Category: Religion

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Being a girl Books Nonfiction Religion

I will trade social media for books any day of the week.

I gave up Facebook for Lent. I wasn’t going to give up anything, because as usual it snuck up on me, but then my uncle made an offhand comment (a Facebook status, actually), that “I guess none of us gave this up for Lent.” And then I realized that would be a great idea.

My reasoning was that I have friends who I never reach out to anymore, because I rationalize that I know what’s going on in their life, because I just looked at 60 pictures they just posted of their latest vacation. But I’m not really keeping in touch with these people. So I’m going to attempt to communicate with friends and family via other methods – even if it’s just email – over the next 5 1/2 weeks.

In the few weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday, I had been getting tired of Facebook – of always checking it and of never really seeing anything new, but then checking it again anyway. I also feel like my news feed has devolved into people sharing not-funny pictures. Oh, and now I get to see all the weird, embarrassing articles you just read online.

I’m not complaining about Facebook. It is what it is and it’s great for some things. But I think this break comes at a good time.

On the other hand, I know I’m doing something right because I’m kind of dying to get back on there and see what’s going on.

I have been uploading things for work, but not looking at anything else. Which is hard. I have stopped myself half a dozen times from just lazily clicking on someone’s profile, from a comment they made on the work page, just to see what’s up. Oops!

But last night, while I was on a mini-cleaning frenzy, I looked down and realized there was an Amazon box of 4 books on the ground. I remembered ordering it, but couldn’t quite remember what the items were. Then I cast my gaze around…on the pile of books I got at that used bookstore…the other used bookstore…from that Amazon gift card…from that payday that I went to Barnes and Noble…and I realized, if I had 9 boxes of books (a conservative estimate) when we moved in here, I surely have 11 now.

How did that happen? In 2 months? Maybe for Lent, I should have given up buying books. But that’s just crazy talk. I’d sooner give up chocolate again.

Categories
Awesome Beauty Drew Family Fashion Friends Home improvements Love Religion

It’s Christmas in South City!

There’s this neighborhood in South San Francisco, where they must have some kind of agreement or something that you have to sign when you move in, because everyone goes crazy during the holidays. I love it. I aspire to one day live in a place where I’m forced to put up hundreds of dollars of decorations every year so people can come park in front of my driveway and take pictures in my front yard.

Oh, that came out as sarcasm, but I’m totally serious.

Drew, Erin, and I went the other night, but we just drove through and so all my pictures are a little blurry, as Drew was reluctant to stop in the middle of everything and wait for me to get the perfect shot. I had to just magically get it while he was stopped momentarily in the line of cars.

Here are an assortment of – but not all of – those pictures:

The blue house...
...next to the white house
Candy cane fence
One of many Santas riding motorcycles
The best house!

That last house is the best house – it’s one of the first ones you see on your way in and the last one on your way out. It’s the prettiest and the cleanest-looking. There aren’t any weird creepy anamatronics in the windows, and what you can see of the inside of their house is also nice and Christmassy. It’s just the best house of the bunch.

I could have taken my blurry shots and been done with it – and supplemented this blog post with a handmade holiday poem or something – but then last night some of us went out for dinner and on the way back, the one person in the car who you’d expect to be the least excited about Christmas, said, “Ooh! Ooh! Have you seen the neighborhood with the decorated houses? Can we go look at it?”

I mean, that’s just adorable, you have to say yes.

Plus, we had Starbucks, so we were all feeling the holiday spirit.

So we parked and walked around, which means I got slightly less blurry pictures. Although I think that, without a real camera and a tripod, I was never going to get magazine-spread-ready photos. But I mean…cameraphone diaries.

Here are some details I didn’t get during our drive-by visit:

A closeup of the best house, and their tree.
On any other street in any other neighborhood, this house would be amazing. But here, it's like...Okay. What else you got?
I just like the reflection of the house across the street.
A couple years ago, Drew and Erin and I did this, and I had a picture of myself in front of this wreath. Oh yeah, a lot of houses reuse their decorations.
This house goes for quality, not quantity. A real snow globe! These kids were losing their minds!
I just love Nativities.
This is the bear house. They have two of the creepiest trees ever - made all out of bears, held hostage with Christmas lights.
A closeup of the upstairs bear tree...
God knows I tried to take a good picture of us. But I look awkward in all of them. This is the least awkward-looking.
An assortment of characters!
I like the reflections here too
I'm hoping that these people are on vacation or something, and they don't hate their lives.
Mesmerizing
I remember this from last year too. I don't think they're all children. In my head this is a daycare center or something.
Drew likes this tree. He thinks it should be in Downtown Disney or something.
Geese on the roof!

It sure feels like Christmas here – and I can’t wait to see my family tonight and Drew’s family tomorrow! Merry Christmas, all!!

Categories
Awesome Memoir Religion Self improvement Sentiment Theatre Writing

How to Write a New Book for the Bible

Yesterday, Drew and I went to see How to Write a New Book for the Bible, by Bill Cain, at Berkeley Rep. I worked with Bill on two shows at Marin Theatre Company – Equivocation and 9 Circles. (Kent Nicholson, who directed How to Write a New Book…, also directed 9 Circles. Kent and Bill are great together – I think that this play wouldn’t have been as good under another director’s hand.) 

Bill was a very active part of both of MTC’s rehearsal processes, and consequently we spent a lot of time together. He is a very sweet and very quirky guy, and was always willing to talk to me about whatever – writing, theatre, etc – and after one conversation about self-editing, he showed me a draft copy of How to Write a New Book…, and the ridiculous amounts of notes he scribbles on every single page. I really liked working with him.

I don’t know what I was expecting from How to Write a New Book…, really – I knew the show was about the death of his mother and that it was highly autobiographical. Bill is a Jesuit priest, and religion is always a main character in his shows.

I’ve never seen a show at Berkeley Rep before. First of all, I loved the theatre – it was their thrust stage, which is a really interesting space. At about 5 minutes til curtain, the house manager (?) came in and announced the whole space, “Feel free to scoot inwards for a better seat,” and then Drew and I watched a bunch more people come in, and we decided that that announcement was the worst idea ever.

As for the show itself…it was about the death of his mother, and it was highly autobiographical. It created a lot of feelings in me. Feelings about writing, about religion, about family, about theatre, about God, about life, about being in rehearsal with Bill and hearing pieces of these anecdotes. I sort of loved the use of the small set, and the staging. The actors (2 playing themselves through the whole thing, and 2 playing multiple characters) were stellar.

There was a Bible passage that was repeated several times throughout the play – I’m not sure of the speaker or the location. But I believe it’s Peter or Paul, and it’s along the lines that “All things come together for the greater good.” (Uncle Pastor, help with this? Book of Acts, maybe?) In the play, Bill (the character – but also sort of the writer) repudiates this. I personally tend to think that all things do work together and work out – but I know that Bill would argue with me on that, and have lots of good examples and probably Bible verses to back it up. So I probably wouldn’t start that argument.

How to Write a New Book for the Bible is only playing through Nov 20th. I fully recommend it to anyone who can go in the next week.

We’ve seen a lot of theatre over the last 6 weeks. I probably walked out of this one with the most residual feelings at the end. Highest commendation?

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Books Fiction Nonfiction Religion Technology

Google > Bing

Today I learned from the radio that soma is a modern drug, also known as Carisoprodol. It’s a muscle relaxant and pain reliever.

But I remember Soma as the drug in Brave New World that everyone had to take, that kept them apathetic and “happy.” What a reference!

Apparently, Brave New World borrowed the name from a mythical (assumedly hallucinogenic) drink consumed by the ancient Indo-Aryans.

Indo-Aryans are now most highly concentrated in the following areas: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives. There are one billion native speakers of the Indo-Aryan languages.

You should try to learn one new thing every day. Now we’ve learned four!

Or maybe you already knew one or two or three of these things. If so, you’re still good. If you knew all four, then you’ll have to find your own new thing for today.

Categories
Beauty Beginnings Dreams Memoir Nature Religion Sentiment

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face” – John Donne

I woke up this morning with my socked foot sticking out from under the covers. I felt very warm under the covers, and outside (while still the inside of my apartment) felt very brisk. This is the point at which I gave up and welcomed in fall.

It’s been feeling more and more autumny for days now – I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly. A smell? A certain snap to the air? Maybe the trees are changing colors and I just haven’t really been paying attention? Suddenly all I want to do is shop for new boots and sweaters. Not to mention school supplies…oh, the school supplies…

I can’t stop reminiscing, as of late. Mostly I’ve been thinking about being in high school. Which isn’t to say that I want to go back to high school. I mean, even the memories I’m getting trapped in are of being in bed when the alarm goes off, and it’s so early and dark out. It’s not particularly welcoming.

I will try to steer my thoughts toward fall in college – with its classes that start later. (Remember when we were all in high school and we would get up at like 6:00 to go to zero period? And it’s just what you did? That ish is crazy.) College is good fall memories. I’ll have to buy some strawberry conditioner (works every time) and a pumpkin pie spice candle.

Or I can think about being in New York – working at the haunted house in October (October is even the coolest word!), and everything gets windy, but not cold yet, and leaves are everywhere, and you’re just so freaking happy that it’s not summer anymore. The landlord turns your heat on for the first time in 6 months… Everything is burgundy and burnt orange and brown. I mean the clothes, of course.

I’m really looking forward to the fact that this show and the next show we’re doing are in Mountain View. Downtown Mountain View in the fall is pretty darn perfect. Again with the leaves and the wind. And soon it’ll be Halloween. I don’t like dressing up for Halloween, but I love every other single thing about it.

I will bemoan one more time the fact that, living where we do, we don’t really get seasons. This just means I’ll have to be sure to go to Lake County this fall to enjoy it. And take advantage of every second I’m down at work.

I love spring and I love summer and I even love winter, but above all else, man I love the fall.

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Exercise Family Memoir Religion Sentiment

Post-Easter Resolutions

I was home this weekend for Easter. The last thing I had to accomplish in April (not counting Script Frenzy, which is almost over, and anyway I can do it from my couch in pajamas).

A great weekend home, including a 6 am sunrise church service: although I balked at it last week as it became imminent, I figured I owed it to my-3-years-ago-self, who was, in another dimension of time, stuck in New York, doing 2 shows on Easter Sunday, and wishing she could be at her family’s church.

So, there was church, there was playing with cats, there was dinner with family, there was much driving.

But now life is “back to normal” and it feels so good. We went to bed at 10:15 last night.

In honor of being back to normal, I have set myself these goals for this week. (And if I make it public then I will have to follow through on them.)

1. Go to the gym 4 times – I’m trying out this Couch to 5K thing, and today I finished my first week (which is actually the third week of the program). So I would like to complete another week, this week.

2. Finish Script Frenzy – I have 26 pages (and one major plot twist) to go.

3. I want to start tracking on Weight Watchers online again. I’ve been half-heartedly tracking things, and then giving up mid-afternoon. So this week, I will track every single thing that happens. I mean, I pay the $18/month for the thing, I should use it, right?

4. Finish and submit a second guest commentary thing. Topic: ?

Totes do-able.

Categories
Being a girl Books Religion

The Game of Life

I’m reading this book that someone at work gave me: The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn.  I haven’t gotten very far into it but the first chapter has already brought up an interesting concept.

The book is along the same lines as The Secret (which I haven’t actually read, but I’ve read about it and I think I grasp what The Secret is).  Florence breaks down the mind into three departments:

The subconscious is: “simply power, without direction…Whatever man feels deeply is impressed upon the subconscious mind, and carried out in minutest detail.”

The conscious is: “the mortal or carnal mind.  It is the human mind and sees life as it appears to be…it impresses the subconscious.”

The superconscious is: “the God Mind within each man, and is the realm of perfect ideas.”

I learned all the id/ego/superego stuff in high school, but the term “superconscious” isn’t familiar to me, at least not described like this. 

“In [the superconscious] is the “perfect pattern” spoken of by Plato, The Divine Design; for there is a Divine Design for each person.  There is a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill, something you are to do, which no one else can do.  There is a perfect picture of this in the superconscious mind.  It usually flashes across the conscious as an unattainable ideal – something “too good to be true.”  In reality it is man’s true destiny (or destination) flashed to him from the Infinite Intelligence which is within himself.”

A part of me knows this is just one person’s theory; it’s not really something that can be proven or shown through science.  But the rest of me thinks that it makes sense and fits in line with the kind of view I’ve been taking on the world.  I like the idea of The Secret – attracting to yourself the things that you want.  I also like the idea of the Divine Design – that things are predestined for me and that the choices and actions I make resound within this overall life plan that is already in place.

I know that a lot of people are against this idea for just that reason: they don’t want to think that they don’t actually have any say in the way their life turns out.  But the Divine Design doesn’t eliminate free will.

Probably if I’d read this book three years ago I would have dismissed it as yet another psycho-babble self-help book.  But this year the way things have been falling into place, Drew and I keep saying to each other that everything happens the way and when it’s supposed to.

A year and a half ago we had just moved back to California and we kept saying that 2010, after crazy 2009 with its engagement, cross-country move, and wedding, would be the calm year of just working and paying off debt.  But apparently that wasn’t part of the plan for us, and it’s just been this year that we’re finally, finally starting to make great strides forward.

I don’t know whether we managed to finally attract these things to us, or if it was just part our Divine Design, or if our collective superconscious finally made our jobs materialize.  Or a combination of all three.  I guess it doesn’t matter how it happened so much – I’m just so happy that it did. 

That’s actually what caught my eye in those paragraphs about the departments of the mind: that this perfect picture of my future already exists inside me somewhere and that when I’ve had those flashes of the way things could be, it’s not “too good to be true” – it’s inevitable.  That’s a good feeling.

Categories
Awesome Beginnings Nonfiction Religion Sentiment Uncategorized Work

Congratulate me, O Friends!

Elton Richards – the pastor out of pasture – broke down prayer for me into four types.  It’s a handy mnemonic: ACTS.  A for adoration (praising God).  C for confession (telling God your sins).  T for thanksgiving (being grateful to God for what you have).  S for supplication (asking God to help you).

–The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs

Like most people, I’m pretty good at Supplication.  But I also think that I’m good at Thanksgiving: when it’s an especially pretty day, when I get home safely in the pouring rain, when I get a sweet parking space.  I try to get some Adoration in there too: it often goes hand-in-hand with Thanksgiving.  I don’t do a lot of Confession, but maybe that’s something I should explore.

Last week found me supplicating silently all the time.  Sometimes specific, sometimes just “Please please please.”  When I was being specific I couldn’t quite bring myself to say, “Let me get this job,” but rather, “Give me the confidence and courage to nail this interview” or “Let this job be part of your plan for me,” since even I don’t presume to know what’s best for me and my life.

But on Friday, when I got the job, I was equally as enthusiastic (and speechless), sticking mostly to “Thank you thank you thank you!”  I threw in some “You’re amazing!”s to mix it up.  It’s things like this that make it really obvious that there is a plan for each of us, and that God has a hand always in our lives.

The job in question?  Sales Manager at one of the major Bay Area theatres…incidentally the exact position I held when I worked at this company for four months in 2009.  Which is another story altogether.  But now I’m back, and while they have done some major renovations and overhaul on the building, it sort of feels exactly the same.

So here’s to the first day at a new job  career, and to getting what you need (not always the same as what you want), and to prayers being answered.

And let’s not forget, a (brief) moment of silence for my (brief) subbing career.  Which I enjoyed but was perfectly willing to give up.

Categories
Awesome Being a girl cars Family Religion

Attitude of gratitude

This morning before work, I drive down to Redwood City to pick up sub paperwork and the forms to take to my 9:00 am fingerprinting appointment.  So I get to the school, park, go inside the office for, like, 8 minutes, and when I come back out, my car will not start.  Like, it doesn’t even make any noise when I turn the key.  What??  So I call Drew’s dad and tell him what’s up, and he says that it sounds like a dead battery and that he’ll come down.

So I sit in the car and fill out my paperwork, and then I read a little bit (Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup, who also wrote Slumdog Millionaire), and the sun is out and it’s not too bad.  I do have to go back into the office and ask if I can reschedule my fingerprinting, as there’s no way I’m getting there by 9:00.  But they say to just come on over whenever.  Occasionally I turn the key in the ignition and see if it’ll start.

Drew’s dad shows up a little after 9:00, and as he walks up to the car he says, “See if it’ll start.”  And of course…it does.  Flawlessly.  Not even hesitantly.  Wtf, Saturn??  His dad is totally cool about it and says that he needed to come down that way anyway, and that he’s used to cars suddenly acting fine when he shows up.  But jeez, he had to drive half an hour to me at 8:30 in the morning…I’m afraid I’m going to get booted from this family for being a bad daughter-in-law.

I’ve had no more problems with the car for the rest of the day.  So the only logical explanation is that I needed to be detained in Redwood City this morning for 45 minutes.  I wonder what disaster I avoided?  I guess it doesn’t have to be something on my way to the county office (fingerprinting) – it could have been something I would have run into in San Francisco, or even on my way home this afternoon (I ended up staying later at work because I didn’t get there until almost 11:00).

Anyway, whatever it was, I’m grateful.  Having to sit in the sun this morning and read is by no means a hardship.  And I have to assume that someone is looking out for me.  So…thank you!!

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Family Friends Religion

Christmas 2010

This year we did Christmas Eve with my parents, and then Christmas dinner with Drew’s family.  On Christmas Eve we went to my family’s church for the candlelight service, and I met their new pastor.  She seems cool and new.  I think she’ll be really good for their congregation.  Being at church made me really want to go to church regularly again.  So I think I’ll add that to my New Year’s resolutions.

Christmas night, after dinner and everything, we went to see 127 Hours.  Every year Drew and I have gone to the movies on Christmas day, and I’m really glad we were able to keep that tradition alive.

2005 – The Producers (we didn’t yet know the tradition would be “movies that come out on Christmas day)
2006 – Dreamgirls
2007 – Sweeney Todd
2008 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2009 – Sherlock Holmes
2010 – 127 Hours (nothing came out on Christmas this year!)

127 Hours is not the most Christmassy of movies.  But it was good.  I see how it’s a good movie.  There was a part where I felt sort of sick, and I covered my eyes for a minute, but then I thought, This is practically the point of the movie, I don’t want to miss this.  Then a little later I cried a little bit.  Because it was either that or throw up.  It was good though.  I kept thinking about it the rest of the night.

This afternoon while driving to Fort Funston to walk with Erin, Drew said something about today being Monday.  Then I got to tell him today is only Sunday.  He was so happy!

That cat so does not care about me.

We are one week into Christmas Break and this is what I’ve accomplished of my Christmas Break Resolutions.

-Hit the gym 6 times.  I’m up to 4 so far.

-Do some deep cleaning of the apartment.  We even fixed our toilet by ourselves!  The tank’s had a slow leak forever, and we’ve just been cleaning up after it.  But then we finally teamed up and fixed it.  What a rush, right?

-Organize my iTunes and sync up my iPod.  Done!  I got lots of new stuff.  Including podcasts.

-Manage to make a dinner that makes Drew go, “Mmm!  This is DELICIOUS!!”  Does reheating the leftovers from his mom’s Christmas dinner count?  I did make my own mashed potatoes.