We dream of a million kites

The nails on my right hand are surviving better than the ones on my left hand. Which is odd, but it works well enough because I play the guitar. I think my left-hand pointer-finger is permanently damaged. I forget what I did to it, but it won't grow straight and it looks like I slammed it in a door. Which is gross.

I'm addicted to Patty Griffin now. Her songs, really, not her...

Little sister just remember,
As you wander through the blue,
The little kite that you sent flying
On a sunny afternoon;
Made of something light as nothing,
Made of joy, that matters too,
How the little dreams we dream
Are all we can really do.

Isn't that lovely? I want to write a song about a kite-flyer now. Or paint a picture of one, or something. I was supposed to fly kites with Uncle David and Luke yesterday, only it rained. I miss Luke. I think if I'd had younger siblings, little kids wouldn't be a big deal to me, but as it is I find myself getting exceedingly attached to them. It's not a surprise, anyway, since Luke lived with us for half a year a few years back. But that's another story altogether. Kites. Last month when Uncle David brought Luke over, we went to the beach and flew kites for four hours. It was so lovely. I think I was Luke's favorite, when he lived with us - aside from Dad, of course - and on the kite day I felt like it again. It was a nice feeling.

I sat in the window of Jon's room, upstairs, to watch the sunset tonight. I do that sometimes; I used to go completely out onto the roof, but Dad got mad because he said it was bad for the roof-shingles. I really shouldn't let that stop me, but I'm afraid that sometime I'll be out and all the shingles will just FALL OFF, and then I'll slide down to my death, and prove myself wrong in the process. That mustn't happen. Anyway, sunsets are so lovely. Every time I see one I think of "Rebel Without a Cause", which sounds odd, but it really does make sense. The sky is so beautiful - it's something that's always there, but we don't usually take notice of it. And then sometimes it just pulls the string on the lightbulb and makes us look up, and then we feel a kind of pride in the fact that we discovered something beautiful. People are so pompous. I don't exclude myself from this, of course. Anyway, there's that line in Rebel where James Dean looks up at the 'sky' and says, "I was just thinking - once you been up there, you know you've been someplace." He says it so dismissively but it's my favorite line in the whole movie. I mean, we all have a desire to do something noteworthy and to find someplace worth being. We spend all day with our heads down, putting all our concentration into work or school, when really all we have to do is look up and see that we ARE in a place worth being.

Then of course, there's my other favorite line... he's walking Judy to school and she says dramatically, "Life is crushing down on me!" He responds, "Life can be beautiful." A friend and I say that line to each other when one of us is down and somehow it makes things seem better.

I started filling in the application to go to Prague yesterday. I have no idea where the money will come from for that, so I've been real cautious about making the decision. I talked to Amelia for about two hours though last night (I do so love that girl) and she told me the generic "pray about it". I told her I've never really known what that means when people say that - how do you tell if God's telling you to do something, or if it's pure conjecture on the person's part? I guess there's no straight answer for that... but she did bring up a good point which led me to remember my trip to Mile High Pines. I'd gone there for my own reasons (namely, because I didn't want to be HERE), and even though it wasn't what I expected, I really grew up during that trip. I know NOW that it was the right thing to do. Even though I thought I was the one making the decision to go, it wasn't me. God had the whole thing in control the whole time, all while I was trying to figure things out myself. So, I suppose that I should pray that it'll be the same thing for Prague - plain and simple.

Mom brought Chinese home for dinner, and I haven't eaten an actual meal all day. So until tomorrow...