waiting by...

when i was in high school and dating, i remember that whole waiting by the phone thing. will he call or won't he? it was a literal waiting by the phone, before answering machines or voice mail.

now there's so many more places to wait. most of the waiting is more mental than physical since virtually all of our technology is portable. will he contact via:

• cell phone?
• home phone (if different than cell)?
• office phone?
• text message?
• email?
• instant messenger?
• internet phone?

the waiting part hasn't changed. the age old question remains: will he call?

home, headaches, and hibernation

i made it back home from tampa. i'm so happy to be here. it was a good trip despite the travel frustrations (including an extra long flight home from dc thanks to headwinds). the work stuff was good and i had a chance to spend some quality time with some friends who live in the area. one friend and i went to see pink panther which we both liked and he took me to a great discount bookstore. i bought 4 books there. the dance of change by peter senge, a business book i'd heard about and wanted to read. i got it for $12, a deal i was excited about. i also picked up dark night of the soul st john of the cross. it's a classic that i've been curious about since we talked about it in my spiritual direction and formation class. whole prayer by walter wangerin made it into my suitcase. i've liked other things from him and this book intrigued me. and my final book choice was really brain candy called persuading annie i actually finished this one on the plane along with another book i bought in the dc airport which i'll post about later.

tonite i should have been at small group, but i had a migraine coming on so i stayed home to take the medicine that will keep it from becoming full blown. i can't drive when i take the stuff and i'm a little loopy for a bit after i take it. i hate missing my girls but it's been nice to hibernate tonite. to curl up and veg and watch a little tv. i could go for a little more hibernation. one of my orlando friends invited me to use their home to retreat to and i'm seriously considering it. a chance to hibernate--sleep, read and process stuff going on sounds like such a great idea. maybe the bears have the right idea.

forget chocolate, a mimosa makes it better

normally i reserve mimosas for those special occassion brunches. this morning as i sat down at the airport friday's for breakfast, when the waitress offered a mimosa as a beverage option, it was all i could do to restrain myself from leaping up and hugging her. i settled for ordering one rather enthusiastically. i'm rather impressed with this energy burst since i'm currently a woman who's only had about 3 hours sleep and has been wearing the same clothes for about 23 hours.

in the previous post i mentioned i was taking a red eye to tampa. so far this has not been the smoothest of trips. first we had delays in san diego. then in denver, we got to board on time, but had multiple delays once on board including waiting for late luggage and de-icing. when we finally took off, the captain announced that we'd have a good tailwind and be able to 'make up time in the air'. i was personally grateful that he fulfilled his prediction and we arrived only 15 minutes late. he managed to make up a good half hour. my gratitude was geniune as the flight was not one of my better ones. the person next to me, although nice, was a loud talker. never mind that 95% of the plane is trying to sleep including at least one person next to him. my ipod was as loud as i could go and not end up deaf and i could still hear him. when he finally dozed off he did so at an angle and since he was the middle seat, i was either sharing my seat with his shoulders or my legs were dodging his. had we been in coach, i might have been a little more charitable, but we were in economy plus--the plus being 5 more inches of legroom. really, it was all i could do not to push him over.

nevermind that though, we were here, fairly close to ontime. all i had to do now was pick up the rental car, go to my hotel and climb into a nice comfy bed for a few hours. oh how silly i am to think after the delays and sleep-n-sprawl man that those could go smoothly.


after waiting nearly an hour for the shuttle to take me to the offsite car rental place, i find that my reservation is all screwed up and i'll be unable to rent a car from them. okay, so, take the shuttle back to the airport and call other rental car companies on the way. i finally find one that will have a car that i can pick up in the afternoon. no worries, i can work with that. i'll just take the complimentary shuttle to my hotel and come back on it later to pick up the car. i then call the hotel for the shuttle only to discover that they oversold last night and that it will be at least 3-4 more hours before they'll have a room ready for me. they were happy to come get me and i was welcome to wait in the lobby for however long. that was it. i nearly burst into tears on the phone. it was almost 7am here in florida--4am my time and i'd been up for the better part of 23 hours. instead i pulled it together and decided to go find food rather than cry or scream at the poor apologetic man answering the phone at the front desk. i found a bathroom, dug out my makeup and hairspray and made myself look a little less like a walking zombie complete with a red eye.

as i left the bathroom, i saw friday's which brings us back to the mimosa. surely after a little champagne with breakfast, the day will get better, right?

the red eye girl takes the red eye

tomorrow, i take the red eye to tampa for sylc. it's a cool event that i did a booth at last year. this year, marko is the keynote speaker so we're doing the store. it's a one day event and it'll be great.

the only little thing is that i really am taking the red eye. it was the cheapest way to get there and it does actually work with my schedule. but with the bruised eye this week, i've been getting a lot of jokes about my flight.

fortunately, the guys running the event are great and on sunday i'm looking forward to connecting with several friends who live in the area. it should be a good weekend despite the obvious jokes.

motion sickness

mike yaconelli, who was a co-founder of the company i work for, compared life to a roller coaster ride, "life has been up and down, careening left then right..."

i understand that sense of life as a roller coaster ride. at the moment though, instead of having mike's sense of "woohoo, what a ride!", i'd really like someone to pass me some dramamine and a 7-up....

here's a sample just from today...

yesterday, i had a blood vessel in my eye burst. this morning i felt pressure in my eye and a friend recommended i call my doctor and have it looked at since i'm flying later this week. my doctor's office finally called me back and sent me straight to the er. now in my book, you only go to the er if there are broken bones, uncontrolled bleeding, heart attack, stroke, something major. i was freaked out. fortunately, all i have is a subconjunctival hemotoma, or as the er doc put it in english--a bruised eyeball that is going to be gross looking for a couple weeks. i'm supposed to follow up with my doc next week just to be on the safe side. apparently the major concerns are some sort of eye trauma like detached retina or too much bleeding in the eye or a spike in blood pressure.

in the middle of that, i called my mom who works at an er for some reassurance. she did that well, but when i talked to her on my way home and told her what the dr said, she had the appropriately motherly response but then went onto a bitter tirade about valentine's day. i quickly ended the conversation as i didn't want to rehash my parents divorce at the moment, which can happen easily despite the fact that they've now been divorced for as long as they were married. then she called me back to apologize and then she went into a thing about some gentleman friend that she apparently had some romantic interest in, but they're in their 60's and he died about a month ago. now this was a shock. since the divorce from my dad she's said loud and clear she wanted nothing to do with men or marriage or any of it again. it's also the first anyone in the family had heard about this man being of any romantic interest at all.

i called my dad & stepmom to check in after that and tell them about the eye thing mostly so they wouldn't hear it thru the grapevine from someone else. my dad still isn't really speaking to me since we had a falling out at thanksgiving so as i started telling him i'd been to the er today he said well just tell judy and handed the phone to my stepmother. she, fortunately, is great, but it's still a bit odd that i have a better relationship with my stepmom than i do my dad. and it's been his choice to be this way not mine.

anyway, it just felt like a bit much today. it would've felt significantly worse if it hadn't been for a couple friends who came up to the er to check on me after they left work and my aunt & uncle who tend to be the only family stability i have. if it weren't for these folks, i think i'd want off the ride. but as it is, i just have a case of motion sickness. i'm hoping it'll pass soon.

hula lessons

one of the girls in my small group is part of the hula ministry at our church along with her mom (who coordinates it) and her sister. this weekend, there was a hula worship event. yesterday, a couple of the girls from the small group and i went to see them lead worshp thru hula. this afternoon, they had a clinic to learn a couple of hula dances. a couple of the girls and i went.

it was fun. now i should explain that this type of hula is not the hippy-shake-shimmy kind you see on tv. it's beautiful and lyrical and symbolic and graceful. all things i don't think are true of myself. i've had just enough dance training in my life to be able to follow in groups learning a dance quick, but i still felt so awkward and clumsy. i did have this brief moment during the second dance when we were running thru it for the third time where it clicked and i felt momentarily lyrical and graceful. it was just a fleeting moment, a glimpse of something more.

tonite i'm trying to hang on to that feeling, to remember that glimpse. at the moment it helps that my hips really hurt. they aren't used to moving like that.

still water

this afternoon, i found space to breathe. i left the office early--the weather was beautiful. i took the trolley down to seaport village, a total tourist trap, but it has a fabulous bookstore called the upstart crow. i went to the upstart crow, poked around for a little bit and then got the best mocha drink ever--mocha amore, decaf french vanilla coffee, steamed chocolate milk and dark chocolate syrup. then i found a spot on the wall overlooking the bay and settled in to watch the sunset. there was a fog bank just offshore, past coronado island and slowly the sun was obscured by the fog. the water lapping the bank just under the retaining wall i was sitting on was somehow soothing. i began to feel like i could safely take a deep breath.

with my mocha and the sun both gone, i walked a few short blocks to anthony's, a seafood restaurant right on the bay. they have a little fast food version called the fishette. i got a bowl of chowder and a glass of cabernet and sat at table next to the water. as the sky completely darkened, the water became still. and beside that still water, i felt my soul begin to ease, to rest. and then the words came back to me...he leads me beside still water, he restores my soul.

it may take a little more time, more still water, but my soul will be restored.

avalanche country

i've never really been anywhere close to an avalanche, but i have been in the rockies when they've done blasting to cause controlled avalanche. and of course there's the scene in the old musical seven brides for seven brothers where they cause an avalanche. in both of these scenarios, the avalanche is wanted and turns out to be helpful.

but i feel like the skier lost in avalanche country, afraid to call out to see if anyone is out there. afraid that if i call out, yes, i might get noticed but i'm a whole lot more likely to end up buried. so for now, i'm continuing to wander thru avalanche country quietly and cautiously, hoping i find my way out before i get buried alive.

confessions of my tv addiction

sadly, i'm currently addicted to 3 reality shows, which is more than i've ever been addicted to at one time. sure, i used to be into survivor. and i like the apprentice, but this is just silly. i'm addicted to skating with celebrities, the frozen knockoff of dancing with the stars and the second of my 3. the final reality show is somewhat less embarassing: project runway.

grey's anatomy however is my ultimate must see at the moment... and last night's episode was fabulous. i can't wait until next sunday nite.

hiding from church

i hate going to church by myself. i hadn't been in awhile on sunday morning but i went last week with a friend whose husband was out of town. i felt a little like i was being zinged by god. the topic was wired: being connected to community.

it felt like a zinger in that i'm wrestling with losses of community. being single, community feels especially important and currently, my community bases seem to be in flux.

• my small group basically broke apart last fall. i'm still friends with everyone, but we don't see each other reguarly and the sense that we are doing life together is completely gone.
• my cfdm class ended with graduation last december. what i thought was going to be a class became a community. i knew it was seasonal, but it came to end at a time where the rest of my communities seem to be ending as well.
  
• my oklahoma connection is a tad more disjointed. one of us has moved back, the remainder of us are spread out around the county and we used to live fairly close together. as a result, we spend less time together outside the office.
• i met reguarly with a couple of women. we connected on a deeper level and really shared what was going on with us. this has become sporadic at best. we're still friends, but we're far less intentional.
• the junior high ministry staff used to be close, but we aren't as close anymore. there've been a lot of transitions and the new team hasn't gelled yet.

i do have one new community that is developing, shades of purple. it's a group of women who come together to share their faith journey and explore feminity and spiritual formation. i know that communities transition and that new ones will come to replace the old ones. but for the moment, i'm in the tender in between space that leaves me feeling adrift among a bit of grief. it's okay for me to grieve these losses of community--the hardest part is the feelings of loneliness that come with these losses. consequently, i find myself hiding from church. i'm not feeling brave enough today to face another possible zinger.

oklahoma trivia

at the office, there's a running joke about all roads crossing thru oklahoma. after i started there, we've had 3 more staffers from oklahoma start there and we all have these weird connections to people all over the country in various aspects of our business that all have an oklahoma tie.

tonite i flipped on the food network to watch the designer wedding cake cookoff. and who knew, but it happens annually at the tulsa state fair. once again, it's all about oklahoma.