"I don't want to miss a single thing you do tonight."

well, well, well. at this point it's about all i have to say. i've long had a list of things to blog about, but i haven't. most likely if you've talked to me in the last 3 months, we've discussed bits of it. among the topics: all things cynical, grace, community, the character of GOD (specifically old testament vs. new), my acting/auditioning/(in)ability to access emotions onstage vs. off, my relationship with my dad shadowing how i resent boys who tell me what to do, and of course, more and more kid stories. if any of the aforementioned interest you, let me know and i'll expound.

i had a chat with an old friend last night about how i don't write anymore (he doesn't so much either) and how that affects us. i've been tempted to write, but haven't for fear of my intentions not being communicated. after the chat with him, and the fact that i found and read my journals in my recent move (ok: not-so-recent move, but recent unpacking), i realize how much i need to start again.

returning from a weeklong trip to illinois, as ever, has stirred up things in me that i didn't realize were there. hit me pretty strongly. still digesting that, and unsure of how to work through most of it. i hate being so cryptic, and also hate to be so cliche (like posting an introspective entry on the last day of the year, jill?). basically, it's astounding to still be going through the same thing(s) after processing them so many times before. it's also ridiculously pedestrian, predictable and reassuring. did i mention that i've been journaling since 1996? good googly moogly, that's 13 years.

on the bright side, i do know that once i process and come to a place of spewing things out, there are lots of people to listen. more importantly, people that i love, trust, respect, and value. if 2009 did nothing else for me, it made me realize that i'm favored and fortunate to have a plethora of those who understand. or attempt.

before this turns into a bigger piece of prosaic banality, i'm off to hussy myself up and enjoy the evening. finish strong, beezys.

"He so crazy; he can't even read!"

Rather than waiting to post another list, I believe this one stands on it's own.

"Can you get your backpack, por favor?"

"Why'd you just call me a por favor?"

"It means 'please' in Spanish."

"Oh. I thought you were calling me an animal. You know...carnivore, porfivore...

"Grossy gross!" and other quotable delights...

this month brings a nice little mix of differing philosophical depths...

"This song has been in my head for 3 years. Seriously, when I was 4, this song was in my head."

"It's an unredoable mistake."

"Algebra isn't hard. Smartness is making the right choices."
"It can't be exactly the same."
"All it takes to be wise is to admit that you don't know everything." Jacob, 2nd grade

"I don't know! I'm not a kid! I'm a mature grown adult." Emilio, 5th grade

"There's no such thing as perfect. There's no such thing as stop dying. You are always dying."

(Me: "Let's sound it out.") "You can spell it-you're an adult." Noah, 2nd grade

"Are Jack Johnson and Michael Jackson related?" Maria, age 3

"What in the world is Bugs Bunny?"

"Billy Ocean invented the moonwalk and Michael Jackson stole it." Kaylee, 4th grade

"(He) just hit me in the nuts. You know, those little round things down there." Gustavo, kinder

"YOU FORGOT THE NOSE POKES!"

more from the minds of the childrens....

"What do you think is the most popular car in the world?"
"Are you a Christian?"
"Do you celebrate Halloween?"
"Who was the first person to use money?"
"When I grow up, who will give me my phone number?"

"What does negative mean?"
(insert Jill giving an in-depth subtraction lesson, complete with plastic soccer men)
"So how can a story be negative or positive?"
(hey...little kids DO listen to NPR if it's on in the car. as further evidenced by his insistence that he wants to "Listen to the news!")

and the highlight of the week:

(radio DJ announces that the previously played Taylor Swift song is the biggest deal in the country)
"Um, no. The National Anthem is actually the biggest song in the country." DUH.

p.s. i'm currently missing the verve and the mommyheads.

"Hey, man...don't trivialize my trivialization."

(disclaimer: this is my first attempt to blog with photos. and they aren't very good ones. humor me.)

For me, a good trip to Galesburg has many expectations. It's as if the town is a person, and there are things that I do to reacquaint myself; some from habit, some for nostalgia's sake, and many just because I like to be by myself so much. I usually spend a few hours at Innkeepers reading, writing, and people watching. Ditto Lake Storey (with the bonus of lightening bugs!). I like to drive around, listening to WVKC and the bricks hum beneath the tires of a car. I take a bike ride to Bracken, past Conner's parents' farm.

At any rate, a solid trip starts with 12 hours of this:














.


Inevitably ends up stopped at a few of these:













.



If I'm lucky, time for a few of these:













.




As of late, it's definitely included some of this:














.


Always a walk to this place:














.

















But the majority of my time is spent right here:













.


Coming or going, this always stirs some thoughts:













.


This trip included the highlight of seeing this little guy (Ian Matthew King):

"Seal the deal! Seal the deal! Punch her! PUNCH HER!"

Kids came to school today, and I'm sure they'll provide for many a future post, but ALL of the quotes I'm about to list are courtesy of the 7 year old I nanny for...he was quite entertaining today. woo doggies.

upon hearing i'll attend a wedding at the Butterfly Pavillion: "You've GOT to be kidding me!"

upon hearing i might read something at said wedding: "Read something? Like a riddle? or a joke? or a poem? ...like blah blah blah the girl kisses the boy...."

"What's wrong with your feet?"

"Cool people kiss a lot. That's how the movie people make it. The cool guy. He kisses girls, he has a motorcycle."

"Why do people say 'ladies first'? Pretty much only ladies say that."

"I just like chasing girls. With balls."

...ah yes, a quote from JD uttered during a recent(ish) kickball game. he decided to run the ball in from right field, as opposed to throwing it to the basemen. good times, indeed. joining a kickball team is one of the items on my "to do" list that i've actually honored. no mind that travels, working, and weddings have kept me from attending many games.

i've got a backlog of things to type, but let's face it: i'm a bad blogger. (alas, school will start in less than 3 weeks. those kids will guarantee at least a clever story per week.) i had intended to write an entertaining bit about my 12-hour stint in the milwaukee airport (complete with field trip to the lake via mass trans), but my allergies kicked it into high gear and now i have an ear infection. i've been down for the count since my return. but i'm starting to feel better and went to the Tattered Cover for some reading tonight. and found that some of my favorite publications really delivered this month. my next entry will be semi-inspired by a Jon Stewart interview from SOJOURNER. tonight, a few tidbits from HARPER'S.

• Estimated percentage of all existing blogs that have not been updated in 4 months: 94
• Percentage of male British IT workers who say they consider their sex partners' needs before their own: 82
• Percent by which moderate internet surfers are more productive in their jobs than non-surfers: 9
• Chances that a Twitter user accesses the service only while at work: 2 in 3

p.s. the cds that i'm missing today are The Boy with the Arab Strap by Belle & Sebastian, the Stones' Some Girls, and Wilco's summerteeth. A trip to Twist & Shout didn't help.

You hugged me at Christmas and you hugged me good.

I've been less than faithful to my summer "to do" list, and this blog is but one sorely suffering aspect. There are about three major entries (errr, ideas) bouncing around my brain. They've all made it onto the pages of my journal, hopefully they'll spill out here soon.

For today, I'm ruminating on some basic questions. Simple, really. At the same time complex. Blame it on 24 hours bathed in one too many episodes of Sex & the City, as well as a few movies posing questions both spiritual and existential (damn you, Wes Anderson!). You may think that spiritual and existential cover the same ground, but I'm going to separate them. And address neither of them too specifically here.

Why is it, in matters of relationships, that we (desperately seeking early 30s types) don't risk more...and more often? I know that the last few years have brought me to a place of understanding myself and my emotions more than I ever thought I would. It can be argued that I know what I want and am unwilling to settle.

"Anything less than extraordinary is a waste of my time."...a quote from a movie I first saw in my early 20s. It has long been a mantra. However, the relationships that I've endured since have shown me that compromise isn't necessarily a weakness.

Random chats with strangers are my specialty. Yet, I've been hesitant to throw caution (or cushions) to the wind in any serious manner. Perhaps I've clung a bit too tightly to my definition of extraordinary. If my experience has shown that I learn more from being in a relationship, and that the hurt of an ending is, indeed, bearable...what am I still afraid of?

Ramble ramble...make a point...I don't think I'm really afraid anymore. Maybe the risks I was unwilling to take in my 20s were due to fear, but the lack of action now can only be chalked up to apathy.

It seems to me that we have more to gain and less to lose than ever before.

(side note: of the 600 cds i no longer have, today i'm missing Frou Frou and Jesus & the Mary Chain)

right where it hurts...

it was the last week of january, 2004, 7:30 in the morning. i got a phone call from my friend jeremy telling me that our friend from chicago, chris, had just been found dead. no details, just dead. at first i was confused, because we had always called him "Carl", but then i connected the dots. it was the 4th friend to die in as many years, all in december or january. i'd done this "grieving" thing before. but never from 900 miles away. never alone.

during that same time i had been listening to Leona Naess' self-titled album. the kind of record where you don't have a favorite track, because you have three. it has just been recently that i can listen to that album and not go back to the place i was in...mentally, emotionally....back in the early part of 2004.

i made a trip to Second Spin a few weeks ago and got Leona's most recent, THIRTEENS. mmm mmm mmm. as i pack to leave in the morning to meet 7 of my high school girlfriends, it's fitting that a song entitled "Not the Same Girl" would resonate.

these are the best days of your life
dinner parties, and friends and noone's wife

climbin' down the apple tree
i can see your strength in me
storms are brewin' and we're headin' for a change
friends will marry and move away
you will look back at it all
memories rage across an empty hallway

you're not the same girl who
writes love songs and means them
you're not the same girl who
has butterflies and believes them

i won't stop needing you
and i won't stop wanting to

i'm not the same girl who writes postcards
for strangers
i'm not the same girl who wears pigtails
says "I love you"

when we knew
when we knew
when we knew it all

we're not the
same girls who
watched movies and believed them

i definitely still wear pigtails. and i'm certainly grateful for friends like jeremy who would call me at an ungodly hour just to make me feel connected....for friends who have seen me through those times like 2004 (and even more recently), when nothing made sense and i wanted to stay there, in confusion and hopelessness, rather than deal with it. i've lately been thinking a lot about how to allow people to love me, to care for me, and i'm struggling to verbalize my appreciation. or to simply recognize that love. so thank you. i'm not the same girl.

Thursday conversation

"Seven take away two."

"Five. I'm five!" exclaims the boy. "Are you five?"

"No, I'm a lot more than five."

"Thirteen. Are you thirteen?"

"I'm twenty-seven more than five."

"Are you almost old? 'Cuz when you're old, God comes and takes you away. Then you know what he looks like."

"We came in somewhere between 'crackhead' and 'has a gun'."

SUMMER 2009 TO DO LIST

• play at least 5 disc golf courses
• sit on Stella's patio twice (and find a new patio on which to sit)
• volunteer at MaxFund weekly
• visit 2 new speakouts
• save at least $100 per month
• go to the Bluebird, hi-dive, Gothic, and Fox
• join a book club
• go to church every week
• blog once a week
• visit 3 new superlatives on road trip
• skateboard once a week
• diligently work on Words Words Words (my dictionary journal)
• do 5 new-to-me hikes
• enroll in at least once class (ceramics, improv, dance, scene study, or "school")
• visit the Hall family, either in Cortez or at Lake Powell
• work on a Habitat for Humanity house
• camp 3 times
• read ten Old Testament books
• go see Carhenge (perhaps with Micah?)
• go to at least 2 First Fridays (Santa Fe & Tennyson)
• buy my produce from Farmer's Markets
• play on a softball or kickball team
• do the Oak Park Frank Lloyd Wright walking tour
• journal twice a week
• JUMP STREET! JUMP STREET! JUMP STREET! (this will probably be the birthday)
• visit at least one museum per month
• talk to KJ (RE: Wyoming State Fair)
• handwrite 2 letters per week

"It whistles, it snorts...that thing is a Cuisinart."

Today it was in the blissful upper 70s, so I headed to my car during recess to put on my Chacos. I was parked immediately next to the playground. As I opened my door, two 2nd grade boys ran up to the fence.

One of them yells at me, "What you got up in there?".
To which I reply, "Just shoes. I'm changing them."
"No! What kinda engine you got up in there?"

2nd grade. Ridiculous.

Who needs a manual to write real good?

(I'm a huge NPR fan (read: nerd) ...I've recently all but completely turned off the hip-hop in my car. I heard this story twice on All Things Considered Thursday. It was just as good the second time. I highly recommend listening.)

Today marks the 50th anniversary of William Strunk and E.B. White's Elements of Style, the grammar manual used by millions of students, including commentator Marc Acito. (Incidentally, I read Acito's first novel, How I Paid For College, a few years ago.)
Me and a friend was talking about using proper grammar. And he says to I, "Today is the 50th anniversary of Strunk and White's Elements of Style." (1)
So I got me a copy and totally mesmerized this vast suppository of information. For instance, Strunk and White says, "Write with nouns and verbs." (2) Myself, for one, is relieved to know this, as I have been trying to write with macaroni and cheese.
And it is never recommended to willfully and recklessly — because it puts undue emphasis on the adverb — split an infinitive. (3) Oops. You might have just heard out of the corner of your ear that the passive voice was used by myself. It is to be avoided. (4) Unless you are the CEO of a bank, in which case you cannot do your job without saying "mistakes were made."
Other rules they learned me were to not verbify a word by adding a suffix. (5) Avoid cliches like the plague. (6) Use adverbs sparingly. (7) And do not speak in the negative. (8)
They also recommend using language that is definite, specific and concrete. So don't say, "We had a period of bad weather." (9) Say, "Every definite day for a week it rained concrete." See how that sentence is kinda, y'know, specific? More or less?
Strunk and White continues to update their book, even though both of them are dead. (10) But some of their advice is old-fashioned and, frankly, downright arachnophobic.
For instance, they say to keep related words together. (11) That's fine for all intensive purposes, but what if one of your related words empties your bank account and goes to Atlantic City and loses all your money at the blackjack table? Yeah, that word is dead to me. And you know who you are, grandma.
When it comes to "shall" and "will," Strunk and White gives the following example: (12) "A swimmer in distress cries, 'I shall drown; no one will save me!' " But a suicide says, "I will drown; no one shall save me!" And I say, "You two (pedantic) know-it-alls deserve to drown." I mean, what about "Help!"
And with regarding the difference between lie and lay (13) — no one actually knows the difference, but politicians do both.
So who needs a manual to write real good? In the age of tweeting and texting, Elements of Style deserves to fade into Bolivia.

1) http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i32/32b01501.htm
2) Elements of Style, Third Edition, 1979, p. 71
3) Elements, p. 58
4) Elements, p. 18
5) Elements, p. 50
6) Elements, p. 81
7) Elements, p. 75-76
8) Elements, p. 19
9) Elements, p. 21
10) http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/10/23/frankenstrunk/
11) Elements, p. 28
12) Elements, p. 58
13) Elements, p. 51

"Every Sunday we go to church to PRAISE THE LORD!"

the blog title comes from a 6-year-old who was talking to himself during a math activity at school yesterday. did i mention that the kid is a Russian gypsy? ferreals.

i've thought of posting often, but haven't done it. i hope this satisfies the legions of my readers (read: fransene). i have a few things brewing, and if i can break myself away from my exciting face-mask-nail-polish-Freaks-and-Geeks Friday night, I may type them in. i recently started to write again....no promises, but we'll see.

as i realize that i'm more of a "Dear Diary" type blogger, i also realize that if you haven't talked to me recently, only read this pap, you might think i was in the bell jar. i was. i'm not anymore. whew. good friday, folks.