okay, new addition to the nameless writing project. I still haven't decided how I'd like to organize this whole fiasco so just bear with me..... There's a link to the right (my left, your right) called "writing project" (aptly named, no?) and clicking on that will bring you to the beginning. Beneath the text box you will find links to subsequent parts. I know, I know, my html ability is brilliant. I have more ability, I'm just too lazy to go get it.

Boys, close your eyes for a moment.

I'm PMSing.

Therefore, anything I say or do within 2 days of this moment can be disregarded. I am not responsible. Pepsi and chocolate?? Not a lapse of discipline, as I originally thought, but a necessary indulgence to prevent me from strangling the dog, or maybe even Clark!

So now I'm gonna watch a movie and then do some cleaning and maybe once I'm done my procrastinating, I'll get to work on adding to that prologue.

Later!

Write a Prisoner.

Interesting. I read about this in the newspaper and so decided to check out the site. The idea is, prisoners are lonely so maybe they could use a penpal. Some people think that prisoners don't deserve to have penpals, since they're criminals. Other people disagree. I see logic on both sides but I'm not it's worth arguing about.

I checked out some of the ads..... most of the men are innocent, and would like to correspond with anyone. Most of the women don't mention their crime and would like to have letter sex with men..... strangely enough. I would have expected those roles to be reversed. Anyways, this site has made for some interesting reading. I don't know if I'll write any of them. A couple individuals jumped out at me.

I'd be interested in your thoughts. Visit the site and look around. Let me know what you think.

Sure, it's only been a 4 day week.

But then the exhaustion I feel goes so far beyond my physical exertion. Ever since I woke up plotting my escape from the Cambodians, my dreams have been getting stranger, more chaotic, less comical and a little more......... threatening?? No not yet, not nightmares, but they're getting close, and I know every morning when I wake up that I haven't slept as well as I should have. Every morning, clutching my teddy bear. Feeling.... yes, threatened. Empy threats from something that can't hurt me.

But it robs me of rest.

And then there's that friend who has been heavy on my mind all week long. So heavy I can hardly carry it. I guess in some ways I still feel responsible for her. If I can only remember to take my thoughts and turn them into prayers..... If I only had the discipline that I know I need.

On that note, I bought myself some pepsi today and I think I may have a second can before this night is over. What it boils down to is...... I'm just so tired. So I tell myself I deserve it. As though somehow giving my body the junk it so desires will ease the frustration I feel in deeper places....

Underneath it all is that recurring desire to figure out what my life will become. So many of my friends seem to have figured that out. They've been busy pursuing their goals..... some of them are starting families. Some of them are working at jobs that they're meant to do. I, on the other hand, have no goals. Or I should say, my goals are unattainable. I don't know what I want, so I simply continue on the path of default.

The path of default isn't bad. It's acceptable, enjoyable, comfortable, but for that integral something that is missing..... that assurance that I am indeed headed in the right direction.

I have no answers for myself tonight. What I do have is pepsi. And chocolate. And Star Trek.

So pray for me. While these things are wonderful, they will only treat the symptoms.

I'm sorry.

I don't know how it happened.

I set the time right..... the same as the tv guide station, to the second. I checked am and pm...... I programmed the channels and times and triple checked them. I did everything right.

Your VCR hates me.

It's not like I didn't want to watch Friends, and CSI, and whatever else was on. It's not as though I forgot. It's not as though I didn't write it down in my notebook, right under "discover the meaning of life."

So I'm sorry. I tried. My sense of failure is overwhelming. I'm going to bed.

Happily, after returning the LCD monitor we were able to pick up my old monitor. So I'm happy. Here I am. Happy. With my monitor.

I've had a friend from Steinbach quite heavy on my mind...... all day, and yesterday..... it got so bad yesterday that I finally let myself into an empty suite and spent half an hour praying for her. Leighton asked me if the bear growls. Yes she does....... when she's praying for her friends. Strangely enough. Very protective, right here. A little quiet, a little passive aggressive...... normally very easy going......

But when I get that panicky feeling like something very twisted is attacking someone I love........ not a pretty headspace......

So half an hour pacing and growling and pleading with God on behalf of an individual who doesn't even seem to like me.

It's really strange...... we used to be so close..... like sisters...... only there was something so dysfunctional about it..... really codependent. I went away, and came back a different person, and it's like we haven't spoken since. When we see each other it's awkward.

I mean, how do you explain it to someone you used to spend every day with? How I want so much for her to be okay, but I don't want to get sucked back into that dysfunction, how I'm happy to be free of it.

"I love you, but I don't miss you."

I'll still pray. That's probably all I can do.

So we have 15 days to return the monitor.

Today is day 15. The monitor needs to go back today.

We still haven't gotten a phone call regarding the monitor that's getting fixed..... which we were told would be done in a week. It's been three weeks.

So I'm going offline again. It sucks so much. Customer service people, come on!!! Maybe if I walk in there with a gun to my head and scream "I WANT MY F***ING MONITOR RIGHT NOW OR ELSE I'LL BLOW MY HEAD OFF" maybe t hen I'll get some service. You think?

Of course, I won't do that. I'm non-confrontational by nature. Maybe I can convince Clark to.

And with that thought, I'm signing off. Pray for my monitor.

Goodbye.

I had my sister Chifunda over for the weekend, and since I love my sister more than life itself, this was pleasant.

We went to Value Village, where we came across a wheelchair......

You fill in the blanks. We didn't get kicked out. We did laugh.... hard.... to the point of tears.

Yesterday Chifunda and I picked up a couple friends of ours who are from Malaysia, and have been somewhat adopted into our family. Then the four of us drove down to Steinbach for thanksgiving dinner with my mom, stepdad, stepsister, her husband, grandmother, two uncles, and an honorary familyless twelve year old.

Our Malaysian sisters are actually cousins. They don't really resemble one another at all. But my grandma, or rather, my stepfather's mother, seemed to think they did. So she asked Joc "Are you two sisters?" to which Joc replied "No." Grandma persisted, "But you look so much alike!"

Joc and Kitbe looked at each other in horror, and the Joc said, "well we're both Asian. That's about the extent of it."

I felt a little uncomfortable, because I knew that was just it. Grandma didn't know many asians and so probably thought they all look the same. She's like 80 years old, you can't get down on her for being sheltered and somewhat..... ignorant..... but I've run into this before, where the emotions were running a little high, and at that moment I heard an old friend's voice responding to another friend, "what, because we're both black, now we look alike?"

So in true Leila form I decided to make a joke. I turned to Joc and said in my most shocked voice, "You're BOTH Asian?"

Joc turned to me with a blank look on her face, not having expected the joke, but quite used to my goofing off. As Chifunda cracked up laughing, I turned to Kitbe and stated, "I thought you were Mexican!!"

The evening followed with Mexican jokes galore. Not ignorant racist mexican jokes, but goodnatured teasing. "Hey can you tell the mexican to pass the sour cream?"

Some people are really touchy about drawing attention to racial differences, but I think that tiptoeing around it is just another type of racism. We should be able to recognize our differences, kid around about them. Especially in a case such as the one we have in our family, where Chifunda and I have such a profound amount of respect for our Asian sisters and for Eastern culture.

I enjoyed getting to know Kitbe, sitting out on the back deck discussing Asian cuisine and points of interest in her homeland. I told her that the next time she goes home for a visit, she's obligated to take me with her, and show her around.

I'd love to go to Malaysia...... my list of destinations is getting way too long.

I've started rewriting that file that was horribly lost. So far I've only got the prologue up, but I've posted it (click here) I'm terribly afraid to post unfinished writing but I need to find a way to keep going with this. If you plan on keeping up with it, keep in mind that I have no idea as of yet where this story is going to go, how long it will be, where it will end, or what it will include. Once I reach the end, I will most likely go back and change a lot of things. However, I would appreciate your constructive criticism. Be nice. It's unpolished.

Today in church I learned all about how I'm God's favorite.

But then, so are you.

This is a concept that wasn't new to me, so it wasn't an overly shocking thing to hear. Not that I've allowed this to completely saturate my being..... perhaps I need to give it some more attention. I just hate fluffy stuff...... and this feels fluffy.

I tend to envision myself more like God's inadequate employee. One that's kept around on the basis of personality, as opposed to productivity. Not a satisfying worldview, but an emotionally derived view nonetheless, and who are we as humans to deny our emotions.

If I feel inadequate, if I feel small and unproductive, then I must be. Right? Aren't my emotions reflection of divine truth?

No, they're not. In fact at this point in my life I usually use my emotions as a gauge of what the truth isn't.

I'm not an inadequate employee, or a frightened soldier, or any of those other unflattering things that I've imagined about myself. I am God's daughter, the truest sense of the word, His beautiful daughter at that, one in whom He has placed depths of unexplored potential, and I am the one that He loves best.

And so are you. Unless you're a boy. In which case you're His favorite son.

Makes me think of house group a couple weeks ago when we were talking about the throne room of God. When you picture the throne room, where do you see yourself? I thought about this question and figured I was crouching just outside the circle of elders, keeping an eye on those freaky flying million-eyed creatures. Apparently, I'm wrong.

It would appear that the Bible indicates that I am seated with Jesus on the throne...... What? It's because I'm His favorite that he lets me sit up there.

Lately my mind has been travelling back. I've been remembering Rafiki and all the encouraging words she had for me as I ventured through high school. All my other mothers who were constantly prophesying this and visioning that...... I wrote those things down and filed them away in my brain, but I think maybe I thought that I would become that person they envisioned..... like overnight.

Several years later, I begin to understand that a season to God is not necessarily your standard 3 month period. And character refinement can take years and years mixed with trials and heartache.

But now I remember those things. One by one I hear them in my mind and every now and then I see how one of those things came to be in my life. Some of them I can feel ruminating in my spirit. Some of them I can't see at all.