Starin' down the Stars

Starin' down the stars,
Jealous of the moon,
You wish you could fly.
But you're stayin' where you are,
'Cause there's nothin' you can do,
When you're too scared to try.

I got to the point of utterly overwhelmed this evening, and stretched out on my porch to just stare at the stars for a while. Between jobs and cars and goals and dreams and life and love and all such things, my life is hardly what I thought it would be six months after graduating from college.

I have been carless for three weeks now. That MUST change tomorrow, as my family's gracious loan of their spare car ends Monday. Fortunately, I have been shopping around, and tomorrow is merely the finalizing of a purchase. I can't get the car I really want/need (a cute, boring little sedan) and have to get a little sporty number instead because (ironically) it's the only thing I can get financed.

I'm mostly unemployed currently. I do not regret quitting the newspaper, but my income is now half what it was because I'm just teaching--enough to get by, but not enough to improve my circumstances. (And not enough to get my flute repaired, which it desperately needs right now.)

My professors never told me it would be this hard. My family must have at some point, but I didn't retain it. I feel like every time I begin to make a little progress in my life, something comes along and pulls the rug out from under me.

But then tonight I looked at the stars. Really looked at them for the first time in a long time. And I thought that if God could not only create the stars but keep them in their place in the sky, then He could clearly take care of me and my sometimes messy existence.

It also made me think that if He took the trouble to adorn the sky in such fashion, then He must have some pity for a flutist and a writer who just wants to give a little fleeting beauty to the world...

Why I Love Moleskines

The proud owner of a moleskine for a couple months now, I had to share what this notebook has done to me.

It's turned me into "that" girl. The one who's frequently a little lost in thought, a little distracted from the conversation, who's processing things on a different level. The one forever whipping out her sleek black book to record some great line she heard or some trivial thought that hit her. The one who doodles aimlessly but amusedly.

This notebook has gotten me drawing again. I loved art as a kid but was discouraged from it by art teachers who thought I had no "talent" (my early flute teachers had the same attitude--thank God I didn't listen to them!). Now I've decided that it really doesn't matter if I'm a fabulous artist; what matters is that I'm creating things. I love the feel of ink across moleksine pages! I will write/draw about anything, just to have an excuse to enjoy how beautifully the lines flow. It is a glorious thing.

I have essay ideas, silly little drawings that make sense to no one but me, short stories that are half fiction, half real-life, little snippets of conversation, one-sentence synopses of life, and so on. There would be melodies of the random songs waiting to be written if I had a better inner ear and could write things without having to hear them first...

So yes, I was a skeptic when Eddie James and Linny Jane and an entire community on the internet sang the praises of this leather-bound gem, but I have been converted. ;)

So far removed!

Can anybody get me up to speed on the latest about the universal indult I'm hearing whispers of?