listening to patty griffin's nobody's cryin'.
"still have this secret hope
sometimes all I do is cope"..

thinking so much about hope lately.
words and phrases keep coming
across my path that completely resonate.
maybe its a season for hope.
maybe its the actual season of spring, bringing hope..
"i am not an optimist, but merely a prisoner of hope"
which is true
because i'm not totally optimistic
that love will come
or that career happiness will soon find me.
but even in this feeling of weariness,
hope remains.
and i can't escape it.
no matter how i run, i am this prisoner to a hope..
a hope for joy, a hope for.. fulfillment.
and i struggled with writing that,
struggled to acknowledge i'm yearning
for fulfillment brought on by love and job stuff.
the nagging-ness of this place in me,
thoroughly ingrained in me over thirty years,
to acknowledge jesus as the sole provided of that stuff.
but the the yearning for it,
the belief in it totally remains.
and i can't escape that either.

spring is totally in the air.
thank god.
being underneath these clear skies a couple times a day
is starting to show how essential it is for the lonely soul.

i think my friend count may be up to two now.
hurrah!

spent this last weekend in north england,
having an incomparable visit,
with the incomparable robin cicanski.
the weekend started out rough,
rushing rushing from work,
only to miss my flight,
somehow unable to connect to robin's phone number..
sweaty, frenzied, stressed out to the nines..
calling canada to try and get through to robin in england..
finally manage it with the power of
a few stellar, there when you need them friends.
pay the extra 50 euros to fly out the next day.
plop down to eat a hamburger in the airport macdonalds,
only to be moved to tears with
a telephone conversation surrounding
that days henri nouwens lent readings
that seemed to imbibe and penetrate my soul
and thus washing the stress and frenzy,
and leaving in its wake,
at least a little hope.
it felt silly.
there in the macdonalds at charles de gaulle airport.
but i was met.

i also felt met there in england.
there is surely none so great a host as ms. cicanski.
i was bowled over the entire time
by the thoughfulness that existed there.
i don't know how, in my life,
i've found all these givers to be friends with me
but i am fully aware of
the graciousness and greatfulness required of me,
and its there.
its surely there.
i'm lucky.
i'm far away.
but i'm lucky.

french strawberries.
heard about 'em.
heard they were the best..
whatevs.
in this day and age,
where everything is shipped here and there and anywhere,
where you can get any produce you want at any time of year
(and cheaply)
i subconciously assumed that i'd,
somewhere along my journey,
had at least a couple of the best strawberries in the world.
i fucking kid you not,
i had not.
i do think that they only exist in france!
they are the sweetest, softest,
melt in your mouth strawberry
i've ever, ever had.
so delicate that,
you know,
i don't think they attempt shipping them.
although it could be too,
the french just decided to keep them to themselves.
i don't doubt it.
but isn't kind of nice to know
in this day and age
that there is still something that you can't get
whenever, wherever you want?
that there exists in the world,
something that you'd have to go to get,
and won't come to you.
and more over, that its totally worth it.

it's funny how ten days can get away from you.
in some ways i apologize, in others i'm apathetic.
i've actually started an ongoing email from myself that has thoughts started,
but not fully thought through, or reflected on,
but in the end would probably make for good posting.

today is a monday of mondays.
as in "someone has a case of the mondays".
what was to be a weekend of finally making it out to ikea,
meeting up with a new person friend i met..
became the weekend in which
i did not leave her bed for 36 hours
except to puke.

oi.
so back at work after a delightful weekend.
i can be thankful, however, that a trip over to the uk
was postponed from this last weekend until the next.
how much would that have sucked to have shown up puking on your friends doorstep.

monday means bible study day,
which means gotta get a weeks worth of homework done today.
yep homework.
i go to this fandangled american bible study that gives out homework.
i went to my first one last week,
and had the following thoughts
(excerpted from an eamil to a friend):

"...i'm frustrated because of where my faith is,
and having the faith and beliefs of this church held up to me,
assuming to be my guidepost, for me.
its like my faith, its between my father and me,
my love and me,
the holy spirit and me.
living in vancouver/being at mosaic has shown me what community is,
and how it's intrinsically apart of faith..
but the community/church is like a love foundation in which to express,
and crawl deeper..you know?
and here it feels so suppressing and offensive...
its like they are not trusting me with my faith. trusting god with me"

but i've always know that one of my biggest vices has been to throw the baby out with the bathwater. i hear or read something that goes against what i know, and i'm out. i tune out. i have a hard time gleaning any goodness from the thing otherwise.
(i also know that the virtue of it is discernment..which i know is so good, and is a gift...but ya, i can take it too far for sure)

so i'm giving more shots. did my homework today.
the home work frustrated me.
i rebelled by reading all the required reading
in the message translation (HAHAHAHHAHAHA).
and then i just left some of the questions blank.

so we'll see.
see if the bathwater can be tossed but keeping the baby.

also, about this monday.
my work slippers royally stink.
i hate it when i have to buy replacement things.
slippers, contacts, deodorant..bah.

hi.
now i'm 30.

yesterday started out a little rough,
mostly in the longing for my people category.
there may have been a lot of tears.

then the baby wouldn't sleep,
so i fed him a little earlier than usual,
and off we went.
wandered the musee d'orsay for a while
ate lunch on a sunny terrace
had a glass of wine with lunch
AND dessert. tarte au pomme.
and i looked really cute while doing it.
grey knit dress, braided belt, little blue and orange scarf,
navy tights and good sunglasses. cute.

then i went home and had take away pizza and a glass of whiskey
and called it a night.
oh and i read time magazine.

there are probably deeper, more of the heart thoughts surrounding this,
but i'm a little emotionally hung over from yesterday morning.
after all,
i went to bed with a few tears the eve of my birthday,
missing my people,
and woke up laughing to
'everything i do i do it for you'
playing on the radio.
i feel in this instance that god used bryan adams for good.
for the good of seeing how buoyed my heart became.
through tears of course.
its not every day god shares with you via bryan adams.

you konw i ran out of jj bean sometime last week,
but this store bought run of the mill bag of lava azza ain't doing too badly.
i'm quite enjoying it really.
its a good thing about paris really,
all the run of the mill stuff that you buy at the grocery store
even the store brand stuff
is pretty spectacular.
and probably has a ton less ingrediants than the north american store brand equivilant.

OOOO and, when i got my hair cut a couple weeks ago,
sarah (amazing wonderful go see her now)

used this new hair chalk stuff that i couldn't believe.
a couple shakes and my hair had so much texture and hold.
but i didn't buy a canister from her cause it was 20 bucks and i was closing in on being broke after that nutso seattle trip.
but guess what the fuck??
paris grocery store. thats what the fuck.
cheapo five euro bottle, same shit. same results. BOOYA. love paris.

i've decided that
since i don't have friends really here,
(just a few random aquaintinces who in no way are filling me up like you folks),
i am thus not expending a ton of money going out.
so
my new friends are going to be really expensive things.
i'm never going to be at this stage in life again,
being abroad, having expendible income without being freaked out about the future (yet...)
i'm going to buy expensive things.
bags. shoes. coats.
for the shoe portion of the expenditure, i'm heading over to berlin in june.
wanna come?

rumor has it jonny a is coming to town!!!! only for one night, but...YA!


edit: probably should have given this post a nice little edit before posting..HOLY MOLY. my appologies. eh.