Sometimes I just wish I were a boy.

The other morning, my brother woke me up and showed off the beard he's been growing over Christmas break. And I became pretty jealous.

I mean, women can't grow beards. (Well, some can, but...not me. Seriously. NOT ME.)

And I just laid there in bed half-awake and thought about how nice it would have been to be a boy. I would have been able to grow beards, sport hairy legs without shame and pee in the woods with ease. (That last one has made me envious so, SO many times.)

Other advantages?

Well, let's talk about dating. Ratios? TOTALLY in guys' favor. Also, there's something about the female role in dating that's just so darn passive. Makes me crazy, really.

Also.

No. Periods.

Reason enough, eh?

Yeah. I thought so.

Which shows just how crude we really are:

Our family got the electronic pocket 20Q (twenty questions) game for Christmas. Last night, as we played the card game Phase 10 together, (also a Christmas gift to the family), my mom got the 20Q game out and started playing with it while waiting for her turn in the card game.

She tried several things (some of which it got, some it didn't) and then my brother suggested that we try to see if it would guess 'poop.'

That's right: poop.

Within a few questions we were all giggling like a bunch of third graders as the 20Q game asked seemingly innocuous questions such as:

Is it warm?
Do you hold it when you use it?
Is it colorful?
Does it get wet?

Seriously. We had trouble breathing. (In fact, I have rarely seen my mom & dad laugh so hard.) And when it finally got to the last question, the table nearly exploded in the uproar:

"Is it a poop (feces)?"

So, yeah. We freely embraced potty humor last night. Which, now that I come to think about it, is actually pretty cool.

(It's good to be with the family again.)

Happy Happy Christmas Morning!

This morning the four unmarried children in my family sat around the Christmas tree with our parents and opened gifts. It was lovely. Small, and intimate and lovely.

But for all of you who weren't here with us, I just wanted to send out a general: Merry Christmas!

Because I'm thinking of you too.

Have a wonderful Christmas day.

And I inspire people so rarely

Remember that 'yon candied maid' phrase? The one that popped randomly into my head a week or so ago?

Well, my friend Pat has done some awesome things with it. Well done, Pat. Well done.

And also, I'm still thinking of a way to make up for those two nights of no sleep, Pat.

Hmmmm...

(Oh, and also--I made it to Utah safe and sound, despite the fear of sudden death by turbulence on the way into the SLC airport. Pretty fun stuff, lemme tell ya.)

Oh. Well, goodbye, again.

I'm flying out tomorrow, you know. Probably leaving tonight on the T with my luggage, coat slung over one arm and an umbrella held over it all.

I'll be at the airport for a long time. Without internet access, is what I'm trying to say.

So I won't be able to blog or email you.

I'll just be...

Cut off.

But you'll be alright. Separation is most painful right at the beginning. And by the time you start to feel the pain of my being gone, I'll be right back in the seat of my computer chair, ready to tell you about my trip.

And about how good it is to be home.

Now, don't be sad; this is really pretty good!

I dreamed last night that I got married. I went through the whole process: putting on a white dress, dealing with an evil relative who was secretly plotting to break up the wedding (I think she was a wicked step-aunt; I don't think she was more closely related than that), repeatedly falling into the embrace of my intended...

You know. All the stuff you deal with as you go about your wedding day.

And let me tell you: it was really, really, really nice. Even dealing with the wicked step-aunt (or whatever she was) and her carefully coordinated bathroom fixtures that somehow tied into her evil plot.

And when I woke up, I felt like I'd been given a little gift of night-time happiness. And instead of making me feel sad, it made me realize in what small ways the Lord can extend His tender mercies: in the falling of a leaf, in an email from a friend, in dreams of wicked step-aunts and glorious and beautiful and joyful marriages.

And here's what I woke up with: I had switched to 'third-person viewing' of my dream, and my intended (now husband?) was really enjoying some food. Here is, word for word, what my dream produced:

"To his surprise, he found himself thinking of something other than his love for her for the first time in days. And then, suddenly, was swept up into such a wave of love that he could see how his enjoyment of food, how all the other pleasures of life, were just a small part of the great love he had for her."

Nice, huh? Although, considering it came to me when I was half-dreaming, it could just be a garbled mess. I'll have to come back to it when I'm more awake to be able to tell.

In the meantime, have a happy Monday!

(I know I will, remembering my intended's lovely, lovely embrace.)

The Day There Was No Church

It was because of the blizzard. A Nor'easter, some called it. And calls went out to all the little church members in their homes to let them know that church just wasn't happening.

And the church members felt sad and/or secretly relieved as they gazed out on the poor visibility, the snow-packed roads and the occasionally body-knocking-over wind gusts and wondered how they would now spend their days.

Perhaps they would read spiritual messages to each other. Perhaps they would catch up on their scripture study. Some might even brave the storm to visit nearby members and console one another about their churchlessness.

And others... Others would blog.

Done! DoneDoneDoneDoneDone!

I'm DONE!

With writing that last paper, that is. I still have to get up in...approximately two hours to get to campus, print it out, then attend class. And then work.

And then a movie!

'CAUSE I'M DONE!

Oddity

Sometimes these odd phrases just kind of pop into my head while I'm doing something else, like plucking my eyebrows or something.

Like today: I was thinking about something else, and in came the phrase, "yon candied maid."

"Yon candied maid?" What the heck is that, anyway?

I'm thinking a mix of gingerbread houses and shepherdesses.

Or something.

A brief breather:

Uh. I realize I haven't posted much this past week.

And it is because, you see, this is the last week of classes. And, due to my illness and subsequent obsessive watching of The Office, I...er...yeah.

I'm totally behind.

But I'm still in there. I'm still getting stuff done (by the skin of my little librarian teeth) and I'm still alive.

Just to let you know.

And yeah.

I really, really gotta go. (Work on homework, that is. Not. The other thing. You know.)

Something new to love

A few weeks ago, I saw the Sony Bravia ball commercial for the first time. And I realized just today that I really, really love the music they use. It makes the tone of the commercial something beautiful and wondrous, turning bouncy balls into a glorious, almost gentle colorful snow. And also, it's shot amazingly, amazingly well.

But back to the music--I kind of love it. And I listened to it tonight. And for some reason, it made me get this sad, wistful feeling that I sometimes get when I listen to sad, wistful music.

Lovely, lovely stuff, anyway.

Anyway.

Anyway.

I'm not really sad, per se, just...the music sometimes makes me that way. And that's fine, I think.

See it here, if you like:

If you don't like gross things then DON'T READ THIS POST!

Okay. Consider yourself warned.

I want to talk about how blasted amazing and rather awe-inspiring our bodies are, specifically the ability our bodies have to produce mucus.

Yes, mucus.

They sure can crank the stuff out!

I mean, you can blow your nose (emptying it, or so you would suppose) and within (I am not making this up) 60 seconds you can have a good ol' schnoz-full to blow into your already sodden and leaking tissue. (I TOLD you not to read this if you don't like gross things. You only have yourself to blame, you know.)

But I didn't really appreciate until this evening how blasted cool mucus can be. Did you know that mucus lubricates your digestive tract? And that it is antiseptic? And contains immunogoblins? (You can learn all this and more by reading Wikipedia's mucus entry.)

Makes you feel all respectful and stuff, doesn't it?

Yep. Mucus works hard. And our bodies work hard making it.

So really, the fact that I took a good chunk of yet another day off to finish up the second season of The Office doesn't mean I was being lazy, right? I was just giving my body a chance to rest up and keep churning out copious amounts of lovely, viscous, germ-trapping goo.

Go me.

So, while we're on the subject of controversial topics...

Today in library school we talked a lot about intellectual freedom.

Which, basically says that censorship is never a good thing. And also that, as librarians, we should not restrict anyone's access to any information, whatever we happen to feel about that information personally.

I find this topic very interesting, and the discussion in class was wonderfully enlightening and very stimulating.

However.

That is not the topic I'm going to address in this blog post. (Although, I suppose you could argue I've already addressed it.)

The topic I'd like to discuss is much more controversial and much deeper and much more important and stuff. It is this:

Why do I feel I am a woman who can not pull off pink? Or even that I am a woman who does not want to be able to pull off pink? Who would, if she could, pull off pretty much any other color including dark browns and olive greens and rusty reds along with pale blues and teals and bright dandelion yellows, but who is unfortunately unable to do so due to her being an 'autumn' and thus not really looking all that hot in blue-toned stuff. Apparently. (As if she looks hot in 'autumnal' colors, but whatever.)

But seriously--what do I have against pink? I mean, pink is fine.

I sometimes think of it as a bit frou-frou, a little too much a blond feminine cutesy sort of girly girly thing, but then, I'm a female. I'm a girl. Why should I object to girls being, well, especially girlish?

I guess I've never really been into the whole girly thing, even when I was a kid. You see, as children, my siblings and I loved play-acting, and because we had no brothers (then) the four oldest siblings (all girls) would play together and I would usually play the boys. Because they got to do the cool things like rescue people and swing swords and go dashing over hillocks and stuff. (Lucky boys. With their lucky hillocks.)

I rather scorned the girl toys. While I still played with dolls, I preferred the toy monsters our next-door neighbor (a boy) got to play with, or the He-Man action figure said neighbor also posessed, or the cool transformer toys and...the toy my cousin had: some big machine type thing made up of little cat machine type things that all fit together...something. Anyway--that was cool too.

And not pink.

Or. Well, I think maybe one of the cat machine things was pink because it was operated by a female character, but STILL. That's my POINT. Right?

Or maybe it's not. Because if this female character was hooking up in her little pink machine with all the other machines to form one big machine (part of which, necessarily, was pink) then that shows that pink, and thus a pink-loving female, has power, even if it's a power that's part of a larger male-dominated entity.

Yep.

So, the reason why I'm even writing about this is that I have a pink coat. It was left by the gal who lived in my room before I moved in. And it's a very nice coat. It's warm, and it fits pretty much perfectly (which--hey--a FREE coat that fits PERFECTLY is not anything to shake a stick-sword at) and it's pretty much winter here in Boston now, with its icy sidewalks and its skin-slicing winds. Aaaaand...

The coat is pink. It is pink. It is pink it is pink and...wearing it...I just feel like a pink girl. And I've never really been a pink girl. So...

I just need to wrap my mind around it. And appreciate the pinkness. And find joy and power in being pink-coat-wearing-girl.

That's nothing to be ashamed of.

Right?

P.S. I also read banned books. And they rock.

"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.