Last night I went to a birthday party for my friend Edgar. Edgar is one of those amazing people that everyone loves. Spend five minutes with him and you know what I mean. He is so good-natured. He accepts everyone for who they are, where they are. So of course his birthday celebration brought together a good size group. A group of people who were all very happy to celebrate the birth of someone so wonderful. I think Edgar enjoyed himself and his friends very much. I was happy to see so many happy people. It's nights like last night that make you remember why you love being alive and what a weird and wonderful thing it can be to be a part of the human race. It is truly beautiful to watch the ways we express love, joy, appreciation, admiration, and gratitude.

My friend Esther has a journal entirely devoted to writing down all the things that make her smile. I thought it was a great idea, so I started one too. Here are some of my favorites I have written down (in no particular order).

1. the smell of cookies baking
2. fresh mango juice
3. watching people dance
4. big smiles
5. a clear, starry night
6. watching exotic fish
7. corny jokes
8. people laughing
9. chocolate
10. solving puzzles
11. day dreaming
12. my family
13. meeting new people
14. the way the sun feels on my hair
15. a glass of wine while listening to Over the Rhine

What makes you smile?

Pulp Fiction

I watched Pulp Fiction last night for the first time. I was nervous I wouldn't enjoy it, but I did. I see why it is a classic now.

Pencil Me In

For all you Augustans, I am playing at R.Gabriel's on Friday night from 8-10pm. Pencil it in your schedule if you can. I'd love it if any of you can make it.

Nashville was fun. Mary and I stayed at a small hostel. We met two young, fanatical, Bilble beating girls from PA. We met a Scotsman who was so polite that when he got ditched by the two Bible beaters, only to be stuck at Starbucks with a pastor he just met who was trying to convert him for 5 hours, he just sat there and listened to the man and prayed that if there was a God he would make it all end. We met an Australian who was exactly what you would imagine an Australian to be, fun-loving, good-natured, but not loud or over-bearing, just laid back. Australians are great. And there was Gina. She runs the hostel and was really great. If anyone is interested in a good place to stay just outside of Nashville, I reccommend River Retreat Hostel. It's cheap, it's clean, and it's a hell of a lot more interesting than a boring old hotel. Anyway, Mary and I did the zoo and an art museum/botanical garden. We had some good sister bonding time. I'm glad I got to come home this summer.

ROAD TRIP!!!!!!

My little sister and I are hitting the road tomorrow for Nashville, Tennessee! I'm glad. It'll be good to spend some time with Mary without her boyfriend, work, and life in general to hassle us.

Funny Movie

I watched The Wedding Crashers last night. It was a good funny movie with lots of unique and interesting characters. My favorites were the classic sweet little foul-mouthed granny, the misunderstood gay artist, and Will Ferrell's character. The movie is worth seeing for sure.

Wanted Dead or Alive

It seems that I have become a fugitive of the law. While I was away, I was called to jury duty. I never responded, because I obviously didn't get the letters. So I get a notice in the mail today informing me that I must show up in court on August 4th or there will be a warrant for my arrest. Lovely.

In other news, my car broke down this week as well. It's all fixed now, but geez. I'm in town for one week and it falls apart on me. Markus (a guy I work with) and I decided that my car was mad at me for abandoning it and now it's payback time. It's possible.

The week hasn't been a total loss though. I've spent alot of time with my older sis. I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I finished rearranging/cleaning the kitchen, living room, dining room, and front hall of my parents' house. And tonight I ran into a friend I didn't really expect to run into while I was here for the month. We sat and talked and had dinner at the Bees Knees. It was one of those nights where you felt a bit like you were starring in a movie. Does that make sense? It was just such an unexpected pleasant suprise that it didn't even feel like it was my life. But silly me, I should know by now that life has tons of little suprises for everyone everyday, and that includes me.

Break Ups and Wake Ups

I have a close friend who has just broken up with her boyfriend. For the year-and-a-half they have been together, it has been this constant on-again-off-again game. My evalutation of the situation is that she is of a codependent nature and he is of a manipulative nature. She feels worthless if there is no one out there desperately needing her at every moment. She feels helpless to make decisions for herself and then has trouble taking responsibility for the decisions she does make. He wants someone to take care of him. And we are talking take care of him as if he were a five year old boy. He requires her to be his alarm clock, his driver, his ATM, and the list goes on.
She keeps trying to break up with him, knowing that the relationship is unhealthy and is not something she can live with or would want to live with. But he keeps hanging things over her head and making her feel guilty for dumping him.
I want to encourage her that she is doing the right thing. I want to be there to help her stand by her decision, because I know that he will keep trying to talk her out of it. But ultimately, the decision is hers. She has to believe in herself and in her decision. I can't do it for her and my god that is so hard sometimes. You sit on the side and watch someone you love do something incredibly stupid and you can't do anything. You talk to them, give advice, offer a shoulder to cry on, etc. But at the end of the day, it is on their shoulders to carry it all out.
On a side note, it reminds me to be grateful for my situation. It is easy for a single person to get depressed about the fact that they haven't had a significant other in (gulp) 8 years. And I think there is a rule out there that negates any high school boyfriends from counting after you have graduated college. So that would leave me at having zero significant others. Anyways, society would lead us to believe that my life is in someway lacking because of this. I try to keep it in perspective, but it's hard sometimes. I hate to say that my friend's pain somehow encourages me, but in a way it does (that is probably really bad). It reminds me that relationships aren't all fun and flowers. They can be damaging and unhealthy. And eventually all relationships, even the healthy ones, are just gonna be hard. I guess I don't mind the hard part, I'm not one to turn down a challenge. Well, I could go on forever, but all this to say that I am really glad to be single sometimes (most of the time). If a good guy came along and was interested, who knows. But in the mean time, happiness is not found in waiting by the phone for someone to call. Happiness is in getting to know my other significant others, like friends and family, even better.

Update

Furniture status: Cabinets still in original spot, Entertainment center successfully moved out of Mary's room, down the hall and is currently stuck in the stairway. Poor planning on my part I think. Now I am battling with gravity to angle the beast in such a way that it will slide into the hall way or the kitchen, but not the wall. Wish me luck.

Overwhelmed and Procrastinating

I'm doing some spring cleaning at my parents' house. I'm the only one working on it, so it is completely overwhelming. Taking things of shelves, dusting, rearranging, throwing things out, organizing, scrubbing, sweeping, de-cat-hairing EVERYTHING, and the list goes on. The worst is the rearranging. I love rearranging, but what I want to do is move these extraordinairly large cabinets and an entertainment center. I can't do it on my own. Simple solution: get my brother-in-law or my little sister's boyfriend to come and help (my dad has knee problems and I don't want him to get hurt). I have trouble asking people to help me though. I don't know why. Maybe I'm afraid of inconveniencing others or maybe I don't like to admit that sometimes I can't do everything on my own. At anyrate, I mention my rearranging plans to my sister Julie. And hook-line-and-sinker she voluteers Jim to help. Then she says something that she should have known better than to say. She says "But we'll have to do it when Dad is home to help Jim, because that cabinet is too big for Jim to move on his own." I told her I intended on helping Jim, and that Dad didn't need to put that strain on his knees. She looks at me like I'm crazy and then remembers who she is talking to and that yes I am crazy, but I am also fully capable of helping move cabinets. So my pride is a bit hurt, but I get over it. Then Jim comes to my house for lunch and Julie mentions it to him. His response "I can't move that by myself. Who is gonna help me?" My pride can't take it any more. I tell him to forget about it and that I was gonna get Brian to help me so he didn't have to worry about it. So then I decide I will prove to myself and the world that I am not a wilting flower and I can move it all myself, all by myself. The results: Cabinet not moved a single solitary centimeter, entertainment center moved 6 inches in the wrong direction. Fabulous.
So now I am procrastinating on all the moving, cleaning, organizing, and everything because I am too discouraged to currently go on. Sigh.

6 month Time Warp

I've been away from home for 6 months. During that time I kept in touch with family and a few friends through emails and blogs. So I had a vague idea of how everybody was doing and all the exciting things that were going on in good old Augusta. But for some reason in my mind, over the last six months I had changed drastically and they all stayed the same. So even though I knew certain people had gotten married, some had bought new houses, others were pregnant, there were a few new babies, a few growing babies, new occupations, etc., it felt as if I was thrown into a time warp. It is really weird and a bit uncomfortable for me. I can't really explain it.

I met up with one of my best friends last night for a drink at this place called Room 9. That made me feel like I was at home again. We sat and talked and caught up on all the happenings and mishappenings of our lives over the last little while. I had never been to Room 9 before and I must say that it is quite a unique little place. You walk in the door and you feel like you are living something like Alice and Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There is a long red hallway and you can scarcely see the end of it. The hall is decorated sparsely with just the odd bit of furniture (a chair, a lamp, etc.). You can't see speakers and the Alfred Hitchcock music seems to be coming from nowhere. So you get to the end of the hallway and you find a nice little place with drinks that are deeeeeelicious. I had something called the Seven Year Itch and Angella got one called the Swedish Massage. They were so good that when round two came I got her drink and she got mine. Anyway, for all you Augustans, I reccommend this place. Now I will warn you that it might not be a guy's idea of a good place to go and chill out. Their prices are probably not the cheapest in town and there are no TVs with sporting events showing. But go check it out sometime.

In other news, I am cheating on my cell group while I'm in the states. I am having a summer fling with a home group here. I hope my cell group understands, but I have needs damn it!!

My Excuse

Ok, I haven't been slack and just too lazy to post anything for the past few days. I actually have had to stop myself from writing. I have been dying to write and tell everyone about my recent travels, but the thing is that I wanted to tell you guys about all my recent and not-so-recent travels in person because... I'M HOME!!!! I've seen some of you already, and most of you I will have seen by tomorrow night. I've been keeping it a secret for about a month now, so I could give everybody a suprise. I've tried my best not to write it on my blog until I saw nearly everyone, but I can hold it in no longer. So anyhow, I'll see most of you either at VCC or at Downtown Vineyard tomorrow. It's good to be back.

Unexciting Life

I'm bored. Not even one week into summer and I'm bored. Not a good sign. My lack of a life is so terrible that I am actually going to blog about a tv show I've been watching. Mark this day on your calendars because it will probably never happen again.
A while ago, one of Sara's friends sent her a couple of seasons of Felicity. Out of boredom I have watched some of them this week. In general the show (like most tv shows) drives me nuts. Felicity, obviously the main character, makes the stupidest decisions. And you are sitting there thinking are there really people this dumb out there walking around diguised as normal and maybe even intelligent individuals. All that to say that I thoroughly enjoyed one episode in particular. Felicity gets a stalker, which is ironic because at the beginning of the season she was a stalker. So this guy shows up from out of nowhere who had a crush on her when they were 12. He openly admits to anyone, including Felicity's boyfriend, that he came to get a kiss from her. She tries telling him it's not good timing because she is involved with someone. He persists. She ignores his phone calls. He persists and shows up at her work and at her classes. He pleads for her to meet with him and finally, not knowing what else to do, she agrees. So they go out for dinner and he tries to persuade her that she has become someone that she never wanted to be and if she were with him, blah, blah, blah. She gives him a final no way buddy as they are on their way out of the diner. He starts to walk away, but turns around while still walking away and says "Ok, I admit I lost this battle, but I am in no way out of the picture." And at that moment he gets hit by a bus. It has been a long time since I have laughed so hard from a tv show. That's one way to get rid of a stalker I guess.