$2 joys

It is a small store.  I've driven by it many times on my way to somewhere else, but today is the first day I stop by a little used book store on Miracle Mile across the street from the Japanese restaurant the college kids go to their freshmen year before they know where the better restaurants are. 

Three aisles of books in an order I don't quite figure out in the ten minutes I am there.  Regardless, there is a happiness in being there.  In being with books read and loved.  There is a freedom you can't get in a Barnes & Noble (I would say Border's but we know where that's going)...maybe it's because when you have to pay $15 for a book, you should be sure you love it already and even then you can't decide if you want to break the book in and read comfortably or protect the book and it's clean corners.  But when you pick up a book for $2 and it's already loved, it's okay.  Someone has loved the book so if you don't, you can pass it back to someone who will.  But if you do love it, it's yours to keep, it's one more little classic in the beginnings of what you hope will be a good library some day. 

Books. Oh, the joy of a book.  Of being lost in the pages, living in a world where you don't exist but you are watching everything.  Not knowing what will happen or if anything big will happen, or perhaps this is really just the narrative of a very normal life.  A good, normal book, with joys and pains and love and strife.  Pages after pages...

And so I sit for the first time in a long time, spending hours in a day reading.  It has been too long.  It feels so good.

Just a quarter

He made eye contact and approached me Saturday morning at the farmer's market.  A stereotypical homeless man, he had long, scraggly, dry hair; an overgrown beard, a beanie, and a face wrinkled and aged with dirt and faded, baggy clothes.  A lone Caucasian man at a high Asian-population market bustling with small families, he sticks out.

As usual, my heart jumps a beat or two at the approach of unfamiliarity, but with the people around I quickly reason that nothing could happen.  He asks for a quarter or something.  I'm in a good mood, so in a chipper tone I offer him a peach that I had just bought.

"I can't eat that, miss."

I feel dumb immediately.  After all, just last week I read an article that mentioned many people on the streets have bad teeth and therefore cannot eat an apple. Duh, Audrey, duh. Way to be considerate. Still, I bounce back quickly, offering to buy him food (as any one who has listened to a "how to love the poor" conversation seems to believe is the best thing to do).  He says no, no, just a quarter.  Then says thank you.

As is typical with my bouts with the homeless, my mind is flooded as I walk away.  Why did I just give a quarter, why not more?  Is it de-humanizing and taking his dignity to offer more? What does he really want with the quarter? Why don't I befriend him, ask him name, and pull a Jesus card--using a simple request as a quarter to probe for something deeper? 

And try as I might, I still feel ill-equipped in these situations. My brain calculates of all my interactions and ideals, but the man in front of me is still hungry and cannot eat a peach. He has 25 more cents than before I met him, but there has got be more to loving the poor than that, right?

I wonder:  If I add enough creamer to a cup of coffee, will it taste like a latte?

Sophomore year

December 10, 2007 

I think following God in college is so much more different than what I thought it was.  Not to say God isn't radical (because he is, and we don't recognize it enough), but that he's also practical.  He's real, he's every day, he's decisions, he's there.  And sometimes, following God is JUST THAT.  You don't always have to push hard, always have to chase him.  Sometimes, you just follow.  Passive.  Submissive.  Trusting.  "He maketh me lie down in green pastures.  He leadeth me besides still waters.  He restoreth my soul."  Slowly, letting him take control.  Letting go.  Releasing.  Relaxing.

Yikes

Are FD phone calls supposed to get easier?

Trying to balance between cultural appropriateness...when to make small talk, when to be direct...when to use formal titles, when to use first names...and praying for grace amid all the blunders!!

Darks and Whites

Darrell asks me why I still don't sort darks and whites when I do laundry, since I know you're supposed do.

I've been doing laundry for 15 years now, and my clothes have been fine.  Also, it's kinda a hassle.  I already juggle sorting "really dirty" and "can wear again" between my basket, pop up hamper, and the space on top of my shelf. 

Darrell tells me that, just as you use warm water to wash dishes, hot water makes your clothes cleaner.  But hot water makes colors run, so that's why you use it for whites.  And it's really important to get socks and underwear clean.

Well that just opens up all sorts of problems!  What if you have colored underwear and socks?  Do you wash those with the whites so they'll be cleaner (and run the risk of pink socks, which has happened even washing cold-cold in our family), or do you wash them with the darks? 

Darrell tells me he washes his black socks with darks.  And to my concern that I don't have enough white clothes to make even a small load, he says they don't have to be all white.  Grays work too.  Light colors.

But what about yellow?  I just got a cute new yellow tanktop.  But what if it turns all my socks yellow?  

I am just making excuses.  But it's hard to change the way you've been doing laundry after so long.  And it feels like this will complicate the whole system. 

But mostly, I'll admit that I just don't know what warm water will do to my clothes.  Cold-cold has been safe for fifteen years, but what if my clothes get warped and shrinked but stretched in hot water? 

Though I guess I don't wear a lot of whites, that's not a problem for all my colored shirts that are still being washed cold anyway.  

This is so complicated.

You mean your family doesn't do that?

Yesterday I came back from work, picked up the mail, and glanced over a KFC ad.  Now here's the thing about me and fast food:  I'm never proud of eating it, and I often feel guilty when I do, but sometimes, I crave its fatty unhealthiness and imagine it's gotta be the best tasting thing ever.  Yesterday was one of those days.  So I gave in and got a little three-piece meal (extra crispy, yesssssss) even though I probably could have been fine with two.  As I was guiltily eating my heart-attack-in-a-box, I remembered the first time I asked for ketchup when eating fried chicken and someone asked, "For what?"  

This instance is one of many from these past years...of discovering that just because your family does it one way, it doesn't mean everyone else does too!  Hence, today's feature:  Things I always thought were normal.

1.  Eating ketchup with fried chicken

2.  Using paper plates for breakfast (compared with everyone else who just uses it for parties and get-togethers)

3.  Using paper towels in the restroom (in our defense, public restrooms do this, but most homes use linen towels)

4.  Putting soup on our rice

5.  Not sorting whites and colors for laundry, unless we're using bleach

6.  Using kid-furniture in the living room--a red, yellow, and green Iris Mini-Chest.  It's so useful, why would we put it anywhere else?

7.  Leave stuffed animals on coffee tables, piano tops, and bookshelves as decoration.  Then again, this is kinda typical of Asian households.

8.  Having no concept of "breakfast food"--leftovers, spaghetti, ramen, rice...or toast, eggs, and cereal.  Anything goes!

I shall add to this list as things come to mind!