I'm gonna be famous.

I got this from one of the staff blogs at my church. I created a CD cover for a new album for my new band based on this random formula. The name of my band is "AJ Suggs" The Album is called "Be Better Than Yourself" and this is the CD cover:













Random CD Cover Rules:

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

It's a party. You're not invited.

Streak was inspired by his wife to write a post about who he'd host for his fantasy dinner party. What a great idea. However, all of Streak's guests seem to be living, and I couldn't decide whether to make my party in this life or the next, and it just didn't seem right to mix. So, I would have two parties--one of this world, and one of the next.

My living dinner party:

1.) Carol Gilligan-feminist, ethicist, and psychologist who has been influential in my own thinking. In my imagination she'd keep us all honest, vulnerable, and engaged. I hope she also has spectacular taste in wine, but that's my fantasy.

2.) Keith Olbermann-He's crazy intelligent, has a catalog memory only rivaled by my husband, and would give hubs someone to talk to when he got bored of all the psychology talk. Oh, and if there were a freak accident and my husband spontaneously combusted during dinner, leaving me suddenly widowed, I wouldn't object to a little romance with Keith. (Just ignore those pesky rumors that he's gay.)

3.) Like Streak, I would also invite Anne Lamott. Her writings have been influential to my own bridging of the gap between my faith and art and themes of freedom. Plus, I think that she'd be a spectacular dinner guest, and just a lot of good fun.

4.) Tony Campolo, yet another whole person who would be authentic and genuine, but not afraid to engage, argue, and commiserate. I so admire his work that integrates Evangelical faith with sociology (my first academic love affair).

5.)Karin and Linford from Over the Rhine. These soulful artists who live on a farm named Nowhere, drink wine, and sing songs about "sexy cocktail hour stubble" and "soothsayers," and making a song the president would be spectacular dinner guests. I don't think I could fully enjoy the dinner company of these two without also inviting the McCarty's and their daughter Harper. Every dinner party needs at least one child, and if you're going to have a kid around, she might as well come with some of my favorite people from the blogosphere whom I hope to one day meet. Heck, we gotta invite Streak and his wife, too. Just to make it all complete. I also would like to invite Derek Webb. His music's intersection of faith, social justice, and the political indicate a deep, complicated, faith, but he seems a bit of an introvert so we may have to ply him with a bit of wine before he opens up and performs with Karin and Linford for us.

6.) Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Francis. His recent memoirs, his works of fiction, and his non fiction books on art and faith have been instrumental in my own faith development. Plus, I'd like to meet anyone who will admit to deserving a nickname like "the little shit from Switzerland," helping found the religious right and regretting it, and who can write in what seems such an honest and healthy way about his family and his history.

I envision a tipsy Derek, angry Olbermann and impassioned Campolo arguing while Anne Lamott grills Franky over the sins of his family while praising Jesus between fbombs. In the meantime, Karin and Linford have broken out the guitar, Harper has drawn us all pictures of the Yellow Brick Road, Kristen is attending to Tony's somewhat elevated blood pressure that is making him dizzy while giving her opinions to Gilligan about how Christianity isn't inherently patriarchal, while Micah calls Wendell Berry on the phone to tell him he's gotta get over here, and Streak and the husband keep reminding us all of that annoying thing called historical context. ;)

As for my other worldly dinner party:

1.) Pope Gregory the Great, one of the first brilliant minds of pastoral care. I think he'd have a lot to talk about if I asked the right questions.

2.) My maternal Great Grandfather. He made millions in the textile business and lost by caring for and trusting others too much. He's the only man my mother ever mentions being formative to her life, and everyone who ever met him seems to remember him fondly. I never got that privilege. I'd throw my hard living, train hoboing, hitchiking Great Uncle Dub in here, too.

3.)Madeline L' Engle. I could spend the entire evening just talking about her character Meg Murray and what I can learn about being a woman of faith from that one fictional character alone.

4.)Chaim Potok, great Jewish writer. His writings are some of the best fiction I've ever read, and he seems to understand faith in a way that eludes me.

5.)Jesus. Isn't this one obvious? Why the heck not, if given the opportunity.

6.) A round robin of women from the Bible. Esther, Jael, Rahab, Mary, Elizabeth, etc. etc. I want to hear their story and their experience as told by them, outside of the patriarchal context of the Scriptures.

If you bring some good wine and some good food, I just might invite you, too.

Of memes and (wo)men...

I was tagged in this meme (twice in fact...here and here), so here goes. But first, the rules:

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.


Ah, 8 random facts or habits about me. I'm going to try to make these all new and not repeats of previous ones. If I get caught up in the enthusiasm, I might do 16 because I was tagged twice.

1.) I've been chased by angry goat-guarding dogs in Greece.
2.) I've scarily flown in a plane at midnight from Hungary to Athens, Greece in a thunderstorm.
3.) When I am absolutely bone tired, I snore. Loudly, and a lot. (My husband seems to think the solution to this is poking me awake, leading to further fatigue, and making conditions right for more snoring during my next occasion to rest.)
4.) I'm allergic to watermelon. In an upset stomach spend the evening in the bathroom kind of way.
6.) I currently desire 4 things: to finish school, own a home, have a dog, and to have a baby. And those four things are some of the only reasons I can seem to make myself study for written comps.
5.) I'm not a details person (see above omission of #5, and its insertion here).
7.) I want to own a restored historic home (leaning toward craftsmen style).
8.) I have an unnatural love for apes, primates, and the like. I could watch them for hours at the zoo.

Okay, that's all I have in me. I don't tag people, really. I just don't feel I post enough these days to warrant it. If you want to, consider yourself tagged.

Absentee Blogger

Hi, everyone. I've become the slum lord of the blogger world. I just slap up a blog and leave it to dilapidate. Shame on me. But, if it makes you feel better, since we last talked I have:

--Finished up Spring classes
--Completed my 11 required psych assessments
--Completed one Summer class, including 4 quizzes and a autobiography paper
--Visited my family back home, and come back not angry or frustrated (HUGE DEAL!)
--Two drafts of the lit review for my dissertation
--Done all the prep work for workshop I'm leading in Hungary on working with teens.
--Taken 2 bio bases exams
--Cleaned out 2 closets (I gave away enough for 2 other wardrobes...shameful)
--Selected the 18 sites where I will apply for internship and put all that info into an excel worksheet (it's bigger than it sounds)
--Requested permission to use various measures for my dissertation
--Done all my shopping for said trip to Hungary
--More I can't remember.

Now, none of you care about any of that, but it makes me feel less anxious to write all of that down. So deal with it.

Sarah tagged me forever ago to write 7 weird or odd habits or facts or what have you, that I do regularly. I'm weird, but my weirdness seems normal to me, so this is kinda hard.

1.) I sleep with a stuffed gorilla named Alice. I've had her since my 14th birthday, and I've always slept with her. She's my body pillow more than a transitional object.

2.) I am the internet guru among my friends. When I didn't email my friends with any interesting links or fun stuff on the internet for a few days one busy week, I got an inbox full of emails asking if I was okay. It's that bad.

3.) I always set clocks ahead. Usually by 7 minutes. For some reason it makes me feel like I have more time.

4.)When I was a kid, I always had a crush on Bob Barker. I think if we got married, I'd get all those prizes. And the plinko board. I'm actually a little sad he's retiring. I always thought I'd get to go on The Price is Right with Bob someday.

5.)I'd wear my Chaco's everyday if it weren't socially unacceptable in some settings.

6.)I have hair on the back of my hands. I don't like it, so I have this love hate relationship with loving myself and leaving it and sneakily shaving it off in the shower.

7.)Before I go overseas, there's always a little part of me that is utterly, 100% convinced that I'm going to die.


So there you go folks, I'm one weird lady.

My Life Story

Life Soundtrack
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

*Updated to correct the omission of the "Getting Back Together" section that occured previously.*

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie

I got this from Lorinda.

Opening Credits:
a) Everything to Everyone—Everclear
b) Fool for You–Nicole Nordeman

Waking Up
a) Inches from Life–MxPx (Wow, a song all about our tendency to avoid real life and its feelings).
b) Pregnant Sound Clip–Brak: The Space Ghost Soundtrack (This better not be a cruel foreshadowing)

First day at High School:
a) Cowboy Take Me Away–Dixie Chicks
b) Your Song-Elton John (Eh, high school was pretty awesome for me..)

Falling in Love:
a) One of These Days–FFH (falling in love with Jesus maybe?)
b) Hymn to the Last Generation–Larry Norman (why are all my love songs about dying, annihilation, or going to heaven?)

Fight Song:
a) Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV–George Carlin (This is so perfect…)
b) Strange Things are Happening-Fern Jones


Breaking Up:
a) All The Small Things–Blink 182
b) Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring–Bach

Prom:
a) Take My Life –Third Day
b) Down on the Corner–Creedence Clearwater Revival

Life:
a) I like Big Butts–Sir Mix A Lot (Seriously, does this have to be my life’s theme?)
b) Pontiac Cadillac–Mustard (A song about fried chicken, classic cars and broken relationships..great!)

Mental Breakdown:
a) The River-Garth Brooks (Ah, my country stage, I was close to a mental breakdown at 13. )
b) Reader’s Digest–Larry Norman


Driving:
a) Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door–Bob Dylan and Tom Petty (Remind me not to drive recklessly.)
b) Praise Song-Third Day (Interesting….)

Flashback:
a) The Littlest Birds–The Be Good Tanyas (Great flashback song! I love it!)
b) Light the Fire-Breakaway (Not the type of Christian music I’d like to flashback to…)

Getting Back Together:
a) Barely Breathing-Duncan Sheik (hmm..fitting)
b) Another One Bites the Dust-Queen(I never did think getting back together was a good idea.)

Wedding:
a) Knox 5000-Mustard (Well, it did feel like a big race that I don’t really remember)
b) Hangin’ Around-Counting Crows

Birth of Child:
a) Responsibility–MxPx (Ha ha ha….ha ha…rofl…)
b)We Are The Champions–Queen


Final Battle:
a) Time of our Lives–Green Day (hmm, fitting)
b) Roly Poly–Mustard (A song about bugs and roaches in the ashtray..interesting?)

Death Scene:
a)A Doodlin’ Song-Peggy Lee (A song about noodlin’ with a doodlin’ song . . .)
b) In the Light-DC Talk (Walk toward the light..)

Funeral Song:
a) Let’s Make Love-Tim McGraw and Faith Hill (What’s up with sex songs and my death?)
b) I, Grover–Sesame Street (My life’s accomplishment: Putting my shoes on the right feet and getting my own cereal..wonderful).

End Credits:
a) Alive–POD (I’m dead but I feel alive…)
b) Lord, I Lift Your Name on High–WOW Worship (I hope the praises in heaven are better than this…)

It's not you, it's me...

Really. You haven't done anything wrong. I just needed some space. And you, my friend the Internets, aren't the only one feeling my neglect. I'm avoiding real live people, too. And my dissertation, my comprehensive exams, that scholarship application, and so on and so forth. About the only person I haven't been avoiding is that guy in the bed next to me, and my clients. And I'd avoid my clients if my supervisor would let me...

I'm about to embark on what will be the busiest year of my academic career. Because I'm on an accelerated plan, my program is condensed from 4 years to 3 years, plus one year of internship. That means in the next 12 months, I'm on this insane roller coaster ride that is graduate school on speed. Practical and written comps, internship and clerkship apps, dissertation proposal defense, data collection, the list goes on and on.

But, lest I be all doom and gloom, I really do love my life right now. I'm doing exciting things. I'm spending more time with fewer people, friends and colleagues whom are dear to me. I feel hopeful about the future, and tolerant of the insanity of the coming months because of what it signifies...the climax of one of the hills on the journey of my life. The evidence of God's provision is all around me in the relationships, opportunities, and even the hard and rough areas in my life.

So, I'll be around. But, I probably won't have much to say. I hope most of you come 'round from time to time. (Read as: Don't leave me! I promise I'll have interesting things to say in time, and I will come back!)

In the spirit of the joyous nature of the Christmas break I am about to experience, I have been tagged by the Wonder from Down Under, Liz. Let us commence with convivality:

Six Things Nobody Particularly Wants to Know About the Person Who May or May Not Be Responsible for This Blog

1) I sleep with a stuffed gorilla named Alice. Shut. Up.
2) I grind my teeth at night, so I wear this ugly night guard thing to bed. Shut. Up.
3) I'm allergic watermelon. Clear the way to the toilet!
4) I eat cottage cheese with...potato chips! Yum!
5) For many, many years, I wanted to be a primatologist. You know, like Jane Goodall. I still love chimps, bonobos, gorillas, organgutans.
6) I think red heads are sexy. That's why I married one (kinda).