Reinvention-ology

In hopes that a reinvention of oneself will lead to a more dedicated blogging lifestyle, I have adopted a new work-in-progress (emphasis on "work-in-progress") and am relocating. So go see!

www.myarceology.com

Doggy Days

There is something flattering about a dog falling asleep on your toes. He doesn't even care that you need a pedicure.

Dairy Divine

The day we confirmed the pregnancy via doctor (Kyle wouldn’t believe it till then), we went to Chick-fil-A. (This is when I could eat anything. Oh the naivete of a 4-week-pregnancy!)

Kyle ordered himself a “celebratory ice-cream cone.” I questioned, “Celebratory?”

“Sure. Might as well be.”

And this is one reason I love my husband.

While I cope by utilizing good-natured sarcasm (see last post for reference), he just copes, and moves on gracefully. He’s helped me to realize that, while God is undoubtedly laughing, he’s doing so pleasantly because he knows that he’s given us a gift beyond any other gift. I know he’s right (“he” being God and Kyle), and I’m ready to care for Little One with all my heart. And hopefully along the way I’ll begin feeling maternal. Because right now? Not so much.

Away in a Manger

Why haven't I posted in so long? Because recently my mind has been in a fog, I turn in at 9 p.m., and my meals are peanut-butter sandwiches.

And now? I’m sucking on a “Preggie Pop." A Sour Raspberry Preggie Pop.

Firstly, I’m really curious as to when terms like “preggo” and “preggie” entered our lexicon. I didn’t hear them until about a year ago, when all of my friends in town decided to get themselves fertilized. Kyle and I looked at these couples – as two by two, they fell into the trap – with horror and confusion.

“Why?” we would ask tearfully. “Why do you choose to do this to yourselves?” We had already decided that we were going to need to find younger friends. Maybe join a Singles group.

And now I’m sucking on a Preggie Pop. And God is up there, having a good ol’ time. I hear him laughing every time I turn down Chick-fil-A. I hear him laughing as I suck on my Preggie Pop. I hear him laughing approximately four times every night when I get up to go pee.

Because the doctor, six home pregnancy tests, two ultrasounds and my ever-thickening mid-section have told me that I’m knocked up indeed with child. We have ourselves an Oops!, and nowadays Kyle and I are looking at each other with horror and confusion.

This poor child’s going to be a Christmas baby.

To Film or Not to Film

I’m dabbling in a movie love affair. I say dabbling because I’m only, like, flirting with film. Watching the There Will Be Bloods and the No Countries for Old Men, the Little Miss Sunshines; waiting to relax and sip a drink with the Junos and Atonements; catching up on the Magnolias and Requiems for a Dream; DVR-ing the Chinatowns and Tsotsis; avoiding the Mans of the Year. I’m no movie connoisseur. Still drinking bargain merlots with the bourgeois eyes of someone who hasn’t yet taken in the Godfather and who fell asleep watching Amelie.

Although, my maturation level has reached new heights: Now I turn on the subtitles of EVERY MOVIE just so I can soak in every single word. In fact, my husband has said that I’m every deaf man’s dream. Meanwhile, I dream of movies.

I dream of my Flirtatious Movie Love Affair progressing into something more. I dream of intimate knowledge. I want to learn about its angles and sideways glances and cameras. I want to learn the ins and outs of screenwriting. And, fittingly, somewhere within this affair is my frivolous life Dream, a Dream that I haven’t yet begun to attack, a Dream that is still very much only a dream. (Probably because I won't go public and subject myself to a friendly dose of accountability.)

My move toward movies actually began with my infatuation with words. Books, etc. Once I started reading about film regularly, I began to see it differently. I began to see it as an art form that has the capacity to possess not only beautiful, witty, smart, emotional language (like a book!) but also drama, cinematography, music … You get the idea. It’s a whole team of talents.

I automatically feel a sort of bond with someone who likes the movies that I like. Case in point: While filling out the below survey, I knew that I was missing some key movies. Movies that, after I watched them, left me sitting on the couch satisfied because I had participated in an experience rather than an entertainment. But, since I’m now 25 and experiencing an inexplicable memory loss, I looked up (thanks, Facebook) a couple of close friends’ movies. Divinely, there were my missing pieces. There were my friends – people who I feel really, truly know me – holding my pieces. I didn’t know specifically what I would find when I looked up their movie lists, just that their movie lists would undoubtedly connect with mine.

My preferences within media – specifically within writings, books, films, sometimes music – are like little manifestations (thesaurus, please give me a less scary word) of what inside me threads me to other individuals. And I think that thread is a shared interest in the human condition: why we do what we do, why we feel what we feel, why we hide what we hide and why we expose what we expose. It’s the raw presentation of human emotion/love/sin to which I’m attracted.

Because when we understand what’s most deeply inside of us, then we can understand what exactly it is that God is healing. And in that I find security. I find security in knowing that there are others out there who aren’t afraid of a little mess, and that there are others out there with whom I can do a little cleaning up.

Scripted

1. Pick 20 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search/other search functions/looking at my profile or whatever to see what my favorite movies are.

1. I can't believe you deceived Miss Miller for a package of Tutti Frutti, Theodore.

2. So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don't you know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it.

3. I thought Tristan would never live to be an old man. I was wrong about that. I was wrong about many things. It was those who loved him the most that died young. He was a rock they broke themselves against however much he tried to protect them.

4. Dear Baby:
I hope someday somebody wants to hold you for 20 minutes straight and that's all they do. They don't pull away. They don't look at your face. They don't try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you up in their arms and hold on tight, without an ounce of selfishness in it.

5. I let you keep the femur, but now, now I want my skull. Or perhaps, I might just take yours. Hans!

6. And there is the account of the hanging of three men, and a scuba diver, and a suicide. There are stories of coincidence and chance, of intersections and strange things told, and which is which and who only knows? And we generally say, "Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn't believe it." Someone's so-and-so met someone else's so-and-so and so on. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

7. Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends.

8. You know what I like about Restaurants? … You can learn a lot, watching things eat.

9. I'd like to dedicate this to my grandpa, who showed me these moves.

10. You were just a little girl in a flannel night gown. And you were shovelling snow from the walk in front of our house. And I was the snow, I was the snow. And everywhere it landed and everywhere it covered. You scoop me up with a big red shovel. You scoop me up.

11. A man who wouldn't cheat for a poke don't want one bad enough.

12. I try and shoot one a day, if possible, before noon. How 'bout you, Coop? I figure it's their fault for being on our land before we got here.

13. This was my son. Notice how I said was? That's because he's dead. Relegated to the past tense. Went from an is to a was before he had his breakfast.

14. I brought you flours.

15. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. And like that ... he is gone.

16. Your own father said that artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.

17. “Your fans are church folk …. Christians. They don't wanna hear you singing to a bunch of murderers and rapists, tryin' to cheer 'em up.”
“Well, they’re not Christian, then.”

18. I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.

19. This isn't a conversation about this being over. I'm not like, putting a period at the end of this. I'm putting like ... an ellipsis on it.

20. Are you the kind of person that takes time to get to know, and then once you get to know them ... they're fabulous?

Long live holidays

Anyone who knows Kyle and me – either individually or as a couple – also knows that we’re competitive. Now we have this record to break.

It means that I’m going to have to live till I’m at least 108, and Kyle will have to hang in there till he’s at least 107. Can we do it? I think so.

This weekend is going to be fabulous, by the way. My parents are coming to the LR metro area on Thursday, and then my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are (planning on) coming Friday! And then Easter on Sunday! I love Easter. Anyone have any special Easter customs to share? Since this will be my first married Easter, I want it to be more special than usual. : )

EDIT: What am I talking about? It's my second married Easter ... It's been a long week already.