Dorienne's Log

I was actually in a happy mood until about three minutes ago, during which time I had to go through pages and pages of spam on my blog. What is it with spammers? What is to be gained by spamming people? The comments go unread and nothing is accomplished. At least with viruses there is the satisfaction that you ruined an unsuspecting person’s machine or with phish, where there is some monetary gain to be had. Spam is just mind-boggling for me…anyway.

My English class is going well, eerily well, it feels. I think I had just grown so accustomed to performing poorly in my classes that I don’t know to feel after coming from an exam with a positive feeling. I have found a new love…well, love is a bit much, but oh well…for Shakespeare. Othello has me frightfully intrigued in every way possible. I have not liked a work this much since reading Fried Green Tomatoes at Whistle Stop Cafe for the first time, however, I feel a bit daunted over the aspect of having to go through some of his historical pieces. I see myself being extremely bored throughout, but I will try to approach the plays with an open mind. I mean, if he wrote them, there had to be some significant story to be told, so there is a possibility that I might just love them. Who knows?

There are so many things I want to do with this life and there simply does not seem to be enough time. I want to write, design websites for every show and book I’ve ever loved, play my sims, write and publish sims stories on my sites, learn to play piano, play the piano, plant trees, knit sweaters, play ddr, go running, write in my blog, implement flash on my church website, be at church, know the Bible, learn some aspects about the Torah, organize all my videos, rip all my shows and movies to my computer, make YouTube videos, watch videos, make up with old friends, contact even older ones, make new friends, be an inspiration to someone somewhere at sometime…

Sigh. There’s just so much to do and there’s no time to do it. That’s the depressing part.

Flight is officially a monster of a book. At 337 pages and more than 177K words, I am wondering just how big it will get. This “part” of the book is moving along in weird spurts of inspiration. I’ll be in the moment and write like crazy and then I get to a point where I just want to scrap the whole thing like I did today with a poem I was attempting to write. I was going on and on about being black instead of an African American and I, quite literally, dragged my pen across the paper and groaned about how ignorant I was sounding. I know what I want to say, and there are times when I think I can communicate those words best through, but I just can’t seem to cut it when it comes to poetry. It sometimes seems like the harder I try, the worst it all sounds. I can hear myself struggling as I re-read the crap…but the fanfic is going as well as it can.

Adventures in Vegetarianism #7
Five months into this, I am still going strong. There are days when it seems almost like second nature, as if I’ve always been living this way. Then, there are others, when all I want to do chow down on chili dogs or grinders, but those days are few and far between. The main thing, however, is that being a full-fledged vegetarian is accomplishing the goal I have set out to do. Slowly, but surely, I have managed to shed ten pounds. Not a huge improvement seeing as how I’ve got so far to go, but the fact is, the scale is going down instead of up for the first time since I was fifteen. I plan on taking my measurements again in another week to see if I’ve made any improvements, but I am astounded how I can eat what I want and just exclude meat, and still get the same results I want. Someone once told me that losing the meat caused the pounds to come off, but I did not believe it as they were wearing a PETA shirt at the time, but now, I do wonder.

What I like about being a vegetarian is the change in me. I feel better and people tell me I look better, too. All in all, I feel like a healthier person and my mother has now dropped meat from her diet. At this rate, PETA might stop eating meat altogether, however, nothing will make me give up cheese. I won’t eat the animal, but cheese, all kinds, is a special treat for me and nothing could make me drop. My body withstands it even through violent lactose intolerance, and yet I still keep going. Oh well. I suppose I should not say what I will and will not do because three years ago, I knew I would never be pro-life and I knew I would never understand why people gave ten percent of their livelihood to the church and so on. God only knows what I’ll know tomorrow.

And, speaking of my Almighty, a year after winning from the church, I finally got my piano. I am so excited by it, I could just scream. There are five broken keys, but I don’t play anywhere near well-enough for those to matter for a bit. I am just so excited to have one that’s all mine and I practice upon until the wee hours of the night. I just love the idea of either getting lessons for it or simply teaching myself how to play. I told my mother that this could be my birthday present because it is simply outstanding. I know I will have years of fun and (to be a bit melodramatic) peace with this instrument and it gets me excited again just thinking about the fact that it sits downstairs waiting for me.

I went to church even though neither of my parents were going and I just stuck my hand up at the opportune time and won a piano. Of course, it will have to stay at my parents house until…well, probably forever, but it’s the principle of the thing. This past Sunday, I don’t think I’d ever felt so loved by so many souls at any point in my life. They did the welcoming and I had to participate since I was still technically new, and it just felt wonder to be welcomed and accepted like that….sigh.

I find myself actively excited about church and Jesus nowadays; it’s kind of weird. Weird in that it does not feel foreign or abhorrent to me, but there’s that still small voice within me that’s says that it should. It’s a bit like that saying that anything that feels this good and positive must be “sinful” or wrong. But it’s not, that’s the thing. I’ve been working on our church’s website: www.lincolnparkcbc.com. It still needs a lot of work, such as losing the frames and the applets and the deprecated tags….there’s loads to do. I’m working on the new area here: www.lincolnparkcbc.com/new/; well, actually, under my own domain until I work out all the bugs with each page: www.doriennesmith.com/working/new/.
In my endeavours with the site, I found this Bible verse search website: BibleGateway.com. It’s pretty cool. I love finding new ways of bringing my faith into the 21st century.

Our pastor talked a lot about money yesterday, which is one of those main things that has always driven me away from churches, yet this time, it did seem sincere. The church was just stifling yesterday, mostly because we were packed in there so tight, and he had a point about raising money to cover some our building debts so that we could build a new building if we wanted. The money thing wasn’t his actual sermon, so I didn’t really feel offended for once. He did get me thinking, though, about tithing and its impact on my life. I want to tithe. Honestly, I do, but I just don’t think I can afford to do so. It’s sad, not being able to afford God’s blessings….I know it’s not a complete statement, but that’s just how it feels. Ten percent of my weekly pay is fifty dollars a week and that’s just right now. What about when I’m not working at all? I just see myself in mid-February with no money and not actually destitute, so I would never feel comfortable going to the church for help, but severely poor nonetheless and sorely wishing that I had saved my fifty dollars a week for myself. I don’t want to be angry with my church for my own doings, but at the same time, I feel so utterly guilty that I don’t know if I can do it. A part of me is already upset about it, but then again….A part of me asks, “What ever happened to giving what you could?” while another side of me thinks back to yesterday, when I was only going to give the extra change I had in my wallet, my Coach wallet I’d bought with my own money, and then my extra dollar, and instead gave all that plus the five I was saving for whatever reason. Looking back, I know that if I hadn’t given up that I five, later this week I would be saying to myself, “Dorienne, forget your zeal of refusing to eat any fast food and any french fries from any place for the month of July. Use your five bucks and get you something quick to eat at lunch at work.” Instead, my five dollars went to a better cause in both regards. I will remain on my “diet” for a little while longer, and the church is five dollars closer to being out of debt. I know deep down that no harm would befall me if I chose to give my ten percent, but at the same, I am still in a grey area religion-wise; an area where logic often overrules faith. The trouble is, I don’t know how long I’ll stay there.

Woot! I’m so happy I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. When I realized it on the drive home I perked up a bit after feeling so ridiculously angry and depressed. Angry at people being jerks and depressed that I’d have to deal with people I just can’t stand for yet another week.

Anyway, I’ve been coming with loads of ideas for things to spruce up our church’s website. Like I said earlier, it’s really quite fun.

I’ve started writing again. Woot! If I can just get this part of A Ten Minute Speech done, I can finish the whole thing in just a matter of weeks. It’s just that this hospital “scene” seems to be going on forever. It really isn’t that long….well actually it is right now, but when one looks at the finished product in its entirety, it won’t be that long. But at least at this point, I’ve got a timeline mapped out and I feel comfortable with how it’s going.

I don’t know if it’s the Miles Davis or the euphoria that comes with an extreme lack of sleep, but I feel pretty happy right now. It’s time to talk of other things; of something-something and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot and whether fish have wings….