water please. no ice.

i haven't really done this yet, i don't think--use my blog to shamelessly promote something that i think deserves promotion. here we go:

mycharitywater.org

1 in 6 people in our world don't have access to clean drinking water.

1 in 6. think of 6 people you love and imagine one of them having to drink out of the nearest puddle for their whole life, which, incidentally, would be quite short.

go to this site and see what you can do to help -- charity: water is doing absolutely amazing things to solve this problem. amazing. so amazing you will want to take part and they've made it embarrassingly easy. go to the site, watch the video. be inspired. that's one of life's beauties, right? finding things that inspire.

you're welcome and pass it on.

but seriously

a theology professor once explained learning about God this way - sometimes we can draw a box of definition around God using only what we know God is not. finding what God is can sometimes be more of a challenge.

i know that God is not a God who has intended for me to live my whole life by emotion, chance and my own interpretation of events that may or may not be natural. i say this because i have seen christians live this way. i have seen some people very close to me live in agony and fear because the only way they know by which to make good decisions is to wait for a consuming conviction-to wait and see what God reveals to them through fleeting sentiments, billboards, or the good old fashioned 'open and point' scripture-reading. don't misunderstand me. i have heard several stories of God speaking through these very things, but as a general rule, i don't think that my relationship with my Creator should hinge on feelings and divinations.

i believe, rather, that i have been divinely equipped for this life, in a way that allows me to walk in humble gratitude and confidence in a life that is guided by principles of righteousness and love, when it is, in fact, guided by principles of righteousness and love. i do not always need to wait for a feeling to tell me 'yes' or to tell me 'no.' i do not need to live in guilt and uncertainty. guilt is not of God. once again, do not misunderstand me. it is important, it is vital to be ever-sensitive to the leading and the presence of the Holy Spirit. one would be a fool to disregard such a priceless gift. once again, i think i am just trying to find truth by naming non-truth. if i get caught up in over-spiritualizing every thing in my life (for instance - i saw a purple finch sitting on a lilac bush and so clearly, God wants me to move back to nh. no, that's silly), i believe that i will dilute what it is that i love most about God - the beauty and grace right in the midst of human depravity.

my real question in all of this is the role of God in my life. i think i that i understand, or at least know how to pursue further, how the existence and character of God changes the way i live my life. what i don't understand is where to draw the lines between attributions: for what am i responsible? for what are you responsible? for what is God responsible? for what is no one responsible? i'm not sure.

i started thinking about this a couple of years ago in the context of babies. my friend was getting married and having a hard time deciding what kind of contraception to use, or whether she should use it at all. i had heard before that the bible calls children a blessing, and so who are we to try and dictate when or how God chooses to bless us. this made sense to me at the time. then again, it didn't matter too much to me - marriage and babies being so far away.

then, my friend and i had a conversation with our pastor and his wife, who had decided to have no more children. they told us not to over-spiritualize the situation. they said that when a woman mis-carries, it's not necessarily because God took the baby away, but because God designed our bodies to work a certain way. this made me think about conception. i know that the bible says that i was knit together in my mothers womb, and that's a beautiful thought, but i wonder if we've interpreted it in a slightly over-literal sense. for instance, every day there are babies born in africa to impoverished women with AIDS and they do not survive through their miserable first year of life. is that the will of God, or is that just a consequence of humans refusing to care for one another?

since that time, i have struggled with this whole idea of attribution. i still don't really understand, but i guess if i understood everything, i wouldn't need a God. i have resolved to the philosophy that i should do all that i can do because that is all that i can do. whatever is out of my control may or may not be orchestrated by God, but i do know that whatever happens, God will help me to find the good and encourage it to grow.

dollah dollah billz

i'm in a weird place.

not physically. i'm just in my room, but my place in life is weird. i'm still buying a house, but this process is so long and just keeps getting longer. by the end of it, i believe i will have spent the same length of time as an entire semester (allow me to revert to student-timing), just trying to buy a house. it's mentally frustrating, trying to prepare for a big transition that refuses to come.

it's not at all that i want to leave the commune. i really do love it here. i know that i will miss spending time with the people who live here with me because i know that i wont possibly see them as much. i already see them remarkably less than one would think, considering our proximity to one another. but, like i've said before, i believe it's a good step for everyone.

i recently purchased a set of furniture for my new home, should i ever actually live there. one piece is a chaise, which i plan to put in my room, and faint on from time to time, just for fun. last sunday, i went to my house with alisha and steven and laid on the floor of each empty room, imagining furniture and colors. it was great fun, though, i think, technically trespassing.

last night after work, i ran to thy gym, and the spent two hours in classes (body pump and yoga). i hadn't been in a couple of weeks, so it was a nice way to spend the evening. after i got home, i watched as episode of 'intervention' with my parents (love it) and then refused to start a movie with them at 10:00 because i couldn't stay up that late. i went to my room, changed into pjs and checked my voicemail. i had one from the cool kids at carmine's, and they were all going to bailey's to celebrate our dear noah's last night.

some people might think - it's already past 10:00, i have to be at work at 9:00, i really should go to sleep instead of driving 10 minutes away to hang out at a bar. some people also don't have a severe distaste for missing things. i got dressed and went, and didn't return until around 2:30. it was a whole lot of fun and i don't regret it, but when my alarm went off at 8:00 this morning, i did not feel well. i was tired from having not slept enough or well, i was hungry from not having eaten a real meal since 1:00 yesterday afternoon, i was so very sore from my gym craziness, and i was dehydrated from no water and some buffalo wings.

so, i've taken a sick day. that is why i am able to blog right now. i don't have much time these days. i worked about 70 hours last week - between the 9-5 and the restaurant gig. i can't complain too much. i have two jobs that i enjoy. it does make me tired, though. by this past sunday, i kind of felt like i was committing a slow sort of suicide. this week, i was scheduled for one less shift at the restaurant, and i found someone to cover another one - so that's a step in the right direction.

alisha (my roommate) is in ethiopia doing something very awesome, but it is still sad that she is gone for a whole two weeks more.

while writing this blog, i thought about writing, again, that i want to go to the divinity school at duke. and then i thought to myself: 'self, why don't you actually take a step in that direction, instead of just talking about it.' and so i did. i sent an email to the admissions dept, asking to set up an appointment. the only issue i take with the div school plan is that it very well may cost a lot of dollah dollah billz that i don't have. hopefully an admissions counselor will reveal all sorts of lovely opportunities that will make this be not so, but i guess we'll see.

i realize that this is a collection of random thoughts, but if i keep writing nothing at all, i will, well, keep writing nothing at all.

fun little musical things?

so, i had this great idea a little while back. i was thinking about how much i miss playing music with my friends who now live so very far away from me. i thought to myself, 'if only there was a way to eliminate all the space and groove with them once again.' the best think i could come up with was to record myself playing some fun covers (or segments, anyway) and post it on facebook-maybe start a fun little trend of music people making fun little videos of themselves, so we can pretend we're not separated by states and states. i even used some fun effects - contrast, reverb, you know, what the professionals do.

i thought it would be a fun thing, but i had it up for a whole day and the only person who said anything was my loyal(ish) little brother (steven - word). i set it up as a music trivia so that people would have something to say besides 'hey katie, tune your guitar,' which, by the way, i know i should have done, but my tuner is on the fritz, so what are you gonna do?

now, i'm going to try again, but this time, i've tweaked the video so that all of the audio matches the video (imagine that) and i'm putting it here on my blog instead - it seems a safer place, where rejection is okay because 'maybe no one saw it . . .' i can't handle the facebook rejection for another day. my fragile ego can't handle it : )

i have this linked to my facebook page, so it will show up as a note, but let's pretend no one reads those - it might not require that much pretending. actually, if you're reading this as a note on facebook, i don't know if the video will show up, so click here: http://iwritetoberidofthings.blogspot.com/ but if you don't click, just don't tell me.



thank you friends. now it's your turn.

in case you were curious

if i wait to blog until i feel like i have something earth-shattering to talk about, then i may never blog again. so here they are - a series of small updates.

i'm still buying a house and i'm still pretty excited about it. i drift off to sleep thinking about accent walls and coffee tables. though i'm still sad about the dissolution of the commune, i think it's going to be good for me. right now, i'm still qualifying for financing and whatnot, but as soon as the house is mine, i'll post some pictures somewhere, and ask all of you creative people to send me stuff with which to decorate my house :)

though there are several reasons for this move to happen, i cannot deny that there is much i will miss. living in carrboro, though a bit strange (i've recently heard it called a 'fantasy land'), has its perks - i can walk to my gym, my natural foods store and my local farmer's market. i can also walk to downtown chapel hill, which has more bars and coffee shops than i could ever frequent, even if i went out every night, twice. i will also miss my family and my delightful roommate. alright alright, let me move on before i change my mind . . .

because this house business is pretty expensive, i've been working a lot. i work 9-5 monday through friday, and then at Carmine's (restaurant) some nights and weekends. depending on how long my Carmine's shift-count is up for, it could get tiring, but right now, it's fun and somewhat lucrative, so that's good. i enjoy the people i work with there, so even if it's slow, it's fun, and that makes it worth being there.

the family tension has eased. i've continued to learn that people aren't as resilient as i would like them to be (including myself). i always look for some dramatic event - a conversation or something - to change everything, to fix everything. people rarely work that way. though it often takes seconds to inflict pain on someone, it may take years for that wound to heal. this is annoying, especially for a fixer like me, but it's just how we operate. i can be grateful that there is still plenty of love to go around, and good intentions. without these things, the wounds might never heal.

i've been thinking more about grad-school. in theory, i'm going to apply to the english MA program at UNC and the divinity school (program tbd) at Duke. assuming that i can get into both of these programs (which is kind of a leap), i'm not sure which one i would choose, or maybe try to design a hybrid? i'm not sure. i think that if i had to choose one, i would go to the divinity school - it just seems more relevant to my life. however, i do have a love for classic literature, and i think that it makes me a better person to learn more about people through what they have written, just as it makes me a better person to learn more about people and God through what we've written about God over the years. i guess this will all be irrelevant if i don't start taking some real steps toward applications and decision-making.

i am going to tx for the first time in a couple of weeks for my dear friends maggie and isaac's wedding. i'm excited to be a part of such a wonderful event and to travel to a place i've never been before to see so many people that i love. i'm smiling just thinking about it.

alright, just writing this blog has given me a couple ideas for some other blogs, so maybe this dry spell will end for a bit and i will have some profound, or even just interesting things for you to read. at the very least, give you a good reason to believe that you're not the only crazy one - i always like that :)

stickin' it to the man

the following correspondence took place between me and an unnamed credit card company (it rhymes with shmitti-shmard).

Subject:	late payment fee
Date/Time:	06/29/09 02:05:14 PM
You wrote: Hello, I am writing to request that the late payment fee that was recently posted to my account be refunded. The payment was only 1 day late, and paying late, according to my record, is not nearly a habit. In fact, I often pay early and much more than the minimum payment. If you value my business, please refund the late payment fee. Thank You, Kaitlyn DeConto

Subject:	Re: late payment fee
Date/Time:	06/29/09 02:41:26 PM
Customer Service Wrote: Our records indicate that a payment of $20.00 was due in our office by 06/15/2009. Because that payment was received on 6/16/2009, a late fee was charged to your account. For more information, please review your Card Agreement. After a thorough review, we have determined that your account is not eligible for the credit of the late fee. Was this message helpful? Let us know Thank you for using our website.

Subject:	Re: late payment fee
Date/Time:	06/29/09 11:04:59 PM
You wrote: Hello, I am very disappointed by this and will be closing this account. Thank you.

Subject	: Re: late payment fee
Date/Time	: 06/29/09 11:24:07 PM
Customer Service Wrote: As a goodwill gesture, we have credited your account $39.00 for the late fee assessed. This credit should appear on your account within two business days. We must receive your payments by the due date in order to avoid late fees in the future. Was this message helpful? Let us know Thank you for using our website. boo ya.

but life goes on

i feel like most blog entries that i read (including some of mine, not that i go back and read them *cough*) begin with something to the effect of "wow, i haven't written in a while." so, i'm not going to do that, i'll just get on with it.

the last few weeks have been . . . tumultuous, to say the least. i've been avoiding writing because the things that have been occupying my thoughts most have been the sort of things one cannot really blog about - things that will incriminate one and/or the ones that one loves.

as some politicians might say (and i know because i was once a poli-sci major) - feelings were hurt and are being hurt, bad conversations have happened, good ones have not happened, love is not winning. the whole thing breaks my heart into so many pieces that sometimes i think that i will forever see the cracks, even if they get put back together again. i know that's emotional and not rational, but that has been my life as of late. it's hard to sort through powerful, overwhelming emotions in order to find truth. not just logic, but truth and wisdom. i can't say that i've done that, and i can't even say where i've failed - it's too close around me to be seen clearly.

if you're not wholly frustrated by my purposeful ambiguity, then read on.

though very painful, i have been trying to find good in all of this. it is my family that has fallen prey to, well, my family i guess. i'll proudly admit that i've found nearly all of my purpose and identity over the past year in my family. i moved here for us, i worked, worshiped, played with us. it was great and lovely and i think, in so many ways, exactly what i needed. i don't know what i would have done without such an amazing network of people - all caring for one another, all living and sharing life together. it really was a blessed season.

to be honest, i probably never would have let it go, ever. i would have stayed at the commune (where i live now with most of my family) forever, making my (if ever) husband move here with me and my children grow amongst the bamboo jungle in our yard. and that would have been great. but, community living is hard, very hard, and it takes a compassion and selflessness that is beyond most people. i was so proud of my family and, in a way, i thought it might be invincible. this is where i have found growth in the heartache: it is time to move on. i cannot allow my own well-being to be so inextricably caught up in the behavior and relationships of others, even if they are my family. i need to be able to have more grace for these people that i love - i cannot have this grace if my heart bleeds with every intimation of conflict. my heart has bled too much. i do not claim to be innocent, but, as i said before, it is all still too close to understand. i am waiting for retrospect to provide clarity, be it vindication or guilt.

i am not giving up on anything, just trying to be healthy. i still think my family is cooler than your family (hah) and that we will all be happy with each other once again. let us pray that that day will be sooner rather than later.

i am trying to buy a house. it is a lovely house: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, energy efficient. it is in durham, nc. 2.5 miles from my job. 13 miles from the commune. i think it is an opportunity for me to start a different kind of life.

college was formula. the commune was baby food. now it's time for some tofu stirfry.