I'm in Chicago. Last night Bethany and I saw Rufus Wainwright. He put on a great concert. He has such a powerful voice.
Today we were extras in a movie that some grad student was making at Columbia. I had to sit with my brother in a coffee shop and pretend to drink cold expresso. It was pretty tedious, but visiting my brother was fun. Last night was a lot of fun because Ian had tons of people in his apt, all eating chocolate fondu and cookies. We horsed around and watched their movies. They all make movies, apparently. Intresting crowd...

Last night i came up with another pipedream: (That's what I call my future plans.)
Move somewhere cheap, like the South, and learn french from french classes. Spend the next three years in france. Move back to the US and learn German. Go to Germany. By the time I'm thirty, I could be quatrilingual! Is that the way you spell that?

Maybe I should just learn English first...

"Now it's over I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want
Or I'l still alive and there's nothing
I want to do"
~They Might Be Giants

"When it rains, it pours."
~Marcia

The Greatest Lie Ever Told:
You WILL be like God.

Why didn't someone tell Eve she was created in God's image? And she knew that what she was doing was wrong, because God told her it was wrong to do what she was doing. I guess she didn't understand the consequences.

"You have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge on human standards." ~Jesus

"shall we therefor continue to sin, that grace might abound all the more?"
~Paul

AH. Grace. Grace is better than innocence? I guess I'll never know. But isn't it like God, to take a disaster and make the situation better than it was going to be in the first place?

I just got a grasshopper from Frostproof, Florida.

I put this up as my away message earlier today:

"And so you see I've come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you"
P. Simon

I didn't know that it would define my day...

Today's American Drama lecture was very trying to my faith, and sent me home with lots of doubts. The professor noted that many theologists say that sin was the best thing that happened to God, because now he has people who choose to follow Him instead of innocent people who don't make choices. He said that Adam and Eve weren't "Good" because you can only be good if you choose to be, and without the fall, there was no choice. I rose my hand and asked "what about the tree? They had a choice about the tree." And he said, they couldn't be good, they could only obey God.

That was pretty disturbing to me. But then, after making some phone calls, first to my mother, then to my buddy/brother in Christ, Erik Thor, for a little faith uplifting. Both were very uplifting to talk to. Erik said something that made me laugh for the first time in 2 hours. (I had been in a good mood until lecture). I asked him, "How do I know God is in me?" and he said "because His spirit is you." I asked, "How do I know God's spirit is in me?" and he said, "because if He weren't in you, you would have just walked out of there with a notebook full of lecture notes. You're thinking about Him." And I laughed and he laughed and we had a good laugh together. Erik puts things so simply, with so much wit and truth. It's so good to have good friends.

With my mom, I related the stuff about Adam and Eve. And then I realised... Adam and Eve always DID have a choice to be good, the choice to obey is the choice to be good. Because obeying God is being good. What is obeying God? Loving Him and loving people. God's will for us is Good. Obeying Him (whether by loving people, forgiving people, or staying clear from sin) is being Good. So... HAH. There goes that argument. And there goes that doubt.

My mother reminded me that we can't read the Bible unless we have the spirit to guide us. You can't get to God with logic, you can't get to him with works. You can only get to Him with Jesus' spirit.

But the quote on the top, that was what happened today. The only truth I knew was Jesus, all the rest I doubted for about 20 mins. But God has restored my faith, outdone my doubt, and I am very grateful. I have a wonderful mother and a wonderful friend. God used them both today to keep me in His kingdom. :)

Haha, Bob Dylan. You are so funny.

"Love is just a four-letter word."

I wish I had listened to that on Valentines Day. There's always next year...

Last night I went to my Aunt Mary's, and my Uncle Fred had a band down in his recording studio. Heh, yeah, he has a recording studio in his basement. Anyway, Mary made me go down there and sing with them. Most of the songs I knew that they could play were Beatles songs and Paul Simon songs (which, to Lisa's amusement, they were amazed that I knew... "How do you know those old songs?" Remember the look on Peggy and Kevin's faces in Denver, when I mentioned that we were listening to the Who?) The Beatles and Simon are both pretty much too high for me (damn tenors), but we made a neat recording of In My Life.

I like singing with a band! Haha. I forgot to ask them if they knew any Janis Joplin. But I guess it's good, so now I can have a voice to talk this morning. Bobby McGee would have been fun. But my favorite song I sang was "Bring it on home to me," a blues song (Sam Cooke). It was so fun to sing the blues with a band, after listening to it for so long. They were really good, much better musicians than I am at just singing random songs. But after I got comfortable it got more fun. Hah, what a night. Too bad I didn't get much homework done...

I've been listening to India Arie again and she's really encouraged me this morning. Two songs that have spoken to me. Both have to do with moving forward, spiritually and mentally.

"Behind my pride there lives a me, that knows humility
Inside my voice there is a soul, and in my soul there is a voice
But I've been, too afraid to make a choice
'Cause I'm scared of the things that I might be missing
Running too fast to stop and listen

It's time to step out on faith, I've gotta show my faith
it's been illusive for so long but freedom is mine today
I've gotta step out on faith it's time to show my faith
Procrastination had me down but look what I have found"
~Strength Courage and Wisdom

And to compliment my urge to travel and keep moving:

"Please understand that it not that I don't care
But right know these walls are closing in on me
I love you more than I love life itself

But I need to find a place were I can breathe
I can breathe
I wanna go to place were I can hold the intangible
And let go of the pain with all my might

I wanna go to a place where I am suspended in ecstasy
Some where between dark and light
Where wrong becomes right"
~Beautiful

Yeah, a place where wrong becomes right. I'll probably have to die to find that one.

I'm working on my dramaturgy project and researching the Great Depression. You know how I say that Detroit is one bad decision after another? (Like getting rid of school buses, Cobo Hall along the River, Casinos...) Well, it's kind of encouraging to know that the idiots aren't just running the city, they're running the whole country. And they always have! The Great Depression is one bad decision after another. "What?" said the government, "five million people are unemployed? Let's make everything more expensive and raise taxes!"