what we did last weekend

jared,

nick,

wendy,

mark,

jenny

and i


ran a 4-mile race last saturday. it was called a slacker race because it was all down hill - let me tell you, not so much a slacker moment as the impact is stronger and my ankle is still swollen. nonetheless, we had fun =)

if you click here you can see our times... i'm yours truly at #43 on the female 4-mile race listing...

pridefest 2006

40 days

many of you didn't know, but today was the last day of a forty day fast from alcohol. well, techinically, last night was the forty day mark. and today i had a pitcher of sangria with sharon my roommate (granted she only had about 1/4 or the pitcher) and my friend maria (who basically split the pitcher with me.)

what did I learn in these forty days...

1 - i lead a pretty (w)holisitic life - phyisical, spiritual, emotional. kuddos to me!!
2 - as much as i lead a (w)holistic life - i haven't begun to scratch the surface of what that even begin to looks like.
3 - taking care of my physical body is an act of worship.
4 - the only thing that matters to god is that i'm contientous about his love for me: he loves me when i do silly stuff that i don't remember about in the morning because i had a "wild" night and he loves me when i am in complete control of my own faculties and he loves me just the same when i feel the worst about myself.
5 - i'm not crazy in this world - others feel the same about me and about life in general.
6 - my drinking usually is a response of my wanting to be liked and/or approved by others - mostly a function of wanting to be liked, loved, the life of the party and avoiding rejection altogether.
7 - who i am today and who i was 40 days ago is no different, i'm just more conscientious
8 - there's nothing wrong with having a glass of wine, or 7 :-)
9 - jesus is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow - it is my comprehension of him that changes.

tonight i had a great time with maria. we laughed, we shed some tears, and we shared our passion for jesus. and that's what it is really all about for me... wanting to be like him/her/it and growing and transfroming myself into his/her/its image... i love that and i love that moments like that can happen in random nights sitting at the porch, whether it'll be mine (which kicks ass) or hers and sheralee (which also kicks some ass!) and as long as i'm sorrounded with people that want to know jesus, i'm ok... it sort of reminds me i'm not crazy and that he is real and deeply in love with me, no matter the cost.

the last 40 days have been great. the way the fast ended (mostly with maria) was refreshing. i'm sure the rest of the summer he'll use to show up!!

creepy...

you know how there are silly online "tests" that you do just for fun? well, this one is scarily acurate...

You're Spain!

You like rain on the plain, as well as interesting architecture and
a diverse number of races and religions.  You like to explore a lot, but sailing,
especially in large groups, never really seems to work out for you.  Beware of pirates
and dictators bearing bombs.  And for heavens' sake, stop running around bulls!
 It's just not safe!


Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

and I do love this painter...

Who Should Paint You: Salvador Dali

You're a complex, intense creature who displays many layers. There's no way a traditional portrait could ever capture you!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

do these people know something i don't? i'm just saying...

oh, the randomness

today is day two at marsico... i'm filling in for my roommate sharon who's on vacation.

last week was the end of two weeks of training and planning at girls inc. of metro denver. i'll go back there in a month to teach performing arts.

i'll be taking a summer class july 5th - 14th.

tonight i start improv classes downtown denver.

i did nothing with maria, sheralee, and jared all weekend.

this weekend i'm going camping to leadville.

it is that random.

the basics

today i was reminded of what is really important to me.

god.

this little crazy thing we call radius.

and by thing i mean the people, not the "institution".

maybe is too simplistic.

maybe is too naive.

all i know is that everything else sort of takes care of itself.

certain

there are many things about myself that I don't know - it feels like ambiguity reigns at times...

and there are a few things that I know are very true to who I am.

one of them has been in my face for the past few i don't know how long. it's been reaffirming and challenging.

i'm a "space-maker".

what does that mean?

i like to create space. whether at my home, or somewhere else, in conversation, etc., i like to create space. i know that i might not have the wisest thing to say or do. however, i know that at times the best thing to do is to give people space and then let them do whatever they want with that space - my hope would be that they would use that space to have god meet them in whatever way possible. yet they get to do whatever they want with that space.

and i'm good at it too!!!

last week a friend of mine called me from puerto rico because she was in planning her friends bridal shower/bachellorette party - she just wanted to run by me what she had planned and wanted to make sure that there was enough for people to do and enough for people to be, "and you're good at that balance, so what do you think?"

i don't know what this means for the rest of my life or for the real immediate future. all i know is that in little steps, in my daily life, i like to create space. so i will keep doing that. we'll see how god uses it. we'll see how god uses me.

we are frickin' hillarious

so all day while at work i'm on e-mail with meghan and maria. we average about 100 e-mails a day... we've been known to hit 200 every now and then and gmail's beta can't keep us with us...

today megs was missing for most of the morning. maria suggested that maybe if we wrote a story about her she would e-mail us back... what unfolded was what i like to call ode to christopher guest mostly because it was almost a line by line banter between maria and me... we had no idea where it was going, but it ended up being pretty funny.

and that's how i spend my days when i'm working at a computer... in the lonely world of corporate america is good to be reminded that we are not alone...

(w)holistically

i don't have much to say...

for now, my life has been revolving about being a whole person - body, mind, spirit, soul - and living more and more in the reality and the embracing of my humanity...

it's been pretty...

a close second...

i will forever heart him...



however, he's becoming a very close second...

choices in the midst of chaos

something that sucks about being in the midst of existential re-defining is that you have to be functional and live life. i get overwhelmed really easily so the every day decision making process gets skewed - and sadly, i make choices that are not the best for me. so the shame kicks in - "you should know better by now; it's not the first time; we've been here before" - etc. I can give you all the psychological background of why i made the decisions i made, where it's steming out, what i really want in all this... and this is the point where all the headknowledge needs to stop and i, simply put, just need to grieve... grieve... and then some more grieving...

are you serious?!?!?

right now i'm working at the offices of the secretary of state of colorado. apparently i'm their database wiz... go figure... i would like to thank the years of oracle at willow creek... no, seriously, it's pretty funny that they all think i'm this kick ass person on databases - i just play around and see what happens... is that too hard to do? as my friend megs says, "you too can look up shit in google!". it gets even weirder because my supervisor is out sick today, so my mandate today is to look after her very slow inbox and keep up with that as well as work on a project where i've done all i could and now i'm waiting for someone to give me administrator access to do the next step. that's right, i've becomed a traditional government worker who is getting paid for not doing much!

i'm still in a weird funk - i went to bed last night at 9:30pm and woke up today at 7:30 am (don't have to be at work until 8:30 and it's only a 20 minutes walk). i'm hitting the reality once again of what it looks like to be re-parented, the role others have in it, the role i have in it, and the role that god has in it. it just makes me want to sleep more and more... denial or exhaustion, not quite sure which one. and i'm ok being in that reality. i'm quite functional - just a little on hermit mode... let's see what happens this saturday when there's a bunch of people coming over to dinner and then going out to help out and celebrate my friend terence in his manager debut at mynt... hopefully i won't be at the place of "too many people... must hide..."

in the midst of despair...

i think i'm at the beginning of yet another existential crisis...

i'm not quite sure what's going on whithin me. it's hard to explain to someone else what's going on with you when you're not quite sure yourself.

all i know is that the person of the trinity that is connecting with me right now is the spirit. who came up with that? the spirit. the father has a personal form, so does jesus. they are more tangible. how in the world do you connect with "a spirit"?

yet this is the one that is capturing me.

maybe it is the empowering. maybe it is knowing that it is the spirit that resides in my being. maybe it is that through the spirit i'm able to share in the divine nature. i'm not quite sure... and then there's the random picture of this beautiful breeze-like form that sorrounds and embraces me at the same time that it is inside of me and oozes through my pores.

i don't know what it all means, and this picture soothes me in the midst of unexplicable anxiety and the lack of tangible comfort.

i'll take it and run...

ps - on a lighter note, this picture goes out to someone very special,you know who you are!!!

really random...

so was this weekend.

from sheralee's "I'VE CREATED A MONSTA!", to tim's roasting the bigest marshmallow in recorded history, to stewie's "so you've been working on that novel for three years now, huh? is the protagonist compelling?" and so on... this weekend was random and fun. i got to meet new people, see old faces, know a little more about the people i know... worlds colliding is always random and disturbing. this one was also fun.

this weekend also reminded me that in the end it's all about jesus. there's nothing i can do that can separate me from god, the trinity, jesus, father, spirit, whichever is connecting with you right now... and there's nothing that she wants more than being with me. and this is life to the full (to the max, if you will...). this is the way i was meant to live. everything else (though practical and necessary) suddenly become less important in the greater scheme of life and abiding becomes reality.

sometimes i feel like i live a simplistic life in the face of the complexity around me. yet my gut tells me that this is were i need to be - that there's nowhere else or nothing else that will satisfy. this simplicity is not easy - it's probably one of the hardest ways to be.

i can't live any other way. abiding is my lifeline. everything flows from there.

at least for now...

more random things to happen...

so monday night was random...

tuesday we went out to dinner with my roommate sharon's aunt who is in town for work and just got a job offer, so she might be moving to denver... how random is it that it is the english girl that might have family in town??!?! love it.

today our friend erik a.k.a. booty will come to town for the retreat, as well as his friend beth, who i think i knew through impact. we're going out tonight for a little kara-o-ke but most importantly, an early bedtime!

then tomorrow kristen gets in to town as well as sheralee's friend linda and we'll go for dinner at the cherry cricket which i've never been too... there are many plans as to what will happen after that... maybe$3 mojitos, more kara-o-ke, or an early night... we'll see...

friday my friend kristin from my old starbucks in kildeer is coming over with her twin sister. we'll all meet at the panera on 13th and grant (a.k.a. as my backyard basically) including mark and jackie and then we'll head for our rci...

megs refered to last spring's retreat as "the most random retreat ever"... this my friends will be a second close...

can't wait!!

also can't wait til next tuesday night when i'll truly be able to collapse!

i am miranda!

last night i had a fun random night...

megs, maria, sara and i went to club evolution here in denver. they not only have $5 martinis but they do $5 manis all at the same time!!

imagine this: the place is beautiful - exposed brick, hardwood floors, great view of the city - four beautiful women are holding a cosmo in one hand and the other one is either stretched out for a mani, or holding a cigarette, or preparing to call someone, as conversation and laughter flourishes...



exactly.

then we proceded to the very important conversation of who's who. meghan claimed charlotte - we agreed. then i said i was miranda - we all agreed as well. we still don't know who carrie and samantha are in this scenario, mostly because both sara and maria wanted to be either one of them at specific moments... and we're ok with the ambiguity...

are my nails fabulous this morning? not really... they were $5 manicures

do i want to do this frequently? hell no! being at work on tuesday after a late monday night is kicking my ass...

do i want to do this again? absolutely! random fun girl night with friends whose conversations go from the silly to the deep and being actively seeking and finding the beauty of those that were serving us and them responding to our receptiveness of them... don't care what anyone says, that is priceless.

ps - just got this from maria... pretty

sometimes i feel trapped in the twilight zone...

am i living in denial?

am i responding to my reality?

is it ok that my reality differs from those around me?

it has to be ok...

is my idealism getting the best of me?

maybe.

i don't know how to be any different.

damn gre!

so i'm studying for the gre because i want to get a phd in theology, philosophy, and culture... does anybody else sees the contradiction in taking a highly objective test in order to get accepted into a program that is highly subjective and based on discussions?

this is for meghan

who gets her terror alert as told by the sesame street characters

You Are Gonzo the Great

"Is something burning in here? Oh, it's just me." You're a total nutball who will do anything for attention. The first to take a dare, you'll pull almost any stunt. You're one weird looking creature, but your chickens don't mind!

The Muppet Personality Test

and credit goes to drew for having this on his blog.

i've sucumbed

my space