email

i went into work this morning. they asked me if i wanted to work 9-1 answering website email. of course i said yes. it's such easy money. it's time-and-a-half pay to answer really funny questions for 4 hours. here's my favorite one of the day which i copied and emailed to myself to post here...

***********************************************
Original Message:

Question: My friends son has found himself in a situation where he was stopped by the ticket collector and didn't have a ticket. The details were taken and he is waiting on what will happen next. What is the policy for this, is it fines, if so how much is it?Thank you for your help



My Answer:

Dear Traveler,

Thank you for your inquiry. Whereas we are authorized to offer the products produced by the Eurail Commission, I am sorry to be unable to advise you of the participating countries' individual fine policies. The Eurail Commission is made up of participating Countries, each having their own national rail system with it's own rules, regulations and penalties.

You can try contacting that country's tourism board. If you go to www.visiteurope.com you will find information on each country and links to their tourism websites.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Sheena L
Internet Help Desk - PDX

***********************************************

as you can see, it is sometimes hard not to be condescending. i don't know where this kid was, what train he was on or wheather that fare inspector was having a bad day or not, or why that kid decided to ride the train without first purchasing a ticket. i love it when we get email from someone that lost something on the train and they want us to send it to them. yeah...i'll get right on that.

frail

i popped in a jars of clay's much afraid album today on my way to work. it's an 8 or 10 year old album, but still pretty darn good. one song really moved me. it's called 'frail'. i found myself in tears (big surprise for me, right?) as i listened to how clearly the song describes my struggle to receive grace, forgive myself and be honest about my need for Him. i posted the lyrics below...

'frail'

convinced of my deception
i've always been a fool
i fear this love reaction
just like you said I would

a rose could never lie
about the love it brings
and I could never promise
to be any of those things

if I was not so weak
if I was not so cold
if I was not so scared of being broken
growing old
i would be...

blessed are the shallow
depth they'll never find
seemed to be some comfort
in rooms I try to hide

exposed beyond the shadows
you take the cup from me
your dirt removes my blindness
your pain becomes my peace

if I was not so weak
if I was not so cold
if I was not so scared of being broken
growing old
i would be frail

honey

we held our 48 straight hours of prayer 8am thursday until 8am yesterday. it was really fun, really exhausting and amazing in the continuity of what God said. we also had a bit of an adventure around 2am saturday when renee snapped her achillies tendon while dancing. God numbed the pain, but she still wound up with a cast.




this whole weekend has been crazy (in a good way) but today was the icing on the cake. we went down to o'bryant square, which is a place that is more commonly known as paranoia park. as you can immagine the name is fitting. there's great darkness in that area as a result of the drug running, witchcraft and gay prostitution that goes on there and in the surrounding neighborhood. renee had been invited to be there with dhoppers and so had my pastor, steve. steve wasn't planning on going, but around noon he decided to go and i said i'd go with him.

there were some really crazy divine connections with the guy that had called the prayer time and the intercessors that came with him. it was cool because there weren't any of the cooky christians you're always afraid you're going to meet in these sorts of things, but instead there were a few of them that God had been giving pieces of information that ended up really connecting with the pieces of information God's given us over the years as we've prayed for portland and done some spiritual mapping. it was intense.

they told us they had gone up to an area in east portland called mt tabor the day before because God had told them to pray there. it's a significant place because it is a 'high place' in the city, and the seat of witchcraft in portland. it is also where the healing evangelist john g. lake received his vision of the heavens opening up over the city and angels coming down. it's pretty crazy, and most of them weren't aware of any of that.

they told us that yesterday there was a lady there from argentina that two weeks ago, while she was here in town to speak for some talk show on tv, began to see a vision of the city and region, which she prayed out for over three hours. some of the vision had to do with the wells of mercy and love in this city, and that God had held back the volcanic activity in this region. she spoke of how God was releasing His redemptive power over portland, and the river of His spirit would come like a flood, and the deep and ancient fountains would be opened and cleanse the iniquity of the city.

it was so amazing because those were the same themes we saw emerge over our 48hop. after they finished telling us about yesterday's prayer adventures we started sharing the things with them that God had showed us about that area and some of the prophetic words He spoke to us, and then the guy brought out a jar of honey that had been a gift from a woman at the YWAM base he'd just been speaking at in korea. they had poured out some of the honey on mt tabor yesterday in a proclamation of the mercy of God over this city, since honey often represents mercy in the Bible.

while he was telling us about this i was reminded of how samson killed the lion and left it's carcass, and when he came back later there was a hive and honey in it, and how he at some of the honey and brought it back to his parents to eat as well. it seemed to be a picture of God destroying the work of death in this city, and from that death bringing mercy that brings strength. just as samson shared the honey with his family without their knowing where it came from, so will we take the mercy of God that will be abundant in portland and share it with others who will never have to know of the struggle and death that resulted in this mercy, they'll only know its sweetness.

i can't wait to see what comes of all this.

recognize

has anyone seen something similar to this statue before or know what it represents?




if you have and if you do could you email me at writetosheena@gmail.com? thanks.

stoned

why is it that some people can't take a bad picture, but i always look stoned? i don't have it in me to take a decent pic. it doesn't seem to be in my genetic makeup. i'd like to think that i don't look like this in 'real life', but i fear i may be in denial.

speaking of stoned...we had a company party/event/meeting thing. i, being the hypervigilantcantcutloosenotintogettingdrunk person that i am was one of the very few people from my office that didn't show up to work looking stoned and nursing a hangover.

it was so crazy to be there last night to see people who normally don't smile at *anything* getting really funny and laughing at everything. one girl that sits behind me came over while i was talking to someone else and started petting my hair. i told her about it in the breakroom this morning. she got really red and kept saying, "i did?". i don't know why they don't do these on a friday night so we don't have to come into work the next day.

the point of the (i'll call it an 'event') company event was to psyche us up for the super-busy summer season. they gave away trips, hotel stays and gift certificates and gave some gifts to recognize some of the more stellar employees. they also fed us and gave us each 2 drink tickets. i had my pint and gave my other ticket to my friend laura. some people managed to snag loads of tickets. mostly the trainers and supervisors. i heard they were having a drink-off. some of them looked pretty green this morning. if we had to go at least they fed us. the buffet was pretty funny, complete with what i call 'browniehenge'.



so today we all have a sense of camaraderie as we laugh at eachother and remind one another of all the stupid things we said or did last night. it feels more friday-like than most fridays, partly because we are all cheered up from the event last night and partly because of the 70º sunny weather. most everyone is outside on their breaks and the few people that are in the breakroom are trying to nap.



i love my job.

today

work was a bit exciting today for good ol' sheena. the sun came out for a while and i got to spend half the day on rail calls. they're so much simpler than tour calls.

there's alot more to explain in rail than in tour. most of the callers on the rail lines are 'public' callers, while on the tour side they're mostly travel agents. a public caller means someone usually unfamilliar with travel in general and everything must be explained in great detail. not to mention we're americans, and therefore unprepared for things to be different than here. but it's alot easier to be someone's hero when you are willing to offer help and advice, and seem to know alot about something foreign to them (that pun was fully intended, thank you very much!) that they're about to put their entire savings into.

we also answer email sent to our website when calls are slow. some of the email we get blows my mind. today i answered one where they wanted to know the best way to take trains from germany to ireland. i felt a little condescending having to point out that ireland is an island and has to be reached by boat. the trick is to sound sincere and nice even if you are secretly thinking 'is this a joke?'

the 2 most exciting things to happen today were 1) finding out the position i want in the company has an opening, and 2) was getting a reply to the text i sent to my friend in london telling her i was praying for her. she sent a reply saying (among other things...i can't tell you all our girl-talk!) that she had a very hard weekend and has really been in need of prayer. i love the way God puts us on eachother's hearts and through that gives us strenght.

even thought we got sunshine, i got to take rail calls, and my career is waving itself before my eyes, getting janelle's text was by far the best part of my day.

jov

this is jov. he's one of my best friends. one of my favorite things about jov is his sense of humor. he's one of the craziest people i know, but somehow manages to be subtle about it. i talk to him about guys i like and music i write. i think he knows as much about me as my chick friends. not having grown up with a brother makes me that much more grateful for the brother i've found in jov. i call him jup. it's short for jupiter, the greek version of jove, who is also the same as zues. i should just call him zues, but jup is less obvious.

jov's in a band called billion blue with some of my other friends, one of which is nathan



who may hurt me for posting this picture.

i love doing music with jov, nathan and our other friend dann. i think they're so amazing. i wish i could talk them into doing a worship band with me, but they're all too busy with work and/or the other band. i only sing anyway, so i don't know if that counts as enough contribution to warrant them involving me even if they did form another band. oh well.



jov's an amazing drummer, though he wouldn't be happy with me if left it at that. we had a bit of a "conversation" once when i wound him up by telling someone he was 'just a drummer', so let me add that he's also a musician, composer and producer and plays bass, keys and guitar. now that he's in a band again, and now has groupies again, i love to give him crap about starting a jov fanclub. he was so against the idea that now i *have* to start one. i'm currently compiling pictures, with my phone and otherwise, and will shortly be starting my fanblog. i just need some pics of his dog, moose. i'm not going to tell him about it until it's been around for a bit and people have posted lots of juicy things about him. it's gonna be awesome! ...so stay tuned for the jovfan blog.

the crazylady

silly of me, i know, but i'm really into this picture. (it's better bigger. check it out here) i took it with my phone. i like the whole cameraphone thing because i like getting pics of random things. some turn out to be cool (at least *i* think they are) and some are pathetic but just plain funny, and make nice punctuation as i tell my friends about things i saw. i even have what i call my 'elevator gallery' that consists of pictures of my co-workers as we pack in the elevator at the end of the day.

here are a few from today...

this was in my lunchroom:



this is the view from one of the lunchroom windows:



and this was the 'foxy' sticker on the orange i bought from the 'crazylady':




so now i'll tell you about crazylady.

i have a deep fondness for crazylady. she runs the little convenience store in the lobby. i think she's around 60 and she's korean. she and her husband pastor a korean church and he teaches at portland state university. at least i think he does. or maybe not. maybe they're just students. the reason i'm not sure is that neither of them speaks english at a conversational level. she tries, but sometimes it just doesn't work. his english is much less than hers, and he's only worked in the shop twice when she was getting flu shots. she told me what he does and i still don't quite get it. she reads her Bible at the little table in her shop and plays the classical radio station really loud.

everyone calls her 'crazylady' when we talk about her even if we like her, because everyone always knows exactly who we're refering to. it's not that she's actually crazy. i think it's that the cultural differences just don't translate. sometimes she's cranky and short, sometimes she's chipper and tries to let you know about all the wonderful things she has in her store, and how little they cost. the problem is you don't feel quite sure you're understanding her, and she just keeps explaining. i end up smiling and saying 'oh yeah' alot.

today i forgot my lunch so i went to her shop on my first break and bought some california rolls, a bottled iced coffee, a yogurt and an orange (it was a "california foxy navel"). she handed me a paper bag for my things, and as i put it on it's side and started to set the little sushi carton in first, she took it out of my hands with a frantic 'no!no!no!' and made me repack it with the sushi on top.

i know for a fact that some of my co-workers are afraid of her, but i like her. she adds spice to my life, stories to my day and she sells california foxy navals. what's not to like?

love

this is my beautiful portland. a haven of art, music and culture tucked away between massive rivers, breathtaking mountains and an ocean of forrest. nearly 4 million people live in the greater portland area, and yet we are an hour from the pacific coast, 45 minutes from the ski lifts and 30 minutes from the columbia river gorge national scenic area.

not a day goes by that i don't see some play of light on the hills, some reflection on the river, or some other sight that takes my breath away and deepens my love for the God who made that just so i could see it on my way to work. of the places i've been so far in my life i still have not found any quite so beautiful as here.

tonight we had a dhop meeting with (among others) kathleen, patrick, roy and ben. i wasn't going to be there because i could feel a migrane brewing, but i had to lock up at the end so i went anyway. i'm so glad i did...the least reason being my headache is gone.



we did some planning for our 48-hour straight prayer gathering that starts on thursday (i think we should call it 'fortystr8'). with that done but still in mind we spent the last hour in prayer. by the end the picture the Lord presented was both encouraging and impacting.

as we began to pray i felt heavy with the petition that God would help us know what it is to abide in Hiim. i was drawn back to the prayer of Jesus in the garden, and how He asked the Father to make us one in Him as He was One with the Father. there's a prayer i sang a few months ago at one of our friday all-nighters that i haven't been able to get out of my head since then. "You go on forever and we are but a moment. graft us into Your heart so we can go on with You." as i prayed tonight an echo of what Jesus prayed that night before He died, i found my old prayer came back to me again.

ben read from Jeremiah about the coal on the lips, and he said he saw a picture of coals touching and igniting little fires around the city until it was one flame. he read further about the desolation, saying he felt that described the spiritual desolation of this city. as he said that i was drawn back to Isaiah 58, and as i was looking it up kathleen began to read out of Nehemiah 4 where it tells of the heavy work of rebuilding the wall of jerusalem. heavier because of the sadness of the desolation and the words of sanballat, tobiah, the ammonites and the men of ashdod meant to discourage them and make them afraid to do the work. as kathleen read it she began to repent for the fear the people of God walk in that keeps us from accomplishing the work, and she asked for strength for the watch and the work. she prayed that we would not be overwhelmed as we cared for eachother's burdens.

as she prayed i looked at Isaiah 58 and saw the picture of what God has been saying, to my church as well as dhop and myself, about this season. as we line ourselves up with the heart of God (feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, widows, orphans, felons, lonely and desolate) we take on that thing that urges us, moves us as Jesus was moved to act, compells us to respond to the need. it is two-fold. we are compelled to do all we can, all the time realizing the need it too great and we cannot do it unless God comes and does what He called us to do.

in this place we find ourselves coming together to cry out on behalf of those in need, and this is the place where we must 'do away with the yoke of opression and the pointing of fingers' (vs9) and we lay aside our doctrinal and denomonational differences because we so desperately need Him to come. in this place the Glory of the Lord surrounds us and is our 'rear guard', our refreshing, our strength and the one that continues to keep the intense longing in our hearts for those who need to find Him. this is where He promises we will be like a well watered garden with a never-ending spring.

as i shared this ben quoted from Isaiah 27 where it says,
"In that day we will sing of the pleasant vineyard. I, the LORD, will watch over it and tend its fruitful vines. Each day I will water them; day and night I will watch to keep enemies away. My anger against My people will be gone. If I find briers and thorns bothering her, I will burn them up."
and as he read that God reminded me of a vision He gave me a while ago where (after showing me several things) He showed me my city, but before any human had settled there. He showed me under the ground where He had planted the roots of His love at the beginning of time.

there is coming a season of fruitfulness to this city. God is grafting to His heart the hearts of those who care for the things that matter to Him, and in the unity of our working together and our crying out for Him to come and do what we cannot - for Him to do what He has called us to do - He is coming to tend this vinyard and make it fruitful again.

amazing.

prayer

i drive into the forrest of buildings
and desperately i whisper Your name
the beauty of all You've created surrounds me
but i go indoors through a dark parking lot
and a crowded elevator
to the desk they've said is mine
for work that is irrelevant to eternity

how i need You to breathe into the pointlessness of my life

beautiful Jesus, there i see You
and even there i hear Your heartbeat
You whisper to me of Your love
for those at the desks i pass to get to my own
and in the memos, calls and meetings
i know that even here, in the dullness of this survival
You have made light in the darkness, beauty for ashes,
healing for sickness, water in the desert, praise for despair,
peace in the storm, comfort in the aching, joy for the crying.

somehow You have made all things beautiful
even 9 to 5

skin deep

funny story.

the day of my friends wedding she thought it would be a nice treat and a great bonding experience for the bridal party to all get our makeup done at the salon where she was getting her hair done. it was a bonding experience, but not for the reason she had in mind.

the girls that worked in the salon were not actually cosmetolgists, so they didn't really know what they were doing. one by one we made our way up to the chair where we were painted, but out of the range of any mirror's reflection. i was second to last, and was a little disturbed by what i saw on some of the other girls.

my first clue that things were worse than i thought was when candice, after her stylist had finished her up-do, came to see how my makeup looked. as she rounded the corner she burst into uncontrolled spasms of laughter. not a good sign. just then the girl put the final touches on my lipgloss and i approached the mirror to discover...well, see for yourself.



i actually took this picture of myself just outside of starbucks. i wanted to wipe the horrible stuff off, but couldn't do it until i had photographic evidence for my posterity. the picture doesn't truly reflect (and i do mean reflect!) how shimmery-shiny the lash-to-brow pearlescent lavender really was. shortly after i took this picture i realized the skin on my upper lids was starting to flake and peel. isn't that sexy? needless to say i ended up washing all the eye makeup off and doing myself.

when i get married i'm doing my own makeup.

pix

here's a few pics to amuse you. they're a bit blurry since i took them with my phone, but here they are.

my barbie nails...




and my sncf watch...





i think everyone needs a camera phone.

barbie

it was funny reading in carla's blog that her girly house had their little girly-pamper weekend. i had a bit of a taste of it myself.



i got my nails done for the wedding i was in a couple weekends ago. since i'm a moderate nailbiter i decided to get acrylic nails. i had her make them pretty short, but it was still a bit akward going from nails just below my fingertips to nails a good quarter inch above. they honestly felt a bit talon-like.

i could take or leave the whole fancy nails thing. some chicks are really into having their nails done, and derive a deeper sense of feminity from it. for me the nails have nothing to do with who i am or how i feel about myself. mostly they just make it hard to type.

marissa, the 9-year-old little girl at my house thinks they're amazing. she wants me to keep them forever and ever. so you can immagine my amusement this weekend when she wanted to watch me paint the things.



i figured if i was going to paint them, i'd really paint them, and found the hottest pink polish i could lay my hands on, and finished off with a nice glitter on top. it looks like i'm channeling barbie, but for a few short days i am a little girl's fashon diva.

prince charmed

i was 6 in 1981. we had moved to ashland, oregon the summer before, and lived in a nice moss-colored 3 bedroom rental on kent street. my mom and i used to watch 'the love boat' together before i went to afternoon kindergarten, and i walked home from school every day with my 3 older sisters.

i have some great memories of that house. my best friend was named tara. she was even more a tomboy than i. we were in class together, played soccer together and spent many a happy summer afternoon climbing the big oak tree in the back yard. it had a great big branch that curved out like a big seat. from there you could go higher. we also had a 50-gallon drum burn barrel back there and a veggie garden- the first one i'd ever seen as the first 5 years of my life were lived in southern california.

the little old man in the house behind was mr jones. he took out all but one nail in one of the fence boards between our yards so we would have a little swinging door to go him visit whenever we wanted. he was the sweetest man you'd ever met, and his cat was trained to use the toilet. we also had a girl scout troop that met at our house. yes, for a brief but glorious time i was a brownie.

when i think about the time we lived at 320 kent street the thing i remember most fondly was 3:00 on a dark summer morning. my mother woke all 4 of us girls, we grabbed blankies, made hot chocolate and settled in to watch a princess's wedding. it was everything it should've been, complete with horse-drawn carriage. so many things were fascinating about it, not the least of which was my first exposure to the concept of time difference.

fast-forward 24 years. i'm now 30, with a lovely job in the travel industry. my favorite pastime is no longer climbing trees, but rather climbing into airplanes bound for far-away places. as i got up to get ready for work yesterday i turned on the tv and caught just the end of the princes nuptials. instead of the awe-struck and awe-inspired girl at his side i saw a couple who will to future generations seem the poor unfortunate true-loves that could finally make an honest match in the end.

all eyes were not on the bride this time, but the groom and his mother, looking for signs of the tension between them. a bit sad to me, the whole affair. diana once so famously said that there were 3 of them in the marriage. in a sense i don't think that will change. wherever charles and camilla are people will always see the ghost of diana right there with them.

webnerdery

kathleen and i are are web nerds today. we've been in an internet cafe for a few hours messing with my blog to try to figure out how to hide parts of my post and putting up new pictures on the good'ole banner. you could say we're getting savvy...but for the fact that it's taken us more than an hour to get this far.

i'm sure they teach this stuff in grade school, but considering we never had a computer growing up, and the height of technology for us was the first atari, i'm pretty proud of myself for figuring out this basic bit of manoevering.

this cafe is pretty cool. i normally don't hang out in the hawthorne district, having grown up over here. it's a bit too bohemian for me. but it makes a good hang-out...it seems to be our established hangout. especially when we're in the mood for webnerdery. they also have a gumball machine that gives out little pin-on buttons (for a small fee, of course). so i hope this noble experiment works. and i get a cool button.

thoughts

i posted yesterday. it expressed everything exactly, but blogger was freaked out again and i lost it all. i've been a bit under the weather so that was a bit more irritating that it would normally be. oh well.

my sick day really was a sick day after all. i woke up feeling like a truck had run over me and didn't have it in me to go to work. by the time the afternoon rolled around and my throat and head began to ache i understood why i'd been so wiped out. my sister likes to point out how that if you're "pooped" and you're "wiped" it means the same thing.

so the friend drama. after much prayer and several days to consider things i've come to the conclusion that, aside from the feeling that i would like us all to really live for Christ, and being discouraged when we don't, i was upset because my little feelings were hurt. my friend told me she was not going to participate in certain activities, and then later that day she did anyway. which wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't been intentionally sneaky about it.

growing up in the messy family i did means that sometimes i'm a bit over-sensitive when i feel lied to or manipulated. not that anyone relishes it, but maybe i react a bit more than someone else would. so the question God asked me was, "are you going to get up and trust her again?" funny that when i want something resolved God always asks me to resolve something in myself. (sigh) and forgive. always forgive.

darn it.

so now i have a dificult conversation ahead, but with a friend i love for a relationship that is worth doing the hard thing. true friends challenge eachother, support eachother, speak truth to eachother and always love eachother.

this love thing sure can be hard.

rest

that's what i'm getting today.

i called in sick today, and i almost am. i'm pretty healthy in general. i only get a couple of colds a year, so i always have loads of sick days from work. these last two i've taken as 'mental health' days. the fact that i don't feel guilty about it tells me i need it. i better not make a habit of this.

the past several days have been a bit wearing. the wedding was exhausting but great, but (the story behind my last post) some of my friends from church went out after the wedding and did some really stupid things. i have grace for stupidity, but i really had a hard time with this because they had others along that are just coming to an understanding of the need to make better choices with their lives, and are just discovering God. from my eyes it looks like my friends knowingly chose self-gratification to the detriment and damage of others. i don't think there's any excuse for that. they know how to make the right choices, and they understood that some of the others going out were watching them. i could see it coming so i went home when i realized there was nothing i could say to influence their plans. it really really bothered me.

i have this 'mamma bear' thing and i get more upset than maybe i should over situations like this. i know my sense of justice is overdeveloped, but it's still hard to talk myself down sometimes. this time it took me 2 days. God will work it out for His glory, but why do we create situations that make Him have to 'work it out'? why don't we just do it right the first time?

i'm sinful, stupid and selfish. i don't think i'm better or more holy than anyone else. i just ache to see us get past these childish things and mature in our relationships with Christ and eachother. what would God be free to do if we put love first? what would happen if we made choices based on wanting to please God instead of trying to keep as much of the pleasures of this life as we could justify, and somehow still serve Him. i want to know. i want my friends to know. i want those watching us to know.

am i being too harsh about this? anyone have any thoughts?

frustration

i sit here helplessly and watch you chose
the things i know will bring you greatest pain
i've done all i can to let you know
my love for you is here
my shoulder is yours to lean on
but somehow you decide it's not enough
so you chose to put your feelings first
you are not helpless to make the better choice
but you don't want to
and you do what you want

so here we are again picking up the pieces
of something broken and fixed not long ago
you know better but you choose consequences
hurting not just yourself but those who love you
and now you come painfully to the same conclusion
my heart aches knowing yours does too
but please don't ignore the truth
don't look in the mirror
and forget what's there

married

mike and shaleen are married.

the wedding was in salem today (about an hour's drive south - also the state capital) but we bridesmaids drove down yesterday for the rehearsal. things went remarkably smooth, due largely to the fact that the bride and groom were really enjoying themselves and were really relaxed. it was very sweet and lots of fun. everything went fine with 'the song'. i figured it would, but i was pretty nervous anyway. durring the ceremony the rest of the wedding party was between me and the seated guests, so i didn't really have to look at anyone. that was a little gift from God.

the reception was really fun. they fed us (and boy were we hungry by then!), gave us really yummy wine and had a dj that set up kareoke. we cut a crazy rug. it was great. now it's 12:30 am, but it's really 01:30 because of daylight savings time. i'm pooped, so i'm off to bed to rest up for my 'duvet day' tomrrow. my housemate and i are watching the dune miniseries, so i need my strength for all that viewing. it should be quite nice...i may not even get out of my pj's. oh what a lovely thought!

shakepeare

here are my favorite sonnets. there are three. the first i love for it's sweetness, the last two for their sarcasm.


106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.



130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.



138
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be