and flexed on a full moon,
    It’d be a sure, sure shame not to

Recently I’ve been laughing to myself about all the different ways people nerd out. Like my brother attempting to build an electronic damage counter for Magic from scratch. I spent quite some time making a map of the fictional country Northfalen where Khali came from before joining up with the Outlanders. And typing out three pages of info about it! Or like Josh trying to convert Zombies into a fixed-length tabletop. Or Andreas, finished his PhD (at last!), relishing in the thought that now he has time to create his own programming language. Nerds are so great and so diverse. I’m proud to be one.

Now that I’m basically done futilely expanding Khali’s background, the creative inspiration has moved back to vector art. Here’s my latest piece.

I got the idea for it a long time ago when I found out that a group of skylarks is called an exaltation. That is the coolest animal group name ever! Except for maybe “a murder of crows”. Anyways, exaltation reminded me of exultation and I got a picture in my mind of a girl from the inland seeing the sea for the first time and just reveling in the vastness and freedom of it. Like the Emily Dickinson poem, “Exultation is the going of an inland soul to sea / Past the houses, past the headlands— / Into deep eternity.”

The symbolism is mostly in the colours. The girl is dressed in earthy tones to indicate that she’s been raised far from the shore on terra firma. The larks are the colour of the sea because they are a manifestation of the girl’s feelings towards it. (The slightly darker lark in the center is the girl’s “inland soul” going to sea.) The tree I originally had in black, which looked cool, but eventually changed it to the off-white to symbolize things of the land fading from the girl’s mind as she is presented with the eternal and beautiful sea.

My next project, if my energy stays here in the visual, will (probably) be a piece depicting Eve and serpent and apple.

to kill some of my pain—
    it was all in vain, no senses remained

I’ve made a breakthrough in searching for the cause of the chronic headaches I’ve been suffering from for the better part of three years.

It seems to me that headaches can be difficult to pinpoint the cause of. I suspected so many things and made a few changes, but to no avail. Not necessarily bad changes though; I’ll keep them up because they seem to be doing me some good in other ways.

For example, I thought maybe lack of sleep was to blame. So I did some reading and followed a few tips for falling asleep more quickly. Dimmer lights, no computer before bed (the bright monitor screen tricks your brain into thinking it is daytime), a bit of slow stretching, and a repetitive activity that lulls the brain into a trance (knitting is working splendidly for this). I used to lie awake for over half an hour but that time is much less now— around ten minutes if I’m not fretting over something.

Still though, I was getting headaches too often, and always most poignantly on Mondays. So I suspected it was something to do with work. Maybe that I didn’t eat breakfast, so I started buying cereal to eat at work. Well it’s nice not to be hungry until noon, but still: headaches.

Stinging nettle tea. Drinking gallons of water. Filtered water. Bottled water. Adjusting my chair. Turning off the overhead fluorescent lights. Nothing really worked. People usually blamed eye strain from staring at a monitor all day. It was possible but I doubted it. It didn’t fit with why I didn’t get headaches so often in school, or on weekends.

Last Monday I had leftover food from the day before so I didn’t leave the office at lunch, and by 2pm I was in agony, even feeling short of breath and dizzy. I went outside and started to feel a little better, but was back to where I was when I came inside. I asked Phil if he’s had issues with the air quality in our building. He said that if he doesn’t leave for a while at noon, he can hardly stay awake until five. He said our building wasn’t built to code as far as ventilation is concerned and that isn’t going to change. He said I could go home and I did.

Since then, I’ve gone outside for at least ten minutes at lunch and haven’t had a headache yet. I discounted “air quality” as the culprit when I was first looking into it, but I shouldn’t have. Aside from getting some fresh air at lunch, there probably isn’t a lot I can do, but knowing is half the battle. I’m going to get an air purifier to see if that helps at all, but mostly I’m just happy to have an answer.

So, short camping trips on weekends are starting to look better!

Things that look so fiercely purposeful
    and permanent are, in the end,
  just bits of our future sentimentalism.

These last few weeks I’ve been getting together one-on-one with some friends over lunch or coffee and it’s been great. It dawns on me over and over that relationship is one of the main joys of my life.

I’m aiming for February to be my “suck it up and do all the recurring things I hate doing” month. So last week I went to my bank appointment and made an RRSP contribution, tomorrow I have an eye appointment, and today I’m getting a haircut. Good haircuts are awesome when they’re done, but I always put off making an appointment because going into salons kind of puts me on edge. The type of girls who made me uneasy in high school, the popular, catty, gorgeous ones who have that real judgmental stare? Hair salons are their post-high school lair. At least it seems like that to me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt fully at ease in a hair salon!

Things at work are going pretty well these days. My project right now is re-vamping a PDF Husky manual and I love these kinds of projects because that’s where my strengths are. For the last couple months I’ve been doing a lot of “here’s a bunch of Word documents, use these to make a training course”, and I suck at that. My side projects at home are going alright too. I’ve got a start on Tristan’s site and have been doing small updates on almost all the others.

The long weekend was epic. On Friday we went to Lloyd’s and then to the Cheesecake Cafe with CnC. Cari and Andy came over afterwards and we watched hilarious Youtube videos and it was great. The next day Josh and I went to the Valentine’s market in Kensington to see Melissa Pederson’s jewelry and to feel trendy! On Sunday a bunch of us went to archery where I actually didn’t suck too badly. We still weren’t able to go upstairs but Zach and I switched off on one lane downstairs and it worked fairly well considering it allowed for a bit of a break in between shoots. And we like breaks now that we’re pulling 40 and 60 pound bows. I am psyched to say that I am actually making my anchor point now… I just can’t hold it long enough to aim. Still, I’ll take any progress as a victory. I didn’t lose or destroy any arrows, but I did show Kristen and Cari my arrow-hole in the metal (that I made the time before) which I am strangely proud of.

After archery we all went to Laser Quest where Zach got first place in both games! Daaaang. I got third and fourth place. Not too bad. It was fun, I always enjoy Laser Quest. After that, Josh and I went to his place and got started making our amazing Valentine’s day dinner. We decided that instead of dealing with over-busy restaurants and reservations, we’re going to cook our own fancy meal for our Valentine’s days. Even though this is my second long relationship, it’s actually the first Valentine’s day that I’ve been in the same country as my boyfriend! So it was pretty sweet, a first for both of us.

Then Family Day at the church was good too. I did some guitar with Karen after lunch and went skating with her and Josh and my mom for a bit before going to my parents’ house for supper and then to D&D. So that was my whirlwind long weekend. Whew!

That I don’t slip into one more of your little tragedies.
     ‘Cause that would be no good for me right now.

I’m lost. Josh’s family is confusing sometimes. I’ve gotten what I think is a mere glimpse of what it means to be “put in the middle” and feel like that’s something I can do without in life. I’m really not interested in taking sides. Who would benefit from that?

This kind of thing, along with conversations I’ve had with some of my net friends especially, just slap me in the face with how sheltered I’ve been all my life from family drama and turmoil. Things haven’t been perfect all the time, but compared to the stories, they barely appear on the radar. I think of Esther’s situation, probably the most appalling instance, the “we, your parents, are going to shun you; yes, literally Old Testament shun you because you married a Protestant and not a Catholic.” I can hardly comprehend it.

I wonder sometimes at this apparent dice-toss that is life. Why have I been spared? It seems like I must come to the same conclusion over and over again and yet still largely ignore it: I’ve been given a lot, so I must give a lot. And I know I’m not giving back what I should be, but feel like I’m making a bare start with the girls now, a full year after joining youth ministry. Oh God, please let me be the listening ear they need so desperately. But it’s so hard to listen to the pain they deal with and not be able to fix it for them, especially when I’m in territory so uncharted to me. Saying that I know how they feel would be a complete lie. Listening literally is all I can do right now.

They don’t need or want advice from me, and good thing, too, because I doubt I’d be of any help. My “dealing with parents” model is based on my parents: mature adults who were always willing to discuss things and hear my side of the story. The kind of people who should be parents. From what I’ve heard, their parents are acting like children, and I have no idea how to deal with that.

In that vein, I’ve been thinking about motives lately. It seems like almost everything we do is towards a purpose. We go to work to get money. We seek romantic relationships for companionship and love. We volunteer to help others, or to get a good feeling of contributing. All these things have a pretty clear “why” attached to then. But I was thinking, if you asked some parents why they had kids, what would they say? Having children seems to me to be something of a mystery as far as conscious goals are concerned. Because really, the continuation of the human race really isn’t an issue. People can’t blame imminent extinction as their reason for procreating. So what is it?

I guess there’s always the, “I’ve just always wanted kids,” or the “I wanted to experience being a parent”, but even then, why? Is it a lack of goals that causes parents to fail at times in raising their children? Since they’re doing it day by day “just because”?

I do want kids. I’ve realized that I have a goal for that endeavour now… I want to raise children who will grow up to help the world, to be a positive influence. Imagine if every parent had that goal in the forefront of their mind at all times when interacting with their child. Would this world be different?

“Permettez-moi d’allumer ma lampe,
et jamais le débat si cela peut aider à éliminer les ténèbres.”

Le tremblement de terre à Haïti m’a beaucoup fait penser aux changements. Tout le monde, à Port-au-Prince, a vu sa vie complétement bouleversée durant ces deux dernières semaines. Ces changements étaient hors de notre contrôle, mais ils ont quand même dû les affronter. Il en est ansi pour beaucoup de changements dans nos propres vies: totalement hors de notre contrôle. Mais quand on pense à tous ces gens qui ont eu vent du tremblement de terre, ont laissé tombé ce qu’ils étaient en train de faire, et qui ont pris l’avion pour aller aider là bas… c’était quelque chose qu’ils ont fait de leur propre volonté. Et pourtant, il s’agit là d’une expérience qui va changer leur vie également. J’ai lu un bon paquet de récits d’américains et de canadiens racontant comment les choses vont là bas en ce moment. Presque tous d’entre eux mentionnent l’odeur de la mort, et remarquent qu’il s’agit de quelque chose qu’ils n’oublieront jamais de leur vie.

Ces gens qui sont allés à Haïti pour participer à l’effort de soutien se sont ouverts au changement. Cela m’intrigue, car à moi le changement me fait si peur. Même pour des choses d’importance beaucoup moindre que d’enter volontairement dans le chaos le plus total. Ou encore pour des choses comme Josh ou les autres qui sont allés enseigner en Chine durant quelques années. Ses expériences resteront à jamais avec lui, et cela uniquement parce qu’il était prêt à aller là bas et laisser l’expérience le changer. Un pays peut vous changer, mais pour cela vous devez être prêt à le laisser faire.

C’est quelque chose qui demande une mesure de courage que je n’ai pas encore atteint.

My vulnerable side. I’m too near to make it clear—
    Emotional suicide.

True love. The academic side of me wonders whether it even involves endorphins. Whether a couple needs months of that fluttery, unsure, giddy feeling to base a lifetime of happy marriage on.

Have Disney and Twilight and Hollywood and literature skewed our definition of what true love is? Because when I think of “true love”, I envision the fairytale couple… the Eric and Ariel, the Edward and Bella, the Wesley and Buttercup, the Richard and Kahlan. Willing to move heaven and earth, to battle the supernatural, or face death itself just to protect the other.

I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want that kind of devotion. Not that I demand it, obviously, but it isn’t like I’d refuse it if offered.

But still, seldom do you hear about that kind of obsession in real life. And it’s surely unchristian to want to be the centre of anyone’s life. I have to keep telling myself that. And pulling myself back into reality. If you took a candid snapshot of all the relationships around you, you’d see enough to make you decide that real devotion is rare. For every one noble man there are twenty others cheating on their wives… or worse.

Every so often you do see it though… someone falls in love so profoundly that they get tunnel-visioned. “If I can’t have her, I don’t want anyone”. You see it in movies, I mean. Literature. Maybe it doesn’t actually happen. When I was a kid though, I always hoped that that’s how it’d happen for me. Some guy would see me from across the room and never be the same. It’s the sort of lofty dream you can have when you’re really young. And the type of dream that dies hard.

Life is all about perspective, though. It’s really only in that childish fantasy sense that I feel like I’ve settled in my relationship with Josh. I barely have to look around me to count myself extremely lucky to have the guy I do. Sometimes I overhear conversations on the train, and the way some guys talk about girls (when they’re not around, of course) is just flat out insulting. I’m glad to think that Josh doesn’t talk about me that way when I’m not there. But that’s the other thing… I’ll never know for sure.

There are certain memories I have of Josh, back from before we were dating. Memories that I feel show his true heart. Even though I want to tell him that these are some of the things I admire him for, I’m hesitant to ever bring them up with him, because I’m afraid that maybe he’ll tell me that it wasn’t actually him being noble or compassionate. That it was merely a result of luck or timing, or that he had another motive. Ignorance really is bliss.

Josh is nothing if not honest though. It’s one of the things that’s surprised me so far. He strikes me as having a  strong moral code. And that’s good for me to be close to, because I can be a sell-out and I know it.

Coming back to true love… I think I need to change my thinking. Maybe true love isn’t about that occasional flutter of the heart. Maybe it’s not about slaying demons or always being flawlessly attentive. Perhaps true love is being willing to drive me home from youth sometimes. Or holding my hand. Or being honest. It could be.

I’ll burn before you bury me
         Set your sights on the sun

Days are rushing by still even though December is over. What gives?

Christmas was great this year! We went to Derek and Yolayne’s (Josh came too) and it was fun times there as usual. We even played Pictionary, and Kim let her bunny hop around while we were in the den, so cute! We Boxing-Day-shopped at Park Place and were actually able to find Munchkin. That’s one awesome thing about Lethbridge, they often have stuff that’s always sold out here.

For New Years, Kristen and Rob rented a chalet in Canmore and Josh and I went up there for two nights along with Drew, Dave and Kim. We also went to Banff where I bought adorable raccoon mittens and a hat, and then we went to an Irish pub.

January has been good so far. I’ve even made some new friends (or, potential friends) and also gotten my first design job of the year: more business cards. Archery has been tough going since getting my new bow. It is such a tank that I’m actually going to have to work out in order to be able to use it. I’ve lost two arrows so far (one shot through a sheet of metal) and broken another, because I am so unused to the power of the bow. But I’ll keep at it. Really I should be glad to have something to work towards. I was getting only moderately accurate on the rental bows because, since it was a different bow each time, I get to get used to it all over again. Now that I have my own, it’s one less variable to account for. One guy I’ve seen at archery twice has a traditional bow, too. He can pull back that string like it’s nothing and is deadly accurate. So that’s what I aspire to. Actually, one of my new year’s resolutions is to be able to string my bow without a stringer. Right now, even with the bow stringer, it takes me so much effort that I’m nearly panting by the time I actually do it. Very pathetic to watch, I’m sure.

Mom and dad are a few days away from coming home from their holiday in Mexico. I’m pretty excited to see their pictures but mostly I’m excited to see them!

To hear the angels sing.

It makes me laugh to think back to when I was a kid. December used to crawl by almost maliciously, or so it seemed, because I was looking forward to Christmas so much. But a kid doesn’t really have responsibilities or deadlines around Christmas beyond ripping off another paper link and opening an Advent calendar flap. I think it’s all the shopping and madness that makes it December 22nd now, before I’ve fully registered that November is even over. It makes me wish that we could all go back to a simpler time, or be happy with home-made presents or something.

But then, it’s easy to complain, isn’t it? I need to boot myself out of that yearning mindset and focus on being intensely, profoundly thankful for what I’ve been given this Christmas and every Christmas. I love my family so much. Moving out this year has helped make it clear to me just how much.

Today on the train, one of my pens leaked in my backpack all over lots of my stuff. But I was hit with such a strong sense of gratitude this morning that I hardly even minded. I laughed about it with Phil when I got to work. Because if this is the worst thing that happens to me today, or even if it isn’t, oh beauty, I am blessed.

  Is a message from the sky.
        I wonder what it’s trying to say…

I’m back in the game now after some down time. Tiring as those emotional dips are, I usually come out of them with a bit of inspiration; in this case, Christmas presents. And words for my book. Oh, book.

Cold as it is, I’m loving my walks to and from work (or, the train station). Walking sort of alters my state of mind. There’s nothing else to do but think. I’ve finally got one of my short stories all planned out in my head. It’s fitting that it should be this one, because that character has always been my most beloved even in concept stage. But based on how long it’s taken to get inspired for his story, my intended collection of ten stories will probably never be done.

I have, however, finally finished Nathan’s present and I think my next project will be remodeling my website, journal and twitter page so that they all match. Maybe something wintery. It’s a beautiful season if you can experience it inside, through a window.

After months of looking on enviously as Laura knits amazing things, I might start to learn soon, too, because apparently Josh’s mom would be willing to teach me. Canon Ravenclaw scarf, you are imminent.

My challenge of the month is going to be finding people who will take me to assorted stores for Christmas shopping… and having that person not be the person I’m buying for. Godspeed, self. With some luck I can be finished with stores and malls after hopefully going shopping with Lyndsay after photo club.

It’s almost time to start listening to Christmas carols all day to annoy Phil!

   Far behind my eyes.
 I willed you there to see, but you never came for me.

I feel so tired and worn out.

I’m hoping that a bit of rest is on the horizon, but as usual, I think the out-of-control need in me to always have a project on the go will win out once more. Being productive is a nice feeling though. Something I thrive on. I think that’s why when my boyfriends past and present sleep in so much on weekends, it drives me nuts.

Since Caleb was born I’ve gone full throttle in making the present for Natey that I’ve had in mind for over two years now. At this point I’m probably at 250 hours working on it, nearing full completion in maybe a week or two. And in the middle of November, Kristen and I hosted a funny awards night, like the Dundees on the Office, but ours were called the Tenettes. It was a lot of work too, but it was fun.

Kim came over last week and we made cookies, it was such a good time. I miss seeing her so much… so much. The cookies were a bit burnt on the bottom but they were still pretty good I thought.

Last weekend I went to Live at the Lake, the winter Gull Lake retreat. It was awesome and wild, but also so tiring. Probably the big reason I’ve been so despondent the last few days. It takes a lot out of an introvert to be “on” for so long. Extroverts don’t really get that sleep doesn’t count as “alone time”. It recharges my body but not my soul.

On the bright side, the band there, Tree63, was really awesome. I also went to Robin Mark with Josh and my parents earlier this month and he was wonderful. Such a nice voice!

I also bought myself a nice present a few weeks ago… the pretty bow that I fell in love with at first sight at the Archery Centre. It is very hard to pull back so I’ll need to work up to it. Still, it’s super exciting.

My next projects are going to have to wait until my new computer eventually arrives. I’m pretty curious to see how Windows 7 is, truth be told. If it’s good, then I will be glad in my accomplishment of skipping Windows Vista completely. Anyway, once I get Adobe Premiere on the new machine, I want to make videos for our Alaska cruise and for both 2009 youth retreats. I have the music picked out so at this point it’s just a matter of having a computer good enough to accomplish my vision.

Lately I’ve been dwelling, probably too much, on my past decisions and where my life is headed. It has me a little down, probably because lots of future-thinking is straining when I feel emotionally empty.

Tonight I’m doing laundry. And after that, I don’t really know.