December 26, 2003
Wrestling With the Ice Queen
One of my regular habits is to read the diaries of my friends when I get online. Some I read just because I love the people to death and miss them terribley, like Carmen and Shayne. What I love about reading Shayne, which is really why I mention this habit, is I am always awed by her faith in God and his plan. I try to adopt some of it in my own way sometimes.
While I sat in church on Christmas/Christmas Eve (it was the midnight mass) I looked at all the faces around me, something I do a lot because half of the joy of the mass is the people watching. What struck me was how so many people did not look happy to be there at all. The choir sang about the joy of the birth of Christ but not a line on their faces was turned up to indicate this joy in their hearts. To try to compensate for everyone else's somber faces I tried to smile while I sang, so at least it looked like someone was joyful.
Faith is slippery, at least between my fingers. But I think my smiling in church may have helped me to adopt some of the Christmas spirit. As I talk to my friend Mark I realize that sometimes I analyze my relationships too closely and forget about the other people who make up my relationships. I become so focused on what the relationship is doing to me that I forget what the relationship may be doing to other people. It just ends up perverted and twisted.
Receiving a Christmas card from her made me smile quite a bit.
My Christmas was great; I love seeing my Aunt Mary Jo, Uncle Gordy, and my cousin Chris. Christian always tells me that he feels sorry for me because I am an only child and that I am so alone. The only time I feel alone at all is when all of my relatives leave; I love sitting in the family room with every seat filled and extra chairs pulled in. I love listening to my aunt and uncle quarrel or my cousin pronounce that he is not going to wear his coat in the cold to agitate my aunt. When they leave it more than sounds quiet; I feel it.
One of the reasons I want to go to Smith so desperately is I want to be part of a tight-knit community. I want the opportunity to go down to a common room and hear people arguing or laughing. I love to be alone but sometimes it is nice to be lost among people.
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to the movie theater Christmas night. This year's movie was Cold Mountain, which I loved. Nicole Kidman left me kind of cold but Renee Zellwegger was FANTASTIC. She better win an Oscar. If she does not I will hate the Academy forever. I am sure they are really concerned about my sentiments towards them, but nevermind that.
As a quick sidenote, I also love being lost in coffee and large red fuzzy chairs at Starbucks. If it makes me corporate, hand me my stock shares and be on your merry way. I am corporate. On the other hand I love one of our local coffee shops because the furniture is like someone's home and they let me stay there until 1 am if I really want to.
In Cold Mountain I found the letters exchanged between the lovers most compelling. I nearly wrote a letter to a friend of mine but figured it would be too odd if I did. Instead I read through an old note that someone wrote me. The most unfortunate part of all this wonderful technology, a point I have cried and strung a violin for many times, is that e-mails are not collected in boxes to be looked through whenever a person is especially missed. I kind of like discerning the handwriting anyway.
I would be a person closer to perfection if I wrote letters. I should try to find someone who will try to keep up a correspondance with me the old fashioned way.
In third grade every student in my homeroom class was assigned a pen pal. I cannot remember where my penpal was from, how horrible...I want to say Kentucky or Tennessee. I do remember being quite excited about having a pen pal, even then I was kind of romantic about communication. The whole project ended up being quite pitiful, I only wrote letters during the assigned time and I think roughly four letters from both of us were carried by the postman.
The first letter from my penpal included an All About Me kind of sheet; one of her favorite tv shows was Ricki Lake. Since I was a latchkey kid, I had no idea what Ricki Lake was, I only knew that it sounded exciting. It actually sounded exotic and sophisticated to me for some reason. Needless to say the actual show was kind of disappointing, once I caught on what it was. I was young and forgiving enough that I did not hold it against my penpal for introducing me to talk television.
I also happened to learn about Friends from someone else. My love of the time wrote something about Friends being his favorite tv show, so I thougth I would give it a chance. I own the trivia game now, but I promise that it is not related. Knowing him now, I doubt he would ever admit to Friends once being his favorite show. It is kind of a chick show. I think it is kind of like Dave Matthews Band. You can like it, just do not make it the be all and end all of your entertainment needs.
I had a fantastic night at work for once, which is real proof that my faith received some kind of lift. I finished my book Kinflicks (I was slightly disappointed by the ending but I enjoyed the book) and amazingly was happy when two kids came unexpectedly/unannounced. Usually I am perturbed at being disrupted and not being able to mentally prepare myself for having kids. I ended up being entirely unlike myself; instead of being worried that I was finding the signout sheets too slowly I casually handed them to the father and smiled easily.
The most fun activity involved the ice machine. The kids are not really supposed to go in the back area where the machine is, but they know that when it is just them it is usually ok. I figured out that it was far more fun if I told them that they could not go to the ice machine and feigned more annoyance than was real when one kid, William, continually left ice cubes all over the floor. I blocked the machine and the two boys worked together to push me out of the way, eventually wrestling me down to the ground. One lifted up my shirt some, which was not too great, but otherwise it was funny.
Even if I end up bruised, I am definitely not broken. And really, if I am not broken, there is not a problem.
Love,
Mandy