the wounded bookshop

So tonight I made my first venture into the world of open mic poetry. After much persuasion from my fellow writer and poet friend Chelsea, I agreed to attend the open mike poetry night at The Wounded Bookshop downtown and read some of my poetry. I LOVE The Wounded Bookshop - the atmosphere, the building - it's a used bookshop in an old, old building that used to be a machine shop - now it's filled with mismatched sofas, artwork, dones of aged wooden bookshelves with old books, coffee, tea, wine, creaking staircases, fabulous rugs . . .

I loved listening to other people's works and meeting so many interesting characters: the elderly woman who published a book of poetry years ago, who still writes . . . the young man who's traveled the United States and just recently arrived in Fredericksburg to start a non-profit environmentalist action group - he also used to teach to gang members , one of his favorite students was shot in the forehead . . . the 15-year-old girl with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, black-rimmed glasses who declared that she normally writes fiction but what the heck, she gave poetry a try (incidentally she is an extremely talented writer across the board) . . . Chelsea my comrade English major and writer (with all of the OCD characteristics that I posses) - she's a great writer as well . . . the middle-aged man with curly blond-gray hair and glasses, who wrote a poem about Isaac Newtown (and said that if anybody wanted to know why he wrote about Isaac Newton, he would tell him "offline") . . . the young man with a pale yellow buttoned up shirt and black-rimmed glasses, who disliked the government and organized religion, who hestitated reading a poem he had written about sex . . .

I read three of my poems - first time ever reading them in public. It was amazing. I think I'm hooked.

hi & and my car

Hey everyone. I'm slammed with massive amounts of stuff, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm alive. Oh and my car is in the shop. Needs a new compressor. I wonder if all of these auto mechanics live in mansions. They can probably afford it if they get to see any of the money they charge us. But anyway, the auto place that my car is at - the guys there are really nice, I went to them on recommendation of a dear friend of mine. When I drove my car up the first thing the guy said was "That doesn't sound good." Very hopeful start, no? But would have to agree - my poor car sounded like it had a 50-year smoking habit. Emphezyma for cars. Hopefully I'll get to pick it up tomorrow. I miss my "land yacht." (Thank you Bryan for that lovely moniker - it has become near and dear to my heart).

oh boy

So last night I almost got broad-sided on the driver's side of my car by a van. Seriously, by God's grace and a few feet, as well as good brakes, I missed being in a serious accident. It was night time, I was driving in unfamiliar Springfield, frustrated because I couldn't find the church where my brother was singing, and I was lost. I decided to turn back around and head the other way down the the road, so I pulled off into a neighborhood to turn around. In order to get back on the road I had to turn left and cross 4 lanes of traffic, two going either direction. I inched out and misjudged the speed of the car heading towards me. About half-way across the first two lanes I realized "Oh shit I do NOT have enough time to get across the road." I had a brief second of mind-blowing panic but managed to slam on the brakes just in time for the car to swerve around me. I don't think I breathed for at least 10 seconds and then I started crying, I guess because I was scared - I realized what could have happened to me. Man. It was really frightening. I thanked God and my guardian angels profusely on my way home. And I will now be an old lady driver forever.

career and self-esteem update

I have recently had some career boosts that have served to raise my self-esteem, however temporary it may be. :)

First of all, I came into work today (the advertising company I write for - just in case you infrequent readers have forgotten) to find out from my boss that the concept and tagline that I had come up with to pitch to The Virginian-Pilot (out of all the concepts the free-lancers they brought in came up with for the project) is going to be one of the two concepts presented to the Pilot executives! Mine!! The company is actually going to present MY idea to a big-league newspaper for their new advertising campaign. Potentially, if the Pilot executives decide to go with my idea, all of you people in the Hampton Roads area could be witness to a new advertising campaign from the brain of your friend Kelly. I'm grinning from ear to ear here. The CEO of my company came up to me and told me what a great job I had done on the work for this pitch. Now talk about a self-esteem boost. I spent most of this afternoon fleshing out the concept and there is a chance that I might be able to go down with the company to help pitch, or observe the pitch of the two ideas. The other concept they are presenting is a strong one as well, but if my concept doesn't make it past the presentation, I'm still going to be extremely happy with how far it got. :) (Yay!!) (!!!) I'd love to stay and work for this company after graduation - we'll see what happens.

Yesterday, I also got a call from The Motley Fool, an organization that writes about finances and informs the common citizen about how to manage their finances in a humorous way. They have a popular radio show with NPR and an in-depth website and book series. I applied for an editor position with them (mostly copyediting) on Tuesday and the next day they called me back. While the lady I talked to thinks that I'm a little light on experience (although, in my opinion, most college students are) they are interested enough in me to have me take an editing test on Monday, which they are going to fax over here to good old career services. I have to take the test in a certain period of time and then fax it back. Who knows what will happen with this, but it was encouraging to finally hear back from someone even if I don't do well enough for them on the test.

Yay happiness. :)

a new friend Bradley

I made a new friend at church on Saturday, his name is Bradley and I'd say he's about 8 years old, maybe 9. He's the cutest little boy, with dark hair and big brown eyes. I got to the service early to help set up and Bradley came up to me and Pattie, my church sponsor, eager to help do anything. We took to each other really quickly. Now each Saturday church service has a metaphor, and this past Saturday's was supposed to be the "brick wall tumbling down" because Jesus was resurrected. They had had a brick wall made of tissue boxes set up during the Lenten season. None of us could find the bricks and since no service would be complete without a metaphor, Bradley asked me to go on an adventure with him around the church to find them.

As we walked out the sanctuary he confided in me that he was happy I was coming with him because he was scared of the dark. He told me quite matter of factly that although he hadn't seen a lot of scary movies he'd heard about them and they were scary, especially Freddie and Chuckie. I told thim that normally when people stick together in those movies they are fine so we'd be fine - you know, we were comrades, nothing would happen. So we explored all over the church, in the dark places . . . opened scary doors, climbed over things (well he did) and we still could not find our metaphor.

We got back to the sanctuary right as the service started and we got separated. He went to sit with his dad and I sat with Pattie. We both passed out crosses during Communion - Pattie helped him and I helped his older brother. Anyway, the service was great and right when it was over I bent over to grab something and he was there in front of me and he gave me this huge hug and was all mournful and said "are you going to be here next Saturday because I'm going to be here next Saturday" and I was so sad because I wasn't going to be there this upcoming Saturday - friends are coming down and I am going to my brother's concert in Springfield that night - but for a few moments there I wanted to say "screw it" to all of that (no offense to said friends and brother) just so that I wouldn't have to disappoint this little guy. I told him that I'd definitely be back the Saturday after this one and he was like "well I don't know if I'll be here because I might be with my mommy that weekend" and I promised him profusely that he would see me soon, as I would be coming for the next month. Although when I thought that ,I felt a pang because I'm graduating soon. Man - I'd stay in Fredericksburg just for FUMC and the people there. I'm going to miss it so much.

Anyway, he wanted me to stay after the service later so I did, and we did a little bit more exploring but finally I gave him a hug and he was like "You know did you come here before?" and I was like "Yep, I've been coming to this service all year, I've seen you but we've never gotten a chance to talk" and he was like "wow yeah and we talked to today and now we are friends." And I said, "Yes, we are."

the motorcycle diaries

I just thought I'd recommend a FABULOUS movie. A friend bought it for me and I highly, highly, recommend you watch it - "The Motorcycle Diaries." The version I saw was in Spanish with English subtitles, I don't know if you can hear it in English - perhaps I didn't explore the menu well enough. But even if you can, I think I'd still choose to watch it in Spanish, since it takes place in South America, you gain a little bit of authenticity. Anyway, check out the the movie's website : http://www.motorcyclediariesmovie.com/ if you want to see what it's about. You have to watch it. End of story.

Good Friday

I don't know if any of you have ever been to a Good Friday Tenebrae service, but I went to one tonight at Fredericksburg United Methodist church. I've been to plenty of them before, but I just wanted to write for a second about how powerful they can be, especially tonight's. I think Tenebrae is solely a Protestant thing, but I could be wrong (so correct me if I am!). Anyway, FUMC did a Tenebrae service tonight, and for those of you who don't know Good Friday, for Christians, it marks and remembers the day that Jesus died on the cross. The service started out with all of the lights on in the sanctuary, numerous candles lit, and the traditional lenten purple garments draped over the lecturns and altars. Scripture about Jesus' final hours, alternating between hymns about his death constituted most of the service. But each time a scripture was finished being read, a few candles were taken out of the sanctuary, and the purple garments were removed. A black cloth was draped over the cross and by the time we got to Jesus' death in the Scripture, the lights had progressively been dimmed to black and the candles were all taken out. When the final Scripture had been read, we were sitting in pitch black, prayerful and silent. All of a the sudden the organ crashed out a very loud, dischordant, and mournful chord, reminiscent of the moment Jesus' soul left his body and an earthquake and thunder rocked the Mount of Olives. Then the church bell rang 33 times, one ring for each year Jesus lived. I could hear other churches ringing their bells as well. The whole time the lights stayed off, and after the bells finished ringing, we left the sanctuary in silence. The service was powerful, but the act of Jesus dying for me, for us all, is the most powerful of them all.