my 100th post!

i made a mistake when i sold my car. i know that now, in every fiber of my being. i know it when it takes me an hour and a half to get to a friend's house that lives two towns over. i know it when i wait 30 minutes for the bus in freezing temperatures. i know it when i cant escape the crappy music coming out of a fellow passengers ipod who clearly has hearing damage. i know it when i have to listen to a stranger shout about her ovaries into her cell phone. i know it when it takes me an hour to get to work and it used to take me ten minutes. and most of all, i know it when i lose my $71 bus and subway pass a week before the month is over and i have to walk twenty minutes to the bus station at midnight to wait for the bus that is coming who knows when and i get hit on by an extremely creepy guy with bad breath. it's 12:15 am. i've been working for 8 hours and i'm tired. i'm sitting on a cement bench in the bus tunnel of harvard station, reading my abnormal psychology textbook, minding my own sleepy business, when a lanky, poorly dressed fellow approaches and asks for the time. i tell him. he introduces himself, i oblige and tell him my name. "liz is my favorite name," he tells me, as if i am somehow supposed to believe him. "you have pretty hair," he continues, telling me the number one thing i get told by creepy strangers on public transportation. he sits down next to me. too close next to me. he smells. i try to be nice, yet send a clear signal. "i work at legal seafoods," he volunteers. "i don't like seafood, " i reply, and attempt to go on reading about the three different types of suicide according to the sociocultural model. it doesn't work. he keeps talking. and i keep silently pleading for my bus to come, for his bus to come, for him to go away. finally, his bus comes, and he goes in for the handshake, and the inevitable question: "do you have a boyfriend?" "yes," i reply. his name is mr. right. and when he shows up, he's going to kick your ass.

spring?

yesterday i was looking at my calendar and i noticed it said "first day of spring." i laughed out loud. i am sorry, but when it is 30 degrees outside and i still have to wear long johns under my pants, it is not spring. then i was looking at plane tickets, and i discovered it was 54 degrees in oregon yesterday! 54 beautiful, warm degrees! i take back what i said about oregon not having a mild climate anymore. that was before i moved to boston, where winter lasts for at least five months! i cant take it anymore, i tell you!

so i'm walking to the bus this morning, running late for class of course, and i notice it feels a hair warmer. we're talking two degrees here, but it's something. and the sky is a brillant shade of blue. the pink lenses on my sunglasses make it even bluer, but now i'm splitting hairs. but then, even though i was hauling down the street, i noticed something i couldnt make an excuse for: poking up out of the dirt behind someone's chain link fence, were crocuses! little, erupting flower buds, chirping at me that spring is here. the deadness of winter is finally ending.

confessions of a loser

it's saturday night in a very happening city. how did i spend it, you might ask? well, in the spirit of openess and honesty, and in the hope that there are other losers reading this who might feel better about themselves after realizing that ultra cool people such as myself are actually total losers as well...

i spent tonight at home. alone. watching the cutting edge on the abc family channel. now that in itself isn't so bad. the cutting edge is a classic 90's flick, and i see nothing wrong with embracing my love of the 90's and figure skating, as well as cheesy, predictable romantic movies every once in awhile. maybe preferably on, say, a tuesday night, but oh well. see, the thing is, after i watched the cutting edge, i went ahead and watched the cutting edge 2: going for the gold, a new abc family original movie which came on right afterwards. the fact that the people at abc would decide to make a sequel ten years later of a movie that couldn't have been all that successful in the first place just proves my theory that hollywood is clean out of original (and not to mention quality) ideas. but then, of course, i did watch it. i don't know if you've seen the original, but in the sequel, the two main stars of the first movie are now married and have a figure skating daughter, played by the chick who used to be on even stevens on the disney channel. and of course her parents aren't played by the original stars, which goes to show that at least two people in hollywood have some integrity, or maybe are just involved in other crappy projects (moira kelly is on one tree hill, after all). anyway, she ends up changing to pairs skating and is so stuck up that the only person she can get to be her partner is a former roller blader that she once romanced in california. they fight, they fall in love, they deny it until their last skate at the olympics, they get the gold, they get each other, the plot follows the exact same outline as the original, yadda yadda blah blah blah. and i sat through the whole entire poorly acted thing. on a saturday night. in boston.

why does it seem that i have to be a lonely loser to keep from being a rebellious wrong-doer? surely their must be a balance somewhere.

the fuel of love

it is a new month, and a new me. kidding. as i am discovering lately, i am still very much the old me, the making-mistakes me, the me that God only protects so much until he lets me make my own, wrong decisions. and then what happens? guilt. questions. more guilt. is guilt from God? i was talking with my friend john last night and he doesn't think it usually is. and i like that idea. his point was this: what motivates us more, God making us feel guilty or God loving us? for sure, at least for me, it's answer b. because i've been feeling guilty lately, and let me tell you, it is not very motivating. all it makes me want to do is give in to my rebellion, embrace my struggles and make more mistakes. guilt makes me feel hopeless. but God's love? his never-changing, unconditional, full of grace love? now that moves me. that makes me want to change. and best of all, it makes me feel like i can change. all hope is not lost. i guess the tricky part is letting yourself accept it, his love, i mean. because when i make i make a mistake, the last thing i want to let myself feel is his love. i don't deserve it. i deserve to be punished. and i guess that is how satan gets us. first he tempts us into sin, then he tells us after that we don't deserve to be with God, to have his love. it's quite clever, actually. satan doesn't want us to be with God. God would never be telling us to stay away until we're done feeling crappy about our sin. he wants to be with us, the real us, right now, whether we feel like we deserve it or not.

the laziest man will swim the English Channel for the woman he loves. the love of God is the only thing that can give us enough fuel to overcome sin. don miller