20th B-day

I want to record the contents of this day-my twentieth birthday-for all history to remember.

Woke up and decided for some reason not to wash my hair, instead just pulled it back and tried to make it look clean. Only the second day this summer I've had the whim to do this. In the car ride to work, listened to Eric and Kathy talk about lemonade stands being stolen from little girls. Did work. Listened to some Orson Wells stories, one of which was about this family that had a diamond the size of a mountain and anyone who came over to visit (or who they invited over) they had to kill. Plus, heard an hour of Reduced Shakesphere Company sketches talking about things like how all his comedies are the same and imagining his "little known" trip to America in which he wrote Romeo & Juliet after watching West Side Story. Listened to NPR and heard about North Korea trying to get the attention of the U.S. by loading up nuclear missle heads and a record setting purchase of a Gustav Klimt painting.

Took my lunch break reading a 1993 issue of National Geographic, in particular an article about Russia and the first picture caption of the one about Kazakstan. Left early at four. Stopped at the library on the way back; renewed my Wendell Berry poem back and checked out two more--one called The Simple Life and another Doing Art Together. Both found as I glanced at shelves I otherwise was about to whisk by. Lucky. Went to dinner with my bro and mom and the nearby Irish pub. Never been to an Irish pub. But my asparagus and blue cheese salad told me that Irish pubs may not be so bad. Banana ice cream cake from Sams after. Highlight of gifts: a bilingual bible and a license plate recycled into a CD book holder thing.

Slight twinges of impatience and anger come when people insist on buying me things and doing things for me. Why is that? Maybe I think that if they really "knew me" they'd know I didn't want any of things. Maybe I feel like people just want to do the things for me that they'd want done for them, I'm not considered too much in the process. Here is my critical-ness coming in. I need to accept and assume the best. No more criticism coming from an ungrateful heart.

People love me and show me in the best way they know how. And for that I am extremely blessed and thankful. What more can any of us do and for what more could I hope?