The Beauty and the Mess

The good news for the day is, I can see! The bad news is that my prescription is now -6 in both eyes. That scares me. I tested at 20/20 with the new contacts, and the doctor seemed pleasantly surprised. Attention, eyes: you have a lot more to see. Don't get any worse.

Evan and I are going to see Man On Fire tonight. It looks good. Personally, I'm a little freaked by how talented and mature Dakota Fanning is, in the same way I was freaked by Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. No kid should be able to act that serious. It seems...alien.

I'm so thankful that I have a job so I can afford stuff like contacts and movies and rent. It's good to remember that some people have to go without those things. Sometimes I think about life centuries ago when there was no such thing as glasses. I can't imagine going through life and seeing everything as a big blob, though I don't guess they knew any different. It makes me sad for them.

Kathy will be done with her thesis next week, and then I'll get to see her more. Only eight weeks until Emily's wedding, and twelve weeks until Kathy's. It's so soon. How did we get here? Last night I made a list in my prayer journal of all the upcoming weddings and babies that I need to keep praying for. It was a long list. I need to budget my prayer time better, because there are people I'm neglecting. There's just so much to pray for. I know God will accomplish things regardless of whether I pray or not, but I like to participate. :)

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Happy Arbor Day! Don't forget to celebrate trees today. My office is giving away blue spruce seedlings in a tube. I took one, even though I don't have anywhere to plant it. I wish I had a yard! Someone suggested I plant it in a big pot, so I might try that. It can live on the front porch for a while. All the more reason to visit Garden Ridge tomorrow. :) The forecast for tomorrow looks bad, so I've decided not to go to the Fest. If the rain clears up around Switchfoot's showtime, I might go downtown and stand on the bluff above the park- I'm told you can hear just as well from there.

So those Gap tank top commercials are intriguing. I'm glad to see that they're advocating better coverage, but wouldn't two or three layers of tank tops get kind of hot? Thus defeating the purpose of a tank top? Oh well...I'm still sorely tempted to buy some. I like the colors.

Friends last night....waaaah! Did anyone else feel bummed all night after seeing it? The finale will be two hours! They need that time to wrap things up, but wow. That's like a movie! I'm sure I'll be crying the whole time, even though I keep telling myself it's just a TV show. I feel pathetic.

Oh, and another thing about trees: wouldn't it be so romantic to plant a tree with your significant other? Especially to commemorate something, like planting a tree together on the day he proposes. Then that can be "your tree" and you can visit it when you're old and remember the romance of your youth. I just thought of that. :)

In a few minutes I have to go to the eye doctor again. Apparently you can't just pick up your contacts anymore. You have to have an appointment to pick up your contacts, ensuring maximum waste of your time. What is the world coming to? I'll be back later, hopefully with something less worthless to say.

This morning I spent two hours at the eye doctor. It was my first visit to this guy; my parents go to church with him and most of the staff. Some of them weren't even aware that my parents had another daughter, which resurrected my feelings of guilt that I don't go to church with my family. Anyway, both of my eyes are exactly the same now, prescription-wise, which means that one of them has gotten a lot worse. My astigmatism is so bad that the doctor recommended some new lenses instead of Focus. He also warned me to watch for retina problems. :( Also, they used some anasthetic drops, and until a few minutes ago, I couldn't feel my eyeballs. It really freaked me out- I actually felt nauseous on my way back to work. I could never have LASIK.

Evan got a random call from his mom today. She says that whatever career path he decides to take, they'll be supportive. Even if that means going to mechanic school, or something similar, instead of finishing college. Isn't that great? He's kind of at a career crossroads right now, and I'm excited to see what he'll decide. He makes me proud. As Rachael says, yeah. I love him. :)

( My thoughts on American Idol, and a survey )

Hello all! I'm feeling better today. By the time I left here yesterday I had a specific de-stress plan. 1) Go to water Nina's plants. 2) Go to McAlister's and get a salad. 3) Rent Friends Season 2, lie down, and watch all evening, without trying to do something else at the same time like I usually do. I accomplished all of these things. The variation was Ryan showing up at my door as I was leaving to water the plants, and coming along for the whole ride. He is a very relaxing presence, so I felt like God had sent him to help me calm down. :) Tonight I am planning more of the same, with Alli. Six more days till California.

Have I mentioned that my optometrist apparently wants to make me his science fair project? I went to get re-checked a couple of months ago so I could order another round of contacts. He decided to "tilt the axis" of my prescription. This resulted in annoying fuzzy vision in my left eye. I went back and pleaded for my old prescription, since it worked just fine. He got hostile and said that the old prescription would not "fix the problem" with my eye, whatever "the problem" is. So tomorrow I go back to Dexter's Laboratory for the fourth time so he can theorize some more about my astigmatism. He put my sister through a similar drama. My mother and I are pretty sure he is a quack, but I can't switch doctors until I get decent contacts.

Okay, here's a deep thought. I'm in II Chronicles now. I read about Rehoboam and his concubines this morning. The rampant polygamy in the Old Testament always bothers me. I feel so bad for all the wives and concubines, who, if they were lucky enough to love their husband, had to suffer through sharing him. Those women never got to experience real love with a man- and that was a normal situation. God allowed it for hundreds of years. Why? In light of this, I think we modern women assume too much. We assume God will give us the perfect happy relationship we want if we just wait on Him. Well, he didn't give it to those women. I know times are different now, and most people do get married these days...but something about it troubles me. Not for myself, really. Just in general.

Hola! Why isn't anybody at the mesa?*

Today is going well so far. I spent my lunch hour on a quest for Diet Cherry Coke, since my usual supplier was out. Et tu, Exxon? I don't understand why 90% of gas stations here carry the stuff, yet none of the major food stores or department stores have it. Anyway, I also went to a used bookstore, and came out with The Giver (yay!) and Thackeray's Vanity Fair. I've been hearing about the book for years, so it's about time I tackled it. It's, like, 900 pages, but I've read Gone with the Wind twice, so I can probably handle this. :)

Kathy and I are going to a Greek food festival tonight. Baklava! Tomorrow we're going to her parents' house to help her mom with the gardening. It should be fun and relaxing, which I need. I also have to pick up my new contacts. My prescription hasn't changed, but they had to "tilt the axis." I'm not sure what that means, other than they want me to wear them at the doctor's office for a few minutes, to make sure I don't fall over. How comforting. :)

Okay, it's been about an hour and a half since I started writing this. A bunch of people came to hang out in my cube. Now I don't know what I was going to say. So...have a good weekend!

(* = favorite joke between me and my sister, begun when she came to the table for dinner one night and no one was seated yet)