Tours

In the swirling tide of uncertainty that is my life, there has been a rare emergence of certainty which, I must admit, is quite thrilling.

I'm going to France.

I got an email today detailing my assignment at a language institute in a city called Tours. I did a quick Internet search (with the ubiquity of Google, it's impossible not to) and found that it's an hour by train from Paris, and that the French spoken in that region is widely considered the purest, devoid of any distinguishable accent. Like "Walter Cronkite" English, but French.

I'm excited, but why is there is still a niggling worrywart in my brain that, despite my most earnest pleas, won't shut up? There's the question of when I'll go . . . right after graduation or work for a few months, and then go next January? The romantic in me wants to go ASAP. Carpe diem, my twenties are slipping through my fingers like sand, all that jazz. Go west, young woman! But the pragmatist in me is rolling my eyes, reminding me that I don't want to go there broke and neither do I want to come back broke. It might do me some good to move back in with the rents after graduation, find a fair-to-middlin job for a few months, and save some money while paying off some graduate school-induced debts. It basically comes down to a question of whether I want to spend Christmas 2009 or my 28th birthday in France. (My 27th is coming around the mountain. At least I look 10 years younger, according to some.)

I have a sinking feeling the pragmatist will win. She usually does. The romantic gets her hopes dashed too easily. C'est la vie.

There are a litany of other things concerning next semester that the worrywart keeps rattling on about, but I'm learning that my best bet is to ignore it, trust God, and keep it movin.

Christmas was fabulous, my little cousins are darling, and I forgot my blasted USB cord to upload pics. Ah, well. I shall enjoy my last week of freedom before the new semester descends.

Thanks, Old Crazy Man

I've posted previously about how I attract weirdos.

I've decided that instead of lamenting it, I should embrace it. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

Today, while wandering around the porcelain/dinnerware section of JCPenney, I saw a middle-aged man giving me the eye. Oh, brother.

A few minutes later, he approached me, staring at me the whole time. He stopped right beside me. I acknowledged him with a curt "Hello."

He smiled and said, "You sure are beautiful," and then walked away.

Aw, thanks, old crazy man. That was sweet.

I Would've Voted for Colin Powell

What I especially like about Powell's remarks is his critique of his party's tendency towards polarization during the latter part of the election.

Of course, the tendency towards polarization is not somehow limited to the GOP--else, some Dems wouldn't have flipped out over Obama's choice of Rick Warren to lead the invocation at his inauguration.

My point is that "us-versus-them" is tired, antiquated, and resonates with few in the 21st century. And this goes beyond politics. It impacts the Body of Christ as well.

What do I mean? This article does a wonderful job of explaining how politics impact church:

The Future of the Apostolic Movement: The People of (Political) Principles

Attention Tension

There's usually disappointing yet entertaining tension present between who I'd like to notice me and who actually does.

Who I'd like to be noticed by
Good-looking guys
Professorial-looking guys
Philosophical-looking guys
Tall, bespectacled guys with Colgate smiles
Dashing older guys
Intelligent, bookish, witty guys

Who notices me
Grizzled, lewd garbage men
Old Mexican waiters who have the audacity to ask for my number
Way-too-young boys who have no clue how old I really am
Weird guys with glazed over eyes who stare and make awkward jokes
Guys who must think "Pssst, ey gul" is actually going to make me stop and walk up to them
Crusty guys in argyle sweaters hunched over a latte, leering from a solitary table

I wonder: Is it in my stars or in myself?

My Boy and Rick Warren

My political commentary always comes a few days late. I guess I do it so that I don't have to give an involved recap of what the hubbub is all about. I can just assume everyone's heard it over and over already so that I can just calmly place my $0.02 in the can without too much ado.

So, yeah, Obama chose Rick Warren of mega-church, The Purpose Driven Life fame to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. (Okay, okay, I'll include a link to the left-leaning Huffington Post just in case you missed out, here. It's worth the read because it covers how seriously people are flipping out, and provides other links afterward that offer a variety of points of view on the issue.) Ultra liberals are pitching hissy fits (or if you were a Southerner, you might say "conniption fits") because of controversial stuff Warren has said about gays, and how DARE Obama choose such a bigot to lead a prayer at the inauguration!?

This is why I am head over heels for my boy. He is not afraid to take heat from his base. He is down with reaching out to people whose views are contrary to his own. He knows that alienating evangelicals is political suicide, no matter what the most liberal wings of his base say. He understands the value of dialogue and recognizes the emptiness of rhetoric.

There are more shrewd, less idealistic observers who say that Obama's move is nothing but a bit of calculated political theater. Okay, granted. I won't count that out as a part of his motivation. He is a politician, after all. It's not like Rick Warren saying a prayer at the inauguration is some sort of conservative Christian victory. I'm sure Obama's peeps have got Rick on lock—he won't be able to go one millimeter off script. I understand all of that.

But what's giving me the warm fuzzies is the fact that Obama signals an openness to foster relationships with those outside of his bubble. What makes me swoon is the fact that Obama represents a break from the old guard, us-versus-them politico. What gives me butterflies in my stomach is that he's not afraid to push the envelope with his own folks.

The poor guy can't win for losing can he? To some, he's the most liberal incarnation of humankind with shady associations and a dearth of experience, and to others he's now a panderer to bigots and wing-nuts. But you know what? My boy remains unfazed.

I Just Wanna Help

Here's an excerpt of an email I sent a friend:

I just wanted to say that I'm very sorry for bringing things up that you don't want to talk about. I say that my intention is to "help" and I sometimes have a twisted sense that I'm supposed to be the helper of all and convince everybody that everything is going to be okay. However, that is NOT my job, and in fact it's kind of arrogant to believe that a bit of supposedly well-reasoned arguments from me is going to convince anybody of anything. It's arrogant to believe that it's my place to "help" and that whatever I say or do would be some kind of a cure-all.

As you know, I'm an analytical person, and despite having a very emotional side as well, my doubts are usually kept at bay, or at least some what helped, with sound logic. But everyone doesn't think the same way I do, and sometimes it's easy to forget that.

I hope you accept my apology, and I hope you realize that I love you and value you very much as a friend. It was brought to my attention just a few moments ago that the best way to "help" is to pray for you, and I ask that you do the same for me.

I really do want to help people. I want to "be there" for people. I want to be the encourager. The person that convinces you that it's going to be okay. I want to change everyone's pessimistic points of view about themselves and where God has them in their lives. It bothers me when people are comfortable in their dissatisfaction. It frustrates me when people stubbornly refuse to hope. (I'm speaking generally here, not referring to this particular friend's situation.)

All right. I have my days when things are "wretched." But even then I know it's not over. I have my days where I give myself over to literally heartrending sobs and I will unashamedly cry until my eyes are puffy, my throat is raw and my head throbs. But even then, in the end, I know it's not over. I don't give myself over to a permanent false reality of hopelessness. It's not that I'm so noble that I wouldn't. It's that I can't. God has done too many crazy it's-GOT-to-be-God things for me not to be convinced that ultimately, He's got me.

But back to my need to "help." Sometimes optimistic arguments are nothing but optimistic arguments. The belief that if only I could convince someone to look on the bright side, everything will be okay and to follow it up with a back-patting reminder that God knows best is misguided, naive and self-important. Sometimes the best way to "help" is to lay aside the need to be a savior and leave it in the hands of the One who is.

Fantabulous

is one of my favorite words. Well, one of my favorite words to describe something positive. 'Fantastic' and 'fabulous' rolled into one! What could be better than that? And it's actually recognized as a word, not just a made up one! (My favorite word for describing something negative is 'wretched,' but that's beside the point.)

Anyway, Rotary scholarship orientation went well. I met a bunch of like-minded, idealistic, multilingual world travelers. I still don't know whether I'm going to Belgium or France, though. I should find out within the next week. I found that when I'm leaving is pretty flexible, so . . . I've got a lot to consider.

Finals are over and done with! I got the final grades on the papers I procrastinated over and subsequently slaved over. The one la Gloriosa helped me with: 92. The one Juan Moreira helped me with: 95. On the Juan Moreira one, my professor wrote that she'd like me to polish it for publication and presentation!

The only sucky thing that mars the fantabulousness I'm presently experiencing is that my lovely laptop is having some technical difficulties and that the Geek Squad is going to charge me out of my eyeballs to get it fixed. The funny thing is that the guy who ran the diagnostic test really was a quintessential geek. He had the jovial yet smug air of the same kinds of nerds I went to high school with. He even had a nasal, high-pitched voice. Only true geeks have the gift of being at once self-deprecating and arrogant. Not in a narcissistic way, but in a matter-of-fact, I-have-superior-knowledge way.

On a random note, I found that I have the former-military brat's gift of sniffing out other military affiliates. At Starbucks, a pack of young, clean-shaven guys with close haircuts sauntered in. Anyone without the military brat antennae could have guessed that they were probably military. But my radar immediately pegged them as not just military, but as Air Force officers-in-training. I couldn't resist testing the accuracy of my radar, so I struck up a conversation with them and found that I was right on the money. Shouldn't I get some kind of monetary compensation for that?

I should be spending this break doing reading for the comprehensive exams I have to contend with next semester, but I can't resist getting a smidgen of pleasure reading in, too. For classic, I plan to tackle Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (one of the few Austens I haven't yet tackled). For contemporary, Toni Morrison's A Mercy. I've been dying to get my hands on it. Her lyric, haunting prose is addictive.

I shall enjoy my break, indeed. Here's my Christmas jam, "This Christmas" by Donny Hathaway. Enjoy!

Me Want Chicken Biscuit

Whew! Medieval lit is over. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, which is good. Now all that's left is my theater take home final and I can kiss this semester adios.

So, medieval lit was at 8:00 am. Gross. During the test my stomach kept growling and when I finished at about 9:45, I was ravenous. Freudian references are amusing to me (Freudian slips, projection, anal retentiveness, etc.), so let's just say my id started taking over. It kept repeating, "Me want chicken biscuit," over and over, and it got progressively louder as time went on. My ego started calculating: "Okay, it's 9:45 now, you might be able to catch the transit at 10:00 and get back to your apartment in enough time to get your car and go back out to pick up a chicken biscuit combo before they stop serving breakfast at 10:30."

On the way home, my id's cry was deafening. I got to my car. Ten after. Me want chicken biscuit! Okay, okay. Pull out of my apartment. Me want chicken biscuit! All right, all right. Stop light. Me want chicken biscuit! But . . . what? Cop car with lights on behind me? Craptastic. Then super-ego springs up out of nowhere and starts freaking out and feeling guilty. What did I do? I can't afford a ticket! Nooooo! Meanwhile my id is still raging, and I'm slightly blocking traffic. My freak-out-ing-ness was a mixture of really not wanting to get a ticket, feeling really badly that I broke some traffic law, but still really wanting to get to Chick-fil-a before 10:30. Hmm. I guess the cop had reason to keep telling me to calm down. I ran a stop sign? Blast you, id! Me: fumbling in the glove compartment to find my insurance info, "Oh, my gosh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!" Cop: "Calm down, Miss Smith. Most people, when they're not paying attention, don't mean to." He took pity on me and let me off with a warning since I didn't have any outstanding warrants or anything to my name.

I got to Chick-fil-a in time, praise the Lord. My heart (and my id) was really set on a chicken biscuit.

Encouraging Words

French final is over! Oui, oui. Next on the list is medieval lit and my theater take home final.

I just wanted to share a letter someone wrote about an article I wrote for 90&9.com entitled Trapped Between Worlds. In short, my article is about tolerance for different points of view within the Body of Christ. A female missionary to the Middle East read my article, and wrote the first letter on this page in response.

It's not something that was just addressed to me, though. It's really to all young women and those who want to reach out to others in our twenty-first century world. It's very encouraging and worth the read.

Life on the Pampas

Setting: The windswept pampas in rural Argentina. Cattle graze the fields. A group of gauchos are sitting around a campfire, playing melancholy tunes on their guitars. Women sit on the porch of the dilapidated house, sipping strong cups of mate, humming folk songs. Suddenly, the tallest, most handsome gaucho gets up and strides over to the women. He's rugged, has a roguish smile, and his eyes gleam like a sharpened facon.

Juan: Oye, Chantellita. You wrote the paper about me, no?

Chantellita: (sighs) Sí, Juan. (smiles shyly) I procrastinated a little bit, but I finally got it done. Thanks for helping me.

Juan: De nada. You did not know about this . . . academic side of the gaucho before, did you?

Chantellita: Well, I guess not. I suppose I thought you guys were just kind of rogue Latin American cowboys who rode roughshod over the pampas, lashing out because of your marginalized status.

Juan: Bueno, just because an hombre is exploited and gets his land taken away doesn't necessarily mean he is ignorant of the, eh . . . how do you say . . . MLA format?

Chantellita: (giggles) Oh, Juan. (She gets up, sidles up to him and whispers) Are all the stories they tell about you really true?

Juan: Ay, sí, mujer. Believe it. A man once owed me 10 thousand pesos and I brought him to court over it. The judge was a crook and called me a liar! Caramba! I swore vengance on the judge and told my debtor that if I ever caught him I would stab him for each peso he owed me! (Juan takes out his facon and stabs the air, reenacting his bloody deed.)

Chantellita: Ay, Juan! You are so valiente!

Just as Juan takes Chantellita into his arms for a kiss, shots ring out. Horses' hooves thunder onto the pampas, disrupting the bucolic calm.

Don Francisco: Juan Moreira! Sí, señor. Did you think you would escape the law after such a heinous deed? Seize him!

Men surround him on horseback. Juan draws out his facon, ready for a fight even though he is outnumbered.

Don Francisco: Juan, put down the facon, and no one gets hurt.

Juan: (still brandishing the facon) Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once. Aiiiiiiii!

Juan rushes blindly towards the surrounding men with his facon. Shots ring out once again, but this time the target is Juan. When the smoke clears, his bullet-ridden body lies lifeless on the ground.

Chantellita: (sobbing violently, screaming) Didn't you hear him, you fools? He quoted Shakespeare! How can you shoot a man who just quoted Julius Caesar? He helped me with my paper! He knows about parenthetical documentation, for the love of God! How could you be so cruel?

Don Francisco: Pues, señorita . . . I hate to break it to you, but your dear Juanito was a bandido and a murderer.

Chantellita grabs the cup of mate she left sitting on the porch and splashes the remnant of it into Don Francisco's face. Don Francisco wipes his face with a handkerchief and he and his men gallop off. The men around the campfire get up and take Juan's body away. One of the men remains and plays a mournful tribute to Juan. The sun sets. THE END.

The Third Time's the Charm?

Well, well, well. I've been elected once again to the honored role of bridesmaid.

I'm not being sarcastic. I really do accept it as an honor. I love my friend to death and am elated to share in her happiness. This will be my third time as a bridesmaid, and my second time as maid of honor. It will also be my third summer in a row being in a wedding! I kinda have this thing down.

Now, I know that although this is a happy time, this is also a time for mommy-worry. Mommy-worry arises in many forms, more than my dear one would probably care to admit, but this particular mommy-worry is "Oh, no, my daughter is feeling super pressure now that all her closest friends are married or about to be!"

It's not an irrational mommy-worry. It's not unfounded. But to this mommy-worry, I want to say, "It's okay." Though there are many things that inspire me to think oh-poor-me thoughts, the thought of my friends getting married isn't one of them. First of all, I love my friends so much that their getting married makes me happy because they're happy. Second of all, my friends' getting married makes me hopeful that one day I will too.

In reality, what makes me feel sorry for myself sometimes is the thought that I'm such a different person on so many levels that no one is up to the challenge of dealing with me and relating to me. lol. Okay, what do I mean?

1. I'm Apostolic, and I'm pretty insistent on the man that I marry and myself sharing the same set of core beliefs. Not because I'm hard core and he must agree with me on all counts, but because I want to be in one accord on the way we raise our kids. The Bible is also pretty clear on that one for me. How can two walk together except they agree? That knocks a significant number of fellas out of the game from the get go.

2. I'm educated and opinionated. This gives some of the fellas left some definite pause.

3. My views are non-conventional. How many Apostolics do you know who voted for Barack Obama? See what I mean? And my political views are just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not saying the poor guy has to check all of the same ideological checkboxes I do. But I would really like him to be at least sympathetic and not get all Sean Hannity on me over the views I hold. And the existence of undogmatic non-ideologues willing to be with a "liberal" girl like me seems rare.

4. My race and the way I've been brought up makes for some interesting, sometimes appalling tension. Let me throw a disclaimer in there and make it absolutely clear that I am proud of my heritage and would have it no other way. And I'm not so naive not to see that the "tension" is partly borne of my own perception. My blackness is peachy for Apostolic brothas who are looking for an Apostolic sista. But even that can be problematic because of how I am sometimes perceived. I had a black guy tell me I wasn't what he was looking for because he felt I didn't have a heart to reach out to other black folks. Like, seriously? However, for some fellas of other ethnic persuasions, my blackness is a liability. You're a nice girl, but. You're a nice girl, but my parents would go bananas. You're a nice girl, but word on the street is that you would hurt my ministry. It's nuts, but this type of thinking exists.

Wow. Anyway, the original purpose of this post was to say that I'm excited about being the maid of honor once again, and that it isn't the prospect of my friends getting married that gets me down. I'm hopeful despite my self-pitiful worries. I'm looking forward to the day when they're proven wrong. As I mentioned, it'll be the third summer in a row I'll have been in a wedding. They say the third time's the charm, right?

I LOVE Gyros

Omg. I am craving a gyro like nobody's business. They are so good. If you've never had one, you haven't truly lived. Oh, lucky me, there's a Mediterranean place down the street. I get mine with extra tzatziki sauce. Mmmmmm. And I'm about to tear one up. Let's go!

Argh. I wanna Zzzzzzz.

It was hard to get up this morning.

This weekend's going to be a tough, cold one. I still have that wretched paper to contend with. Yep, the same one of last week, except this time, the final, polished, "perfect" version is due. At least I'm on page 5. Of 10.

I have a French oral exam today. Ah, that reminds me. I have to email my professor because I have to take my final early because I have to drive to Tennessee next Friday for my Rotary Club orientation. Ah, that reminds me. I need to call the Rotary Club orientation guy to make sure they've got all my registration info. Ah, that reminds me. I have to call the Montgomery Rotary Club sponsor for possible reimbursement info. Ah, that reminds me. I need to call the apartments I moved out of over 4 months ago to see if they'd sent my security deposit check to the right place.

In a matter of minutes I have to put on a smiley face and introduce a "verb wheel"activity to the freshmen. Each person rolls a dice and whatever number you get, choose the correct panel on the corresponding verb wheel and use each bit of info to create a sentence with the correct verb in the correct tense. Hip-hip-hooray!

I have been trying to go to bed earlier. I really have. Early to bed and early to rise makes a woman healthy, wealthy and wise. But no matter what, I still wake up feeling sleep deprived. Boo. Finals are next week. I can make it. I can make it . . .

How Thanksgiving Dinner Could Be Considered Weird

There's a Chinese guy who lives in my apartment complex that I talk to sometimes while waiting for the transit in the mornings. The first reason I'm fascinated by Asian culture is because people's names mean something. Not to say that American names have no significance. Most traditional names mean something in the language they originate from, and many times our names are chosen out of a family tribute (my middle name is my paternal grandmother's first name), but many times our names are chosen because they sound nice. I just think it's awesome that many Asian names have a direct meaning in their own language.

It's also fascinating to me how much is sacrificed in order for a foreign student from a country like China to go to school in the United States. He has no family here. He is the only one out of his family who has ever traveled to the US, and many people are counting on him back home. Failure is not an option. Can you imagine not being able to see your family for years at a time? He can't just go home for Christmas break. Like, I can't fathom that. The longest I've been on my own in a foreign country is a few months.

He had only studied English for a little over a year before coming, and speaks extremely well, seems to understand easily, gives presentations in class. Imagine if I had to do the same thing in Chinese after only about a year. Caramba. French is hard enough, and Spanish took years to master.

I asked him what he did for Thanksgiving, and he said he had dinner with an American family. I asked if he liked the food, and he was pretty much like . . . "It was okay." He said he liked the turkey. lol. He said that any meal without rice as a significant part of the meal is weird to him. Like, to us, rice is an occasional side dish. But to the Chinese, it's eaten with everything, all day, every day. That was so amusing to me. For Thanksgiving food to be completely out of cultural context and foreign because of the decentrality of rice.

Paper Procrastination Post # 9873835: Nicknames

My name has never been one to facilitate a nickname. Like a serious one. I guess I prefer it that way.

But I have a few playful ones.

My dad used to call me "Chawny." Aww.

One of my friends calls me "Chantellus." It comes from my preoccupation with one of the conspirators in Julius Caesar named Metellus Cimber. I LOVE that name. So she started calling me "Chantellus Cimber" and eventually just "Chantellus."

Another one of my friends calls me "Channy," well, a lot of people do, playfully, but she says it with an Old South accent, in a raspy, dirty-old-man imitation. The story that goes along with that one is hilarious, and that's probably about all that needs to be said. lol.

One my classmates, a balding, hilarious guy with a roguish charm calls me "Chanty."

Another one of my classmates, Pic, calls me "Chanteezy." But he usually says it in this context: "Chanteezy, in the heezy, keepin' it greasy, what's your situation?"

Paper Procrastination Post # 9873834: Can I get you a coffee?

(sigh.) Back at it. After Jesus's kind intervention yesterday, I know I have to get with it. I was good. I packed myself a lunch last night so that after class this morning I could head straight to the library and get on the ball. I'm sure I'll come up with some imaginary screenplay starring the brave yet misunderstood and marginalized gaucho Juan Moreira and me as his lady love depicting some snippet of our rustic, tumultuous life on the Argentine pampas. But I have to get to at least page 5 or 7 or so before I'll allow my brain to take another procrastinatory break.

Anyway, before getting down to business, I wanted to reflect on kindness. It's amazing to me how rare it must be for someone to just do something even marginally nice for someone else these days. What I mean is, why do some people act shocked in the face of kindness, and why is it hard for some people to accept? This morning after a classmate came to do her language lab time right after mine, I decided I needed a latte to perk me up before medieval lit. I asked her if she wanted a coffee too. She said that sounded like a good idea and immediately began digging in her purse for money after I asked her what she wanted. She started freaking out after I told her not to worry about it, that it was on me. She couldn't fathom the idea that I simply wanted to get her a coffee without any expectation of anything in return. "But, but, a cup of Starbucks coffee is like five dollars!" she protested. "Please don't worry about it, it's your Christmas present," I joked. She finally relented.

I didn't think of it as any big deal at all. It wasn't like I had offered to do some kind of heroic deed. A cup of coffee? Come on. But we've become so hardened that we automatically assume that lurking behind even a small token of kindness is an expectation of something in return. I can honestly say I don't think that way. If you give expecting something back, I don't think that's giving in love. When I came back with the two lattes, we spent the 30 minutes before my medieval lit class chatting about our families and what we want to do after we graduate. She's not someone I normally interact with much, and she's usually kind of withdrawn. But something said just offer to get her a coffee too, so I did. And I'm glad I did.

Why I Feel Fabulous

1. In spite of my lazy, wretched, procrastinatory ways, Jesus came through for me. I had this paper I kept putting off (surprise, surprise), and my professor had the genius idea to make the rough draft due the Monday after Thanksgiving break. That's inhumane. Anyway, Sunday rolled around and I had zilch. Nada. Bupkis. It took the energy out of every cell in my body to produce an outline, an intro and a few highlighted lines of sources I hadn't gotten around to reading yet. I dragged my carcass out of bed early this morning and could only squeeze out three pages. Of a ten page paper. Caramba. I arrived to the GTA office to find that a couple of my OCD classmates had finished theirs. Grrr. But upon my sheepish admission to others that I had only eked out three (in the end, three and a half) pages, I got: "Aw, I'm so glad you've only done that much!" Uh, yeah . . . you're welcome. Anyway, it turns out I wasn't the only one with a struggle. Mind you, today was not the day that we had to have it finished and polished. It was rough draft/peer editing day. Professor would evaluate us also, though, and I prayed that my measly three pages (the extra half was a bit of detailed outlining of the rest of my paper + conclusion) wouldn't besmirch my grade. In the end, I got docked a little for my lack of, er, completion, but my "inhumane" professor wrote, "Three and a half pages, but well thought out." I ended up with a 91 for my overall evaluation. Let's go!

2. I made the most gorgeous salad you could ever conceive of. It was beautiful. It was like an uber-chef's salad. Baby spinach greens, sauteed bell pepper and onions, real bacon bits, bits of ham and cheese, slices of boiled egg, almond slices and topped off with raspberry vinaigrette. It was really divine. And I broiled a piece of salmon to go with it. I wanted to immortalize my dinner tonight.

3. I bought a book of all of Don Miller's greatest hits—Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, and Through Painted Deserts—rolled into one on sale! (I'd given away my previous originals). It was originally $24.99, was reduced to $12.79, and on top of that I had a 25% off coupon. Let's go!

4. I'm going to sleep good tonight. Gooood.