Way to My Heart

I have words, phrases even paragraphs of my favorite books that drift through my head at any particular time.

"until Henry was no longer afraid of flying."
"...as selfish as it was, I loved his love for me."
"...senseless violence. And so sad."
"I'm scared of me."
"Console. It's a healing word."
There are novels, articles, letters, and blog posts that make me tick. There are the friends that I have never met but seem to articulate what I have seen, felt, and continue to heal from. I call them friends having never met them. Call me crazy, I call it the reality of a wide reading list.

So if you want to know the way to my heart, it's through my reading list. There's a lot of sap in it, but also a lot of truth. Especially in the more recent stuff I've picked up. Feel free to ask me about books, and if I trust you enough, I'll unabashedly answer with the same excitement I feel when I find a new book waiting for me in my mailbox. Yep, that constitutes a good day becoming a great one.

In case you're curious, this is what I read most regularly:

Sarah Markley- you can find her at sarahmarkley(dot)com. I love her honesty, vulnerability, and the way she challenges the way I live in every blog post.

Donald Miller- Don has a blog and has written small masterpieces, Blue Like Jazz and Father Fiction: Chapters for a Fatherless Generation. He's a true hero in my book.

Dee Henderson- I'm waiting for her next book. The wait feels eternal. Dee writes Romantic Suspense, usually about men and women in the various branches of the United States military and Secret Service.

These three friends are followers of Jesus, and they write out of that. Out of the Truth they have secured in their relationship with Jesus. And that is probably why I am drawn to their writing.

Everything else is basically recommendations and repetitions of old favorites.

Random Things

['cause I feel like writing]

1. I go through cycles of music, usually one artist (it's currently Jon Foreman) at a time until I move on.
2. My favorite foods are tacos, sandwiches, and pozole.
3. I really like school supplies: pencils, pens, stationary.
4. I read. A lot.
   
5. I'm usually thirsty.
6. I don't like checking my voicemail. Don't leave me one.
7. Friends make any situation better.
8. I want to be an artist, but am too much of a coward to actually try.
9. I consider myself a writer, but need to do more of it.
10. Dance- i love it.
11. I know most of the lines to Friends.
12. I listen and watch more Oldies pop culture than I do current.
13. I have a love-hate relationship with Oprah. It's one-sided too.
14. I want a donkey as a pet, although I don't know where I'd keep it.
15. I want to run away to Mexico and just live there for a while (this may be tied into the donkey dream).
16. After careful introspection, I am fully confused as to what I want to do with my life.
17. I love Jesus.
18. I am learning what it means to be healed emotionally and spiritually.
19. I consider my friends the family I never had, and UCLA the best time of my life.
20. I don't like celery.
21. I don't like raisins.
22. Ironically, I like celery with peanut butter and raisins. Who would have known?
23. The hardest thing for me to endure is family/friends moving away.
24. The only places I've been to outside California are Tijuana, Mexico and Washington DC.
25. I'm on facebook way more than I should, but isn't everybody?