I had a Snow/Fire Day

The company I work for is located in a shopping center - and Wednesday night there was a fire that completely gutted two businesses nearby. There was no electricity Thursday - so I got the day off - like a snow day! Thankfully there was no damage to my company & they're paying us for the day off! I yippee'd like a kid and went back to sleep. How very exciting!

The Shack, Part II

I feel very fortunate to have people who love me like you all do. In the center of my heart, I BELIEVE you love me and care for me and want me to have the happiest life I can. Key word: Believe.

This is the line I highlighted in Lesa's book (yes, I KNOW writing in a book is very bad - especially since it's not even my book!) - this one sentence sums up my inability to "get" the real message of the book.

"Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me." -- Sarayu

I do not believe that god loves me. I believe god does not care about me - or you, for that matter. I believe god does not listen to prayer. I believe that god, the creator -- and I'm willing to accept that he/she exists -- has no individual relationship with his/her creations at all beyond setting the ball into motion. Perhaps there is momentary curiousity like, "What have those silly humans gotten themselves into now?!" or "What monstrosities humans commit in my name!" But in the core of my heart, I do not believe god cares about me, personally or individually.

My beloved Ramona asks how Darkheart can love Miss Airy-Fairy for so long? It has nothing to do with god. I have chosen to love Miss Airy-Fairy. I do believe in choices. And I believe in love and pain and joy and loss and grief and happiness and a child's laugh.

I do believe you love me, and I hope you believe I love you!

The Shack

I understand my dark heart is in a different place than most. Jessica wanted me to read 'The Shack' by William Young. She says she'd hoped I'd read it with an open mind. I tried to. Really, I did try not to hate it from the beginning. For starters, the book could've used a good editor! Pages and pages could have been deleted without affecting the story. Perhaps the Readers Digest version would be better. I read the story of Mack's family - the loss of their youngest daughter, Missy, to a serial killer - and the family members' individual ways of dealing with their loss. I empathized with them; I know that pain. I understood Mack's anger and guilt - the feeling of abandonment.

And then came the dreaded god stuff. How blah-blah-blah we're supposed to love each other, forgive each other, be in relationship with each other as god wants to be in relationship with us, blah blah blah... And the answer to Mack's honest question about god's involvement in what happened to his daughter? Yes, god could have stopped it, but didn't for reasons we can't begin to understand. oh. what revelation. what insight.

Mack had to forgive his abusive father. He had to forgive his daughter's killer. Hmmm... Let's see, for me, my daughter's killer is someone I love very much.

And for all the "birds singing, flowers blooming - all's right with god's world" imagery - that's not the world we live in. It may be the real world, but it's not the world we have to live in. That's not my world. To me, this book is just another in an endless stream of "love each other, love god, and everything will be just fine!" spiritually uplifting crap. Only this one isn't even written very well.

I feel that I'm letting Jessica down by not being able to open myself to the story. She obviously wants me to get more from this than my normal angry response. So will I always be this angry? I hear someone say that I'll be angry until I accept what's happened with Anna. Accept it? As in realize I can't change it? What is it I have to do? ... And because I lost her, I know - in a very real, moment to moment way - that I can lose EVERYTHING in an instant. Do you know that? Or do you live your life with the illusion that this ordinary day will remain ordinary? In a flash. In the blink of an eye. Think for a moment what is most dear to you - and believe in your heart that it can be snatched from you before you get to the end of this sentence. How does that make you feel? All fluffy and birds singing and flowers blooming? Oh - wouldn't it be enough reason for you to know "that it's more than you can possibly understand" ??

So I'm angry. I think the book sucked. But everyone else loves it and thinks it is a wonderful spiritually uplifting guide to healing relationships (blah blah blah).

Nerds make good proofreaders

Nerds Rock!

How bizarro is this? I've been awake since about 4 o'clock this morning thinking about the "new job." Wondering if I will like it or if it will be just a shade toooooo tedious even for nerd me. My friends laugh when I call myself a nerd. They don't see me as a nerdy girl - because thankfully my parents paid for orthodontia when I was a child and because I was able to fake interests in things outside Star Trek and Star Wars and shows on TV like "How it's made." But how else would you explain that in the days before spellcheck, Ramona would call me - from out of state at times - to ask how to spell a word? Or that when some people at work hear "Excel spreadsheet" they cringe in terror while I get a lascivious grin on my face? I have done as my sister says and "embraced my inner nerd." It's who I am.

Re: my dating life... I realize (also around 4a.m. this morning) that I really doubt my judgement about men. After the utter fiasco that was 2008, I have decided to err on the side of caution and go really really slow. My abilities to trust and believe have been shattered - from the time we lost Anna forward. I know "baggage" is a bad thing in relationships - but what if I call it "life experience"?? oh well - he's not rushing me, so why should I rush me???

I've got an hour before I have to get up for work, so I think I'll go back to bed and hope for a nap.

Jessica's started something...

Jessica invited a bunch of folks to her house for a breakfast dinner party last week - she invited more than she had plates and silverware and chairs for! She had pancakes and eggs and bacon and sausage and hash brown casserole and biscuits and mimosas... a veritable breakfast buffet! I had such a good time - showing up to eat is always a good thing! And we laughed! Jessica, Lesa, Melanie and I had a wonderful time talking and laughing. Mel and Jes were explaining how horrible Lesa & I were when they were teens ... so Lesa & I demonstrated some of the more eye rolling, superior lip curling moves we had to endure as mothers of teenage girls. Oh we laughed!!!

I decided to "play it forward" this week. I invited the Sheltons, Ramona, Jes and assorted friends and family to spaghetti, salad and garlic bread. A bonus was that I cleaned up my house (a little) to get ready for company. I even turned the heat up to above 55 degrees! It was a sauna! Since I'm now dating a very nice man, he braved the family-friends scrutiny and met everybody. He survived the inquisition pretty well, considering he brought cheesecake! And there was plenty of laughing and talking - a little shouting to be sure the funny stories were told correctly too. Big Brother and Real World have nothing on this bunch of looney tunes gathered in one place - we're a Marx Brothers meets Laurel and Hardy meets The Golden Girls all rolled into one... Such fun. I even took a picture to PROVE that I actually had cooked, so it's not my turn again next time...

In non-food related news, I got a lateral job change at work today. Totally out of the blue for me - which took my stress levels out of the roof - trying to decide what's best for me - stay safe and boring and show that I'm not willing to get out of my secure little cubicle ---> OR leap into a new position just created that they asked ME to take. So I leapt - fingers crossed - pocket protector and taped up eyeglasses ready to tackle a new nerd assignment.

How am I doing?

Some days are better than others. Today was definitely one of the BETTER ones - because I got to laugh out loud with people I love.

2009 begins...

I've really had nothing to say lately. I truly enjoyed my time off work over new years. What did I do? Read Neil Gaiman's American Gods - a wonderfully fascinating and compelling book about what happened to all the gods various immigrants brought with them to America over the past five thousand or so years. I really like this book - to the point that I'm sad it's over and I can't read it for the first time again. I'm definitely a Gaiman fan now. This was one of the eight (EIGHT!) books I got for christmas - thanks to Jessica and my sister's Amazon gift card and Amazon's 4-for-3 deal. I have a whole stack of fresh, unread books with that new-book-smell beside my bed. Now that I've finished one, I'll have to decide which is next. And for me, that's like deciding which of a box of delicious chocolates to have next. Picture me rubbing my hands together greedily while drooling.

Besides reading, there have been naps to take and movies to watch. You'll notice I've added two spots to the left of the blog itself with '2009 books' and '2009 movies' - that's where I plan to keep up with my life-escaping-coping for the coming year.

And it's playoff weekend --- so far, out of four games, I picked two wrong, one right, with the other to be played. Don't think ESPN will be calling me for my mad skills anytime soon.

I also went out and checked on my parents' house ... and got a new pair of sneakers for myself. I enjoyed the one day of glorious sunshine and 50+ weather since I've been off. ... And tomorrow it's back to the grind. Again. Yuck. At least there's a Monday holiday coming up (MLK day) - so there's that to look forward to. Maybe it will be spring soon...