This evening has been so very nice.

    XD

    The wait was more than worth it.

<3 spadeALLcross

Try to forgive, teach me to live, give me the strength to try...

    I can't help but be moved by music, no matter how controversial.   I respect Paul Robeson and of course I condone his changing the lyrics, but I still love "Heart gets weary and sick of trying/ tired of living and scared of dying/  But old man River, he just keeps rolling along."  It feels wrong to like that version, which is sad.  But I think it symbolizes a lot of people's problems with life's struggles, not just the stereotypical "lazy black man."

   And it symbolizes kind of what my research papers are making me feel like right now...

<3 spadeALLcross

Thankful and all that...

    I have never looked forward so avidly to the holidays.  Both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It's impossible to describe how much I miss my family and my home and my marathon lounger training schedule.  

    You know what else I'm thankful for?

    That's right.  Edward freaking Cullen.  For serious, his book is not very well written, and his perfection is suffocating, and his movie will most likely be sub par, but...well there it is.  He is what he is.

    But he's still no Henry DeTamble.

<3 spadeALLcross

Shh! I'm at the library right now!

<3 spadeALLcross

Lead us not into Temptation...

    This was outside my window this morning.

    This clip is going in my Music History project.

    This song was stuck in my head when I woke up.

    

    But I  must resist.  It's not Thanksgiving yet.  Stay strong, Mary.  Stay strong.

<3 spadeALLcross

And the hits just keep on coming....

~ Olivier Manchon ~

    He plays the recorder and is married to/a part of my new favoritestest artist/band, who can be found on the handy dandy little doo-dad at the bottom of the page.  I hope you turned the volume down on your browser if you're at work, school, or in an otherwise public place where it would be imprudent/embarrassing to have songs suddenly start playing.  

    Anyway.  If I didn't respect his wife as much as I do, I would definitely be far more in love with this man than I will currently confess to being.  I'm just saying....

<3 spadeALLcross

10 things I've done throughout my life of which my mother would not approve.

10 - Downloaded Music

9 - Colored my fingernails with sharpies

8 - Swung from the shower curtain 

7 - Wore stripes with plaid

6 - Stayed up until four o'clock doing mostly nothing 

5 - Asked out a boy

4 - Took a shower at midnight, and with wet hair, went and played in the snow

3 - Contemplated getting artificially inseminated when I turned 18

2 - Got a tattoo

1 - Went to Calvin, lived in van Reken, and got an impromptu suite mate who may or may not have the Norovirus.

Sorry mother.  I tried.  I tried.

However, I haven't been to any raucous drunken parties, and I did buy some hand sanitizer.

<3 spadeALLcross

Past the point of no return, the final threshold, what warm, unspoken secrets will we learn?

    I can no longer delude myself into believing that it's fall, as the ground is playing hide-and-seek under a threadbare doily of snow.

    Enjoy the tree.

<3 spadeALLcross

And so the lion fell in love with the lamb...

    Part of me really hates that I just quoted Twilight as a blog post title...

    You know, relationships are weird.  If you think about it, when you define a relationship, you're giving that person a conditional definition.  "Cari's my best friend," "Dennis is my brother," "Reggie is my iPod."  It's a precarious and potentially temporary definition, in some cases.  I mean, with Cari, she's my best friend whether she returns the favor or not, and Dennis can't just up and stop being my brother.  But what about something like "Hannah is the person who drives me to Meijer when I run out of cream cheese"?  All it takes is one Meijer trip Hannah refuses to take me on, all it takes is one "No thanks; you're walking this time" and our relationship changes.  

    Defining people is a risky business, and sometimes is utterly unimportant and means nothing.  

    So why do we so often feel like we need to do it?

<3 spadeALLcross

Vive la démocratie

Ray Bradbury Project

Day 7, 6.07.08

    I’m going to vote in the next presidential election, did you know that. Yeah, I’m seventeen now, but I’ll be eighteen in time to register. Me. I’m going to register to vote for the next president of our country. Not only that, but there’s a chance that there will be another woman, like me, running for that office. How many women had to fight to give me…us that right? Hundreds of women on the frontlines of society suffered and died for my right to voice my political opinion. I was worried before, figuring I would go ahead and just not vote this time around, figuring that I hadn’t been paying attention to the issues or the candidates as in depth or as long as I should have, so I wouldn’t really be making a very educated decision. But now…
    I don’t care. Millions of American citizens don’t register to vote. How many of those people are women? And I bet you anything that Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and Lucy Burns would have given two arms and a leg for those neglected votes. In fact, some woman did give their lives. I’m not about to have my matriarchs’ blood on my hands, so I don’t care. I don’t care if I don’t know the candidates’ names. I’ll vote for Mickey Mouse if it means I get to lend my voice to the world, if it means I get to do what those women couldn’t and wanted to.

    I thought about that today.  

    I also thought sadly about the fact that my vote will probably not be counted, as it was absentee.  But still.  I voted.  That's all that matters.

Happy Election Day!

<3 spadeALLcross

Is that a car alarm?

    5:30 this morning. Smoke in first Kals. That was a joy. If it had been anything more serious, Gen and I would probably have ended up dying, considering I only decided to get up after five to ten minutes of trying to discern why in the world someone wasn't turning off their alarm.  But eventually, we got out.  And then, after many annoyed whines, we got back in and went back to bed.  With some work.  Good times.

    This week is going to be as bad as last week was good.  Five days of 9:00 class instead of the intended four.  Scheduling for next semester on Thursday right after a second midterm (o.O?) in religion (with everybody's favorite professor...) and right before a weekend spent in the Library working on three consecutive research papers.  Bah.  Bah bah bah bah.

    The lobby is a mess.  I thought, having grown up with three brothers, I would be better prepared for life with a bunch of disgusting college kids, but I'm afraid nothing on the earth, save living in a tornado-ransacked hovel all your life, could prepare anyone for this.  I feel terrible for the "tidying" staff.  They have the worst job on campus when it comes to us.  

    We watched The Exorcist on Friday.  Ouch.  That's all I have to say.  If my neck did that of its own accord...let's just say I wouldn't enjoy it.  

    This Monday will not be enjoyable, but I'm trying my best not to think too hard about the things that I'm going to hate about it.  

<3 spadeALLcross

    Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering, when writing on your blog about a movie like The Exorcist and looking up pictures of it on google, I would not recommend listening to the last minute of "A Day in the Life."  It's a good thing it's broad daylight....