how bizarre...

Prior to the holiday weekend, Jerusalem tagged me to post “7 weird things about myself”. I told her I would work on it Monday, while I was adding items to the empty ETSY store. I did not. I went to the lake instead. My computer must have felt brutally neglected, but I am quite certain it will get over itself.

The thing is I identified with most of Jerusalem’s own “weird things”, so obviously a list of 7 items will in no way exhaust all of my weirdness. I consulted with my roommates to try to get a few ideas of what to post. I was amazed (to say the least) at the proficiency with which they were able to contribute observations of my odd behavior.

Eating My Food From The Outside In
So this has been my stand-by claim to quirkiness, first observed by a friend in high school. You may ask, “Doesn’t everyone eat their food this way?” But you must understand, that I do not simply mean starting at one end of a sandwich and working your way to another. Think of a labyrinth. I work my way around the outside of a hamburger and continue spiraling until I reach the center. Pizza is a bit different, as I start with the crust, followed by the tip, and then begin my pilgrimage to the enlightened bite.

Announcing My Intentions
If I am in a room with my roommates and need to excuse myself, I always feel the need to let them know exactly what I am going to do (going to bed, going to the bathroom, going to sort my laundry…). I’m not sure why I feel the need to do this, but my roommates find it absolutely hilarious. If I leave a room without announcing my intentions, they feel neglected: “Hey Kim, where are you going?” So I indulge them: “I going to pee.” I’m glad I can entertain them so easily.

Obsessive Ironing
To hear my roommates tell it, you would think I iron my socks. This, indeed, is not the case. But the fact remains, between the Laundromat and my closet, clothes get wrinkled (even jeans and t-shirts), and they have to be ironed. I know they will get wrinkled again when I wear them, but those are natural wrinkles. Stop laughing.

A Song and A Story For Everything
Yes, this is an annoying habit – but not intentional. I blame it on Schoolhouse Rock! and The Electric Company. Any phrase, or even a simple word can set me off. It’s like I have an internal database of song lyrics. I try to just sing the song quietly to myself, but often I can not resist sharing an interesting anecdote about the artist, or the story of the song, or where I was when I first heard it, or where I was when I last heard it…. Ok, it’s a sickness really. If only I could have applied my talent to my studies...

Over-Analyzing
Is it just me, or am I starting to sound neurotic? Since the first of the year, I have come to the realization that I over-analyze everything. The realization started to surface when I attempted to take guitar lessons. My teacher would laugh and say that I was learning very quickly, and that I might actually be able to play really well if I didn’t think so hard about every little move. I quit said lessons when he started explaining multiple ways to play the same chord… too much to think about… I was overwhelmed. My lovely roommates began noticing it about my driving – I would explain why we were taking a particular route and what we would avoid along the way (or what sites we would be able to take in)… or what left turns we would circumvent. The reality hit me when we were going for a leisurely walk around the neighborhood, and I started explaining why it would make more sense to take one street as opposed to another - I just shut up and said "wow".

Use To Want 8 Kids
My sister and brother each have one girl and one boy. One of each. Perfect symmetry. However, my father has seven siblings and my mother has five. I also devoured The Baby-Sitters Club books during my childhood, and thought the Pike family with their eight children was the coolest. I love big families. I also turn a whiter shade of pale when my roommates start talking about the birthing process… so maybe if I ever get around to the whole kid thing I’ll just adopt.

Short-Lived Dream of Being a Tall, Leggy Blonde
I know, I know. I seem very secure in my pale-is-the-new-tan-short-is-cute-brunettes-rule-the-world self, right? But there was a time when I would look at the likes of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Gwyneth Paltrow and dream of being a tall, elegant, fair creature. Especially with Gwyneth, because she’s just so damn cool. But I got over that. I moved on to more realistic role models, like Janeane Garofolo.

Now I believe I am to tag 7 other people (who may or may not choose to play this little game), but some people tagged less than seven, which means I could tag more. So I choose: Angelika, Ramon, Sarah, Rebekah, Sam, Jennie, Janna, Meredith, Amy and Ines.

my fashion history...

My sister and I shared a room (and a canopy bed) while growing up. We had matching white dressers with green and yellow trim, hers with a mirror and mine with a hutch. Unfortunately for her, we also had many matching clothes. Not necessarily exact, mind you. Sometimes we’d get the same shirt or pjs in different colors. Worked well for me, as I got hers once she had grown out of it. Around third grade, my mom surprised us with twin brass beds (which we used at least until my sister was in high school), and several new matching outfits. Oxford shirts in matching colors ~ I was so excited. My sister was less than thrilled. My third grade picture features some velvety pink cords with some fringy brown loafers and Crystal Gale hair… I was hot.

When we moved out to New Mexico, I tried my best attempt at fashion. I had my sister’s hand-me-down jeans with glittery pink and purple stripes on one pair and a faint plaid pattern on the other. I loved fingerless gloves (my sister called me a Madonna-wanna-be) and big hair bows. Alas, I was doomed to fail. My tomboy ways and mom’s meager budget got the best of me, and I was doomed to mix-and-match (and well-worn) sweat suits from the Pic-N-Save with a lovely pair of pink and gray hiking boots (I wore tennis shoes out too quick).

Late elementary/Junior high school I started out in the neon colors phase and moved on to the black rock-band t-shirt phase. Tight-rolled acid wash stretch jeans were an added bonus. My friends and I had this weird thing about ponytails too. They couldn’t be in the back of our head, because that was lame, and they couldn’t be on the side, because that was passé. So, we wore our manes banded high and a bit caddy-corner on our heads. Our bangs were fluffed as far as our imaginations could stretch them, through a tried and true method: spray like crazy, curl the top section up, curl the bottom section down, spray like crazy, run a pick through the middle, and voila ~ a magical perfect poof. When I would go to St. Louis with my father to visit his family, he would buy me new clothes. Not clothes that I would ever be caught dead wearing at home, mind you, but rather the clothes my country-club cousins (or their moms) were wearing. I love my dad’s family, but even as a child I knew that there was just something wrong with changing your child in order to make a good impression.

High school was my introduction into alternative fashion. I was surrounded by drama geeks and nature freaks, and I loved it. Around the same time my dad and stepmother had opened a store in the mall peddling woven clothing, used levis, fimo beads, china doll shoes, grateful dead t-shirts and the like. Pretty much past my first semester (in which I had a brief infatuation with 90210 fashion), I rarely wore makeup in high school. T-shirts and jeans were my most common uniform, but this was an Arts high school, so creative dressing was accepted (or at least tolerated). What was an example of a Parkview kid uniform when I was in high school (and I promise I wasn’t the only one)? Start with a bottom layer of thermal underwear in your choice of white or color (holes in the knees and elbows were entirely acceptable), and some cozy socks in a funky argyle or fun stripes. Pull on a flowy, flowery skirt and a baggy t-shirt with 10,000 maniacs or a Van Gogh painting on the front. Please note, none of these items need match each other. A flannel shirt tied around the waist, a worn pair of Birkenstocks, and a knitted cap over your product-less bob completes the ensemble. Need a visual? You can borrow my box set of the short-lived TV show My So Called Life.

College was all about comfort, with brief excursions into attempts at fashion while spending the majority of my four years in pajama pants and t-shirts (highly flattering to the female form). Post-college was a mix of identity crises, with a touch of skater girl (though I can’t even roll on a board). But I’ve come a long way, baby. I’ve shifted into clothes I enjoy, dabbled in the beauty enhancements (though I still prefer natural), and try to pick out items that actually coordinate with each other. But, in the words of the great Gilda Radner, “I base my fashion taste on what doesn’t itch”. I also base it on what is fun, and comforting, and makes me happy. One of these days I hope to be sewing my own clothes, which will be a true fashion disgrace. Until then, I will continue to mix Banana Republic and Ann Taylor with Savers and Goodwill and everything in between…

OBB

A week or so ago I entered into one of the most laborious efforts in my clean-up process: sifting through the papers. I threw out a lot of magazine articles: recipes I never tried, exercises I never adopted, top-ten-ways-to-do-whatever-the-heck-I-thought-needed-to-be-done-at-the-time… I threw out English lit papers from high school, and drafts of theory papers from college (I kept the actual graded papers, in order to remind myself that I once knew which theorists belonged with which theory and how to convince my professors that I knew what the theorist was talking about). Theories crack me up anyway. I think philosophers and sociologists (and members of any other -ologys and -osophys) must be really fast writers. They somehow capture the randomness of those moments where suddenly your thoughts reach clarity, they get it down on paper and occasionally even add accompanying graphs, and they must be able to give themselves enough of a road map to return to that clarity from time-to-time. I have some of those moments of clarity, and a few of them have been captured in these papers I hoard. But for the most part, I don’t write fast enough. It’s like when you’re dreaming, and the dream is so real and you are actively involved in everything that’s going on, but the moment you wake up you can’t remember anything that was happening seconds before.

But, as usual, I digress from my point of writing. I ran across an article that was worn with age. It should have easily gone in the trash with multitudes of other “dream life” articles, but I just couldn’t bear to part with it. I’ve had the article since high school or early college (If I were at home, I would check, but why delay writing just to clarify minor details?). So the chick in this article lived off of $6,000 a year – and she had a cozy little apartment and funky clothes and a smile on her face and all that jazz. Apparently she exchanged rent for yard work to her landlord, ate free meals at the restaurant she worked for, didn’t have a car, etc. etc. I’m pretty sure she probably started out debt-free (big help), enjoyed the cheaper things in life (which I do, although I really like the pampering stuff too…), and surrounded herself with other poor people (which I have, though in my current state of employment, I fear I am a bad influence). I have held onto this article about a real bohemian, who enjoyed life to the fullest by living simple and stress free, because it is where I strive to be. Backwards, ain’t it? I spent lots of money on college (and continue to every month), so I could live in a manner that would have been easier to achieve had I never gone to college in the first place. But then again, the –ologys and –osophys I studied have produced the bohemian mind in me, if not the bohemian lifestyle. And I think I’m doing my best with what I’ve got. I moved back home to pay less rent. I live in a city where the not-having-a-car-thing is not really an option. And I am vowing to downsize my so-called career to a manageable pace.

I picked up the book Citizen Girl Sunday evening. Hi-lar-i-ous. Not so much because it is genuinely funny, but more so because it is genuinely my life. I’m not crazy ~ other people really do feel my pain. So I continue to reexamine my priorities, consider cutbacks (rentals vs. first releases, folgers vs. gingerbread lattes, launch.com vs. new CDs… ok, maybe scratch the last one?), and brace myself for the mighty wind that’s blowin’. I continue to organize my chaos (without and within), set my gaze on finishing that freakin’ Masters paper, and come up with ways to work out a budget without working myself to death. I’ll get by with a little help from my friends ~ my stress is really quite menial compared to many. For now, I’ll go refill on the free beverages supplied by company, with my choice of four different sweeteners. I’ll defiantly take a lunch break and go read a book. I’ll take a deep breath, and I’ll press on.

~ clean sweep ~

God is doing a work in me. He’s walking through my rooms and halls, checking every corner, tearing down the unsafe walls and letting in the light. I am working hard to clean my house and set it straight, to not let pride get in the way, to catch an eternal vision of what I am to become. It seems easier living out my life in Christ for those do not know me; to hide the thorn stuck in my side and all my secret faults. But you know me well and it’s you I want the most to see and recognize the changes. A word from you empowers me to press on for my goal. Will you help me be new? Will you hold me to the promises that I have made? Will you let me be new? Forgive my old self, and my old mistakes. When I feel condemned to live my old life, remind me I’ve been given a new life in Christ ~ Sara Groves

I recently spent a full week of vacation at home, sorting through stuff. Don’t let the image mislead you. I was not gazing lazily through boxes of mementos (although there were instances of such), nor was I simply throwing out the summer tops I hadn’t worn this year because they were so 1994 (yes, I did some of that too – specifically by parting with my hideous “class of ‘94” t-shirt, featuring a “whoop, there it is” logo on the back – considering I chose not to attend my 10 year reunion, it seemed only right). What I did in that week was much more difficult, much more exhausting, and much more freeing than I imagined it would be.

Having moved back home over a year ago to save some money (Gretchen had decided to follow her dream to New York, I couldn’t think of anyone I would really like to live with, and I knew that moving out on my own again would only dig me deeper into debt), I had a corner of my parent’s storage building piled floor to ceiling. Mind you, when we moved out of the Hillcrest house, I sold some of my furniture and mounds of easier to part with items. I also placed a good number of items in a garage sale this spring to support a missions teams. What I was now attempting to tackle were those items I had deemed vital – the ones I had placed neatly into plastic totes so that I would have them when I moved out. My plan when I moved in with my parents was to save up so that I could buy a house, decorate it, and fill it with even more stuff. My former future was closed up in those boxes, sticky from spider webs and stale from the passing of time. Additionally, I was filtering through the boxes of papers that had both built up in my room and been placed in storage to go through later. This was later.

I spent a week hauling boxes out of storage, picking out the few and rare items that I still felt a desire to hang on to and placing the rest back into the boxes to be disposed of. I got rid of all of my furniture (that wasn’t with me in the house) except for a coat rack and two vintage lamps. I boxed up most of my kitchen, all of my bathroom, half of my bookshelves, and the majority of my trinkets. I threw away birthday cards I never looked at, notes from friends who had weighed me down, old term papers that reminded me of how much I have forgotten. I threw out journals full of three point sermons and spoon-fed theology. And I filled large bags with shirts from events long past. I cleaned house. I think the most entertaining part of my week was loading all of these items into my brother-in-law’s truck, driving them over to dogtown for a yard sale at my sister’s house, unloading and loading again. I really liked driving that truck. I need to get one of those. After the yard sale, with a measly 100 bucks in my hand, we placed all that was left on the curb. It was soon picked up by a family that drove by, to give to a single mom and her daughters.

Since then I’ve been steadily trying to get rid of more. It’s amazing how much spiritual and mental space you can clear, simply by clearing out physical items. I am learning to recognize my needs as the wants they are, and realizing that God is already meeting my truest needs through community. I don’t know where I’m headed past this point, but I know that I am working to move forward without the burden of debt and without the burden of stuff. I am no longer attempting to fill up my life with artifacts that tell others about me, but rather learning to let my life speak for itself.

making myself into a story

my church has a bulletin feature titled "every mosaic has a story", which features a picture of a church member and a paragraph about who they are and what brought them to mosaic. inevitably, my time has come. so i set about to summarize my journey as briefly as possible (i'll let the editor do the rest of the cutting - one can only cut so much out of your own story before it starts to hurt), and the following is what i ended up with. i really get into reading autobiographies, so i'm thinking i may have to start making it a regular practice to add details to this story, and just see where it leads. hmm... i'm finally adding something new to my blog ~ watch out, who knows what kind of crazy thing i'll do next!

I am not what I ought to be; I am not what I wish to be; I am not what I hope to be; but, by the grace of God, I am not what I was. ~ John Newton

I am the byproduct of happenstance. My life has been equally more interesting and more mundane than I could possibly present it, but I am keenly aware that who I am is intrinsically tied to where I have been and what I have come through (we can grab a cup of coffee sometime if you would like to know more). My father in his more enlightened stage tells me I am the only one of 15 cousins not baptized into the Catholic Church because he wanted me to choose my own religion, and my mother still marvels at how I ended up the “white sheep” of the family. I have always been open-minded by nature, which in my younger days opened me up to many things that I could have been better off without. Fortunately, it also opened me up to Christianity, and when I was 15 I accepted Christ’s offer to take over control of my life (He ended up doing a much better job with it than I would have). I was the only person in my family who attended church, and the Lord placed some great spiritual mentors in my life. Unfortunately, the ease of my early relationship with Christ did not fully prepare me for going at it on my own. College presented me with new challenges to my faith, including a greater awareness of hypocrisy and a deepening sense that the values I was encountering in the Church were not what I personally valued. My junior year I received a summer scholarship to do independent research on Christian Economic & Community Development in Boston, MA. While there, I visited a multicultural church that had ties to the CCDA movement, and fell instantly in love. With my eyes open to this new possibility, I found it more and more difficult to participate in the pageantry of the Churches I was a part of. My senior year I avoided Church altogether, which provided time for soul-searching but also robbed me of the essential support I needed from a spiritual community. Returning to Little Rock after graduation, I attempted to get involved in the Church of my youth again. I attended when I felt like it, and even accepted some leadership roles, but it never felt like the place where I was supposed to be. I slowly began to withdraw from Church again. One day my roommate came home and told me about a multicultural church that was getting started. She said that she was going to go check it out for me (she didn’t think it was for her, but she had a feeling it was just what I was looking for). Needless to say, my roommate joined Mosaic, with myself following down the road after visiting for quite some time. I grabbed Mark about a week before Mosaic was officially birthed, and let him know “I’m in”. I am involved in MoKids, MoYAs and Acts 2. I also participated in a mission trip to Guatemala. I recently started serving on a custodial crew (which I highly recommend if you need a good excuse to get in some monthly deep thinking time as you mindlessly push a vacuum ~ it’s great!). It means so much to me to be involved in a Church which values diversity, and service, and honest relationships. Being a part of Mosaic has allowed me to be more honest with myself, more honest with God, and more honest with the people I am in community with. Of course, I now see more clearly that God has been in control of the situation that is my life all along. Psalm 139 reminds me daily of how well He knows me, and how He had plans for me from the very beginning.

But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I'm not about to let his grace go to waste. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:10a (MSG)