Dad's birthday!

Well, here we are.  Another one of Dad's birthdays, and I'm still a pathetic daughter.  Didn't even get him a card.  I DID write him a song (albeit, a very short one).  So yeah.  There is that.

Sidewalks

Yesterday after work I went for a run.
There's a half marathon on May 6th that my Mother would like me to run with her, so yeah.  That'll probably happen.
So about this run yesterday...everything was hot and muggy.  The heat felt oppresive.  The temperature was only 73.  What am I going to do this summer when the temperature is in the 90's/100's? 
Die.  That's what.
Yesterday's run was supposed to be six miles, but I was beat and dehydrated after three.  How pathetic.  And sad. 
As I was running along, the sidewalk ended.  Not in any normal place either.  The ending was intentional, and where the sidewalk ended, grass started. 
"Where the Sidewalk Ends".  My brother memorized so many poems from that book when we were shorter and less educated.  He would change his voice and mannerisms to fit the characters in the poem. 
My brother is wonderful.

Blessings

I don't like when people say things like, “God is going to bless you so much for doing that!”.

I mean...how would they know what the heck God is going to bless someone for?!?!

The way I think about “God's blessings” is that if the Big Man upstairs wants to bless me, he will. When people say thing like that, I feel like I'm only participating in whatever activity in order to get “God's blessing”. Sometimes I feel that whoever is telling me this only does anything good because they feel the need for a blessing.

I mean, we've all got needs. Know how to fulfill them?? Go ahead! Get God's blessing!

But no. Really. Last night I sat with the older lady and talked to her because she looked lonely. Then I wanted out really badly when she told me her life story. There was no “servant's heart” there, just this 20 year old girl who really wanted to go hang out with the friends that kept on walking by. I wish I had wanted to be there, but the reality is that I didn't want to. Fifteen minutes in I wished I hadn't sat down. An hour in I considered faking a phone call. When the lights blinked to tell us to get the heck outta the building I was ecstatic...until she kept talking.

Even if God did want to bless me for sitting and letting a lady - whose name I didn't know until 45 minutes in - talk to me, I don't think I could accept that blessing. If the servant's heart and attitude had been there then sure. I'd accept. I'd have no issue. But there was no heart for the conversation. There was no wanting to be there.

So no. No blessing.

Starbucks VS The Library

A few weeks ago, the Starbucks here on base started with the whole "free wifi" thing.  Starbucks is across the street, while the library is across the street and down the road, so I've been going to Starbucks for wifi lately.  Do you know what I have ascertained?
Starbucks is not a library.

No duh, right?

I thought all I needed to write and upload and all that was internet access; turns out that sometimes I need quiet. I need to be able to smell books and lean back in my chair and browse the paperbacks when I'm done using my computer.

Starbucks has tables outside.
I can always sit on the library steps.
Starbucks has hot/cold/in-between drinks available on a whim.
I can always bring one to the library.  They're not picky here as long as you make no mess.
Starbucks is closer to my room.  I'm lazy.
The library is a nice walk.  Good exercise.
Starbucks isn't as quiet.
The library isn't as loud.

Yeah.  This is hard.  I never quite know what I want until I'm in the midst of uploading a video (sometimes an hour long process) in the wrong place.

Writing.

Every so often an idea for a story ingrains itself into my head.  I can't function until it's on paper, so I write. 
The longest these mind-to-word-vomit-sessions have gone is just over 50,000 words.  That was for last year's NaNoWriMo.  Usually they don't get past the second paragraph.  Writing more than a few paragraphs is hard and scary. 
"Who would want to read this crap?"
"What if all I'm writing is crap?"
"Where can I safely burn this?"
"When will I stop hating all of my words?"
"Why is this so difficult?"
"How is this thesaurus not working in my favor?!"
This is funny, because writing was always my best subject.  Writing was the easiest for me.  But I guess that I'm just now realizing that putting words on paper doesn't necessarily mean that they're good words.
Cuz usually they're...not.

2 videos. First one is important.

I had never heard of Joseph Kony before about an hour ago.  This is important stuff y'all.  Please take the time to watch it.

Kevin and I did a cover of "On The Rise" while he was here.  We had fun.  We suck at harmonizing.  Actually, that's just me. =P

Friday and "Video Games"

So yesterday I was miserably tired.  The plan was to go home from work and then GO TO SLEEP.  Immediately.

Well, then I decided that I wanted to eat chicken and avocado for dinner.  So I went to the commissary. 

An hour later, I emerged from the commissary with chicken, avocado, and most of the necessary ingredients for granola (would you believe they don't stock brown sugar?!).  I went back to my room, toppled onto my bed, and was out for about half an hour.  

That's when I woke up and remembered that if the chicken didn't get to the freezer eventually I would have to cook all of that damn poultry right then and there.  

No.

The avocados weren't ripe.  They never are when I buy them from the commissary, but I was too lazy to go off base.  So instead I made some brown rice and cooked up the chicken in some peanut sauce and then complained on facebook about how freakin LONG brown rice takes to cook.
Any tips for making brown rice?  Cuz I ended up with rice that was a bit overcooked/soggy.

A girl in my squadron that I don't hang out with too awful much "liked" my post about chicken and rice.  She lives upstairs from me, so I was like "come on down and eat!".  So she did.  That was around six, and she didn't leave until around 11.  When she finally went back to her room I was left wondering, "why the fuck don't we hang out more often?".  She's really awesome, and we get along uber well (hence her staying for five hours).  

Instant new friend. 

Speaking of friends, I don't know if I told y'all, but my friend Kevin is coming to visit me!  He's from Minnesota.  I initially "met" him while I was in high school.  My boarding school only allowed e-mail privileges for those students on honor roll.  Well, I was, but my best friend Jamie had piss poor grades.  She wanted to keep in touch with her friend Kevin, but her parents had put very strict mail restrictions on her.  She was only allowed to get letters from and send letters to certain people.  He wasn't one of them.  Being the rebellious teen I was, she would write a note for him and I'd e-mail it, then I'd print out the e-mails from him and give them to her.  We were too smooth to get caught (except almost once when her dorm Mother went through the trash and found the note where Jamie initially asked me to do all this.  She lied and said I had refused.).  Then eventually Kevin and I became e-mail buddies.  I would e-mail him for me AND for Jamie.  This worked out nicely, because if anyone asked, I could say I was just e-mailing MY friends.  Perfecto.  

In 2009?  Yeah.  I think 2009 was the year...anyway, in 2009 Kevin came to NY to visit me!  He stayed for about a week, and then I went to visit him later that year.  Actually, 2010 sounds more correct.  Cuz I think he came AFTER I did the college thing for a semester, and then I visited him while I was working at the school.  Yup.  2010.

Anyways, he's one of my bestest friends ever.  We talk on the phone constantly, but have stopped e-mailing except when he needs me to proof his papers for school.  So we've gotten away from our roots, but we've definitely maintained a strong friendship over the past 4 years or so.

Wow.  4 years.  That's crazy.  

AND HE'S COMING TO VISIT ME!  His plane gets in at midnight.  I told him that a midnight arrival was extremely rude.  He knows I won't leave him at the airport, so he didn't switch it.  He'll be staying until Wednesday, and then he's renting a car and driving up to my parent's house to visit the family until Saturday.  Then he's flying home.

Wooohoooo.