God is listening.

the lesions that the doctor had credited to past multiple sclerosis flares have shrunk significantly and are almost gone (there are only two small ones left!), so now the diagnosis is something called acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis. ADEM "bears a striking clinical and pathological resemblance to multiple sclerosis," according to the internet. and my suitemate pa nhia's medical dictionary says that "survival through the acute phase of the illness is often followed by a remarkably complete recovery."

i pretty much could not be happier. i get to cry out of joy today. my sister is probably going to be just fine, and i feel spiritually alive. God ripped me from complacency. it was painful, but it was good. the Spirit groaned with me.

camping last weekend felt wonderful. (i can't say how it was, i can only say how it felt. how strange.) there is really no difference between the bottom of everything and the top of everything. it depends on what is up, and up doesn't exist. so, go climb a mountain and confront nothing/everything.

i had badtz all weekend:


we have a sweet suite:


shortly before marshmallows (which would be a great band name, now that i think about it):


it felt wrong to crop this picture:


thank you to everybody who thought about or prayed for katie.

*******

also, here's a memo:

To: Males
Re: Feelings

explicit>implicit

i awoke to a phone call from my parents this morning at 6:33 a.m. those phone calls are never good news, and this was no exception.

my eldest sister (katie) has been diagnosed with acute multiple sclerosis.

i don't think a lot of people are aware of how i view katie, but i see her as a superhero. when i was a little girl, i mass-produced stick figure pictures of her wearing capes. she cannot have ms. it just doesn't make sense. the world seems like a very different place now, and i'm scared.

she's living in japan right now, so i cannot see her until christmas. it hurts that i can't be around her or hug her or kiss her face. and i feel selfish about this pain, because i'm not the one who has to experience the illness. i love my family more than i love myself. i feel powerless.

i just want to hug her.

please pray, because i think God is listening.

i have absolutely no idea who reads this, but if you read this and you see me, ask me if i've taken a pill. and if i say no, tell me to go and take one. please. i'm getting a lot better, but it would be even better if i remembered to take them. it's not impossible.

actually, i feel like a million bucks today. it's the sort of day in which i can employ the phrase "like a million bucks" without collapsing into a banality-induced seizure. i made an effort--i didn't just take a shower, brush my teeth, and put my hair in a ponytail. i put a bow in my hair. my clothes matched. i wore make-up.

i wore make-up.

getting dumped is not the end of my life. i can be pretty again. so, i'm going to stop avoiding people in whom i'm interested. i'm going to stop being purposefully awkward. i probably won't stop being awkward, though. (speaking of which, america's next top model comes on in a half hour.) and even though i'm primarily looking forward to the kolumbus convention, i'm going to stop thinking of each day as simply one-day-less-until-kolumbus, or else my semester is a waste. and i'm starting to realize that i'm not an automatic indie snob for listening to that music. sufjan is just so powerfully good. it's ok to truly own what you like.

this taking on a creepy dr. phil feel, so i'll lighten the mood with a chinchilla:



p.s. i really am so excited about the con. ellen and i are rooming with a guy named ryan from our clan (yeah, i said "clan"). he's pretty fun, so it should be an amazing time.

oh, but today is still today, etc.

it's been too long since i've seen the sea.

right now, i feel the most myself when i'm with katie.

i truly love you all.

i have this great picture of my parents now. my parents are maybe the most amazing people i know. i miss them every single day, and i don't think that i would be anybody at all were it not for them.
(also, dandelion fountain.)



last night, i ate dinner in the cafeteria and was approached by matt reed. he wanted to borrow a dvd of mine. the conversation went something (something) like this:

matt: "do you love Jesus and can i borrow your aqua teen hunger force dvds?"
karyn: "i don't want to discuss my relationship with God with you, and yes you can borrow the dvds."
matt: "awesome."
karyn: "wait, are you going to run them over with your car, or set them on fire, or use them to hammer a nail?"
matt: "wow, those are really good questions."
karyn: "i know. i ask really good questions."
matt: "that's probably why you don't believe in God."

i just thought it was funny. matt's a funny guy sometimes. that's why i let him borrow my dvds, even though he never explicitly promised not to destroy them. (obviously, i believe in god. asking good questions is a way to God, not away from Him. also, double LOL @ not wanting to discuss this with matt, but wanting to discuss this on my blog. i'm degenerating into innernets language.)

which leads me to my Big News: i went to church today. for the first time in many, many moons. this is a big deal to me, and it was good. i was flipping through my bible on my way to 1 kings, and i realized how much of an explanation my physical bible is. my parents gave it to me on december 1, 1996, when i was baptized, and it's the only bible i've ever carried. a teal new international version of the student bible. her (i assign things genders, and my bible is a lady) pages are filled with bulletins from every church i have visited since i was immersed in the Spirit. as i realized it this morning, i have no idea what this means (how my bible is an explanation). i just felt that it means something, because i felt it at all. i cannot explain why i get the feeling that everything means something - and the meaning is not something that can be reduced to any easy, clean statement in human language. the meaning is already reduced to its simplest expression in its own language. we just cannot speak it. does God speak it? does God have a language? it's like poetry.

but everything reminds me of poetry.

i think i would be a much cooler person if i had a videoblog. but, i can't have a videoblog until i'm a much cooler person.

>>what to do, what to do...<<

HELLO BIG OL' LIT CRIT ESSAY - HERE I COME!