An open letter to Willie Aames.

Dear Willie Aames,

When I was younger, my father went to jail. It was in jail that he found Jesus. After his release, he began to mend his relationship with me. A huge part of that was Saturday mornings at Christian Supply Store in Portland, OR. They had a kids hour where we sat and watched puppets or artists and it was great fun. Every so often, there would be a fun parking lot carnival day. It was at one of these carnivals that my life would change, thanks to you.

My dad convinced me to check out a show they were having around the corner, towards the back parking lot. Myself and maybe eight or nine other kids sat on the ground and watched Bibleman. Afterwards we got to meet Bibleman.. you in purple spandex.

Immediately following, I collected all four (only four!) Bibleman videos, and the CDs. Everytime you were at Christian Supply Store, so was I.

@ The Portland Expo Center

Once there was some Christian convention at the Expo Center, and you were there. I believe the year was 1998. You’d moved away from the dancing/singing idea and were more actiony.. which I wasn’t happy with, but dealt with anyway.

The next (and last) time I saw you was in 2002 or 2003.You had a show at a big church in Portland and my dad and I decided to get tickets. A few minutes before the show started, I walked to the front  of the church and looked back at the sold out building. As I walked back to my dad, I was beaming with pride. From a handful of us in the Christian Supply Parking lot to that? And how many more churchfulls of families were there across America?

Earlier this year, I read about your struggles.. the turn in your life. I called my dad and we both sat on the phone, speechless, hurting for you. Not out of disappointment or anger, but out of pain. You unknowingly were one of the biggest factors in the mending of our relationship in the months after he got out of jail. You taught me Scripture, songs to help me remember Scripture, and those things have had such an impact on me that I still frequently use things I’ve learned from the Bibleman videos when talking to people.

Today I saw your episode of Famous and Broke, and I am pretty sure I was in some state of crying throughout the whole thing. But mostly:

I am proud of you. You are, and always have been, a person who has meant a lot to me. In a purple spandex suit or a business suit, you are important. The good you have done in the lives of countless children (and the joy you brought to countless young girls back in the day!) remains.

Watching Broke and Famous, your demeanor reminded me of my dad. He still has a temper and occassionally has to slip me some quarters if he swears, but he is a man of God. I wasn’t able to find out how your faith has been affected through all of this or where you are at now spiritually, but I hope that your life is still a reflection of the opening credits of Bibleman -

Miles Peterson… A man who had it all: wealth, status, success. But still, something was lacking. Miserable, alone, his spirit beaten, Miles Peterson gave up. Then, in his darkest hour, the words of a single book began to change his life. At last, Miles Peterson felt the burning desire to know God. Inspired by the Word of God, and equipped with unyielding faith, Miles pledged to fight evil in the name of God..

Love,

Stephanie

Home is where… nobody wants to hang out with you.

It’s strange to me how when I am out of town, I stay pretty busy. Even though I know less people and a higher percentage of them work/go to school.. there’s always someone to hang out with or explore with.

Back home, that is not the case. It started as an annoyance but has turned into a full blown frustration at this point.

I honestly feel like I spend a lot of energy trying to get people together – whether it’s myself and someone else, or a small group outing or what have you – and it never works out.

Are people really busy all of the time? Do we schedule our lives so tightly together that the same people constantly get a “no” or is that merely an unfortunate coincidence for people like myself?

I’ve also developed a frustration with this phrase – “We should get together some time” or any cousin of it, like “wow – we should catch up!” “let’s get coffee.” If you say that to me, I WILL Facebook you within the next few days trying to find a time. And a majority of these attempts get no response.

Why?

It’s occurred to me that part of this is because when someone is always there, it’s easy to overlook. Since I am never in the Los Angeles area, it makes sense that people would carve time out to see me, because who knows when I’ll see them again (Spring! Holla!). If something makes sense, does that make it right?

Surely I am guilty of this, too. Plenty of times plans have fallen through at the last minute and I’ve just let them rest and taken months before I have reached out again. Is it laziness? Is it a genuine lack of concern for someone? Am I too caught up in my own stuff to listen to someone else’s?

Sigh. My heart hurts tonight.

Flirting is stupid.

According to Dictionary.com;

flirt

[flurt]  –verb (used without object)

1.	to court triflingly or act amorously without serious intentions; play at love; coquet.

2.	to trifle or toy, as with an idea: She flirted with the notion of buying a sports car.

3.	to move with a jerk or jerks; dart about: butterflies flirting from flower to flower.

Flirting is stupid, I’ve recently decided. It’s an unreliable measure of someone’s interest in you.

Tonight I realized that I have been flirting a lot, and I don’t want to flirt anymore.

I pointed out to Austin that two people exchange winking smilies, it is a flirtatious act. A one sided winking smiley isn’t so bad, but when it is reciprocated.. that is when things get kind of sketch and babies are made.

So in conclusion, I am no longer exchanging winking smilies with boys (including Austin!!), and I am going to try harder to be more obvious about my intentions. This kind of stuff can really screw with someone.. and I would like to not be a facilitator of that kind of thing.

Apollo 13!!!

Go for launch!

I’ve always known that secretly Apollo 13 is one of my favorite movies; but I can never remember what happens in it (except something bad) so I have refrained from ever declaring that. However, as I sit here watching it (!!!!!) I have decided that it is definitely one of my faves.

When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut. More than anything. I wanted to look out a window and see infinity or to see the earth humbly and magnificently outside of its atmosphere. This all changed when I took a trip to OMSI and realized that to be an astronaut you’d have to have much better eyesight than I have.

Then one day I developed an uncontrollable, near-crippling fear of the deep ocean (I wrote a little about it here).  Suddenly it occurred to me that if I was scared of the vastness of the ocean, how in the world did I ever think I could handle the universe? that scene in Titanic, where Rose pries Jack’s cold lifeless hands off of hers and he floats into the ocean, is what terrifies me. Something important – be it a life, a giant boat that took a lot of money to build, a huge rocket that is capable of transporting life into the unknown – suddenly being stripped of its vanity and importance and becoming the victim of the thing it was meant to conquer.

As I watched Tom Hanks ( <3 ) prepare for launch (and Kevin Bacon, and some other guy?) I wondered what that must be like, to be so small sitting in a huge rocket thing, built at the hands of men who are not perfect. How terrifying. I was getting scared watching it. (Bill Paxton? Is that the other guys name?)

The moon is so beautiful, the stars magnificent. One day when we vision impaired folk are allowed to travel beyond the atmosphere, I hope to go. It would be the ultimate overcoming of my fears. I would spend the entire time unable to see, as my eyes would be overflowing with tears that floated into the air, most likely pissing off my fellow passengers.

Even still, I’d do so knowing that I could be the Titanic of outerspace – the indestructible, NASA-approved vehicle that gets side swiped by some debris from a previous mission, and then our oxygen starts leaking until we all are pulled out of our unsinkable  space craft, our bodies destined to float around the universe much like the remains of the Titanic floated around the cold Atlantic.

In the end, liking a movie like Apollo 13 so much is a very definite act of masochism. But I will never watch Titanic, because at least the stars are beautiful.. which is more than could be said for whatever nightmares lie at the very bottom of the ocean.

This is Stephanie, signing off.

Random, shameless friend plug.

My friend Justin recently recorded a live CD. I was there, it was awesome, maybe my eyes got watery at one point. The live CD has already sold out, and to thank everybody for that he’s offering it for FREE DOWNLOAD for the next two weeks. Free! Please take advantage of this.

http://www.noisetrade.com/justinklump

Also, if you get a chance.. vote for my friend Trysh in this Sing Like Taylor Swift competition. Click here to vote. Just a word of advice, though: Don’t start watching the other videos. It’s the same 2 songs and eventually you want to slam your head against a wall, I promise.

 

Thanks in advance for helping my friends chase their dreams… I’m going to go babysit, because I am unemployed and have two parking tickets that are deflating my bank account of money I was going to use through November. Thank you, California, I knew I never really liked you that much.

ps tomorrow is #truthursday and I don’t even know what I am going to write about!! geez.

The House Bunny.

Awhile ago, maybe early September, I went to Starbucks. Little did I know how much my world would change because of that trip. While making small talk with the (cute) barista, we somehow started talking about movies. He asked me if I’d ever seen ‘The House Bunny.’ Of course, I hadnt. I’m not a huge movie person. So I started to casually look for it to pop up on OnDemand.

Then last night I found it!

…and it was undoubtedly one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. My favorite movie of all time is Legally Blonde, and it was almost no surprise to find out that the same people who produced Legally Blonde.

A movie is funny when it makes me laugh even if I’m watching it alone. that happened all the time in this movie.

Please watch it.

and love it.

 

 

Unashamed.

I like street cred. It’s not something that really influences my life, but I do enjoy it. And I really like collecting street cred.

The song that I have loved the most over the past… 5 or so months has done nothing to increase my street cred.

David Archuleta – Crush.

However, the song makes me freaking giddy.

Here I am, sitting in Starbucks, listening to it, and I got this big stupid grin on my face and I smiled so hard and kept my giggle in so carefully that my eyes started watering.

This is why I make no friends in public places.

That song is just so freaking catchy. That and the Miley Cyrus nodding my head like yeah song. I woke up singing Miley Cyrus in my head. Maybe I am gaining street cred, but the 12-year-old girl kind. Whatever. I’m going to watch that video one more time before I leave and wish I had it on a cd in my car.

Judge all you want, but that song is catchy.

Congrats, MLE :)

A year ago, Emily (and I) started the Project 365 thing, where you take a picture every day for a year. I failed out like 50 days into it, but Emily went strong and finished the 365 off. Today was her last day, and in honor of the whole thing I’m going to share with you some of my favorite shots she’s taken over the year.

January 01, 2010 we start again.

Congrats, Emily. Love you sister

364/365 - the camera she rarely uses

361/365

346/365 - me and graham in their backyard

328/365 - Em loves peace signs, and I just realized the shadows make peace signs on sticks.

311/365 - Ramona, my best friend and favorite dog.

295/365 - Ramona again. <3

280/365 - Isaac playing the piano at camp

230/365 - Janell at the beach

204/365 - Emily's school project I helped with! It turned out so great.

195/365

1

171/365

163/365 - Emily in my room, surrounded by pink

162/365 - Bramwell from when he, Emily, Elias and myself went to the zoo.

141/365 - spring

139/365 - she burned herself taking this picture.

103/365 - Emily and lauren.. and gravity.

10/365 - i love you

See them all at Emily’s blog, here.

#truthursday

….I refuse to participate in #truthursday right now because I refuse to believe it’s Thursday. Yesterday I was watching Glee with Captain Kelley and I said “…what day is it today?” and she said “Wednesday.”

But I’d thought it was Tuesday.
So today I woke up and decided it’s Wednesday, though it’s clearly Thursday.

However, I don’t like the thought that I missed an entire Wednesday. So until tonight, I’m celebrating Wednesday, October 22nd. Around dinner, I will declare it Thursday, October 22nd. I know it might not seem like I have the power to declare what day it is.. but it’s all about mind over matter.

I’m at the Q Cafe again. Did I mention that I will be coming here every single day I am in town, because there was no joking about that… no joking at all.

Today I ate the most delicious cookie in the entire world. It’s from Little Rae’s Bakery, in Seattle. It was a Boysenberry Frosted Shortbread Cookie.. and it was so fantastic. Unfortunately, according to their website, you cannot mail order that flavor! How tragic because I loved it enough that I would have probably ordered some.

There are two main reasons I came to Seattle: One was to see The BGP, and the second… this is something I am so excited about.

On Saturday here at the Q Cafe is the One Days Wages Launch Party.

I’m going to write more about ODW after the weekend, but I urge you to visit the site, read about it,  and spread the word. Nothing stirs my heart more than everyday people wanting to make an everyday difference.

If you’re in the Seattle area, please come to the Q Cafe this Saturday, October 24th from 7 – 9:30

and she swears that she’s artsy.

Hello, Seattle.
I am (a mountaineer, a manta ray, the crescent moon, a cold seahorse, an albatross, an old lighthouse…)

Last night Mei-Ling and I went to the newly remodeled Crocodile Cafe to see our friends from The BGP play. They did so amazing. I stood there, thinking “how in the world did I get blessed with  such talented friends?”

By the way, the new Croc is amazing. When it was first announced that it was closing down, I was upset to the point of tears. I was anxious to see the remodel and was blown away. Our first stop was the bathroom, and I couldn’t stop commenting on how nice it was. Mei-Ling said “for the first time, I can use the bathroom at the Croc without worrying about catching anything.” It’s a completely different feel, but I still love it. To those of you who never experienced the original Crocodile Cafe: I am so sorry. Tried finding before and after pictures but gave up.

The other day I was looking through Tim’s blog, at his awesome drawing skills and decided that I would try to draw a few things. Two things to note about this self portrait:

#1. My upper lip is smaller than my lower lip. It drives me crazy.

#2. I have no idea what color my eyes are.

So then as I was laying in bed that night, bored to tears with the book Grace Gone Wild (if you’re going to name a book something like Grace Gone Wild, it should probably be really thrilling or exciting. I’m determined to get through this book, though I can go two pages before wanting to slam my head against a wall) and I decided to draw Jami.

Calm down, I have never drawn anything before in my entire life. That’s a lie, because once I tdrew a dinosaur..  this is my most prized drawing.. though I’m pretty sure it’s been thrown away. Mei-Ling and I were at a coffeeshop in Seattle, and I was so violently opposed to the opening act that I sat on the floor with paper and drew with crayons. This is Rex, and Rex has a grill.

Right now I’m at the Q Cafe. Despite the fact that I drank an entire pot of coffee earlier today (which made me anxious and jittery) I decided to sneak away to my heaven on earth. There are a few places that I must visit every time I’m in Seattle; Easy St Records and the Q Cafe. Done and done.

Today I invested in this Jeff Buckley CD/DVD set:

That mocha in the picture is now inside of me, in case you were wondering.

Today there were raindrops on my windshield, which is the only context I find okay to listen to Jeff Buckley. I really can’t wait to watch this DVD. For as much as I love Jeff Buckley, I have never seen video of him. There’s something different about knowing the way someone’s mouth moves when they sing or if they keep their eyes open or closed that provides a new level of intimacy.

When Jeff was alive, he collected keys. Once I read that, I started keeping every key I could.. in some weird way it makes me feel like he is still alive.

It’s weird when musicians die.

Ray Charles is one of my favorite musicians. When the movie Ray came out, I was living in Seattle and drove to Portland to see the movie with my dad, who first introduced me to Ray’s music and took me to see him in concert a few years prior. I sobbed through the entire movie, and an elderly couple asked my dad if I was okay. My dad replied “yes, she just misses Ray Charles a lot.” A confused look spread across their faces and they asked “Did she know him?” and he said “no, but she loved him very much.”

Ray Charles dead is as much a part of my life as Ray Charles alive was. Jeff Buckley died a good ten years before I ever heard of him. Michael Jackson died, and I am confused by my sadness.

Jeff Buckley died in a river. He spread his arms out, walked into a river, and was taken away. His body was found a few days later (on May 30th, 1997.. my 12th birthday) down river. No drugs, no drunkenness.. just a brilliant person with a strange desire to do something. Sometimes I relate. There are days when I take my glasses off, leave my house with no coat on, and walk around in the rain, feeling alive. Some days I take long walks around the lake at camp without my shoes on. And other days I lay with my head hanging upside down over the edge of my bed, watching raindrops fall up my window, listening to Jeff Buckley.

ps sneezes smell weird, anyone else agree?