good news! great joy!

I love Turner Classic Movies. Their website is even one of my little tabbies on the top of my web browser. I made magnets out of their logo, which are on the refrigerator right now. At one point I even kept records of what classic movies I'd seen, categorized by actor and listed by year. I stopped tallying in 2008, but at that point (according to my documents), I had seen 19 Cary Grant movies, 24 Jimmy Stewart movies, 17 Paul Newman movies, 16 Fred Astaire movies, 12 Bing Crosby movies, 14 Ginger Roger movies, 10 Doris Day movies, and the list goes on. And on.

And on.

I was kind of a nerd in high school. Not the "study hard and wear too-short jeans" kind of nerd, but the "hanging pictures of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on my wall" kind of nerd. In fact, they're there, even now. Hey, Fred.

I wanted the TCM Scene-It game for my birthday, until I realized, who would play it with me?

Dear Robert Osborne,
I realize you are a very important and busy man, what with being the host and face of TCM. But I was wondering if you would play Scene-It with me. Then maybe Glenn Miller DDR.
Love, Heather

For 3 1/2 years I have gotten on TCM's website and requested they replay a certain film. It isn't on DVD yet, so I occasionally change my e-mail so I can vote they put it on DVD. And on their "recommend a film" page I change my name and location so they think many people all over the country are requesting the same movie.

Please play Pillow to Post again. I think it's fabulous!
Beth/Kansas City

OMG i just luv this movei! plz play it agan
Brittany/CA

My mother just died from a 7-year battle with cancer. When I was a little girl we used to watch this movie at night when I couldn't sleep. Also there were puppies involved. Please show this movie.
June/Hartford

Then I wondered if they could track my posts from the same computer, and all the men in the tech center at TCM headquarters were probably looking at each other with enormous and very official headphones on their ears thinking, "Why does this woman keep messaging us as fake people? We know you're only one person!"

Because I want to see this movie! Please just show this movie again!

And guess what. They are. THEY FINALLY ARE!

March 25 at 11:45 p.m.

Thank you to all my split personalities who contributed to make this moment possible.

Why don't movie posters look like this anymore?

breathe on me, breath of God

This is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. I've never even seen Blood Diamond, because the one time I sat down to watch it, I fell asleep. But today as I baked a banana cake with the TV on in the background, this scene made me still myself in the middle of my kitchen.

I don't know what Blood Diamond is about, other than that it takes place in Africa. I do know that the African man traveling with Leonardo DiCaprio had his son kidnapped, who was then made to believe that his father was the enemy. So at this point in the movie, his son pulls a gun on the two of them, and his father just looks at him. "Look at me," he says to his son. And, when he has his attention - this is the part that captivated me - he tells him with complete authority and conviction, looking straight into his eyes, exactly who he is.

"You are Dia Vandy," he says, "of the proud Mende tribe. You are a good boy, who loves soccer and school. Your mother loves you so much. She waits by the fire making plantanes and red palm oil stew with your sister N'Yanda and the new baby. The cows wait for you. And Babu, the wild dog who minds no one but you. I know they made you do bad things, but you are not a bad boy. I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again."

I love this. I feel like this is what God wants with each one of us. He wants to look us in the eye and tell us exactly who we are. Can you imagine what that moment would be like? To have the God who created you stand in front of you and say, "This is who you are." How different would it be from our image of ourselves and others's images of us? To live only hearing the voice of God speaking the truth of your identity into you like breath into lungs. I want to live like that.

"The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." - John 10:3-5

feeding your inner-introvert

Extroverts are like those huge trees in Florida whose roots lay on top of the ground like monstrous wooded Octopus tentacles, sprawling out for human interaction. The sunshine of people's presences and the mist of retirement communities's sprinkler systems is enough to feed and water them. (I actually know nothing about these trees, so I hope no horticulturalists are reading this, disapprovingly clicking their tongues at me. I can't take disapproving tongue-clicks!) Their roots soak up the environment around them like scaly reptiles in the sun. Sssssssssss.

Introverts, however, are more like trees whose roots are buried deep in the soil. They need gulps of flood water to penetrate the soil, or else the heat of the sun scorches their leaves and leaves them wilted and pitiful.

I am an introverted tree who has been trying to water my roots like a gargantuan Floridian tree, and now my leaves are wilting. I love the sun for its chlorophyll and vitamin D, but without water I'm scorching, and the sprinkler systems of the extroverted world are not enough.

I realized last night that loving people does not mean that I can be around them all the time. All the energy I have I would love to spill onto them, but so many things are taking up my energy that I'm drawing on reserves to give to people until I am slowly being depleted. And this leaves me no time to replenish what I've lost, if every spare moment I'm looking for more ways to BE WITH PEOPLE. It's a balance system I have not mastered, and still don't understand. I hope my future occupation is working with people, so that they can have my energy.

Ways to recover and feed my introvertedness in order to rejuvenate and de-stress:

• My favorite part of the day is walking to class down my street in the mornings. The sky is always so early, unmarred, and glassy, like a cold pool without the ripples of the day in it yet. I need to relish this more and spend it in praise to the God who created it.
• Black Beauty. Ultimate relaxing, everything-will-be-all-right movie. What is more serene than watching butterflies land on pink flowers to the music of Danny Elfman?
• Participating in unimportant - yet not unproductive - things, like watching curling. There is something peaceful about that sport, like golf - except they don't yell at each other in golf ("YUP! YUP!"), and curling is a lot more technical (Team USA: "I'd say you gave it a 7-8. It landed on the button." Me: "Ah, yes, a 7-8. Precisely. You conquered that button").
• Reading, and realizing I'm not missing out on the world by reading. I'm reading The Professor's House for my American Novel class, and for some reason I'm really enjoying it. When I got to class today, Dr. Vincent began it with, "This novel is about someone experiencing a crisis." Oh. Well, maybe that's why.
  
• Spend time with the Lord. Be still, He says. Cease striving, and know that I am God. Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. (Psalm 46:10 NASB & Isaiah 30:15 NLT, respectively.)