One of the top searches to find my blog is “Miss Universe Missiology.” Evidently, if you google that phrase, this blog comes out top of the list. Since I have never discussed Miss Universe, I am to suppose I have been appointed or elected or something. Who am I to argue with the wisdom of google? The people have spoken, and I’ll dutifully don the satin sash. I will now answer to this title, but we should probably find the first runner up…I’m sure to do something scandalous and lose the crown.

1. The fingernails on my left hand grow faster than the fingernails on my right hand. In addition, my right side is much more likely to fall asleep than my left. I am mildly concerned about my circulation.

2. Driving a convertible should join ‘going to starbucks’ and ‘checking facebook’ on the methods of procrastination list.

3. Words like umbrage and superfluous roll off my fingertips, but apartment and perceive have to be spell-checked every single time.

4. When I’m tired I am more prone to semi-colon use.

5. Spoonable Equal doesn’t dissolve entirely in reheated coffee.

6. ‘Twitch’ from So You Think You Can Dance was a dancer in Hairspray. He’s the one who catches the eye of Brittany Snow at the very end.

7. The lyrics to Madonna’s Hard Candy album don’t make any more sense after sleep deprivation.

8. I have as many facebook friends online at 4 am as 4 pm.

For awhile now, my quest for a new vehicle has been pretty common knowledge. I’m beyond obsessed with mini-coopers and their personality/fuel efficiency. Plus, no one I know actually owns one…in my never-ending quest of the unique, this is somehow important. After all, God created us all to be individuals, what’s the point in spending so much energy to all be the same?

Common and normal bores me, which is a problem because I’ve driven either a ’88 or ’93 Honda Accord almost exclusively since my 16th birthday. They’re great cars, but, seriously? Could we find a car more common and normal? I think what a person drives tells you a lot about them, and my accord driving days reflected others’ expectations more than my own.

Anyway, I’m at a point in my life where I’ve got a decent and steady job, I’m not tied to much, and I really get to pick and choose my expenses. God’s blessed me, and purchasing a car, like all endeavors needs to be an act of stewardship. I decided at the beginning of May that if I could manage to stick it out through the summer, I could pay off some debt, save a pretty significant car payment and purchase a fantastic automobile of my very own in September.

Funny how life doesn’t work that way. Not three days after I started paying things off in huge chunks, my little honda took its dying breath. I guess it decided 180 thousand miles was far enough. Honda towed to a local mechanic and awaiting the prognosis of death, I spent the last 3 days of life praying, rebudgeting, refiguring and exploring car dealerships. (Side note: car shopping alone is a good time to play the girl card. Do your research, and stand your ground, but go in dressed adorably and with a wide-eyed expression. In my experience, it gets them every time.)

It was a difficult endeavor, because my heart was set on a mini, but used minis are impossible to find and my budget couldn’t manage the $30,000 price tag. Day1, I explored. I let the salesmen make suggestions. I test drove a ridiculous amount of vehicles. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Day 2, I met her and fell in love, but knew I couldn’t afford her. I held my ground, and sneaky salesmen man sent her home with me thinking I’d cave. Day 3, I went back, and he’d caved. $2 less than what I was willing to pay.

So that’s how Lola came into my life. I know, I know. I’m not generally that girl who names vehicles, but I’ve never driven a vehicle with this much personality before. Hey, I’m 28, single and living life out loud. When it comes to a car like this, it’s either now, or during my midlife crisis. I choose now.

Lola is a 2007 Turbo Touring PT Cruiser.

I love this for multiple reasons, but mostly because when I read it, in the NY Times of all places, it makes me proud to be a Southern Baptist. It’s been a while since that’s been true. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all say this about our church? Who’d have thought an article in the Times could make me consider moving to St. Louis?

On Monday morning I put $50 worth of gas in my car. Monday was the cheapest gas has been all week. While I’m thankful for that good fortune, and while I feel the pinch on my pocketbook just like everyone else, I still think whining about gas prices is pretty egocentric as Americans. In most of Europe, gas tops $8/gallon. In Turkey, they’re paying more than $10/gallon and in Sierra Leone (in West Africa) gas prices reach almost $20/gallon.

The presidential candidates have all used gas prices as a talking point in the last few weeks, but the fact of the matter is, none of their “solutions” will actually do a whole lot. The problem isn’t with our gas prices, it’s the fact that we’ve trained our nation to depend on cheap gasoline. There are plenty of civilized nations who haven’t paid less than $4 a gallon in living memory, and their economies are all making it just fine.

Maybe paying more at the pump will force us to look at public transportation (an impossibility for me and the rest of us living in the largest city in the US without it), at carpooling, at biking, at walking. In addition to the environmental effects therein, those things also facilitate community. What would life start looking like if we interacted with other human beings on our suburban commutes? We might find the result is worth more than the extra cash we’re shelling out to fuel our busy lives.

To read more from people who think like I do about this topic, click here or here.

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

~ Kathryn Hepburn

There’s this struggle deep within me between wanting to be Elisabeth Elliot and wanting to be Anais Nin. Part of me wonders if this stems from being 28 and single and loving Jesus and reading too much. On one side is the draw towards purity and reliance; on the other side lies the enticement of passion and independence. Paradoxical as it may seem, I’m not entirely certain the ideals, dreams and ambitions these women represent are mutually exclusive. I have a feeling this battle takes place in the hearts and minds of most women, but I wonder how many of us have the courage or stamina to let it play out. Should a truce ever be reached, what would that look like? What would I look like?

NOTE: Chances are, most of you reading this are familiar with either Elliot or Nin, but not both. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from each to let you catch a glimpse of why I love them so.

ELISABETH ELLIOT

• There is nothing worth living for unless it is worth dying for.
• Today is mine. Tomorrow is not my business.
• If we give out of love, there is ultimately no way in Heaven or Earth to avoid receiving and receiving more than we could possibly give.
• A willing acceptance of all that God assigns and a glad surrender of all that I am and have constitute the key to receiving the gift of a quiet heart.
• Holiness has never been the driving force of the majority.
• Let the Lord of the Universe do the worrying.
• God never denies us our hearts’ desire except to give us something better.
• This list should also include pretty much all of “Passion and Purity” and Let Me Be A Woman”

ANAIS NIN

• And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
• Do not seek the because – in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
• How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.
• I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
• Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
• The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.
• Truth is something which can’t be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.
• We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
• We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.
• Dreams are necessary to life. Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

Had you asked six months ago (and some of you did), I would have said that the Republican party didn’t have a prayer of winning the 2008 Presidential election. That was six months ago.

Three months ago, I would have told you that their only prayer was Hilary Clinton winning the Democratic nomination. That was three months ago.

That was then; this is now, and as the title says, Things Just Got Interesting. Somewhere in the last 3 months both Clinton and Obama seem to have forgotten they still have to run in the general election. They’re not just not pulling punches, they’re all but sabotaging one another and making themselves look like…er…politicians in the process.

Let’s face it, when this whole thing began everyone knew the Democrats had a clear path to the White House. Bush’s approval rating is the lowest in the history of Gallop, and for some totally unknown reason the RNC still has him campaigning for their candidates. There’s a war with no end in site and an economy that the Chicken Little media says is collapsing around our ears. Realistically, the Dems could have run Daffy Duck and beat whomever the Republicans nominated.

But they didn’t run Daffy Duck…they stepped it up with a jab to Republican kidneys by offering a female and a black candidate. With the independent/undecided voters locked into the novelty of voting for the “First Woman/African American President,” Democrats should have been able to coast onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

So what happened? Well, evidently, John Edwards was the playground monitor that kept the two popular kids from pulling each other’s hair and calling each other names. Without him to temper things, they’ve chosen to battle each other rather than fight over issues. Until lately, neither of them could argue that the other couldn’t win the general election – the little (D) next to the candidate’s name would assure victory. Instead, they’ve battled that the other “shouldn’t” be president, and that has resulted in calling experience, character, and credibility into question. Universal health care has deteriorated into drivel over flag pins. Long gone are the optimistic “Yes, We Can” speeches and commercials orchestrated by Will.i.am; welcome to attack adds and campaigning using the face of Osama Bin Laden.

They’ve shot so many holes in one another that John McCain doesn’t really have to fire a shot when it comes time to run in the general election. He’ll get to stand on the side and say “look, a hole” as the Democratic nominee sinks into the pit he/she has dug for him/herself.

The longer primary season continues, the more independents and undecideds move back to the middle or the right. TIME polled Clinton voters after the Pennsylvania primary and 43% said they’d vote for McCain if Clinton didn’t get their party’s nomination. The percentage of Obama voters that said the equivalent was only marginally less.

At this point, the best thing that could happen for the Democratic party would be for the nominating process to go to a second vote in Denver. At a second vote, delegates are released from their original loyalties and can vote for whomever their whims decide…even an additional candidate. Is Al Gore planning to be in Denver? Things just got interesting…

OK! magazine just won’t let go of the idea that Jennifer Aniston and Orlando Bloom should be an item. Evidently, they were seen at the (gasp!) same charity event in LA last weekend. Says the magazine, “Aniston looked like she wanted to grab him and make out with him!”

Good to know that Jennifer Aniston isn’t an idiot. Is there a woman between 12 and 200 that doesn’t want to grab Orlando Bloom and make out with him? I hardly find this hard evidence.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m all for going green and minimizing our global footprints. When I finish typing this, I’ll make a minuscule drop in the bucket by taking the recycling bin to the curb. That said, I’m fairly certain that this add, promoting Al Gore’s We Can Solve It campaign, is supposed to say to the world “Hey, even these two people from opposite ends of the political spectrum can agree on saving the environment.” What does it say about me that watching it triggers the same response in my body as watching a horror movie? There’s an irrational alarm in my brain screaming “AHHH, loud-mouthed, narrow-minded, blow-hards believe in global warming.” The rebellious side of me is fighting the urge to litter. Seriously. Tell me you’re not a little bit traumatized by a jovial Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson sitting on the same sofa. <insert shivers up the spine here>