I am a C! I am a C-H! I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N!

And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T and I will L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y!!  

I swear on my mother's future grave that I hate claiming to be a Christian.  HATE it.  I don't know if I could say that any stronger.  Maybe drop an F-Bomb in there.  That would probably truly prove my point.  But only 'cause it would seriously piss "Christians" off.  Ha!  I just realized how funny that could be.

Anyways, I really do.  And this annoying-ass kid I know named Russ (he's my neighbor, sorta) came up to me the other day and said, "Hey, you're the first Christian friend I've ever known."  I cringed and was a tad offended.  I have no idea, honestly, how he picked up on my "being a 'Christian'."  I guess it's not a bad thing since he's heard me curse, seen me drink, seen me smoke, heard me curse some more... I don't really live the typical "life of a 'Christian'" and being called a "Christian" really bugged me.

Let me explain.  "Christians," on average, SUCK.  I can't stand them.  They are hypocrites, preachers, and a huge bunch o' gossips who like to ask each other to pray for each other so they can spill a bunch of crap about people they hate.  They are mean, evil people who think it's fun to criticize each other in the "name of Jesus" and with each others' best interest at heart.  They criticize through saying they wouldn't do something based on their convictions without taking into consideration the fact that not everyone has the same convictions.   

I don't go to church.  I can't bring myself to do it.  The Americanized church is not the Church that Jesus set up when He was here, so I'm not really sure why I should waste my time listening to people not-gossip through prayer and tell me how I should really be living my life (based on their convictions and not taking into account that I'm a completely different person).  I recently left a church - well, it was almost a year ago - and I was approached about my decision and just gave a fluff answer about how I wasn't connecting as well as I used to because I didn't wanna deal with hearing her preaching.  Her response to my answer was, "Well, I don't know how a Christian with a soul can live in Albuquerque and not come to this church."  That basically encapsulated what I hate about church - it's not Church.



Ok, so I should mention at this juncture that this is all a fairly gross generalization.  However, there is truth to what I'm saying (at least from my perspective).

Here's an example of why I can't stand "Christians" and how they "bear witness" in their own "moral" way.  I wrote a story for a class about my best friend, a girl who attempted to break his heart and my involvement.  Because I was dating someone, my involvement looked inappropriate to a girl who was in the class (who I had known for years).  She decided that it would be appropriate to "reprimand" me for that in class.  This was a week after two other "Christian" girls got in an argument during class regarding religion because of "preaching" that was incorporated in one of their pieces.  These two situations blew my witness.  I looked like a jackass.  All because other girls decided to "witness" in their Judgy McJudgerton ways and include me in their clump.  People in my other classes had always assumed I was a religious person because of how I lived.  Because I wasn't a jackass, they still respected me.  Because my witness wasn't that of, "You're an idiot and are going to hell because you don't believe what I do."

Russ's comment was offensive to me because I don't want to be classified as one of those girls in that English class. I'm hoping his calling me a Christian was more like the people in my other classes who just knew because of how I am.  I've never judged him.  I've told him he was annoying, but I haven't judged him.  


So, sure.  I'm a Christian.  And don't give a shit if people don't like how I represent.

Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes!

David Bowie.  We've all heard the bloody song.  And it's likely to get stuck in our heads forever if we listen to it, right?  Yeah.  You know I'm right. 

So, really, life is full of changes.  This is something I'm learning to deal with... Well, supposed to be learning to deal with... And I'm not doing so great at learning to deal with it.  

I am 22 and with that comes weddings.  Not mine (obviously).  TONS of weddings of my friends and family, people I love, people I barely know, etc.  But not only do weddings come, but damn babies come.  And those of my friends who aren't married are at least dating each other which changes stuff.  And this paragraph makes it seem like I am totally obsessed with the lives of my friends and the fact that they have significant others (or are each other significant others).  But this is not the point.


These changes have hit my family hard core.  My baby sister lives in another state.  My baby brother is off at basic training for the military.  My big brother is married and has two kids.  My dad's birthday celebration is going to be me, my mom, my dad, and my best friend.  What the hell?!  This is not something I'm getting used to.  I'm used to a chaotically huge family and lots of screaming and yelling (but only because that's the only way to communicate because it's so loud).  


My sister-in-law, Arielei came to my house last night.  She and Nathan had borrowed some DVDs and she was returning them.  In the bag with the DVDs, she put a picture of me and baby niece at her wedding.  Her wedding was almost 2 years ago already.  The picture is adorable, but due only to my baby niece (fortunately, you can barely see my face, but I'm kissing her).  She is absolutely precious.  And I have a picture of her on my phone now, and she is at least twice as big.  


This picture is really what got me thinking.


My baby niece's picture on my phone now is already about six months old.  And she was big then.  I haven't seen her since then and can't imagine how big she is now.  And I'm not even sure when I'll see her next.  My point is - everything changes.  Whether we like it or not.  Stuff happens.  Life moves on whether you're there for it or not.


It's getting annoying.


My baby brother and his wife are also moving to another state at the end of this summer.  I'm going to be the only kid in my family still near my parents.  I'm the second oldest.  I'm the craziest.  And honestly, I'm the most independent.  I'm the only one with a college degree (two siblings are working on theirs, though). 

And still, I'm the one being left behind.

I'm not jealous.  I just wonder what happened to me.  How come I'm not doing something real with my life?  After college, you're supposed to be able to start doing something awesome.  I have the same job I had in college - which is really the only thing I have going for me.  I love my job.  I'm paid well, I get fed every day, I can look like shit when I go to work, the list goes on and on.  But a job isn't a life.  


So I was talking to my best friend about all of this this past weekend and I had been thinking about it for a while, so I ended up getting sort of emotional and he'd been drinking so he was already emotional... And all in all it was probably a bad time to talk about it.  But he went on and on about how I was not being left behind because no one our age likes their job much less loves it.  And most of them don't even have a steady-paying job.  


When I said that that wasn't my point because my point was that I didn't have anything real to show, he hit me.  I'm pretty sure I didn't deserve to get hit and I'm pretty sure that was rude.  The point I was trying to make is that even if my friends have lame jobs and maybe don't like them, at least they all have something to show.  They've contributed to the world by marrying someone or by giving birth to someone.


Since this talk, I've decided I just need to get un-brainwashed.  Church and family and stupid frikkin society all has be brainwashed to believe that marriage is the way to go.  To be a "good" woman, you get married and have kids.  I just don't get it.  And if you love Jesus, you need to keep your pants on, so it's like you're going to get married super young and since a ton of my friends love Jesus (which is good, I'm not knockin it), they're all married just to be sure they lose their virginity on their wedding night and only have sex with the one person and having kids already and are my age which is young (comparably speaking).  

Right now, I have no intention of ever getting married.  Jonathan keeps saying I'm an idiot and I'll probably get married.  And my boss has said that I'd be a waste of a woman.  Other people all have their lines for why they think I'll get married.  This all means that I have to decide that I can be a "good" person and contribute in other ways even if right now I'm contributing and have an awesome life only because I have a good job.  Who knows.  I'm rambling.  I just need a shift in my beliefs/thoughts, I guess.


And just in case overly-sensitive people read this - I'm not saying my friends are all stupid because they got married young, I'm just saying that my Jesus-loving friends all got married way younger than my non-Jesus-loving friends (who are all funner, easier-to-be-with couples anyhow).  I love all of my friends, Jesus-loving or not.

My Best Friend (of the opposite sex - yeah, I have more than one best friend) and MY Writing

There is way too much I could say about my best friend.  So I'm limiting it.  

Jonathan is great.  He's the best friend I could have right now.  I need him for a lot of things even though he is probably the biggest pain in the ass I have ever met.  I actually often say to him, "Dude, seriously.  My ass.  It's in pain."  It's pretty funny, actually.  I know it doesn't sound like it.  But it is.  I swear.

Anyhow, we've been best friends for about 2 years now and I can't really function without him and don't care if that's lame.  We're fairly interdependent and he, his dad, and I pretty much work as a really grouchy, screeching, hilarious machine.  The thing about JP is that I know he loves me and I know he needs me, too (though he's not likely to admit it out loud to anyone but me).  He's just not the most supportive.  Typically.  At least, he doesn't show that he supports.  If I'm directing a play or in charge of some sort of production or need him to go somewhere with me or watch me play a soccer game or whatever, he's not likely to do it.  Well, he'll go to family dinners - with complaints.  He'll tell me I'm not fat or tell me I look "nice" or "good" one day.  But he is not likely to extend support.  

Here's where he gets weird.  He not only follows my blog but wants to set up an RSS feed to make sure he follows it.  I laughed when he said that.  He hasn't often seemed to like my writing.  Even though one of my best pieces in a class was about him.  And some broad.  Anyhow.  Point is, he subscribes to my blog.

THEN, after I laughed at him, I said, "It's not even good writing.  I'm not a good writer."  

He said, "I wouldn't say that.  But it's a really good read."

"So, I'm a bad writer, but good to read?  How does that even work."

"Oh, you know."

His awesome explanation of how I could write a good read but was not a good writer really got me thinking...  But, no, really.  I think I should completely change how I look at writing.  And how I look at my writing.  I don't need to be a Dickens or Dickinson.  Which would be impossible anyhow.  But I have to write stuff people like reading.  But I'm still working on this whole thought because it doesn't really make sense.  

If something is a good read isn't it well-written?!  I don't even know.

Coupledom.

Yes.  Coupledom.  It’s supposed to sound daunting.  It is daunting.  It’s shit.  I’ll be frank.  Couples suck.  I know very few couple who do not and I love them for it.  If they were reading this blog, they would know who they are, because I have personally thanked them for it.

I love my friends but hate them as couples.  They’re gross (I really don’t wanna see someone stick their tongue inside anyone else).  They can’t not be right next to each other while we’re all (meaning several couples and a few single people) together.  If they are near each other, they’re touching each other.  And if one single person talked to one person in a couple, the other half has to interject.  So, these people, many of whom aren’t married, completely lose their identity as soon as they become a couple and no longer care to have friendships/relationships with other people.  So, in essence, they always have to be a couple.  Couples hang out with couples or their single "friends" all the time - as long as they are together.  And they prefer to only be with other couples.  Something about being able to talk about similarities in their relationships makes them happy.  (Stupid)

To help illustrate my annoyances with couples, I'm going to use three case studies.

Case Study Number One 

I know this one couple.  Well, ok, I know probably hundreds at this point.  But this specific couple is overly annoying (like many of them).  The participants of this couple are both good friends of mine.  They haven't been together for too long.  They are always together.  Have some sort of "schedule" that keeps them busy.  Have curfew.  The list goes on and on.  They're one of the couples where at first, you just think everything is going to go well and then suddenly you start noticing things.  You realize that one of them has started changing.  A lot.  It's not necessarily for the good or the bad, but it is definitely changing to more like the ideal person for their "partner."  The changes may be subtle, they may not be.  And the "changee" may not have asked the "changer" to change, but the "changer" still changes for the "changee" for God only knows what reason.  For this particular couple, the "changer" has begun growing more "religious," judgmental, and has started living more like the "changee" would hope for their future spouse.  Kinda makes me wanna gouge my eyes out.  And then rip my heart out.  Probably stomp on my heart.  Maybe poke my brain through my temples or the roof of my mouth.  Point being - there isn't much about this couple that I can tolerate.

Case Study Number Dos

This couple is different from the others.  In that when I'm with them, all I really want to do is gag.  This couple is so raunchy, I have friends who refuse to hang out with them.  They have given graphic details about their sexual relationship and when they grace us with their presence have a tendency to stick their tongues inside each other.  Ok, that was more graphic than planned.  Sorry about that.  Anyhow, they're so gross when they're together, I don't really want to say more.

Case Study Numero Three

This couple is a model couple.  I say this because they aren't gross.  They aren't annoying.  They can hang out with out each other.  If they aren't together and we're waiting on the other - they'll even let someone else check to see where they are.  That... That.  Is.  Not.  Normal.  They are awesome.  They are really one of the only couples that I can tolerate without wanting to shoot someone in the middle of hanging out with them.

Theory

Couple 1 is full of religion.  They're horny (I'm assuming).  And they are saving themselves.  And they "getting to know each other" so that they know if they should get married.  Thus the changing.  And other stupidities.

Couple 2 is young.  They are quite young.  And still all dumb.

Couple 3 is at the right age and at the same time of their lives.  They have the same opinion on a lot of things.  And neither of them would have to change to be "ideal" to the other.  This is why they are normal.

Conclusion

Couples are stupid.  Unless they are willing to be like Couple Tres.  Not change each other.  And not change.  And still be friends with single people without making people want to commit suicide.

New Post

I think I've clicked the "New Post" button on my little homepage on Blogger about 7 times in the past week and a half.  And this is the first time I've started typing into the post box.  It's because I really have nothing to say.  My life has been fairly mundane lately and I haven't written anything real lately.

Also, I've discovered that more people know about my blog than I was expecting to know about my blog and I'm not excited about some of them reading some of the stories I would post.  I have several thoughts I could write down and make "stories" out of, but too many people could find it.  I could rant about several things.  I could talk about things that have happened to me.  The list goes on and on.  And I can't write about it on the internet.

Maybe I'm just a wuss.  Maybe I should have a disclaimer at the top of each of my posts that tells people to suck it up if they don't like what I have to say.  Who knows.  But that's my version of writer's block right now.  And to be frank, it's getting annoying.

I wonder who decided to start saying "to be frank."

Family, family, family. And mostly Nathan.

I have a rather large family.  And really, I don't.  Four kids and two parents isn't a huge family.  But family dinner in my parents' house includes my little brother's in-laws.  My little brother is Nathan.  Thus the title of this post.  

Nathan just enlisted himself.  Something about wanting to serve his country by being in the Virginia National Guard.  It’s also making it possible for him to attend the college of his choice (Liberty University) without having to pay.  Your tax dollars at work!  So, thanks for paying for him to go to a great college!  

But my real point is this: my “family” is pretty great.  We had a “going away” party for Nathan last Sunday and the whole family came.  I met people at this event.  And it was all family.  Well, one lady is marrying in (Diane), her daughter joined, and then one of my “niece-in-law’s” brought her boyfriend.  But overall, it was my family. 

That Sunday night was pretty intense.  Not only because I had to tell some gazillions of people how I hurt my leg and was on crutches (I didn’t even have a cast at that point), but I had to say goodbye to my little brother after sitting around with my whole family talking about how we love Nathan and will pray for him and worry about him while he’s gone.  We talked about how we were going to make sure that Arielei (his wife) didn’t get too lonely with him gone.  Anyways, as the night progressed, it got more and more emotional for me.  I even teared up a little.  Which really is rather uncommon for me (I have to be pretty upset/sad or really mad).  

Once we were all done sitting around talking to each other, Diane and I adjourned to the living room for a while because she heard that I played piano and Mom and Dad have their baby grand up over there.  I played something in the key of C.  I seldom play anything in particular.  

Now, the piano is where it got intense.  I'm ok at the piano (could totally be way better at it and used to be a ton better than I am now), but that's not really the point.  The point is that Nathan and I grew up goofy.  We were by no means normal and my mom will tell you that we raised ourselves moreso than either of our siblings did.  We homeschooled ourselves in many ways and were responsible much earlier than either of our other siblings.  When we got bored as kids, Nathan and I would adjourn to the living room and play piano together.  Sometimes this consisted in duets and sometimes this consisted in me playing a "spiritual" piece (sometimes singing) while he was a "black preacher" who dramatically, spiritually and impressively spoke the words of the song.  His hands would spazz out a little - one hand pressed against his heart, the other raised to the sky.  He'd roll his eyes back, throw his head back and praise Jesus with his voice.  Seriously, very comical.  It sounds incredibly mockatory and rather sacreligious.  But we were flipping funny.  I swear on my mom's future grave.  It was grand.  

More often than not, we would either end or start these wonderful concerts with a lovely reprise of "The Mission Impossible Theme" as a duet.  I took the lower half of the piano, he took the higher.  We would cover at least eight octaves with pounding power.  I really do mean pounding.  We'd start with both of us rolling octaves covering two octaves with each hands.  Then we'd fill the octaves with more notes and then he'd take the high melody as I reverted to rolling octaves.  Now, this more than likely only sounded (well, sounds) cool to us, but we've always loved playing.


After I finished playing in the key of C, I called for Nathan to come in.  He joined me as I introduced the song with my pounding, rolling octaves.  He joined and we played until we ran out of creative ways to "arrange" the piece.  When we finally got bored of that song, he stood up, laughing with his laugh that will always remind me of my uncle.  When he laughs, his Adam's apple goes up and down and seems to shake side-to-side at the same time.  It's jolly and his eyes light up and he looks so happy (no matter when he laughs).  He said, "Good times," leaned over while pat-rubbing my back, and gave me a kiss on my head.


I almost cry every time Nathan kisses me on the head regardless of why he's kissing me.  I then almost cry every time I think about him kissing me on the head.  And I don't normally cry.

Excuses...

I apparently gave up blogging.  I just didn't know I gave up blogging.  (I sort of want to start calling it globbing, just so you know)


I've been sorta busy over the last 10 days (since I last posted).  I was injured, for example.  It was quite loverly.  Well, no.  I lied.  I blogged about my first doctor visit regarding my injury.  But it got worse and now I'm trudging around in a bright yellow cast and attempting not to fall off my crutches.  Yes, I really fall off my crutches.  

So, that's been making my life slow.  I take forever to do anything because of the cast and I'm always tired.  Which I guess means I've really been less busy in all technicality, but taking a much longer time to do anything.  I know it shouldn't, but having these damn crutches slow my roll is seriously annoying.  I have a new person in my office at work.  Well, that's the hard part, he's not in the same room as me (like everyone else).  He's down the hall and quite often needs my help.  And when he needs me, I get a little IM that says, "See me, please."  I find my crutches (they seem to walk away from me) and hobble on back there like a frikkin little gimp!  Then I help him.  The only time that's seriously annoying is when I go back there and have to shut a window on his computer for him.  Literally.  I went back there, hit "X" and walked out (trying not to laugh).


All this post really is supposed to do is excuse myself from blogging and make me feel better about the fact that I hadn't blogged in a while.  It's not like anyone else cared or even noticed.  Haha!  Anyways, I've missed writing and will get back on here.  Now.  


Aren't you soooo excited?!