When I was young, I always thought that God lived in the space behind the organ pipes at the back of the sanctuary. It has little wooden bars on either side of the pipes and the pastor would spread his hands and evoke him from his little loft from whence he would watch our ceremonies. I always wondered whether or not I would like living there. It wasn't a very large place to live, of course, but it was high up and anything that required climbing to get to was exciting. I thought of how the sun would slant through the bars in the late afternoon and God would lie on His back with His head on a pillow and read books. It would really be the perfect place to read books. I suppose He'd read adventure stories and mysteries, and He'd never have to read the Bible because He wrote it and He already knows what it says. The service would be the most exciting time of His week, and He would lay down His book and lie on His stomach and prop up His chin under His elbows and see who was doodling and who was chit-chatting and who was listening to the sermon. I was usually doodling, but I didn't think He'd be angry with me. If anyone could understand what a kid has to do to make it through a Lutheran sermon, it would be Him. I always imagined Him watching from his black darkness behind those bars, smiling. His love would emanate from there just like the organ music, which He liked to listen to all the time, which is why He lived so close to the pipes.

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Once we watched a movie in Archaeology and I wondered the whole time whether or not someone ever loved that little 80s-era archaeological scholar woman. Whether the mere sound of her name made someone's ears perk up. Whether he would non-chalantly ask about her career, her work, anything about her. Whether he would wander about for the rest of the day savoring these tiny bits of information because it made him feel more connected to her, made him forget how long ago it was and how far apart they've become and everything in between that went wrong. Maybe, if she's lucky, his thoughts aren't so bittersweet. Maybe he thinks of the first time they met and how it felt when she wanted him too and their children and he'll hope that he dies first so he won't have to live in the world without her.
I wonder what she would say if I asked her if she had a person in the back of her mind whom she used to think about constantly, such that if she went one busy, distracted day without thinking of him she would feel as if she had won a contest of will and strength. She would say to herself that evening, "why, I haven't thought of him all day!" and this revelation would be followed by a sudden guilty realization that she thought of him just then with her revelation, and all of the ground that had been covered that day was just lost again.
Perhaps if I asked old, well-worn nursing home inmates they would be angry with me. They would start guiltily at my question- they would feel as if I was asking them to break Lent... but it would be too late. They would have already rested their mind upon that single person (or two?) and whether or not they ever intended to tell me about it, my mind-reading machine would already know everything. The story of a moment or years, the precious seconds they spent almost achieving fufillment- the eons it took to learn to cope with never actually achieving it. They would have crafted their walls through years and years of carefully reining in their thoughts. Maybe they had succeeded and shut that person from their minds completely.
Ah, but one question would ruin everything, it would bring back pain and joy and longing and daydreaming and agony and everything they'd spent their whole life ignoring, like a begger outside your car window.
Think of it. Some guilt, shame, suspicion. If you act you don't know what will happen... it could be wonderful. It could be that you saved someone's life. It could be terrible... you could be hurt, you could be duped! It could be something quite indifferent. He could take your money and you would never know how your life had affected his, if he remembered you at all. So most of us sit in our car and feel uncomfortable. Are the doors locked? Is the light green? Ah, but the radio must be attended to. That scrape on the far sidewalk is very interesting. Ignoring the fact that he is there may be just as painful as acting upon it, but it's much, much easier. You aren't about to be duped. You aren't a fool.
I suppose the little 80s archaeologist is still fighting with developers and writing letters to the historical societies. Marrying an archaeologist is a great thing, my sister reminded me- the older you get the more interested he is in you. So maybe she is married and she appreciates him more with every day. Maybe when he dies she'll preserve his body so that archaeologists of the future will find him and know that he was loved. Maybe she'll burn his bones to ash and scatter them to the four winds so that some future archaeologist won't be able to please herself by setting his skull upon the corner of her desk and looking at his marker-labelled teeth through a magnifying glass.


mood: 2:30 in the morning
listening to: where did I go right
watching: The Alabama, Secret Lives of Dentists

In other news, may Zach's cat and Ronald Reagan rest in peace.

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Yesterday it was Canada Day, so Katherine and I had our annual celebration of eating a grape for every Canadian Province. It was marvelous but we forgot about New Brunswick and The Inuit Territories, so we had to consult the Atlas. One of these Canada Days we'll get 'em all. Hooray for Canada day!

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Smitty "does not do tires". Well, that's what I previously thought, but one day he decided to help us unload. When I asked him what had caused his sudden change of heart, he said that it was the fact that these tires were very small and light, in effect "Smitty sized tires". In the picture below, I have Laura-sized tires, on the left (used for Hummers) and Smitty(Sugarbear)-sized tires on the right.


This is a picture of my baby. It's a little blurry, but you can see how he has adorable orange pigment all over his front wheel.

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Let's talk about the rain.

Yesterday it rained so hard that I opened the window and let it rain all over my floor. I wanted to hear the sound of the rain falling and more importantly, I wanted to smell the rain. The rain here smells different than in California. I love the rain in California and Colorado, but they are completely different experiences. There, the rain is soft and warm. It comes down in big, sloppy drops like you would imagine the tears of a puppy might be. The California rain is for disappearing for hours. It's for walking slowly home, it's for looking mysterious in the night- it's for dancing. There's nothing more calming than the California rain.
The Colorado rain is cold and hard. It comes down in small, hurried droplets, racing each other to get to the ground before they must turn to snow. The wind whips it about in a frenzied gale. It's sporadic and unpredictable and always heralded by lightning and thunder. On Friday it was pouring down rain between Mississippi and Alameda, but on either side of those bridges, there was nothing. You can drive into a Colorado rain storm and drive right out the other side, so that all the cars on your side of the road have their lights on and those on the other side do not. At the Air Force Academy in the summer, it rains every day at three o' clock for about fifteen minutes. The Colorado rain is for staying warm inside. It's for dashing about. For the five minutes it is torrential, it's for kissing. The Colorado rain is the kind that you can see falling on the horizon miles and miles away, as if the clouds were made of grey cotton and someone has plucked a piece and stretched it wispily to the earth.

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I was listening to this song to today and she was talking about how every piece of a puzzle doesn't have to fit exactly right. And I was wondering... what kind of crappy puzzles has she been doing? What does she mean that not every piece fits exactly right? Did they cut it apart with a jagged rock? I know she was just saying that so she could compare it to love, but then aren't you sort of saying that love is just like a second rate way to pass the time when you are drinking wine/cranberry juice and watching Star Trek late at night? (which would be first rate if only the pieces actually fit together?)

Not that I don't like the song. Great song. Y'all should listen to it. And I say y'all cause it's country.

Warehouse quotes:

"Sometimes this thing is as slow as dirt."
-She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
(mental note: find out how slow dirt is)

And one from the classic quote archive:

"Could you give me the hand-job? Er... um... I mean... the (pumps hand up and down in explanitory motion) the jack? the HAND JaCK!"

-Jughead, the first day he met my sister, aka the boss' daughter, asking her for the pallet jack aka the hand jack

LaouraGoogoush: I know. I played an awesome corpse
CarolineAC: i can only imagine


Today I woke up to my alarm and I tried to think of a really good reason to get out of bed.
But I couldn't think of one.
Not even one.
Finally I got up because I need money. What a terrible reason to wake up in the morning, but I bet a lot of people do it. Look there- "I bet" ... there I go with the money again.

Woah, I went to Abercrombie and Fitch and they had the most amazing sale- it was like a dream sequence.... a shirt from Abercrombie for $1.45? WHAT?! My sister got some underwear with a moose on it!
Sweeeeeet!

So if your husband cheated on you, would it make a difference if it was Britney Spears that he cheated with? How would that change how mad at him you were? Just wondering.
Sigh for work... this sums it up....


"Don't tell me how to do my job. Just get out of my damn way and let me do it."
-The Anon. Co-worker "Marka Stewart"

listening to: 10 rounds of Jose Cuervo
mood: jolly
phrases i am not particularly fond of sippy cup, carrot top, pet peeve

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How do you beat a humongous snake? ... get a bigger snake...

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Warehouse quotes o' the day, chronicling the undying hatred of She Who Must Not be Named and The Other Anonymous Co-worker:

"I like to hang my walkie-talkie on there- just in case Satan calls."


"Did she have to radio me to tell me that? 'I'm going to put an order in the box in a second.' That's like saying, 'Hi Mark, I'm going to go to the bathroom sometime today.'"

"She's pretty good around your dad and Rusty, but when they're not here, when Scott's not here, she gets crazy... fire shoots out of her eyes- her head spins around, it's scary."


And the rebuttal:

"This is an easy system. Any moron could use this system- well, not every moron... there's a moron out in the warehouse who is too stupid to understand it..."
< followed by an "unrelated" story about Mark...>

Other quotes:

--I don't know if [Scott's] leg's really broken. I'm going to have to see the cast.
--But didn't you just see that x-ray!
--... that could be anyone's x-ray... I'll have to see the cast... make sure it doesn't have a big zipper on the side...

Smitty (very suspiciously) and Mark

"Sometimes it gets like this- we just get Nobles up the butt!"

-She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

And the classic: "I ain't never been surfing. You ain't never seen a brother surfing. Brothers don't surf."
-Mark


I saw Troy tonight and came out with the same opinion I had coming in- I'm in love with Hector... hooray for Troy! Odysseus can come and live in Troy, Helen and Paris can be cast from the walls along with Nestor or whoevertf, Achilles can go home and be indignant and sleep with Patroclus, and King Hector can rule the land for all time.
Favorite part: Prince Hector being awesome
Most heroic part: How long I lasted before having to go to the bathroom... call me Paris, but I ducked out about halfway through

mood: good
listening to: the beastie boys just aren't any good, I've tried to like them for long enough
watching: TROY

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