Warning: This Post May Offend You

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

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

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

 *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)

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

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

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.