated across it's glowing ochre middle, sultry like a veil, and stark like muslin cloth. It might have been an Arabian moon for all it's flirty look, an African one for the earthy glow; but no, see the trees, imagine the majestic white-capped mountains frowning stately from the background. It's a Japanese moon.
I think I like moons. I've never really thought about it before, but I always do like it when I can't sleep in the wee hours of the morning and the glow of the full moon lights my wandering way, keeping the cheeky chair legs and table corners at bay.
There's something companionable about the moon. It's just there. I forget it exists for half the time but come once a month, my toes aren't smashed and red for lack of sufficient illuminating light and I notice it's there.
Isn't this so true in every part of life? I've been thinking a lot about "simple loves" the last few days, and remembering the moon, I wonder how many other simple things I'm forgetting. Is there friendships I'm taking for granted? Late night movie watching I'm not appreciating?
I'd hate to think about this in a guilt-induced kind of way, but seriously, thinking of the olympics that line from a song in the Sydney closing ceremony repeats itself in my head: "I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye."
Elephant Dung Message
That, dear blog readers, is processed elephant dung in all it's glory. Looks awfully white doesn't it?
It carries no germs (thank goodness). It's apparently been boiled for five hours and going by the colour I hope it's been bleached. Interestingly enough, it doesn't smell. My first thought was to check for squashed flies, but there doesn't appear to be any of them either.
I found a wonderful page explaining the whole lovely elephant paper product making process. It seems the Thai's have it down to a fine art.
Changing topics here. What on earth was I doing lamenting about not having a boyfriend while the Winter Olympics were beginning? I need help or something.
Note to Self: Next time you want to have a pity party remember the Winter Olympics only come every four years--surely the other three years and eleven months are sufficient time to bemoan your lack of marital status.
*bangs head on keyboard*
I can't wait to see the opening ceremony. After making such a hype about the whole thing y'all are going to laugh at me now when I tell you I won't be able to see it for at least another week or two. We don't have TV channels so I'll have to wait for my Grandma down south to finish taping the highlights and send them up.
This is me. Writing love notes on processed elephant dung and waiting--ever waiting for mail day to come.
Save Me from Myself
I decided one thing when I came back to blogging, I told myself I wouldn't write about what I felt I should write about, I'd write about what I wanted to write (meaning it could be my Dad's birthday and I could talk about chipmunks eating mangoes). This I decided and this I'm going to do. I've primed everything up to talk about Thailand or the Winter Olympics, but I don't feel at all like talking about either of them right now.
I haven't been thinking about them. I've been thinking about everything but them. Isn't that strange? I find myself talking about everything but what I want to be writing about sometimes often, I think, because I don't know how to talk about it. I've been living in a whirly-wind of emotions lately, knowing what I should be feeling, but ending up angry at myself because I can't feel it.
I haven't been able to feel content.
Rachel rang today and sitting in my big old chair on the front verandah I gushed my little heart out. I've felt so disconnected lately, like I'm just sitting here waiting for life to start. As I sit here I've been thinking about all that I want to be. I've been thinking about wanting to travel, wanting to write, wanting to be able to get up at the same time every day, but most of all I've been thinking about wanting to be married.
I thought I wasn't like those girls that set their minds on being a wife and mum and then consume themselves with it. After my post in December I wrote about not being that. I talked about how that's so unbalanced and how walking with God is after all one day at a time. When it comes to the crunch I don't think I am that, but unawares of how it really happens, I became it.
I began reading blogs by older women I highly respected. I don't think there is anything wrong with this, but somehow these people post more than others and so I've been reading a lot about this stuff, about them being mums and wives and because my reading has been so limited latley, this is what is filling up my head.
I love what they write but at the same time I've been thinking so much about the future that I've started worrying about it. Fretting. Seriously, fretting. What if I never get married? What if some guy never comes along? What if I'm not pretty enough? What if the guy I'm destined to be with meets me wearing my drabbiest clothes, smelling like I haven't taken a shower in two days, and my face is all red and oily? What if I analyze him too much and write him off as no good instead of really praying about it? What if...what if...what if...
I've started freaking myself out. A mutilated line from the Evanescence song "Bring Me To Life" keeps going over and over in my head.
"Wake me up inside. Wake me up inside. Save me from myself. Bid my blood to run before I come undone. Save me from the nothing I've become."
Those of you who know the song are going to laugh at me because that's not the real lyrics and that's not at all what the song is about, but that's what keeps singing over and over in my mind. I keep thinking, "Wake me up...wake me up...save me from myself."
What kind of a fruitcake am I? I don't want to become like those girls. I don't want to become like that. I don't want to turn obessive, I don't want to turn so narrow minded. I dont' want to think of every new guy I meet as a possible husband instead of a possible friend. Save me. Quick.
The other night I pulled out a little book I bought ages ago called "A Maiden in Waiting: cultivating contentment in the season of singleness" and flicking through it, a few words by one girl really struck home with me. She wrote:
"I know that like me, many of you have a deep heart's desire to be a wife and mother. Each of us needs to take this desire and lay it on the altar of sacrifice...I am particularly fond of the following definition of contentment: realizing God has provided everything I need for my present happiness."
I ran my finger across the page...I wanted to crush the little book in my hands, hide my face in the pillow and scream my heart out. I had not done this.
Last year I came to a point where I had to give up my desire to get better to God. I remember I had to admit that maybe I'd be sick for life and asked myself if I could live with that. Eventually I thought I had and in that thinking I somehow thought I'd never have to do it again, that sacrificing all my dreams and desires once took care of it for life, but it seems it doesn't.
I've begun getting better and I've begun pulling my dreams back out of the mud, wipping them off and shining them back to their former beauty. It seems I've spent so much time on the motherhood one lately that it's come to this point where it's glow has consumed and blinded me.
I couldn't figure out how I could be getting physicaly better and yet be so unhappy. I was praying so hard to God, but I wasn't finding any peace. Why wasn't He listening? Why wasn't He talking to me? Where was the joy He promised?
I went to Isaiah chapter 59. I wasn't looking for an answer, I was almost doing it out of obligation, only expecting the words to blur in my head like everything else was.
Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save--it began--nor his ear to dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
This made me angry. Ragingly angry. God has felt so far away lately and misinterpreting my discontent, I thought it was because He's been hiding. It was His fault, I sub-consciously accused, He's let me be so sick the last two weeks and filled me with all this brain fog and pain so that I haven't been able to read his word and understand Him, or sit down to pray and be able to train my thoughts into sayable words.
It definitely wasn't my fault. Oh, no. What have I been doing? Planning for the future. Thinking about the things He's said He has planned for me. Trying to get better. Trying not to get too angry or irritated with anyone. No, it couldn't be me, I decided in my heart. I definitely hadn't murdered anyone.
Isaiah ignored my outburt and kept speaking--no one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with intergrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies...the way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace.
I felt instantly admonished, like Paul says God's word often does. I had no peace. I definitely had no peace, but I had never imagined it was because I had been pleading my case without integrity, relying on my empty arguments that were filled with more rage at His seemingly injustice than a contrite spirit and a broken heart. I have been behaving like a spoilt little child, angry I can't have my lolly, when first I need to delight myself in the Lord, sacrificing all my desires to His time and plan.
I'm note sure yet exactly what this all entails, I really don't. I said earlier that I don't believe reading blogs by older women that I respect is a sin, but obviously filling my mind with all they write right now has set me thinking too much about the future. Could it really be this one thing has consumed me so much it's separated me from God? Can I really be that shallow, can I really be that blind?
I hate how this thought blows my pride, how it reminds me just how humanly frail I am. I thought knowing of a sin could keep you from it, but it seems it makes no difference. I'm as human as I was before.
Wake me up inside. Wake me up inside. Save me from myself.
I Was Counting, Wasn't I?
Terribly sorry to have missed a day. Here's to make up.
It Was Once: 3 days to go until the Winter Olympics.
My excuse?
1. I went to town.
2. I got my Learner's License.
3. My brother missed his plane.
4. We had to wait in a motel room all day waiting for him to arrive on the bus.
5. I drank lots of wildberry yoghurt and ate half a roasted chicken (Serious, I have trouble finding things I can buy read-to-eat from a super market that I'm not allergic to).
6. I had a lovely time at the library.
7. Dear Josh finally arrived at 7pm.
8. We left town for the two hour drive home.
9. I learnt lots of wonderful things about Thailand.
10. We arrived home at ten.
11. I was very cranky.
12. I went to bed.
Now after 12 hours sleep and a whole day of reading you'd think I'd be better, but no, Mr. M.E. has the upper hand this time. I had to get up at 6.30am for the trip to town and I had such a migraine the night before that I didn't get anything more than a noninconsicental cat-nap.
I'm very, very tired. I'm very, very irritable. And I'm going to bed. Adeaus.
Countdown: 2 days to go until the Winter Olympics.
P.S. Would you believe me if I said my darling younger brother bought me a notebook made out of elephant dung?
I've Been Published!
Well, kind of. Sort of. Maybe...
I submitted a post to Crystal's blog and she posted it. Some of you might remember the post (I wrote it just before Christmas about the figure skating in the winter olympics and wanting to be a mum one day).
I totally did not expect her to post it but she did! I can't believe it. I had to show my Mum straight away; she read it, and gave me one of those I'm-smiling-'cause-I'm-too-choked-up-to-speak kind of looks. I so love my Mum.
You can see the post here at Biblical Womanhood Online.
International Nuances
Elyse and I have had an interesting time communicating lately, bringing to a light a lot of Aussie slang I didn't know existed. I thought I had the worse of them figured out, but today Jolene and I had what has to be the ultimate international miscommunication of the month.
I woke up feeling wonderful that's how it began. A miracle had occurred over night and the raging temperature had dropped from a frightening 47 to a lovely 39. The breeze is cool, like a breath of life, instead of the furnace blast of oven-hot gales it has been the last week; and as I sit here now the wind chime in our patio is tinkling it's little heart out, making me think of autumn, spring, and all things that aren't right now.
It was early, that was the other miracle. I was awake at ten thirty and actually really awake. I've been meaning to ring Jolene for weeks, but with my sleeping routine being so messed up, by the time I got up she would have already been in bed and fast, fast asleep (or so we can only hope. Late night sojourns for both of us mightn't have been a good thing for the world at large).
So I rang. I jumped out of bed, ran for the phone still in my pink cookie monster pj's (so I dream about food in my sleep, leave me alone), and dialed darling Jolene's number. Good days deserve a cherry top, and laughing with Jolene is always a cherry on top of any lovely large-bowl-of-ice-cream day.
We got to talking about furniture. I can't remember how that happened. But somehow we did and Jolene says off-hand, "My Dad bought this wooden rocking bench for my mum once. I think it was for her birthday or an anniversary or some such."
Now I'm Aussie (duh), and I didn't associate rocking bench with the right object (we call kitchen counters benches over here). Immediately I invisioned a kitchen counter rocking back and forth like a rocking chair and screwing up my little nose I exclaimed gullibly, "I don't think I've ever seen a rocking bench."
"Are you serious? Well, this is just lovely. It's made of this wood that smells beautiful."
"What on earth do you use it for?"
"You sit on it!"
"What? Why would you do that..."
"Because it swings and..."
"Oh! Do you mean like a swing? Like a porch swing? I thought you were meaning a bench like a kitchen counter! I was thinking of a kitchen bench and I couldn't figure out why anyone would want a kitchen bench to rock. Just imagine, you're chopping onions and it rocks unexpectedly and whoosh! off flies the chopping board."
Like I said, it has to be the ultimate international mess-up of the month. I thought it was funny the first time I rang her and her Dad answered the phone and couldn't understand my accent and nearly hung up on me. But this is almost better. Who on earth has ever heard of a rocking kitchen bench? Maybe I should Google it.
Countdown: 4 days to the Winter Olympics.
The Bulldozer
There is a beast hiding in our back paddocks. It has two siblings. They're all ferocious. They belch, they bellow, they crash and bang. They sound like some vampire combination of schreeching train wheels and the roar of half starved prehistoric beasts. If you want to win a war, buy a couple. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommened meeting up with one in the dead of night (Unless, of course, you were under a bet to win a million dollars. In which case, I'd volunteer to drive).
My Dad has spent the last three years of the drought rattling around in these huge contraptions, pushing down mulga trees so the sheep have feed to eat. Just yesterday Mum thought we'd better get some photos for our "historical records", so we braved the 46 degree heat to bring you these.
>>>It's, um, big.
>>>This is the huge bar used for pushing over the trees. The bar on this one is 25 feet long and so heavy it's constantly snapping off the holding pins. One of our other bulldozers is even bigger and has one that's 30 feet long, the length of two normal cars.
>>>An interesting shot of the windscreen. The trees are meant to fall in front of the bulldozer but sometimes they manage to fall onto it. It's a wonder the one responsible for the windscreens current condition didn't go all the way through.
>>>Maybe we're looking wistfully at the clouds?
Tell Me What You See
First of all I have to say a big thank you to AC from Portugal (!) who kindly sent me screen shots of what my blog looks like interpreted by Mozilla and Internet Explorer. It seems that the writing is white when viewed by IE and black when viewed by Mozilla and a few other browsers. All very interesting.
Secondly, thank you, thank you so much to Andrew who galantly dove into my HTML mess and came out victorious. You're my hero! I've changed the HEX code you pointed out. Could everyone please tell me it's all fixed? Please, please....
NOTE: If the problem is not fixed, please send me the message by snail mail with chocolate attached.
Say To the Prince
First of all, a quick note for Elyse. Sooking, I've concluded, is much the equivalent of griping. Dictionary.com terms 'griping' as: "Informal: To complain naggingly or petulantly; grumble." I looked up the aussieslang.com site and according to them the word 'sook' is an Australian term. Sorry for the confusion there.
This whole website colour thing is really depressing. I had no idea it was so widespread. Is it like that throughout my whole website? I have no idea where to start to fix the whole problem. I've waded time and time again through all the base HTML jargon in my main page, but the problem, wherever it is, it's well camouflaged.
I'm barely HTML literate. I have bandaids over bandaids in my CSS codes which I realise if I had a little extra knowledge I could have done a much better job, but being the lazy person I am I just bluffed my way through. I remember I did make a point of choosing to use the colours they recommended as being readable on any and every computer and browser. What baffles me is how something so strange could have then happened. How is it some silly browser can't interprete the universal HEX code for white?
It's late. It's 2am here and I'm more than a little riled. My sleeping pattern has gone completely out the roof the last two weeks. I had some huge migraines and a few cases of really bad insomnia. Last night was my third 4am night, so I guess I should accept the fact that I probably still have two more hours of my day to fill.
I hate this sometimes. I don't hate it like I used to do because it doesn't affect me emotionally like it once did. I haven't sat in the corner and cried myself to sleep for months. Sometimes now it's almost fun. I'll put on the movie I've been dying to re-watch for ages or use it as an excuse to serf brainlessly across the internet. But it grows old, you know. This is the second week and I'm sick to death of waking up after lunch.
I can never get much done in half a day, and even though I might be awake half the night it's hard to do things under the glare of a bright fluro light when you're really trying every trick in the book to get to sleep early. Then of course the original reason why my sleep is so botched is because I'm having some major allergic reaction. Lately this has involved migraines, brain fog, hyper-tention, bloating, hypoglycemia reactions and it's really hard to read books when I can't focus my eyes straight or process what I'm reading.
I want to write. Maybe this is half the reason why the last two weeks have upset me so much. I can't write when my brain is exploding like this. I can't think straight or visualize what my characters might be doing.
I was laying in bed just before trying to get to sleep when a scene from Meet Me in Arabia began playing before my eyes. It was strange really. This was a scene I'd left off writing because I couldn't see it and suddenly, randomly, here it was.
It's an intriguing scene, a rather pivotal one, where the main objective is for Rebrina to have a complete breakdown in the backseat of a white convertable in the prescence of an arabian prince, a Texan, and the rather rogueishly cute guy she's already made a fool of herself more than once in front of before. I skipped to writing a later scene simply because Connor was being way too jovial, the prince wasn't saying his lines right, and Rebrina wouldn't stop crying.
It was nice when the scene came back to me with an opening line from the prince that was dripping in just enough leer and sarcaism. I could see the arabian dust swirling up behind the back wheels of the car to settle in Rebrina's flying hair and her eyes were flashing with anger instead of pooling with incontrollable tears. This was good. I could see it--then it went blank. I hate how late nights, migraines and brain fog do that.
I could begin the scene and suck the words out, but I'd hate it more than I do right now. I've tried writing through the fog before, but the lines only come out smudged and blurred.
If I was to write anything I probably should go back to Liana. I swore solemnly to Rach H, my writing partner, that I wouldn't even read Meet Me in Arabia for a year. I wanted to have the rough drat for Liana almost finished by the first week in February, which was probably a most unatainable goal, but in December I was on quite a roll. I left Liana on the brink of the most pivotal scene in the whole story and I feel almost bad for leaving her to wander the shelves of a cold Organic Dairy for so long.
It's funny how I can talk about my stories and they sound almost cool. The thoughts and connotations are much more impressive than the actual reality. I want to go hide my head in the sand when I think of my characters who repeatedly say the most piously inappropriate lines, my descriptions of arabian desert villages that make sandcastles look good, and this one British dude who's most atrocious swear word to date is "damn". I write the most inconsistent, unoriginal rubbish imaginable. I should be dragged out and hanged as the worse writer of this modern millennium.
What The?
What's with everyone telling me I've got black on black? I'm totally lost. Is this only when I change the font colour to highlight a line or two, or is this all my main writing all the time?
This is what I see when I look at my blog.
What on earth are you guys seeing?
Why I'll Never Be a Checkout-Chick
The verdict is in; the truth is out--it seems I shall never be a checkout-chick. This not because any stories by Rach H. have necessarily scared me senseless (though some of her experiences leave me viewing my fellow shoppers in a anger paranoid kind of fear). No, it seems more is at stake here. If I was to become a check-out chick my legs might explode.
Some of you might remember me sooking a few posts before about my legs swelling up in the heat. It was really bothering me and I wrote Jo about it. Turns out it's probably more a problem with my blood circulation. It comes on worse when I'm more active and walking regularly. Jo reckons it sounds like my heart is having trouble pumping my blood back up into my body so it's getting stuck in my legs. Sounds gross, no?
Apparently vitamin C is really good for blood circulation and in the last few days that I've been taking more my legs haven't been anywhere near as bad. It sounds like it should improve the more I exercise. I've just been sick so long that all the muscles in my body have deteriorated badly, including my heart muscles.
'Tis a nuisance, but it seems to say once and for all that I'll never be able to get a job that intails a lot of standing up. No behind the counter jobs for me; no checkout-chick positions. Frankly I like the idea. Being a checkout chick never appealed to me and, to be truthful, I can't wait for the day someone suggests to me a behind the counter job and I get to reply, "Um...no...that's probably not a good idea. My legs might explode."
