I'm going to fill your triptophan brain with my Thanksgiving stuffing.
You see, I'm thankful my parents moved 1100 miles away from their families to the remote upper midwest and I want you all to know it. Our Thanksgivings were always the oddest of holidays growing up. We invited all of the family-less people over for the day. There were Australians who'd bring scones and vegemite, people from church we'd drive 45 miles (one-way) to pick up, and professors from my dad's university. One of these colleagues was Milton. Milton would always bring his flute or Native American recorders to play for us. It just doesn't seem like Thanksgiving without Milton.
I miss the stalwart, make-do, band-together spirit of my UMW more everyday.
Thanks, Mom and Dad. I think we have had the best life ever.
And I don't like vegemite. Not thankful for that.
And I have recently (as of today) become thankful for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Annnnnnnd end scene.
27 November 2009
23 November 2009
Shin dealer's Liszt
"I was part of the Sixties," my professor says, "That was my generation, my youth. My parents and I argued about flower children and about our radical ideas but we thought we were going to change the world. I was young, I believed humanity could change, we really thought we were going to change the world. But I'm older now and a little more wise and so blah blah blah--" he continued on. I lost track of where he was going because I wanted to shout out, "STOP! STOP! We're YOUNG! Let us be young! Let us believe we can change the world, we all know that radical youth won't change things like you wanted it to, but let us hold on."
[sigh]
When I was in elementary school I was taught that (1) America was a melting pot and (2) that by the year two thousand we would have flying cars we could program to take us to our destination. I was (1) disturbed by autonomous cars and therefore glad when that hadn't been realized by 2000 and (2) I was disturbed to find out that the melting pot wasn't melted the way I thought it would be. It was this creeping realization I had as I progressed through my grade school years. As a wee child I learned about WWII and thought that was the end of war. Then I learned about Vietnam but that was OK, that was twenty years ago and there were thirty years in between that and WWII.
But then there was the Cold War and the Bay of Pigs and Korea and McCarthy's hunt for communists and the First Gulf War. "Wait, this can't be right, when do we stop fighting?" I wondered. But it was OK, there was still Martin Luther King, Woodrow Wilson, Edward Murrow, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothea Dix, women voting, Gandhi and Mother Theresa, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Then Clinton had his scandals, Bush declared war on Afghanistan, people were hating on Mexican immigrants (regardless of legality), football games lasted four hours and fans were gross and mean.
That was it.
The world would never change. There were too many sweet bro's and crooked politicians.
The cynicism that my sister claims resided in my heart from birth hit a peak. Quick, tell me what's more true: we should send millions of more troops to Afghanistan or we should not and see what happens then.
Next question: Should we spend billions in bailouts and go into debt or let everybody close up shop, declare bankruptcy, and lay-off billions?
Next question: should we create six more planets just like earth so that everyone can eat the way people in North America eat or should we send our left overs to Africa?
Next question: Should Google go to China and submit to Chinese government censorship or should Google stand firm for personal freedoms and stay out?
Next question: When your best friend has finally confessed to you the severity of the abuse that went on in that relationship for three years should you do what you can to see that boy brought to justice?
JEOPARDY says, "What is World Peace?"
[ha...ohh...sigh]
STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP the train I'm YOUNG, can't follow Holden Caulfield to the backwoods where we live in a cabin hermitting ourselves from the world of Crash and Schindler's List. Can't do it. Can't be jaded already.
Last year, when I nannied, we loaded every nannykin of us into the red Radio Flyer wagon. We marched to the dinosaur museum and haphazardly ran to and fro between dinosaurs and waterfountains and fossils and then we went across the street and rolled down the big hill of grass. Well, the two year old kind of crawled down head first.
There's something in that rolling down hills and telling jokes that don't make sense and building forts. There's something about not looking for mutual interests just for time spent together.
So what I'm saying is that in lieu of any amazing solution to the world's problems, can we just spend time together?
Because I think that changes things.
In this movie I saw the other night* someone says of their lofty goals, "We're too young to know we can't do it."
Awe gee, it's great to be twentytwo and young.
*Amazing Grace
[sigh]
When I was in elementary school I was taught that (1) America was a melting pot and (2) that by the year two thousand we would have flying cars we could program to take us to our destination. I was (1) disturbed by autonomous cars and therefore glad when that hadn't been realized by 2000 and (2) I was disturbed to find out that the melting pot wasn't melted the way I thought it would be. It was this creeping realization I had as I progressed through my grade school years. As a wee child I learned about WWII and thought that was the end of war. Then I learned about Vietnam but that was OK, that was twenty years ago and there were thirty years in between that and WWII.
But then there was the Cold War and the Bay of Pigs and Korea and McCarthy's hunt for communists and the First Gulf War. "Wait, this can't be right, when do we stop fighting?" I wondered. But it was OK, there was still Martin Luther King, Woodrow Wilson, Edward Murrow, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothea Dix, women voting, Gandhi and Mother Theresa, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Then Clinton had his scandals, Bush declared war on Afghanistan, people were hating on Mexican immigrants (regardless of legality), football games lasted four hours and fans were gross and mean.
That was it.
The world would never change. There were too many sweet bro's and crooked politicians.
The cynicism that my sister claims resided in my heart from birth hit a peak. Quick, tell me what's more true: we should send millions of more troops to Afghanistan or we should not and see what happens then.
Next question: Should we spend billions in bailouts and go into debt or let everybody close up shop, declare bankruptcy, and lay-off billions?
Next question: should we create six more planets just like earth so that everyone can eat the way people in North America eat or should we send our left overs to Africa?
Next question: Should Google go to China and submit to Chinese government censorship or should Google stand firm for personal freedoms and stay out?
Next question: When your best friend has finally confessed to you the severity of the abuse that went on in that relationship for three years should you do what you can to see that boy brought to justice?
JEOPARDY says, "What is World Peace?"
[ha...ohh...sigh]
STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP the train I'm YOUNG, can't follow Holden Caulfield to the backwoods where we live in a cabin hermitting ourselves from the world of Crash and Schindler's List. Can't do it. Can't be jaded already.
Last year, when I nannied, we loaded every nannykin of us into the red Radio Flyer wagon. We marched to the dinosaur museum and haphazardly ran to and fro between dinosaurs and waterfountains and fossils and then we went across the street and rolled down the big hill of grass. Well, the two year old kind of crawled down head first.
There's something in that rolling down hills and telling jokes that don't make sense and building forts. There's something about not looking for mutual interests just for time spent together.
So what I'm saying is that in lieu of any amazing solution to the world's problems, can we just spend time together?
Because I think that changes things.
In this movie I saw the other night* someone says of their lofty goals, "We're too young to know we can't do it."
Awe gee, it's great to be twentytwo and young.
*Amazing Grace
19 November 2009
here's some social entrepreneurship for you
Some days you wake up and even though you do yoga and eat a small dish of homemade pumpkin custard for breakfast with a best friend and a favorite documentary professor finds you in a group of people to take you aside and say, "I think you should look into this doc opportunity because I think it's right up your alley," and from that you can gather that you have manifested to those who are more experienced that you have some kind of potential you still end the day thinking, "I'm short and I can't relax and I go to school with models."
On those days you probably should have dug your hot pants (à la James Brown and James Dean) out of the dirty clothes and scrubbed the homemade pudding splashes out of them (the pudding that you whipped up when you and K realized that the clove measurement written in the recipe was wrong and something needed to be added to neutralize it) and you probably shouldn't have worn your sweater dress for a top because even though it makes your head and shoulders look so classy (especially with your newly re-bobbed hair) it makes your legs look so short and your legs are your favorite part of your body. You learned long ago that if you can start out the day with a comfortable outfit (among other things) everything else falls into place.
But then, we all know these days happen. There will always be days when you think--well, when you doubt all of your lumpish fibers and merits. Why you still have these days...I have no explanation. But I think it was a good idea that you changed out of the unflattering sweater and dug out the hot pants and are planning on going out. Out to parties, out to life. You don't find any answers or comfort in not living.
So I'll see you at that party tonight, OK?
On those days you probably should have dug your hot pants (à la James Brown and James Dean) out of the dirty clothes and scrubbed the homemade pudding splashes out of them (the pudding that you whipped up when you and K realized that the clove measurement written in the recipe was wrong and something needed to be added to neutralize it) and you probably shouldn't have worn your sweater dress for a top because even though it makes your head and shoulders look so classy (especially with your newly re-bobbed hair) it makes your legs look so short and your legs are your favorite part of your body. You learned long ago that if you can start out the day with a comfortable outfit (among other things) everything else falls into place.
But then, we all know these days happen. There will always be days when you think--well, when you doubt all of your lumpish fibers and merits. Why you still have these days...I have no explanation. But I think it was a good idea that you changed out of the unflattering sweater and dug out the hot pants and are planning on going out. Out to parties, out to life. You don't find any answers or comfort in not living.
So I'll see you at that party tonight, OK?
17 November 2009
It's just this little small thing that happened and not even earth shattering
otherwise entitled The Boy in the Hallway.
Today this funny thing happened.
I was walking to a class. Bland colored sand hallways with a nice edging of people sitting along the wall, heads deeply hunched in their homework. It is a terrrrrribleeeeee bland hallway because they knew they could save on decoration by just handing students homework. "Hand them the homework, they'll sit in the hall," was their slogan. That's free. In fact, it's a way to keep the decor fresh, new faces rotating in always, and get PAID all the same time. No need to worry about matching fabrics, textures, it's more authentic if there's a little clashing, and there's plenty that's homogeneous enough in the look on their face. Concentration. Consternation.
So I was walking to class.
And he was walking the opposite direction.
There was a little bit of brown hair. Round glasses. Which is perfect because I've been thinking of Harold Lloyd lately. Cute face. An outift that would befit the Sartorialist.com. MY kind of sartorialist. I remember puffy coat and rolled up pants.
I was glad I was wearing my London Fog trench coat and a red dress. Because I tried to not stare, but I did anyway. And he stared back.
So we crossed paths keeping eye contact all of those long seconds.
I couldn't help but think, "Is he looking because I'm looking or is he looking for the same reason I'm looking?"
I knew the moment would be over quickly and that I should check his hand for a wedding ring and smile my most quixotic smile. But I just wanted to enjoy that simple moment of a few seconds in a hallway with someone who was a little kindred. I couldn't break that holy silence.
This is only the......third time(?) for this to happen in the last four years. But the best part was that it was so simple. Not earth shattering at all.
Yeah. That's the funny thing that happened on the way to the...not forum. I moved on to folklore class, received my glass of slushy punch, forgot all about Harold Lloyd and his puffy coat, lit my candle, made the wrong wish, and watched a presentation on dungeons and dragons.
Today this funny thing happened.
I was walking to a class. Bland colored sand hallways with a nice edging of people sitting along the wall, heads deeply hunched in their homework. It is a terrrrrribleeeeee bland hallway because they knew they could save on decoration by just handing students homework. "Hand them the homework, they'll sit in the hall," was their slogan. That's free. In fact, it's a way to keep the decor fresh, new faces rotating in always, and get PAID all the same time. No need to worry about matching fabrics, textures, it's more authentic if there's a little clashing, and there's plenty that's homogeneous enough in the look on their face. Concentration. Consternation.
So I was walking to class.
And he was walking the opposite direction.
There was a little bit of brown hair. Round glasses. Which is perfect because I've been thinking of Harold Lloyd lately. Cute face. An outift that would befit the Sartorialist.com. MY kind of sartorialist. I remember puffy coat and rolled up pants.
I was glad I was wearing my London Fog trench coat and a red dress. Because I tried to not stare, but I did anyway. And he stared back.
So we crossed paths keeping eye contact all of those long seconds.
I couldn't help but think, "Is he looking because I'm looking or is he looking for the same reason I'm looking?"
I knew the moment would be over quickly and that I should check his hand for a wedding ring and smile my most quixotic smile. But I just wanted to enjoy that simple moment of a few seconds in a hallway with someone who was a little kindred. I couldn't break that holy silence.
This is only the......third time(?) for this to happen in the last four years. But the best part was that it was so simple. Not earth shattering at all.
Yeah. That's the funny thing that happened on the way to the...not forum. I moved on to folklore class, received my glass of slushy punch, forgot all about Harold Lloyd and his puffy coat, lit my candle, made the wrong wish, and watched a presentation on dungeons and dragons.
16 November 2009
pills are placeboes. might as well be oboes.
I'm chopping my hair off (all of the one inch) and wearing contacts until I get that new glasses prescription. I've drunk two mt. dewzz aujourd'hui and to no effect: I am headache. I am sick to meee stomacho. Can't do this multi times a week anymore. Anyone have any new homeopathic remedies for headaches? (Because pills stopped working when I was a child) And don't tell me most headaches are caused by dehydration (I'll knock your head off). I run, I do yoga, I eat well, I drink my liquids, I don't slouch, I breath deeply, I massage my neck, I rub my temples, I pinch my pressure points, I pull at my hair. Something new please.
Ax. Ax my head off. That's what we'll do. Ax! Someone bring me an ax!
Ax. Ax my head off. That's what we'll do. Ax! Someone bring me an ax!
10 November 2009
Peabody, you're disgusting*
Tonight it's been like old times, I got home at 10:15pm just in time for a late dinner.
I've been less blogolific as of late. I think it's because I've started to say things out loud in conversations with people that normally would sit in my brain until they traveled down to my fingertips, through the clickety tekla of the computer keys and out into the universal abyss of billions of blogs. For example, yesterday, in conversation with JG I compared something to the fall of Jericho. She got this momentary look on her face which is what I imagine plays across your face when you read some of the faluted things I type up here.
This summer at one of those girlfriend-brunch kind of things I was a little surprised to hear everyone at the table agree that I would make a good wife of someone in the army because I (in their opinions) wouldn't be distraught by months of separation from the love of my life. "Hmm..." I thought, "interesting."
But...
There's been this odd thing happening in my life. Sure, I've been pretty independent, tight-lipped, stand alone, rejoice at my singleness type of kid at times in my life. But more and more, I want to lean on you. More and more, I want to see my family and share dinner conversations with them. To hug them, share life discoveries, discuss children's literature and dictionary terms. To help my dad memorize scriptures and be a sounding board for my mother's stake Relief Society plans. I want to dust the living room. I want to crochet with my sister and chat about mixed media self-portraits and sing along to Carole King. I'll even watch the Disney channel with Dude and Eye.
I have a growing need to fall off my chair in attempts to tell cousins that I love them, I want to eat chips with my bestfriends while we watch quoatable movies like Star Trek and The Count of Monte Cristo.
I've stopped being afraid of people and now I can't stop reaching out. I need to hear their opinions on crisp fall days, on the ratio of people sitting on the left side of the room vs the right side. I want to hear about the memoirs you're going to write about teenage drama or about all of the knowledge you've collected but has yet to serve you in any professional manner. I must hear people tell me about the millions of majors they've pondered choosing and how they've been transcribing and keeping a log of all of their texts as a sort of social and personal history.
I need people.
So my plan that as I got older I would become more independent has never been realized. The net result of my life (in no economic or literal definition of the term "net", it was just something to say) is that I am continually growing more dependent on the people in my life. So, in other words, if I were Jericho, I'd need you to be the scafolding bracing up my walls. Or you're my suspenders. Or you're my Bonnie and I'm Clyde. You're peanut butter and I'm jelly. And the bread would symbolize my favorite food: bread. Hmm...metaphors....
*The Golddiggers of 1933. A funny movie. And yet...Proof that even in 1933 media was scandalous it was just less popular to be as graphic and visceral as "media is today". Just a friendly reminder that when you want to complain (to me) about "the media today" you should can it. Because I love media. It will be my profession.
I've been less blogolific as of late. I think it's because I've started to say things out loud in conversations with people that normally would sit in my brain until they traveled down to my fingertips, through the clickety tekla of the computer keys and out into the universal abyss of billions of blogs. For example, yesterday, in conversation with JG I compared something to the fall of Jericho. She got this momentary look on her face which is what I imagine plays across your face when you read some of the faluted things I type up here.
This summer at one of those girlfriend-brunch kind of things I was a little surprised to hear everyone at the table agree that I would make a good wife of someone in the army because I (in their opinions) wouldn't be distraught by months of separation from the love of my life. "Hmm..." I thought, "interesting."
But...
There's been this odd thing happening in my life. Sure, I've been pretty independent, tight-lipped, stand alone, rejoice at my singleness type of kid at times in my life. But more and more, I want to lean on you. More and more, I want to see my family and share dinner conversations with them. To hug them, share life discoveries, discuss children's literature and dictionary terms. To help my dad memorize scriptures and be a sounding board for my mother's stake Relief Society plans. I want to dust the living room. I want to crochet with my sister and chat about mixed media self-portraits and sing along to Carole King. I'll even watch the Disney channel with Dude and Eye.
I have a growing need to fall off my chair in attempts to tell cousins that I love them, I want to eat chips with my bestfriends while we watch quoatable movies like Star Trek and The Count of Monte Cristo.
I've stopped being afraid of people and now I can't stop reaching out. I need to hear their opinions on crisp fall days, on the ratio of people sitting on the left side of the room vs the right side. I want to hear about the memoirs you're going to write about teenage drama or about all of the knowledge you've collected but has yet to serve you in any professional manner. I must hear people tell me about the millions of majors they've pondered choosing and how they've been transcribing and keeping a log of all of their texts as a sort of social and personal history.
I need people.
So my plan that as I got older I would become more independent has never been realized. The net result of my life (in no economic or literal definition of the term "net", it was just something to say) is that I am continually growing more dependent on the people in my life. So, in other words, if I were Jericho, I'd need you to be the scafolding bracing up my walls. Or you're my suspenders. Or you're my Bonnie and I'm Clyde. You're peanut butter and I'm jelly. And the bread would symbolize my favorite food: bread. Hmm...metaphors....
*The Golddiggers of 1933. A funny movie. And yet...Proof that even in 1933 media was scandalous it was just less popular to be as graphic and visceral as "media is today". Just a friendly reminder that when you want to complain (to me) about "the media today" you should can it. Because I love media. It will be my profession.
07 November 2009
WALL
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/09/world/europe/20091109-berlinwallthennow.html
I found this really rad NY Times interactive thing. Do it.
I found this really rad NY Times interactive thing. Do it.
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