"Oh. Hello," she croaked.

So, I've been sick all day.

In fact, I've been sick for the past several days, two of which I have kind of semi-officially 'taken off,' as in I haven't done much of anything much on these two days, which two days included yesterday and today.

So, I feel kind of ugh, and a little egh, not to mention a titch of blaaaargh.

And also, I can sing really, really low right now.

However, maybe it's just kind of good to sit all day on the couch wrapped up in your favorite throw blanket and catch up on classics like The Philadelphia Story and the first twelve episodes of The Office, which, Hi, how did I go so long without ever watching ever? And also, it is so, so painful to watch that show. And it is so, so hilarious a pain.

Um.

Other than that, I feel heartily ashamed of myself and vow to do better tomorrow.

Uuuuuhhhnnnless I feel sick again. Still. Er. You know.

Okay. I'm fine.

Sorry, all.

I just sometimes have these times when I just get really fed up with me. And then I kind of have to get it out and kind of kick myself in the shins so I will maybe get the picture next time and not be dumb.

Of course, it doesn't ever work that way, but eh.

Um.

So, sorry for being down.

I'm not really a failure.

And also, I'm training to be a librarian! And that's hecka cool! And also I'm reading crazy interesting novels, like The Left Hand of Darkness. And...

Let'sthinkhere...

Uhhhhsss...ez...

Sugar-free ice cream is tasty?

And nice and soothing on a sore-ish throat. (Although I've moved to cough drops instead; less fat, that.)

We're cool. We're cool.

Now if I can just keep from making any more mistakes...

I Fail.

At life, at human relationships, at whathaveyou.

Yep. Yep, I do.

And I'm all frustrated with myself because I Fail.

So, okay. Let me list some of my more recent foibles for you.

Yeah. So, opinions? I should just not have them. And, I think perhaps, one reason why I am so wishy washy with said opinions is that when I finally do have an opinion on something, a good and solid and glorious opinion, which I am so happy to have because normally I am an opinionless blob of nothingness and slobber, I get so excited about this opinion that I go blazing off about it and just kind of blare said opinion to anyone willing to stand still and not hit me over the head with a stick to put me out of my misery long enough to let me get it out.

However. Problematically. Other people have different opinions. In fact, they may have opinions that they cherish muchly and deeply and fully and when I go blaring out my own spectacularly loud opinions I think I sometimes and maybe frequently cause pain.

And that is probably the thing I hate doing most of all.

I think sometimes that if I could agree with everyone I would because then everyone would be happy and no one would be uncomfortable or hurt and there would be flowers and sunshine and chocolate pudding for all.

So, for example, if I read a book recently that I happened to find...not quite my cup of tea...but it came highly recommended from someone and I happened to tell someone else loudly that I had a low opinion of the book, completely forgetting or not even thinking about the presence of the recommender-person nearby, I would feel pretty darn crappy.

Sort of, in fact, like I Fail. Miserably and fully and.

Just.

I hate hurting people.

Stupid. Bad.

BADbadbad. Dumb.

Also, I stink at writing papers.

The End.

I've been thinking.

I've been thinking a lot.

Seriously.

About a whole lot of things.

Things like what it means to be open-minded and whether that's a good thing and trying to discover what other people around me value and what they see as right and wrong and whether their rights and wrongs are things that I should incorporate into my own moral code and I've been shifting and stretching and wondering and trying to find out what's really, really real and True.

TRUTH.

That kind of thing.

And I've been wanting to take all of these things that I've been learning and add them to all of the things that I've always believed and thought so that I have some kind of master list of Truth, something that somehow incorporates both the restored gospel and temple ordinances and also things like seeing each person I encounter as a whole individual and not see them as 'other' if they happen to believe different things than I believe, or do things that I would consider wrong. I guess, I don't even want to see people as 'wrongdoers' or 'non-Mormons.' I don't want to walk around seeing the rest of the world's population as befuddled and ignorant and sinful. I just want to see people, you know? People like me. People who are trying to do things as well as they can and get through this life with as few mistakes as possible and who are working out their own rights and wrongs and making choices and really trying to be good people.

And I also want to see things in a clearly moral sense, to see that things like abortion and sexual immorality are absolutely not good. And yet still be able to look at a person who has had an abortion or who is living with a boyfriend and not just see them as 'the person who has had an abortion and is living with a boyfriend.'

And I'm having a hard time, you know? I'm having a hard time making it all balance and all fit and all come out so that I can see things really clearly.

I guess maybe I just want the best of both worlds: both the comfort (and, dare I say it, the half-suppressed sense of moral superiority) of having a clearly black & white morality, and also the comradeship and acceptance of a shades-of-grey morality.

How do you try to reconcile these things? I'm really curious, because I'm really trying to work this out right now.

I would write more, but I don't have time.

"If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate." - Elbert Hubbard

Ponder. Discuss.

Generating somethingorothers

So, I'm sitting here in my room and I want to write something for my blog because I haven't been exactly garrulous lately and it's been mainly due to vague feelings of almost-apathy hanging around like some sort of malignant-ish miasma and also not really having much to report, seeing as how I've been spending the majority of my days not working on the major projects that are due at the end of the semester and seriously catching up on my reading and

And.

Stuff.

Also, I buy this whole wheat bread that's really delicious and also it's interesting because it has these kind of broken up grains sprinkled all over the tops of the slices and so after I get finished eating my sandwiches or toast or whatever-something-that-involves-bread the plate has all these white bits of grain all over and if I moisten my finger (by plopping it in my mouth) and then use it to pick up all those bits of grain and them eat them they have a (not surprisingly) grain-type flavor but the texture's kind of interesting and also I think I'm weird.

Also, I like learning about libraries?

And also, I think I'm even stranger after midnight than usual.

The Pearls are more abundant than we know.

I just found one buried in Deuteronomy, of all places:

For the Lord thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing.
-Deuteronomy 2:7

I always find it extraordinary the way something will suddenly strike you in an "I really needed to hear that"-edness.

And that somehow, although the children of Israel lacked permanent homes and a relatively dust-free life, yet still, they lacked nothing.

And I think that although I lack things, that really, I lack nothing too.

Expletivatively

I've started using a new expletive.

And it's not what you're thinking.

Um. At least.

I don't really know what you're thinking I'm using, but it's probably not what you are thinking, because what I have been using is kind of unusual.

Unless you're Charlie Brown maybe?

But even good ol' Chuck didn't quite use it the way I do.

I mean, I'll say, "Good Grief!" as part of my lexicon, but I've also (for no good reason that I'm aware of) started saying things like, "Oh, my Grief!" and just plain ol' "Grief!" when I desire to throw something into a sentence that really gets that old expletive feeling out there, or when I desire to express my frustration with, say, the recalcitrance of certain objects like, say, wireless cards in computers that, while you yell at them, just kind of sit there with bland expressions on their anthropomorphic faces, then glance briefly down at the floor, then look up at your face and say, "So sorry; I was listening to something on my iPod. Were you saying something?"

Great Screaming Grief!

But, then, it's really just a tag-word of sorts, the kind I've used before. And I'm sure it'll drop out of fashion eventually. But, in the meantime, I may manage to eke out a couple of odd glances from coworkers, and glean a bit of weirded-out irritation from my roommates.

More because I can't help myself than anything else

Um.

So, I just finished Dragonhaven, which is Robin McKinley's most recently published book. (And yes, it was really good. And also, just different than stuff I've read by her before. And also (again) really good.)

And so in a fit of slavering fandom, I went to her official website where I found a link to her blog. Her BLOG. That she had written in TODAY. And suddenly it was like I realized that I had a roomful of chocolate that A: Would not make me sick to my stomach, B: Would not make me fat and C: Would also possibly improve my mind.

And I just kind of don't want to do anything else for a few hours than sit and read up on her life in rural England and think about how much I admire her work and also that I am Unworthy.

This is what slavering fandom will do to you.

And it will also make you wish you really could sit down for hours perusing your favorite author's blog and just leave those dishes and that institute class and that working till 1am to rot in some little garbage heap in the back of something. Or maybe not to rot, but at least to sit quietly and patiently for you until you're really quite ready for them.

Alas that they do not.

From the trenches

I am in class right now. And I am surreptitiously blogging.

This is not perhaps as daring as it might sound; the professor is currently not in the room, and there are multiple conversations going on around me, so the level of guilt I feel at the moment is nice & low.

Of course, the prof could walk in at any time, which makes the anxiety level highish...

AND, here she is. So, I must be off to learn stuff and otherwise do all this wonderful library science stuff and goo.

Wish me luck!

Because I am lazy...

And because I don't have anything to write about at the moment, (and am also avoiding reading an article about how to map the use of space in public libraries), I think you should read (if you're interested in reading anything I've written in the last 24 hours) about a dream I had last night which I described in (sort of) detail on my dream blog.

It was kind of freaky. And weird. But cool?

If dreams about dying are cool!

Got your attention? Now go read it!

And suddenly I feel smarter.

And also, I just took a test of my blog's reading level:



Yeah. I'm just that super-cool/intelligewonderful.

Here's what you're not seeing right now:

Soooo...

I have pictures.

I actually have several.

I have pictures of the fall and pictures of me and pictures of the star fruit I bought at the grocery store because, by gum, I'd always been curious about them and it was just about TIME I did something random and outside of routine and the fruit itself tasted kind of citrusy and not quite what I was expecting but it was pretty good anyway.

I have pictures of all of that.

But, alas, my camera is at home and my self (and my self's computer) are at school and therefore I cannot, just simply cannot post aforementioned pictures for your viewing pleasure.

But really, really, isn't that what your imagination's for?

Starting to get the message...

Hmmm...

So, I get these random quotes from Quoteland.com that come directly to my email inbox. That is the background for this.

This is the quote I got yesterday evening:

You must realize that it is the ordinary way of God's dealings with us that our ideas do not work out speedily and efficiently as we would like them to. The reason for this is not only the loving wisdom of God, but also the fact that our acts have to fit into a great complex pattern that we cannot possibly understand. I have learned over the years that Providence is always a whole lot wiser than any of us, and that there are always not only good reasons, but the very best reasons for the delays and blocks that often seem to us so frustrating and absurd.

--Thomas Merton, "The Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns"

Um. I think there's some sort of message I'm supposed to get here. And I'm so glad.

Um, I'm kind of not doing okay.

Except, I am. I mean, I'm fine; I'm not rushing to jump off one of the bridges over the Charles River and I'm not spending all my time in my darkened bedroom listening to crooners on CD. I'm busy; I'm spending lots of time reading articles and writing papers and putting off writing papers while I read novels. I talk to my roommates and smile and do dishes and avoid doing laundry.

In short, I am leading a pretty normal life. But

But.

But.

Underneath it all, my heart hurts.

And it has been hurting for a long, long, long time. And I don't know how to heal it.

And I keep patching things over, and it keeps being okay, and then with startling rapidity it's not again, and then with startling rapidity it is.

But I'm getting the impression that what I'm doing are just quick fixes, that there's this underlying wound that just isn't getting taken care of. It's not festering; it's not infected. But it's tender when I push on it, and it hasn't ever really stopped bleeding.

And really, honestly, I can't think of any solution for it. It's insoluble. It just is. It just.

It's just there. And it's just permanent. And I sometimes feel so bleak and so wounded and so un-okay. And it breaks my equilibrium.

But don't be afraid for me; I also realize that, like many other people, I just have this small (and sometimes not small) nagging hurt that maybe won't ever go away. And it's possible to be happy in spite of that.

I'm so sorry to write all this to you, especially if it makes you unhappy. It's nothing to do with any of you, so never fear. It's just something that I wanted to work out through writing. And somehow, the need to share the insides of me, to say, "Understand me!" to someone helps ease the hurt just a little.

You're my asprin.

So thanks.

What I write when I don't feel like writing anything:

Over the past however-long-it's-been-since-I-posted-last, I've had numerous little blog topics swim up into my consciousness, bask in the light for a bit, and then plunge back down into the deep waters of Stuff I Have Forgotten.

So while I've had oodles of spare time (mostly spent reading books and eating and watching Simon Schama's A History of Britain) I haven't really written anything, mainly because those swimming and diving ideas tend to dissipate in my enthusiasm level even more quickly than they dissipate in my memory.

Maybe I'm just in the doldrums: the semester midpoint, when the fresh ardor for classes has worn off, and the manic frenzy of finals has not yet set in, when the sky is gray and the sidewalks are wet and the only thing you really feel like doing is curling up with a long succession of mugs of steaming hot chocolate and books as thick as your rapidly expanding midriff.

And so, in a brief bow to mediocrity, let me present to you a poem I wrote the other day. Or perhaps the other week:

He holds the book one-handed,
other hand fingering a cigarette
which,
smiling,
he brings to his lips
as he turns a page,
back curved in a graceful arch
under which the book rests
like a door.

(And also, just so you know, I have not drowned from (the storm formerly known as) Hurricane Noel's potent fury.)

Something to hold you until I write for real:

These are fabulous every year.

And I have to admit: the science fiction one is my favorite. Hahaha! Pickles...

I'll take the hairy one, thank you.

So, I just watched a 1983 version of The Pirates of Penzance and I realized something about myself: I've been in love with The Pirate King for years.

You know how some kids love certain movies to death? As in they love them so much that they watch them approximately 257 times per day (the rules of time and space do NOT apply when a kid is on a movie-watching kick), resulting in the death of any parents or guardians who are subjected to the noise of Barney singing that one song for the NOT KIDDING YOU TWENTY MILLIONTH TIME??!??!?!???

I have been that kid.

But instead of watching Barney (which was not around when I was a youngster) or Disney videos (well...maybe Sleeping Beauty), the videos I remember watching over and over (and also: over) were, I kid you not, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and The Pirates of Penzance.

I realize now that somewhere in my pre-preadolescent self, there were the seeds of something that would germinate into what I now reluctantly acknowledge as my adult...erm...inclinations, otherwise known as the fact that I kind of think hairy men are sexy.

There. I said it.

Which is why, watching The Pirates of Penzance at 3 o'clock in the morning, I felt all wrapped up in comfortable nostalgia and uncomfortable realizations that the reason I loved Pirates so much as a little girl was both that it has catchy music and a crazy zany plot, and also because it has some seriously beautiful men, one of whom has a seriously hairy chest and is the ONE example of a man with a mustache whom I have ever, ever found attractive.

Which makes me feel all weird about myself.

But there you go.

Momentary

I just had a momentary longing for you, you 'you's that are rather far awayish, I suppose.

And each of you is my favorite.

Just so you know.

Talk a lot, pick a little more

Okay. So, this time, not in keeping with my usual method of preparing talks, I pretty much wrote out everything I was going to say beforehand. While the actual talk I gave was different in some ways from what you'll read below, (mainly due to time constraints), this is pretty much the original talk I came up with. If you'd like, go ahead and read it. For me, I think it was an appropriate exercise in reminding myself of things I personally need to hear again & again.

Which perhaps is the real point of talks after all.

**********************************************************
I’m going to talk a little bit today about some of the things I feel deeply, not in a desire to expose my soul to you to some uncomfortable degree, but in the hope that some of the things I relate will speak to the deep inner part of your own souls. Because I think we all tend to feel the same sorts of things.

Personally, I tend to feel discouraged rather a lot. This discouragement doesn’t always come on Sunday, but sometimes it does. I don’t feel it continuously, but I feel it often, usually when I’ve failed to live up to my expectations in some way, or the expectations of other people. It’s when I’ve ignored someone who needed help, or withheld the truth about something, or felt angry at someone, or have done one of the myriad of things which causes us to feel guilty and cut off from God. And so I distance myself from Him.

I think that’s how it starts.

And then I get a wedding invitation in the mail, or hear from an ex-boyfriend, or see that my sister has blogged about her wonderfully adorable children, and I begin to feel that I’m going to be alone and unloved forever and ever. And I try not to wonder, but I really do in my heart of hearts, how God can possibly love me if He hasn’t gotten a spouse for me yet. (Don’t deny it; you do it too.)

And that’s how it escalates. (And that’s also how chocolate binges begin.)

And then, naturally, I feel guilty about having such thoughts, and I distance myself from God a little bit more, because I don’t think He’d want to hear from such a disobedient, faithless daughter.

And I feel alone and sad, cut off and distant, my soul grated down and raw, sensitive and stinging.

Some of you may be feeling this way right now. I know I have, often, sitting where you’re sitting now, trying for all the world to appear normal and happy, but feeling this internal, unshakable darkness inside.

I wish I could reach in and pluck out of my insides this knowledge and feeling of the love God has for you, for each of us, and give it to you, whole and untranslated. I wish I could give it to myself a week from now, or in a month or 100 days, when I’ll need it again. And then again. And then again.

We so often forget the love God has for us, the infinite value He places on us. But God is merciful and will remind us again and again, each time we need it, if we can just get ourselves to the point where we can feel it, just hear the message that He’s trying to give us.

My mother loves to find pennies on the sidewalk. It’s not that she has a thing for copper; it’s not even that she loves to add to her change jar. She loves finding pennies because, to her, finding a penny on the ground is a little indicator that God loves her and wants to remind her of that. I love that. I know another woman from my home ward who loves finding feathers for the same reason. She says that she always seems to find a feather on the ground when she’s feeling particularly lonely or discouraged.

Pennies and feathers are certainly not the only way we can feel God’s love for us, but they show that Heavenly Father seeks to bless our lives often in small ways that we simply don’t see. Like the fact that you just barely caught the T that one time you were running late, or when the shape of that cloud caught your eye and you wondered at the great gift of being able to see beauty in the natural world, or you found that perfect red leaf on the ground, or your best friend emailed you to tell you how much she loves you, or when Elder Holland addressed in his talk something you’d been worrying about for some time.

Sometimes the reassurance of God’s love for us comes through the scriptures. The scriptures are littered with references of His love for all mankind.
-3 Nephi 17. Read it. And then reread it. And read it again.
-1 John 4. Let’s look specifically at verse 16: “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”
And sometimes His love is manifest to us in quiet, intensely personal moments of prayer, when we kneel before him with our broken souls open and vulnerable and aching and raw, and He pours into our wounded souls the conviction that He cares for us, that we are infinitely valuable to Him.

Why is it so important for us to feel God’s love for us? Why does it heal us when we finally feel it? I think, for myself, I tend to place too much value on the way other people see me. I worry that I’m too awkward or too ugly for anyone to love. And so, when my sense of awkwardness or unattractiveness feels confirmed by interactions I have with others, I then feel I don’t have value at all.

But when I feel, really feel Heavenly Father’s love for me, carried with it is also the conviction that if in all the world only God valued me, what value that would be! And is!

But does Heavenly Father want us to feel His love simply to make us feel better? In part, yes! He is our Father, which means that He. Is. Your. Father. You are His immediate descendant; He is not your grandfather, or your great-grandfather, or your uncle. He is your Father. And He loves you and wants you to be happy because you. Are. His. Child.

But I think the Love of God does serve another purpose: it motivates us, both to be better people and also to love others and seek to serve them.
-1 John 4:11 – “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”
-Mosiah 4:21 – “And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another.”

And I would even go on to say, “And if that God, who has shown you his great mercy, doth fill your soul with his love, to such an extent that you cannot feel the greatness and power of it, O then, how ye ought to love one another.”

Brothers and sisters, I guarantee that the same method that can fill our hearts with the love God has for us can also fill us with the love He has for others, that earnest prayer and longing will enable the Spirit to flow charity and compassion into your souls, as great and overwhelming as the flow of Heavenly Father’s love for you.

We are all equal in the sight of God.
-2 Nephi 26:33 – “For none of these iniquities [murder, stealing, whoredoms, etc.] come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”

It is my belief that as we come to feel the great love our Father in Heaven has for us, we will begin to see both ourselves and others as He sees us: as precious beings, each individual of infinite and eternal value.

I know I have only felt a small part of the infinite value and love God holds for me. And yet that small part overwhelms me.

I pray that I, that each of us, will feel His love more fully, both for ourselves and for all those around us; as we do, we will find ourselves becoming more and more as our Father would have us be: like Himself.