still pretty darn happy, but a question

Yeah, no real angst here.

Just the kind I apparently make up to fritter the days away, as opposed to, say, writing a dissertation or grading student papers or preparing for class or finishing my laundry.

You know what I mean. Don’t act like you haven’t done it.

So, I am wondering what the line is between showing somebody that you’re interested and being pathetic.  I mean, I think I tend to skew on the side of making somebody else do all the work, so my internal monologue went a little something like this:

Me: Maybe I should try to show that I’m interested more.  I mean, the chase is good, but at some point, people get tired.

Me2: How could I do that, though? I don’t want to seem…silly.

Me: Hmm.  Good question. Valid point. We don’t want that.  We’re awesome! We don’t NEED anything!

Me2: Hey…let’s use technology! That’s a good plan!

Me:  I like technology SO much, Me2!  What a splendid idea!

(This is, of course, dramatic license.  I do not actually have two personalities, nor do I have such very logical conversations with myself. Most of mine are far less linear.)

It’s a good plan.  I like technology, because I can do things on my time and on my schedule and, in theory, not expect anything in return. It can be like leaving somebody a note on their car or something like that. I think the problem comes when what I think I expected and what I must have actually expected collide in disappointment and feeling stupid.  I’m pretty sure, given my worry about being pathetic, that this was one of those situations where I WAS, in fact, expecting something straight from the script of a Nora Ephron romantic comedy.  Some kind of reciprocal demonstration.

I didn’t get the script. I didn’t get nothing…but I didn’t get the script.

I guess I’m just really uncomfortable putting myself out there and I can’t decide whether or not I’m doing something wrong.

And I’m pretty sure by even asking this question to the blogosphere, I’m being an idiot.  But, here I am, asking it.

So, please delurk. I know you’re there, and you’re reading.  I know you’re wise.

And I know most of you are girls.

So, gals, tell me true: what’s the line between showing interest and losing your mystery?

All right. I’m off to do something social…and turn off my phone.  🙂

MCC says it better than I could…

Watch her rock.

no combination of words i could say

So, it feels like a long time since I’ve posted.

I’m sure few of you have noticed. I mean, I am not exactly a high-traffic blog. Instead, I like think of my readers as the noble and stalwart few…those who can navigate the craziness that is my brain with fortitude and a dash of humor.  You few, you mighty few…I commend you.

But I digress.

I have not been around much.

Life has sped up.

A lot.

And gotten pretty interesting.

A lot interesting.

I am not sure what I think about it.  Right now? I’m just taking it moment by moment, trying to keep my wits about me while all the world is losing theirs and trying to be forward thinking.

If I think too much about it, I feel a combination of the kind of giddy excitement that makes you want to dance in the middle of the room at random moments and completely freaked out.

I’m also trying to freaking keep up with my workload. It’s not working very well.  I’m getting there.  I just don’t really know how to manage all of the distractions in my life.

These distractions seem to have seeped into my writing, as well, because I can’t manage to stop digressing.

Really, what I’ve stood in awe of over the past week or so?

How very much my world has expanded.

After I posted all angsty about whether or not a perfect brightness of hope should hurt–I guess that was about two weeks ago, wasn’t it?–I decided that, regardless of whether or not it hurt, I need to have it. I need to not only have it, I need to act with complete faith.  Act as if I already had it, as if my Heavenly Father’s promises were true, as if what I knew about myself–way down deep at my core–was true.

I need to stop questioning and start doing.

So I did.

I mean, it wasn’t a huge change. It probably wouldn’t have even been noticeable if not for the Spirit’s quiet whisperings, which have been with me since that day which featured me not only pouring my heart out to my best friend but also to my Heavenly Friend, and have been pointing these incredible moments out to me.

Like the moments, more often than not, when I believe that I am beautiful and I act as if I am.  I don’t question so much or seep myself in insecurity. I simply believe it.

Or the moments when I realize that I actually do believe that that cute, quality guy would want to date me–and I act as if it’s true.  I don’t live in fear.  I step out of it and move on.

And the moments when I sit, amazed to see that my world has just completely expanded.

Isn’t that an extraordinary thing? When you realize that because you had faith, or because you stepped out of your comfort zone, or because you just decided that what you wanted was worth doing something about, your whole world shifts and changes?

I can’t even articulate it.

But the boundaries and borders that I thought I had in my life are gone.  Not the boundaries and borders that keep me safely on the path that I want to be on, but the boundaries and borders that kept me from being  everything that I am and embracing who I could be.  The fear, the insecurity, the worry…without them being the lens through which I see EVERYTHING, life looks a lot different.

And it’s full of amazing and wonderful and unexpected magic.

FINALLY.

thirty, flirty, and thriving

I turn 30…yes, THIRTY…in two and a half weeks.

I have had my share of freakouts about it. Believe me.

But…I’m getting over it and I’m working on celebrating the fact that I am turning thirty and I’m better than I’ve ever been.

I’m smarter.

I’m way cuter.

I’m wiser.

I’m better-looking.

I’m more confident.

I’m farther ahead in my career than I’ve ever been.

Did I mention I’m hotter?

And I’m ready–really ready–for whatever comes my way next.

I am hoping that the following things will somehow make an appearance in my (usually week-long) birthday celebrations. This is not at all a demand (*ahem*perhapsahintbutwhatever*ahem*) but simply my musing and daydreaming about what might make the BIG 3-0 that much less scary for the very single (VERY, VERY, OH SO VERY single) Carrie. It would also be amazing if they were not all from the same person…man, I’m a pain, aren’t I?

• a carousel ride or some other kind of amusement park fun
• being remembered by my best friend who is so very far away
• doing something dramatic and fun and adventurous to my hair…I’m currently thinking of chestnut brown because I’ve never gone that dark before
• creating a list of thirty reasons why it’s awesome to be me…and 30…and actually believe every.single.one
• daisies
• dancing like a crazy fool
• unexpected funny text messages
• virgin margaritas
• feeling like the center of attention not because I’m old but because I’m loved
• some great jeans that make any outfit hot
• a grand romantic gesture (hey…a girl can dream, right?)
• a note on my car from someone unexpected
• embracing hope that this upcoming year will be better and greater and more amazing than this last year…which was pretty darn awesome
• and, of course…ice cream. good ice cream. like, “who needs a man?” good ice cream.

I talk a good game, but this birthday is hitting me harder than any other birthday. It’s weird.

I am trying, though, to embrace it.

It’s a challenge.

Any advice?

yeah, i live here. sigh.

Yeah, so if you haven’t, please watch the video. It’s quite likely to annoy you and perhaps disturb you, maybe on multiple levels, so don’t say you haven’t been warned.

So, UF is all abuzz over this. Apparently, the thing made the Today show, the front page on AOL.com, and has gotten its fair share of media attention. I totally get it. It seems a sexy story–kid wants to ask Kerry a question, kid gets his civil rights all trampled on because the campus police try to stifle his right to speak his mind, they brutally taser him in order to keep him quiet.

As sexy as that version is, it’s not really what happened at all.

What you may not know is that Q&A had already ended. Kerry was attempting to move on with his speech, and this kid wanted to ask 14 insipid questions that made no sense. He kept going on and on and on…with no merciful end in sight…and then, when campus security attempted to escort him from the microphone once they got the signal from someone else, he resisted arrest with the fury of a thousand drunk undergrads.

What exactly were they SUPPOSED to do? He was attempted to run away from them, he would not be subdued, he was screaming “help” before they even really touched him.

Exactly what would be the better option? To let him walk out of there, to let him get away with resisting police officers and causing a monumental disturbance because he is a huge egocentric blowhard?

I think not.

But, of course, there is one big fat brouhaha a brewin’. Rumor has it that there was a protest march from the Plaza of the Americas to UPD to demand not only that the officers involved be suspended, but that tasers be removed from UPD usage and that the charges against the kid be dropped.

Don’t be alarmed. People march here for everything. They march so much that when I see a march, I’m not even surprised. Amused, sometimes, yes. Surprised? No.

Don’t get me wrong. I am the hugest believer in nonviolent protest. I have huge respect for people who stand by their beliefs and do what they can, no matter how small their sphere of influence, to speak out. If people are genuinely alarmed at what happened, by all means…please protest.

But I really don’t think that’s the case here.

See, UF tends to be a bandwagon school. It’s like they’re itching for something to get all worked up about, something to protest. I want to call it the Election 2000 syndrome–once you feel shafted, it’s almost like a chronic pain that flares up when there’s scandal in the air.  Whenever anything happens here, there’s a march. Or a protest. Or someone sending up-in-arms emails to the entire department about how our rights are being violated. Or someone showing their face on TV, all righteously indignant about something.

Listen, life’s too short.

Do I get shafted as a grad student? Absolutely. I, frankly, would expect nothing less. It makes no (fiscal or pedagogical) sense for my university to actually pay me what I’m worth right now and, on a more eternal scale, it’s good for me to struggle and try to earn my way to where I want to be someday. If it all came easy, I wouldn’t appreciate it.

That said, I’m glad for the union that agitates for me to get my meager raises and the huge blessing of health coverage.  But they don’t march down Museum Road with signs. They work quietly, skillfully, subtly through the channels available to them.

And they get results.

Do I think that the University Police are ridiculous? Sometimes. I think it’s preposterous that our campus speed limit is 20 mph. I think that some of them like to give out tickets for ridiculous reasons. I wish that there were not quite so many of them everywhere.

But I also think that they are just people doing their job, doing the best that they can do. And what rankles me is the potential for two of them to go down for a policy they had no power to make or change just because Matt Lauer is talking about it on NBC.

I just wish everybody would just take a deep breath and consider the whole thing logically.

But instead, there are protests, 50 emails from the Administration, angry phone calls from parents (really?  this is college!), and a myriad of Facebook groups supporting the idiot who resisted arrest.

Welcome to Florida.

pardon my sawdust

So, the promise of a brighter day has arrived.

Now don’t get excited. I haven’t met a man or cured world hunger or found a reason for Paris Hilton’s celebrity.

No, instead, the pungent smelling workman of the apocalypse who are building the closet for our new washer and dryer–for which we will each be paying $25 extra a month for the privilege (but let’s admit it, doing your laundry in your underwear, if necessary, and not needing 4000 quarters or a car to do so is pretty darn worth it)–arrived this morning.

I was by myself.   They came, they said I had to move everything out of the dining room (including a rather large table, thankyouverymuch) and off the counters and blah blah blah.  Unexpected to say the least, especially when I was on my way to my Institute class.

Thanks for the warning, apartment building office staff who couldn’t possibly be any more useless if you tried.  Thanks very much.

So they came, they framed a ginormous closet that sticks out at least a few inches from the existing wall (sweet!  more things for me run into!), they cut off the breakfast bar part of our counter, they moved the ceiling fan, they cut holes into the walls.

And they left sawdust EVERYWHERE.

By everywhere, I do not wax hyperbolic (is that RIGHT?).  I really do mean everywhere.

On the dishes in the sink–oh, yes, clean dishes–that were six feet away.  On the couches and fluffy lovely pillows across the room that had to be like twelve feet away.  Little pieces of laminate (why did I want to spell that Lamanites? Mormon humor…sorry.) are now embedded in everything we own, because apparently it’s impossible to NOT make it fly everywhere.  My roommate and I spent quite a while recovering–sweeping, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen.  We were not amused.

(And if I find any of this in my sheets tonight, in my made bed in the bedroom that had the door shut, I might just lose my mind.  Fair warning.)

But at the same time as all of this angst and annoyance, I am excited. I am glad to finally see progress being made towards something that will be such a blessing. I am glad that what I thought was going to take so much longer isn’t, in fact, as far into the future as I thought it might be.

It’s all so very hopeful.

I have now decided something.  My life is one big construction zone.

(Come on. You knew I would go for the analogy.)

It’s messy–boy howdy, is it messy.  Full of potholes and jutting out walls and nails that haven’t quite been hammered in and smoothed out, that snag your dress as you walk by or scratch you just a little if you get too close.  Constantly in a state of upheaval, renovation, redecoration, my world seems more chaos than constant lately, and at times I’m never quite sure where I stand.

Who’s actually IN my life to stay?  What should I be doing? Am I doing it right? What’s just the distraction and what’s the real focus?

It’s all so very noisy and it all seems so very undone.

But it’s hopeful.  Even in the midst of burst pipes or splintered two-by-fours, my life is hopeful.

I am building something awesome.

If it’s a little wonky at times, I trust that there is Someone who can fix it.

If it’s a little different than I expected or planned, usually, if I just step back for a moment, I end up liking it quite a bit more than the version that I had planned.

And it’s beautiful.

It’s BEAUTIFUL.

Even if is a mess.

It’s my beautiful mess–and I love it. And I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.

everything looks perfect from far away

there’s a line in this song about how two people are made to be interlocking, like puzzle pieces. i suppose i could go all literal about that, which i won’t, but it got me thinking about the metaphor of puzzle pieces.

and it makes sense to me.

when i am putting a puzzle together, there are a bunch of pieces that seem like they might fit together. the colors work. the shapes seem right and they seem like they’d go in the right location.

and they just don’t work.

it’s inexplicable.

it sometimes makes me want to give up.

it sometimes seems as though i have looked through every. single. piece. only to find that it’s not there.

but…then, inevitably, when i move on to another place or continue to look, it appears. almost as if it had been there all the time, or sometimes hidden under something stupid. like a coaster.

i find this metaphor oddly comforting right now.

trial and error is a part of the creation of every great work of art–even a 1000 piece puzzle.

on the 8th day, God turned the desert into a Swamp…

meh. whatever.

It’s strange, and cliched, but it’s quite possible that I am lonely in the midst of hordes of people.

And I’m stressed.  It all hit me today.

Stressed + lonely = Yeah.  You guess.

Doesn’t help that the one month countdown to the big birthday starts tomorrow.  I found myself near tears thinking about it on the way home.

Wow.  Blah.  I need a nap.

Gators, 2-0; Me, 0-4569

If I had done any less or any more this weekend, I would be dead.

Friday: M. Night Shymathon.  10 or 15 people at my house.  Hosting duties.  Fretting about what to do on Saturday that involved productivity.

Saturday: Gator Game–we won, of course–which ended up, somehow, eating up my whole day. Fretting about getting ready to feed the missionaries and the 4 other people I invited (in addition to my two roommates) to dinner.

Sunday: Church.  Cooking. ALL. AFTERNOON. No nap makes Carrie a not happy camper.  Fireside.  Facebooking and letter writing (which still has to be done, by the way).

I’m exhausted, and the sum total of productive things I did to prepare for my meeting with my dissertation advisor?

ZERO.

Yeah, it’s going to be a great day tomorrow.

Sigh.

PS–Why, after the strange men who powerwashed our apartment building ON SUNDAY (don’t get me started, since it was supposed to be on Thursday, which is not Sunday last time I checked), does the place smell like the beach? Does the beach smell like…chlorine? Or am I have a warped sense memory?