To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

Twelve in12

Reading
Darkling ~ Yasmine Galenorn
Uther ~ Jack Whyte

Finished
Mirror, Mirror ~ Gregory Macguire
Witchling ~ Yasmine Galenorn
Changeling ~ Yasmine Galenorn
Something Wicked ~ Catherine Mulvany
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ~ J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ~ J.K. Rowling
Myst: Book of Atrus ~ Rand Miller, Robyn Miller and David Wingrove
The Game of Kings ~ Dorothy Dunnett
The Other Boleyn Girl ~ Philippa Gregory

My extra reading books have been put on hold, off to the side, so to speak for the moment.  My classes this semester are heavy on the reading requirement, so most of my reading time is spent reading those.  Thankfully I really enjoy the reading, so it works out in the wash.  Too bad my reading list probably won’t change for the rest of the semester.

The apartment is set up for the most part.  There are still a few bags of things for the dumpster and my room isn’t quite finished, but enough that I can work and function.  Kelly (the new roomie) is really great and we’ve been able to get along so far.  She is very concerned that she will annoy me and asks often to make sure she’s not.  She keeps saying that if I’m upset with her about something I should talk to her.  Which is great, because it keeps doors of communication open.  Except her constant checking in is starting to annoy me.  I understand why she’s always asking, so I told her she can ask once a day.  Anything after that I would be less than pleasant.  She works back home on the weekends, so she’s not here on the weekend, which is kinda nice.  During the week she and I are both very busy and really only see each other in the evening.  As the semester really picks up I’m sure it will be even less than it is now, so it really works out well for me.

I also have a new addition to my family!  A two-year-old cat named Anna Bean.  She’s mostly black with a few lighter spots of orange and brown.  It looks like a black cat mated with an orange tabby.  But she is really more black than anything else.  Kel and I got her from a local stray cat organization.  She’s fixed and had all of her shots in July, so that was a financial burden lifted.  She still has her claws and as long as she doesn’t destroy everything in sight, I have no objection to them.  I hate declawing adult cats – really declawing at any age.  So far she’s been really good.  She scractched the couch once and I told her no, and it hasn’t happened again.  Now we’ve got to break her habit of clawing the carpet and get her to scratch the post and flat thing we bought.  One step at a time.  She is really adorable though.  She doesn’t jump on the table or kitchen counters and only yesterday did she start jumping on my bed without permission.  I don’t care if she’s on my bed, but she wouldn’t jump up unless I said so.  She would sit on the floor and meow at me until I answered her.  But now she seems to understand its okay.  She likes to sit on my bed and look out the window, but oddly enough she doesn’t sit on the bench near the downstairs window.  She also likes to be in the same room as me.  If I’m in my bedroom she’s somewhere playing with her toys or just sitting and waiting.  If I’m in the living room, she’s on the stairs or under the table near my feet.  If I run upstairs to grab a book or something then return to the couch, she follows me up and back down.  Its pretty cute.  Thankfully when I leave for class or church, she doesn’t seem to get too upset.  Nothing is destroyed when I come home and she’s usually under my bed in her little spot.  We’ll see what happens when Kelly comes back and is around as well.  Maybe I’ll have to share my shadow.  She really loves the stairs and will drag her toys up and down the stairs, sometimes leaving them on the stairs.  Kelly and I are going to have to keep an eye out for the little balls, so we don’t trip on the stairs.

So I’ve spent most of the weekend playing with Anna, getting her settled and reading.  I didn’t sleep much Saturday night before church, so Sunday afternoon I took a long nap that started on my couch and ended in my bed.  So I’m staying up tonight doing the work I meant to do during the day and watching tons of West Wing.  I really want my season five back from Newfie.  I haven’t heard from him since the beginning of the summer, when I called and actually caught him at home.  I’ve sent emails and IMs and now a message on Facebook.  He’s supposed to be coming out here sometime in Oct, but I have no idea when excatly.  Besides the fact that I’ve wanted to talk to him for a while.  So I feel like he’s been ducking me or something.  I don’t know excatly, but I definitly feel a little abandoned.  Meanwhile, Mike has called during the weekend I was moving in.  Kelly was here when I listened to the voicemail he left.  He’s up in NY, but I don’t know.  I called him and he said he was on the phone and could he call back.  That was Tuesday.  I sent him a text on Friday and got a message back a few hours later.  I don’t mind too much, except what the hell?  I don’t know what he wants.  Wait, that’s a lie.  I know what he wants.  The only thing he ever wants.  But he hasn’t called me back yet, so I don’t know whats up.  Maybe I’ll see him maybe I won’t.  I know for damn sure it won’t be because I’m putting major effort forward.  He’s not working right now.  If he wants to see me, he can drag his ass out here.  Course then I have to actually decide if I want to see him or not.  But considering his record for coming here to see me, I’m not too worried about it yet.  I have no desire to pursue a relationship with him right now, which is a new place for me.  I don’t mind being friends and the occassional turn in the hay.  But I don’t need him.  I’ve got Bob.  Besides that I know he can’t give me excatly what I want in a serious relationship.  We are what we are and nothing more.  I can say that now and understand it.  I think he saw it long before I did, but I see it that way too.  So…  We are what we are.  If he comes out here, then he does.  And we’ll have fun because we always do.  If he doesn’t, he doesn’t.  I’m leaning more towards not really wanting him to come out here because I don’t know if I really want to jump into bed with him right now.  Not

like I’m not horny, but I don’t know.  Just not sure that’s what I want or even what I need at the moment.

This decision about seminary or grad school is coming to a head.  I need to make a choice and sooner rather than later.  I want to go to Michigan and check out the school there.  See if I can stand being on the campus.  I’m trying to figure out if I can do that over Fall Break or even Thanksgiving Break.  Fall Break might be a Small Brain Oboe trip, so it might need to wait until Thanksgiving.  But we’ll figure that out as it comes.  I’m still really thinking that I want to go to seminary.  I’m pretty annoyed with my oboe right now.  Kind of fed up with how hard it is and having the knowledge that it will only get harder.  I love to play and my greatest fear is coming true.  It has become a task, a tedious requirement, and I no longer want to play at all.  I’ve had long discussions with Mouse about this and I’m really thinking this is not the path I’m supposed to go down.  And I keep feeling like God has finally showed me where I should be going.  Now I need to build up the courage to just do it.  I keep hearing different versions of a quote in my head, though I can’t quite place or perfect it.  Something about constantly searching for purpose, but once its found having the courage to follow through.  "Its easy to spend your life searching for purpose.  Once you found your purpose, you must find the courage to do it."  Its not right, but something like that.  The closest thing I can find right now is this quote by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  "The happines of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions."  That is about where I am right now.  I still have a choice.  And something Gloria said to me that last night I was home has resonated.  Free will and choices and God’s path for us.  How no matter what path we might choose, God will use us on that path.  Our choices don’t prevent God’s plan for us.  Its different down each path, but the choice doesn’t prevent it.  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. I’m on this Tennyson kick tonight.  Blame it on Rumpole.

I heard a hole in the silence
I saw a crack in the plan but I got lazy ways
You’re not a private detective take off your telephone shoes
My thoughts going out of phase
And these are the better days

Still it seems funny
Sticking like honey
Wrote my own article
Now I’m hummin’
She takes pictures through my lazy eyes
And I’m dreamin’ girl it’s your money

When we’re alone and out drivin’ ourselves around all the bends
She’s got crazy ways
And I’m all woo ooh

Don’t know what you want
Don’t know what you want
No I’m not a mind reader baby come on

Don’t know what you want
Don’t know what you want
No I’m not a mind reader baby

I got addictive dependent
I got a cold change of heart
But I got lazy ways
We’re all woo ooh

Don’t know what you want
Don’t know what you want
No I’m not a mind reader baby come on

Don’t know what you want
Don’t know what you want
No I’m not a mind reader
Mind reader
Mind reader baby come on

Mind Reader ~ Silverchair