You're what? (Tin roof--RUSTED!)

Tomorrow starts the library's summer hours. Which means we close at 5 on Fridays. Which means I start at 9. Which means I won't have time to blog before work tomorrow.

And it's not like I have tons to talk about, except that (this just in) there will be ONE more blushing bride this summer than expected. So, my party will be postponed until July. (Yes, the next wedding, just announced, is in two weekends, the day before my party was gonna be...)

But YAY! I get to go to the "Best Books for Babies" event sponsored by Beginning with Books on the South Side this Saturday. (Try to say that five times fast...) Thanks to Janice, who is forgoing her last day of being a soccer mom so that I can go. Thanks, Janice!!

I need to do laundry AND send some off...and pay bills. And get a haircut. And continue to stock up on small gifts...I think I forgot to get something for the shower I'm not attending this weekend. But I found something for the shower I'm not attending NEXT week, does that count? Well, um, sure. But I still need something for tomorrow's, unless I wait to gift at the event. Which I might do. Because tomorrow is DAY TWO and folks, that's not necessarily pretty. Plus, I have a cookout to go to tomorrow eve.

Plus, did I mention that my appetite hasn't stopped? Lucky for me, I have guacamole in the fridge. Hmmm...I don't think I'm getting a full night's sleep tonight...

My mother's comment when I relayed the happy news, "she's Sunny's roommate, who's getting married in two months," my mother, the one who NEVER pressures me to find a man, says, "Oh, you should move in there." Like getting a fiancé is contagious--thanks Mom.

I want them to have grandchildren. I really do. The guy on Sunday who gave the message, he's 60 and has grandchildren. My parents are 64 and going on 65. Besides, Christmas isn't fun anymore--we're all adults giving each other grown up gifts. At least when my Grandma was living, she added something to Christmas--she was very childlike her last three years of life.

I am happy to be 35. I am happy with my life for the most part. But pretty soon all my single friends are going to be married...I need a new crowd!! (And I don't really want a new crowd...I think I need some guacamole and chips and some Miranda, Carrie, Samantha, and Charlotte.)

ACK!!!

Today was a day for retail therapy. I'll fill yins in on that next time. Maybe by then I'll have figured out how to post NEW pictures. I went to Goodwill and got pants and books and after work to Targét and got shirts and paper towels.

and yet, she can't stay away. the screen draws her in, like a moth to the flame....

Oh man. It's ten in the morning on a Sunday no less and I've spent the past 45 minutes doing what? Blog hopping. I did write a letter (yes, on real paper, with a pen on paper) to Lorelei, but when I went to the desk to grab some stickers, my hand brushed against the mouse and the computer...it was alive...

(I keep my computer on. It hibernates or something. I know it's not the best policy for electrical conservancy and security, etc. but my computer is haplessly running on Windows ME and it hates to shut down. When I occasionally DO turn it off, it takes five minutes, it makes rude noises, and it invariably changes my wallpaper. Now that my taxes are fini! I can move towards purchasing and installing Windows XP...) (And, no, I'm not ready to jump on the Mac bandwagon, thanks for thinking of me--I saw that thought balloon forming in your mind--you know who you are.)

So I browsed my new favorite blog (see yesterday's post) and found a whole world of Holy Cards. As a woman who was a card carrying Catholic for almost 365 days, (and a wanna be for at least three years prior) and an owner of at least five holy cards, I found Julie's story fascinating and wonderful.

Then, because I somehow find Pat's friends interesting, and he hasn't posted anything new for ages, I hopped over to see Liz. I commented on her thoughts on comments, and coined a new phrase: a responsible overseer of your online domain. (She was writing about the whole blogger code movement.) (That inaudible 7 minute pause was me searching for a link and coming across Kathy Sierra's blog and reading a fascinating post on multi-tasking. Ah...I'll save my thoughts on that for later...)

Katrina has recently added "Kind Blogs" as a button on her blog and I clicked on it a few days ago and I think I'll join. It's a shortcut to knowing that the content you find here will not be intentionally hurtful and that by reading my blog, hopefully "I've helped in some way to make your day just a little bit better." It's like a non-MPAA label. You'll find surprises here, but they'll be kind ones. They'll be within a certain parameter of courtesy.

A while back I remember reading a blogger writing about comments and since I love the comment factor of blogs--I like knowing who is stopping by, I love what I call "blogversations," I tuned in. Said blogger talked about how some bloggers let the comments rip. They write the posts, you write the comments, and never the twain shall meet. Then there are bloggers (I'll now call them the "responsible overseers of their online domains") who read comments and respond to them. Some folks even email folks back every time someone comments. As I am trying to limit my time online (SO NOT WORKING!!) I don't see how I would do that.

Besides, I don't have everyone's email address.

I don't like comment moderation, as a) it seems like so much work--having tried it and b) it prevents the natural generation of blogversations--while you sleep, women in Australia could be reading and commenting on your blog and when you wake up, voila! a letter from the other side of the world! Maybe many letters!! Maybe, could it be? a blogversation!!

Warning: the following paragraph is rife with parentheses, brackets, links, strikeouts, and all other sorts of bloggy silliness. When I started this blog (almost two years ago) I was looking for a way to share my words with the world. (I had recently spent way too much money and time trying to start up a website about chick lit that was going to make me rich beyond my current knowledge.) I knew at least one blogger (Babelbabe of BTS) and Marian (the Librarian, who was largely responsible for my foray online...) had her own little online community kingdom going. I know two folks from my high school who met their spouses (for better or worse) online in the days before e-Harmony (blech!).

[Disclaimer: I had a really bad experience with e-Harmony but they did refund me my money and I have heard of folks who have found lasting love that way, so take that with a shaker of salt.]

Our library sponsored Jessamyn West for our staff in-service day and I've never looked back. While half our staff was like "Boo! hiss! I'll never use the Internet for blogs or Flickr or other cool stuff," by the time the day was over, I had come up with a name for mine. Pink Sneakers and Pocket books. At the time, I had a pair of BRIGHT pink (you might say fuchsia) sneakers and I loved the play on words of "pocket books"--it could be a pocketbook (purse) or a pocket book (small paperback). Since then, my blog has been named everything from Rose Slippers (for a brief moment in time) to just plain Pink Sneakers to its current Pittsburghese loving name, Pink Sneakers N'at. Poppy (a blogger I love) calls me Pink Sneakahs on her blog roll, and for that alone she'll always have a place in my heart. Babs called me Sary Lou once (I can't remember the exact situation) and so that's how I fit my moniker on a USS something PA licence plate that I made yesterday when

I-could-not-stand-being-a-cataloguer-for-one-more-second.

It was my mindless mini-break in a day of checking Dewey numbers, correcting catalog records, and writing responsible emails.

Where was I going with all this?

Oh, I was telling yinz how I spent 45 minutes hopping 'round the blogosphere. And I just spent over an hour in the telling which might take you 10-15 minutes to read if you don't get distracted and click on all the links.

It's a crazy world out there--look both ways before you cross the street! I'm outta here!!

...and so the story begins, again, for the 2000th or more time...

Palm Sunday, or as some call it, Passion Sunday.

We celebrate in the evening at the Open Door (for now, at least, though Easter is always celebrated in the morning), so I haven't been to church yet, though I have a few stops to make today:

• To the Union Project, where John will help me finish my Station: more on the miracle of that, coming later this week.
• To Bellefield for a women's breakfast, the community of women that have known me (some of them) since I was 19 and a sophomore in college. (I'm 35 now, which seems very bizarre.)
  
• To clean the apartment in preparation of the parental visit (it was walk through-able after Sally's visit, but the Station making rendered it clogged once more.)
• To greet the parents and have a meal and
  
• Off to church to celebrate with palm fronds.

bobbie (who has come back, woo hoo!) posted this morning on a post (do you see where this is going, a significant link??) from Don't Eat Alone, which sounds like what I'm working on for Easter.

So here's a taste (get it, a taste??) from Don't Eat Alone:

The first time around, I’m sure there was a much smaller gathering of the faithful at Golgotha than on what we have come to call Palm Sunday. Even the first Easter was not so well attended. I wonder how many years on it was before churches began putting out extra seating for the “Easter crowd.” I don’t know of any minister who doesn’t wonder what could be done to get more of those who come primarily on Christmas and Easter to participate more regularly and meaningfully in the congregation. The reasons for why people don’t find a more significant connection are as varied as the number of them who come: grief, pain, indifference, priorities, hurt feelings, time, to name a few. But on Easter, and maybe even Palm Sunday, they’re in the room.

Let’s start there. Don’t worry about the timing. Feed them.

Go read the rest...it will rock your socks, even if you're still in bare feet.

What hit me (except for the whole post, which almost knocked me off my chair) in this passage was that I'm agonizing over the Easter Feast. Last week at the OD, BJ asked who would be around as they were thinking to have a meal. About 30 folks raised their hands, and on about Tuesday, I shot BJ an email. "Put me on the list to help with that." Which is when BJ told me the OD was not going to have a meal. Well, shoot, I have made a point to NOT go home to see the Louise-in-Virginia family for Easter b/c it's the most important holy day for me, and I wanna be with my OD family, so there's gonna be food. So I shot off an announcement for the OD emails and I'll stand up (in front of my parents and the OD congregation) and say, "We're going to eat on Easter, please join us." (Not knowing yet who "we" are, although I did get two emails.)

Because I worry.

I worry about how many. Let's count noses and nickels.

Let's make sure there's a big to do, dag-gone-it!

Which is SO not the point, anyways.

A community can be two or more "gathered in My name."

So happy Palm Sunday. I'll be posting Lenten stuff all week, sharing about the journey of the Station I made for the OD, which will debut this afternoon at the Union Project, from 4-6. It will be part of the Unblurred First Fridays on Good Friday.

Thanks for being a part of my community. Really. I couldn't have written this without you.

Trying something else...

So, if you've been here before, you know that I use movies to inform my life. Not to tell me what to do or how to live my life, but to inform me. Apparently, it's a very right brained way of looking at life.

Yesterday's talk from Tim Keel of Jacob's Well was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

I can't do it justice so soon afterwards, so I'll try something else.

Jerry Maguire. Yes. Jerry Maguire. I saw this movie on a first movie date* (which I do not recommend--it's too deep for a first movie date, but the guy I was dating was big into "the gift giving holidays" so he was always giving me stuff. Ergo, I have Twister, one of the best movies ever, and Jerry Maguire. I wonder if he still has any of the stuff I gave him...the only other thing I think I've kept from that relationship is a beautifully illustrated book of Psalms. But that's another story, for another day.

I love this movie, because he's on top of the world, he crashes his own world, his world crashes, and then slowly, his life rebuilds.

Act 1: Jerry Maguire, top sports agent
Act 2: Writes a mission statement. Thinks everyone loves it.
Act 3: Everyone hates it, he gets fired and loses all his clients except two.
Act 4: He loses his other client--now he has one, and that one has an attitude problem
Act 5: He gets married to his business partner Dorothy because he likes her kid.
Act 6: The marriage fails.
Act 7: Jerry starts spending all his time with his one client, the one with the attitude problem.
(Hmm--the mission statement talks about this: more time with clients...)
The 4 am miracle: His client has a concussion, realizes that he is Beloved (at least by his fans) and he is transformed into this guy that loves everyone.
Act 8: Jerry realizes that he wants to share all this with Dorothy, who is in the room with all the divorced women.
Act 9: Jerry runs through the airport
Act 10: Jerry professes love to his wife and she accepts his love and...CURTAIN.

So, yesterday's talk needs a reading list. First stop: Henri Nouwen's article on Solitude to Ministry in 3 easy steps. (Um, that's a little humor...it's not easy at all.)

This article is essential. Here's a quote:

"So often in ministry, I have wanted to do it by myself. If it didn't work, I went to others and said, 'Please!' searching for a community to help me. If that didn't work, maybe I'd start praying."

I did not go to Sunday School. I got halfway down Euclid and realized I couldn't find the spoon I'd washed and thrown in my bag so that I could eat the yogurt on the way...does this sound familiar? I sat at a stop sign long enough to think, I need to rethink this. I found two more dirty spoons on the floor of the passenger side of my car. So I drove home. Because I needed to find that Henri Nouwen article.

Here's where Jerry Maguire comes in: There's the point in the movie where Dorothy says to Jerry, "Read what you wrote." Here's how Henri Nouwen puts it:

"Once in a while [my friends] say 'I have good advice: Why don't you read some of your own books?'"

And you know what, I'm not ready to read the last part of the article. I skimmed it. Because I'm not ready. I read the Solitude part and the Community part. I'm not ready to read the Ministry part. And I think Henri (and Tim) would be down with that. Because the concept of the article (though you really should read it) is that until you realize who you are in solitude (Beloved) you can't be in community. You will just be grabbing at people and saying, I'm lonely, you're lonely, let's get together and...well, what is that phrase, "Misery loves company?"

It's true: in my lonliness, I have become "violent and demanding and manipulative" (Henri's words).

So I'm willing to experiment for a while. I'm willing to see what God is doing in my life. And then maybe I can see what he's doing in the lives of people at the Open Door. And then maybe, someday, I can reach out to my world. Stumbling, every single step, but dancing, because I am Beloved.

Community is the place where you say, "I forgive you for only loving me a little bit. Can you forgive me for only loving you a little bit?"

This is something I have found true in my life but I've never seen it in print before this: "In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you haven't planned or counted on."

Oh, and here's the other article Tim referenced: "Revenge of the Right Brain"

Thinking ahead: a post called, "If you build it they will come: Attractional or Attractive? What baseball movies have to say about building community."

Where you'll find me: on the sofa re-watching Jerry Maguire, and later at the movies, re-watching Amazing Grace (another movie about a failure that suceeded.)

*first movie date=not the first date, but the first movie you see as a couple.