new blog in progress!!

https://kaishaban.wordpress.com/

I have this oddness...I'm deathly scared of cheesy romantic cliche anything. I just steer clear of it altogether...a little too much. More like alot too much. Which results in in me failing at ever saying nice things about people because I'm far too afraid that it's going to sound lame and just cliche. 

Which is why I haven't blogged about Cody. (See...I'm already weirding myself out.) But per request of a best friend who hasn't met him yet, it's about time. 

The awkward thing right now is that he's sitting right across from me. We're in this coffee shop...the one I always blog at because it's got yellow walls...and I'm writing and reading, and he's drawing. He's pretty darn talented that way. Like...art and music mostly. He plays bass. It's kinda hot. And ukelele. Once he even learned a cheesy love song and sang it to me. It made me laugh and he was embarrassed but I liked it alot. 

He does alot of things like that. Things that girls always kind of dream of their man doing for them but actually never expect to find a guy that will. He's written me poems. Sung songs for me. Taken my little sisters for ice cream. Sent me letters by post. Left coffee on my doorstep in the morning. And I have always had at least one vase of flowers in my room. It's a rule for me to tell him before they die so he can buy me more before I toss um. 

I can't ever keep a secret from him. Not cuz I'm a good enough person not to try, but because he knows something's wrong without even looking at me. 

He's probly...ya...even when I think about all the humble people I know...he's probly the most humble. I've seen it alot of times. And it really impresses me. Because I'm not.

He wants to go to seminary and do foreign missions and be a pastor and adopt kids. And he's gonna be really good at it. Like...really good. He's got strong convictions, but he's humble enough to listen to someone else's and change what he believes if he's wrong. And he loves people and always wishes he had more time to invest in everyone. And he is in love with Jesus and the gospel and always comes back to them in the end. 

Anyways...he's pretty much dumping amazingness all over the place...and I'm stinking lucky to be his girlfriend. And now you all know...which is good...cuz you should. But I'm embarrassing myself out and I think he wants to go now. Plus I'm hungry. 

My heart really used to stop whenever I got a new picture of her. It's almost two years later and it still does. I gave up going through facebook albums or hoping for anybody to post old pictures of her. But I got one more today...

I adjusted the stool three times, and sat back down, determined to write. I didn't know what. Maybe something about the ratio of cars to bicycles rolling by the window. The quality of foam on my long gone chai. The color of the bright teal wall. The two old men playing backgammon on an iphone. The handlelessness of my cup. The difficulties in deciding which trash or recycle bin your cup goes into. Whether it will rain or not...

I still don't know what to write about. I notice things, but don't ask questions. I take them how they are and don't ask why or how or want to change it. It makes me a boring writer. Or maybe...it's not what I write that's boring. I know better than to write boring things. Which turns me from a boring writer to an infrequent writer. Because my unboring thoughts are few and far between. 

Meet: Matilda. She is the predecessor to the late Lucinda. Lucinda's beautiful, but rather short life was tragically cut short for unknown reasons. Matilda, however, is doing quite spiffing.

Today... I'm wearing cut-off jean shorts.

My favorite scarves are hanging on the wall and I'm realizing that I really missed them during the summer. Yay for fall! 

Cody took me shopping for under water plants for my beta fish's tank. Her name is Lucinda.

I'm confused because my Enter button works only half the time.

I made dinner to take to work. I'm so prepared. It's amazing.

There was this super ugly amazing vintage clock/radio at Value Village last night. It's making me happy even though it says it's 10:50. Which it's not.

And that's all. Pretty much the story of my life right now...besides all the other stuff I guess.

Like...besides being three weeks away from starting school...and besides finding out that I get full financial aid...and besides my dad getting a job...and besides moving...and besides a best friend getting married...and besides working an amazing new job...and besides Cody because he's just always that amazing...and besides God doing all this stuff for me and loving me always.........ya. That's about all. Not quite as exciting as ugly second hand clocks...but you know...

Hey guess what...

I moved. So now I've got internet. So maybe I'll blog more. 

But don't get too excited. No promises.

Oh. And...I'm moving into the above little sister's room... I'm not sure whether that's frightening or exciting. I'll find out soon enough I spose.

C. S. Lewis pretty much talks about everything I ever thought about. There's nothing like having half a thought that I don't know where it came from or if it's true...and then finding it totally explained in a Lewis book. It makes me feel smart. Or at least keeps me from feeling like a total nutcase for having weird philosophical ideas.

But there's always this part of me that thinks...well...this weird thought has been thought by others. Smart others like Lewis. And in my experience of life it makes a whole lotta sense and seems pretty darn reasonable and true. But where would this idea be in the Bible? Or is it? And then I go...hmmm. And move on with life. 

Anyways. I was reading in Lewis' memoirs from after his wife died, (A Grief Observed) and came to this part:

"...suppose you are up against a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless...

...What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never been to a dentist?"

I got the part about God finishing what He starts in you. But the last part about being afraid because God is good, was new. New in that I'd not heard it said like that before. But I totally knew the feeling. The terror that whatever God is doing in me isn't done and that bad hard unknown things could keep happening until He's satisfied with where my heart is. It's majorly scary. 

It all made sense when I read that. I knew that God finishes what he starts. And that it might not be super pleasant. And that facing more unpleasant things is frightening. But...I mean...this is just me and Lewis brainstorming here. We could be wrong or just full of bologna.

Then the other day I was reading Job. Mostly because Job had a hard life too and it's kind of nice to know that you're not the only one. And I found a spot at the end of chapter 23 where Job says this: 

"But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.
My foot has held fast to his steps;
I have kept his way and have not turned aside.
I have not departed from the commandment of his lips;
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.
But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back?
What he desires, that he does.
For he will complete what he appoints for me,
and many such things are in his mind.
Therefore I am terrified at his presence;
when I consider, I am in dread of him.
God has made my heart faint;
the Almighty has terrified me;
yet I am not silenced because of the darkness,
nor because thick darkness covers my face."

See how it's the same ideas? 

You've got the part about God being good and using ick to turn you into something beautiful. And the part about how He finishes what He starts. He doesn't give up, He's immovable in His purpose for you.

But Job doesn't respond all like, "and so, I'm not afraid because God's good and knows what's best for me." Instead he's terrified.

I sort of dropped dead. Job was terrified of God's goodness too. It's not just me and Lewis. 

This is a true normal thing...to be afraid of God's goodness. It doesn't mean I stop trusting Him or loving Him or something just because I'm afraid of what He will do. I can still know that His will is best and that in the end it will be good. But that doesn't mean I can't be scared of the process. 

Just like I know that if I don't get that cavity filled, it's gonna cause alot of pain and my mouth could eventually become infected and nasty. So I go to the dentist, knowing that he will fix it and change it and make it good in the end. But I'm still scared of the process. Of the drill and the shots and all the discomfort that comes with getting a filling. 

Actually, if I'm not scared of the process then I'm just naive and haven't really considered what it takes to allow Christ to come in and change you. When I give Him my heart I have to give it all to Him to do whatever He wants with it. If I'm not prepared to endure a lot of pain in order to become what He wants, I really haven't considered the cost of being His.


If you are His...you should be scared. Cuz He loves you more than you can ever imagine. And there is no way that His love will allow you to dwadle your way through life just by yourself and never be challenged or changed. He knows that the greatest good for you is to become like Him. He will take you and rip you and your life apart for as long or as often as it takes until He is satisfied with what He has made you. It's a scary life being His. But Job knew...when He's finished with us...we will come out like gold.

I'm so done. So done.

I thought I'd gotten whatever it was He wanted me to learn.

I mean - He's brought me so far and taught me so much.

Isn't it enough? I'm sure there's something more to learn...but I can't keep up with this.

How bout a break? Please?

There's plenty more time in my life to teach me whatever it is, God!

It has to stop sometime right?

I'm not so much worried. There's ways to make it, ways to find money, ways to save money. My family won't die of starvation.

I'm just tired. I've been tired before. But this-I can't do it anymore. We've been doing it for years. It won't stop. It just gets worse. One thing leads to another thing and it never lets up.

Sometimes I think...'well at least no one's dying.' But that's happened too. Twice for me.

I just sit there...not quite crying...and yell at Him in my head. 'Why? Why? Aren't you done yet? I can't. I'm done. I can't. I can't. No. I can't.'

I don't even know what I can't. I just can't.

It's just simply not a possibility anymore.

I'm tired. I'm done.

Just done. Done not being able to cry. Done being the cheerful person when my insides are dying. Done smiling and shrugging when people comment on my latest hard. Done trying to explain and either getting lectured or misunderstood or given a blank look. If you haven't been betrayed and broken you just can't know. Done putting my heart into trying to plan and having it shattered. Done with this oldest sister syndrome that has to fix it for them or die. Done with this war of choosing to find joy somewhere and turn it into happiness. Done feeling like the only person left heartless.

I really don't want to think happy thoughts right now. They are trying to come and I push them out.

I don't want to believe that God is good. I want to hurt. And hide. If anyone finds me I will have to smile and say something positive and believing and face God's goodness. And then smile and love and keep walking. And I don't want too.

I'll fall. I'll get stuck. I'll get stolen and hurt and abandoned and left bleeding with no heart all over again. And then I'll have to get up and keep walking again. And loving and smiling and believing.

I can't. I've been doing it over and over again and I don't want to get up this time.

I've been asking and asking Him to be done. I've been asking so long it's become mechanical. I could't cry. I couldn't hurt. I just asked.

Then he lost his job. And my family doesn't have income. Or a daddy. And he's off in rehab again. And I don't think I get to go to school. And they are all so messed up.

And it's caught up to me. And there's nothing I can do. I can usually think it out and figure it out and be ok. I can't. I'm done. I can't figure it out this time. I can't figure it out for myself so I can't figure it out for them either. I can't see the good in this one. I don't understand.

One too many God, one too many. I would have thought that losing my dad and grandpa would have been enough.

And then You come in and remind me again that You love me and that You're good and that it'll be ok and that You have a plan. You've reminded me twenty thousand times...please can you prove it? Please?

But I have to wait. I have no choice.

"...suppose you are up against a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless...

...What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never been to a dentist?"

(A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis)


...
How long must I pray, must I pray to you?
How long must I wait, must I wait for you?
How long til I see your face, see you shining through?
I'm on my knees, begging you to notice me.
I'm on my knees, Father will you turn to me?

One tear in the dropping rain.
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life: that's all I am.
Right now I can barely stand.
If you're everything you say you are
Could you come close and hold my heart?

I've been so afraid, afraid to close my eyes.
So much can slip away before I say goodbye.
But if there's no other way I'm done asking why.
Cuz I'm on y knees, begging you to turn to me.
I'm on my knees, Father will you run to me?

One tear in the dropping rain.
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life: that's all I am.
Right now I can barely stand.
If you're everything you say you are
Could you come close and hold my heart?

So many questions without answers.
Your promises remain.
I can't see, but I'll take my chances
To hear you call my name.
To hear you call my name.

One tear in the dropping rain.
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life: that's all I am.
Right now I can barely stand.
If you're everything you say you are
Could you come close and hold my heart?

(Hold My Heart, Tenth Avenue North)

I just can't handle it anymore. I'm in love with this coffee shop. It's like all yellow and orange and they always latte art my foam all up in the mug. And cool people always come in here. And the happy music. And I always get this awesome creative thing happening in me that doesn't normally happen at other places. I just can't let it take over because homework is sort of more important...however attractive that sharpie and blank lined paper are to my random thoughts.

My hair is dumb today. Don't tell Cody I said that...he'll give me that 'what's-your-issue-you're gorgeous' look and tell me I'm wrong.

School is almost over. I'm supposed to be taking this test for an online HIV healthcare provider class thingy. But I'm in this coffee shop for the third time this week and it's becoming impossible to squish the need to blabber randomness...this place makes me do that.

We went on a hike the other day. Cody and me and our friends Rudy and Janel. We saw a bear and ate marmalade sandwiches and then a stick stabbed me. Adventures aren't complete without blood.

See the bear? It's there...really.

I'm going to stop now and repost my craigslist ads and look for a job and do that test. 

Cheerio. (We really need to start genuinely saying charming stuff like that in America.)

He picked me daisies...go ahead...be jealous.

I just realized that every time I come to this coffee shop...I blog. Apparently orange and yellow walls and coffee is good for whichever piece of my brain is the piece that writes. 

This is a good day. Partly because I bought conditioner...which I was out of. Partly because I'm wearing three different colors for no reason except I felt like it and because my hair is having a good attitude. And partly because a guy walked by a few minutes ago with multi-colored clown type pants on. It must be a good day for him too. Also I was making a list with one of those fine-tipped Sharpies. Fine-tipped Sharpies always inspire me to good handwriting and excellent list-making. (So do sharp pencils.)

Oh...and also I get to see Nicole tonight. You'd think since she's my roommate and one of my bests I would actually see her all the time. But not. I come home at night...she's in bed. She gets up in the morning...I'm in bed. I will be home almost all day, and then leave for something in the evening. She'll stop by home after I leave to pick something up. So pretty much we only see each other for passing moments as we sleep. Which in my book, doesn't really count.

Yesterday I had a violin lesson from Cody's sister, Carissa. She's an expert teacher. I can play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It sounds horrible, but considering I can only play piano...I was pretty proud of myself. I could probly play better if I didn't laugh at myself the entire time. It makes the violin screech when you laugh. 

Tomorrow is Mia's birthday. She's gonna be nine. I'm pretty sure I was nine for like five years. Maybe she'll stay nine for five years too. That would be nice. I don't think growing up should be allowed. 

Alissa had a photography class so these are from a day we went to parks and took pictures together...

I feel like life for the last two or threeish years hasn't given me time to catch my breath. You know...like something happens and life turns slowly back into a new normal, and you breath in this great big breath thinking you've got it covered now... then blam! You don't have time to breath out because somethin else came along and smacked you across the face. 

Then you kind of gasp and tears come cuz it hurts. But you've done this before so you recover quick and shake the fuzziness out of your head as best you can and focus on the next thing. Like reading the next chapter in homework. Or watching a movie with your little sister. Or doing yard work for your grandma. And you look at your wrist where you wrote "belonging to God" in blue pen ink. And you smile and head out to face the next thing because life is great anyways...how can it not be if you belong to God? 

And by the way, my little sisters are all becoming old. Ania's 6, Alissa's 15 today, and Mia's turning 9. Not ok. Not ok at all actually. 

Look at her...she's still my baby sister except not...

Yep...I know...I know. I didn't blog yesterday. Failure extraordinaire. But I had good reason...my mind was full of this: 

Super cool. So much fun memorizing all that on the day of a test. You have no idea...


I was also definitely NOT thinking about this: 

  ...or this:

 ...or all this:

Yep I was there. And I knew all those people. And loved them a whole stinking lot. That's Ridge Burns...one of our lecturers at Capernwray. He was the only American lecturer we had...and he wears Vans shoes. Only ever red Vans. He even has a deal with the company and orders a dozen at a time. 

(And this counts for yesterday's post...by the Way...have to keep these things straight.)

You have to understand...I will do anything. ANYTHING. to avoid being tickled. It gives any enemies, siblings, friends, peoples-in-general, extreme and complete power. I will become your humble submissive slave in half a second if I'm threatened.

And...it didn't take Cody long to figure that out. Darn.

So yesterday, when he offered me an entire week tickle-free if I did something for him, I took the deal. No questions asked. The requirement...blog. Everyday this week. The issue is I generally only blog when monumental thoughts enter my miniature brain and happen to morph into explainable ideas which I then find time to write in words that someone other than my dear mother will understand. It's a long and complicated process...and generally doesn't happen every day. Tough life.

So...with that, I present you with Tuesday's amazing brain light bulb: uuum. hm. ok. well. It's sunny...and yesterday was rainy. Which probly means that a cow with antlers will land in a banana space ship and take over the world using optical illusions and peanut butter...

Just kidding. No need to avoid peanut butter today.

Actually...I was kind of thinking about my little sister. The biggest little one. Alissa. She's six years younger than me and alot different...than me.

And growing up I honestly didn't really like her that much. Partly cuz she was very much the annoying little sister. And partly because I was the too-mature-for-all-that-immaturity big sister.

But lately...I don't really know what happened. Every time I hang out with her I turn into this spastic weirdo. I think she has powers that make people that come in contact with her act 15 years younger than they are. ...which would explain my recent relapses into six year old behavior.

It's frightening, really, the random things that come out of my mouth and the contortions my face can perform under her spell. And then she'll laugh and point at me as if I'm a moron and need to get control of myself. Which I probably am and probably do. But it's way easier to blame it on her.

Pretty much she's become a best friend. I think, because life has thrown alot of nasty at us lately and we've both had to go through it, it's made a friendship that wasn't ever really there before.

And I'm glad. Because she's amazing. Yep...she casts her spell of immaturity over people, but she's deeper than that. I know she loves people...alot. She's a been a brick and babysat a whole stinking lot in the last year. (And I know from experience that babysitting your own little sisters is not exactly cake.) And she's still sane; except for the part of her that never was.

So...thanks Mr. NastyLife for giving me a sister...even though you took a whole lot of other stuff away. I sort of really appreciate that.

I drank my coffee. And did a freaking lot of math. Then i went on facebook and saw a picture of a guy with boots and a stick herding his cows down a lane in the middle of a field. I suddenly need to get chased by thirty cows in an English field again.

Ania is turning six today. I think it should be against the rules for baby sisters to turn six.

There's a VW van out there in the rain. VW vans are always charming. But this one is definitely the most uncharmingest one out there.

What's weird is that at Ania's little birthday party tonight Papa-Do won't be there. It'll be weird to not go ask him if he wants ice cream with his cake. It's weird to see his truck in Gramma's garage and think that it doesn't mean he's home.

It's frustrating not to get to say good-bye. And it's frustrating not to have anything to process. I have this feeling that there's something I need to think about and figure out and get straight in my little mind and then it'll all be good again. But not really. He had a heart attack and didn't make it and that's that.

It's one of those things that you really don't get, but at the end of the day you come to the conclusion that God's still a whole lot bigger than the yuck of life.

So life is happy anyways, and the good hings are more than the nasties and I smile and eat ice cream and roll the car windows down and vaccumn my house.

How does this work...I really am not getting it.

I don't get the falling in love with a little girl halfwayaround the world that i've never even met part.

I don't get the part where the most beautiful precious four year old in China can be so sick.

I don't understand how it was better for her to die.

And I mostly can't figure out how it still hurts me.

It's been almost 2 years since i met her.

I looked at pictures. I sent her clothes and toys. I held her on my lap and let her play with my camera. I couldn't speak her language. I prayed my heart out for her. And wanted more than anything to hear her breath normal and walk easily. I wanted her to know the love of a family...and what it's like to run. I wanted her for mine forever.

I thought I would kind of get over it. But I'm not...and every day I see the striped sweater I
never got to send her for Christmas. And her face is still in my phone.

I want to go back and double check that she's really not there...eating cucumbers and watermelon outside...watching the other kids play around her...yelling at them once in a while when they take her toy...then unsuccessfully trying to catch her breath. And then she'll look and see me and put her arms up to be held like she did before.

But...no...that's not the plan.

The plan was for her to die. Now she knows love. Now she can run and dance and breath. Her skin isn't purple anymore. She's perfect. And when she puts her arms up to be held...Jesus will be there. And she'll be His...forever.

Yesterday it was sunny and I found out I actually had most of the day off work. (*happy dance in the kitchen*) So I put on two sweaters and a hat and a coat and a scarf. And road my creaky ancient bike down to the beach and sat there eating lunch and reading C.S. Lewis. It made me feel pretty charming.

I know it's long...but it's my favorite. And since I've read it about ten times you can take the time to read it just once right? 

It's chapter fourteen from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. The book is a collection of letters from a 'senior' devil to his nephew, a 'junior' devil. So the 'Enemy' is God, and the 'patient' is Wormwood's current project--or human whom he is trying to damn.

My Dear Wormwood,

The most alarming thing in your last account of the patient is that he is making none of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion. No more lavish promises of perpetual virtue, I gather; not even the expectation of an endowment of ‘grace’ for life, but only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation! This is very bad.

I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble’, and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed. 

But there are other profitable ways of fixing his attention on the virtue of Humility. By this virtue, as by all the others, our Enemy wants to turn the man’s attention away from self to Him, and to the man’s neighbors. All the abjection and self-hatred are designed, in the long run, solely for this end; unless they attain this end they do us little harm; and they may even do us good if they keep the man concerned with himself, and above all, if self-contempt can be made the  starting-point for contempt of other selves, and thus for gloom, cynicism, and cruelty. 

You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of Humility. Let him think of it not as self0forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character. Some talents, I gather, he really has. Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be. No doubt they are in fact less valuable than he believes, but that is not the point. The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible. To anticipate the Enemy’s strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self0love—acharity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left. 

His whole effort, therefore, will be to get the man’s mind off the subject of his own value altogether. He would rather the man thought himself a great architect or a great poet and then forgot about it, than that he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one. Your efforts to instill either vainglory or false modesty into the patient will therefore be met from the Enemy’s side with the obvious reminder that a man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame. You must try to exclude this reminder from the patient’s consciousness at all costs. The Enemy will also try to render real in the patient’s mind a doctrine which they all profess but find it difficult to bring home to their feelings—the doctrine that they did not create themselves, that their talents were given them, and that they might as well be proud of the colour of their hair. But always and by all methods the Enemy’s aim will be to get the patient’s mind off such questions, and yours will be to fix it on them. Even of his sins the Enemy does not want him to think too much: once they are repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy is pleased.

Your affectionate uncle,

SCREWTAPE

How cute is this? I missed his birthday though. I mean...I though of him...but I didn't send him anything. Fail. But I keep Mei Mei's last unsent Christmas present by my bed. I thought I would get over it and fall in love with another China baby. But I haven't. Yet.

To write. Without bounds. *sigh* This feels good. To put whatever I feel like on paper.

There's a friend talking with a guy about Haiti and orphans a couple tables over. He'll probably save the world some day. There's a guy I see everywhere sitting two tables a across. I know some of his story but he doesn't know me. Two girls talk...in an unannoying way, thankfully. Cuz girls can be so annoying. A girl with cute bangs and a chunky blue eyed baby talks to her date. I hope he goes for her. She seems sweet and with a baby she'll probably have a harder time finding a man. And who wouldn't want to be this baby's daddy? There's a bookshelf with old books and a yellow daisy on it. A barista works in the other room.

My chai is gone. It was good. Obviously.

Me. I'm here too. I'm trying to write a story without getting distracted by facebook and e-mail and blogs and such. It's hard. Especially because I'm stuck with the story. It's a good story. With a good end. And I'm at the end but I can't figure out how to give it the bang impact that I want it to have. It  kind of ends with a bla instead of a kaboom. I feel like I've worked this thing to death.

And I'm hungry. Should I go buy something? I think I should. Maybe an americano too. That's kind of alot of money to spend on writing a story that's not getting written.

I had an interview today. With a coffee stand. They're not open
yet. All the better. There won't be a snippy group of girls that won't accept me into their elite coffee makers clique. I'm sick of coming into a new job only to find that. And the boss wants to hire happy people. It sounds weird. But I get it. It's all the way out far in the county, but if they offer I'll take it. *fingers crossed*

There's weird pictures on the wall in here. They have eyeballs and mouths and teeth but no real shape at all. It's kind of creepy.

The girl across from me is making a great laughing face. It's cute. I kind of wish she was my friend.

Now I'm going to write this story. I can do this. Right? Right.

Um.....ya. I'm not convinced.

But I have to try. It was due on the second. Oops.