Sep 30, 2007

Church History Brain Drain

This is what happens after a graduate student drinks coffee before going to bed, can't fall asleep, then sleeps in late, has a paper due the next day and therefore chooses to forgo bathing and getting out of bed in order to work on said paper all day, and then becomes so tired of paper topic that taking photos of oneself becomes a welcome distraction:




Rain and Ryan Adams

The rain has arrived in Seattle. It is so beautiful and refreshing. I just don't get how people don't like this weather!?! The fall colors are also starting arrive. You can see little patches of red and yellow appearing on the green trees. It is so beautiful. I am so excited for fall!

The perfect musical accompaniment to the fall season is Ryan Adams. I realize I am one of the last people to become a fan of Adams, but whatever. I actually had one of his albums on my iPod for a while now, and as I drove a friend home a few weeks ago he told me I needed to be in love with Adam's song Avalanche. I did, and then moved on to other Ryan Adams gems. I just can't get this one out of my head:

"When The Stars Go Blue"

Dancin' where the stars go blue
Dancin' where the evening fell
Dancin' in your wooden shoes
In a wedding gown

Dancin' out on 7th street
Dancin' through the underground
Dancin' little marionette
Are you happy now?

Where do you go when you're lonely
Where do you go when you're blue
Where do you go when you're lonely
I'll follow you
When the stars go blue

Laughing with your pretty mouth
Laughing with your broken eyes
Laughing with your lover's tongue
In a lullaby

Where do you go when you're lonely
Where do you go when you're blue
Where do you go when you're lonely
I'll follow you
When the stars go blue
The stars go blue, stars go blue


Laughing with broken eyes...oh my, I think I want to rename my blog based on this line. This song just feels and sounds like life to me. It is melancholy and oddly happy. It is filled with love and loneliness. There is beauty and darkness. Life.

Sep 18, 2007

Playing House

It occurred to me today that my life feels like a very prolonged game of playing house. The game has become very complicated with relationships, bills, and lots of keys (which really was a sign of adulthood to me in my pre-teen years...adults get to have so many keys!)

I am doing all these grown up things in my determination not to be a child, but unfortunately I just can't continue to hide the fact that I am really a little 8 year old pretending to know how to be an adult. There are other problems...

Children don't know how to express their needs and desires.
Adults don't want to be friends with children.
Children are very easy to trample over.
Children are prone to tantrums.
They need help to grow and mature, and children playing house think they can do everything on their own.

Apparently, in my pretending, I forgot that I was just playing. Of course, children pretending to be adults have no time for playing.

Now I am sitting here with grown-up problems that my very mature 8 year old self just doesn't know how to pretend my way out of, and I am pissed. I am pissed at the 8 year old for not having it figured out, and I am pissed at the 30 year old that let an 8 year old run their life for the past 22 years.