Somebody check my brain...

*commence guitar riff here*

No, just kidding. This blog post actually has nothing at all to do with the Alice in Chains song "Check My Brain" (which is a fabulously awesome song by the by... click that link and go check it out).

I thought it might be worth my time to somebody to check in with the state of my mind after last night's cookie experience (see previous entry if you have no idea what I'm talking about, and it might do you good to read the one before it first so you know how I got to that point). So here's how the day went.

I woke up today feeling unusually cheerful and pretty good aside from the slight lingering headache that usually follows me for a day or two after letting myself cry (still have it, actually). I was pretty determined that today was going to be a good day and there was pretty much nothing that could be done to dissuade me from that viewpoint. Indeed, not even a meeting with the manager of my apartment complex to fill out a zillion more forms and have it explained to me yet again that HUD calculates my income with funny math that results in them basing my rent on a yearly income figure that is in fact $6,000 more than I actually make in a year and thus makes my rent nearly half of my actual monthly income could dissuade me from feeling pretty darn good about things. I told her to tell corporate to call me and I'd tell them what I thought of their math, but I said it with a smile... quite often I leave that office fighting tears of injustice because I have the highest rent in the whole stupid complex because I actually work and I don't lie about my income or sit around on my butt collecting unemployment/child support. Heck, I don't even get child support. But you know what? Somehow I've managed to pay my rent for almost 2 years now and I've only been late once (and it was totally the Unemployment Department's fault... it took them 6 weeks to figure out that I'm not a 12-month employee of a school district, so they didn't want to give me any money until they had that settled), so today I said to myself, "No matter what these morons do to me, God has taken care of us in the past and I see no reason to believe that he will not continue to do so in the future... he even gave me cookies!" And I had a bit of a chuckle as I left the office.

Shortly after I was done with that, it was time to make my daily drive from Molalla to Estacada for work. Long about Colton, the midway point in the drive, I started getting these texts:

"There's a storm just south of Molalla that actually made a tornado in Aumsville, OR." (Barney)

"Tornado warnings for Clackamas and Marion counties!" (The Empress)

"Tornado in Molalla. Weird weather and sky today." (Micro Machine)

"Tornado coming to Molalla, took 3 houses near Silverton." (Tazzy) (BTW, the names of the senders are their names as they appear in my phone. The owners of the aliases know who they are... only Tazzy actually gets called that to her face. Well, and maybe "The Empress" as well...)

So for myself personally, I didn't care about this at all... I wasn't in Molalla and wouldn't be returning to Molalla for at least six hours. However, the Chamaco was still in his school. In Molalla. And part of my brain wanted to panic that my (9 year old) baby was 30 miles away and possibly in the path of an oncoming tornado (Seriously Oregon... make up your mind what sort of weather you want to have!). The rational part of my brain, however, said, "Come on... this is Oregon! If one tornado already touched down, two would be completely unheard of and what are the odds of a second freak tornado hitting the school?" And the new part of my brain that is just starting to find its voice and apparently likes to listen to a lot of Flyleaf said, "God's got him... whatever happens, God's got it. Just do what you need to do and don't worry." So I decided to listen to those two voices and went about my setting up of the classroom (for by this time I had reached Estacada) after sending off only a short text to my good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately telling him about the tornado thing because I figured he'd be interested since he used to live in Texas and all. He expressed the opinion that it must be a lot warmer south of Silverton because where he was currently located (Tualatin) it was too cold for tornadoes.

When Nancy (who needs no alias because as far as I can tell she's got nothing to hide!) got to the school she told me the last she had heard was that the storm system was breaking up and while there was still a chance of some severe thunderstorms, the tornado warning was cancelled. So I put it out of my mind completely at that point... no stress, no worry for the Chamaco's safety. (I did call my mom later to make sure he'd been picked up as planned, but that's just because I'm his mom and I have to verify. Also my mom has been through chemotherapy and sometimes her memory has gaps.)

I went onward through my day mostly humming to myself the line from the song "Io Canto"  about "i rami che si intrecciano nel cielo" because the kids are talking about trees and there was a good bit of stuff about branches going on. (For you non-Italians, "rami" = "branches".) But as soon as I got back in the car, Flyleaf again. I'm pretty shocked that I'm not more tired of it than I am, though later in the drive between Estacada and Oregon City I did put in my old AVB cassette tape that I dug out. For those of you not in the know, AVB was the earlier incarnation of fairly well-known Christian vocal group Acappella... I got the AVB tape when I was probably about 7. It is truly an antique. Aside from the pure nostalgia of listening to those songs that I must have listened to a million zillion times as a child, however, it seems that the new bit of my brain that is still really amused about the cookies and keeps telling me that God is in control prefers to listen to Christian music.

I learned tonight that I only like Christmas carols (especially "Silent Night", which I quite despise in real life) when they're sung by my sisters at OC, many of whom are actually quite good singers and between them have a pretty good mix of altos and sopranos. "Angels We Have Heard On High" is my favorite, if I were forced to pick a favorite of the more common carols ("Carol of the Bells" is my all-time favorite, but wandering carolers rarely sing that one), and it sounded awesome with our ladies singing it. I really wanted to stop singing along and just listen.

I neglected to mention that our annual ladies' ornament exchange was tonight. I had the best seat in the house (right between Aracely and The Empress) and also drew the #1, which is one of the better numbers you can get, really. I got an ornament I quite like, I didn't have to steal from any little girls and make them cry, and generally I got to spend a good bit of time enjoying the fellowship with my sisters and eating more cookies than I even want to think about until next year's ornament exchange.

So yeah, I didn't get home until about 10:15 or so, I had a bit of translation to do and some other stuff I wanted to accomplish before I even got around to writing this blog, and now it's a bit after midnight. Nothing spectacular or particularly awe-inspiring happened today (no more cookies! lol) but maybe the most astounding thing about today is that I was pretty consistently happy and in good spirits all the way through it. For me, that's weird. But it's the good weird.

Song o' the Day: "Tiny Heart" by Flyleaf... there's not an official video for this one, sorry, but the link will give you audio, lyrics, and a few pretty pictures.

COOKIES?!?!

Other possible titles I considered for this entry:

"Seriously God? Cookies?! "

"Come to Christ... we have cookies!!!"

"I asked God for a sign... and I got cookies."

I had probably better start explaining pretty quickly here what I'm on about... sorry if this comes out a little discombobulated, but I'm just almost giddy right now... a stark contrast to last night (see previous entry).

So, tonight I was supposed to lead the discussion in my "depression class". I had already decided a week ago that my topic was going to be crying and not keeping things bottled up. After last night, I was really dreading it, because I'd already been crying all day long, and everything was making me cry, and I knew that I was going to cry if I tried to talk about crying. I thought about ditching at the last moment... it's not like I didn't have other things to do. I had translation work waiting, and somewhere I was supposed to find time to make some cookies for the ladies' ornament/cookie exchange party tomorrow night. And I don't even know how to make freaking cookies.

After much deliberation and wavering back and forth on the subject, I decided to plunge boldly ahead with the class and my intended topic, whether I cried or not, and screw the cookies... I would just go without cookies and not bring any cookies home. Simple, right? It's also important to note that after last night's deeply searching discussion with good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately, I had resolved that I needed to experience God, just as he said. So starting last night and continuing on every time I got a chance all day today, I was praying to God to give me an experience... a sign... something that I would recognize as being indisputably a sign/experience from God, just so I would feel his presence and know I was heading in the right direction.

I did my class. And I cried almost the entire time. And I received more love and grace from that group of people than I knew was possible. But that wasn't the weird bit.

During the entire class there were two big platters of cookies sitting on the table. Apparently Kaye, who had not baked in years she said, had gotten the urge to bake cookies this afternoon and had brought some in the hopes that the class would eat them and get them out of her house. Nobody touched them. At the end of the class, she pretty much forced me to load up a plate with cookies and take them home with me.

It didn't hit me until I got halfway to my mom's (where I was headed to pick up the Chamaco).... not only did I do my class, I had cookies. I laughed out loud and said, "Seriously, God? Cookies?! "  And I won't say I heard a voice because I didn't exactly, but I more felt him say, "See? I even care about the trivial stuff like cookies... I can handle the details. You can trust me." And I was laughing at the absurdity of God giving me cookies, of all things, even as at the same time I burst into tears for the zillionth time today. I have never laughed so hard and cried so hard simultaneously. I almost had to pull over. It was a ridiculous, trivial little thing that probably has no significance to anyone else but me (though the good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately said this was an 'awesome story') and totally appealed to my sense of absurdity, but there was no doubt in my mind... God gave me cookies.

And even though I am both emotionally and physically exhausted (all the crying plus lack of sleep, no doubt... I didn't get to bed until almost 4 last night), I inexplicably feel really good. I mentioned that to the good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately, and his response was "Ahhh... the peace of God."

Yeah, that sounds about right.

So, fellow ladies attending the ornament/cookie exchange tomorrow night... I'm bringing cookies. They're homemade, but I didn't make them. God did. So if you think they're nasty, take it up with him... I'm going to bed and resting up for tomorrow, because I don't doubt that God will spend another day or two making me laugh and cry. Maybe longer, even. But I will leave you with this....

Songs o' the Day: "Fully Alive" by Flyleaf, plus "Again", also by Flyleaf. I've been doing a lot of Flyleaf today. In fact, I'll even throw in a third one just because I love the video (and the song is pretty darn good too)... "All Around Me"  (All 3 of these songs made me cry today.)

Can't complain...

A friend of mine, who for the sake of this blog we shall call "Spineless Worm" (and that probably became immediately evident to about half of you who I'm talking about... the rest of you probably confused him with Emo Steve, who he is not), called me the other day to whine about how he, like 10% of Americans nowadays, can't find a job.

(I'm just going to pull over for a bit and point out that I have called Spineless Worm a spineless worm to his face many times over the years... it's almost like a term of endearment, because that's the sort of relationship we have. If he reads this, he won't be too offended. He also goes by "CRAKA!!!!")

Anyway, moving on, while Spineless Worm was going on about how he couldn't find a job and they were living with his wife's parents because this agency screwed him over and this other couple stabbed him in the back and he severed all contact with them, etc., I realized something.... I really can't complain much about my current circumstances. It's sort of sad, because I think that used to be sort of a hobby of mine.

But let's be real about this here. I have a job. I'm paying my rent. We have food, water, shelter and toys (yes, toys are very important). We even have video games and electric guitars. We have family, good friends, and the means to visit both fairly often. We have a relatively spider-free home. We have music playing devices in every room of the house except for the Chamaco's bedroom. We even have purple chili pepper lights in our bedroom (thanks Mom!).

I searched my mental database and could only come up with two complaints, one in my professional life and the other in my personal life. My professional complaint would be that one of my supervisors (not naming names) tends to hover and meddle a bit more than is strictly necessary, but that's a minor annoyance since I'm not the top of the hierarchy and I don't have to deal directly with that person too often. My personal life complaint is that I'm still single... and that didn't used to be a complaint. I used to enjoy that quite a lot, actually, but the novelty has worn off I guess.

So no, I can't complain too much. And I'll bet if you think about it, you can't complain too much either. Especially if you were to compare yourself with, say, someone living in Haiti right now. If you've got everything you need and even just some of what you want, you're among the wealthiest of the people on this earth. Go forth and count your blessings!

Song o' the Day: "Smoke on the Water" - Metallica. (Yes, I know this is a cover. I just happen to like Metallica's cover better than the original.)

Happy November!

I like the first of the month. You know why? Because I put in a new pair of contact lenses and all the world looks fresh and moist for a while. :)

So just to get the morning started with the proper dose of trivialities, I'm considering wearing lipstick to church today (not sparkly red like yesterday, though), I'm also considering wearing my chain wallet one more day instead of just Halloween, and I'm already upset that Wong* won't take a picture of himself running and flailing his arms about, because I think it sounds cute though he disagrees with me.

I have a hard time letting go of Halloween the day after. Probably because on Halloween I can dress like I want to dress anyway and nobody looks at me sideways, but you try dressing all goth/punk the day after Halloween and suddenly people have issues with it. Halloween is a great festival of liberation, and there's a letdown afterward, I think. This is why I think we should all go with el Día de los Muertos instead... more on that later, maybe (this is an old rant, visited once in my previous MySpace blog-life).

*"Wong" is not this person's real name, naturally. 'Tis but an alias for someone of my acquaintance who lives quite far away and has cute sentence structure... true friends already know who I'm talking about, the rest of you will have to accept that "Wong" will probably be a recurring character in this blog. And if you're reading this, "Wong"... deal. At least I made some effort to protect the "guilty" party, no? And you DO have cute sentence structure, much as you like to say that's horse-radish.