"I gave up all my other sinful habits. I'm keeping the Martinelli's."

Title courtesy of my most recent former roommate.

Yesterday, I lived. I am a more expanded person today than I was before yesterday. Yesss. I conquered fears and proved myself to myself. And I learned a lot. And I was suffering from neural overload the entire day. Beautiful. Breaks from outputting to play the sensory receptacle are refreshing.

Today I fulfill another lifelong dream: I buy my own copy of the Riverside Shakespeare. I knew I picked the right class. I feel sorry for all the other classes that are stuck with requirements for inferior collections. We're reading Where Angels Fear to Tread, Frankenstein, and Moonstone in Brit lit. Moonstone! Yay, Wishbone!

I wish I hadn't lost all of my checks. Dangit.

Sweet Diggory! I durst not.

I think Satan traffics heavily in fashions and fads. Specifically, I'm thinking of shoes, though he is not limited to them. High school, there was Converse. Working at the theatre, there were Sperries. This summer, there were Chocos. And, of course, the ubiquitous CROCS.

Why do I think shoes are a great tool of Darkness? None of these shoes are pretty. But slap a big price tag on them and you launch them into social status symbol-hood. And then pride and covetousness ensue.

I have to say...I was tempted by the Sperries. Not because I wanted to wear old-man-boating shoes but because I'm a collector packrat and I love to accumulate things with fun names. Luckily, I could never bring myself to make myself poor for what I consider to be ugly shoes.

(Disclaimer: Shoes in themselves are not evil. They are much like guns. The evil comes from the way people use them. Satan can twist a lot of good things to his purposes...and, in fact, he does. And my definition of ugly is obviously not universal. Also, I'm killing the packrat within me tomorrow. The only things that will survive are books, sheets, and towels. And shoes. Actually, who really needs sheets if you sleep on a plastic mattress?)

I was talking to my dad about this shoe thing (initiated by observations of who wears Crocs with socks and if it's a gender or age thing) and we got all kinds of brilliant turns of phrases during lunch at the Morris Center. Thinking about them now...you had to be there to appreciate them. "Satan: Patron Saint of Shoemaking. Hey, that's funny...a patron buys stuff."
"He's shopping for souls."
"Soles!"
"Where is your [sohl]?!"

I love my dad. I showed him Charlie (I can't believe he's been my dad for this long and I never showed him). It was late at night and he was watching the whole thing with bloodshot, glazed eyes, his chin resting wearily in his hand. Then came the end. The kidney. He convulsed in silent laughter for 2 whole minutes before the giggles erupted. Rarely have I heard that man giggle. If ever. He couldn't control himself. And several times a day since then, he goes, "Chaaaaaaarlieeeeee" in a high-pitched voice and cracks up all over again. Oohrah, sir!

So, sadness...DT is closed forever from today. And the pride of being able to tell people I was one of the last to live in DT is in effect.

To combat the sadness: My Hands Are Bananas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO10s_HK6d0

You want zee banana? Ok.

Hello, all!

Thanks for your interest in my blog. I believe I overstepped my own bounds of privacy in publishing the last entry. But thanks for your input. It was interesting to read.

It is difficult to express personal things in a universally accurate manner. I guess that's why Elder Scott says personal things should be kept private and safe. I'm sorry to both you and me for putting too much out there.

Moses 1:39--His WORK, not his hobby, experimenting, curiosity...His work, His constant occupation, His whole purpose: bringing His children home safely. I'm happy to fully and willingly enlist in His work in whatever way He'll have me do it. I am not whining, or pining, or sitting around and pouting, or being trunky, or resigning myself, or martyring myself. But thank you for your concern. I know what I'm doing and in Whom is my trust.

Thanks again for your consideration and thoughts!

Two months to go

I've been doing a little pondering since the last post.

The room a few months ago. I wanted to show off my bedspread. And my map to Candy Mountain in the upper left corner (birthday gift...they made me a Candy Mountain cake, too). Along the ceiling, my paper chain countdown system. On the right, a close-up. Wow, that looks long. Not anymore. Only 2 loops now.

It's Education Week and all I see on campus at 7:30 in the morning are hordes of tourists and old people tottling around, white name badges blazing from their chests, clutching their Jamba Juices and BYU Bookstore bags, and students fleeing for their lives.

My bishop told my parents privately yesterday that he thinks I intimidate the guys because I want to be a cop/Marine/FBI agent.

I think that is ridiculous on so many counts.

Life's literary techniques

"Ron stared glumly out of the window in the hospital wing. It was raining. It always rains in literature whenever the character the author is focused on is glumly staring out of a window. This fanfiction is no different and you will find many little gems of unoriginal cliches." (The Madness of Mr. H. J. Potter, 2004)

It's storming. Well, storming in the Utah sense. The sky is gray, it's drizzling, and there are a few isolated thunder rumblings. And it smells reeeal good.

My roommate just said, "It's such good timing. When you're sad, the sun is mocking how you feel. But the rain just fits. Because I feel melancholy."

She's not staring glumly out the window, though: she keeps running to the doorway and reveling in the misting.

I was just picturing my roommate being the main character of life. What a crazy world that would be.

And as for the cause of that melancholy that has blessed this desert with a bit of rain today: "Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically--to those who hardly think about us in return. ...a woman could wait too long for victory--she could be too old to enjoy it. It could be senseless to go on waiting for a joy, when joy was on the doorstep, and Time hurried by." (The Once and Future King)

Too much exposure to the ecstatic agonies of unrequited love (as found in Austen) can be dangerous.

But, that's just me.

Whitman, etc.

"TODAY is the pinnacle of all history and existence. All other days have led up to this day. For me. What will I do with today to justify and improve humanity? All we have is today...we have memories of and lessons learned from the past and we have hopes and dreams for the future, but all we have to make sure the past isn't wasted and the future isn't spoiled is today. What will you do to make today worth it?

Begin each day on purpose."
(Xanga, 3-20-06)

Walt Whitman backs me up. It's always nice to have followed a similar thought process as an artist (3rd stanza: I wonder if he put any stock in astrology. Much of it is accurate. NOT horoscopes):

Long I was hugg'd close--long and long.

Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me.

Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,
For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.

Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.

For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
Monstrous saturoids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care.

All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me,
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
(Song of Myself, 44)

I found that while enjoying my literary freedom today. Soon school will start and I'll be shackled to British literature and Shakespeare. Oh, darn.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long...
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things...
(Song of Myself, 32)

Everything Whitman does is "long and long." And all of his past tense verbs are Shakespeareized. "Hugg'd." That gets a little obnoxious. But I still like him.

This mania of owning things has been preying on my thoughts for a while. I met a girl this summer who works at the stables who just randomly decided she was sick of material possessions and bills and gave it all up to go live in the woods with some hippies for a year. She lived with the clothes on her back and for under a dollar a day. The lifestyle she was describing isn't very conducive to a gospel standards-type lifestyle, but the idea intrigues me. I have too much stuff. I've been trying to pare down on my pack-rat tendencies, but I'm sticking to the comfortable "gradual process." Just like every other vice I need to rectify. I just need to kill this red lizard right away and get rid of the useless stuff. Ruthlessly. Obsessive connection to things keeps you small-minded and neurotic.

I wonder if I could get together a group of LDS hippies and live in the woods for a year...

Oh, and another thing. The phrase "No offense." It can be used to veil something that is indeed meant to give offense, or it can be used to alert the listener that the following is really not intended to offend. I tend to be a tactful communicator...too much so, at times. I'm a pleaser. So if I feel like what I'm going to say might offend someone, I will sincerely preface it with "no offense." I had a roommate who snidely and indirectly/passive-aggressively attacked me for doing that one time (you know how people do that, making a general statement to someone within your range of hearing loud enough that you hear it): "People say 'no offense' when they know full well they're saying something offensive. It's cheap.'"

Well, if you're offended, Elder Bednar says that's your problem. I'm not a mean person and I'm really not trying to offend you. I'm not a liar.

And as for the cases when people do mean to offend, "It is a fool who takes offense when none is meant. It is a bigger fool who takes offense when it is meant." (Jeremy Lelle, but he may have gotten it from someone else. Like...Confucius. I could see that. Or Joseph or Brigham. Even better.)

"The Untamed Stallion" Syndrome

I've said before that Disney ruins our lives. ("I have an issue with Disney. It ruins our abilities to cope with real life. It corrupts any realistic expectations we might have had of life. Everything is perfectly timed in Disney, everyone gets married, everyone meets their true love, and the two parties involved hardly ever have to do anything to live happily ever after." Xanga, 11-9-06.) But I want to elaborate on that. Disney establishes false paradigms and destroys our inherent ability to accept and cope with real life: the beautiful people end happily ever after in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles (usually placed before them by evil, ugly people) and their whole lives are timed and executed in a perfect, inexorable fashion with little to no effort on the part of the "protagonists," especially the women's. Look at your traditional Disney heroine:

Snow White: "Someday my Prince will come." So I'll just sit around and wait. Singing about it seems to be a wise use of my time.

Sleeping Beauty: I'll just let everyone else dictate my life and while I sit up in a tower and wait for my "true love" (really, some random guy who found me singing in the forest and thought I was pretty...to whom I already happen to be betrothed to) to find me again.

Cinderella: I need my Fairy Godmother to get me out to meet the Prince and then I'll just sit around and wait for him to hunt me down with the shoe I left behind.

So on and so forth. Disney indoctrinates a pernicious passivity in young girls. (That's why Pocahontas, Mulan, and Belle are my favorites...they actually DID stuff.)

Oh, but Belle! Belle, you have something to do with the point I'm getting at right now. There is another genre of entertainment that also sets up young girls for future failures in relationships: horse stories.

Look at nearly every horse movie made. Here's a brief example of how they go (the following is an amalgamation of Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, National Velvet, Virginia's Run, and 90% of the horse stories and collections thereof published in the 1960s-1970s, most of which I have read countless times):

There's a girl who's socially unaccepted to some degree. She meets a wild horse that no one else can handle. Somehow, the girl connects with the horse and she nurtures it and they find acceptance and fulfillment in each other's company. The girl is threatened with losing/actually loses the horse for a period of time, but somehow they end up back together at the end and live happily ever after.

(Ok, granted, not all horse stories go that way. The Black Stallion has a male protagonist. But that's a very small percentage and I'm looking at how these stores portray and affect girls.)

There seems to be, in a lot of cases, a mystical connection between girls and horses. So I don't know which came first: this fascination with the horse and then ensuing story about connecting with it, or the deeper psychological craving to nurture something that a lot of women feel and that is neatly symbolized in the horse. Either way, this is a telling connection.

When I was 10 and I first started riding horses, I was always wishing that my instructor would get some wild horse that no one could ride. I would miraculously enter its stall, it would be quiet, and we would bond and I could bring out the best in that horse. I still secretly harbored that fantasy as my mom and I shopped for our horse. A horse that is well-trained and respectful of its rider? Boring!

Women, by and large, need to feel needed. We tend to see the best in other living creatures and believe that those who are "wild and untamed" just need a gentle hand to reassure and understand them. We always believe that we will be the ones to reach out and connect with that misunderstood soul through our selfless nurturing. The more wild and dangerous our intended connectee, the better. We want to work good in the world.

And that translates over into relationships with men. We want to be the one woman who can bring the best out in a guy. "Really, he is such a good guy deep down." We can see, or delude ourselves into seeing, that potential and we set out with carrots and sugar cubes to capture his heart.

That's dangerous on several counts. For one, the girl could be taken advantage of (whether intentionally, by some predatory, misogynistic jerk, or unintentionally, by some emotionally needy yet unavailable sponge in need of constant reassurance...in either case, the girl is taken advantage of because it is an unequal partnership with her constantly acting the selfless martyr). Two, this kind of expectation precludes healthy and functional relationships with nice, respectful guys who will treat her well, who don't necessarily need her to rescue them from themselves. But where's the challenge and fulfillment in that? All the girls in the horse movies connected with wild stallions, not docile trail horses.

That's why girls always seem to be going for jerks who misuse and take advantage of them. We need to feel needed. We want to be absolutely everything for a man, and the needy ones tend to advertise it well. For example, Belle. She had to love the Beast and help him regain his humanity. She took a rough chance reaching out to this dangerous, misunderstood, needy creature, and it worked out. Again, notice that the story ends with beautiful people living happily ever after.

Solution? I don't know that I have one. But I think Beauty and the Beast could very well be onto something. They both had to compromise and let each other into their hearts. They had work at creating an equal partnership, one where she nurtured him and he protected her. Ah. An equal partnership. I turn to this month's Ensign.

"The concept of interdependent, equal partners is well-grounded in the doctrine of the restored gospel. Eve was Adam's 'help meet' (Genesis 2:18). The original Hebrew for meet means tat Eve was adequate for, or equal to, Adam. She wasn't his servant or his subordinate. And the Hebrew for help in 'help meet' is ezer, a term meaning that Eve drew on heavenly powers when she supplied their marriage with the spiritual instincts uniquely available to women as a gender gift.
"As President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has said, men and women are by nature different, and while they share many basic human traits, the 'virtues and attributes upon which perfection and exaltation depend come [more] naturally to a woman.'
"Genesis 3:16 states that Adam is to 'rule over' Eve, but this doesn't make Adam a dictator. A ruler can be a measuring tool that sets standards. Then Adam would live so that others may measure the rightness of their conduct by watching his. Being a ruler is not so much a privilege of power as an obligation to practice what a man preaches. Also, over in 'rule over' uses the Hebrew bet, which means ruling with, not ruling over. If a man does exercise 'dominion...in any degree of unrighteousness' (D&C 121:37; emphasis added), God terminates that man's authority.
"Perhaps because false teachings had twisted original scriptural meanings, President Spencer W. Kimball (1895-1985) preferred 'preside' rather than 'rule.' He said: 'No woman has ever been asked by the Church authorities to follow her husband into an evil pit. She is to follow him [only] as he follows and obeys the Savior of the world, but in deciding [whether he is obeying Christ], she should always be sure she is fair.' In this way, President Kimball saw marriage 'as a full partnership,' stating that, 'We do not want our LDS women to be silent partners or limited partners' but rather 'a contributing and full partner.'
Spouses need not perform the same functions to be equal. The woman's innate spiritual instincts are like a moral magnet, pointing toward spiritual north--except when that magnet's particles are scrambled out of order. The man's presiding gift is the priesthood--except when he is not living the principles of righteousness. If the husband and the wife are wise, their counseling will be reciprocal: he will listen to the prompting of her inner spiritual compass just as she will listen to his righteous counsel.
"And in an equal-partner marriage both also bring a spiritual maturity to their partnership, without regard to gender. Both have a conscience and the Holy Ghost to guide them. Both see family life as their most important work. Each also strives to become a fully rounded disciple of Jesus Christ--a complete spiritual being.
...
"In an equal-partner marriage, 'love is not possession but participation...part of that co-creation which is out human calling.' With true participation, husband and wife merge into the synergistic oneness of an 'everlasting dominion' that 'without compulsory means' will flow with spiritual life to them and their posterity 'forever and ever' (D&C 121:46).
"In the little kingdom of the family, each spouse freely gives something the other does not have and without which neither can be complete and returns to God's presence. Spouses are not a soloist with an accompanist, nor are they two solos. They are the interdependent parts of a duet, singing together in harmony at a level where no solo can go.
"Each gives abundance to the other's want. As Paul wrote,
"'For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened;
'But by an equality, that...your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality' (2 Corinthians 8:13-14).
"Temple marriage covenants do not magically bring equality to a partnership. Those covenants commit us to a developmental process of learning and growing together--by practice.
"...equal partnerships are not made in heaven (meaning they weren't established before this world or we have to wait for them to be good until after this life)--they are made on earth, one threshold crossing at a time. And getting there is hard work--like working through differing assumptions about who was bringing relief" to the other. (pp. 26-28)

Saturday's Warrior has some good stuff in it, but it can also be dangerous if taken as doctrine. Not everyone arranged to meet their spouse--therefore, those who don't have an arranged eternal marriage must work hard to find a companion and then continue to work hard to create a relationship. And for those who have arranged eternal marriages, there IS this lovely thing called "the veil." You people still need to work to find your companion and then work to create an equal relationship. It's not just given to you. Girls, passivity only works in Disney. And don't sacrifice yourself and your happiness for the sake of being someone's personal redemption. EQUAL PARTNERSHIP. Have higher standards. Don't expect to do all the work and don't expect to do none of the work. Expect to do 100% and expect to have it reciprocated.

As our last session director counseled the girls, don't be weirded out by guys who are so clingy that they suffocate you (if he's doing it in a creepy/controlling way, by all means, punch him in the nose, though). Let nice guys be nice guys.

The most beautiful partnerships between a horse and rider come from mutual respect and trust, one in the other, not from one seeking to dominate the other. And the most important part of ANY relationship is the time spent growing into each other and working towards a common goal that neither could reach alone.

This is how it should be (I tend to relate a lot of life to horses and it works):
"When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk; He trots the air; The earth sings when he touches it; The basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes; He is pure air and fire." Shakespeare
"In partnership with a horse, one is seldom lacking for thought, emotion and inspiration. One is always attended by a great companion." Charles de Kunffy
The Horse: Friendship without envy, Beauty without vanity, Nobility without conceit, A willing partner, yet no slave. -Unknown
"Riding is a partnership. The horse lends you his strength, speed and grace, which are greater than yours. For your part you give him your guidance, intelligence and understanding, which are greater than his. Together you can achieve a richness that alone neither can." Lucy Rees

Sometimes you're the horse, sometimes you're the rider. It takes both.

Hey, so why don't we say "i-earn-ick" instead of "i-ron-ick"?

They say that life is what you make of it and most of us just fake it.

Caesar: What can be avoided
Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?
Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions
Are to the world in general as to Caesar.
Calpurnia: When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves balze forth the death of princes.
Caesar: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
(Re-enter Servant)
What say the augerers?
Servant: They would not have you stir forth to-day,
Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,
They could not find a heart within the beast.
Caesar: The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
Caesar should be a beast without a heart
If he should stay at home to-day for fear.
No, Caesar shall not: danger knows full well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he:
We are two lions litter'd in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible:
And Caesar shall go forth.
(Julius Caesar, II, ii)

How many times have I died in my life? Many. Many many. Dying is the empty, shrinking feeling of letting your fear rule you, the burning embarrassment you feel as you deny yourself growth, the scalding, wrenching blow of giving up a bit of yourself, the inability to look yourself mentally in the face for shame. I'm done with it. I aim to live for the rest of my life.

So that's what I want to put on here: my adventures and lessons in this brief stint of mortality. Learning about life, about me, about others, etc etc. Recording how I'm using my life. Basically, a collection of scar and bruise stories. I love scars and bruises because it means that I'm using the body God gave me and enjoying (sooner or later) very physical experiences. I'm doing the same thing with my life. There's a lot to learn.

Mostly I need to just relax and take what life brings me. Now is all I have. Life is ruined by constantly dwelling on stupid past mistakes or stressing abut future possibilities. A beautiful life comes from the ability to take life a moment at a time. It comes from the ability to take it as it is, no expectations, no resentments, no regrets. Life IS. Like I told my girls at the summer camp when they were learning how to trot the horse: just relax and go with the rhythm. The resistance of resentment and expectations stiffens you and makes life jarring. Relaxing into the rhythm of life is the key. Being true to yourself and the self God wants to help you create and refusing to be defined and controlled by your own fears and the expectations of others...that's it.

LIFE IS. No more faking.

(Oh, I'm also going to put up random stuff that I feel like thinking and writing about. So don't get the wrong idea, it's not going to be all serious and deep and eternally consequential. Not entirely. Mostly. But not entirely. :p )