Word of the Day

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a dictionary supposed to provide synonyms in order to HELP you figure out what the word means?

Today's word:
--scathing
(adjective) Bitterly denunciatory; harshly critical.
Synonyms: vituperative

Pretty sure I already knew what scathing meant, and have never used vituperative in my life. They need to reverse their Word of the Day, in my humble opinion. This will teach me not to use thefreedictionary.com when I should be using dictionary.com. Words matter.

act of weather, not terrorism

This happened Tuesday night...fortunately I saw it on the news before driving home from Shannon and Brad's apartment in Lawrence. And fortunately, I also saw it from the highway on my way home. Otherwise, when I saw the monstrous, dark cloud of smoke billowing into the sky just west of downtown on my way to work the next morning, I would've been positive that terrorists had struck.



Lightning caused this petroleum tank to catch on fire.

Tornadic weather in store tonight, perhaps. I think I missed my calling to be a storm chaser.

NPR dreams

Every morning, I wake up to my radio playing NPR. This is all well and good, and a less-harsh way to rouse a night owl out of bed.

But here is where it gets interesting...I've been having "NPR dreams." I'm bad about snoozing for quite a while, so I usually go back to sleep as the radio is blaring and dream about whatever news I'm hearing. Then, when I'm finally awake, it's hard to distinguish reality from my dreams.

For example, the other day, as I was driving to work, it dawned on me that Jane Seymour is not, in fact, running against Hillary Clinton for president. This morning, I dreamed I was President Bush's press secretary, and we were having a conversation inside his limo.

So don't ask me to tell you about current events, because I'll give you false reports.

speech! speech!

Since I've been remiss in blogging lately, and since I need to go to bed early due to an early-morning airport pick-up (Tara's coming!!!), I decided to sort of blog-cheat. I'm going to post the little speech I gave at our baccalaureate lunch at graduation in December.

I hereby dedicate this to all recent graduates:


I try hard not to say, "I can't wait." A few years ago I realized how precious life is and how quickly it passes and so I decided to stop using the words, "can't wait." I used to say, "I can't wait for Christmas" or "I can't wait for summer break." But the truth is, I CAN wait for anything. Instead, I now say, "I'm looking forward to.....being gainfully employed."

There is an old French story called The Magic Thread about a little boy, Peter, who was very impatient. Peter had trouble enjoying the present, because he longed for the future. One day, an old woman approached Peter in the woods and offered him a strange gift, a silver ball from which a golden thread dangled. She explained that if he gave the thread a little tug, an hour would pass like a second. Peter gladly accepted the gift.

The next day, when he was bored in school, he pulled the thread a tiny bit, and found to his delight, that the teacher was dismissing class for the day. So every day, he pulled the thread to speed up all the slow parts of the day. Eventually, he decided to skip schooling altogether and hurry on to his career. I am sure you guessed what happened next.

He rushed through his engagement so he could be married to his childhood sweetheart. He rushed through his children's illnesses and all other unpleasant events in his life. Before he knew it, his mother had died and his children had grown up and moved away.

One day when he was an old man, he went on a walk in the same woods he used to walk in when he was a boy. He saw the same old woman who had given him the magic thread. She asked if he had lived a good life. "I'm not sure," he replied. "Your magic ball is a wonderful thing. I've never had to suffer or wait for anything. And yet it has all passed so quickly. I haven't had time to take in what's happened to me, neither the good things nor the bad. Now, there's so little time left."

The old woman gave Peter one final wish. With that wish he chose to live his life over without the magic thread, to take life as it came. He woke to find his young mother waking him to go to school.

William Bennett said, "Too often people want what they want right now. (Or what they think they want, which is usually happiness.) The irony of their impatience is that only by learning to wait, and by a willingness to accept the bad with the good, do we usually attain those things that are truly worthwhile."

I can relate to Peter. As much as I want to be patient, there were many times when I was writing a research paper at 4 a.m. and wishing I had a Magic Thread of my own that would fast forward me to Spring Break. I am still not over my aversion to IHOP after spending an entire night there drinking from the "bottomless coffee pot" while writing a paper for Dr. McBride.

But, you know, other times I am the one who already sounds like an old woman sitting on her front porch musing about how quickly time passes. When I visited the freshmen dorms in August, I felt as though I were the one who should be moving in, not all of those kids!

My point is this--we need a balance in our lives. We need to cherish the present while looking forward to the future.

As I approached high school graduation, the advice I heard the most was, "This is the best time of your life; enjoy it while it lasts." I loved high school, but I remember thinking, "I hope this isn't the peak of my existence!" And sure enough, college was even better.

I believe if we continue seeking God's will for our lives, the best is still to come. Each stage of our life will be wonderful, and we can even learn to appreciate those times when we are refined by fire.

As with Peter's story, if we don't take the bad times with the good, we won't enjoy our lives to the fullest. If I had chosen not to go to OC just because I hate research papers, I would have missed out on an amazing 4 1/2 year adventure. The same will be true for my future. If I don't take risks with my career, I will miss out on great opportunities.

I am trying hard not to use clichés. I am not going to throw out all those "dance like no one is watching" quotations at you. But I do want to encourage all of us to get excited about all that life has to offer in the next eighty years or so. When life is going exceptionally well for you, pause and soak it all in. Tuck those good memories away and pull them out when the trials come so that you know the hard times won't last forever.

And above all else, trust that God has incredible plans for that will surprise us and make us wonder why we ever thought college was going to be the best time of our lives.

Congratulations everyone!

art & life imitating each other

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life." --Oscar Wilde

I can't seem to figure out my opinion on this matter. I used to have the same sentiments as Meg Ryan's character in You've Got Mail -- "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?" But lately, I'm pleased to announce I don't feel that way as much anymore.

Instead of moping around yesterday because Tara Lynne had to cancel her trip to visit me, the day was instead filled with all things good: farmers' market in the morning, French cafe for afternoon coffee, library, 2 hours at a wonderful park and gorgeous spring weather...and finally, my first visit to the art museum here.

There were several reasons why I enjoyed the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art so much: the grounds are beautiful, the collections much better than I thought they'd be, the low cost for admission (free) and the fact I can go any time I want since I'm not just here on vacation.

And now I will tell you why art imitates life...illustrated in a few selections from the European exhibit:

Pisarro's Market at Pontoise -- because I just went to the market.

Cassat's At the Theater -- because I just went to my first opera


The Approaching Storm -- because I recently took these photos from my balcony the other night

Piazza del Popolo, Rome -- PRECISELY where my book is taking place right now...and I was having difficulty picturing it, thank you Giovanni Paolo Panini for painting this in 1741 for me. =)

And the best example...

Ingres's Portrait of the Sculptor Paul Lemoyne -- because it's used on the cover of the previously-mentioned book I'm currently reading.


Here's my proof: I bought this book in New York at the Heath Ledger bookstore (I call it that because Whitney talked to him there in October). Little did I know that the cover was taken from a painting hanging in a museum in my town! I love stuff like this.

As if I needed more reason to love the museum, look at the quotes on the outside of the building (by one of my favorite authors, Victor Hugo, I might add):

"The soul has greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist. It is by the ideal that we live."

Well said, Victor.

Things I've learned so far...

· NEVER go to an animal shelter if you’re not prepared to adopt...it's hard to leave.
· Wooden floors are very squeaky (but fabulous).
· You really can tune out sirens when you’re trying to sleep.
· Sometimes you assume a dining room table will be delivered already assembled, but sometimes you’re wrong.
· How to put together a dining room table.
· Fear of pepper spray and alarm systems is more real than the intruders they are meant to protect me from.
· Zicam is effective at shortening your cold, but apparently can kill your senses of taste and smell FOREVER! (I was lucky though, it only killed my cold)
· Les Misérables is coming to Kansas City in September!
· No one can go to the DMV and accomplish everything in one trip.
· Kansas City has enough diverse coffee shops to keep me happy for years.
· I had no idea what Palestinian food would be like until trying out the Jerusalem Café, and it’s similar to Turkish (which makes sense)…delicious

More to come!

The times, they are a changin'

Well, off I go into the brave new world of Kansas City, Missouri.

I'm starting a job next week at a mid-sized integrated marketing agency in downtown KC. Such adventure ahead of me! I promise to do a better job at updating this blog...or try anyway.

Stay tuned for what is to come as I chart new territory in my life!

nothing in particular

It is quite windy. I hope my subconscious doesn't hear the wind and cause me to have yet another dream about tornadoes. (4 and counting, all starting in December...3 have occurred the night before actual tornadic events.)

Isn't it odd how we praise God for controlling the weather, but we don't blame him for natural disasters? Don't worry about me being struck by lightning for that...I'm just musing.

After looking at, but not filling, my giant, 21-section picture frame for 7 months, I finally ordered new prints and filled it with people I know! (Instead of all those fake people.) It brought such color and vibrancy to my room!

Lastly (because I feel the need to be more obscure), this is my "Why is the world ridiculous?" example of the week:


First of all, this short-sleeved sweater is on "sale" for the great bargain of $198 (originally $390). Okay, I recognize there is a difference in quality between Dollar General and Banana Republic, for example. But once you hit $100, you're just being ridiculous. And I appreciate the argument about fashion being wearable art. But a black sweater is not art by any definition. It's just rich people paying too much so they feel worth it. Secondly, stand up straight and quit pretending to be high fashion!


I miss my house in Ponca City with the door that would "moo" when it was windy.

Observations

Since change is the topic of the day lately, I've decided that is not what I want to discuss. Instead, I will list a few observations to get myself back into the swing of blogging.

Observation #1 -- My dear, dear friend Whitney Pettyjohn hates crowds more than most people I know. Despite this, she adores concerts and worked incredibly hard to fulfill her dream of moving to...Manhattan (the densest city in America with 66,000 people in every square mile...compared with Oklahoma City at a whopping 325 people per square mile). But I love her for it.

Observation #2 -- Complements are better than compliments. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking you to quit giving me the latter.)

Observation #3 -- Despite my pickiness when it comes to new authors, if my mother ever wrote a novel, it would be amazing. She wouldn't think so (even after winning a Pulitzer), but it would be.

Observation #3.5 -- I never thought much about who Mr. Pulitzer or Mr. Nobel were. All I know about Nobel is that he invented dynamite and then felt guilty about it. I stumbled upon a book about Joseph Pulitzer in a wonderful bookstore in SoHo, so as soon as I get to it on my very long list of books to read, I won't have to wonder anymore.