Blog Facelift

p.s. I decided to give the blog a facelift. Since I'm the only one who uses it, I figure I should be in charge of executive decisions such as the title. (Never have been a fan of the name...sorry, Marc.)

We'll see if I post a little more often now, since the serene blue background is so utterly calming to my nerves.

My mother, the thrift store pirate

I am never able to visit my parents' house without coming away with a bag full of random stuff my mom has picked me up at the thrift store. Today was no exception; I received a white sweater and several books, including a never-used fitness journal (very excited about this).

My mom is a thrift store pirate. She says it is her gift, and this is true. Every Saturday, for as long as I can remember, my mother wakes up early and goes thrift store shopping. This is not a venture she takes lightly.

This is how I learned to thrift store shop:

Since the thrift store opens at 8:00, you should be there at 7:45 a.m. You get out of your car and wait by the door, sometimes in a line, as though some sort of Black-Friday frenzy is about to begin at the local Goodwill. When the doors open, you grab a cart and head to wherever the "hottest" items are going to be, deduced using a complicated algorithm involving the season, local weather, family needs, and bare instinct.

At the racks, no decisions are made. Nope, it's best to grab every article of clothing that looks like it might be your size, or your color, or your style, and throw it in the cart. Imagine you are on a shopping spree, and everything you can get in the cart in the first 20 minutes is free. You don't take time to check whether all the buttons are intact or decide if green-and-white polka dot dresses are your style. You put it in the cart. If you succeed at this step, you should have a mountain of clothing overflowing out of your cart, possibly with random sleeves dragging on the floor. This will make you feel like a crazy person, who apparently needs 438 pounds of used clothing. You should get a few odd looks.

A half-hour in, once normal people are beginning to browse the racks, you've already snapped up the best stuff in the place. You've commandeered a corner near the dressing room. Since you've worn the thrift-store-pirate's uniform of a long skirt and a tank top, you don't need to wait in line for a dressing room. No, you pull on shirts and pants right there in the middle of the aisle, turning to check out your butt in the mirror. This is where you get critical. If it doesn't fit perfectly, it goes. If it has a stain or a rip or a missing button, it goes. If it isn't quite your style, after all, it goes. Instead of pretending you are on a shopping spree, now pretend you only have $25 to your name. If the item is slightly overpriced ($3.75 for a camisole???), it goes.

This technique is super-successful. I have a closet full of clothing upstairs that you would never guess was bought second-hand. I wear mostly Express, the Gap, and Anne Taylor. I even own Oscar de la Renta, which I received from my mother as a gift with the tags still on--a $200 outfit that I would've never bought new.

The only problem? I'm 26 years old, and my mother still buys most of my clothes for me.

Can't do that in the Middle East

Last night, My Man went on a date with a theme of "We can't do this in S.A." It was my first time in Denver since we got back. We walked 16th Street with our arms snaked around each other's waists. We bought Tex-Mex and licked the guacamole from our fingers. We drank wine in the Mercury Cafe, toasting legal alcohol. Piano music shook the ceiling over our heads. Beneath the strung lights, everything glowed: the wine glasses, the zebras painted on our table, my husband's face.

The plan was to enjoy "Open Mic Poetry Night." I've never been to one before, even though I majored in poetry.

The first guy up stood on stage. He donned white sneakers with enormous tongues protruding from beneath black pants. His black shirt was buttoned crooked. He introduced himself and solemnly put on a pair of sunglasses before announcing he would not be doing poetry, but stand-up comedy.

"The only thing as awkward as being on stage is being in the audience!" he exclaimed. (He never said anything; he exclaimed everything.) "Cuz it's awkward, right!? So awkward. You're thinking, man, this is awkward!

He was amusing in a way he totally didn't intend.

Other amusing acts:

--The guy with half a head of slicked-back hair, who stood up and yelled:

"Rock the mic! Rock the mic! I don't f*#@ around, and I don't waste your time!"

He then proceeded to waste our time with some terrible poetry (I don't even remember the topic--it was that bad), punctuated with comments like, "This ain't no Starbucks, motherf*#@ers."

--The girl who leaned into the mic, closed her eyes, and moaned a whole lot of things I never wanted to know about her boyfriend.

--The skinny guy with dreadlocks to his waist that gave a 1940's-radio-broadcast-style poem about the death of America. Coroner's report: too much greed, oil and corruption clogging the arteries. This guy definitely got the most applause from me.

Letter to my friend

Today, I spent several hours composing and typing a short e-mail to my Saudi friend. After I finished writing, I plugged the Arabic into Google translate to do a little spelling grammar check. Here's how Google translated that e-mail:

"Sadiqpi dear

Good day. How Halki? Fraser, tell you? All the daughters and your husband very willing, All
? A school Expire now
. Msteqlk many
Mark and I came back to America last week. We went to Spain first. Spain is very beautiful. Rod was purple, white, red, and yellow everywhere

. Lafraol ate better in my life. Hovena panel known

Now, I'm Mpsute that Shuf my family over the second. We talked and ate many

Unto Me and my mother will go and the city of Denver
The writer will betroth
I love this Kath
I was expressed

Sunday, my friend Ryan will marry
Aketbli when Tsttain
Tenet Thabn"

Uh-oh.

Is it safe?

We're back in the States and over jet-lag. And we've experienced our first week of trying to condense a 10-month experience into a 30-second sound byte that your average listener will absorb as we try to process through what happened to us over there. Usually I don't get to share about the things that mattered to me; usually I answer people's questions about living in the Middle East.

The three questions that we've been asked the most are:

1. Did you have to cover up all the time? No.

2. What did you eat over there? Same things I eat here.

3. Is it safe? {Confusion and blank looks.}

It's the third question that is, for me, by far the most interesting. Not because I have an interesting answer, but because the question itself reveals a lot about the nature of humankind.

Anyone who would ask the question "Is it safe?" is basically asserting that there are places you can go in the world that are "safe" and places that you can go that aren't. They believe that if you go to Afghanistan, for instance, it isn't "safe," but if you stay in the American suburbs, it is. Maybe this belief is partially to blame on the sensationalist media, which only covers news stories of the Middle East that involve death and destruction. I mean, I don't think they would probably be asking that question if I had moved to Germany, or something. (Katie K, correct me if I'm wrong.)

But I think the main reason people believe there are "safe" places and "unsafe" places is because people are addicted to control, and they like to believe they have some sort of say over when they die, and how.

If there are "safe" and "unsafe" places, it means that you can put yourself in the driver's seat of your own life. Be captain of your own destiny. Choose a "safe" place, and you can wake up, drive to work, shop for groceries, take your kids to the park, go to church: All in the snug security of your "safe" world. You rest assured that you will grow old with your spouse, retire with a nice pension, and die peacefully one day in your sleep, probably at the age of 92.

This is a big, fat lie.

Unless you're committing suicide, you have absolutely no say whatsoever about how you die, or when.

Living in America does not make you immune to death and destruction. Cancer can find you when you're four years old. Another driver can blindside and kill you when you're 16. You can go for a hike in the Grand Canyon without a map and die of heat exhaustion at 25. I don't care where you live, you have absolutely no guarantee that you will see next week.

What do you mean, "Is it safe?" Haven't you noticed? This world isn't a safe place to be, if you're definition of "safe" is "free from the possibility of death."

...And maybe I shouldn't be writing this, but to be honest, the thing that bothered me most about the question "Is it safe?" is that it came from the mouths of people who claim to be believers in an all-powerful, sovereign God.

When you put God in the equation, you still have no control over when and how you die, but there is someone who does.

Now, let me be clear: God never promises that you won't die an early death under His watch. (Uh, Jesus did not die in His sleep at 92.) In the hands of God, "safety" doesn't mean freedom from death and destruction. It means that even death and destruction can't take you out of the hands of God.

But people who claim faith in a sovereign God still believe that if they just live in the suburbs, if they eat right and work out, if they don't smoke or drink, if they stick to low-risk sports, if they avoid those "unsafe" places on the other side of the world, they will not have to die before they choose. Maybe they won't say it like that, but the question "Is it safe?" betrays them. It is a hands-down denial of God's sovereignty.

Paul writes that while the words "peace and safety" are still on people's lips, destruction comes for them and catches them, the way a thief will steal from the man who flaunts his cash on the subway. They get cancer; they crash the car; they get lost in the desert. They die young. Or they die old. But they all die, one after the other, and not one of us can stop it when it comes for us.

I only hope that when death comes for me, in 60 years or tomorrow, I am safe in the hands of God.