long – Page 17 – The only certainty is bad grammar

how do you capture that?

Published: March 23, 2009 / Updated: March 26, 2009 Crystal humor, long, medium, sh*tty things that happen to me

taken while driving. do not try this at home.

im a bit obsessed with sunsets.

like pull out my camera from my purse, which is sitting on the passenger seat, while driving home, because the sunset is THAT amazing and i NEED to shoot a picture right this second like a crazy person on one of those “what not to do” auto insurance commercials. (note to geico: ya. that’s, umm. not true. i’ve NEVER done that. ever).

and i should confess, this is not the first time i’ve acted like an insane person out of my love for the perfect shot of the perfect sunset.

just last week i was driving along with my little sister monica to get groceries and a movie from Family Video, when I noted that the beams of light coming from the sun were just a little too awesome and the way the colors had lit of the sky were just a little too fantastic and vision of oranges and reds were just a little spectacular to pass up.

So i drove the poor girl like five miles out of town to a corn field, trying to find a good spot to capture the sight without buildings in the way. And then i pulled over and walked down half a block so i could get an angle that included a little weed because i wanted to frame the sun with plant life.

i left the poor girl in the car while i did this. and let’s just say she was in there for about 7 solid minutes before embarrassment ensued and she decided to successfully lure me back to the car by shouting that i had a text message.

i was super excited to show her my prize-worthy pictures, figuring i could use the opportunity to explain to her that it’s important to take time out and enjoy natural beauty like sunsets. i gasped as i flipped through them and beamed as i started my car toward town.

but im sure i did not capture the sunset’s beauty with my camera that night. because despite my armature plant-framing techniques, it is just REALLY hard get awesomeness like that in a photograph.

something about it just doesn’t capture.

that’s how i feel when i try to explain to people how much i really love my sister.

when i try to tell them that she’s amazing, and perfect and kind of like the 9-year-old self i wish i had been.

how when she and i talk, i feel like we share a brain. and how i can look over to her with a thought in my eyes and she can understand it. thoughts like “let’s change the channel” or “life is not ok. let’s fix it.”

how i had prayed for a sister since i was a wee one, and the 15-year wait it took for me to get her was totally worth it.

how i think she’s going to grow up to be a rock star, or a doctor, or president, because she can so totally be whatever she decides. and im not exaggerating one bit.

how she’s finally getting to the point where i can talk to her like an equal. and how actually, i’ve always talked to her like an equal because i knew she’d grab hold of my conversations and remember every, single, thing i said.

how i’d literally untie my shoes, take them off, and then remove my socks, so i could plant my bare feet on hot coals and proceed to walk across them for miles if she needed me to. and how when i pray for her every night i beg Jesus with my heart to watch out for her, and protect her, and to let her be as happy as possible as often as possible.

how i didn’t really know there was a love like this until i met her. such pure, complete love.

i often wonder how — be it in writing, or in conversations or in photographs — i could possibly ever explain that love to people. how i could possibly ever capture its essence.

but i’ve come to realize that it’s like a sunset. it just has to be experienced.

does this mean i can finally ask penelope trunk to connect on LinkedIn without looking crazy? / lessons in marketing

Published: March 3, 2009 / Updated: March 3, 2009 Crystal humor, im cool, long

holy mocha do people have some strong emotions about starbucks.

i sit around thinking about my blog all day long, trying to come up with clever ways to spin my tales, and it ends up being the post i write in six and a half minutes about starbucks needing to grow up and get free wifi that garners attention.

ok. let me back up a second. see, because im addicted to online networking (see here) and because i have an unhealthy fascination with Penelope Trunk, i joined brazen careerist a while ago, which aside from having the great honor of being THE hardest url to spell in all the world, also connects you to people. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to connect you to potential employers, but I don’t really understand that. so instead, i use it to spread my blog around the globe ( aka, give a full rss feed of my work to the site for free in hopes that maybe, someday, three people will click over to my actual blog).

i was under the impression that my posts disappeared into oblivion and that it was just another failed attempt to get the word out about how awesome i am, but alas, the folks at brazen careerist had other plans. yesterday, they randomly decided to feature my post about starbucks on the home page.

i was so happy that i took a screen shot and saved it to my desktop. but then. THEN, people started to explain to me how much of an idiot i was. Here’s a link to the starbucks post on brazen careerist, where you can view the comments in their entirety. don’t get me wrong, i pretty much think im an idiot all the time. but it was weird to have random peopled deciding that they thought i was stupid enough that they MUST, in an effort to save humankind itself, take the time express their disgust in my decisions so that maybe, hopefully, i will one day fix my evil ways and CHANGE!

don’t fret. for those of you too lazy to click over, i have decided to include a couple of the comments below:

so… you’re complaining because “free stuff” isn’t perfectly convenient and because *you* didn’t bother to take the time to read up the fine print? oh wait… didn’t those people who signed up for sub-prime mortgages do the same thing?

wow. that man just compared me to people who got bad mortgages. for the record, my credit is so far beyond repair that i really don’t think it’s fair to the people who could qualify for ANY kind of mortgage to be compared to me.

AND

Is it just me, or did this entire post just seem like an internet tantrum?

nope. not just you. that’s exactly what it was. i had NO freaking idea it was going to be a featured post on brazen careerist. if i had, i a. would have capitalized at least a FEW of the words, and b. would have presented less of a tantrum and more of a coherent argument.

AND (from the same commenter who said it was a tantrum)

Starbucks is not required to uphold your ridiculous fantasy of what the overly-trendy-yet-still-totally-“unique” coffee shop chain SHOULD be. They’re a business, as others above me have said, and are going to try to make as much money as possible. I’ve never heard it said that Starbucks offered free wifi, and why should they?

to be fair, a majority of the commenters seemed to sympathize with my plight:

Starbucks always had this arrangement. However, I agree with you that it is super annoying. Ever other coffee shop and restaurant on the planet is starting to offer free wi-fi, I don’t know why Starbucks thinks they are any more special.

AND

“It’s not a fun time.” Haha, at least their employees are empathetic. Don’t worry, I did this exact same thing one day last summer.

anywho, i have a learned a few things from this experience. A. all my posts should have the word starbucks in the title, just in case featured posts are chosen based on a list of pre-determined words. B. i need to start back linking like a crazy person in case this happens again. that way people will find it easy to read my other work. c. in the online world, what sticks and what doesn’t has nothing to do with talent, and everything to do with how controversial your topic is.

and for those interested, i have taken my coffee business elsewhere. to a lovely, magical place where the wifi is ALWAYS free, the soup comes in bowls made from BREAD! and there’s plenty of booths to spread out on. that’s right, i have become a super loyal panera bread patron.

relatively small problems

Published: February 7, 2009 / Updated: February 7, 2009 Crystal long

my aunt and uncle sent me some money in the mail today, which obviously proves God exists.

let me sum up how broke i am — I’ve been telling people I had $12 to last until Friday, Feb. 13 because I figured if i told people that i only had $2.33 – which is what i DID have – even MORE people would tell me to leave journalism. and i do not need ANY more people to tell me that im on a sinking ship. and i guess part of it was my own fault, because you know, i like to pay my rent, my car payment and eat, so i suppose i did “blow” my money on those things.

irregardless, i was pretty worried about having just $2.33, seeing as how there was a mighty good chance i would need to drive to work and back for the next five days and what not, and gas isn’t free. my plan was to live on generic Cheetos and the rest of the chocolate chip cookies i bought that tasted like cardboard with fake chocolate chips in them and tap water for the next six days and hope that a 1/2 tank of gas would last the week. and after a good cry in my car and then another in my bedroom closet i pulled myself together and proceeded to fake that i had everything under control with a strong sigh.

i had kind of figured id be in this position seeing as how the bills are the most reliable things in my life, but that didn’t stop me from writing another $5 check to God last week at church. and i was semi-considering writing a $1 check tomorrow, but was worried that having a bank account balance of $1.33 was a little on the risky side. after i spent my saturday morning weighing the pros and cons of this, i decided i was STARVING enough to each another generic Cheeto, and went downstairs to the kitchen. on the way, i looked through the mail so i could see all my lovely medical bills.

and there it was.

in all it’s golden-envelope glory. the letter from my aunt and uncle was just sitting there on the dining room table, like it wasn’t the MOST amazing thing to happen to me in the last five months. and inside was enough cash to get me through my week. the sight of it sucked my breath right out of my lungs and out the window. and my eyes teared up because i was so moved, and relieved, and grateful to my aunt and uncle, and happy, and it felt like God had come down through my ceiling and pulled 18 pounds off my shoulders.

and sometimes i do doubt that God will have the time to deal with my relatively small problems. alas, he did though. he came through. and i was so happy.

i remember another time i knew god existed. it was when my friend april was arrested on the side of highway somewhere in the middle of the 7,692 cornfields that make up southern Illinois. she had unknowingly been driving without a license because a few months prior she was driving some teen-age boy’s car and got pulled over and the teen-age boy didn’t have insurance. and even though a judge told her everything was cleared up, due to a clerical error her license was suspended after the incident. only nobody told her, so here she was driving all over southern illinois illegally for months.

and she had almost been pulled over a few weeks before that amongst those same cornfields because she was going like 20 miles per hour over the limit on her way to a very important place. but, just before she would have sped past the cop hidden around a corner, someone pulled in front of her and slowed her down to legal speeds. thereby avoiding the time it would have taken for her to be arrested.

see, we were on our way to my brother’s house because he had threatened to kill himself that night. and neither of us had much experience with suicide, but we were pretty freaked out and decided this was one of those times it was better to be safe than to risk death and whatnot.

and when we got there, my brother had already taken WAY more boxes of cold medicine than any stores should even carry, much less allow one person to walk out with. ( in the stores’ defense, i believe my brother stole the medicine. but STILL). and so, shortly after we got there and saw my brother’s eyes glazed over, we realized he was not so much alert as he was slowly fading away. and we called 911 so medical professionals could save his life — which they did. thank. GOD.

and i really do believe that if that cop had pulled her over on the way there, we would have been late for the only thing in my entire life that i have actually needed to be on time for.

and i also really do believe that God was the reason she didn’t get pulled over. and maybe it was even Him in that car in front of us that slowed us down, so that april wouldn’t be arrested and instead we could get to my brother on time. because even though i sometimes doubt that God has time to deal with my relatively small problems, he always comes through. and that makes me so happy.