Thoughts from the past week

I haven't been posting much. I've been preoccupied, and while I've had interesting thoughts I haven't much been in the mood to sit at the computer and type. So, this is a conglomeration of things that have flitted through my head recently.

I really, really, really dislike internet-speak. You is a three letter word. u is a vowel, not a word. ur was the city that Abraham was from. Not all adults write pretty English, but it is a skill you will need later in life. Until the robots take over, of course.

Driving through Washoe Valley, where there are still pools of water left over from the New Year's flooding, I managed to see the water when there was no wind. The reflection of the mountains in the background made you feel like the earth was paper-thin, and you could just jump through into a whole other world. The sun on the water was bright enough to make its light dance on the normally shaded ceiling of my car. It was pretty. I wish someone else was there to enjoy it with me.

The sun is up when I leave work, and in perfect position to let me watch it set in Reno as I drive home from Carson. It's nice not to get to work and then leave work in the dark anymore. Then again, the sun doesn't even hit the street at the far end of the parking lot until I've been at work 30-60 minutes.

You, too can help NASA look for intergalactic dust so small that examining the 1 square foot plate is expected to take a total of 30,000 person-hours.

I'm still not sure how much stock I put in signs. But I was feeling pretty incredibly down Tuesday morning. Really down. Horribly down. Like I woke up from another night of bad dreams hardly able to get out of bed and it wen't downhill from there. I tried to pray, to submit to God, to seek deliverance through my problems. But what fleeting hold I get on my senses is quickly ambushed by the lady two cubicles down having her first child. When I got to the office that morning, I truly trudged up the stairs. I went in the office, and something caught my eye. It had been around for a month, but it hit me just where I needed to be hit.

Pat Robertson, shooting his mouth off. Or is he? Is it possible that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for dividing Israel? Why? Why not? But if Pat Robertson truly believed that based on the Word, why was he so quick to back away from His statement?

I don't pray big enough. Faith is something that has been assaulted in me over the past few years, and I feel rather the worse for the wear, I am afraid. Maybe it is good - clearing away that which I called faith but was really self-reliance. But there is a part of me, sometimes small, sometimes huge, that fears that when all that is cleared away, there will be nothing real left.

That perhaps goes too far. There are many things I doubt. There are many things I could abandon. In the heights of my frustration I think about leaving the church - that it would be better to have no God than the God that I seem to be relating to. But then I think about the cross. and in my anger, frustration, hurt, and weariness I see something that I cannot get around. I cannot avoid it, I cannot disown it, and I cannot simply ignore it. And then I ask forgiveness and pray to make it through.

It's amazing how much a "I haven't heard from you in a while and thought I'd say hi" note can encourage someone.

It's nice to be able to talk to my sister about girls. My sister understands me. She encourages me. And she knows right where I'm coming from.

The e-mails I have received this week. 3 from myself at work, with links or reminders. 1 MySpace Friend invitation. 1 MySpace comment.

Sorry, Dawson. I realized after I left the wedding that I never gave you my phone number. I had lost the nerve to ask a girl to dance, got frustrated with myself, and just needed to get out. You can reach me at dschmidtunr@hotmail.com. It's a junk address, but I can get in touch with you from there.

Is there hope with her? Is it already doomed? I don't know. I have no information, and end up with al the time in the world to think about the utter lack of information. Contrary to sometimes-popular belief, I do not regard myself as very smart, nor as a deep thinker. Interesting questions sometimes occur to me, but I don't sit around pondering very many things. Unfortunately, when I do get stuck on a thought, it doesn't go away easily.

Is it bad when George Castanza speaks for me? I heard it in the background tonight, and he was having an emotional discussion with Elaine about a woman he was interested in and how to approach her. Her point - just do it. George is worried, because then she'll know he likes her. Elaine, poor, sweet girl, seems to think that's exactly the point...

In citing his reservedness, many commentators have noted that it took Judge Alito a whole 12 months to ask his now wife out on their first date. All I can think is "I so have him beat there."

Faint heart never won fair lady.