Well I just had one of the darned pleasantest lunches EVER.

It's not often that you can feel justified in taking an entire day off of work just to go to lunch with your family. And, actually, today was not one of those times. However, I DID feel justified because I took the day off to go to my sister's graduation from college, and we stopped and had lunch afterwards. (Happy circumstance!)

The wait was long. Actually, it was really rather horrendous. You see, when we got there, they (those poor, harried restaurant employees) told us that the wait would be about 45-50 minutes. So, my dad put our name down on the list, and we trekked over to a nearby bookstore and browsed for about 20 minutes before trekking back to the restaurant where my mom was sure we'd be seated relatively soon. An hour and ten minutes later, we finally got our table.

The good thing is, the wait was utterly and completely worth it. We got the patio table, and with a near-cloudless sky, and springishly breezes blowing, even the setting by itself was ideal. Then, when our good-looking waiter (my brother-in-law's cousin, by chance) brought us our crusty baguettes and smooth, white butter to spread upon them, along with endless glasses of strawberry lemonade and heaping platters of ceasar salad, followed shortly thereafter by our fabulous main dishes, (mine of course being chicken parmesean--LOVE that stuff), and while the conversation throughout all of this was lively and entertaining, and ranged from observing that wisp of cloud that became a large cloud, and whether that other wisp of cloud would become a large cloud too, and how genetically, my brother-in-law and his waiter-cousin could be considered half-brothers because their mothers are identical twins, I could not help but think that this was one of the best lunches I had ever had.

And so it was. The end.

What the Devil are you all doing here?

I mean, don't you have anything urgent to attend to? Like having dinner, or writing to senators about increasing government spending in schools, or trimming your toenails or something? I mean, here I sit, typ-a-typ typing on my laptop, (okay--so the 'typ-a-typ' was mostly cheesy), trying to think of things to type about, and I'm not coming up with extremely interesting topics, lemme tell you.

Oh! Except that I got called to be secretary in the Primary Presidency in my ward. Whoooo-eeee. We had our first presidency meeting today, and, I was...erm...very lost. Actually, I was more lost than a...than a glove. That's been lost for a long time. Yeah. I was that lost.

It wasn't really all that bad--the other members of the presidency were extremely friendly, and I know them all at least relatively well, so I felt pretty comfortable with them. Except, they've all been in the calling for awhile, and so have a pretty good idea of what's going on, so they were discussing things at a rapid-fire pace, and it was...marginally difficult for me to keep up with what they were talking about. Phew! I barely remember the last names of the people in our ward! Now I have to learn their first names, and the names & ages of all of their children, and also I have to learn how scouting works, and also how often the girls have activity days, and also how you do sharing time, and how to conduct opening exercises, and also how many paper flowers you can fit on the Primary bulletin board at once.

There's a lot to learn.

And, I've already made some mistakes. Like, when I tried to accost the Reverence Children to get the "Reverence Child" banners back after opening exercises, not realizing that they had the privilege of being Reverence Children all through Sharing Time, and through all of their classes. That poor 10-year-old girl! I came up and said, "Do you want to give me the banner back now?" And she very politely kind of bowed her head and said, "No thank you." I was flabbergasted. And panicked! How would I get that "Reverence Child" banner back?!? And then, I thought, "Duh. They keep it through sharing time, you dolt." Yes. I called myself a dolt. And still do, to this day.

But I digress. I have a lot to learn. And I mean a LOT. I have to remember how to interact with children who are not my relatives. While I feel relatively comfortable with children, still there's a bit of an uncertainty that exists when dealing with children who are not your own. (Nor your sister's own.) So, there's that too.

Omyland. I'm scared. A little nerve-racked. And...um...my toes are cold. Which always bodes ill for anyone.

And, I guess I found something to talk about after all.

I'm feeling particularly gleeful this evening...

But not because of anything outrageously wonderful that I've done. No, no. My reason for rejoicing is this: it's Friday, the phones here at work are NOT ringing, and I've just gotten over 300 hits on my blog since I installed the counter on February 9th! Wahoo, frankly!

And you should all "Wahoo" with me. For behold, it is your hitting my blog so frequently that has risen the post count past the 300 mark. Thank you, for I am indeed grateful.

And also there's nothing to do at work. Sigh.

Wow. Man, I mean, just--WOW.

I don't know if you all have had the luck to chance upon one of the recent United Airlines commercials whilst aimlessly channel surfing, but let me tell you, I have never seen "Rhapsody in Blue" put to better use. (Well, maybe once, but I won't go into that here. (Gosh, I love writing vague asides!))

Each commercial is a mini animated feature, and absolutely no dialogue, except for a bit of a United Airlines plug they put in at the end, which, surprisingly, always blends pretty harmoniously with the rest of the piece. Although I've seen a few of these on TV, I could only find the two most current ones on the United Airlines website. However, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Go HERE to see the commercials. My personal favorite is 'Dragon,' (mainly because the animation is simply STUNNING--watch the 'Making of' featurette if you have time--and because dragons are cool), but 'The Meeting' was wonderfully amusing and entertaining in its own right. (There this great laugh-out-loud moment right at the end. Superb!)

So, if any of you are in the mood to be entertained, and haven't had a chance to see these yet, take a moment & do it! Tell 'em I sent ya.

And Now I'm Terrified

So, yeah. I'm feeling a bit nervous at the moment. Weak at the knees, hands trembling, toes cold, you know the routine. I just want the answer to one question: Why in the WORLD do I react like this to things that are a little intimidating? Why am I so terrified that, instead of doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing, I'm sitting here, plugged into an outlet, typing on my laptop (which is working now, by the way), posting to my blog that I'm terrified?

Interacting with people sometimes makes me nervous. And while that's a bit of an understatement, it's nevertheless quite true. So, I've taken the day off of work, and I've come to BYU to search out some people who might be willing to write letters of recommendation for me. Really and truly, I'm going to do this today. (And, as any of you who have talked to me in the past about this will know, it has taken me a long time (really long time) to get to this point.) But, while it's easy enough to take a day off work, drive to BYU, park in Visitor's Parking (it's own little spot of terror--what if they think I'm lying when I say I'm not a student?!?), and walk over to the library, it's much much harder to move from where I am on the 4th floor over to the spot where I need to be--the Juv Lit Department.

So, any of you who may pop on within the next few minutes or so, (and those who pop on later can do this retroactively), please say a quick prayer for me. So that I can be brave. And not stupid. Thanks.

And the pressure is ON

So. Over the past few days, I've been frantically trying to dredge up some topic in my mind that might prove interesting and insightful, and yet humorous and...erm...funny. And guess what I've come up with!

That's right--nada.

I mean, the best think I could think of was how the sight of sunlight glancing off of gently rippling water was, um, pretty, but that's about as far as I got before hitting a bit of a brick wall. (Literally. I was gazing at the sunlight-on-water phenomenon too closely and crunched Jade against a bit of brick & mortar. Poor Jade. (Just kidding, of course.))

Anyway, so here I am, with more comments on my blog than EVER, (Thanks, by the way! You guys ROCK!), and with nothing to write about.

So, I'm writing about nothing. Oyeah. And sunlight. And accidents with my beloved vehicle that never took place. Sooooooo.....................................

There ya go. Um. Bye. I'm going to go.....do................things......................................

Because of Twilight

I've discovered why I don't cry much anymore, and it's not the reason I thought it was.

I thought that maybe I'd grown stronger over the past couple of years, or that perhaps there were fewer things to cry about now than there were before, or even that I was too distracted by other stuff to cry much.

But it's not true.

I rarely cry now because I'm rarely in twilight. At my house (read: "my parents' house") there's always an abundance of light. When I wake up in the morning (at an admittedly late 7:40 or so) there's already sunshine streaming through the windows. However, I've lived here long enough to know that even if I got up earlier (say, at 5:30, heaven forbid), there would already be people up and doing busy things, who have gotten up long before me and left a trail of upturned light switches in their wake from which an astute tracker could trace their steps from their bedroom to the kitchen.

At night, things are the same. As soon as dusk starts to settle in, (earlier on cloudy days like today), some family member or another goes through the house and shuts blinds and turns on lights, moving the house in one instant from the bright garishness of daylight to the bright garishness of well-lit evenings.

I remember that when I lived away from home I was often the only one home during the twilight hours. Either I would (rarely) get up early to (rarely) go walking, or I would sit in the early evening, watching the daylight mix with night, turning the sky a rich bluish-grey, filling me with wonder.

Forgive me. I know this is cheesy and clumsily said, but as I've tried to describe before, there's something in me that loves to pause at things, that likes to take significance from insignificant events. It may be a failing, but there's something in me that loves dark things, or transitions, or...I don't even know how to describe it. I can feel it here, burning in my chest as I type, and I can't put a name to it. I look out our library window and see the way the clouds hide the city lights below from the faintly glowing evening sky, and this thing that's in me longs for something I can't say, because I don't have the words.

I think that if I were a time of day, I would be twilight...(or at least I would want to be twilight. I'd probably end up being some boring time, like 3am, when nothing happens.)

But I've digressed, rather more than usual. I guess my point is that I miss twilight. And while crying is mostly an indicator that you're sad, still, I miss doing it. I miss connecting with my emotions like that--letting them out, when there's only a little light, and no-one else around, when the world is silent, and it's just you and your tears, and your pain, all confronting each other...and being resolved in some way that my current pains are not being resolved now.

It's strange that I could miss times like this when I used to hurt so much, but I think I really miss the quiet that comes after the twilight weeping. It's a quiet in which God resides. And I miss that terribly.