I got my first haircut in Indy today. I went to a place that charges according to a residency of sorts. I chose (who I will call) Dandy b/c he was the cheapest. He was the cheapest b/c ‘he’s only been here a few months and he’s trying to build up a clientele’. This haircut was the most enjoyable of all haircuts I can remember. Never has it been so easy to talk to a complete stranger. My hairstylist in Chatt/Cleveland was extremely nice and lovable, but he wasn’t so gifted on the conversation side. Dandy: ‘if you could choose, right now, would you choose green or red? GREEN. Blue or orange? BLUE (but orange is my favorite color). Purple or something else? PURPLE. Brown or gray? BROWN Black or white? BLACK. OK, sit back and relax, I have an idea.’

In this week alone, I have panicked b/c I couldn’t bring to mind my bank PIN number, my userid at work, and my password to update my blog. Am I going crazy?

also,i have to add the date to my signature about 20 times a day. It’s difficult to remember after the new year to change the year at the end. I think I’m overcompensating b/c i just wrote that the date was 2/5/05. Why is this so difficult?

I made this in Chattanooga, TN
I drew this after I got an email from Shawna telling me she was on her way home from a Florida visit. I was listening to a song by Dryve (thus the words). It has nothing to do with Shawna being nervous about driving or me being nervous about Shawna driving.

I made this in Indianapolis, IN
I was listening to Sean Nos Nua when I drew this. Who ever knew this is how Sinead makes me feel?

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work last night and heard (what I assumed) was one of the democratic candidates talking to Melissa Block. I recognized her voice, but I couldn’t figure out which presidental hopeful she was talking to….Turns out, it was Kerry. Don’t you think that it’s necessary for a president’s voice to be recognizable?

Last night was the first time I can honestly say that I enjoyed a small group experience. We’re reading and tearing apart Bonhoeffer’s Life Togetherand as we opened our books to chapter 5 “Confession and Communion”, I hunkered down low in my favorite rocking chair and got ready for what happens nearly every week, listening to my friends read aloud from a book that has yet to really inspire me. Almost every week, I try to listen and comprehend, but, almost every week, i shove what is being said and shared to the back burner like a stew pot that holds so many vegetables it has to simmer for the next century. This week, I was pleasantly surprised. I asked questions, I refuted some answers given, I was transformed into a past me. It was a little bit scary and fun at the same time.
On another note, there’s talk of a Co-op garden, which excites me almost as much as being re-altered into a past me who likes to talk about God.

Georgia has been in the news lately b/c of a lady who wanted the word evolution taken out of the curriculum for junior high and high schools across the state. She was afraid of the “political controversy over the origin of man” that would soon ensue after the word was murmured. Luckily, she has rescended her opposition and evolution is once again a NON four letter word. Sometimes, I think that some people are so afraid of things that their fear causes a bigger commotion than the thing they fear itself. Wasn’t there a famous quote about that once?

I’m very turned off by the very blue sky on the page. It does nothing to depict my true feelings today. I’m very sad. I’ve been missing my friends lately. I miss those friends who: used to cut my hair, used to sneak outback with me and smoke cigarettes, used to yell at me, used to sit on the back porch and write letters with me, used to let me sleep over nearly every night and then smile when they saw me in the morning.
...sigh….
no more.

My mother-in-law has a friend visiting from the home country. They went to see “The Passion” on our side of town and come over for tea and a visit afterwards. The friend recently learned to knit on a visit to Ireland and was patiently teaching me the repetitious rules of a successful scarf. (Under, behind, through,and out…Under, behind, through, and out…Under, behind, through, and out…). We all sat around my “big girl” dining table and poured our tea from an actual teapot. We placed our kitschy coffee cups on superman coasters to protect my “big girl” dining table from being scorched. John was scolding his mother for being the best kind of mother (the kind with unconditional love who believes her sometimes heart-breaking son has good intentions) while her friend grabs the unfinished scarf from my hands as i let out a big sigh of disbelief in my own abilities. As I look back at last night, I am comforted. I feel like I’m growing up.
I talked to a friend recently. It kind of went like this:

She asked me how I liked my job. It’s okay, I say. Remember how I used to say that John was going to be the stay at home dad?, I ask. Yeah, I remember, she says. I think that was when I had big dreams about my career, I confess. Here lately, I’m thinking about staying home with my (unborn) kids. Do you think that’s strange?, I ask her. Not strange, she says. Maybe God is showing you what’s important?, she suggests. Yeah, maybe, I conceed.

I knew that when I entered my graduate school education, that I would not be studying exactly what I needed to be learning to do what I dreamed of doing. But, I got a full ride, plus a stipend, so it sounded like a good plan. I am very grateful for my education and the fellowship that I was given (but still unsure that I deserved) and I know that someday it may prove very beneficial to know the dichotomy that exists in public administration. I only hope that my two to three year stint in the evil world of private enterprise will not make my future bosses run fastly and furiously away from my impressive but thin (and tainted with blood money) resume.
I want to be a working woman. I smile at the idea of being the spouse who brings home the majority of the income. What is this motherly instinct and where did it come from?

I was listening to Camera Obscura and was thinking about Jan Brady’s silly notion that by wearing a brunette wig she would be different enough to matter.

I’m shopping for a new car and I pretty much made up my mind yesterday on the Toyota Scion. Today, I have completely made up my mind and I am thankful to the French for my certainty.
(this of course was adapted by babel fish) It is an event of great importance, Toyota launches a new mark. The French press spoke well little about the thing, which is altogether rather logical since this mark will not be distributed in Europe, but for this site which had been moved by the disappearance of Plymouth, before that (programmed) of Oldsmobile, we could not miss speaking about this birth. It is if not very current!

Very current indeed!

I’ve spent nearly all of the last 8 hours looking at one single operating budget. It’s simple. Just give me very detailed explanations when the budgeted amount for any line item exceeds 5% over what the auditors said you spent the last time they audited you. Please don’t put one amount on the line item and give me another COMPLETELY DIFFERENT amount when you give your explanation. Please don’t kill one more tree by making copies of nearly every bill you incurred over the past year, when you can’t add it all up in the end. The greatest thing I have learned in this job is how to create a convincable budget. The thing I need to work on the most? – teaching people how to create that same budget. sigh…..

We had dinner and watched a movie at some friends house last night and as I pulled off a mountain of vegetables off my vegetarian pizza, I realized that if I was to become pregnant, I would have to learn to eat more healthy foods. We’re members now of a new cooperative garden and I’m excited about the possiblity of cooking with fresh vegetables (as excited as any person who only cooks vegetarian meals at home should be). I need to fashion myself into a person who enjoys cooking. That is my goal for this week (i have very low expectations and strive for no LONG term goals).

My friend sent me an email this week and she sounds sad. I’m not used to seeing or reading about her sadness. It’s either that I’m just not around her when she’s sad or she has this super-ability to hide her true feelings. She was (and possibly/probably still is) quite an icon at our school. Not many people at school truly knew her (I think I still fit in this category). I remember sitting at a friends house (or he was at mine) and he and another were talking about my friend and how they didn’t want to get to know her. She’s so perfect in our eyes, they would say. What if we really got to know her and we didn’t like her? I remember laughing at them, thinking that if they would only allow themselves to get to know her, there would be no way that they would not like her. They shook their heads. We’ll keep what we have of her, they said.
It makes me sad, now, thinking about her.

This is one of those days that it is difficult to leave work because I am in the middle of something. If I’m not careful, I’m going to be thinking about it all night long. I remember, during grad school, when a slew of friends and I went to a concert in Knoxville. Our friend, Half-Handed Cloud was playing. I was in such a bad mood that night (and believe me it is nearly impossible to be in poor spirits when listening to john) and it was all because I had a paper due the next day and I was in Knoxville listening to beautiful music till the wee hours of the morning. I felt so bad after that night because I was so bitchy.
I think I’ll go home and listen to HHC while I fall asleep on the couch and have horrible dreams about budgets and rent comp studies shooting me down in a dark and stinky alley.

Okay. I admit it. I love Indianapolis in the springtime. It’s about 65 degrees outside and the wind must be blowing about 30 miles an hour. John met me downtown for lunch. We went to Enzos, a fun little restaurant run by people who like to talk really fast, for pizza. We got the pizza to go and ate on the circle. We ate and fed breadsticks to the birds and chased many a plastic lids as they blew away with the ferocious wind.

Our very good friend is coming to visit tomorrow and I have this theory that, because I am looking forward to his visit it is taking FREAKIN’ forever for the week to come to an end. Will Tomorrow ever come???