Lost and Found

Wait.

Here's a scene from Sunday: I'm standing in the doorway of a bedroom in Clintonville. In my left hand is a paintbrush, which, with plain old white paint, is slowly dampening the spirits of a hospital-green wooden trim. In my right hand is my cell phone. I'm trying to discuss closing costs with Rob, my realtor, but I don't have very good reception.

It is a strange thing to barter over the price of a house while doing manual labor. It was as if I was simply talking to Sarah about her elementary school adventures (she's a teacher now), or honing in on dinner plans with my dad. A calm regular conversation. Instead, I was playing poker with thousands of dollars that I don't technically have, while simultaneously painting the trim of a doorway of a new house, as a service to some of the guys from my church.

I put down the paintbrush and climbed out a bedroom window onto the Clintonville roof. The guys have moved into a nice neighborhood. People are walking by with strollers and dogs. A guy across the street is carrying a drumset into his house. It's a beautiful day.

Rob and I discuss the counter offer on the house that I bid on Saturday afternoon. It's not bad, but it could be a little bit lower.

Generally, I lack patience. I like immediate decisions. I like to see immediate results. This weekend, I learned to be patient. I learned that I have to wait 24 hours for a counter offer. I learned that a second coat of paint is required to cover up hospital-green trim. I learned that while you're waiting for change, it's best to keep busy.

I spent the entire weekend helping the guys move and paint and clean. It was a good time. I learned more about my guy friends. I know their strengths and weaknesses. They know mine. I'm starting out the workweek with paint specks on my feet and in my hair, with bruises all over my limbs, with sore legs and arms, with a bump on my head from slamming it into the window as I climbed back into the house from the roof. I'm not starting out the workweek knowing whether or not I will own a house in December. I'll have to wait a couple hours for that.

And I'm okay with this.

A friend did a study on the word "hope" in the Bible this summer. She determined that "hope" is synonymous with "wait". It's something to think about.

I Found A House.

I found a house today that I like. Actually, I love it. It's in my price range, it has nothing structurally wrong with it, and it's not plastered with wallpaper.

And if finding a house that I like is anything like finding a guy that I like, then by the time I hit "publish" on this here page, the house will be unavailable.

Oh well. I have four roommates and a container of french caramel sauce in the fridge, just in case.

FYI.

I did a little internet research yesterday about marathon running. The following is a list of possible side effects. We'll call them "Cons".

Cons:

Toenails fall off.
Bloody nipples.
Diarrhea while running.
Vomiting.
Chafing of the thighs and armpits.
Running 26 miles.

And the Pros:

A new ($75) t-shirt.

I can't wait to start training.

Running Plans.

In eleven and a half months, if things go as planned, Sarah and I will be running the Columbus Marathon. A marathon, according to Sarah, is over 26 miles long. I get winded after two miles.

I'm currently looking up information on how to train for a marathon, and so far, all I've learned is that I need to buy shoes and drink water. Very helpful information.

I do like the sound of the following phrases:

"I'm training for a marathon."

"I ran my first marathon at the age of 27."

"Some people call me Twiggy."

Running, I must say, is a lot easier without the whole looming death feeling that comes with smoking. It's been nearly ten months since I've smoked a cigarette. If I can quit smoking, I can run a marathon.

The question is, of course, can I run a marathon in less than 24 hours?

We'll see.

Rainy Autumn Days.

The leaves are wet, and no matter how hard I try to reverse gravity, my jeans legs drag through puddles. The skies are grey and I can't help but be in love with October in Ohio.

There's something about rainy autumn days that makes me want to offer my body to the arts, and use my lunch hour to have plaster strips placed on my torso by art students. So that's what I did at lunch.

Sometime in November, a clay version of my torso will be available to see in a thesis project at CCAD. The idea? Real women do not look like mannequins.

I love rainy autumn days.

Fun Game.

I looked at a house last Sunday with my dad. It was a strange experience; I felt very voyeuristic. As he would scrutinize electrical outlets, ceilings, the basement walls and the foundation, I found it amusing to say things like, “I really like this light fixture,” and “Ooh, I love this paint color,” and “I wonder if they’ll let me keep this table.”

I can’t tell if he knew whether or not I was serious. Nonetheless, it was a fun game.

Trust and Funds.

I had a meeting with a "loan shark" and my father on Monday, to discuss the possibility of buying a house.

When I was in college, I did not have to take an accounting class. I didn't even have to take calculus; my math requirement was fulfilled by taking Logic, a course offered by the philosophy department. I was so afraid of managing finances that I changed my major from photojournalism (a career that would almost certainly rely on freelancing - and my own accounting) to multimedia (a career that would almost certainly get me a full time position).

My history in financial stuff is not very peachy. I accrued a $4000 credit card bill based almost entirely on expenses from freelance design work that I did in college. I'd charge up the card at Kinko's, keep an invoice for my clients, and not bill them until months later, after interest had built up. And then, instead of paying off the balance, I lived off of the cash.

I did a freelance photography gig for a magazine in 2002. I still haven't billed my client.

I just paid my gas bill from April.

I'm just no good at this stuff.

So, I'm taking this fantastic financial history and considering buying a house and renting it out. Seems pretty wise, doesn't it?

This meeting was interesting. My dad and the loan shark were speaking in a foreign language. Amortization. Eighty-ten-ten. Five year arms. PMI. Rising interest rates.

I have no clue what this stuff means. But I do know one thing: I trust my dad. He's never let me down in the past and I know he wants what's good for me. He has a pretty good track record for loving me, keeping me fed, clothed and educated. If I do this house thing, I'll be stepping into it with an incredible amount of faith and almost no knowledge of what exactly is happening with compound interest and double mortgages.

It's good to know he's there.

Strategic Dumping.

It was during a creative writing class that I took my junior year of high school that I got my first shot at expository writing. In this class that I learned that I could take awkward experiences and manipulate them to be either funny or devastating based on how I chose to tell the story.

My first piece of creative non-fiction was about being dumped by my first-ever boyfriend the previous year at Disney World. The happiest place on earth. Throughout the years, hundreds of people have heard the story. Not because I'm still hanging on emotionally to that incident, but because it's a damn good story.

I got dumped by my first boyfriend on a greyhound bus at Disney World. He did it with a note.

That's funny.

Nonetheless, I sort of feel sorry for the dude. I don' t know that he realized what he was getting himself into when he chose to write those fateful words - "I just don't want to hurt anybody" - on that blue-lined paper, before folding it into a triangle and setting it in my lap. I don't think that he realized that eleven years later, he would meet people who would say, "You're the one who dumped Jill at Disney World."

After time, the majority of break-ups lose their details. It's nice to forget when exactly it happened, what I was wearing, who brought it up.

Had Joe planned better, he could have had the luxury of my forgetting. But unfortunately, breaking up with a girl outside of the Magic Kingdom isn't necessarily the most subtle breakup technique available to a sixteen year old boy.

We saw one another last night, and I can say that we've been on amiable terms since late 1997. I'm no longer crying myself to sleep while listening to Candlebox, wondering if I had ever meant anything to him. But despite this, somehow it still comes up. I can't help it. I whispered to Sara last night, "THAT"S the one who broke up with me at…"

But I know that I'm not alone. I know that there's an entire group of people who refer to my friend J. as "the one who broke up with her boyfriend on their one-year anniversary."

And, of course, there are a few people out there that can't help but remind me that I, too, have committed a breakup sin.

Not too long after that Disney World trip, a handful of people can remember me hiding behind a filing cabinet as I watched my friend deliver a breakup note to Keith, my rebound.

And although he was over it probably within minutes, I can never live that moment down. I accept this.

So, let it be known, Joe, that I forgive you. But it's too good of a story not to tell. Thank you.

Biblical View. For Everyone.

So. I take a class on Wednesday evenings through my church. In it, I learn about things like How To Tell God's Trying to Tell You Something and Why The Name Lucifer Only Exists In The King James Version Of The Bible. It's fascinating stuff. Really.

My teacher in the course is this soft-spoken middle aged man who starts class on time. He plows, quietly, through the material and ends the class early every week. He's pretty direct and doesn't seem to like distractions.

This is why it really sucked when I showed up at class last week ten minutes late. The class was full and I quickly found an empty seat near the back. I put my books on the table, and less than a minute later, the table started to collapse. Three of us held it up with our legs, while a fourth person ran from the front of the room to halt the disaster. The commotion was mortifying and every person in the class was staring directly at me.

Not fun.

So yesterday, I made it a point to come to class on time. I would just blend in with the rest of the group, eagerly awaiting a lesson on two opposing interpretations of a passage in the Old Testament. Although I got there early, there was only a seat in the front row.

I looked at the woman sitting behind me and said, "I guess I have to sit in the front row."

She laughed, appeasing me even though the comment wasn't really that funny.

As I bent over to open my notebook, I realized that my (modest) blouse was unbuttoned, and my ladies were in full view for the teacher, anyone sitting in the front row, and the hamster in the cage directly in front of me. Quickly and quietly, I fastened the wily button and sent a text to my roommate, because I knew no one in the class to share my embarrassment with through laughter. I resituated myself, and tried to stop blushing. And then I glanced down once more and realized that the shirt was open again.

In the first ten minutes of class, my rack was available for view no fewer than three times.

I spent the rest of the class trying not to move my shirt and periodically staring down at my chest, praying silently to the Lord that my boobs would stay inside my blouse, where they belong.

At the break, even though it was unbearably hot in the classroom, I ran out to my car and grabbed a coat to remedy the situation. I left a voice mail for the same roommate, letting her know that I'd been exposed threefold. The rest of the class was better. I was able to relax and pay attention, and didn't even look at my chest once.

When I got to work this morning, my roommate had e-mailed me this: "Maybe if you didn't dress like such a slut, your clothes would stay on in Bible class."


Which is, probably, the funniest line ever written.

Meanwhile, somewhere out there, in a world where Bible teachers write blog entries, there's a few lines that say, "As I was explaining Ezekiel last night, the young lady in the front row kept staring at her bosom.* I don't quite understand why, but I think that I'm going to pray for her."

Please do, Sir. Please do.

*I don't know if he would actually write the word "bosom"; this is speculation.

Coming Out.

After roughly six years of making up my own religion in my head, (this strange mixture of Judaism, Buddhism, post-modernism, communism and patchouli), I decided to return to Christianity this past winter.

It was a difficult transition at first. The regular players in my life, the cast of characters that make appearances on this here blog, hadn’t really been exposed to my spiritual side of olden days. Once in awhile, when I was well lubricated with alcohol, I’d throw out a snippet for shock value.

“Hey guys, did you know that I used to be in a Christian musical group?” I’d laugh and no one would believe me. And then Sarah or Lainie would affirm my statement. Yes, at the age of 18 I had indeed worn a bed sheet and Birkenstocks on a stage of a church in Michigan, acting out the part of Caleb, a teacher whose monologue started with: “I remember when Jesus said...”

But aside from those comedic outbursts, I kept my feelings inside, waiting to fully make a statement about my beliefs until I was sure of them, or until I knew that they’d be accepted. My version of things spiritual would change depending on whom I dated. Religious background is typically a second date conversation topic, and my thoughts, curiously, reflected those of whatever dude I’d be making out with later in the evening. If he was Catholic, I’d bring up my Methodist background. If he was Jewish, I’d tell the funny story about the Christian guy in my Old Testament philosophy class, who kept interrupting the professor to say, “But what about Jesus?”

“What a moron,” I’d tell my beau, “Jesus wasn’t even IN the Old Testament.”

And so it goes. I was a spiritual chameleon, molding my beliefs to impress guys who are obviously no longer around. For as much as I hated people for calling my presidential candidate a waffle on political matters, I was a waffle on spiritual matters. Which, in a way, invalidates my entire persona. I’d built myself to people as a strong-willed, intelligent and confident woman. But I wasn’t bold enough to simply be able to say, “I don’t know what I think about religion” or “I’m confused about a few things” or “I used to be a Christian, but I don’t really agree with the Christians I read about in the newspaper.” It was much easier to evade the question or nod and say, “Me, too!”

Perhaps my former beaus saw this inconsistency. Or perhaps I just smelled bad.

In January, through a dude, I gave Christianity another try. Though our romantic relationship didn’t stick, my return to a solid belief structure did. And it’s nice to be back.

Of course, it took me nine months to mention this major change in my life on the blog. And most of you, my readers, are way past your second date. If I’m too afraid to reveal my beliefs on a website that is entirely dedicated to what I think, then I have some serious issues. What can I say? I’m not perfect. No one is. Except...