yellow formica

I am sitting at the kitchen counter writing an email, and I just had an unbelievably massive flashback. From where I am sitting the TV in the sitting room area is reflected in a window that provides a perfect (well, reversed but otherwise perfect) view of the screen. Its funny how much has changed around me, and yet that tiny and fairly useless ability has remained a constant.

Well, back in the day it wasn't so useless. Lets just take a walk down memory lane, shall we? Back in the day was about, oh sayyyy, 12 years ago. So, back then I was ten we had lived in our house for about two or three years. Back in the days even before that the house had been owned by a family that consisted of two doctors and their four children, and their terrible taste in shag carpet. Needless to say the brown and orange shag left the same day as the doctors, along with their top to bottom fridge full's worth of Ukrops prepared foods. Within a matter of weeks my mother's exemplary taste had already begun to transform the house, but some remnants of the old regime remained longer than she probably would have wished. In particular I am referring to the kitchen (and to the awful blue carpet that stayed in my room until I was about 16, which I am still petulant over). Whoever designed said kitchen decided it would be a good idea to plaster the room in yellow formica and laminate flooring. Ich. The kitchen was essentially a yellow cubicle attached to a huge glassed in porch that had the same aforementioned blue carpet. This porch was our schoolroom, as "back in the day" was when we were all home schooled. That room, while we are on the subject, was wondrous. We had one of those short tables with the mini chairs, our own cubbies, and a drawer full of dry erase markers which we were constantly using to coat the windows with solar systems and diagrams and doodles and occasionally a dreaded math problem or two, as well as a TV which probably had no idea there were shows that weren't Bill Nye the Science Guy or Wishbone (TGIF? What's that!?).

Well in the spirit of honesty, back in the day I occasionally provoked a bit of deserved punishment from my teacher (or in really dire cases Principal Carter) and back in the day one of the ways we learned our lessons was by being deprived of our dose of Magic School Bus. Trust me, it was a fatal blow. What Momma Carter didn't realize was that if you sat juuuuust right on the counter in the kitchen you could see the reflection of the TV through the window between the kitchen and the porch superbly.

Okay, she probably did realize.

Either way tonight I was sitting at the bar in our long since renovated kitchen and my sister switched on the TV. I caught sight of whatever it was and was immediately whooshed back into my childhood (despite the fact that it wasn't even PBS on the screen). For everything in the structure of our house, not to mention in my life, that has shifted and changed - I might as well have been sitting on that counter with my bowl cut bangs and mismatched jelly sandals pretending to read the Boxcar Children while sneaking in an episode of Zoom I was supposed to be missing (probably as a result of my insistence that even if that is the right way you do long division its not how I do it). It was a rather soothing moment given all the changes that are coming up in my life over the next year. And yes, 'whooshed' is the technical term for such an experience.

In Defense Of My Phone Odium

I hate the cell phone, truly I do. I will concede that as far as communication tools go, the phone is fairly useful. But to me, that is pretty much all it is - a tool. I don't have such a developed aversion to most internet forms of communication, but to me they serve a different purpose. In short, I never try to have a lengthy or meaningful conversation with anyone online, so therefor I am blissfully oblivious to any of the myriad of limitations I might run into, and as a result I am not blogging about how much the internet bugs me (which would have been blatantly paradoxical anyhow). Someone somewhere once said "a ringing phone is a request, not a command," which I immediately contemplated needle pointing on a pillow. Sadly, that sentiment is not often reflected in our culture's perception of proper cell phone behavior. Which is why I am mercilessly hailed as "the worst phone person ever, seriously." Its also why no one ever dreams of putting me as their ICE contact. (Which, once you get past the "Wait, I'm not the dependable and trustworthy rock of a person you'd want beside you in a dire emergency???" moment of sadness - you might realize is a boon. Think about it: no 1 AM dashes to the ER because your roommate sliced her finger open with a fancy carrot shaver doo dad and you are the only one in the house who can stand the sight of blood. Oh wait, already done that. But if I hadn't been in the same room as her the odds are I wouldn't have picked up my phone, so there you go.)

But seriously, here is my beef with the phone:

Issue Number One: Apparently its rude to not answer your cell phone any time it bleats. I mean rings. When did this become an acceptable expectation? It was never a problem with the home phone, people just went merrily on their ways and thought "oh they're probably just out in the yard or running an errand or some such something." But not so with the cell phone. I'm sorry that you get indignant when I don't lash my phone to my body and hurl myself at it whenever it beckons. I leave my phone pretty much anywhere but on my person as often as possible, and apparently that makes me a Nathaniel Hawthorne character who has been tempted away from the path of all that is good and righteous straight into a circle of dancing devil worshippers.

Issue Number Two: I am a visual person. On the phone I can't see your face. I can't tell if you are just laughing with your lungs, or laughing with your eyes. I can't read your body language. I can't see when you are nodding because by some miraculous chance you want to hear more of my jibber jabber. I can't understand you clearly when you mumble (Ye Shalt Not Mumble should probably have been a commandment.). I in fact, thrive on these cues when I am conversing with someone. Without them I am rendered almost entirely useless. When (okay, if) I am on the phone I probably come off as a rude, impatient, unamusing, awkward person who interrupts constantly and sounds like a broken record with my constant chorus of, "Whaaat, can you repeat that last part? No the other last part? No, the last part from the beginning." Seriously, people that I have close friendships and deep conversations with probably hang up after an attempted phone chat with me and are left wondering if I have become prematurely senescent.

Issue Number Three: This is particularly applicable to people who are occupying space in locations far far away from me. There's no such thing as a quick chat. What more can I say, except that sometimes I just simply thought of you and wanted to let you know. This does not mean that I feel the need to update you on every inch of my life at that particular moment. Baby steps guys, baby steps.

Issue Number Four: This really only applies to phone calls that occur between me and anyone within a reasonable distance of my person. WHY ARE WE TALKING ON THE PHONE??? This is probably my most monumental pet peeve where the cell phone is concerned. I repeat: the cell phone is a tool. Call me. Better: text me. Time, date, place. Bingo. The fact that I loathe the phone doesn't make me antisocial, okay people? For instance, I deal with it for the people I love that are far away. It just so happens that I much prefer to see your lovely faces, and really, who among you can complain about that?

My parents used to regularly tell me, "hate is a strong word." And when I say regularly I mean constantly- I was a very opinionated kid. Anyhow hate technically means "wished dead or gone" so I feel that it is safely applicable in this case. Plus, as if all of this was not enough, cell phones can totally give you cancer. If you think I just went overboard, then please don't ever get me started on the movie He's Just Not That Into You.

"But there's many a man hath more hair than wit."

I had a realization tonight, and it wasn't altogether a pleasant one at that.

I caught sight of myself in a mirror. Now, lets be honest - I see myself in mirrors all of the time. I have two in my room, plus a full length one in the closet. I recall being shocked once to find myself washing my hands and staring at tile instead of myself in a bathroom that lacked one. At school we all flock to the one in our half bath because of the lighting ("if I look good in that, I know I'll look good out there!"). We could lie and say we don't take a glance when we pass reflective surfaces (you know the ones - parked cars? or perhaps store windows are more your style?) but we all know the truth. Most people that know me are painfully aware of my hostile take on our general cultural obsession with image and its baleful ramifications (and I am far from the first person to get boiled up about it) but for once that is not what I was contemplating.

What I realized tonight was that I look at myself all the time, but I rarely see myself. I objectively scrutinize my image every morning - covering blemishes, placing hairs, assembling outfits that make me look as skinny as I wish I was, changing shoes three times - and I pat myself on the back for not being as obsessed with my image as others. Just because I don't squeeze myself into skimpy clothes or layer on pounds of makeup like Lindsay Lohan doesn't mean I'm not preoccupied. What I miss every time I look in the mirror is myself. Tonight when I looked I made a distinction I had never thought to make before. When I look at myself I am entirely absorbed with the self that is only my worldly shell. I know my body is a temple and I should eat my vegetables and "got milk" and yada yada yada - but I forget all of the time that my body is not my self.

All of this flashed through my mind rather quickly as I brushed my teeth, and I had a mental image of a Transformer hurling itself from a truck into an autobot as things clicked into place in me (which would have been awesome, except I suspect its best to leave my organs in their rightful places). But anyways, here is what I realized: when I think about my subjective self, my soul, I am not often mindful of the fact that I am chained to this earthly body I obsess over. Conversely, when I fancy myself up I am silently begging people to use my external appearance to understand my internal self. (Aka I am secretly hoping that because I am having a nice hair day someone will think that I am just the sweetest person they ever met.)

Shouldn't this be the other way around? Shouldn't everything about my exterior shell be pointing back to what the Lord is doing within me instead of what I want people to think about me? I often fear that it does not. Some may have it more figured out than I do, but I am probably not the only one who gets befuddled by this. Its a messy world we live in, but luckily I have more to offer than the occasional good hair day.

"I'm not offended by all the dumb-blonde jokes because I know that I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not blonde." Dolly Parton

The nerve.

The boy that works at the Starbucks on King Street loves Twilight. No really, I swear he does. This theory is not based on any actual evidence - for example he doesn't have that T-shirt with a wolf on it, he doesn't have a keychain or a wristband that says I Heart Edward, he doesn't sleep on a pillow with a vampires face printed on it (as far as I know), and he doesn't even wear a single piece of Twilight flare.

How then, you ask, do I know he loves Twilight? Because - - because he looks exactly like the werewolf character in the new one that everyone is freaking out about. I mean it - from his obvious Native American heritage right down to his long black locks, the kid is the spitting image of the boy all over the posters. And he knows it. And he loves it.

I would venture to bet that he brings in extra revenue to his location, just because all the girls are lining up to have him serve their coffee. I bet other girls giggle at his bad jokes. I bet he thinks, "man, maybe I could get TSwift too!" I bet he thanks his lucky stars when he wakes up every morning that some lady named Stephanie happened to have some weird dream and write a cheesy book that turned into a inexplicable phenomenon that produced a movie that happened to include a fictional character based on a fictional idea that was cast to an actor that happened to resemble him.

What werewolf boy didn't realize was that I am not a Twilight fan. Therefore simply flashing me a grin and saying "Oh would it be okay if you got an Americano instead of a Decaf, because I will have to make a whole new pot" did not overpower me in the way it does his usual customer. He probably had to reevaluate his whole life view after I didn't go weak at the knees and beg him to make me an Americano instead. Sadly, because I am human and I assume the speaker has a good reason, my immediate response to the word "because" is "okay, sure"(hmm maybe I did learn something in Social Psych after all...). But I wasn't cute about it. In fact he probably thought I was a vampire because that would be the only logical explanation for my aversion to his werewolfy-ness.

What the What

THIS offends me on so many levels. Seriously!? I mean I love Anthropologie, but I think someone in their buyers department might have had a stroke. The name alone scares the pants off me. I'm pretty sure that automatons are the sort of thing people try to avoid having around their throats, not pay $398 for. Three. Hundred. And. Ninety-Eight. Stinking. Dollars. Don't even get me started on the hundreds of things that money be spent on. The list is as long as my arm (okay longer, I have short arms) but I assure you, nothing on it even remotely resembles this glorified macaroni necklace. I don't know which part of me is more affronted by this - the part that is raging at the injustice of hungry children existing in the same world as this necklace, or the part of me who is horrified that someone would ever wear this regardless of the pricetag. As in I don't care if you bought it at the dollar store, its still not okay. Let's step into an alternate reality where this would be a reasonable purchase. If that was so, WHAT do you even wear it with!?!?!? I mean really, I'm baffled.

Shoelaces

Today I was laughing at a card from my dad I found in my room. In the letter my dad told me how proud he was of me for sharing with my brother, being mom's helper, making my bed AND tying my shoes all by myself.

This made much more sense once I looked and saw that the letter was postmarked in 1993.

I was thinking about it as I deftly tied my shoes, and though it now seems humorous to me that someone would be proud of my ability to complete such a simple task, I have to think that this is probably how the Lord feels about us. I'm sure back in 93 I was exceptionally proud that I could tie my shoes all. by. myself. And because my father loves me more than I deserve, my triumph was his triumph.

I think about the things that I am proud of myself for now. Cooking something more complicated than rice, getting a good grade, running more than two miles consecutively. Apologizing to someone. Being generous with my belongings. Holding back a sarcastic comment (or two). Truly forgiving others.

Sitting here with this card in my hand, I can't help but feel just as silly for patting myself on the back over these "accomplishments" as I would if I was still gloating over my proficiency with shoelaces. The things I struggle to master now (such as forgiveness) are as elementary to the Lord as making my bed is to me now. As humbling as that is, I think it is monumentally cool that we serve a God who celebrates our small victories - even as He hopes for a time that we will so resemble his son that it won't be a feat of epic proportions for us to rise above our selfish motives and desires.

Emerald City Glasses

I think I sometimes get confused and pray that the Lord will show me what He has for me to see or learn or experience in a day, when I should be praying to see the world through His eyes instead. This hit me one afternoon as a passing thought while I was sitting at Kudu, but then one of those little lizard gecko things fell on me from a tree and so I was momentarily preoccupied with becoming a stone statue and waiting for it to move along. That perhaps wasn't the quickest means of de-geckoifying myself, so by the time he had hopped along my mind had as well. 

It was not one of those bolt of lightning original thought kind of moments - really more like a "Oh yeah, duh," hit yourself on the head sort of thing - but it has still been fun to see how the Lord has used it to shift me. As Tracy Lord said, "the time to make up your mind about people is never." This thought rang true to me, and not just because I was mesmerized by Katherine Hepburn's every move at the time. Sometimes the culture that we live in (especially us college students with few responsibilities to anyone besides ourselves) makes it easy for us to forget how much the Lord loves others. I get so busy reminding myself of how much the Lord has loved me and sacrificed for me and forgiven me that I forget how much He appreciates the people that I don't even know. As soon as I looked up from my own concerns I found much to revel in. The Lord has created some pretty fascinating people, to say the least.

Like my pilot the last time I flew, who introduced himself as Luke Skywalker and then announced that, "Airtran is always looking for ways to continue to keep our fares low for you travelers, and so we have introduced a new frequent flushers program! Current rates are two dollars a flush, but while we are still on the ground we are running a special - two flushes for the price of one! And ladies and gentlemen, for every 5 flushes, you earn one free flush!" 

Like my cashier at Caviar & Bananas who literally sing-songed her way through our entire interaction. "Hellooo! Ohhh I looove thiis saaandwhiiich you'ree goiiinngg too loooove thiiiis sannndwhiiiiich, that will beee sevennn eiighty fouuur, enjjOOOOYYYYYY"

Like Sherri, the real life Target Lady who literally shut down her station after I left to get herself some Sugar Free Halls Defense 100% Daily Value Vitamin C Cough Drops. ("Oh these look great! Do they taste good? Are they over in the pharmacy section you know I need to get some I keep getting sick and my son says "Mom you know you just need some vitamin C" and OH MY GOSH they're only a dollar fifty are there some left!?")

To me my interaction with such people is often limited to my perspective. But that wasn't just my flight home, that was Mr. Skywalker going above and beyond the call of duty to try to brighten people's days. That wasn't just my trip to Target, it was Sherri's fourth cold in her second month on the job. That wasn't just my treat at a fun restaurant, it was that cashier trying to "keep her brain from going to mush today" to the tune of Beyonce. 

These encounters are everywhere, and yet the more they started to stick out to me, the more I noticed other people ignoring them. I don't know what was wrong with all of the people flying from Atlanta to Charleston that night, but not one of them so much as giggled, (there were a few sardonic snorts) and there I was cracking up in 9A (the window seat, obviously). While I have gotten a lot of enjoyment from noticing the people around me more, the real lesson for me has shown itself when I have disagreed with people (Gasp! Meredith? Disagree with someone!?). It may be elementary, but its hard to realize that other people's opinions matter as much and as little as my own whenever they claim things that seem preposterous to me. The more I live, the more I see that I should simply appreciate and love those the Lord has created, be they known or unknown to me. This is certainly not a new thought, but I find I often have to re-realize it in my life. So thanks Captain Skywalker, thanks...

"Even though I'm almost seventy years old, I got a lot to learn, too. I used to spend a lotta time worryin that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr Ron, I worried I was so different from them that we wadn't ever gon' have no kind a' future. But I found out everybody's different, the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walkin' down the road God done set in front of us." - Denver Moore

PS - In case you were wondering this is what a lizard gecko thing looks like when its flying through the air towards you: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uroplatus_fimbriatus_(3).jpg

You would have been paralyzed too.