the rose of kiev

There are many recipes of things that potentially lead to feelings of happiness. It is the most impossible thing to cook if everyone is right – it takes an enormous number of ingredients and an unbelievable amount of hours spent cooking and preparing, and in the end seems to boil down to sheer circumstantial luck in the end. Not to mention the people around you and their moods, too, complicating the whole process and offering no guarantee.             Happiness could theoretically be comprised of a healthy diet, a skinny body, the perfect dessert, several hours a week exercising, more sleep and longer naps, more money, better people, nicer in-laws, jobs with more fulfillment, families with less stress, increased leisure time, free concerts, 3 weeks every month away on vacation, wild romance, free beer (free of hangovers and stupidity), unbreakable beautiful cars, removal of health problems, no more fights or arguments, increase in education, a bigger house than the Joneses, and no ...

In the time between living at home and being married now, I lived in a series of ministry houses with other girls in my church - 4 houses total. Several months ago the last of the girls I once lived with in the first on Dayton Avenue vacated the half-double, and its vacancy has made it a prime location for the boys in my present homechurch to move into. Being in that house and bringing in their belongings, I felt as though these boys were moving into my memories; it was a strange feeling, as though a good old painting I had was suddenly being painted over by someone else. As we walked up to the front of the house perched atop the steep lawn, repainted a less-offensive shade of teal than before, memories untouched for many many months came back to life with bright vivacity. We walked around to the back as the moving van door slid open, and I stared up at the back wall of the house. I did not want to go in, didn't want to see the empty spaces filled with boys' things because my m...

Our world's technology is rather amazing. If I really wanted to, I could never leave my house or see another human being ever again. I could even get a jump start on the ever-enviable Old Cat Lady syndrome. I could finish my degree online, get groceries and take-out delivered to my house, buy all my clothes from internet distributors, save money from not "going out", and talk on the phone with all my friends and family. No more sitting next to classmates who haven't showered since the beginning of the quarter. No more Bangladeshi cashiers who have such heavy accents you don't know what your total is. And no more spending the money on a dinner that didn't taste that great when all you really wanted to do was talk. This kind of lifestyle would be efficient and far more painless without such people hassles... But strangely...no it wouldn't. Relationships are utterly inconvenient and inefficient. You spend money eating meals with people, money on gifts for the...

One of my favorite things about meeting and talking to people is that each person is a doorway to a very specific set of passions and interests you've never ever seen combined in one person before; and one of my favorite things about friends is that you get to walk through that door and experience their passions with them. And, when it comes to my handsome husband, this past weekend I found myself walking through the doors of Veteran's Memorial into a gymnasium-sized room to a now-familiar sight: a gun show. I am fully aware that this room full of people is a very specific stereotype, sometimes one that is jeered or even feared, and I'd like to show you the humor and the faces of a place like this. I have been to many gun stores and gun shows since the start of my relationship with Dave, so many that I'm beginning to recognize the dealers' faces as we walk past them. That's no small feat, since all gun shows have at least a hundred displays on folding tables str...