Old Soul

You read the past in some old faces. -William Makepeace Thackeray

 Old things rock. I've always been an old soul, reading books about the pioneers and Native Americans and Englishmen from the eighteenth century when I was just a little girl. I'd get lost in my books about history, soaking up as much knowledge of the past as my mind could handle. When I was six, I asked my Grandma K. to teach me to sew. We made handmade doll clothes and pillows in an age where little girls were playing with plastic Bratz dolls and Spice Girls karaoke. I love my old books, a collection I started in high school. They symbolize so much more than age and cracked leather bindings and yellowed pages. They are the end of an era that no longer exists.

 

Some of my favorite old things, all original photography, except the picture of myself and the 70's picture of my beautiful grandparents, Florence and Raymond Kriner.

Phi Gamma Delta

Violent flashes of color
        greet the visitor as she stands in the staircase of a castle in the midst of the modern world.
The floor is shiny and wet though she knows not why, for it may be water or beer or perspirant, or some ungodly combination of the three.
              Above, the ground shakes as fifty-five pairs of feet (some bare, some shoed) dance in the cult of collegiate drunkeness. Someone offers up a smoke and you deny politely.
    'So where are you from; what's your major, isn't this music the best'
                 ('I know of ten thousand places that I'd rather be than right here; but I'll never let you know that')
'From York, possibly pre-med, or maybe sociology, and yes, it's really the bomb'
              'I'll be here all night. Hit me up. You want a beer? We'll shotgun all night long'
   From Saudi Arabia to Germany and Pennsylvania to California; drinking, sweating, talking, humming, moving, stumbling, falling.
                          'Teach me how to dance Saudi Arabian.'
'They do it like this is Bahrain. No dancing really around my place. No drinking. No girls. No gambling'
                     He moves his hands and feet with the beat of the green laser strobe light. And I may never find my way home in the dark.
                                   But I eventually do, with my shoes in my hand.

             What is this strange ritual thing that we do?

The New Organon

'Nature to the commanded must be obeyed.' -Francis Bacon (1620)

Lately my thoughts have been focused on technology through time and it's path. Well, that and how I need to go to the gym, stop drinking Starbucks, and figure out a way to get a 4.0 GPA this semester. There are three recognized paths that technology can take: 1) From the beginning of the world, technology was at it's height because everything was natural and the way God intended it to be. Since then, it's only gotten "worse" and has gone downhill, and it continues to do so with each passing year. 2) In the beginning was darkness and since the beginning, technology has only gone up, up, up; it increases and becomes better with every passing year. And 3) When God created the world, technology started to increase and help the lives of the people who lived in the world. When God returns, time will stop and thus technology will cease, therefore showing a stop/start/stop pattern.

What do you believe?

Underwater Wine

The Sequoia Review:

Today the New York Times told me about some cutting edge underwater vineyard deal in Italy. Dude, they take the vine, bottle it, and put it in a cage under the sea for twelve or thirteen months. When it's ready, it comes up like Bronzi di Riace, glass covered in sea life. The bottle goes for at least 70 euros. I'd pay it. It's not on the market yet in the US, but for all of you 21ers out there, do me a favor and partake in this fab delicacy. I'll have to wait another ten months.

Reckless & Abandon

My sister's name is Reckless. And my cousin is Abandon. That's how they were packaged from birth, came into this world just four days apart, on two sunny days in May.

Tomorrow marks the day that they embark on their journey into the real world as they begin college at the same small Christian school in a little Pennsylvania town.

I want to dedicate this post to their childhood, to our childhood, spent together during summers on a crystal lake in Maine and on carousels at Knoebels, in transmission-blown minivans and 25-year-old station wagons, on boats and trains and planes and above and below waterfalls; I give this post to those good times. We've climbed mountains, raked millions of leaves and shoveled tons of dirt; we sang to the old and sick and laughed with a traveling, snorting acting troupe. We've walked on bridges and through tunnels, eaten thousands of ice cream cones together, and applied countless squirts of sunblock. We've giggled through twenty minute long prayers in church and got lost in the wilderness. We swam through snapping turtle cove, and have gazed at trees one hundred and thirty-seven times our height. To Jess and Shannan, our Reckless and Abandon, you made childhood one heck of a ride. Thanks for the joy and the tears and for your freckles and beautiful eyes. You are a pair that have made our family complete.

A fitting quote that I read today above the sink in a dingy college apartment at around midnight tonight states simply this: Once you get to where you're going, don't forget where you've come from. Girls, remember this as you venture out into this next state of your life. Remember who loves you more than life. We're all here for you, we're praying, and we know that you are going to brighten up the lives of those around you. Keep shining and growing and let others see your passion for Jesus.

Live life with reckless abandon.

My Reckless.

My Abandon.

Men and Football

There is some innate knowledge inborn in males regarding the American sport of football. Of this truth I am certain. You can spend countless hours with a particular man and won't recall him learning of the latest sports scores or who-got-traded-to-what-team while in your presence but all of a sudden you're at the mall and he runs into his buddy and suddenly he's a sports commentator (he knows his stuff too!). When, you think to yourself, did he learn all of these facts? Where were you when he was catching up on the fact that so-and-so graduated from Oregon and is now playing for the Eagles or the Steelers (or..well, what's the difference between the two?). You could have sworn that you spent every waking moment with him but he still somehow knew the Jet's stats from this season and the past five.

We women may never understand the capability of the male mind when he is in sports mode. His attention to detail and his concise diction have us astounded and wondering why he isn't this knowledgeable when is comes to cleaning the house.