I came home from the grocery store the other day with a giant box of frozen waffles.

I neglected to remember that "toaster oven" is on the list of things that disappeared from the apartment when Elizabeth moved back to South Carolina.

Frozen waffles, anyone?

There are some things money just can't buy...

Tent pants: $88
Mr. Rogers vest: $88
Flimsy white tank: $52
Having the time to make fun of clothes you would never buy: priceless










Then again, ringing in at a whopping $16, this outfit ain't much better.

Feelin' hot hot hot

Gah, did I mention it's hot here? It's at least 50% of any conversation. Anytime there's a pause, someone will interject a new story about what they're doing to cope. I have to sleep naked with no covers and a fan blowing at my face (probably overshare, sorry... at least it's a timely month not to have a roommate). I have actually started thinking that I shouldn't bother going to Ikea to replacing the missing furniture in my apartment until October, because I can hardly stand to be here, much less follow directions in Swedish and assemble things with little allen wrenches and crawl around looking for missing screws. For now, the AC cools a little 5x5 corner of the living room, where I have moved my chair and bed, and no more furniture will fit there anyway.

I was up until 2am reading The Kite Runner last night, unable to put it down until my eyelids insisted. I read all 400 pages in two days. I'm about to start Atonement, by Ian McEwan, which has the bonus feature of actually being an assigned book for Narrative Therapy class so I can smarmily feel like I'm doing something productive.

Anyway, I know this is a thrilling post... the real truth about life this week is that I'm just moody a lot, feeling useless after a month of having no schedule and minimal commitments... and if I try to write about anything other than the weather, it's going to come out all sad and wrong. So, I know things are going to get better as I get into the routine of practicum next week and until then.... did I mention it's hot here?? :):)

More church musings -- this time with puppets!

I went back to the little Episcopal church today. Again, no anonymity (by now, I was not looking for it)... midway through the service - after the singing of happy birthday to a 91-year-old woman in the back and before communion - the priest (same one from last wednesday) said, "No pressure, but if anyone here is new, and wants to say a few words about themselves, ahem, JULIE, they would be more than welcome." Then, jokingly, he offered a door prize to anyone who brings a man to church at the 10:15 service, because it is made up of mostly middle-aged and elderly women. Afterwards, we adjourned to coffee and birthday cake in the parish hall, which apparently has been rented out to an organization called COPA - the Conservatory of Puppetry Arts... so the place is filled with marionettes and strange monster-type puppets. The funny thing is that I didn't really even notice that it seemed odd decoration for a parish hall until I saw the movie posters for Team America.

I have this strange thing going on... in some ways it's a love/hate relationship with church, but even in the ways I feel alienated from it now, I still crave it, it still calms me down. Even when I sit in church and recite liturgies that I question, and wonder how much of my faith is cultural and how much is "real," for lack of a better word (though it begs the question, can any faith, even "real" faith, be extracted from its culture?), I would rather go than stay home. Maybe it's because even though I'm realizing that on some level, we all ultimately worship God "as we understand him," church, for me, is still the place where I know how to do that. And so I go, almost as an offering -- an admission that I want to know God, and even though I'm confused about it all right now I'm going to trust that it's not my job to figure it out so in the meantime I'll keep showing up.