Obama’s case for the Second Amendment

When the president visited a Master Lock factory in Milwaukee last month to discuss American manufacturing, he got a laugh from the workers when he told them: “As I was looking at some of the really industrial-size locks, I was thinking about the fact that I am a father of two girls who are soon going to be in high school and that it might come in handy to have these super locks. For now, I’m just counting on the fact that when they go to school there are men with guns with them.”

From The Huffington Post

Higher standards than God

It happened sometime after 11pm. We were discussing the revelation I had about my vast, amorphous, persistent false guilt (the revelation being that it exists) and it’s ties to my deep-seated perfectionism. I had changed into a purple striped vintage-style pajama top and was looking for the matching pants.

Me:  Where are my pants? I ask. He finds everything.

He:  I don’t know. Where did you put them? He responds with my favorite question at times like these.

Me:  I don’t know. I can’t find them. I try not to be annoyed.

He:  Here. Here are your pants. He jokingly hands me a pair of his shrunken flannel pajama bottoms.

Me:  You know what? Yes. Yes, these are my pants. This is so fitting right now. I put on the pants, think I have somehow delivered a fatal wound to my perfectionism. “Wound” is right. The clash is too much for me to handle.

Me:  I can’t wear these pants. It hurts. It hurts to wear them, and I know it hurts you to look at them. I close my eyes.

He: I’m not looking at them. He’s not looking at them.

Me:  I don’t think I can stand this. I just don’t want to be this woman. I am truly stressed.

He:  You’re not that woman. You’re just wearing the outfit, but that’s not who you are. He tries to be the loving, supportive husband he always is without trying.

Me:  Yes, it is who I am. I am the woman who would wear something like this to bed. From this day forward I will forever be that woman. Just the thought of that makes me want to take this off ASAP. My stomach hurts.

He:  Babe, it doesn’t matter. He is patient.

Me:  But it matters to me! I am right. It does matter to me.

He:  It doesn’t matter to God. He is right. It doesn’t matter to God.

Me:  Well, I have higher standards than God. It appears I have lost my mind. Or I just revealed my long-existing insanity.

…

I think I need to keep the pants. And I have some writing to do…

Working

She filled her glass to the brim with milk and tossed the carton away. There was such abandon in knowing that a full one was waiting for her at the back of the fridge. Walking back to her office, she caught a glimpse of her slender figure in the full-length mirror. She really liked her shirt today. She liked the way she felt in it – cozy, enveloped, and unbridled. It’s funny that a shirt can so provoke ones disposition. Peering down at her boy-fit shorts, she thought that perhaps she had achieved that effortless, casual-elegance, Grace-Kelly-on-holiday look. Not that anyone was there to see it. Not that it mattered if anyone did.

She sat down to her computer and smiled as she humbly observed, as if for the first time, the unelegance of her MacBook sitting atop it’s newly-acquired stand: an Adidas shoebox. It seemed particularly ironic just now. Grace Kelly would never put her laptop on a shoebox. But Grace Kelly wouldn’t compromise her posture to hunch over a keyboard. Grace Kelly wouldn’t be spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon clicking away on Illustrator, either.

The phone rang, triggering the letdown of a sigh that had been bottling up in her since noon. It was relief, and yet, unwelcome. She didn’t need another cause for distraction.

Me and my edgy design

My husband referred to my blog style, graphically, as “edgy.” I have never been associated with anything edgy in my life. I have been called “extreme,” “unconventional,” “radical,” and “bold,” but never “edgy.”

I must be turning a new leaf.

I don’t like the “edgy” page, though. I’d much rather skip ahead to “graceful” or “lovely”… that is, if those pages are in my book somewhere.

Sadly, I can’t say I’ve ever been called “graceful” or “lovely” either.

So, “edgy” it is. For now, anyway.

 

P.S. I think “edgy” is one of the ugliest words words to look at. It’s almost as ugly as “ugly.”

11:26

I flipped the switch to reveal an unmade bed; my pillow dotted with mascara. I considered the scene, flooded with the unlovely radiance of “the big light.” It was late. Too late for my normal evening routine, much less this. “Would you mind terribly if I changed the sheets?” I called into the hall. It had been almost two weeks.

“If you really want to…” came the reply.

“Time me!” I suggested, more out of curiosity than sport. “What time is it?”

“Eleven sixteen.”

I lunged for the nearest pillow and began to peel away the case. For a moment, I considered whether I might race around the bed, flinging away the blankets so that I might find myself between two new buttery-soft sheets as quickly as possible. It was then I remembered something I had learned in gun fighting school.

Smooth is fast.

I was never a graceful girl, and, though I try very hard, I am not a very graceful woman. To make up for my deficiencies, I married a man whom my sister and I had always referred to as “smooth.” He doesn’t run around and get flustered and drop things like I do. He moves much more slowly, but always intentionally and always gracefully, and always, somehow, finishes before I do. It was at gun school that I learned the name of his secret and internalized it. Smooth is fast.

It helps that bed making is one of my talents, and an oft-used one at that. It also happens that I take great pleasure in arranging my folded sheets so that flat and fitted are virtually indiscernible from one another as they occupy a neat stack with their two daughter pillowcases. I briefly consider a video post on how to make a bed. I could tell everyone how to fold a fitted sheet. But I think I’d rather tell them that smooth is fast.

I smile with comfort at what is suddenly the puffy pintucked marshmallow I wanted and tossed a multiracial family of useless textured pillows onto its folds.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Eleven twenty-six,” he said. “I love you.”

My favorite day of the week

Sunday used to be my least favorite day of the week. These days, I’m already looking forward to it when Monday comes.

What I love about Sunday:

1. Meeting with our whole local church family and engaging in true fellowship (not how-’bout-them-Packers “fellowship”).
2. Participating in a class and awesome discussion on transformational Bible reading.
3. Hearing and gleaning from a gospel-oriented sermon (currently from Galatians).
4. Chipotle for lunch. Not always, but often.
5. A slower pace with few demands.
6. Gentle preparation for the coming week.
7. Reading as much as I want.

What is your favorite day of the week?

Prayer and Sovereignty

I have always struggled with intercessory prayer (praying for others). Because, after all, if God is sovereign, why pray? I blame it on Calvin. I blame it on perfectionism. I blame it on my ability to over-intellectualize everything. I blame it on everything except my foolish pride.

Lately, though, God has been gently showing me how I have strayed, and that, if my theology is keeping me from prayer, my theology is garbage.

That last line was taken from a sermon by Jason Dahlman. It was through a simple illustration in that sermon that I was finally able to come to some reconciliation of God’s sovereignty and intercessory prayer.

The illustration is this:  If we see someone drowning, we do not stand by and watch, saying, “God is sovereign.” No! We yell for help, we call 911, we throw them a line, we jump in the water — we do everything in our power to save them.

Why do we approach prayer differently? I can say as sincerely as I know that I no longer will.

How to Fail Successfully

How to fail successfully, according to Inventor Charles Kettering:

1. Honestly face defeat; never fake success.
2. Exploit the failure; don’t waste it. Learn all you can from it.
3. Never use failure as an excuse for not trying again.

As one who sees no failure as a failure, since I see #2 as so valuable, I can’t quite bring myself to make friends with #1. I wonder if such optimism on my part is actually pride in disguise…

Which of the three is hardest for you?

Do you see ads at the bottom of my posts?

I just visited my blog while I wasn’t logged in and I saw a DELL AD at the bottom of my last post!

?!??!?

Does anyone else see these, or was I hallucinating? Because I have been known to hallucinate…

Who profits from web domains?

I’ve been trying to figure out who profits from the sale of web domains. Like any resourceful, 21st century American, I googled it.

“who profits from web domains.”

Zero results.

Do you know what you have to type into Google to get ZERO results? Things like “Monica Gill is the wisest, most talented, intelligent woman in the world.” Or 10 letters of gibberish in a row, like omdglewpzl. Or something. Every comprehensible phrase or question typed into Google will yield results.

I tried rephrasing: “who profits from web domain sales”

Nothing.

“who profits from domain sales”

Nothing.

“who profits from the sale of web domains”

Zero results.

Does anyone else think this is really, really strange?

I guess I’m the only one asking this question. Well, I look forward to meeting all my new readers who should now find this post as the only result when they try to figure out what on earth is going on.

In the meantime, that is, before the CIA hauls me away for questioning, I would really like to know why I have to pay $10 every year to retain every domain I “own” and exactly who is cashing the check.