thomas p. stalker insurance is watching you

I told you I had some stories to tell. #1:

Last weekend my friend Emily came over, and we went to see the late Heath Ledger's last movie, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus


-which, by the way is amazing. Go see it! Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python, produced/directed/visualised it, and it is gorgeous and wonderful, and somehow they managed to work around the whole "the star died" thing quite well.-


and when we got out, we went over to the mall to eat and watch the ice skaters. So, we're walking around, minding our own business, when suddenly, out of the blue, looming in view, I catch sight of a group of people I know.


Ok, you're thinking, why is this a problem? Isn't it ok to see your friends?


Ah ha ha ha. I thought you might be missing the idea.

You know the kind of friend who you kind of know, and you'd be completely fine with hanging with them, and you're both friendly when you see eachother in class and in your comfort zone (aka the place where you're accustomed to seeing them) ? The ones you like but you're not so sure how they feel about you?

[silence...silence...bueller...class, anyone?...bueller?...]


No? It's just me? Bah. Sheep, you lie!


WELL, thats the kind of friends these are, except one, who I know rather well, BUT I have reason to suspect a slight crush is happening there (on his side, not mine) and therefore I tread lightly.


So for many reasons, its awkward to see this feller away from all the old familiar places. Emily and I are standing there, in the store, and all of a sudden I COMPLETELY freak out, panic, grab Emily's arm and dive behind (more inside, really) a clothing rack to hide until the storm (aka large group of aquaintances) has passed.


Well, you know how it always is after you've insanely hidden from perfectly nice people. No? Just me again? Well, after that little adventure we felt as though we had to keep on hiding, and therefore logically decided that stalking them around the mall was the safest method. Think about it, if you're following them, there's no chance of them coming up behind you, suprising you, and finding you out! So we proceeded to stalk.


How did we not realise at the time how weird this all was?


After a while, we lost them, and decided to go get some coffee and watch the ice skaters fall on their booties. So we're sitting here in a little low fenced table/sitting/eating area, just minding our own business, when the awkward group comes and sits right behind me. Now, we'd been sitting there for a long time! We were ready to leave already! And add the people we're avoiding to the mix, and we really realllly wanted to leave. Panic panic panic.


Cue fat lady and baby stroller.


The best way to illustrate this is, in fact, with an illustration:

So we escaped, ate sandwiches, and today while looking at some of awkward friend's pictures I discovered that they went to the same sandwich place we went to... FIVE MINUTES AFTER WE LEFT.

AAAAAAA!!!

King Wes

I sometimes babysit these two kids, Wes and Brooklyn... and tonight while I was over there, Wes decided that he didn't want to be read to, he wanted me to make up a story for him.

Hmm. Ok then. I should be able to do this.

And then the imagination went SWOOOSH. Gone. So as I've been listening to the Narnia books on the way to class, my mind went there immediately.

So I proceeded to tell him the story of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. He was particularly enthralled with the part where Edmund betrays them for unlimited candy... he said

"Man, Edmund was a dum-dum! All the candy in the world would just make him sick. And throw up!!! and DIE!!!

(pause)

Hey, why didn't they just feed the witch all the candy in the world?"

.

Later on in the story he said that the White witch was like this girl in his class who liked to destroy all the nature and all the sandwiches.

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And then, my favorite part... I had just gotten to Aslan's return, and he told me he didn't want Aslan to be king and kill the witch, he wanted King Wes to do it. So with a slight cringe and a whispered apology to Lewis, I proceeded to tell him this alternate ending. Maybe it should be considered for the Narnia movie special features disk?

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And it was then, just as Aslan came back to ... er... talk to Santa?... KING WES appeared, and rode fast all the way to his castle, where he fought back the evil army, and then he stabbed the witch with his fasterthanlightning magic sword! And then he went inside and turned all the statues back into people, and rescued a friendly giant from a big net. And then King Wes bowed to the 4 children and let them borrow Narnia for a while so he could go into space. Because apparently King Wes can jump into space without a ship or suit. THAT'S impressive.

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I love this kid. He's the bomb.

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(check this out... i got a little shout-out over at the beehive)

yay

i probably shouldn't be this excited. but i think its justified.

the speed limit on the road i take to class every wednesday used to be 50. this made my trip take 45 to 50 minutes... and today, for the first time, i experienced the wonder of the new speed limit. it's now 70. yay! this makes my trip only about 35 minutes, which means that i'll actually be eating lunch on wednesdays now!

ok, there was something else i was going to say.

... oh right, i remembered

i'm going to start posting photography again. i've got some new stuff to share! over the summer i worked on learning more about how to use my fancy camera (which i still haven't named... hmm, sad.), and since i've been reading this biography of walker evans, i really really want to work harder on that.

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one other thing. a strange moment to share, and perhaps slightly embarrasing. i was organising my books last saturday afternoon, and i was standing there, listening to some music, and suddenly i realised that i had been unconsciously dancing with paul johnson and hendrik willem van loon for a longer time than i'd like to admit... and not a waltz or anything like that. ever seen elizabethtown? the scene where he's in the woods and he dances like a three-year-old, jumping up and down, waving his arms around? thats how it was. and i don't think paul johnson would do that. surely he's ever so much too dignified. perhaps van loon would... he seems a merry chap.

95 degree weather, like tears in your throat

yesterday i was driving down abrams and it was so grey and blustery that i thought it was winter for a moment... it reminded me of driving to class in 20 degree weather with the windows rolled down and the wind making my scarf flutter and giving me little-girl shivers. so i rolled down the window, expecting the wonderful shock of chill ... and the hot august air was so heavy it caught in my lungs and suprised me, in a bad way.

i miss fall. i miss winter. summer is so wonderful and lovely, but think of scarves and hot drinks and days when fingerless gloves don't do a thing... of taking walks when its so cold the air makes your eyes water and your stomach to do that funny shaky thing.

come here, little autumn, i miss you!

meet your flight attendant, earnestine

well, i just got home. sunday night turned into monday afternoon, which turned into monday night... which turned into tuesday morning. wow.

so on my flight back from birmingham (free, thanks to my friend! yay dan!) the flight attendant was obviously loving her opportunity to have a microphone and a literally captive audience. she kept making spunky jokes. yech. also... and i'm very curious about this... she thanked us for all wearing clothing ...? oh and right after the part where the flight attendants do their funny security interpretive dance, it got really quiet and this guy behind me's phone went off and it was really loud and it sounded like a dying duck!

cecil and percy say they have felt something akin to locked-in syndrome with me gone so long. i told them they were being dramatic when they said this, but ok, fine. they want sympathy.

those somalian pirates were visually disappointing. no eyepatches?

i want a boat. not just any boat... a smallish, beautiful, blue and white and brown wooden sailboat. with fancy ropes that i can pull, and a mop that i can swab the deck with, and one of those fancy helms. i'm just feeling the need to go a'boating today. i've only been on a few boats in my life, but all these experiences have been marvelous. one time in historical jamestown i got to walk around on a really big frigate replica, and it rocked around and creaked and was wonderful and i felt like it was finally adventure time, and that i might do anything... go off to some amazing place or do something incredible and historical that nobody else could have done. and then the tour guide came running over and made me stop weighing anchor. bah! where was his sense of adventure?

oodlesnifflewoozleschnitzel.

so, i was sitting here at my desk, reading my email, writing in my not-really-a-journal-but-lets-call-it-that-anyway, and wondering who invented legal pads and may i jump backwards in history and say 'oh thank you!' ? and i got a great hankering to go a'posting. so here we go a'posting amang the leaves sae greene. lovely day for a picnic! anyway so i really wanted to, but couldn't think of any particular thing i wanted to say, and so counted on making it up as i went on.

why am i up? well i took a nap this afternoon- NOT a good idea for me. as always, it was supposed to be about 30 minutes to 1 hour - ish, but that turned into 4:30 to 10 pm. aah! thats more sleep than einstein got! and why, you may ask, was i taking a nap? because i went to the rich mountain association in arkansas this weekend and we drove back home after saturday night services, getting home around 3 am. it was a really good meeting...er... association. yeah, i didn't really know what to expect, having never been to an association before, and rather expected something along the lines of the U.N. , with a big table up front and preachers walking around with legal pads, discussing things. needless to say it was nothing like the U.N. of course having never been to the U.N. either, my image of that may be messed up, because all i know of it comes from a few things in the news about it and The Interpreter (which is a good movie, btw).

oh another good movie, mamadah and i went and saw Julie and Julia last weekend and its quite good. i was really happy to see a movie that showed really good marriages. so many movies recently have tried to be all edgy or whatever by showing "the other side of the american dream" or some such NONSENSE and i don't know why more people aren't sick of it. here's the thing- yes, we believe that man is sinful and prone to evil. this does of course affect every aspect of our lives... there is sin in our relationships, in our marriages. but because we know this sin is there, and are fighting against it, there can be nothing good about focusing on the sin and the fallenness, or in wallowing in our sorrow about it. i think sometimes people use their knowledge of depravity as an excuse for depression and half-heartedness. seeing only the sadness and starting to believe that there is no hope for our relationships because of sin - that is what the devil wants. he would love for christians to become downtrodden and depressed. the fact is that we have been saved. it already happened... we're living in a post-resurrection world, can we accept it and live our lives accordingly? God has already seen our sin, Jesus has already saved us. living our lives as though we haven't already been saved will not bring thanks to him for this incredible gift. heres an analogy. lets say you really really needed a washing machine, because you were doing all your laundry by hand. if someone saw that need and gave you a washing machine because they loved you, would you then go on washing your clothes by hand? no! that would be silly, and it wouldn't bring joy to the person who gave you the washer. the best thanks you could give that person would be to use that washer. thats what the giver wanted.

oh be joyful, oh be jubilant
put your sorrows far away
come rejoice and sing together
this holy day!

nerdy penguin

you may all be pleased to know that cecil has quite recovered from his depression of health and spirits. don't tell him i told you, but i overheard him singing " 'gin a bodie meet a bodie comin thrae th' rye" at the top of his lungs this morning. it startled me, i thought rodney was in one of his moods again.

remember robert dickens, my penguin scholar friend? last night he and i got a bee in our respective bonnets (its just a phrase, silly, do stop picturing me in a pioneer bonnet. i mean it! Stop!!) to study up on the kings and queens of merrie olde england. we feel ever so much smarter now. we went all the way back to the house of tudor and made our way through the tudors, stuarts, hanovers, saxe-coburg and gotha, and finally windsor (did you know that george v changed the family name to windsor because of european prejudice against the germans?). it was a long study, and quite interesting. seeing all the past drama that nobody cares about now, really, makes one feel a bit better about today. this, too, shall pass. also we discovered the longest family name EVER. the house of schleswig-holstein-sonderburg-glucksburg. "you don't see that cross-stitched on a pillow!"

a problem has arisen.

This problem is between my two dear friends and neighbors, namely Cecil A. Beatley and Percival E. Worthington. I do not blame dear Percy, but rather believe the fault lies with Cecil.

The other day I took my gnomely friends out on a walk, and as they reached the top of a rather dirty hill, paused to take their picture...

ah, the appearance of innocence. Could anyone tell from Cecil's tranquil expression what terrible deed he was plotting? no. You must understand, Cecil is not an evil gnome, but he does hate spunk so. This hatred for all spunk, though a good thing in moderation, pushes him to judgemental remarks and intolerance. Words can hurt, Cecil. So, as they were standing there, Percy complimented Cecil's beard, and tried to water it with his watering can.

This was a bad idea.

No, Cecil, No.

beavers:1 tree-huggers: 0

the other day i was accosted by a violently adament tree-hugger with a bunch of flyers about how if students and businessmen would just stop double-spacing, we could save trees. at first this sounded logical... and then...ohhhh, wait a minute! avoiding the temptation of explaining the obvious illogicalness of his cause to him, i rushed past, avoiding eye contact. but now, in retrospect, i have a suggestion for him.

leave my double-spacing alone! i like the way it looks! instead, lets take a moment to think about what things on this planet are threatening the dwindling tree population. hmm... well, obviously the mass distribution of flyers which will probably never be read makes a glaring appearance on the list, and strikes me as highly ironic considering the large stack of them which my eco-conscious friend was brandishing. but lets think a bit more creatively... tonight, emily and i found the real source of the global paper scare-

THE BEAVER :
no, no, no... not that Beaver! this one:

consider his beady eyes and freakishly tiny ears... his near alien flappy tail and incredibly scary teeth. this, my friends, is a cold-sapped tree-killer. so i urge you...
save a tree, burn a beaver.

quack? really? is that the way its going to be now?

two days ago, our sometimes great annoyance and always great amusement, Wooster (or Jeeves, depending on his mood. he's usually Wooster.) dissapeared. after searching high and low and finding nary a sign of him, he was finally found two houses down... poor stupid animal couldn't find his way home from two houses away.

or at least this is the story we were told. the truth, the cold, hard truth is that Wooster the cat ran away to join the circus, and in an attempt to keep us from grieving his loss, father dear replaced him with ...

a Duck.

he oh so cleverly taught this duck to walk like a cat, and gave him a sneaky cat costume to wear, but forgot one very important detail. the Duck still quacks. yes, duck-Wooster quacks, though he looks exactly like cat-Wooster.

oh the mental images

between classes today i walked over to walgreens with two friends to get index cards, powdered creamer for the lunchroom, and superglue, and as we were standing there in the office supply aisle, we heard this over the loudspeakers:

"employee needed for customer assistance in the shaving department!"

this brought some rather funny mental images.

silly old gordon fell in a ditch!

the other night i sat in my room, in my regular clothes, doing homework for hours... with a green polka dot showercap on my head.

and i wasn't even planning on showering later! i'm really not sure why i put it on to begin with. the thing is, i knew it was there, it wasn't like i just forgot i had it on... i just forgot that it wasn't normal to wear a showercap whilst studying.