"Reaching a fever pitch and bringin' me out the dark…"

Dear Moozh, I love it when you quote Scent of a Woman. "Get yourself up, get yourself clean."

Watching the Academy Awards and all I can think is: Helen Mirren is the bomb.

I'm also thinking: why are actors so boring?! James Franco: the dude looks good in a dress. Anne Hathaway: legs that reach to the sky and ballsier pipes than I expected. Add the two together: Easily one of the most groaningly boring telecasts I've seen in a LONG time.

But it wasn't just them.

Pretty much all of the presenters were just vapid. Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Jackman, Scartlett Johanssen. Blah. Everyone who presented looked around like they wished they were somewhere else. And what's Matthew McConaughy doing at the Oscars? And then Billy Crystal came out and people gave him a standing O. Goes to show ya...

I was so tense my muscles spasmed watching Kirk Douglas present the award for supporting actress. And then the award holder dude almost broke him in half! Kirk Douglas is a national relic. You would probably go to jail.

Cate Blanchett is always awesome. Even the people that introduce her do it by saying, "Cate M*** F***** Blanchett."

But then Natalie Portman won. And the whole night was worth it. Cutest baby mama evar. Resplendent in her pregger belly!

Thank god for the pvr function when it comes to award shows.

"I hoped you see my face and that you would be reminded that for me, it isn't over."

I have told myself before, sat myself down and talked sternly to myself: you need to proofread. You're not going to have any friends if you write like James Joyce in Ulysses. It's okay to understand to understand where the predicate falls in a prepositional phrase. You can still be cool and know that. I'm sure Eddie Vedder and Helen Mirren know that too. See it's okay. Just DON'T EVER let it happen again.

You have just witnessed an excerpt from a familiar conversation between me and the voices in my head.
And can I get a high five for getting Eddie Vedder and Helen Mirren in the same sentence? So here's to more intentional editing.

Adele is like my lullaby. When I was falling asleep last night, I was hearing her songs. I woke up at 3:30am this morning and she was stuck in my head. I could hear her over the music on my iPod this morning during my run. BUT IT'S NOT AN OBSESSION.

I have just divulged things that I am thinking maybe should have been kept private…

Anyways, March is looking like it's gonna be a hefty month. I spent eight hours (EIGHT HOURS!) straight staring at my computer screen writing a new piece for my portfolio. There is dedication and pure will of focus and then there is being completely oblivious to the world around you. Matt came out of the bedroom at one point and said, "I can't stay in there any longer." And the first thought I had was, "Oh yeah. You're here too." Then my second thought was, "Maybe writing is not the optimal career for you because you are braindead. Sincerely, Me."
*When Matt and I both work from home, because our apartment is the size of Harry Potter's bedroom, one of us has to stay in the bedroom and the other person gets the main room. And if our apartment is the size of Harry Potter's bedroom, our bedroom is the size of a cutlery drawer. Matt had been in there for around four hours.*
So Resolution Number One: Share.

The application deadline to the Creative Writing Department is in 27 days! Woweee. I am borderline disturbed. I pace in our kitchen sometimes (which is three steps in each direction) when I think too hard about it. We're all good though and I know that if I don't get in the Lord has something better. I'm hoping to figure that out soon because a tight chest is no fun.

Moozh and I watched How to Train Your Dragon last night. I love psychological thrillers and foreign films, you know GROWN UP movies. But I will take a well done animated movie any day. The movie made me really want a cat actually. Something about the dragon reminded me of a cat. And made me want to be a viking.

We also watched Toy Story 3 and Black Swan last weekend after I got back. Toy Story 3 - Bril-eye-ant. Black Swan - If she doesn't win the Oscar I will be aggravated. Natalie Portman is uh to the mazing in that movie. And she is an adorable baby mama during awards season so I really just want her to win because she is so damn endearing.

Linkies:
- I want to make a clock out of something. I've even seen some cases where people just mount the clock hands on the wall. I also wanted little apothecary bottles like these. Restoration Hardware has some but I just don't know whether I'm willing to refinance my home to buy them. I don't even have a house to refinance.
- Handmade rings are duh best.
- Um. Cutest picture ever. 
- How cool is this picture!!
- I want this for our wall. Also, check out PosterText. I looooove (and want) the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea print. Something about them makes me think they would be so cool in a nursery. They look light grey in the thumbnails but apparently when they ship they are a sharp black.
- I am putting this in my dreambook.

Go listen to a song that makes you dance like Carlton from the Fresh Prince. I'm going to. And it won't be Adele. Although Rolling in the Deep makes me dance in slow motion.

"I work in the dead of night, when the roads are quiet and no one is around…."

Whew.

I am back from the land of the free and the home of the brave. I am currently eating airplane cookies (crumbly Biscoff -soooo good) that I found in the jacket of my pocket today on the bus. I was saving them on purpose. Really.

Saturday kicked me in the ass pretty much. I got in Vancouver at ten at night which according to my research meant I had been upright and operational for 22 hours straight. For a university student, not really a big deal. For a total weenie, a big ass deal. Moozh picked me up at the airport (with a car! *sigh) and then  I proceeded to (and he can verify this) cried for two hours straight. He got me home and he had pulled out my ugly comfy pajamas instead of the sexy chilly ones and made the bed and had white wine chilling in the fridge and all of the things that convince me that he is my soul mate. I had a love letter and a bubble bath waiting for me. And I was still crying. It was a combination of missing my Moozh like mad and jet lag but it was hefty. Ladies, as you can see I am someone who understands what can happen when tears get feeling independent but when your Moozh has done all of these things and you are still crying, do your man a solid and either 1) GET YOURSELF TOGETHER! or 2) explain to him what is going on because it is coming across so NOT how you want it to. And come up with something good.

So now I am officially detoxing. We were really very responsible eaters while we were away, lots of salad with a day where I ate an entire bag of Munchie Mix and baked my skin to a crisp. But I'm pretty sure I should get a 'star contributor' pin from Heineken and Barefoot wineries. I did figure out that the key to avoiding a hangover was simply to stay drunk.

I read the tiger (much of it aloud) and that book is the BOMB. This are the main points that I gleaned from the book: tigers are scary, Russians are crazy and never go to the bathroom without your bathroom buddy. John Vaillant is a genius and I am willing him to cross my path so I can make him sign my…notebook. In case you couldn't tell, ENDORSEMENT ENDORSEMENT ENDORSEMENT. If you have 300 pages worth of free time, read that book. And buy it. It's worth it.

I did not meet Cinderella and I did not see a Manatee. In fact, according to my sister there are a lot of Russians in Florida and I didn't even see any of them!

I got to hang out with the lovely ladies of the Porcheron Love Connection and have unstructured hang out time that we haven't had in years. We got Ariesmell's wedding dress and Cami's birthday present. Before we left for Florida I got to hang out with my Dad and Re-Re and then on the trip back I got to hang out with mah Dempseys which was so fun. The Dempseys made Taco Salad for dinner which in my opinion deserved being mentioned. (And it is absolutely capitalized. It is my favourite meal -I am cheap fun I kid you not.) And I got to see Sarah's ring in person! Boom!

Being back in the scariness of school was a realization a bit too soon. Russian midterm on Friday and three group projects on the go. THREE! I should have put on my application that was something I was really not ready to do. And then at the end of March, all of four weeks away, I submit my portfolio to the Creative Writing Dept. Rah! And I am okay with that now.

Have soup for dinner tonight. Eat it on the couch with your Moozh (or Moozhka) with a grilled cheese and watch a movie. Matt and I watched Toy Story 3 on the weekend. I always cry in Pixar movies and now I think I have a permanent lump in my throat. Like a goitre.

Happy Tuesday!

"Don'cha put it in yer mouth..."

This is a rather jumbled post really only because I don't have anything rather interesting to say. But I miss it here.

I, for the first time, in my second-language education I learned how to say something that I actually do on a daily basis. Ya plavaiyoo v bassenyeh pyat raza v nedeloo, which means "I swim at the pool five times a week." So basically I'm fluent. I'm pretty sure that at this point if I ever died in Russia I would only be able to say Hello", ask someone what kind of music they listen to.

Tomorra is the foo'ball champyanships. I got all excited to cheer for a team that was the first to lose in the playoffs and while I'm not complaining, by virtue of my complete ignorance, I'm kind of bummed. But this means I get to cheer for the winner so I'm alright with that. I'm pulling a wife tomorrow and I'm mostly excited about the food that we'll be having. We're making chili (with a suitable vegetarian substitute) and CORN BREAD. I could eat everything from caviar to breakfast cereal on corn bread. I LOVE it. Maybe I should just embrace my inherent Mennonite-ness and make it a three meals a day thing.

Last night with some of our favorite people, we watched Max and Mary, which to all appearances looked like a super adorable claymation movie about two misfits that make friends. In truth it was (*Spoiler alert*) the story of two misfits that make friends with all of the most oppressive things in life attached. Max essentially eats himself to death and dies alone because he has Asbergers and can't handle being in contact with people. Mary is a genius with no friends that publishes her thesis on Asbergers only to be dumped by Max, the 50+ year old dude she has written to since she was in elementary school and has never met. There is a moment in the film where she downs a handful of valium with cooking sherry and then the camera pan to a transparent but rather spirited zygote wriggling in her uterus. Totally adorable and simultaneously so bizarre. At one point, Max writes to Mary and tells her about his favourite words.

My favourite words are:
1) inkpot
2) tickling
3) syllogism
4) ointment
5) Kookla (which is Russian for doll)
That is one thing that I prize poetry for is that it is so auditory, it is meant to be heard.

Dear Moozh,
Ever since you reorganized our closet, it looks so much bigger. It makes me want to stand in it.
Dear Dr. Dempsey
Thank you for getting me out of my head sometimes (like getting me to go to bed without brushing my teeth).  I love you more than food blogs and moccasins.

Wows, this trailers looks pretty. I don't know if the movie is gonna be all that great but the visuals alone will get me to see it.

I think that DeviantArt is rivalling Flickr for one of my favourite picture repository. I this this picture is magical.

There's this epic commercial on Food Network for a show called Restaurant Makeover and it has a quote in that I think is my favourite. "I come in and f***ing stomp on people!'

Here's to blog pandemonium. Happy Saturday!

Christmouse!

Casa del Dempsey has that Christmas feeling now. The garlands and boughs of holly went up last night. The first gift I ever bought Matt was a set of two HUGE Christmas baubles when I worked at Ikea. They are easily three times the size of any other decorations on our tree but our place looks so sweet now.

We finished all of our Christmas shopping this which illustrates an impressive amount of forethought on our part. It turned COLD this weekend. Dumped a huge load Friday night which made everything look magical and made every driver on the road lose their mind. That also turned out to be the day that we were helping Scott and Jo move into their new place. Fun times.

I love this commercial. I remember seeing it on when I was maybe in Junior High. Stevie Wonder and India Arie make for beautiful Christmas music. But when you watch that clip wait until the third part of the commercial. The cutest little black girl does a hilarious dance in red velvet and a white dude has his Christmas mantle timed just perfect. It is so cute you'll want to die. Love it.

One of my favourite Christmas movies is easily White Christmas. They just needed an excuse for a whole bunch of musical numbers unrelated to a plot line. They had "White Christmas" and "Count Your Blessings" kickin' around and the rest is history. Vera Ellen's legs will make you faint but my favourite scene is the one below. Reminds of my Dad when he's relaxed. The goofiness, I mean, not the cross dressing. Though he does like that too.

What's your favourite Christmas movie? Are you going to shoot your eye out? Or are you kickin' it with Oogie Boogie?

Happy Christmahannakwanzadan!

I can tell you mine, I can tell you mine, I can tell you lies

What is our capacity to be changed? And what seeps into the cracks of our synapses to facilitate that change? What is the Trojan Horse of our heart? I know for me it is music. I can hear something over and over again; I can be trying to memorize something or wrestling through an idea. Put it to music and that's all it takes.

Matt and I watched a movie the other night, on the recommendation of the Schantzs, called The Kingdom. Scott was talking about the very last scene in that film where the four FBI agents are talking about their project in Saudi Arabia. One of their comrades was killed and Jamie Foxx says, "I told her don't worry. We're going to kill them all." It was a very striking scene in the film put to a kick ass song by Explosions in the Sky. It calls to mind something very profound about justice. Justice is something very amorphous though. It can be seen as vengeful or motivated out of anger and how do we as believers encounter that. How do I reconcile the fact that if someone harmed my husband, I would hunt them down and beat them to death. How do we change our path, a path that is shaped by our history. How do we exonerate those motivated out of hate towards us, while still being authentic. I don't believe that God would ever condone blood thirst but the God I believe in, you don't have to read much through the Old Testament to see a God of consequence. How do you forgive? How do you live in a world where so many people are motivated our of hate, where it is instilled in them from so early in their journey.

Norm threw it down this morning. We're moving through Acts right now (which I am mega pumped about. I LOVE Acts) but this series is going to take us 22 months. Which is a long time. January of 2012 we'll be thinking about something new. Early in Acts, the Holy Spirit is talked about a lot. The Holy Spirit has always been this entity to me that I didn't have anything to associate it with. I knew God. I knew Christ. I knew the Holy Spirit was kick ass and I knew it was important, I just didn't know why. I'm finding it now. The more I dive into the Word, the more I own it. I've always felt it but I feel like it's mine now. We have the BEST community around us right now. Scott and Jo are SO great. But on Sunday, Norm was talking about the Holy Spirit and what it means to be changed by it. You have Salvation by being changed by the Holy Spirit, by it dwelling in you. The 'Spirit gives you utterance', it gives you a new language to speak in, a new mission. Norm asked, "Why would the Holy Spirit dwell in you and make that change if you don't want to be part of the change." It's a valid question but at the same time there are numerous examples of Christ being part of our lives when we don't deserve. Sarah had something on her fb the other day about "Mercy is something we get that we unfortunately deserve. Grace is something we do not deserve." Christ entered into this whole bowl of shit for us. With us in mind. Knowing that and choosing that (actively wanting it) is where the change happens.

~P.S: Oh yeah and today I almost dropped my wedding band down the drain. Not good.

The birds and bees are our disease contracted collectively...

I addicted to crazy information. Documentaries have to be my favorite movies right now. And the trend seems to prove, not uplifting documentaries. BUT because I know this entry will kind of get off the rails pretty quick, this look holy smokes adorable. And so wonderful!

My fiction teacher was saying today that in the past twenty or so years, fiction and fiction reading has declined. It's not only the onset of 'screens', like televisions and computer screens. Many studies have looked into this and one of the theories is that is has been since 9/11. It comes out of fixation, like a car accident. It's the thought that there are so many horrific, real and far more tangible things happening in the 'real world', why would I need a

book, a piece of fiction to take me to a place of fixation, to capture my attention. Non fiction has risen in popularity as fiction has declined. It's interesting because a lot of the people I know, when things get cruddy, they want to escape. They find the most entrancing kind of fiction, that will temporarily relieve them of their preoccupation with something they can't ignore. And I am part of that trend. Film, books, magazines, blogs. I am interested in the people interacting with this world as I am. It's the feeling that we are not alone in the big, magnanimous cruddiness. We are not alone in witnessing suffering, in desiring change and in seeking fulfillment.

Umm...Blab.

Anyhoo, the most recent residents of my dvd player were Captalism: A Love Story and Addicted to Plastic. I remember seeing Addicted to Plastic on the shelf in Blockbuster and feeling depressed already. And so my husband, feeling the same voyeuristic masochism as me, brought it home. After I had spent six straight hours immersed in a renaissance literature essay. It's the end of semester, aka Boob Tube Rescue.

Ever since the huge BPA-scare when I was in high school, I have forever eyed plastic of any recyclable and otherwise distinguishable variety with a severe sense of paranoia. I silently consign myself to a slow death every time I heat anything in plastic and I can't use our microwave anymore. I should also add a disclaimer to this diatribe that I am a self-identified obsessive personality. (Which is kind of like saying I am a self-identified hypochondriac but at least it's self-identified). So needless to say this Addicted to Plastic movie made me feel nervous. I found this movie to be slightly more feel-good than a lot of other movies, like say The World According to Monsanto which was like a dash through court cases and autopsy reports with tin-foil hats. AtP made an effort to identify the truly pervasive problem that plastic poses to the environment, wildlife, food sources and humans but it spent equally as much time on what was being done about it. Did you know that Denmark has a recycling turnout of over 90%? Did you know that Canada and the US combined only recycle on 5% of their recyclable waste? That's really stupid. And did you know that we ship/sell our recyclable waste overseas so that impoverished and overpopulated countries like India can deal with it? Excuuuuse me?

Despite my tirade, this is a great movie and I found it largely unbiased.

UNLIIIIKE...Michael Moore! Capitalism: A Love Story was classic Moore. Matt actually wrote a hilarious post on his blog about the movie. The movie is not really about Capitalism at all. It's about corruption, the corruption of banks, wall street and government. But it is not about Capitalism. Moore is an obvious proponent of Socialism but using the film as proof, he doesn't seem to acknowledge Socialism as equally susceptible to corruption. Matt is on this Milton Friedman kick lately. He has a tab on his computer that links to clip after clip of Friedman debating other people in defense of the American Capitalist system. Now I am not a capitalism-can-do-no-wrong kind of person. I think it's a flawed system just like everything else because it relies on humans, who are inherently flawed. But Friedman makes a good point. Moore goes so far in his movie as to interview bishops and priests as to their opinions of capitalism and for them to denounce it as sinful. It's a wonder most people look at Christians as fanatical kooks.

What I think both of these films bring up, however, is that as residents of this earth, we have this expectation that our systems and our world should be able to function and continue regardless of what we do to them, and they should do it flawless and without consequence. We want to be able to check out so that we can 'fulfill all of our desires for our life'. Which makes me think of that part in Wall-E when we see all of the humans on the ship hundreds of years in the future. I don't want to be like that. Doesn't seem fun at all actually.

On a fun note! *Because blogs like this always need fun notes. Tomorrow is Good Friday!

She's almost here... :)

Food Anxiety

Second day, second try of juice fasting.

I hate being cold. I hate how when you deprive yourself of solid food you get cold. But fasting has taken on a new meaning in my life. I remember when I deprived myself of food for too long in an effort to please myself and the impossible standards I had absorbed into my mind. It is still a standard, as consistently as I reason myself out of it and as irrational as I know it is, I still butt up against it on nearly a daily basis. I remember the shaky hands, the chills that swallowed up my fingers and the tip of my nose, the feelings that I'm experiencing right now.

But in this space, I am turning my gaze upwards, and into myself. It's not just a gaze that grazes the top of me and criticizes. It is one that permeates my heart, a heart that I have long mistreated, finding the weaknesses and sins within it and looking to the only authority of eternal meaning in my life. It is a reflection, an apology for what I have failed to do and what I don't want to do though I know it is good for me. I get the whole you take out food as nourishment in your life and replace it with nourishment from spending time in prayer and in the word. But this is my 'a-ha' moment where I realize that in doing this I am not supposed to forget my hunger or look to prayer to fill that sensation but I am only experiencing now how a bond with prayer and the word can put you so at peace that the peace you are experiencing becomes your purpose, and your focus. What I have said is convoluted but it's amazing how many times I have taken part in this and that this never occurred to me, it never made sense to me. Anyways, I am full of yummy bolthouse juice and I am loving my husband, who is doing it too. We're reading through The Purpose Driven Life because, I mean, I think we're the only Christians on the planet who haven't. But yesterdays entry was 'It's not about you'. He's very adamant that you only read one chapter a day and really think about it. At first, I was thinking, 'I won't end up thinking about it if I have a whole day'. But I actually have. In all of the aspects of our lives that we make it about us. At work, when I'm frustrated and I make the point about me being frustrated. Simple, little silly stuff like that.

"And now we're all here in God's presence, ready to listen to whatever the Master put in your heart to tell us."

Acts 10: 33

Oh yeah and I basically can't enter a grocery store without having an embolism anymore. Matt and I watched The Cove, which is about Dolphin treatment within the whaling industry and the treatment and 'harvest' of Dolphins for shows like SeaWorld and aquariums. It's...so gross. We watched Food Inc a couple of weeks ago and ever since I can't eat anything with corn in it...without thinking Monsanto is coming to get me! Skippy peanut butter is forever ruined for me. We also have this other rental called, Flow: For the Love of Water, which is about the global water crisis. I'm afraid to watch it because...I need water to live. It's making think about my food and grocery choices far more carefully but it's also making me paranoid about food. I have 'tin foil hat' tendencies within me anyway so to compound that with factual information (though undoubtedly biased of course) send me into a tail spin. We all need to be educated about stuff like that: where our food comes from, how it was grown, etc. And what it'll do to our bodies. Did you know your body can't fully digest corn because the chemical makeup of the corn is too close to that of a human cell? It's because our generation has 1% more corn in our genetics that our parents. Because it's in peanut butter, batteries, juice. It is fed to what feeds us. Where cows ever meant to eat corn. No! Waaaaaah! Here I go, down the bunny hole....

On a decidedly different note, I had a dream the other night that Matt and I lived in a neighborhood called Show Business. How fun is that?

Away We Go

Can I just say that I love my husband more than I can rationally explain sometimes? And it's never even spurred upon by moments where he's really even trying that hard. It's when he'll kiss the back of my bedhead in the morning and hug me really tight when it's freaking early and I have to leave for school. Or that he likes it when I argue with him. When he spends time online looking for things that I might like or making weird food for me.

When I think of looking across my pillow at him, tomorrow...five years...thirty years from now, I totally cry. Every time. Because he is so much more than I ever imagined, he is so much more than I ever could have deserved had God not been all over this from the beginning. He loves me knowing all of who I am, all of my po

tential (for better and for worse). And I love him, desperately and furiously, knowing all of his.

Oh my, this is the sweetest, greatest movie I have seen in a long while. And the fact is that I passed it on numerous occasions on a movie store stroll. I so desperately wanted it to be a fun movie because it has wonderfully fun people in it (Alison Janney is my favorite...favorite?), but there are some disappointing movies out there that really display themselves to be funnier than they are. Like Adventureland.

But wow. I am at a similarly pivotal point in my life as the people in the movie but there were numerous times where Matt and I looked at each other and smiled, "I really like this movie". They have an uncommon love and it's it their own. They complement each other and while they have their 'things', they are grounded by their love. There is a point where Verona is listening to the heartbeat on her fetoscope and she is concerned about the baby's low heartbeat. Burt dives into that with her and throughout the rest of the movie, Burt forgets about all else (including any social inhibitions) and tries to get the baby's heart beat up. There is this point where Burt and Verona are laying on a trampoline talking about what they want for their daughter.

Burt: Do you promise to let our daughter be fat or skinny or any weight at all? Because we want her to be happy no matter what? Being obsessed with weight is just too cliche for our daughter?

Verona: I do. And do you promise that when she talks, you'll listen? Like really listen, especially when she's scared? And that her fights will be your fights?

Matt will hug me and rub my belly and talk about how he it's one of his favorite things about me because our children will grow there. He talks about how he wants his daughters to know that they are captivating and that they are princesses. But to know that they can and will fail.

We are still looking for our home. We will wander and we will find where the Lord will have us and the community he will have for us. I can't freakin' wait.

And in 22 days, my best friend arrives for mucho funness. Eee-yes!

Bri