bliss.

I spent the afternoon languishing (the word is appropriate, I swear) by the pool with about a gazillion other sun worshipers. Then I swam some laps. I am gaining my muscle back and really enjoying the feel of being one with my body again--making it do whatever it is I feel like doing.
Now, I am on the couch with Jason Mraz and some watermelon and an oversized tshirt, enjoying singed skin, waiting for Ryan to drive up in the Scout I can hear all the way from the interstate, to ride over with no top (on the Scout, not me) to the park to kick a ball around and then go jump into another pool and see Nathan Shirai and then grill out.

There is no expression strong enough to insert here. I love the summertime with my whole being. :)

Just felt like sharing.

Raw Material

It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. ...God does not judge [a man] on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. --C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Yikes.

Your Daily Dose of Genius

From C.S. Lewis' Lilies That Fester:

'Hypocrisy is not the only evil they encourage. There are, in 'piety' and 'culture', states which, if less culpable, are no less disastrous. In the one we have the "Goody-goody"; the docile youth who has neither revolted against nor risen above the routine pietisms and respectabilities of his home. His conformity has won the approval of his parents, his influential neighbors, and his own conscience. He does not know that he has missed anything and is content. In the other, we have the adaptable youth to whom poetry has always been something "set" for "evaluation." Success in this exercise has given him pleasure and let him into the ruling class. He does not know what he has missed, does not know that poetry ever had any other purpose, and is content.

Both types are much to be pitied; but both can sometimes be very nasty. Both may exibit spiritual pride, but each in its proper form, since the one has succeeded by acquiescence and repression, but the other by repeated victory in competitive performances. To the pride of the one, sly, simpering, and demure, we might apply the word "smug." My epithet for the other would, I think, be "swaggering." It tends in my experience to be raw, truculent, eager to give pain, insatiable in its demands for submission, resentful and suspicious of disagreement... And perhaps both types are less curable than the hypocrite proper. A hypocrite might (conceivably) repent and mend; or he might be unmasked and rendered innocuous. But who could bring to repentance, and who can unmask, those who were attempting no deception? who don't know that they are not the real thing because they don't know that there ever was a real thing?

...Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.'

Sunday.

I have conflicting feelings about the weather, today. My skin is so relieved to feel warmth and sunshine when I go outside. I feel more alive than I have in months, as though something inside is rolling over and coming out of hibernation (I'm telling you- I am a summertime girl, at heart!). But it's February 8th, and it's just a tease. And in a couple of days, it is going to be bitterly cold again. And I am going to be so sad.
I identify entirely with animals that sleep the whole winter. I could do it if I was allowed to.

But today is rousing visions and memories of summers in the South. My mouth is watering for a burger, and I would do just about anything to be sitting on the river on a boat with a coke in my hand, surrounded by the people that I love, with my skin feeling singed and browned and my hair crunchy, feeling the undulating of the boat over the waves and the hum of the motor. Just about anything.

Summer in the South is about friendship, family, and being outside. It is sitting on a dock, porch, boat, or lawn all day long, feeling the day stretch on and on, surrounded by your nearest and dearest and not wishing to be any other place in the whole world. It is sitting quietly with a beer, coke, or iced tea in your hand, watching the sun set on the water or behind the trees, hearing cicadas and crickets coming out, feeling exhausted and also tingly with being alive. If there are kids around, they will be catching fireflies and playing ball or tag, and their laughter will mingle with the evening sounds and drift around the neighborhood or across the water to neighboring docks and boats. Dinner is grilled chicken, steak, or burgers. Sometimes there's a fire after dark, and the conversation and company will continue under the stars.
Company, here, isn't about impressing anybody or being anybody. There is no pressure to perform, no cattiness, no drama and no pretense. It is just about loving the ones you're with, shooting the breeze, laughing it up, being genuine, having a blast.
It's amazing how easy it is to sit and talk all day long, how possible it is to feel completely satisfied with the company and the activities for the day, to feel that of all the places you could be and of all the things you could be doing, this is the best of both.


I miss the summer, and I love the South.

I love all things Spanish.

Seriously. I am fascinated by the culture. The food, the dark eyes and hair, the music, the language, the dancing. Oh, the dancing. The Y has a class called Zumba that is basically a cardio dance class, and tonight's was taught by a Brazilian woman. And I mean, I know it was an exercise class- but it was set to Latin music and most of it was variations on salsa dancing, with a little booty droppin' mixed in. I LOVED IT. There is nothing sexier (lightheartedly sexy, you understand... I am not trying to seduce the class) than Latin dancing, and nothing more fun. I will fo' sho' be going back.

I tried to get people to start going salsa dancing once a week last year, but it didn't really work out.. It's too far away, I think, which is too bad because it was so much fun.

I have also wanted to learn Spanish since the summer before my freshman year of college, but apparently never really put forth the effort.. I would really like to change that this year. I'd love to eventually be fluent.

I should've been born someplace with more flava. :)

Also, yes, hi, I am writing a blog. Maybe a lot of things will change this year...

2009 is starting off well.

Goal for the year: that It's Amazing What Can Happen When You Get Off Your Ass. will be an appropriate title to sum it all up.

So far, so good!

Happy New Year!

random

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/pr-46-08.html

We-- spirit and breath, dust and blood--are sitting on a giant rock hurtling through space amongst flaming balls of gas, all orbiting around a gigantic ball of absolute nothingness.

This is profound to me.