Ah! Christmas

Well, that's my dad, and what a guy! I am sorry for the Christmas season culmination to be so near, because that only means it will soon be a whole year before it comes again. What logic. I do feel like the year cycle is oblong rather than circular, as though our lives orbit around the holidays, speeding up as we get closer, then slowing and practically creeping by until we round the corner and hurtle towards year-end again.

How amazing also that I go through the same experience every year: blissfully anticipating Christmas, regretting the season for not enjoying it more, and mourning Christmas once it is passed. Every year. It simply does not do to reason with myself--it makes no difference that it will come again. It does not soothe that it has come before. Each goodbye is painful and bittersweet. What an interesting system of time we have created, marking our lives into a whole spectrum of measurements. Minutes, months, pay periods... All about how we cannot stop or alter the push of time on our backs--we can only name it. Wouldn't it be fascinating if life could be lived in multiple directions, if we could be queens instead of pawns? But that would teach nothing about loss or letting go or confusion or patience or change. So I accept your conditions, life. Please only play fair.

Does this need explanation? If yes, see me after class...

Well, I've been hit on my car--it could have been my leg. It could have been my head, I might have died!! But in this time of mortal peril any man would expect that his wife would come rushing to his side. (sorry for those of you haven't seen The Happiest Millionaire--the above will make no sense.)

Perspective in this picture, the tire you can see is about at the curb...meaning the tire you can't see is up on the lawn. It's funny because when I first saw my car, I didn't think anything had happened. Business as usual. Then I thought, I don't remember parking it at such a strange angle.

One look at the tire on the other side of the car--or the space where you normally see the tire--and it was clear all was not well in Denmark.
Following are some thoughts I wrote after said incident. (Fun side note: I won the award at camp this summer for best accident--filling a regular old van with diesel fuel. Oops. I indirectly won the award for best incident--cowboy Doug swallowing gas in attempt to siphon it out of the van. He was burping gasoline for a week.)



***********************************




Tonight I spent two hours waiting for a tow truck. Waiting for a tow truck in 30 degree weather, in a worthless heatless lifeless car, in the midst of snow storms. Waiting past the point of impatience and still waiting as pointless rage shivered in the seat next to me. I cannot think of a more loaded and irritating word than “waiting.” Waiting is almost an oxymoron of a verb. I don’t care if the thing coming is lovely or romantic or a sunburst of good luck—the point is it isn’t here yet and you can’t get your mind off it so the present is lost to the future. Waiting is needing time to pass but not caring how; it is wanting to skip over a chunk of life to land in some other here and now; it is reaching a greedy hand forward into a moment that doesn’t belong to you yet. (Understand that I am genetically impatient and the term “wait patiently” means nothing to me.)

Even though I just said all those things about waiting—which I still believe—I must clarify that waiting doesn’t mean the time you’re just passing through has to be meaningless. If it was meaningless, what a waste of time! Thus I spent two hours staring at the snow falling in front of distant street lamps, pondering the creepy sinewy web of causality and tracing a newly made web simultaneously. (Understand, if ‘sinewy’ does not work for you as a word choice because it is over-used, that I threw it in as a last resort. Apologies. Bounce it around the inside of your mouth and you will feel better.) How could I not think of causality while staring from a stranger’s car at my own car, perched on the neighbor’s lawn and roughed-up by a coward bully who couldn’t sign his name on his handiwork? If it hadn’t been snowing, if my wussy front-wheel drive hadn’t spun in circles driving home, if I hadn’t have parked my car at the base of a hill, again if it hadn’t been snowing still, if if if if my car hadn’t have been hit—I would be inside my house taking my place in the perfect winter scene complete with hot cocoa and crackling fire.

I love the way snowfall mutes the world. Snow is a rare tyrant in a world resigned to anarchy. I create the crime scene in my mind, without sound in deference to the snow. A car lurches along thirteenth avenue, if a car can lurch at ten miles per hour. The front tires hit a slick spot and the driver, a teenager no doubt with little experience driving in the snow, slams on the brakes. The whole car moves sideways towards the curb, in a motion you never expect to see cars make, driven by such force that there must be magnets lining the doors of each car. Then impact. The driver grazes off my car and continues on his way, dreamlike, the snow promising to cover his tracks. Not a sound but the snow, not a break in the car’s strange dance. Maybe the crunch of the metal was waiting too, for someone to hear it.

My need to analogize everything, to see the whole world as metaphor, exhausts me. Why can’t a car crash be just a car crash, instead of a still life lesson on impact and causality and the illusion of safety—avoiding one danger merely to position perfectly for another?

Dear Friends,

Hello everyone. It's me again, Catherine, your long lost blogger. I haven't posted because I haven't had anything worthwhile to say, and while I still have nothing worthwhile to say you have persuaded me to expose the bare corners of my brain at present. Here is a list of thoughts (mostly in snippets) that have occurred to me today:

Marajute--that awesome bird from The Rescuers Down Under--or is it Marahutay or maybe Merejutay. No clue. But still an awesome bird, and a lovely name too which I like to have rolling around inside my mouth.

Does God have preferences about trivial things; ie pen or pencil, winter or summer, rain or snow?

Do people know they are being silly when they are being silly or are they totally oblivious? And by silly I mean rude and childish and totally without perspective.

My phone is very annoying, and yet I put up with it and will continue to put up with it because I have it and don't care to exchange it and it is PINK after all.

Pizza and soda pop. Practically could be its own emotion, that's how distinct a feeling it gives me.

How long does it take for the smell of rotten banana peel to be cleared out of a car once said peel has finally been thrown away?

Why don't I sit under/next to my Christmas tree more?

I love love love love sugar cookies.

I forgot to do my homework for the second week in a row. I would like to tell my teacher that I AM oblivious when I am being silly and flakey.

Work--no matter how you look at it, love your job or hate it--is very draining and quite the bully of my internal schedule.

There is nothing more frightening than the thought that not only do you have nothing to say, you also have nothing to think.

Cheers to the blank mind.

Eggnog and tinsel,

Catherine

GO COUGIES!

A peom--my one and only

Cutting Down Christmas Trees the Day after Thanksgiving

I roll out of the car
looking like a marshmallow
on a short flimsy stick,
ready for roasting.

one pair wool gloves
one pair work gloves
blue ski beanie
one thermal shirt
two coats
denim jeans—too small
soggy wool socks
running shoes

Everyone else wears boots and
I didn’t want to bring mine. Ugly boots.
When I take off my shoes I am afraid
I will find ten shriveled raisins, no toes.

Dad’s red ball cap could be a bird
flitting through the trees
but it’s too see-your-breath-cold for birds
and flitting.

Jubilant, Marie yells—“I Found It!”
Her words trudge towards us
or maybe it’s just my steps
that feel like trudging.

We weave clumsily over under
around the woods,
we surround the spruce.
Stunning slender spruce.

The chainsaw burps and grumbles until
high on its own fumes it roars and guffaws.
Dad smiles wicked
and in his eyes gleam red glass balls, a shining star…

the aspens whisper like neighborhood women
they condemn us
we drag our prize over logs to the road

a wake of pine needles trails behind

Stand up for what you believe in!

I would like to start a petition to get Liz Hansen blogging.

Need I say more?

Sign your name in comments if you would like to see Liz enter the blog scene. Be aware that signing your name commits you to harass Liz endlessly about starting a blog.

In Tribute, Part Trois

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell.

Some day I might have more interesting things to post about, like a husband or child, or even a dog! But for now, I can only expand my blog's wall of influence. Today, Joni, is your day. Favorite lines:

I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paints. I'm frightened by the devil and I'm drawn to those that ain't afraid.
I remember that time you told me, you said love is touching souls. Well surely you've touched mine cause part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.

Tears and fears and feeling proud, To say I love you right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, Ive looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, They shake their heads, they say Ive changed
Well somethings lost, but somethings gained, In living evry day.

I met a redneck on a grecian isle who did the goat dance very well,
he gave me back my smile but he kept my camera to sell.

Born with the moon in cancer, choose her a name she will answer to.
Call her green and the winter cannot fade her.

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on


I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

A Grateful Heart

Why does the chilling winter's morn

Smile, like a field beset with corn?

Or smell like a meadow newly shorn

Thus on the sudden? Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:

'Tis He is born, whose quick'ning birth

Gives life and lustre, public mirth,

To heaven and the underneath.

We see Him come, and know Him ours,

Who, with His sunshine and His show'rs,

Turns all the patient ground to flow'rs.

The Darling of the world is come,

And fit it is, we find a room

To welcome Him, to welcome Him.

The nobler part of all the house here, is the heart,

Which we will give him...

-excerpt from "What Sweeter Music", Robert Herrick

When sundown pales the sky I wanna hide awhile, behind your smile,
And everywhere I'd look, your eyes I'd find.

When rain has hung the leaves with tears I want you near
To kill my fears-- to help me to leave all my blues behind.

But Only In My Dreams...

Last night, I had a dream about Zac Efron. What a nice surprise, especially upon waking up, and how lucky that I was able to remember it. I wonder how many fabulous dreams I have had which have never entered consciousness, but slipped away instead as if they never happened...my own thoughts, realized, but hidden from myself. So. Dreams have always frightened me because they are a glimpse of my renegade mind--compilations of my own thoughts which I view on a trip I have no control over. I like being in control. I don't like seeing what weird things my brain comes up with.

In my dream, Zac lived in Salt Lake City with his parents, in a not very nice house. For some reason, a few friends (sorry--I don't remember who, but probably liz) and I were at his house, not in a creepy fan way but because we were neighbors. I remember thinking that I expected he would be funnier and better looking...isn't that ironic, that my dream downsized him instead of expanding his greatness? Of course, since it was MY dream, he payed especial attention to me, and wanted to drive me home.... I felt a little weird about this--what about Vanessa? Won't she be jealous? A real concern. I also remember something about him having several Nalgene bottles full of beer. Another disappointment. The rest of the dream is a blur that I can only feel and not express in reasonable words or broad daylight. Let me just say that now when I look at his picture, I feel like I am looking at someone I know, having passed an evening with him. May the rest of you only dream of being so fortunate.

Sisters, sisters, ladeedadeedadeedadee sisters...

p.s. the costumes were jane's idea--i am a star and she is mother earth...

Wednesday night is Beginning Modern, down at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. I haven’t been to a dance class since I was seven years old, living in my purple leotard, and jumping from mat to mat across the studio at Miss Tad’s cue. At lunch yesterday, my sister Jane tried to psychoanalyze my past for some reason why I stopped dancing. Did someone offend me, had I been embarrassed, was there any event I could remember that pushed me to shin guards and half-time treats? Unfortunately, my memory goes dark—I’ve told all that I know. Purple leotard, Miss Tad, jumping on mats.
Jane and I are two years apart, but we look like twins. When we both lived at home, we always shared a room. First, it was next to mom and dad’s and there was only one bed and two girls and an explosion of dollies and picture books. Then it was the room on the landing that is now the study; the room where the lamp caught my pillow on fire when I fell asleep reading; the room with the bunk beds and the tee-ball stand and the mailbox. I’ve never been to another house where the mailbox burps into a bedroom, which is probably why it became the study. Finally, when we were most childish, we moved into a room in the basement, right on the heels of fresh paint, new carpet, and new matching but separate beds.
Our relationship used to be like a middle school summer reading assignment—it’s something you might enjoy on your own, but the fact that it’s assigned takes away all hope of fun. We were pushed together in everything—bedrooms, after-school programs, birthday party invitations, haircut styles, parent-teacher conferences, piano lessons, you name it. Naturally, we resisted the pressure to merge into one child. We chose our respective worlds, gave up the rest, and minded our own business. I can see now that this happened, but I can’t imagine being aware of it at the time. Jane was master of art; from drawing to crafts to decorating to oils to fashion to dance to sewing to cooking. I latched on to the rules and structure of school, waking up early on Saturdays to do my homework in the fourth grade, and almost unreachable when inside a book, which was most of the time.
Now we live apart. Jane is married, but we still have regular sleepovers—as if we couldn’t break the habit of eighteen years. It’s ridiculous to still live half a life, expecting Jane to compensate, but not being the artistic one has become part of my identity, just as not being the smart one has become part of hers.
Wednesday was a downer day, for no reason but the time of year and the constant forward motion to the year anniversary of mom’s death. Everything depressed me, from a UTA bus at an intersection to the chipping red polish on my toes. I felt like I was stuck in a Salinger novel, preferably Franny & Zooey. That night, Jane stopped at my house after work to recruit me for dance class.
My response to all things dance is immediate and automated. No. No question; no. This time, Jane persisted; she’d pay for the class, she’d promise not to look at me, I could sit out whenever I wanted, and it was a beginner class. Not to mention, it would get me over being depressed, and that was a guarantee. So I went.
I laughed my way through the class, amused by the contortions I forced out of my body instead of the graceful motions I saw in the teacher. I missed steps and got lost in the routines; I stared at myself in the mirrors with fascination, on stage for the first time. But it felt good to move—to really move—and to put the body first instead of words when I had something I needed to say. Maybe someday I will take myself to dance class, but for now I enter Jane’s domain by invitation only.

In Tribute, Part Deux

I, along with many out there, love The Office. Here are my favorite Michael Scott moments from last week.

On agism:

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks...because it's illegal."

On children:

"I have some of my own I plan on having someday."

How true that is.

Feel free to share favorite quotations.

I know, I know, I'm getting ahead of myself, but here are some thoughts on THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving Day—A day devoted by persons with inflammatory rheumatism to thanking a loving Father that it is not hydrophobia.
-H.L. Mencken

Thanksgiving is the most demanding holiday. Or if you can think of another, bring it forward now. You say Christmas, with its months of preparation, its infiltration into the weeks before and after on your party calendar, its slow consumption of at least one room in your house, its unapologetic ransom on your wallet, its persistent and penetrating stream of music on every station, in every room, under each tongue. Of course, Christmas is the only reasonable contender.
My blue ribbon still goes to Thanksgiving, because there is nothing compulsory about the demands of Christmas. It is demanding because we make it so; it’s just the marketing team behind every large retail company doing their job. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is a semantic trick. Short of rejecting the holiday entirely, you cannot escape the demands.
There may be those who believe Thanksgiving to be, like many other holidays, only a celebration of a specific historical event—the landmark dinner where Squanto and the Plymouth Pilgrims sat down together to celebrate the efficacy of fish-heads and corn seeds, mutually admiring the other’s moccasins or dainty heels with gold buckles. At least, that is the version I vividly remember learning when I came to fourth grade dressed as a pilgrim and the whole school packed into the cafeteria for a re-enactment feast. Gold buckles and all.
Though Thanksgiving does have a significant origination, it was maintained as a holiday not to commemorate the first Thanksgiving (luckily, since that is an awfully hazy event), but to offer current thanksgiving to God—yes, there is an intended recipient for all this gratitude—for the year’s abundance and harvest. Well, things have changed. I don’t even know what harvest means outside of metaphors and textbook explanations. My aunt, whom I often eat Thanksgiving dinner with, is fond of dinner conversations prompted by questions like, “What riches do you find in your emotional harvest this year?” Or, “Share with us the abundance you find in your life.”
Abundance has always been a relative term, but the qualifications for its use are getting larger and larger. Curse inflation—emotional, material or otherwise. My most memorable Thanksgivings are the two where the day didn’t go as planned. In one case my family ended up eating pizza and cold lima beans in a cafeteria; and in the other, the organic turkey that was so difficult to procure wasn’t ready until 9:00 pm because my mom forgot to turn on the oven. I’d like to say that I rose to the occasions and saw beyond the meal to the “true meaning of the holiday,” but I didn’t. I was annoyed, both times. I had the presence of mind to catch the irony of my irritation, but I didn’t care.
We set ourselves up, don’t we? Celebrating a day of thanks with an elaborate and extensive feast that binds us to the kitchen for days—as though we must create an appropriate abundance to be grateful for. Are we only grateful for the abundant harvests? The excess? This Thanksgiving Day seems to expose the fact that we have removed both God and gratitude from our daily lives; that our lives are so busy we must have a holiday that compels us to focus on where things come from and whose hand they come by. Or perhaps it’s just another day off work and an excuse for a big meal.

In Full

Following is the poem from which I took my signature quotation. Wanted you to be able to read it all--it's awesome!

Writing in the Afterlife

I imagined the atmosphere would be clear,
shot with pristine light,
not this sulfurous haze,
the air ionized as before a thunderstorm.

Many have pictured a river here,
but no one mentioned all the boats,
their benches crowded with naked passengers,
each bent over a writing tablet.

I knew I would not always be a child
with a model train and a model tunnel,
and I knew I would not live forever,
jumping all day through the hoop of myself.

I had heard about the journey to the other side
and the clink of the final coin
in the leather purse of the man holding the oar,
but how could anyone have guessed

that as soon as we arrived
we would be asked to describe this place
and to include as much detail as possible--
not just the water, he insists,

rather the oily, fathomless, rat-happy water,
not simply the shackles, but the rusty,
iron, ankle-shredding shackles--
and that our next assignment would be

to jot down, off the tops of our heads,
our thoughts and feelings about being dead,
not really an assignment,
the man rotating the oar keeps telling us--

think of it more as an exercise, he groans,
think of writing as a process,
a never-ending, infernal process,
and now the boats have become jammed together,

bow against stern, stern locked to bow,
and not a thing is moving, only our diligent pens.

Billy Collins

Correction--I know your father

So I was having a little chat over dinner with the fam and the issues talked about in the last blog post came up and I learned something new. New and quite important. In the last entry, I said something like, "hence the trip back to the drawing board after Satan presented his plan." My bro-in-law Jim told me that there was only one plan presented--God's plan--and there was opposition to that plan (which we call Satan's plan.) There was only ever God's plan. Interesting. Is this a new idea for anyone else?

words and ladeeeda words again

Write what you want, what occurs to you. Be free at the hour of creation. What’s important is the expression. What’s important is to let out the things you want to say, the things that want to come out, either because they hurt too much inside, all these bits of broken glass that cut you, or because they want to be shared, want to be contagious, want to give of themselves. Always be free and defend your liberty with blood and fire.
-Eduardo Galeano

My dad always says about me, “Catherine has never met a rule she didn’t like.” Mostly, he’s right. I feel safe in a black and white world, one with limits and expectations, rubrics and correct answers. You may be wondering, where is such a world? Welcome to my brain. I hope you enjoy your stay.
I can think of a couple examples of black and white worlds in my favorite young adult literature. While I’m talking about it, let it be known that I still prefer the young adult section in the public library. How does one know when she has graduated to the adult section of the library and is graduation ever compulsory?
The first book that comes to mind is The Giver, by Lois Lowry. The town where the book is set is literally black and white. People take pills to suppress their desires, and the rule book for behavior is exhaustive. There is no such thing as doing ‘what you want,’ because there is no concept of want. The Giver exists to contain all of the ambiguity inherent in the world—he is the keeper of memories, of the past, of pain.
Then there is the town of Camazotz in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. This is a town completely taken by IT, the over-sized brain (which was always repulsive to me as a child) whose pulsing dictates the shadow of evil spreading across the universe. Sounds dramatic, and I suppose it is, being the childish version of the good vs. evil, love conquers all sort of tale. Anyway, the pulse of this brain rules the town too. Balls bounce to it, paper boys throw to it, and business men walk to it. There is no individuality. Happiness does not exist, beyond conforming to the beat.
Moral of the story: black and white, rule-driven worlds are a bad idea. Hence, the trip back to the drawing board after Satan presented his plan. In Camazotz and The Giver, rules functioned to replace choice; they obliviated the emotions that let you know what you want and why.
Being a rule-lover, I have to be careful. I am asking myself now, do I keep rules because I want to keep rules or do I keep rules because they happen to coincide with what I want? I was going to say that obedience for obedience’s sake is silly, just as subversion for subversion’s sake is silly—but I’m not sure. It all depends on where the rules are coming from, doesn’t it? Maybe obedience and subversion should not be set up opposite each other. Maybe a better match for subversion is conformity. There’s another gospel paradox. Conformity that maintains and supports individuality.
I have often heard from people that when in doubt, start obeying the rule just to obey. The desire will come later. This works fine in a gospel context, but I don’t think this is a very good pattern for life in general. (Here I go separating life and the gospel again; shouldn’t they be the same thing? What in the world is a gospel context?) A lot of rules are total crap, and that’s what Galeano is talking about—knowing what you want enough to chuck the rules that don’t suit you. He’s talking about giving up the rules so that you can know what you want.

Vanity, Vanity! All is Vanity!

Well, I've decided to continue posting my own words. I thought I would post some of the stuff I've had to write for my class, and then I thought how vain! To post what I'm writing! I should just write something instead. "Your logic is dizzying." "Wait til I get going!" So here goes, Catherine Curtis as herself, as usual.

Okay. I'm still considering. Because the stuff I write for class is usually quite long. And possibly boring. (Unlike the other things I post, of course. "For Stephanie. Of course." Isn't that a fabulous book inscription..."And for Gilbert." Ahh.) So I guess I will post them, but they will be long and you don't have to read. (Unlike the other things I post, which are required, of course.)
I can say no more.

Transience

I found out yesterday that I've never really known my city. I've lived in Salt Lake my whole twenty-three years and I've always been grateful to have never changed my view.... But you sure miss a lot when you walk the same way to life each morning. Yesterday I changed things up a little, and rode old UTA to school in Provo. Besides the fact that it was a five-hour ordeal (I'm talking actual transit time only), I completely enjoyed myself. I felt like a tourist trying to be a local, feigning ease on the local transportation system while gripping bus schedules and printed itineraries deep in my bag....

Downtown felt a lot more like downtowns I have visited--I saw the commotion of surivival, all across a scale, from bums shuffling from garbage can to garbage can to money-makers rushing to the next big deal. I've had a hard time seeing this from the inside of my car. It's like driving around in a bubble, especially the way I play my music. And the buildings looked more beautiful. I second what Jana B said about what Dorothy said about finding everything in your own backyard. (Didn't Anne Shirley have something to say about that too?) If only I could approach my own home with the same zest and interest as I do those places I travel to, believing in the "infinite suggestiveness of finite things" right outside my door.

Several things I like about public transportation:
-HUGE windows
-a perfect set-up for disguised eavesdropping

-being able to read, sleep, daydream to my heart's content

-not having to even think about traffic
and mostly,
-the way it builds my sense of community.

Seriously, at every stop it is as though the kaleidoscope has been turned and I am on the inside while the picture changes. The doors open and it's all motion; it settles down and the faces are different and the conversations are different. It is strange to sit through so many stops as people come and go, noticing when they get on and when they get off and following them in my mind as they go to their homes and realizing that they each have lives as complete and consuming as mine is to me. Prepare yourselves for an obvious comment: What I am to me, everyone else is to themselves. Profound, eh? I am the master of these sort of awareness moments; I am reminded of the time it occurred to me that there were only two genders in the whole world. You're either one or the other...there's no other option. I was with my Dad at the time, who first said something about the sea horse being genderless, and then mocked me for such a childish observation. Well, sometimes things hit me like a brick dropping out of the sky and it is after that, in my mentally-altered state, that I have these realizations. Really though, everyone is stuck with themselves, doing the best they can with what they've got.

Riding TRAX also reminded me of the old days in Paris on the metro. Strange how quickly things become commonplace (like riding the metro for hours everyday, relying on it to get everywhere) and how quickly they fade from memory. The metro (or TRAX or public transportation in general) really has a lot to teach about human interaction, especially in its unspoken rules. Never look someone across from you in the face if they are looking back. Never bump knees. Never look at the panhandlers. Never smile or acknowledge ridiculous conversations around you. Never look happy. Never look interested in anything. UNLESS someone speaks to you, and then you may, if you want, act like a human being.

I've Been Tagged

5 things I was doing ten years ago...

1. Starting my 8th grade year at Bryant Intermediate
2. Curling my bangs in a major way
3. Listening to Jane talk on the phone to Spencer every night until 4 am
4. Talking piano lessons
5. Playing soccer

5 things on my to do list today...

1. Clean my bedroom
2. Bathe.
3. Go to the symphony
4. Do my homework
5. Get a life

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire...

1. Never leave school--be a perpetual student
2. Build a cabin
3. Blow it all on shoes and music
4. Travel everywhere in the world
5. Start an outdoors program for youth

5 things I'll never wear again...

1. my white/orange vest thing from France. It's gone forever.
2. that unfortunately brown ski coat
3. really baggy pants
4. all white shoes, of any kind
5. my IMAX theater uniform shirt

5 fave toys...

1. Ipod
2. Camera
3. Mountain Bicycle
4. Sleeping Bag
5. Popcorn popper

5 people to tag...

1. Jana B
2. Lindsay
3. Liz Hansen (you may respond in the comment section)
4. Stephania
5. Jim Jackson

In Tribute

This post is dedicated to all those things in my life which do such a fine job of distracting me from all those other things in my life, namely getting a job.

1.YOUTUBE, namely Flight of the Conchords.

Actually, that's really the only distraction. But it does a really good job.

And the winner is...

Well, fine people of blogland, quite a remarkable thing has happened! A TIE! Sisters Jane and Marie both pulled off 13 out of 20 on that last movie quotation quiz. Unfortunately, I got them all correct so I will be accepting the prize. Thank you, Thank you. "They love me! They really love me!" Thank you to everyone who participated. Impressive display of movie knowledge...actually not really SO impressive with the winners only getting 65%, but that is what people always say.

This pic is to uphold my "no non-pic posts" and to introduce awesome brother dave to the blog, and because the pic just makes my day.

So Part two of this blog post is that my blog has become so much LAMER since marie got on the blog scene. Her blog is cuter than mine, and so is Jane's now that it's been all spiffed up and mine feels outdated, left out and..."she could be a farmer in those clothes." So I'm trying to tell my blog it's okay and you can never go wrong with black...it's just a rough patch for her self-esteem. We'll get over it.

Part three. Technological snubbing. This is a post that has been long anticipated on the blog, and it is a subject I feel quite passionate about. Somebody is out there just coming up with more ways for the rejects to be rejected. Oh you thought not getting a response to your letter a month later was bad; how about knowing the object of your pursuit is at the other end of the telephone line.... And it's only gotten worse with time. Let me list for you the ways I can currently be rejected: Telephone. Text messaging. Gchat (the silent killer). Facebook. My blog. Email. Snail mail. Real time real life say it to my face you coward! Am I forgetting any? Perhaps in the world of BYU, you could consider not recieving those annoying flyers on your door a sign of rejection.

Let me clarify--lest you start getting crazy ideas, I am not walking around feeling rejected all day or making a tally of who has responded to me. I am just saying the world is getting complicated and George Banks is saying no! The biggest problem with technological snubbing is that it's never totally clear if you have been snubbed or if the connection has gone bad and the message was never delivered. This may seem like a favor to the people who are actually being snubbed--they never have to accept the harsh reality that someone doesn't want to talk to them. I don't think it is favor...I'm all in favor of harsh realities.

A Quiz! a little friendly competition

Okay people. The following post is part of an innovative new campaign to make this blog more interactive. Name the movie. There will be rewards, and no cheating and looking at other people's answers when you post your own. I don't actually know how that is possible; that is where the innovation comes in. Some of these are dead giveaways for most of you...that couldn't be helped. And remember competition--beating out your friends and the person in front of you, I mean really pummelling them--is key here, not accuracy. For extra credit, post your own quotations.

Posts with no pictures stink. A mix between feta cheese on a frying pan and dead animal in the desert. So here are the faces of competition. Fierce.

(props Jane for finally making it on my blog)

GET THE LEAD OUT. THAT IS ALL! (this line is not part of the contest.)

1) "House of Laughs. What's your problem?"

2) "Not you--I don't even know you people!"

3) "There's a lot going on at this school...Wow."

4) "And may I remind you, it does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty!"

5) "All right Joanne Greenwald, you horrible thing."

6) "If it had pained me, I would not have come."
"You take pleasure then?"
"Yea, as much pleasure as you take upon a knife's point."
"Hahahahahaha."

7) "Don't be hasty."

8) "I'm not European, I don't plan on being European, so who gives a crap if they're fascist dictators?...As John Lennon said, 'I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.' Afterall, he was the walrus. I could be the Walrus, but it still wouldn't change the fact that I have to bum rides off of people."

9) "I am no man. I have no name."
"Well that may explain why you're having trouble seeking gainful employment."

10) "Rule number one John, don't propose to a girl on a tour bus. Rule number two, don't tell her it's because you had a bad dream."

11)"Nobody's going to rob us going DOWN the mountain. We haven't got any money going DOWN the mountain...morons. I've got morons on my team."

12) "I love weddings! Drinks all around! I know, clap him in chains, right?"

13) "The one who pinched it, done him in."

14) "I forgot to vote."
"What?"
"I forgot to vote. The last election, I got a manicure and forgot to vote."
"Since when do you get manicures?"
"Oh, that's not the point!"
"Alright--I forgive you."
"You forgive me?"
"Shhh!"
"A hot dog is singing. You need quiet while a hot dog is singing?!"
"You forgive me."

15) "What are you looking for?"
"The Russian circus...I think it's still in here!"

16) "American components, Russian components--they all come from Taiwan!"

17) "What were you doing shaving at this time of day?"
"Since when do I shave my finger?"
"You don't shave your ear either but you cut it last week."
"Well, the ear is in the general vicinity of the face."
"So is the finger when you're shaving."

18) "So much for French fashion, and French politics.... Look you here sir at this limp cravatte. And the sad state of these cuffs...oh no, no, no. Ttt, ttt, ttt, ttt."

19) "Five pounds of brown sugar."

20) "Sad to be all alone in the world."
"But she's not all alone in the world--she's got us!"

Remember. Big Brother is watching. NO CHEATSIES!

A Sunday's Pause

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.


And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.


--Gerald Manley Hopkins

Family Lagoon Day

There's really nothing like an amusement park (except maybe a water park or bath house of any sort) to get you up close and personal with a true slice of humanity. Whenever I'm wondering who I am or if there's anyone out there who understands, I'll go to Lagoon. It's truly a haven of peace and a playground organized simply to show off all that's good in the human being. That's even before throwing in enough cotton candy, churros, and plastic souvenirs to make your heart melt...literally.

And it is at this location that Dad chose to ring in a new era of family time.

Dignity, always dignity.

Growing Up Wonderful

Today I walked to 7-11 with my niece Laine. Romney was there too, of course, but quite limited in his participation, what with the stroller straps and the binky in his mouth and everything. The walk was only a few blocks there and back again, but looking through Laine's eyes, it was a grand adventure. Midway, she began collecting sticks which she stashed in the bottom of the stroller or used as batons to aid her dancing. She stopped to smell every flower, and asked to investigate more fully the features of several houses we passed--the bird houses, the rock garden, etc. She was stopped dead in her tracks by a small pile of broken glass on the sidewalk, and she was completely stumped by how it could have gotten there. Her brainstorming produced the following possibilities: maybe a mouse sat on it, or a huge mungus destroyed it, or maybe a leaf fell on it. My bet is on the leaf. I'm not quite sure what a huge mungus is.

Where'd you matriculate from?

Well, I know I'm going overboard here, posting more than once in the same day...but I've got a lot to share with the world. "I like to wake up to the smell of sizzling bacon. So sue me."

I graduated from college. At the time, it seemed like a really great thing. But now I find myself typing on my dad's computer at four in the afternoon, totally unpresentable and with nothing to show for the day and I wonder. What am I going to do now and what's in a piece of paper?

Feel free to offer job suggestions, or non-job suggestions (though those will require a little more justification.)

A shout out to my dear friends: you're all cookies. You made Provo the place that I now miss.

Let's go, Let's show, Let's RODEO!

Let's get wild, rough, rugged, and a weeee bit western!

I'm back from Dubois, Wyoming--the most remote location in the lower 48 states (true story)--where I have spent six weeks working on my cowboy walk. I was a counselor for ten girls, ages 13-16, and I learned from them that my tastes in music, celebrities, and movies are about ten years younger than me. This wasn't really a surprise; I'm the first to tell you that I'm growing down instead of up, a gravitational wonder. Anyway, Teton Valley Ranch Camp is a crazy cool place and the kids who go there are as lucky as any I know. My girls went on a four day pack trip, a four day backpack, and spent days in camp doing awesome activities.

My favorites were the petrified wood hike, and pretty much anything that involved the swimming hole, Lake Lebato. The pack trip was a five hour ride to camp, where the cowboys and trail cook had set up a sweet kitchen and sleeping tarp for us. Pack trips are the lap of luxury: horses to carry you, cooks to feed you, and large guns (courtesy of the cowboys) in case of bears. I actually slept with my hand on the bear spray...though I tried to hide my paranoia from my girls since I was supposed to be the brave one. For our backpack, we started at Jenny Lake, hiked up Cascade Canyon, took a detour to the Wall, went up over Hurricane Pass into Alaska Basin, summited Static Peak, and ended at Phelps Lake. There may not be more beautiful country in the whole world... "I won't say I'm much better than anybody else, but I'll be darned if I ain't just as good!"....

A few things I learned from TVRC:

-everything is better outside

-mice are, in fact, as gross as I've always thought

-never tell a fourteen-year-old she's being dramatic

-time will pass--it always does

-almost everything can be funny

-there is very little you need to get along, especially when everyone around you has very little too

-loving people makes living with them so much easier

-i quite like being in charge

-jackalopes are not real. i promise

Summers are made for exploring the wilderness and yourself.

It's been a good summer.

Grand Teton 07

This is the first of 100 things I must do before I die that I have accomplished. Celebrate good times, come on!

welcome to blogland

I don't really get how this blog thing works, which is a huge cut to my pride since I've just assumed technological savy-ness came with my generation. Too bad. Luckily, the cut to my pride is balanced by a huge boost to my vanity which is that my words are now available to the masses via the world wide web. I don't know what made me suddenly think I should get a blog, and it really was a sudden decision. As with most things I choose to do, I immediately started trying to convince other people to do it too, but I only got as far as my bro-in-law Jim. He said, "who would read it?"



Interesting question. I had to have a little chat with myself right then to clarify that I was bloggin' for my own fun and not to fuel a fantasy where the course of millions of lives is on hold until I speak. So this post was really meant to be a friendly extended hand, a best foot forward, my first blog impression.... I'll be accepting housewarming gifts and visits all afternoon.