so that was christmas?

sheesh. after waking up at 5am for work most of last week, i slept in until 9:30 this morning and still feel like i'm coming out of the fog of christmas. jon and i pretty much spent the day eating and sitting around in the living room. it was great and we still have loads of christmas lasagna to continue the celebration. it's been grey and raining the past two days, so i'm only aided in my groggy state. ah, well. i hope you all are having a happy boxing day. the holidays keep rolling by. soon it will be our one-year anniversary, then new years eve, then new years, then? well that might be it. i'm still singing tunes from "white christmas" and looking forward to watching the criterion collection of "royal tenenbaums" sometime soon.

merry christmas you old building and loan.

Siesta

Something amazing happened at work today—the power went out. No cash registers or espresso machines and we got to kick all the customers out. The music turned off and suddenly everything was quiet. We locked the doors and cleaned awkwardly not knowing what to expect. Should we prepare for fifteen minutes or fifteen days? All in all it lasted a little over an hour and for the most part we quietly cleaned and stocked and shook our heads at the people pulling at our locked doors. In a way it was like a siesta. And I didn't realize the peace it brought until the lights came back on, the music back up and the customers back in.

Musings: odds and ends

I was at the post office today sending a couple Christmas packages. One to Wiscosin. One to Afghanistan. The line wasn't terrible, like I expected and there was a woman ahead of me with what seemed to be a boatload of packages to send. She was very made up. Hair dyed. Skin tanned. She had on tall 70's heels that kept her suspended above the ground and tight jeans around skinny legs. Across the counter from her was a postal worker with fluffy unkempt grey hair and a Mr. Roger's navy blue sweater. I started to think about natural beauty versus manipulated beauty, and the postal workers started to look more beautiful than this woman. She began to look strange. I realize that beauty is said to be subjective and someone could look at this woman and find her devastatingly beautiful. I really felt that in applying different techniques, such as hair dying, and using certain products to become more attractive she had really stepped further away from it. There is something captivatingly beautiful about freckles and eyes that are not lined with mascara, skin that is not evenly toned, hair that is unkempt. In all our making up and adding to we move further away from what we were intended to look like. I get this sense sometimes when I see a woman completely made up to look ravishing, that we are being duped. The image is being put forth that this woman is beautiful, but it doesn't feel real and that loss makes me think, "yes she is, but not entirely."At the same time every morning I brush on mascara thinking I need that technique and that product to avoid looking tired, that is avoid looking bad. And maybe that's not entirely true.

Here are some other odds and ends I'm thinking through:
The walls in our apartment are textured and not smooth and when stare at them for long enough I want to move out as soon as possible. I don't understand why they texturized the walls. It makes me think further about an article I wrote in high school for our paper about all the walls in the school being white and its link to low student morale.

My mom made the comment to me that their pastor had made that note that Mary, as in the Mother of Jesus, was entirely normal. She was bothered by it. I was bothered by it. I read a chapter in my Patristic theology book on Mary and the Saints and found out that the Christian tradition has honored and not worshipped martyrs, saints, Mary since the second century. I'd like to hear more on the subject because this Advent I'm very curious about the stories of Mary and Elizabeth. Also, in my reading it said that there has from early on been a link between Eve and Mary, in close to the same line of thought that Christ is the new Adam. Never thought of it that way.

I'm not going "home" for Christmas and I think this is making me sad. At the same time it's interesting to look at our tree and think, "This is our tree, our very first tree." I like that part.

it is finished...almost

In a series of readings, notes, exams and papers that I thought would never end, I have one class to attend until my semester is officially over. Thank God for that. I don't know if I'm ready for introspection and retrospection quite yet, but three weeks ago there was great doubt about whether I would make it through. I handed in a paper a few minutes ago and was subsequently given my life back. Hoorah. Let the holidays and Holy Days ensue.

A New Beginning

With all the moving around, adjusting, getting married, going to new school and getting new jobs, is it time for lighton33rd to have a new home? We'll see if this site is more accesible for my family and friends. What do you think?