2010 Recap

2010 has been a really great year and it seems to me that 2011 can only get better.

Here's a recap on 2010:

January - spent New Years in Chicago at Margot & The Nuclear So & Sos concert with a really great group of friends

March - Started dating a wonderful friend of 4 years Mr. Joel Levi <3

April - Spent 2 1/2 weeks on the other side of the world in China traveling to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou

May - Finished 4 long years of undergrad at AU graduating with a BSN (Finally!)

June - Took a hot air balloon ride as a graduation gift from my aunt and uncle with Joel!

July - Passed nursing boards!

August - Hired on to my first real RN job at St. Vincent Hospital on the Head & Neck Post-op Unit (benefits & vacation time, the real deal!)

October - Took a weekend trip to Nashville with Joel to explore the city and see Metric in concert (looked at possible places to live!)

November - Officially entered young adulthood turning the big 2-3

Like I said, 2010 couldn't have been better but here's whats on the radar for me and 2011:

-running Indy Mini Marathon

-tickets to Lady Gaga!

-95% chance I'm moving to Nashville, TN

-go to a NCAA March Madness game

-find an area of nursing that i really truly love (looking into Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville)

Maybe, Just Maybe

I've spent a whole entire year trying to find answers as to how the person who seemed to cause the most heartache, pain and mayhem in my life found me...made a mess...and left.

Let's just say tonight I had a tiny sliver of a revelation that left me scratching my chin thinking...and the slightest bit thankful.
(but i would never confess that outloud, so lets just keep this between you and me.)

Life is funny sometimes.
-meg

Holiday Cheer

Seems to me that this is what Christmas should be all about :)

Can vs. Can't

Hello. My name is Meg and I will be your nurse tonight.

I can't really take all your pain away.

I can't make you sleep peacefully through the night or relieve all your worry.

I can't give you your voice back since your new trach or neck surgery seemed to take it away.

I can't make it less annoying to write everything out or even make you feel confident in your writing.

I can't make your financial burden from this complicated surgery any less.

I can't begin to fathom your fears about your new way of life...breathing from your neck or alterations made to your face and how different society will look at you.

I can't promise to know everything, make no mistakes, or have it all together.

But what I can do...is be the nurse I know how to be and take care of you through this rough night that I get to share with you.

My name is Meg and I am your nurse tonight.

Analogies of Nursing

These past 2 months have been haaarrrdddd. Who knew? Some would think it would be all sunshine and rainbows getting a great new job right out of college. But I can't exactly agree. There have been nights I wanted to quit. Turn in my RN license I spent 4 years and 3 nonstop months studying for. There have been other nights I drive home crying...And other nights I cry right when I walk in the door. Thoughts ring over and over in my head "I can't do this. I'll never be able to do this." Most people I've talk to don't understand and I feel selfish not being grateful for a job first of all, and second of all enjoying what I'm doing because its what I've always wanted to do and I'm getting paid to do what I love.

After sorting some thoughts, I've come with an analogy to roughly explain the pressure and overwhelming feelings that have made these months as hard as I say they've been:

I love serving people. Therefore, I've always wanted to be a waitress. I took special waitressing classes, went to some seminars, and read plenty of books on it. Now that I'm finally in young adulthood (I was not settling for any old teenage waitressing job, I wanted the real stuff) I can thrive on what I've always wanted to do.

Of course in school they taught about how to take care of the people seated at the tables. I know the basics. But I guess there's more they didn't necessarily go over in class. While I know the fundamentals of how to carry my tray, take an order, and bring the food...I didn't know people would want refills so often. Refills, extra napkins, maybe they dropped their silverware. Maybe they had one drink and now want a different one. Ok. I'm busy I got this. This only takes a little extra sweat.

But add 7, 8, or 9 tables. Whoa. I've only been waitressing for a couple weeks and I don't know if I can multitask that well. Guess I don't get a choice. Ok stick with the basics. But my skills aren't super great yet. I still kinda forget the science of balancing the tray. Sometimes I drop plates and run into other waiters. Ugh this is frustrating and embarrassing. I forget the silverware half the time and keep forgetting to watch for the refills.

I know that I'm a good waitress, but all these mistakes keep proving me wrong. Oh. And I have to remember that even though I'm frustrated I need to put a smile on my face to keep the customers happy. EVEN IF they are not so nice to me back or are kinda grumpy because their food is late. That's just part of being a waitress.

So I'm working hard, hard, hard to get these skills down, multitask, remember what I gotta do and fulfill my job description when the other waitresses want to help me out. They try to remind about some things...if you carry 4 glasses use a 16" tray and if you have over 6 use a 18". Ok got it. They tell me when you write the checks use the computer instead of the credit card machine because it doesn't work anymore. Got it. Oh and if they get only appetizers make sure to include the drinks with the checks otherwise they come with the meal. But if they got appetizers with a meal than just don't worry about the charges for a drink because it doesn't matter. ooook. got it?

Why didn't they teach me all this in the classes I took or the books I read? I'm guessing because every restaurant is different? Or maybe this is all the icing on the career and none of the fundamentals.

On top of all the stress I already described....there's the managers. Man oh man the managers. They get paid more than the waitresses but they are good at running the whole restaurant. They make sure I'm taking care of each table the BEST that the restaurant promises. But sometimes they're a little difficult to work with. Sometimes they'll give one table an extra side item. Or want to make sure table gets all salad with the meal to help their digestion. Maybe they want another table to hold off getting their food until they get to see them...and then I just have a really pissed off table. Oh. and the managers are kinda cocky because they run the restaurant and don't really treat the waitresses and waiters like I had imagined. I thought we'd work together but if they want to control the restaurant I'll just make sure to stay out of their way.

All the pressures that come along with a new job include getting to know the people you work with. And I guess I'm one of the youngest waitresses out there. All the waitresses have been working 10-20-25 years. So they look like pros! They never drop their trays! They always know when to get a refill! They even know how to talk to the scary managers who seem to proud to talk back! Man I feel stupid around all of them. How do I even fit in with them? How do I find things in common to talk about? Hell, how do I work side by side with them?

Here's a little extra thing at the restaurant I work at. They have these "Drink Passers" so I don't have to worry about bringing a table all their drinks. They are licensed but just didn't take all the classes I took to become a waitress so they are sorta "under" me if you will. They enjoy their job but all they can do is pass out drinks. They too have been doing this 20-25-even 30 years. And they have their skills down to a tee. But they work with me as a waitress. I wasn't prepared to be telling them what to do. I can barely figure out what I'm supposed to be doing! They're sorta helpful, but again...they only do drinks. I gotta figure out the rest of the stuff. Oh. And no one told me they'd sometimes get grumpy because I'm way younger than them and make more tips than they do.

Hello real world. I can't believe this is what you are. Please be kind. I have many years left with you.

-Meg

In the Hum-drum

A quote from Fredrick Beuchner:

"It seemed to me then, and it seems to me still, that if God speaks to us at all in this world, if God speaks anywhere, it is into our personal lives that he speaks. Someone we love dies, say, some unforeseen act of kindness or cruelty touches the heart or makes the blood run cold. We fail a friend or a friend fails us. And we are appalled at the capacity all of us have estranging the very people in our lives we need the most...

Or maybe nothing extraordinary happens at all. Just one day following another, helter-skelter, in the manner of days. We sleep and dream. We wake, we work. We remember and forget. We have fun and are depressed. And in to the thick of it, or out of the thick of it, at moments at even the most hum-drum of our days…God speaks."

I've spent a lot of time pondering why it is that we have to go through the things that we do. Why certain things take a toll on our lives the way they do. The good times and bad. The people that touch us and the people the hurt us. The circumstances we find ourselves in and how or why we even got there.

This time a year ago I was so so so angry at my life's situation. We've all been there at some point right? I didn't do anything wrong and yet it seemed as if I was intentionally left to bleed on the side of the road. And now a year later, I look back at the time and wish I only could've seen me now.

My, oh my, the journey it took. The questions that swarmed my brain and never rested; The confusion and daze I spent months in; The friendships that helped literally carry me though. I spent many dark lonely nights wondering what good could ever come. Today I smile, knowing now, I grew from the darkness and couldn't be shining any brighter today.

It seems too cliche to thank God for those dark moments. To "praise him in the storm" or "dance in the rain." Only a faithful saint could thank God for the mud that gets thrown at them.

My world shouldn't have stormed at all. My heart shouldn't have been broken in a trillion pieces and left a single piece of tape to fix it.

But here's to letting go of the anger and knowing that in those moments God was speaking, and in the moments today I spend reflecting, his voice is even louder.

-meg

You Won't Dance Alone

This video is inspiring to me.

Maybe just because I'm a nurse, but also because every human being longs to hear that they're not alone.

It may be a cheesy song but I like it because it makes the message clear. Watching these people dance remind me why I do what I do, and everyday that I go in to work I want to send this message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTyIhMLp3FA

So What

Get up!!

We have young and vibrant lives ahead of us!

We are just babies!

So what I didn't get into the program I've applied to twice in the past year?!

So what I planned on moving in a couple months and now it maybe a whole year?!

So what if I feel like every dollar I save I only have $0.50?!

I'm still here with my friends & family and the love of my life. I also DO have a job ya know (even if its not exactly the one I would have chosen) and I am getting a paycheck (even if I barely even see any of it).

I have many things to sit and reflect on and be thankful for...guess its just up to me to take that time.

-meg

Love & Freedom

Love...

will not betray you....

dismay....

or enslave you.

It will set you free.

To the greatest love I've ever known...happy first 6 months, Joel and the many, many more to come :)

Adulthood Puberty

Transition

:alteration, change, development, conversion, realignment, shift, turning point, or flux

That I am.

I feel as awkward as I did during middle school and puberty.

I am the "recent college grad, no money or job, living for free off of my parents" stage right now. Although it has a couple of its perks (free cable/internet, also food and gas), I'm still funny right now...with no idea where I'm headed.

I've spent the past 4 years growing and changing, becoming my own. And now as though my wings are fully prepared to fly....I can't.

Oh how bad I want to fly from the nest!! These wings haven't grown for nothing!

Give me liberty or give me death!

But then again....please don't let me drown.

I'm soft and tender. Young and haven't seen the world yet. Innocent, yet mature. Intelligent, yet naive.

My dreams are big, my heart is full, and my hands are ready to get dirty.

My patience is thin, but I can feel that the wait may be....just.... worth it.

meg

Today Finally Came

This little girl received her first play doctor's kit when she was 4.

She loved that it resembled real doctor's so well. It was if she was just like them.

She loved to play with it and even wrote her name all over it so everyone knew it was hers.

She practiced on all her dolls, her little siblings, playmates, and even her parents.

She drew pictures of her working in the hospital and knew that there surely wasn't anything else that she'd rather become.

This little girl soon realized that when anyone asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up nothing else came out besides wanting to be a Nurse.

So in the 3rd grade when 'Career Day' came at school all she needed was to find the right clothes to pull off the nurse-look she so badly wanted.

Time flew by as all the milestones were achieved, then the day arrived where a decision was made to fully pursue the little girl's dream.

She had no idea what it would actually take to get there.

The number of sleepless nights she had.

The countless breakdowns and tears cried reconsidering the dream all together.

The phone calls home saying "I just don't know if I can do this anymore."

All those times she had to stay in while her friends went out and begged her to come too.

The uncertainty of ever being good enough to actually make it.

But...

she did it and the little girl inside of her always knew this day would come.

Megan Marie Stout, BSN, RN :)

Fireworks

Who doesn't love watching fireworks?

This time every year I always wonder to myself why we don't set off fireworks more than once a year.

But this annual celebration keeps their sacredness.

It reminds us of our freedom.

That glorious day when America escaped her bondage.

It's pretty great that centuries afterwards we still celebrate like they did.

Let's burst our souls and cry out our hearts for we are free!

That's probably what they were all thinking then.

And that's what the fireworks represent.

But I long to share our freedom. I want set off fireworks when a young girl is released from her bondage in the sex trade, when a child doesn't have to work in the factory anymore, or when an alcoholic never touches a drink again.

That is the freedom I want to celebrate.

Closure

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.

Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.

Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today maybe forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be good enough.

Give your best anyway.

In the end, it is between you and Him....It was never between you and them anyway.

-Mother Teresa

Advice

Here's advice no one has ever told you, but I want you to have:

Go back to all the places you have bad memories of and make newer and better ones.

It may be difficult at first. Those bad memories are there and have been haunting you for quite some time now...But alas! They will quickly fade and be forgotten due to the intentional mission you have made!

I wish I could print mental pictures...but falling asleep with a smile on my face will just have to do for now.

meg

I was thinking of writing about how I've been worried about a lot of stuff lately...Finding a job, taking a really big test, money, where to live, blah blah blah...

But maybe I'll just adopt this little girl's attitude and let the rest work itself out.

Jessica's "Daily Affirmation"

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting

your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,

for your dreams,

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me whether things seem to be going your way.

I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow,

If you have been opened by life's betrayals

or have become shriveled and closed from further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,

if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips

of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be

realistic, to remember the

limitations of being human.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty every

day and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand

on the edge of the lake and

shout to the silver moon, "Yes!"

It does not interest me to know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,

weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the center of the

fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what

or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like

the company you keep in the empty moments.

-Anonymous

Oncology Lessons

To the Oncology Unit on 5 East -

I didn't pick you, instead you picked me.

I didn't really care where I worked, I just wanted my 'foot in the door.'

You took me in, as a little one wanting to learn.

I had no idea all the things you would teach me.

You never treated me as just a "student" or a "tech" to do all your dirty work.

Instead, you worked with me...knowing I was your future.

You taught me the tricks of the trade.

You gave me jobs you knew I could do, but I myself had little confidence.

I remember when the IV pumps scared me and I had no idea how to talk to patients.

But it was you, who held my hand and watched me grow.

I want to grow up and be like everyone of you. You laugh and you cry. You get so stressed you want to pull your hair out. You hold patients hands when they are scared. And you ask if there is anything at all you can do for them...whether its just a backrub or an extra blanket. When patients are confused you say "I'm here to help you" and when family members are crying you give them hugs to help ease the pain.

I've watched you face the harsh realities of life ending. The hard, hard work it takes to care for those experiencing it...and the loved ones on the sidelines watching. Cancer is indeed a journey, and all of you know that your place is to be there through every step.

All of these things I could've never learned in the classroom or from a textbook. And for that, I'm all the more grateful I had you to watch. You treated me like your own. We are indeed a family. You listened to my accomplishments and failures, my worries and stress, my relationship troubles and my dreams for the future.

And when people tell me someday that 'I'm a great nurse'....it's to YOU I'll give all the credit.

-meg

That Bridge

I prayed for you standing on this bridge.

The man who brought me here told me it was famous to all the locals.

"This time of year the people come to watch the tide," he told me.

"The time when the moon is positioned just right, it brings the water all the way to the very edge of the bridge."

"It's remarkable," he said in broken English. "Nothing anything like it."

The cool Spring evening was peaceful and silent and the wind blew so softly, creating only slight ripples in the water.

I looked off that bridge and thought of you...wishing you were standing right beside me. The view was breathtaking.

You would whisper sweet nothings into my ear, maybe even stroke my hair and place your hand ever so gently on my shoulder, giving me all the affection I've ever ached for.

Then I looked up into the dark black sky and remembered that we were on opposite sides of the world for the time being.

And although the dark sky reminded me of bedtime, you were watching the sunrise.

We were so far away...6,824 miles to be exact.

So I prayed for you instead.

I prayed for our love and maybe one day it too will rise all the way to the top of a bridge.

Hell, maybe the locals will even come to watch.

And when the moon is in just the right spot...I pray there's no one else but you.

Dreaming of Dandelions

Some may think of dandelions as pesky little weeds. Others may see them as a sign of Spring. Gardeners think they're annoying. I think they're lovely.

If its just the right day, you can catch yourself witnessing the wind blowing those pretty little seeds and carry them as if they had tiny parachutes; taking them to a place other than where they grew. It's all part of the pollination process I guess, but really what you're seeing on that perfect day is the time where the dandelion seeds keep moving in order to keep on growing. I'm sure the journey is scary for them, but they trust the wind and pray for fertile ground.

And that's what I'd like to think I'm doing.

Whether the wind takes me to Dallas, St. Louis, Muncie, Nashville, or even China... I'll take what my grandmother told me to heart...

"Whatever you do...just keep moving"

meg

"Another world is not only possible,

she is on her way.

On a quiet day,

...I can hear her breathing."

Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of intentional time set aside to remember.

Remember what we believe.

Remember where we have came from.

Remember where we are going.

"Yet even now, says the Lord,
Return to me with all your heart,
With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
Rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing."

Give me 40 days to sift and sort. 40 days to bleed. 40 days to reconcile. 40 days to forgive. And 40 days to be heal.

meg

Valentines

I am loved...Loved to the ends of the earth and I'd be a fool not to recognize it.

Friends are fun to have around. They're fun to laugh and joke with, make up names for each other, and call when you're bored.

They give you a feeling of acceptance and security.

But what's even better is when the people you used to call to have lunch with so you wouldn't have to eat alone, are there for you in your darkest moments. Your moments of utter despair and anguish.

If Valentine's Day is about buying chocolates, balloons, and flowers for someone whom you love and loves you in return...then I am broke.

No one could really take the pain away, but they sat with me and shared it.

And for that I am eternally grateful.

Happy Valentine's Day. You've loved me even though it wasn't a holiday.

I Am An Emotional Creature

"I love being a girl.

I can feel what you're feeling
as you're feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.

I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won't call back.
It's a vibe I share.

I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it's unbearable when I lose.

I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don't you dare say that it's all negative
or it's only because I'm a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.

I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
I know when the coconut's about to fall.
I know that we've pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn't coming back.
That no one's prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.

This is not extreme.
It's a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don't tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It's how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don't tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.

I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.

I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl. "

I wish I could have written this myself, but its everything I feel put into words by someone else. I know if I have a daughter I will quote this poem to her as a bedtime story and hopefully she will be as in love with being herself as what I am right now.

meg

Deluxe Donut Dreams

4 years ago a group of friends sat around a curved counter at a place called Deluxe Donuts. We had walked there in the cold a good couple of blocks, but we didn't care. The walk there was half the fun. We all had just started college and beginning our second semester. We thought we knew everything. We were making friends and finding our niche. Our classes weren't hard and the biggest papers any of us had to write was the standard 3-5 pages. We ordered donuts, 3 for $1.00, and talked until the wee hours of the morning. It didn't even matter if we had early class the next day. The Donut Lady, as we called her, poured us water to sip on out of Styrofoam cups. We talked about our favorite bands, shows we had seen, cities we have visited or want to visit, funny memories from high school, old lovers and new lovers, and the things we were beginning to love/hate about our school of choice.

We had no idea what lie ahead of us. Again, we didn't care. We didn't know the groups or organizations we would eventually join and drop out of, the relationships we would start and then crumble, our favorite bands of the time that fade in and out, and how difficult our classes would actually get. We didn't know the nights we would spend lying awake asking ourselves life changing questions, the intimate conversations we would have with individuals at that very counter, or the years down the road when we would "grow up" and think back on those nights eating donuts and laughing until we thought we should head back.

We were babies. Small children with very, very big dreams. We could all go around the table and tell you our majors and maybe what we wanted to be when we grew up. But we had no idea the roads we would take and where we would end up. We all met because we happened to be at the same stage in life and now that our roads are branching out, we're in full bloom ready to burst at the seams.

We never knew our dreams could be so big! We were just starting to grow into our own. Fast forward the montage of journeys we've taken and never in our wildest dreams did we see ourselves doing the things we love...studying in far away countries, running restaurants, producing albums, starting half way homes, farms, and bicycle collectives, traveling across seas to see the world, and applying for jobs and moving to cities we never thought we would.

Here's to being young and ambitious. Believe in your young because someone believed in us and that's why we are where we are today.

Muddy Water

"But the muddiest water clears as it is stilled...
...and out of that stillness life arises."

I'm standing back on my feet again and although the ground is still soft, these have been my stepping stones:

90s hit song auditions
ordering seafood
painting pictures of dandelions
wearing straight leg jeans
breaking my high score playing Brick
figuring out the public transportation system all by myself
downloading new music
not picking off the mushrooms
finding my favorite ring I lost a month ago
interviewing for a job in freaking Dallas

Please don't stop me...I'm on a roll

Pray with Me

The human nature is a very funny thing. I like thinking back on the times when we were in our purest form...toddlers. Our personalities were raw, our desires and wants were well known, and if there was the slightest imbalance in our universe...we threw tantrums, screamed until our throats were raw, and cried the kind of tears that don't actually get your face wet. If something was wrong our mothers could hear from any distance and come running to find us. Something so mystical we share with the animal kingdom.

Growing out of our toddler tantrum phase there is still a human nature inside us that wrestles with crying out. For example, our 8 year old selves didn't want to go to bed at a certain time, or just really really wanted that toy in the store, and even the 'snacking before dinner' rule was the dumbest thing ever to exist. Moving into teenage years, there was a fight for following the crowd and becoming our own, which still left most of us crying in the bathroom feeling insecure and unhappy with who we were blooming out to be.

What I'm getting at is not the developmental stages we take, but the internal wrestling we spend our whole lives fighting. It presents itself in a socially unacceptable outward manifestation. And somehow entering adulthood, we're told that our internal discontent is to be kept hidden. Burried deep. We would look childish if we displayed our discontent outwardly. Or that this is never the "right place" or the "right time."

Jesus himself had this very same internal sense of discontent. He sweat drops of blood for crying out loud. Desperately praying, pleading with every ounce of mind, body, and spirit to just have the discontent taken away for God's sake.

If I could sweat drops of blood, I would. If I could still scream and cry out and my mom would come running, I would. If I could throw a tantrum and scream until my throat was raw, I would.

Jesus asked his friends to stay up all night and pray with him so he wouldn't have to do it alone. I guess that's what I'm asking for too...and I guess that is what will get me through this.

That...and throwing water balloons off a bridge

Folly

I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.

And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."

"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."

She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than he liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing.


-Kurt Vonnegut from The Cat's Cradle

I'll be in Debt when the World Ends

"What would you do if you knew the world was going to end in only a couple of days?" he asked.

"Well, I'd probably go see some stuff I haven't seen before or just eat all my favorite food until I felt sick"

"What??? Why?? WHY WOULDN'T YOU JUST RACK UP ALL THE DEBT YOU COULD??"

"What? Spend all my money?"

"Yeah. Take it all out of the bank, borrow all you can, and just have a hay day?"

"I guess I could do that. I never really thought about it"

"Well that's all I think about. Think about just not worrying about any of it. You'd never have to pay it back!!"

"Ok... Yeah...that sounds like fun. I think I'll do that."

It's my last semester of college. The end of my world as I know it. So I think I'll probably just rack up as much debt as possible and spend it all until we die.
(metaphorically speaking of course)

meg

Random thoughts...no format

Dads aren't supposed to leave their families on family vacation...

and you're not supposed to sit in the same room across from your best friend for 2 1/2 years and not make eye contact.

I just heard song lyrics that say "everything I have loved has turned to stone"...

...it spoke of my heart and I cried