warning: rambling post ahead

GRR, I guess it is just one of those days where you're bound to be in a funk and you just have to be okay with it. Of course, I'm sure I could do something about it if I were, say, on vacation at a luxurious island resort :) But since I'm at the office, I'll have to make do with that.

That didn't make much sense but I don't care too much today!

My brain (or, probably more likely, the human brain) works in such weird ways...last night I finished a book called Marley and Me, a book a journalist published a few years ago about life with his crazy Labrador. I had started the book a few months ago as a lite-lit break from all the heady readings I've been doing lately about social justice and women's issues and such. Anyway, as a fellow dog-lover who has a similarly insane pooch, I unexpectedly ended up loving the book, which is very well written. ANYway, I had been putting off the last chapter for about a month, because I knew what it would contain. And last night I decided that if I couldn't handle it in a book I wouldn't be able to handle it in real life, so I finished it.

And cried my eyes out. Geez. And back to the point about weird-brain-workings, reading about Marley dying (in case you didn't figure that part out) naturally made me think of how much I'll miss my own aging puppy when he leaves us in an inevitably short few years, which made me think and grieve again over my family's loss of my cousin Joanna earlier this year. And continuing into this morning, I'm thinking about the dirty little secrets and disappointing truths about the nonprofit sector that most people outside the NGO world assume don't exist, and about the infuriating (to me) divisiveness that often appears to be the predominant feature of the modern-day Church, and I'm reading about inadequate legislation for labor-and-sex-trafficked victims, and about heartbreaking stories of trafficking, rape and domestic abuse survivors, and non-survivors. And I'm reading the blog update of a little baby girl with frustrating brain tumor treatment, and thinking about the two other women I know fighting the side effects of inoperable brain tumors, and wondering why the husband of one of them--my friend and former pastor--hasn't updated his blog in five days.

Just had to get that out...

The past 12 hours have reminded me of a lesson I learned repeatedly when I worked at the Alliance of AIDS Services - that if you're not careful, you can let yourself get distracted from the good things in life by the seemingly overpowering and overshadowing bad things. It's hard when you're burdened to work for the good, because that often means working in the face of the bad, which can almost seem to sap away your hope sometimes.

But you just can't let that happen; you have to believe with everything you've got that there is always more hope.

(preaching to myself, here.)

Jesus Christ Sold Here!

- from last Sunday's PostSecret: -


I don't really get it, either.

(But I'm sure the folks who manufactured these stickers had no motive other than to seriously impact the world.)

Waste not, want not

So I've been unusually tired of late...yawned my way through an entire meeting this morning (and considering only two other people were part of the meeting, I'm thinking they noticed.)

And a muscle in my right shoulder has been twitching off and on all morning...I can see it jumping maniacally beneath my shirt. I always love it when that happens.

But I'm not buying the "you're getting old" shtick...At seven days shy of my 24th year, I personally think I am barely even approaching my "peak," as depressing people call it. I knowww, everyone says, "once you near 30, you'll understand..."

I doubt that, though. Maybe if I lived in the Middle Ages I would, but come on. Why spend your young years worrying about how they're going to come to an end someday, as if there was something you could do about that?

And to the people who make it sound like your life just goes downhill after age 30 (or 40, or 50), I say: obviously you've not observed enough truly "older" people, because then you would surely see (as I have) that even though some parts of life do get crappier, the parts that get better can more than make up for it. Otherwise, "middle and old age" and "happiness" would be mutually exclusive ideas, which they certainly are not.

On the other end, sometimes I feel pressure to "grow up," to prove that I'm an "adult" (whatever that means). But you know what, I'm a responsible person who contributes to society; so what if I happen to indulge in a little silly girlishness now and then? What is the hurry?

So you can have your regrets and your rushing; I'm not about to waste my youth. Thanks but no thanks.

Don't let your gift cards go to waste!

You know that sometimes you don't get around to using up every last dollar (or any dollars, sometimes!) of all those gift cards...850 Words of Relevant mentioned a neat solution out there:

Gift Card Giver

The National Retail Federation found that 81 percent of Americans received a gift card last year, and TowerGroup says that the gift card industry has become a 45 billion dollar operation. With millions of dollars on gift cards going unspent, GiftCardGiver.com wants to use them to help others. If you have unused gift cards (or cards with just a few dollars left on them), you can write the remaining balance on the card and send it to Gift Card Giver. They’ll distribute them to non-profit organizations that will put them into the hands of people in need.

Resolutions are more like guidelines....

So let's see how I did for the 2007 resolutions I posted in December 2006....

Melinda's 2007 Resolutions

1. actually take care of my car
No; in fact, I have been avoiding my maintenance schedule because I'm afraid of what it will tell me ($). I hope you're not reading this Dad
2. utilize my gym more than once a month
Nope, though with ballet and kickboxing I feel like I started to make up for that (at least in the last few months of 2007)
3. stop being crazy
I at least feel slightly less crazy (the bad kind); I began to embrace the good craziness. There is a difference, my friends.
4. improve my work ethic, at least at work
Reached this in part, if not in full...changing to a job i actually like has helped.
5. find work?
DONE whoo hoo! Why was there a question mark?
6. stop freaking out every time someone gets engaged/married
Pretty much got that one down, maybe.
7. find a way to live in Spain without actually leaving the States
no comment
8. write articles for publications that actually pay
I only wrote one article during 2007, so....maybe 2008 is the year.
9. find a way to take dance lessons again
YES i am a ballerinaaaa
10. really learn to trust in/lean on/listen to the Lord
jury's still out
11. get a loop station and become the next Zoe Keating
got the loop station! have yet to try using it. kind of need an amp first...
12. be a much better friend
oo i think i still have a long way to go
13. learn the constellations
i totally forgot about this one
14. go to Raven Rock at least once
no, dang it
15. own and appreciate the fact that i'm an emotional person
got pretty close I think
16. visit my aunt in New York for Thanksgiving
nope
17. play outside a whole lot more
ahhhh, no
18. learn my cello craft more thoroughly
not so much
19. build and learn to play the hammer dulcimer
uh..
20. visit Portland
right
21. stop pretending I don't care about having "someone special"
actually not sure where I even stand on that any more
22. save $
It probably doesn't count if you foolishly squander it all before you really need it
23. finally decide on a tattoo design
I did get closer, at least
24. learn how to be truly honest
Made a little progress, I hope
25. finish a song i'm proud of
i guess? It's mainly finished.
26. volunteer more
Yes.
27. quit doing brainless things like absent-mindedly poking my thumb into a blade to prove it's dull
um..
28. paint
yes, horrah!
29. live somewhere that is not in the middle of nowhere
YES thank God!!
30. stop thinking of myself as a child instead of a woman
still in progress
31. get "Christmas Shoes" banned from the radio
ha...sorry Mike, wherever you are
32. acquire the art of tact
I don't know how to gauge that....em, Michelle?
33. go on a road trip to somewhere that is not the beach
unless you count going to Charlotte by yourself, i guess not
34. write more letters
not so much
35. visit the mountains
nooo :(
36. finally fix up my bike and see about changing "that one great bike ride memory from 10 years ago" to something a bit more current
fix bike: check! ride bike: I thought about it a lot
37. steadily decrease my need for chocolate, cereal, facebook and desserts and computers in general
I just ate cereal and am currently eating chocolate as I write this. and I already used my computer to look at facebook this morning...so I basically sucked this one up
38. stop buying more home decor than actually fits in my space
yep. moving to a smaller space + running out of $ will do that to you
39. figure out what my book's about
oh....i quit wanting to write a book, so..
40. trip it to DC to see my lovely :)
yep! at least on the side of a business trip, anyway
41. learn how to get the most out of my camera
no, DANG it...
42. somehow finally stage that late afternoon field+cello photo shoot i've seen in my brain for 2 years
no again...dang it.

So, overall, I'm happy that I even did some of these. Perhaps a list of 2008 Guidelines will soon follow...

Enjoy music.

Another take on one of my favorite songs...





I think if I could ever be a part of a song like this, that's as close as I'd come to being able to quit music and live off of that memory forever.