sweet

To whomever threw peanut butter on my car tonight:

Awesome, thank you. No, really. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Seriously.

Love,
Mara.

what you may or may not have been waiting for

This is a bowl.

A bowl I found at a garage sale.

A bowl I subsequently purchased for 50 cents.

A bowl that happens to include my favorite of color schemes.

A bowl that made me be all, MAYBE I SHOULD START A BLOG TO SHARE THE GLORY AND SPLENDOR OF THIS BOWL.

A bowl that singlehandedly ensured my happiness for the rest of my days.

A bowl that sits atop my desk smiling down on me as if to say, "I will hold your chapstick, extra bobby pins, and a love for you that will never die."

in Jesus' name, amen.

i'm so happy that i amma

so I just got done doing this recruitment thing where I get to help the incoming freshman go through recruitment and pick houses and thereby lifelong sisters. I felt pretty ambivalent about it the whole week. because it's so sweet that friendships are so easy with other women in the Greek system (NO, NOT BECAUSE WE BUY OUR FRIENDS) but because we have this huge aspect of our lives that we have in common, even if we are completely different. but on the other hand, I have gotten a lot of crap in the past because of the sorority stereotype, and I feel like recruitment is a week where it is true. and I didn't know if I really could justify being in that kind of lifestyle.

BUT [sorry to all of you who thought I was going to be all, YOU'RE RIGHT, SORORITY LIFE SUCKS AND HOW CAN I DO THAT AND I AM SO MUCH LESS COOL THAN YOU] at the end of the week, while the girls in my group serenaded me with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" because I held their very DESTINIES in the purple envelopes in my hand, I think I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't ever wish it any other way. the system really DOES end up working out for the best and, after only a week, girls find a perfect home away from home.

it was very wonderful and I feel very blessed to have been able to do it.

also I got to drive fifteen passenger vans around campus and HOW HILARIOUS IS THAT MENTAL IMAGE?!

Dear Manhattan,

Third time is so a charm.

love you baby,
mara

flames and smoke climbed out of every window

Want to hear something so trippy? Think about a year ago today-- what you were doing, who you were with, what you planned for the future, yadda yadda yadda.



If you were to sit me down a year ago, on August 11, 2007, and ask me to write down where the coming year would take me, approximately 95% of what I wrote down would now be proven TOTALLY INACCURATE. The things I hoped for, my friends, my relationships, my career path, my expectations, my passions. The many issues God's response to which has been all, GOTCHYA.

Sometimes I wish we could pick what life lessons we get to learn when. Like a big heaping help of this, but NOT THIS PLEASE NO. But it doesn't work like that. I have a sneaky suspicion that it's all to make us the kind of people we're supposed to be. But when have you ever known me to be someone who rejoices in the power of logic?

love, mara.

like ten thousand spoons, when all you need is a knife

Fact: If my life were a movie-- and let's be clear, it totally could be-- it would be a SMASH. It would make you weep, laugh, weep, laugh, all in the opening credits. Do you ever experience those crazy nights, and you're just basking in the absurdity of it all, but then you say, "this could be so much worse. Such and such could have happened." That such and such? That is where my 90% of my life is spent. I live in Painfully Ironicland.

I drop my phone in Wal-Mart at 103 and Metcalf. I get to Houlihan's with my friends at 119 and Nall and I'm all, OOPS. I go back to Wal-Mart, calling my phone from my friend's the whole way. No answer, but I finally get a text. Then this stimulating conversation happened via text message:

?: Do u no this fone is at walmart? i found it.
me: I'm on my way to come get it! Thanks!
?: i'm at hm
me: uh, home? can I come get it? where is your house? [WHO FINDS A PHONE AND THINKS IT IS OKAY TO TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE?! WHY DIDN'T YOU LEAVE IT AT WAL-MART?! WHY DID YOU RUIN MY LIFE?!]
?: dont no, i'm from out of town. ur lucky im nice cuz u have a badass phone
me: [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] can you tell me your address or something?
?: im staying at la quinta hotel

So I ask the guy from Wal-Mart where it is, and he's all, I-35 and 95th. So off I go to meet with this [EXTREMELY SKETCHY] character. I get there, I go to where the person said, and they're all, where are you? and I'm all, at the front where are you? and they're all, at the front.

People. I had gone. to the wrong. La Quinta.

So I ask the front desk guy: How the [expletive] do you get to the [expletive] other La Quinta? And off I go, back to 103 and Metcalf. I search this intersection for what seems like YEARS before I find it. Then I finally get my phone from She Who Could Have Been Rapist But Is Actually Just Sassy. A two-hour ordeal.

Two.

Hours.

It's one of those stories that, somewhere down the line, will be really funny, but at the time you can do nothing else except the classic weepndrive, an action I have, by this point, thanks to my ironic life, mastered. Comma, comma, comma.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece


Something very scary is happening in the world where this kind of stuff happens. I know that life is unfair sometimes, and bad things happen to undeserving people, but it's this kind of thing that threatens to just completely drag you under.

indicative of my life

today I took a road trip to Manhattan with my friend Adrienne to move her stuff in. It was probably the most spontaneous thing I've done in a while [ever]. It was lots of fun. We played at her house and then stopped by Radina's (the only true love I know) then came back to Kansas City. We pull into my driveway to find that, what? WHAT?

I had left. my purse. at Radina's. in Manhattan. two hours away.

So I have to leave my house in like 5 hours to drive back and thereby increase my carbon footprint by like 243%. NEEDLESSLY.

and I say all this because, this would totally happen to me. and maybe so someone can get some joy out of my frequent misfortune.

poignancy

I have been listening to this a lot, because it is beautiful. [Yes, I know that it's not a video really, but ALL THE BETTER FOR MULTITASKING, my dear Internet. Wicked accurate portrayal of life with little to no interruption to your everyday routine.]



Sincerely yours,
Mara.

Dear Sedatives, I want to kiss you right on the mouth.

...because what kind of friend would I be if I deprived you of all this beauty and splendor?



Upon waking up after the Great Sedation Episode of 2008:
me: what's in my mouth?
Kristen: hi! it's gauze!
me: can I take it out?
K: HA! NO!
me: what's in my mouth?
k: still gauze.
me: I hate it.
k: I know.
me: what's in my mouth? can I take it out?