Road Trip!

This Friday I will be leaving on a road trip up to Houghton to visit my friends Abby and Ryan. I will be riding in a car with four other people. For about nine hours. One way. I'm not a fan of road trips, in general, but I'm trying to reason with myself that this trip will be fun. The following are some pros and cons. Let's start with a con.

I'm not a big fan of driving. I just want to be there, already. Driving is such a waste of time. You can't multitask at all. Well, you can't multitask very safely. I have in fact written out checks, wedding cards, and grocery lists while at the wheel. I have compiled said grocery list from flipping through a flyer. I have read the next page of my book, or the next chapter. Granted, all of this was (mostly) while traffic was stopped at stop lights or really long construction delays, but it's still probably not the safest thing ever.

On the other hand, driving with people is a much safer form of multitasking. You get to socialize while traveling. And if you're not the one driving because you're riding with people who actually like to drive, you can read or make lists or write checks with no major repercussions on the horizon other than maybe a little bit of carsickness.

I do get a little carsick sometimes when I sit in the back seat. Just in the nauseated sort of way. This comes from seven years in which I've mostly driven myself everywhere.

On the other hand, I have these acupressure wristbands that look like something out of a movie from the 1980's. They work. I won't have to spend the whole trip trying to sleep my way through the carsickness.

Speaking of sleeping, on the long trip down to Pennsylvania I have the back seat to myself. This means I can stretch out for naps. On the trip to Houghton, I won't be able to do that. I'll likely be sharing the back seat with two other people for the whole trip.

On the other hand, these two people I'm thinking of are Lisa and Mara. If I fall asleep leaning against the seat behind me and end up against one of their shoulders, it won't be awkward.

And then there might be sing-alongs, and reading out loud, and trying out our Office character skills, and those really deep conversations you can get into in a dark car when nobody has to make eye contact with anybody else. And at the end of the trip there are two friends waiting for us, and a weekend full of both invading each other's space in ways that will be good for the practice of patience and of spending time together in ways I love.

Sometimes I just need to talk myself into things to realize how great they are.

I don't get it

When I was 8, I spent a lot of time in “junior church.” Junior church, for those who haven’t been, is sort of like youth group, but for kids. So there is some attempt at having lessons and meaningful discussions, but mostly the kids get to run around and goof off in the basement, which is something those in the sanctuary above us would have frowned upon had we been up there.

I have a lot of junior church stories, because apparently most of my childhood church memories come from Oak Park. And I’m sure I’ve told the following story before, but it is one of the most prescient stories of my childhood, so it keeps coming up.

After the lesson, the free time was often spent with the boys chasing the girls around the basement. (It’s only now that I wonder if these were the mornings when the teachers had just been so overwhelmed that they were giving up for the rest of the day.) I distinctly remember one particular time when the boys were trying to snatch purses from the girls, and most of the girls were squealing and running. I, however, was standing firm in the center of the room, calling out to the other girls, “If you don’t want them to chase you, just stop running and they’ll lose interest!” A boy ran past me and grabbed at my purse. I yanked it out of his grasp and gave him a withering look.

This story is a good illustration of my personality on several levels, but for the purposes of this post, it's a good illustration of the fact that the guy/girl dynamic mostly escapes me. I don’t like the double-talk and the backstage chatter and the dissection of meaning. Not that I haven’t done it, because I totally have. But it just gets…*annoying*. And it often seems like such a pointless waste of time.

Example that inspired this post: overhearing a group of guys in the cafeteria at work talking about how “whipped” somebody was. I thought to myself, “This guy is either disrespecting the other guy’s girlfriend, OR he actually believes it’s really nice that the girl calls her boyfriend so many times a day, and this is a weird male way of expressing that.” I don’t understand.

And as the song says, “We don’t like what we don’t understand—in fact, it scares us.”

On a semi-related end note, if I ever am “seeing” somebody in the dating sense, and anybody starts calling him “whipped,” I’ll probably hate it so much that I’ll try to break up with him.

Summary: I don’t think I operate like normal girls.

Making It Right (part two)

I've been thinking more about my post from Thursday, and felt as though it could stand expanding. Because while the most important part of making things right is realizing that you can't do it alone, that's not all there is to it. I for one have wasted far too much time sitting around waiting for God to fix me without me having to expend any energy or put any thought into what's behind what I say is wrong with me. It's possible to do this with relationships, too.

For instance, I've had a lot of relationships that went south, without (or more usually with) my active participation. "Every time you raise your voice I see the greener grass," as Alanis says. Most of those relationships came back around after I had given up on them. I hadn't done anything, but they were given back to me as unearned gifts. This, combined with the fact that the way in which I chose to participate often got me into relational trouble in the first place, makes it easy for me to take a passive "wait-and-see" attitude. Which can be good. Sometimes. But it can also be making the other person do all the work, making the other person responsible to come to me.

On the one hand, over-passivity. On the other, over-aggressiveness, pushing people where they weren't meant to go. I try to walk the line.

If I feel that I have wronged someone and that they are aware of it, I trend towards one of the two extremes above: ignore it or go way too confessional. Either one just adds baggage. In the first case, I end up wondering how much the person remembers, how much our relationship is being affected in subtle ways, how much staying silent can be a form of lying. In the second case, I wonder what possessed me to reveal so much about my motivations and inner life to somebody who was really only wanting to hear "don't worry, we're still friends."

If I have wronged someone and they are unaware of it, sometimes it might be for the best to let them remain unaware. For instance, I had a college friend whose boyfriend broke up with her after telling her he thought she still had feelings for her previous boyfriend. Later, he felt the need to confess that really it was that he had just been using her to try to get over somebody else. I'm not sure that was helpful. I think sometimes we confess to make ourselves feel better, not to heal a breach.

There are situations in which total openness is valuable, but maybe those are only for very close friends and people who are planning to marry each other. My example for this: someone I know whose husband only told her he sometimes suffered from severe depressive mood swings after they were married. A confession that wouldn't have been about an error before marriage became a huge wrong after it.

I once heard somebody say, "People don't want your apologies, they want you." It has the ring of truth. I'm going to wrong and disappoint people, and they're going to wrong and disappoint me. And yet it's amazing what honesty can do. It's amazing how easy it can be to forgive and be forgiven when we repent sincerely and don't drag our self-protection into it ("I'm sorry, but I only did that because...").

Is there a simple 12-step program for forgiveness? No. But what if that's because it could be even simpler, if we didn't spend so much time complicating it?

What if it's as simple as love?

Making It Right

This might be the hardest part about life: people need people, but yet people disappoint people. 

I want to believe that people are more than what they seem, but maybe I'm making them up and they aren't even what they seem. I want to trust, but I have so many good reasons not to. A little voice in my head tells me people are out for what they can get from you, however they can get it; they will use you up and throw you aside without even blinking if you give them half a chance. (Don't think I exempt myself from this. I'll be the first to tell you I will let you down in almost as many ways as I let myself down, and almost as frequently.) Perhaps worse than the pain of disappointment is the self-inflicted pain of never letting people get close enough to disappoint you. Because they almost always get in under your guard anyway, and then you're hurt twice. 

People who need people aren't, as the song claims, "the luckiest people in the world." They are the only people in the world. And yet we are frustrated so often by our inability to connect in meaningful ways, by our shallow love and weak or nonexistent trust.

On Tuesday night some friends and I watched a documentary about a woman who used to be a stripper and a drug abuser and a lost soul, a woman who was pursued and loved by and in turn came to love and pursue a patient and gracious God. She now devotes her life to connecting with girls in the industry who are devaluing and debasing themselves. Some people in her community were not okay with this, as though God couldn't use somebody who had sinned so much.

"What could I do to make it right?" a friend asked me not long afterwards, a hypothetical question in response to the issue of hidden sins coming to light. "If you found out about something I had done that disappointed you, what could I do to make it right?"

The first answer that came to mind was "Nothing." It's the wrong answer. And the right one.

It's the wrong answer because it's not who I want to be, who I'm called to be. I may not have committed many of the big Socially Unacceptable sins, but I am daily guilty of selfishness, of loving myself above others, of trying to fix myself, protect myself, take care of myself, live by and for myself. Me. Alone. Nobody else. But if nothing can make it right between and among people, nothing can make it right inside of one person, either.

It's the right answer because it's not up to the people who have wronged me, directly or indirectly--how many people do we wound arrogantly, casually, not even thinking of them at all?--it's not up to them to make anything right. They can't. It's not up to me to make it right. I can't.

But I know someone who can. I know someone who suffered wrong but never inflicted it. I know someone who loves me and forgives me because he is more than big enough and more than strong enough and more than willing enough to do those things. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

And so I will believe that people can be more than what they settle for, because God doesn't settle for leaving us where we are (even when we're happy to be there). God catches up to world-weary ex-strippers and world-weary "good church girls" alike. God won't leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8), even when those closest to us forget us (Isaiah 49:15). God makes it possible for us to love people and forgive people and trust people even though we know what they are capable of because we know what we are capable of (I John 4:19). God gives us all we need for our fullest protection and empowers us to throw away the shadow-armor we cling to so fiercely (Ephesians 6:10-17). No, we are never going to attain perfection here and now on this earth. But here and now is not all there is (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

God makes it right. God uses implausible people. And the God who turns mourning into dancing can surely turn deep disappointment to even deeper satisfaction.

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" (Romans 5:9).

When she was young

Several years ago I had a major computer crash, receiving the error message "Hard Drive Not Found." This had been the computer I had all through college, and had been the family computer before that. I had a lot of stuff on it. I was distraught. Fortunately, I also knew a computer geek named Micah who was able to rescue my data and put it on a CD for me. I uploaded a few things from the CD to my computer, put the CD in a drawer, and forgot there was anything else on it.

Fast forward five years, and I turned to this CD so I could send my friend Abby an electronic copy of the classic work "Cooking with Suzanne." I discovered there was far more on it that I remembered. I have work on there dating back to 1990. Let me tell you, my writing style was not always this (still with me?) gripping. In fact, some of the diary entries from the early 1990's are almost painful to read, managing to combine over- and under-description. But other bits are salvageable, and I will be sharing such bits with you where I find them entertaining.

To start off, here is an excerpt from a letter written July 10, 1993. I find this an amusing look into my 14-year-old world:

"Jeremiah and I went on the Indy Go-Karts, where the phrase 'speed-demon' explained itself. Jeremiah collided head-on with a wall upon coming down a hill, and my Go-Kart was bumped by another driver. I was very tense, and it seemed to me that I was the only one that cared about slowing down on curves and hills. I think I will be a much more responsible driver than any of the others, with the possible exception of Jeremiah. After the Indy Go-Karts Jeremiah and I (with Kathy this time) went on the Slick Track Go-Karts, Go-Karts on an ice-like surface. I hope I never have to drive on real ice, because slipping and sliding around made my neck ache."

Love and obedience

My first first-grade Sunday School class was something of a disaster. Or rather, two or three boys made enough commotion to make it seem like one while it was happening. I understand I'm dealing with a large room of six-year-old children, but it is still frustrating for me when they don't listen to me. 

Ironically, our lesson set this trimester is on obedience even when it is hard. Our Bible verse for the morning was "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15). I wrote that without looking it up. I doubt anybody else in the class could repeat it back to me with all the commotion at the back table.

I was thinking a lot about that verse today. When I was a kid, I thought it was kind of harsh. "Love me means you do what I say"? Why not just have slaves? Why bring love into it? I read the sentence as prescriptive, another command on top of the long list of commands. 

But it isn't prescriptive. It's descriptive. It's like saying, "If you love me, you will like spending time with me" or "If you love me, you will speak well of me to others." The heart is always revealed in actions.

The boys I had the most trouble from today were kids I hadn't worked with before much, or at all. I had a few problems with some other boys, too, but when I would ask them to stop they would stop...at least for as long as they seemed to remember I had asked them to do so. Which is maybe as close to the spirit of that descriptive phrase as any of us can ever get here on this earth.

I'm thankful for the Spirit who strengthens our memories, and for being able to see him working in six-year-old boys who love me enough to stop throwing papers around. Even if it's just for a few minutes.

Don't make me turn this bus around....

Tonight while on Facebook I stumbled across a group for highschoolers. It's basically about how juniors and seniors are awesome and freshman and sophomores are so annoying. I hope they're kidding. I'm definitely going to give them the benefit of the doubt on that.

Because, seriously? High school. No one is as cool as they think they are. 

I was homeschooled, so I didn't really have major class system awe until I got to college. (I do remember thinking, as an 8-year-old, that 13-year-olds must have a much better grasp on the world. And that by 40 you had probably had enough time to figure everything out. Oh, little Suzanne! How sweetly clueless you were!) As a freshman in college, I was sure that the seniors knew everything that was really necessary about life. Things like what they were going to do after graduation, for example. 

During my first class of my final year of college, when we were going around doing the name/major/class rank introductions, somebody introduced himself as a senior. My first thought ("Oooo, a senior!") was quickly followed by a jarring, almost panicked thought ("Wait a minute! I'm a senior!"). That year I directed a piece for our theatre company's "Wandering Thespians" (we went into a class that had been studying that play/subject/etc. and put on a bit of a play). The three people involved were me, another senior, and a freshman who actually said something to the effect of "I can't believe I'm talking to seniors!" one time when we were sitting around companionably after rehearsal had concluded. My fellow senior and I looked at each other, shrugged, and tried to communicate that we didn't really have some mystical source of knowledge. I don't think he was convinced.

The moral of the story: Class rank doesn't mean as much as you might think. Physical age doesn't mean as much as you might think. And only sticking to one class or age range really limits you in your friend pool. 

So why can't you all just get along and stop being posers, highschoolers? After all, we'll always be whippersnappers to somebody. Or at least we will until we're old enough to be ignored by all the punk kids. (Will they say "punk kids" in 40 years? Keep this question in mind and report back to me in four decades.)

DISCLAIMER: Harvest highschoolers and family members who are still highschoolers, you know I love you. Or if you didn't, let this be your notice. 'Cause I do.

"I am today." -- Jarod

Since I needed to submit a headshot for the program for the play this October, and since Brittany is an excellent photographer, last night I went downtown and met up with her for a photo shoot. First we toured her office, located in an impressive brick building with a security guard and elevators and real wood finishes and giant open lobby-ish areas on each floor. Her office is full of books and nerds, which is excellent. Currently she works in an actual office with an actual door, and she dresses professionally, and altogether looks the part of a woman with a fulfilling career.

She introduced me to one of her co-workers as "my friend Suzanne...she's a playwright." I immediately felt like I was trying to pull some kind of con. I mean, honestly. Writing one play is just a fluke, right? There I was, trying to dress the role and seem like I knew what I was doing, but really I was so unprofessional and non-nonchalant abou this that I had been flipping out with excitement when I heard the news that my little play was selected.

When I arrived home that evening, I finished writing up my publicity homework. It took an excruciatingly long amount of time, mostly because I'm so conflicted when it comes to publicity work. I'm good at it, and it can be fun, but it can also feel too much like lying. And while it can be hard to write about other people or things, it's even harder to write about myself. (I've long confused self-deprecation for humilty and I am still trying to figure out what the latter really looks like.)

With all that said, today I'm thinking about image, and how we present ourselves to others. We tweak ourselves to fit different audiences. We try to make people like us. I've done more than my share of changing to fit an audience, and I always end up frustrated that I wasn't good enough for them in my normal state. I won't always be young. My face will wrinkle and (if heredity is anything to go by) my joints will weaken. I can't always be exciting, or funny, or intellectually stimulating, and it's tiring to try, to feel like people will only talk to you if you measure up to some invisible standard and will drop you as soon as someone more interesting comes along. 

I want to be truthful. It's so hard to be completely truthful, but I think it's even harder not to be, in the long run. I want to explore what it means to be all things to all men in a sincere way, like Paul did, not through manipulative self-marketing ploys but in finding the means to live contented. I want to let myself change for the better and to expect that the same thing is happening in other people. I want to allow plenty of space for pretending, but none for pretense. 

So am I a playwright? 

I am today.

A Hiatus of a Different Sort, and a Stepping Back

I have company coming up for the long weekend, so I'll be on blogging hiatus again. When I return, I've decided I am going to ease back on the blogging and focus on other writing in the "off" days....both because I am feeling the need to do other writing (the foremost in my mind being a Psych fanfic this time, not another play just yet) and because I am feeling the need to do less blogging. 

It's kind of dangerous to blog every day. I start feeling like people out there really care what I'm talking about (which some of you certainly do), and yet also like I'm talking to myself (which I'm certainly not). I read some posts from an older blog last night and it was...painful. Seriously, nobody needs to get that much information about me without having to talk to me. Hence the search for a happy medium. I'm aiming for no less than two posts a week, but not necessarily seven. I mention this for the sake of my own motivation.

Speaking of motivation, I am going to do a little bit of cleaning now. I have been putting it off for two hours.

Enjoy your long weekend, everyone!

A little overwhelmed just now

I have homework. This is exciting because 1) it's for publicity for the play I wrote and 2) homework is something I generally enjoy.

It is throwing me off, however, in that it's write-about-yourself homework. You are probably wondering how this is difficult when I've been blogging just about every day for a month and a half. So am I, kind of. But this writing is of the "what have you been up to" variety. 

On the written homework list (I also need a headshot and am hoping that the deadline is far enough out that Brittany will be able to do it):

1) Approximately 500-800 words on what I've been up to since Calvin, especially as it relates to theatre.

2) Advice to current theatre students.

3) A bio of 40 words or less for the program.

4) A summary of my play in one or two sentences.

5) One quirky thing about me.

I think I'll do this homework tomorrow after getting more sleep than I did last night, because this is going to be hard. I mean, seriously, how can I narrow my quirkiness down to one thing? Anybody have any suggestions?

The Purpose of a Blogging Hiatus

 Remember when I took a blogging hiatus a few weeks back? 

I had started a play quite some time ago and it had been languishing in my electronic files, waiting for the right combination of inspiration and motivation so I could finish it. And then along came notice of the Calvin Theatre Company's 10 Minute Play Festival, a notice that came with a one week deadline (the deadline was slightly flexible, but if I allow myself to think that way about deadlines they are far less motivating). 

ANYWAY, I finished the play.

And submitted it.

And it was selected.

And I am so very excited and happy and I haven't been this much of either since I don't know when, and there is nobody here but Apollo and he doesn't want to jump around the room like an idiot with me, so I'm blogging out to you, loyal and casual and first-time readers, known and unknown. Celebrate with me! Pass around the virtual ice cream!

The play is called "The Cloud Watchers" and will be performed at Calvin College on Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4. It will be my first written work to be performed outside of a Harvest youth group setting. 

AAAAHHHHH!!!! [/scream of girlish excitement]

Wild Geese, I love you so much more than usual right now. ;)

*Cue Wicked Witch theme music*

Tonight Trudy and I rode our bikes to book club and back. There is something about both physical exertion and intellectually stimulating socialization that makes me feel alive in a way that simply sitting at a computer does not. A pair of bike rides bookending...well, bookending book club was a lovely way to spend the evening. Rather especially so since we were discussing Cranford, a book by a woman about a society comprised nearly exclusively of women. All around, I feel very empowered tonight. (Not that I am anti-men. My neighbor held both doors open for me as I wrestled my bike upstairs, which is actually a very Cranford-esque good reason to have a man around.)

As for the title of this post...we raced the darkness home, and I challenge anyone who has ever seen The Wizard of Oz to ride a bike at breakneck pace and not play this theme song in your head.

You don't know me...and maybe also you do

This morning I was part of a conversation on the value of Facebook, and whether it helps or hinders relationships. A friend of mine said she hated the shallowness of it, the lack of truly meaningful interaction, the ease with which time can be wasted. I have a Facebook account myself, but I agree with her, and while I don't think those problems are unique to the internet, I think they are definitely exacerbated online. (Isn't "exacerbated" a great word?)

Also this morning, my church grandma Rosemary said she is enjoying reading my blog, that she feels she is getting to know me more and more because of it. She said she doesn't want to comment because she doesn't want everyone to be able to see what she writes.

At first I was looking at these as purely internet-related issues, but the more they simmer in my mind, the more they clarify into issues of exposure. No matter what the avenue, from the stage to the internet to the living room, those who present themselves before us will be seen as people we know.

We were created to exist in relationship. We were created for openness and depth. Now, twisted and fallen, we walk the line between perceiving what does not exist and denying what does.

What do I mean? Let me try to explain by a few examples:

• I appreciate the writing of Andrée Seu, a columnist for WORLD magazine. She makes me think and challenges my faith in encouraging ways. Do I know her?
• 
  
• I greatly enjoyed Calvin's improvisational comedy team. I attended their shows regularly and laughed over the jokes with friends later. I even had a few classes with some of the members of the team. Did I know them?
• 
  
• I have heard my pastor preach hundreds of times since I joined Harvest. I have been in smaller classes under his leadership. I have attended church picnics where he was present. Do I know him? 
• 
  
• I was homeschooled. I spent nearly all day, every day, in the company of my mother and brother. I talked to them on the phone frequently when I was in college and more frequently afterwards. Do I know them?

To all of the above, the answer is the same: "Yes and no." I knew the part of themselves they chose to reveal to me, whether or not it was in a public forum. Even then, I only knew what they were showing in the moment, not the totality of their experiences. Knowledge, but incomplete knowledge.

One more example: I live in my own head. Much as it is a constant struggle for me to understand those outside of me, it can be as much of a struggle to understand myself. Do I really believe what I say I believe? Am I living honestly? Do I know myself? Yes and no.

The danger we all face is the danger of assumption. We assume we know people, that our relationships are solid, that we don't need to put any more effort into them. We assume everything on the surface is all we need to know, and maybe sometimes that is enough. But maybe sometimes we want to be read. And always, always, we desire someone who desires to know us. We don't want to spill our hearts and lives into the void. We want someone to catch us...to want to catch us.

It's a desire that's either doomed to be unfulfilled or destined to be fulfilled beyond all we could ask or imagine. "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

For now, incomplete knowledge and imperfect relationships are all we have.

For now.

So would it be desperate...

...to link this post over to one of my fanfics just because I'm brain-dead with the combination of low amounts of sleep and a cloudy rainy day and because I don't want to use a reserve post today? 

Okay, how about just because it contains the line I quote more frequently to myself in my head than just about anything I've ever written anywhere?

Okay, how about just because? 

I will return to my regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.

Squirrelly

I hoard food.

I will buy cans of soup, or mixes from those Tastefully Simple parties, or fruit, and will be so pleased at having it that I will not actually eat it. If I ate it, I wouldn't have it anymore. See the logic? Well, me neither, I guess.

If it's something I am excited about, like leftover pizza or half a wrap sandwich, I don't like to bring it to work. I don't want excitement-worthy food like restaurant leftovers to mix with boring-worthy eating areas like my workstation. I want to enjoy this food while sitting on my couch, or in one of my two dearly loved dining room chairs.

I am trying to kick the habit of squirrelling away food for an unspecified later date. I am trying to buy what I will eat, and to eat what I buy soon after I buy it. I'm trying to wash off vegetables and fruit right away so I don't put it off for two weeks and then find them decomposing in my fridge.

My goal: that someday in the fairly near future I won't own any food past its expiration date, because I am properly managing my hunger expectations.

Meanwhile, yes, I have finished using that soy milk that was "best by" last March.

Internet Friends and Other Methods of Classification

One of my friends is very up front about the fact that he classifies his friends. He will tell you to your face that you are a level 4 friend, or whatever. I'm not sure how solid the classification methodology is, and actually "methodology" might be a strong word considering the source, but the basic principle is there.

At a conference I attended a few years back, there was an exercise in which we moved from one person to the next in line and voted them on what was essentially a scale of 1-4, with 1 being equivalent to "I don't even want to talk to you" and 4 being more like "I want to be best friends." Considering we were doing this publicly, everybody was voting other people in at 3s or 4s, but meanwhile the conference leader was saying, "This is what you do every day."

I hate this. I hate being classified on a friendship ladder. I hate that we can't all just be friends. What I hate most is that the conference leader was right. We're ascending and descending relationship ladders all our lives. And I have classifications, too. They're just not numerical because one of my most constant relationships is my uneasy relationship with numbers. 

I don't rush into friendships, and my hesitance comes through verbally. Words are important, and I don't throw around the word "friend" about everyone I ever meet. The progression goes something like this. 

The Pre-Friend

When this person comes up in conversation, she is referred to as "someone I know" or maybe, if she's hovering on friend status, "an acquaintance of mine." Generally I haven't known her long, or maybe have known her but not spent much quality time with her. Sometimes I use this phrase because I'm not interested in knowing her any more and am cutting off friend potential, but usually there is a good chance of upward mobility. After all, to refer to her as "someone I know" means I'm talking about her when she's not around, and usually that involves some friend interest.

The Qualified Friend

This is the most basic level of friendship. This is where the word "friend" first comes into play, and there may be a few gradations in the qualification. For example, Jen started out as "Lisa's friend Jen," then became "my book club friend Jen," and then finally graduated all the way to "my friend Jen." If you only interact with somebody in one arena of your life, that person is a qualified friend.

The Internet Friend

This isn't a level of progression, but it's such a specialized form of qualified friend that it needed its own heading. There are two main types of internet friend. The Solely Internet Friend is easy to deal with. Problems may arise, however, with the Primarily Internet Friend, who is a person you see in real life. A Primarily Internet Friend is often confused with a real life friend of some other category. You may have friends you talk to via the internet who do not fall into either of these categories, in which case the internet is a tool to further your relationship, not the main vehicle for the relationship. I repeat, do not be confused into thinking that because you talk a lot online you must necessarily be A-List friends (we'll get to this one). You may really just be casual friends.

The Casual Friend

Otherwise known as the "Oh, there you are" or "While you're here" friend, the casual friend is somebody who is fun to hang out with when she's right in front of your face, but not somebody you'd go out of your way to hang out with. You do not make plans with casual friends, unless they're of the sweeping group invitation variety. If a casual friend invites you somewhere, you ask who else is going to be there before you make your decision. You would never go just to see this person, but she's okay in crowds.

The Fallback Friend

Sometimes your A-List friends (almost there) are busy, but you are still feeling social. The fallback friend is someone you hang out with at these times. You like them, they just haven't made it all the way into the A-List. This could be a transitional stage or one that you end up staying in, whether because of a disparity in social circles or because your paths don't cross naturally all that often. Again, you like these people, they just wouldn't be the first ones you call if something big and important happened in your life.

The A-List Friend

These are the friends you have standing plans with, the ones you see every week and start missing if it's been longer, the ones you could spend time with four or five evenings in a row and still feel ready to say "yes" if they ask you to do something tomorrow night, too. You've seen each other at your best and worst times and love each other through all of them. You can talk about everything or nothing. You can sit companionably without needing to talk, because you don't need to fill an uncomfortable silence if silence isn't uncomfortable. You can disagree (sometimes passionately) and then be joking around the next minute. These are the people who encourage you the most.

The Trump Card Friend

If an A-List friend moves away, she becomes a Trump Card friend, a friend you would rearrange plans for if she were to suddenly be in your neighborhood. Generally Trump Card friends don't mix well with other friends without concerted effort, because there is a lot of history there that is hard to translate for people who haven't known you as long or in the same ways.

Like I said, people move up and down the friendship ladder. It's not always solid. I wish any two participants in a friendship were always on the same rung. I wish I never lost contact with anyone I ever cared about. I wish I had time to be friends at a deep level with all of the people I've met who I feel a spark of friendship with...I can think of so many people right now who I enjoy very much but don't spend much time with at all. I'm grateful for the time we had and the time we have.

One of the things I'm looking forward to about heaven is having an infinite amount of time to become friends (or better friends) with people. I guess I don't know if that's really a part of heaven, but from all the "one anothers" of Scripture it seems it would be God-glorifying to sit down and share the stories of our lives with each other. As a matter of fact, I think it already is.

I'm grateful for all of you who have shared your lives with me. No matter what friend ranks we attained.

Good good-byes

Tonight I said good-bye to my friends Abby and Ryan, who will be moving pretty far away for the foreseeable future (the foreseeable future being two years). I thought I was prepped for this, but on my drive home the good-bye sadness hit me. 

I'm glad that good-bye doesn't feel natural, because it isn't. We weren't made for separation; in fact, that's the opposite of what we were made to experience. 

I'm glad that this good-bye is bittersweet, and that the sweetness comes from parting on good terms, with no regrets and nothing standing between us.

Most of all, I'm glad that all good-byes between these friends and I are only temporary, no matter what happens.

I'm sad, too. But it's a sadness with joy undergirding it.

Et tu, MacGyver?

When you're a kid, you don't notice everything they put in TV shows. As I remember MacGyver, it was about a clever, laid-back, quick-thinking guy who could figure his way out of any tight spot using whatever was at hand. Many is the time I myself have been inspired by MacGyver to look for unconventional solutions to practical problems.

Watching MacGyver again now (Jeremiah and I bought some seasons for my parents' birthdays, because these are the sorts of gifts we buy in my family), I notice something else, something a young friend of mine at church noticed before I did: "In every episode, he fixes things, and at the end he kisses the girl."

Alas, it's true. MacGyver turns out to be quite the ladies' man. He doesn't come on James Bond strong (don't even get me started on James Bond), but he does throw out really corny lines and grins at the women like they're something special. It's kind of hard to believe they really are, both because there's a new one every week and because nobody in the 1980s was as good-looking as they thought they were, but the women go for it. Most times they are the ones asking him to kiss them, or making the first physical move, and MacGyver just responds with a polite "aw, shucks" demeanor that almost makes you forget, again, that this happens EVERY EPISODE.

Top ten signs that MacGyver was not written by women, you say? Possibly true. But still kind of disappointing.

Peaks and Valleys

It is incredible how much better about life I feel when I get enough sleep. This weekend, for example, was mostly amazing. I got about eight hours of sleep each night, and I think that helped a lot.

Last night I was tossing and turning for a while and then awake for an hour in the middle of the night because I couldn't handle the humidity. Today I am feeling...not amazing.

Sleeplessness greatly impairs my perspective. I forget who I really am and where I really stand and start to define myself by societal labels and the imagined opinions of others. I feel all of my flaws more keenly and every thoughtless word heard or remembered cuts deeper than usual.

Thank God that today I have not been lashing out at other people. More and more, I would choose to cry at my desk instead of guarding myself with anger (a false protection and one more thing to regret later). Not that I did more than almost tear up at my desk today. Once I was out of the building, of course, it was another story. Considering I was praying for protection at work, it's interesting that I started crying almost as soon as I left the building. Thanks for holding that back until then, God.

Here are some things I was/am fighting to remember today:

I am more than a census statistic.

I am more than what I appear to be.

I am more than my feelings.

I am more than my thoughts.

I am more than any definitions imposed by others, even those who love me.

I am more than this moment, this day, this year, this lifetime.

I am more becoming less for the sake of something and someone who is.

I AM is watching over me.

Coincidence? Absolutely not.

A long time ago I starting work on a play that I never finished. It was very much a "someday I'll get around to this" sort of project, but I didn't have sufficient self-motivation to complete it.

Until this week, when a friend of mine asked if I had anything to submit for consideration in an upcoming performance of short plays by Calvin grads.

Which led me to research on the time of the Exodus, then more specifically to the craftsmanship in that era.

Which led me to the passage on the tabernacle.

Which also contains a beautiful story of how the Israelites had to be stopped from bringing their gifts for the construction of the tabernacle, because they were bringing too much.

And this morning in the meeting on our church's very low general fund balance, this is the story I felt compelled to share when somebody asked "How do we live with a giving spirit?" (We remember we were slaves, and now we are free, and we give in celebration of that fact.)

Meanwhile, in the same week I was reading about the tabernacle, a couple who doesn't even attend our church made out a check for $20,000 to be put towards our general fund, an amount that matched almost identically with the worst-case scenario end-of-year deficit number the church leadership had forecasted.

I was shaking and in tears by the end of the meeting this morning, in sheer awe of this God who created time itself and still times things so exactly in our lives. 

What plans are in motion at this very moment?

Get Smart about Shopping

Last night I went into the Barnes & Noble DVD section. I know what you're thinking: "What, a savvy shopper like Suzanne looking at DVDs in a bookstore?" I had made the mistake of looking at their online site after they sent me a sale notice, and I had seen that they featured the first season of Get Smart for only $0.50 more than the Amazon.com price. I had also received a 15% off coupon of theirs via email.

This was the plan: to go into the store, see if the price was low enough that by combining it with the coupon it would be cheaper than buying from Amazon sometime in the future, and make my decision from there.

What actually happened was that I made a classic hunter mistake: forgetting the territory. (It isn't just salesmen who gotta know it.) I sped into that DVD section with purpose. I didn't browse. This allowed me to fall victim to the Shopping Ambush, which is when you are trying to hunt and suddenly a salesperson appears. Sometimes this is a mere distraction, sometimes it is a complete diversion from your goal.

Last night, I was taken completely off guard. Behind a display one second, face-to-face with a salesperson who had been cleverly disguised as a cashier the next. Before I knew it, I was telling him what I was looking for, being shown to it, and having my purchase rung up...for $2 more than I had planned to spend. (As my fellow hunters are aware, in the game of shopping, every cent counts.) 

Out of my mistake comes this addendum to the hunter advice I've already given you: when in territory dominated by salespeople, you must appear to be browsing. No matter how many years you have been waiting for a TV show to come on on DVD, no matter how sort of jealous you are of your brother getting it first even though he said he wasn't going to, no matter what, you must look as though you are there for no specific reason. Look as though you're waiting for somebody in another location in the store and are just in this section out of extreme boredom. Look standoffish. Look as though you have no money. When the salesperson approaches you, don't make eye contact for more than 5 seconds as you throw a "Thanks, just looking" over your shoulder. 

I was consoled in this blunder by the knowledge that I have indeed been anticipating the DVD release of this show for years now. Also by the fact that when the salesperson showed me where it was, it turned out to be right by the entrance to the section.

"Walked right past it," I said, then chuckled and added, "Missed it by that much."

The cashier/saleman chuckled politely, but I could tell he was really just plotting his next ambush.

Bisy Backson

I'm taking a week's blogging hiatus to work on other forms of writing (specifically, one form).

"See" you soon.

Advice from a Shopping Champion

I don't like shopping, in general. I don't like to spend a lot of time in stores, and I don't like to spend money in them if I can avoid it. I used to get really fidgety in stores when I was younger, waiting for my mom (who is something of a browser) to get on with it. Once, when my dad and I had taken part of the list and headed off on our own, he said: "There are hunters, and there are gatherers. Your mom is a gatherer."

Suddenly I wasn't fidgety just because I was bored. I was a hunter. 

I have developed a fondness for grocery shopping since then. Every trip is a reconnaissance mission, a personal challenge. Grocery shopping has become a personal competition. I'm not much good at racing or volleyball or games involving any kind of math, but I win grocery shopping almost every time I compete. (And yes, you can compete with yourself. I do it all the time.)

Below are the main criteria of a winning shopping trip.

1) Speed: The most important factor. The goal is to get out as quickly as possible. You don't want to stay in that store any longer than necessary.

2) Planning: Stick to your list. You lose extra points for deviating for luxury items like ice cream (which is okay if it is on the list), but you lose points even for something like "milk" that you "just forgot" to write on the list. "Just forgot"?? What do you not understand about reconnaissance?

3) Costs: Meijer receipts have little asterisks next to all of the items on sale. The goal is that these asterisks would appear by every item on your list. (Bonus points if you have coupons for things on sale, especially if you're strategic and buy exactly as many sale items as the coupon covers and no more.)

4) Efficiency: Start at the back of the store and work your way to the front. Points will be lost for every aisle you go down unnecessarily. Extra points lost any time you have to double back.

Perhaps some of you have recently found out that you are hunters. Perhaps some of you are seasoned hunters looking for ways to hone your technique. Perhaps some of you are gatherers just trying to get in on the game. Never fear. I have some helpful hints for you in your quest for the Grocery Gold Medal.

1) Weekly ads: Whether in your newspaper or online, these will tell you what's on sale before you get to the store. This is the most helpful way to build your list.

2) Getting in the zone: If outside distractions like too many people start throwing you off, funny-looking "framing" or "wizard" hand gestures will not only help you re-focus, they will signal to all other shoppers that you are to be avoided.

3) Rapid visual scanning: If you have played video games, you should have this down already, but this means taking in labels and packaging and such without lingering. If Frosted Flakes aren't on your grocery list, it does not matter to you what the giveaway is. Do not be sidetracked.

4) Comfortable shoes and socks: My mom told me not to post the cautionary tale that follows, as people might think I don't know how to dress myself. But I will not let pride stand in the way of improving the shopping experience for the dozens of people who may read this. Last Thursday night, I went shopping in work shoes and socks. My work shoes are less fitted than my athletic shoes, and most of my work socks tend to lose all elasticity as soon as I put them on, which means my socks are constantly trying to slide down into my shoes even when I'm walking around the office. It gets worse when I'm hustling around a store. (For those of you wondering why I don't just buy new socks, please go back and read the first two sentences of this post.) The lesson in this story: wear comfy shoes and socks so you can move more rapidly with less distraction.

There you have it, folks. The secrets of my shopping success. Use them wisely and well.

Caught out again....

You know how sometimes you get really passionate about how some thing or other that you do is not good and you should stop, and then the next day you do exactly what you said you hated doing? Yeah. Today was one of those days.

Go ahead and read my blog post from yesterday and then come back to this one. Ready? Okay.

I talked way too much today. I was mad at all kinds of people/situations, and I talked. Very few of the "Why can't so-and-so give me a break?" and  "This is the problem with that...." and "Wait until you hear what so-and-so did" sorts of questions and comments I had were stopped. I let them keep pouring out.

I am thankful for Peter. Talk about a guy who didn't know when to shut up. He talked big, his verbal filter was missing, and he contradicted Jesus. "Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away," he vowed. (Rashly, of course.) And when Jesus gently prophesied that in fact Peter would deny him three times, Peter asserted, "Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you."

I wonder what Jesus did then. I wonder if he stared at Peter and thought about how typical it was for Peter to make grand pronouncements and fall flat on his face. I wonder if he changed the subject and moved on with the conversation, knowing that soon enough Peter would have to see himself. Or maybe his heart, heavy as it was with the weight of what was to come, lifted slightly. Because it was so obvious that Peter needed this sacrifice.

I do, too.

Speech Problems

"For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so." (James 3:7-10)

This year I've been under a lot of stress, from one quarter or another. I've felt unappreciated and invisible, abused and neglected. Whether or not I have been isn't really the subject of this post. This post is about how I handle it.

I talk too much. I tell people things that are none of their business. Not in just an internet forum way. Here I work on distilling my thoughts, on sharing what's going on with me in the hope that somebody might benefit from some of it. No, I mean the sort of way in which you start talking about personal things to people you barely know, and the voice saying, "Why should they care?" in the back of your head is probably not a self-deprecating question, but a legitimate one.

I'm verbally fierce. For instance, I work customer service. All too often, people on the other side of a phone or a computer connection get called out...well, called out to other co-workers, anyway. Everyone is going to know that it wasn't MY fault that such-and-such didn't happen, because so-and-so was incompetent. My knee-jerk reaction certainly isn't grace, that's for sure.

My mom says I should learn to speak the above sorts of thoughts to God instead of spouting them off to anybody who would listen. I agree, but from past experience I'm a little afraid of taking them solely to God. (See my post from July 16 on subtle idolatry.) My quandary, then, is this: When does explanation cross over into complaining? When does a prayer request become gossip? How much do I need to say before it becomes self-justifying?

It seems many of the answers lie in self-sacrifice, in seeking to elevate others above myself, in trusting that God has my back even if nobody else knows the trouble I've seen.

I can see why so many people in religious orders around the world take vows of silence. And why so many moms say, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." 

Projection Screens in Church, or A Little Piece of Me Dies

Last Sunday I was invited over to the TerHaars. There was some reason thrown out about something I can't quite recall, but mostly Sandra loves me. (Hi, Sandra! The feeling is mutual! Thanks for the awesome broccoli salad!) After lunch, we gathered around the piano for singing. Because this is what the TerHaars do. (I think I like that even more than the broccoli salad, because I know other people who do the salad thing.)

Anyway, enough TerHaar love for this post. This post is about projection screens in church.

After we were finished singing some Trinity Hymnal favorites, we sang a "praise song." (At my church the distinction between a hymnal song and a praise song is, apparently, whether or not it's in the hymnal.) A discussion ensued about how we were going to get the lyrics into everyone's hands when we sang the song at church. Someone mentioned (ah, here it is!) using the projection screen. We'll be using it at the new building anyway, they reasoned.

I yelled louder about this than I maybe should have in a small room full of people who are mostly not me, but there you have it. I hate projection screens in church. It's not that they don't come in handy sometimes, but they're the bare minimum version of something more substantial.

I am a very tactile person. (Take me through the clothing section of any store and see how many things I touch if you need empirical proof.) And one of the things I hate about projection screens is that they deprive me of the heft of a book in my hands, the feel of the crisp pages, the smell of it. They deprive me of all that goes into sharing a hymnal with somebody who forgot to pick one up for themselves: finding the right height (the person next to me is rarely my height), tilting it at the right angle, and in general sharing the song with someone in a way I don't when I sing from my own solitary hymnal, or (worse) from a screen.

My hands feel so empty without a hymnal. I don't know what to do with them when I'm singing if I don't have one, and often grip the chair back in front of me to keep from breaking into sweeping arm-dance gestures. (The fact that my hymnal or the chair in front of me or the presence of other people is/are sometimes the only things that keep me from dancing during worship is another subject entirely.)

I am not the best sight-reader, musically speaking, but I am getting better. I like to be able to sing the harmonies. Without a hymnal, I would still sing harmony, but it would be a harmony I found by myself. And sometimes it would fall off the harmony wagon.

With all that said, I could live without hymnals. I would be very sad, and it would feel like there was a hole in my heart that would never be mended, but the human heart is like Swiss cheese anyway, so I would live.

But I will take it up with the elders if we have Bible verses onscreen. I don't think the Bible is a book any of us should learn to go without...no matter how convenient that might be.

Things I needed to hear today

"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" (Luke 11:11-13)

I've been wrestling again with what it means to want things I don't have. Isn't that covetousness? Over and over again, God tells us to ask. But should I ask God for anything besides the Holy Spirit?

"And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.'" (Matthew 26:39)

The fact that Jesus Himself asks for something that doesn't happen is immensely comforting. It means requests aren't denied because of a lack of faith, or because certain hurdles haven't been leapt, or because God doesn't love me that way. It means it's God-glorifying to simultaneously pray for something you strongly desire and lay it at the feet of God in sacrifice. We don't have to be ascetics. As my friend Lisa has told me repeatedly, "We're not Buddhists. It's okay to want things." It's only a matter of which desire is to be master.

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." (2 Corinthians 12:7-8)

I think Satan would be thrilled if I settled into the lie that God is in the business of ambushing me, of setting me up for a fall. If it weren't for the fact that I grew up in a Calvinist denomination that didn't talk much about him, I'd say with greater confidence that I can hear his voice at times (one of two voices calling for the same sheep).

"You can lower your expectations," he says. "Stop wanting the things you're wanting. Isn't it a waste of your time? You'll never be worth them. You're not trying hard enough. Look at all the people around you who've got things figured out. They certainly seem to be content in every circumstance, don't they? They ask for God to remove temptation, and it disappears! They plead for clarity and receive it. Their prayers have greater efficacy. Why do you suppose that is? Suzanne, have you seen yourself? You keep thinking you're trying to follow God, but you end up disappointed again, and again, and again...does God treat His children that way?"

But every time I fall down in disappointment, "Not my will, but yours" comes faster to my mind. (Not easier, exactly. But faster.) Every time people and places and situations and things and my own foolish flesh and heart fail me, I want to be wholly His even more than I did before.

He's good, but He's not safe. And through all of these everyday trials He's making me dangerous, too.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Closed Windows

Despite how hard my mother has tried, I'm not that great at eye contact. Here the top three scenarios that throw me off:

1) Spotting someone walking towards you. You see her. She sees you. You are both thoroughly aware of each other's presence...in fact, painfully so. Do you sustain eye contact, even though that might mean staring at each other for 45 seconds before you're even within proper hollering range? Do you pretend there is something else that has suddenly caught your eye off to the side? Do you look down at your feet as though suddenly afraid that the terrain in, say, your office building is treacherous and takes careful attention to navigate? 

2) Catching somebody's eye while sitting at church. There you are, casually glancing around to see who's there, and you've accidentally snagged eyes with somebody doing the same thing. If you're close friends, you can smile and wave or nod, almost as though you were looking for them. If you don't know them that well or are currently feeling a strain in your relationship or have simply been caught off-guard in the middle of clandestinely perusing a room full of a people when you're "supposed to" be meditating on the service (ahead or in progress, depending on the seriousness of the offense), it's more likely you will break eye contact awkwardly and go back to staring fixedly at your bulletin. (This is where it helps if your church has a large bulletin with lots of coming activity notes or prayer requests. Our church's evening bulletin is a flimsy subterfugeous refuge. Yes, I just adjectivized the word "subterfuge.")

3) Having a one-on-one conversation. This is the most pulse-pounding form of eye contact, and is why my favorite conversations are conducted in cars, on bike rides, or on walks. It is easier for me to talk to you if I don't have to make eye contact with you. Seriously, I love you and everything, but I like my secrets. I've been told I have a very expressive face and I don't want to accidentally say something with my eyes that I didn't want you to know. In small group conversations that vary the eye contact, it's a little better. You can dodge eyes around from person to person fast enough that (hopefully) people don't get any unwelcome glimpses into your soul. However, I still do a lot of staring at random points on the ceiling/floor/wall/etc. when I start talking about important stuff, or when I'm nervous. 

It's not that I don't appreciate everybody's eyes, or realize that making eye contact is respectful and shows interest in the other person and that talking to a person with shifty eyes is both distracting and a little bit disturbing. I do know all of that. I hate when I'm trying to make eye contact with somebody who is studiously avoiding it, so I know I'm a hypocrite on that point.

How about you? How much eye contact can you handle?

Good day, milady!

Today I went to Ren Fest with some Tjapkes friends (Lisa, Tim, Nate, and Tad). "Ren Fest" is what you can call a renaissance fair when you're nerdy enough to have gone to several of them. Kind of like in My Fair Lady when Eliza sings that she will "go to St. James so often I will call it St. Jim."

Ren Fest is a splendid opportunity to dress up in costumes, to fake accents, and to wander around talking to people who are a little off-base themselves. We went to the Silver Leaf Renaissance Faire in Kalamazoo, which is the one I've been to most often. It wasn't as large as it has been in previous years, but it was still several hours of fun. 

My favorite part? Staring at the birds that appear in the falconry show. They are all dangerous, but they look so cute and cuddly (I suppose this is true of many things). I am fascinated by birds. I could simply sit staring at them for hours.

I love these broadly theatrical events. I wonder if I would get even further into them if I went alone, or if I would still hang back a bit. (This mirrors a larger question I have sometimes: how much is introversion self-censoring, and how much is personality-driven?) It's rather a moot point, as going alone would be sad and probably not something I would do. I might converse a bit more with strangers, but every two minutes or so I would be thinking about how much I wished one of my friends was there.

After Ren Fest the Tjapkes group and Brittany and I hung out for the evening, and Lisa worked on getting some of the knots out of my back, and we laughed ridiculously hard at all manner of ridiculous comments.

All in all, an enjoyable day.

Turtling Up

I am having a hard time keeping my shoulders down today. Every ten or fifteen minutes I notice that they're pulling up again. I've been at just about chin level a couple of times.

I don't know why this happens, biologically speaking. It's not like I'm more ready to attack the problems in front of me with my shoulders to my ears. My best guess is that it's a subconscious turtling up. Subconsciously, as you feel more and more vulnerable from the pressures of the outside world, you attempt to save your own neck by pulling your shoulders around it.

I like the general principle there. That in tense times it's instinct to save your own neck, and takes conscious thought to relax and take a long view of the situation. (Is my eternal soul in jeopardy if I don't finish entering all these numbers into the spreadsheet? No. Do the people I send the spreadsheet to even look at it anyway? Quite probably not.)

I'm also trying to relax my heart rate and slow my breathing. Those don't seem to be as connected to turtles as the neck bit, so maybe they don't even belong in this post.

Mostly I'm glad it's Friday afternoon.

Annual Spiritual Review Time

I have session visitation tonight. For those of you who aren’t members of an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, “session visitation” is when elders of the church visit with your family as a way of keeping the church leadership in touch with the congregation. At my church, the elders generally make these visits in pairs. This has been occasionally awkward in the past, from a social standpoint. Who is asking most of the questions? Do I direct my answers to him or include the silent partner in my eye contact? Am I supposed to feed them?

 

Tonight the social dilemmas are solved by virtue of the fact that the visit is taking place at Starbucks. Obviously I can’t make and bring cookies to Starbucks even if I felt so inclined. The barristas would probably attack me (in a laid back café manner). I have been told in advance that I’ll be treated to a hot beverage. I think meeting around a table will also help with the eye contact issue, as most of my problem in the past has been with my apartment seating arrangements, and creating too wide of a conversational triangle.

 

When you…okay, I’ll just speak for me…. When I go to the dentist, or to the doctor, they usually ask me some questions I’m not comfortable answering. Questions like, “Do you floss?” or “Do you get enough sleep/exercise/healthy food?” I always squirm a little bit, because I know they’ve told me the same things over and over again. And I always try to think of something I’m doing better, so I can offer that up to placate the health professional in question.

 

Session visits are a little bit like that. Every self-justifying molecule in my being attempts to exert itself, but then so does every self-deprecating molecule. (I think the truth of my life is somewhere between those extremes—I’m probably doing better than I could dream and not half as well as I imagine.) There’s the temptation to confess “safe sins”; the temptation to spew out everything that’s feeling wrong in my life; etc., etc., all adding up to a larger-scale version of what I deal with every day: trying to figure out how to speak the truth in love, how to say “I’m not okay” without putting the burden of fixing me on anyone but God, how to rejoice in all the crazy chaos because I know (remember, Suzanne? you do know) the end of the story.

 

I kind of want to be graded on these visits. (I want grades on practically everything I do. I just love grades.) As it is, I never know whether or not I’m saying the right things, but I guess “saying the right things” is never what genuine conversation is about, anyway.

Laundry List

I'm not sure why I titled this post "Laundry List," as it's not really about laundry. Maybe because I'm so fond of laundry, so I like mentioning it? Hm. Moving on....

As I was thinking about marriage lately (my brother's getting married, so this is inevitable), I realized that when I imagine somebody I would marry, it is usually someone who likes to do all the things I'm not so fond of, and who after we were married would take over all of the things I don't like doing. Things like:

* Balancing a checkbook, because my math is not my friend. Math tapes "Kick Me" signs on my back while my head is buried in my hands over the latest checkbook misbalance.

* Encouraging me to exercise, because I need motivation to get out of the house and take walks or something. I used to have my dad and my brother for this, but since I don't live with them anymore I need somebody else to step up. Or, you know, I could develop willpower.

* Cleaning the bathroom, because it's my least favorite of the cleaning tasks. When Tim and Lisa were engaged, Lisa made a deal with Tim that she would clean the bathrooms if he would vacuum. Tim and I both thought this was the sweetest deal ever. I'll also throw in doing the laundry (nobody can take my laundry away from me), general organizing, dusting, etc.

* Doing yardwork, because that's "man stuff." (In other words, I don't feel like pushing a mower.)

* Cooking, because cooking takes up so much time. Actually, I wouldn't mind cooking so much if I were home longer than four or five hours a day. Which brings me to....

* Going to work, because my friend Amanda says that while I'm making up a list I might as well put "rich enough for me to stay home" on it. 

Realistically, with the exception of the last item, most of these are the sorts of reasons you hire people (e.g. accountants, cleaning services, personal trainers, etc.), not the sorts of reasons you get married. There would be a lot less commitment hassle with hiring an accountant. And a lot less frantic "what if I'm making the wrong choice??" angst over making a quick salad.

(For Trudy and Rosemary: I will not marry somebody solely because he is good at any or all of the above. Just FYI.)

My Mom and the Superpower of Niceness

If you've ever wondered if on some level you may be a heartless super-villain, I have a good test for you. Meet my mom. Talk to her for at least two minutes. If you don't love her, you should probably check yourself into Arkham Asylum right away.

If relationships were odometers, my mom could go from zero to best friend in two minutes flat. It's like a superpower. She specializes in bonding over jewelry (or at least I remember two distinct occasions where total strangers were suddenly telling her about their lives because she admired their rings), but she can bond over anything, really. This is probably because she tends to assume the best of people. People like to feel that other people think well of them.

Sometimes I don't think I have that much in common with my mom, other than physically. Physically, I'm practically her clone. This means less packing for me when I go to visit her, since I just wear her clothes and shoes to church. It also means that I'm going to be cute forever. It's hereditary.

Relationally, I'm much more hesitant around new people. I'm more cynical and less trusting. It takes me a lot longer to warm up to people. I'm not always as nice as she is. But every once in a while, the nice genes engage and I can feel the stranger I'm talking to fall under the friendly superheroic powers my mom passed on to me. (Probably my mom doesn't see kindness in terms of power. But I did say she was nicer than I am.) 

When I was a teenager, my mom's friendliness was hugely embarrassing. She would talk to anybody at all, and for some reason that was not cool. Until I went to college, and all of my new floormates loved her immediately, and I realized that I had spent years being irritated at one of my mom's best traits.

So on her birthday, here's to my mom. She loves practically everybody, and practically everybody loves her back. Especially (for purposes of this post) me.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Slow down, you move too fast

This morning I gave blood. I like doing this for several reasons.

1) Being a blood donor is like being part of an elite club. A club that gets to feel superior to the people who are too wimpy to give blood. And you get to compare your needle marks to everyone else’s and (if you’re me) show off how long it takes your body to heal itself. (One time the mark on my arm looked fresher than the mark on my dad’s arm, and he had donated a few weeks after I had.)

2) Donating blood is one of the easiest philanthropic things you can do, especially if the Blood Bus comes right to your office. It takes about an hour of your time, and you may help to save somebody’s life. I would guess that most people would find it harder to give $20 to the church general fund on Sunday morning than to give blood.

3) When the Blood Bus comes to my office, my company pays me to sit for an hour with a needle in my arm. If it were physically possible to give blood every day of the week under these conditions, I might do it just for this reason.

4) It is fun to say “Blood Bus.”

Here’s something I have trouble remembering about blood donation: your body gets a little confused. It’s thinking, “Wait…I needed that blood! What did you do to me?” (This is because your body sees blood like you see that $20 in your pocket. It just doesn’t let go without some sort of a fight.) Usually your body puts you in a timeout after you give blood, so you can think about what you’ve done.

I forget that I am not at optimal performance levels right after giving blood. I try to move as quickly as I usually would. (When we were at my old office, I’d get off the Blood Bus, walk briskly to the steps, and jog up them. Almost every time. Never once a good idea.) Today I felt lightheaded for a few hours after donating, so I forced myself to move slowly.

I say “forced” because moving slowly is not something I remember easily. It usually feels like a waste of time (unlike, for instance, spending hours on Facebook or watching old episodes of MacGyver). When I’m feeling weak, though, it becomes quite the performance art. I suddenly turn into a Jane Austen heroine. It’s really quite entertaining.

Let’s go give blood together in a few months and you can see what I mean.

Baby, It's Cold Inside

I have a love/hate relationship with HVAC systems (heating-ventilation-air conditioning, for those who didn't have enough engineer friends).

I love that I can have the air on all summer, which enables me to sleep through the night instead of tossing and turning uncomfortably. I love that I can turn the heat on in the winter, which prevents me from freezing to death.

The part that I hate? How other people use it. 

Not other people as in individual home choices. If you want to crank your air down AND open your windows in the summer, or if you choose to turn your heat up higher than 62 degrees in the winter, those are your energy choices, not mine. I probably don't spend that much time at your house on a regular basis, anyway.

Church and office choices, however, affect me every week. So far this summer, my new office space has not been too cold. I am rather inclined to think that this is because the HVAC system hasn't regulated yet instead of because we're consciously saving money. So far my church has not been too cold, either, but that's because we meet in a school gym and there's no air conditioning. This morning I went to my parents' church and the thermostat was set to 70 degrees. It was quite cold.

Here's my HVAC outlook. Since you can expect people will dress to match the temperatures outdoors (e.g. shorts and t-shirts in the summer, long pants and sweaters in the winter), you can also expect that people will be uncomfortable if the temperature inside does not mirror outside temperatures to some degree.

Short version: if it's cold outside, I want to put on sweaters indoors; if it's hot outside, I don't want to wear sweaters indoors. This is part of the overall seasonal ambience that comes with living in a temperate climate.

I want to believe...in the right things

About twelve years ago, I had a crisis of faith. A love I had long cherished was dimming, and a new affection was taking its place. Loyalties were shifting, and that always pains me.

The X-Files was possibly replacing Star Trek as my favorite science-fiction television show.

I remember confessing this with tears, but I don't remember my mother's reaction. Few people in my life have been able to understand the fusion of self and other that takes place with me and the fictional worlds and characters that I love, the depth of my emotional and mental investment in stories of all kinds.

Few people understand, but I understood. I was crying, not because of the titanic clash between my X-phile and Trekkie sides, but because I felt that what the seriousness of this clash signified was that I was investing too much in the wrong things. I mean, Star Trek vs. X-Files? Really? In the long run, what did it matter?

I am still drawn deeply into stories, but I am also gaining perspective. I know I have to be careful what I read, what I watch, because it becomes part of me. I am better able to push off the insulted feeling that still comes if you hated a movie I enjoyed, or love a character I despise. I don't agonize over whether or not I enjoy Heroes better than Lost.

Keeping my adoration properly directed also frees me to be as excited about going to see The X-Files movie as I choose to be.

I choose to be pretty geeked about it.