ok, well. people have officially complained that i have abandoned my blog. i guess everybody is used to my novella-sized posts full of random ramblings (ooh, alliteration!). i will do my best to resurrect that... i guess the only difference is robin, and all things considered i don't really spend all that much time with him. no, really, i don't. stop laughing. =) i just put the best of lynyrd skynyrd in my cd player, so this ought to be long. i hope that will appease you dehumanizing monsters. (yes, you read that correctly. "dehumanizing monsters.")

crazy how it feels tonight
crazy how you make it all alright love
crush me with the things you do
and i do for you anything too
sitting smoking feeling high
and in this moment it feels so right

the car ride home was absolutely the longest that it has ever ever been. it was very odd to be in a car for so long with josh and ellen. not terrible, necessarily. but strange. i suppose i'm just not quite used to fitting into the josh-ellen dynamic. like, josh wasn't feeling well and requested that we not listen to music for some of the time. this really isn't a big deal, but it seemed like a travesty at the time, because ...well, because loud music and road trips go together like the president and me stabbing him. just kidding, ashcroft. sheesh. but for a while it was ellen driving with josh and i sitting in the back. and first josh slept on my lap, then me on his lap. it was funny, not at all what i expected the sitting arrangements would be. but he brought a pillow, so all was right with the world. i slept for part of the trip, on and off. once when i woke up, i guess josh and ellen didn't realize i was awake, and they were having this conversation... nothing dirty or cutesy or anything, but the mood of their talk was such that i didn't think i should be listening. but josh didn't want music on, so i couldn't block it out or anything. i was a foot behind them and couldn't go anywhere or do anything. i don't like feeling trapped in that way. and i know it's nobody's intention to do that, so i'm not bitter or anything. it's just strange. and every once in a while, when they would talk to each other about something, ellen would turn around and say "what do you think, karyn?" or some equivalent therein. and i thought to myself that it was like i had stepped into a jane austen novel. where the characters are sitting in a carriage and two of them are talking to each other while the third one's mind wanders and wants to be elsewhere. and the occasional obligatory "what do you think about this" was like some bizarre satire. the characters were inadvertantly making fun of themselves. that makes perfect sense to me as being a jane austen novel, if not anybody else. also, we stopped every 10 feet so that josh could go to the bathroom. i'm not used to having to do that either. josh's bladder could dance on the head of a pin or something. so the real question isn't angels, it's bladders. forget it. forget most of everything i say. =) anyway, josh drove the second half, from tupelo to montgomery. and he doesn't speed and it was raining and dark, so we didn't get home until about 11:30. but when we got home, mom had a pan of brownies for us, and they were waiting up. i really just love my parents so so so much. but this isn't news.

lovely lady
i am at your feet
i want you so badly
and i wonder this
could tomorrow be
so wondrous as you there sleeping
let's go drive 'till morning comes
and watch the sunrise and fill our souls up
drink some wine 'till we get drunk

this morning i woke up and dad was working on a paper. something about the difference between ethics and law. i can't believe the type of student he is... for his final in one of this classes, he has to just sit for two hours and write. a huge summary highlighting the basic principles of the course. i know that he's on a far higher lever than me, intellectually and academically, but it still amazes me. mom seems to be doing really well, too, which makes me super ultra megatron happy. now that it's just the two of them, she can spend her time doing the things that really make her happy... making things, creating things, learning things. she's just as smart as dad, but in a very different way. her quilts, and wood burning, and knitting, and needlework. it's all so amazing. she made a HUGE quilt with all of our old jeans, and it's so wonderful. special patches with chlorine stains or paint stains or old patches. and pockets all over it. it's really great. my favorite thing lately is the scarf she's knitting that has a double helix pattern... it's actually an accurate dna model. SO COOL. i want one real bad-like. =) she made me a shirt for my birthday with monopoly money all over it. it's fantastic; i'm so proud of it. =)

it's crazy i'm thinking
just knowing that the world is round
and here i'm dancing on the ground
am i right side up or upside down
and is this real or am i dreaming

daddy and i had a grungy lunch today, which is to say that we went to chic-fil-a without showering, and dad wore his pajamas. my pajamas are not appropriate chic-fil-a attire. but still, i was sweaty and disgusting and it was glorious. (goodness me, i'm already done with the lynyrd skynyrd cd. onto patti rothberg.) we talked about everything, how classes are going, a little bit about robin, how my life has been changing and what we're going to do this summer. i told him all about greece, and how nervous i am about leaving and saying goodbye to people. even just sitting here, typing and thinking about it, i get butterflies in my stomach. sometimes i think i look at the big picture too much... i shouldn't be thinking about leaving. it's february.

lovely lady
let me drink you please
won't spill a drop, no, i promise you
lying under this spell you cast on me
each moment the more i love you
crush me come on oh yeah

it's funny the things i feel like i should tell my parents. i talked to them about letting robin have my car once a week. obviously they have no problem with it whatsoever, but it would have felt wrong not to talk to them about it. and now there's no question in my mind about whether or not i should feel bad at all. i like being able to talk about things like that with my parents. it's not like i'm hiding anything from them that way. even if that's not my attitude or intention, i'd much rather there were absolutely no question.

lovely lady
i will treat you sweetly
adore you i mean you crush me
and it's times like these
when my faith i feel
and i know how i love you
come on come on baby

i miss robin so much, and it's ridiculous. two and a half days, maybe three? that's nothing. it will be totally fine. i thought about him more or less the entire time i was in the car. everytime anything happens, i want to tell him about it. talk to him and see how he feels and what he thinks. like watching the birds on the long stretch on east 64. it feels like they just follow the car, accompanying us on our little trip. the way they clump together, making a huge line across the sky. or stopping at a gas station that sells shamrocks for muscular dystrophy. it's so special to me.

it's crazy i'm thinking
just as long as you're around
and here i'll be dancing on the ground
am i right side up or upside down
to each other we'll be facing
my love by love
we'll beat back the pain we've found you know
i mean to tell you all the things i've been thinking
deep inside my friend
each moment the more i love you

speaking of which, dad is getting worse and it really hurts my heart. because why are things that way? it's ok to question that, i think, as long as i don't doubt God. he aches all the time now. if i could change any of that, i would in a heartbeat. but that's the thing - we can't change any of it. we can only adjust ourselves. and i'm not sure what the point of it is. it's easy to think that you can understand that bad things happen to good people, but when you really have to understand, it's tough. he does so much and has that pain. i couldn't design life to be any better than how God has designed it to be, but it's not always easy to realize that.

crush me come on baby
so much you have given love
that i would give you back again and again
oh my love
meaning i'll hold you
but please please just let me always

mom needs the computer so that they can make wedding invitations. happy days.

so... it's been a while. and i've been happy all the while. kissing somebody because you care about them is so much better than caring about somebody because you kiss them. and feeling that difference in the best.

i want to show him everything i love about the world. but i don't want to lose it. when i spend today floating five feet above the ground, i don't want to get lost. this is exactly how i feel about politics... i'm torn between realism and idealism. i can't decide which paradigm i subscribe to. i want so badly to believe everything good about people, but i know that sometimes people are only thinking about themselves. i want to be happy about everything, and i am happy, but i don't want to take out my brain and keep it in a box under my bed.

she lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"i thought you'd never say hello," she said
"you look like the silent type."
then she opened up a book of poems
and handed it to me
written by an italian poet
from the thirteenth century.
and every one of them words rang true
and glowed like burnin' coal
pourin' off of every page
like it was written in my soul from me to you,
tangled up in blue.

it hasn't been long since i posted, but i've had a lot of things running through my head. so it feels like a lifetime.

come on in now, wipe your feet on my dreams
you take up my time
like some cheap magazine
when i could have been learning something
oh well, you know what i mean
oh i've done this before
and i will do it again
come on and kill me baby
while you smile like a friend
oh and i'll come running
just to do it again

on saturday night in joplin, we went over to jon's house and hung around for a while. it was really nice there... i was afraid of meeting people (this is a small problem i have that probably only katie knows about so far), but it turned out to be really fun. jon's parents are super awesome, and spoke to me like i was an actual person actually capable of actual conversation. it's refreshing for adults to be that way. man, i wish i could see my parents. anyway, we watched high fidelity, which i had not seen in a very long time, and i ended up just really liking it a lot. i need to round up all of the movies that i watched during my "i can't see anything past swearing" stage and find out what i really like. it was great to spend some more time with jon, who lives far away. very far away, and it cannot be helped.

i stay wrecked and jealous for this,
for this simple reason
i just need to keep you in mind
as something larger than life

katie's church was great sunday morning. it brought me back to the first time i visited searcy, when i still lived on guam and i was away from ellen for months. i was stuck at guam church of Christ, which felt very much like a spiritual wasteland. and it tore me apart to be there. when ellen brought me to cloverdale, the church she went to that semester, it was like the dark clouds parted and the sun was shining directly onto my face. and i cried, a lot. happiness to hear the singing of a real church, and see the love the people had for each other there. so at katie's church, they sang "there's a stirring"... and i just lost it. it was pretty pitiful, actually. =) i thought "gee, this is really nice. though i'm clearly not properly medicated." but hey, it wasn't a bad feeling so it wasn't unwelcome.

i wanna dance
i wanna snap my fingers all night long and dance
i wanna move around the room just like a woman in a trance
i wanna dance
i wanna wrap my arms around your neck and dance
i wanna listen to the music that's been ringing in my ears
and one day i'm gonna dance right out of here

the drive back from joplin was fun too, miraculously. i don't really love sitting in cars, especially at night when it's cold... but they let me pick the cds, and goodness knows they sat through songs they hate. so matt and katie were very good to me... the last thing we listened to was the five iron frenzy live album - proof that the youth are revolting. and i can't believe how much i love it. at the beginning of every song, i just shouted "i LOVE this song!" and it was always the truth. i don't know why i'm so enthusiastic about music, but whenever i hear a song i love, i can't help but say that i love it. even if it's the 15th time i've heard it that day. i got so excited about hearing fif that i skanked in the back seat of katie's car. yes, i skanked. in her car. i love to dance. i love love love it. just like i love every five iron song.

hey what did i do?
i've spoken too soon
listen to this tune
forget the words
wait until someday
'cause when i know what to say
i'll say it in the best way you've ever heard

katie's parents remarked that listening to the disco music we danced around to at their house really "took them back to harding"... and i thought, golly. when i hear taking back sunday or anti-flag, is it going to "take me back to harding"? strange things to consider.

there's so many things
we try to do truthfully.
by the time it's through with us,
it all falls apart.
maybe somehow
this scam will still save us all

sometimes i look in the mirror, and i feel so detached. just look at my face, and think to myself "this is you. this is your life. you are seventeen. you have so many things ahead of you, Lord willing. someday this girl will graduate from college. someday she will be walked down an aisle by her father. someday she will have an older face. and children who look at themselves in the mirror and imagine being as old as she will be then." and i feel like i'm hitting on something, in my heart. but i don't really know what it is. today i did this with katie. i was watching a movie, and she got my attention to tell me it was dinnertime... and i just looked at her, and thought " you go to harding. this room is your home, and this is your roommate katie." i sometimes feel like i'm watching my life from far off. and now that i write it, it sounds like i think i'm too deep for the world. but really, i'm not. i just can't explain how things are; i can't make the feeling become words.

walk away today, i must leave you behind
like we've waltzed around the words so many times
we remind in time that the motions will repeat
but the distance doesn't finalize defeat
so it goes
there's a weight that never seems to let it go
and i'm passing through the atmosphere like smoke


i got another ticket. and it made me laugh and laugh... and the great thing is, i'm not being sarcastic.

i've been thinking long and hard
about the things you said to me
like a bitter stranger
now i see the long the short the middle
and what's in between
i could spit on a stranger


i painted tonight. everybody else went and watched "bubble boy", but i knew i couldn't be out tonight like that. i don't think i'm anything special about this, but i felt really creative lately. like i had something inside me that wanted to get out. and so i had to do something about it, and that something was acrylics, apparently. i was so satisfied afterwards. with what i had made, and the fact that i made anything at all. for the first time, i wasn't afraid to use black. this black lines. it's funny... i was always terrified of ruining what i was working on by using black. and this one, it didn't look finished without it. that means something to me.

would it make you happy
if everyone around you smiled
then you wouldn't have to hide
the world would be yours
and you'd be mine
i'd be your prometheus stealing
from a nuclear sky
i'd be your insecure hero
and you would be mine


i want to go to bed really early. it's 11:12. 30 questions for western civ. sounds like chapel work to me.

missouri is a whole lot of fun!

on the drive over, it was amazing... i was working hard to eat all of the green berries out of our gigantic bag of generic crunch berries cereal. the changes in altitude were so strange... since i came back to the states, i haven't been around mountains really. i can't remember a time when i drove through type of landscape, with towns in little valleys below the highway. it was gorgeous, to see lines of head lights and tail lights on hills ahead of us. absolutely gorgeous.

we got to katie's house at around 8:30, and as soon as i got out of the car i went and laid down in the snow. it's so amazing, like granulated sugar all over the ground. the tiny top layer is so light, you could just push it around with the toe of your shoe. i love it. =) then we went to katie's backyard, which has this really great hill. and of course i laid down on the ground and rolled down the hill on my side, in the snow, over and over again. and did somersaults and kicked snow at matt and made a big peace sign. i really love the snow.

after coming in, we did some laundry and slid around the wood floor in the kitchen. katie and matt went to pick up katie's younger sister, and i stayed and called my father. we used quite a few minutes on my phone card discussing terrorism and the talk about being a good citizen. and when i had the whole house to myself, i turned up the music and danced around. there's something really great about dancing alone in an otherwise empty house. around 10:30, jon called and he camed over with some movies... we watched the nightmare before christmas and then that thing you do. both of them are excellent movies, obviously. it's fun to hang out with jon; he's very different from the boys in searcy. younger but older at the same time. all the excitement died down around 4 in the morning, when jon took off and we went to bed. good times indeed.

i was stirred from my sleep this morning by matt's face thiiiiiis close to mine. it was very disconcerting. then cinnamon toast crunch, then space balls on tv, then folding laundry, then shower, then katie's old school parking lot. where i spelled "karyn is hot" in the snow, and matt magically transformed it into "karyn is a hoe". it's funny how that works. =) then a fun store called eccentrix, where i purchased an elvis cd (yes, i suck, but i rock and roll all night long, sweet susie), the legend of drunken master dvd, and the american beauty dvd. we drove around town, seeing what the area looked like. it's a nice city... reminds me of orange park. and parts of it reminded me of downtown jacksonville... in a good way, not a crackhouse way.

when we got home, it was only a short wait before katie's parents came. it was so nice to see them again; they are such wonderful people. we visited for a while, and they dressed up for a costume party while we laughed at the wendt antics. and danced to disco music. a lot of disco music. very very good disco music.

it's so relaxing to be in a real house with a real family. =)

one more thing. i just remembered why it never would have worked out with kerry.

this is why:
"then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
the haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
let me forget about today until tomorrow."

i showed those lyrics to him, telling him that i thought they were beautiful, particularly "let me forget about today until tomorrow"... just the idea of it, of that peace, and just falling asleep and putting the world on hold. dancing and being happy... it's beautiful, to me. but kerry said it was unchristian, because we're not supposed to let the sun go down on this and that etc etc... that's just such a fundamental difference in thinking.

i need a boy who can look at bob dylan verses and say "wow. that is beautiful."

and wow, that would be beautiful.

sometimes, i look at the folks around me and just think about how people are. how we think it makes us interesting to listen to sad songs and sit by ourselves thinking about frowning and writing bad poetry. i mean, sure, i do these things too. but i don't think that i am very deep, and certainly not too deep for the world. life's just not so bad. there are hard times every once in a while, but there's a lot of good. i just don't see how we can ignore that. it's ok to be happy, you're still an interesting person. unless you're an old man. then you shouldn't be happy... and most of all, you should stop talking to me in walmart parking lots. you're creepy.

instead of the caf for dinner, it was all about sonic! woohoo. carrie, katie, robin, and i played the would-you-rather game, and learned some frightening new things about each other. robin would rather kiss janet reno than madeline albright... "all day, every day". or maybe it was hillary clinton over laura bush. either way, yuck. of course, we didn't give him the most enticing options. not that these women aren't all noble and wonderful people in their own ways...

went to see the widow lady talk about terrorism and patriotism and such with robin. was pleasantly surprised, but some things made me raise my eyebrows... like her saying that the passengers on the flight her husband were on were the first people to fight back to terrorism. i'm not sure how that's something anybody could know for sure. but it's silly to judge her whole presentation on one teensy part. i asked a question about the steps she had been taking to bankrupt terrorist groups, which is something she mentioned only for a split second. apparently she's involved in a gigantic lawsuit. it must be frustrating for them, because it's the type of thing that can't really move along for a few years. maybe more than a few. maybe a decade. it's just a really long process, as well it should be.

i don't believe in organized prayer in schools. i don't think thats an anti-Christian thing. it's hard when people disagree.

i really like spending time with robin. it could end up being bad, but for now i just get excited about it.

i don't want to be dumb. does anybody? do we have a choice in the matter?

today was a nice day. i couldn't sleep last night, and remember getting up just about every hour and looking at the clock to see how much time had passed. but then when i finally forced myself out of bed, i felt really well-rested. i didn't even take a nap, and was wide awake for all of my classes. and with bible, that's quite a feat. i'm going to bed really soon, though, which is not at all like me. it's only a quarter past midnight!

had lunch with the group, and did pretty well. i think i'm a lot better now. i'm not sure how much they see, but i feel better. i'm not needlessly angry... that's probably an improvement. lately i haven't been wanting to leave my room very often, not even for meals. it's not like me to be that antisocial. really, it's not. i don't like not understanding myself.

i had dinner with robin and aaron, which was nice. i was at first a little scared, but then pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. then at eight o'clock, robin and i went to dairy queen for blizzards. well, we went for no real reason. but it ended up becoming blizzards. i like talking to him. and i don't mind silence when we're together. i really can't figure him out, but i've learned not to read into anything that he says or does. it's just better to assume that nothing will change. stupid realism. but then again, stupid idealism.

kerry is rockin' out. i'm so anxious to get through the primaries... i can't wait to see what is in store for america. but if bush is president for another four years, i will not react well. and i will be in greece when i find out. i hope the kids i'm there with will be understanding. gosh, i really can't wait to find out. i'm such a complete and total geek.

don't tease me, man. don't say things that you don't mean. oh man, maybe thats why i don't mind silence.

i really hate seeing couples mount each other in the student center. am i alone in this?

today katie came to my international relations class and i came to her art history class. we got a chance to see what each other's major courses are like, although i'm sure her interior design classes are a little different. it was neat to see where she goes everyday when i'm done with my classes... and fun to have her take a look at how elrod is. and watch me make fun of his sweater vest to his face. ...good times.

a girl from my speech class just came up to me and asked me about what it's like to be in a military family. apparently her boyfriend is in the army, and he wants her to make a decision as to whether or not she'll stay with him and thus (in a way) commit her life to the military. i guess it would be hard to start moving around just when you become an adult, but i really wouldn't change that about my childhood. you get to learn so much about yourself and you're constantly challenged by new people and new situations. plus, there are some really cool duty stations out there with really cool travel opportunities. plus, i'm a giant nerd.

things are going ok. i guess i spent a weekend not talking to adam, but i didn't plan it to be that way. it's difficult to feel a certain way and not be able to explain it to people, because then i just came off as being bitter and jealous and spiteful. but it's ok for people to interpret things that way, since i guess it's not much better than the truth.

i don't want to have a problem trusting boys, and i think i'm getting worse about it. but does the blame fall on me, or on the people who have slowly taught this to me? i don't want to be a hard girl to get to know, and i certainly don't want to be a hard girl to date (freakin' sheesh).

at church last sunday, we were singing and praising God, and it came to me that i don't want to feel the way i feel anymore. i don't want to care about robin, or adam, or the stupid things that make me upset, or the classes i don't want to go to, or the homework i don't want to do. i only want to care about the one thing that truly matters, and the one thing that i'm absolutely sure i can always count on. i don't mean that i'm going to throw in the towel with everything else, and not do my homework, and not pursue friendships. but things shouldn't bother me the way they do now. i want an ongoing conversation with God, and to happily live the life He gave me. i want to remember Jesus all of the time. not just when i take communion, or when i go to chapel. i know that i'm not a heathen, because God values me, and i want to live like i know it. and really believe it. ok, deep breath. =)

my sister bought me claritin d. i felt so young. but we fought, and i hate fighting with her. i think she hates fighting with me too, so it's strange that we still do it.

i miss my parents, but that's not news. i wish they lived in searcy. and if they did, i really think i would spend a lot of time at home. i don't want to drive home to see them when ellen is going to be planning her wedding, because they will be busy. but i miss hugging them and i miss talking to them. now sometimes i call when i don't have any news. i called daddy sunday and told him about the church i'm going to now, and about the instruments and the women offering communion. he told me once that nothing would make him happier than seeing his daughters be able to participate like that in the worship of God. i miss his constant affirmations, him grabbing me by the shoulders and looking me in the face every hour on the hour, telling me that he loves me and he's proud to be my father. i don't know if anything affects me quite as positively as that does. and i can't believe i'm actually sitting here in the student center posting about my father and crying.

i have two fathers. they are both greater than anything i could have ever designed for myself. i am so so so blessed.