"French Kiss" party

Tonight, a local businessman rented out the upstairs of Frothy to host a "social mixer/fundraiser" and I was told there would be wine and a live jazz band. Getting a mental picture? Good.

Well, around 10:30pm, people started arriving, and I'm starting to wonder what kind of fundraiser in Ruston, of all places, starts after 8pm. I mean, traffic lights in Ruston start blinking around 9. The music choice was not exactly jazz, but more like the music in a very hoppin' club - just as loud too.

Everything was happening upstairs so I wasn't aware of what was going on, except for what I could imagine, given the music I was hearing and the lady who came down to ask if we had any ones to spare, which made me raise an eyebrow. Then a steady flow of girls started coming downstairs to use the bathroom. What was happening upstairs was everyone was getting really drunk, really fast. At this point, it's about midnight and I decided to start bringing dishes to the kitchen. So I carried a stack of dishes to the back, working my way through the throng outside of the bathroom door. As I'm standing at the sink, one girl waiting outside of the bathroom says, "Well I'm going to have to pee in the sink then" and is pulling up her dress. Then she changes her mind and asks me if she can go outside because she can't wait for the bathroom -- she's about to go on the floor. So I let her outside and she just squatted on the sidewalk, right by my car. At this point, I have three of her friends in the kitchen with me. Then the girl outside yelled in the door for napkins. One girl is talking to me, telling me she clearly isn't drunk like her friends are and repeatedly asks me how her hair and dress look and if I really think she's drunk, and she wants me to fix her hair for her. Then Jonathan comes in, realizes what's happening, and looks at me like, "Seriously?" He gets everyone out of the kitchen and says, "Did that girl really just piss on my sidewalk?" In my mind, when I was opening the door for her, the outside would be a safe place to go -- it wouldn't be too much of a bother. Really, it was better than her peeing in the kitchen, but I didn't think through how unfortunate it would be to have urine running down the sidewalk. Needless to say, the whole thing was a wonderful experience that won't be happening again.

The whole time, the man in charge kept saying "Hey J!" to get Jonathan's attention and said, "Man, we made this place the Funky Monkey tonight, didn't we?" When we were cleaning after people left, there was a flier lying around for the party. It says "FRENCH KISS" written over a huge picture of red lips, right above the picture of Mariah Carey. On either side of her: "This is an upskale event. No T-shirts/baggy klothes" and "Frothy Monkey's 2 Storey facility allows u 2 chill on one level... and party on another... "

Not quite the evening of wine and jazz that I had imagined.

Late with a good chance of incoherency

Transitional thoughts...

I realized today (probably not for the first time) why community, support, and encouragement are so important. I finally started my bible study for the week, and the lesson ended with 1 Peter 4:19 --

"So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good."

Similar to that verse we all love (Galatians 6:9) that basically says, "Hey! Shut up and keep going even though things really suck!" That's the LAST thing I want to hear because I don't want things to be hard and then be expected to "keep on keeping on" through it. I want to cave in. I want to give up. I want to stop doing the right thing. That'd be so much easier. Here's where I realized why I need people for support. I will inevitably stop making the right decisions if I'm not accountable to and honest with people who will be there to encourage me to do the godly thing when I really want to do the wrong thing -- even though I'm very aware it's not God's best. Don't get me wrong, the Holy Spirit is the encourager, and although sometimes I do forget that, I know that he does help more than I will ever be aware of. However, God also gave us people to help us keep going when it's hard. The hard part, our own part, is being honest with people so they know how to help. I had gotten really good at that this past year. Prided myself on it, actually. But I feel like I've stopped, in a way. I had a "high" of being super honest and now I'm falling into a rut again of thinking I'll be OK if I don't acknowledge things to other people and just keep going on my own. I know there's a balance to this though, as with everything in life. So, just as I experienced the high level of honesty and openness, now I feel like I'm in the down swing of the pendulum, letting my mind turn honesty into being needy and overwhelming.

Another part of where I am, maybe contributing to why I feel like I'm in a rut, is that I just don't know what to do with not having the normalcy of school that I've had for the past 6 years. I don't have anything to fall back on, so I have a lot more free time. I'm unsure of how to live a life full of free time and still make good decisions. Making a positive transition into the social world of adulthood is harder than I expected. I don't know how to be a Christian in that world, which is unsettling. I've been evaluating what it means to follow Christ and how well other people can and should be able to tell that I'm trying to do so. So far, I think the bible says people will know we are Christians by how we love each other and by the fruit of the spirit we display. So I've been thinking about that and trying to figure out which fruits I have... and which ones I don't. Anyway, I think school/campus was my comfort blanket, in that I always had a community of both students seeking God and those who couldn't care less. So it was easier to have that support, even when I didn't want it, and to disciple others all at the same time. Now, my community is the few friends I have left in Ruston, Crossroads, and the people I work with. You know, I've just typed so many different sentences and then erased them all. I can't explain at the moment why life now is so different, but I'm sure I'll keep thinking about it to try and clarify my thoughts. It's just been a struggle for me lately. I think one reason I can name is because I don't see any way that I'm living differently from the people around me, so I'm not sure how being a Christian is actively separating me or causing me to show Jesus. I feel more like I'm assimilating to the world and being consumed by it instead of being a light. So I'm not sure where to go from here.

For now, I will go to sleep.

Musings

I feel like yesterday didn't happen. I didn't get out of bed until 1pm, then I worked from 3-8:30. I did, though, go see Hall Pass at 10pm by myself, which was great (although I'd suggest closing your eyes for a while after you see Owen Wilson wake up in the hot tub). I really enjoy going to the movies alone sometimes. I was in a weird mood yesterday - you know the kind when your hormones are just freaking out and you interpret every situation as people treating you negatively even though, rationally, you know it's not true? That's where I was. At least I've learned to pinpoint when it happens, so I can just seclude myself until it goes away so I don't cause a fight or say something I don't mean. Also, I had a headache all day, which always makes things worse. Anyway, today was tons better. About two hours ago, Bri, Lori and I went on a bike ride around Ruston. I learned that it's not that bad of a ride to Frothy from home, which is great! I also learned that it's a bad idea to ride the bike I have now - the brakes hardly work! The back brakes don't work at all, and the front ones don't work well and literally sound like someone trying to learn to play the trumpet. The third thing I learned is that it's a much better work out for me to ride a real bike around town instead of going to spin class!

I'm reading East of Eden so I can go to a book club at the end of April. I wanted some motivation to keep reading for fun after school had ended. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. Steinbeck is a lot more poetic than I expected! F. Scott Fitzgerald is the same way. Love it.

The abstract

A week or so ago, after blathering on about poetry for a while to my new boss at Frothy, I was posed with the question of what I knew about conceptual art. I actually found myself dumbstruck and eventually came out with something like, "Uh, I like Starry Night..." and then I actually said, "I like others of Picasso too though." One of the more shameful moments in my life, I know. Since then, I've been making an effort to become more knowledgeable and find new art that I like. This process has been great! One, I LOVE to learn. That might be my most overarching characteristic. It carries over into my excitement to meet new people and learn about them, explains why I'm most people's resident nerd always ready to look up any fact I don't know, and answers (when I forget) the question of why I went to graduate school. Two, I love being inspired. I've been getting excited about the summer (in my mind, that means from now until August) because it could be a really creative time. There are so many projects I've had in mind that I've always been too busy to get to because of school. Now, I don't have that excuse anymore! And since I'm becoming more surrounded by creativity, I think I will start to write more and dare I say try to draw/paint.

Jonathan and I hung the paintings back up at Frothy this week and I mentioned wanting to try and paint something abstract so I could understand what goes into it, since, to me, it seems "easy." I know that is an ignorant thing to say -- that's why I want to do it myself to understand. So he offered to let me draw/paint with him once his studio is ready. Since I've been thinking about this new creative process as a real possibility, my mind has been reeling with ideas. I've never even had these thought processes before because I've never gotten past "I'd like to paint. Maybe one day." So I tried to draw out an idea I have for something I'd like to try and create. Once I see how it goes, I'll explain the idea. As of now, I'm realizing how poetry and conceptual art are connected, which helps me understand what the end of painting can be. For instance, there are some concepts I haven't been able to express in words that I was able to draw out when I tried to sketch that idea I had.

Now, I come to the abstract part of all of this. I can't draw realistic scenes well. So abstract art has always been more appealing, and I assumed it was because I thought it would be easier. However, I realized it's likely that I'm most attracted to this style because that's how I write. With the small amount of poetry I have written, I feel like it's all pretty vague -- you could (hopefully) apply the emotions and images to any number of situations. And I like this. I enjoy writing poetry that can express the emotions inside of me in a way that is different from me just writing a note to explain what I'm thinking about or feeling. So the poem allows for interpretation, just like abstract painting. Brilliant, right? There had been an abstract painting hanging in Frothy for a while, a long time ago, and I would always go back and forth between seeing it as a heart or a ship breaking through the middle of a city. Once we started talking about painting, I told Jonathan I liked that piece. He said it was his and, once I told him what it had looked like to me, he showed me the coffee machine piece he used as inspiration. Just like poetry, the painting can come to be something completely different from what the artist intended and still strike a chord of meaning with the person seeing/reading it. I realize the connection is simplistic, but I had never made it concretely before between the written and conceptual abstract, so it has opened my eyes to a new world of creative outlet.

As for the poetry aspect of my expectedly creative summer, a few friends (creative writing teacher Genaro Smith, John Martin, Caleb and Valerie) and I are trying to start a creative writing workshop to share and help each other with our personal writing. I agree with Wordsworth that "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." I think I'm lacking, though, in in the "recollecting in tranquility" part. I stop at the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," so most of my poems are half-formed emotions blurred on a page. I'll get to work...

Find new inspiration today.

The "up" side

My last post detailed all of the negative aspects of graduation. So let me share a good part.

First of all, I have the best roommates in the world. They are amazing in many ways, but today, I mainly mean thoughtful. Last week -- just go with me here -- I asked Lori to borrow one of her necklaces. She has two small dainty ones - the "special necklace" kind, you know? So I explained that I had wanted to borrow one because I miss having a special necklace to wear all the time. So last night, Bri and Lori were talking at the bar, and I said something as I walked past and kept going. Then I came back, walked past the bar again, and Lori finally just pointed to the present that I kept walking past. They got me a really pretty bottle of Riesling, which I really like, and a necklace - a thin gold chain with a brown pearl. Perfect, right?

I know that was a blunt ending, but I've got to get to work! Have an amazing day when you read this.