i would’ve posted the fourth and hopefully final installment of the “birthing pains” series, to tell you how my employment situation is panning out, but i got thrown a curveball and i dunno if i should swing or not.
i did send out my support letter, which i will most likely end up posting here, too (but i’ll probably not send that as an email when i do because most of you have already gotten it).
for those of you who have tried to give online; try again in a few days, my account just needs to be reactivated. thanks!!!
talked to jeff goins on the phone for a good spell while the rest of the world and their mom held their breath waiting for lebron james to announce his decision. i have to shamelessly plug jeff’s listening skills: he’s good. our phone conversation:
him: “how are you doing, personally?”
me: “well, um, [blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda] and like, i think it’s like [yadda yadda yadda], um, and i imagine, [blah blah]. . . you know? [yadda yadda blah blah] i dunno if that makes sense”
him: “no, that makes sense. so what i hear you saying is [insert concise, articulate, better, summary of what i tried to say]”
me: “exactly.”
as you can guess, i’m not good at the phone. it’s hard for me to know when to stop and start talking if i can’t see the person’s face, so i tend to cut people short and not let them get a word in because i miss my cue to pause. so even more kudos to jeff for understanding what i say. my strength is definitely in the written word; i’ll leave the spoken stuff to stars like rusty jackson and lindsay heston.
i had resolved to send more snail mail. so far, i’ve sent a postcard and a card. i will be mailing a hard copy of my support letter and had bought a card and some seeds from monticello from my 4th of july weekend that i was gonna send to my mom but i seemed to have misplaced that package. i hope it’s one of the drawers in my desk at work (in Jesus’s name).
that got me thinking about photos. i’ve a few framed and sitting on various surfaces in my room – the shelf, my desk – but they’re a bit older. i need to start printing out more recent photos and hanging them all over my white walls. back in high school i spent money on getting film developed. i need to take advantage of snapfish’s 99 prints for 99 cents offers or something like that. there’s just something nice about being able to hold a photo instead of just staring at my laptop screen.
so after i was talking with jeff, i wandered over to the world race page and started blog stalking, i mean, reading blogs of fellow racers, and it dawned on me. this is my job. i mean, right now i’m in a kind of limbo, but for all intents and purposes, this is part of my job: to read and share stories. there are a lot of racers each with lots of stories to tell and somebody’s gotta disseminate them. inherent in the word mobilization is the idea of movement. and to get y’all to move i gotta keep track of how we are moving along with God in the world. not easy but simple. i’m getting “paid” to read blogs; a few years ago, it was how i escaped from the monotony of what i was doing in order to get paid. i am liking this facet of this new paradigm shift in my career. . .
while i am still making the kind of money i do, should i plunk down the money to go mac? they say i won’t go back, once i do. so far my gateway laptop has done me good – even on windows vista (haha, i guess i know for sure that this thing is anointed) – these past two-three years. but i hear macs are kinda like honda accords in terms of longevity. and it seems like most of the marketing team is apple – even if by iphone.
speaking of which, the smartphone switch – i toyed with the idea of getting one, even a simple blackberry. but that’s another $30 to my phone bill, which i did not budget. and giving someone like me, a facebook news feed fiend and the one person on her team who actually enjoyed blogging, a device that gives me access to those social media literally at my fingertips. . . sounds kinda like enabling an addiction. maybe. i dunno.
am going to dress up as a cow for chick-fil-a’s cow appreciation day at the prompting of my friend ariel, who, unlike the disney mermaid heroine of the same name, loves to eat seafood. even though a week ago, they were giving away their spicy chicken sandwiches for free sans costume requirement. i do enjoy an arnold palmer from there . . . should be fun. since i’ve been on the world race there’s little that will surprise me, like a late night request to use my shower (that’s what friends are for). or a spider that crawled on my shoulder then almost went up my nose two nights ago. i think that same spider went on to build a web by my window sill last night. i would’ve killed it but was told that i shouldn’t kill spiders because they eat flies, which i suppose are more annoying between the two.
and with that, good night!
