matters of the heart

okay so this is a blip on the map of the senses and while love is a feeling it is not a sense.  so sorry to go all off topic but hey the writing goes where it wills. . . .

I can't do this any longer.  frankly it's a weight I carry and the burden is too much.  so like a scab, I slough it off and move on.  I refuse to see one person in the shadow or better yet, light of another.  We are all good at, and horrible at - different things at different times.  We are all hero's and cowards in our own right.  We all are sinners and saints - given a time or place.  I have just been a fallen saint and fall I will no more.  Not NOT NOT that I would ever call myself personally a saint. I am just a chosen instrument of God.  THAT I know.  Know KNow KNOw KNOW like I know my foot or hand or child.  I know.  But I have let HIM down and I need to stand up.  Not for me but for HIM.  For Him - because of Who he IS and for what He is. 

I am tired of comparing.  You can do this.  You don't do this.  You aren't into this, but you do this.  You xyz but not pdq.  UGH.  It's tiring.  If you don't fix cars and don't read books and don't like the movies I like are you less of a man?  If You don't cook and suck at cleaning and like to make money more than being a mom are you a bad mom?  If you would rather run and read and knit are you a bad person or if you like to shoot guns and download music and drive trucks are you bad?  Okay.  nuff said.  I'm tired of comparing.  We just are.  different.  I

I just got done rereading a book I read a number of years ago.  On my elliptical.  pre marathon.  pre MOM's death.  Pre job.  Pre pre pre.  A lot of things make sense now.  I won't compare anyone to anyone ever again.  We are all significant and valuable and my present Husband gets the long suffering ERIC award for loving someone really difficult to love.  and I hope beyond anything that he realizes that I get it.  I am a tough person to love and yet somehow he does.  in spades.

Number 2. What do you see?

We've done the ears.  "Music" to be exact.  I know so very many people who would rather lose sight than hearing since the loss of hearing  separates you on a very very different level.  I love love love hearing impaired and deaf people.  Their communication skills are awesome - - but here's the caveat - if they want them to be.  I know deaf people who want to fit in to the hearing world.  They learn lip reading, they sign also  - but lip reading and learning how to talk to "the hearing" is how they live.  There are also the deaf who live deaf.  It's a culture not unlike the hidden Hmong or Vietnamese or a million other illegal or legal but separate cultures within our borders.  I live as a mostly American English in a town of TOTALLY HISPANIC/KOREAN so wow.  I get it.  BUT they all mostly speak English.  My Spanish is getting better.  I digress.  Hearing is a thing that the loss of which makes you so so different - but no one really knows first off.  . . .

so, I'm purposely late to the game but hooked nonetheless.  I have totally fallen in love with shows - only to have them go (POOF!!!!!).  SO That being said I choose wisely these days.  Of course on the travel channel - anything Anthony, Andrew, Adam (my personal A team) do is great - now I have a Marcus - so so worth it.  Check him out.  Hidden City is great.  BUT I'm not talking reality - I like to exit my world of shirts and pants and pissed off customers who don't speak English - HAPPILY -  For Deep Louisiana and Vampires and sultry smoky sex and such. 

True Blood has stayed and I really don't care on being late to the game. I can buy it.  Yes please.  Sucked in?  Pun fully intended.

Glee is so tempting me - I started late and frankly cared for 5 minutes.  Then it started sucking HARD.  I'm told I can watch my back issues this year and all is ok.  TBD

Cathouse has me captivated.  Nuff said.

NOW movies.  I'm a total beyond stupid snob.  Forget it.  Tim would really watch anything.  To the end and be pissed that it ended bad.  I said, "didn't it look like it was gonna suck like 10 minutes in when I was watching?"  "Yeah, was hoping it improved."  I like life and my time more than watching a dumb movie.  DOES that say something about my character?  I won't invest if you (movie) bore me early on.  I will only step into something that captivates me.  Boring?  Move to the left.  I don't have life or exercise or sewing or kid or knitting time to waste on crap.  I could be cooking or writing.  BYE.  big letters.

THAT said.  Roger has dangled the ultimate carrot before my nose.  NETFLIX.  on any tv, mac product (and they are legion in this freaking house - married to the techie don't cha kno).  Okay so Rog, Any movie I want when I snap my fingers - before my eyes right before I have to run 18 miles to train for this dumb marathon I personally signed up for? Yup.  Damn. 

Here's my list.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
While you Where Sleeping
Dead Poets Society
Princess Bride
Moonstruck
Pretty Woman
Grease 2
(yeah you read that one right)
Rocky Horror
The muppet movie (yeah the old one)
Mulan (Christina's singing and great plot - yup)

Okay these are the 10 movies I can recite VERBATIM.  And I'm not kidding.  Ask Roger.

Best movies I've only seen a few
Chocolat
Water for Chocolate
Wings of desire
The Piano

I can't watch nasty people being nasty to each other.  Call me PollyAnna.  But I can't do horror and no Rocky Horror doesn't come close.  Camp is - well.  Camp.

Roger is all about a few movies and I will follow.  Mercury Rising is one of them.  My son has been diagnosed with Aspberger "like" symptoms - yeah well thanks .  . . BUT it helps in school. The boy in Mercury Rising is full on autistic.  I get some of that.  I do. 

Bruce is in it.  That makes me smile. 

I like who I like.  just sayin.

My favorite books are Jitterbug Perfume/Room with a view/Cleaving/Lady Chatterly's/Too many knitting or cook books to count . . . ugh.  I haven't finished Hunger Games though.  Liked it a ton.  Hugo was also awesome before my benevolent DAUGHTER gave it to a friend out from under me :D  LOVE YOU.  I can't say if I had to lose a sense what it would be.  I think I would pick hearing - hope I never have to find out.  ya see?

This was gonna

be a very different post.  All polished and buttoned up.  But I'm so frenzied and charismatic at the moment - I'm gonna pull a Pastor James and go off script for this message.  He had his sermon ready to go and then God stepped in and I believe had a from the hip sermon that wasn't just directed at me but well, mostly.  Roger was staring at me pretty much the entire freaking message and well, I OWNED IT.  okay.  GET it.  say it don't spray it!!! LOL. 

I allow things.  I - in a season of weakness - contribute.  I don't do what I KNOW is right.  I do what I emphatically know is so so so so wrong.  I don't stop someone from doing something illegal, dangerous and just plain stupid.  I don't.  And I need to.  I need to not laugh at it.  I need to step in because it's a bad thing.  I've been boiled.  Like the frog = slowly slowly slowly.  But thankfully UNlike the frog -  I live.  Unboiled and aware of "OMG" what did I just allow?"    I'm alive to face the day and move on.  I just want to knit and exercise.  and cook.  My compulsion was to go to my grocery store (haven of all things awesome) and lose myself.  So after my schooling by Pastor James - straight to my heart - yeah - I suck, need to change and need to change this minute.. . . . I did indulge myself in my passion.   I purchased amazing vegetables, fruits and meat.  and liver.  Offal is life.  The Jews know it.  They freaking live on it.  I had all 4 burners and the oven roaring.  Roasting bones.  making beef stock.  for the beef stew that is for dinner tonight.  I can lose myself.  But James is right.  Sin is snipping at my heels.  I am so small in light of my huge God.  Running isn't an option.  I am a runner and suddenly I don't want to?  revelation? yeah.  It's God saying - you can't outrun this.  

So I'm not running.  today.  I will tomorrow - even in the snow.  (okay a dusting but it's f'n cold here) I have to face this and own what I've allowed.  I have so many bad things I've let in slowly like that damn boiled frog.  But I own it.  And move forward.  Where is that?  Dunno.  And frankly - with the sun streaming though my french doors. . . . . I don't care.  Bring it.  I'm ready to cook it up - knit it and run - in a good way.  for something permanent. 

Guilty Pleasures

 So my next few posts will surround what we find as shame inducing - but still we do it.  :D  I'm not necessarily going the Paul's "what I do I don't want to what I want to do I don't do . . . " (read the Bible if you don't know what I'm talking about here) I mean the things we find as guilty pleasures that we find slightly naughty but so - well, nice to us anyway. 

I start first off with Music.  I am a self professed snob of a lot of things and music is certainly one of them.  I feel as someone who started playing in 5th grade and kept it up (pun) religiously  - that I know from music.  I can play it - read it and have (very badly) written it.  I like what I like what I like.  I shun those not in the fold of what I like and eshew that which I don't like.  Okay - I'm not THAT bitchy but I do have a bond with those who like the same music as I do (read -  quirky, of the time and very lately new new new). Music moves me more than anything - I've always been that way.  My first "GOD" experience was at a church (WELS!!!!) camp singing CONTEMPORARY songs and I actually felt His presence like I've never before.  I feel it still when worship gets really deep.  But it's always set to music.    Always.  Music connects or divides depending on your slant.  You would NOT get thousands of disco albums getting burned in a Chicago baseball stadium if people were like "meh, it's just music."  It's not.  Music is huge.  And therefore my topic of study recently.  I have so many guilty pleasures but as a snob I don't classify them as guilty because I personally see their merit and so can justify my love.  (justify my love - haha, yeah, Madonna's NOT on my list - sorry)

Neil.  Need I say more? nope didn't think so.  If you said YOUNG move to the back of the line.  OF course he has his merit but guilty pleasure he is so not and dear LORD would it kill him to wash his greasy hair?  (sorry - tangent) I mean Diamond.  If Brother Love sung by a JEW doesn't melt your cold heart nothing will.  Sweet Caroline makes me JUMP up and dash to the dance floor or crank up my IPhone  - guilty.  I think not.  He's a legend.  Bite me Roger.  :D

Meatloaf.  Shut up.  If you saw my 3rd wedding reception (second to Roger) in my parents garage - my sister and I singing and dancing to Paradise by the Dashboard Light - you would be all about it.  Or not.  whatever.  I wore out 2 tapes (yes I am THAT old) on Forensic (speaking - not cutting up people) buses because we would sing at the top of our stupid lungs.  I can still change out of jammies into some hot clothes without ANYONE seeing anything bad.  It's a skill.

Anything that was played at my 6-8th grade dances.  Slow or Fast.  Air Supply - Journey - Pat Travers - Skynard - Ozzy - Rush - Zeppelin - Sabbath - Maiden - Kiss - Fleetwood Mac - Head East.  shut up - I'm 42.  deal

I'm also really into Metal Evolution on VH1 Classic - I wish I had thought of this first.  Though I also wanted to be the bitch who tested out spa treatments around the world and got freaking PAID to go but again = clearly I'm not that smart.

Metal Evolution tracks the history of music (um okay Metal is kind of his slant - notice the title) but he does give profs to the roots - aka - classical, jazz, rock et al.  For a music history junkie like me - this is freakin CRACK.  I love it.  Kind of like Mr. Todd Oxley's painted wall in 6th grade tracing the history of music (yeah if you are not from Winneconne Wisconsin that means freaking nothing to ya :D )

SO - discuss - what's your guilty pleasure - I personally love SO much music these days.  Tool, 5 finger DP, Coldplay,  Skrillex (thanks Zak), Korn, Mudvayne (thanks Tim), Killswitch Engage, Hurt (again T), Altar Bridge, Sick Puppies, Fitz and the Tantrums (tell me that is NOT the best name -  I know right?), Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, GaGa (can't help it), RISE AGAINST (love love love again- Tim) Thousand foot crutch, Red, Azam Ali (captain D - you are amazing) Adele, TRAIN as always saw them love them in any way shape or form, Silversun Pickups, The Foo Fighters, Zombie - just cuz.  Deadmau5 because I really like electronica and as a runner you get that beat.  Chris Cornell could sing the f'n phone book and I would buy the album. He's just that guy. 

So any who - I've decided or I've been called to shake the rafters in your brain.  what music do you find you gravitate to in shame and in pleasure or both.  I won't judge. 

Oh hell yeah I will.  LOL I am a bitch after all.  I have far too many tattoos and piercings to get away with innocence.  And I'm too smart to let you off if you don't have a good explanation.  But I am nothing if not benevolent.  If you offer a good reason why you like Cher (and I do too - it's because I watched the Sonny and Cher show when Chastity was still a girl and variety shows still worked) I may let you off with a light spanking :D  Kidding - I love my peeps and love our brains - There will be more guilty pleasures to follow.  I am nothing if not sensual.  So there will be at least 6 of these :D

I am a total bitch

do you know that moment when God - or who ever you choose to call a higher power and if you are so dumb or arrogant to think that there is nothing bigger than you - please stop reading and just service yourself nicely and move the hell on cuz well YOU are the shit.  But for me and the rest of the people who choose to believe that IN the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth . . . is not crap well -

I am a total bitch. 

We are in the market for a new church.  and by market - we need Pastor James McDonald from IL. He and Harvest Bible Chapel are the ONLY freaking thing I miss about IL.  I mean the ONLY.  I hated Illinois.  HATED it.  There were like 12 people I love there but they are the FEW the Proud - the Illinoisinas.  I need James.  Roger needs James.  I need Harvest here.  His word challenges me and makes me stand up like I need to.  I am a total slacker without him.  5 sermons into his walk in the word series and I am on my knees and missing who I was.  Who I know I can be in Christ and who HE wants me to be.  Frankly I am disappointed in me on levels I didn't know I had levels but I am ashamed and sad in who I have become and need to do a total change.  I need to be different. Today.  not tomorrow - today.  God made me with my personality and that I am cool with.  God really really loves me.  BUT there are things about me He hates.  OK.  I get that.  I can do what He has asked.  I can.

And I will.

To celebrate.  An adult beverage suitable for a grown up

THE negroni

1 measure of sweet vermouth
1 measure of gin (the best you can get)
1 measure of campari
in the glass you choose ice and some soda water

enjoy

and remember - there is always something bigger and more important than you.  always.