a quote from a book that i loved, grew indifferent to, lost, found, and loved again.

" i cried, i think, because i was coming to understand in a new way just how much was required of me, how much god was going to strip away all my everything, like silver polish taking the tarnish off old forks. i cried because i know more and more how chekov was right, how we are running around desperate to make connections but mostly we are all just estranged. because i know more and more that this glass here is so very dark, that this really is a long loneliness, that it is both lonely and long. sometimes i feel god has taken a paring knife to me. i know the way an apple feels."
--lauren winner, girl meets god.

is it strange that this passage makes me so happy?

my pie, my pie.

this is the pie me and catherine baked this afternoon. we did it from scratch, and i am so, so proud. i was going to name him, but it is always weird when you name something you are about to eat.

here is an update on me:
i have been sad for the past couple of days, but there are a lot of good reasons for that sadness. however, it is not here to stay.
a story:
last night i went out to jenni's parents house and crashed the girls bible study that i used to go to last year. i just really, really needed the tangible body of christ. and it was there, in the form of 6 girls.
my favorite part was when we went outside to make s'mores and we tried to build a fire even though all the wood was wet becuase it had been raining all day and there were baby spiders everywhere and we couldn't really get the wood to catch on fire so we just kept shoving newspaper into the pit and roasting our mallows on the false flames that sprung up and died out quickly and there was ash everywhere in the wind like cheap confetti and i dared jenny to eat a baby spider and she did becuase i said "i double dog dare you" and that phrase is irresistable to jenni douglas and then the skies opened up and it began to pour and all our graham crackers got wet and i shook my stick to the sky and we declared defeat, huddling inside the barn, dripping with water and smelling like wet chickens.

welcome to summer in portland.

when i was a boy i could hear symphonies in seashells.

i just got done with school and now i wake up in the morning thinking about what i should be stressed out about. i just got done with one of my jobs and now i wake up in the morning thinking about what i should be doing that is of worth and value. i just realized all of my bestest friends don't live in portland, and i dread being with people all summer that make me feel stiff and phony. i just realized that i am terrified of being alone, and i think it's because i have forgotten how to enjoy solitude. i just realized that i have been going, going, gone all semester and i feel so tired. not just physically, but tired in my spirit. i keep on rubbing my eyes, waiting for an epiphany about how my summer is going to be one of adventures, or grace, or polish dogs at costco, or happy hour at applebee's . . . but try as i might, i can't conjure up a magical theme. my summer is one of blankness.
now, i suppose i could look at this two ways:
one, i could be super depressed and decide to invest in sleeping all the time and stalking people via myspace.
or two, i could look at this sumemr as an oppurtunity to become more comfortable with myself, with christ, and with myself and christ.
i'd really, really like to go with the latter.

happiness is a warm african baby.

this is baby omar. i love him. i am one of the least maternal people i know but i slung this kid around for almost two hours today. he was such a doll. the small of my back got really sweaty and so i flipped him around to the front and he fell asleep on my stomache. it was great. i ran around, yelled at kids, and colored pictures--all with omar attatched to my side. all the somali men came out to talk to me and told me i was beautiful, and all the somali women clucked and said i looked like a bantu.
i was terribly, terribly happy.
you all should be glad that i didn't blog on monday night, the night i really wanted to. because i was in an awful, stressed-out mood. at work that night, everybody kept asking me what was wrong, which of course made it worse. i couldn't put a finger on any one specific thing that was troubling me--my own apathy, my procrastination, the two papers i had to turn in the next day that i hadn't even started--none of that really got down to the business of what was going on in my heart.
luckily for me, i figured it out once i got into my car and drove home.
i was incredibly lonely for christ.
once i got that figured out, i started to feel like danielle again. i have now had some more danille and jesus time, and i feel more at peace with the world. he (christ) hasn't really said much, but we always enjoy being silent together. tonight we had the best time in the car, with the windows rolled down and our hair blowing in the wind.

one legit, and five non-legit, secrets.

yeah.

sometimes i also feel like sitting in my room and staring out at the gray day when in all actuality there are three papers that i need to be writing at this exact moment.
sometimes i also feel like shaving my head.
sometimes i also feel like walking in to the john g. mitchell library and singing my favorite song really loud and then taking a nap right in the middle of the stacks, on the third floor, right next to the cheesy christian romantic paperbacks.
sometimes i also feel like i have social anxiety disorder, but i have just recently realized that my personal fears are nowhere near as insane (sorry, but it's true) as other peoples. this makes me feel a bit better.
sometimes i still wish i was in a rockabilly band.

this is not a secret: my life is wonderful.