I love this picture. Right now it's nestled in soft green on my desktop background, and I had to share it with you (taken by Naomi Belz, I think, at Uncle Rudy's funeral in the New City Fellowship Hall).
Clockwise from left: cousin John Rudolph, nephew Jonathan, cousin Sara, cousin Jude, and nephew Eliot. Cousin Natalie is in the back. Don't know who's on the phone.
John speaks words of wisdom, the little ones fall at his feet.
so that wasn't hoyt on that abercrombie and fitch bag. it was some other guy. whoopsies...
Today I'm happy. It's Friday, sunny, my boss is out, I'll soon be at lunch with some co-worker friends, and I've been lost in "In the Reins"all morning, after a little bit of the Edwin Hawkins Singers to spice things up.
Yesterday Tami and I attended our volunteer orientation at the Bird Street Community Center in Dorchester, where we plan to tutor highschoolers on Monday nights. I didn't know they were going to be highschoolers. Aaahh! What to do when my student brings me a theorem she's having trouble understanding, and all I can say is, "Sorry baby, I can't help you, because I don't remember how - that was a good eight years ago - but I can tell you how to construct a convincing thesis and watch out for dangling modifiers [great name for a band, by the way - credit to jb], and perhaps knock off a few of those adjectives. What are we studying again?"?
Speaking of bands, we're starting one. Don't have songs or instruments, and I don't want to reveal the band name just yet (in other words, don't be looking us up on Pitchfork), but we've got some song titles in the works. That's a start, right? Tell me if you have any good ideas.
One final story of interest (although it's really the first "story" in this entry): yesterday at Harvard Square station I saw a woman with an Abercrombie and Fitch bag, and lo and behold, who should be staring back at me from that bag but Hoyt Halvorsen himself! Yes, the Covenant-grad-turned-male-model. I'd heard of his escapades with A & F, but didn't see any evidence until yesterday. The woman boarded the train, her bag facing the window, and his euphoric expression in the reflection made me laugh all the way to Downtown Crossing. I don't mean to make fun of Hoyt...but I think anyone can understand the strangeness of the situation.
I'm still not persuaded to shop there.
I'm frustrated. Perhaps it's just the freakish warmth outside, but I have this urge to exercise and I can't until my blessed Sauconys arrive in the mail. So that's what I'm waiting for right now. My ticket to in-shape-ness, in the selective and careful and slow hands of the UPS man.
Speaking of being in shape, I've been telling everyone that RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) is my only certainty for the coming year. All I have to say to seven straight days of heat, hills, and male egocentrism: bring it. I'll be ready. This year I want to make a t-shirt that reads "Ragbrain" with a picture of a brain and a bicycle. That's about as far as I've gotten. I guess it has to mesh somehow with our team name "Jimnasty." Ideas, anyone?
It's 60 degrees (that's unnatural) and Courtney W. is here (which feels SO natural). Right now she and Keri are biding their time at the Boston Public Library, Linnea's at her first French class, and Hope and Tami are "unveiling their new selves" at the gym. Last night Keri and Tami and I tagged along for a setup date between my co-worker and another co-worker's brother. Unexpected fun. We went to a noisy bar, just across from the Boston Garden, and the Celtics game had just finished (yeah, I think you can picture it). I didn't have much wherewithal to involve myself with the goings-on of the setup, so Keri and I hit the dance floor energetically, and even though our skills are limited, we proved to be somewhat unusual among the monotonous meat-marketing. Next time we're all dressing up in 80's costumes and clearing the dance floor. And then everyone who leaves that place will remember that time, and they'll say,"Remember that time those girls...yeah," and smile. Wishful thinking, I know.
I'm convinced that the voice I heard in the subway train PA system was the voice of Bjork. I expected at any moment for it to call to me, "We go to the hidden pla-ace," better known as The Park Street Station, and then it would passionately signal a state of emergency. Would have been fantastic, albeit chaotic.
Last night my good friend Keri and I sat and drank wine and read rich demi-dollops of Scripture, passages from Matthew, Psalms, Proverbs, Zephaniah, and Revelation, and then we prayed for a while and basked in the power and beauty of spoken word. I remember one Covenant chapel when Render Caines told us to read Isaiah 40-55 out loud, and I did it with Brae, but now I want to do it again and again and again.
Last but not least, some picture portraits:
linnea thinks
staving off the shower
hopeandwine
dark tami
and
So here I am, blogging, because I don't want Linnea to look like a blog geek. That would be tragic.
The other reason I'm blogging is that I've had en experience uncannily similar to John's, and it's inspired me to reconnect with long-lost friends. I received an email this morning, not from an old flame, but from one Lucy of Slovakia, a girl with whom I had extended conversations about religion, politics, boys, life in general. I met her when I studied for a semester in Eastern Europe. She was a political science student who visited one of our classes and invited some of us out for drinks afterwards. We connected, and since I left Slovakia, we've exchanged sporadic "hi, how ya doin', my life has changed radically since last time we talked" emails. I tried to start some meaningful e-conversations, but they never progressed significantly. But I'll try again, ask for her address so I can send her a real letter.
What makes this story more interesting is that earlier this week I sifted through old emails from my yahoo account and was immediately attracted to my "awayfriends" folder. There I found a gold mine of precious updates from the friends I made on Mercy Ships and at WEC during my gap year between high school and college. One by one, I'm going to touch base with them again, much like John Cusack in High Fidelity, except that, as far as I know, there are no exes in that bunch.
Today I feel like raising my hand and asking my boss, "May we work outside today?" It's January in Boston and almost 60 degrees! God is real.
In the vein of Linnea, I've resolved this year to stop saying "Just kidding." If you know me well enough, you know when I mean it, and I don't have to express it. It's a very defensive phrase. I need to stop being defensive.
And this article inspires me once again to set my heart on that perennial resolution: eat less and exercise more. It's the solution to - or perhaps the extended delay of - so many problems. I knew there was a good reason I never put sugar in my coffee (besides the fact that it tastes awful).
P.S. Another resolution: change my blog design before it drives me insane.
