"Hold onto everything you know
Hold on for winter wind and snow
Time stands still
But we go on
It's over this notion
This couldn't last forever
We'd know much better had we
Given this over, sadly
Our time now is ending
And nothings left withstanding
Another day of knowing...
This is the last day of our love."
- vhs or beta "time stands still"
It's been a good time. I've been using up my vacation time before my weekend job really kicks up. And I ended up getting scheduled at the 'bux for a single day in the last two weeks. So I've been visiting a lot with friends (even those at work) and baking adventurously, playing wii sports with the kids, drinking hot mint tea and double lattes... A good friend recently introduced me to a version of the chai latte that did not make me nauseous.And nonfat even! When all this time I have been known widely to despise both. Hence there has been change, small yes, but it's happened...
Christmas is not even here, yet already I feel the slow creeping in of dread for my return to the so-called "real world".
This, of course, makes holiday life all the sweeter.
They are going to a chanukkah party at the Place's tonight. I am undecided as to whether I will. I want to, sure, but I still have a LOT of baking to do, I haven't been feeling well, and I really don't want to be sick for christmas... Again. This would be year three.
At last, the season is changing. I walked out to the office tonight to get the charger for the phone that I am using to post and felt, for the first time this year, the bite of cold air on every inch of exposed skin. It made my night, I've got to admit. There is something about the cold and the season that wakes me up. It reminds me to breathe, that summer was hard but the experience has made life all the more worth it.
Now is a time for sighing the sigh of contentment. If only for the moment it takes to use that breath.
At last, the season has changed...
I realize that this may all seem a bit melodramatic; I'm sure there are tons of students every year who get kicked out of school for running out of money, or luck, as the case may be. And I'm sure this is going to make me sound spoiled, and maybe you'd have to know me personally to realy understand what I'm about to say: But the truth is that I have never been unable to achieve something that I really really wanted. It's never been completely out of reach, even if it was purely a miracle that it worked out. And as a result of this I always just imagined that when someone told me (or I told myself) that it was going to be okay, that that meant it was going to work out the way you thought it would.
And I don't mean always, just generally, because there are days even now when I just know that I am going to wake up in about five minutes- on the futon I used to fall asleep on, in the house I grew up in. And my Mom is going to come down the hall humming to herself with a basket of white towels and ask me if I had a nice nap... And the last four years, good and bad, are going to melt away.
But that's nonense! And I think what I'm really trying to get at here is that sometimes God has to remind me that it's not me. And "being okay" doesn't always mean that it works out my way or the way I think it's going to. Funny thing is, this is such an old lesson, but sometimes I need a little pinch to remind me that trusting Him - with EVERYTHING - is the most important thing I can do. Y'know?
I get so caught up in the crazy blur of busy days and lack of money, and I start forgetting. I start feeling more and more like I'm on my own, and stop pausing to thank Him for every second, or ask Him to be sure that even the small things work out. And I think, maybe, just maybe, even God feels abandoned sometimes - and He's a pretty jealous guy, I think. So once in a while, He's got to stop me and remind me how to focus.
"... I've seen some cool stuff. I made a lot of stuff happen for myself. I made a lot of stuff happen for myself. That's a really cool sentence when you're in your 20s, right? "I made it happen for myself." But all that means is that I've just somehow or another found a way to synthesize love. Or synthesize soothing. You can't get that..." - John Mayer
Ecclessiastes 5:7
All right, so....
I gotta admit. I'm pretty confused. The last two weeks are slowly congealing, days are finally beginning to separate.
Last Friday (well not this past Friday, but the one before it) I found out that my financial aid for the second half of my school was not going to come through. Yep. I guess there are worse reasons one could be kicked out of culinary school than not having enough money. But that's mostly me trying to make myself feel better.
I've spent most of the week trying to creatively fill the first six hours of my day since I still wake up at 5:30 every morning. Seven months is a long time to be doing the same thing every day, and I guess - after a while, you just sort of forget what you used to do before. So I went out for coffee, ran some errands, baked some brownies and cookies, and by Friday I was taking my dog to the park pretty steadily. Which has been nice. I've applied at a few places for a second job, too. So we'll see how that goes.
Freakishly, as stressful as the weeks leading up to that last day were... All I really felt was relief. At last, there was finality. Sure, there is the possibility (and intent) to return to school, but at least I could concentrate on what the next week was going to be like. I mean, there was more than one occasion where the head of the financial aid department was explaining different possible ways of splitting up these four and five digit numbers - and the room just started to spin. You know?
My week was going along pretty nicely, actually, and it all really hit me on Thursday. I was running errands and talking to a few bakeries my Dad recommended to hit up for jobs... And I was on the phone with him (my Dad) explaining how my last little meeting had gone, and looking for this small bakery on this street in the middle of a ton of roadwork-- when this wave of frustration, and I mean undiluted, burning, almost blinding frustration, pushed me back in my seat.
This is not how this was supposed to go. I shouldn't be doing this. Why is this happening? How did it happen? I shouldn't even be here right now. Was all that I could think. Luckily I found the place not a moment later, had to turn around the construction and pull into a parking space.
And then it finally happened, still on the phone talking to my Dad about looking for a job, I just started crying. It's what always happens when I really get frustrated or angry (and pretty much only then too, I'm not really a cryer) but it felt really random when I realized that I don't actually know when I'll be able to go back. Or why this happened. Nor had I any idea what God was trying to teach me through this.
As I talked to my Dad, or rather, he talked to me, I begged God for something. For anything. And then my Dad had to go. And suddenly, just for a few long seconds, I felt completely and utterly alone. And it was scary.
Anger he smiles towering in shiny metallic purple armor
Queen Jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground
Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted
They quietly understand
The once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready
But wonder why the fight is on
But they're all bold as love
Yeah, they're all bold as love
They're all bold as love
Just ask the axis...
My red is so confident that he flashes
Trophies of war and ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring
But very unsteady for the first go around
My yellow in this case is not so mellow
In fact I'm trying to say it's frightened like me
And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from
Giving my life to a rainbow like you
I'm bold, bold as love
Yeah I'm bold, bold as love
I'm bold, bold as love
Just ask the axis...
Yeah he knows, he knows everything
I'm bold, bold as love
~Jimi Hendrix~
There is a part of me that has been starving. Probably several parts, really, and none of them have to do with my stomach. Though I am pretty sure they are located somewhere around there. Maybe a little above, there is a core area where the sensations (pangs, maybe?) all seem to congregate.
One of them is writing. I haven't written anything longer than a couple hundred words for months. Except papers for school - which are kind of like drinking water when your stomach growls, it stops the embarrassment of the growling, but only magnifies the emptiness. I've lost count of how many times I have sat in this very seat, in front of this very computer, typing the very same sentence over and over again in various ways. And then someone calls me and I walk away, leaving half a sentence, only to come back later and delete it.
I think it must be because I don't have much to say these days. No. That isn't it either. It's because I lack an audience. There has been a confinement to my recent thoughts. A caged-ness. I have taken to buying massive amounts of pens - all sorts. My current favorite being the Sharpie Pen. I hit a Walgreens during my errand running today to buy clothespins and bought two more Sharpie Pens (I now have four, two black and two blue), and a four pack of very fine tipped Sharpie Markers - but I have no idea what I'm going to use them for. I also stood staring at all the different designs they have for notebooks in the back to school section these days. I wanted one. An old school Mead Journal, I have a soft spot for those. But I knew I wouldn't use it. I would just smell it, set it on my desk, clip a marker to it, and forget about it until I ended up buying another one.
I don't know why I do things like that.
I've been out of my house for at least sixteen hours a day, six days a week, for the last month... And now I'm home alone and I don't know what to do with myself. I went to the garage and dug my Donald Miller books out of the precious box that contains most of my old room but I couldn't sit long enough to read them. I flipped through a few pages and then I came here.
Lauren is at a church function, some kind of party to mark graduation from the junior high class to the high school class. My Dad is at work, poor guy. And Jeremy is out on a date. It's like I've forgotten how to entertain myself.
If I'm not working or studying or sleeping, I don't know what to do anymore. And I just didn't envision myself getting to this point. What does it mean? I guess it must be normal, since I've heard other people mention similar things before. But I've always been comfortable with myself. Or I thought so anyway.
Lately I've been getting the feeling that God is trying to teach me something. You know what I mean? There's like this lingering something in the back of your mind corrosponding to one of those silent groans in your gut that just means there is something to be said, or there will be, for this time in your life. This chipping away at the sculpture of life is eventually going to be something beautiful, but the shaping isn't always going to be fun. And I think there is some finishing going on in some area that I can't quite pick out. Whatever it is, it's painful, nearly unbearable at times, but it's going to be magnificent.
This morning I wanted to leave.
And so begins the arduous and painfully lengthy process of preparing our house for a very special visit at the end of the month. And the eventual addition of four more people - which will make eight. Whoa.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon how you look at it, I am unable to help with the beginning tasks of the yardwork - as I go to school in the morning/afternoon, and then work all night, arriving home at about eleven-thirty... ish. So I'm sitting here biding the little time I have left to procrastinate studying before the test I have tomorrow. Human Resources Management is interesting - but not on a test.
Feeling guilty at my inability to help, I have been working on laundry and discovering that my dog is not the only one who eats socks. Did I mention that before? I think I did. She eats them whole - but no longer the only one to be blamed. Barney also likes to eat socks - and so does little baby Gary. Who, as a sidenote, actually weighs about thirty-five pounds... at four months. Yeah. Via is a year old, and only weighs about forty-five. So, he's pretty big.
Anyway, it's pretty crazy around here. Work is not my favorite these days. Too much is changing at my location, or too frequently, rather. We had a manager quit about a month ago, the one we have now is moving in two weeks, and her replacement is also going to be moving within a couple months of her arrival - both out of state. So, not the greatest times. Every manager has their own rules they want you to follow, and I'm really not looking forward to that self re-calibration happening three times in the next six months. Luckily, I already vented most of my frustration about that to my brother, so I won't be writing a book about it here. Corporations can be rediculous sometimes though, I gotta say.
It's just another reminder of why I plan to be a business owner: I am allergic to working for The Man.
Time to switch the laundry.
So the truth is...
The crazy thing that has kept me from posting - first because I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, and then because I couldn't figure out how to...
But...
Are you ready...?
... here comes....
.....
MY DAD IS GETTING MARRIED.
Yeah, that's what I said. In a good way. Contrary to the vocal-tone themes of many fo those that I have been able to tell thus far when they say "How do you feel about this?": I am very, very happy for him. It's an answer to prayer. An almost literal Godsend. What am I saying? It is a Godsend.
And it's gonna be crazy: She's moving here from across the country... With her three kids. To live with us in our three-and-a-half bedroom house.
We'll figure it out though. It's not like we haven't had more than eight people living in a single house before - in fact - it might be cool because I grew up that way.
Anyway, I just couldn't wait any longer to break the news, I gotta get ready for work.
Holy Starbucks, I am not ready to close.
That is pretty much all I have to say about the world right now. More to come, but for now, another quote:
"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." - Harry, When Harry Met Sally
"...The same One that takes care of the lilies of the field, Mr. Poppins, except that we toil a little, spin a little, have a barrel of fun. If you want to, come on over and become a lily too."
- Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff, You Can't Take It With You
"... The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles-- exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'awww!'"
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road
"I realize this sounds very Christian, very fundamentalist and browbeating, but I want to tell you this part of what the Christians are saying is true. I think Jesus feels strongly about communicating the idea of our brokenness, and I think it is worth reflection. Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror."
- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz
"I wonder if the three of us would've been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as people."
- Jack Whitman, The Darjeeling Limited
You know, sometimes I am just blown away by the aweseomeness of life and existence. I am a little wired today, from some good old Lipton and then about three shots of espresso. But wired just enough to be extra alert, instead of on the alert for heart palpitations... If that makes any sense.
I get tired of working at commercialized coffee houses, and I just want to sit and enjoy a decent cuppa in some little mom and pop place. And then I do, and I am amazed at how rejuvenated I feel because of it. And it isn't the caffeine... I'm not really sure what it actually is - possibly the act of disconnection, of sitting and simply drinking my cuppa instead of being on the road, or reading, or anything else.
Today was my last day of English class. I aced it. Would have been really depressed if I hadn't. It was a fun class though. It was kind of sad, in a way, being the last day - since we really separate for this class into our respective programs. So, sure, there will still be quite a few of us in Food History on Monday, but we'll still be losing some-- or at least some of our favorites, to Hotel and Restaurant Management. Ah well, they'll make new friends.
Speaking of friends, I don't know what to do with myself today. I have no homework, and no money... hmmm.
Holy Cannoli! Really, I just felt like saying that. Try it. It's fun. I've been reading about cannoli and cream puffs for about two and a half hours now for a research paper I'm doing for my English and Communications class... I must say, there is some very interesting stuff out there. I don't think I would ever have imagined that the cannoli began when the Arabs invaded Sicily; or that the cream puff would have been invented by an Italian baker - in France.... Yes, seriously.
I'm back and it hasn't been a month! Amazing. I must say of myself.
I think it's really that I have a reason to be back in front of the computer on a regular basis again. And pretty soon I'll have to find a little laptop that I can take to work or something.
Really though, I've got inspiration coming out of my ears right now and I don't know what to do with it. I don't even know what to do with that sort of thing anymore at all... so I just sort of ended up here. I was researching for my very first term paper ever (we're supposed to do two pages on our favourite food: mine are cookies of course) - and then I started thinking about the old days when cookies were cookies and life wasn't so complicated and then I read some old e-mails and old blog posts and I couldn't think academically anymore... I really hope this doesn't become a habit... But honestly, I don't know how to write a term paper! I only know how to write what I feel like.
I hope Chef K doesn't get very angry with me, but I think I'm going to write something along the lines of what I'm thinking right now because really:
There is no way that I could add to her knowledge of cookie making. And I'm sure she knows the history of cookies and how they started from little tests of cake batter to see if the oven was hot enough - and she definitely must know that cookie comes from the dutch word "koekje" that means "little cake" and how to measure and baking times and temperatures and why some spread and some don't. I'll bet anyone in the world that has ever been curious about cookies knows that chocolate chip cookies were invented in 1937 by Ruth Graves Wakefield -- the lady who ran the Toll House Restauraunt -- when she thought that the chocolate pieces would melt into the cookie, but they didn't.
I even found a little factoid that said that there was a bill introduced to the House and Senate on February 13, 2003 that wanted to adopt the Chocolate Chip Cookie as the official cookie of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania!
But, to me, the cookie represents so much that is good -- and I don't mean just taste. I mean in life... Just look at what the very smell of a cookie can do to a person: you walk into your home after a long hard day to find that the delicately sweet, buttery, tantalizing scent of chocolate chip cookies has permeated every room... and what do you do? You melt. "Oh, God, it smells so good in here," you whisper to yourself as your senses come alive again, your mind scrambling to find the fastest way to get one to your mouth.
For instance: I made about 150 five inch round, chewy, crunchy, peanut butter cookies over the holiday season, taking several dozen to a christmas party for some family friends. And there I saw one of the greatest things I have ever seen, several times:
You walk up to someone with one of those things; those big, shiny, familiarly stamped rounds, and they glance at it a moment, but then they realise what it is. Their eyes widen, you would swear their pupils dialate and they cannot remove their gaze as they say slowly "Is that a peanut butter cookie?". Your reply is a nod. "It's so... big..." They trail off. "Would you like one?" You say. And their head begins to shake, though their eyes still do not leave the cookie as their hand and arm slowly extend in much the same fashion as a five year old in the same situation. "I really shouldn't..." they say; but before they know it, they have taken a bite.
In short, there is a reason that the saying and the story go that mom makes you milk and cookies when you get home from a hard day at school. I wonder if that is where the beginning of the worldwide love for cookies begins: at home maybe, when mom uses them to get you talking about the stresses of the day, or grandma making them in celebration of your visit, or an evening alone with your favourite movie... Even just the smell, or the sweetness of the cookie itself, that has impressed such a powerfully soft, breakably delicious, joy into our psyche.
Whatever that reason may be, the history of the cookie, while having it's part, doesn't seem nearly as important to me as the simplicity, and truth in quiet moments, that the cookie itself represents to the wild and harsh world that accidentally created it.
"Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies."
- Karen Eiffel, "Stranger Than Fiction" (2006)
A-ha! This is for you... If you get it, you get it, if not... oh well.
