My Birthday

My friends are living proof that you don't need to get plastered in order to have a good time. My twenty-first birthday was quiet, but so memorable and enjoyable because people that I love came to wish me well and spend time with me. It meant so much to me, much more than gifts or temporary rushes ever could.

The Presence and Absence of Animals

I desperately miss my animals. They bring certain qualities of life back to me that I sorely lack while I'm away from them at college. This picture shows one of many traits that draw me almost magnetically towards animals; their ability to exude comfort in a home. I also miss the way in which animals love. I know it to be less than perfect. Some would say that all you have to do is feed a dog and it will love you, which means that they will love anyone from a bratty kid to an evil serial killer. In some ways that seems very negative, but when you are surrounded by relationships that are so draining to keep up (social taboos, the uncertainty of acceptance, etc.), it can be SO lovely to come home to a dog that simply loves the fact that you are home. Scoop out some food, cuddle a bit, and you have just GUARANTEED the love of a dog. It is not complex, with strings attached and bells and whistles. Instead, it is a companionship that will not hold any grudges or remember each time that you stepped on a paw...even if it was 10 minutes ago.

I miss my poochies. :(

I don't have a whole lot to say, but I feel a strange urge to say something. Because this post is being created at almost 3 in the morning, it is very likely that thought processes will be rather incoherent, but I'll do my best to keep my ideas to a basic understandable level.

I started volunteering for a cat rescue at a PetCo nearby, and I am SO excited to come back tomorrow and work with the cats again. I already miss them so much, and am thinking of little else besides being able to hold them again tomorrow. An adorable chow puppy was wandering around the store with the owner while I was cleaning out cages, and I wanted to squeeze it so much, it looked so puffy. I long ago resolved to one day own a Newfoundland, as the presence of an incredibly poofy puppy reminded me.

Thoughts on G.K. Chesterton and the Like

Part of the reason I wanted to start a blog is to share lyrics and poetry and photos and art that I find especially inspiring or noteworthy. One of my classes just finished discussing the work of G.K. Chesterton, an author I had never looked into before. The only thing I can say now is that I am so sad that I never read his stuff sooner. He has a brilliant sense of humor, the kind of humor that I have always admired in the British (hence my dedication to Terry Pratchett, John Cleese, P.G. Wodehouse and others of a similar fashion). The following is an incredibly entertaining poem that he wrote. I have fallen completely in love with it.

"The Rolling English Road" by G.K. Chesterton

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,

And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;

But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed

To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,

Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,

The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run

Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?

The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,

But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.

God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear

The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,

Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,

But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,

And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,

Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

While the Magic Still Lingers in the Air

I walked into my apartment this afternoon with snowflakes clinging to my eyelashes and hair. It felt otherworldly.

Updates and Random Musings

My brain has felt so scattered lately that I can't imagine that it will fail to show up on this blog. Finals are approaching, my professor is becoming an increasing difficult person with whom to deal, and time is moving too slowly for my liking, but too fast to finish everything I need to do.

However, I am going to Amsterdam this summer. We've raised hundreds of dollars in change for the Invisible Children campaign. I come back to an apartment with about 250 books that we plan to send to Schools for Schools. I have found the joy of listening to Mika by myself and with my roommate, dancing for joy in the sound of happiness even through complexity. I find myself laughing with friends even more at this time, when things feel rushed and way too deep to wade through. In other words, I can't decide what I feel. Happy, content, or stressed, upset.

Amsterdam. AMSTERDAM! AAAAAAAAAUGH I'M SO EXCITED! "Baby went to Amsterdam, she put a little money into traveling, now it's SO. SLOW. SO. SLOW." I can't help but picture nights of dancing to my iPod with workers from South Africa, Australia, America, Europe. Riding my bike through the countryside, where perhaps the tulips will be in bloom. Dragging friends to concert after concert, and taping tickets up on my wall.

And the biggest thing of all, but also the biggest challenge. Telling people around me about the ways that GOD has moved through my life, molding me into such a different person through His wise plans. I want to see people turn to God as He has turned me around towards Him. I don't know if I'll be the one to share this with other people this summer, but I desperately want to see those that I meet find some peace in giving their burdens over to the Lord.

One last random thought. I love this poem. It's very famous, since it's by Shakespeare, but Shakespearen or not, it speaks volumes to me about the nature of true love. Not necessarily the love that we humans give to each other, but the pure essence of love that only GOD can truly understand and give.

Sonnet No. 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

City on Fire

Snared
Originally uploaded by Michael DaKidd

Every time I take the Metra into Chicago, my breathe starts to catch in my throat as I approach the downtown area. Architecture has not always attracted me as it does now. As a matter of fact, I'm not quite sure when it became such an obsession for me. I don't recall being very absorbed with it in high school, but when I arrived at college it felt as if an appreciation for beautiful buildings was already there. Perhaps the times that my dad would point out residential homes that he loved during long drives through the suburbs, paired with my love for photography jump-started my obsession.

Anyways, back to Chicago. Wow. I normally am a bit old-fashioned in the forms of architecture I prefer, at least in residential forms, but I LOVE the beauty of glass and steel and concrete found on Chicago's streets. My neck aches by the end of a day spent walking through Chicago.

This feeling is especially felt when I see Chicago at night. After spending most of my life in the quiet suburbs, where only a patch of lawn is lit with a lamppost, or perhaps the door is illuminated by one bulb, the way that the buildings themselves stand out against the sky at night never ceases to make my breathe catch.

If you have ever seen Chicago during the Christmas season, it is an especially mesmerizing place, especially on Michigan Avenue. Christmas lights make the trees seem other-worldly as you walk underneath them, and the lights of buildings lining the street across from Millennium Park seem to match the incredible magic of the season.

Heh. I'm even more dramatic than usual. Chicago just makes me really inspired and excited and exhilarated.

(By the way, the first picture on this post is another steal from flickr posted by Michael Dakidd. It should say so directly underneath the picture, but it's not showing up for some reason, at least not on my computer.)