If I were topical and had HBO...

I didn't see the finale, so let's bypass and go straight to today's assignment.
Inspired by my book club homey Rachel (purveyor of all things distracting) and last night's Commencement ceremony (Congratulations, Class of '07. That backflip really spiced things up, no?), I'd like to know what you want to do before you die. For real. Big dreams, little dreams...You can share them in the comments or just write them in your secret love notebooks.
Here are some of mine in no particular order:

• Take some city kids to Africa
• Photograph religious people (nuns, Tibetan monks)
• Get a pixie haircut and wear it to a Pixies concert
• Get seriously ripped arms, but not the veiny Madonna kind
• Be really good at improv

A Theory

Related to our assumptions about the gender (and possibly sexual preferences) of God.
After an extensive GoogleMaps search, I have determined that cathedrals were built and then topped with domes to look like breasts, so they would be pleasing to the Lord as He looks down from above.
Please excuse my 7th grade boy readership who will now GoogleMap every major city in Italy.

When I Close My Eyes

Oy. In dreams I am not responsible for the occasional German accent:

[An Announcer:] Ladies und Gentlemen, I present to you: the amazing mobile telephone.
The device walks onstage and proceeds to dial itself and rings to an audience member's cell phone. (A plant.) The young man pulls the phone out of his pocket and answers incredulously: "Hello?"
Phone answers "I am calling to you from another time and place. Without wires. Wirlessfrauen and schoppenauer."

There is more. A dance or something.
Then I wake up to a surprisingly upbeat classical tune.
Possible contributing factors:

1. Carly's constantly ringing cell phone at dinner last night (also before dinner, and after dinner).
2. Matt is in Guatemala trying to cheat death and I feel guilty calling his phone because it costs so much. But he answers!

Trompe D'Oeil

Sorry about the slow posting. I'm busy making some new good habits. Bike riding (see also: coasting down the hills), lifting one weight, memorizing lines, watching NBC Nightly News (It comes up as a tiny fraction of my computer screen. If you have any insight, please email me before I discontinue my subscription to this helpful podcast).
Today my dad told me that my eyes look like marbles. Which is, in fact, a compliment. Where he comes from. Kids love marbles. Crooks do not.
Other things bearing some resemblance to marbles:

• bowling balls
• iridescent nailpolish
• sketches of eyeballs or marbles
  

From The Heart

It was a very sweet note from a student; thank you for all that you've done for me, etc. "I don't know what I would have done without you." And then the lines, "You are a detrimental piece to the puzzle that is my life. Thank you! I will miss you greatly."
Detrimental? I wonder, what is the etiquette, when receiving a thank you card, if there is an error of word choice? Or if perhaps she used this Hallmark card to finally air her grievances against me for @#!$ing up her Life Puzzle.

Violators Will Be Told Not to Park Here Again

Nicki, Jason and I are at a play last night (Jason came for the boobies). It's a three-hour emotional marathon. When I get out of the theater and notice three missed calls--one from my father--I start to sweat. A cell phone call from my father is an emergency notification. Or I'm in trouble. An emergency notification that I am in trouble.
As I'm speaking to him, he's got the Minneapolis police on the house phone line. They've found my car in an "unlikely" spot and they think it may have been stolen. It hasn't. I'm looking at it, and I'm looking at them with their bright lights facing me as I cross the street. They're smiling when I arrive, and they've got my photo up on the info screen. I say something like, "Who's that fox?" They point to a sign that says "no parking zone" and something about violators being towed. I point to a bigger, yellow sign that advertises this as a parking lot for the theater. A conundrum. "Miss, a lot of shady activity has occurred" in the time they've waited for me to show up. I'm parked "two blocks from the epicenter of crime in the 5th precinct." There have been "34 aggravated robberies and assaults already this month." People will "break a window for the quarters and dimes in your console. Let alone the bag* in your backseat."
Before they found me, they sent a car to do an apartment courtesy check, likely ringing the broken doorbell at my apartment. They urgently called my parents; left messages on my personal cell phone. And I think to myself, If I weren't a white girl with a car registered to a wealthy neighborhood address, would anyone even bother with all this? Probably not. They would have towed the car.
Well, I was thinking that and, How will I blog this?

*Full of church papers and a Bible. Which would have been so disappointing to a robber, unless they were searching for a free Catholic Study Bible and some discussion guides.

Our Girl

(The college grad. Be as excited for her as she is for herself. )
Pomp. Ceremony. Giant robes with nasty velvet hoods.
Carly is our family's first ASL interpreting graduate. Although unless I'm mistaken, nobody else majored in theater. Booya.

Instead of Orders, Offer Choices

Discipline must be exacted quickly to be effective. I have now established myself as the serious lady neighbor.
Last night the new neighbors--or possibly merely the Winter-Dormant neighbors are in mid-party on the patio we share. Three floors up I argue with myself about whether to say anything. Since the party isn't outside Nicki's window, she goes to sleep.
11 pm approaches. Sure, we're Uptown Girls, digging the nightlife (during the summer, when we don't have to wake up for work). We're also digging the open windows since we don't "have" air conditioning and thusly suffer the consequences of everyone else's late nights. But a Thursday? We finished college three years ago. (We are clearly still very young. (But not as young as the kid who got suspended today for "drinking carton after carton of milk until [he] vomited in the cafeteria."))
I'm not going change out of my pajamas so I passive-aggressively call out my window, "Could you keep it down?" I want to add "out there" and "please," but I can't get the words out before someone yells back, "No!"
"Super. Thanks."
Following a few "Dude, your neighbor is pissed" and "she didn't say please" snarks, the party breaks up. No fists thrown; no police or landlords called. An empty victory. So next time I'll try the aggressive-aggressive approach.

Someone Once Said

"I used to think Jim was short for Jimothy."
"It's got sequins but they're square sequins so it's not, like, trashy."

After three years of Monday night meetings, my church girls are done. They graduate from high school in two weeks and beyond that, they will go on to do wonderful, beautiful things for this world. I want to wish them luck and love and delicious college food. And to tell them that they should document it heavily. Because I won't be there to write down their quotable quotes, but I really want to hear about them when we reconvene for the holidays.
I've compiled a little checklist for success in college because I know how they love lists:

• Do your work
• Live with people who have different majors, or people who change their minds all the time
• See the art/theater/music shows
• Study abroad and eat peanut butter for homesickness
• Moderate your intake of homesickness peanut butter
• Take classes in a subject you love
• Call home as a surprise to thank your parents for helping you get this far, no matter who foots the tuition bill
  
• Play intramural sports
• Go to church or somewhere on campus that makes your heart feel full of God
  

Be good, Girls. I will miss you.

You'll Just Have To Trust Me When I Say That I Know, First-Hand

There is no good way to wear a Band-Aid on your lip.