The Priest and the Cuban Guy

The second class I've taken this summer has been Latin American Poetry. I've enjoyed the discussions, but not so much the work. Anyway, I've found myself becoming closer to people in my class. Getting the know the people in the program somehow makes it seem less intimidating.

The Priest
I've talked about him before, he's a nice guy. But . . . well, let me tell you. Okay, there's a gay guy in my class (I've talked about him before too) that I really like. There's a part of me that just wants him to be happy because it seems like deep down inside he isn't. I want to reach out to him, but how? Anyway, one particular day before class he came in all downcast and I asked him what was wrong. He said he wasn't feeling well and that he was tired. I declared that he needed a hug and so I went over and just gave him a great big hug. When I walked back over to my seat, the priest looked at me and said, "I'm tired, too." I laughed and gave him one too. Then he started talking about how he really was tired and didn't really want to come to class that day and I kiddingly said, "Who ever heard of not wanting to come to class? Imagine that!" and then he said, "Well, the only reason I come to class is for you." Uh, I laughed nervously and said, "Oh, well I'm glad I could be an inspiration to come to class!" I honestly don't think the priest has any sinister motives. Maybe Spanish class is the only time he ever has the opportunity to benignly flirt. Today we had to turn in original poems and I wrote one in the style of the Romantics that was entitled "Melancholia." It talked about (in Spanish) the bittersweet feelings of pondering over your life. I let the priest read it, and afterward he said, "You didn't write this about me, did you?" I just laughed and shook my head. When he asked to borrow a sheet of paper because he accidentally left his notebook, I said, "Sure, I'll give you three--Father, Son and Holy Ghost." I thought that was pretty clever. lol! (I know, some of you are thinking I should have just given him one since there's only one God and stuff, I know.)

The Cuban Guy
I love the Cuban guy. He and his wife are both students and they have a gorgeous little girl. He gave his presentation about a Cuban poet that had difficulty being accepted in society and among literary circles because he was the illegitimate son of a white mother and black father. I walked with him after class and asked him is there still racism in Cuba. Interestingly, he said that people still have prejudices in Cuba, but it's not the type of racism that still exists here in the US. You know, here it's common to fill out forms and such where you identify yourself racially. In Cuba, nothing like that exists--people aren't categorized according to race at all. He said that Castro did away with the racism that persisted with Communism. But instead of discrimination based on color, he said, now there is discrimination based on beliefs and ideology. He said if you are a religious person and have affiliations with the church (as he was) in Cuba, you can't get a job--employment is controlled by the government. If you imply that you disagree with Communist ideology in Cuba, you are in big trouble. It was so weird . . . I can't even imagine not being able to worship freely, you know what I mean? But it's like one form of discrimination took the place of the other. It's almost like you can't get away from it. It seems like humans will always find a way to divide themselves.

I'm a Coward

I hate to admit it, but it's true.

Okay, if it's some kind of thing where I feel wronged, or if I feel that someone is acting weird around me because maybe I've unknowingly wronged them but they don't want to talk about it, I'm usually woman enough to cut all the pretenses and address it, despite my generally non-confrontational manner. There's no sense going around and being fake when you know that something is up. Let's get everything out on the table and talk about it.

But when it comes to other social matters, especially when dealing with members of the opposite sex, I'm a coward. But, and please forgive my old-schoolness, I believe that the man should be the pursuer, so to speak, so when I say I'm a coward I'm not talking about my tendency to be a little timid. I'm talking about when there's someone that I fear is trying to get his swerve on that I don't want to pursue me.

At the risk of sounding like I think I'm some sought-after princess, I'm just honestly saying that I can usually tell when someone has . . . intentions. And sadly, more often that not, whatever it is that makes me give a guy the green light doesn't happen. And I kind of wonder about myself because of that. It's like, what the heck do I want?! Am I doomed to existing in this netherworld of unsurety? But anyway, so then I'm left in an uncomfortable (to me) place. I know that I don't want to go down that road, so why even allow him to take a step? I don't even want to get to the place where I may have to reject him, because I hate doing that. So what do I do? Avoid him. Like I said, I'm a coward.

Let me clarify something. I do not believe in leading a man on. Not by any stretch of the imagination. If I arrive at the dreaded place of having to let a guy down, I will do it, gently yet clearly so that there is no doubt about what I mean. And then I'll feel miserable afterward, but console myself with the fact that at least I was honest. But the cowardice that I'm talking about is the avoidance of even interacting with someone because I fear that he might try to make an undesired move and then I'll be put into the wretched position of turning him down.

It's absurd. But it keeps me from having to be the bad guy, and it keeps him from having to be rejected. Yeah, but it's still absurd. That's why I ate leftover Chinese take out from like a week ago instead of staying after church to have a nice Sunday dinner on the grounds.

I needed a break

so I took at day trip to Tuscaloosa to spend time with a friend I hadn't spent time with all summer. Her little sisses and little bro were down to visit as well, so we all went on a picnic-excursion to Lake Lurleen. (To Whom It May Concern: "Durn you, Lake Lurleen, durn yoooou!") Here are a few pics:

Me and Kwoya (also known as "Homegirl")


Picnic at the Lake (Kayna, Nicholas and Natalye)


Me at the Lake "beach"


Kids having a grand time in the water

The most attractive feet you've ever seen in the water


Why to we feel the need to memorialize ourselves? Are we afraid of being forgotten?


Me and Kayna on the paddle boat


Kwoya, Natalye and Nicholas on the paddle boat

Paddle boat out on the lake


Me at Cold Stone Creamery after our excursion (I had Dulce de Leche. Yum!)

Yes, I have stuff to do that's due Monday that I haven't started on yet. But I will. Sometimes we just need to say "forget this" for a little while, take a breather, and then jump back in the saddle. Sheesh, otherwise, you'd fall off the saddle from exhaustion.

People, can you please

stop getting married left and right until I at least have a steady boyfriend? What? What do you mean you're not going to put your happiness on hold for me? I mean, come on. Is my self-pity worth nothing to you, then? Well, fine! Go ahead and be happy, you stinkin lovebirds. Excuse me? Get a life and stop comparing myself to you, you say? Hah, that's some classic advice. Yeah, yeah. Paul, shmaul.

For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise (2 Corinthians 10:12).

If You Didn't Do Anything Else . . .

God, if You didn't do anything else than send a saved and sanctified clone of Boris Kodjoe my way, I would spend the rest of my life being still and knowing You are God.

Yes, Lord, beautiful is Your creation. Mmmm. (Um, lead me not into temptation?)

Impulsivity?

I consider myself a person who generally mulls things over forever, never one who does anything on a whim. The very idea is a little distasteful to me. Impulsivity usually conveys to me instability.

But one of my main girls in the cold, cold Midwest is going to Mount Rushmore with her singles group over Labor Day weekend. I've never been to Mount Rushmore, and I wanted to go really badly. Not just for the sake of the presidents' faces carved into stone, but because I very rarely get to see her and I know she really wanted me to come. Plus, I have done zero fun things this summer. Seriously. I haven't taken any kind of trips to speak of. Unless you count the Mon-Fri commute to Auburn. So I bit the bullet and bought a ticket.

I know I'm going to have fun and everything, that's not what I'm worried about. It's just that I feel kind of impulsive about having done that. It's not like I'm rolling in the dough now (nor have I really ever been). I've got tuition to worry about, I'm moving out soon and I'm going to start having to pay hardcore bills.

I mean, I'll be okay. I didn't break the bank or anything to buy the ticket, but I hate that nagging little feeling that I really could have used the money for much more practical and necessary things. I don't blow my money. I'm usually very conservative. I thought I could splurge just a little bit this time and now I feel badly because I wonder if this was the best time to "splurge just a little bit."

But oh, well. I bought the ticket. What's done is done. Might as well enjoy it instead of obsess over it.

Miscellania

You know what the priest told me yesterday? That he was at his church and this guy he didn't know came up to him and said, "What does the church need done?" And the priest told the man the various projects and repairs around the church that needed to be done. Then the man said, "Hmmm, that'll cost about 40 grand." Then the guy wrote him out a check for 40 grand, told him to call a certain bank and that it should clear, and left.

I hate feeling like I don't know anything. The longer I live, the more I see that I am ignorant of so much. I don't know the philosophy of Foucault. I've never read Dante's Inferno. How did I get this far without having read that? My knowledge of history is atrocious. Don't ask me about dates or causes and effects of that war or this war. I know nearly zero about cars. I can't even change a flat tire! And the closest I've gotten to knowledge about money matters is listening to Marketplace on NPR. The more I learn, the more I know that I don't know. How Solomonesque.

I need to learn how to shut my mouth. It really is hard to shut up sometimes. Especially when you have all of these really clever rejoinders just itching to shoot out, and on top of everything else, why are you even having this discussion? Everything in you just wants to scream, "Okay, twenty plus five, twenty plus five, I am twenty plus five!" I know I look younger than I am, and I've eventually come to accept this fact as a very good thing. I know I'm the only girl in my family, and maybe that causes a sense of overprotectiveness amongst the elders, but please. Thanks for not ever having to announce, "I'm pregnant"? Thanks for not coming home with a tattoo of a demonic dragon emblazoned on my forearm? Thanks for not blowing my money on crack rock? Thanks for not having to plead with you to bail me out of the slammer? No thanks? Oh, okay. I understand. The very idea is absurd. What's this about being grateful for your not doing things you'd never do? Ca-ray-zay.

Let me tell you about the She Can Handle It Girl. Can't find anyone else to take the place of the person who was supposed to do it? Call the She Can Handle It Girl! She's never busy, never needs down time, and she'll never, never, ever say no! You know all those other selfish people out there who don't always do what everyone else wants them to do? Not the She Can Handle It Girl! You want someone to join you in your endeavor to whatever? Call the She Can Handle It Girl! You want to know the secret to keep her from breaking down? Give her more to do! Don't worry, cuz She Can Handle It!

Someone should write a thesis entitled, "iPod: Reflection of the Self?" lol. My iPod, though dominated by Christian rock and hip-hop, is a strange bird. Classical, Disney musical soundtracks, Portuguese jazz, Spanish pop, and Audrey Hepburn singing "Moon River"? (to name a few abberations).

And lastly, a word to the wise: You know your nails are getting too long when you start unintentionally scratching yourself and others.

Weird/Cool

Okay, so I was in a wedding. It was nice, yadda, yadda, yadda. Established. But I guess the whole wedding thing inspired me to think about what mine might possibly be like in the possible future.

I know it's weird, but I've always wanted a Medieval/Renaissance style dress. Like a Queen Guinevere/Maid Marian kind of thing.

Like this:

Or maybe this:

Or this:

Or even this:

So, anyway, you get the idea. But then I was left with the question of what the groom would wear. If I'm up there looking like Maid Marian and he's in a tux, that wouldn't look right. But I wouldn't want him to wear tights or anything. Eww. What could he wear that wouldn't look ridiculous? I seriously was just talking to my mom about it.

But then today I went to Books-a-Million, intent on getting some reading done for my class. This middle-aged dude on his laptop was sitting behind me. You know how there are some people in the world who don't know you from Adam, but decide to strike up a conversation with you when you're trying to get something done? Well, that guy was one of those people. So anyway, he starts out by complimenting my laptop's wallpaper and starts telling me bits of his life story. I will admit I always feel vulnerable when I'm out by myself and a male that I don't know approaches me. I didn't know who this dude was, he could be some kind of pervert trying to pick me up. But then I felt a little more at ease when he mentioned his wife and kids. But then he started talking about how he does graphic design and he showed me an altered picture of his wife on their wedding day. (He revealed to me about the breakup of his marriage, his abusive ex-wife and how he met his new wife on eHarmony. Why do unknown people seem to single me out as a person to tell their business to?)

But then I realized that her dress was in the style that I wanted! Then he showed me more pictures and he and the whole wedding party were in Renaissance style! "That is exactly what I want!" I exclaimed. I was freaking out. I just thought it was so weird/cool that I was just talking about having a possible wedding in the possible future in that style and then I run into this unknown dude who did just that. Plus he gave me the links to where they bought the stuff on the Internet. "Not that I'm planning on getting married any time soon," I told him.

"It's never too early to plan," he said. Weird. No, I really don't plan on getting married any time soon, but that whole thing was weird.

The Wedding

Ah, the wedding. It was this past Saturday, and it was lovely. I took gobs of pictures, but for the blog, I feel a little iffy about posting pictures of people who aren't connected to the blog for the world to see. "How dare you post my wedding pictures on the Internet!" Yeah. So I'll just put myself on the line.

Pictures

Me the bridesmaid. I loved the color of the dress!

Here's the kind of bouquet all the bridesmaids carried. We cradled them in the crooks of our arms as we walked down the aisle.

Here's what I did with the flowers. Aren't they just lovely? Calla lilies and lavender roses.

Musings

I was so excited about the whole deal . . . it felt like I was getting married. But I was also kind of behind the scenes helping the bride out beforehand, and I also saw the stress the accompanies the big day. The marriage thing is not just, "Oh, baby, we're in love, it's just you and me." No, it's more like, "Yeah, we're in love and everything, but we're going to have to get along with my family and your family and you're going to have to get along with yours and mine while we do this thing." As a teenager, I guess I sort of romanticized the whole falling in love thing. But the more I observe of other people who have taken the proverbial leap, the more I see that it involves SO much more than yourself, the other person, and the way you feel about one another. Seriously.

And, my escort was a very nice guy, but he wasn't the one. lol. So much for Jane Austen.

The Priest and the New Friend

The Priest
There's a priest in my Spanish class. I don't know why, but it seems that he has a kind of attachment to me. I'm not saying he likes me or anything. He's a priest. But he sort of goes out of his way to sit by me, offers to help, wants to work together on little class activities--stuff like that. And that is completely fine with me, he's a nice man, he's not annoying or anything like that, but I just wonder, like . . . I guess because both of us are kind of in the beginning stages of the Master's program, and we both have to commute to Auburn, so maybe he feels some commonality there. Yesterday I asked him if he'd always wanted to be a priest. "No, not always. Actually, I grew up wanting to be a member of the Mafia." He said the Mafia controlled the neighborhood where he grew up in New Jersey. But some priests he knew sort of mentored him and I guess he ended up feeling a calling from associating with them.

But sometimes I wonder about him. He can never have a wife or a family. He's relatively young, in his late thirties. He seems like he would be a good husband and father, but he'll never have the opportunity. Why does that make me feel sad? He apparently doesn't mind. Maybe I should ask him if he's ever read Pepita Jimenez. It's a 19th century Spanish novel about a young seminarian who falls in love with a young widow and he has to choose between her and his vocation.

The New Friend
There's a guy at my church who works with a young lady who had been asking him a lot of questions about the Bible. He invited her to church and introduced me to her, and we hit it off right away. We have so much in common. Yesterday we met at Starbucks and had a awesome discussion and Bible study. She just opened up to me and she was so open to the things I shared with her about the Word. She is so hungry for God and she is searching for Him sincerely. We plan to get together weekly.

It is so amazing how God places people in our paths. He knows just what we need when we need it, and the beautiful thing is that each person learns and benefits from the other.

Channy the Paper Slayer

On the eighth day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, the mighty warrioress known as Channy soundly defeated the fearsome, terrible, monstruous fire-breathing 5 page Spanish paper dragon. As it shall be written in the annals of academia, "She who refused to pull an all-nighter faced her fear and at her feet lay procrastination slain."

So shall it be written, so shall it be done.

I Hate Writing Papers

How did I get this far with such reluctance to get things done? A five-pager in Spanish. Due Monday. How did I graduate from college with such procrastinatory tendencies? Did I think graduate school was going to be easier?

It is times like these that I wish I were a go-getter from the get-go. Yeah, come on, let's tackle this sucker! But I'm always the one who slumpingly gets it done, and that probably only because of the twisted high that comes from working under pressure with deadline looming. It's not quite a high, though. It's more a simple motivation to get up off of my junk in the trunk and overcome my inertia to Nike: Just Do It.

Grrrrr . . . I don't want to. I know how Paul felt when he said "For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I" (Romans 7:15).

Antithesis

Have you ever been inexplicably attracted to someone who is the antithesis of everything you (thought you) wanted? It's ridiculous. I know this person is totally wrong for me. Everything about him is no-no. Not because he has any obviously unsavory characteristics that would negatively affect me or anything. It's not that at all. It's just that I know that he's not for me. Let me back up and say that this "attraction" is not like a crazy, I-can't-stop-thinking-about-him obsession. It's more of a . . . passing fancy.

The main reason I think I fancy him in this way is not because he's a dapper pretty boy. He doesn't have a magnetic personality that just unwaveringly draws people in. He doesn't have that Don Miller-esque down-to-earth intellectualism that I go ga-ga over. It's more basic than that. It's just that he exudes the perfect mix of masculinity and vulnerability. It's weird. On one hand he's ruggedly handsome, walks with a slight swagger, and has a roguish smile. He's hard. A man's man. But on the other hand, there's an almost boyish vulnerability about his manner. Beneath the hard exterior, there's a gentlemanly sweetness.

Yep. No doubt about it. I seriously need to get out more. Or something. Geez.

Crazy Hair, Blogortunities, and Other Miscellany

Crazy Hair
This is what my hair looks like when I wash it and don't blow dry it straight.

It can get really crazy, even more afro-esque than in this pic, but it's so . . . freeing or something. It's liberating when you can just walk around like, yeah, this is what my hair is like untamed, what? It's nice to not have to worry about the many products that go into my hair to get it to hold and stay "under control," or the humidity or whether my carefully constructed curls are going to fall. It's just there and I can do whatever I want with it without having to care about details.

Blogortunities
July at 90&9 is going to be interesting. There are two new group blogs which will be updated daily by a different blogger. One of them is Notes, whose topic is music and songwriting, and the other, of which I am a member, is Word, a blog which fosters conversation on books, reading and writing. My assigned day is Wednesday. So far the posts on both are highly pertinent and interesting discussions. Check 'em out!

Other
I bought living room furniture from Rooms to Go for my upcoming move in August. Here's the ensemble:

I just thought it was so cute and trendy looking. Yay!

I met this Cuban couple in my Spanish class. They are so sweet and have a beautiful 5-year-old daughter. There is just something about them . . . I just want the best for them. They are doing everything they can to have a better life and to provide their daughter with all the best opportunities. The wife doesn't speak English very well, and we had a conversation the other day where she practiced her English and I practiced my Spanish. A bilingual conversation. lol. She was telling me about life in Cuba. It's a communist country, of course, so a lot of things are completely free--health care and education, for example. But she also said, "But we all share the same misery."

A beautiful young girl who is a co-worker of a guy at church came to service this past Sunday morning, and afterward, we just totally connected. We had so much in common. She has a lot of questions, is so open, and is sincerely seeking God. Hopefully we'll start up a Starbucks Bible study this week!

There's Hope

It doesn't cost a thing to smile,
You don't have to pay to laugh,
You better thank God for that
Cuz there's hope . . .
It doesn't cost a thing to smile,
You don't have to pay to laugh,
You better thank God for that

--India.Arie "There's Hope"