Overboard!

My oatmeal exploded in the microwave this morning.
It spilled out over the sides and onto the spinning microwave plate.
Most of the blueberries were capsized, but
I ate it anyway.

It was the first thing I'd really eaten since Wednesday.

I WANT MY APPETITE BACK!!

Please.

She said I looked 18.

The lady at Advanced Medical Imagining was shocked at how old I was. Twenty-four... like the hours in a day. She said I looked 18. I found this ironic as I clung to the elevator railing in pain and tried not to pee myself. I felt a lot older than my age...  much, much older. Well at least thats what I would think being in the state I was.... I wouldn't know. I've never been older, so how would I know if this was how older really felt?

But I do remember 18, and it was wonderful. It was before the pain started, before ultrasounds and having to hold gallons of liquid in my screaming bladder, before tiredness and weakness, before days where I wanted to throw in the towel. And she's shaking her head and saying I look so young.

Maybe we can never say what someone is supposed to be feeling at their age. I don't believe in "you're too young for this" anymore... I do believe that no body was meant for sickness and pain, though. I do believe that wholeness was the original design and still is God's intent for mankind. I do believe in God's ability and desire for healing and restoration.

So I guess, no matter what your age is, God doesn't want you to feel "old". If old means pain and sickness...

I don't know why I have to go through this, but I'm not putting up with it. As in, I'm not giving in to thinking this is some kind of lesson or pay-back or judgement for something I did or did not do. God isn't trying to teach me something by making me go through this... but I know he is good enough to show me his heart and I will learn something (if I want to) along the way. That something might even be that he IS really who he says he is. haha.

NO ONE deserves pain. Hold on let me think about that one... Maybe its the opposite...

WE ALL deserve pain...?
And it's by the grace of God that we're freed from it and get what we do not deserve.

Which brings me to another thing... lately I've been thinking that undeserved forgiveness can really be called unconditional love.

 There is no condition that can convince that person, that deity, that super natural being, to love me any more or any less than they already do... and it is Jesus who paid the price for my freedom.

We simply can not change God's heart toward us. He is always good. It's his nature. Goodness and God are one thing.


So, when I have a bad day... if I can just remember that truth, I know everything will be okay and sitting in the doctors office with only my socks on, trying not to pee myself can actually be hopeful.

Thanksgiving Mirror.

I was brushing my hair.

These thoughts came to me as  I got ready for our family Thanksgiving dinner.

I knew I needed to reflect on some good things.

So heres my bathroom mirror list:

ten things I am thankful for today

1.) grace and getting what I don't deserve... life.
2.) forgiveness and the relief of a burden lifted
3.) second chances which brings hope rising
4.) laughter that lifts the soul
5.) humor that is shared
6.) taste buds that make eating so enjoyable.
7.) rain that helps us see clearly again
8.) friendship that sustains me
9.) internets that keep my worlds connected
10.) not having a life threatening illness

One million invisible lines

I get the feeling lately he wants to kiss me. The last three times we've said goodbye there's something left lingering in the air. Maybe it's just him lingering around not knowing where his keys are. Maybe its all in my head. Maybe its the change in weather. Oh wait, I forgot where I lived for a second...

This lyric keeps running through my head...

"You and me, we're just fine. One million invisible lines.

Out your head and into mine."

Whatever the heck that means.

But I feel it. 

It is this unspoken knowing .

The way his eyes changed after we hugged

and wouldn't unlock from mine.

For longer than the time before

we said goodbye.

Unspent tension

building up

and pouring through his gaze.

I'm pretty sure he wanted to kiss me.

If only that one time....
lately.

Its times like this I wish I had a magic wand.

because then I would just turn me into a frog.

Who wants to kiss a frog?!

Oh, yeah.

Stupid fairy tales.

Texts Saved to Draft on my Cellular.

 Drunk history.
     Pic of goats.
Alphonse Mucha. Zodiac.

Hey.

Would you like to get lunch together

             soon?

My heart is heavy because tonight I saw that there really was nothing keeping him here.... 
Including me. 
He didn't care for me like he used to.




Hey. You know what... 
I do love you.


Andrew Bell.


Bright young thing by Albert Hammond Jr
Want to get food together?


Werewolves of London.
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina-colada and his hair was perfect.


Stealing Angels.
Female Country Singers.
He better be dead.




Buffalo Springfield.
Keb Mo.
Keep it simple.




From where I sit
      it looks as if the clouds are gathering toward the sun.
                                 And slowly trying to swallow her. 
                                                               Despite the gathering,
                                                                                                         her rays are still breaking through.

Dental Panda

There's a panda on the overhead light at my dentist's. 

I see him every time I'm laying under those rays with my mouth wide open. 

I've been looking at that panda since I was five years old. I imagine he can understand my thoughts and comforts the patients while they're getting their teeth cleaned. 

He helps me not to think about what is going on inside my mouth. 

A panda helps ease the intensity of my dental visit.

I like that. 

Its oddly reassuring to see him there every visit... no matter how long it has been. 

He waits for me. 

There's nothing of much distinction to look at, except for him. 

There's the beige ceiling, the overhead lamp and panda. 

I wonder how many other people have looked at this panda, sat in that chair, had saliva sucked from their mouth into a vacuum to some secret place behind them.

Secretly, I think he knows what is going on better than anyone in that room... even the dentist. He probably gets up and plays with the false teeth when no one is looking. 

It's amazing how comforting a bear can be when the enemy is a cavity and Novocain needles.

And me with all my luggage at my feet...

 Excerpt from my travel journal. 7/17/10. Eric.


       I first saw him walk up to where everyone was waiting for the next tube to arrive. Euston station on a Sunday afternoon and me with all my luggage at my feet. He looked like him. That's why I noticed. The way he was trying to read the sign... and the color of his forearm. His face and hair resembled that familiar figure in my mind. I wondered if he was from Georgia Tech like the back of his shirt said or if maybe he had just attended that event there.  "Graduates Picnic on the Lawn" was all I could read from where I stood. He was staring at the tube map across the rails on the opposite wall and trying to figure something out. He turned toward me and asked me to read what it said next to Green Park, explaining that he could not see. "He needed to take the connection to the Jubilee line."

     "Jubilee and Picadilly", I read aloud as I turned toward him. He spoke with an american accent. I added, "Where are you from?" and kept looking at him. He didn't get it.

      "From the west of London. I'm coming from the west and I'm trying to go east on the Jubilee line. I'm not able to see what that says from here, though."

         Is he drunk or hung-over or maybe he's on something? I think maybe he just didn't have his glasses on... because he could see fine when I produced my pocket map of all the tube lines and apologized for it being so small. I offered it to him to look at anyway and he said it was alright (being small and therefore hard to see and all) and then he looked at it and we found the line that said JUBILEE and he muttered to himself somethings, and I could tell he could see just fine. So, I'm pretty sure he has just forgotten his glasses and wasn't drunk at all. He just didn't think to wear glasses before going out in one of the biggest cities in the world. Maybe he was just a bit spacey... or an air head...  He was definitely nerdy. I warmed up to him right away.
    Somehow, I managed to word my question of whether he from Georgia Tech or not in a way that he understood and our conversation soon turned toward the lesser obvious link between the two of us. Suddenly waiting for the Victoria Line to Brixton was not the only thing we had in common. Is he for real?  I wondered. He was so caught up in conversing he seemed unaware of anything else around him... and on top of that he may or may not be able to see properly. I noticed he had no kind of bag or backpack with him. Most everyone else did. He said he was doing an accounting internship and was staying in Milton Keyes right now, and in-spite of the lack of luggage, he was heading to the Heathrow Airport. By the looks of it, I wondered if he really would get where he needed to go.
    "Wow... he reminds me of Eric..." I thought, as the conversation continued and our tube arrived. Something in his mannerism and way of speech made me smile inside. He seemed from another planet not just a different country. We moved with the rest of England toward the tiny doorway of the tube where everyone was trying to get on and off all at the same time. My bags doubled me into a second person, so being in an underground station meant I had to be as quick as possible to get both myselves through the doorway before it shut on one of us, leaving the other stranded. He kept talking as we pushed our way through the crowd and we hoisted the luggage half of me onto into the tube car, with both of us quickly jumping through the door as it whooshed closed. We burst into laughter as we nearly fell off our feet with the accelerated motion of the car. I couldn't see, but I was sure the door hit him. He managed to get in though. We crammed ourselves further onto the tube with the rest of England and kept talking about California.
    He had been there once, maybe twice... I could not tell if he was speaking of the same trip or if these recollections were two separate occasions, but either way he was genuinely in love with Monterey. There was a simplicity to the way he talked about things. He had a child-like wonder, a nerdy sense of awe and genuineness all at once and it was fascinating to me. Doubtless we would have continued chatting about ourselves and what we were both doing in this country had I not informed him we'd arrived at his stop.

"This is Green Park", I announced as soon as I had a chance.

I was looking past him through the open door at the sign on the underground station's wall.

"Oh Shit!" was the last thing I heard him say before he dashed out of sight.

I turned away and laughed out loud as the rest of us lurched onward. He did look like him... he really did.

And so it began...

"Anon, to sudden silence won,

In fancy they pursue

The dream-child moving through a land

Of wonders wild and new,

In friendly chat with bird or beast-

And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained

The wells of fancy dry,

And faintly strove that weary one

To put the subject by,

'The rest next time'- It is next time!'

The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland;

Thus slowly, one by one,

it's quaint events were hammered out-

And now the tale is done,

And home we steer, a merry crew,

Beneath the setting sun."

-Lewis Carroll 1865