Today I am thankful for:
my grandpa John -
delicious pizza -
spring break with plenty of time to sleep -
warm weather (!!!!) -
actually being excited over birthday presents (even if I did buy most of them myself) -
The Beverly Hillbillies 
For my birthday:
moleskine (I am madly in love and I haven’t even used it yet) -
moccasins, soft brown ones -
a lovely glass bead necklace -
the bright flowered/paisley purse I wanted -
wonderful earrings and a birthday card that plays the Hamster Dance -
a huge furry golden dog named Boutililler (seriously don’t ask), also known as Androgenous Dogenous -
two new books because I really needed more -
money that I’ve already spent
—
I’m getting my hair cut even shorter. I’m thinking maybe chin-length, we’ll see. I don’t really have the right hair for anything too much shorter but I love the feel of such a drastic change, something that can’t be switched back if I decide I’m not comfortable. Also the weather is getting warmer and warmer, in the eighties by Tuesday and I could not be more excited. I need it like you can’t even imagine. Winter has kept me inside and in bed and I’m ready to go out again, grass and trees and air and birds, the world at my fingertips. I think I’ll spend my days outside and my nights with writing, I need a break from so many of the people in my life and the pain they bring.
This morning at church the sermon was over passages from both the books I’ve been reading, Luke and Isaiah. Weird. Also it focused mainly on the story of the tax collector and the Pharisee both praying, the Pharisee thankful for his own righteousness and the tax collector praying ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner’, which is a story that has been very prominent in discussions I’ve had lately. Weird again. Also the pastor felt led to preach about that today instead of what he’d previously intended, and they’re going back to what they’ve been going over next weekend, when I won’t be there. Weird times three. Aaaalso, at BCM we’ve been talking about things from Isaiah that have just … hit me really hard and haven’t left my mind since we discussed them. Okay God, I’m definitely listening. Listening and trying to obey. But as Sarah says sometimes it’s really really hard to see God in such negative and difficult situations and sometimes, even harder to see Him and acknowledge that it’s Him and that God does in fact control the bad as well as the good. So I stop trying and I forget and I think that’s when I end up where I am now, but His nudges are definitely getting through.
Anyway enough from me. I’m yawning until my eyes water so I think it’s Alex Delaware and very early bed soon. I want to be able to wake up early enough to enjoy the morning, let’s see if that happens. I haven’t been very well lately but I’m going to be better.
—
There begins a long winter of discontent that eventually flowers into gloom, pessimism and a subtle despair—subtle because it goes unrecognized, unnoticed, and therefore unchallenged. It takes the form of boredom, drudgery. We are overcome by the ordinariness of life, by daily duties done over and over again.
We secretly admit that the call of Jesus is too demanding, that surrender to the Lord is beyond our reach. We start acting like everyone else. Life takes on a joyless, empty quality. We begin to resemble the leading character in Eugene O’Neill’s play The Great God Brown:
“Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?”
~ Brennan Manning, “The Ragamuffin Gospel”
