Everyone's got a Bathroom or Two

We're in Lancaster and so far one of the most poignant experiences (not counting seeing Rebekah!!!) I've had was the bathroom at the gas station. I requested a pause from the driving for obvious reasons. And then I continued reading my magazine until the car stopped. bad idea. When I looked up, I was face to face with the one door. The one door with both genders represented with a paper and sharpie sign below that reads: "knock. if no sound, pull door hard." It was then I knew bad things were in store.

 There's something poetic about bathrooms. I mean, bathrooms are really revelatory of culture, I think. Even the nice ones. But the bad ones are the best. Yeah, I would have to say I'm kind of a bathroom connoisseur and I don't think many other people are bathroom aficionados. But I am.

Anyway, this bathroom was idyllic. For a bathroom aficionado. You know what I'm talking about, white tile on the walls, green-grey rotted grout around the tile, yellowed sagging ceiling tiles...the floor was sticky grey concrete. The soap dispenser was broken and there was a jar of liquid soap on the counter. Yeah...and it was empty. The bottle straw was laying on the sink. That part I wasn't very excited about...especially when I realized I was fresh out of hand sanitizer.

But then there was the illegible writing, and the not-so illegible writing...the writing I would have preferred being illegible. But these are the bathrooms you read about in books. They're the ones that everyone thinks of when they think of "road trip bathrooms."

And I think that's what I like about writing. There are experiences that are universal to all of us. We all know what it's like to smell the first mown grass. Everyone has fought down rudeness on the phone with a telemarketer. And everyone has been inside a bathroom they would rather have avoided. Conversely, everyone has been in a bathroom that made them feel like they were at home instead of at Cracker Barrel.

As a writer, these are the things we try to expose to the public so that everyone can enjoy. Well, I don't know if "enjoy" is the right word, given the bathroom situation.

Redwall. Something like reading about a brick wall?

Okay. Since seventh grade I've heard nothing but accolades for Brian Jacques's Redwall and have never read it. Now i'm ten years older and a quarter of the way through the book, and i'm bored to tears. For about fifteen minutes I've searched high and low through book reviews seeing if anyone else in the world dislikes it quite like I do, and the result leaves me a little lonely. Am I an ogre? First, there's only so much rodent chivalry I can handle. If you're going to write a book about mice and badgers, make it good. Now, The Wind in the Willows, that was quality animal fiction. I suppose if animals are talking and carrying on like humans in any story, it has to be above average to get me to enjoy it. I'm more willing to care about characters in a story if they're bigger than my thumb.

I mean, I find fieldmice just as cute as the next person finds them, but, I'd rather see them scuttling across a dirt road doing normal mouse things, like eating, not thinking, and scaring the mercy out of my Grandmother. (Not that I want to see my Grandmother terrified...)

I hate starting books and not finishing them. I hate it. It makes me feel like an unfinished person. I can't stand starting a story and not finishing it. But I think it's something I've got to get over, because...there are more books out there like Catcher in the Rye and I'd rather spend my time in that arena. Maybe it's because I have a hard time starting books. Maybe my brain's still on hiatus from graduating and all. But I flew through Catcher, because it was good from the get-go, it made me think, it made me wonder and relate and I loved it.

And okay, one more thing. There may be swearing in Catcher in the Rye, there might be some questionable material, but it is not to be written off. The book is phenomenal. Holden swears because...he swears. Because he's a kid who has never realized it's bad to swear. You see a messed up world through his eyes and it's enlightening. It's worthwhile, because there are Holdens in our lives, in our world. There's a little bit of Holden in us. And it might be beneficial to slip into the kid's mind so we as Christians, as humans, can understand/deal with our sicknesses and the desperate longings in others'.

Stepping down off my soapboxes and inviting your criticisms...
until next time.

The Sinus Smashing Adventures of Shnoz Girl.

A children's book is in the making.

Just wanted to update the world today on the things that have been reaching my nostrils.
People laugh when I tell them I have big nostrils, and then they say: "You don't have big nostrils! They're normal!" As if them telling me this is going to make my nose holes shrink to normal size. It's just not happening, people. I've learned to deal with it, and so should you!

My breathing apparati should be a character in an Adventure book. I mean, whereas other people may experience frustration when they realize their pen is on the other side of the room and they need to do homework!... me, myself can simply: brace myself, position my shnoz and...inhale. Voila! Presto! Pen in hand. Or in face, if I don't time it right.

But, all that to say this...
I was walking to french class and rounding the corner near cafe a la carte when I fragranced a fragrance that exploded a memory in my head. The memory? high school cafeteria. But not in the cafeteria. Remember the way you could always smell what you were going to have for lunch when you were in trigonometry? Well, then again, maybe that was just me. ..my track record and all.

Anyway, someone had been microwaving some sort of garlic noodle mess in the community microwave in DeMoss. Does that strike anyone as odd? Here in our cathedral of learning, smack dab in the center, sits a microwave for common use.

I'm not a fan. Especially when I'm taken down memory lane to my alma mater. Though, this may be white noise as I'm realizing I may have been the only one who sniffed it. Again...seriously, look at me! Don't try to tell me they're not big. I know.

This is where I leave you. Until next time. I'll smell you before I see you.

Pause for Effect

Hello, world. Or, more accurately, all two of you who may be reading...

The most exciting thing that this day is holding...is that anytime, any minute now...My roomate will spin around in her chair, fix her gaze in my direction, wait a moment for dramatic pause and spit out in a retarted accent...
"Are you ready to watch Lord of the Rings?"

And I'll say. "Could we?"

The other exciting thing about today was that I flipped the basket on my desk over on its side and put all my fancy books (O Henry, Me Myself and Bob, ...okay that's not fancy, A Nelson Basic Reader, plaid journal and an old copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) and a vase inside of it. My thought is, if I pretend I'm smart, maybe I'll be a little smarter.

Something that is not exciting about today, is that I bought a four pack of Fruit Ices in my freezer. And they...are not freezing. I mean...What am I paying these people for?! Liquid fruit...uhm, stuff? No! I think not!

Oh, I gotta go. The glorious has just happened.



Goodbye to you.

The Quantum of Solace

Last night I had a dream that I was James Bond's daughter. The new James Bond. Daniel Craig.
I was the product of one of his many "relationships" and I'd never met him, but he sent me money. You know, child support. But, one day I sent the money back to him with a note that said, "I don't want your money, I want to know you." So I went to see him and he showed me how he had the note posted on his wall. He said he cried when he read it.

And, I know this is corny, but in the dream he hugged me. And it was the strangest feeling. It was like absolute contentment and I told him I loved him. "I love you, dad."

When I woke up and started my day, even through convo, the feeling stuck with me (which often happens with my dreams). That I was someone's beloved daughter. And I realized, I am. So, I don't know if God gave me a strange dream to tell me who I was to Him, but, it's not outside the realm of possibility. Or the Quantum of Solace.

And no matter what I am in life, I realized, I am foremost a daughter. Someone's daughter.


then I killed a guy in the dream later...but I don't know if that has any spiritual application ;)

Me. Out.

Thanksgiving Dinner a Week and a Half Early

I don't know why I feel it necessary to capitalize every important word in these titles.

I was walking back from the rot's Quasi-Thanksgiving Dinner tonight, and caught a whiff of something amazing on the sidewalk. It was the smell of fried food, lights and pavement. Normally that smell would mean: boardwalk. But today, maybe it was the way the wind caught it and pushed it around. It smelled like Maine. Stopped me dead in my tracks. Something powerful came over me. I could've died. Not really. But there had to be a climax to those sentences. But, OH how I wanted to be back in Maine. OH I miss you fishing off the dock. OH I long for you, lobster stew, OH I desire you, Cap'n Fish's Motel. OH man.

Sometimes when I walk up the hill to my dorm, my being out of shape forces me to inhale deeply, which forces me to take in the scents. Not to mention my nostrils being the size of two snow shoes. That helps too. But sometimes, I don't know what it is, the gravel or the wafting breeze from construction sites far away, but I smell Maine. It smells like granite and seaweed. Which is the smell of Maine. Or at least where I go.

Oh, wow. I could use another vacation. Couldn't we all?
And to all a good night.

I have no words to say about the election.

So if you were hoping for something about it...you came to the wrong place.

Anyway. The word, Pub, is a funny word. In Literary Criticism today, Ali said something about how she imagined John Donne sitting in a Pub, talking to Death, in that one poem he wrote, whose title I can't remember.

But it brought me right back to the first time I ever heard the word, Pub. My brother and I used to be obsessed with shockwave games on the internet. And there was this one game with a little Aussie guy named Lennie or something. And you walked around in the outback avoiding snakes and playing games, and visiting his girlfriend in the "Pub," where she was watching Cricket on the tele. Yeah. It was the bomb. An educational bomb. There was something in that game about hitting toads with a truck, and they made this sandy little explosion sound. The bigger the toad, the more points. Kind of disgusting. Reminds me of driving home after a rainstorm and swerving for toads, but occasionally...well you get the idea.

There was another game on that webpage about a fat little guy who ran around a cookie factory, whimpering: "I'd like another cookie, plleeaaase!" And you had to watch out for guards and bloodhounds.

There used to be this webpage for Post Cereals too, all these games. I can't remember them individually. But, MAN, they were good times. That was back in the early days of the internet.

The last smattering of books I've read have been: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Like, the 385th time I've read/seen it), Summer for Change by Liberty Alum Anna Walker, The second book in Bill Myers's "Forbidden Doors" series, aaand, C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet.

Next on the list is Jerry Jenkins's Riven, and Perelandra.


Good night, Neverland.