Sisters II

My social circles collided a bit when I had the friends who helped me move over to dinner. The innocent fundamentalist accountant, the crazy writer/editor, the opera singer turned jazz musician turned music pastor, the europhile banker, and the creatively frustrated receptionist all gathered for Cuban food. We shared good stories about bad dating. We shared the hope that if we ever marry someone, he's not a loser husband who would consider watching our children to be a big favor to us. The most conservative graciously hid reactions to the most liberal's sharing time on how great sex is with her boyfriend. I mentally calculated everyone's internal reactions around the table to that bit of disclosure (good for you!, please let this conversation not be going there, hmmm...?, and where does Hazel find her backslider friends?) All good people I wouldn't trade for an ounce of homogeneity.

Thank God for interesting friends! Thank God for sauted bananas! Thank God I finally live in a real house to host dinner parties!

sports bar

I went with friends to watch a college football game at Old Chicago. My version of "watching" football is actually competing with the game by trying to tell interesting stories and distract others from watching. My friends are good to put up with me.

One shared a traumatic story about something awful her HS counselor said to her when her mom was dying of cancer. God, help me not be the counselor who traumatizes people for life! Please interfere with any damage I might cause. Interference--I absorbed that from my time with football.

Sisterhood

This has been a good week for trying events I know nothing about. I went to a friend's house and found this great group of women who wanted to pray and worship together. After the awkwardness of women making sure everyone was happy with what was going on and we were all on the same page, we stumbled into music. The first song was rough, the second better, and we began hitting our stride. Someone asked me to get out my drum. I was hesitant at first but got lost in the music, and as a soothing beat began things changed. One friend started making up a song about Song of Songs. I knew what the background part was supposed to be. To me, this was the kind of worship I could sink into and forgot all about time and place. Hooray for no power points!

In the sisterhood we were able to get a glimse of other women's gifts and affirm them- speaking, prayer, hospitality. My music was affirmed, and I had needed a safe place for that. No one talked about lip gloss or each other's clothes the whole time.

2 nights of no small talk!!!!!!
It was wonderful to have a week of getting fed intellectually and spiritually.

philosophy club

Last night I attended my first philosophy club meeting, and it was great. I met with a teacher, a doctor, and some retired gentlemen to discuss theology and the civil war. Looking back on last weekend, the reason I don't fit in with coaches' wives is that I'm more comfortable discussing just war theory than lip gloss. We were just minds around a table, 3 generations together with nothing more in common.

Yesterday Care Bear was suffocating me with his requests for hugs and the launch into complaints about his divorce. Next time he asks for a hug I'll offer a warm handshake instead. I suggested he go see a counselor with the hope he would know I was referring to someone else. I'm more of a specialist in issues like why you shouldn't hit people at school and how going to PE is the only way to pass it. My wise friend Metro recommends that next time Bear wants too much, I just toss him a fortune cookie and say "hope this helps." That's the best advice I've heard all week.

love, hate, and fundamentalists

I always think I have an aversion to fundamentalists, but they end up being the men I respect the most. Life Coach came in today just to say he wanted to encourage me. That he had woken up early and spent good quiet time with God and had joy. He just glows sometimes, and I'm starting admire him.

My student, Thing 2, needs a lot of attention and help to keep himself passing classes and out of jail. His mom in an unusual act of nurturing called to remind him he had an afterschool detention. He wanted me to give him another reminder, so I made him a hot pink sticky note that he taped on his hat. The lost boys are becoming my favorites.

Bear Meter

I kind of gave Care Bear the cold shoulder last night and woke up feeling a lot more enthusiastic about him this morning. This is what sitting alone at church, cooking for myself, and going for a long walk alone will do for me. Care Bear has similar habits, and in my mind would do the same things I would on a Sunday.

I didn't want to go to set-up team this morning at church. A lot of inner grumbling about how it would end up being me and an older gentleman who has a lot of health problems and where are the strong men? God heard me in spite of that, and miraculously every time I tried to pick up something heavy, a man showed up to help. That was a first, and it made me feel jollier for my 3-6 yr old Sunday school class (the play doh I brought helped too). Then a woman I barely know stopped to thank me for helping. God knew I needed someone to help carry physical burdens today before launching into a week of carrying other people's emotional ones.

reincarnated as a freshman

I showed up to a football game and had a moment of freshman panic. I walked into the stadium and realized I had no one to sit with. I walked out and bumped into another teacher who directed me to sit with the coaches wives. Bad call. I was sitting on the outskirts of a clique who after a hello didn't talk to me. I just sat alone in the row behind them.

I was completely relieved when Care Bear showed up to keep me company for the 2nd quarter. That lasted until half-time when he had to leave, and I was again the nerdy girl among cheerleaders turned coach's wives. Fourth quarter some of the cool teachers sat by me and one of them socially sponsored me into the group. I felt great about my new and improved status until they began making fun of Life Coach. I wanted to stand up for him but not be rejected by the cool teachers.

Maybe I was sent back to high school as some sort of reincarnation because I missed something God wanted me to learn the first time. I hope I pass the second time around.

more calm

Last night is evidence that even one night of watching TV makes me obnoxious. The thing I really need more of in my life is calm. I feel like I fall into a fake calm voice at work to try and get parents at work to simmer down. It's a little hypnotic and makes me feel like a snake charmer. Maybe I should tape record soothing messages to myself.

fooling myself

When I moved to a house with no TV access last month, I fooled myself into believing I would become smarter and more sophisticated. After spending the evening at White Glue's watching The Office I think all I've gained is that I've laughed less and haven't been prepared for weather. I don't need to be smarter. I'm an American. I need to be funnier and less in touch with reality. Maybe I'm just being tempted. It's double temptation to look for Ben & Jerry's and find they've named a flavor after Stephen Cobert.

Here we are now entertain us. That's my generation, and I'm proud to be an American. (no support of war, insurance corporations, over-consumption or professional sports on television implied).

Inspiring moment

Life was not fun today as I got involuntary roped into a drug search in a student's backpack. I confess that my greatest joy involved a story of someone else's misfortune.

White Glue was telling me about her worst Valentine's day. She was a college sophomore dating a frat boy. To celebrate the holiday, he bought her wine coolers (not wine, wine coolers) and a truffle. Later that night he dumped her, saying he only needed a girlfriend for rush season. She punched him in the face 3 times, leaving him with a black eye, and her with the eternal respect of the rest of the frathouse.

Yes, it's a little disturbing that I find this hilarious. Still, if I ever run a women's empowerment group, I'm bringing Glue in as an inspirational speaker.

Savage monday

I was working with a student on picking out a free reading book and asked what he had read that he liked. He ran his fingers through his green hair, spun his gangster rap CD around, and answered, "The Foot Book by Dr. Suess." That was pretty much it. We searched the library together and picked up a copy of Kozol's Savage Inequality. I hope that makes it to #2 on the list.

It was an awfully Mondayish Monday. Care Bear asked me to go hiking sometime, and I said yes. I have a feeling I'll regret this when sometime rolls around.

back to bed

This morning I went to church early to set up. By 9:00 a.m. I felt the universe was telling me to go home, put on sweatpants and attempt to re-start the day later. An older woman told both me in one breath how pleased she was that her daughter was pregnant, and hadn't I lost weight in the last few weeks? Double yuck- joyous family news and weight comments. I think it's just my haircut that's narrower. I obeyed the call back to bed and returned to church for a wedding reception a few hours later, nodding along to comments about how lovely the service was (that I hadn't attended).

Is it ever considered polite to comment on someone's weight? Though the comments are always about you being "less than," but you wonder what you looked like to people when you were "more than."

hook, line and dodge

Today another student asked me to smell him. This was for evidence that he was late to my class since he was taking a shower after PE.

Went to a jazz club tonight with Metro Prairie. Good talk about how many warning there are in the bible about divisiveness and how to heed that when churches are all about splitting hairs over theology and politics. Metro is so good about not speaking ill of other churches and wanting to learn from their strengths.

Life Coach at school keeps baiting me with fundamentalist tidbits, and I'm swimming around them. I haven't bit on conversations hooks of Focus on the Family apologetics, how evangelism is like catching a baseball, conservative author guy, and the christian jock club. I want to get to know him and be honest without engaging in controversy. Is my silence respectful and unifying or just chickening out? I'll keep swimming around the bait until I'm sure there's no hook involved.

How light is your baggage?

Would I get involved with a man who is divorced and has 2 little kids? Would I get involved with a man I work closely with? I'm having to think that over. How much of the baggage from someone's past relationships am I willing to carry? Right now I'm travelling pretty light. Relationship souveniers are gone. There have never been rings or significant shared friendships or relocations. Hard to imagine being with someone who has so many events that cannot be revised.

Still... he's nice, a believer, good looking, adventuresome. I may just have a love allergy.

choosing my battles

I went to traffic court this morning. Being a go-getter, I arrived promptly at 8 to get my spot. I had a ticket I was prepared to fight. It was a yellow light. The cop said he didn't have time to talk to me since he had gotten a call about an incident involving a handgun while drafting my ticket. I went to the line to contest it. I did the paperwork. I waited and waited and waited.

Skipping the boring parts, the thought here is that I pled guilty so I wouldn't have to invest time or energy into what I thought was right. This perplexed the judge. I'm leaving justice in God's hands. If I made this more of a habit, I think I could probably stop clenching my jaw too much.

smells innocent to me

Yesterday I was searching for teeth. Today I got to smell students. When I saw a group of around 12 students I knew huddled outside my door, I knew there had been a smoking bust. Several claimed innocence and asked me to smell them and testify to their innocence. Pretending to be a police dog was the most exciting moment of my day.

Actually, there was another highlight. Another teacher saw I was a Calvin grad and asked me to join his philosophy club. I think I will be the lone girl among older men studying religious philosophy. I'm excited but again confirmed as to why I am too weird to get dates.

to high school football

Working in a school always brings new adventures, including today's quest for a lost tooth. In an elementary environment, this scenario would be about finding a spare that the toothfairy could compensate for. Unfortunately, at the high school level folks don't lose teeth unless someone has smacked it out their mouth. So this afternoon I found myself crawling around on the floor, searching under vending machines for a tooth. Its former owner had no concern with his broken thug smile. He just wanted to make it to the JV football game that afternoon, and though dizzy, thought he should just return to class.

A few hours later I was in the stands at the JV game watching the cheerleader who looked like she had been transplalnted from AV club right into the middle of an advanced line-dancing class. I don't think she managed to place a correct step throughout the game and was always on the verge of tears until the yelling portion that ended each cheer. Apparently what she lacked in coordination, she made up for in volume.

My formerly toothless friend wandered into the stadium for the last quarter after undergoing a root canal and getting a prothetic tooth. Forget Friday Night Lights. This is devotion.

thirsty

"...he who believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:35
"Blessed are those who...thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Matt 5:6

If I'm still thirsty, what am I not believing? I remember hearing a song with lines:
how can there be any hunger in me when you are the bread of life?
how can there be any darkness in me when you are the light of the world?
I think I've learned contentment in areas of my life--not wanting a different job, more money, better clothes. I just need to find a resting place in believing I will be approved of when I put my best food forward. that sounds like a belief that would quench thirst.

the what next

It was a wild night with the girlfriends. We went for a walk and then ate ice cream and fried foods from an outdoor vendor. This is a lot more me than anything involving the pressure to wear uncomfortable shoes or like vodka.

We were talking about our fantasy lives. Tea and Sympathy wanting to visit the great cities of the world with a man in spectacles, Vitamin Kimono wishing for a big garden, providing husband, and obedient children, and my wierd thoughts about capes and secret passageways that have replaced usual thoughts of an apple orchard, pet goat, and guitar-playing man hero. If any of us get married and procreate, will we sit be sitting around 5 years later and dreaming of being single? Some of my friends with families say they dream of being single, having their own place, and dating again.

popular fiction

I'm now reading Harry Potter like everyone else. I wish I had a school to ship off the kids with no money, no parental support, weird scars. They try to look magical with their black and pink hair, black nails, guyliner, and enlongating tight jeans.

I'm drawn to the fringey kids with all the imagination. The jocks who arrive to my seminar class are the ones who roll their eyes at me when I ask them to do ridiculous things like sit on the floor with everyone else. I'm upsetting the social order by not giving them preferential treatment.

If I was Hermione Granger, tonight I'd be able to see in the dark and go for a long, starry hike wearing a cape.

matching

It's an interesting business to be working in education and partially raising other people's children. I met a woman today who keeps giving her son money and can't understand how he's able to keep buying drugs. Curious. Then I attended a meeting about a student who tried to strangle another kid. I left an hour and a half into the meeting where no solutions had been offered. The other native Chicagoan in the room definitely looked antsy about the situation. We're do-ers more than talkers. Sneakers with skirts to get somewhere fast, strong coffee, fast/concise conversation. Her favorite time to get back to me is immediately. She may be my vocational kindred spirit.

me of little faith

I have returned from the wedding in better spirits than anticipated. There were only minor tears and minimal drinking. I think this is due to the community I walked among for the weekend. City's friends and family surrounded me like the hands of Christ. They fed and housed me. Their children clung to me. Women asked how I was doing and their husbands joked with me. They were beautiful.

This was a community originally built around people from suburbs who chose to move to the inner city and get involved with the poor. They were all leaving their families, so they created a new sense of family among the friends. They wake things up inside me. I need to think more about community and my resources.

There were tears shed over the fact that City and I are on different paths. Fortunately I had already done the grieving work and could arrive to celebrate seeing God's faithfulness to my friend in giving her someone who bakes, takes pictures, studies, fixes houses and makes her feel safe. It definitely helped that her mom kept reassuring me that God has someone for me too.