eighty.four.

sophie's world is interesting:

[Alberto]"We can't all let ourselves be washed away by the tide of history, Sophie. Some of us must tarry in order to gather up what has been left along the river banks."

[Sophie]"What an odd thing to say."

[A]"Yes, but none the less true, child. We do not live in our own time alone; we carry our history within us. Don't forget that everything you see in this room was once brand new. That old sixteenth-century wooden doll might have been made for a five-year-old girl's birthday. By her old grandfather, maybe . . . then she became a teenager, then an adult, and then she married. Maybe she had a daughter of her own and gave the doll to her. She grew old, and one day she died. Although she had lived for a very long time, one day she was dead and gone. And she will never return. Actually she was only here for a short visit. But her doll - well, there it is on the shelf."

[S]"Everything sounds so sad and solemn when you talk like that."

[A]"Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other - and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived."

Alberto goes on to discuss the Renaissance, the rebirth, and the "rebirth of antiquity's humanism," and the lifting up of the individual. Marsilio Ficino said during this time: "Know thyself, O divine lineage in mortal guise!"

My Dad painted a huge painting called "The Second Question." The first panel of this painting simply asks: "Who are you?" The reason it's called The Second Question is because the first question should be "Who is Jesus?" 

I think sometimes I get caught up in being introspective and trying to know who I am. I switch the order of the questions. I know a lot of people who do the same, who constantly are on a search for who they are. Often I forget Paul's words, that in Christ we live and move and have our being. The footnotes of my Bible explain that here Paul answers three of the great mysteries of the ancient world in terms of philosophy and science: life, motion and being. 

There is an order to things. Ask first who is Christ, seek to know Him before I can seek to know who I am.  

This is not so much a light bulb moment as a rediscovery of something I need to be reminded of, and clicked again when I was reading about the Renaissance. This book is much better the second time around & when read side-by-side with Sovereignty of God.

[confession: sometimes when I comment on other blogs, i get nervous for them to read what i write, so I just comment with a fake name. i know, it's silly.] 

Today at work, Sabrina and I cleaned the windows with coffee filters that were the wrong size for our big coffee machines. Instead of tossing them we use them for cleaning to save paper towels/dishtowels. That's right, we are innovative. We listened to "Say a Little Prayer for You" whilst cleaning and we busted some moves out. We also heard "Fire and Rain" which I discovered makes me full of happy feelings. Is that song from the Remember the Titans soundtrack? Any song from that soundtrack makes me happy & i don't really know why... that movie must have really made an impact on my life as a child?

p.s. 46 days.

eighty.three.

the fellow left this morning. 

it's all very sad. 

i can think of a hundred things to tell him at this exact moment, partially because i know i can't just pick up the phone and tell them to him. 

seven weeks seems like a long time. but when i say 48 days it seems shorter. and tomorrow it'll only be 47. so i know we'll be alright.

in order to keep myself from falling into morose self pity, and also to get in shape, tai and i have decided to work up to running a half marathon. we have this whole training thing to stick to, and as of today we are feeling pretty confident. we begin to tomorrow, so i'll have to get back to you on that. 

other things on my list of things to do to make the time fly/because i should:

write more in my moleskine

finish sophie's world

start & finish another book on my list of books

finish Sovereignty of God.

play the piano

choreograph a dance for myself, not for a class or anything. just choreograph a dance that i want to dance.

cook something extra delicious every week. or just cook something.

detox week went alright. i didn't get as much sleep as one should. i ate alright, but didn't drink enough water. i consistently didn't wear make-up. 

tai & mumsy are watching Alias. it's all very confusing.

the clouds for the sunset tonight looked so abstract. not your average, 4th grade drawing of puffy clouds, or the wispy ones. they just looked like the Painter was experimenting with different shapes and depths, & it was all a bit hazy. i wonder if you saw the same thing.

eighty.two.

oh, but it's lovely outside. i watched a starling splash about in a muddy puddle in front of our house this morning. i was reading my book, "sophies world." have you ever read it? i tried to read it for school when i was younger, but very little of the history of philosophy clicked for me. now, reading it again, it's much more intriguing.

someone has made an offer on our house. the more real moving becomes the harder it seems to say goodbye to this drafty old house. dash it all.

watched "the burbs" last night with the fellow. tom hanks = star quality actor. come on now, don't even try to disagree.
the fellow leaves in four days. don't remind me.

yesterday sabrina from work told me i should be a singer. that was nice of her. she said she could just picture me singing in a smoky jazz club or something. i think the people from work have a funny view of me. elena, the Russian boss, tells me i look like a classic country girl. eric, the big chef from next door tells me i look like a pilgrim/jive. i don't quite know how to take all of this.

this week is detox week. i don't really think it's your typical detox, but my sister and i made up our own lists of how we were going to detox: no makeup, no fast food, only juice and water and tea and milk to drink, workout everyday, get enough sleep... actually i guess it's not a detox week at all. it's just a week of how we'd like to live our lives. we're just calling it detox week.

i like writing about conversations. like this:
We both thought we'd have more to say when we said hello.
We efficiently mingled politeness & interest while greeting
Only to discover that time had created a larger expanse than initially perceived.
Instead of a conversation swelling with topics like tides
Rushing & falling into the last
We find talking flat & motionless
Stepping only in the shallowest waters &
Leaping out when we've only just got our feet wet.
The silence is too much, so
You smile lightly
[detachedly]
So nice to see you and catch up. Really must run.
Oh, yes. Me too.
You wave lightly
[distractedly]
& leave me shaking with the fullness of what we didn't say.
[The next time we see each other, we turn the other way.]

eighty.one.

two of my current favorite songs are about men drinking while missing their women [why do i: joe purdy & grace is gone: dave matthews live @ radio city.].

i thought it was funny. 

then again, i have a lot of current favorite songs so it's not hard for two songs to be similar in content.

this week will be really full, i think. this last weekend was very full. some friends had a surprise party for me, a very early happy 21 surprise party. no one was drunk, but we still managed to have an excellent time. 

a man came into work and ordered a small white chocolate mocha, and then went over to the corner and began to stretch. 

"oh. don't mind me. i'm just stretching."

i was alone in the front and kind of nodded, then figured it was safe to talk about the weather.

"is it getting nice out there?"

"oh yeah. real nice. so, how early do you open?"

"we open here at six during the week."

"oh. so do you just work here alone?"

i paused. 

"uhmm...no. i work with my manager, sabrina. we work together."

"oh."

he paused.

"...i mean, i was just asking. you know. because it would be a pain if you got a rush and were working alone."

after he left i told sabrina what he said and we spent the next hour planning what we do if he came in and attacked us. I think we are pretty well prepared now.

i'm a little tired & a little contemplative. 

oh, you know. same old same old. 

eighty.

eighty is good. eighty is twenty away from one hundred.

i'm twenty years old now.

i feel like you're not able to be called old until you're eighty.

if you're eighty...i'm sorry. i would call you old.

i feel like if i was eighty, i wouldn't mind being called old anymore.

last friday i heard two different stories from fathers about their daughters.

one man had a 29 year old daughter. he said she was the dearest thing to him. he said when the nurses handed her to him & she was wearing that little pink hat, he lost it. she had him right there and has had him ever since. she wanted to learn the piano, and he bought her a piano.

20 years later she plays him moonlight sonata and he said he couldn't help but cry.

i liked that story. that was a train man.

another man was an artist living in the flat iron arts building. he said that his daughter was fifty. that's all he had to say about her, because they don't really talk. 

he said he tries to stay away from her as much as possible.

i didn't like that story. 

got my wallet back today from aaron, the nice wallet guy. thanks aaron. he was very nice & friendly. everything was in there. how blessed am i, to lose a wallet in wicker park and have the nicest man find it and return it? so blessed. 

our house is up for sale.

i hope it does sell so we can move closer to friends/family/the fellow.

i hope it doesn't sell so we can get a  kitten named atticus [curt thought of atticus.]

::note:: curt is worried that readers of this blog might not realize that "the fellow" and "curt" are, in fact, the same person. i realize that i use both names when referring to him. i'm hoping you've caught on to that...

kanoa needs to go outside & i need to go to bed. 

[happy birthday dad!]

seventy.nine.

cori made me a cd with various versions of the song "hallelujah." i'm excited to sit through it tonight whilst knitting. i'm hitting the hay early because i need to be at work by 5:30. be jealous.

times i have listened to joshua radin's i'd rather be with you: many.
times i have listened to matt kearney's where we gonna go from here: many.
times i have bit my nails this week: few.
times i have worked out this week: several.
books i am currently reading: two, almost three.
days until curt leaves: 21.
episodes of the new LOST season i've seen: one.
no. of wallets lost this week: one.
no. of wallets found this week: one. huzzah!

i have nothing more to say, but instead will share with you a bit of an entry from my moleskine, dated back about a week ago:

I drank the stalest water ever from a water bottle that's been sitting in my purse for far too long.
I'm on the train down to Palatine
& I have everything I need except a heavy jacket,
& the temperature is dropping.
A young man sits down the way. He wears a buttoned shirt with a grey cardigan.
He's reading a thick book, and his hair is so red that it seems orange.
It's a grey day, more grey than his cardigan & I think that birds look prettiest on days like these.
Whenever I'm on a train I always wonder about crashing and I always feel like writing.

going to go and make some tea and finish watching the second harry potter movie that my dad is currently watching/studying.