hey hey we're the monkeys

I lean on them. I keep them up at night. I talk to them about the same things over and over. They know my fears, my quirks, my clumsiness, and my procrastination. They hold me accountable, ask me the hard questions, and force me to grow. They love me, they make me laugh, they speak my language. They hug me. They put up with me. They believe in me. This semester, I've needed them more than ever. I need you still. I love you-- Nicole and Julie.

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."
~C. S. Lewis



"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing."
~Elie Wiesel



"Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shall drink it with pleasure."
~Apocrypha

fifty things

Every Wednesday at work I sit down and visit my friends' blogs. Today, on Vernon's blog, I found this list of questions, with my name listed under "5 people you want to do this." I usually don't do stuff like this, but it turned out that it was really good for me right now. Thanks, Vernon.

5 Things I Plan to Do Before I Die:
have a true servant heart
live in another country
publish a novel or book of essays
sell goods made by my own hands
jump out of a plane

5 Things I Can Do:
write
make people smile
decorate
surprise you
procrastinate

5 Things I Can't Do:
play sports
stay angry
play guitar
my homework on time
make it through the day without lying once

5 Things that Attract Me to the Opposite Sex:
a servant heart
wisdom (or desire for it)
long, deep conversations
one who will work hard enough to see the real me
musical/art/writing talents

5 Things I Say Most Often:
"I love you"
"how are ya?"
"...not gonna lie"
"dang"
"Oh yeah!..." (because I forgot...)

5 Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:
American Beauty
The Princess Bride
Shakespeare in Love
Notting Hill
What Dreams May Come
(disclaimer: I have a bizarre ability and
inclination to watch dvd's over and over)

5 Movies I Still Want to Watch All the Way Through:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Moulin Rouge
Interview with a Vampire
Lord of the Rings trilogy
Romeo and Juliet
(I was confused by this question (not gonna lie), so I decided
to share the movies that others say they only need to see once,
but that I still love to watch in their entirety)

5 Celebrity Crushes:
Donald Miller (author)
Johnny Depp
Mark Ruffalo
Viggo Mortensen (only as Aragorn)
Katie Holmes (yes, I have a girl-crush)

5 Books I Want to Read Soon:
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (need to finish)
Girl Meets God: A Memoir by Lauren F. Winner
To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

5 People I Want to Do This:
Moo
Bart
Mom
Julz
Nicole P.

from my autographed edition

"You would think some writers of the Bible would have gone to a Christian writers seminar to learn the magical formulas about how to dangle a carrot in front of a rabbit, but they didn't. Instead, the writers of the Bible tell a lot of stories and account for a lot of history and write down a lot poems and recite a great deal of boring numbers and then conclude with various creepy hallucinations that, in some mysterious way, explain the future, in which, apparently, we all slip into Dungeons and Dragons outfits and fight the giant frog people. I forget how it goes exactly, and I mean no disrespect. But because it is so scatterbrained, and has virtually no charts and graphs, I am quite surprised the Bible sells. Perhaps it's those lovely and colorful maps, which puzzles me because they aren't even current."

-Don Miller "Searching for God Knows What"