things that have been stewing in my head but weren't meaty enough for a whole post

Firstly, To OBU girls:

I've been hesitating posting this for a while because I don't want it to be whiny or like a desperate attempt at screaming to all my hallmates last year as "Don't LEAVE ME!" but, I honestly don't know how many of you read this and it wasn't written to be taken that way, so here it is.

In my early high school years, I had a group of friends. A pretty big group. And conflict always arose around which ever smaller group was hanging out more. Nobody was allowed to be closer friends with anyone in the group without someone getting mad. This just wasn't the way I worked. I prefer a close person. Its easier to talk about things, with one person than a whole group. Its easier to please one person than a whole group. Yet, I love change, and variety, and people. So when I got to college I discovered this giant hall (and others in WMU) full of different and wonderful people. And they weren't all people that I understood or had much in common with, but still, it worked. It was polite society at its best. There were few long and complicated histories between people so it was a fresh start. We all smiled at each other in the halls and said "hey!" BUT THEN:: (*Disclaimer: Before you read the next sentence I want you to know that I don't blame it all on how many people from my hall last year joined a sorority. I made decisions to do other things as well.) Honestly, I know people not in sororities complain about sororities a lot, but they really did steal a community from me. Even somehow in the people that didn't join, those people found other things to do. Instead of "making a community" they turned community into something that has to be bought, earned, and joined into exclusively. I hope I don't make a bunch of haters with this, all I want is next year to be better than the last- with you. Yes, I have my closer people and you sorority girls have your special things that you do. But one thing I loved about college was a big long table of friends-close and not close-, out to dinner, laughing, loving life. You may not think I brought much to that table, but you brought a lot to that table for me. 

Next, here are some random things.

1) Check out this story to see how much of a creeper I am... I follow people. On twitter. So this one person I do not know posted a link to a blog of another person I do not know. And that blog has changed my life. For the better. Since finding it, I have read all 291 of her blog posts. Most of them in a row, like a book. And like a book, her story, and the characters in it, wrapped me up in their lives. I knew these people for the brief moment that the book was in my life. Only its not a story to her. It is her life. I cried. Several times. The things that this woman has been through, and is still going through are very sad. But what's more than that are the beautiful words she still uses to describe a life that she still finds overwhelmingly joyful.How she praises her God through it all. Loves her husband and her kids with all she has. I wouldn't do justice to her story so read it from the first and second link, and then read the rest of her blog if you please.

http://www.littlegreenpastures.com/2010/01/about.html

http://www.littlegreenpastures.com/2010/03/our-story.html

2) Up until a few months ago, it wasn't even something I knew I wanted to do. We all know I like love to run. And at New Years I started to like road races. But, I've told people before that, even as a runner, I have absolutely no desire to probably ever run a marathon. It may be a rite of passage, and a very emotional experience and all that, but, after running for a while, I know what it feels like. I know what three miles feels like. I know what four miles feels like. I know what six miles feels like. So why in the heck would I want to know what all of those added together TIMES TWO would feel like?! My point is, that I don't. Yet anyway. I am however, running a half marathon.

(This was part of a draft I wrote a while back. I was planning to run the Route 66 Half in Tulsa on November 20, but surgery has changed that plan. Now, I'm either shooting for February or May. )

3) I am very much a night person. Some people are just built that way. I don't know if I am one of those people, but I do know that I have acted like I was since I was a child. Since I had older sisters, I was usually sent to bed before them and everyone in the house would still be up when I had to sleep! SO UNFAIR. My parents usually watched the ten o' clock news in the living room and I had a system to get in on the fun. My door squeaked, so I knew my mom would hear the noise if I got up. I would go to the bathroom right by my bedroom. I made a show of shutting the bathroom door loudly and locking it. Then, I waited a few seconds before I would open the door THEN flush the toilet so they could hear it down the hall. After that I would just squeak the bedroom door open and then shut again and then I was free to sneak down the hall. I really do not remember how often I did this or how often I got caught. I don't even know how old I was when I finally stopped. (It probably wasn't until I was old enough to get a later bedtime!) All I know is that I'd stand at the end of the hall and watch the news (that I did not care about) on the tv in the opposite corner of the living room, thinking I was sneaky. I would stand there until my legs would start to sway because I was sleepy, so I'd sit down. I'd either get caught or get too bored and go back to bed myself but all I wanted was to stay up late. And really, thinking back, my funnest memories were often at night. We used to make our own doughnuts. We used to build forts and have my dad tell us ghost stories that mostly made us laugh hysterically instead of being scared. Even when I was really little, I remember serious talks at bedtime with my mom and sisters and sometimes my dad. One Saturday night a storm was rolling in and I wanted to stay up to hear/see it. My dad suggested that we all sleep on the porch. What a brilliant idea right? Not really. Melissa wasn't having it. And I remember my mom and Stacie staying out there for a while but neither intended to stay there as I remember it. Our porch really wasn't very big, so the only reason I went along with it was probably because I hadn't gotten smarter than my dad yet. So we did. We slept on the porch, through the storm and we went to church the next morning. Our blankets were wet and I remember waking up to my dad telling the neighbor why we were on the concrete outside the house in the rain. I don't know why I just remembered that, but memory works in funny ways. I was looking for some sort of way to tie this story back into something meaningful in my life but all I can say is that the story in itself is meaningful to me. Plus, I mean come on, did your parents let any of YOU sleep on the front porch in a thunderstorm? Didn't think so

Now, I like to think of a random object sometimes for my journal and see how long I can write about it. Boring? Yes! Relevant? Maybe.

"Planners" is the subject here.

      Flipping through my planner recently, I realized how strange it is to place an entire year's events onto a few pages and have that actually be a year. How small and manageable it seems compressed into a little booklet. If only that calendar were an accurate measure of daily changes, decisions, the little events that make life great and messy and silly and sad. It'd be an interesting thing to see those things flashed back to you every year. Instead it only reminds me of the things that I had to do that day, the things that are of little consequence to me now. I always keep my planners, thinking I'll want to see the important dates that I underlined 8 times and the days that I started countdowns to a hundred days in advance. I've kept them all since 7th grade. With the exception of senior year, because, let's face it, I really didn't do anything in school that year. I have gotten my new planner for this school year. I suspect it will keep me a little saner, but Lord knows I'll still make list after list in addition to the planner so, still not everything will be in one place. Sigh. If only all of life could be organized into a planner. On second thought, that would be pretty boring wouldn't it? ;)