Headlights and Lighthouses

I see lights in the distance
Shining with hope
Glowing with comfort.

Are they headlights or lighthouses?
Coming to my rescue
Or calling me out?

They beckon out to me through the
Void of desparate darkness and black seas
Surrounding my every move.

Which one do I heed?
Stuck, alone, drifting away
But not progressing.
Do I move or do I stay?

I've been wondering for so long
In this same place
Not knowing which direction to row in,
Or whether I should or shouldn't.

I'm restless and lazy,
Passionate and apathetic,
Enthralled and tired.
Free and imprisoned.

There are so many voices
Telling me to choose.
But I don't even know where to begin
Asking the right questions.

Will picking up an oar and trying to row
Only discover an anchor
Keeping me in one place
Then hurt and alone?

But I feel the traces of warmth in the lights,
Wishing for something of the anti-ego,
Some other interactions outside of myself.
Will there be more use for me
Outside the circle of my indecision?
Or will there just be another group of

Headlights and lighthouses?

Tied together with a smile

Seems the only one who doesn't see your beauty
Is the face in the mirror looking back at you
You walk around here thinking you're not pretty
But that's not true, cause I know you...

Hold on, baby, you're losing it
The water's high, you're jumping into it
And letting go... and no one knows
You cry, but you don't tell anyone
That you might not be the golden one
And you're tied together with a smile
But you're coming undone

I guess it's true that love was all you wanted
Cause you're giving it away like it's extra change
Hoping it will end up in his pocket
But he leaves you out like a penny in the rain
Oh, cause it's not his price to pay
Not his price to pay.

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps...

OH MY GOODNESS, last weekend was probably the best one of my life... So, I'm going to try to express the warm feeling my heart is enchanted with everytime I think about those one way signs and skyscrapers. To preface this, I want you to know that I'm experiencing withdrawals, and might actually start crying because I'm not there right this second. So, on with the story:

My sister(Anna), two aunts(Riri and Aunt Gail), cousin(Laece) and I went to NYC because we three girls combined our birthday gifts in order to go see Wicked and have a fun weekend. So, needless to say, we were anxious to get there. :o)
We left on Friday night and actually arrived at LaGuardia airport in Queens at 1 AM on Saturday morning. A baggage claim, taxi ride, and hotel settlement later, it was 3 AM and we were starving. So, we went out in search of food. And oh my goodness, my very favorite part of New York is that it doesn't sleep and you can find any quality of food at anytime in the day or night... it knows me through and through. :o) We found food at this awesome deli and finally got back to the Hilton off 6th at 4 to go to sleep. That was Friday (and part of Saturday)

Saturday morning we walked about 10 blocks to an open market (full of fake everything, tshirts, etc.) which was on our way to our Downtown bus tour. We actually got to stop at a wax museum to get our tickets and saw statues of Whoopi Goldberg and Samuel L. Jackson in the lobby, which was really fun. We then got on the tour bus and went all over downtown (including Greenwich Village (my future home), Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Financial district, the Fashion district, the Fulton Fish Market, etc.) stopping in Chinatown and Little Italy for some exploring, shopping, and sightseeing, including getting lost and finding our way back. :o) We ate at a little bistro in Little Italy called Positano's, which was amazing, and finally got back to the bus to finish the tour. Later on, instead of seeing Wicked on broadway, because of the stagehand strike (go stagehands!), we went to the Empire State Building and got to see the city at night when it's really alive. It was so beautiful!

On Sunday we got up early to go to our Uptown tour after grabbing some delicious off-the-street croissants, and on the way we got to walk up 5th avenue... we saw Trump Tower, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Plaza Hotel, and many designer stores I couldn't believe I was even near them! We got on the bus, which took us from one end of Central Park through the West Side, up through Columbia University, into Harlem, across the tracks, and back through the East Side. It was all so gorgeous! For lunch we had Ray's Pizza (definitely not the original) and world famous cheesecake at Lindy's Restaurant, which was definitely delicious. And I MIGHT have gotten my first real cup of coffee at Lindy's to go with the cheesecake.. no, I still don't like coffee. :o) Later that afternoon, Riri, Anna and I went to see the NBC Studio Tour, where we got to see the sets of the Conan O'Brien show, Saturday Night Live (definitely my favorite), and Anna got to be a weather girl in the simulated news studio they had for us. Needless to say, it was hilarious. :o) We ended up meeting up with Laece and Aunt Gail for dinner at the Tang Pavilion chinese restaurant for some amazing dinner, and went to the hotel for a great night's sleep before an early start the next day.

Monday morning after I gave my heart away to the New York bagel and cream cheese, we got to go on a Circle Line Cruise tour around the island, which brought us by the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges. Our tour guide was a kook, but it was a great tour all the same. :o) After the tour we got to eat lunch at the Stardust diner, which is a great little place where the servers all sing while you eat, trying to pick up a job on broadway, of course. It was really fun and so hard to leave, because after that we had to go back to the hotel to get our luggage ready for take-off. :o( However, Anna and I got some time to ourselves so we could go to Times Square to get some last minute souvenirs, bagels for the flight (of course), and some really artsy pictures.

Then we left, and I haven't been the same since... I've fully decided to live there someday, and for a good while, too. It's a magical city where the people don't care, every block is filled with more culture than fathomable, and no one ever sleeps. I love it through and through... no doubt about it. So that was our trip! Now you need to go see my pictures.... they're much better than reading this. :o)

NYC pictures are up!!!

Hey guys... if you want to see my pictures of our trip to New York this past weekend, go to my photobucket:
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc122/nyc5_2007/

And if that doesn't work, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.photobucket.com
2. In the search bar, put nyc5_2007
3. It will say there is no album for that search, but go to the user's page. That's my page.

**** THE SUB ALBUMS ARE WHERE THE PICS ARE. THEY ARE DIVIDED BY THE DAYS WE WERE THERE.*****

Have fun!
:o)

Ms. Cellophane

Brian and Caleb have always been the best of friends, no matter what kind of trouble Brian always got in. Caleb was always there for him when he came back from it. They had this friend, Abby, that they didn't really know that well until that next year, when it all happened, and they ended up hanging out more often. They got to know each other as a threesome pretty well, mostly because Abby's friend, Rachel, was there, so Abby didn't feel so awkward with hanging out with two guys by herself. HA!
So this one night they stumble upon getting to know this girl named Emma, and she was really fun. Actually, she was probably the most fun one out of the group, which attracted the rest of them to hanging out with her. Abby ended up hanging out a lot more with her than the rest, mostly because she saw her more often and was a girl. :o) But Abby would go to Emma's house, spend the night, go to Emma's school to meet some of her newer friends there, and just make fun of Caleb and Brian, because it was hilarious.
Emma had this friend at school with whom she became very very close, to the point of no return, named Michelle. Abby met her one time during one of her stays at Emma's school, and thought she was awesome right from the start. The three of them started to become a little threesome of friends at some point, and it was really fun, but it always seemed to Abby to be a two-person show for her to be entertained by more than a three-person act. So, she enjoyed it for a while, and became good friends with the both of them. Needless to say, Caleb, Brian, Emma, Abby, Michelle, and Rachel were a team.
They watched movies together, went to dinner at their favorite restaurant almost every night some weeks, and basically did everything together as a group. It was heaven, especially for Abby, whose prayers had been answered for a group of friends who would spur each other on to glorifying God, living out His love, and encouraging one another, no matter what happened. Plenty of things happened, mind you, but I won't go into that. Somehow they all stuck together through thick and thin....

And then the Summer came. How it really happened is still a mystery to most, but Abby had some insight. Michelle had to go back home to Houston, and Emma began to stay at home more, since she had about 3 jobs to juggle through the week, and so let's just say they lost touch. Michelle would try to keep contact with Emma, but amidst such a heavy schedule and hanging out with old friends from home, she just never got the chance to call back most of the time. And when she did, it didn't last long enough to satisfy the longing of Michelle's heart for her best friend. She felt lost in the dust of the car gone by, looking at some brake lights and wanting them to brighten. So, Abby kept in touch with Michelle while she was at home in Houston, mostly because Abby understood the feeling of needing someone trusted to be there for her to talk through a lot of family drama that was going to keep Michelle in Houston for the upcoming year. And Abby did what she could to be that for her. Abby needed help, too, with some drama that came up between her and Brian, so Michelle got her through that. They would talk on the phone for hours, and would have to stop themselves just to keep from losing their cell phones for using too many minutes. They became pretty close over that Summer. It was amazing for Abby because that was another prayer answered: a best friend. I mean, she had best friends, but they were either far away at school, on mission trips, or just kind of out of touch.

Either way, Michelle and Abby became closer than ever over that season of life, and found themselves in that same place when Michelle's many prayers were answered with a way to live up in Dallas with all her friends and her home church, and they rejoiced together for God's amazing work in Michelle's life. Michelle moved up, she and Abby were reunited, and they were like peas and carrots. Caleb came alongside, and they were like a team. I mean they had hypothetical houses on the same hypothetical street and hypothetical kids growing up in their hypothetical wonderland of life-long friendship. It was going to be for good. When Abby moved away to school, some 40 miles away from her home, she knew it was going to be hard to be as active in Michelle's life as well as Caleb's. So, she made sure to let them know, through tears and fears, that she would never be too far away for anything: dinner with friends, hanging out after church, or even just talking. This was also more of a cry for involvement in her life, since she knew it would be hard for her to find friends at her new school. And they understood. At least she thought they did.

Some more drama (I know, it's ridiculous...) came up between Michelle and Caleb on one hand, and then more in the lives of Brian and Abby, which Michelle and Abby got through together, and ended up not even feeling remotely cool toward either of the boys respectively. Michelle would be okay without Caleb's friendship, since it really hurt her more than helped her at that point. And Abby felt that she needed to guard her heart more against Brian's lies and inconsistencies, so she would be more emotionally and spiritually reliant upon God and His good timing. So, neither girl would really want to hang out with their respective guy. And therefore, since both guys were involved at their home church, which they shared with the girls, the whole group just never really got to hang out anymore.
Michelle began hanging out with Emma again, and since they reconciled and because Michelle was feeling kind of homesick, she began staying with Emma at her home (a good 40 miles away from everyone else) and making some great friends in that area of town. She actually began dating an amazing guy from over there, and they hit it off right away. Caleb began working almost double-time to make up for what needed to be done for the fall, and was always really busy. Brian kind of disappeared from the whole scene, which was fine on Abby's part, but kept in contact with Caleb. Because of the distance of her home from the church, Emma pretty much stayed in her hometown, going to school and hanging out with friends.
So, needless to say, Abby had some limited contact with these friends, and only has a few new ones at school that she likes hanging out with. She missed them a lot and still does, only getting to talk to them and hang out with them when they are all separated, making it harder to see them at all. She wishes that they could all hang out together some time and just catch up and relive old times, but doesn't see it happening in the near future, even though it would be a real encouragement. She is beginning to feel like no one really cares that much about her enough to let her be there for them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. She longs to hear all the good and maybe not so good that's happening in their lives, and would love to hang out and catch up, even though it doesn't seem like it's reciprocated. She could be completely over-dramatizing it all in her head, but she's just laying her cards out on the table. And It looks like a losing hand.

Mr. Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane
Should'a been my name, Mr. Cellophane
Cuz you can look right through me,
Walk right by me,
And never know I'm there.