How Wacked is this Wednesday?!

Welcome, friends, to Wacked Out Wednesday. Say what?

I can't really tell you what it is, only some stuff that characterizes it. 

It kicks in around lunchtime. (Except for today I walked into African American Lit. and Noelle whispered in my ear "the wack's hitting early today." Great...) And by the end of classes, it's usually grasped it's victim tightly. How so?

First of all, there's just this general haze, like you never really woke up. This proves particularly frustrating seeing as how generally, for me, Wednesday's classes are the fullest and busiest. With any luck, though, you've grabbed a coffee (though that only makes you hyper, not necessarily more aware)

There is also usually a for real haze. Like a light rain or chronic grayness throughout the day. All the moisture in the air insures a bad hair day. Because of the rain you wear rainboots-- at first you feel all cute and confident. But when you get back from walking to all your classes, you happily kick them off as per the blisters all over your feet. Taking the boots off is dangerous, though, because you're probably sitting on your bed to do so. Oh no... It keeps yelling at you "take a nap, take a nap, take a nap" and you're like "ahhhh!" On a good Wednesday you give in and it's great because wacked out days are the best for napping. But today, as Noelle put it, "is a marathon." So the bed lost the battle of wills today. There's something to celebrate!

Usually there is an inability to keep your eyes open in class. 

You probably have a meeting with your professor. If you're lucky, he or she shows up. Noelle was not so lucky today. As for me, my prof showed up, but I wouldn't call it "luck." 

You're doing good to grab food. A lunch date on a Wacked out Wednesday is luxurious-- a luxury I got to experience today with MB. 

Probably the library's internet is down after you've specifically made a trip to isolate yourself there and write a paper. 

You'll most likely get a headache because it's much colder than it should be in mid-April. 

I would post some pics of Wacked out Wednesday, but it's raining too hard to tote the camera. How's about this random picture?

I don't know when this one was taken. But I'm pretty sure it had to be on a Wednesday, what with the rain and all.

There are often long audible sighs. Not just from you, but from others around you, as well. 

Many of your friends probably got very little sleep the night before just because this is college and one can stay up writing papers and late night chatting or watching a movie. This means that today they are delirious and funny, which is usually the greatest source entertainment of the day. It's fun for a while but then you've been trying to get work done all afternoon and people come in and you're frustrated-- not really with them but with yourself. Or with Wacked out Wednesday. And you sit there realizing that it is irrational to be so bothered by the people around you and you feel guilty about that. This only serves to make you feel even worse about the people being near. And you're sure you're being no fun and also that they are thinking about how wacked out your hair looks. But really they aren't thinking about how your hair is, they're worried about you. They want to know if you want to do something or if you've talked to so and so, all legitimate things but all you can think about is how much you have to do and how selfish it is to be thinking about that while they're just trying to be a good friend and when you would really like nothing more than to not be so whack. 

All the while it's getting darker outside and you realize how much you haven't done all afternoon because it's been so wack. Or you think about all that you have done and just want to go to sleep! You want to curl up in the corner with this book just so you know that you aren't the only one having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

But then you get to thinking what a cop out that is and what a waste of a day it is to be so completely, utterly miserable. Days like these are selfish and vain and unnecessary. But there is beauty in knowing that in these days, you don't have to be selfish, vain, or unnecessary. I can't help that the day is whack. I mean, it's just going to be Wacked out Wednesday. I can't pull up the sun. I can't go back and put on better socks so as to avoid the blisters. I can't redo conversations that probably could have used a cup of kindness. But at some point in the day, I always become broken. Broken because it might be a cursed day, but I have all the power to bless instead of curse. Because a whole bunch of other people are also strugglin' through Wacked out Wednesday. And come Thursday, those people won't remember that you were another person in a daze. Even your friends will forgive your bad mood. But what would truly stand out was if I were having a bad hair day AND smiling. Or, if I wanted to get crazy, offering a cookie or a small note of encouragement.

I don't want to be another one of those blank-faced, miserable looking people walking down College Avenue, you know? Even if I have every right to be. Even though it is Wacked out Wednesday. It's about embracing it. Too often, though, that embrace doesn't happen until my head hits the pillow that night and it's too late to do some good with the wack. And I want to curl up with this book, because I know I have a God who does a whole lotta good with a whole lotta wack. And He has the power to do some good with me if I'd let Him and not get so tripped up in this whole "my day is so wack" mentality. The Bible is full of some terrible horrible no good very bad days. Matter of fact, Ecclesiastes must have been written about Wacked out Wednesdays. Check this out:

"'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.' What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. the sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course... All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its feel of hearing.. Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind."  -Ecclesiastes 1:2-6, 8, 17 

But this is how it ends:

"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find not pleasure in them' ... Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." (... or wack...)  -Ecclesiastes 12:1, 13-14

Fear God? It's in there to remind me of the fact that I am wacked up. That the only reason all of my days don't resemble Wacked out Wednesdays is because He offers hope. So fear God, yes. Respect Him, sure. But also, out of that hope, I am supposed to be worshipping Him, too. Praising Him. 

"Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD." 

The Psalmist said it twice to get it through my wacked out head.

 I mean, I don't have a trumpet but I've got iTunes. And I don't have a whole lot of floor space for dancing, but I do have a big bed. And I do have breath. So I'm taking a dance break. Perhaps it will become characteristic of Wacked out Wednesdays. Boy, I hope so. 

P.S.-- all this talk of wack makes me want a Wacky Pack... do not even act like you don't want to own a Zoo Tot...

P.S.S.-- if you're feeling especially patient, you could listen to this song... *warning* it's very cheesy, but gets to the point :) ...

I'll end with this because it's a more adult song and because, apparently, Joy Williams has W.O.W.'s, too...