Happy Birthday Jesus

I took this photo of a building detail when I was in Prague

This morning I woke up in my old roommate's bed surrounded by all of my stuff (I just finished painting my bedroom, so I moved everything to her's, and was too tired to move it back last night). Back in November I had hopes of celebrating the advent season and counting down the days until Christmas, but here I am on December 24th, and the whole month has been a whirlwind. So instead of greatly anticipating the arrival of Christmas, I have stumbled upon it.

I read Luke 1 and 2 under the covers. I forgot how amazing that story is. There are like four angel visitations--if you're not familiar with the Bible, that's a big deal, for there to be four visitations in two chapters. I think if the story was updated, and set in California, Mary and Joseph would have been relegated to a parking garage in a town between Bakersfield and Fresno, and the newborn Jesus would be wrapped in newspaper and lying in a cardboard box. Instead of shepherds, potbellied truckers (who hadn't showered in days, and smelled like cigarette smoke) taking a break at a rest stop off of highway 5 would have been visited by the angelic hosts, and would make their way in a caravan of big rigs to the Motel 5 parking lot where the baby was.

Today will be a busy day of buying last minute gifts, wrapping presents, writing cards, and cooking things (okay, just one thing, I only have to cook one thing, but still). I wish I had meditated on the magnitude of Christmas for weeks, but I didn't, so I will think about it today as I go about my business, and remember that God is good, and merciful, and sometimes we wait for things and sometimes they are given to us unexpectedly.

Merry Christmas!

Gratitude

Moleskine ... the legendary notebook of Van Gogh, Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse and Céline~
Originally uploaded by Tja'Sha ♥

Simple things: wearing pajamas until 3pm on a rainy day, cuteness (found in puppies, children, romantic comedies, etc), google--they're so practical!, waking up without an alarm clock, sundays, harry potter, laughing out loud at dvds I've seen so many times, chocolate, hot showers, baked goods, comfy coffee shop seating, the internet, my camr (the y was stolen some time ago), facebook, moleskin journals, yoga, music, having a great line of text in a scene (i.e. "i thought it looked like you were sitting in her car, in the front seat of her car...making out")

conceptual things: grace, love, freedom, joy, reciprocation, art, discovery, play

family: mom, dad, azizi, sanai, ileia, home, people who will always have me over for dinner, the feeling of completeness when we're all in the same room, the financial decisions and sacrifices I will never fully comprehend, people who will always see my shows, reconciliation and forgiveness, band of nigerian children and adults speaking in yourba and showing up in vans, aunts who won't drive on the freeway, uncles who make gumbo or play the bass

friends: activity buddies, people to call just to say hi, people to visit, people who i call when I'm balling and need someone to pray with, people who share their lives with me, people who are there every day, and people who make phone dates to catch up, people who know that I'm talking about a boy because I say "I'm doing good" in a certain way, people who tell me when I'm being ridiculous

mentors: those i look up to, people who look at me and see things that aren't there yet, people who speak into my life, people who give me their time for little in return, people who are invested in my emotional/spiritual/artistic growth, people who ask hard questions, people who have perspective, people who are perceptive, people who follow up about things that happened a while ago, people who are watching my trajectory

10 things that have crossed my mind today

1. Disaster and strife. Did you know that in less than four weeks Haiti--the poorest country in the western hemisphere-- was bit four huricanes!? That's crazy. Why isn't this in the news at all? Hundreds of people have died and who is noticing?

2. Faith and politics

3. Doughnuts at Frittelli's

4. Seasons. Not like summer and winter, but life seasons: post college, grad school, engagement, waiting, refining, etc. Some are circumstantial and others are emotional. I think I'm in a season of developing courage (for what, I'm not sure yet).

5. My nieces. I love them :)

6. Eye contact. I have to make a lot of eye contact with my classmates throughout the day in various acting exercises. It's fascinating, and completely unnatural to look into somebody's eyes for more than a few seconds. Someone once pointed out to me that when you look into person's eyes, you can only look at one eye at a time. Isn't that funny?

7. Cleopatra was a complicated woman according to Shakespeare.

8. Harry Potter IV will be in my possession very soon.

9. Changing the nail polish on my toes.

10. I relish Sunday when it's here, and remember it fondly when it's gone. Fortunately it comes back again every week.

still

still
Originally uploaded by JSDouble

love the hair :)
you go girl!

the time before bed

In an effort to create more ritual/structure in my day I recently created a play list called "before bed". It's 59.9 minutes long. By the time it ends I need to be (you guessed it!) in bed. This is what happens after I press play:

-check my e-mail, delete a few things, archive a few others.
-facebook
-make lunch for tomorrow (if I'm on top of things)
-take out contacts, floss, brush teeth, wash face, moisturize (always in that order)
-scan New York Times headlines online
-check "sites that I frequent" and "blogs that I read" (see column to the right)
-look at to-do list, ask "did I do any of these things today?"
-think of something I did do, add it to the list, then check it off
-facebook
-stare at the wall
-plan course of action for the morning-- a) go to the gym b) do more reading for school or c)take it easy before class
-archive a few more e-mails
-unsubscribe from a newsletter
-tidy up the room
-set the alarm clock
-turn out the lights

I want to do this

Someday I will have a postmodern dance party. Phillip Glass and Sufjan Stevens will be represented.

babysitting

I babysat two lovely girls tonight. Unfortunately the timing of the evening limited me to only 30 minutes of awake time with them. Right before the bed time stories I said "Once I start the story it's going to be time to rest your bodies, so if you want to jump up and down and get all of your energy out, this is your last chance. Do you need to jump up and down?" I thought this was a great idea. Megan looked at me and said "No. It's not good to do a lot of moving around after we brush our teeth, because we have to wind down". She's five. And very sensible.

I want to jump up and down, and writhe, and sway, and rumble. Now that I spend a significant portion of me week behaving in this manner I want to do it all the time.  My composition is changing. Things seem to always be at the surface. Bubbling. Restlessness, joy, anxiety, whatever, it's right there. The nice thing is that they pass quickly. Like sneezes--big events that come and go.

presence

Right now I am in my comfy sweats sitting on an ikea loveseat in my bedroom. But I am also taking the photo to the left...at the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia. At any moment I am everywhere I've ever been and where I am now.

I've been thinking about time lately. I'm not omnipresent like my maker, but I think as humans we aren't as bound to time as we think. In the literal sense yes--I'm not planning on time traveling any time soon*, but I'm learning that memory is truly amazing. There is such a thing as living in the past. No one wants to do that, or to be known that way. I'm thinking of something different, because it's just as dangerous to cut yourself off completely from the past too right? I think there is a way of being present, in the current reality, and also being open to the possibility of anything that happened previously.

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense. Alas, the metaphysical muse has left me.

*A note on time travel. If you ever do have the opportunity, don't take it. Every science fiction movie I've ever seen tells me that nothing positive come from moving unnaturally along the time space continuum. Why is it that people always think they can rearrange the past to impact the future? Did you see the movie Frequency? It's not supposed to be a scary movie, but it freaked me out. Aside from the creepy music, the son talking to his dead father 30 years in the past through the broken radio was terrifying! Makes me anxious just thinking about it...

these days...

I am no longer in croatia. I've been back in South LA for a month now. What has been going on in my life since then you ask? SO MUCH! For example...I've moved into a new apartment, started grad school, purchased a road bike with a mirror and a basket and a bell, and done many other exciting things. Okay, not really anything else, but the bike is pretty awesome :)

Here are some highlights of my life as as student

-I spend 8 hours a day with 8 fabulous fellow thespians.

-I'm required to wear comfy clothes for all of my classes.

-There are a lot of movement based classes, which are very athletic. To the untrained eye our classes look like crazy people rolling around on the floor. It's actually much more sophisticated than that, but if I explained why I'd have to kill you.

-I get to check out books from the library for the entire semester.

Korčula

It baffles me that a week from today I will be back in South LA getting ready to start school...

Right now I'm in Korčula, which is a small island off the Dalmatian coast. It's heavenly. Marco Polo was from Korcula.  This morning my cousins and I ate breakfast quickly and staked out a spot on the beach. The beaches here are very narrow and rocky, but the water is awesome. I swam  in the Adriatic sea two days in a row!

The climate is hot with a breeze and the terrain is pretty dry (imagine Catalina). There isn't much to do here except go to the beach, eat dinner and have ice cream. It's a nice change of pace for all of us. In general all over Croatia the pace is very slow. We figured out that if we want to eat dinner around 8 we have to get a table by 6. Most people pass the time by chain smoking. We've all considered taking it up just while we're here...

It turns out that Croatia has way more in common with Italy than with any of the Slavik countries we've visited. Excluding the language, everything is mediterranean. I've had ristotto, pizza, and a calzone. The seafood is delicious too.

Today a ginormous, Wall E sized cruise shipped docked in the  Bay and 3000 British tourists poured out into row boats and descended upon the island. Prior to that most of the tourists were French and Italian.

In an hour we will take a bus to Dubrovnik, and then a plane to Vienna, and then home!

croatia

We´re killing some time at in internet cafe in Split before heading to Kortula.

Croatia has been surprisingly beautiful and textured so far. Textured, that´s a loaded word isn't it? The people are the friendliest here. Even a postal worker made small talk with me. Of all the places we've visited so far, this is the most recently war torn. Driving across the country from one tourist destination to the next we encountered the Croatian country side where there are abandoned cement bunkers every half mile or so.  The houses that people do live in are not much better. The hill sides were all dominated by the same simple brick design. The landscape is dry and rocky for the most part.  A few times I thought I was in Bakersfield or Hemet. I could have been.

The music playing on the bus was a combination of Croatian folk music, motown hits and soft rock from the late 80s and early 90s. Most notably we heard James Brown's  ˝sex machine˝ . What a crazy place.

hostels

One of the joys of traveling around on a budget is the opportunity to stay in hostels. I think hostels are great. They provide modest accommodations--bed, shower, some kind of kitchen area, and a common room--at a very reasonable price. They also foster this kind of community of travelers. You get to meet people from all over the world (usually the U.S., Ireland or Scandinavia in our experience this time) and have a place to call home for a day or two while you happen to be in that city.

The above is true for every hostel we've stayed in so far. Except for the Absolute.  The Absolute Hostel in Budapest was absolutely not a real hostel. Perhaps we should have suspected from it's alcohol namesake. Actually, Sherrie got a warning a week before the trip that this Hostel was kicked off of the reliable traveling site, hostels.com because it's owners were posting fake reviews. We were cautioned to stay there at our own risk, but it was too late to make new arrangements since everywhere else in the area was already booked. So we went for it.

This hostel is the stuff that traveling horror films are made of.

We arrived around 11am--a pretty standard time to arrive. The taxi took us from the train station to our supposed hostel site, but there was no sign on the building or door indicating that a hostel was there. Chris asked one of the people coming out of the building, and in broken English she communicated that no, there was no hostel, it was only apartments there.
Hmmm. So Sherrie calls the hostel number listed on our reservation form. "We're here, at the address, and there's no sign or anything". They tell her to hold on they'll be right out. We wait for a few minutes, send the cab driver off. Then around the corner come these two guys shuffling along. One was short with a little belly wearing a stretched out white tank top, shorts (boxers?) and some kind of slippers. His parter was taller with greasy hair and a bald spot. He had on a short sleeved button down shirt and khaki pants. They greet us and tell us oh, come in come in, (even though they were outside too). They enter a code into the building an usher us up the stairs while making small talk. "Oh, where you come from?....California....maybe I go there next year" They said that our arrival time was supposed to be 6pm so they weren't ready for us, and the cleaning lady still has to come, but they'll let us in now. They open the door to the crappiest little apartment that I've ever seen. And because the cleaning lady hasn't come, the "beds" are all ruffled  and there are wine glasses on the kitchen counter. They assure us that all the hostels in Budapest are like this--apartment style, private, it's better that way, you don't have to share. No worrying about bumping into other people in the hallways because we have the apartment all to ourselves...huh. They take the payment from Sherrie, and give us a few instructions: When we leave we're supposed to leave one set of keys on the table, and toss the other pair through the window after we look the door. That's the check out procedure. Then they leave and we never see them again.

All over the tiny space are notices in bad english "Leave no value in the apartment. No mobile, ipod, money, jewelry" "If you cause harms to the furniture your credit card will be charged". My favorite was a sign talking about leaving a deposit with the receptionist if you wanted to have a locker. Ha! Receptionist? There wasn't even a front desk.

The bedroom consisted of a television with rabbit ears, 3 beds that were really mismatched sofa sectionals and a scary wire contraption that was my bed frame. After one night on that thing I dismantled it and put my mattress on the floor. The mattress turned out to be 2 thin foam pads placed on top of each other.

A few days later we are in Slovenia in a legit hostel. As a matter of fact I¨m sitting in the lovely common room now, using their computer surrounded by other travelers eating the free breakfast. It¨s wonderful.

Prague and Kutna Hora

Yesterday was our final night in Prague. What an incredible city. I know that a lot of movies are filmed there, and it literally does look like a back lot at Warner Brothers or Disneyland. I kept expecting to turn a corner and find a Kraft services food tent, but everything was real!
Unfortunately the city is EXTREMELY touristy. It's a known Vegas of Eastern Europe, as in "whatever happens in Prague stays in Prague". We ran into a few stag parties from Germany and the UK, including a group of men from Ireland who were totally wasted and kicked out of a bar at 7pm!

Kutna Hora is a sleepy town about an hour outside of Prague. It was about 100degres while we were there, so we didn't see as much of the town as we might have otherwise. We came primarily to the Ossuary, a chapel decorrated with human bones. Sounds creepy. It was actually very beautiful. The message of the chapel is that the bodies we have, our flesh and bones, are not lasting. What we do in these bodies, will be accounted for elsewhere.

unashamed

The last time that I was in Europe I tried very very hard not to look American. I failed. Even though I dressed a little bit nicer than I usually do, and only spoke in French when I was in public, everyone knew I was American. "You are from New York?" people would say after I asked for something in French. Sigh. "No, je vien de californie..." "ooh, you are from Hollywood (pronounced "Holy-wood")". I would shrink in embarassment when American tourists got onto the metro with their huge backpacks and dangling cameras talking very loudly. David Sedaris talks about this in "Me Talk Pretty One Day". I even remember a pair of girls getting on the metro one night belting some kind of acapella version of Amazing Grace. I was mortified.

This time around, I don't have time to care how touristy I look. I'm only in each country for a couple days, max, so I gotta have the camera easily accessible. And, my cousins and I haven't been pouring over the train schedules from say Bratislava to Prague for the last few weeks, so occasionally we have to discuss our next travel moves in route...in English.

The funny thing about this is that there are so many other tourists traveling in these parts of Eastern Europe. Who would have known. We were in the main square in Prague today and this guy was staring at Ingrid and I. I thought he was going to ask me about my hair or something (which no one has, not a huge shocker, but you know, I thought I'd get a couple comments...), but instead he asks "Why is everyone standing here?" We were standing with a crowd of about 500 other people waiting for this huge, complicated clock to do its thing on the hour. Someone else taps me on the shoulder and asks "did you drop this memory card?" he had an Australian accent. Anyway you get the idea. There aren't very many Czech people trompsing around these parts of the city. Which shouldn't be that surprising, afterall when was the last time I went to Universal Studios?

Bratslava

So the journey continues...

yesterday my cousins and I braved the wind and rain to see the small town of Bratislava, which is in Slovakia. All of the public trashcans were over flowing with umbrellas that had been busted by the wind, which made me feel better--not even the locals were prepared for this kind of weather! Fortunately we all had our Rick Steves rain panchos :)

Ingrid is a fan of the movie Euro Trip, which I've gathered takes place in Bratslava. Really, that's the only reason we went. Surprisingly, there were some interesting sights including a soviet reconstruction of an ancient castle that burned down in the early 1900s. The city was much different from Vienna. In the ways that Vienna feels classical in a timeless and modern way, Bratslava feels outdated. The Old Town is quite charming with cobble stone streets, and some nicely designed public areas, but the rest of the city that we saw was dark and dreary. To be fair, the day was also dark and dreary. It definitely had a late 1980s, tomorrow land kind of feel though. For the first time I saw the huge soviet style housing blocks and industrial complexes, which will probably be a fixture for the rest of the trip.

Vienna

I made it to Vienna!

My cousins and I spent our first--and last--full day here. I really like the city. It's bizarre how familiar everything seems. Somewhere between France and Germany--the beauty of Paris with the pragmatism of Berlin. I especially love the lay out of everything. There are these grandeous buildings, but the the scale is totally pedestian freiendly. There are people walking around and biking everywhere. Being here is tapping into my urban studies roots--the public spaces are AMAZING. There are these funny looking giant purple geometric shapes where people hang out in the sun and just chillax. It makes my heart happy to see people enjoying the city that way :) I could definitely spend more time here...if I spoke German. Almost everyone speaks English though. I haven't even learned how to say "Do you speak English?" in German, because there's really no need. Some kind of foreign country mechanism I have makes me say things in my head in French, which of course, is not useful in Austria. For instance I'll look at a price tag and think "aah, 50 euro, ca c'est trop cher!" and then the next second think "that was dumb..."

More later. My 20 min worth of internet time is about to expire!

the (condensed) narrative life of my hair

Recently I straightened my hair for character I portrayed in a play. I hadn't straightened my hair in over 6 years. Crazy. In the space of 2 weeks I experienced all of the emotions (baggage) that come with being a black woman in this image obsessed reality that is my 20s/the entertainment industry/los angeles. I remember in high school being so at war with my hair. I hated the texture. I hated that I could never just "throw it in a pony tail" and get on with my day. I hated having to spend precious time and energy planning what I was going to do next, and then spend even more of my life executing that plan. And most of all I hated the cycle of having to get it done every two weeks, or once a month, and "retouched" with relaxer every 6 weeks, and getting annoyed when my natural texture started to grow in...the madness of it all. It sounds like torture doesn't right?

It wasn't until my senior year that I started to question any of it. When I was making my documentary for Mr. Cohen's TV Studio class: In the Kitchen, A Hair Story. A lot of people thought the title came from the fact that a lot of black people do their hair in the kitchen when they're at home, and yes that's true, I feel way more comfortable washing my hair in the kitchen sink than I do in the shower. But I'm actually talking about something else. The Kitchen is the back of your head, just above your neck, where the hair is the kinkiest and hardest to comb through, as in "Girl, your kitchen is looking kind of rough..." All black women know about the kitchen. Anyway, this critical perspective on the relationship between black women and our hair, made me realize that I have choices. Perms, relaxers, press and curls, extensions. They're not good or bad (and neither is hair--it's very taboo to tell a black woman is that she has "good hair"), but they are optional. So I chose out.

Having straight hair again was a good experience for a few days--a novelty. It's nice to know that with $50 I can change my look so dramatically. I am an actor afterall, so drama that I can manipulate is good. But at the end of the day, it just doesn't work for my lifestyle any more. I do yoga now, and the room gets very humid and sweaty. I like working out in the morning, and not having to think about how I'm going to wear my hair when I wake up. Because I don't wear it at all. Because it's just there, and we have a great relationship :)

a note

From: Malika Williams

Subject: hi friend



hello there,

i just read your blog. i really enjoy doing that. aye. the city. it makes me sad sometimes. lately i've felt very revolutionary. on sunday we sang this song at church that we've sung before, but the bridge really hit me this time: heal my heart and make me clean/open up my eyes to the things unseen.
i want to see the things unseen! in south la. when i got home i paged through "transforming society", which i haven't read since k blue gave it to us at the end of LAUP. am i called to live in the inner city always? just now? will i get to go to new york ever? will i get to see the renaissance of art in faith that we talk about it our vision statement for streetlamp studio? if i'm not distributing petitions or writing letters to official people about important things and if go to yoga in santa monica twice a week does it really matter that i live here anyway? these are things i've been thinking about...

let's do some kind of activity before you go to indianna...

m

I can't stop smiling

A few days ago I received a call from my dad's cousin. She invited me to go with her and her two kids, on a 22 day all expenses paid back packing trip around Eastern Europe.

WTF. I know. Incredible right?

I'm giddy with excitement. Not only will I be able to see more of the world, but I will be able to do it with my cousins, who I've been wanting to get to know better. AND, I get to end work earlier that I thought before I start grad school.

What have I done to deserve this good fortune? Absolutely nothing. The Lord is teaching me more and more, that his benevolence is completely outside of my power/efforts/diligence/hard work/lack of hard work. That's good news.

It's back!

I'm not sure why I got this notice, since I'm a woman...but either way it's great news :)

Independent Casting Director

Casting Notice
Project Name:	The New Dating Story
Project Type:	Documentary
Format:
Rate/Compensation:	tbd
Message:
Role Role Type Gender/Age/Ethnicities Description/Note Main Guy Lead Female / 25 to 50 / All Ethnicities New show for TLC networks , Loooking for SINGLE middle aged men, ages 25-50 , This is a new upscale classy show, we want to set you up for a date with someone that fits you, very doc style type show
PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND DIRECTLY TO THIS NOTICE.
If this project does not fit your specifications, click here to update your gender, ethnicity and e-mail options in your actor profile.
For technical assistance, contact talentsupport@castingnetworks.com or call 323.462.8200
Visit our homepage at lacasting.com

zabumba

for me: keep the tension. fire hose arms ( no chopsticks or spaghetti). for you: make me feel safe. let me enjoy the music. help me relax. i want to forget about my feet and just be here. i'm trying not to to apologize when i miss-step. i keep doing it anyway. i'll do it less if you tell me me not to worry, or if you say that it's your fault. and if you go back to the basics, i'll think you're genuine.

Bravo

I am so into Bravo. (The television network). I recently went to my parents house, where I go to watch cable when I don't want to go to the gym, which is where I usually watch cable, and I was reminded just how great the station is. Not all of the programming--sometimes they show weird old movies. Un-apologetically this is a long overdue meditation on my infatuation with the reality shows on Bravo.

Yes this really is a post about television and nothing else.

Project Runway, Top Chef, Shear Genius, and now Step it Up in Dance are the shows that I'm the most caught up with. It started with Project Runway, and then I realized they all have the same fabulous format. One of my favorite elements is the catchy phrase that the host says when someone has to leave "Auf Weidersehen, you're out" or "pack up your knives" or "it's time for your last dance"--that one's really a stretch, but what else can Elizabeth Berkley say? "Turn in your tights?" The weird thing is that the dancer who gets kicked off isn't going anywhere. Like there's no reason to go into this random studio with mirrors and do a last dance for the camera in the corner. At least in the other shows the loser goes to their work space to clean it up, there's a purpose of some kind. But with Step it Up they (the producers, the collective "man" of reality tv) were like, "we just need them to do something so we can play a voice over." So, In all fairness the formula is not fool proof. I didn't care for Top Design or Make Me a Super Model. And I don't like the reunion shows before the finale either.

Recently there have been a few pleasant surprises: Millionaire Matchmaker and The Real Housewives of New York City (waaay better than the Real Housewives of Orange County).

I really didn't think I could get sucked into a show that chronicles the ebbs and flows of 5 Manhattan socialites, but I underestimated the genius of Bravo. That tennis match in the Hamptons between Romona and Jill was INTENSE! A fun thing about the show is that all of the women (except for LouAnn who is a countess) are independently wealthy, so at least they're making money for themselves as they're spending copious amounts of it on ridiculous things.

Millionaire Matchmaker is really something special. I'm a sucker for those romance shows (though it's not as much about romance as you'd think, it's more about the skewed self perception of the clients and Patti's very wise, no nonsense correctives, "no, having a stripper pole in your living room will not make a woman feel relaxed"). I digress--does anyone remember the original "Dating Story" on TLC or "Second Chance" also on TLC? There were some beautiful moments there. Anyway, the Millionaires Club is this matchmaking service in LA for really really rich men. Patti Stanger, the show's entrepreneur is a third generation matchmaker--if that doesn't make the show legit, I don't know what does.

things that have inspired me lately...

These are the final two looks from the collection of this year's Project Runway winner, Christian. As I was clicking through the images on my computer, I actually gasped out loud when I got to the first one. You really need to see the whole collection (which I will refrain from including here) in order to appreciate the incredible drama of this conclusion. The feathers. Wow.

What a great book. I'm not quite done yet, but this sentence especially moved me:

Act, Zachary Martin Glass, when and where you want to, since you feel you must, but do it with all your might.

It feels very timely.

Meryl Streep's performance in The Devil Wears Prada. I rewatched this movie the other day, and her portrayal of Miranda Priestly is just so chilling. There's this moment near the end of the movie where (spoiler alert) she has this sort of breakdown. She removes her glasses for a few moments, and it's like this huge wall has come down, and we see her for what she is: a tired, ambitious, lonely woman, who in spite of her selfishness genuinely wants to be a good mother. The glasses are a physical manifestation of power, her tower from which she looks down on the rest of the world. What's even more interesting about this choice, is that I read an interview with Meryl Streep once where she said that she recently decided she wasn't going to act with contact lenses ever again. She felt that the lens over her eye removed her further from the camera, and muted (to the slightest degree) her performance. So now, you'll notice, all of the characters she plays wear glasses.

rest

rest
Originally uploaded by neffin1

Today I am reminded of God's goodness. For the first time in many months I am taking a full day of rest. A sabbath. A couple things have been running through my mind:

1. God is good. It's amazing to me that the Lord delights in who I am. That I don't have to do anything. That I can spend all day watching Grey's Anatomy reruns, and staring at the ceiling, and singing, and journaling, and napping, and sending e-mails to old friends, and doing nothing "productive", and the Lord is pleased.

2.What's taken me so long? There's a reason God instructs us to rest every six days: it's good for us physically, mentally and spiritually. And it reminds us that we're not in control. Stopping for a full day requires that understanding. The things I've been busying myself with are mostly good, but in retrospect, it wasn't worth missing out on quality rest.

3. A portion of the day isn't enough. I have rested here and there over the past few months. But a few hours of solitude squeezed in between work does not restore the soul. Of course, something's better than nothing, but the real rejuvination comes from really letting go for the day.

cleaning room

Organized-Shelf
Originally uploaded by Lagomorph

This is certainly a mundane topic to write about. For those of you who are here, looking for some exciting window into my life, go a head and go back to the facebook or wherever you came from, cuz this is just boring.

For those who love me no matter how interesting I am...thanks :)

I'm in the middle of cleaning my room. And to procrastinate or "take a break" I'm blogging. This is funny because my decision to clean my room stemmed out of a procrastination effort for another, unrelated task. Organizing/decluttering is on my idea list for 2008, so here it is in action!

Isn't this photo great? I wish this was a picture of my room. Instead it's a random pic from flikr. Looking at it makes me breathe easy. A place for everything. And pretty too.

The worst part about cleaning is all of the little choices to make about what to do with this piece of paper or that. Do I wear that bracelet? I read that book once, but will I ever read it again? Should I save the beautiful piece of ribbon that I've been hanging on to for the last 3 months?

I don't think I'm going to finish tonight, but I suppose a little something here and there adds up. I've already put two bags in the car for the goodwill, so if nothing else happens, at least I've relocated my junk. To my trunk. Junk in my trunk.