I Got Me Some Plans, ‘Cause I Wanna Make God Laugh

I had a very enjoyable New Year’s Eve, filled with a buttload of champagne, a smokey kitchen, good friends, a firepit, me being drop dead honest when I voiced one of my greatest fears that I can’t do a thing about is that my parents would not survive a zombie apocalypse, and I wouldn’t be able to get to Alabama in time to save them, and they would die a horrible painful death. (Seriously. That paranoid scenario has been bugging me for WEEKS. There’s all sorts of mental shit running in between those lines. Maybe a blog entry for later.) There was also Rock Band. A TON of Rock Band. I mostly drummed, because I dig drumming (my hands cramp up on guitar.) I sang once, Paramore’s “That’s What You Get.” Which was actually my second attempt, as my first was at Small Group earlier in the week. I think I did better the second time around. When you hear a chorus of “whoooooooooo Amy!” in the background, they’re either telling you you’re good, or they’re appreciative of the booty shaking you’re doing.

For as much as I love the Santa Monica Pier and watching sunsets there, I rarely get down there. Even though I know what roads to take. Even though I know where you park for free. I love it down there, but it’s also such a semi dramatic background that I guess I feel like I can’t go down there unless I have some serious thinking to do.

And since it’s a new year, I felt like it was high time to start another ritual, because the OCD people LURVE their rituals, and certainly there’s plenty of deep thoughts I can think of, so off I went on Sunday.

I took my little dream book, which is from the Hollywood Tower Hotel, better known as the Tower Of Terror, my camera, my three layers of coats (it’s really cold these days) and made my way to the restaurant near the end, and ordered some margaritas and proceeded to think really deep thoughts, like What’s My Plan For This Year.

I love the calendar year turning over. It’s very visceral for me, I’m able to look at things without the stupid cloudy shit that was in the way mere days ago. I’m able to see how dumb I’ve been in certain areas, and how I can stop being dumb in those areas again.

And though I went down there with every intention of making a plan as to How I Can Get Where I Want To Go Career Wise, I found myself first scribbling other things in the Tower Of Terror Dream Book like How Can I Connect And Rely On God More, and How Can I Be Genuinely Happy For Other People Instead Of Finding Them Highly Annoying?

The list is highly private because I don’t need to be in a conversation with any of you and have you thinking She seems so genuine! Is this on her list? Is she curling her fist into a ball in her pocket with the strain of trying to be happy for me!?

But I will say that I am throwing myself whole hog into the whole rededicating myself to trying to learn who God is, because I wanna know Him, not know what He can do for me. I still harbor faint doubts about this process, because I can’t shake the scenario of me sobbing, screaming Help me! Help me! Help me! And God’s response is Love me! Love me! Your pain is not important to me so much as I want you to GET TO KNOW ME AND HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU! To which I say, If you love me, you’d HELP ME! And His comeback is If you love me, you’ll go read the book of Isaiah again and again and again and love all 66 chapters of it!

Yeah, it’s probably not gonna come so easy. But I’m gonna try anyway.

And yes, I did also sketch out some career goals, including how would I reach them if my hands got mangled and/or amputated in a disastrous cooking accident (voice recognition software, learning to type with toes, designing oversized keyboard for writing like the keyboard in Big for piano playing so I can hop and skip and lose weight while writing.)

And yes, I did watch the sunset, trying desperately to connect with God Show me your beauty. Show me connection. Let me feel your presence.

But all I felt was mighty damn cold, because the wind chill was killing me. Next year, I’m bringing four layers, scarf, hat and gloves. The works.