The truth is, I miss you

I don't think a day goes by where something doesn't remind me of Kara.
Last night, the dude with the animals on Conan made me think of Todd.
There's Australia commercials on TV all the time.
I have pictures of Kara all over.
Every time I have a funny story, I start a new letter to her.
Every time I see something I know she'd want to see, I write it down.
And at the end of the week, I have a stack of letters that are all too old to mean anything if I send them.

Sometimes I'm afraid that she thinks I forget about her.
And sometimes I'd say it's true.
Not because I don't remember, but because sometimes when I just need her there
if I don't remember that she's so far away it's easier to not let it get me down.

Sometimes you just need your best friend
and the thought of just talking to her but not having her here hurts more than not talking to her at all sometimes.

Maybe I just need somebody to go on a slurpee run with.
Somebody named Kara Michelle.

I don't feel quite right.

Now and then these feet just take to wandering
Now and then I prop them up at home
Sometimes I think about the consequences
Sometimes I don't
I realize that falling down ain't graceful
But I thank the Lord that falling's full of grade
Sometimes I take my eyes off Jesus
And I know that's all it takes.

I wish that I could say that at the close of every day I was happy with the way that I'm behaving.

Because Job, he chased and answer
The wise men chased a child
Jacob chased her fourteen years and he captured Rachel's smile
Moses chased the promised land
Joseph chased a dream
David, he chased God's own heart
All I ever seem to chase is me

They say a race can only have one winner
And you know you have to pull out front to win
God knows the only time I'm winning
Is when I'm chasing him.

I wish that I could say that at the close of every day I was happy with the way that I'm behaving.

Samson chased a woman, and he chased the Philisties
I'm not quite sure what Jonah chased but I know he caught the sea
Cain, he chased the harvest
Abel chased the beast
David, he chased God's own heart
All I ever seem to chase is me

Jesus chased the money men
And he chased his father's will
He chased my sins to calvary
And he caught it on that hill
Saul, he chased the Christians
and his blindness made him see
David, he chased God's own heart
All I ever seem to chase is me.

I fell in love at the golf dome.

Yes, that's right. Love in a very unexpected and unusual place. The Golf dome at 5 mile and Haggerty. It happened in bay 22.
We had paid for bay 21 for an hour, and I was hitting my driver, trying to get my body to memorize my swing because I haven't been hitting the ball well lately. After about 30 or so swings, I started to hit it consistently. Drew, by this time, was getting tired of waiting so he had jumped on the bay next to us that was presently empty. When I put the driver away, he jumped over and started hitting off of our mat, so I moved over to bay 22 and said "Drew, I'm going to play around with your clubs."
His clubs are TaylorMade Rac LT2's, with a stiff steel shaft. They're much heavier than my Lynx Crystal Cat graphites. So I picked up his pitching wedge and started messing around. It took me a few swings to get used to the drastic weight change, but I was hitting them quite well.
But let's be honest, anyone can hit a pitching wedge. So I moved to an 8 iron. And consistently straight and long and low went the golf balls. I moved up to a 6 iron--a club that is (pardon the pun) hit or miss with me. Perfect. I decided that if I could hit his 5 iron (I have't hit my five iron well since freshman year of high school) I was converted. If I could describe to you how clean I consistently hit this club, you would want to learn how to irish dance. It was amazing. So I am in love with my brother's golf clubs. And they seem to be reciprocating.
Who needs a boy when there's golf?
Seriously.

My very first car accident.

and i no longer have a car

or the 6000 dollars that it cost.


but i do have a nice headache.
sucks.

I'm having a hard time sleeping.

And isn't that the heart of insightful posts?
Usually, yes. Tonight? Probably not. We'll see where the mind takes us.

I think I need to brush my teeth. I also feel the need to go run for three and a half hours. I feel the need to do something incredibly hard, to show me what it means to try. Sometimes I'm all too good at running away from things. It's what I do to responsibility. And difficult things. And even boys. I run away from it all. I'm running away from my job because I'm not happy. I'm not happy because it's too hard. It's too hard because it's not what teaching is supposed to be. But yet I know full well that there are probably 1 in every 6 teachers who are in my predicament. What's the point in graduating early if I can't handle the job? Why am I now suddenly deciding I want to major in physics? Is it from 3 and a half years of having none of it after 3 years of physics every day? Mom doesn't take me very seriously. Understandably so. I don't give her any reason to. I can't even keep my room clean.
I think one thing I am going to have to do is make a decision without asking or looking for approval. I have to decide where I'm going to go, and how I'm going to pay for it. If I sit back and wait for approval on every move I make, I'll never go anywhere because someone will always think I could have made a better one.

So the real question is: do I save the princess out of love, or obligation?

Does Mario put his life on the line day after day for the woman he loves? Or does he rescue her because it's simply his job? At the end of the day does he shake her hand and walk away? Or does he march boldly in and sweep her off her feet?

Do I go back and get my physics classes because it's really what I want to do? Or because I need a valid reason for quitting my job?

I guess it's really neither. Regardless of love or obligation, Mario puts himself out of the equation. He doesn't rescue the princess for himself. He does it for her. If it were for himself, he wouldn't be so selfless as to run head-on into biting botanicals or bullets with only the protection of a mushroom. That's not something you do to make yourself feel better. You do it because someone elses' life is more important than your own.

Whatever I end up doing, I can't do it because the end result is best for me, can I? I have to do what honors God most.

That sucks. Because I know that God knows that the kids where I teach now need me. And to some degree I need them. Let's be honest--I need them all the time.
Unfortunately I don't know how to deal with my Koopa Trooper. I don't have the fire power.
So do I daily sacrifice my sanity, my happiness, my patience, my time, and my health to serve 120 kids who aren't able to return the favor?
Would Mario quit just because he fell down a hole? No.

But I'm not a middle-aged portly Italian man, either. I don't even know anything about plumbing.

I'm in business for self-righteous excuse-making.

It doesn't pay very well.

Tales from Oklahoma

So Kali and I are driving from OKC to Tulsa this morning, and let me tell you it was quite an adventure.
The plan was that we were going to eat lunch in Tulsa at 1:30, so we decided to maximize eating time and minimize waiting time that we should leave around 11. It's about a 90 minute drive, so we figured we'd be early enough to help out a little, but late enough that we didn't have to die waiting for our delicious meal. My mom and Aunt Karen decided they were going to leave around 10:30 (sounds like their plan was somewhat similar to ours).
So 11:10 rolls around, and we're off! I was driving, because I like to drive. Kali was making bows out of ribbon in the passgenger seat.

So we're driving along and things are going well, and then all of the sudden THE BEST SONG EVER WRITTEN comes on the radio. "grrrrr-look at this photograph!" we both begin to belt out at the top of our lungs. This trip is turning out great! "hoowwrr did our eyes get so rrrred?" Oh man!
So we're in the middle of the last chorus (so we're making a huge production of it) and this white Sentra drives by while we're waving "grooood-bye-yi, grooood-bye-yi" along with the song. Let's just say I'll bet they nodded in understanding, saying in their heads "I'll bet they're listening to that kickin' song Photograph. Oh man, that song kicks."

So Kali and I have a jolly good laugh at the high-quality music we just experienced. You know, that song just never seems to get old. And by old, I mean good.

So we're driving, and all of a sudden this little 5 year old Creek or Mexican girl (we couldn't really tell) runs across the highway. We quickly (and by 'we' I mean 'I') slam on the brakes and after that short-lived drama passes, we're cruising on our way. We kept flipping stations, hoping to come across the Baywatch Theme Song, but the closest we came was this other song that wasn't really close at all.

We're driving on a little more--we're about 16 miles outside of Tulsa, and we run into a traffic jam. I decide to call mom (because they left before us) to ask if she had hit it and how long it would last. She answers the phone, and I ask her if they're still on the road or if they've gotten to Aunt Heidi's house yet. She said they were still on the road, and I asked where they were and she replies,"Oh, we're about 16 miles outside of Tulsa still." I asked her if she had hit the traffic jam, and she said they were just into it. I looked around and I see a red SUV 2 cars in front of us and I asked her "is there a white Sentra (yes our friends from before) behind you?" and she was like "YEAH!"
It was hilarious. Because we caught up to them.

So we drive through the traffic jam, and it comes that we're nearing my mom and Aunt in their car to pass them. I decide to roll down the windows so we can make faces at them, and all of the sudden Kali lurches forward and screams "NOT THE BOWS!" as the bows she was making start to slide from the dash. We quickly roll up the windows. Hilarity ensues.

We pass my mom. We're here at Aunt Heidi's. Food is not even close to ready. We're dying.

I'm hungry.

The end.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Why don't I feel anything yet?

And we already know, There's no cancer in Heaven.

Common Sense versus Consequence.

So I was talking with Jason, a five year old boy my mom babysits, and as I was unloading the dishwasher I was holding some steak knives. I said, "Hey Jason. I was thinking of starting a new hobby. Do you know what a hobby is?"
"No," he replied.
"It's something that you do in your free time. So my new hobby, I was thinking of taking up knife throwing. Do you think that's a good idea?"
"NOOOO!" he cried.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because you'll get a spanking from your mom," my mother interjects from the back room.

Now, I have a problem with that answer. I have a problem with teaching kids that we don't throw knives because if we do we get spanked. Quite honestly, a spanking should be the least of your concerns. The reason we don't throw knives is because it is dangerous. Somebody could get seroiusly hurt.

When I would take Cody (a three year old boy we babysit) to the store, I would ask him if he was buckeled in and he would reply "yep!" I would ask him if he knew why it was important to buckle up. He informed me that if you didn't buckle up, you'd get a ticket. I said, "true. But is there any other reason?"
He said, "so your mom doesn't yell at you!"

I don't think that raising our kids on consequence is the right idea. (Granted, I don't have children of my own--so I could very well not know what I'm talking about.) I think that it's okay for kids to know that 'this is a possible consequence for this action,' but for them to not realize the actual reason those consequences are in place is a shame.

Why will your mom spank you if you throw a knife? Not because throwing a knife merits a spanking, but rather because throwing a knife is dangerous.
Why will you get a ticket if you don't buckle your seatbelt? It's because too many people die as a result of not wearing seatbelts. We wear seatbelts because our lives are at stake. We wear seatbelts to keep us safe. Not so we don't get a ticket. To keep us safe.

My mom disagrees with me. She says that the number one reason we wear them is because God says to obey laws, and the law says to wear one. That doesn't make sense to me. Laws have a purpose. They're not just telling us to do things for no reason. The law is in place to KEEP PEOPLE SAFE. Yes, God tells us to obey laws--even if we don't agree with them. But I disagree that we do things under consequence of the law.

Maybe this is why my classroom is so chaotic sometimes. Because these kids are brought up in a world where consequence is the only reason to stay in order. They don't understand the reason the consequences exist. They don't understand that talking and throwing things around the room isn't wrong because "throwing paper is bad." It's wrong because it keeps their classmates from learning. It's hard to enforce rules when the first smallest consequence has to be the straight up call to parents, and the second one is suspension. Kids don't respond to lunch detentions or extra assignments. And once they've had one suspension, it doesn't scare them. They didn't actually learn any error to their ways. Because they are only looking at the consequence, rather than the reason it occurs.

I am going to change the world one of these days.
We've just got to hang in there.

Programable shampoo!? Sign me up!

So I was in the shower washing my hair and I started to read the shampoo bottle.
I don't know about anyone else, but I have the habbit of reading anything and everything whenever I am in the bathroom. Whether I'm on the pot or in the shower, or just simply waiting for my 60 seconds before I spit my Listerine, I'm reading the bottles, labels, golf magazines etc.
So I'm reading and the bottle says: "Dispenses just the right amount of moisture to every strand without weighing hair down!"
So let me get this straight. . .this shampoo can go to every single little strand of hair on my head and pinch out "just the right amount" of moisture!? That's awesome! I hope the maker of this shampoo is using his talent to help rain fall only on places that need it right then and there and to help just the right amount of deer shot during hunting season so that there aren't too many running around or too few to eliminate hunting altogether.
Maybe this person could work on making sure families have the perfect amount of children to feed, and money to go around, and also that hospitals don't get too full or supplies run short!
Just think of the possibilities!

I'm going to be honest, I've done some computer programming in my day. And what I learned from computer programming is that you have to account for every last instance that something might not go according to plan. For and Do loops for pages and pages, just in case the user enters something in ALL CAPS, or in case the double random generations of digits have the same 4th one. Everything that can go wrong isn't necessarily going to happen, but you've got to prepare for it. Computers can't think to adjust themselves.
But good greif--this shampoo can! AMAZING!

I wonder how they do the tests to make sure that hair got juuust the right amount of moisture? I mean, you can't have a control group, because the simple fact that every hair requires its own perfect amount of moisture means you can't compare two strands to each other because they're different. So when you take this strand after it's been perfectly moisturized, I wonder how you can know if it would have been moisturized just as well by something else. You can't. The opportunity has passed.
Therefore the shampoo can't get sacked for false advertising--they can't prove it.
Hmmm, very strategic.

I'm going to have to think about this some more while I go comb out my perfectly moisturized hair.

Since when are "ghetto" and "black people" synonymous?

Alright, I've lived in Livonia all my life, and I'm pretty aware that it is a city that lacks diversity. It's no secret that Livonia is like one of the whitest cities in the country and I'm fine with that. I never thought it was like that because citizens didn't allow black people in, or felt like there wasn't a place for people who aren't white. I was just always under the impression that there were just more white people in the city than any other race.
A lot of people in my high school and middle school were Asian and Indian. A few were African-American. But truth be told, there were just more white people.
Now, I guess that there's a proposal for a Wal-Mart to go in down at Middlebelt and Plymouth. Okay, first of all, there's one 1/2 mile north at Middlebelt just south of I-96. Why are they going to build another one right there? But I guess that's beside the point.
What got me was that there was a community of people who live right behind the place where the store will go who don't want a Wal-Mart there. They don't want a Wal-Mart there because they are afraid it will attract more black people and turn the area ghetto.

Please, please, please, people of Livonia--tell me this isn't true. Tell me that the people in the media are just making news. First of all, why is it okay to label Wal-Mart shoppers as ghetto? Secondly, why assume only black people shop there? Thirdly, why oh why make the correlation between a large african-american shopping population and something turning ghetto?

To be completely honest, Wonderland Mall (the mall that used to exist where the Wal-Mart might go up) was always considered the "ghetto mall" in the first place. Making it a Wal-Mart, or filling it with black shoppers isn't going to change its ghettocity.

So dear Livonia, I love you and your tall trees and wonderfully timed traffic lights and your highly achieving schools. But if you think that you are above diversity, GET A LIFE. And open your eyes.

That's going to leave a mark.

today i got hit and it really hurt a lot
and i feel stupid because it not only hurt me a lot
but it hurt my feelings
because i don't know why it even happened.

Oh Mother, will you ever learn?

My mother is currently looking at miniature schnausers online. You know, those dogs that are about as big as a shoebox and think they're as big as a volkswagen?
So this has prompted me to do some serious thinking about what I want in a dog.
There are a few rules for purchasing dogs. Okay, actually just one:
1) Must be lazy

This means that purchasing a 1)beagle; 2)lab; or 3)anything shorter than knee-height is completely one hundred percent against the rules.
Everybody knows that little dogs are yippy. They just yip and yap all day long. And there's (for some unknown reason) that crazy temptation to put bows in their hair. And certainly, anything with the word "miniature" in its name clearly isn't even a real dog--let along a whole one.

Dogs were not made to be yippy and carried around in little handbags. Dogs were made to saunter around slowly and plop to the floor in a pile of lazy, calm, gracefulness. Dogs weren't made to be walked on leashes or run around for hours in a yard. They were made to sit with you while you watch TV, cuddle in bed with you, lick your face in one swift movement with giant tongues. That's what dogs are for. They were made for petting and loafing with. Dogs should always be large enough to lay on without crushing. And they should always be lazy enough to be okay with being laid on.

So in summation:

This is NOT a dog.

THIS

is a dog.

Have Fun!

I've got reservations about so many things, but not about you.

So I was cleaning, and I came across my Andy binder.
I don't know if it's a bad thing that I have a chronological binder of our relationship. It's got letters, drawings, poems, IM conversations, e-mails... some good, some bad.

It's weird looking back on how much trust he put in me. And it's weird how much we confided in each other, and how well we knew each other. It's weird that things went so sour after there being so much depth.
Heh, oh well. We were just really young, and people don't stay young forever.

In a way, I became more immature after we broke up. But in so many more ways I grew up a lot.

I definitely forgot how much trust and communication goes into a relationship, though. Sometimes I think that I want to be in a relationship, but in the past 4 or so years I have never had anything close to the type of honest communication I had with Andy. I wonder how it ever even got to that point?

Hmmm. I'm happy I found that book. And I'm happy to have read through it again. I'm happy I'm not with Andy. And I'm happy that I don't have to see or talk to him ever again if I don't want to. Does that sound bitter? It wasn't supposed to.

And I always have Desk to listen to, as much as I want. :-D I love Desk! We were such an awesome band.

I do, however, wish I hadn't been such a jerk to Kyle. Because he was a great friend, and I miss him a whole lot.

And now I have to put this binder away and finish cleaning.
I'll leave you with a poem, courtesy of Andrew Scot Mascaro:

i should have been the classy boy,
crashing home the pixie crust.
awake and adjourned and relentless with amour,
aura strong with no need to face my fears.
i should have connected with the idiosyncrasies.
i should have eaten with the gods and punished my ignorance later.
i could have been shined up for the stories to tell, and hell to smile upon,
a rebel in perfect haze.

i should have been there in the fieldsduring summer,
the vacant black sky to brush us all with cool.
comfort.
i should have broken my indignant back for the slaves of the world.
i owe everything to the blue faced aliens of the futuristic past.
they've shown their bones to me, without ever looking back to theirs.
i should have felt your nerve tips quiver in the storms of my eyes.
i should have iced your lips and set your hair to solidify the air.
it could have been my heart bleeding recessively if i had opened my missed
army
arms.

i leak battery and incandescence, coated with fate, false, flour and fumes.
fiend in no light, retrospect respected fragmented dullness.
i could have been the leader and the glass bomb they all worship.
i should have saved my continues to myself and sucked in my inner ears.
could have spoken up.

i could have been thrice removed and unsure,
without but relentless in my annoyances at least
reasonable.
i should have been the ones in the fire, to teach me
something real about
pain.
rummaging the feelings, forgiving would have meant more than coincidence.
i could have risen above about the earth to serve a prelude to some unknown
mastership,
or at least something new.

but the additives and subtraction will prove something the dust can peruse,
and mistrust, and subjugate, and endure to love and fly and hold and comprise
the very virtues of hope.
i am a power cord to the metal frame of validity.
soft, old, glossy, warm, deep, starred, forgotten, forgetful, imminent, and
permanent.
savored, requested, distinguished, unwholesome, shaped, found, gone, giddy,and stone.
that which looks as fault only supports us in the unnatural institution ofour lives,
and only a porous rock floats in water.

Inspired by Ashley

Well, I've been a 6th grade math teacher at Michigan Technical Academy in Detroit for a week now, and it's going great. I got really sick on Friday, though, and hopefully I'll get over it by tomorrow.
Anyhow, there's a lot of stuff that I've learned in my 5 short days as a real grown up teacher, and college didn't prepare me for any of it.

1. African American children have naturally loud voices. If you want to be heard you have to get their attention first, and get them to stop talking. Which is not easy.

2. Learning names is not as difficult as I thought it would be.

3. Sometimes parents just don't care.

4. Putting an apostrophe at any random place in a name is completely acceptable--if not extremely common.

5. My students have no idea what Alternative music is.

6. I know NOTHING about Black American history.

7. Hands off the 'fro.

8. Hip Hop Artists convey a message in their music, while Rappers focus on negative things. (I didn't know this at all)

9. Gas is cheaper on 8-Mile.

10. Nigeria has a track team.*


*I had my students doing a scavenger hunt through expository text to develop content reading strategies, and they each had a different book. B'onca had a book on Nigeria and she called me over and said "I really like this book! I didn't know any of this stuff!" And she turned the page, and there was a picture of some athletes running on a track and she looks at me in awe and says, "They have their own a track team!? [pause and think] I wonder if they have a cheerleading squad!?" It was really funny.

Mal my Pal

I have this great friend and she's one of the best.
She doesn't compare with any of the rest.
Her hair is super curly but you'd never know
Because she wears it back so she's ready to go.
She's got three brothers who are all pretty neat
and when I come over there's always something to eat.
We spend every weekend at her house or mine
My mom pretends it annoys her, but we know she's fine.
We take silly pictures for hours on end
Mal my Pal and me, we're friends til the end.

it's 11:00pm

My bedtime is 10:30pm.
I succumbed to peer pressure and stayed up until 11.
And by peer pressure I mean Mallory laying on me while I was laying in my bed falling asleep.
I love you, Mal.
Now I sleep.

Oh man!

Thank you for all your encouragement, friends.

In other news:

How excited was I when I typed in www.olivianewtonjohn.com in hopes of possibly finding something i could use, and it turned out to be a real website! Oh man, you have no idea!

The Lord Moves in Mysterous Ways

So while I pull out my sunglasses, and attempt to start the band back up I'll tell you all my story.

So I've been planning my big move out to OKC for a while now. I'd lined up a place to stay and found myself a temporary job until I can find a teaching one, and I'm all set to move. Then my mom calls and asks if we can delay it a week because Niki got some free tickets and was coming up to Michigan for the weekend (and it wouldn't make sense to be down there moving in while she was up here visiting). So I said sure, and that was that.
So I get a call from my good friend Vic Bliss the Friday before the Monday I was originally planning to move and he told me that he had a teaching job and there might be a position open for me and to give him a call. I was pretty much set on moving to Oklahoma, but I called him back anyway--just because it seemed like he'd gone a little out of his way to let me know about this opportunity. We played phone tag for a bit, and the following week while I was packing we finally got in touch with one another and he said there was a 6th grade math position open at the building he got a job at and that I should get my stuff in asap!
I told a few people from church that this might be a possibility, and they were elated because they were all (selfishly--they'll admit it) praying that I wouldn't leave. I dropped off my things and called every other day to check on the job but I knew that I wasn't going to change my plans on a last minute whim. I figured if God wanted me to stay here, he'd make it obvious.
So Friday night Niki comes home and she was going to stay til Sunday, and then me and Mom were going to leave to drive to OKC on Monday. Friday I start feeling a tad under the weather, but nothing serious. Saturday I wake up, and my throat is sore and I'm not feeling very well. With increasing intensity I becoming moaningly-begrudgingly ill. I don't have health insurance so I just lay around and moan while I hope it passes. God sure has a funny way of intervening, doesn't he? Sunday a lady from church kindly called in an Rx for Penecilin for us because my mom classified my symptoms into the category of tonsilitis and an ear infection.
So after Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of not eating or drinking except for when I had to manage a swallow to take my pills; I finally started to choke down tablespoons of soup or cream of rice (because let's face it--I was starving). By Tuesday I could nearly talk again, so I called to check on the job. No response yet. By Thursday I was back to my normal self completely--golfing regularly and everything, so I called and was informed that the position had been filled. My mom asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I'd like to stay around here and look for a little bit--since in all fairness I started looking in Oklahoma without even trying to look here because I've heard nothing but how people can't find jobs.
I go online, and sure enough, there's a math position open in not just a Livonia School, but the one down the road from me and the principal knows all of my siblings, and our neighbors down the street very very well. I put in the App. and went out for dinnner with some friends.
Halfway through dinner I notice I have a voicemail, so I check it, and it's a message from a principal in Tulsa. She would be "very interested in speaking with" me. WHAT!?
I decide to stay here, and now I've got a call from the state that had been silent on me for two months? So friday morning, I wake up and go jogging, and when I get home my mom says "well, when it rains it pours." Vic had called me and said the position at the school was still open and the principal wanted to interview me that day. I returned my Tulsa call, and left a voicemail becaus the principal wasn't it. I faxed my resume and letters of recommendation to the school in Detroit and also called them. No answer, I left a message.
I went golfing and waited around, and neither called back. I even tried calling back on several occasions, but with no response. I was pretty bummed.
All of the sudden, around 6, the phone rings. It's the principal from Tulsa. She said, in not so many words, that there was a job for me if I would move to Tulsa to fill it. I asked her if I could call her back the next day so I could have a night to think it over. I talked with my mom, and thought about it for a while, and I started looking at apt. prices and after about an hour I made up my mind to go to Tulsa. I need to just be on my own, and I knew that God would bless me with whatever decision I chose to make. So I'm sitting in my room, thinking about just loading up my car on Monday and heading out. And the phone rings.
It's the principal from the school in Detroit. She said she just happened to wander into her office to check her voicemail and saw my resume and called me back in hopes I'd be available to interview the next (Saturday) morning. I said sure.
I went to the interview with the mindset that I would do my best, but that I already had a job in Tulsa for me. Well, I got offered the Detroit job, and I accepted it, and I start Tomorrow.
Talk about your soap opera story!
So the good news is that I have a job.
The good news is that God provides, even when you don't know what you need.
The good news is that blessings are falling and soaking them up is feeling pretty nice.

The good news is.

Can't Sleep. It's the pitts.

So I randomly (and I mean totally randomly) got a really bad (and by bad I mean uber painful) case of strep throat this weekend. It pretty much left me hungry and hurting, but I'm doing much better now. Amongst all of the TV watching I could fit in while I couldn't really do much else (except moan and say "ouch" because I'm kindof a wuss) I caught an interesting movie. I can't remember what it was called, but that's alright. It was pretty funny, but I couldn't laugh because it hurt too much. So I just watched it in as stoic of a mood as I could muster--all the while thinking "I always imagined Doris Day to be less 'normal' looking." (As it was my first Doris Day movie, so I'd never seen her before.)
Which brings me to my point:
Hypochondriacs.
Every once in a while I think I might be one. It's probably because I am such a wimp about being sick. It doesn't happen often, but I'll moan and groan with the best of them (cough cough my dad cough cough). I get the flu and have to throw up, I'm sitting in the bathroom crying at 2am while my mom is calling from her room, "Kari, go downstairs at least! We're trying to sleep!" Or I am laying on the couch with a high fever saying "shouldn't I be drinking more cold fluids?" and she'll respond with "take the tylenol and change your clothes when they get too sweaty." No mercy, seriously.
Sometimes, after I'm all better (which is usually only 1 or 2 days, because I suppose I'm resiliant) I think back on the experience and wonder if I couldn't have taken the pain without whining so much? Or maybe if it was only my imagination that it hurt so badly. I'm not sure. Probably.
So I guess what I have a hard time with is when people are constantly bringing up things that are wrong with them. Don't get me wrong, I care deeply about people. And I am also a good listener. But I don't give out pity very, um, generously. Maybe I get it from my mom, with her "suck it up" attitude when I'm sick. That's logical. But regardless, I have this horrible habbit of rolling my eyes at "poor me" people.
Now the occasional sob story is one thing, but you hypochondriacs drive me nuts! And the latest rage of hypochondraic is the kind of person who feeds off of misfortune. Not just illness related, but like pessimism gone terribly wrong.
I think I get frustrated with these people because I am a person who likes to fix things. Yes, I'm a great listener, but when you're done talking--whether you asked for it or not--I'm going to try to help you fix it.
You can't do that with hypochondriacs becasue they don't want to be fixed. They just want to be heard. I think the reason they always keep bringing up more and more things that are wrong is because every time you try to fix the first thing, it might mean you won't hear them anymore.

Okay, I'm out, because I just heard a really loud and abnormal noise inside my house and it's 2:30am so I have to go make sure everything is alright. That's a little scary.
I know,
I'll turn the lights on.