Do you believe in magic?

Thursdays are basically magical.

Here's a list of magical things that happened to me today.

1. I woke up wrapped in a warm heated blanket. Yeah, pretty sure heat and electricity fall under the "Amazingly Fantastic" category.
2. My volunteer work at the Portland Art Museum began today. The people there are nice.
3. I only got lost twice in Downtown Portland, AND I parked in a parking garage all by myself. I feel so grown up.
4. According to my one-year-old niece's mutterings, I've been officially accepted and am allowed to hold her teddy-bear and read her books.
5. For once, I found shoes that fit me comfortably and DO NOT feature sparkly portraits of Hannah Montana. And I only had to try on one pair.
6. Peaches and Cream Oatmeal. What else can I say?
7. I have a new nephew! Okay, so he wasn't actually born today, but I think that merits a week long celebration.
8. For about three hours I listened to the same Coldplay album. Over and over. Never got old.
9. My tank was filled with gas. For some reason, I absolutely hate putting gas in the car. Actually, I know the reason but I'll save that for another post. The point: in Oregon, a jolly fellow whistling to himself fills your tank for you. I never even unbuckled my seat-belt.
10. Finally, saving the best for last, tomorrow I get to be the companion to a sister missionary who doesn't have one. Yep, for the rest of the weekend, I get to look like, teach like, sleep like, and study like a sister missionary. Wha-hoo!!

See? Told you. Thursday = Magic.

Please Do Not Sit On The Chairs

Smells like old stuff in here
Like sweaty socks
And gunpowder

Eighty-three years old
All original
Well, mostly

They laugh at our jokes,
These tour-goers,
And don't seem to mind our mistakes

Or how we have to keep checking our notes
For figures and dates
And a hundred different names

So many faces
So many stories in these halls
You can't buy houses like this
With their history already kept
In pen and ink
On yellowed paper

Hard to think they lived here once
That it wasn't always a place for tourists
Snapping pictures

Making their own history

Lodging my Complaint

To the Complaint Department:

I have a complaint. I would like to submit the following supportive statements that justify my right and and opinion to this complaint:

1. I only finished graduate school 30 months ago. One guess as to if I still have school loans to pay off.

2. Have you seen what my job field is? Not the highest paying thing there is. Not to mention how generally underappreciated (financially and otherwise) we are.

3. Whatever gives/gave you the right to do a reverse phone number look-up from the address at which I reside which thus caused you to annoy and disturb my landlord and his wife?

4. Calling after 8pm? Are you kidding me? Who in heavens do you think you are?!?!? 'Cause if you knew me you'd know I only talk on the phone after 8pm to family and very close friends!

Those 4 reasons--particularly that last one--are reasons enough for me to choose not to donate to this college's annual fund, even if I am an alumnus with an education to owe the school.

Call me again when that education has been paid off and I will gladly consider helping others. Oh, and when you do call again, call at a reasonable hour and maybe try the number that is listed with the school records.

Thank you.

-Disgruntled College Graduate

City Shock

I feel like a mid-western hick. True, I only totaled five months in the land called Desolate--but I'm sure to the people in this northwestern hub, I look corn-fed born and raised.

It's just that there are so many . . . noises here. The cars outside my bedroom window, the neighborhood kids, the roller-bladers, the dogs across the street. The country was so quiet. All I ever heard was wind and rain on the other side of my window.

But here, noisy people seem to inhabit every possible space.

I'm excited for this new chapter of my life. I really am. There are so many opportunities just waiting to be harvested. And the arts and entertainment scene is a definite step up from where I came from.

So I'm content with this strange, culture shocked, corn-out-of-field feeling. But I can bet that the people who are unfortunate enough to drive behind me on the constant stream of highways that connect one suburb to another are, lets say, less than content.

Don't worry though, I'll get the hang of it eventually

Did You Know?

I am aggressive. I prefer to be assertive. Assertive is good. Right? I should learn to be assertive. Is this an easy lesson to learn, I wonder. It can't be that hard. But even if it is, I must learn. It is crucial.

Because being an aggressive brusher is just...not good.

Record Breaker

In horse racing, the last leg of the race is where the money is won. Exciting as it is, it’s not really a surprise when the jockey who has held his horse at the back of the pack suddenly gives the cue for speed. The horse surges forward as it comes around the final turn, passes all the other horses, and crosses the finish line strides ahead of anyone else. Or maybe, for more dramatic effect, the lead horses get a second burst of energy and they cross the line so quickly that the winner has to be proven by photographic evidence. The scenarios possible in this relatively short section of track are far too numerous to recount, but you get the picture: dreams are realized or disappointed. Owners and bidders make or lose unimaginable quantities of money. Names are made or hidden in shame.

Yes, folks, the last twenty seconds of a race are the most important.

I had an epiphany last night. I won’t go into detail because 1) I don’t want to bore you, and 2) yesterday was Wednesday, not Thursday, and is therefore ineligible for discussion on the Thursday Chronicles, but it bears mentioning simply because it has had an impressive impact on my day.



I FIGURED OUT HOW TO FINISH MY BOOK.




Yes, yes, and yes! Celebrations are in order! Cake will be served!

All I have to do is ignore the Olympics long enough to type a couple thousand words and I am D. O. N. E. DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE.

But tonight is the finals of Men’s Figure Skating, and I want to see Even Lysacek defeat Evgeni Plushenko so badly. There is nothing like a fabulous good vs. evil smack down to get me excited about Thursdays.

So here we are at the final turn. The impressive filly Last Daughter of Cair has a strong hold on the lead, but the crowd favorite Gold Medal Podium is about to make his move.

Who will win? We’ll have the results right after this break.

MOVING!

Packing again! Where on EARTH did all this STUFF come from?!

Bifocals

There are moments when I feel like a spectator in my own life. I am very much a participant, but I can look at my pilgrimage as if from a distance. This dichotomy of perspectives is simultaneously unnerving and enlightening. I would say that such experiences help to me to see more clearly, but that would often be a lie. Sometimes, seeing the big picture only makes things more confusing.



But sometimes, sometimes things actually make sense.

The sun returned today, and the fog finally recognized it had long overstayed its welcome and left maturely, quietly. I spent the day working on a photo essay chronicling a coworker’s long tenure at Philmont and thought of what it must be like to leave behind a legacy more than thirty years in the making. I heard startling news and wondered over the impact one decision can make in a life, in an organization, in a community. I watched—or listened, rather—to a featurette on the philosophy behind a film score in which the relationship between structure and chaos in the music reflects the tones of the movie and create a beautiful, unified work of collective genius. I finished reading a book that stunned me with its power to both depress and delight me.

And these things I see from my dual perspectives, these stolen glances at my own existence and that of others, show me just how beautiful opposition can make life.

“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so…righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness, nor misery, neither good nor bad.” – Lehi (2 Ne 2:11)

Without the fog, I might have forgotten how much I love the sun. Without a retirement, we might have forgotten the many contributions of an integral part of our group. A sudden decision forces us all to look at our own lives, realize how fragile the balance is, and remember to be grateful. Discordance makes harmony more pleasant, chaos makes order more desirable, discontinuity makes us seek after successful alliances.

Tears, like tiny prisms, have a strange talent for making the whole world more exquisite—even if they’re over something as “silly” as a book.

Con-fuzzed by Default

Who knew my brain could go in that many directions at once?

Happy Thursday to One and All!

My Favorite Thing

I've never been a fan of driving. But there's something about the little, white, dented Saturn sitting in my drive way. Jamal is his name—and running well is not necessarily his game. I love him.

When I first met Jamal, he was a dent-less machine that I acquired for free to take me from my incredibly small town to the fairly large town 30 miles east every Wednesday evening. He occasionally got stuck in first gear and often burned oil, but on the whole, he ran smoothly. The heat worked. The air conditioning worked. There seats were covered. The windows rolled down. Everything that I had lacked in my previous beaters (that had been PAID for) was in working order.

Now he always did have a 90's flair. But after an evening out with a younger brother, an ice storm, and a couple deer, Jamal officially reached “character” status. There's just something about a front end covered in duct tape that screams awesomeness. For some reason his new look reminded me of booming music and brightly colored, side-ways baseball caps. Which, of course, reminded me of one of my favorite television shows from years gone by, Ghost Writer. And obviously, Jamal became the PERFECT name for my white car.

Jamal and I go everywhere. Partly because I have no other option but mostly because I love using my box-knife to slit open the taped hood in order check the oil in the church parking lot. In heels and a skirt.

So suddenly, driving along the highway with 50 semi-trucks and speeding sports cars is so much more enjoyable. We rock out to old-skool Will Smith rap and wear duct tape like it's goin' out of style. Then we order a couple rounds of that yellowish stuff and call it a night.

Yep. In five words, Jamal is the bomb diggity.

p.s.

When we started The Thursday Chronicles, I was terrified that I would forget to celebrate this wonderful day. To prevent such a tragedy, I set the calendar in my phone to remind me every Thursday at 7 pm sharp. I picked the most exciting ringtone I have, and promptly forgot I had done so.

So every Thursday, at exactly 7:00 in the evening, the most incredible dance tune fills my duplex. I have usually written by that point (I guess I'm not as forgetful as I had feared), but it is such a pleasant surprise that I always get up and dance as the ringtone plays through twice. And I'm always really disappointed when the music stops.

What kind of a celebration would Thursday be if it didn't involve dancing?

Illogical

You think that all I do is play games.

Don't try denying it. I know you feel that way, and you have good reason to. I have given you no evidence that proves otherwise.

Here, then. Here is a logic puzzle to prove that I don't just play games. I make them.

I have spent all day working on this little guy, and my brain is beginning to hurt. Maybe I will take a break to go out and play in our six and a half inches of half-melted snow, or maybe I will take some pictures of the pretty fog that is settling over the lowlands. If I don't write next Thursday, you will know that I slipped on the ice, suffered a bad case of amnesia and wandered off to get lost in the fog.

And if they do manage to find me but my memory can't be restored, do me a favor and finish my book for me. Please. Especially since I can't seem to get it finished even with a functioning brain.

Keep a Lid on It!

Having finally accomplished the feat of crocheting a real (and not bad looking) winter hat, I was thrilled that for the first winter in well over 15 years (maybe closer to 20) I was actually going to start regularly wearing a hat whenever I ventured outside in the coldness. I stay warm on my walk to my car, on my drives to...everywhere, on my winter walks, and on my anything else that requires stepping out-of-doors. Not even my "Babushka Scarf Technique" in the last 5 years kept me as warm as a winter hat does.

I wonder...

• How in the world did I last all those winters without a winter hat?

• Why in the world did I stop wearing winter hats outside when my father would drive home the fact that we lose ridiculously high number% of our body heat through our head and that it's vital to cover our head?

• Why, when I averaged 2 colds a winter, did I not take advantage of this easy better-prevention method?

Then I look in the mirror and see a few new visitors who have decided to grace their presence on my forehead.







And I remember why.