People seem amusingly confused sometimes about exactly what "meat" means. Two conversations within a week of each other:

1. At rehearsal dinner for wedding #1:

Friend: Is this soup vegetarian?

Waitress: Yes. It's made from beef broth and vegetables.

2. At reception for wedding #2:

Me: Do these beans have meat in them?

Family member who cooked food: No, they just have bacon.

Yesterday I returned from a weeklong trip to Pennsylvania and New York. The main purpose of the trip was to be one of the photographers at my friend Josh's wedding. Along the way, I had a great time catching up with old friends from Toronto, visiting my family, and meeting a dear Flickr friend for a day.

The other morning as I was driving to work at a temp assignment I was praying in tongues. As I was stopped at a traffic light these words came into my mind with the force and unmistakable clarity of God speaking: "For what do you worry and be anxious? The Lord God is the God Almighty, the God of the whole earth."

Those two simple sentences brought stunning calm and revelation. I am a high-stress person, though I don't show it much on the outside. It hit me how foolish and futile is worry, and how dishonouring and grieving it is to God: we live as though he does not exist. As though he is not in sovereign control of the universe and of our lives. As I thought about it I realized that we need a bigger revelation of God, because if he is who he says he is, we need never worry or be afraid.

This is a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately, mainly triggered by a couple of specific situations. Friendship with the opposite sex is an area that everybody, single or not, has to navigate to some degree.

I'm a very friendly person. I genuinely love people. I also tend to get along best with guys. Growing up, I was a tomboy. I played with the boys and took part in all their sports and activites. (OK, maybe not quite all. Things like peeing messages in the snow, I skipped.)

Longer-term readers will remember Gail, my former landlady, from the previous version of this blog.

After I moved out of Gail's place, I promised her I'd come back and take her out for Indian food. I left a note with my phone number, and told her to call anytime. That was November. I called her at Thanksgiving to invite her to join me with some friends, if she had nowhere to go; she thanked me and explained that she had an invitation, but as holidays were "trigger times" for her, she didn't know if she'd be able to go or would have to be put in the psychiatric hospital.

When you're out in public and you observe a potentially dangerous/bad situation, what do you do? Do you interfere? Or do you pretend you didn't notice and keep going, along with the majority of people?

Scenario 1

A crowded subway car. I'm standing by the door, as usual. A middle-aged man and woman are inches away from me. The man has his face in the woman's. With steely eyes and jaw clenched tight with hate, he's muttering horrible things at her, his eyes locked on hers. This monologue goes on for a minute or so, her face grim, emotionless and unresponding. I decide to interfere. I say, "Is everything ok?"

I've come to the conclusion that I am obsessed with photography. That will perhaps come as no surprise to anybody who knows me, but what is obvious to others is sometimes not so obvious to us.

Photographers will identify with what I'm about to say.

I have been inordinately disorganized and procrastinatory lately. One lesson that freelancing has slammed home, if I didn't know it before, is that I am inordinately disorganized and that I procrastinate abominably.

I love summer.

I love flipflops and free, dirty feet.

I love hot, hot days and long sunshine.

I love fresh summery air.

I love peepers in the marshes screaming "Mate! Mate! Mate!"

I love ice-cream cones.

I love barefoot in the grass and fully-dressed trees.

I love wading in the surf at the edge of the ocean.

I love not dressing in fifty layers just to go to the grocery store.

This is my favourite time of the year.

Sick. When I ran a five-miler yesterday, I knew I was going to be sick today. My lungs ached and I had to stop to walk three times in that distance. However, the only alternative was to give in to a vague feeling that my body might be fighting something, and stay home on that chance.

Well, I've found out. My lungs ache and burn and when I cough, which I instantly regret, it feels as if they've been chopped up into mince-fine little pieces, which are all coming up. I'm chilled, sitting in a warm house wrapped in a fleece, and shivering uncontrollably. The toilet seat feels like an iceberg.