it's official.

for the next 12 months, i am a resident of Pittsburgh. Cranberry Township, to be more precise. if it's less than twelve months, i have to fork over about two grande-- so, i'm thinking it's going to be for the solid year.

j. davies helped me move today and i could not have done it without her. i also don't think i could have ever laughed so hard while moving couches, dressers, and other very heavy objects.

brian called me from malone today...he's moved back in, and he's with friends for the evening, celebrating a wonderful guy's birthday (i think it's 21 so it'll be a late night). it was a little sad-- hearing all of those people who are still "together" in a way that i won't experience this year with a "live-in" community.

it's kind of a hard balance- because there are people still at malone that i want to keep in touch with because of who they are and not where they are....but i want this clean "break" from one chapter of my life to another that can never happen...damnit. too bad my life is not a clearly divided novel. but even most novels nowadays seem to just kind of end a paragraph and start another with a different numbered heading.

although, technically, i am still a malone student. stupid ysu didn't send my transcripts until too late for everything to finalize before the august 20 grad. date, so i won't be getting my diploma until december now. so, i'll probably still be in the phiz with that horrible picture. eh, who cares???

i have a mix of gavin degraw and dashboard confessional running through my mind. hmm.

my body hates me right now for all of the moving i've done today. so i think i will try to sleep. with all of these thoughts flying and spinning through my head. ha. this should be interesting.

cause i just found someone special,
and that's really something special
if you knew me,
nice to meet you, anyway

packing and traveling too and from "pitty". yep, that's about it.

i don't know when i'll have the internet up at my apartment, so feel free to email- but i don't know if i will be able to respond any time in the next couple of weeks. calls and old-fashioned mail is always appreciated though *smiles*

lakeside was wonderful. there really is something *different* there...that makes things the best of what they are. maybe it's just the company i keep, though...

redefining my *true* identity. Abba's Child....

as His Beloved
<>< peace

didn't have to work today. wahooo! though i would have liked the eight hours on the upcoming paycheck, eh...

officially, seven days and 15 minutes will be my moving day. (if you feel like helping, just let me know) =)

going on a mini-vacation with my mom this week. a lot of relaxation is going to happen...and maybe even a date with a fantastic guy. some time on a boat and visitation of lighthouse areas and and island...Lord willing and weather permitting.

i am basically going to be alone for the first month in my apartment. i'm a little scared about that...i haven't lived by myself- completely- before ever. i've always had roommates or family or someone else there. i like someone else being there. i'm needy.

(so please please please come visit).

i have packing stuff to do but i keep spending time with people. well, people from my high school days, actually-- which is quite unlike me in regards to the past two years...but these are some great friends.

i went to a poetry slam the other night with my old dear friend (and former duet partner) kurt. ah, my favorite little korean in a booth...

anyhow, it was original poetry and kurt won. he really rocked-- he's been developing in to an amazing writer these past few years, and i felt priveledged to be there with him for the experience and even more so to consider him a friend.

one of those friends-- the one's where you haven't spoken for months, maybe even a year or more...and you see each other and just pick up. i so appreciate that.

there are a lot more people in the pittsburgh area that i know than i realized. well, okay, there ARE people in "the pitty" (thanks jaybuck) that i know already and didn't realize it until i got a few random and surprising phone calls. so, i have a little community already.

i'm ready to jump in to something new. in fact...every day, i want all of this change and consistency all at once--- i want things to be fun and suprising and daring and adventurous, but i want a place of solace as well. i keep finding that place is God. even though my apartment shall be quite cozy and homey and such...that place, is God.

i am still too much of a control freak. i need to realize the difference between good and bad control....i think i am still a bit manipulative at times-- mostly unintentional, but sometimes for my own benefit.

reading Abba's Child by Brennan Manning....and realizing that i need to be more honest about the imposter that i am. i need to stop keeping score.

hoping that we can all find a wide, deep, everlasting chasm of peace and love tonight.

So, I officially have an apartment. It all worked out. Now I just have to give them nearly a thousand dollars in two weeks, with utilities and such.

And this week has again, not been easy. I've been thinking a lot about the events of this summer, and of the "last semester" of my college career...I've been thinking about friends, about life and death...about good-byes, and their importance in my life- even though I will try to deny the importance of a sense of closure too often...this, brought on again, by another friend's death. I had not been in contact with him for a solid year and a half, but I can still remember our last conversation...he was my CA in my first semester of college, and I've kept this note that he wrote to me my freshman year as an encouragement.

I don't know if anyone else had to sit through "this" (following) in junior high or high school, but I experienced some "motivational" speakers who brought up the reality of our mortality to us immortal feeling youth...by telling us that likely, in five, ten years- at least 3 out of a room of thirty would most likely be dead. The conversation then proceeded to cancer, AIDS, drugs, but not surgery, not old people who shouldn't have their license any more, not pneumonia and sudden, too sudden, pains.

This is going to come off as too dramatic, but oh well...it's what I feel in this very moment, and that's the only place I can be. I just don't have anything else to say...because I don't feel like goodbye is appropriate...and in all honesty, I'm afraid of what that word means at times.

And then you wonder: which was better? burning or bleeding?

I suppose this is another one of those "rhetorical" questions...

But I do still wonder (isn't that the point?).

I suppose the more I think about it- my mind keeps wandering back to the intent of a person. To "get" burned...some force outside yourself is in play...or some force within your self that you would rather not acknowledge.

So when some thing or person burns you because of love- in the most undiluted sense of the word/action- than I would rather burn for all my life than bleed.

But when a burning happens out of the sin of man kind- my veins would rather run dry.

And yet- aren't most people well-intentioned to their own [limited] knowledge? That would be...not saying that humans are/not intrinsically "good" vs. "evil", but most have "good" intentions?

So, that being said...I still wrestle with the well-intentioned demons that confuse my every step.

Evangelicals who will carry signs at the funeral of a person who lived a homosexual lifestyle yelling of Hell and damnation.

Paris Hilton and her life.

Random adults asking me if I am dating anyone.

My father's recommendations of how to wash the dishes.

The "contemporary" church's need for a media-infused service.

...Granted, these are all on different planes of life. But- I suppose, I would hope that the intentions of any one of these "do-ers" is, in some way, good.

So, how many people have I hurt so far today?



"I can't believe I gave a dork my underware"

so i made a "to-do" list at work today. i have to do something there...otherwise, i literally fall asleep in the middle of calling someone.

i've always been pretty a pretty anti-to-do list person.

but i've started to shut down lately because i have so much to do...so i figured, that if i at least had a little paper that i could scratch things off when i was done...maybe that would help. a little. perhaps, i even thought for a moment that i would find my salvation in it. in the accomplishment of the list that i have now not being the same list that i have two weeks from now. mostly, because if that were the case, then i probably wouldn't be able to start my job so well in pittsburgh.

so, nowhere on my list was cook dinner for five and run to the emergency room for tonight. but, i guess...that's why i've never been a to-do list person...because they (the lists, that is) never seem to work out so well in my life anyway. it's like...if i make a list, it is only to mock me sometime shortly thereafter.

have no fears- all is well. my mom just got a little too happy with a new kitchen toy her and my father purchased from pampered chef, and took off the top of her right index finger. it wouldn't stop bleeding, so we had to go in.

unfortunately, i think the dr. is a buffoon. but don't i always seem to think that everyone else is the idiot when things don't go my way, selfishly?

mr. dr. man had to burn my mother's finger to get it to stop bleeding. i forget the technical term for it, but really...it's burning flesh, people. i don't think you can get much grosser than that (although i am sure plenty have stories that match or beat burning flesh). but he didn't even numb my mother's finger or hand to do this! he just said "oh, this is going to burn a little" and proceeded to torch my mother's finger shut.

all was well until we got in the car (i was driving). we closed the doors and tears started streaming down my mother's face as she simply exclaimed "mother-f***er". the proclamation shocked me, as she appeared fine when we were in the lobby just seconds before. that, and seeing my mother cry always shakes me.

i put some drugs in her and made her go to sleep. so hopefully, she's in less pain now.

but i suppose...we all have these waiting rooms and lobbies in life....where we smile and pretend like things don't touch us, don't effect us. but they do. the thought seeps in to my heart most likely because i am re-reading "the wounded spirit" by frank peretti. it is such an amazing book....but i'm not going to plug it right now.

i guess...if our cars are these places we go, these shelters of protection (such as andrew R. mentioned that jaelyn referenced their car as being)...what would happen if we all rolled our windows down, old-school without the air conditioning, and paid a little more attention when someone is crying out an exclamation of the truth and beauty and anguish of the human spirit?

maybe it's good that i have an old car without air conditioning. i ride with my windown down every day...but usually not all the way. i think it's time to let my guard down...

i love those little moments in life when i am reminded that i am "not alone"...

not in some romantic way, or in some really tangible, physical, being-around-people way...

but realizing that others, whom you have grown to love and share things with, share quirks with you...and even fears about those quirks and what they mean, to make you as a person.



"i'm going open!"