When in dreamland...

The first thing you should do when you realize you're dreaming is smile (subconsciously, of course). Because things are about to get really interesting.

It's what happened to me a couple of nights ago when I went to bed around 3am after having taken a 3-hour nap in the late afternoon. (Really, not a good idea for sleeping patterns. Although I don't regret what it did to my dreaming patterns.)

One of my favorite things to do in dreamland is flying. So, given the opportunity (and the right dream setting) I fly as much as I possibly can. But this time, it was actually flying, or rather a sense of floating or weightlessness, that actually tipped me off to the fact that I was, in fact, not awake. Because you can't actually fly (or float) in real life. Duh.

Okay, I thought to myself, let's have some fun with this. So, I proceeded to do my darndest to try to influence the reality of my dream. Oddly enough, I was only partially successful. I wanted to fly (or float) and so I did, but I was only able to fly (or float) around some really dull stairwell type things (although being able to fly around in them was much better than, say, walking around on them).

Second, I really, really wanted to dream that I was being kissed. Really, really well. By someone really, really hot. Unfortunately, I just couldn't seem to conjure anyone up. I just kind of floated around these stairwells and accidentally set fire to the stove of a boss I had a few years ago. (Sorry, Marsha! That part, I assure you, was not intentional.)

So, I learned a valuable lesson during this dream session: even when you should be able to manipulate your reality into anything you can dream up (ha! 'dream up?' get it? aha...oh, nevermind) that doesn't necessarily mean that you actually can. Because I couldn't. I mean, I could a little, but not entirely.

So what does this mean for waking life? Maybe that dreaming, while beguiling, isn't really the place to find full satisfaction (i.e. kisses from hot boys)? Or perhaps that manipulating reality is something best left to non-mortal and not-unconscious folks? Or that flying/floating is really the best way to travel around boring stairwells?

Whatever it is, it was an entertaining night. And it makes me wish, oh so fervently, that I could know I was dreaming every night.

Because maybe my kissingly-hot boy conjuring would improve with practice.

Two things:

First, a conversation I had with myself this morning:

Setting: I was washing dishes at our kitchen sink, my hair still wet from showering, and the hot water I was using was starting to steam things up a little.

First part of brain: What the--I'm sweating!
Second part of brain: Yep.
First part: Gross!
Second part: Yep.
First part: Oh. Well...yeah. I guess that's all I have to say about that.
Second part: *smiles*

Frankly, it's always a little disturbing when one has a conversation with oneself. Also, it's really great when one part of your brain says something, and another part responds with, "Oh, I totally agree!" And then you realize that you've just agreed with yourself.

(I'll tell ya--it makes you feel a leeeetle bit crazy.)


Second thing:

My hand kept going numb while I was washing said dishes. I'm not sure if it was reacting to the heat of the water (what? weird.) or to the presence of fish scales in the stuff I was washing (ew! fish scales!) or if just decided that being numb was a good state? Because...because...... Er...

Because, apparently, it has a mind of its own? ('Cause there seem to be plenty of minds to be had within this one frame of mine. And I guess I'll be lucky if they all agree all the time.)


And now you will make comments saying that you can no longer be friends with me because I have numb hands and a tendency to agree with myself. Well. Fine. But before you go, just ask yourself if you've ever done the same thing; you may be surprised by what you'll tell yourself.

Oh. Sad.

I just found out that Madeleine L'Engle, one of my favorite authors, died on Thursday.

I'm so sad.

It makes me wonder which of the authors producing books right now (or who are just getting started with vainly submitting their first novels to publishing houses or agents) will come along to move into the shoes of the greats like the also recently departed Lloyd Alexander.

But whoever they are, they won't quite fill those shoes the same way.

At least we've still got the books to comfort us.

My senses are overwhelmed.

My friend Christian just sent me a link to a site that may make you sit down on the floor and weep from The Sheer Beauty of it All.

I've already been to two of the libraries they show: the Boston Public Library (the one with all the cool green desk lamps and that amazing arched roof) and the Library of Congress Main Reading Room (a circular room a little over midway down the page).

I think the best thing ever would be to take a trip just to visit all the beautiful libraries in the world, particularly those located in Great Britain, particularly those in Ancient and Awesome University Cities.

Maybe once I've finished my Master's program and have started working a Real Job I'll be able to save enough (even with the ginormous monthly payment on my student loans) to afford such a trip.

However, in the meantime, I've got a lot of gorgeous libraries around to visit. And swoon in.

Speaking of, I've now taken a tour of the library at Simmons, where they have oodles of comfy chairs and, get this, an ENTIRE section of books in the 'Biblio Mystery' category, in which libraries (or librarians) are involved somehow with the crime or the solving thereof. So. So. So. Cool. I cannot even tell you how cool that is. (I want to read a book where the librarian done it. (Er. Because I think that would be empowering?))

And also, I've now attended my first class, which, oddly enough, seemed a lot like an undergraduate class, except that the people were a little older. And much smarter than I am. And also they used a lot of acronyms I don't know. YET.

I have to confess: I've always rather admired people who've gone on to do graduate studies, as if pursuing a course of education after they've gotten their four-year degree made them smarter than average, or at least more determined. I never thought that being a graduate student would feel so much like being me; so much like not knowing much at all; so much like wondering if there's been some mistake, that surely they couldn't have meant to admit me.

I wonder if I'll feel like this all my life; if there will ever be a point in my accumulation of experience when I'll look inside myself and say, "Ah. Now I am wise; now I can see why I looked up to people in my position before," or if I'll always feel a little like a beggar who's somehow been mistaken for a lady, hustled into the castle, washed up, dressed in silks and thrust into the court without any idea of what to say or how to behave. Always a little like an interloper. I rather suspect that it's the latter, that the real reason why we look up to people who are older than we are is that we see that they have more experience than we do, but we can't see the large amount of anxiety and self-doubt they've still got stored up from their younger years.

I never thought that being a graduate student would feel so unlearned. I never thought that being twenty-nine would feel so young.

And I suspect it will be the same when I'm thirty as well as when I'm seventy-one. But that's okay. From what I can tell, all other thirty and seventy-one-year-olds have already felt the same way before me.

Subterfuge

I hope you all know that the reason I haven't posted on my blog lately is that I'm deliberately attempting to increase the hits to my site by raising suspense.

(And this is what you are saying to yourself: "Will she have posted yet? Surely by now there should be something! What, what? Not yet?! I must check back in one hour!")

Oooooh, I'm wicked!

Huh. Wait. Maybe I'm actually sick.

For the past week or so, the number of sneezes I have made (performed? done?) during any given hour has increased by some 500%. (And also, 90% of statistics are made up on the spot.)

I have believed all this time that said sneezes (and itchy eyes, and stuffed nose that is somehow also runny) are simply due to seasonal allergies.

However, today I wonder.

I also have developed a sore throat and the allergy pills I've been consuming in great quantities don't seem to be making much of a dent in my general minor suffering.

So maybe I have a cold?

Or maybe I have a cold on top of seasonal allergies, which will be, methinks, an interesting combo, since I can't really tell the difference where one ends and the other begins (assuming, of course, that they're both there (i.e. in my body) at the same time).

Where was I? I feel foggy.

Ohyes.

I'm sick? Maybe? Which isn't good, because it means that I'll be feeling less than perky and sociable for Advising Day tomorrow, during which I get to meet all other incoming students to my school of choice as well as my faculty advisor and perhaps other important library persons whom I currently do not know about simply because I have not yet met them. Or heard of them.

But I'm sure they're important anyway.

In any case, I'm really hoping that this sore throat and ookie nose (and possibly swollen lymph node?) are merely the results of my body bravely defending itself against that maurauder: pollen.

'Cause otherwise, I'll make not only myself miserable tomorrow (small miseries, of course, but miseries nonetheless) but I risk making other people miserable as well. You know. After I sneeze uncontrollably for five minutes straight in their general direction.

Nobody likes that.

Even from librarians-in-training.

My apologies:

Guys, I'm sorry.

I know you're coming here, rightfully expectant of finding little jewels of wisdom and/or insight imbedded within the nonsense that pours forth from my keyboard...

But I just don't have anything to write about.

I'm kind of excited about school starting up next week. And I'm nervous too. And also the regular schedule for my job picks up next week as well, so I'll be moving from The Lazy Life to The Crazy Busy Life very soon. Thank goodness.

And also I got an idea for a story this morning.

And also it's kind of cool to have all four roommates at home in the mornings because we're all in our pajamas and are a little punch drunk from sleep that time of day.

Mehmehmeh...

Nope. Nothing coherent or noteworthy, really. Just a bundle of semi-somethings.

But know at least that I'm thinking of you. And that I have a sizeable guilt trip from not posting.

Just so's you know.

So...what to do with the rest of my life?

Sometimes, I wish we could just pick a single spot we love and then stick with it.

Heck--I'd even take the ability to pick a particular kind of spot, say suburbia or The Big City or the plains states or coastal dwellings.

But instead, we have to move around a lot, liking bits and pieces of the places we live, longing for bits and pieces of the places where we used to live, never quite entirely content.

At times, I find myself feeling that there could be nothing better in the world than to live by myself in Boston for the rest of my days, perched in some apartment or other, dashing in to collect the mail from the boxes in the entrance, hastening up the stairs and collapsing in front of the TV with a microwave meal heating up while I indolently flip channels.

At other times, I think there could be nothing better than to buy a small house in Utah County somewhere near where my parents live and use my time off during weekends and holidays to drive so far up into the canyons that the sound of coin-leafed aspens murmuring to themselves almost makes me forget civilization even exists.

I find myself thoroughly enjoying myself here and wondering what life would (or will) be like once my program's finished and I'm left to my own devices as a young professional. I can feel the appeal of this place: the sometimes frenetic vitality that surges through the city, imbuing all its inhabitants with a sense of friendly urgency.

But I miss the quiet nights looking up at the milky way as it swings over mountain peaks and valleys; I long for the sight of the horizon, the rising and falling of the land.

Why is there always something in us that keeps itself aloof from full happiness, as though our full measure of contentedness is something we simply can't attain here? I wonder if it's simply that there are so many places on Earth to love, but they're always off; they never quite mirror the home we knew before; they're always just imperfect copies of a perfect standard.

And we, after all, are imperfect folks who try to love these imperfect copies.

All in all, I think it's a pretty fair accomplishment to love any corner of this world as it is. And I have to confess: I'm learning to love it here.

Puntificating

I feel both flattered and strangely debased.

Read here.

I hope all of you are taking full advantage of the best of the 'Beth' puns you can imagine. (Haha! Or, "The Beth of the Beth puns!" Wait. No. That doesn't even make sense.)

Badgering the witness

Isn't it true that I'm only really interested in myself?

Isn't it true that my head is currently presiding over a body whose stomach is roiling with anxiety about things which are too numerous and nebulous to list?

Isn't it true that I hate to socialize in the same way that a brilliant chess player hates football? Or a really burly football player hates playing chess? Or...a really inept analogy-maker hates making analogies?

Isn't it true that I just watched Mystery on PBS and thus am trying to ask a bunch of questions to which I already know the answer sort of kind of maybe?

YOU decide.

Space is cool.

In other news, I like my current desktop wallpaper. It's an artist's rendition of a very-asphyxiated-bird's-eye-view of the tallest mountain in the Solar System:


Cool, eh? Nothing like having a little Mars on your desktop. (If you like this, you should check out more at space.com. It's pretty cool. Yeppers.)

And what a difference a year makes.

I've thought a bit about what I wanted to write about in commemoration of my 29th birthday.

But, I don't know... How do you summarize the experience of 29 years into a succinct, relatively readable online mashing of thoughts?

I guess the truth is that I don't remember much about what I've learned over the past 29 years. I don't remember much about what I've learned during the last 5.

I think that what you learn in life begins to diffuse down into your soul, so that the lessons there aren't something you can easily separate out into their own separate entities; they've meshed and mingled together, forming new insights, new layers of meaning, making up who we've become.

I'm an accumulation of experiences from the time I was a slightly annoyed, reddish-haired, 5lb 12oz baby (many thanks to Mom for particulars) to now, where I sit with toes tucked into the creases at the back of my knees, hair unbrushed, glasses slightly smudged, eyes dark with too much reading in too little light, fingers poised over my keyboard, wondering what to type next.

And what does that make me?

What person am I now because of what I've experienced, what I've done?

I'm not sure. I'm asking myself those things even as I type them here.

I wonder, often, if I'm the kind of person God wants me to be right now, if His forming of me has taken hold, if His moulding hasn't melted by my indignant straining against Him. I can feel that in some ways, I'm very much the person I need to be right now. And in other ways I fall far short of the mark. If sculptures could shift their shoulders to throw off the Master's blow, would they? Just to prove they were the ones forming themselves?

I don't even know what I'm saying.

I sat down to type a bit about the changes that I've had in my life this past year, changes which have not been insignificant, mind you. I've moved to Boston from Utah (a loooong ways, lemme tell you), I've lost oh-so-close-and-yet-not-close-enough to 100lbs, I've had crushes and new friendships and I've stared at the ceiling and the mountains and the stars, wondering how I can possibly fit, how I can possibly matter, and then realized half-wonderingly that I do after all.

I don't know.

That this year has been eventful, I am sure. That I've learned things, I'm certain. That I'm still as much of a pretentious fool as ever, I am convinced. But what it all means? Ah. Now that is the thing that leaves me flummoxed.

I think that, in the end, when our separate experiences distill themselves before God when we account for our life, that we'll see how each bit of our life here shaped us into the being we have become. As a being-in-process, I don't know how I'll end up. But I have faith in the hand that holds the chisel. And I'll try not to wiggle too much while He's working.

The For Real Deal

Okay, folks.

I just want to get this right out of the way:

It's my birthday today! For real this time!

So, for all of you who have already wished me a happy birthday on my pre-birthday-celebration post, thank you.

For all of those who have not done so, you have until the end of today.

That is all.

(Ohyeah. And extra points if you know what the title of this post is from.)

Oh, don't stop talking on my account.

So...this confession may make me seem a little bit more like a scary-stalker-like person than I actually am, but...

I really like eavesdropping.

I've realized this before (and usually blushed after said realization, most becomingly) but I was reminded of this little taste of mine today while riding the shuttle bus up to work.

During the ride, I noticed two twenty-something women talking to each other on the bench opposite the aisle to where I sat, purse in lap, hands clasped securely over said purse, eyes staring politely (i.e. vacantly) ahead, ears (obviously) wandering freely. As we passed one of the many schools in the area, one of the women commented to the other that she was thinking about a grad program there, but it was kind of expensive. They talked about other programs and I discovered that they were interested in pursuing vocations as early childhood educators, that they were both either married or in semi-permanent relationships with men, that they were both pretty well informed about the costs of private schools and that one at least was pro-private school and decidedly against living in the city.

(I know I gleaned other bits of information from the conversation, but that's all I can remember at the moment.)

I realized a couple of things from this encounter: firstly, that it's easy to pass along information to those around you even when you're not engaged in direct conversation with them. And that it's definitely best to be cautious. (You never know when a stalker-like blogger like me is sitting supposedly innocuously in a seat next to yours, mentally taking note of your semi-private conversation.)

Secondly, that it is (as I mentioned before) fun to eavesdrop. And a little wistful. I will (most likely) never see these two young women again. And yet, during a span of about 25 minutes I was able to learn things about them enough to tell that I'd probably enjoy getting to know them, that I'd probably have things in common with them, that we could (in short) become friends if the circumstances were right.

And that's probably the oddest thing of all. Most of the encounters we have with people during the course of a day are brief one-time deals: you see someone, you may say a word or two (or not) and then the moment is over. For good. And yet the possibility always exists that with each person you encounter you could build a potentially lifelong relationship. That man in a business suit jogging past you could have been your best friend; the elderly woman with a poodle might have given you art lessons; the smoking man in a ballcap sitting on the curb could have been the first man ever to tell you you're beautiful. And yet they're not.

I feel amazed at all the relationships we do develop with people, and sometimes at how chancy and random the circumstances that create those relationships seem to be. And yet, for my part, the people I've had in my life seem to have been just the people I needed at just the time I needed them. And that, more than anything, seems to indicate to me that the people we know when we know them are not accidental. Not in the least.

And that when eavesdropping on conversations really does (as unlikely as it may seem) lead to friendship, there's a reason for that too.

And libraries just got a whole lot steamier:

Ohoho! (LAST post today, folks, I promise.)

I just stumbled upon this poster while browsing the Library of Congress online gift shop for things I would like to buy if only I had the money.

And, oh my, how I wish this were hanging on my wall at this very moment.

Can't quite seem to stop talking today...

Just finished Nicholas Nickleby at last. It took me so long to get through it, but believe me: I love those books which, when you finally finish the last setence, leave you with a sense of having encountered something moving and wonderful, something that alters you permanently.

I loved this novel. Hurrah for the classics!

Move along, lil' Bostonian

While walking back from the grocery store this afternoon, I saw a feller (yes, you read correctly: feller) on the other side of the street wearing a large (and I mean large) cowboy hat, tight jeans and those little zip-up fleeced jackets cowpokes wear when they're out for days on the range.

It took me a second (after smiling at the familiarity of the scene) to realize that I'm not in Utah anymore. I'm in Boston. Huh.

And seeing a cowboy out here is a rare sight indeed.

Made me wonder how long he'll be wearing that outfit of his before he gives it up for polos from Abercrombie & Fitch. (Which. Oh, my. Erm. Don't bring up their main page unless you like seeing exquisitely sculpted male torsos.)

That feeling that you feel when you feel that... Wait, what?

I'm in one of those indefinable moods again, those moods that seem to be made up mostly of sitting by myself all day in my room, reading or checking the internet, listening to the sounds of traffic and the occasional siren outside my window, glad of the cool breeze, sad that there's a heat wave coming, full of the remnants of my breakfast and lunch, tired from having done mainly nothing all day.

It's in such moods as this that I especially begin to feel a need to be connected to people, and I find that I turn to this source as the means for such connection. Because it's here that I can say things that I feel, things I know you'll read and feel yourselves, so that somehow, for a moment or two, I'll be on your minds, and you on mine, and none of us will be quite alone.

And that, my dears, is more than comforting. Thanks for being there.

In which my concept of self is put sorely to the test

I've realized something about myself, and it's a something I don't like very much.

I don't really write much.

And that stinks.

I mean, I write on my blog, I guess, and I sometimes write in my journal. I write emails, I write little notes in little little notebooks, I write grad school application essays...

But I don't write stories. I don't. And that's...

That's just not acceptable, people. And it doesn't jive with what I imagine myself to be.

I once told a good friend of mine that I felt that writing was my real calling in life, that I had stories I wanted to tell.

But since then, I've spent much more time reading than writing, or watching movies or checking blogs or filing my fingernails or eating sandwiches or doing pretty much anything but writing.

So my question to myself is this: "Self, are you ever going to get down to it? Are you ever going to seriously sit down and make yourself write every blasted day so that you will eventually become an Author? (With a capital 'A?') Will you finish those novels you have lurking in the dusty corners of your computer's hard drive? Will you?"

And my answer to myself is still pending. I just don't know if I have the perseverance.

(But I hope I do.)

And one really teeny headache later...

Today I trained at my new job.

Now, job training is something that is peculiar to itself; I don't think there are many other instances when you're inundated with quite as much information in as short a span a time.

Fortunately, the people I'll be working with are patient and friendly and repeatedly assured me that I won't be required to have everything down pat right away.

Thank goodness.

However, despite feeling overwhelmed and a little short-circuited, I'm also feeling excited (really excited) about getting started in this job. Just being able to work in a library again is giving me a huge sense of coming-home-ed-ness, returning to what I really want to do with my life. And I'm sure starting classes in a couple of weeks will be just as overwhelming/enjoyable.

Joyeux anniversaire, un peu tôt.

(Translation: Happy Birthday, a little early.)

Happy Birthday to ME! Early!

Today was a wonderful, marvelous, very good day. I went down to see my Uncle & Aunt down a ways southwest of Boston. I spent most of the time sitting in the kitchen, talking with my aunt and two girl cousins and enjoying the antics of the toddler daughters of said cousins. But I also spent some time outside, enjoying my Aunt & Uncle's beautiful yard, which you can see here:


And here:


(By the way, can I just confess that I find it amazing and wonderful that here in the east the un-landscaped bits of your yard turn into FOREST? How cool is that? You have to WEED freaking TREES. Haha! So cool!)


And also, I found a pansy growing in a crack between some stone steps. Yeah. So. Here's a picture of it.

Aaaaaand, speaking of flowers, here's my happy early birthday present:


But the best (early) birthday present of all? Knowing you all are here, reading my blog, being my friends. Awwwww.

No, not really. Really it was the Black Forest Chocolate Cake with Fresh Raspberries. (It was so good, I HAD to capitalize it.) And I have one piece left over. And to save my pancreas, I'm not going to eat it tonight. No, no. That pleasure will wait until after church tomorrow. Oh, the joy of anticipation!

Little discoveries

Today I realized that licking batter from electric beaters (after unplugging, necessarily) is still as sublime an experience as it was when I was 7.

And about 30 seconds ago I realized that eating the cooked results of said batter (sugar-free, whole wheat cookies with REAL chocolate chips) is pretty darn sublime too.

Edit: And also, there's nothing quite like burning one's tongue in the pursuit of deliciousness.

You really ought to give singlehood a try.

It's really not so bad.

No, really.

Once you get past the point where you want someone to hold hands with, someone who thinks you're beautiful (even when you're not wearing makeup), someone who somehow shares all your hopes and aspirations and is so like you and yet so marvelously different, and once you decide that being an aunt is so much easier than being a mom so why not just stick with it, you're pretty much set.

Because really, there are all these things about being single that are great! For instance, you don't have to work on a difficult and perplexing marital relationship. You don't have to try to form a family unit with someone who has differing (and sometimes opposing) views of what it means to be the heads of a family and raise children. You don't have to put up with someone else stealing the covers or wanting to turn the air conditioner in the bedroom up or down. You don't have to try to sleep next to someone who snores. Or grinds his teeth. Or has chilly feet.

And all the heaps and scads of money you're making right now? Yeah. It's all yours! You don't have to spend it on diapers and formula and multiple car payments (well...not usually). And, if you're pretty careful, you may manage to save just enough to travel a bit to those places you've always wanted to visit. Like England. Or South Dakota.

So really, in the face of all these great things about being single, wouldn't it be the most intelligent thing to just kind of let go of any desire to get out of the singlehood state? To interact with young men in a friendly but unconcerned fashion? Because you don't really care whether they'll like you or not, since you're perfectly happy with staying single for the rest of your life?

I keep wondering when exactly it's going to sink in, when I'll finally say to myself, "Okay, I guess it's never going to happen for me," so I can finally get rid of this 20% hopeful 80% despairing feeling every time I meet and/or interact with young men? Will it be after I turn 30 (in a week and one year)? 35? 40? 50? How long will I wait before I give up all my internal hope of marriage?

I search all these blogs of single women, looking for some sort of answer about how to be content right now, even when I'm alone, but I haven't found it yet.

Maybe there isn't really an answer for it. Maybe it's one of those things in life that you just have to bear, the way some people have highly allergic reactions to nuts, or children with congenital health problems, or really bad relationships with family members. It's just something that will always give you a small ache, no matter what else you may do with your life. And that's okay. Everyone has small aches they live with, and as mentioned previously, there are a lot of really great aspects to being single: even just the ability to retreat into my room and shut the door so that I can have complete peaceful solitude, something that would be impossible if I had children.

I just wish I could feel more actual contentment with this state, wouldn't feel lonely or long for someone to rub my shoulders after a difficult day or someone to kiss me in the early hours of the morning when the as-yet unseen sun is just starting to lighten the sky, wouldn't long for children who are my own, my very own, for the incomparable joy of being a mother. But I do have these feelings. And while part of me wishes I could just turn them off, another part tells me that doing so would somehow lessen me.

So with that, I will take the sorrow and loneliness that are part of being single in a married culture and I will continue to hope for a chance to marry if possible. And in the midst of the sorrow and loneliness I will enjoy the freedom to go where I please when I please, to spend all day reading if I like and to make a peanut butter sandwich without a husband carelessly asking me to make him one too.

Ahahahaha!

Okay. I just had to share with you my favorite line so far from Walking with Prehistoric Beasts (which I checked out from the library yesterday):

Imagine this sentence uttered dramatically low and slowly in a British accent: "This is a world...where birds eat horses."

Wow. Awesome.

Diddly doggerel doo

I love the way I sometimes just sit and write stuff as if the things I have to say are rather remarkable bits of something. When really, they're just kind of. You know. Ramblings.

But I still like sharing them:

I sit here and look up: just past the horizon made by the roof of the building towering above me, a cloud, its languid white arms reaching and reforming, moves overhead in piercing contrast to the overarching blue. To my right a lawn stretches, grass cropped low enough to look like carpeting, edges merging together in the distance as though the whole world is conspiring to give me an art lesson in perspective. The breeze intermittently brushes over my shoulders, lingering briefly to finger the very ends of my hair; I feel as though all nature is in love with me, so how could I not reciprocate?

I find myself feeling, out here in the open, on this perfect day, a kind of peace I experience only rarely. I can’t even describe it. It’s something like longing for home and something like having just finished a delicious peanut butter sandwich. It’s satiation and desire all rolled together, liberally mixed with quiet joy.

I love this world so much sometimes, this semi-temporary home for our mortal selves to grow up in. And even in this little pocket of city, both the cars going past and the bird flying overhead are part of some great whole I can only sense a part of.

But I’m grateful for the sensing. Grateful to be, myself, a part of the whole after all.

In other news, I've neglected to share the following with you:


This was from when my roommate (and a bunch of her work friends) and I went to go see A Midsummer Night's Dream for free at Boston Common. The gazebo you see ahead is not, in fact, the stage. Which...I mean, I thought it was at first, so don't feel bad or anything. Yeah. The stage is actually off the picture to the right. So. Cool. Shakespeare for free. Not a bad thing.


The above was taken just before another rommate and I went to the New England Aquarium. We both thought the sight of fog obscuring the skyscrapers (not to mention that cool building with the turret) was pretty dang awesome.

And here I am at the aquarium itself feeling uneasy about being approached by a friendly little penguin. Statue. A penguin statue. Not a real one. Alas. Because a real one made of gold would have been infinitely awesome.


And speaking of gold penguins, here's a completely unrelated picture of the subway. (I thought that archway was kind of cool.)


Here's a view from the back of the New England Aquarium (I love the grove of masts here):


And finally, here's a shot of the Fenway area. In the area to the right, past the road and where you can see lots of trees, there's a narrow park that runs alongside a stream. I love that there's this touch of green right in the middle of all these colleges. They call it (and connected parks) The Emerald Necklace. And it really is that lovely.


So, until next time. As it were. You know. And all that. You guys are cool.

The end.

Jubilations

I got the job!

I just thought you all ought to know.

(OhBlastedHUZZAH!)

And also?

Definitely feeling even more attracted to this guy. Oh. My goodness.

Seriously. Shoot.

No... No, wait. I've gotten it wrong.

It wasn't them. It was me.

I never opened up.

So you see, it wasn't that they weren't interested; it was that I was unwilling or unable to communicate my deepest self to them.

I hate realizing that I've been wrong. But somehow it's liberating too.

More about me (but then, what isn't?)

I miss people today.

I just thought I'd give you all a head's up, in case I suddenly decide to call you out of the blue and ask, "How's that family history coming?" or "Did you ever take those pictures of pinecones like you wanted?" or "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Or maybe I won't.

Maybe I'll just continue to lie here on my bed, curled into a comma, book propped up just beyond my throw pillow while my eyes move to and fro, scanning the text.

And missing you all the while.

Addendum

I feel really guilty. Really. I feel that I have been hopelessly and insufferably rude in recent posts.

So, I'm sorry.

I do feel terrible.

But I won't delete the posts. Because I also need them to be here.

Sorry again.

(And also, Superman Returns is pretty much my new favorite movie. I saw it for the first time today and. Wow.)

(And also, I saw a guy solve a Rubik's Cube on the T the other night. I was impressed.)

(And also, I am sad that President Faust passed away. And also glad for him. And also feeling that feeling both at the same time is both kind of difficult and kind of right.)

A little about me:

In the past 24 hours, I've learned two significant things about myself: I use this blog as an emotional outlet and I tend to fall for the wrong sort of person.

These realizations came about because of visiting teaching, or rather because of the way a visiting teaching appointment turned into a sitting-around-singing, personality-test-taking visit. (It was good times, my friends. Good times.)

The gal we (my roommate and I) were visiting just adores the Myers-Briggs personality test and asked if either of us had taken it. I had recently taken the test myself, so my roommate answered a questionnaire online (based on said test) and we pored over her score and personality profile.

Then, oddly enough, the focus turned to me. I explained that I'd recently been classified as an ISFJ personality type so my companion and our visiting teachee read over the profile and would occasionally burst out with exclamations such as, "That's so you!"

One part of the conversation struck me particularly: in reading over the profile, our visiting teachee asked, "Do you use anything as an emotional outlet?" and my roommate explained about this blog. I'd never really thought of my blog as an emotional outlet, but I could suddenly see it as such. My blog is a way for me to express emotions that I would otherwise normally keep hidden. In fact, when events of emotional import happen to me, I find that I usually want to post about it. I've wondered since then why that is.

I wonder if it's partly that you, my blog readers, are mostly people to whom I'd feel okay about opening up emotionally. I know most of you pretty well, and even those of you I've never met are somehow so similar that I could see myself confiding in you without much concern.

I wonder too if it's that a blog is a way of expressing one's emotions in a slightly detached way. I tell you about all these feelings and frustrations that I have, but I do it in such a way that I'm able to sit down and think about the manner I want to express things before I actually interact with any of you. I've always found it easier to express my emotions in writing; it just seems safer somehow. And I have doubts that the habit is entirely healthy.

Anyway.

Naturally, being girls, we then decided to explore which personalities would be the best matches for each of us. To my surprise, I would apparently be best paired with either ESTP or ESFP, both extroverted personality types. Now, personally, I have a tendency to fall for introverted men; the high social energy levels of extroverted individuals have always left me feeling baffled and (frankly) inadequate. To be honest, I've always discounted such people in the past, mainly because I felt they could not possibly find me interesting. I always liked getting to know the quieter individuals, believing that they would at least understand me and not automatically assume I was boring if I didn't speak up much.

I was actually rather resistant to the idea of either one of these personality types until the visiting teachee told me that I needed someone who would be vitally interested in me; that he would find me fascinating enough to try to draw me out.

And I realized in this flash of insight with myself that I really did have that need, and that it was something that was lacking in all of the previous relationships I'd had with guys. Not that the guys I've known (or even dated) have been boorish; I don't want to give that impression. But I never felt that sense of real, genuine interest in me. I've never felt that they've tried to really delve down into the deepest inmost parts of me. Or rather, I guess I may have felt that intellectually, but never emotionally.

I'm such a private person, really. I don't feel comfortable talking about myself and if I feel the slightest decline of interest in what I'm saying I will immediately stop talking about me and try to focus the conversation on the other person. I'm always in terror that the person I'm with will become bored. And I'm always convinced that I am boring.

So. Long story short: I think that the only way I will ever fully open up to someone is if I have someone who is open and warm with me and who persistently finds me fascinating. And who persistently tries to draw me out. And is good at it.

Unfortunately, I kind of can't help thinking that I'm kind of unlikely to find that.

'Cheetos' is the code word.

So.

I totally got chatted up by a guy at institute tonight.

The only problem is that I think he needs to be on some kind of medication. And isn't.

And I feel a strange mixture of guilt and relief at telling you about this. Because I feel terrible talking about him like this. But I also want to share with you this experience of almost being asked out by a guy who really. Really. Is out there. And how I tried to get away after about a fifteen-minute conversation by indicating that I needed to talk to my roommate. But it didn't work. Because he just kept on going.

And then how this tall, dark-haired guy with an awesome accent asked me to open the gym door for him so he could roll a round table into the little storage closet. And how this new nice (and not-crazy) guy started asking me questions about myself. And how I wanted to talk to him more. Because he seemed awesome. And nice. And good-looking. And not crazy. But how my encounter with not-all-there boy had kind of made me want to retreat very quickly into the kitchen and away from any possibility of encountering said not-all-there boy so I kind of had to cut the conversation with nice non-crazy boy short.

Which just makes me grit my teeth.

So. While discussing above experience with my roommate, we realized that we had no plan in place to help one another out of situations like this. My roommate, in her wisdom, decided on A Plan.

And The Plan is that 'Cheetos' is the code word for: 'Get me out of here now because there is no way I can gracefully extricate myself from this situation and I need to be extricated so desperately that my toes are about to curl into my ankles.'

So now we know. And will be prepared.

And let me tell you: I think being prepared is more than half the battle.

And not choking seems pretty good to me

Well, folks.

The interview went pretty well.

And by "pretty well," I mean that I managed not to make a babbling idiot of myself. I asked intelligent questions (or so I believed at the time) about the library and the position and answered the more difficult questions without getting horribly tongue-tied (although I did notice that my answers tended to be unfortunately rather vague).

And, thank goodness, the interviewer was possibly the most friendly and personable person I've interviewed with. Ever.

Which also means that I'm not sure if the interview went really well or if it just went well. Because she could have just been friendly and nice yet at the same time thinking: This gal is pretty much lame-o. Or, she might have been friendly and nice and thinking: This gal is pretty friendly and nice herself. I think we'll hire her.

Time will tell.

I'll find out for sure which it was at the end of this week or possibly early next week. And I'll let you know as soon as I can.

Because I'm pretty sure you're all rooting for me.

So thanks.

TONS.

Gotta stay calm.

I'm feeling a rising sense of panic.

But I'm trying to exorcise it.

I'll be fine. I just gotta remember to stay calm. And remember that I can do this. Really. No joke. I. Am. Capable.

(Wish me luck too though, just in case.)

My bit of Austen

I also just found out which Austen heroine I would be:

Take the Quiz here!

Here's the description: You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see. (How accurate do you think that is?)

(Many thanks to Heidi for including this on her blog!)

Hey! That's my school!

I was just at the Simmons main page meandering around, trying to find information about my course schedule. And as I brought up the main page, I suddenly realized: holy heck. I am going to that school in less than a month.

I was swept with a feeling of utter and complete awesomeness.

I can't believe how lucky I am.

The joy of (finally) being able to be nervous about something

I just got a call this morning for someone in a library very close to my school. She wanted to schedule me for an interview this Wednesday!

Huzzah!

And hooray!

And galdaleelooooooks!

I'm so happy, because this means I can bring to bear all my powerful charms such as speaking distinctly and smiling warmly and shaking hands firmly.

Which, really, is a huge step up from just being a piece of paper listing work accomplishments.

Wish me luck! (And pray hard.)

Instead of what I should be doing

Right now, I should be reading Numbers 3. I should be reading it because I am currently trying to work my way through the Old Testament. Straight through.

I have never accomplished this before.

And guess where I've always gotten stuck! Oh. You're so good. Yeah.

Numbers.

So. Instead of reading Numbers 3 (which I will do before going to bed, thankyouverymuch) I am currently communicating with all y'all.

Cause I know you just love that.

And I'm trying to think of more interesting things to write about. But seeing as how it is now past 11 o'clock at night and seeing as how I've been up since about 7:15 and seeing as how it was fast Sunday and seeing as how I wanted a nap and didn't take one because I was too busy filling up my empty stomach after church, I think I may sleep soon.

So you'll have to wait for revelatory writings till the morrow.

Adieu. And good night.

Y'know. All that jazz.

What the...

I love that those who create those internet banner ads feel that a trio of dancing aliens is the best way to let you know that housing payments have fallen.

I am left utterly bemused.

Apocalyptics anyone?

Oh, and also? It's just nice to know that T-Rex totally agrees with me: post-apocalypticism is cool.

Outstretching

I must confess: I've been having a bit of a hard time.

I feel really bad admitting that, as though in confessing my problems I'm causing nothing but distress to pretty much everybody, including myself.

I hadn't even been thinking clearly about the reasons why I've been feeling a bit low until I talked to my mom this afternoon. Somehow, the conversation with her was a bit of a catalyst, pointing me to what I needed to realize about myself.

I'm unhappy. I'm disappointed in myself. I feel like I've come out here expecting things to just kind of fall into my lap, unwilling to get off my bed and do the things that really need doing.

And it's not even that I haven't been trying; it's just that I haven't been trying in the right ways, I guess, or trying as hard as I should have. Because, surely, if I had been working hard enough things would have worked out by now? Maybe?

I'm anxious. I need work. I need to feel that I'm doing all I can to support myself out here. And I need to be able to not worry about money so much all the time.

But suddenly, typing this, it occurs to me that there's something to learn from this too. Maybe there's a purpose in waiting.

I don't think I'll ever know really what it's like to live in poverty. And I'm so grateful for that. But...

But isn't it important now and then to catch a glimpse of how people who are in devastating financial trouble live? To sense a little bit the kind of anxiety they experience all the time? Doesn't this just increase our compassion for them?

It makes me want to make a difference for them. And maybe, once I've figured out a way to get through the next couple of years out here and I've gotten my degree, maybe I can start with the kids in difficult circumstances, be one of the people who try to help them love learning through the books they read. Because I think that knowledge may be the only way to lift people out of circumstances like that.

Just the way serving others is the only way to lift you out of anxiety for yourself.

Personal Daemons

As mentioned before, I've been getting into Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass in preparation for the movie coming out this December. So, as part of said getting-into-it-edness, I've decided to create my own personal daemon, with the help of the movie's website.

Let me introduce you:



(On my first try, I got a spider. So I'm much happier about having on osprey, lemme tell you.)

If you'd like, go ahead & create your own daemon. It's rather revealing. And oh, so much fun.

Revelation

It's all suddenly become clear to me:

Well.

Actually, no.

No, it hasn't.

But I've always wanted to say it had, so.

There ya go.

ReadingReadingReading

You may have noticed that my reading list off to the right side of my blog is outdated. It is, in fact, exactly 12 books behind now, although, to be fair, I still haven't finished Nicholas Nickleby. (I just keep getting sidetracked by all that delicious YA lit in my local library.)

Since last updating the list, I have read the following books:

The Gift, Peter Dickinson
Tears of the Salamander, Peter Dickinson
Time of the Ghost, Diana Wynne Jones
Aunt Maria, Diana Wynne Jones
Hero’s Song, Edith Pattou
The Lion Tamer’s Daughter and Other Stories, Peter Dickinson
Waifs and Strays, Charles de Lint
Fire Arrow, Edith Pattou
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling
Austenland, Shannon Hale
The Blue Hawk, Peter Dickinson

I've also just started The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman, which I have already read but which I thought it wise to reread since a rather intriguing-looking film version is coming out in December (made particularly intriguing because they've used Mars: Bringer of War from Gustav Holst's The Planets in the teaser trailer).

The truth is, I've realized over the past few weeks that I need to stop checking books out from the library. Really. I currently own several dozen books that I have never read, so checking stuff out from the library, particularly things I've read before, seems about as sensible as eating out every night when your fridge at home is completely stuffed.

But I also can't seem to help myself.

Every time I go there, I just have to browse around, lifting a volume or two or ten from the shelves, convinced that unless I check these darn books out right now I'll never have the chance to read them. And I know the books at home will still be waiting for me once I've finished the ones from the library. So really, where's the problem?

In other Lizardbreath-reading news, I've discovered a few more blogs that are slowly becoming daily reads. For some reason (shouldn't be too hard to figure out) I find myself drawn to the blogs of mid-to-late twenty-somethings who are LDS and single. And also female.

And gradually I am beginning to realize that I am not alone, that there are scads of women like me out there, settling down into careers or further schooling, trying to convince ourselves that being single isn't so bad and that a career can actually be pretty fun and that you can also travel and do all sorts of fun single stuff, and then we run across things like this and remember (yet again, like smacking your head into that same tetherball pole) that--wait--yes, it is that bad.

And that guys are just dumb. Because they have no excuse. Because there are hundreds upon hundreds of the most excellent, intelligent, kind, caring and downright foxy women out there just ripe for the picking. (Not me, necessarily, but there are plenty of them out there!)

Seriously. What the heck is wrong with these fellows? Alas, I'm sure, somehow, they would ask the same thing about us.

Edit: Of course, all of you young single guys who read this blog are excepted. Because you are the ones who are Really Trying. (But even still. Look around your ward! Sit next to the girl you've had your eye on for the past two months and ask her out already!)

UGH.

I'm currently working through the finalization of my student loan application and it's beginning to really sink in how much debt I'm going to have for the next 10 years or so.

I guess my dream of having a little house of my own somewhere (and also a car and also lots and lots of bookshelves and also chocolate) is further away than I thought.

Alackaday.

In the moment now

I can hear crickets outside my window.

It's been a damp sort of day, rain coming down intermittently, evaporating into the air only to fall again on the steaming pavement.

I've stayed inside mostly, trying to catch up on some things in my apartment, taking an unexpected nap late in the afternoon.

And now, wakeful, having watched the moon rise red from the cloudbanks and then seeing it paling towards white as it nears and then passes its zenith, I can hear the sound of crickets in between the vague roarings of cars going by the intersection near my apartment.

I can hear in the silence of the evening something like the quiet watchful resting of moonlit mountain nights.

And it tastes like home.

Oh, darn it.

My stupid heart just turned on.

I had spent the morning and a little bit of the afternoon reading Shannon Hale's Austenland, feeling deliciously enwrapped in escapist fiction, comfortably eating sandwiches and completely cut off from the world.

And then, later, as I was looking for a picture in one of my files, I came across all these images of my family and came to myself rather wrenchingly. I couldn't help dwelling over photos of my nephew, grinning with chapped lips and a snotty nose (and those wonderfully adorable blue, blue eyes) at the camera; my niece, face turned slightly away, eyebrows knitted, tongue (just visible behind an O-shaped mouth) tucked thoughtfully in the corner of her cheek; and my dad, eyes crinkling behind years of seeing his children grow from funny little monsters into funny (and sometimes helplessly lost and needy) grown-ups, eyes that I realized are just like mine.

I miss my family.

I miss my old town.

I want to go home and see the mountains and drive up the canyon until all I can see are aspen trees, leaves like coins turning yellow-gold in the ancient light of summer afternoons; I want to smell the mountain morning while walking up the hills on dusty trails, the heat from the early sun already squeezing my pores and making my eyes ache with light.

Please know this: I know I am here and I know I'm here for a good long while. And really, it doesn't bother me all that much. I like it here a great deal; I think, in time, I may even learn to love it.

But there's still a part of me that wishes I could have a piece of that old life in my pocket, just so I could, when I needed to, take it out and dive into a place that feels and is completely Home.

Sharing the goodness

My friend Pat has just written a brilliant Harry Potter spoof.

Ohmygracious. I laughed so hard. My favorite part? Look for the 'half of a two faced moron' quote. Excellent.

Kudos, Pat!

Benumbed and Bewowed

I just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a few minutes ago. And I had all these remarkable and clever things I was going to say about it.

But I find that I can't.

But I will say this: this book makes the Harry Potter series one of the most remarkable bits of juvenile literature I have ever read.

I hope those of you who have read it feel the same.

Surfacing

Hi.

I'm reading Harry Potter 7. At last.

So.......

You probably won't be hearing much from me in the next day or so.

Just thought I'd give you a head's up.

If I could have my way,

My days would be spent in eating peanut-butter and jam sandwiches on this really deliciously thick and spongy (and inexpensive, thank goodness) whole-wheat bread.

Because I just love them. Because they are filled with delicious peanut-buttery goodness. And that sugar-free strawberry jam I bought the other day?

An incarnation of delight itself.

So, with the silly young king I say, "How about a peanut-butter sandwich?" Wish you could join me for one. Or several.

Wait, wait! I'm clever...

It was a disappointing weekend.

I had high hopes of sitting beatificially in one of the church pews, one leg crossed over the other, smiling with warm and accepting (and lovely) radiance at all young men who happened to glance my way, who would, naturally, then swerve in for a closer look.

And they would not be displeased.

Alas. Why can life not follow these little scripts we lay out for ourselves?

Firstly, I felt cross on Sunday, mostly because I had banged my knee pretty darn hard on the steps leading up from the subway station on Saturday. By Sunday morning, it was all bruised and swollen and crossing it didn't really help.

Also, I was just not feeling perky. In fact, I was feeling anti-perky. If perky and I had met (which we didn't, thank goodness) we would have created between ourselves an explosion that would have demolished the greater portion of the church building and any surrounding structures within a radius of roughly 200 miles.

Also, I was not a hit in Sunday school. I was, in fact, a remarkably irritating individual, making inane comments at inappropriate moments. Or, perhaps not that bad. Maybe just making inane comments. Which those around me scorned. (I could tell.) No, not really. But we did role-playing, which...was okay, I guess, but really--not one of my favorite activities.

And then, during sacrament meeting, I just sat there, looking at people, feeling vaguely alone and kind of sorry for myself.

Choir practice was a little better: I got to see that one guy again, and I could swear the choir director smiled at me, but then it was over. And I was back in my apartment, secluding myself and watching DVDs alone on my bed.

I've kind of realized that I'm not a sparkly person; I'm not one of those people who immediately grab the attention of everyone in the room. Which is really starting to get old. Because I've noticed that the girls who guys tend to talk to are the ones who are sparkly, who hold the awareness of others like threads in their hands, tugging and pulling eyes to them no matter where they are in the room.

Which means that in order to get attention, I need to be like that.

Which is not really part of my nature. Really.

So do I try to change myself for the sake of meeting people? Or do I sit back in the corners of social interaction and hope that, somehow, the right person will notice me sitting there and somehow be interested?

How the heck do introverts meet their soulmates anyway? Can someone please just explain this to me?

I'll sit and listen. Promise. I'm kind of good at that.

And what change may we now effect?

Just watched A Man for All Seasons.

Feeling a little discouraged about humanity.

Wondering how to fix said discouragement. Any thoughts?

Edit: Okay. I just remembered church today. That helped. But seriously--weigh in if possible.

A one cent reminder

With bags of groceries inexorably cutting off the circulation in the majority of my fingers, I happened to glance down today while making my way uphill from the grocery store back to my apartment. When I did, I saw a penny on the sidewalk and stopped to pick it up.

It reminded me of this post, or more accurately, of the things I talked about in said post, namely that pennies are (if you take them to be) reminders that God is aware of you and is looking out for you.

And just now, with things kind of getting slightly out of control in my life, I was grateful for the small ways in which God reminds us that He's there. And that we need Him. Always.

Mirror, mirror

Yesterday, while staring at my face in the mirror with light coming in from the window to my left, I realized that I could see the way my face will look when I am much older.

It was a strange experience, as if somehow the intervening years between me and my sixty-year-old self had vanished, leaving me face to face with this familiar stranger. I thought I could see that her frown lines were a little too deep, the laugh lines not quite deep enough and her eyes seemed tired and a little sad.

It made me wonder what the next thirty years will bring. Since I'm rapidly nearing my 30th birthday, (holy goodness--only thirteen months away from now), not quite halfway to senior citizen status, suddenly my life seems to be rushing towards me at an alarming pace.

Not that I'm that old--I just can't help feeling that I have little to show for the years I've been here.

I suppose that we all make contributions to the world around us in small ways; I think for me my contributions have been really quite small: developing friendships with those around me, being a decent auntie, trying to be a good daughter and sister. They're not showy contributions by any means, but they're meaningful to me anyway.

I mean--there are times I definitely wish I could have done more with my life, like producing a world-altering novel by my twenty-fifth birthday or creating some other artistic masterpiece, or that, like my wonderful sisters, I could have contributed to the world by becoming the mother of sweet children.

But I'm slowly coming to the realization that my life's path is a track that's different than what I envisioned for myself as a long-ago six-year-old who wanted to be a mom when she grew up. Maybe I haven't made huge world-shaking contributions yet in my (not quite) thirty years. But maybe all that means is that the footprint I leave in the world is sometime in the future, that I'm still trying on shoe sizes, figuring out what fits.

And I think I feel okay with that. I think that the next few years of my life will see me past the many turns in my life path that I can't see beyond at the moment. And even if I still don't make the kinds of contributions I'd like to make, I can feel comfort in knowing that the very small differences I am making are important, and are maybe what God wants me to do here in the first place.

Wanna see something?

Righto. Well, in that case, feast your eyes upon this:


Yes. That is me. Being irreverent with Thoreau's statue. And looking like Dick Van Dyke. Again.

But, on to lovelier things:


This is from the spot on the beach where I sat while my roommate partook of the goodness that is the waters of Walden Pond. Below, you can see my shoes and that sandy strip of shore I talked about in my previous post.


Very sandy, eh?


Here, you can see that Walden Pond actually seems to be a favorite swimming area for lots of folks. We were there on a Tuesday afternoon, and yet there still seemed to be plenty of people there. And really, I can hardly blame them; the weather was perfect, and the sun made the water dazzling.


And the above is a picture I just like because. You know. Pretty. And stuff.

This last picture is simply calculated to inspire envy of the greenest kind. (It is, you see, an illustration of how absolutely perfect the day was yesterday.) These are my favorite kind of days--temperatures in the mid to upper 70s, breezy, with a few cumulus clouds hanging around just to give a nice contrast with that perfectly blue sky. Yeah. I'm sure you're all disgusted right now.


Hahaha. Oh, well.

In truth, it was a lovely, lovely outing. I'm so glad I went. Especially since today the skies are an unrelenting shade of grey. Huzzah.

Such a busy day

My roommate and I were busy gals today.

This afternoon, we sauntered off to Walden Pond, where we spent a good long while walking the couple of miles from the commuter rail station out to the pond itself, then posing with Thoreau's statue, sitting on the beach/swimming (I sat, my roommate swam), then getting a taxi to drive us back to the commuter rail because by that point we just weren't feeling quite up to walking the couple of miles back.

I'll post pictures of some of above activities later.

We also spent the evening doing Good Things by heading off to the Boston Temple to clean with other members of our ward. We spent the entire time dusting off the walls of the bottom floor, which included the cafeteria and the baptistry, so really, we got to see a lot of cool places. (And my neck kind of aches a little...) But seriously--it was kind of nice to be able to serve in the temple in a different capacity than normal. And it's actually a remarkably clean structure already; only when we were in areas with pretty strong lighting was I able to see any dust motes at all flying off of my giant dust mop. (Oooh. That sentence was nice & awkward.)

Anyway.

It was a busy day.

Busy, but good.

And I haven't heard back from the temp agency yet. Alas. Maybe tomorrow?

In the meantime, read some drivel I wrote while we were at Walden. (Or not. It is, of course, up to you entirely.)

I can't describe the peace I feel right now. It somehow doesn't matter that there are all these other people around; somehow the sound of their splashing and chatter just seem all a part of the trees rising over the water and the pale smooth motion of the wavelets tapping the shore.

I see in the sand the imprints of human toes and stick drawings, soles of shoes and duck feet, creating of this sandy shore an unpublished record, document of the day's comings and goings.

But then, shores are always about that, the transition between one place and another, from one state of being to the next, the shore itself the place where we leave our footprints as we cross the boundary between.

I think I stand on the shore longer than most people; it's a personal fault of mine, this endless hesitation. For me, the imprints of my feet in the sand are deep, burying even. I can think of numerous times in my life when I've stood there, for years even, in indecision and terror, both of the land I was attempting to leave and the water I was attempting to enter.

It's good to know that, at last, I'm now knee-deep in water, and can look back at the deep grooves my feet have worn in my spot on the shore. It was terrifying to step into the water; it's terrifying to think that things will only get deeper from here, but I must admit that the sandy bottom feels fine between my toes, and the water is cool and clear.

That's it for tonight. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow.

To Be Continued...

Well, I got a call from the job placement agency. As it turns out, there's a kind of administrative assistant/receptionist job open at the agency itself. So, my contact is going to pass along my resume in hopes that they'll be able to use me for the next month and a half before school starts.

I'm hoping for the best. (i.e. that I'll get the job. In case you were wondering.)

I'll keep you updated, of course. So check here for the latest news on Lizardbreath's search for work!

Oh, hooray!

I think I may have found someone in my ward to get a crush on!

Seriously. I was just sitting there and I realized that I was pretty dang attracted to this guy.

So hooray! And huzzah! And. Like. General celebratory noises.

'Cause it's about darn time.

And now I will go cross-stitch. Bye!

Thoughts

Guys, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

Sorry I write about dumb things now and again, nonsensical things that don't matter, even to me.

The truth is that I'm just myself, sitting here in this dark room typing by the blue light of my computer screen, feeling a little lost, a little confused, a little alone, just as the rest of you sometimes feel.

I guess if I were to write about these other feelings all the time we'd all feel pretty weighed down, so I try to make things light a bit, even if it comes across as rather stupid.

So, do forgive me. Because sometimes I just feel the need to stretch out there and paste my faults on a wall so you all will see them and know me for who I really am. Because I'm full of just as much hell and just as much heaven as any other person. As are we all.

And I don't think this is quite coming across the way I wanted it to, but ah, well. That's it for now anyway. Good night.

Is a headache an indicator of lameness?

If so, I have been oh-so-seriously lame, lame like nobody's freaking business.

Yes, indeed. That lame.

Actually, I've spent a great deal of time this past week not doing anything much in the evenings because every time the evening rolls around, I start to feel kind of dizzy and headachy. I'm not sure if it's because my blood pressure medication is just a bit too much for me (I just took it and it's around 108/77 or so, which isn't that low...is it?) or if it's because I'm not drinking quite enough water or if it's due entirely to some other unknown source.

Like a brain tumor.

(Ha. No, I don't really think it's a brain tumor. Not really. Uhm. Hmm...)

But whatever the cause, these headaches are making me behave in a distinctly anti-social manner. For instance, last night I was all set to go see To Kill a Mockingbird, but when the time to depart rolled around, I felt all headachy and didn't want to do anything but eat spaghetti and sleep. In that order.

And earlier, on Wednesday, I could have gone swing dancing, but after institute I felt dizzy and (surprise) headachy and decided that the best thing would be to go home and mope--er, I mean--rest.

So. I have been making choices, based on my hurting head, that have made me feel rather more lame than not.

So tonight, will I allow that aching head to rule me? Will I prevent myself from participating in enjoyable activities because I feel tired and vaguely dizzy? Will I sit at home and read a book or cross-stitch in a decidedly lame manner simply because I don't feel much like doing anything else because I've had a headache since about 3 o'clock?

Well. Yes. Yes, I probably will.

Because, you see, I've decided to accept myself for who I am, and who I am is just a little bit, on occasion, somewhat lame.

And that's okay, dang it. Or at least, it had better be.

It might rain!

Which would totally mess up my desire to see To Kill a Mockingbird at the Boston Harbor Hotel tonight. Because, like, they wouldn't show it. Because of the rain. (It's all open-air, yo.)

However, in all other instances, I am a huge fan of rain. And I'm being quite serious. Because, while I don't necessarily like to be out in it, (unless I have an umbrella and a cute guy to hold hands with), I do like to see the way it makes everything shine, as if the world had been just sitting, waiting for this water to come and transform it into something extraordinary.

Right.

And also, the job interview at the placement services place went pretty darn well. So I'm hoping I'll have some sort of work sometime...next week? Maybe? It all depends on how quickly my contact finds me something, but I'm pretty hopeful because she seemed pretty upbeat and positive herself. Or maybe she just acts that way for all the job applicants...

Nevertheless, I felt good about it, so in general, I'm feeling pretty upbeat and positive myself. About lots of things.

Like jobs. And free movies. And the rain.

Good Business Sense

=Good fasion sense, right? And vise versa?

Or so I attempt to prove below:


So. I believe that with the above outfit (sans camera) I will be able to impress the hair off of anyone I meet tomorrow. Which is good. 'Cause I'm meeting someone at a job placement agency who's going to help me find some work. Which would be really nice.

'Cause them business clothes were expensive. Yah. Really.

OmygoodnessIhavebeensodumb

I've just realized that (duh) the blogs I love to frequent have archives, for crying out loud. Some of which go back years. So when I'm feeling the need for a little MST3K-flavored-Australian blogging, I can check out stuff written back in '05 instead of checking and checking and checking to see if he's posted anything within the past 5 minutes.

Which makes me a cyber-stalker, yes, but at least I feel satiated. For now.

As promised:

Here I am:


Orange-looking indeed, dontcha say?

Aargh!

Okay. And just once can I please have some guy who thinks I am just this super foxy chick? Please?

(Don't know why. I just had to add that.)

What? Pictures?

OhyeahIhaven't...

I haven't shown y'all pictures in awhile.

Let's see what I gots on me camera...


Okay. So the above is obviously a pic of me in a sunburned state, taken pretty soon after my DC trip. After this, I tried to take a picture of myself looking all depressed because I was so sunburned. It didn't work. I deleted it.

And also I kind of forgot to tell you all about something.

A couple of weekends ago, I walked The Freedom Trail around Boston with one of my roommates and a group of girls from our ward. And yes, it was blasted awesome, thanks for asking.


Above is a shot of everyone's shoes hanging out on The Freedom Trail...medallion thing. I think that's what it's called. And my shoe is the blue worn-out sneaker you see bottom center. (The jeans cover up my unsightly ankles. As well as my unsightly pale legs.)

Righto. So, as part of The Freedom Trail, we passed our be-gold-domed (and thusly blasted awesome) State House, which you can see in this skillful and well-framed (or notsomuch) photograph:


(Seriously. That gold dome...just like the one in Riven...)

Ummmlemmesee...what else to show you...

Okay. I think this'll be the last one, just simply because it takes so darn long to get these pictures uploaded, but I had to share this with you.

While on The Freedom Trail, we passed (and entered) a few graveyards. In one of the smaller ones, I noticed this gem of a headstone:


Sorry the contrast isn't all that great; I hope you all can see it. Basically, it's a couple of skeletons having a grand ol' time prancing round some sort of candle or something. I love it simply because it's macabre. And also jolly. And I didn't know they sometimes felt like that in the 18th century.

Seriously--I'm going to have to show you more of these later, but eventually you will see yours truly standing in front of that Very Famous Paul Revere Statue while looking all tired out and orange. Because, er, my shirt was orange. No other reason.

Until then, may your days be less humid than mine. Indeed.

Why PBS is awesome

So...

I know you people are coming here to read stuff I've written on my blog, probably wanting to kind of know what I've been up to and what plans I have for the future and what interesting people I've met and how successful my interactions with them have been.

Unfortunately, at the moment, I'm totally watching this DVD I checked out from my local library: Exploring Space: the Quest for Life. Because I'm kind of a nut where PBS shows about space are concerned.

In other words, I get a kick out of watching NOVA and stuff (and other nifty space-type PBS programming). Which maybe means I'm a nerd. But I don't care.

Now I'm all excited about the possibility of finding liquid water on Europa and discovering whether a manned mission to Mars is not only possible, but on the agenda.

So, if you'll excuse me, I have about an hour to go. And just so you know how I'm doing, I dyed my hair purple. OhyesIdid. So there you have it.

(No. No, really I didn't. But you knew that already.)

Slim rays of hope are still rays of hope.

A boy spoke to me at church today.

I was so nervous!

And so giggly and happy!

Aaaah. Yeah. Not really. I promise.

But a boy did speak to me today, which really beats all the days boys haven't spoken to me, which pretty much have made up the majority of my life. And he was even nice. And he thought we were the same age! (Which was really cute. Because he looked about 23.)

As it turns out, he's one of the Pest Control Summer Guys (PCSGs we call them (no really, we don't)) so it doesn't really matter if he spoke to me out of hey-she's-pretty-I-wanna-talk-to-her-edness, or I'm-just-standing-here-kind-of-bored-and-look-there's-a-person-I-don't-know-so-I'll-strike-up-a-conversation-edness.

It just kind of made me feel a bit happier, regardless of the reason. Because, hey. Males are males and, while interacting with females can be really good times, some moments just require some infusion of the opposite gender. 'Cause those times are even better.

Just a brief note of awesomeness:

This comic is perhaps one of the funniest things I have read in some time. You may not agree. But I agree with myself, so that's all that matters.

It's a world full of doppelgängers.

It's weird to google your name. Really. I just tried it. It's as though there are hundreds & hundreds of Lizardbreath McGees out there, all with different faces and interests, yet somehow connected by our common name. Which, I guess, there are.

But it's almost like finding out you've had a secret twin your whole life. Who was born in 1955. And works as a real estate agent.

Or that your double has blond hair and aspired to being an actress and is now in broadcast journalism.

Or that someone with your name has just gotten married to this guy on a freaking beach.

So it's like finding a whole ton of people who are both exactly like you and really not like you at all.

Weird is just too small a word to encompass it all. But it'll do for now.

Does this make me weird or merely just quirky?

Today I thought up the most excellent blog topic; it was one of those topics that generate thought, discussion and links to your blog from prominent websites. It was even a little controversial and thus would generate even more thought, discussion and links than usual.

At least. I think it was controversial.

The trouble is, of course, that I can't remember what it was.

And so, naturally, the blog topic I'm stuck with is that, for some reason, I find the combination of Triscuits and lemon-flavored no-sugar-added yogurt so tasty I may finish the entire box here in one sitting.

And that is all.

Links, anyone?

And of such boring days are our lives made.

You know, I started out thinking that this had been a pretty uneventful day, but then I realized it had some remarkable moments in it. Such as:

• An albino squirrel. I kid you not; this thing was completely white with red eyes. So, so cool.
• Seeing a jade-green Geo Prism. Alas, little Jade Friend. How I miss you.
• Checking out several DVDs from my local library. Er. Because that's pretty nifty, dontcha know. And one of them is about Victor Borge. So top that, skeptics.
• Walking about four miles round-trip down to a nearby pond that was, like, really pretty and stuff. Yeah.
• Buying Triscuits.
• Realizing that this list sounded a whole lot more exciting in my head.

So. My day in a nutshell. Yeah. I guess it was kind of boring.

Ohyeah! And I also did some pre-registering work for my classes. I'm getting pretty excited, folks! Real registering happens on July 10th, so wish me luck so I can actually get into the classes at the times I want so I'll be able to attend Institute on Wednesdays and meet the Spiritual and in All Other Ways Fabulous Man of My Dreams. Seriously. Last hope here, people.

Ohyeah and fireworks.

Er. Yes.

One of my companions (the one from Texas) told me once that this was her favorite holiday.

So, in her honor, I wish you all a happy Independence Day!

Addendum: Hoorah! I just got to see the fireworks! From my window! I didn't actually go out to watch them because I'm just that lame. (Seriously, people; I'm actually not kidding about this.) But I'm so happy! Because there they are, bursting above the trees, making me feel like America isn't really sliding downhill faster than a miniature poodle in a greased sled. (Uh. Weird image.) And also I don't have to ride the T home when it's impossibly crowded. And also I don't have to stand in the rain for hours waiting for the sparks to fly.

So, yes. I'm happy.

Definitions

While working as the administrator of my company's scrapbook forum, I became really curious about the way many women seemed to define themselves. The usernames they would choose would be something like 'billysmommy' or 'davidsgirl' or 'lovemyhubby.' In short, when they picked the one word or phrase that would become their defining characteristic (on that site at least) they chose something that had reference not to themselves, but rather to a role they played with some other person.

Part of me applauds this; it's the epitome of selflessness, isn't it? This losing oneself to someone else entirely?

But, I have to admit that I feel a little disturbed as well. Not that defining yourself using your roles is wrong; I'd just hate to think that any of these women might believe that was all there was to them.

So, I'm curious. If you were to define yourself by assigning a username that had absolutely nothing to do with your actual name, what would you pick? Would you be a 'MomToJoeTheToddler' or 'CattleRancherGal' or even 'LoudmouthDragonLady?'

'Lizardbreath McGee' is my moniker for now, but I've chosen 'bookish' in the past. And I think it fits pretty well. So, truly; do share.

And two generous servings of diet-breakers later...

I was invited to dinner today. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, which felt a little like a first date when you don't really know the person who's taking you out. Fortunately, all persons involved were female which lessened the tension potential considerably.

There were three girls at the dinner and we all kind of pitched in with the prep work. Hesitant to discuss my dietary restrictions (I guess because they're self-imposed, and I didn't want to cause any kind of inconvenience) I failed to mention that the potato dish I was assigned to prepare was something I really shouldn't be eating. And those two cartons of ice cream bought specifically for the dinner were not things I should be eating either. Nor the M&Ms there for snacking.

So, because of my failure to mention said minor details, and in an effort to appear relatively normal, and to, like, not be rude, I decided to eat the smallest possible portion of both the potato dish and the ice cream. (Yah. Real sacrifice, I know.)

The problem is, both were really, really, really delicious. I had forgotten how...just...you swallow potato and it kind of sits there pleasantly in your throat before moving its solid way down your esophagus and.

And.

Oh. My.

Ice cream? I mean, the real kind with real sugar and, like, these brownie bits and fudge swirls? So delectable I nearly went into a dead faint there on the kitchen floor. I had really forgotten, I mean really forgotten how wonderfully deliciousgoodnessly it sat there on your tongue while it sang sweet songs to your taste buds of love and flowers and that it was the only thing you had ever wanted and it wanted you and you were united now and everything was beautiful...

I.

Oh.

So.

Tomorrow I will return to my diet. I'm seriously not about to give this all up, particularly since I'm so near the 100lb loss mark. But is it wrong to feel that there was something nice about being able to take a break, however brief, from the rigors of said diet? Was I wrong to feast upon a few bits of potato? To relish my two little scoops of ice cream?

Well, yes. Yes, I was wrong.

But I don't regret it. No, not even a little.

And a valuable life lesson it was, too.

Why is it that we feel there's some sort of virtue in being unhappy? When you're grumpy, not only do you feel ornery, you don't even want to feel happy, as if becoming happy would be an affront to your individuality, to your right to choose your own cussedness.

What blasted fools we can be.

What a blasted fool I have been.

Because while I've said to myself numerous times that I would choose happiness over misery any day, the truth is that when the choice comes along I often pick misery. I think I must be a rather obstinate creature. I think maybe most people are.

I just read a post by one of my favorite bloggers. It's basically a talk she gave in her ward on Sunday and it's extraordinary how much it said what I needed to hear.

The Lord has told me (repeatedly, actually) that He's looking out for me and taking care of me. Sadly enough, I tend to forget this or willingly disbelieve it because, somehow, in my limited experience I know that there's absolutely no hope while He's telling me there is. I have, in short, failed to trust His promises, failed to rely on Him for strength when I'm feeling discouraged or lonely.

So. As you all are my witnesses, this is me declaring that I'm choosing happiness and trust in God. Let's hope my resolve sticks this time around.

But even if it doesn't, I know a loving God will be there to remind me that He's there. As always.

Cry me a river

Oh, how sad, how sad am I.

I'm single.

I don't have babies.

In short, as a young(ish) LDS woman I am pretty much a washout.

Which seriously makes me start to wonder here, folks...what does this mean? Do I have to find unconventional ways to feel like I'm fulfilling my mission here on earth? Am I destined for singlehood forever? Am I just that repulsive?

Maybe I'll meet a nice young returned missionary tomorrow in fast & testimony meeting. Maybe that new white skirt I bought (yeah--that swishy one) and that one necklace and that brown shirt will be just what it takes to catch someone's eye and he'll say to himself, "My, what an interesting gal! How I'd love to marry her and make all her dreams come true! But first we must go on plenty of enjoyable dates. And also I think I'll kiss her on that one bridge over the Charles River. Because I'm just that romantic."

Or perhaps I will sit through the meeting, talk to my roommates and try not to think too much about the way I'm still bulgy around the middle and have crooked glasses and a sometimes vacant expression and pretty much no ability to speak to people I don't know for any considerable length of time.

I'll leave it to you to guess which it will be.