Lady looks like a Dude

This Thursday at work I was in the bathroom.

End of story.

Just kidding.

This Thursday at work I was in the bathroom, and I looked in the mirror and thought to myself, "I kind of look like a 15 year old boy right now." My hair was just the right length, with the right amount of "dead weight" (i.e., hanging flatly without a lot of feminine body), a perfect chunk of my bangs were swept to the side at just the right angle, and I was wearing a white polo--I looked like a boy.

So I came out of the bathroom and asked my coworkers, loudly, "Do I look like a 15 year old boy right now?" Karen and Ashley looked at me blankly, then resumed their coffee brewing and tile bleaching without a sound, thinking to themselves, "There goes Bailey again, with her crazy comments..."

A customer had been in our cafe for a while reading his book, and a little while later he came up to the register for a refill and we all starting goofing around with him. We shared our personal anecdotes about our favorite pastries, gave him warnings about consuming too much caffeine. He bought a sandwich, got a refill on his americano (my kind of man--calm down, he's married), and as I was ringing him up he said, "I've paid for the sandwich, I'd like one vanilla bean scone, and I don't think you look like a teenage boy."

Yesterday he came back in and I asked if he was going to hang out with us all day again. "Couple of hours," he replied. "Good," I awkwardly answered, not saying anything beyond my single word. I was wearing a black turtleneck and he said, "It's better today without the polo." I explained to him, "Yes, but I have the opposite effect with this shirt. I look like a forty year old woman." He advised me not to wear pearls over the turtleneck, and that I would be fine if I just avoided those.

I do rely on others for fashion advice. Also to inform me of bodily changes--weight gain/loss, hair growth, changes in butt/chest measurements--I don't pay attention to these things. I only occasionally look in the mirror and see a boy and ask others if they see him too.

Food

I have thought for a long time (until about 30 minutes ago, to be exact) that periods of intense waiting, patience, wondering what is next in life, were characterized by their occasional entrance into our lives. I have viewed them as commercial breaks, not the television program or feature presentation.

Perhaps I am feeling differently about this because for me the past three years have been, shall we say, saturated, with the aggravation, depression, and wear and tear of such periods, and thus am inclined to feel that such a ratio of patience to smooth sailing is bound to continue. Regardless I wondered driving home just now if maybe the waiting periods are not so much commercial breaks as they are the bulk of our growth and spiritual and emotional development, and faith and dependency on God.

We say that we are not of this world, that we are above it all--Yeah. Right. We turn on the TV for comfort, we pray for a mate to soothe our aches, we search for peace and fulfillment in this world. I think God is constantly trying to get our attention, saying "Yo! Focus! We've been over this how many times? You've got the priorities backwards. Don't worry about your future, your lunch, your cuticles, your career. I'm in charge, now let's hit the book again, please, and try to pay attention this time." I think He says these things through trials in our lives not only because He designed things to work that way--rather than just give us a multiple choice test, He decided to get artistic and creative with it--but because the Bible puts certain messages/truths/rules in plain language, and to carry that out it must be illustrated on another canvas: in worldly times and lives. Also, probably, because most of us are not the most devoted readers of the Bible and so the only opportunity God has to get our attention is outside of its pages and inside the world.

I'm sorry, I'll switch this blame game to myself and drop the "we" language and switch it to "me," considering I have on more than one occasion declared the Bible to be "boring" at Bible studies. That "plain language" I mentioned above? Yeah. Not exactly the most thrilling reading. I just find that my eyes glaze over the choppy, matter of fact sentences. Psalms on the other hand, makes me cry with its beauty, especially Number 139. "You know when I sit and when I rise...You discern my going out and my lying down...You hem me in--behind and before"...Whoo! Get the tissues! But as for the glazing over, I feel a lot of that is Satan trying to distract and prevent me, an avid reader and lover of the literary, from really swallowing and digesting the most important words I can aim to stow in my heart. But that right there is another blog for another time.

So as much as I hate to look ahead in my life and imagine that it will continue to be filled with more dead ends than open, foliage-filled paths, I am starting to wonder if this might be the case. What am I going to learn, honestly, from constant good times? I don't say all this to sound like God is out to hurt us and make our lives miserable, I just feel that if we are stuck in happiness always then at some point we are going to be professing truths that we once believed because we felt them and have over time become immune and numb to them and are just professing because it is our habit. The only way God can teach us is to continually mix it up.

I feel maybe hypocritical, otherwise just half-hearted in writing this, because last night I was on the phone with my brother Patrick, a wonderful man with a wife who he married right after college, a career he landed before college ended, and a baby on the way, in bitter, painful tears because my life is nothing like his. Nothing falls into my lap at the "right time." I know this is a lie because God always, always, puts people in my life at the right time, in grocery stores, airplanes, random last minute social gatherings, but I tend to focus on the Friday nights that people cancelled plans, on the activities I missed in high school because I was too shy as "the new kid" to be proactive and join them.

But my Father takes care of me, and Patrick told me last night, "Bailey, I think you're an awesome person, and I'm not just saying that." He told me about Acts 17, where Paul explained that "from one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" I know this, but I throw my fists. I blame others for my unhappiness; I know it is unfair and socially unacceptable to do this out loud, so I internalize it and get mad at people I don't even know, due to symbols they carry around that indicate they have reason to be happy--diamond rocks on left hands, car seats and Dora videos, bulky resumes--forgetting that they are just as human as me and therefore have equal opportunities to throw fists in the air.

Point being, I think when we (well when I, at least) imagine a happy life, I don't imagine a "perfect" life, but I do imagine fulfilling pieces coming into the picture at some point: husband, kids, career, along with general comforts day to day: cups of coffee, lunch dates, amusement parks, good movies, fuzzy cats. But God works on entirely different terms as we do. He will always be supernatural, we will always be His creation. He looks at us and says, "I love you, so yes, I'm going to give you people who love you, and avenues for you to use your gifts (which I gave you, by the way), but there are also going to be windy avenues that won't make a lick of sense to you, and the only thing that's going to be a stronghold for you during those times is Me."

So I'm just wondering. If perfect God is essentially a 180 in character compared to imperfect us, then wouldn't it be likely that the proportions we have in our minds of happy vs. frustrating life events would be a 180 compared to his proportions? Possible.

Personal Preferences

A couple of years ago, before I had my own car, my dad was driving me home from work and I was hinting that maybe we should all watch The Sound of Music as a family after dinner. I was trying to let him guess what movie I was describing and after providing him with a few hints he figured it out and declared,

"The hills are dead, Bailey! They're dead!"

I took that as a "No thanks" and hung out with Julie and hunky Mr. Plummer myself.

My Dear Josephine

Louisa May Alcott's story, Little Women, continues to feed my soul in so many ways. I find so much comfort in the character of Jo (based on Louisa May Alcott herself; her entire novel is based on her life and those of her three sisters). Almost every time I watch the movie I cry, not only at the obvious moment for tears--when Beth dies--but depending on my life at the moment at a host of other moments.

One thing I always tell people about Little Women is that it contains just about every piece of the life cycle: birth, death, marriage, relationships between siblings, parents and children, husbands and wives, friends, even neighbors. Being a deeply relational person myself, this means everything to me.

I first read Little Women when I was fifteen, and I remember that, while loving it, I was still upset at the end when Jo didn't end up with Laurie, her best friend and devoted suitor, and furthermore, her spoiled sister Amy ended up with him. By the time I turned 21, my heart had changed and I understood the purity of Jo's love for Professor Bhaer and could differentiate between the examples of friendship and true, devoted, romantic love. Now at 24, I like to believe I am waiting for my Friedrich.

Aside from my love for older men, there are many other ways in which I identify with Jo. Shall we count the ways? Let's.

1. Jo is a writer. Duh.
2. Jo has three siblings. I have three siblings. While Jo's siblings are all sisters, Jo is certainly the odd one out, as the passionate writer, tomboy, and arguably, the most ardent feminist of the four. Similarly I am all these things, but am also the odd one out in my family, being the only girl.
3. After Jo refuses Laurie's proposal, she goes to New York to get away. While I am not escaping a proposal, I am looking at graduate schools in New York. This is partially for the programs offered in the region, but also much of my pursuit of graduate school in general is to begin a life changing, independence-birthing adventure for myself. A new life, basically, as Jo goes after the life she truly wants and deserves. Ditto for me.
4. Jo struggles doggedly with the idea of her sister Meg getting married. I was equally a tough egg to crack when my older brother Patrick was falling in love, proposing, and getting married. The breaking--which I am coming to see is not a negative break, but a blossoming--of a nuclear family unit is one me and Jo alike do not handle well, though we come around in time.
5. Jo's father serves in the Civil War as a chaplain (Louisa's real life father, Bronson Alcott, was a noted leader in the Transcendentalist movement, not exactly a religion, but certainly a noble chase after spiritual and moral ideals). My dad is a pastor.
6. Friedrich Bhaer encourages Jo to abandon her pursuit of fictional writing and write from her heart, about life, about her family. Hence she writes and publishes the book within a book, Little Women. I find that in my writing it is nearly impossible for me to write without discussing my family, and I have been told by multiple people (many of whom have not actually spent a great deal of time with my family) that I should write a book about my family. I do plan to do so.
7. Jo is the last one in her family to get married. This is yet to be determined for me, but I would not be surprised, People, if the same were true for me.
8. Jo chops her hair off for money in LW (in real life, FYI, Alcott was a Civil War nurse, and her hair was cut off when she was delirious due to mercury poisoning). Donating my hair to charity is in fact one of my hobbies.

Okay I think you get the point, this list could go on for a while, and that was probably a little more Louisa May Alcott trivia than you maybe cared to hear (just be glad, (or disappointed), that it wasn't Babysitters' Club trivia). However. If you have never read Little Women, men and women alike, please do. It will change your life for sure. Like I said, it continues to feed me through all the years of my life. I can't imagine you could turn the pages and not find something within them with which to relate.

Love,
Jo. I mean Louisa. I mean Bailey.

Back by Popular Demand...

When I got home tonight I did what I do about once a month...or two...I threw up my hands and said, "Forget it!" and proceeded to remove all the extra crap I've been chauffeuring around town from my car. Considering the popularity of the May 20th post, "The Mitsubishi Abyss," I have decided to swallow my pride and provide once again for the greater good. I consider the greater good here to be the joy that others receive in pointing fingers at my ridiculous irresponsibility and/or laziness. So here it is, the list:

Clothing/Accessories:
2 pairs of shorts
1 swimsuit
6 socks
2 knee-high nylons
5 green aprons
1 bra :)
1 hair elastic
6 shoes
1 t-shirt
1 clothing hanger
1 shoebox
1 change purse

Food and food accessories:
8 napkins (some used, some clean, all on the floor)
2 gum wrappers
5 food wrappers of other kinds
1 pack of gum
4 coffee cups (of the paper variety)
1 plastic food container
3 straw wrappers
1 piece of chewed gum, stuck to the lid of
1 Dr Pepper can
4 travel coffee mugs
3 fast food cups
3 plastic cups
8 water bottles (some empty, some with water, some with frozen water due to current weather conditions)
1 empty yogurt container (and, I assume, matching lid)
1 spoon (silver, not plastic--don't tell Mom)
1 french fry (small and shriveled)
1 1/2 bagels (blueberry, HyVee brand)

Office supplies/Paper products/etc:
5 bags
1 permanent marker
7 receipts
3 paper advertisements
1 program from Caleb's dance show last weekend
1 NY Times (12/2/09 issue)
1 coupon
2 notes from Mom, regarding leftovers she sent with me to work for lunch breaks
1 envelope
8 pieces of paper
1 gift card holder
1 sticker

Health/Cosmetics/General cleanliness:
1 gym bag (where the bra was located, all you sick-minded readers who were imagining some other explanation)
1 bottle of ibuprofen
1 towel
(not 1, but) 2 sticks of deodorant (I don't even sweat all that much)
1 "I [heart] Jesus" air freshener

And the Everything Else Category, also known as the Bailey, What is the Matter with You? Category:
3 board games
23 CDs and/or CD cases (not counting those that belong to Corie, along with other things of hers that I always mean to give back to her and always forget, for a year now)
2 paycheck stubs
1 business card
1 French coffee press

And my favorite item:
2 cardboard cut outs, 1 male and 1 female. (I am not a complete freak, these were free from a display at work). These are soon to be strapped into the back seat to become my constant passengers.

You know, when people fear that they will "never get married," the inventory listed above is one of my personal reasons for sharing this fear.

P.S. Oh, and there is a trash can in my trunk. Kind of ironic, now that I think about it.