i'm right where He wants me.

Tonight after a long day at school and work that started at 5:45 am...all i wanted to do was go home where it's cool and clean, hug my mom and have her lovely dinner with my family at our kitchen table; talk, read, do some writing, and have some nice, quiet time in my room and get to bed before 11.

Tonight after school, work and marketing, my sister and I got back to my grandparents house around 9. I opened the windows to air out the smell and the heat and ate some cold take-out in their dining room with my grandpa glaring at me from the couch, the tv blasting news of murders and hot weather. I unloaded the groceries and cleared out a space on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator so my dad, sister and i have a place to put our food where my grandpa (hopefully) won't rifle through it. I did the dishes. I consoled my grandpa repeatedly that all the doors would be locked that night. I got my grandma dressed and ready for bed and argued with her about whether or not it was a good idea to take her back out into the living room to watch tv at 10 at night, until grandpa, laying snugly in bed, snapped at me to do what she asked me to and let her do what she wanted. So i did, and gave her her evening pill. Then i wrote my mommy an e-mail about my day and told her how glad i was that she was settled in Sydney. I argued with my sister over whether or not we should dye her hair at 11 at night. I took a shower and stood in front of the wall heater the way my mom used to when she was little as i dried off. I stepped into Sarah's and my room to find her throwing junk all over the floor looking for her wallet, bemoaning the small size and unbelievable crampedness of our joint living space. I asked her what time she needed to be at school in the morning.
We argued about what a terrible idea it was for her to have a class at 7 am...considering i'm most likey the one who will always drive her.
Then I decided to write this while Sarah got ready for bed so she wouldn't keep me awake. Sarah just walked in with a swim cap on. I won't ask. At least she's ready for bed.
good night...i'm going to check on my grandma.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wore my shirt inside out.

Tonight Pip had another show at the No Future Cafe. Lots of people came. We had Thai Food. It was tres cool.
It's funny how missing a whole week of your home life can feel like so much and yet i don't seem to have missed anything at all. hmmm
There's too much to say and for whatever reason, i can't write lately.
This has proven to be quite a thorn in my side because of the story/screenplay i have floating around in my head; giving me no rest. Why don't i just write it down? What am i afraid of?
There's something in me that doesn't want me to be creative. It's extremely confusing and frustrating. For me, creating cleanses, releases, relieves; whether i write, draw, sing, read...it's a living breathing part of me and there's something stifling it.
There's nothing so mysterious, so discouraging, so twisted, as searching for the solution to a problem you've created all on your own, that affects and involves only yourself, and feeling less and less optomistic about finding it...even then, who can say you'd understand it any way? I sure as ham don't.
I'm so weird!

I didn't know i had so much junk.

Our room is a real, royal, bona fide mess. And i am at this moment supposed to be organizing it.
I won't deny that my impulse to run screaming from the house isn't strong in me; but i have so far overcome it. I forgot how irritating and hectic moving is...especially when one's life is crazy enough already. But is there ever a "good" time to move? I guess not.
Sarah just put on Aphex Twin and laid in her bed to nap. Ah yes, the cleaning is off with a bang!
I just looked at my thumb and there's a face on it.
Am i just procrastinating right now?
It's really weird not feeling like you have a place to call home. Sarah gets mad at me because i still refer to this house as my grandparent's house. I'll get over it. It'll just take a while.
I can't believe summer's almost over! Somehow i don't even remember it passing. Isn't growing up weird? You just forget to look at things.
At church yesterday we had a sharing meeting and the last person that got up was a girl named Anna who's about 2 years older than me. She talked about how the young people today (she referred to those in the church, but i'm just speaking in general terms), between the ages of 18-40 she said, need to stop waiting to feel like they're grown up and just do it.
Somehow i guess i did kind of feel like i'd hit something...like a plateau or some kind of maturity pique and i'd realize i was an adult, in the sense of feeling grown up. I suppose most people don't realize that they're there until they've been there for years. And some never do.
I'm not sure if i want to. I'm still not sure of what it entails, but i assume that as long as the Lord is leading me i'll be just fine.
Maybe He'll help me clean this room before i go to work.

"The sides rose up high above him like walls..."

I'm at my grandparent's house---no, correction, our new house--- taking care of them today. We just got back from a hair appointment, I've got some muffins in the oven, and they're resting. Which means i have a bit of downtime...as long as my Grandma doesn't need to use the bathroom. Living here is going to be interesting. Sarah and i officially move in this weekend. Hooray!

I finished Perelandra (quite reluctantly, i may add, as i often am when i finish a good book). And have started That Hideous Strength. I remember a couple of years ago when i tried to get into the third book, and for the life of me i couldn't. I'm ecstatic to find that now i'm enjoying it quite thoroughly, much to the pleasure of my dad, who has been eagerly waiting for me to read it, as it is his favorite of the trilogy. After that? Not sure. Either the Sil, or another Lewis work. If you hadn't noticed, i'm having a bit of a love affair with Lewis' writing at this point in time! I could, however, think of worse things.

I'm back! I was just dying my sister's hair. Bright auburn red. It should be just lovely.

I remember when i was talking to a guy i work with. As our conversations usually turn to music, books, &c, he one time mentioned that he had read Mere Christianity. He then, to my surprise, said that he despised it. "Made him sick", to be exact. Me, of course being the tactful, well-spoken person i am, blurted out "What?? Why?!?"
He hated the way Lewis presented the unbeliever, despised how he dared to assume so much about someone who didn't share his beliefs. My astonishment and initial frustation turned almost immediately to pity. Not one of a patronizing kind, mind you. That he could take Lewis' words of concern and personal observation for anything malicious fascinated me. It further stressed to me how fragile is the mind and heart of someone who is stuck between belief in the Lord, and it's counterpart. He felt as if he had been attacked, offended, taken for granted, even.
I told him he should try reading it again.

I'm so grateful to have an assurance. I've been upset, i've been confused, i've been bitter...but i've never lost my belief that the Lord is there. There are too many tangible proofs and manifestations of the work of His hand in my life, and in the lives of those around me, to ever convince me otherwise. And for that I'm so grateful.

"'You must cover my eyes,' he said presently; and the two human forms went out of sight for a moment and returned. Their arms were full of the rose-red lillies. Both bent down and kissed him. He saw the King's hand lifted in blessing and then never saw anything again in that world. They covered his face with the cool petals till he was blinded in a red sweet-smelling cloud."...

~Perelandra

Ransom asked what she meant.

"What you have made me see," answered the Lady, "is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before, Yet it has happened every day. One goes forth into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before--that the very moment of the finding there is an the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for the moment, before you. And if you wished--if it were possible to wish--you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other."

~C.S. Lewis, Perelandra