Dorienne's Log

I went through all of my previous posts adding categories where necessary and it struck me, just how different a person I am from only a year ago. It’s mind boggling. As I sit here, words fail me. That the person who wrote this post, could be even remotely related to me seems unimaginable.

At church, we often discuss how Jesus has managed to change us for the better. Everyone else always talks about God bringing them out of the bottle, and leading them off drugs and helping them treat people better, but these things never seemed to pertain to me directly. As I looked back on long-forgotten posts, I saw just how profoundly I have changed. Words that spilled out of me a year ago almost shock me. If I did not remember each event surrounding my previous posts, I would swear I never wrote those things.

Hmm…I guess it is just humbling to see the person I was not too long ago.

Why does Micro$oft have to put their hand in everything? It’s like Bill Gates sees something wonderful in the world and says, “What? A market that doesn’t make me richer in some way? Inconceivable!”

Consider the past five years of human evolution: Sony comes out with the Playstation; Microsoft says “me too” and comes out with the X-Box. MySpace erupts into a phenomenon; Gates comes up with Windows Live Spaces. The iPod becomes the greatest thing that has ever come from Apple, or ever will for that matter; Microsoft comes out with the Zune player, for no other reason than wanting a piece of another pie. Now, YouTube is becoming one of the greatest entities, or tragedies, depending on you look at it, to grace the internet. God knows how long before Gates wants to dig his hand in there too, if he hasn’t already. The entire idea of it makes me sick. If I only had the time and patience to discover Linux, I would drop Microsoft and everything it entailed.

I dream of a world where people are not just offered shoddy products and expected to buy them, just because they are offered. My thinking is that after this current generation, my generation, grows up a bit and raises our kids aware of how companies like Micro$oft just love to continue their monopolized marketing strategies, that the world will move away from nonsensical entities like Microsoft. Just imagine what the world could be like if we didn’t have people like Gates standing in the doorway of progress because he isn’t ready to take his piece of the pie yet.

All this ranting stems from this article. How on Earth can Gates say that copy protection is too complex for buyers when it is his company that does the most DRM?!? It’s mind boggling! Now that his Zune player might suffer from his self-imposed copyright protection, we suddenly have a problem. Blech! The whole thing makes me want to vomit all over myself.

Anyways, I’m down two pounds. Whoop-de-doo.

Peter Boyle died yesterday and, like all deaths, it got me thinking. I did some pondering here: http://www.tv.com/users/kaitco/profile.php, but I feel more is needed.

When Jerry Orbach died, I had a constant stream of e-mails and instant messages from all the people who knew just how much I cherished Law & Order. What was so strange for me, was that for several days after hearing the news, I felt sort of…empty, like something wasn’t right in my world. I wanted to openly mourn him, but I felt I couldn’t or shouldn’t because I didn’t actually know him. I just saw him on television and thought he was great at his job. Eventually, while driving to work one day, everything just spilled over and I started sobbing in my car. Can you imagine it? Sobbing over someone I’d never met. I cried for him and for his family, but mostly, as I believe with hindsight, I cried for myself. With every death I see around me, I feel it coming ever closer. While I am a Christian and have the profound belief that death is, indeed, only the beginning, I cannot help fathom the sorrow and desperation surround death. Surrounding the unknown.

But more on what got me thinking today, was the death of a beloved celebrity. Everyone, everyone has a date with destiny, even those who have entertained us for years. I think of the stars who have entertained, mesmerized and shaped me, through their performances, into the person I am today, and I am filled with wonder. What will I do, how will I feel when Reginald Veljohnson or Kellie Shangyne Williams pass on into another life? My childhood was spent watching them and I feel that they are such a part of me…I don’t know it just doesn’t seem like I could imagine reading a BBC news post about their deaths. Even worse, Gillian Anderson. Good God! Her character, literally, is one of the reasons I am the way I am today. Hearing of her death….I would most likely need to take time for myself; time to truly mourn, like I’d lost a member of my own family. (and now all this has got me thinking about my beloved grandmother and how my own time is coming too…sigh)

It’s so weird, to know that I’ll miss someone I will never meet. I will never meet Peter Boyle, but I loved everything he did. I watch Everybody Loves Raymond nearly every night; it’s on for an hour in my town. I watched Taxi Driver not too long ago. I just don’t know. I guess…just my thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. Cancer. At 71. Doesn’t seem right; now that I think of it, neither does death.

**Sighs**
On the fifth of this month, I took down my weight and all my measurements including my BMI and body fat. Every Tuesday, I will reassess everything. Sometimes there will be changes, hopefully in a negative realm, other times there will not. The goal is just to have something in front of me, so that I can see the changes. I’ll also take a picture every month because I’ve this master plan of making a little animated gif of my “transformation,” and I need to start somewhere.

height: 61.5 inches
weight: 215 lbs
waist: 41 3/4 inches
hips: 49 1/4 inches
neck: 15 3/16 inches
BMI: 38.73
body fat: 45.3 ~ I know there’s no way that this could be right. No human being could possibly be 50% body fat and live, but at least it’s a number to gauge some kind of progress.

**Rolls Eyes**
On a side note, and by side note, I mean actually “the main thing,” today I was able to do…it. I asked for help. It was time for prayer requests following our choir rehearsal and I was, finally, able to do it. I think it was just because there were so few of us there today, that I actually felt more comfortable than I would have with all of young adult around me, but the point is, I did it. I also asked for help from my mother. I have been so set on being independent that it feels like I’ve failed at life knowing that I need help, but I suppose on the other side, at least I can turn to my mother.

**Laughs**
For the past few weeks, I’ve been praying for God to give me the strength and the words to pray in a group. For every auxiliary of which I am a member, we always end with prayer requests and an individual leading us in prayer. I have long dreaded the ends of meetings because I always knew the time would come when I would be asked to lead the prayer. I had just been praying and praying that the words would come to me. Others have a…gift when it comes to leading our prayers and I always felt like I could never be a natural and encompassing as I needed to be should I be asked to lead. I was asked to lead for both our usher board meeting and our choir rehearsal. The first time, I intentionally looked away and was, of course, called upon to lead. It was short and I felt like I might have missed some things, but I got through it. The second time came far more natural and I felt the words come to me; the way I’d prayed for them to come to me.

Why can’t I do it? WHY CAN’T I DO IT!?!

Tonight, the women of the church came together to fellowship and everything was…so nice, and positive, and good. We then came to prayer requests and I just couldn’t do it. I had requests. I have requests. Please, pray for my grandmother; I think she’s worrying herself into the ground, a little too literally. Please, pray for my mother; she sounded so sick when I spoke with her tonight. Please, pray for me as I attempt to venture back into the working world and struggle with these monetary woes of mine. I have loads of requests, but I can never voice them. Why? I’m always so frustrated with myself. It seems like it would be so easy to do, but I just can’t do it.

It’s like some deep, innate lack of self esteem. I don’t know what to do or how to approach this. Everyone talked so long about the women of our church coming to one another. That one of us hurts we all should hurt and bring one another back up again. But….I just don’t feel like I could ever deserve that. It seems like everything going on in my life is so insignificant compared to everyone else’s, and just I can’t let go of that feeling.

I’ve been making a lot of notes for my In Darkness series and the more I ponder about souls, the more I realize how difficult it is for me to give up on the idea of souls being reincarnated or, really, regenerated. It just makes sense to me and it seems like no amount of church is able to trump this fact. It allows me to account for the idea that God wants everybody to go to heaven. This is the only way for me to rest at night whilest I wonder about the murderer sitting on death row, who never got the chance to know Jesus. I have been blessed with the opportunity to not just know about Him, but learn as much as I want about Him. If I screw up at this point, I deserve to go to hell. But what about some little African girl who lives out with the tribes of nowhere, who really will never get the chance to know Him? It just does not seem like something that a fair, just and awesome God could do; to allow someone to go to hell when they never had the chance to learn, to never know any better.
I think all souls continue to come back to “life” until they get it right. It’s the only logic that I can follow that doesn’t have me worrying about my religion and sending me packing once again. And I just can’t let go of it.

I suppose it’s never enough to simply come to church and live a good life. There’s always more to do and quite honestly I can’t say that I have ever had a reason for not doing more…except sheer laziness, but I am working on that.
They’ve, they being the church, has asked me to be a Sunday School teacher. I will be starting out with younger kids and maybe teach some of the older kids and adult classes later. I have to say, though, I am more than intimidated. On Sunday, Pastor asked the question: “Who believes every word of this book?” (this book being the Bible) I didn’t raise my hand when, literally, all those around me did. Why? Because I don’t. I haven’t yet read it from Genesis to Revelation, so how can I say that I believe in something in a book that I haven’t read? It would be the worst of lies and I figured if there was any place that I shouldn’t be lying, it would be while sitting in church on a Sunday morning. And now, I feel perplexed. A part of me, a rather large part of me, wonders if I should be teaching Sunday School since I have so much to learn already. But, I suppose I will learn more about the word of God by teaching it than I ever would just coming to Sunday School and Bible Study.

I got up early today so I could have more time in my day to waste and also make sure that I’ve read next Sunday’s lesson for tonight at our teacher’s meeting. Hopefully, I won’t end up wasting the rest of today….

On Saturday, I went to the church business meeting just to see what went on during it. The pastor announced the positions of leadership held in the church and I can only imagine the surprise on my face when he announced that I, I, would be a Sunday School secretary. I think it was more because I just happened to be in his line of sight when he came to the Sunday School secretaries, but I’m still shocked. I’ve, literally, just joined the church and now I’m about to hold a position there. It’s been less than seven months and here I am. It’s such a contrast to last year; it’s astonishing! On Sunday, the kids were singing and I was just happy to be there that it got me thinking, “What was I doing on Sunday mornings before now?” It’s actually hard for me to remember. Really, it is. I want to say that I was probably recovering from the previous night, but I haven’t been out “partying” in so long that I can’t even say that that’s what I did on Sundays. It’s weird: I was in full college, party-girl mode as of my birthday last year and then I just got tired of all of it. Then, I all but stopped drinking and then I ended up joining my church…? It’s puzzling. I guess Jesus does work in mysterious ways….

So, I’m going to be a teacher. I can only say that I’ll try my best.