I’ve had a rough few weeks. If you could send your prayers or good wishes my way, here’s what’s on my heart lately:
- My brother was diagnosed with diabetes. He’s managing it well, but the initial symptoms and diagnosis was scary.
- I gave notice at my job. It’s a long story that is not at all appropriate to discuss on the Internet, but if you know of any good opportunities in Austin, I’m on LinkedIn.
- Sarah, a really close friend of mine who I’ve blogged about before, came down with appendicitis and had emergency surgery. She’s recovering and home now. It’s so frustrating that we still have an organ that does absolutely nothing except almost kill you. It’s not an organ: it’s a ticking time bomb that might be a dud or might explode.
- My grandfather has colon cancer. He’s in his 70s but has started chemotherapy. Maybe he’ll be able to walk down the aisle at my wedding yet. (I’m not seeing anyone, but that’s part of my wedding vision.)
No one else close to me come down with a serious illness, please!
I think I’ve posted about this before, but I am always delightfully horrified to find Photoshop portfolios online. I know perfectly well that most of the images we see in magazines and on billboards are barely of real humans, but to view the actual transformations is something else.
The people who do this work are definitely skilled, but couldn’t they put those talents to better use than thinning arms, adding locks of hair, and lightening skin? If you’ve ever wondered why you don’t look like the women (or men!) in magazines, those photos are a good reminder of the reason why: no one looks like that, not even the original models.
The fashion photos are not quite as terrifying. They look more like normal people.
As if Let Me Be Catholic wasn’t addictive enough, it turns out there’s another one out there about Catholics. It’s just older and didn’t burst into my life quite as quickly. Here’s my favorite from What Should Catholicism Call Me:
When I’m Explaining Supernatural Catholic Doctrines to People And I’m Like
Except that I’m more likely to say, “It’s okay to think that’s weird. It kind of is.”
In other fun images, check this out!
Aww! The U.S. Naval Institute, which I found via Cheezburger and Manteresting (I know, right?) offers this explanation:
“Accepting her fate as an orphan of war, ‘Miss Hap’ a two-week old Korean kitten chows down on canned milk, piped to her by medicine dropper with the help of Marine Sergeant Frank Praytor… The Marine adopted the kitten after its mother was killed by a mortar barrage near Bunker Hill. The name, Miss Hap, Sergeant Praytor explained, was given to the kitten ‘because she was born at the wrong place at the wrong time’.” Korea, ca 1953
Now that’s a real man: TCB.
And then there’s this:
Enough images and silliness. I watched The Vow in my long break from work today. I can’t afford premium movie channels (although Degrassi has all but ensured that I will have cable for many days to come), so I keep an eye out for free preview weekends and fill up my DVR. The last one was Thanksgiving weekend, so it’s been waiting in the wings for quite some time.
I liked it. I thought the swearing sounded awkward and superfluous, but I loved the portrayal of a husband who will not give up on his wife. He made a vow, and he tried so hard to live up to it, even in an impossible situation. I found myself thinking very deeply and wondering how to apply my feelings about marriage and commitment to the wife’s situation with her parents. I wondered if I could ever love someone enough to take the steps we saw married characters taking. It was not the kind of love and marriage Hollywood usually gives us, and I appreciated that.
I also really liked that, even though Rachel McAdams’s character (and her real-life counterpart) never got her memory back, she managed to get some of herself back. She was never her old self; she was just herself. I’ve made some big life changes in the last several years, and I wouldn’t want to go back to that old person, but I’d like to think that my maturity is more than just reactions to old motivations. I’d like to think that it’s who I was always meant to be.
So that’s my week (or two weeks, really; I drafted this post last week). I might go see Matt Maher on Thursday, so that’s potentially exciting, but in the meantime I need to find a new job and a new place to live. It’s going to be an interesting summer.
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