encouragement

love

My mom came home today, she'd been in Arkansas taking care of my uncle for the past 2 months.

I love my mom, but she wasn't even in the house an hour and I could feel my blood pressure rising. But I think its a big reason I love her so much-she takes a lot of energy. Its like an active love, an embracing love. She still drives me crazy sometimes.

Its ok, Yoga starts in one week.

friend

I had an exceptionally good day today.

Its such a funny thing to make new friends when you're an adult. Or maybe its just me.
Either way, I'm thankful for the ability and opportunity to always connect with new people, in childhood or adult life.
Friendship really is a blessing, and I think we only begin to recognize it as such when we get older-
When are parents stop scheduling play-dates for us and we realize we have to figure out how to relate to each other on our own.

Simple things can be really epic to me.
Like relating with someone on some big or small level.
[resembling past pains or ordering the same soy chai latte]

I think God showed me a little more of Himself today.

b/w

I am far, far from a photographer. With that said, there's something so fulfilling about taking a picture of someone and waiting in anticipation to see how it will turn out and if they look just as beautiful in black and white.

Yipes, is it getting stuffy in here?

I was reading a handful of my old blog entries, I was so serious. I think 20 was my maturest year. Now I'm just happy.

Let's even things out by saying I disco-danced my toosh off tonight.

And I want "Boo-Ya" to be my new catch-phrase. So definitely watch for that.

polly p.

On a river of sighs
A doe came to watch me-a flimsy disguise
Covered the devil
Who sang from a song-sheet of how modern life should war

In his choirboys attire
He sang me the life to which good girls aspire
Where men in white coats give us pills to tame the horses that stamp on our floor
And pills for when the horses have bolted out the door

So the devil sings higher,
"Oh, just look at what you're doing,"
He's joined by a choir
Of doctors and statesmen
Who plan their sorry lives 'til the last day's end

But look at all the happy things that happen by accident


***


I think this song will forever be the mantra of my life.
It seems like no matter where my heart is, God always finds a way of reminding me how perfectly he can take the ugliest things and make them into something much more beautiful and bigger than myself.

yearbook

June 2001

sophomore year


"To my dear cool guy Joey,
You are awesome. Simply stated, you are the most awesome guy I have ever met. You are someone I will never, in all my years on earth or in heaven, ever forget. Your friendship has been a great thing in my life. I hope we can still get together over the summer.
Love ya,
Amberlee"


dang.

socially inept

today I was thinking about the kind of movies I like.

and then I started to name off my favorites in my head...

Benny and June
The Other Sister
Mozart and the Whale
Lars and the Real Girl

is anyone else seeing a trend?

I think that I'm drawn to movies where the socially inept fall in love. I never really thought to sought out why. But the more I think about it, and the more I am subjected to an honest-to-myself love, the more I realize that I'm the one who felt like the mentally retarded, the autistic, the socially inept. They are all me, exaggerated.

Its like what Wynona Rider said in Girl, Interrupted, "Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified."

deer innards

There is a freaking deer head in my room. What the F? What's worse is he watches me sleep...well, he would be if his eyes weren't plastic...and his head wasn't detached from his body...and if he was filled with deer-innards instead of whatever the heck taxidermist use to stuff these things. God my parents house is weird.

After a year of living alone, I do like that I come home to other human life...feline as well. The bird is another story. Don't ever (seriously) think that a macaw would be a cool pet. It won't be. Unless you're a masochist.

I also like that I have an oven. I think I've made six cakes in the last month. Now would be a good time to be my friend...if you like cake.

Plus I'm about to save money up the ying-yang. I like that as well.

Twenty-three is such a strange age. But every year since I was thirteen has be strange...and I've felt pretty much the same since then. Juvenile. I've always felt too young. I think Joey said it best when he mused,

"The older we get, the more we realized how much we don't know."

Did I mention I'm dating a brilliant man? Did I mention he used to sew his pants to his legs and had a blue mohawk? I'll probably mention it again.

I saw his old leather jacket hanging up in his closet the other day and like a crazy person just burst into tears of overwhelming joy. Then I put it on and he shed a tear or three of disbelief. I should mention not a word was spoken throughout this whole ordeal. Yeah, we seem normal in public.

I have a headache, but I'm feeling blissful.

I'm going to go polish off the spice cake...and then I'm going to make lemon squares.

I would just like to say that my boyfriend is a carpenter and the most hard-working and talented man I've ever met.

and might I add, Boo-Ya!

jewish angel

I had to have been between 4 and 7-it was before Cody was born and after I'd started school. My elementary school had this rule about Halloween. You could only dress up as a character from a book, and you had to bring that book to justify your guise. So I had made up my young mind and wanted to be a witch. So my mom took me to the Whittier Public Library so we could find a book to suite.
We were looking in the children's section, and I remember the aisles being incredibly tall and and intimidating. Thinking back now, I'm sure they were no higher than four feet. There was a woman-I remember her in a long skirt, I think she worn earthy tones, and she had long, dark, and comically curly hair and she wore circular seeing glasses. I remember her name was Ruth because there was a girl in my class who's name was Ruth and I only remember her because she was the only jewish kid in our entire school and she never joined in on our holiday festivities (such as this Halloween celebrating disguised as the "Literary Parade"
She must have been casually carrying on an in-passing conversation with my mom, a strange and universal event I'd noticed grown-ups did quite often. At some point she directed her attention towards me and must have asked me something along the lines of what kind of book I was looking for. I don't know if she began to minister to my mom or do so in a much more subtle and gentle way to my child-self. I don't even know if she mentioned a religion at all. All I remember is her smiling a sincerely happy smile and rattling off all of these beautiful names, Sarah, Deborah, and even her own name-sake-as she thumbed through a worn black book which I can safely assume was an Old Testament.
What I remember most is looking up at my young and beautiful mother as we walked out of the library and seeing tears in her eyes as she looked back at me. I remember her smiling, really smiling, and holding my hand. She said to me, "Amberlee, you know what Ruth is? She's an angel." I remember believing her whole-heartedly.

And that really stuck with me.

can anybody find meeeeeeee...somebody toooo...looOOooOooOOooove...

I wish I was Freddie Mercury.

Except the gay and dead aspects of him.

Because I tend to leave things in the refrigerator at work on a regular basis.

I think...

...I was hit on by a Green Peace activist outside Target today.

Yes, I did know Obama's in Orange County today.
No, I wouldn't like to get coffee with you and talk about Kleenex's refusal to use recycled products.

PS~ he had an old-timey curled-up mustache. That detail seems important.

advice

If you're having a bad day...roll all your windows down and sing along to all the harmony parts of Damien Rice albums at the top of your lungs.
You'll feel much better.

Hamilton

Today I found out that my biological father's 3rd ex-wife (mom was number two) is wanted in Kentucky for murder because she stabbed her meth dealer to death.

I still wonder why my name was never changed to Hale.

Today I learned that another word for "juvenile turkey" is a Jake. That made me laugh.