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starrywaters
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Name: Leslie
State: Texas
Gender: Female
Interests: words, loving people well, adventurous things, homey things.
Expertise: crying, being verbose, over-analyzing, journaling, extremely obscure old songs, being the proverbial grain of salt...(you'll just have to ask, now won't you?)
Message: message me
Member Since:
4/4/2003
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| ...and other than that there's no noise in the house. I'm hanging out at home on the last day before I leave the Houston homeland and head back to real life (working, taking care of my own meals, etc). It's been a good holiday, I feel like I've rested & recouped, and seen some friends, and definitely spent some good time with my family...I might report on that later, because probably a whole post with some pictures should be devoted to the Lenert family's musical exploits this Christmas. For now, I think I just want to share some of my New Year's Disciplines (I got that from my friend Samantha...it feels less pressuring than calling them resolutions - these are just the things I want to try to do better, be more disciplined about):
1 - Pursue time with Jesus, make it a priority everyday; and therefore....
2 - Go to bed earlier - set a reasonable, doable bedtime for myself and stick to it the majority of the time
3 - Be more informed about things going on in the world - I'm going to start listening to a couple of news podcasts, like the BBC's and NPR's, I think.....I'm going to try to make these and the Daily Audio Bible (yes, Mom) something I listen to regularly.
ok, that's all for now, because the cat is still meowing and I think she needs some kind of attention. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a glorious time ringing in the new year!!
--Leslie--
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| ....and when all else fails, I'll put up a xanga post.....
So, the other day, driving home from Houston, my car decided to have
trouble shifting gears. I wasn't sure that was the problem
exactly, but something was going on - lost of whirring and noise and my
jeep trying ever so hard to accelerate, but not really showing much for
its effort. I made it home ok, but then took it to my mechanic
yesterday and he said it was the transmission.
You have to understand: my history with this car - or its history with
me - is not so great. It's really, truly a love-hate
relationship. But - since the transmission had just been rebuilt
a little over a year ago (just long enough for the twelve-month
warrenty to be up) - this was pretty much the last straw. That,
and two different people (including my dad, who's never seriously
suggested this before) brought up the idea of getting a new vehicle to
me in the same day.
So I feel like it's time.
The only problem is, the idea of making car payments (and I sure don't
want to get any car that's cheap enough that I don't have to make
payments on it - reliability is pretty much top priority to me at this
point) on my 2-part-time-job salary is a little indimidating.
Doable, I believe, but indimidating. And, as my mom points out,
this will affect what type of job I go for next, leaving me less
wiggle-room in terms of what kind of salary I can be ok with.
So I'm not entirely sure what's going on or how I got here, but I find
myself, on the week of my 24th birthday, job searching and car
searching and not really sure when or how I will find either
(Jesus? Any thoughts?). I'm kind of glad that the car issue
has lit a little more of a fire under me in terms of job-searching (I
don't want to be in the job I'm at forever, but haven't done much about
that yet), and it's all kind of exciting, really thinking about those
changes. But I also have a lack of confidence in myself - as I
look at jobs, I get interested in a lot of them, and feel qualified for
very few of them. And qualifications aside - I'm not even
entirely sure what I'm looking for in the long-term sense, making the
short-term difficult. I want to do so many different things -
social work-y things, writerly things, teaching things, people-helping
things, arts-related things, fun things, ministry things, professional
things, nonprofit things - then I remember that I can't do everything
and feel like I can't do anything.
This is such a post-college, early-20s-angsty rant. My apologies
for that. But thanks for reading it....any advice or encouragment
is totally welcome. I think this time I just needed to
vent.
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| Many of you may have asked yourself in the past few months, "Where has starrywaters gone? Will she ever return to xangaland?" I've often asked myself the same question. But tonight, that question is answered.
Yes.
Partially because I've decided to embrace and act on a desire to make writing more a part of my life in general, and partially because I'm up a little too late thinking about the future and what my dream job would be, and about 46% because I had a conversation last night about acting on things I want to do, I'm picking up the xanga pieces and trying once more.
This started as more of a public journal, a posting of the general "what's going on with me" that wasn't too personal to post on the internet, but just personal enough to be interesting to the group of close friends and family that actually read it. But now I'm thinking it will be more random, and more for the sake of writing. Writing writing writing (I want to do it more, to get better at it, to find some way to actually use it in my life).
So, that's the new on the resurrection of my xanga site.
I bought a dresser. It's big and it makes me feel at home, because it fills my almost-too-spacious-bedroom a little more; and like a little girl, because it has a lovely oval mirror and two small drawers on top that I can only describe as "cunning". I think it's come to represent to me a lot of things going on in my life right now: I feel more settled, I feel more girly, I'm beginning to have the hunger (and willingness) to go after things I've always wanted to do, ways I've always wanted to live. Furniture I've always wanted to buy, even.
So that's what's new with me, in a nutshell. Next time I'll try to write about something more interesting than just myself.
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| So, since I am at a slight loss for things to put on here right now anyway, and since I was reading over some things that I wrote while teaching abroad last year....figured I'd post some of that. Not neccessarily finished or profound. enjoy.
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11-17-06
Walking Down a Dirt Road
Today as I walked down the dirt
road that leads from our house down to the more peopled part of the neighborhood and
from there to the bus stop, I thought about some of the things I’ve learned –
not about this country or myself or anything else broad and profound,
really. Just what I’ve learned about
walking down this dirt road.
There are rules for walking down
the dirt road that leads from the house on the hill to the bus stop, in autumn,
just like there are rules for everything else in life.
The first rule is: dress
slightly warmer than you think you should.
But only slightly. Today I looked
at the digital thermometer that my aunt keeps in the kitchen and that has a
sensor outside, and it said 53 degrees Farenheit. However, since it was sunny, and I knew I
would be walking a lot later in the day, I didn’t want to overdress,
either. That was my mistake. I dressed fairly warmly and took a coat, but
if I had been following the dress slightly warmer rule, I would have
brought a scarf, too. This rule means
that if you think you need a jacket, bring a scarf too; and if you think you
need a scarf, bring a hat as well. Why?
Because of the wind that sweeps around you and past you and through you
as you pick your way over rocks and dirt and bumps, because it’s fall and the
day won’t “warm up”, it’ll only stay the same or get colder, and because a
scarf’s not that big a deal to add. You
won’t suffocate.
The second rule is this: listen
to the stillness. There’s a silence at
the top of the hill, the part of the road just after you leave and before you reach
the “busier” road that it dead-ends into.
Sounds of workers hammering nearby or people calling to their children
in the yard or a dog barking will cut through, but the silence is so heavy that
they only show up as accents to its backdrop of still. If you don’t soak this in, you’re wasting
your walk.
Even after you reach the more
used road, the part that’s paved, you’re still in a place that should be
listened to. But here, listening becomes
not just for edification or enjoyment.
I’ve begun to learn, I think and hope, to listen to cars like a national. I’ve seen people here walk
forward when a car is coming toward them up until the last possible
second. Playing chicken with the traffic
is a basic way of life here, whether it’s between two cars or a car and
pedestrian. When I’m taking step after
step down the dustiness of the hill and hear a car engine far away, I don’t
just hear “a car” anymore. I hear a car
that is approximately 60 seconds from appearing behind me, and which I will
ignore until it is about 7 seconds away, which is probably about sight range,
when I will move just a little further over to the left side until it
passes. That’s another rule: walk on the
left side of the road. That way, when
cars are coming around the twist and turns and bends and careening down, they
won’t sneak up behind you and run you over accidentally (that's really a good rule for anywhere that they drive on the right side of the road, including America; it's just more crucial here).
Here’s the rule that's
non-intuitive, and that I had to learn by experience: After a car passes
going the other direction (so in this case, up the hill), turn your head and
look at it. This may seem like a riddle,
but the solution lies in the fact that you’re not looking at the car at all,
actually. You’re looking up the road to
see if any other car is coming. Because
while a car is passing by you and even when it’s a little past you, your ears
are temporarily filled with its sound and can’t hear any cars that might be
approaching behind you. And if you
happen to be breaking two rules and walking on the right side of the road (as I
did once), this might mean that a totally unexpected car suddenly rushes past
you close enough to touch.
That’s how I learned to turn my head.
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| Evening, everyone.
Something I've missed out on recently, I feel like, is those times when
you do or read or think or research random things that are personally
enriching, just interesting to you. It makes me feel productive,
because I'm feeding something in me.
For example, besides running a couple errands that I've been meaning to
for a while (I love buying office supplies....tape and scissors are a
necessity in any household, and we had none) I've sat here and checked
email, read BBC news, watched a few episodes of The Office (which, yes,
I've finally discovered), listened to some new music, and somehow ended
up looking up information about the parition of India in 1947. (I
only know it was in 1947, by the way, because I just looked it
up. don't feel out of the loop).
I like that.
I'll probably read a little more about the goings on of the world and
then play some guitar. Wonderment. It actually feels like a
summer right now.
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