Quotes:

New favorite: "Not all those who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien

It's always nice to find seemingly justification of your chaotic life among wise men.

Perhaps "weird" isn't just an coincidence?

Here's my line of thinking today: the majority of people I see in the neighborhood coffee shop during my mornings of on-line job searching are over the top strange.

Old conclusion: everyone in Austin is strange.
New conclusion: everyone unemployed in Austin and therefore in coffee shops mid-morning is strange.

Side note: everyone but me.

The only thing weirder would be if my name was Patty.

I'm always intrigued when I read something in a book that seems like they're writing about me. Observe:

“The weeks that followed were truly disheartening. By August, Patty had exhausted the heady sensation of exerting mastery over a new apartment, the temperature fluctuated between ninety-eight and a hundred and two degrees, and she had sat through numbers of futile interviews and sent out numbers of futile résumés. The city, in fact, appeared to be quite overstocked with women, each more ornamental and accomplished than any nineteenth-century young lady, huge quantities of whom, Patty noticed with growing terror, were waitresses.

It would be a temporary necessity, she reasoned; she would have to support her job hunt by waiting on tables. And soon her days were occupied with getting rejected for two entire lines of work, one of which she had recently despised…”

A Cautionary Tale by Deborah Eisenberg

Naive?

The man sitting at the table in front of me at this coffee shop has a gun strapped to his ankle. For some reason I don't see this as a problem. Perhaps I'm too naive.

Oh! the questions.

Being jobless, I've discovered recently, is actually a very vulnerable state.

1. Too much time to think: how am I to even begin to answer the questions of who I am and who I want to be? Of which jobs I would accept if offered and which ones I want to hold out for?
   
2. Too many decisions to make about how to spend your time: do I spend every moment looking for jobs online? Do I get a temporary job even though I may get offered a full time job any day and would leave them just after being trained? Do I section off part of my day for job searching and part of the day discovering the quirks of Austin? Am I justified in spending money on anything other than internet access and groceries?
   
3. Too many ironies: when I worked two jobs and was going to grad school, I was surrounded by several amazing friends who lived close by. Now my days are overrun by free time while I am in a new city.
   
4. Too many options as to where to place my value: do I have purpose because I keep busy? Because I'm beginning to get interviews? Because I am trying to use my time to glorify the Lord even though I'm not even sure what that looks like? Because...>your answer here<...?

But I have decided that I am going to live each day to the fullest and that I am going to "decide to be happier than a bird with a french fry" as the saying goes.

Who do they think I am?

Why does my family insist that I am capable of mountain biking feats when they, out of anyone, should know my inexperience with said sport. In the past, my dad has been the guilty party innocently inviting me to "go on a bike ride." When I was a kid this meant around the block a couple of times. Now that I'm an adult, apparently it means following him into the random forest behind a neighboring subdivision and balancing on really thin fallen logs across semi-raging trickles of water.

My mountain biking experience was raised to a new level yesterday.

I borrowed my brother's friend's bike he keeps in his garage. My brother's short friend. Then I borrowed my brother's neighbor's helmet. My brother's large-headed neighbor. Then I realized that although I packed socks, I had forgotten tennis shoes. Brown flip-flops will have to do. Usually I find that when a helmet is required, so are closed toed shoes. Yesterday's jaunt through the woods was no exception.

At one point in our little ride, flying down a narrow bike path I hit a large conspicuously protruding root which in turn jarred my helmet over my eyes rendering me blind. I vaguely remembered a patch of soft sand proceeded by a sharp turn to avoid the lake coming up. I glanced down (my only available line of sight), saw the sand, and turned a hard left thus staying on the bike, dry and unharmed.

My brother simply glanced back at me skeptically as I teetered through the treacherous turn.

A few minutes later he asked if I was up for an adventure. I sighed and responded how every little sister does. With artificial confidence I stated, "Bring it on." Luckily for my life and the use of my appendages for the next 4 months, it had rained and that particular trail was flooded.

Does my family think that while away at school I was secretly training for a chance such as this to impress the family once and for all with my mad mountain biking skills?

Who do they think I am?
I was wearing flip-flops for goodness sake.