My Lonely City

It occurs to me that the times I’m most interested in blogging are when I have something to complain about. You know, “I don’t like this about that,” “I can’t stand when this happens,” etc. And while I enjoy a good whine as much as anyone, surely there’s enough of that going around that adding to the mix doesn’t really accomplish much. So instead, I’m going to go off into another Next Big Thing. (And griping about that instead.)

I’ve been on a kick recently about redecorating my living room. Now, I’ve only been married four years, and we’ve lived in this house two years, and we have stylish, new (the year before we married) furniture, and the room is actually pretty nice. I just got the bug, you know? So I planned it all out (down to CAD drawings of the living room to arrange the furniture, a PSP drawing to play with colors, and a detailed price sheet including links to specific products) and had a marvelous time, as you can see:

And of course I start fiddling around with colors …

And since I want to be able to visualize these items in my living room, I have to draw scale models of them …

…and it’s all downhill from there.

Now, however, that I’ve actually located every piece of furniture and even made some headway deciding about colors, fabrics, textures … I’m not going to spend that money, you know? It was a fun thing to plan, but not a practical one to do. (Of course, I’m not big on practical anyway, but this is pushing it even for me.)

So I’ve decided to shift this domestic focus outdoors, and begin planning this year’s gardening attempt. I say attempt because it’s a rare plant that doesn’t whither and cringe at my approach. I’m also tinkering with the idea of patio furniture, because (unlike, say, living room furniture) we actually don’t have any. Except those two green lawn chairs Jared got when he was in college, and which I keep expecting to disintegrate the moment I sit in them. And they don’t count. So, yeah, gardening.

To be continued!

You know how you have random thoughts, disconnected from pretty much everything, and then one thing leads to another and the next thing you know you’re thinking about being executed by beheading?

No?

Well, anyway, I was thinking about immigration. (I can see you scowling already; calm down.) And about how trying to keep the other kids from playing with our toys may not be the best solution. Maybe we should forget about citizenship and just have … being-here-ships. Where, you know, where you are determines how you’re expected to behave. And when you’re here, no matter who or where you were before, you play nice. And if you don’t, no matter who you are, we’ll shoot ya. (DISCLAIMER This post does not express my views on capital punishment.)

And then I was thinking about (it’s early, give me a break) the environmental impact of shooting as a form of execution. The one in the head method, versus the firing squad method. It doesn’t seem to me that guns produce a lot of litter (unless you count wrongful deaths, but even for someone who believes in an afterlife, bodies aren’t just waste). But there are of course the bullets. And whatever materials are wasted and pollution is produced in making them, not to mention the guns that shoot them. And so I was wondering about recycleable (does that have an ‘e’ in it?) execution methods, and I relized that the French were the greenest when they did away with folk on their guillotine. (I saw a wrestling commercial when Jared & I went to dinner the other night, and it had a guillotine in it; maybe that’s where this came from.) And then, as my mind does, I saw myself into the situation, wrongfully accused or perhaps being persecuted for religious reasons, led quite literally to the slaughter. Ack.

And on that happy note I was wondering what I would say if I were given the chance, knowing that it was my last opportunity to say anything. So here, for your reading pleasure, are my last words:

To God be the glory for ever. And to his son, Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save and change it, and who reigns on high as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And to his Spirit, whose divine presence gives us the assurance of our hope, that the God of love and grace, the God of wrath and mercy, the God of holiness and power will recieve us as his own, and grant us eternal life. To this God, whose grace is sufficient for our insufficiencies, whose perfect love is enough to drive out our fear, and whose might is great enough to save, be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

There was a bird’s nest that was blown down from my in-laws’ tree in the storm last night. A dead baby bird and a broken blue egg lay beside it.