Pear in a Partridge Tree

Buffalo and Niagara Weekend

2012-02-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

I accompanied Travis on a trip out to Buffalo, NY this weekend as he interviewed with a prospective grad school. I have mixed feelings about the trip--mostly a result of fatigue and a very human unwillingness to face change. So instead of writing about my feelings, I will post some of the highlights in pictures. Travis's parents were kind of enough to join us for a day or two of sightseeing in Niagara Falls, which is very close to Buffalo. We stayed on the Canadian side which affords a much better view. The pictures are somewhat out of order, but I'm definitely too lazy to fix it right now.

It was a snowy, blustery day.

Here, we are in the gift shop where Travis is sporting the latest in fashion. (Yes, that is what you think it is.)

American Falls as seen from the Canadian side.

Edge of Horseshoe Falls.

So...the little package deal we bought included a visit to a butterfly house that is part of a botanical garden. I think all of us were totally enchanted.

This butterfly was my favorite because...well...just look at what happens when it opens its wings.

My favorite butterfly perched on my finger! (I also held a tarantula for the first time, but I didn't get photographic evidence.)

The blizzard had cleared up by the time we left the butterflies.

Rainbow over Horseshoe Falls, which kicks up ridiculous amounts of mist.

Niagara Falls, Ontario skyline

Looks like the Strip.

Viewing the Falls from behind...

Man. If I had to come back as any animal, I'd come back as THESE butterflies. No predators, endless amounts of nectar and rotting fruit to eat, and hundreds of human admirers every day, ALL DAY. That, my friends, is the life.

So, I started this post last night. But as of this morning, we know that SUNY Buffalo is definitely an option for us. Travis received his acceptance in an email. Since this is the only interview he's done yet, until further notice, we are going to Buffalo. We still don't know if we will definitely be relocating to upstate New York, but it is a pretty great feeling to know that we do have a future SOMEWHERE. Buffalo is also a highly ranked school, so if it is any bellweather for future acceptances elsewhere, the future is looking pretty bright. I've also had all day to mull over whether or not I'd be okay living in Buffalo and facing the prospect of living so far away from our entire support system, and I've decided that I could do it.

Plus... the butterflies, guys. The butterflies! We'd only live like 45 minutes away from them.

To the Guy Working on 5th floor of the Lee Library…Nine Years Ago

2012-02-07T18:48:00.002-07:00

I’m sorry I don’t know your name. I barely remember that you had dark, curly hair. (I better not remember any other details or my husband might get jealous.) But I’m sitting here comfortablydoing research for a graduate-level paper, and I suddenly remembered you.

Almost nine years ago, I was an 18-year-old in my firstHonors-level Freshman writing class at BYU. We had to write four papers thatsemester. One of them was a personal narrative. Piece of cake. I don’t rememberwhat the other two were, but the fourth and biggest paper was a Research Paper.

Confession: I had never done a Research Paper in high school.

I know. Crazy. But it’s the truth. During my Junior year ofhigh school, our teacher had us do a “multi-genre research paper,” which wasmore or less the equivalent of a creating a diorama of our research subject.Not really. But it was soft research. We could use pictures as sources. Orsongs. Or pieces of string, if they had anything to do with our subject. For aneleventh grader, it was a great project. And I did learn a thing or two aboutresearch. Still, nothing to prepare me for what was expected in college.

You see, the funny thing about college is, they throw youheadlong into the sea of the body research and expect you to know how to swim.But 99.7% of Freshman have no idea how to move their arms and legs, much lesswhich direction to swim. This was me, Guy. This was me. Even after the libraryinstruction session we had to attend as a class, I only knew a very little more about navigatinglibrary databases than I did before.

So anyway, I went up to the Humanities Reference area ofthe library on campus one autumn day on blind faith. I knew I had to do Research, and I knew where to do it, but I didn’t know how. This is where youcame in. I didn’t have a laptop back then, so I staked out one of yourcomputers, logged in, and played around just long enough to convince myselfthat life, the universe, and everything was hopeless.

I was shy. I didn’t likeasking for help. And I didn’t want to disturb you. But I did because I wasdrowning. So, I explained my assignment and you listened with the patience andwisdom of a…I don’t know how old you were…23, 24? At any rate, “OLD.” Youwalked over with me to my computer and you showed me how to access JSTOR. Yougave me one or two pointers how to search for things, and then told me to comeback if I needed any more help.

Dude—wherever you are—I am ¾ of a librarian now. I willgraduate with my MLIS on August 4 of this year. I have worked nearly 3 years inreference in libraries now, and all that being said, I now appreciate justexactly how much you did for me that day. You didn’t do my assignment for me;you didn’t show me every single database I could have used. You also didn’tbrush me off as “another clueless freshman.” Above all, you were nice! That is the best thing a librarian can be for astruggling student.You made me feel like the library was not enemy territory and that Research was not something to be feared and loathed. (Well, actually, to be fair, that last part took a long time to overcome. Still, you helped.)

Just so you know, I’m very nearly a pro at research now.* I’mdoing research acrobatics! My skillz ride circles around my Freshman self. Ican navigate electronic databases like a boss and find a dozen GOOD sources ina matter of a couple hours now. But this is not about me.

I’m not saying that this moment in my life inspiredme to become a librarian. But as I look back, with what I know now, I can seejust how good at your job you were—especially for a student employee. You tookyour job seriously, and I guess I just want to say thank you on the off-chanceyou will ever read this. You probably won’t.

But thanks all the same.

Sincerely, Erin

*Hyperbole, folks. Hyperbole.

Warning: This Post May Offend You

2012-02-02T14:56:00.001-07:00

Okay.

So, I have this new rule for myself: Don't get defensive. About anything. If I'm not guilty of whatever it is someone is assuming about me, then I'm not guilty! And if I am? Well, a little humility is in order. Getting defensive makes you look STUPID. Period. So, it's one of my new rules to not give in to feeling defensive.

That being said, I'm going to break it for just a minute or two. Indulge me.

Something I am pretty tired of hearing or having said to my face:

UTAH SUCKS

Yeah. I got it.

And I get it. I really do! If you're stuck at BYU or UVU and you don't like the culture, and you're tired of crappy housing, and you're tired of school, and you just hate the life that you happen to be living in Utah, then I get it. It does suck. And in that sense, yes, Utah sucks; the "Utah stage" of your life sucks.

Anyway, I don't begrudge anyone the prerogative to hate Utah. Hate away. I'm serious. But it gets tiring--and a little offensive--when you constantly express it in the presence of those of us from here. It kind of makes us feel like the idiots you believe all other Utahans to be. HINT.

Did you feel yourself getting defensive while reading this? Now you know how I feel every time I politely listen to your well-meant diatribes.

Re-capturing the Mundane

2012-02-01T11:29:00.002-07:00

I suppose I've made a habit out of sharing everything, and nothing, about myself on this blog. I talk about superficial things: like outings to movies. Like books I've read. Occasionally, I rant. Since I have made my blog publicly searchable (and indeed get hits from all over the world on certain posts) I suppose I feel less and less compelled to share the details of my everyday life. I don't post things like this anymore. That sad moment where--yes, I will tell you. It's so far in the past now, it doesn't matter anymore--where I was getting my heart broken by the same boy for perhaps the third time. I lost track. And it doesn't matter anymore, anyway. I used to offer glimpses like that into what was real and raw and visceral.

Then I stopped. And not, as I suggested earlier, because of privacy issues. I stopped writing like that because it was vague. It felt like oversharing. It felt melodramatic. I felt juvenile admitting that I did something as gothic as wandering out in the middle of the night in "restless weather" to talk to God about what I was going through. Simply put, I felt that kind of thing would bore people. And it probably does.

So I stopped after a while. I started writing deliberately, carefully, and nothing unless it would "amaze the entire room," to paraphrase Darcy. I want to be a writer by trade--so I turned to this blog into a practicing ground. And I feel I have achieved some success. In the meantime, I have maybe also lost some of what I originally set out to do. It is the simplest function of a blog. And that is, to share myself, and not just my writing. To keep people up to date.

I don't mean to say that I will start writing maudlin anecdotes like the one I shared above. But I will occasionally try sharing something more personal--even mundane. The internet is way too impersonal as it is. So, here's to being personal, and even mundane.

Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

2012-01-28T17:37:00.001-07:00

By Mark Haddon

Christopher is 15 years old, lives in Swindon, England, and is autistic. This story is told purely from his perspective. One night, Christopher finds his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, dead with a garden fork stuck in its side. Christopher loved the dog and is upset by its death. Determined to find out the mystery of Wellington's murder, Christopher decides to do some investigating. The book that follows is what Christopher writes in his notebook. As the investigation proceeds, Christopher gradually uncovers certain truths about his parents, which creates a traumatic paradigm shift for him. Still, with the understanding he has of his situation, he sets out to do what he deems as right, proving to himself--if to no one else--that, in spite of his limitations, he can do anything.

Never before have I read such an honest and empathetic account of autism. Not once (I think) is the word "autism" used in the book, but it is shown--with pain and with love and with delightful non-sequiturs. I have no personal experience with autistic children, but after reading this book I feel like I was given a window into the way they think and why. Christopher interacts, all the time, with people who don't know he is autistic. They perceive his lack of social intelligence and are off-put by his quirks. Even though we, the reader, have a more nuanced understanding of what is unfolding than Christopher himself does, we see everything from his eyes; so his actions--inexplicable, at the time to those around him--appear completely logical. It was fascinating. It was bittersweet. Most of all, it was empowering to me to learn so much about people like Christopher.

Read it if you haven't!

Man Versus Coke Bottle

2011-12-29T20:55:00.003-07:00

*Yesterday was a bad day for me and food. I got up early (which I NEVER do) had a protein shake (because I wasn't REALLY hungry yet) and proceeded to spend the next four hours at work engaged in relentless physical labor.

"Poo! Poo!" you say. "What kind of hard labor could you possibly be doing in a library?"

Well, I pulled over 2,300 books off their shelves, in groups of three, and replaced them. And I'll tell you what: no bid deal doing that with a couple hundred books, but by the end of approximately the 2,000th book, my lower arms and hands were shaking a little bit. In the spirit of making a long story short, I'll just say that I spent more calories than I was inputting. I got home, promptly informed everyone that they could not expect a coherent conversation with me until I had fed my brain, and stuffed my face. (Travis has coined a phrase for this state of mind: "Grungry.")

I have a small stomach and a fast metabolism. It's a curse. And don't throw any of that, "But you're so skinny!" crap at me. I could write volumes about how difficult this aspect of my life is. But I will forbear for now. Anyway...I starved, and then I ate. And I thought that was that.

But no.

Later that day, I found myself sitting in a movie theater, about to watch the hotness that is Tom Cruise in the eagerly-awaited fourth installment of Mission: Impossible, but (for reasons I will not go into) I had not had time to eat dinner. "Erin, Erin, Erin..." you tsk tsk, "You just don't take care of yourself."

Shut up. It was out of my control.

It was a poor substitute for real food, but I happened to have smuggled a bottle of coke into the theater. My blood sugar level was plummeting (once again) to starvation levels, and a headache seemed imminent...so, I thought, if I could only get into that coke...those measly 150 calories just might help...

What Travis and I failed to reckon with, however, was the stubbornness of the Mexican bottle cap. It would not be twisted off; it would not be keyed off; a belt buckle proved utterly useless; SHEER FORCE OF WILL had no effect whatsoever. That sucker was not coming off! At last, I leaned over to Travis--though it pained me to do so--and told him it was no use. As if he didn't know.

It's silly now, but I thought I would cry.

I didn't. And eventually I got home and ate something. But I guess, in closing, I will just say (as if it weren't obvious to anyone reading) that Mexican Coke bottle caps are real sons of b------, and they have messed with me for the last time.

*By the time I'm posting this, this will not have happened "yesterday." However, the trauma, I have no doubt, will live on and on.

Another BBC mini-series (for all you anglophiles out there)

2011-12-17T23:55:00.001-07:00

A coworker recently recommended I watch this:

I was skeptical at first. Not sure why... I love a good BBC drama. I even enjoy Dickens when adapted to the small-screen. (Little Dorrit, which I would never actually pick up to read, was phenomenal.) But I was completely bewitched by Downton Abbey. Firstly, I was surprised to learn that it is an original story and not an adaptation from a book. Secondly, it is set in Edwardian England just prior to WWI--a time that seems too often overlooked in literature. It is an England just emerging from the nearly century-long shroud of Victorianism, on the cusp of modernity and world war. Downton--a traditional great house and a vestige of a class-system on its way out the door--struggles to maintain its relevancy in a modern world. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story is that it is told from the perspectives of both the upstairs aristocracy and the downstairs serving class. Everyone is watching everybody else. Some waiting to take advantage. Others, to help. Characters you love to hate become characters you learn to love. Others remain completely despicable. Here's a teaser...

Also, I should warn you. It is slated for a second season, which means season one ends without any resolution whatsoever. It was completely infuriating to get to end of disc three and come to this realization. Other than that, this was perfect escapist television.

Gave, and Hath Taken Away

2011-12-04T15:01:00.001-07:00

Two years ago on a Sunday just like today, I made a promise to myself that today was the last time I was going to hang out with Travis. I had finally admitted to myself how much I liked him. And knowing that (in spite of our friendship) those feelings were not reciprocated, it was time to move on. For my own sake. "This is the LAST time," I said to my self, as I drove over to his apartment.

Earlier that day in church, a clipboard had been passed around so that people who were able could go up to visit a girl in our ward who was suffering from leukemia. I had visited Rachel once while she was at the hospital here in Provo. But by now her cancer was so serious she was up at the Huntsman institute an hour away in Salt Lake. I usually let that clipboard pass me by when it came around, but that day I decided it was time to visit Rachel again. That day, I happened to be sitting between the two boys I had alternately had crushes on all semester. I had stopped crushing on the one, and determined to stop crushing on the other, but for whatever reason, I turned to them and asked if either of them wanted to come up and visit Rachel with me on the coming Friday. Travis said he would.

I secretly rejoiced. And worried.

What happened later that Sunday when I went over to his apartment is a story for another day. It was an important day, and one that began a chain of events that culminated in our marriage.

But I am thinking, today, of a specific milestone we passed as we moved toward that culmination. Before Travis picked me up that Friday we went to visit Rachel, I told myself that I was not going to treat tonight like a date. I was not going to expect to do anything afterward. Tonight was for Rachel. I was going to just be friendly and natural with Travis--which wasn't hard.

Rachel's room at the Huntsman was one that commanded a view of the entire Salt Lake Valley. It was beautiful. She greeted us with such warmth, I immediately felt at ease--which can be difficult when visiting a sick person you don't know very well. Rachel always had a gift for putting people at ease, and one that only became stronger as she became weaker. I was pleased to see her in such high spirits. But shocked when, later, as she struggled to stand up, she appeared to have almost no physical strength left.

It was hard not to be aware of Travis either. I could see the way he was looking at me that night when he thought I wasn't looking. It was different. It was...interested. I tried to ignore it, but naturally I could not.

After about an hour, we left so Rachel could get some rest. It was clear that she was not doing well, in spite of her cheerfulness. Still, her optimism was contagious, and we left the hospital buoyed by the hope that she would pull through this. The rest of the evening essentially became a date. And a very enjoyable one at that.

Three weeks later, after Travis and I had begun dating in earnest and were in the first throes of young romance, we both received the sobering text message that on December 23, 2009--two days before Christmas--Rachel Bush had passed away in surgery. Her body just couldn't do it anymore.

I have thought about Rachel at this time of year for these last two years. I think about that Friday night at the Huntsman. I think about how melancholy, and how inexplicable it is that, at the same time two young people were discovering love and beginning the adventure of life together, she was at the end of hers. She was dying. I am not asking God by way of this blogpost, "Why? How could you do that?" I am simply ruminating on the beauties and perplexities of life. And death. And how they are intertwined. How I know the way things happen has nothing to do with how fair God is or isn't. "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away," wrote Job. And yet...Blessed be the name of the Lord.

It is hard not to feel sad that while Travis and I were being given, Rachel was being taken away. Taken away from her family, her school, her dreams for the future... But my--and her--belief in God's plan for us assures me that all was not taken away. That at this very moment, she is probably being blessed and given in ways unfathomable to my understanding.

So I don't really have good way to wrap up this post. It is mostly just memories and thoughts. So I'll just say Merry Christmas to all! and hopefully, there will be another post before the big day.

The Case Against Snobbery, Revisited: Thoughts about Twilight

2011-11-15T21:41:00.001-07:00

I know.

*groan*

More air-time given to possibly the world's most over-hyped teen paranormal romance saga.

But hear me out. I was giving the Twilight series some serious thought last night as I put away the dishes. I will begin by saying I have read all four books, so I can speak with some authority. I have also spent my fair share of time in this life unapologetically bashing them. I mean really ripping them to shreds. I'm not going to go into all the reasons why I think it is poor literature. They don't matter. They have been hashed and re-hashed, and there is no more hashing to be had.

But what bewildered me last night, as I sat pondering (unaccountably) on Twilight, was how much it spoke to certain people. The fact is, there are people who genuinely love Twilight! The question I should have thought at that point was, "Why?" But I didn't. My first thought was, "It's because they have no taste in literature--or life in general." I had noticed that the same kind of girl, no matter the age, goes gaga over Bella and Edward, and--up until last night--had written them all off as people I could never relate to on a truly meaningful level. These seemed to be girls who had almost never voluntarily picked up a book in their lives, seemed to have limited worldviews on just about every issue, and--given the chance--would probably ask me why on earth anyone would ever want to become a librarian?

Then my hypocrisy-dar (that's like radar...anyway...you get the picture) went off as it usually does when I'm being totally disingenuous.
-Fact: I kind of enjoyed at least two out of four books in the Twilight series. Unfortunately, the last one sucked so bad it sucked anything that could have been considered decent out of the other three. (Except New Moon. New Moon is a province of suckage all it's own.)
-Fact: I know, and love, several people who genuinely enjoyed Twilight. And yeah, I can relate to them on a meaningful level.
-Fact: Not all of my tastes have always been so "exalted." I loved Goosebumps; I read Animorphs; I love The Game of Thrones... I enjoy popular fiction! I do! It's usually popular for a reason! And if you're going to be any kind of a good librarian, you have to know what people like to read. You can't just read essays all day long and expect to be in touch.
-Fact: You can't make generalizations about entire groups of people (especially a group as large as ardent followers of Twilight) and come off as anything other than a huge a**-hole.

Furthermore, if you think about it, it's actually kind sexist to deride a work of popular fiction simply because it has mass appeal to women. Oh. So, because it speaks to issues that resonate with women, it's automatically inferior? It's like people who bag on Sarah Palin for being an attractive woman.* I can't buy into any of that with a clear conscience.

So anyway...once again, I've devoted way too much time to something that deserves pretty much NONE of my time. But I guess the point I'm trying to wend my way toward is that if you're gonna hate Twilight, hate it for the right reasons. I care about the story about as much as I care for chopped liver. But I have seen the light in terms of judging those who truly enjoy it. And now, instead of arrogantly saying, "I know why they like it," I'll just humbly and genuinely wonder, "why?" And I'm sure each lover of Twilight has their own unique reason.

*I dislike Sarah Palin as much as the next educated person. But I try not to criticize her for being woman.

What they're learnin' me to do in grad school

2011-10-25T19:53:00.002-06:00

I made this web tutorial for my User Instruction class. Wrote the script, taught myself how to use the software ('cause, believe it or not, that is something they do NOT teach you in grad school) edited the video, music, and voice... it was fun. Regardless of what I think of the actual class, at least I squeezed a marketable skill out of it. Like juice from a lemon. (Anyway...)

Empathizing with Mrs. Bennet

2011-10-12T13:05:00.000-06:00

K. So in order for this post to make any kind of sense, I'd have to tell a really long story that I don't really want to divulge to the internet. The SparksNotes version is that there has been a lot of tension in a certain sphere of my life. It started before I became part of that sphere, but it still continues. It doesn't matter why. The reasons are WAY too complicated to try to explain, and no one person is responsible. ANYWAY. The point is, there's tension. And like it or not, I'm in the middle of it now. Most of the time, this tension just kind of bubbles threateningly below the surface, but every now and then it erupts into a geyser--yes, an Old Faithful--of angry words and hurt feelings. Yesterday was one of those geysers. Only this one was like Excelsior Geyser. I became so enraged at one point that I actually became physically ill. Now to be fair, I think I was already on the verge of getting sick. But suddenly, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I felt like I was imploding physically and emotionally. All I wanted to do was curl up and into myself until I disappeared.

Having just rewatched not one but TWO versions of Pride and Prejudice, my first thought was, "Oh my gosh. It's actually possible! I've become psychosomatically ill." My Lydia had figuratively run off with the rapacious Mr. Wickham, and Mr. Bennet was going to challenge him to a duel and be killed, and...and...and all I could think to do was hole myself up in my room for the next few days. It's all I wanted to do, anyway.

I still feel like crap. But the worst is over. And I think--I hope, anyway--that yesterday was a turning point.

Is it Because I’m White? (Whatever THAT means.)

2011-10-04T19:49:00.001-06:00

Serious post ahead.

I wasn’t going to write about this.

I work in a public library where our patrons are veryethnically and racially diverse. It’s actually kind of awesome, living in asociety that seems so homogeneous in race, religion, culture, etc, to meet andtalk to so many different kinds of people.

But I have had at least two or three experiences in the lasttwo years that have left a really bitter taste in my mouth. I’ll share with youthe most recent:

Kid comes up to the desk. (He’s white. Not that it matters.)He needs to do some homework and wants to get set up on the research computersbehind the desk. I type in his info and turn around to see which computers areavailable. They are both occupied.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “It seems that they are both occ—“

“Right here!” calls the guy at one of the computers. “He’swith me.”

“Oh, okay! Let’s get you set up.”

I walk over and as I’m typing in the password, the guyalready sitting there says, “Is it because I’m not white?” (He wasn’t white.Not that it matters.)

“I’m sorry?” I say, not because I didn’t hear him the firsttime, but because I literally have NO idea why the color of his skin hasanything to do with anything that’s going on. My hackles are already going up,though. The only thing I can think of is that he thinks I’m surprised that he, anon-white individual (whatever that means), is here at the library with a whitekid? So what? Stranger things have happened.

“Is it because I’m not white?” He repeats clearly.

Clamping down on my rising anger, I respond, “No…I justthought this computer was already in use.” Not trusting myself to say anythingelse, I walk away. Livid.

Several times, I almost turned around and asked him why hewould jump to that conclusion about me. Why? WHY.

What is it about me that leads certain people toautomatically assume that I am racist? I’m trying not to be defensive herebecause, you know, nothing screams “You are what you say you aren’t!” likebeing defensive. But the fact is, I find the assumption that I am racist—presumablybecause I’m “white”—among the most offensive things anyone could say to me.

I’ve cooled down about the whole thing now, and I’m glad Ididn’t confront the guy. What would it have proven? I only wish I could havebeen more warm towards him later. But, understandably, I could not. I have ahot temper and react really poorly to being misjudged. Sigh. Things to work on…

Have any of you ever foundyourselves in a situation like this? How did/would you handle it? How can youkeep cool in the moment and be kind to the very people who would make you amonster?

A Self-Education

2011-10-03T12:27:00.001-06:00

Three years ago I interviewed at the BYU library for a position in the Humanities Reference department. I was currently working at Book Repair. And while I was quite good at paper-mending, recasing, strip binding (not as exciting as it sounds) and myriad other esoteric repairs, book repair was not what I wanted to do with my life. (If book conservation is what you want to do with your life, it is very cool. My sister does it.) So I applied for the reference position, had a really good interview, waited for kind of a long while to hear back...never did. So I called them. "Ohhh.." the assistant said when I called, "Well, we actually gave the position to someone else. Because he speaks German."

Oh!

"But!" she replied, in conciliatory tones, "Another librarian saw your resume, saw that you are a Portuguese speaker, and is interested in hiring you."

Hm! Okay.

So that's how I got that job. About a month ago, I interviewed for another position (than the one I currently have) at OPL, had a perfectly adequate interview, and then played the waiting game once more.

(As an aside, I think it is healthy for everyone to be turned down for a job at least once or twice in their lifetime. It's humbling. And it helps keep everything in perspective. Anyway, moving on.)

You probably gathered that I did not get this job either. "We found someone who has experience in video and editing," they said. Well that made perfect sense, since my only video experience consisted of recording something on my digital camera and uploading it to iMovie for minimal editing. I didn't feel bad in the least.

I did, however, realize that I have a lot to learn, and that I can develop certain marketable skills all on my own. Like HTML and web design. I have a GINORMOUS book about HTML and CSS sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust. I've built a web site, sure. But it's extremely rudimentary. I can do the basics in Excel and InDesign--but my skills are not exactly "mad." I could make a video, but I had never really sat down and done any finishing on it.

I say "could" because all of this is, in fact, just a really long introduction to the fact that I, Erin Mumford, have created and posted my very first YouTube video. I googled how to rip DVDs, downloaded the software, did all the editing, formatted it for YouTube, and--unlike the Little Red Hen of lore--am perfectly disposed to share it with you now. I am only a little bit embarrassed how much time this took and how much homework did not get done as a result. Also...I am perfectly aware that this particularly work of "art" will never appear on any resume.

WARNING: It's a fan video. (If you don't know what that is, you soon will. They constitute a worldwide pandemic on YouTube.) And yes, I created it ironically. Here it is:

Things I Know at 26

2011-09-12T21:50:00.000-06:00

- This is how I look to most people most of the time.
- I have a long face, stern eyes and a crooked mouth. *shrug*
- I know so much more than I did five years, two years, one year ago.
- And I am beginning to understand the immensity of how little I know.
- Age is a mostly arbitrary number.
- I am glad I married older.*
- Adults are petty and stupid and set in their ways.
- Don't believe everything your elders tell you.
- Don't believe everything you read on the internet.
- Don't believe anything involving superlatives (best, surest, safest, blah. blah. blah.)
- Don't you dare do something simply because it is "done."
- Question religion. Think deep and hard about it, and often. Take a stand, but humbly.
- Question everything. But disregard everything at your peril.
- Own your opinions unequivocally.
- Be passionate! But not pugnacious.
- Be kind.
- Kiss a lot.**
- Avoid cliches.
- Weigh others' opinions before dismissing them out of hand.
- Do things because they are right, not because it will please someone, but because you reap what you sow.
- Don't worry about recognition.
- Don't concern yourself with accolades, with the opinions of others.
- Think about yourself as little as possible.
- But do try to dress well. It will help reduce self-consciousness.
- If you find a pair of pants you like, don't look at the price tag, and buy two pair.
- Avoid feeling angry. It's contagious in all the worse ways.***
- Empathize instead.
- Eat well. Not for your figure, but for your immune system, your stamina and your overall health.
- Have plenty of snacks in the cupboard.
- I am not going to go to Hell for watching movies of a certain rating, or saying things like "damn" every now and then, or drinking a caffeinated beverage every once in a while. I'm not. Sorry to disappoint.
- I am not going to be condemned for my imperfections.
- BUT don't use your imperfections as an excuse.
- Everyone hates their job at least a little bit. Don't be disappointed when you aren't completely satisfied with your own.
- Don't pay for TV.
- Don't watch TV. Not in real time, at least.
- Commercials are Satan's own spawn.
- Read. Read ~~as if~~ because your life depends on it.
- Read the news. Don't watch it. ****
- Practice. It isn't too late to learn a new skill.
- Create. Do it because it's good for your brain.
- Worry about money only as much as necessary and, generally, as little as you can afford. *****
- Write often and without regard to quality. There is always revision...
- Go out of your way for your friends.
- Don't judge your friends.
- Don't judge your family. But learn from them--mistakes and all.
- Laugh at yourself.
- Respect yourself.
- So you can love yourself.
- So you can love others.
- Just...you know...love.

*An arguable point. In Mormondom, marriage at the ripe age of (nearly) 25 is on the shady side of average.
** Should've learned this a lot sooner.
***Screaming impotently at other drivers does not make them regret cutting me off.
****If Fox News is "fair and balanced" then my Aunt Sally is a three-toed, yodeling monkey's uncle.
*****No pun intended.

The Power of a Good Teacher

2011-08-04T11:30:00.004-06:00

I was going through my old blog posts today and found this one from over two years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't post it. Maybe I was going to go back and revise it. I ended up forgetting about it. Anyway, I think it's worth posting now, so here it is.

May 20, 2009

Yesterday, I woke up and found myself no longer in Spain, unemployed, with a mountain of laundry to do. After going to an early-morning workshop regarding the paid internship I've been approved for (yay!) I went back home, calmly gathered together all of my dirty clothes--which was ALL of my clothes, basically--and drove the five minutes to the parents' to wash them. it was the one thing of importance left on my agenda to do for the day. That's what happens when you don't have a job, I guess. I got my laundry going, played piano for a while, read, and then, decided to do something I hadn't done in three years: visit Mr. Carpenter.

Mountain View High School is fifteen minutes drive away from home, in good traffic conditions. I chose to go the neighborhood route--which was a bad idea, since every school zone in Orem was flashing and I saw at least three cops and two cars get pulled over. It was a war zone. But, twenty minutes later, I pulled up to the long, white building, parked in Visitor Parking (unnecessary at that time of day) walked past several groups of loud teens who, to my college-conditioned eyes, appeared so young and foreign, and entered the building. I was aware that, six years after the fact, I easily passed for one of them. Only, not nearly as trendy.

I climbed the stairs and entered the social studies hallway. Carpenter's room was the second on the right. it wasn't the same one as when I was there, but when i went in, I saw at a glance that it was arranged exactly the same way. Nothing changed. Carp wasn't there at the moment, so I just stood looking around until he came in. When he walked in, I smiled, held out my hand and said, "Do you remember me?" Of course he did. It didn't take him a second to remember my name.

We talked about everything. We talked about school and history and life in general. In the three years since I'd set foot in the school, I'd gone and come back from Brazil, finished a college degree, and, in short, seen a little bit more of the world. In the three years since I'd been there, his kids had gotten older, his vision had probably gotten worse (though I didn't ask him) and his curriculum was basically the same. "Nothing changes here," I said. "I change, but this," I said, indicating the classroom and the school, "has all stayed the same." Carpenter nodded and said, "Well, the teachers get older and crankier." Somehow, I can't imagine Carpenter ever getting cranky. Older maybe. Never cranky.

I left Mountain View reminded, once again, why Carpenter, of all the teachers and professors I've had, was the most important one. Over the course of my mission, I read and re-read a discourse on 1 Corinthians 13 written by a man who was not of my faith...yet still of my faith. Part of developing the Christlike attribute of Charity, this man says, is--interestingly enough--to believe in people. Nothing influences people more than our belief in them. Mr. Carpenter is in a unique position where he is able to influence a lot of young people for good. I'm glad I got to be one of them.

Has any teacher influenced you for the better?

Anniversary cake

2011-07-14T22:52:00.004-06:00

It's 10:53 p.m. and I can barely keep my eyes open, so this should be interesting. It's our anniversary today! Numero uno. Yesterday we pulled the top layer of our wedding cake out of cryogenic freeze, and about an hour ago we cut through year-old fondant into a surprisingly...hmm...fresh cake. I'm serious. It actually tasted like it was baked yesterday.

I should explain that I never in my wildest dreams imagined myself EVER observing that tradition. I've imagined myself doing crazier things than that (skydiving, bellybutton piercings, childbirth) but never that. The decision to have a cake in the first place was really last minute, so the decision to preserve it for future posterity was equally last minute, and done in response to Travis and I having each had a total of one bite of the bottom layer (courteously fed to each other at the reception. not so courteously tonight, heh) and our mothers having had NO cake whatsoever.

We weren't even going to wait a whole year, but then, well, time has a way of getting away from you, and before you know it, it's been a year, and it's just about time to pull that sucker out and dust it off. Hey. That cake was expensive--and surprisingly delicious. And thanks to Mom, it was frozen in just the right way to make it thaw right back into bakery fresh readiness. You'd freeze it too if you only got one bite. Or you wouldn't.

Basically, I wish I would feel less embarrassed about having just eaten a year-old cake, but I don't. Moving on.

The Power of Vulnerability

2011-07-07T18:57:00.001-06:00

The secret to a happy and full life: to let yourself be seen--utterly, inside and out. This is worth the 20 min. it takes to watch.

Laika in Space

2011-06-25T15:46:00.012-06:00

You've probably heard of the little dog that got sent up into space by the Russians. I just learned some pretty interesting things about her in this graphic novel by Nick Abadzis.

First of all, her real name was Kudryavka. "Little Curly," for her curly, samoyed-esque tail. Second of all, they sent her up there to die.

What they teach you in elementary school is that the Russians sent the first two satellites up into space and that the second one constituted the first "manned" orbit, with Laika on board. Yay! A dog in space! What kid doesn't get a kick out of that?

What they don't teach you is that after the successful launch of Sputnik--the first object launched into space--Kruschev ordered his space engineers to have a second, manned satellite ready to go one month later in time for the 40th anniversary of the Revolution. One month, folks. One. Because of the time crunch, the engineers did not have time to create a rocket that could bring anyone home safely from space. Only launch them out forever. All for propaganda's sake.

So they sent a dog. The best tempered dog they had. A dog unfailingly sweet after the most grueling training sessions. They re-named her "Laika" for the launch, because the name was more fierce. Laika, "barker." They put her in a special doggy space suit, strapped her into a tiny capsule and blasted her into space.

It was all over world news! "The Soviets still ahead in the space race! Laika in space! 'Muttnik!'" The official report was that she lived for four or five days in orbit and then was humanely put down and that great strides in research were made.

Actually...she died five hours into the flight, from stress and heat exhaustion. Just like that. A tiny life, gone. And the worst part is, it was kind of in vain. "The more time passes," said Oleg Georgivitch Galenko in 1998, "the more I'm sorry about it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog."

It totally made me cry, in case you were wondering. Check it out, if you can, though. It isn't all tears and sadness.

Doesn't this just look like the nose of a pooch you'd wanna pet?

Looking Death in the Face

2011-06-08T19:14:00.012-06:00

My sweet, fragile Grandpa Rasmussen passed away on Monday. He was 95.

While at work on Saturday afternoon, I received an email from my mom about the recent decline of my grandpa's health. He had been steadily declining for years--forgetting little things, like where he put the keys, to forgetting the names of grandchildren he didn't see regularly, to forgetting his own children whom he saw daily.

Grandpa never changed though. He grew disoriented, and by the end of his life, a brief Sunday visit to my parents' house next door to his was a trip to a stranger's house. But he was always the same, gentle, gracious man he always was. He never lashed out in his confusion, never shied away from the "strangers" he saw all around him. He lovingly looked for my Grandma, whom he almost always remembered til the end. (On the rare occasions where he couldn't quite remember who she was, I'm told he would sometimes propose to her. :) That's the kind of man he was.)

Mom's email on saturday was just to let us know that Grandpa had gone to sleep a few days ago and was still restlessly sleeping. In other words... Grandpa was dying. It was time to gather round and say our goodbyes.

Later that evening, Travis and I went to see him. Grandpa was in his own room in a hospital bed, swaddled in many blankets, with a little white night cap to keep him warm. Unconscious, gaunt, and breathing laboredly, he didn't look peaceful; he looked like he was struggling--struggling to be free, perhaps. I was a little frightened by what I saw. After my mom and grandma left Trav and I alone to whisper our goodbyes, I began to cry into my husband's shoulder. "Death is horrifying," I whispered. And, to me, in that moment, it was. The man I'd known and loved my whole life, his quick wit and sharp intellect, his gentle humility, was reduced to this struggling shell of a body. The women I loved, Mom and Grandma, and all who did their nightly vigils with Grandma--women who knew this man far better than even I--had to tend this dying body, knowing that soon he would be gone. How was it to be borne?

"No!" Travis whispered back. "Death isn't horrifying." And as I remained many minutes more, and became more accustomed to Grandpa's, at first, alarming new visage, I realized Travis was right. This was as important of a journey as Grandpa's life. It marked a change, and not an easy one to accept, but a natural and a good one.

A picture of his mother, who died when he was twelve, hung on the wall next to his bed. It was one of those old-timey photos that, as it hung in my grandparents' guest room for years, I had often found humorous and even a little frightening. People always looked so solemn back then. But as I stared at that old familiar photo, I had the thought that in a few short days--or hours, I didn't know how long--he'd be reunited with his mother, a woman he hadn't seen in nearly 84 years.

There was nothing horrifying about that. In fact, I was filled with such joy at the thought that it makes me cry a little bit even now to think about it. Yes. Joy. It's a little bit stronger than mere happiness.

I feel like I experience the quotidien details of my life with blinders on. I believe that my existence began before I was born, and I believe that it will not end with my death. But I take this for granted every single day. I go throughout my routine and feel, however subconsciously, as if this--this--is all there is. As if my job, my schooling, my routine, my husband here and now are the most important things. In the religion I practice though, we often talk about having an "eternal perspective," or remembering the long-term reasons for doing things; remembering to choose to focus on things that will be of eternal importance to us--such as Family over Money, for example. Often, things such as reading Scripture help me refocus and remember the eternal perspective. But it's so so so easy to forget again.

My Grandfather Ellis's death has forced me to stare into Eternity, such as I believe it to be, and really come to terms with it. I hope and I have faith that he is happily reunited with his mother, his stepmother, his father and countless other members of his family. That idea feels right to me; that idea is consistent with my belief that familial relationships do not end after a brief and ephemeral coexistence on earth. No! NO! We go on. We'll be together again. If not? I don't care. I'll still believe it, because that belief alone I know will inform my choices and help me make the most of my life here and now.

This is my first experience with Death. It is sad--and for one moment, one brief moment, I felt the shock and despair of loss. That was horrifying. I still mourn for the separation from my Gramps. But there's no despair now. Only peace. I've looked Death in the face now and, as my mother said, "I'm not afraid of it anymore."

I'm not afraid of it anymore either.

Ellis Theo Rasmussen. Sept 21, 1915--Jun 6, 2011

Maybe we've been playing too much Fruit Ninja on the iPad

2011-04-21T16:25:00.008-06:00

I lie in bed and begin the nightly process of silencing my conscious brain. I was not gifted with the ability to sleep on command.

My dear, sweet Travis, on the other hand, is. In general, the instant his head touches the pillow, he's on his way out.

Many moons ago (like...maybe a year) I discovered that when Travis falls asleep, he doesn't go all the way under all at once, but remains for a while in a kind of limbo where he is both dreaming and able to respond to me if I talk to him. When we were dating--and sleepiness signaled the time for me to go home--it was a skill that served him well when he used to try to disguise the fact that he was falling asleep.

It was no use, though. Trav's entrance into the limbo-like state is always accompanied by lots of little twitches.

I confess that I am malicious enough to have made a game out of talking to Travis while he is in Limbo. Like I said, he's responsive. So sometimes, when I feel him begin to twitch, I roll over with an evil glint in my eye (not that anyone could see it, but, trust me--it's there) and whisper quietly in his ear, "What are you doing?" and he'll whisper back, "I'm trying out for the Olympics," or, "I'm running away from the cops," or, "I'm waiting for my kid to be born--don't freak out." (Personal favorite.)

Now that we're married, and I'm usually trying to fall asleep alongside my husband, I don't whisper, "What are you doing?" nearly as often as I used to. But every now and then, when Trav twitches so hard I worry he's had a seizure, I ask him.

So, I'm lying in bed, beginning the nightly process of silencing my conscious brain, when Trav--having been horizontal a total of one minute--twitches violently.

I can't resist. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"Mm!" he whimpers, as if dragging himself just enough awake to mutter a response.

*long pause*

"... Fighting a ninja apple."

(New favorite.)

It's My Blog, and I Can Vent if I Want To

2011-04-18T19:04:00.007-06:00

In general, I don't consider myself a complainer. Anyone who's around me long enough (cough cough Travis) will get an earful every now and then. But, in general, complaining is not really my style, mostly because...hmm... WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO ANYONE?

This is my blog, however, and as I disclaimed in the title, I am entitled to a little complaining. Ironically, my complaint concerns complainers.

*phone rings*
me: Orem Library, Media.

Lady: Yes, hi. We're trying to watch a DVD that we checked out and we can't get it out of the case. Is there some special trick?

me: Yeaaah... there's a red security hub that's keeping the disc in place. That's something you have to get taken off at the library.

Lady: Why don't the self check-outs have a sign or something that tells you need to get it taken off??

[me thinking: Oh no. Not another one.]

me: Well, there is actually a sign that pops up on the screen warning you about the hubs...

Lady: No. No there wasn't.

[me thinking: Oh there isn't, is there? You know that for sure? Would you stake your life on it? I've only worked here since they implemented the self checkouts, but I don't know a thing. I only know the ins and outs of this place. But don't take my word for it. Since you're so sure, you must be right!]

me: ... So, unfortunately, the only way to get that sucker off is to bring it back in and have us take it off for you. I'm really sorry. It's annoying.

Lady: Yeah, well, that's just great with gas prices at $4 a gallon.

me: Yeah, I'm really sorry.

Lady: Ok then. Bye.

*facepalm*

I understand this lady's complaint, and I sympathize. It's annoying. It really is. And I've been in her place before. But the fact is, complaining to me about the price of gas (or rice in China, or whatever it may be), and being just a little bit proud and unreasonable, is not going to change the fact that she has to come back in and get the hub off. (Fact!) It's only going to make the whole process that much more annoying.

So here are the morals of my little diatribe here:

1. Stuff is annoying. Complaining about it doesn't help anybody, least of all the person you are complaining to.

2. Sometimes, you may swear up and down that you're right about something. But sometimes the fact is, you're wrong. Be humble enough to acknowledge at least the possibility.

3. Don't be a jerk to the people who aren't responsible.

Check that... just don't be a jerk.

[--End]

A short post about guitar

2011-04-15T00:37:00.005-06:00

I love being musical.

I took something called a Multiple Intelligences test for one of my classes today, and one of my highest ranking "intelligences" (or, how I make sense of the world) was Musical Intelligence.

Music just makes sense to me. Music totally moves me. So if I ever post music on my blog it's because it really meant something to me. I have long ago abandoned the notion that the same music that moves me will be just as wonderful to someone else, but sometimes I like to share a little something.

I've been a piano player for a long time, and this hard-earned skill comes naturally now. I look at a chord and the muscle memory in my hands knows exactly what to do without my thinking about it. My hand knows what shape it needs to make in order to play a fifth or a fourth, or a ninth. It's so effortless now that it's easy to forget the long road to mastery.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I started picking up guitar a little over a year ago. There is nothing like picking up a new, and totally different, instrument to remind one of one's humble musical origins. For what feels like the longest time, my hands have been at an utter loss what to do unless my conscious brain gives them direct orders. And there's the callouses, too. You cannot play guitar well unless you lose a little sensation in the tips of your fingers. Not too much, but enough to resist the urge to scream in pain every time you play.

Well, time has passed, and slowly but surely, I am acquiring mastery by degrees. I have mastered individual chords--meaning, I can play them without thinking about them or looking at my hands (for the most part). I can strum using just the right amount of pressure. I can finger pick simple tunes. And yeah, I can pick out other tunes by ear--laboriously, but I can do it.

Mastery takes so much practice. Sometimes, after a while, you just have to put the instrument away for a while and let things "marinade." Let new neurons form. And then, magically, when you come back to it, you've improved. Suddenly, you can play that riff from Stairway to Heaven with a little more ease and strength. Suddenly, your finger is strong enough to hammer on that note instead of picking it. Suddenly, before you know it, 24, 25 years old does not seem too old to pick up a new instrument.

Did you know that Martha Graham, one of the most famous dancers in all of history, did not take a single dance lesson until she was 22? That, my friends, is quite ancient by dancers' standards.

So anyway, to conclude this "short" post, I will post a video of the song I am currently working on. Things are going really well. I expect I will have mastered this song before too long. At least before I'm dead. Here's to hoping. And practicing.

"Autumn Leaves" by Eva Cassidy

Castle

2011-03-11T12:13:00.007-07:00

If you don't watch this show, begin now. Travis and I heard about it and started watching it from season one about two weeks ago, and we have since burned through two and a half seasons. Yes, it's that good. And it has this guy in it, come on:

That's right! That's Captain Mal from Firefly. And Captain Hammer from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog. Nathan Fillion for the win!

But now you're asking yourself, "Why should I care about Nathan Fillion? Or Firefly or any of that mumbo jumbo? I'll tell you why. Here are the top five reasons why you should get yourself hooked on Castle.

1. The premise: The setting is New York City. A serial killer begins to kill people by imitating the murder scenes in the novels of NY Times Bestseller Richard Castle. In order to get into the mind of the killer, NYPD hires Castle as a consultant. After they solve that first case, the Mayor convinces the NYPD to allow Castle to remain with them as a kind of pseudo-detective in order to gather research for his next series. His inspiration? Det. Kate Beckett, who is not only lovely to look at, but very good at her job.

2. Nathan Fillion. Charming, handsome, deadly accurate sense of comedic timing. He makes the show. Think Shawn Spencer from Psych, or Lorelei Gilmore.

3. Writing. It's clever. There is witty banter. There are even genuinely tender moments. (I caught Trav with a tear in his eye once.) It's not the BEST writing in the world, but I'll tell you what. If you can find me the BEST written show in the world, I'll stop watching this show and watch that one instead. Also, unlike some of these other murder mystery shows, it doesn't take the whole forensics thing to unrealistic lengths. There is no magnifying reflective surfaces and enhancing images and all that stupid crap in order to get a clear shot of the murderer. No. The emphasis in this show is really more about Castle and Beckett.

4. Chemistry. The X-Files, Bones, Psych... These shows are all the same. They always have a man and a woman who just. can't. quite. seem. to get.................... together! The formula is the same in Castle. But Castle and Beckett have such amazing chemistry, it's a delight to watch. And hey, if the formula works...

5. It's only like halfway through it's third season, so if you start now you won't be too far behind when you finally realize that you should have been doing yourself the favor of watching it all along!

I'm done. I know I have sounded suspiciously like an infomercial. But I've said my piece and counted to three, and now I'm going to go see Rango with my husband.

Scared of Motherhood

2011-02-23T14:23:00.006-07:00

The answer to your first question is, No. I'm not.

But I am a little wary of the eventuality. Yesterday I took Hugh to the Bean Museum on BYU campus for the afternoon. For those of you unfamiliar with the Monte L. Bean Museum, it is a place filled with stuffed (taxidermized) animals and fascination for small children. I should know. I was once a small child fascinated by the Bean Museum. It still holds a sense of nostalgia for me. The faint but definite smell of formaldehyde brings me way back. Shasta, the liger, the 12-foot Kodiak bear, the display of African animals with an enormous elephant as its centerpiece... Memory Lane.

How cool is that for a kid to be able to see these animals up close! Except that they're, hmm, dead. But no matter.

After we dropped Ellis off at school, I decided to take Hugh to the Bean Museum to kill part of the three hours I had alone with him.

Predictably (or not, because I certainly didn't predict it) at 3 in the afternoon the place was crawling with other pre-schoolers. Seriously. Way more kids than adults. I was suddenly immersed in a culture I had nothing to do with--and want nothing to do with for a while yet: the Mommy culture.

Now. I'm not denigrating the Mommy culture. In my mind, "the Mommy culture" is how we raise our children in a way that is best for them: we do things that will interest them, and not necessarily us (like take them to boring kid movies or the same museums over and over again) because they love it and it's good for them, etc. The "Mommy culture" is about living for your children. That's not a bad thing. I'm just not ready to do that yet.

But in half an instant, as I walked into that museum with my little three-year-old nephew clutching my hand, I became one of them. It was a weird glimpse into the life of women whose lives (currently) revolve around pregnancy and/or small, high-energy human beings. It was interesting watching these women summon up, from somewhere, the energy to be animated with their children. To be excited about frankly unexciting things. Like fur. To patiently ignore the little pettinesses of children.

I imagined myself being sized up by these women. What kind of "mother" did I appear to be to them? I didn't really care what their assessments were since I am not Hugh's mother, but I did find myself consciously trying to emulate more interest in little Hugh's childlike interests. I got excited with him when he pressed buttons that lit up displays; I played schoolbus with him in one of the little alcoves; and I watched 30 minutes of a nature documentary about a jaguar. (Actually, that was pretty interesting.)

Yeah, I'm scared of motherhood. I don't want to organize play dates with other moms' kids. I don't want to change diapers or sing the alphabet ad nauseum or allow my life to be consumed in the service of my children.

I speak of motherhood as if it were trial to be endured, a hardship. But I know it will be different when I have my own children, and I can slowly ease my way into the Mommy culture rather than be dropped headlong into it. Those of you who are mothers will perhaps look at me, or back at your past selves, and think, "I remember feeling like that, but so much has changed."

I expect my outlook to change. And I welcome it! But for now... I'm still scared of motherhood.

(Don't judge.)

A random, disconnected update

2011-02-16T22:37:00.003-07:00

Because I'm too lazy to compose anything nice,

1. School. It's going well. I've been doing a lot of soul-searching lately about whether or not I really want to be a librarian. There's a lot of crazy people in this world and most of them seem to want to congregate in libraries. Sometimes I'm too tired to deal with them. But then I have days like today, where I helped numerous Orem High School procrastinators get started on a book report project that is due tomorrow, and I had a really good time. I learned how to do my job better and i helped some cool kids in the mean time. I still don't know if I want to focus my studies on working in public or academic libraries. I'm leaning towards Academic, because i can go into Public anytime i want. The jury is still out.

2. Sandi. My mother-in-law. She came to visit for a few days and stayed at our place on our newly acquired (but certainly not new) hide-a-bed couch. I like hosting people, especially gracious guests who engage us in good conversation, buy us food and otherwise shower us with love. ("Shower thee people you love with love...") Travis and I often comment about what a blessing it is to get along with one's in-laws. I was genuinely sad to see her go.

3. Starcraft. Because it is late and I am writing this in a train-of-thought fashion (and Travis is playing SC the next desk over) I will just briefly mention that I am quite good at this game. I don't know if I should be proud or just sad. We'll go with proud.

4. Health. I contracted a disease over the weekend. you may have heard of it. It's called the Common Cold. It attacked my immune system with great vigor over the course of about four days, and then today, suddenly, it all but vanished. Good riddance. I am a bad sick person because I am so seldom ill. I get whiny and listless, and i don't eat very well. But this one knocked me out of commission for at least two of the four days, including Valentine's day. It wasn't a big deal. But it would have been nice NOT to have been sick on Valentine's day for the second year in a row.

5. Kids. I babysit Amanda and Curtis's kids every monday for about six hours. I've done it three times now and it is a learning experience each time. Babysitting has never been my thing, but I am learning a lot about myself and the kids, and discovering that--as with most things worth doing--Love is the secret to doing it well.

That's it for now. Maybe I'll write a book review next. Or a political treatise. Or a diatribe. Whatever strikes my fancy. Cheers.

Villette

2011-01-19T14:04:00.004-07:00

I made it one of my goals this year to update my blog at least once a week even if the most interesting things I have to say regard movies I've watched or books I'm reading. It's been over a week now, so I'm due.

I'm reading a book called Villette by Charlotte Bronte (of Jane Eyre fame.) As some of you may know, JE is my all-time favorite book, which is interesting considering my short attention span for the classics. Sacrilegious to most bibliophiles is my distaste for Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and a handful of other overly verbose Victorian authors. But I absolutely love JE for reasons listed in an earlier blog post. I grew up watching Timothy Dalton smolder on screen as the formidable Mr. Rochester; I grew up watching, horrified, while Bertha Mason threw herself, screaming, from the battlements of Thornfield Hall as it burned to ground. Heady stuff.

Admittedly, I was probably able to get through the book all the way the first time only because it was required reading in Mr. Baldwin's sophomore English class. But it has remained my favorite ever since.

I have shied away from reading any other Charlotte Bronte novels mostly for one reason: the fear of disappointment. I feel as if JE is the pinnacle, or the summum bonum, of the Bronte sisters' work (having read Wuthering Heights and numerous synopses for other Bronte books.) Many of them all seem to run along the same themes: Loneliness, Discovery, Friendship, Love, Passion, Loss, Redemption. (And governesses. Lots of governesses.) All good themes. (Even the governessing.) But in my mind, I cannot fathom another book executing these themes as well as...you know what.

Well, the point I'm winding around to is that I have finally gotten up the nerve, or the motivation, to read my second Charlotte Bronte novel. This is a big step for me, especially considering that my best friend--a Dickens lover, mind you, and a voracious reader of all books Classic--soundly condemned Villette as "boring." Eek. But then there is my sister, who applauded Villette as romantic, well-written, etc.

I have a confession to make, however, that neither my best friend nor my sister tipped the scales in my decision to read or not to read. George Eliot did. Quoth Ms. Eliot on the back of the copy I'm reading, "I am only just returned to a sense of the real world about me, for I have been reading Villette, a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre."

!!!

That was it. An endorsement from another famous Victorian authoress singing the praises of a book "still more wonderful" than my favorite book? Why yes, I will read that book. That, and statement by the Oxford University Press on the back that Villette was similar to JE, but more honest, more autobiographical, and less...gothic--that all appealed to me.

I am currently 68 pages into my book. Not much has happened. (Then again neither did anything in the first 90 pages of Les Miserables, which I read all of, and loved.) I will keep you posted on whether or not I a) finish Villette and b) like it.

@011

2011-01-11T20:13:00.005-07:00

And by @011, I mean 2011. Typo.

2010. A year of mostly mediocre movies (with a few exceptions) and books. And music. With a few exceptions. At work, we were asked to submit our top five picks of items that came out in 2010 in the above categories. Honestly, the albums and books and movies that popped into my head were mostly from 2009. 2010 just didn't stimulate me that much in the pop culture realm.

But pop culture isn't really what stands out in my mind about this last year anyway. I could make a list of all the things I did for the first time--places I've traveled, experiences I've had, etc.--but it would be a fairly short list. And everything on that list can be comprised into one overarching new thing that I did/learned/became in 2010. "Meh-widge." I don't blog a lot about the particulars of our marriage, but suffice it to say that I feel continually blessed to have a best friend at my side, all the time. I feel very strongly that Trav and I are headed in the right direction.

Trav and I have made some goals for this year. Resolutions, if you will. One of them is to spend less money. Done and DONE. No one is going to the Middle East this year; we aren't planning a Hawaiian getaway; and the Wedding--that most expensive of creatures--is over and done with. By simply living frugally but comfortably, we will meet this goal with little effort at all. (The best kind of goal ;)

Another joint goal is to get in shape. As a surprise, I got Travis a set of adjustable-weight dumbbells that he can use to workout with at home.

It was a gamble. The weights were expensive, and they were not on his Want list. Furthermore, I couldn't bring them out to Maryland, as each would require it's own suitcase to stay under the weight limit, which means Christmas morning was going to be a little anti-climactic.

And that's hard, even for a twenty-five year old.

But I went ahead and purchased them, feeling that it would pay off in the end. We had individually made efforts, on and off, to exercise all last year, but had never followed through with any regularity. I hoped that the convenience of being able to work out at home would solve that problem. But like I said, it was a gamble. Maaaaaybe we would... Maaaaaaybe we wouldn't.

Having presented Travis with a proxy 1 lb. dumbbell on Christmas morning (and a url to a picture of his real present waiting for him back in Utah), we eventually came home to the real thing. The dumbbells lay untouched for the first few days as we unpacked and got back into our regular routines. But I waited... hoping for the best but preparing myself to offer to take them back. They were rather expensive after all.

A few days later, as I sat curled up on the couch with a book, Travis pulled up a kitchen chair and began playing around with the weights. And by playing, I mean curling, 30 lbs. in each hand. Trav is a naturally muscular man. I had bought the weights that were 50 lbs. each, but expandable to up to 90 lbs. Good thing. Two days later, the same thing. And two days after that, another workout session in our front room.

And as easy as that, we have a routine. I even join him now. I can curl--wait for it--ten pound in each hand. Pathetic, I know, but I've never done any weight training before. We've added some lunges and leg exercises into the mix as well. The best part about it all is that there is no gym membership required, which means we can go as long or as short, as frequently or as not, as we want, and just feel good about the fact that we're doing anything at all! It's fun to be able to do this together.

By the way. He surprised me with these awesome boots. I wear them practically every day. Life is so good.

Insecurities: Naming the Thing

2010-11-16T23:14:00.006-07:00

Everyone's insecure about something. No matter how confident a front they put on, everyone's got something. Me? I got a whooooooole crapload; and the funny thing is, even after you reach supposedly landmark events in your journey to adulthood--like getting married--some of those same insecurities still rear their ugly heads. Only they take on a more insidious form because they directly affect someone else now, and not just you. I battle feelings of inadequacy all the time. I have felt that I am not pulling my weight at home. I am here almost all day every day; I should take better care of the house. I have felt like my Masters degree, the one semester I have nearly completed, is a joke, a walk in the park compared to what my husband is doing and I feel silly. I can't feel proud of what I'm working for. There are many other things that I have felt at one time or another.

As this time of year rolls around again, it is hard for me not to draw parallels to last year. Last year at this time, I was, what I thought, a silly girl with crush. And I did silly things because that's what happens when you have a crush. It is hard for me not to feel embarrassed about some of the things I did or thought even a mere year ago. I once lectured my then-friend Travis over g-chat, this time last year, about how he shouldn't be so physically affectionate with girls he only intended to be friends with. At the time, I thought I was being grown up. But I was also nursing a little bit of hurt pride. I had begun to fall for him, had recognized belatedly that it was not reciprocated, and was pushing back in the only way my pride knew how: by pretending like I knew all along what everything was about. Covering my naivete by affecting urbanity.

Like I said, at the time I thought I was being grown up. Now, I feel supremely foolish about it. I say, "Travis, how did you end up with that silly girl with a crush? That unsophisticated newbie who had never even kissed a boy before you came along? Who thought she knew what everything was about because she'd had her heart broken before?" I cringe when I think about this time last year... even though, even though there was so much good.

*****

I have developed a system for dealing with the times that I am falling under the influence of an insecurity. I think I am borrowing this idea from my sister-in-law Mary--maybe read it somewhere on her blog, can't remember--and I am certainly stealing it from Ursula K. Le Guin. But there is a certain power in naming something. In the book A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged is endlessly chased through by a nameless shape, a fear, that nips at his heals and threatens to consume him wherever he goes. At the end of the story he turns around, faces the thing, and defeats it by giving it a name. It's a beautiful story, and this same concept works, for me, in real life. Whenever I sense that I am succumbing to the influence of an insecurity, if I just stop, take stock, and name what it is that's bothering me, I am almost immediately freed from its grip.

I find that over the last four months, i have had to do this over and over again as various little insecurities crop up. But they have all been successfully navigate, including the last one mentioned above. The fact is, we all need to go through whatever it is we go through in order to grow up, and it doesn't do any good to look back on our past selves with scorn or with embarrassment. We change--even from one year to the next. We make mistakes, we learn (or we don't) and we move on (or we repeat). True!

And so it behooves us all to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, yes? To allow that we change.

I'm probably writing this post more for me than for you because, frankly, I'm one of the most insecure people I know. But I'm learning not to let that form of pride--because pride it surely is--get in the way of the rest of my life.

I look at it this way: In spite of my being silly and naive, and in one case just stupid, things turned out as they should with me and Travis. Who cares about last year. It's now that matters. Now and tomorrow and the rest of forever.

So there. I've named my insecurities: Pride. And Pride leaves no room for growth. Or love.

Sunday at the Lake

2010-11-11T10:54:00.011-07:00

(Photos may not be used without express written permission.)

Whale of a Tale/Tail

2010-11-03T22:14:00.015-06:00

IF YOU HAVE LANDED ON THIS BLOG POST LOOKING FOR PORN, YOU ARE IN THE WRONG PLACE. ALSO, IT'S TIME TO REEVALUATE WHAT YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME. NOW GO AWAY.

Travis has been growing his beard of late. Ever since we got married, to be precise, and even before that. It became more a joke than anything to let it keep growing. And then he had the brilliant idea to build a Halloween costume around the beard. Face it. It isn't every day that one has a beard the ilk of which Brother Brigham himself would have been proud. Captain Ahab it was. Of course, this being our first Halloween of married life, I wanted to do a couples thing, which could only mean one thing for me in the costume department.

Moby Dick.

I knew right away I'd have to make my own costume, but in a flurry of denial, I did my research on the internet. Someone, somewhere had to be selling a whale costume!

Well, it turns out that someone, somewhere does :

BAHAHAHA!! Best picture ever.

It simply wouldn't do. Besides being the wrong size, it was the wrong kind of whale. So I sucked it up, went to Joanne, waited half an hour in the pre-holiday costume-making rush to get my swatch of fabric cut, bought a few other things and went to work. I already owned a white hoodie, so I decided to work with that as the top half of my costume and, for the tail, to construct something like a white mermaid tail. But a whale tail.

(As an aside, I learned something as I researched the shape of a whale tail--an intriguingly descriptive slang word, in fact. According to Wikipedia, "whale tail" was selected by the American Dialect Society in January 2006 as the "most creative word" of 2005. For this:

Yep, that's a thong. And I think I agree with the American Dialect Society's pronouncement.)

Anyway. What I was really looking for was something more like this:

So with this shape roughly in mind, I began to design my own patterns--which I did before going to the fabric store--guestimated the amount of yardage I would need (which I ended up grossly overestimating. I'll have to make a few hundred fleecy stuffed animals with the leftovers, I suppose.) re-taught myself how to use a sewing machine and got to work. Below are pictures of the work in progress:

The foam required a lot of trimming down. Also, I learned too late that sperm whales do not have dorsal fins. Apparently only porpoises, such as Orcas, do. Oh well.

I don't know why I thought I could finish this in a couple of days. Probably because I could have if I'd really set my mind to it. In any event, I am not a very crafty person, so it was a real challenge. Still, it was fun. And my photography fails to show the full extent of the shoddy workmanship so all is well.

Dream Journal: Chocolate Cake Batter Ice-Cream

2010-10-20T16:47:00.004-06:00

I dreamt that I was out late one night and my friends Shanelle and Mike, Julie, Whitney and Daniel all pulled up in a car. They were going somewhere without having called me. I thought, “Since when do my friends start doing things without telling me? Is this what happens when you get married?” Anyway, I told them I really wanted to go to Cold Stone and get chocolate cake batter ice cream, so they all agreed. I also casually dropped into the conversation the fact that it was August 5. “Oh my gosh, it’s Pear’s birthday!” They all said. I said it to make them feel obliged to go to Cold Stone. (Heh.) So we all went and we ordered from the girls behind the counter, and we got the little pagers that tell you when your order is ready ('cause it takes SO LONG to get ice cream ready.) Anyway, we all went outside to wait, and it was suddenly late afternoon and not evening. Travis and I decided to go for a bike ride up to the church building just up the road to check it out for some reason. When we got there, people from our old ward were playing broom hockey in the cultural hall. We said hi to a few of them. I was anxious to get back to Cold Stone because I was pretty sure the pager wouldn’t work from this distance, but Travis told me to relax. I also had to go to the bathroom, but since there were several wards’ activities going on, I couldn’t find an empty bathroom. Finally, after walking across at least two cultural halls, I found the other side of the immense church building, and an empty bathroom. When I came back, I was really insistent that we go back to the creamery. So Julie (whom Travis had mysteriously transmutated into) and I rode back down the hill to Cold Stone in the late afternoon. By the time we got there, it was dark again. Which was weird. My pager had never gone off, but I was quite sure it was because I’d been too far away. So I went into the creamery, which was about to close, and lied and said my pager had never gone off and could I please get my order. I was as nice about it as I could be. They were nice, too, but they handed me two free cookies instead of my ice cream because I guess they had really closed up shop. I said, “This is really nice, but can I please just get a SCOOP of chocolate cake batter ice cream? It’s all I want.” One of the girls went into the back room. I think she didn’t know how to handle the situation because a manager came out and said to his staff, “Now girls, what do we do in a crisis?” And he pointed to a poster on the wall that told them how to react in a crisis. Then he asked how he could help me. I told him I just wanted some chocolate cake batter ice cream. It took him about ten minutes, but he finally was able to fish a tiny ben and jerry’s type container of chocolate cake batter ice cream out of some freezer. The freezer was a tiny hole behind the counter that was way up close to the ceiling. It was bizarre how hard it was to get my ice cream. Maybe the girl who had complained had a legit reason. I finally got my tiny container of ice cream and I rejoined my friends who had long finished theirs.

And then I woke up.

10 Things this Public Librarian Hates About You: True Confessions of a Fledgling Reference Assistant.

2010-10-15T23:53:00.002-06:00

It’s not easy working with the public. Any flight attendant, receptionist or customer service rep can tell you that. So I present for your consideration 10 things that make my work harder than it needs to be. And this is going to come off as really negative. But level with me: Sometimes it’s fun to be snarky and my snark-o-meter is off the charts today. So get ready for some good-hearted—and perfectly legitimate—reasons why I hate (certain) patrons:

1. Lunch.

Does this look like a cafeteria? Is there a big yellow M rotating slowly outside our building? No. So eat your food elsewhere. “But I’ll just eat at home around the library books, so what’s the big deal about eating in the library?” We don’t really care what, where and how you eat at home just as long as you don’t ruin the books. But we can control what, where, and whether you can eat in the library.

2. Apologizing.

I can’t tell you how many patrons apologize for “interrupting” my work at the desk with a question. Your questions are my work! And believe it or not, I’m not going to think you’re stupid. I really don’t take for granted that you know your way around or how to read a Dewey call number. So when I’m sitting at my desk “deeply absorbed” in my work, 19 times out of 20 I’m playing around with different search techniques, or reading work-related emails, or even just reading the New York Times online!

3. Overly chummy patrons.

Like I said: we love answering questions. It’s why we do our job. But please don’t talk about your uncle’s best friend’s cousin or your crazy political conspiracy theories or anything else completely unrelated to your reference question. We’re not your best friend, so don’t draw us into pointless conversations when other people might really need our help. No, actually…just don’t do it because it’s annoying and we have to pretend to care.

4. Impatience.

No…let’s call a spade a spade: Rudeness. In what universe is it okay to be impatient, nay, rude to someone who is sincerely trying to help? A patron who is already in a bad mood will often find any way to misconstrue a librarian’s genuine mistake into a deliberate attempt to sabotage them. You may be having a crappy day but please don’t project your hostility on to me. And if you threaten to talk to my supervisors? Be my guest. They don’t tolerate a bully either.

5. Waiters.

Not food servers. People who wait at the desk without ringing the bell. I try to stay at the desk as much as I can. I really do. My job is to be available to answer questions when they come. But sometimes something pulls me out into the stacks and I may not notice you standing there, pursing your lips and tapping your fingers impatiently until I’m on my way back again. Ring the damn bell.

6. Babysitting.

I am not responsible for providing your child with pens and an unlimited supply of paper while you play on the computer. If you bring your kids to the library, take them out of the kids section and expect them to be patient while you do your thing, you better provide your own distractions. My job description does not include making paper airplanes, cutting snowflakes or making sure your kid is not disrupting everyone else who’s trying to study. Believe it or not, I don’t think your kids are as cute as you think they are. And if I catch them pulling books off the shelves with reckless abandon, I will hunt you down and kill you. (I should just note here that children are some of the best public library patrons, usually polite, and delightful in almost every way.)

7. Pornography.

There’s a little thing called the Child Internet Protection Act that not only makes it a bad idea to look at porn in a public library, but illegal. Are you so pathetic that you can’t wait to look at this at home? Or on your own computer? You don’t have one? Not my problem.

8. “Is it clean?”

Here in Happy Valley we get this question a lot, especially down in the movie section. Probably this question shouldn’t bother me, but it does. Who am I to be the arbiter between you and what media may or may not be “clean?” And how am I to even know what your standards are? Don’t assume that I know what you mean. Moral standards may be important to you—and to me too! But don’t assume that I too consider a movie with one or two swears in it to be “unclean.” I don't let the MPAA dictate what I do or don't watch.

9. Complaining.

Bad and annoying things happen in libraries. They do. Sometimes other patrons are inconsiderate. Sometimes things are too hard to find. Offer a suggestion. Fill out a form if you must. But I, the person at the desk, am but a peon in the library hierarchy. All I have the power to do is to pass along your suggestions to the Powers that Be. But if you offer them in the spirit of complaint—or entitlement--I may be less inclined to do so.

10. Indecisive reader.

One of my duties is to advise people in the choice of a novel, and while this is often challenging, you can have some fun with it as a librarian. But for some patrons, nothing I suggest is good enough. The one book they’ve read in their entire life is Twilight by Stephenie Meier and they want to read something exactly like that. Exactly. Newsflash: (Do I even need to say this?) NO TWO BOOKS ARE EXACTLY ALIKE. All I can do is offer suggestions based on a brief discussion with you about your tastes and some books you’ve read that you liked. It’s hard enough recommending books to people you’ve known your whole life. I can only do so much for a total stranger. And another thing. Do yourself a favor and branch out a little.

I love my job. I really, really enjoy helping people. There is pretty awesome satisfaction in helping someone achieve something, whether that be finding a book or creating a document or leaving with an armful of fantastic movies. But don’t be a bad patron, because then I will have to hate you. And that would be sad.

Injustice, Improvement, and an Effort to Ignore the One and Embrace the Other

2010-09-20T15:12:00.007-06:00

Week after week, I've been sitting in church quietly reflecting about my week and feeling out all the little pockets of bad feeling still left in the pit of my stomach. And usually the things I feel the worst about--or the things I feel anything about still--are the times when I let my flash response of anger get the better of me. I was sitting in church just over a week ago thinking about this very thing. I let myself think about something unjust that had happened to me months ago--months-- and I felt myself getting angrier and angrier about a situation that was long past.

And then I thought, "I'm better than this. And what's more, I have control over who I am and what I do." I made a resolution that day that I was going to control my outward response to things. I may not be to the point where I can control how I feel, but I can control what I do about it, and that in turn will help my feelings change. My goal was to take things a week at a time.

I should know by now that whenever I make a goal to self-improve, temptations, trials--whatever you want to call them--inevitably pop out of the woodwork. Last week was one of the most upsetting weeks for me at work, to date. Without going into specifics, I'll just say that something I said was misconstrued and there were repercussions. No, I did not get in "trouble" per se. But it was one of those times where I felt like I should have known better than to do something--in fact, deep down I did know better--and yet I did it anyway. I'm not used to feeling like an idiot, so when I feel like one, it's extremely upsetting. I have always been outspoken and impulsive, a bad combination. And a tendency toward hypersensitivity doesn't help either.

Even now. Even now, I want to stand on the rooftops and defend myself! Explain myself! And to my sister (who is my coworker) and my husband, I did plenty. But my small triumph this week was that, at work, I was able to respond to the situation in what I thought was a mature way. I wasn't perfect. I don't believe I was totally able to mask my upsetness, but I tried. I may not have swallowed everything, but I swallowed a lot.

It's a start.

Now, I have to learn to forgive my own and others imperfections. Life really isn't fair, and those who live it expecting it to be are in for a lot of frustration.

Starcraft II

2010-09-08T13:41:00.007-06:00

Travis bought this about three weeks ago while I was in Alabama for my three-day library school orientation. It was sitting on his desk when I came home. My first reaction was, "You blew 60 bucks on a computer game? At the beginning of the school year??"

Fast forward to yesterday. I spent two hours (maybe a little longer) playing three levels of a campaign. That's right. And it was fun.

Years ago, my brother-in-law introduced me to Warcraft II, and I loved it. I loved building farms, mining gold, chopping down forests, and amassing huge armies. I loved my birds-eye view of the world and my omnipotent command. It wasn't exactly that I grew out of Warcraft--rather, our computer software at home grew out of it. We became Mac people, and WC just kind of faded away. Nobody really noticed. Not even me.

Something about the presence of Starcraft, the shiny newest version of the old Warcraft (there was an older Starcraft even) must have awakened in me my former love. Hence yesterday. But in reliving my childhood I made a couple of mistakes: 1) I played too long. 2) I played too close to bedtime.

Right before bed last night, I was involved in a mission where I had to get seven convoys of colonists off the planet before the Zerg picked them all off. I was having to balance the training of troops and the position of bunkers and the mining of minerals, etc. Meanwhile, the Zerg just kept coming and coming and one of the convoys was destroyed and most of the colonists got picked off, and Travis was watching over my shoulder telling me to do this and that, and....I won the mission. But barely. It was tense.

Then we went to bed, and I felt asleep right away. But the mission carried on. My mind kept playing and replaying certain scenarios, figuring out what I had done wrong and what I could do better. I built more bunkers and positioned them more strategically. I mined minerals more efficiently. I trained a better ratio of marines to medics. Still, the Zerg kept barreling in from outer space, burying their huge bulbous bodies into the planet's surface and releasing their disgusting, slimy spawn! (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's a good thing.) I kept losing! But I kept fighting, and worse, I kept replaying that damn scenario over and over in my mind!

Finally at 2:30 a.m. I clawed my way out of sleep, having figured out that I was dreaming, and demanded that my brain STOP thinking about Starcraft. It was ridiculous! And it took a good little while to get that broken record of a dream to stop playing in my mind.

Lesson learned: don't play Starcraft right before bedtime. Or ever. (Not likely. ;)

Guess what I got for my birthday--

2010-08-24T22:36:00.007-06:00

A camera!!

Total surprise. I love my husband.

Co-authoring Atmosphere

2010-08-06T14:47:00.009-06:00

I want to write about so many things.

I want to write about how I just assembled, and used, my very own vacuum for the first time, in my very own home. I know it's a small thing, but it represents a lot. It means I have a place of my own now. A home where the only other person maintaining it is on the same page as me, and cares about the house as much as I do. I love feeling responsible! Is that weird?? I love feeling like something probably, or even definitely, won't get done unless I do it. I love tying up little loose ends. I love doing the laundry and tidying up our room and doing the dishes and making this little nook of ours feel like OUR space. I like being entitled to mess something up, and then being responsible to put it back together. I'm putting my very small mark on the world, and I feel great.

I really, really enjoy being the principle author of "atmosphere" in our home. Well... I'm more of a co-author right now. Travis is home about as much as I am, for now. But in years to come, when he is schooling and then working more, the lot will fall primarily to me to keep our home a place we'll want to be in.

There's more I need to write about it. But once again, I'm waxing philosophical about something that involves zero philosophy: vacuuming. Bottom line: I like keeping house when it's MY OWN house.

Real post coming up later. I just thought I'd post this now before it becomes outdated and I decide to delete it. Yeah. That's happened many times before.

Oddly Instructive...

2010-07-09T10:13:00.003-06:00

I had a dream last night that I was in a garden with some of my girl friends. We all sat around a table eating little somethings and drinking punch. At one point we all gathered around one of the girls as she held up a copy of her newly published novel next to a copy of her first. We were all a-twitter, and I, of course, was completely awestruck. "How do you do it?" I asked during a momentary lull in conversation. I--with my hundreds of unfinished pages and useless manuscripts--I needed to know. She leaned back, resting her hands sagely on her pregnant belly, and said, "In order to be a good writer, you have to write about what you know. Research. Research. Research."

And then my phone rang and I woke up. But I woke up oddly invigorated...like I had this renewed desire to experience EVERYTHING.

Cusp

2010-07-08T12:03:00.001-06:00

-noun
7. a point that marks the beginning of a change.

For the next seventeen minutes, it's still morning. I can take the time to write.

I am standing on the brink with my arms spread and my eyes wide open. And I'm tipping forward, but not falling. Not yet. I don't feel strange; I don't feel scared. I feel...nothing. Because "nothing" is what I am. I am practically a wife, but I'm not. I'm not in my old apartment, but I am. I am almost so many things that I am not. I don't know how to be these days. I don't know what role to play, or which me to be. Am I uncomfortable? A little bit. But it is only the natural discomfort that comes from being stuck in a liminal space. I am liminal.

That was the catchword in the English Department for many years: Every work of literature was all about "liminality," and I grew to dislike the word. But I find now that it is all I've got. Knowing about it is the only thing that keeps me sane, because liminality--or limbo--by my definition, is not a destination. Thank goodness. It's a passage.

There are lots of things I want to write about these days, but I find that most of them are actually probably too personal. There are things I want to--I need to--say and do. But I cannot. I'm still liminal. I'm still pending. I am in the throes of these desperate last few days before the dam breaks. Before the floodgates opens. Before I begin the last GREAT adventure of the rest of my life. There will be other great adventures. Of course. But I have a feeling they will all be tied inextricably to this one.

It is an immense feeling to love and to be loved.

Turn to Him the Other Also

2010-06-21T18:26:00.012-06:00

I have been thinking a lot about Compassion and how important a virtue it is. As a Christian, I try to live my life in a way that Jesus would. As least...that's what I try to do whenever I remember . Whether or not you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, I don't think anyone can dispute that he lived a remarkably compassionate life for a man. How selfish I can be! How self-absorbed! It's not that I go around pruposefully hurting people. But I sometimes put on blinders. I think, "It's not my problem," or that my point of view is the most valid.

Wrong. A thousand times, wrong.

Even if my point of view is more valid, I'm pretty sure the great work of this life is not to prove how right one is all the time.

There are probably lots of things that qualify as the "the great work" of our lives. But, Christian or agnostic or whatever it is you believe, achieving basic human kindness is a worthy goal. And not just kindness, compassion.

I'm discovering that compassion requires me to swallow a lot of pride. And I have a lot of pride to swallow, as evidenced (among other things) by my last post. I have a horrible tendency to assume the worst. For example, sometimes I feel unfairly judged when no judgment is being passed. When Paul talks about charity thinking no evil, he's talking to suspicious, defensive, vulnerable-feeling people like me, who tend to take life with waaaay too many grains of salt.

Compassion, on the other hand, tells me to swallow my injury--real or imagined--and see a situation through someone else's eyes. To not project my disapproval of someone's momentary rudeness onto their entire character. To not take an honest mistake personally, or carry insults away with me. Compassion tells me to defenestrate this whole notion of entitlement and "what's in it for me." (Defenestrate: the best new word you've learned all day)

Compassion says, "Wait a minute. That person is not out to get you. Stop, and try to understand before you react."

Why am I posting this? Because I'm thinking about it. Because I had an instance or two just in the past week that could have gone from ugly to worse, but didn't. Because...I don't know why. Because through the haze of my rage, or terrible impatience or what have you, I reached really deep down into myself and from somewhere (I don't know where)I found compassion. It was really, really hard, but somehow, I did it, and it turned my whole day around. It was totally empowering.

I felt like an adult... no, that's a bad way to put it because there are a lot of really. dumb. adults.

I felt whole.

Non-verbal Communication

2010-06-14T17:41:00.005-06:00

I almost just posted an impassioned entry about how I’m tired of people’s reactions to Travis’s and my, hmm, public affection... But I’ll trade in eloquence for terseness and just say that I’m tired of feeling like it annoys people. I’m tired of people turning their heads away in embarrassment or disgust (I can’t tell which) even when I just lean in to touch my forehead to his or kiss his cheek.

Keeping in physical contact (not overly so, of course) is an important way for me to communicate with him even when I’m not talking directly to him—especially as I’ve been inducting the new entity of us into my HUGE and rather tight-knit groups of friends and family.

Is that so wrong? So inappropriate?

Thoughts?

Place

2010-06-07T18:36:00.012-06:00

Before I started college, I lived in the same lovely house my entire life: a one-story, red brick, Cape Cod-style house in the old orchard neighborhoods of south Orem. I also recently learned that the Thomases where one of the first families in my old neighborhood, and that the land all of my neighbors' houses sit on was once the Thomas family orchard. Thomases were here before BYU, and urban sprawl, and consumerism run rampant.

I felt oddly proud.

Obviously, the land was sold, most of the trees cut down, and the only remnant of the Thomas orchard farmstead now is a little nondescript one-story brick home close to State Street, where my grandparents now live.

I have a very strong sense of what it means to be home. When I went on my mission to Brazil for 18 months, I struggled with feelings of dislplacement for a long time. I missed routine. I missed familiar smells. I missed the mountains and the sweet smell of rain on pavement and parched earth. I missed the seasons and the ways my family marked their passing. I found it difficult to face the possibility of moving every six weeks.

Of course I grew to love Brazil. I fell in love with new flavors, new hills and vantage points, and the spicy smell of tropical rain. I felt quite at home in the loud, wild, urban tangle of the city streets and power lines, and even the bad smells ceased to put me off. My sense of place adapted. It became less about physical location and more about people. And when I came home--Utah home--I discovered, paradoxically, that I had left home(s) again.

Two years later. Travis' and my home started with a sense of urgency. A need, really. We are getting married and we didn't know how long it would take to find a decent place. We semi-frantically stumbled upon a nice condo in a good neighborhood, for very reasonable rent, that looks out over the valley to the south. Now that the contract is signed and rent is paid, we've started cooking and eating meals there. Our sparse furnishings comprise a little Ikea implement that fits perfectly in our miniture kitchen and doubles our meager counter space, as well as a comfy chair for my school desk. We were also able to purchase a new bed at cost, and plans for a couch and other chair-like furnishings are in the works, including a giant, blue, Twinkie-shaped "slacker sack." But in the meantime, all we've got is a kitchen table and chairs (courtesy our landlord) and enough guitars and drums to start a small band.

Our first evening spent in our place was a surprise from Travis to me. He brought his projector, a movie I'd been wanting to see for a long time and some pillows and blankets to prop against the wall. We ate our lemon chicken--the first meal in the new place--then settled in on the floor of our mostly-empty apartment for a movie. I felt oddly proud.

My sense of home is adapting again. I find that it's less about people now and more about person. I've never really spent more than a couple hours at a time in the new apartment, but it's already more my home than where I live now. It's probably because wherever Travis is to talk with me, bump into me, or hold me, or just be with me...that's home now, and I'll add it to my collection of people and places I call home.
That's our place.

On organization. Or juggling. Or whatever you wanna call it.

2010-06-02T20:15:00.004-06:00

I want to be organized. I really do. I dream about it all the time. I dream about having my own space where I can put my stuff where i want it. Luckily for me, that eventuality is soon to become an actuality! In the meantime...sigh. I have so much crap, and so much to do, and therefore no time or motivation to organize said crap.

Here's a taste of my to do list:

-clean room.
-KEEP IT CLEAN (this is a continuous project that is only done sporadically at best.)
Okay, I need to comment about this. I am an inherently disorganized person who has forced herself to become organized enough to function in the adult world. This translates into my keeping up the appearance of orderliness. I keep public spaces clean. I put my dishes in the dishwasher right after I use them; I take my shoes to my room; I turn off lights; I lock doors. But for whatever reason, my room is a neglected space. Why? I don't know. Maybe, like Virginia Woolf, I just need "a room of my own" where my spontaneity and right-brainedness can live unfettered for a while until my superego tells me that the state of my room is no longer acceptable. the short of it is, sometimes it's really nice to just take off your clothes and LEAVE them on the floor and go to bed without some annoying little voice in the back of your head saying "pick it up. You'll regret it later if you dont." And I invariably do. Moving on...

-get a couch
-get a bed
-get a life! (some of my friends are beginning to believe I've died and they've missed the funeral.)
-pay rent.
-pay it again. (sell extraneous contract...ahem...)
-pay various parties back money I owe them
-work like crazy until June 26 to fill up 100 extra hours available to me at work
-get announcements out.
-etc. ("Et Cetera" happens to be a very important item.)

oops! and don't forget...
-get wedding band
-get an assortment of ribbons and frills i have to give to various event planners
-AND, get the ONLY thing we really need in the first place viz. the marriage license

I'm sorry for such a disappointingly short and (oh horrors!) disorganized blog post after such protracted silence. But thus is my life. Thus is the life I'm trying to turn into my new life.

I'll probably make a greater effort to blog over the next while. ("Probably" being the operative word.)

Perspective

2010-04-09T15:48:00.008-06:00

For me, driving to here...

is cathartic.

I take the mountains for granted all the time. I live ten minutes away from this height, and only come up here maybe once a year to just sit and watch. I look at the tiny, cardboard houses, and the miniscule cars inching along, I see the grandeur of the lake and the mountains rising up all around, I pick out the tiny speck that is my home in the distance, and I feel my cares and stresses ebb slowly away. They are but one more small, momentary thing amid a sea of other small and momentary things.

Then, when I come back down into the melee of the close-up, life-sized, fast-paced world, I know where I am on the grid again.

Sometimes a bird's-eye view of the world becomes a God's-eye view.

I feel Trouble breaking on the shores of my Joy

2010-04-06T16:09:00.006-06:00

It's unfair.

It's unfair to be so happy.

It's unfair to be so much happier than some of the people I love the most.

This is what I feel today. This is the thought that keeps pulsating through my mind. Why? Why have I been given so much and others have not? Why have I been so blessed? I have done nothing, NOTHING!, to deserve it; I am still an "unprofitable servant"as the scriptures say. And yet... why have so many blessings been entrusted to me at this time?

More importantly...what am I supposed to do with it? The happiness, the blessedness? So often I feel the need to hide it, to dampen it somehow in order to shield others. I wish to avoid all appearance of gloating. My happiness is not a badge of honor I wear on my sleeve. But, still, the fact is...I have so much. How do I share it? propagate it? Radiate it?

Why? Why is it so hard? I have been through my fair share of hard. I have been raked across the coals of shattered hopes. But somehow, my hard no longer seems to mean too much to me. I remember the lessons I learned from the Hard, but the "hardness" of it all has faded, and I am light--LIGHT!--with promise!

But today I feel heavy. Not for myself. Heavy with the sense of life's unexplained injustices and hardnesses and heartaches. I feel...I feel like I want to cry someone else's tears, and know--if only for a moment--what it is like to bear their burden, if for nothing else than to be able to honestly say, "I know how you feel."

How can I feel such joy when there is trouble all about me?

Humiliation/Humility

2010-04-01T20:27:00.003-06:00

Well, I fell off the ski lift and then spent the next hour falling down the "bunny" hill. I quickly abandoned hopes of engaging in any real skiing and made my only goal to keep my bones in tact and my tibias in their sockets. I was frightened. It was the kind of frightened that surprises you, electrocutes you, into survival mode. It still kind of makes me angry to think about it--the fear, that is.

I really don't have too many irrational fears. Spiders constitute one of them, and so does getting a flat tire. But the fear of dying at a high speed on a ski slope just really didn't feel like one of them. It kind of felt like the most dangerous and most idiotic thing I could ever do. I resorted to tipping over whenever I got up too much momentum. It made for a very slow and frankly harrowing descent. French-fry/pizza wasn't working; my legs and arms were shaking and my hip hurt pretty bad from repeated falling. I needed to gain speed to learn properly, but I needed to NOT gain speed to keep from flying off the edge of the trail into a tree. I was having visions of Sunny Bono, Natasha Richardson, and Michael Kennedy... I was far too young to die.

And there was Travis, patiently snow-plowing the entire run to keep from getting too far ahead.

Inside the lodge, I slumped into a chair and watched hundreds of people clunk by in their ski boots. Many of them were children, most of them seemed happy. Their biggest concern, whether or not the fancy-shmancy restaurant had "kid food" on the menu. The temptation to indulge in a good cry was strong. I didn't want to ruin the day for my more experienced ski companions, but I knew when to accept defeat. I'd barely started...but I also know when I'm licked, and I was licked.

...

Humility and humiliation are but two or three steps away from each other, and often the only difference between the two is what construct we choose put on the situation. It is the humiliation that brings tears of rage and frustration. Humiliation says, "How can so many people do what seems so totally beyond my potential? Humility, on the other hand, seems to bring a calm acknowledgment of our limitations--and the hope of someday overcoming them. Humility also sees the unexpected positive outgrowths of a bad situation. Like an opportunity for two people to work through a hard day and grow closer as a result.

That was good.

In which the word "yet" makes all the difference

2010-03-01T14:48:00.006-07:00

In Brazil, as a missionary, it was nice to have a place to go when there was really just nowhere else to go. This was Liv’s house. Liv was also a ward missionary, so we frequently enlisted her help in teaching investigators. She lived in a version of the same building that everyone in that part of Santos lived in: a building on stilts, about four stories tall, clean, white brick (except her building was red) and gated.

Liv was a naturally blond Brazilian of Danish ancestry, who, I always thought, looked curiously like she belonged in my family. She had the same kind of mouth, the same round nose and roundish eyes, and the same lank figure as my own mother. The only thing that made her typically Brazilian (if there is such a thing) was her brown eyes. Liv had two sons. The older son, the 14-year-old, played guitar.

Lucas sat playing his guitar one afternoon. He slouched back in his easy chair in the unstudied way of the teenage boy, and stroked the guitar as he would his cat, which was curled up nearby. He effortlessly picked out bits and snatches of several different songs. I was mesmerized. Not many people that I had met in Brazil played any instrument at all, let alone guitar. When i asked how long he'd been playing, Liv proudly told me he'd only been at it about a year, and that he'd basically taught himself. I thought, if he can do that, I can do that.

I could do that.

For Christmas this year I finally stopped dreaming of learning guitar and actually asked for one. I knew it was a long shot. But on Christmas morning, there it was: a roughly triangular box wrapped in yellow paper. I was surprised, and thrilled! But as I held the beautiful, pale instrument in my hands and ran my fingers over the glossy, blond wood, it occurred to me that I had no idea what to do with it. No business to even touch it.

Celeste came to my rescue later that day as I sat, perplexed, with the instrument in my lap. She taught me how to contort my fingers into a G chord and then a C chord. My small fingers were weak and could barely hold the strings firmly enough. The strings dug into my soft fingers and left angry, red lines in the pads. "The calluses will come after a couple weeks," Celeste said. I didn't know if I could stand a couple weeks.

Over the next few days I tirelessly picked out G and C. G and C. G and C. I was more fascinated than irritated by the pain in my fingers. Mom gave me a book of chords. I studied the diagrams. The dots and grid that had been meaningless to me before became frets and finger positions. It was such a little thing, but I felt pretty accomplished every time I strummed out a new chord. And even more successful if I remembered it later. Eventually, I added D, Dsus9, E, Am, and Cm7 to my arsenal of learned chords.

Chords alone weren't enough after a while. I have been a pianist since I was seven. I played in a music ensemble for six years in school. I know music. I wanted to play songs. Songs! I wanted to organize my chords into a logical progression, and sing along if I could. I knew it was asking much after so little time, but I started looking up the chords I needed to play the song I wanted to learn first and started stringing them together. One phrase at a time.

(G) "You always were the..." (Em) "...one to make us..." (Am) "...stand out in a..." (G) "crowd..."
G to Am to Cm7 to D, etc. I couldn't strum worth crap. Still can't. But I practiced first with my fingers, and then a pick. I watched the way Travis (who plays very well) held his thumb tightly against his fore finger, with or without a pick. I watched how he kept his wrist moving up and down in a regular rhythm to keep the beat steady. I listened very carefully to the song I was learning, and payed attention to which strings of the chord were being played.

I started picking out another song in the meantime. A Brazilian song. It needed only five chords to play. they were kind of obscure chords, but I looked them up, and I watched videos of the artist playing them. I looked at her fingers and copied what she was doing. It was exquisite. An entirely different technique. She didn't strum the chords; she plucked them, like a harp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_rBe7thdUY

Here's another song I want to learn someday. On the guitar, that is. I already know the words.

I haven't mentioned how bad I suck. I'm trying not to focus on that. This is me suppressing the perfectionist in me--which, believe me, needs suppressing in a big way. This is me focusing on not being proud, but humble, and admitting that there are certain things I'm no good at.

Yet.

An Observation (and a simple defense for librarianship)

2010-02-05T15:28:00.006-07:00

People rarely say exactly what they mean. They'll often say some part or variation of it, but leave the pith of their meaning un-spoken. At work, this happens all the time. Someone will ask where the books about animals are, and leave it at that. Animal non-fiction spans the 590s of the Dewey. Kids love animal books, and publishers know this; there are a million of them.

Thus, as I librarian, I have to be logical: These people aren't going to want to go through every book about animals until they get to what they're looking for. Preposterous. So, I have to ask leading--even prying--questions. Questions like, "What grade is your child in? What project is she doing? What kind of animal(s) is she looking for? Your name, your quest, your favorite color?..." Et cetera. Questions that essentially ask, "Now, what are you really looking for?"

Even after that, if the book we've found is unsatisfactory, some of the follow up questions can be pretty vague, like, "Well, can you just find books about Utah in general?" This requires me to flex my librarian's muscle again: "But weren't you specifically looking for books on animals in Utah?" Yes... "So why don't I try a different search, like 'desert animals' or 'animals of the southwest'?" Utah books in general would have just given her a bunch of crap about Jim Bridger and the Great Salt Lake. Maybe seagulls.

If there is one thing I've learned about patrons during my eight and a half months as a pseudo-librarian, it's that many people have no idea what they're looking for. And even if they do know, they still don't know, because they have no idea how or where to find it.

I wonder if all of this, everything I've written, is analogous to human nature in general?

A Story, and it's Mine.

2010-02-01T23:32:00.013-07:00

I just spent the last half-hour free-writing something I only half-intended to post. And now that I've re-read it, I am fully convinced I will never post it. At least not in full. It's like brain vomit. But you know what? I got it out of my head. And that's what's important.

For those still curious, I will give a brief but comprehensive update on my life. The biggest news is T. (And I'm not referring to him as T to bug him, because I know he dislikes it, but because this is a public blog, and I think SOME privacy is in order.) I've never mentioned him by name (or initial) on this blog. I'm not even sure I have referred to him in the abstract either. But it is neither my intention to be oblique or abstract tonight, so here it goes: T and I were friends. And now we are dating. In the meantime, we are STILL friends, or at least we still were an hour ago, and will probably be friends ad infinitum, as the ancient Italians would say.

So here goes. Here's my story, and I'm sticking to it:

Once upon a time there was a very judgmental girl who, never admitting this to herself, thought that all the boys of her acquaintance were either totally creepy or immature. And then one day, one of these people, who, in her mind, fell into one of these categories, swaggered into a church activity and caught her eye--all of this according to that most unpredictable of sciences, physical attraction.

But they hardly knew each other, and each, regarding each other with due uninterest (or outright suspicion) simply gave the other a wide berth.

In the meantime, the girl both liked and disliked what she saw in the boy, and battled within herself about it. But mostly, she didn't think about him. Loneliness had fostered within her a kind of defensiveness. And, wishing at all costs to not repeat certain mistakes and heartaches and vulnerabilities she had undergone in the none-too-distant past, she guarded her affection jealously, and resented the attraction she felt for the boy. What would a boy like that have to do with a girl like her? She thought, nothing, and went on her merry way.

Then one day--the day the boy discovered that he and the girl shared a birthday--they spoke again. The day was hot. The girl was coming home from work, and so was he. She saw him drive in, and disregarded it. Then the unthinkable happened. He spoke to her again--he shouted her name across the parking lot--and he spoke to her as easily as if no silence had ever passed between them.

Later that day, to compound the unthinkable, the boy asked the girl for a date. She couldn't go. But that didn't matter in the long run. Not really. The seed of a long series of (hopefully not unfortunate but definitely) unexplainable events had been planted.

Over the course of time, friendship began to grow little by little. Girl and boy began a lively, if somewhat frivolous--though occasionally serious--Gchat correspondence. The girl felt comfortable behind the semi-anonymity of the written word, and began to peel down some of her defenses, one by one. The boy intrigued her. She caught glimpses of certain sides of him she never suspected existed. And naturally, the lively, if somewhat frivolous, and occasionally serious, conversations began to occur--by degrees--face to face.

By late October, the girl's heart was well on its way to being lost. Confused, a little exhilarated, but mostly terrified, she hid these feelings. She did not dare let the boy know, because of a kind of certainty that her confusing, exhilarating, but mostly terrifying feelings were not returned, and would be met unfavorably upon revelation.

So she buried her suffering poet's heart for a month a half, and continued to let friendship grow on its own. November was a black and white month filled with some highs...and some interesting, disappointing lows. But no matter how low it got, the girl felt completely calm, which was the biggest surprise of all. Some days she felt like SCREAMING, "Why?!"...but she didn't. And she inevitably felt better.

By December, she'd had it. The girl had been in this situation before and had learned from it. Seeing that her suffering heart was on the fast track to sure disappointment, she resolved to distance herself from the boy. It wasn't his fault, but his was a door that needed closing, and soon. So she gathered herself together, bolstering her resolve with thoughts of how nice and simple life was going to be again, and with these comforting, if somewhat optimistic thoughts, she started...closing...the door.

But then, for the second or third time during the course of their acquaintance, the unthinkable happened, and this boy--this dear friend, who, unbeknownst to him, was about to be purged from her circle of daily contacts--put his foot between the door and the jam, and said, "Don't go."

So she didn't--but with enormous (and, I think, pardonable) skepticism. Skepticism which, by degrees, melted away into something like trust. And then something that was trust. And then...

Well...let's just say goodnight for tonight. There is more story to tell, but it bears waiting and watching. Obviously, from the story I've told, I have simplified and foreshortened and eliminated almost every concrete detail in the interest of being concise. And I realize that by doing so I broke my promise to be neither abstract or oblique. But oh well. Sometimes a metaphor says more. So I guess if I had to tell this story in one sentence, it would go something like this: The seed that was planted many months ago was a good one--simply because it grew.

Yoga

2010-01-13T09:49:00.003-07:00

As many of you know, I've picked up yoga again (after five years!) in an effort to get in shape. And by "get in shape" I mean "build some semblance of muscle." Anyway, in light of said fact, this video made me laugh out loud repeatedly until my sore abdominal muscles cramped up and I couldn't breath. So take a deep breath, relaaaaax, and watch this...

Exquisite

2010-01-10T23:32:00.000-07:00

As you drive down the hill on 800 South in Orem toward Provo and the river bottoms, about a block and a half before you get to Will’s Pit Stop and the University Ave. intersection, you hit a roundabout. Instead of just blowing straight through like we usually did, we went 270 degrees around into the neighborhood to the north.

In the waking world, I’ve been in that neighborhood before—and it’s lovely! But what I saw yesterday morning was something else entirely.

The light was bright, and kind of a pale pink, like a summer sunset after a rainy day, when everything is still shiny from rain. Only it was winter, still. The road, which was made of cobbles, sloped down and up on multiple planes, and curved gracefully to the right into a kind of cul-de-sac. It followed the contour of the Provo River, which rushed by about ten feet below, iron gray and turbulent. A venetian-type bridge arched across the gulley, connecting the two sides of the street. Expensive houses—the kind you actually find in that neighborhood—stood very close to each other, as if fighting for every last inch of real estate. Houses like palaces, with Currier & Ives-type lampposts in their front yards, and turrets, and sloping gables. New, old-fashioned townhouses lined the west side of the road in crescent formation, filling in the minute gaps between mansions.

We were going somewhere, to someone’s house perhaps. But we never got there because we were too busy marveling…
---
I don’t know if it was remembering the scenery from having watched the Merchant of Venice the night before, or the muted morning light glowing through the red, satin curtain of my bedroom window… I often dream about interesting places, but the setting of this particular morningtime dream was exquisite.

Workplace FAIL

2010-01-08T20:36:00.005-07:00

A friend of mine recently introduced me to failblog.org, which is basically a website that celebrates, through pictures and video, the idiocy of others. Oh, let’s put it more gently: the…comic, and sometimes EPIC, failures of others. (There. That’s so I don’t sound like TOO much of cynical misanthrope. I love my fellow humans. I really do. But part of that love includes laughing at them. Is that so bad? Is it??)

Right.

Well, let me share with you all a REAL life epic workplace fail that happened to moi. We all know the economy is bad. Well, Orem City has had to make some cutbacks in response, one of which includes reducing janitorial services to almost nothing. As of this week, city staff is responsible for the cleaning of everything in the city center and library EXCEPT the bathrooms. (Hallelujah.) This means that in addition to regular opening and closing procedures (balancing tills, booting up computers, etc.) we also now have a whole litany of other little nitty-gritty tasks to complete. Vacuuming, sanitizing drinking fountains, washing support pillars, emptying garbage cans… etc.

The mezzanine of the children’s wing in the library is a pretty pleasant place (ugh. Alliteration.) a pretty pleasant place to work. Vaulted ceiling, windows, panoramic views of both Timpanogos and Cascade Mountains, and a nice view of the art glass window on the floor below… not bad, eh? Fortunately, I will be working there a lot during the next few months. I was working there Wednesday night with P, the Childrens Librarian when closing time rolled around and we began to make the janitorial rounds.

Note: About a month ago, the library staff all sat down and brainstormed ways to cut back spending and one of the things we all decided to do was turn off the lights at night. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, not really, because up until a week ago, the janitorial staff (the now notoriously ABSENT janitorial staff) would come in at night and clean. Now that they no longer come…well, you get it.

So, P and I are upstairs cleaning, and we’re just about done, when suddenly…

I wish there was some sound, some onomatopoeia, for being plunged into the inky darkness that is a darkened library. Oh, wait. There is. It sounds like this: HEEEEEEYYYYYY!!!! Or if P and I had been any fainter of heart…AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!…. You get the point. Whoever had been working downstairs finished, and—dutifully heeding the counsel of our library director—turned off the lights. Upstairs and down. So what’s the big deal? You’re asking. Why not just…turn ‘em back on? Well, they are the big, halogen (or whatever) gymnasium-type lights that take like TEN MINUTES to warm up and turn on again. Even if they’ve just been turned off.

So the end of the story is this: P and I drop whatever we were doing, find our stuff in the dark and basically FEEL our way downstairs to where there are still some lights on. Needless to say, P was incensed and gave everyone downstairs an earful.

Me? I thought it was kind of hilarious. However. I’m really, really happy we weren’t in the dungeon basement somewhere.

An effort to save money one way pretty much precluded the possibility of saving money in another. EPIC FAIL!

Ring in the New

2010-01-01T14:09:00.003-07:00

New Year's Resolutions

1. Remain integral. Whole. There are a lot of new developments in my life right now. What I am figuring out now is how much to change/give and how much to reserve/receive, and how to remain integrally myself through it all. The way I figure it, one of the great works of this life is to achieve balance in every aspect possible. Apparently one of these equilibriums is to try and learn how to interact with other people and still stay true to yourself and what you know is right. Hard? Sometimes.

2. Strengthen my body. This will require my going to early morning yoga, which will require early bedtimes, which will require self-control. And healthier eating is included in this equation somewhere by default.

3. Remain as close to the Good and True as possible. I don't think this has ever been as crucial to me in my life as it is now. It is frightening how much is at stake. This will require me to be very consistent in practice and in attitude.

4. Get to know Children's literature very well. I just found out my winter schedule at the library and I will be working almost exclusively in the Children's wing. Having read a lot of adult fiction recently (and by that I don't me "x-rated," p.s.) I think I'm ready to explore something new. I'm ready to read about human issues through perhaps the less jaded, gentler lens of childhood experience. I'm also excited to be working in what I consider to be the "pretty" part of the library: vaulted ceilings, panoramic mountain vistas...ahh. More on that later.

Good Ideas

2009-12-21T23:23:00.009-07:00

I feel like I should write, but I'm not sure what. It is the darkest day of the year, and I am alone. But not lonely.

I am by myself in my new apartment, in my yet-disastrous and unpacked room, sitting at my bare desk. Bins of clothes litter my floor in varying stages of unpackedness, and I'm borrowing a lamp from the front room so as to not sit in utter darkness. I have no curtain to hang over the blinds, so I've made do temporarily with my red Victoria's Secret "Mama Claus" bathrobe slung over the curtain rod. (Classy, I know. But it is cold otherwise...) I've moved my bookshelf and stereo into the room, but I haven't brought my books yet--or my CDs. My closet is the only thing that looks truly finished. My winter wardrobe has been hung with care, and my numerous pairs of shoes are all packed neatly into a bin or hanging in this white cloth thing, if they qualify as "nice" shoes.

In spite of this still rather spartan aspect of my room, I find that I feel totally at home. I enjoy the quiet, the solitude, and no roommates for at least another week. I just moved in two days ago--and while I already know the girls I'm living with very well, it will be good to have a chance to find my own space in this world I've reentered after living at home for four months.

I felt very strongly about moving in to this specific apartment, and I still feel good about it. If I've learned anything over the past little while, it is to trust my gut implicitly. And though I may not have much of an actual gut, the little I have has served me well, especially of late.

It is really amazing what can come of simply following through on what merely seems like a good idea. It's a good idea, for example, to try to develop more patience. To stop judging people. To trust more, in general. To stop hiding any candles under any more bushels. And to just try to be good.

A good idea, followed through, can bear amazingly good fruit.

Yes. It was a good idea to move here, back to my old place. One of many good ideas that for one reason or another--call it fate, call it an act of God--I've taken a chance on.

Today, I bought myself a beautiful green coat

2009-12-15T22:47:00.005-07:00

...and it felt like early Christmas.

I went out to run other errands today. I set out with the determination to get all my shopping for other people done. First to the UPS store to return some expensive boots I bought on Zappos. Then to Macey's for candy and other yummies. Then to the Mall.

I went to the mall with trepidation. I hate shopping at the best of times, and shopping at Christmas is like shopping in Hell. I always feel a little lost in a department store, like I don't know quite how to navigate my way. There are too many wrong turns, too many people trying to make me a deal or sell me perfume, and too many choices. Once I found the section I wanted, there were so many options within that section.

Then up and down the long corridors of the mall, peeking into almost every store to see what was being sold these days. I had no idea. Smells of soft pretzels and fast food, and new plastic. Lots of noise.

And then? I found myself suddenly shopping for myself. Why?

I wasn't sure. I peeked into stores I don't usually patronize. Stores a person like me, in a gray pea coat and Italian scarf, have no business entering. Stores like...Zumiez. (I've never snowboarded in my life!) What was I looking for? I don't know. A distraction. Urban Wear was familiar territory. I felt the tension in my chest ease instantly. Beautiful, classy, funky clothes. I left without buying. A pit stop at Banana Republic just to look. (Like I could afford any of THAT.) Maurices. Aeropostale. Charlotte Russe. (Who shops at a store called "Dress Barn"?) What was I even looking for?

Finally, I do it. I wander through the little cafe and the smells of coffee, past the fireplace, into Nordstrom. It's like coming home. I glance at the shoes out of habit. Am I looking for shoes? No. Up the escalator. I wander around the expensive section for a while. That's a nice sweater. Do I want a sweater? Let the price determine. Negatory. What about that coat? No. I don't wear real fox, thanks. I'm drowning in these prices. Into the teen section.

Suddenly I knew what I was looking for because I found it. So I bought it, thinking maybe if "Santa" hadn't found anything for me yet, "he" could buy this from me and re-give it to me on Christmas morning. :D

At any rate, I bought it because I loved it. And because sometimes when you are having a day where your brain will not stop churning and you feel restless and crazy and wildly insecure, and you wish there was something you could do to just turn it all off, and outwardly you have to maintain the appearance of sanity by remaining calm, collected, and cool as a cucumber...

...the only thing for it is to go out and treat yourself to something nice (that was actually on sale) for Christmas, if for nothing else, than to remind yourself that everything is actually really, really
okay.

Why Bones has Consumed My Life, or, How I Got my Creativity Back

2009-12-12T13:49:00.009-07:00

Bones is so good. So, so good. A brilliant, socially inept forensic anthropologist teams up with a streetwise FBI agent to solve murders. Action, suspense, a little anatomical gore, a lot of tension and a little romance ensue. It’s perfect. It’s like reading a mystery. A really compelling, really long mystery. Bones has been my constant companion these last two and half months. I have been watching Bones since Halloween night until today, at least one episode daily. Today I will finish Season Four.

So what’s the big deal? I’ll tell you what the big deal is. I have not written a word—a word—of fiction since I started watching Bones. I have written a few blog posts, but hey! They haven’t been very literary either. When I started Pear in a Partridge Tree, my original intent was to write down my experiences in story-like fashion. To report factual events in an interesting, literary way. Practice, basically. And a type of journal. For the most part, I’ve done that. And I do allow myself the indulgence of introspection every now and then…

But I digress. I want to be an author. I want to write fiction. To stir up people’s imaginations and explore all kinds of What Ifs. How can I do that if nothing I’m doing is stirring up any ideas? Ideas, believe it or not, do NOT generate themselves.

A week ago, I was at work editing a 79 page document that will soon be a new, extensive Library booklist. As I read over the hundreds of annotations under each title my mind began to race. Story ideas I’d had in the past—one in particular—began to come alive in my head. Characters I had formed only conceptually in my mind became real people with goals and desires. It was actually difficult for me to concentrate on the task at hand. I was excited! I was motivated to begin writing anew. I’ve been working on some other story for years now that has sort of stonewalled me, but this other idea…it was fresh! It was all I could do to keep from jotting down notes then and there.

I should have. I really should. But I’ve stopped carrying a notebook around with me—which I need to remedy immediately.

After two full days of editing, of reading the synopses to hundreds of books, my life went back to its normal routine. I thought about writing down my ideas, but…the moment, really, had passed. It was too hard for me to sit down and try to regain that flash of creativity. It was a moment that had come and gone. After a long day of hard work, or unfulfilled expectations, or a little bit of tedium, it was easier to just sit, kick back, and let…well…Bones take over that part of my brain… Mental anesthesia.

I have a theory: I think the part of the brain that creates is one of the most complex and developed parts. I have no scientific evidence at hand to back up this claim. But my own personal experiences seem to point to this truth. It takes effort to create. I feel that it takes GREAT effort to decide to do something new—and that, by the way, is my definition of creativity: doing something new. Nothing more nothing less. It doesn’t have to be new to the world necessarily. Just new to me. Make a new food. Learn a new song. Write a new story.

Etc.

So here’s my big new goal. Now that my stint with Bones is coming to an end, I’m going to start reading again. A Neil Gaiman book that should have taken me two or three days to read has now been stretched out for over two weeks. That’s pathetic! So my first order of business will be to finish that, then pick a book from a different genre and move into that. And then once that is done, I’ll start into a different genre.

To what point? Is this all just a different way of anesthetizing my brain after months of Bones? Nope! Just trying to kick my creativity back into gear and get some real writing done.

In Which I Confront a Fear of Mine

2009-12-09T15:08:00.008-07:00

...and that is confrontation itself.

I know my own mother would say, "You? Not like confrontation? Ha!" and she would be justified. But the thing is this: I know my mother, and she knows me. She knows that most of the time my "confrontation" is all in good fun. What I don't like and tend to shy away from at any cost is real confrontation. The nasty kind where you have to tell someone to stop doing whatever it is they're doing.

Like drinking coffee in the library. And preparing to whip out a full lunch and spread it out on the table.

I spent about ten minutes just kind of discreetly circling around this guy, threading my way through the stacks, (okay that sounds so creepy. I was doing other stuff besides watching him, lest I appear stalkerish...sheesh) debating whether or not to say something, and how to say it and if he'd get mad at me or if I'd look like a stupid teenager, etc. Finally, I got my supervisor, and told him what was going on. I confess...I had ulterior motives: I wanted to pass the buck. I was hoping that E, being a tallish male person, would, you know, step up and say, "Oh hey! Don't worry about it, little buddy! I'll go over myself and tell that guy to get his butt--and his lunch--out of the library."

What he said instead was this, "You know, we have been asked to enforce the no-eating rule. So just go tell the guy that we've had some problems lately but that he's welcome to go out and eat in the foyer."

Argh. Another five minutes vacillating. Do I tell him do i dont do i tell him do i not do i tell him...

Yes. integrity demands that i do. So I straighten my collar and march over, donning my most winsome smile. Sometimes it helps to march somewhere. It bolsters courage and creates a sense of purpose where, perhaps, there is little. Well anyway, knowing that I couldn't look authoritative, I decided to go for "professional." Or something close to it...

The guy left without any problem, even though he had already unpacked and set up his laptop and everything. I felt bad. Really. I felt bureaucratic. I wasn't in the mood to enforce policy. And what's more, I was scared to death. But I did it.

And I felt justified when I saw him come back in a little later. I guess i didn't offend him. Which is--you know--a good thing.

Can't Win...

2009-12-05T23:56:00.002-07:00

Yesterday I was complimented on my ability, nay, my unconscious practice of walking fast. Sometimes I walk fast. I do. (I guess...) And I write this post only for irony's sake, because today, at approximately the same time of day, a different individual remarked on this same practice...but wondered if I was okay. Was I cold? Was I in a hurry to get somewhere? Why did I walk so fast?

err...

Can't please everybody, I guess.

Complexity

2009-12-01T02:20:00.006-07:00

Sometimes I think about how little anybody actually knows me. It is no exaggeration to say that I can probably count on one hand the people that have seen every side of me. The people who have seen me ecstatic, or depressed, or intelligent, or wrathful, or ridiculous, or rude, or confident, or elegant, or insensitive--even cruel--and even the rare moments when I feel truly lovely. The people who knew me as a dancer and an artist--even a missionary--that know how much I love old and new films alike, and calm music (AND loud music) and dumb jokes, and interesting, off-the-beaten-path kind of things. The people who accept my whimsy without question, and question my so-called "intelligence" without hesitation. The people who put up with my caprice, my impatience, and my tendency towards impulsiveness--and forgive my impertinences. The people I don’t have to prove anything to or pretend around, even a little bit. The people who know that there are better things in store for me, and who have the right to expect more of me.

Yes, I can count on one hand--maybe one finger--how many people that makes.

As much as I preach the gospel of sincerity, it is hard, hard, HARD to be 100% genuine. I’m afraid it takes an awful lot of self-assurance. I wish, I wish, I had the guts to say to anyone and everyone, “I like what I like, and to hell with the rest.” But I wish I could do it without being defensive or belligerent.

Of course, all of this is a good reminder of how little I know other people, and how very little call I have to judge them.

I wasn't going to post this because it is personal almost to the point of self-indulgence. But I did.

The Circle Game

2009-11-24T22:54:00.003-07:00

I’m still in my coat and scarf. I was sitting on the ugly floral print couch that for some reason still calls our living room home, but I have just relocated to the basement where the sound of the furnace is drowning out the sound of the television. I just got back from Shanelle and Mike’s house. The drive was filled with music, as driving for me almost always is.

Today I feel uncharacteristically free. Almost giddy. I want to do things differently. Be different. I want to care less about some things, and more about other things. I want to learn how to do certain things instead of just…dreaming about it. Like the guitar. I want to learn how to play. I want to learn how to make food so delicious even I will eat it. Currently, there is one dish I make that fits that description. And truly, it is delicious. I made it for nobody today, and it was good. I think I will find the perfect pancake recipe next. And then maybe…a new kind of cookie. I’ve already perfected one kind. I want to learn to be good at things I am only mediocre at. Maybe I will start writing again. I haven't wanted to lately. I want each day, no matter how dull, to feel like a triumph. Big moments—thrilling, red-letter moments—don’t actually come along that often. I don’t want to live for these moments alone, only to feel dissatisfied in between, as I have been for the last few months. I want more days like today, which was admittedly dull, but not…boring. Not at all.

It’s like all the stars in my universe are realigning themselves to a place of greater balance.
For some unexplained reason, I feel I have come back to a starting place of sorts. Like I have come full circle, and I am back at the beginning.

I felt it yesterday, as well, but it made me want to scream. I wanted to shake my fist heavenward and cry, “Why have you brought me back here? Again! When I have done so much!”

But today? I take comfort in the familiarity of being at the beginning of something. Being back at the beginning. This place is like an old friend. What makes it bearable, and even pleasant, is the knowledge that one really never can come full circle, because time goes round in more of a spiral. You go up or down, and you may even end up right above or below where you were just a little while ago—which feels like the beginning. But it’s not, thank heaven. “We can’t go back,” says Joni Mitchell, “we can only look behind from where we came. And go round and round and round in the circle game.”

This is motivation. This is the absence of melancholy. I welcome it. The absence, I mean.

Writing As Geometry

2009-11-23T10:28:00.014-07:00

Ten or eleven months into my mission, President sat me down for an interview, looked across the room at me with those narrowed, discerning eyes and said, "Sister, you're doing great. But I'm concerned about your weekly letters."

I was very taken aback. This was the one and only interview where I ever cried. I was in an area where I felt like I had a lot to live up to, where I didn't feel like I was--and I was badly shaken. I had just spilled my heart to President. I had just opened the Pandora's box of all my insecurities and doubts and had laid them on the table...but he passed over all of that quickly, and proceeded to give me one of the most important morsels of counsel I ever received--as a missionary and as a human being: "Be careful about the way you write. Because how you write about your experiences shapes the way you actually feel about them. So when you write, focus on the good. I know bad things happen every week--and I still want you to be open and honest in your letters--but focus on the good."

Honesty has always been my bane. I may keep my mouth shut, but what I am actually feeling or thinking will come out someway, somewhere--in my face and my eyes, in my writing, in countless other non-verbal ways. If I am mad, it's obvious. And I will die before I tell someone what I'm feeling if I feel like it will weaken me. (i'm proud like that.) But it will come out, somehow. And as a missionary, my pen utterly betrayed me.

It was a good thing, though, because I learned something important that I have been trying to put into practice--with varying degrees of success--ever since. I learned that it is normal to run through the whole gamut of emotions when a lot is seemingly at stake (How's that for being vague?) and that the good always runs along parallel to the bad. And so it is how you express yourself, verbally or in writing, that actually solidifies how you ultimately feel. So yes, you make a pretty important choice every time you write or speak about an event. Like a reporter, you choose which angle to take on it. You choose how it is recorded forevermore in your own memory and the memories of those that read/hear it.

I think the key is, then, to ignore the impulse to complain. There is a lot worth complaining about in this life. There really is. But actually, there is a whole lot worth praising, too. I'm not trying to be corny (although "keep on the sunny side" from O Brother Where Art Thou did just pop into my head). Ignoring unhappy moments, hurt feelings, disappointments, disillusionment, and every bad thing won't make them go away. (Duh.) But writing about them, and talking about them in the spirit of complaint, only seems to extend their life expectancy, and to afford them greater meaning than they're worth.

Just something I've been thinking about.

The Story of Today

2009-11-19T20:06:00.004-07:00

My new nametag. It's official! I'm employed.

Today isn’t over, but I’m going to write its story anyway. In an unchronological bulleted list because…that’s how I roll.

-A man refused to leave the library today until he had been reimbursed for some bad photocopies. I very kindly explained to him that he could not be refunded because…blah, blah, blah…I gave him a good reason, after which he went to higher and higher library administrators in order to get his due. Only when he approached my desk once more with one of the associate librarians in tow did I decide to refund him just to get him to leave HER alone. I pulled out some coins we happened to have stashed away in a drawer (it isn’t like there’s a till at that desk), paid him, and sent him away with a smile. I can lie-smile very convincingly.

The amount he originally paid for the bad copies? $.20. Twenty cents, people. I wonder if this guy has any dead IRS agents buried in his basement.

-I tore my “room” apart today in search of my passport, which I needed in order to be officially hired at the library. When that failed to surface, I went after my birth certificate, which proved equally elusive. I called my dad, who rushed home from work in spite of a busy schedule (have I ever mentioned how generous my father is?) and then called Human Resources to explain my predicament. They told me to come in anyway and just bring the paper work in later.

Perhaps it is foolish of me to carry my social security card with me in my wallet. Actually, I KNOW it’s stupid. But today, stupidity was on my side. Turns out that was all they needed. In the meantime, my birth certificate was found. And in the meantime, I’ve removed my ss card from my wallet. Stupidity is too fair-weathered a friend to be counted upon.

-I’ve decided that sometimes it is really nice to have someone tell me I’m doing a good job at something. It makes me want to do even better.

-I was on a little bit of rampage after Mr. Twenty Cents came in, so I put up the bell (that means "I left the desk" and put up a small device by which i can be summoned if needed--a bell) and made the rounds. I was on a mission to bust anybody eating or drinking or engaging in any other illicit behavior. I guess I was just in a bureaucratic, “busting people” kind of mood—one I get in for one reason or another. I didn’t find anyone to bust, sadly, except I did tell the people in the book group room that they couldn’t keep the blinds closed. Pathetically, it helped.

-Tonight will be the first night in well over a week where I haven’t done something with friends. Something has come over me, some disease, some need to be constantly social. It’s as if I have discovered a great gift that life has to offer: people. I like them. A lot. I find that I feel disappointed when I don’t see my peers during the course of a day. I’m like the kid who doesn’t want to go to bed because she might miss something. I have missed so much up until now that the thought of missing any more mildly terrifies me.

This wasn’t supposed to be such a verbose post. But it is, and I’m not sorry. No more apologizing.

Presenting, for your consideration, "a little villain"

2009-11-17T15:14:00.017-07:00

Well, I just downed 20 oz. of Cherry Coke Zero in an attempt to cure both a persistent headache and a stomach bug. My stomach has been in constant knots since about last thursday, I'm losing weight, and always hungry, so I'm pretty sure I have a parasite. Hence the coke. I figured since coke will kill your body, I'm pretty sure it will kill whatever's attacking your body. Coke will dissolve a nail in like a week, for crying out loud! So good luck surviving this little buggies!

But alright. Too much info.

I'm not what you'd call "a poet," but I do happen to have a favorite poem, and I finally remembered what it was today! (Yes...I'd forgotten the title. *looks sheepish.*) It's called "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. If you are in a place where you won't elicit angry stares, be sure to read it aloud. (That's how poetry is supposed to be read, and why do I feel the need to write in so many parentheticals? Anyway...)

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

This poem and I were introduced four years ago in a creative writing class. Our textbook included all the drafts Bishop went through in order to arrive at what appears to be a very simple final product. I found the process intriguing, and the final product genius in it's simplicity. Years down the road, it inspired me to try out a villanelle of my own.

First, do most people even know what a villanelle is? Only one of the most ornerous poetic forms still in existence, with the notable exception of the haiku. (Joke...) Click on the link and read the convoluted instructions on how to write your own villanelle. You might notice that the word "villanelle" means "little villain." Appropriate for such an evil form.

Anyway, two summers ago, I took a crack at writing a villanelle, and it was actually kind of a fun project! I didn't adhere to the rule about having ten syllables in every line...but then, neither did Elizabeth Bishop. So here it is (and it's mine, and I have proof that it's mine, so don't even think about plagiarizing. I will find you and kill you. Also, blogger is apparently unable to maintain the integrity of the lines of my poem. So anywhere you see a word alone on a line, it's supposed to be on the line above. Jsyk...)

Sailing, Ever Sailing

I have a ship and often take her sailing.
And even though she hasn't weathered many a winter,
I sometimes feel these timbers creaking, swaying.

My ship's been blown to strange lands and people, even straying
to hotter climates, to exotic places, from my harbor, where
I kept my ship and often took her sailing.

What bright and worldly flag do I now fly? What colors boldly flailing
in the breeze? A meek and humble white is maybe better: calm surrender...
But I sometimes feel these timbers creaking, swaying

from recent cannonfire (see these dents?) and from the bailing
overboard of too much luggage--and, even once, despair.
I have a ship and sometimes find her sailing

in a giant circle, anchored to one spot, afraid of failing, hailing
the nearest strong, swift freighter passing. I forget her size, her power
as I reel and feel these timbers creaking, swaying--

But though the water's wide and often wild and ailing,
my ship, she carries hope. Its weight, at times, has almost spent her
strength. But we will stay afloat, and often sailing. Ever sailing!
Though...I sometimes feel these timbers creaking, swaying.

So there you have it. My little villain. I'm thinking of trying out another one just for the thrill of putting together a puzzle.

"Who in the world cares for you?"

2009-11-15T15:22:00.011-07:00

Jane Eyre is my favorite book…

…and here is why: Because the loneliest girl in the world has enough respect for herself to give up the thing she wants the most.

Jane grows up in a world that spares no thought for her. She’s an orphan; she’s lonely; she never feels the comfort of human companionship. She has some friends, yes, but she never really finds a kindred spirit.

Until she meets Rochester. Even though their professional relationship is disparate (he is her employer) as is their social class (he is upper class, and she is a pauper) they become very attached to each other. And it isn’t mere chemistry; their intellect, their minds connect! “It is my spirit that addresses your spirit,” Jane tells Rochester. “Just as if both had passed through the grave and stood at God’s feet, equal. As we are.” Funny that I can write that line from memory.

Jane and Rochester eventually are engaged to be married. If you haven't read the book, I'll try not to spoil it for you here, but all you need to know is that a circumstance arises which makes it absolutely necessary for Jane to break the engagement and leave immediately.

“Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved” she says, “and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: [but] I must renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty.” And that word was “depart.”

Rochester makes a very persuasive argument for her to stay with him. “Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone,” he says. “All happiness will be torn away with you.” How must she have felt hearing this—the girl who had nothing growing up? Who had been cold and lonely her whole life, and who finally found a kindred spirit only to have to renounce his companionship indefinitely?

While he speaks, her very conscience turns traitor against her, urging her to comply with him. “Think of his misery; think of his danger—look at his state when left alone; […] save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?”

Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?

What a frightening question.

And this is why I love Jane Eyre. As Jane battles with her desire to be loved and accepted and her knowledge of what is right, this is her inward reply:

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. [“Mad” meaning in the heat of the moment.] Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed […] There I plant my foot.”

I care for myself, too. That’s why I’m writing this post. My mind has been running around on this theme for the last little while. I do respect myself.

Tangentially, I think this is what God means when he talks about loving yourself in the context of “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Have the same kind of respect for yourself that you would have for your neighbor. And vice versa.

And if that self-respect means being alone, for whatever reason, then so be it. If doing what I feel, and deep down know, is right is the less convenient or accepted way to live, then… okay. I’m prepared to stand alone, but with my chin up. It is a fine and wonderful thing to feel needed by someone. But it is absolutely empowering to respect yourself.

Yes, Jane Eyre is my favorite book--and not just because I'm in love with Rochester (the original Edward, all you misguided Twilight admirers!) but because I admire Charlotte Bronte's representation of Jane. As I said before, the loneliest girl in the world has enough respect for herself to give up the thing she wants the most. (But there is a happy ending, p.s.)

Why is any book ever anybody’s favorite book? Because, on some level, it expresses some truth about our own, factitious (as opposed to fictitous?) lives.

Sometimes things don’t turn out the way you expect them to

2009-11-13T01:32:00.005-07:00

That title is pure poetry, baby. Here we go for another late nighter. The fact is I’m waiting for my meds to kick in so I can actually sleep. So, while I’m waiting, I’ll just write…

Six months ago, I was graduating with a liberal arts degree and scared to death that I wasn’t going to be able to find a job during the year I planned to take off from school. Then—as I detailed in an earlier post—I scored a paid internship doing exactly the kind of work I wanted to do. At the time, I considered myself extremely lucky to have gotten anything at all. Now? I consider myself extremely and deliberately blessed.

About a month after my internship began, I was introduced to a certain someone at the library who was the newest flex. (Explanation: a “flex” is short for “flexible assistant librarian.” Flexible, because they are asked to work anywhere in the library, as needed.) “Hi,” is what I said. “Wait a minute!” is what I thought. “I was told the library wasn’t hiring?” I thought further. “What gives?” I spent about a day and a half feeling very bitter. I’d wanted the job. I needed the job…why hadn’t they even told me about the job?

Then, it dawned on me that I was getting better hours and a wider variety of work as an intern than I would have as a flex. And while the position was temporary (a definite drawback) the experience I was gaining was way more important to my future career than the imminent termination of my internship.

Fast forward five and a half months to today. I turned in an application Monday for a flex position that just barely opened. Today, the library director’s secretary called me to set up an interview for Monday morning. I have every intention of getting this job, and furthermore…I think I will. And furthermore, how nice it is for the library to be able to hire someone who has already been trained in so many different areas of the library on someone else’s dime! There are so many reasons why everything has worked out perfectly…but I won’t name them here. It doesn’t matter. The point is, it worked out better than I could have planned. Much better! Things were hairy for a while. I spent many days and weeks pre-internship very insecure about my future. I’ve spent many weeks within the internship worrying.

But everything worked out. Everything is in the process of working out. I tend to worry and fret myself into a frenzy about things I have no control over. And then when these things work out, I end up re-learning a lesson I wish I’d just remember once and for all: Don’t panic. I am a firm believer that God is in the details of my life. It’s not superstition; I feel it. It must be programmed into my DNA to think that things will turn out best my way, but I’m learning to ignore that impulse, or at least take it for what it’s worth.

There are people in my family who didn’t get their job today—and who needed one so, so much more than I do. I am nobody to offer up my experiences as any kind of testimonial… but how can I not say, unequivocally, that when we have done all we can do, everything will be alright? How can I stay silent when so many things in my own life over the years—too many disappointments, heartaches, and horrible troubles—have over and over again resolved themselves into poignant and meaningful triumphs?

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you expect them to. But they do turn out.

(Okay. I think I can sleep now. Yes.)

He's Just Not That Into You

2009-11-09T15:26:00.006-07:00

I found this book entertaining, insightful, a bit crude perhaps, but definitely well-written, and while not totally applicable to an LDS readership, at the very least, it is something to think about. In fact, I wish I had read it when it first came out in 2004. It would have saved me about a year and half of cumulative confusion and worry.

For those unfamiliar with the premise, it is a non-fiction self-help book written by two of the writers of the show Sex and the City. (I know, I didn’t watch it either. But that isn’t really the point.) The woman writer is someone who professionally writes screenplays about relationships, and the man is one of the writers’ consultants, who is himself happily married. While none of these qualifications grant the writers absolute credence as self-help-book-authors, there is something refreshing about reading something written by real, non-academic people, in the real world.

In a very small nutshell, the thesis of the book is this: If a guy is not lavishing (this is my word for it) lavishing his attention on you (i.e. calling you, dating you, spending time, keeping promises, just being there) he’s just not that into you. No excuses. No “well, he’s just so busy,” or "I intimidate him" or “maybe he’s waiting for me to make a move.” Baloney. He’s not. And he’s not that into you. I confess, I got a little tired of reading the phrase, “he’s just not that into you,” but the writers overall do a pretty good job of drilling this concept into their readership’s heads.

I first read parts of this book several months ago when it came through Collection Development, damaged. But a little while ago I decided I’d better give it a real go, and here’s my verdict: I would recommend this as an interesting, if not totally helpful, read to any girl still single, and confused. Also, after reading this book, I have formed my own hypothesis about one possible reason why men can’t bring themselves to tell women when they’re not that into them: I think men like to “collect” women.

What?!

Let me explain—and I think I’m right, because…hello, I’m a girl, and girls do this, too. Girls “collect” guys. (Don’t tell me you haven’t met at least one girl in your life who hasn’t.)

Self-esteem, the way I see it, is a measure of how we feel about ourselves not based on our intrinsic worth but on our perception of outside sources. One of these biggest outside sources is the way others think or feel about us—or at least what we think they think of us. This is why girls feel bad when they don’t get asked out, or vice versa. And this is why girls and guys feel good when they sense that a lot of people would like to ask them out—even if they’re not that into any of these people. I think many people find it very satisfying to have a little entourage. It’s that ever gratifying, addicting sense of being “dateable,” if not “dating.”

Well, okay. I’ve deconstructed part of this horrendous thing we call The Game. Almost everyone in this world is dateable—to someone. (Don’t argue with me on this one, because I will hold fast.) And there is no need to have an entourage to prove it.

And there is NO need. Ever. To be part of an entourage.

I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes in this regard during the course of my adult life. Some of them recent enough to still elicit a cringe. And I will, no doubt, continue to make mistakes. But in the meantime, I HAVE have had the great satisfaction of learning something about myself.

Here I make my end by saying knowledge is power. Power is freedom.

(I don't mean this to sound like an attack or a diatribe, because it really isn't. Just a book review.)

News!

2009-11-08T21:57:00.007-07:00

get ready for it...

1. I think I did really well on the GRE! Bad on math, of course. 590. 47 percentile or something like that (Shrug.) But 93 percentile on the verbal section!!! And I feel really good about my essays, so...guess what? I won't have to take it again!

2. Remember the "Hidden Recliner"? Well someone came into the breakroom and moved the shelf it was hiding behind. Thus, it is no longer hidden but exposed--exposed!--for all the lunching librarians to see. There couldn't be anything more awkward. I happen to know I'm not the only person upset about this.

3. I've decided to turn a new leaf. Most people exercise to lose weight. Well...I'm reasonably sure that that is not my problem. I stepped on the scale the other day and saw that I was back down to a weight I haven't been since high school. Not good. So! I've made up my mind to do something I haven't done since I danced fifteen hours a week. Exercise! Now that the hiking season is over I have to be creative. I despise running, and am not very keen on biking in cold weather (or any weather, for that matter) so I am thinking weight training.

Now, before you fall out of your chair laughing, just remember that lesser people have done greater things. Napoleon, for example.

I also feel the sudden urge to start cooking more. I made something unbelievably tasty this week, and I think it inspired me. I really can make edible food!

4. My internship at OPL ends this week, probably. Luckily, I have an application in my hand for the very job that I am currently filling. Hmm. Without considering my getting hired a foregone conclusion, I think my chances are pretty good.

Some Music I Love Lately

2009-11-05T11:49:00.009-07:00

I posted videos just for interest's sake. It's the music I'm more concerned about. You might notice how much I like acoustic guitar. (I just did.)

"Mrs. Cold" from Kings of Convenience Declaration of Dependence.

I couldn't embed the real music video, but here's the link if you're interested.

"Anonanimal" from Andrew Bird on Noble Beast
Listen to how he blends all the instruments.

"Song For You" by Alexi Murdoch Time Without Consequence Not his MOST interesting song, but it just makes you feel good. :)

I just dicovered this one today! Must be from their new album that I haven't heard yet.
"Low Rising" by The Swell Season.

The Case Against Snobbery

2009-11-02T16:28:00.005-07:00

Snob n. a person who believes himself or herself an expert or connoisseur in a given field and is condescending toward or disdainful of those who hold other opinions or have different tastes regarding this field.

There’s a little (or a lot) of snobbery in all of us.

“I’m a bit of a snob about [such and such].” I’ve heard myself use this phrase before. I’ve also been coming to the conclusion lately that a snob is not a really helpful thing to be in this world—not to you, not to those around you. There are music snobs, film snobs, food snobs, book snobs, clothes snobs, political snobs, people snobs…. In fine, snobs can be found wherever there is culture. And there is culture everywhere, isn’t there?

The problems with snobs are manifold. Let’s begin with the fact that there are too many of us (and I’ll include myself, because I’m still reforming) in this world. And let’s continue with the fact that we are not actually experts about what we like, but only believe ourselves to be. That rings pathetic, in my opinion. And another thing: since when has being “condescending” or “disdainful” ever been a nice or particularly helpful thing to be?

I recently had a conversation with someone about music (big surprise) during which we established that we had nearly identical tastes. (And yes, the phrase “I am a music snob” was actually spoken out loud by one or both of us.) The conversation that followed consisted of talk about how awesome each artist was, and why, and blah blah blah. What was the outcome of this exchange? Well, both of us felt validated by having had another person, in essence, say “Yes, you are, in fact, cool because you like the same things I do.” (Which, pronouncing something valid only because “you like/agree with it” is a pretty shallow criterion, let’s be honest.) And the other thing is, neither of us had any reason to open our minds to new possibilities. Neither of us were challenged to try something new. As fellow snobs, the outcome of our exchange was simply to become even more deeply entrenched in our likes and dislikes. And even though this is an example dealing with mere music snobbery—which I consider pretty benign. Don’t even get me started on political snobbery—does anyone else see the problem with this attitude? This narrow-minded, Queen of Hearts, “there is no way but my way” approach to life?

But music snobbery’s not such a big deal. Or is it?

What’s the point of being snobbish? What’s the point of closing your mind to new possibilities? I’m not talking about letting every kind of garbage in. But what’s the point of not considering the other facets of something? It could be that once all is said and done, you will still feel the same way about the things you do. I think that’s valid, as long as “disdain” is not still part of the equation.

All of this is, of course, coming from a reformed—and still reforming—snob. But I’m just writing this to say that I find snobbery in all of its many forms tired and snotty and off-putting in almost every way, and as a young single adult I’m being constantly barraged by it by my peers and by my elders.

All this in-your-face individualism is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I would love to hear your thoughts, if you have thought about this, too.

Concerning Cliffs and Jumping Off of Them

2009-10-29T01:37:00.008-06:00

This is going to be another one of those abstract, late night posts where I may or may not make sense—but at least I will be totally honest.

While serving my mission in Brazil, I believe I learned one of the most important lessons I could have learned. Ever. And that is, if you haven’t developed a certain skill, pretend like you have. Fake it till you make it.

Now wait. Before you say, “But Erin, that’s dishonest. That’s what most people would call disingenuous,” I will add my little caveat: Fake it till you make it…but in the meantime, start making it.

Let me illustrate. I am a naturally reserved person. I don’t like to feel vulnerable, so I avoid putting myself in certain situations. That should tell you right now why serving an LDS mission was…let's just say and act of unmitigated faith. I have always had a sense of humor, but not a sense of adventure. I never did find any thrill in precarious situations. Being thrown into a situation where I for the first several months was, for all intents and purposes, stripped of my ability to articulate a coherent thought was a horrific trial! For me, where words are all I’ve got, words are my only real talent, my only real tool, my only real outlet, my first two transfers in the field was a time of protracted silence. Hardly anybody knew me. I felt judged, and I withdrew even further, because there is nothing more withering than the feeling of being judged.

Eventually, little by little, I figured out that the only thing for it—the only thing for the crippling insecurity I felt as a missionary—was to just…open my mouth. Start talking to people. Not worry about eloquence. It wasn’t really the point anyway, to talk pretty. It scared the devil out of me to approach total strangers. I won’t pretend like it ever became easy, because it didn’t.

But there were days when nothing intimidated me. Where I was on fire!

It took faking it at first. But I learned that regardless of how I felt, I had to foster the habit of Confidence. Whether I was talking to strangers on the street, or teaching investigators, or getting to know members, I started pretending like I knew exactly what I doing. Eventually I didn’t have to pretend. I just did it.

To a certain extent I’ve been just doing it ever since. And, for the most part, I’ve been doing okay with this habit of Confidence. For the most part it’s legit.

You’re probably hoping I will get to the point of this post. Well here it comes: I’ve been doing a lot of faking it lately, (and not a lot of making it). Lately I have felt my insecurities—my countless insecurities—piling at my door. Immature. Uninteresting. Delusional. And every girl’s worst enemy, Ugly. I know I am not…for the most part…any of these things. But lately I have felt these and other demons lurking just outside the fortress I have built around my confidence. My once-feigned, now-real, and ever delicately-maintained confidence.

Maybe it’s because I am on the cusp of the rest of my life. There are so many unknowns and what ifs. But after all. It’s only natural to stand on the edge of cliff and tremble a little.

Okay. I had to include this picture. I was looking for some dramatic shot of someone base-jumping off Half Dome or something...but then I found this. How could I resist?

Retreat

2009-10-25T22:28:00.007-06:00

I feel I have unwrapped too much.

Like I have spread myself too thin. As Bilbo Baggins would say, "Like butter scraped over too much bread."

I have entrusted all of myself to so many people I have almost nothing left over for me.

I just want to wrap myself up in blanket and sleep and just be me, and only me without reference to anyone else.

Sleep, where my reeling mind will heal. And the fragmented parts of myself will become one again.

This is what is known as sensory overload.

Read-er’s Ad-vi-sory

2009-10-22T23:11:00.008-06:00

n. 1. The practice of advising a patron what to read next based on a brief evaluation of their tastes in literature. 2. Extremely subjective, and somewhat personal, assistance demanded of librarians by total strangers.

Have you ever tried to set someone up on a blind date? Of course you have. Almost everyone has. (Well, strictly speaking I haven’t, but that’s beside the point.) Let’s just pretend for a minute that you are setting a friend up on a blind date. The fact that this person is a friend is very important. Everything—the success of the date—hangs on you knowing enough about this person to set them up with their next potential snuggle buddy. The success of the date depends equally on your knowledge about the other party, too. Even if your friend and the blind date don’t exactly hit it off, you are responsible for their having enough to talk about for two hours or so.

It's risky, this blind date business. Because if the date fails utterly, you feel like an idiot. But if it works out…you feel like a million bucks.

This, my friends, is readers advisory in a nutshell, but for one important difference—or maybe two. First, instead of lining up a friend, you are lining up a total stranger. And second, you are lining them up with their next book. And it could be their new favorite book!... Or they could hate you forever for wasting their time.

* * *

“I’m looking for a good read.”

Okay. What are you in the mood for? What’s one of your favorite books?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Anything, I guess.”

(This is never true! Nobody, I repeat NOBODY, likes just anything.)

Well, what have you read recently that grabbed you?

“I read [such and such] book.”

Tell me about it. What did you like about it?

“I liked….blah blah blah.”

Alright. (Since I am not nearly as well-read as I need to be to be good at my job, I often respond in this fashion.) Let me direct you to one of these wonderful reading lists that we have compiled by genre and sub-genre. We also have displays against the far wall. By the way, have you read such and such author? They might appeal to you in some of the same ways….etc etc.

“But…can you give me the name of a book?”

(Can I give you a specific book title? What more do you want from me? I don’t know you. At all! And this brief encounter of ours doesn’t count! I have given you—YOU, who know yourself better than I do, admit it!—more than one excellent way to treat yourself to your next favorite book. And yet, you persist. You will not leave my desk until I give a specific title. And if I choose poorly, you will hate me and think me incompetent and unwise, even though I have tried to help you help yourself! All of it screams, Unfair! Unfair! And yet…)

Yep. Right this way. (Have I read any of this stuff? No? Great. Well, here's one he can put in his pipe and smoke.) Here’s such and such book. I hope it works out for you! If you need anything else, just let me know.

Reader’s advisory.
Whenever I am asked to do it, it is just one more reminder of how little I know.

In case you haven't laughed yet today...

2009-10-19T20:47:00.019-06:00

...feel free to do so at my expense.

Oh the joy you can find with Photobooth.

Sage

Thrilled

a little too...right-brained. Yeah.

bent out of shape

enraged! (personal favorite)

myopic

innocent (or just dumb)

uh...cool?

ow.

what the...

And there are no words for this. (Other personal favorite)

Okay. That's enough. Go laugh at your own dang selves now.

What a Difference a Year Makes

2009-10-14T20:14:00.005-06:00

I wish I had something interesting to write about today:

-I fell asleep in my car and was late coming back from lunch. (no one noticed.)

-I’m getting another article of mine printed in the bi-monthly OPL newsletter. Even though nobody reads it, this turn of events still makes me happy.

-I’m glad today is over and that I don’t have to answer any more questions or put out any more fires. It was a day where I felt like everyone was just a little bit more demanding than was strictly necessary.

-I’m tivo-ing Glee so I don’t have to watch all those asinine commercials.

-I could sure go without seeing another human being for the rest of the day.

-I figured out something major that was wrong with my book, and the biggest writer’s block in the history of the universe is lifting. Huge sigh of relief.

-I have been lying on the couch in my room/study for the last hour letting my eyes open and close as they will, watching the light die. Now it is dark and wet outside. I feel nothing. Just tired, tired, tired. I can’t…help anybody else today.

Tomorrow.

-“What a difference a year makes.” If this thought were a website in my mind, then it would have a billion hits. I just keep thinking…what a difference a year has made for me. For the better.

The People Who Haunt the Library

2009-10-07T18:12:00.005-06:00

I see the same people in the library almost every day, and I wonder about them.

A.M is a heavy-set, clean-cut forty-ish year old guy who uses the computers almost daily. Faithfully, at 9 o' clock almost every morning, he's there, handing me his library card as a collateral for headphones before he sits down at machine number 9. That's how I know his name: from his card. He's always dressed nicely, in slacks and a colored button-up--he even carries a briefcase. I like A.M because even though he comes in all the time, he doesn't treat me or the other librarians too familiarly. He doesn't try to be funny, and he doesn't make personal observations about our appearance like some people do. I don't know what he does online every day. Maybe some of the time he's job searching.

Another ghost I see is one I will call the Lonely Reader. This one's a strange case. LR is a tall, also clean-cut, maybe mid-thirty-year-old who I see every day. And I mean, every day. He is always there at open. He always sits down in one of our nice, soft chairs with a newspaper or a book off the display shelf. As far as I can tell, he never goes down to the lab (unusual), he never checks anything out, and he never asks for anything at the desks. He just comes, and sits, and reads.

One day, I was working the desk in the fiction area, and I noticed LR down there. A line of several soft and lovely lime-green Ikea benches line the back wall of Fiction, each with a pile of pillows. LR was sitting on one. He had one of the millions of pillows wrapped in his arms. He wasn't reading. He just sat there, hugging that pink pillow looking...sad? Or tired. I don't know which. He didn't move for a long time.

I think LR might be homeless. But you would never, ever think it to look at him.

Speaking of homeless. HL (for homeless) is another ghost I sometimes see around. And not just the library but the whole city center and that intersection of state and center. HL is another skinny, mid to late thirty-yr-old. He has chin-length greasy hair that is well-combed, and wears dingy clothes in a dignified way. I first met HL working--once again--at the fiction desk. He handed me a pink rubber ball that he thought maybe some child had dropped. HL has a strong smell about him and dirt under his nails, but he is as quiet and unassuming as LR.

I hope these guys, whatever their troubles may be, are able to find some rest at the OPL.

The Hidden Recliner

2009-09-24T17:28:00.006-06:00

The break room in the south wing of the library has one table with four chairs around it, one treadmill and one elliptical donated by the rec center, an old, pre-HD big screen tv that gives you a headache to watch, and two—I repeat TWO—lazyboy recliners. When I go into the break room each day I have from these options to pick where I will eat my lunch. If I am eating something messy—like a sweet onion chicken teriyaki Subway sandwich—I opt for the table. If I am eating a nice, sedate cheese sandwich and chips from home, I will settle into one of the lazyboys. Did I mention they rock? As in, back and forth?

I confess, I have never tried to each lunch on the treadmill or the elliptical, but I’ll let you know what happens if I do. It should be interesting. (AND counterproductive.)

The one recliner is positioned, naturally, in front of the tv. But the other one—the one I prefer—is tucked away in a corner, behind a shelf filled with books the library is getting rid of. Because of where it is in the room, and the nature of the chair—it kind of swallows you when you sit—a person sitting in that chair is virtually invisible to anyone walking into the break room. (I say virtually, because you can see a leg or detect a slight rocking motion if you are actually looking.) This is especially true if you are a smallish person, like me.

All of these circumstances have more than once added up to a unique and delightfully awkward situation. Let me illustrate. Yesterday, I enter the break room, and finding it empty, I slip into my favorite place: the “hidden” recliner. I eat my food, I rock back and forth a little bit, I read…etc. A few minutes before I leave, one of our tech guys comes in. I know he hasn’t seen me, because…I just know it. He’s over by the sink rinsing something out. Who knows what. He seems pretty intent. He’s concentrated and unselfconscious, the way a person is when he thinks—when he knows—he’s alone.

What am I to do? If I stay absolutely still, maybe he will leave and never know I was here. That’s a perfectly respectable option. But what if he starts humming or talking to himself (as we sometimes do when we “know” we are alone) and then sees me and feels dumb, and then I’ll feel dumb for being all secretive? There is no easy answer to this.

I decide to make my presence known in as natural a way as possible. I get up, trying to be as obvious as possible, crinkling my bag, walking normally, etc. I do everything short of yelling. “Hey! I’m here! Don’t be alarmed.” But so “alone” was this guy that only when I pass within the range of his peripheral vision, does he notice me.

I think he jumped like a foot.

I didn’t bother making any kind of explanation or apology. What would be the point? “Sorry you didn’t notice me and I scared the poop out of you?” No.

So you see. Eating in the Hidden Recliner is a risky proposition. I sometimes ask myself whether the benefit of eating privately and comfortably outweighs the social cost (i.e. the possibility of awkwardness). Maybe, maybe not. But awkwardness aside, it really is quite funny to see people’s reactions when they suddenly know they’re not alone.

A Journey to "There"

2009-09-08T20:12:00.018-06:00

Sorry for the stupid title. It’s the best thing I can think of for what I’m about to write. And the seventies pop-icon photo? Joke. Okay.

Three months ago, I was a freshly-minted college graduate who had just ended her on-campus job of four years. A job that was in some ways fun but in many other ways tedious. It is hard to muster up the discipline to do work you have no intention of ever doing again.

That job ended and through semi-miraculous means I snagged a government-sponsored internship at the Orem Public Library. In my interview with the library director and my two future supervisors, they asked me what I wanted to do during my few months there. I want to do everything, I said. I want to be a librarian, and I have no idea what that entails. I want to do reference. I want to be involved in programs. I wanted to know what it was like to actually be involved with patrons—living, breathing, thinking (sometimes) people! And not just books.

They decided to split my hours between Reference and what is known at OPL as the Outreach Division, which is in charge of exactly what it sounds like it’s in charge of: programs, community outreach, etc. It’s the branch of the library that doesn’t just wait for the patrons to come in, but does whatever it can to invite them in.

After the first few bumpy weeks at the reference desks, I was getting the hang of it. The training had been intense…but then I started getting repeat questions. “Where do I find books on building decks?” “How do I download an attachment?” “Can you please recommend a book?” Etc. Etc.

I conquered my fear of the telephone and began to use it semi-proficiently. “Let me transfer you to circulation.” “Just one minute while I look that up for you.” “Yes, I can renew that for three more weeks.” Yes, yes, yes. The eternal importance of getting to yes. I got to know my coworkers better, and I even think I began to earn their respect. They certainly had mine.

I learned what customer service means and discovered—to my surprise—that it came naturally to me. It wasn’t just my job; I wanted to be helpful! I wanted to feel the sweet satisfaction of helping people find EXACTLY what they needed. Of learning for myself that knowledge really IS power, and that empowering others people feels really great. I loved working the desks. Often people who I had helped even half an hour earlier would walk back by the desk on their way out, and catch my eye, and say thank you. It was like getting flowers.

I loved my morning routines. 8:15 every morning, I’d be down in the basement of the adult wing spraying down keyboards and tables, turning on computers, unlocking doors, straightening books and replacing them…. It was my alone time when my iPod and I could disappear together among the stacks, straightening wayward books, delighting in the simple ordering of disorder.

Mornings at the desks were quiet times where I could study up on databases, shelf-read (i.e. making sure the books are on the right place on the shelf) and answer the occasional question. They were peaceful.

Then 12:15 would roll around and I would go to lunch for half an hour. And then the structured, predictable, comfortable part of my day was over.

I dreaded my afternoons with Outreach—not at first, but later. At first, I was given menial tasks like folding fliers, or filling out forms or what have you. That wasn’t so bad, at least I knew how to do it.

I was entrusted with more important tasks. They knew I liked to write so they asked me to write a blurb for the bi-monthly newsletter. In preparation, they handed me a binder full of all the back issues. I read them all. And as my palms began to sweat, I determined that I had nothing to write about. Every article was a feature about some artist or musician that was coming to the library, or about part of the collection or some other topic that I was NO authority on. I can’t do this, I told my Outreach bosses. (P.s. I have a LOT of bosses.) I have nothing to write about. I don’t know enough. They looked pained. The deadline for getting the July newsletter was days away and they needed an article. Look, said the one, just write about something you love.

What I was really afraid of was not that I would write an article unfit for the OPL bi-monthly newsletter (bastion of journalistic excellence that it is) but of mediocrity. I felt I was being asked to do something that someone else could do better. It wasn’t laziness, it was pragmatism. Why have little old me do it when someone better could do it? This mantra informed my whole attitude toward Outreach for many weeks and was the source of much frustration and outright insecurity. Why was I being asked to do things that someone who knew what they were doing could do so much better?

At some point—I don’t know when—it occurred to me that whether or not what I wrote or what I worked on was amazing was not really the issue, but whether it was needed. If there was a need, I needed to fill it. Not because I was the most qualified person for the job, but because I was THERE.

This realization carried me through the next crisis.

Outreach is in charge of the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, and as that monolithic event loomed ever closer, I was asked to do tasks—out of necessity—that I had to teach myself how to do, or received confusing instructions at best.

Explanation. Busy and overworked as she is, J, my boss, is not especially good at giving instructions in a logical order. “Do this,” she would say—(not officiously, but kindly.) And then I would spend the next three hours figuring out how to “do this” when I know she could have done it herself in minutes…if she weren’t so busy. “Do it yourself!” I often felt like screaming. Especially if I’d made some terrible blunder, which happened…frequently. I found myself apologizing a lot. Obsequiously.

It eventually occurred to me that my apologizing was getting old. So I stopped. But every day for a while I’d come home burning with the desire to shout, “If you want something done right, do it yourself!” Fortunately for me, that attitude, and that insecurity passed.

Among other jobs I had to re-write letters to sponsors from years past and send out hundreds of mailings and comp tickets; I drew up performers’ contracts; I taught myself how to use Excel (and still hate it); I updated lots of old documents; I put in a purchase order for 500 hand-puppets, for crying out loud! I didn’t do anything really grand like choose which national storytellers would come (that had been done months ago), or organize the whole set-up of the venue. But I tied up a million little loose ends. I took care of things that needed to be done. Maybe I didn’t do things as efficiently or aptly as J could have, but they got done. Only that mattered.

Every day felt like a giant puzzle I had to solve, and I would come home exhausted and shaken. But okay. I had survived to survive another day. And then, somehow, over the natural course of things, all of that wonderful insecurity went away, and I learned how to solve problems as if that alone were my job. I even enjoyed it. I felt…trusted. It was exciting to be entrusted with an important project. It felt great to stride into J’s office and present her with the outcome of my work and to see the look of relief on her face. It was actually the same satisfaction as working at a desk and helping people access information they needed. I liked the sense of my invaluability to the division. I wasn’t, and am not, invaluable. But I sometimes felt like the work I was doing actually couldn’t be done by anyone else—at that time. Satisfaction like a drug. And I wanted more of it.

I began to open my eyes to how overworked my boss was. She looked—looks, actually—old beyond her years. She walks upright and with an energy even I find hard to match, but you can see the heaviness in her eyes.

Two Saturdays ago, I sat in J’s office working across the desk at my own computer, and she began telling me about her family. (Her daughter had just come in and left.) How it was big. How every single one of her children had learning disabilities and lived at home, as adults. How three had already died—one DURING the Festival one year. How things had been difficult with the two oldest, who were her husband’s from a previous marriage. Etc.

It was not a long conversation—nor do I think she was trying to explain or excuse anything. It was just conversation. I had told her a little bit about my family—how we were all living on top of each other and making our way through.

I asked her if it was worth it, the Festival. If all the storm and stress of putting on the second largest storytelling event in the nation was ultimately rewarding. She looked at me tiredly through her glasses, he eyes lined by years of overwork and several days of no sleep, and she said, “Sometimes.” She didn’t gush idealistically about the virtues of storytelling. She didn’t say it was the greatest thing in the world. “Sometimes” expressed the reality of it all for HER. It was a glimpse of her immense fatigue that made my complaints seem so useless and trifling. And I also saw that J was doing the same thing I was doing, on a larger scale. She was filling a need. She didn’t found the Festival; it wasn’t her idea. She didn't go to school to become a professional accountant or event organizer. But she takes care of almost all of it because back when it all began, she was there.

Now the Festival is over and I will quietly slip back into my normal routine. I will clean keyboards and straighten books, and answer innumerable small—but important--questions. Important to the people who are asking them—therefore, important. The nightmare/amazingness of the Festival will quietly fade into the past, and my internship will end in a few weeks. When that happens, I will feel I have been her for a long time and will be here for years to come. It will be strange to think about how many people’s paths I will have crossed and how much—for lack of a better way of putting—amazing experience I can put on a resume!

But most importantly, this I will have learned. A) Insecurity, for me, is a form of pride. B)The attitude of perfectionism is unnecessary as it is damning. That is (and I never thought I’d say this) it is okay to be mediocre when you’re learning how to do something. It OKAY. As long as you don’t settle for mediocrity. And C) above all, just work. Fill needs as they arise. Even D) To forego NEEDING to feel needed. To not work for accolades. To just be there, and to make being there count for something.

Unwrapping

2009-08-30T00:56:00.012-06:00

I needed this summer to gather myself in tight
Like I was sitting on a blanket, and I gathered it close to me
pulling in some of my loose corners
tightening some things that had come loose

To rediscover. To learn, mellow, become. to wrap myself up in things that really mattered.
and then to loosen what needed loosening and letting go.

Change.

Now I'm ready to unwrap again, and spread out,

out

out.

The Vital Importance of Being Good

2009-08-23T01:12:00.007-06:00

The hour is late and my thoughts are not necessarily coherent, but I feel like I should write about this. I’ve been in a huge spiritual slump lately. No, I haven’t stopped going to Church, I haven’t lost my testimony or anything. I’m trying to do my calling as the first counselor in my ward relief society—but the fact is that I’ve been in a slump. I don’t remember what I was doing or when exactly I started thinking about this, but a day or two ago I realized that I had been letting little things slide.

You know, it’s funny…I can say I don’t know why I’ve been in a slump, but I do know. I think we all know deep down the reason WHY we ever get in a slump. For me, it’s partly because I haven’t been reading my scriptures every day. Sure, I read at least three times a week, but even then, it is a cursory reading and not a real study. It’s different for everybody, but for me, this kind of study isn’t enough. Going through the motions isn’t enough, and so I’ve slid. The other thing that I don’t go to the temple often enough. Sometimes only once a month. Sometimes less. And when I go, it seems like it’s out of duty and not out of some purer motivation. Often I’m rushed, almost always…I get bored. I’m being very honest here. And, I’m not excusing myself. But sometimes I don’t want to go because a session can feel like such a long time commitment.

Part of this slump is a result of media inundation. There is so much out there that is purely to entertain, to provide vicarious enjoyment of something. There is so much DISTRACTION! Sometimes, I don’t want to do the little things that are right because they don't initially excite me. Why would I want to read my scriptures for twenty minutes when I could read my novel or watch my movie? It’s easier for me to escape the sometimes-tedium of life on Facebook or in some other form of distraction than to diagnose my boredom with scripture.

Diagnosing boredom with scripture. Hm. That’s something I’ve never thought about until now.

Anyway. Now to the point of this post. I’ve been trying to figure out lately just WHAT is really important. I didn’t mean to spend so much time talking about media distractions. I wanted to talk about what is the most important thing to BE. And I’ve decided that the most important thing to be is…well…good.

“Good” is a loaded word, but I’ll tell you what I think it means. It means doing the right things for the right reasons—which excludes, by it’s very definition, self-righteousness.

I have spent so much energy in the past little while developing somewhat superficial (let’s just called them worthless) traits. In a world where in order to be taken seriously you have to be ironic, a little edgy, a little cynical, and it's not necessarily cool to really FEEL things, it is only natural that I have, however subconsciously, been developing a rather world-weary attitude. To be ironic is to be the opposite of sincere. So here’s something to think about: If fitting in means sacrificing sincerity, is that really worth it? Is it worth it to be a little disingenuous in the way I express my opinions in order to be thought witty? Smart? Informed?

Here’s another one. Is it so important to be pretty? To be hip? To have all the right clothes? The right music? To read the right books and watch the right movies? Am I saying that these things are bad? No. But are they the most important things?

And what about friends? True, I don’t need to be best friends with everybody. (impossible.) But does that mean I am entitled to write people off who don’t initial interest me? Does my attitude say that I a think I am entitled to be unkind, and that I can justify being cold? (And believe me, I can be cold. I despise that version of myself.)

Enough. You get the point, hopefully. I truly think the only thing worth actively trying to be is GOOD. As stupid and obvious as that sounds, I really think it is the only thing ultimately worth it. And by good, I guess I mean sincere even at the expense of...whatever..."coolness". By good, I mean doing things for people in the spirit of disinterest—not thinking about “what’s in it for me.” I mean not letting the little spiritual things like scriptures study slide and not putting too much stock in media distractions. Cultivating something inside that will somehow radiate to other people, draw them to you (not for personal gain). I’m not talking about being nice, or even merely kind—though kindness is part.

Yes, it is cool to be edgy and it is fun to be fascinating. But honestly, to be good is vital. It is so unglamorous and so hard to be good.

I had already been thinking about all of these things a few days ago, and then—as if on cue—I came across this quotation on Jill’s blog, and with(out) her permission, here it is. I think it sums up the way I’m feeling:

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity

My Feelings about Being 24

2009-08-14T00:15:00.000-06:00

1. I feel…the same. I have felt more or less the same for several years (barring the mission) and I feel like I’m going to feel the same from here on out. Or at least until some things, which are totally out of my control, happen.

2. How do I feel about my social life? Personally, I feel invisible. And a little weary. But not…washed up. I am just barely discovering the truth that it’s okay to give people glimpses of my unadulterated self.

3. I love my job. I feel like I have found something I can do to support myself for the rest of my life, and it happens to be totally enjoyable. What a wonderful feeling of security. I am confident.

4. I feel like I am finally an adult in my family, and I don’t have to do anything to prove it. I just am. And it doesn’t mean being any less silly or uninhibited. It just means being less self-conscious and defensive.

5. People definitely attach way too much baggage to the arbitrary numbers we use to tell age. My being 24 in and of itself means nothing. It doesn’t mean I should be any certain way at any given time. I don’t have to feel too old or too young or too late or too tired. It just means I’ve been alive for 24 years.

“Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again…”

2009-07-21T18:36:00.008-06:00

The famous first line from the novel Rebecca.

Actually, it was Santos, a coastal city in Brazil. Early this morning, I dreamt I went to Santos again.

As most of you know, I spent about eight and a half months there—so long that even though I haven’t seen it for well over a year, it is as fresh in my mind now as it was then. I have a map all but etched into my brain of most of the streets of four “bairros,” or neighborhoods, in Santos. I would still know the most efficient ways to get everywhere. And because I went about on foot, I know the aspect of the streets, the homefronts, bakeries, bars, and salons. So many salons! The skate park in the middle of my area, where the eternally busy Afonso Pena intersects Canal Four. The quiet, tree-lined streets where trim little buildings on stilts stand shoulder to shoulder like sentinels.

I can go on, but the details in my head mean nothing to anybody but me.

There is something to be said for going everywhere on foot.

Some people’s dreams are characterized by scary, intense sequences, or consist of various montages of nonsense. My dreams—when I remember them, which is not often—almost always provoke thought. Last night, as I said, I dreamt I went back to Santos. I don’t know how I got there. I was supposed to be somewhere else. In fact, I had momentarily been somewhere else—at a party with family and friends or something. But suddenly, I was in shorts and a dark green shirt I don’t actually own in real life, and it was noon, and I was in Santos. The sky was a beautiful partly cloudy. It looked light a hot day, but felt pleasant. I found myself on a busy road that vaguely resembled Afonso Pena—the dividing line between the nicer bairros and one called Macuco. I wandered around, almost in a trance or daze. I wondered how I’d gotten there—I assumed by plane—but it didn’t really seem to matter. There were lots of pedestrians, everywhere. All around me were the old, old houses, with tall, narrow wooden doors—houses that in real life, I always imagined sailors having once come home to, but now are filled with immigrants from the Northeast. I went places I could never go again as a tourist. I thought, “I’m going to walk all over Santos, even the Center.” The Center is not a safe place in real life. It made me feel invincible, the idea of going there. I passed by buildings that even now I can see in such detail that I wonder if I really did see them once.

I caught my reflection in a window. My hair was short and slightly flipped out. I looked really hip! I swear—I swear—I passed some people I actually saw or knew or something in Brazil. I caught some of them looking at me, maybe wondering where they had seen me before. I felt triumphant, returning as a competent tourist, well-dressed, confident. It’s as if I were glad to prove that missionaries were human, too—not always dowdy their whole lives. I didn’t feel out of place as a blond. Lot’s of people were blond, though fake. And I knew the language.

In my wandering, I ducked into a kind of alley, walked into a little paved courtyard, and suddenly found a view of the city. There was a carnival in the distance, with swings and one of those crazy spinny things that people always get sick on, and a Ferris wheel. In real life, there is no carnival in Santos, and a view of the city is only possible from one of the hills in the center of the island. But in my dream world, anything was possible I guess. Even for a solitary American girl with no real money and no passport to feel safe. It occurred to me to feel nervous that I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing and a U.S. $20 bill in my pocket, no cellphone, nothing… But this fleeting moment of panic was replaced by awe as I walked the old streets of Santos feeling exactly like I’d come home.

My memories of Brazil haunt me, because they seem so much like dreams. So totally different was my life there than it is here, it is hard for me, in some ways, to believe I was actually there. It’s my driving force to go back. I guess…I guess I just want to go see if it’s really there the way I remember it.

On Going Very Early to Movies

2009-07-16T01:13:00.005-06:00

There’s definitely something about Utah Valley and the general lack of acceptable entertainment that sends people in droves to the movies. Really. You’d think the movie industry worldwide would have pulled itself up out of the economic slump by now, if through nothing else than through Utah Valley’s unbridled enthusiasm.

Yes, I’m talking about Harry Potter.

Now. I have spent no less than a million hours of my life waiting in lines to get into blockbuster movies like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and (heaven forbid) Star Wars episode three. But I no longer relish this practice. I no longer absorb the expectant energy of the people in line with me, eagerly awaiting Heath Ledger’s phenomenal evilness, or Robert Downey Jr.’s irresistible bad boy antics. You might say I’ve grown bored of it all. I still like movies, but I don’t particularly enjoy lines.

Well, I made an exception today, for Harry. I even went to the trouble of buying the tickets two days in advance. I even…bothered to go stand in line (yes, you heard me…or…read me) a whole hour in advance. Die-hard early-going-blockbuster-line-waiter-inners no doubt scoff. One hour is really not early enough for such a big movie on its second day of release. True. But I figured that at least the four of us going wouldn’t get stuck sitting in the front row. Not even the genius of Harry Potter can ameliorate the effects of a permanently crooked neck. Anyway. I went early, stood in an enormous, amorphous line, finally got into the theater with what I thought was time to spare…and lo. It was nearly full.

You must imagine my rage. (But—do not imagine too carefully lest you overload your central nervous system.) In this same circumstance, some people would see the joy in the situation: families coming together to enjoy a nice, well-made, pg-rated masterpiece. (Which it was, by the way.) But I? Oh, no. I’d had a long day at work, and what I saw was whole families of twelve who’d sent their two little pit bulls three hours ahead of schedule to spread jackets, purses, arms and legs and whatever else on hand across ten other seats so that the rest of the fam could quite comfortably arrive two minutes before the film was scheduled to start. It was enough to make one sick with rage! I had already demeaned myself by arriving a whole hour early. Perversely, it wasn’t even because I was such an HP fan that I willingly wait in an unmoving line for three hours. I was merely playing by the necessary rules to get four seats together. Just four. Is that a lot to ask?

By the time I got into the theater, a mere half hour early, the seating was still underway.

Seating, in a movie such as this, is always a bloodbath. No sooner do you turn your back on two potential seats, then bam! Taken. One must be impulsive. You see a seat, you take it, you throw yourself bodily across it, because the minute you hesitate to consider whether this is really the seat for you, you’ve lost it. Your claim is staked by someone who was a fraction of a second less circumspect than you. (It’s unfair, but that’s life in the theater. Alas, there is a little bit of Darwinism at play.) And then, since the only two seats left together are two of the six handicapped seats, you are forced to plant yourself thither. Right in front, in the aisle. Exposed. Conspicuous. Like a sore thumb, or a growth on the fringes of society. Everyone walking by, tripping on your legs (which you tuck shamefully away) looking askance—and judging.

Judging.

What if someone in a wheelchair actually comes in? Which one of the six of us poor schmucks in the front is going to move? It is a frightening hypothetical. All joy is leached out of the experience. All expectation quashed by the single, bitter thought, “This damn movie better be worth it!”

Well, it was, happily. And no amount of my pre-show annoyance tainted the actual experience. My final word is this: go see Harry Potter. But—and I can’t believe I’m actually advocating this—show up a little earlier than I did.

Urgh

2009-07-16T00:27:00.001-06:00

I need to write more and more often!

!!

And, I had such lofty goals for the summer...

Vague Admissions

2009-06-19T23:25:00.002-06:00

1. I have a lot of growing up to do

2. I don't know nearly as much as I need to know to be good at what I'm doing

3. I hate feeling vulnerable. I feel vulnerable right now. I'm not a very good problem solver. What's more, I'm not above average smart. I just have a big vocabulary. it's not the same thing.

4. I don't know whether the ball is in my court or not. i'm apathetic. I'm tempted to just pretend the ball doesn't exist...

5. Writing is really hard for me. It doesn't come as naturally to me as I say it does. I do a lot of editing. I sometimes wonder if I'll actually be able to compose a good novel someday. Right now, I feel mildly pessimistic.

6. My fear of mediocrity cripples my creativity. Perfectionism is my bane.

7. I'm insecure about my looks. (Who isn't?! Don't respond to this.) I try not to think about them. They are a fair-weathered friend.

Sometimes I just have to get these stupid little insecurities out of my system so I can stop thinking about myself and move on. I don't want my insecurities to be used as an excuse to be self-absorbed. I don't want that.

Okay. Back to confidence.

A funny occurrence that ends in the worst lie I've ever told

2009-06-13T15:15:00.014-06:00

Today i was scheduled to work at the Orem Arts Council tent at Orem Summerfest. I arrive, I get set up, the other people who i'm replacing at the table leave, and I get to working hard, manning the table. (It was grueling.) I've been at the table maybe five minutes when this guy and his friend kind sidle up to the table. I can already tell by the one guy's whole attitude that he means business--but not with the Arts Council. With me. I prepare myself for the inevitable awkwardness--but one not without its humor. So here goes: R (we'll call him R and I'll explain why later) comes up to the table.

"Hey!" he says as if I'm supposed to recognize him. Hi. What can I do for you? (Now I can't remember if he launched right into his pick-up lines of if he even attempted to feign interest in the Arts Council. But anyway...he goes on.) "Are you in college?" What?! I'm thinking. What kind of question is that? Oh! I get it. You want to make sure you aren't picking up on a high schooler. Admirable, but a little transparent, don't think, pal? I take about two seconds to decide what tone to adopt with this guy. He seems harmless enough, but potentially annoying. I decide on the "civil, but mono-syllabic" tone.

No, I reply simply. Not anymore.
"That's too bad," he says. He clearly thinks I've dropped out or something. I should have just left it at that, but at this point my sense of mischief is in full gear. I want to see if I can get this guy to actually come out with it and ask me if I'm dating anybody.
I graduated, I say. His ears perk up.
"When?" He asks, obviously still trying to determine my age (which, I know, is difficult for people who don't know me.)
April.
"Where from?"
BYU.
"Oh! I was going to school up there, too! That's probably where I've seen you around."
I scowl. Seriously? Low marks for creativity, pal. I shake my head. He senses that this tack isn't working, so he adopts a different one: He is suddenly all professional, detached interest in all the pamphlets at the booth. I know he doesn't care about any of this stuff, but I explain in as much detail as I can about ALL of it. I glance at his friend who, unlike himself, seems a little bit of a shady character who's missing a few teeth. Weird. He doesn't even feign interest in the stuff on the table, but patiently waits for his friend to wrap things up with me.

Meanwhile, R has taken one of the volunteer forms--and a free pencil--on the pretext of filling it out. "Oops," he says. "I was writing on the back." He flips it over, but before he does I can see that he has written one letter: R. Probably the first letter of his name, if I had a guess.
Wow. Does he really think I don't know that he's writing his name and number on the front of the form? Does he think he's going to take me pleasantly by surprise when he hands it to me with all of his contact info filled out and a big "Call me!" on the top? (He didn't, but I'll get to that in a minute.) Just at that moment, the gods intervene and the biggest wind/rain/lightning storm on planet Earth at that particular moment descends upon Orem, Utah. I simply cannot spare him another thought as we scramble to get everything under the tent. When we have finally done all we could do (which was not much in the face of such furious rain) I stand up to find this guy still hanging over my shoulder. Really? I think. Are you still here? The sky is falling--the tent, at least, is--all hell is breaking loose and you are taking this inauspicious moment to pay your addresses to me?! I'm thinking all of this inside.
"Listen," he says, making a clean breast of it. He's clasping the volunteer form anxiously in his hand. "Are you dating anyone?" he ask quietly and seriously.

Here's where I lie. I briefly contemplate telling him I'm married. But then, I'm wearing no ring, and my sense of fair play tells me I shouldn't go that far. (I think he would have ring-checked.) So, I just smile apologetically, and nod my head. I see him grip the piece of paper and it crumples a little. "Oh, okay, then. Er...do you remember the website for the Arts Council?" he asks. "Oh wait. It's here on the pencil, I guess." I nod again, still apologetic. Poor guy. He's desperately trying to backpeddle out of a blunder he could have easily avoided if a) he hadn't so clumsily picked up on a girl he knew nothing about, and b) if I--and I admit fault--hadn't tightened the noose by fibbing. Well, the tempest is in full swing by then, so R and his buddy take off at lightning speed (no pun intended) to some other tent to wait it out.

Phew. Perhaps I shouldn't have lied. Undoubtedly, I should not have. But I could think of no better, faster and surer expedient to get this guy away from me. He was clearly the persistent type. Let me clarify that I did nothing to lead him on. i didn't even smile at him--other than apologetically, that is. But this whole thing is the kind of thing that never happens to me, so I wanted to see where it would go. So, ok. it probably wasn't the worst lie I've ever told.

But oh! Would that it had not been a lie after all! For more reasons than one.

Life at the OPL

2009-06-05T21:49:00.003-06:00

As some of you may know, I started a four-month internship at the Orem Public Library this week. I won't go into the nitty gritty about HOW I got this internship--but suffice it to say that is was through the Stimulus Package. It's an internship specifically to create summer jobs for people in my age bracket, 18-24, who are having a hard time getting a job this summer. That's me. That WAS me, I should say. Now, I have an almost full-time job for the next four months at exactly the place I wanted to work. I definitely got the sweet end of the lollipop.

Okay, so my verdict after five days employment at the OPL: how can I put this... I am frequently asked what I plan to do with my English degree. They immediately ask if I want to teach. No, I say. Their bewildered looks speak volumes. It's as if they are saying, "Well, what else can you do with an English degree?" They seem genuinely surprised that there are, in fact, many things to do with a degree that helps you be a more analytical thinker, writer, and conversationalist--one of which happens to be librarianship. Or as I like to think, getting paid to learn everything, on your own terms--test free--for the rest of you life. And getting paid to help others do the same. Hm. sounds pretty great to me.

Once when asked what I planned to do, (and I said library school, etc. etc.) this nice young man had the audacity to say, "There are few things I think would be more boring than Accounting, but Library School is one of them." In his defense, he was studying Accounting. But defense aside, what an unpardonable thing to say! Especially when one's library experience is limited to the stifled, quelling atmosphere of a huge academic library! (not that academic libraries are even necessarily thus.) For heaven's sake. I hope I don't find myself going around saying that people's professed ambitions are "boring." Any job can be tedious at times.

My first week here at a public library has been anything but. Between extensive training at the reference desk (desks, actually) having to teach myself InDesign AND Excel, having to perform any little tasks AND assist patrons (which I am somewhat underqualified, at this point, to do) I have had anything but a boring week. I love the action! I love the energy of being surrounded by all kinds of people. I like that not everybody's Mormon; I like that not everybody is the same age; I like that everybody's got a different agenda. Everybody's got different wants and needs. I love working behind the scenes and seeing the delight of someone having found exactly what they wanted. The associate librarian who has been training me all week has given me a rather extensive tour of everything available at the library (databases included), and frankly...it's amazing. I am suddenly filled with this unspeakable desire to know everything! And guess what? I sort of need to if I'm going to be any good.

Boring? I think not. I haven't met a single boring person at the library--and some of them have been there for so long they're starting to rot. On the contrary, I find myself surrounded by kind, well-informed, liberal minded public servants. (I hope you are all smart enough to realize I'm not talking about politics.) This environment embraces everything I stand for. At the end of this week, I am as tired as I ever was the on the mission, and the only thing that sustains me when I lie down at night is the knowledge that I felt more tired than this every day in Brazil, and survived. But at the bottom of this fatigue is a kind of deep satisfaction. Maybe I am seeing all of this through rose-colored glasses. Maybe I am just dazzled by the idea that work can be interesting and not tedious, as I have found it in the past. But I am definitely okay with being dazzled right now.

This is worth revisiting...

2009-05-27T18:18:00.005-06:00

For those of us who had the pleasure of watching this on Oscar night, here it is again. For those that didn't, enjoy.

Stolen Moment

2009-05-25T23:20:00.010-06:00

May 21, 2009

Hiking by myself today was like a stolen moment. It was something that I’ve always been told not to do—and my better judgment tells me not to do it either. But I did it anyway. The reward I got for my pains was worth it. There was no one, no one, on the trail. I had the beautiful u-shaped valley bathed in partly-cloudy light all the myself. The ravages of last winter's snowfalls and avalanches have left the slender branches of trees all straining in one direction: down. Boulders and logs litter the ground. Everything is young, delicate green. The wind is warm, with an occasional wisp of alpine, glacial air blowing of the still-melting snow farther up.

Timpanogas rises before me, like a god. A snake or two slides out of view. I see a dark patch in the trees on the trail below me. Is it a moose? I hope not.
The roar of the waterfall is oddly deafening after so much quiet.

A solitary figure has preceded me to the top. He stands at the top of the waterfall, about 100 yards away. He raises his arm in greeting. I raise my arm back. I sit on a rock to let my racing heart cool down. On the trail back down, the trail is surrounded by growth. Green spills over the edges of the trail like a river bursting its banks. Greening trees arch over the top, like a tunnel. Every green thing is wrapping over and under me, in a kind of open-air coziness, like a giant, green mossy comforter.

Uncleverness

2009-05-04T23:47:00.010-06:00

Today I went to go deliver something to a friend whose apartment complex I'd never been to. When I got there, I could see that the complex was, if not giant, at least kind of big and sprawly. I wondered whether I should just pick a stairwell and check every third floor until I found apartment 303 or...huzzah! I could ask this nice young man who clearly lived there if he could kindly direct me to the right place. "Excuse me," I say. "Could you tell me where 303 is? Is it in this stairwell?" He looks at me with that smirk I so despise (the smirk that says, "I have something so clever to say that only I will think it's funny") and says, "Well, I guess it's on the third floor." I feel my contempt rising. I force a smile (more like a sneer) and explain to him, in nicer terms than this, that I was not born yesterday. (I actually said something, "Yeah, I got the third floor part.") But I think he read my tone, which is never hard to do, and promptly cut the crap and told me where to go.

Such a bore! And I do not tolerate bores.

The Self-Destructive Reader, Part 2: The Root of My Discontent

2009-04-30T19:18:00.003-06:00

(This is a picture of Walden Pond that I found online. It's one of my favorite places ever and this is just about what it looked like the first time I saw it. I am also now a firm believer in including some sort of audio or visual something or other in all of my posts, but since I can't find my camera cord, I'll have to make do with other people's pictures. Anyway...)

Perhaps I avoid classics because as a student I was compelled—nay, commanded—to read things like Ulysses and Moll Flanders and The Canterbury Tales in middle English; The truth is I am a true escapist at heart and do not immediately gravitate towards really hard subjects.

Hmm. The problem with being an escapist is that the escape is always temporary, and the thrill momentary. When the chapter or book (or movie) is over, I am forced to open my eyes to my own life again. I should clarify that my life isn’t by any means bad. It’s just that sometimes I feel like it’s a little…colorless. My real life doesn’t follow the rules of narrative. There is not always tension to make things interesting. And when there is tension, it isn’t interesting; it’s just tense and crappy. Every once in a very infrequent while, my life presents me with something so beautiful and romantic it takes my breath away. Usually, it doesn’t.

These days especially, I find myself wishing my life would follow the same kind of trajectory that good narrative does. (Having just taken a fiction composition class, I am very much aware of story and how it works.) I wish I could say that something really interesting is definitely in store—a promise that all compelling literature makes. I think it would be cool, for example, if my life had a soundtrack that other people could hear. But mostly, I just wish I knew where all of this waiting and wishing and mindless toiling was headed. I wish I could take a step back from my life and read it like a book, knowing all along that all the loose ends will be tied up in the most satisfactory way possible. Or at least in the most interesting way possible.

The Self-Destructive Reader, Part One: Elizabeth Gaskell

2009-04-30T19:13:00.007-06:00

I am what is known as a “self destructive reader.” When I get into a book, the rest of my life is put on hold. Eating even ceases to be a priority, to say nothing of sleeping; I become irritated when interrupted; I forget to do other somewhat important things...like graduate. About a week ago I finished watching the BBC miniseries North & South for the first time, and found it so fantastic, I checked out the book the next day. I then became so absorbed that I was almost late to my own graduation. A good book in my hands is a dangerous thing. To me, mostly.

Now, I am a sucker for a good romance. I love Georgette Heyer; I love Jane Austen. But I sometimes surprise myself by enjoying stories of, shall we say, greater substance—stories that are not just romance. So blown away was I by North & South’s combination of poignant social commentary and smoldering romantic tension, I couldn’t believe I’d never even heard of Elizabeth Gaskell before. I often make a point of telling people that I am no great reader of the classics. But after this, my latest voluntary dip into Classics, I can only ask myself why am I not? These books are classics for a reason…so why do I avoid them so? Can I not learn something from them, as a writer and as a human being?