it's snowing in arkansas,
and i do not have a boyfriend anymore.

i've been meaning to post some pictures of my friends, since i know a lot of people who read this blog are in no way connected to my life at harding. i'd like to show you the people with whom i spend the bulk of my time. the big difference between this semester and several previous semesters is that katie and i have regained a Group of Friends Who Actually Go Out and Do Things Together.

to explain the context of most of these pictures, last thursday we got together and had a thanksgiving dinner as a "family." the dress code was ugly sweaters, and i think you'll agree that we pulled it off well. we all made different dishes, and i was put in charge of the green bean casserole. it actually came out really well, and there wasn't any left over. i felt good about that.


you know katie. she is amazing (and armed).



here is beth serving up some turkey. beth, as you most likely know, is my suitemate. she's a nursing major from oregon, and she's going to change the world somehow. beth had an interesting variation of the Christmas Sweater, opting instead for a Christmas Sweatervest.



megan and zach are pictured below. you can scarcely see their sweaters, but their beautiful, beautiful faces are enough. megan and zach are art majors (i believe megan's concentration is ceramics), and are both immensely talented. megan is from michigan and zach is from texas, which makes me laugh. they are good people.



brooklynne is in my literary criticism class, which means that she and i are forever linked in a literary criticism sisterhood. she keeps trying to convince me to go to grad school, which is a no-go. grad school is for people with a) a little direction, or b) a desire to continue being a student as a result of having no direction whatsoever. i do not fit either of those categories. anyway, brooke is from arizona. she thinks about things. i like her.



this is justin, another art major. he doesn't seem to like a lot of what he creates, though i think he has genuine talent. justin wants to serve God in memphis after he graduates in december. in this picture, justin's sweater, though not very christmasy, is quite hideous. and my butt is apparently so hot that he must touch it only while wearing an oven mitt. it was a fun night.



austin is from texas. he is a computer engineering major and, of course, a sagittarious. (i made up his zodiac sign.) sadly, this is not a picture from our ugly christmas sweater dinner--this is a picture that katie bolla took of austin while she was visiting last weekend (which was amaaaazing). austin and i have a lot in common, and he once bought me a steak. he's a good guy.



kevin does not usually wear glasses. these glasses don't even have lenses in them. anyway, kevin is a computer science major from texas. i don't know how i got stuck with so many friends from texas, but i like them. i've actually known kevin since we were freshman, but i refused to talk to him because i thought he was so attractive. he likes checkers, and is generally fun.



this is the best picture i could find of other josh. i call him other josh because he went to france with ellen and the original josh, my brother-in-law. he's a musician who plays mah jongg with katie and me from time to time. josh is, among other things, a militant vegetarian and (ironically) moral relativist.



we women-folk like to be in the kitchen. please note the outfits.



just a close-up shot of my sweater. those are sequins. somebody put a lot of work into this, and i will wear it as much as possible.



that's the end of the picture show. i'm in joplin, missouri, at katie's house for thanksgiving break. i have a lot of work to do over the next two weeks, and i think my papers are coming along nicely. (when i say "papers," i mean "research for papers.")

life is alright.

if you stare at something for a long time, it becomes very, very ugly. and immediately after that, it becomes very, very beautiful.

here's a thought i've been trying to develop. it's called "we are all marginal people."

god lines us up
at the edge of the worldpage,
stockpiling us (six billion
semicolons) to connect acorn
to ground, kite to cloud,
i am to he is.

i don't feel like writing anything else right now. here's some old stuff.

******

"i do not cry for the sin of eve"

i do not cry for the sin of eve.
i would have done the same,
exposed a pale ankle
to a wilderness snake--
not for a wretched red apple, no,
but for an orange, my arm
extended to offer a citrus segment
to the damp brown man,
the scaly peel to the damp brown earth.
we were not meant for the garden, or else
why do oranges come in
friendly segments.
eden was the scaffolding
around a death-tree, ripped down
by god and men, ripped away
like the bitter orange peel
to reveal the pulpy mess we share.
oh, i do not weep for eve, even as
children tumble cruelly
from my womb, even as i shudder
in my nakedness. i do not cry for eve,
even as she freed me to cry.

******

"i could never be a mountain man"

i could never be a mountain man.
who could take me seriously
with an axe over one
plaid-clad shoulder and
no accompaniment
of angry facial hair?
the great failing of women:
we cannot sprout wiry beards
and recede into wilderness caves.
but i press on, taping rows
of sticky pine needles to
an increasingly undainty chin,
hurling bird calls off rocky cliffs.
soon the female cardinals
will answer back,
straining their dull-brown heads
in sympathetic whoops.

******

i think i'm coming into my own voice.

i'm sitting in the chicago airport right now, halfway home from kolumbus. this weekend was perfect. ryan, owen, and steve were all fantastic in very different ways. and seeing ellen is always good.

if i had the sort of journal that displayed my "current mood," i'm not sure which animated kittycat face i would choose. right now i feel that the world is heavy with beauty. i want everybody in the universe to find what they are looking for. i do not have any idea what that is for me. it is a song that promises to be beautiful. i got eight hours of sleep the entire weekend.

i'm thinking of the times in my life when i was ripped apart, and when people i loved and tried very hard to love were ripped apart. we should all forgive each other. i want to own my life and give it away. i've been reading about the transfiguration.

youth is comforting and i am comforted, but i am not a child anymore. i will finish out the semester by working hard on my three final papers. for american literature, i will analyze the implications of allusions to the genesis narrative in hawthorne's "rappaccini's daughter." i never thought i would like nathaniel hawthorne. for literary criticism, i will take a deconstructionist approach to the function of solitude in gabriel garcia marquez's one hundred years of solitude. it will be the most important paper i will have written, and next semester it will be eclipsed by a similar treatment of the tension between intention and action in heart of darkness by joseph conrad. for film as literature, i will track the freedom/captivity motif in wes anderson's the royal tenenbaums.

i do not by any means think that my major or my education is a joke. literature has changed me and is changing me. language is central. this does not mean that language has replaced God; this means that i am straining to hear the language of God.

i saw kerry this weekend. it was just like all of the good parts of high school. i had already given up pretending to read a magazine in the hotel lobby while i waited for him, and he walked in. when i saw him, the cloud of over-four-years dissipated. i was so comfortable. i was so happy. now i'm sitting in my airplane waiting to take off for little rock and i wish i had spent more time with him. i should have paid more attention to this. i had forgotten how tall he is. i loved seeing him.

i want to write, i want to write, i want to write. i want poetry to spill out of me almost all of the time. i take this seriously. i want to get married someday not so very far from today. a lot would need to happen. i cannot believe that i am only twenty years old.

love is such a heavy truth, and i would like to proclaim truth. i do a whole heck of a lot of scribbling. i draw a lot of sad clouds wearing party hats. there isn't a good reason why that should not be love. the paper is light. i'm really getting it together.

i don't think i have ever understood jesus more than i do now that i am reading the old testament so much. i know that everybody hates it when people post long texts on their blogs, but i'm doing it anyway.

And the word of the LORD came to him: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

and it just keeps on, the gentle whisper.