wow. i just realized that my entry yesterday was filled with more grammatical errors than usual, some of which i corrected, but i still see a few. i wasn't doing very good with the pronouns. sorry.

everyone's changing their templates. i was thinking last week about how maybe i should sometime. i'd like to design my own but i know so little about all this newfangled computer html crap. i'm a sorry excuse for a computer geek.

washington. okay, here are some facts. friday night kim picked me up from the airport and we got back to her house at 11 pm. her 8-year-old daughter gave me her room for the duration of my stay, which was fantastic. kim showed me around upstairs, and we walk into "my" room, and next to the bed there is a fruit basket with fruit, choclate, bottled water, and body scrub stuff. on the desk in the room there were a bouquet of beautiful flowers. freaking almost made me cry.

over the course of the 4-5 days that i was there, we took kids to gymnastics and piano lessons, walked around the bay in downtown olympia, visited downtown seattle, and were attacked by a killer blue slurpee machine. downtown seattle was AWESOME. i really wish i could have spent some more time there. i got to go into THE VERY FIRST STARBUCKS EVER OPENED. it was fantastic. it's in this place called pike's place market, where they throw fresh fish back and forth and sell food and merchandise, including a sickeningly large collection of belt buckles. on tuesday night, kim and i and her three kids stopped at a 7-11 to get slurpees, and kim was trying to get the blue slurpee machine to work, but something was wrong and it wasn't coming out right. suddenly, OUT OF NOWHERE, the slurpee machine tried to kill kim. basically, it exploded, covering her in her nice white sweater with blue slurpee. i didn't actually see it happen, just the gory aftermath. i turn around and she has this big blue stripe on the front of her sweater. soooo sad. but thankfully, she was physically unharmed, just emotionally traumatized. she didn't even get a free slurpee.

i could go through all the details of the weekend, but what's really important is what i took away from it. kim and i are like perfect friends. it's so weird. i haven't seen her in a year and a half but we just get along like we've known each other forever. we have great conversation, we both need our "me" times, and we both express love and receive love for and from people in the same ways, which just makes for a very fulfilling friendship. i was around 3 kids under the age of 10 for 5 days, which was different because i'm never around kids and i'm not very good with them. but for some reason they loved me. i couldn't get it. each one of them told me the night before i left that they wished i was their sister. and i say that not as with bragging rights or anything but just because it made me cry and sort of validated some sort of feeling for me that maybe i will be an okay parent some day, you know?

on that note, i have to say that lately i've been thinking. about relationships, and marriage, and families and the like. and i've sort of come to the conclusion... not really a conclusion, but i guess something along those lines... that i could not get married and be okay. and when i say okay i mean really okay. of course physically okay, i mean, i wouldn't die without a husband or kids. but more than that. for all intents and purposes, i've been "on my own", that is, without a significant other in a normal relationship, since i was a freshman in high school. the relationships that i've had since have all been long distance, so i'm used to not seeing the guy for long periods of time. i'm accustomed to my independence, and my up-and-go lifestyle isn't accomodating to very many people. more than THAT, i'd rather not be married at all than marry the "wrong" person. and it's weird, i mean there are definitely times when i desire that romantic intimacy in a relationship... but for the first time in my life, i really think that i would be okay without it. i guess there is just this standard i have that has only really been met by one guy in the past, and i've thought about this all enough to come to reason that i would rather not be in a relationship than settle for something less than what that standard was. and that's okay with me.

so here is where i need to start. i need to tell you that i love airports. love them. riding on the plane is fun, but being AT the airport is the best. i think maybe because i have fond memories of stuff that has happened in airports over the past few years, and besides that, they are just interesting. funny things happen at airports. funny people are at airports. hot guys are at airports. airports and airplanes are microcosms of the whole world-- you throw a bunch of people of different ages and walks of life together and see what happens. it's hilarious. so, before i talk more about washington, i'm going to provide a top ten list of great airport moments. these aren't necessarily in order of importance.

10. The Reunion -- January 13, 2000: helen and steph reunite at midway airport after a dreadful 2 months without seeing each other. i think they may have been ready to arrest us for screaming so loud.

9. Steph and the Partridge Family -- Summer 2000: I sat next to this family on a plane from san diego to denver, and we all happened to be going to omaha. there were three young daughters, and, despite their age, they could all sing great. we sat in the denver airport for hours and i played guitar while they sang songs. we made $20 in tips in an hour.

8. Hey, Sparky, Go Through the Metal Dectector Again... -- March 21st, 2002: I was leaving montana last year at the end of my spring break, and sarah and matty had taken me to the airport. the kalispell airport. with FOUR WHOLE GATES. i was saying goodbye to them, and they were watching me go through the metal detector through a pane of glass, and... well... in a moment of stupidity i thought it would be funny to sort of wind up and pretend like i was a car or something going through the security deal. and in doing so the security dudes got ticked off and yelled at me, telling me to go back and go through the metal detector like a normal person. it was funny after i apologized profusely and was done being scared that they would arrest me.

7. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch -- March 21, 2003: On friday i arrived at the seattle airport, and as i was waiting in baggage claim for my luggage this guy who was on my flight came over to talk to me. we made small talk about our hometowns and why we were in washington, and, as it turns out, he's in the navy and came to washington to complete training and to be assigned or something. we talked about how exciting it was that he had no idea what he would be doing once he left the airport. he said he was thrilled to be able to help out in the war. he said he was waiting for his golf bag at baggage claim. we exchanged playful banter.

"golf bag? you plan on golfing in iraq?"
"oh, i put my clothes in there to look like a civilian so i wouldn't be targeted."
"oh, yeah... i put my clothes in a regular bag so i would look like a civilian too."
"dork."

then kim showed up and i had to go. i thanked him for serving our country and i wanted to get a picture with him or get an email address or something so that i could know how he was doing during and after the war, but there wasn't time. godspeed mark.

6. The Wallflowers -- March 21st, 2003: helen and i sat at o' hare watching the people go by and talking. freaking news said to be there THREE HOURS EARLY because of the heightened security. it took me a whole FIFTEEN MINUTES to check my bags and get through security once i was ready to board my flight. so helen and i just sat and talked. and really, i loved every minute of it. just observing the people going by... walking up and down the terminal. commenting on the attractive baggage loading dude. good times.

5. Pass the Puppy -- February 25th, 2002: i had just spent the weekend with justin in pennsylvania, and it didn't go well. i gave him back this stuffed dog he had sent me months before and said "us" was done with the giving back of the dog. i mean really we were "done" before that, but that was just a declarative statement on my part, more for myself than for him. that's when i decided he was just a boy who thinks he's a man. this wasn't a fun airport moment, but it was definitely dramatic and needs to be in the top ten.

4. Goodbye Justin -- January 1st, 2002: he came to omaha, he was leaving, i took him to the airport, stood in line with him through security. we kept stepping out of line and going to the back because we wanted to spend more time together before he left. i cried a little bit. he blew me a kiss from down the hallway. it was cute.

3. Hello Justin -- December 28th, 2002: i hope he feels privileged that he got three of the top ten, but this one is definitely the best. he came early afternoon, we had our hide-and-seek-a-thon (sort of) in the omaha airport. he caught me "sleeping" and surprised me with a big toy flower. there was a hug and a "wow, you're blond now" comment, and then we left. again, very cute.

2. Lip Nazi -- May 20, 2002: rock star came to chicago, i took him back to o hare. we sat in the terminal for awhile next to this woman who was waiting for your husband.

her: "where are you guys headed?"
rock star: "i'm going back to houston"
her: "oh, are you guys dating?"
(ummm... awkward pause between the two of us... how to define the relationship...)
rock star: "well, i've liked her for four years."
her: "how did you guys meet?"
me: "umm... honey, how about you tell her the story"
rock star: "well, about 4.5 years ago, when she was an adolescent and i was a pedophile..." JOKING. i would have peed my pants laughing if he had said something like that. anyway, he told her the story, she took a picture of us and left.

so rock star gets ready to leave, we sort of embrace for a little bit, and he asks the big question.

"can i kiss you goodbye?"
"umm... i'd rather not on the lips today."
"okay."

he hugged me again and then left. but i totally spoiled the romantic moment. i mean even now i'm not completely sure why i turned him down. for a few minutes after he left i was kicking myself thinking, i could have been kissed by a very hot guy just then and i said NO. and then, an hour later, i was very glad about it. now i believe it was the providence of God. tee hee hee. no lip for you.

1. Happy Birthday, Baby -- January 17, 2000. i was leaving chicago on my b-day. he took me to the airport in the middle of a snow storm. had my flight been on time i would have missed it. which i wouldn't have minded. we ran into the airport, he stood in line with my bag while i went to the bathroom (i don't think i've ever had to pee so badly). his car got towed. we waited for 2-3 hours for my flight, just talking. no big drama, just a great time. best day of my life thus far. that year we had to write some sort of descriptive story as a paper for ms. kelly's honors english class. so i wrote about the airport. i got a 99% on that paper. i NEVER scored that high on ms. kelly papers. she was a very tough cookie.

so those are the stories. i was remarking yesterday how funny it is that all the long distance relationships i've had are fine until i or the guy get on the plane. so i started writing a song yesterday. i think it's called airports are for lovers and it's supposed to be kind of funny. i'll let you know how that works out for me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOUSTON SARAH!!!!!

hey guys. i'm back. i had a wonderful time in washington state. it was indeed a wonderful way to spend part of spring break, and i promise to tell all about it at a later date that is not today. you will hear of grand things such as pike's place market, my new boyfriend, and the attack of the killer blue slurpee machine. and airports are for lovers. but not today.

p.s. i just threw the boyfriend thing in there to see if you were awake. there is no boyfriend.

but for now i would like to apologize. some of my war sentiments that i posted last week were really insensitive. i described my feelings on some of the protests in the hyperbolic nature as i have done in the past with other unimportant topics, but because of the seriousness of this matter concerning war, it was inappropriate and hurt some people who read this occasionally. i'm really sorry guys. i'll be much more careful about that in the future. if you feel the need to yell at me go ahead and shoot me an email.

one more thing. i would just like to say that i am really proud of myself for having created a legacy. all you houstonians have your own blogs now and it just makes me laugh that a new one goes up every week. freaking hilarious.

hey kids. spring break has come. seattle will be my home for the next five days. if you need to get ahold of me send me text messages. love you guys...

in my mind there are three kinds of people in the world: those who create drama, those who drama happens to, and those who live without drama and want nothing to do with it. when i say those who create drama, i guess i mean people who go out of their way to manipulate a situation so that they have a story to tell.

that said, i think i fall somewhere between the first two, though leaning much more toward those who drama happens to because it seems to me that i (fortunately or unfortunately, you decide) have more drama than the average person, and while this may be due in part to the fact that i put myself in situations conducive to drama happening, i don't think i usually go out of my way to see that it does. i guess my friends could better answer that one. i say all this because there is more drama. obviously.

it would seem more appropriate on a day like today to discuss the impending war with iraq and saddam's creepy response to bush's 48-hour demand last night, with which i am concerned and have been thinking a lot about this morning. but i'm not sure what else to say about it. i'd prefer not to be depressed with what i have no control over. pray for our president and the others in positions of leadership above us. pray for God's intervention in iraq. at this point i think that's all that most of us can do.

so now onto a less important but also slightly less depressing topic. drama. i heard from rock star last night. gasp! we didn't actually "talk", as in real life voice to voice conversation; we text messaged back and forth, which, taking into consideration the information exchanged, was really retarded. so for your entertainment, i am going to post the messages he sent me and paraphrase my responses to them, as i don't have the messages i sent back saved. but first a couple things:

1) the initiation of this conversation was my fault. i meant to text message some stuff about going to the hospital yesterday to another friend's cell because my cell's battery was low, but when i went into my phone's address book to click on the name of the intended recipient, i accidentally sent it to rock star.

2) i know that it's customary to replace words like "for", "to", "you", and "are" with letters and numbers like 4, 2, U, and R, respectively in text messages to reduce the amount of time it takes to type the message. but i'll be real honest with you, it's very difficult for me to take you seriously if you use them while saying anything of importance. especially when we're 20 and 24, not 12.

okay here goes. keep in mind we haven't talked in 2 months.

ME: ....yeah... uncle was in the hospital with lung cancer, fractured hip, and pneumonia. it was hard to see him like that.
HIM: Stephanie? what r u talking about?
ME: oh crap. sorry, i got your number mixed up with someone else's.
HIM: that's ok. at least i have ur number. i lost it a long time ago.
ME: ah... well. i guess give me a call sometime.
HIM: i tried 2 find u for so long. so much i had 2 say.
ME: what?
HIM: i told alex about u (the ex)
ME: what?
HIM: i underestimated my feelings 4 u
ME: when did this happen?
HIM: january
ME: what am i supposed to do with this information?
HIM: sorry it was bottled up in me. 4get it.
ME: it was an honest question. what are you expecting from telling me this?
HIM: u don't have 2 respond. just had 2 get it off my chest.
ME: well yeah i don't know how to respond.
HIM: it's ok.
ME: i mean you profess your undying love for me and then we don't talk again for two months?
HIM: no it's not like that i just don't want u 2 feel weird.
HIM: i just didnt wanna put u on the spot.
ME: well ok. if you want to talk about it, call me sometime.
HIM: what do u wanna do about it?
ME: i can't answer questions like that outside of a real conversation.
HIM: ok bye bye.
ME: goodnight.

FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY, WHAT THE FREAK JUST HAPPENED THERE?

there are so many things that i have to say in response to this. you guys might think i'm mean for violating his privacy and posting the conversation, but most of you would find this out anyways and it's my personal conviction that if you are a jerk to me your rights to privacy are severely limited in regards to your interactions with me.

my first question is this: what the freak does "i tried to find you for so long" mean? you either have my number or you don't. you know people that do. were you combing the countryside looking for me? i mean he sounds like wesley in the princess bride movie, searching for his buttercup. but seriously, i'm not that hard to find if you can remember my last name. so either rock star is a big fat liar or a really lame excuse for a stalker or maybe just one of those people that likes to create drama for himself... may i suggest SSS (stephanie's stalker service) for all your stalking needs. suggestion #1: if you lose someone's number, get online and look up their last name in the white pages (especially if they have a rare last name, which i do) and try to find a family member if they are unlisted. call family members for information, even if you are not sure whether or not they are related to the person you are stalking.

second question. i guess out of my own curiosity, i would really like to know what transpired in this conversation with rock star and his ex that allegedly left him alone and pining after me for the past two months. and, if he really did tell her about me and ended the relationship or she ended the relationship because of him telling her about "us," what the deciding factor was in all this. i mean, i've seen a couple pics of this girl, and from what i've seen she is pretty hot. cuter than me. exotic little hispanic girl. he liked the fact that they were both hispanic and shared that culture. crazy mexicans. i'm about as white as they come and the extent of my spanish is tengo queso en mis pantalones. i mean it seems both the ex and i are psycho, so i doubt that was the defining feature. i guess i don't know her at all so i can't make any good guesses, but it's just a little ironic how this is all playing out...

you're wondering if i will tell him that i'm moving to houston if we talk between now and then. gosh i don't know now. i think it would be funny if i didn't but i don't know if i can keep it a secret now if we actually talk. let me know what you think.

and suck... he just called.

happy st. patty's day. in commemoration of this day all of the stoplights (or at least the ones that i've encountered today) are occasionally turning from red to green. i bet you're happy about that.

i hope your st. patty's day was better than mine. i watched my uncle lay fragile in his hospital bed for awhile today, suffering from lung cancer, a fractured hip, and pneumonia. i walked through the hospital in iowa city, and i saw patients curled up in the fetal position in their rooms, or sleeping and breathing shallow, raspy breaths. i'm not used to this. i'm used to being surrounded by young and vibrant people, perhaps with broken hearts but not broken bodies. and it is difficult for me to be truly empathetic. i have never really experienced any serious health problems to speak of. i rarely get sick more than once a year, and it doesn't seem that i have any extreme susceptibility to heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, etc... i mean seriously, if you're looking to repopulate the planet with good genes, i'm your girl. but i was walking the halls today and i realized that it is so easy for me to say that it's going to be okay, you'll live through this, you're going to get better. and sure, i believe that God can do anything and i've seen him heal, but the reality of it is that my tendency to say such things comes out of the fact that whenever i've been sick or injured, i've been okay. i've gotten better. at this point in my life i cannot fathom being permanently debilitated. and so i stood in the hospital for several hours today, trying to let it all soak in, but i don't know that it did. even knowing that it could be the last time i ever see my uncle again, even hearing him pray and cry out to God for strength in the face of this trial; it still doesn't feel real. i guess i don't know what the appropriate response is to this. but i do know that i appreciate the fact that although my family is kind of spread out in their whereabouts, everyone is willing to make the trek when it is needed. days like today make me think hard about those occasional notions to up and permanently relocate to texas. i love my family. a lot.

so i listened to the mr. president's address on the way home tonight. don't ask me to elaborate much on current events; i'm not really in the know, though i did find out that e.d. is back on fox & friends in the morning on the fox news channel and that makes me very happy, so maybe i'll be watching the news more. in any case, however, i stand behind georgie 100% in this war deal. don't you worry, B, i'll take care of the public ceremony burnings of dixie chicks cd's and effigies. long live the freedom fries! thank you, goodnight.

if i had no arms to fold into
if i had no joys to breathe back to You
surely this could slow the life of mine
surely this could stop the love of mine

occasionally i listen to the cd of the show that jake and i played a month ago and i always get to this song, and it seriously brings me to tears almost every time i hear it. it's called closer to the sun and it's by this dude denison witmer. when i listen to this song it just reminds me of the interdependent relationship between experiencing true joy and love and having that relational intimacy with God. in other words, it is God who is our source of true joy, but we use what He gives us to express our love back to Him. it's kind of circular. and something about that is just so profound and gets me.

"it couldn't have happened! i switched hands!"

if you can correctly state the context in which this statement was made, you get a cookie. person who said it and person to whom it was said excluded. guess away.

correction: in aforementioned boy kissing boy story, there was no tongue. i misunderstood. sorry to those offended by the false information. call my lawyer.

due to some responses and comments regarding my last post, i feel the need to clarify that i'm not discounting boy's musical and scholarly aspirations. the humor is more in the fact that before i ever knew anything about his apparent affections, helen told him things about me and i think about some of my preferences, and as we were talking the other night it was like he was going down a checklist.

she likes music. check.
she likes smart guys. check.
she enjoys traveling. check.
she prefers plastic over paper. check.

i appreciate the effort to show that we have something in common, and if he's pursuing some different avenues because he wants to have more in common or for other reasons, that's no problem. everyone has done that. imitation is the most sincere form of flattery (not that i'm a great musician or much of an intellectual or anything, but you get the idea). the point of the last post was to make helen laugh, and it did, so enough said. :)

i want to take this time to alert you, the reader, of a very alarming forward i received this morning. apparently those gel candles, the ones that you know and love because they last a million times longer than the traditional wax candle... well. turns out they are dangerous. this forward that i read this morning details several tragic stories of lives ruined by the deadly ebola...err... gel candle. here is an excerpt:

"My former secretary had a terrible thing happen to her and her family last week, and I wanted to share it with all of you so that you could be warned and warn your friends and family as well. She had a gel candle burning in her bathroom ... it exploded and caught her house on fire. The house burned down and they lost everything. The fire Marshall told her that this is not the first incident where a gel candle has exploded and caused a fire. He said that the gel builds up a gas and often times it explodes and sets fire to the room it is in, which is what happened to her. The fire was so hot it melted the smoke alarm, and they didn't discover the fire until there was an explosion, which was her toilet blowing up, and then it was too late...the entire upstairs was engulfed in flames. Smoke damage and water damage have destroyed what wasn't destroyed by fire."

questions:
1) why did the toilet blow up as opposed to the sink or the bathtub?
2) what does a toilet blowing up look like?
3) can we recreate the event so i, and millions of other curious readers, can see the toilet blow up?
4) why is the "m" in "fire Marshall" capitalized when the "f" is not?
5) is the fire Marshall's name Marshall?

impress me with your stunning intellect and answer me these questions five.

two things. first, a story.

back in jan. st. louis guys come to chi-town to visit erica and helen. i make friends with said guys. i guess one of them calls helen and erica upon returning home and confesses that he's smitten with yours truly, but asks them not to tell me, which of course they later do because hey, i deserve fair warning. helen knows me quite well and has a good idea about what is attractive to me in a guy, and during her conversation with aforementioned boy (before i ever knew anything about it), tells him she doesn't think he is intellectual or musical enough for me. which, let's face it, is funny just because she had the balls to tell him something like that.

fast forward.

a half an hour ago, st. louis boy calls me and it's the first time we've talked since january. conversation goes as follows:

"hey steph! i was going to call erica and your name was right under hers on my phone so i thought i would give you a call."
(me trying to figure out how, unless he has 0 friends, my name would show up aphabetically under erica's)
"hey, good to hear from you!"
"what have you been up to?"
"oh, school, music, work, the usual drama. how are you?"
"oh, kinda frustrated. my youth pastor is trying to set me up with this one chick but i'm not about it at all. i'd really rather focus on music right now. i started taking guitar lessons. and i want to learn piano and drums too."
"wow. you're gonna be a musical MACHINE."
"yeah, well I LOVE music. i love school too. i'm taking this class on the book of acts. it just blows me away. you know, i love school. i love to learn."

and so the conversation continues, basically him talking about himself, which was fine because i'm too tired to answer questions right now. i hope you see the humor in all this. maybe i'm just jumping to conclusions. maybe his newfound hobbies are coincidences. haha.

second, another story. but not my story. someone elses. i heard someone else's story today that greatly disturbed me. in fact, due to this new information i may need to join a convent. what follows is a conversation between one of my male friends and i:

"i kissed a guy once."
"what?" (i'm thinking he was either drunk or it was a peck on the cheek)
"yeah, i kissed my cousin... i think we were 9-10. we had never kissed girls before and we didn't want to do it wrong, so we practiced on each other."
(nervous) "what kind of kiss was this?"
"oh it was an open-mouth kiss. of course we weren't doing it right, but there was tongue and everything."
(simulateous vomiting and inconsolable laughter)
"what you never kissed one of your girlfriends when you were younger to practice?"
"ummm...NO, i'm not from ARKANSAS."

seriously.

the curses flew yesterday from all given points on the proverbial round table. and let me tell you something. it was a beautiful thing. well let me be careful how i follow that up. the cursing was not beautiful in and of itself, but it was beautiful in that it was the most honest language that could have described the feelings felt. i am going to hold that the anger and the gut-wrenching pain and disappointment and fear that was felt yesterday could not have been adequately expressed without the use of profanity.

aside from all the drama that happened in chi-town the past few days, i also got a phone call at around midnight last night from a friend of mine who made a poor choice, or rather a number of poor choices on saturday and may possibly serve some time in the slammer for them. love you dude. i promise i'll come and visit if it comes down to that.

but all day i've been trying to figure out if there was a full moon at any point in time this weekend that might account for a lot of people's lives in general sucking.

things went pear-shaped.

the shyte hit the fan.
** on a side note, i would really like to shake the hand of the person responsible for this colloquialism, because the imagery is
really quite entertaining.

and yet... seems like someone has the pooper-scooper and is starting to clean things up, though i think we could agree that is going to take a long time. wow that was one of the cheesiest things i've ever said. i promise i'll never do it again. you have my permission to file my nails with sandpaper if i do.

i know there may have been some wounds that were freshly opened last night, and maybe even some wounds that were newly created, but i'm really hoping and praying that today some justice would be done and that true reconciliation would begin. i'm hoping that what transpires tonight may be the beginning of the healing process for one of the people i love most. she makes my top ten. my top five, actually.

it's funny.

it's funny how two people with the same name can share the same mind. rock star and jerkface. two people that have never met, that don't know each other, that only know a little bit about each other, that live 1000 miles apart... yet it's remarkable how similar their behaviors are when under pressure.

i'm really too tired to write much, but there are a few things i want to cover:

i am going to heartily echo jake's i hate winter sentiment. by the way, what the crap is that hovering over the dude's head? looks like an amoeba.

reese witherspoon in sweet home alabama IS melinda. that's what we've decided. if you disagree then bite me.

another road trip this weekend. well, today. jeanna and erik and i are driving to iowa for the night to see tony play in his recital. jeanna and i love erik, but we are thinking of slipping some codeine into his soda this afternoon.

last weekend, which as of yet i have not mentioned, was really a good time. it wasn't long enough, but it was good. i went home to see mom and dad and omaha sarah and a myriad of other people that i know. i was going through some of my old cd's at my mom's place last sunday and i found all of my mariah carey stuff that i listened to in junior high. i bet many of you didn't know that i was a mariah carey freak. and i've really despised her since i started playing guitar and she got all trashy. but sunday night on my 5-6 hour drive back to chi-town i decided to have a mariah carey tribute. so for five hours i played mariah and some of my other old pop stuff that i listened to in my formative years. and really it was an enjoyable walk down nostalgia lane.

okay i have to go road tripping now. see you on the flip side.

"courage is conversely related to how many regrets one has."

hmmm... interesting.

in response to rozi's... uhhhh... response... i would like to say, for the record, that were i to relive the past year of my life, i would not change my response to the aforementioned hypothetical situation. i don't think i was cheated because dude married "wrong" chick. i was just thinking yesterday... you know, i may have been the only person in the world short of God who could have done anything about it and i didn't. and i don't think there was any obligation for me to have intervened in such a way, but i guess i just wonder... i think they will be fine. i think they will have a good life together. it's just weird.

on a completely unrelated note, i want to say that we have new floors, new carpet, new dining room table, new leather couches that are puffy and look like marshmallows. and besides the fact that between the "wood" floors, the furniture, and the 50 million picture frames on the walls, there are 486 different colors of wood in the living room and kitchen, i will admit that it doesn't look so bad. i still think the pink paint was a mistake, but with everything else it's not horrible... true true.

rozi says everyone has a mindy. i think there's something to be said for that. i wonder if it's true that everyone has a deeg too. i bet it is. and what happens when your deeg and your mindy is the same person? is that better than them being two different people? or does it suck twice as much?

so i have a hypothetical situation for you. suppose you have a friend. not just any friend, but one of your best ones. somebody who makes your top ten. suppose that person is engaged to be married. married to a person who is probably not the right person. not that she is bad, she's great, but probably just not the right person for your friend. you talk to your friend, try to ask him questions to get him thinking about whether or not this girl is really the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and through the course of time and questioning you realize that the problem is he's in love with you (which he hints at but doesn't explicitly say) and the only way he will call the engagement off and avoid making a BIG mistake is if you tell him you love him and want to be with him. no pressure. the fiancee is nice but you're his deeg. and you've never really been romantically interested in him, not because it's never crossed your mind but more just because there was never an opportunity to be. so the question is this: if it was within your grasp to stop this wedding, but the only way you could do it would be with the intention of starting a new relationship, would you do it? i mean ethically of course it wouldn't be wise, since you would probably be lying about the depths of your feelings for the guy, but i'm just curious to hear from you. are there any circumstances under which you would do such a thing to keep one of your best friends from marrying the wrong person? tell me what you think.

i just wanted to add helen's response to the accidental survey. it's worth reading.

well kids... the results to my accidental survey are as follows:

most of you thought that:

a) yes you think rock star will think i'm a stalker if i don't tell him i'm moving to houston and then he happens to walk into starbucks while i'm working. i'd like to take this moment to say that i think if i wanted to choose such a line of work that i would be a pretty good stalker. SSS (stephanie's stalking service). let me know if you need my services. on with the survey.

but

b) you think that i should not tell him anyway.

other thoughts:
-- i should secretly switch the soy in rock star's girly drink to regular milk. funny, but no dice. freak him out? that's ok. send him to the hospital? no.
-- i should shove one of the big green starbucks straws up his nose. that's a little violent.
-- i should chew him out for not giving me "advance notice" before he came into my store. haha good call... but probably not.
-- i should kiss him. i know you guys want to see a little more drama in my life, but besides the fact that this would be difficult to maneuver if i was standing behind a counter, i think it might be worth noting that it would be totally inappropriate.

thanks for your input. i'll let you know what i decide.

so i'm moving to houston. this summer. for a couple months. last summer i drove all around the country and this summer i wanted something a little different but still crazy. so i thought why not move to another part of the country for a couple months? i think most of you who would give a crap already know. i'll get to hang out with sarah and rozi and it sounds like a little recording on the new brotherluck album might be in order. but anyway it's becoming more and more official every day. i have a place to live, and upon finding out the address of my summer residence, i made calls to a couple starbucks stores that i could transfer to. ready for the irony? i found out today (was not aware of this before) that the place where i will be staying is 5 minutes away from where rock star lives. or lived. i guess he moved awhile back, though he said it wasn't far from his old place. more irony? of the few starbucks locations i called that are closest to my future home for the summer, the one that is most likely to give me hours is the one... get this... across the parking lot from where he works. or at least i think it is. after i talked to the manager i was looking at the address and burst into spontaneous laughter. i don't think it gets much funnier than this folks. i mean i wasn't planning on telling him that i was coming down, i don't really care to see him or talk to him or anything. but it doesn't get much freakier than walking into the starbucks next to your store, ordering your custom iced grande soy raspberry chai latte, and seeing some chick you dated, who you thought lived in chicago, working behind the counter in houston. so if it happens that i do end up working there, the moral dilemma i face is whether or not to warn rock star beforehand or cherish that priceless look on his face when and if he unwittingly walks into the store. right now door number two is sounding much more appealing. course the downside to that is that i look like a stalker. but seriously, somebody tell me why that is such a bad thing. because i think it is freaking hilarious.

so following last night's extremely disappointing grammy awards, i'm going to name some categories and my nominees for them. yes disappointing. don't get me wrong, i like norah jones. but not enough for eight grammys. no sirree. okay here goes:

best grammy performance:
john mayer -- "your body is a wonderland"
coldplay and the new york philharmonic - "politik"
eminem - "lose yourself"
norah jones - "don't know why"
bruce springsteen -- "the rising"

and the winner is: coldplay and the new york philharmonic. ummm... yeah. quite possibly the most amazing thing i've ever seen... EVER. words cannot describe how much that performance moved me. i need the new york philharmonic.

worst grammy performer:
no doubt -- "underneath it all/hella good"
faith hill -- whatever that song was...
dixie chicks -- "landslide"
nelly and kelly rowland -- "hot in herre/dilemma" (on a side note, why the freak are there two "r"s in the "herre" of the song title? i don't get it)

and the winner (or should i say the loser) is: no doubt. vocally that performance sucked goats. i wanted to throw myself through a window. on the upside, i noticed that gwen stefani is even flatter than i am.

worst-dressed grammy attendee:
pink
gwen stefani

and the winner is: pink. her black "dress" was quite possibly the least flattering thing i've ever seen on anyone. EVER.

male grammy attendee most likely to have my children:
chris martin -- coldplay
john mayer

and the winner is: either one. i think maybe i would choose chris over john, just because he's got the accent and i like coldplay better than mayer. but there is something very endearing about john, and i'm aware that chris is dating gwenyth paltrow so i think the american might be more attainable.

***thinking***

bear with me.

***thinking***

ummm....

***thinking***

tonight in my apologetics class we were discussing the problem of evil. i have carefully thought about many aspects to this problem and have convictions regarding it, with the exception of the following issue.

vomit. that's as nice and as accurate as i can be concerning my feelings about the latest renovations having taken place in my abode therein. i don't think it was grammatically correct to use therein at the end of the last sentence, but it is one of my favorite words so bite me. anyway, back to vomit. it's kind of like the color of what might happen if a person were to eat cherry jello with lots of whipped cream and then look at our **new** kitchen. they would throw up, and the color of their vomit would most likely resemble the color of our kitchen. which is a very light pink. which, in and of itself, is not an evil color. i own a couple articles of clothing that resemble such a hue. but the problems with it are manifold in our kitchen. i don't know that much about decorating, but i do know that it is generally wise to stick with a color scheme that is mostly warm or mostly cool colors. too much mixing of the two tends to effect a response known in the scientific field as "ugly." i also know and happen to have very strong feelings about the use of more neutral colors in a room. wood cupboards and trimmings in the same room should be the same color. additionally, you should not have some appliances that are white and some that are off white unless they are donated to you. if you have a sink countertop and then an island in your kitchen FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY make sure the countertops match. please note that the reason i emphasize such rules is because currently they are ALL being broken in my kitchen. the walls are light pink, the sink countertop is light speckled grey, the island countertop is light speckled taupe. most of the cupboards are an ugly dark poo brown; the cupboards on the island are a lighter brown. there is a "window" in the kitchen that overlooks the dining area and today the trim around that opening was painted from dark brown to white. only you can still see the brown under the white paint. as if this weren't enough, the stove and refrigerator are ivory colored while the microwave and toaster are very white, not unlike me. it is a designer's nightmare. i tried to tell her. she didn't believe me. you know how you watch the really bad auditions on american idol and you think to yourself, does this person not know how much their voice makes me want to lash out irrationally? do they really think they can sing? well i wonder the same with my roommate. does she really not see how hideous the color scheme is in our kitchen? can you be color-deaf? let me know if you have an answer.

kinky turtle. for those of you who aren't familiar with houston sarah i'll explain this briefly. rozi and john wrote this worship song awhile back called "king eternal," but every time rozi says "king eternal" in the song, if you listen closely it sounds like "kinky turtle." this was something sarah pointed out to me during our day of shopping on christmas eve that i thought was freaking hilarious. when she and i were at the mall she took me on my first visit to a build-a-bear workshop store, where you choose and stuff your own stuffed animal. i remember her saying that she loved penguins, so i tried to arrange for a penguin, but build-a-bear didn't have them anymore. so i opted for a turtle. and really i think it ended up being cooler anyways. i found some valentine's day wear; a toga, a bow and arrow; then i made my own sound to put inside of it. sarah you have no idea how many times i recorded that damn phrase. "hi! i'm kinky turtle!" seriously. they told me to do it in the bathroom, as to avoid excess background noise. i was trying to do it clearly, but also softly, because i figured it might be kind of weird for a build-a-bear employee to walk by the bathroom door and hear me repeatedly chanting, "hi! i'm kinky turtle!" psycho. so finally i just decided to stick with the take you hear now, and i took out the sound deal to the chick who helps with the stuffing and she put the sound thing in kinky's arm, and as she was doing so she kept pressing the button to make it go off. which, let's be honest, is a little embarrassing. i'm trying to look like a build-a-bear professional and yet the only sound in the store is that of me saying "hi! i'm kinky turtle!" over and over again in a high-pitched voice. of course i feel the need to explain why i said such a thing. sarah i told her the story and she just gave me a fake laugh and a look that said, "you pervert. how dare you come into a children's store and utter such a thing." i don't think she believed me.

anyway, all that said, i didn't actually buy it on christmas eve. it would have been pretty cool if i had, but i don't think i could have slipped that past you. i put christmas eve on the birth certificate because that was the day that we talked about kinky turtle, so it just seemed fitting that it should be kinky's birthdate. :) i'm glad you liked it. WHEEEEEE.

i love inside joke gifts. during my senior year of high school i took this photography class and my omaha sarah was helping me out with part of an assignment i was doing. she had some pretty plastic drinking glasses at her house and we were out on her front lawn taking pictures of water pouring from these glasses. at one point in time i get this bright idea, wouldn't it be cool to drop the glass full of water on the sidewalk and take a picture of its moment of impact with the ground at ground level. i mean the glass was plastic, so i figured it would bounce. well, it didn't. i got my picture alright-- of sarah's beautiful plastic glass shattering on the pavement. we thought it was so funny that the glass broke. seriously. it was PLASTIC. but anyway sarah was creative and kept all the pieces and superglued them back together and gave it to me as a gift on christmas. i thought that was great. to this day that glass sits between the front seats of my car and holds my toll change.

this past year we had a rummage sale at my church and i found this FANTASTIC oil painting of frank sinatra that i bought and sent to sarah for her birthday this past year, because she and i totally dig sinatra. this thing was amazing. it was so hideous that it was the coolest thing ever. i took it into starbucks one morning to show it to my manager, and no joke i had people asking if they could buy it for hundreds of dollars. i hope someday i can find another like it to add to my collection of artwork. that would be great.

i'd like to say that in commemoration of presidents' day and our nation's heightened state of security which was raised to an orange colored alert a little over a week ago, i am wearing an orange sweater today. thank you goodnight.

now you have closure. i've heard this from two of my dearest tonight. and i suppose in a way they are right. i mean a lot of questions WERE answered today. but closure is when i go to houston and rock star is a freaking jackass and i leave saying, "okay then. i'm done. i did everything i could and you were just a big fat jerk. no more." that's closure.

the reality of it is that i have lived with this for three years. somewhere along the line it just became a part of me. after about a year i just realized that nothing i was doing seemed to make it go away, so i just decided to stop being ashamed of it and to just live with it. and so i have for three years. and i've grown to where i rarely think about it much except on nights like these. having no closure is when you leave a relationship open-ended. that's not what happened here. it was closed. and i don't think i lied to myself or tried to convince myself that it really wasn't. i guess it was just like my heart never got the idea that hey, this is done, you're not supposed to care anymore. so today wasn't really closure. because nothing was said today that i didn't already know in some capacity.

it's funny because it's not like what i said today is something i've been wanting to say forever... i mean it hasn't been bottled up inside me for the past three years. and yet... saying it was liberating. maybe because it fell upon an understanding and compassionate ear. maybe because he heard for the first time how much i unashamedly really just do care. maybe because it didn't have to be a secret anymore and we can both just deal with the fact that i feel the way i do and he feels the way he does. i don't know. but i do know that i lived today. it does hurt and it is worth some tears, but it's still a good day.

let me just say thank you. thank you for being honest. thank you for being a man. you deserve the best. if you ever need a kidney...

every day for the past two weeks, i have had to hear how much better our apartment is going to look once we get the walls painted. over and over and over. usually it's when i'm walking out the door, running a little late. she starts talking at me right as i'm leaving. i've started to adopt the ritual of looking like i am late, frantically grabbing my coat and guitar, trying to hint that when i'm on my way out is not the best time to talk. but often she still doesn't get it. she just talks. about the same thing. over and over. see the woman i live with... well her mom died back in the fall and so she inherited a little money and is slowly remodeling some of the rooms in our place. we're getting new floors in the kitchen and dining area, new carpet in the living room, new couches, new dining room table. of course the big dilemma in all of this is that my roommate has to pick out colors, and the thought of doing anything exciting scares the poo out of her. i tried to convince her to use some color in the painting endeavor. move away from white, go with some richer mauves or yellows or greens or just SOMETHING. i almost had her, until she freaked out that she wouldn't like it and decided to go with... white. seriously. well i guess it's officially not white. some color that supposedly has a tinge of pink in it but you can't really see it because it's not really there. it's sad. but come tomorrow morning the painters are supposed to arrive and hopefully after that i won't have to hear much more of how much different our apartment will look. i know she is excited, and i know she likes my company and she's excited to share all of the new stuff that's going on. i'm not trying to be insensitive; i guess it's just emotionally tiring when i constantly have to listen to menial chatter from someone who invests nothing into my life. okay enough complaining. i'm done.

so in an unforeseen course of events, i snatched a valentine. i know what you're thinking. you're wondering who it is. you're wondering if this means my 5 year no lip marathon is going to come to an end on friday. the answer to both questions is a resounding highly unlikely.

jeremiah is apparently my valentine this year. we were sitting in apologetics class tonight, talking about when we could hang out this week and write music, and i suggested friday. he thought that was a good idea until he remembered it was valentine's day. apparently valentine's day is like a major holiday to him, or at the very least like the sabbath, wherein no work should be done. anyway, i asked him in my sorry-excuse-for-a-black-woman accent if he wanted to be my valentine, and he heartily accepted. WHEEEEEE. speaking of jeremiah, he was telling me a story tonight about how his family went out to dinner once, and the waitress serving their table accidentally spilled some soda on his brother's pants. in an angry outburst jeremiah's brother yelled, "i have coke on my nuts!" to which jeremiah's whole family, including his parents, started pointing and laughing uncontrollably, yelling, "HAHA.... COCONUTS!!" in between gasps for air.

that story is pretty funny. hearing jeremiah tell it makes it hilarious.

v-day means that i'll be going home in two weekends. i'm excited about that. i was thinking today about how fortunate i am to be close enough to both my parents to talk to them at least once a week even though i'm away at college. last thursday mom and i spent an hour just talking and catching up, and it was so nice. not that we haven't been close, but it just sort of feels like, especially in the past six months, she has just become one of my best friends. and i just really enjoy that. ok enough before i start shedding tears.

cold.

synonyms: algid, arctic, below freezing, below zero, benumbed, biting, bitter, blasting, bleak, boreal, brisk, brumal, chill, chilled, cool, cool, crisp, cutting, freezing, frigid, frore, frosty, frozen, gelid, gelid, glacial, hiemal, hyperborean, icebox, iced, icy, inclement, intense, keen, nipping, nippy, numbed, numbing, one-dog night, penetrating, piercing, polar, raw, rimy, severe, sharp, shivery, sleety, snappy, snappy, snowy, stinging, wintry

antonyms: hot, sweltering, warm

if you've ever lived in the midwest you know how algid it can get during the months of january and february. the past several weeks have made me reconsider the typical notion that hell is a burning pit of fire; rather i think it is an arctic hyperborean icebox. it makes me think of christmas day this past year, when i stepped outside of sarah's house, expecting the usual benumbing chill that accompanies winter up north. instead i was greeted by a gentle 70-degree-farenheight houston breeze, bearing no resemblance to the boreal deep freeze that is the winter season. what exactly am i saying, you ask? chicago sucks right now. i thought i was a thick-skinned yankee. i thought i was accustomed to those gelid one-dog nights. as it turns out, i am nothing of the sort. houston betrayed the real me.

sigh.

houston. that's in the top five best weekends of my life. also included in that list would be that weekend in august of 2001 when goo and i went to wisconsin and i met mike and matty for the first time, as well as that weekend in november 1999 that i spent in chicago with helen and denyelle and friends. january 2000, weekend before my birthday in chicago, that was great too. that weekend this past fall when mom and steve came to chicago for a few days is definitely high up there. none of those in any certain order, it changes depending on who i miss the most.

often i miss people that are dear to me because they are far away. sometimes i miss people because they are different versions of what they used to be. or maybe it's me that has changed so much that others would say the same thing in regards to myself. i don't know. enlighten me.

rozi i like how you validated your suggestion that we shouldn't do mr. jones by saying that adam duritz doesn't like it either. because while i can gracefully disagree with you, i probably look like a pretty big moron if i say it's a great song and the dude who wrote it says it sucks. kudos to you. way to use authority. :) we're still doing it. there are definitely songs i like better on the album, but it's a christian function that is mostly going to be high schoolers i think. we wanted to do a couple things that they might not be super familiar with but at least would recognize. but i do like it and damn jimmy it's fun to sing.

why are we covering songs at all? well i can't answer for jake, but the reason i don't want to do my stuff for this occasion is because... well... i have this thing about baring my soul in front of a bunch of acquaintances. i don't usually mind in the presence of people i know well or in the presence of people i don't know at all, but that middle ground is just too weird for me. that and sometimes it's just great to sing songs you didn't write. like in houston at sherlock's with beautiful. that was a great time.

so in about a week the united states will celebrate that overrated consumerism-at-its-best holiday (well i guess christmas first), valentines day. you know the day i'm talking about-- the one where flowers cost 3 times as much as they would on any other day of the year. i remember valentine's day in grade school where we decorated shoe boxes and then passed out those little cards with cartoons on them. 5th grade. tyler hinrichs. boy was he hot. i think every girl in our class was looking at her valentine from him, wondering if there was a deeper meaning to the words in the dialogue bubble above tweety's head. those were the days. i think my senior year of high school jeremy and i somehow convinced our entire youth group on v-day that we were engaged. jeremy will you remind me why exactly we did that and how we got anyone to believe us? i think he gave me two of those little disgusting candy hearts that had special sweet nothings on them, and i kept them. we called them "the kids" and decided we would exchange custody over them every valentine's day. they were in a plastic bag in my car for a year and then i gave them to him last year. i'm looking forward to spending time with them again. who wants to bet he won't remember? :) last year on v-day i had to work and then joe pederson took me out to dinner. i had forgotten about that until today. thanks joe, that was a good time.

speaking of candy hearts, i would like to engage you, the reader, in a dialogue concerning them. i am convinced that the candy hearts that will be lovingly distributed this year, the ones that taste like mylanta, are actually the same batch of candy hearts that were first made in 1912. no one ate them. ever. so they continue to be recycled, causing incessant gagging in those who so boldy choose to partake. i'd like to know your thoughts on the edibleness of these morsels of mystery.

i'm off but i need to publicly declare that i am in no way responsible for rozi's (by the way, i believe you that you didn't say that word :)first speeding ticket in six years. if you are a rock star and you call me at ungodly hours of the night and you so happen to wake me up, i take absolutely no responsibility for what i say or do that may or may not aide in behaviors incurring a speeding ticket therein. if you don't believe me, it's in section VIII, part 345 of my manual. right after the MWANC exposition. mexicans who are needing cheese.

today is such a tired day. it's all my fault. i've been procrastinating so badly the past week. every time i sit down to do homework, i end up playing guitar. i think maybe because i'm just so thankful i can sing again after being sick that i just can't get enough of playing. that and the fact that jake and i have a show coming up in a week and a half. we're called anything but the river. we're opening for a few other bands and we're basically doing covers. here's the song list.

1. mr. jones -- counting crows
2. warning sign -- coldplay
3. cain -- patty griffin
4. 3X5 -- john mayer
5. some denison whitmer song (can't remember the title)
6. elderly woman behind the counter in a small town -- pearl jam
7. a song jake and i wrote a few years ago

it should be good times. jake picked up a slide for the first time a few days ago for the patty griffin song. he was unsure as to whether or not we could pull off the style with only a week and a half to practice. but i gave him the puppy dog face and he took the cd home and now he plays the song like a freaking rock star. now if only i can sing it like a rock star...

that's really all today. i'm too tired to remember funny stories.

to me it's like we're clean and they're dirty, she says.

can i say how much this comment made me want to throw up? i wanted to expel the majority of my internal organs. on her. it is precisely comments like these that make me ashamed to associate myself with christiandom. we were having a discussion about profanity on reality television. she couldn't understand why on earth people had to cuss and i said something in defense and she said "shhhhh... don't make excuses for it." of course then, being my controversial self, i opened the can of "why exactly is cussing wrong all of the time" worms, which led to her going off on a tangent about the behaviorial differences between christians and people who aren't christians. she concluded her statement of opinion with the above sentence. which i will be real honest with you, is more ugly and offensive than any expletive i've ever heard in my life. because when it comes right down to it, we're all basically in the same boat. we're all flawed, we've all sinned. being "clean" does not come about by anything i've done other than to receive a measure of Grace extended to me, to everyone. that said, how could you, in good conscience, so arrogantly declare yourself a part of the elite when your position is one that you don't deserve? you can't. let me say this. that's not what God is like.

i just wanted to see live music tonight. that was it. thony's been calling me for the past couple weekends wanting to hang out, i think for a date but as long as he doesn't say it i can play dumb. so tonight i had a few extra hours. i say, let's find some live music. at a place i can get into. so he looks online, finds this restaurant/bar, calls to make sure i can get in, they say no problem as long as i don't drink. so we meet up there, walk into the bar part where the band is playing, and a waitress makes a beeline for our table to ask for id. seriously. what the crap is that all about. they make us leave because i'm not 21. so we drive around for awhile and find this other restaurant type place and from the parking lot we hear music. again. no dice. the lack of 18 & up venues in chicago is appalling. i don't want your alcohol. i'll even provide a sharpie for you if you want to write some big fat x's on my hands to show i'm a minor. in fact, why don't you go ahead and draw x's on my forehead and any other exposed part of my body? make me into a walking x. just let me see music.

so we went to baker square and talked for awhile. it was okay. but i just wanted to see some music.

call me heavy steph. that's my new nickname. it's not a crack about my weight. it's a title i earned tonight playing a game with this youth group i work with. the game is called heavy. one person shouts out orders like "heavy elbow" or "heavy ear", and a group of people spread out around the room have to immediately touch that part of their body to the floor. the last person to do so is out. so on and so forth until you get to the last person. i brought in a victory for the women tonight with the command "heavy teeth." that's right. teeth had to touch the ground. pretty gross. but it doesn't matter because i won with my catlike reflexes. but it still is pretty gross.

i think something changed yesterday.

i can't be sure yet, i don't know how long it will take for me to be sure that it did, but i think something changed. and the reason why i'm not seriously doubting whether it changed or not is because i wasn't even looking for it to change. and what is cool is that if i am wrong and it didn't change, it's not a big deal. by now i'm sure you are thoroughly confused, and rightly so, but my explanation is going to remain ambiguous until further notice.

last tuesday dr. cornwall spoke in my ministerial seminar class. the nature of this class has a lot to do with discussing the logistics of ministry. we've only met a few times, but i think it is a lot of how to's. how to bury, how to marry, etc. more importantly, though, i think it is another chance for students to really understand what ministry is like from the perspective of someone who has been doing it for a long time. the professor is actually the president of my college, and thus far it has been a lot of storytelling, which is very helpful. last week dr. cornwall came in to speak on some of the basics of being a pastor as it relates to psalm 23... "the Lord is my shepherd..." he went through verse by verse and discussed how the psalm depicts the unique relationship between the shepherd and his sheep, an analogy to a pastor and his congregation. if this interests you email me and i'll send you the notes, because they are great. but what is even better are the stories this man has to tell, namely because they are his teachings in practice. writing about it, i feel like i can't do it justice. i can't remember very many details of stories that he told, i just remember the impression that they left upon me.

he spoke at our retreat this past weekend. the theme of the retreat was the five foundations of marriage. the five foundations being communication, spiritual concepts, blendable backgrounds, sexual compatibility, and working with finances. again, if you want more info on that email me and i'll hook you up. but i need to tell a story that he shared with us. bob cornwall is now 77 years old. he has two daughters, but he always wanted four. one sunday while he was pastoring he met this teenage girl who was in the last stages of anorexia and bullemia. she was 5'9" and weighed 89 lbs. her family sent her to live with her aunt in the last weeks of her life because none of them knew how to handle her. dr. bob was upset by the fact that everyone, including the girl herself, just accepted the prognosis that she was supposed to die in a week. so that sunday, the first day they had ever interacted, he said, "would you like to be my daughter?" he offered to have his family take her in to their home like she was one of them, and she said "yes." so he had her hold her right hand up and say that she was now officially a daughter of bob cornwall. then he told his wife that they had a new addition to the family and told the aunt that the girl was his daughter now. the aunt was grateful to have the girl off of her hands. so dr. bob's wife took the girl out shopping that afternoon and bought all new clothes, makeup, etc., etc. because they didn't want this girl to have to use anything that reminded her of her past. they brought her home. dr. bob showed her each room in the house, saying, "this is your house. this room belongs to you." he took her into her bedroom and had her say, "this is my room. everything in it is mine." he told her that it was only hers and that he would never come in except by invitation. he then showed her the kitchen and all the food and had her say, "this is my kitchen. this is my refrigerator. this is my food." the point in all of this was so that she would feel a sense of ownership, that the house would become a home for her. which was amazing in itself. that night before bed dr. bob and his wife were praying that God would show them how they could help this girl.

so late that night, the first night of her stay, dr. bob hears the girl get up and go down to the kitchen and start eating. he waited for awhile and then went down to join her. at first she was ashamed to be eating in front of him, but he made it clear that there were to be no apologies. it was her kitchen, her refrigerator, her food. he said he was hungry too. so they both pigged out, and he said, "this is the part where i go back to bed. what do you do?" she said, "i go to the bathroom and throw up what i've eaten." he said, "well okay then. let's go together. i'll go first." so they both went to the bathroom, he stuck his finger down his throat and vomited up everything he had just eaten, and then said, "okay. it's your turn. show me how it's done." so she, being the more experienced bullemic, proceeded to vomit up her food quite easily. he gave her a hug and then they went to bed. the next night the same thing happened. again he went with her to the bathroom and volunteered to be the first to throw up. the third night the same thing happened. they met in the kitchen, and after they were done eating, dr. bob says, "time for the bathroom. i'll let you go first tonight if you want." they go to the bathroom, and she looks at him and says, "i won't if you won't." and he says, "really? tonight or forever?" and she says, "forever." and she didn't. ever again. she lived with dr. bob's family for six years and completely regained her health. then dr. bob married her to one of his congregants and she has been wonderful since.

that was the story that stood out most to me. i mean, what kind of love does it take to do something like that. to throw up with your bullemic daughter just to show her that she is not a disgrace, that she is still loved? it's just one example of many that dr. bob spoke of this past weekend that shows how concerned God is with our needs and desires. dr. bob got another daughter and the girl lived. what more can you say? i guess what got me this weekend was just seeing how faithful God is. there has been this internal dialogue going on in me for a long time, i think i mentioned in several months ago, about the nature of God's will and whatnot, regarding whether it is specific or general. and it's not like i have a concrete answer to this question, but after this weekend i'm really convinced that there is more of a purpose in His will than simply the outcomes of decisions we make. not that i didn't believe that before, but it's different now... i guess i think there is more of a purpose than i initially thought. sorry this is so confusing. i'm just still processing...

so i'm still planning on talking about dr. cornwall and the weekend at the retreat, but i'm really tired right now so my brain is just not processing stuff at a rate which is conducive to explaining it all to you, my faithful readers. tonight or tomorrow i'll try to indulge a little bit. but for now, something light.

so sunday was the superbowl. at my church every year we throw a HUGE superbowl party for youth groups around the greater chicago area. upwards of 400 kids and youth pastors and youth leaders come, and we offer a variety of activities for those who could care less about the game. this year we had jeremiah's band play, we had video games, we had karoake, we had pool and foozball, we had inflatable jousting matches. i'll be real honest with you when i say that i don't really watch televised sports. there are only so many hours in a day and presently there is not enough time for me to develop a new interest which requires me to watch men in spandex grab each other's asses. that's not to say that i don't enjoy sports at all. i like being active and it's not like i'm completely clueless as to basic rules of the game; i just don't really like being a spectator unless i personally know someone playing.

that said, i was assigned to supervise the karoake room at the super bowl party. how fitting. let me tell you, by the end of the night, the karoake room was the place to be. the room was nearly packed out for most of the second half, and even after the game had ended people didn't want to leave. i'm not sure what the basis of its appeal was, as a majority of the kids wanting to karoake would select their song, get up on stage, and then decide they were too embarrassed to sing in front of an audience. if i ever see any of you readers do this i will slap you. it's the most annoying thing in the world, and it doesn't provide for solid entertainment. that's why erik and i took it upon ourselves to show them how it's done. namely by belting out a stunning rendition of aretha franklin's "natural woman." sam decided that he would offer his dancing services, free of charge, to any of the daring performers who wanted to participate. he captured the audiences' hearts when he threw himself on the stage while two girls were singing "stop in the name of love", violently convulsing in what seemed to be a near death state that undoubtedly accompanies a broken heart. holy freak batman that was hilarious. i love sam. sam has great hair. a lot like justin guarani's hair from the last american idol. jeanna and i spend hours in the student lounge just running our fingers through it. it's great.

and you know what? to be real honest with you, i'm still not even sure who played in the superbowl. or if superbowl is supposed to be one word or two. but that might be because i was sicker than a dog this weekend so cut me some freaking slack.

so i don't have much time right now but i am going to congratulate jeanna and tony who have been magically reunited in that department i don't seem to have much luck in. romance, that is. a few years ago jeanna and tony dated for a year and a half. then they broke up for two years and then they both started having feelings for each other again and last weekend jeanna went back to iowa to see tony's band play and they talked about stuff and now it's official. and then he spontaneously decided that he was going to come to chi-town this past weekend to attend to the retreat our college was having. they are so cute its sickening. i actually knew tony before he and jeanna ever met (iowa is a small world), and now they are likely going to end up getting married. which i highly endorse. i mean they've only been dating for a week, but they've known each other for a long time and they've been good good friends for the past year since she moved to chicago. tony is a great guy and probably one of the best guitarists in iowa. being the musician that he is, however, tony doesn't have a lot of money. so i'm starting a foundation. see, jeanna has her heart set on this engagement ring she saw while she was in hawaii a few years ago. she was looking at the prices the other day though and this ring could cost tony upwards of $4500-$5000. he doesn't know this yet. so i'm starting the JER fund. the Jeanna's Engagement Ring fund. unless tony becomes a rock star sometime in the very near future, it's going to take him a good three years to save up that kind of money. i don't want her to have to wait three years, but i would like her to have the ring she wants. so if you feel compelled to contribute to the JER fund, email me and we will work out some sort of payment plan.

sarah you SHOULD come. i'll make sure ronald doesn't get fresh with you. :)

by the way, today marks the one month anniversary of my first account of my houston trip. if you haven't read it, try it out here. it starts on dec. 23rd. it's quite the story.

hellllllloooooo there. thank you for listening this lovely morning to WTNK smoooooooooth jazz. this is barry white and i will be taking care of all of your jazz needs for the next two hours.

this is me today. barry white. or you can call it my sexy sick voice. or this morning it was a sexy sick voice. now it's a whisper that barely comes out, or occasionally some high-pitched squawk that sounds like hippopotamuses (or hippopotami, webster says that both are correct) mating. truthfully i've never heard hippopotami mating, but i'm sure it would sound like my voice today. whatever the case, i'm a little sick, still getting worse, but it's almost kind of funny because very rarely in the past times that i have ever been sick have i lost my voice. in fact, i'm not sure if i ever really have. but there is something almost humorous about temporarily being physically unable to speak. i tried to call a friend last night that i hadn't talked to in a real long time, and as soon as he answered the phone i was trying to talk and nothing came out. i think i managed to whisper "this is stephanie," butit took a few minutes for him to figure out who i was and then my voice came back for awhile and we could actually converse. but it's worth laughing about.

so we have a college retreat this weekend. tomorrow and friday night. it's at the mcdonald's lodge, about an hour south of here. it's this great hyatt hotel hideaway in the middle of a forest, and i guess there's this place called hamburger university right next to it where the mcdonald's bigwigs are trained. in each of the hotel rooms there is a loveseat with a statue of ronald mcdonald sitting on one side. haha not really. anyway, the speaker for the retreat this year is this 75-year-old dude, Dr. Robert Cornwall. let me tell you this is the most amazing man i've ever met. he spoke last year and then he taught in my ministerial seminar class yesterday. after this weekend is over i'm going to have to share some of the stuff he said this week, because it's too good not to. i was just so moved yesterday, by the content of which he spoke, yes... but more than that the manner in which this man carries himself. he is so truly humble and yet so confident but not prideful in where his strength is. such a rare thing. this is a person that i desire to emulate.

sugar boogies.

that's the technical term. for those of you who may not have encountered such great terms of intellect, allow me to explain what sugar boogies are. in lay terms, sugar boogies are the naturally occurring result of a product that you, the reader, can find at any local drugstore. this product is called zycam, and the inventor of such a glorious item should be given a cookie, a get-out-of-jail-free pass, and a no-questions-asked entrance into heaven. zycam's usage instructions implore the user to spray this substance into his nose when cold symptoms first appear. the liquid, which helen says is a glucose and zinc mixture, absorbs into your bloodstream through your nasal passage. it is supposed to significantly reduce the duration of the common cold. sounds promising, right? absolutely. what i find fascinating about zycam is how it works to help your body rid itself of a cold. what follows is a play by play account of this process.

glucose and zinc are buddies. teammates, if you will. kamikaze molecules. glucose says to zinc,

"hey buddy, would you be interested in going up someone's nose with me, because that virus bastard stole my girlfriend last week and i want to avenge my loss, but i need your help."

zinc says, "dude, i know what you mean! that scum stole my sack lunch last month and never paid me back! what can i do to help?"

"well, here's what i'm thinking. we go up the dude's nose, we enter into his bloodstream. we find virus. i distract him with food, and when he's not looking you beat the freak out of him."

"can i use explosives?"

"anything you want."

and so the story goes. fighting for truth, justice, and the american common cold, glucose and zinc together give up their own lives for the betterment of mankind, to make my existence here on God's green earth just a little more tolerable. after their stunning act of heroism, the fruits of glucose's and zinc's labor manifest as little white flakes of the sugary mixture in your nose. you can't avoid them, and usually you can't tell that they are there. which is a bad thing, because the odds of walking around unwittingly with white flakes hanging from your nostrils are that much higher when you can't feel them. and those white flakies, my friends, are what we like to call in the scientific field sugar boogies. believe me. it's in any reputable science textbook.

so the choice is up to you. tough out the cold or deal with the sugar boogies. let me know what you decide.

and mark, i'll try to give you a ring tonight if my voice comes back. :)

so the birthday didn't end up being too bad. justin called. that was a nice surprise. last year he sent me roses for my birthday along with a really cute poem. tonight claudia and everett took me out to this asian stir fry place for dinner, then we drove around for awhile listening to a tape with all the theme songs from 70's and 80's cartoons and sitcoms. it was great. if you would have stopped next to us at the light at touhy and elmhurst you would have seen the three of us rocking out to "do do do do do inspector gadget." we picked up one of claudia's friends after she got off work and we went to another restaurant for dessert. good times. it's now almost 3 am and it's time for bed. thanks guys for making it special, you're great.

so today's the day. 20 years. it's been okay. jeanna and i went out to lunch and to see the movie "just married." it was good times, but the movie was better and cuter than i expected, and consequently it kind of made me sad. but my brother just called to wish me a happy b-day and that makes my whole day. thanks andy. :)

it's naptime now.

today was a bleh day. i was tired and depressed. it's too cold here.

but i'm so thankful for people like kim stamp. i was planning on calling sarah tonight but i haven't talked to kim since august and today i was just really needing to speak with her. kim used to live in omaha, now lives in olympia, washington, with her husband and kids. she was the first person that showed me how beautiful honesty is. not that i didn't value it before i met her, but after some amazing conversations she and i had during the summer of 2001, i was just so refreshed to have met someone that would ask the tough questions. someone that i could say "this is what i see in myself that i don't like and this is what i am ashamed of" to and not be reprimanded or judged, but just be encouraged to change. someone who knows when i'm lying. we discussed what happened with rock star tonight and she asked me the hard questions. and it was good. i needed that. maybe tomorrow sarah? :)

hey kids. i'm back in chicago. school starts in approximately 8 hours. church history II with wayne. i'm a little scared as to how much that is going to really suck. i have to consult a dictionary approximately 37 times per class period i spend with wayne. his manner of speech is just that lofty. i don't think he even knows any one-syllable words. except the ones in the bible i guess. anyway, should be good times.

i want you to know that i have only one class on mon., wed., and fri. do you know what that means? i sure don't. something great, though, i'm sure. it means i get to have a life this semester maybe.

i'm off to bed, but i wanted to extend most sincere congratulations to rozi, as he is now the proud new father of strapping young lad caden, who was born yesterday afternoon and weighs 6 lbs, something oz. way to go!! :)

it's very weird to have a grown woman look you straight in the eyes from less than two feet away and serenade you with happy birthday in italian. very weird. i'm trying to think under what circumstances this might not be awkward. if she was farther away? no, still weird. if she was singing in english? well, getting better. if she wasn't staring straight at me? that would help. if she was male? that would be good too.

my grandparents took me to the macaroni grill tonight for dinner to celebrate my birthday which is a week from today. the big 2-0. weird. anyway, macaroni grill is one of my favorite restaurants. the atmosphere is very... i don't know... romantic, i guess... they have great food and it's italian food. one of the requirements of every waiter/waitress is that they must not only be able to recite the wine and specials list forwards, backwards, and in romanian, but they must also be able to write their names upside down with not one but TWO crayons. i keep trying to figure out why this is such a necessary skill. the waitress comes over, gives us our menus, takes our drink orders, and then grabs two crayons from the sugar container and proceeds to write her name upside down on the paper tablecloth. and this happens every time i go there. i mean i understand that it is helpful for us to have her name on the table in case we need to yell at her for getting our order wrong, but why does she have to write it upside down? and why with two crayons? i always wonder if that is something the customer is supposed to comment on. maybe the customer is supposed to recognize that the coordination required to perform such an act is directly proportional to the quality of food. are we supposed to tip her more because she can do that? i'd like to know what proper tipping etiquette is for a waitress who can write her name upside down. does she want a medal? some candy? for the love of everything holy somebody tell me what she is trying to get us to do, because i don't understand. and what mystifies me more is that from what i've seen, the writing of the name upside down with two crayons thing is a regional macaroni grill standard. i've been to several in a number of different places and they all do the same thing. so that leads me to believe that this rule is actually in a handbook somewhere. someone high up on macaroni grill corporate ladder decided long ago that all future employees of this company must be able to write their names upside down with two crayons. do they spend time in training on this skill? do they have a professional that comes in and instructs all the would-be macaroni grill servers on the most expedient way to write their names upside down? i need to know.

so my grandparents told the waitress on the sly that it was my birthday. they were not aware of the fact that macaroni grill does not have a standard birthday dessert, but rather a tray of desserts that you may choose from, and, if it is your birthday, you get the dessert for free. so the waitress comes over, asks if we want some dessert, my grandpa nods yes, even though everyone is saying we are too full for more food, thinking that they will just bring out a cupcake for me or something. instead she brings over a tray with 5 different selections on it. so grandpa is looking rather flustered because we all say we don't want dessert. i still did not realize what was going on. the waitress looks a little confused and whispers to him, "i thought you said it was someone's birthday..." to which i understood what was happening. so i quickly chimed in that we would all share a piece of the coffee cheesecake. there was a sigh of relief.

so they send the cheesecake over along with the 20-something girl who sang happy birthday to me in italian. i would have been fine with the cheesecake. it was just so weird because she's looking directly at me while she's singing it, and i'm not sure what is appropriate behavior on my part. i mean it didn't really seem to strike her as a particularly humorous situation, but i could not for the life of me look her in the eye without bursting into laughter. but it seemed childish and disrespectful to stare uncomfortably at the dessert placed in front of me. so i kind of tried to stare past her head so it looked like i was looking at her when really i was not. my grandparents said after her stunning performance that i should get a job singing to people at restaurants. yeah i don't think that will be happening any time soon. it's a thankless job. people may really like your voice but really it's just kind of weird to have someone you don't know stand less than two feet away from you and sing you a song. it needs to be more impersonal. that's what i say. besides, i couldn't work at macaroni grill anyway-- i don't know how to write my name upside down.

so it's been approximately 2.5 days since the operation, and for the most part i am fully functional. i played guitar and sang for awhile today, the first time since monday morning. my mouth is still a little stiff. probably just from swelling a little bit, but really it's hardly detectable.

i think i have officially weened myself off of the prescribed painkillers today. which is a good thing. yesterday morning i took two instead of one and 10 minutes after i had downed the pill i started to black out. that was exciting. i've never fainted before. i was knocked out for most of the day and was noticing last night that i was growing very sensitive to loud and high pitched noises. my mom and i went to starbucks last night for a drink and i was standing next to the bar and the sound from the milk steamer was enough to make me want to beat my head against the counter. weird. i think i'm doing okay now though. more alert than yesterday. and i can look at a computer screen longer than five minutes without wanting to throw up. that's good news i think. okay so i'm done with the update. i wish i could be funny but i need more tylenol.

i made it.

i'm alive.

i'm feeling no pain.

i'm numb.

i'm hungry.

so yeah. i'm fine. it's been 12 hours since the procedure and i've been taking my painkillers regularly and i'm in no pain. they strapped me in a chair this morning, gave me nitrous oxide first, then the nurse put the iv in my vein and i actually remember everything going black. and i didn't like the laughing gas. that just kind of scared me because, well... like i said. i don't like not being about my wits. people say enjoy it, it's fun, but i dunno. i just couldn't. i was thankful once they put the knock out stuff in me because i just wanted to be unconscious, not high. apparently the surgery took 20 minutes. they came out and told my mom to pull the car around. i woke up, the woman helped me out of the chair and walked me to the car. i had the hiccups for 30 minutes after i woke up i swear. it was so damn annoying. i vaguely remember leaving the place and being in the car. i remember asking if we could get squash for me to eat. i love squash. but i couldn't say it because of the gauze in my mouth. so i had to write it down. but i guess the directions said i could only eat cold stuff today so i don't get squash until tomorrow. we stopped at the grocery store where my mom filled my prescription and got some groceries, and i guess when she came back to the car i was sleeping with an ice pack against my face and my head against the window and there was this woman in the car next to me staring and wondering who had beaten me to a pulp. funny. so we go home and i drift in and out of sleep for an hour or two. and the dizzyness subsided and i've not been in any pain... just been numb all day. i still can't feel my lower lip or any of my chin. which means i have a lisp and i can't tell when i'm spilling stuff on myself. it's pretty funny. i just hope it goes away soon so i can talk normal and sing.

my dad and stepmom sent me a big bouquet of flowers today. that teared me up a little bit. and, after reading my scared blog last night, my mom decided to take the entire day off from work today to take care of me. that made me smile. she did a great job. rozi said once that i have a magic wishing blog. maybe he's right. :)

so that's kind of the story. not real exciting, but that's good. i didn't want an exciting wisdom tooth story. if you haven't had yours out yet, let me know and i'll recommend a good place. :)

so in approximately 14 hours, i have a date with destiny. it's at 4407 SW 9th St. at the oral surgeon's office. he and his cronies are going to knock me out cold and then extract my wisdom teeth, all of whom, with the exception of #17, have become close personal friends. #17 is the one that hurts me the most. when i talk about teething, it's all his fault.

can i just say that i'm pretty freaked out. i'm not so much worried about the pain... i mean of course it does scare me some, but working at starbucks and spilling the occasional 190 degree cup of coffee on my arm, i think i have really developed a higher tolerance for pain in the past year or so. what i'm scared about, and maybe i wouldn't have thought much about this if helen hadn't mentioned it when she got hers out, is losing control. they're going to do the anesthesia thing and i'm going to watch them put the IV into my vein and that's it. i can't keep myself from going under. i can't do anything about it. and then i'm going to be foggy for awhile afterwards and probably tripping out on vicadin. i really just don't like the thought of not being able to remember parts of my life. i mean not that i remember everything, but you know... i dunno. i can't be about my wits. and then i'm scared about bleeding and throwing up and infections. i haven't vomited since i was in sixth grade. holy crap. it was january 6th i think. when i was in sixth grade. that will have been 8 years tomorrow. so yeah, the anesthesia could make me sick to my stomach. and if i threw up tomorrow it would be the 8 year anniversary. fantastic.

and then there's my voice. i know it's only a couple days. but i'm a little bit scared as to if this is going to affect my voice at all. singing is my deal. i do it every day. it's hard when i can't. okay i'm done whining. pray for me if you think of it. i'm scared.

i really want to believe in the basic goodness of man. and by that i don't mean to start some huge theological discussion on human nature. but i want to believe that people that i care about and who are supposed to care about me are intrinsically desiring the best for me and i for them. i think we all want that, you know? if we didn't think that altruism in some capacity existed, there would be no motivation to trust, right? and i want to trust. i don't want to live a life thinking that i cannot depend on anyone for anything. i guess i've just realized lately that in most important relationships that people have, one person emerges as the predominant protector. family relationships, friendships, romantic relationships... it seems to be true. usually its the older person who assumes this role. or, in the case of coed relationships, usually the guy i think. and it's not necessarily that the other party in the relationship isn't concerned with the protector's physical or emotional well-being, it's just that they express their concern in different ways i think. i dunno. in any case, i think i tend to take on the protector role in a lot of my relationships with people. i'm not sure what that means or what it says about me or the other person, but i think it's true. it's a theory in progress, but anyways... all this said, there are not many people in my life that protect me. and for most of those people it is to no fault, i mean they are under no obligation to, and usually it's no big deal. but when things in stephanie's life kind of suck, it's hard when people i think are supposed to defend me don't. i think helen, jeanna, rozi, my mom do when they can, i suppose there are a lot of people who do. i dunno.

i think i'm just upset that there are a couple people who i think were supposed to protect me and didn't. rock star was one of them. relationships end. that's life. but he could have been a man about it. it's entirely inappropriate to ask someone about the nature of her feelings for you when you know what the answer is and have little intention of doing anything with it. at that point you are just asking to feed your ego, and it's obvious that you don't care enough to leave me with a little dignity. sad.

the next seven days are officially declared Stephanie's Dental Hell week. i don't think it made the 2003 calendar but you can be sure it will be on the 2004.

i had my first dentist appointment this morning. 8:00 am. wow that's early. especially to have people putting things other than food into your mouth. i went to a new dentist. i waited in the waiting area for about 10 minutes, during which i learned from YM that Elijah Wood does NOT have a girlfriend! the paragraph in which this information was contained was titled "And the Most Important Thing..." riiiiight, because my chances of snagging that gorgeous pointy-eared prize of a man are SO much greater since he's not dating anyone else. yay for me! actually i don't find elijah wood attractive really at all. he dresses nice. that's all he gets from me.

anyhow, i don't think i've had a dentist appointment for over 3 years, i'll be real honest with you. i hate dentists. well not actually hate them as persons, because they are often very pleasant individuals. but i hate the whole experience of going in, sitting in that ominous reclining chair and having someone stabbing one of the most tender parts of my body with sharp metal and THEN having the gall to ask me in a reprimanding tone whether or not i floss everyday, because you know by the tone of voice that if you say "of course i do" they will think you are full of crap, even if indeed you ARE an avid flosser. but i didn't have to deal with too much of that today. because, unbeknownst to me, in the first appointment as a new patient with this dentist they don't clean your teeth, but rather they take extensive x-rays and do a brief examination of your overall dental health. the hygeniest was assigned to do all the x-rays. she was pleasant and personable, though i was not impressed by the competency with which she performed her job. at one point she thought we were done taking x-rays so she removed the lead vest from my lap which was protecting my precious female nether parts. then she starting taking more x-rays but forgot to put the vest back on me. "oh, sh**," she said when she realized what she had done. thanks. that's exactly what i want to hear when you are doing something that concerns my fertility and consequently the future of my unborn children. i kept hearing her say "oh shoot" for the remainder of our x-ray session in regards to various mistakes she was making, none of which were problems with radiation, but rather just placement of the bite x-ray tab deals. still i'm a little bit scared of how deformed i'm going to end up being as a result of today's appointment.

the diagnosis? well, my gums and teeth are in relatively good health. i do, however, have two small cavities that the dr. would like to fill. and i have four wisdom teeth. i thought i only had two, but no. lucky for me there are four. and i get to have them removed on monday. whoopty freaking do. when you are out eating a lovely meal next monday evening, savoring each morsel as if it were the pinnacle of sensory experience (like eating red grapes), just remember me laying incapacitated on the couch, drooling all over myself.

so it doesn't look like things with rock star are going to be working out anytime soon. i don't really want to go into it right now, but i know some of you were wondering because of all the drama from the past couple weeks. so yeah. probably not gonna happen. and i'm okay. i've been better, but i'm okay. i think i just really need to cry for awhile. i haven't really cried much to speak of since october, and i think it would be good for me. i'll probably schedule that in before my nap this afternoon.

gay purple jacket.

that's what bobby calls it. my cousin bobby, that is, not bobby from starbucks. bobby is 14 and is from san diego, and every year he and my aunt (my mom's sister) come in for a few days right after christmas to see us all and brag about san diego weather. bite me. anyway, when they come to iowa it's inevitably cold. it has to be. it's iowa. so of course they need winter coats. i don't think they own any because they never need them over in southern cali, so we always lend them a few during their stay so we don't have to see their year-round tans. anyway, there is this one coat, that up until this year, neither my aunt mary nor bobby had a problem with. but such is the vast maturity difference between the ages of 13 and 14 that bobby now refuses to wear the gay purple jacket. it was an old company jacket that my mom got probably a decade ago. the design is not really feminine or anything, but the color is very purple. bobby thinks people will start to question his sexuality if he wears the gay purple jacket, so he opts to freeze rather than bear such a mark of shame. course, he did spend 25 cents on one of those crystal tattoo things from a gumball machine yesterday and planted that sucker right on his forehead. i'm not sure what that says about him.

so i'm leaving now. to go to wisconsin. to see matty and mike and dave and maybe some other friends. i'm excited guys!