Identity crisis, anyone?

• Am I still a West-Coaster if I only spend two and a half weeks of 2006 there?
• The only problem with Utahans, though they are not all like this, is that they have a tendency to take things for granted. I never want to overlook all the amazing little things God does for this world.
• Utah itself is fatally flawed because it does not have a beach. The Great Salt Lake does not count. It has bugs—lots and lots of bugs.
• My mother and I have a lot of the same bizzare interests, but our personalities are completely different.
• She once told me that if I were identical twins, one of us would have to kill the other one.
• I would rather be beautiful than smart.
• No one my age should experience single-person discrimination.
• Should I spend my little nest egg on a spring term watching plays in London and Stratford-upon-Avon or on an eighteen-month mission serving the Lord?
• The only reason I am an English major is because the Theatre in London Study Abroad would fulfill some of the requirements. Maybe I should switch to an English Language major.
• If I had to be born into any other faith, I think I would like to be Catholic. They know how to party. Plus, I like John Paul II (not sure about Benedict XVI), plaid skirts, traditional celebrations, and cathedrals. Assyrian Orthodox would be okay, too.
• Should I release my inner redhead so Cyrena will stop confusing me with The Disney-obsessed One? She is half a foot taller than me! How does Cyrena not notice that?!
• Still trying to decide between healthy toes and ballroom dancing.
• I am never eating another flour-containing cookie as long as I live.
• Giving up PG-13 movies for Lent should be interesting in this apartment.
• Passover dinner will be great though; I’m making latkes!

–ache

Today Brother M. told a story about a boy who had a heart transplant when he was two years old. By age fifteen, he had worn out the donor heart and needed another one. His name was put on the list, but the procedure would still cost his family thousands of dollars. This young man prayed and prayed and finally told his parents he did not want another heart. He felt he had experienced enough of life, and now he would let someone else have a chance.
How his family was able to accept his decision, I will never know. They watched their son and brother deteriorate, but something was still keeping him here. Though he had been praying for months, the young man was uneasy. He was not sure that he was worthy to return to his Father in Heaven. That promised peace eluded him.
One evening, the boy's father, who I guess was a bishop, was giving temple-recommend interviews at church when the Spirit told him to go home to his son. There were people waiting, people with appointments, but he handed his schedule to a councilor and left. At the bedside, he listened to the young man describe his fear of dying in sin, of being too filthy to see Christ on the other side. The interview questions he had just been asking came to the father's mind. He asked his son the standard questions, assuring him that if he was worthy to enter God's presence in this stage of life, then he should be worthy to enter God's presence in the next.
The young man died that night.

My pondering drew the question: Am I afraid to die?
Surprisingly, I don't think I am. I'm afraid of heights and cockroaches, but not of death. Unlike the young man in the above story, I definitely do not feel like it is my time to go—I have not done whatever it is that I am supposed to do here. I do not relish the idea of my family grieving, either. But when it actually happens, what is there to be afraid of? A loss of pain and sickness? Seeing friends and relatives again? Getting a few more questions answered? An opportunity to work for the Kingdom without exhaustion? Doesn't sound too bad.

"I find it kinda funny; I find it kinda sad—that the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."

Sometimes I wish I could snap my fingers and vanish everyone's pain. The people I know are bad enough: and then there's everyone I merely hear about, and the people in news-magazine pictures.

As Henry tells Danielle in Ever After, "If I cared about anything, I'd have to care about everything."

Nothing I can remember about my life up to this point, which I admit is not much, has been remotely tramatic—so how can I even pretend to empathize? Basically I have led a charmed existence void of strong emotion. Maybe I should quietly shut my door and continue that way. I have no license for misery or joy.

My smile is the same in all my pictures.

Obsessed with right now: "Eisbrecher" (German growling hard rock)

Yesterday in Literary Critism we discussed "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri. Someone said that Mr. Kapasi was weird because he was fantasizing about an entire future with Mrs. Das before he even knew her.
Well, doesn't everyone do that? You meet someone. There doesn't need to be anything intrinsically special about this person (I'll say him, since my experiences usually involves a guy): he's a waiter at a restaurant you visit, a student in one of those auditorium classes with hundreds of seats, maybe someone who walks by your window one Tuesday afternoon. Who he really is doesn't matter, because the fantasy is about you and your idea of him.
Maybe you both exchange hellos and the conversation fizzles. But amoung the thousands of little paths you've visualized branching from your current life, you see what could be in a more cinematic universe:
After hello he asks your name. He's graduating/going on a mission/studying abroad/being arrested by Interpol in a few weeks, but he takes you out on the most magical afternoon date of your life. You spend hours staring into his eyes and realize that this stranger is the only man who's ever understood your passions. Or, alternately, you spend an afternoon insulting one another until the fire in your eyes consumes you both and you make out for the next few hours. You exchange addresses.
During the course of your correspondence, or maybe before it even begins, something goes wrong with the mail and you lose touch.
Years later, you are finally granted control of your very own consolate—a remote consolate in a country with growing political tensions. You are elated by the promotion, but cannot help wondering if you were chosen by pure merit or because it is much easier to accomodate a single person in this difficult area than the families that most of the other Foreign Service officers with your experience have. Out walking/jeeping through a particularly picturesque-but-dangerous barrio/mountain pass one day in a fetching outfit, you run into That Guy.
A series of formal events (for which you are elegantly dressed) and misconceptions later, you find out that he has spent years in the country; he even married a woman native to this harsh country, but she died in some tragic accident/rebel attack. The rebels attack again and you both are forced to hide out in some tiny shelter, eventually growing closer…
The story can go on from there, detailing the ups and downs of your possible life together, but the point is that this fantasy is about you. Only two hours elapsed between Mr. Kapasi creating a fantasy about future correspondence with Mrs. Das and completely detatching the real Mrs. Das from it. There is nothing weird or obsessive about this behavior at all.

Seize the Day!

Remember when I thought 55°F was cold? Well, today I think that temperature is absolutely balmy. As soon as my classes and training workshop were over, I came home and painted my toenails cherry red. Decorated feet shod in comfortable sandals, I walked all the way to the solemn Maeser Building to pay for that required conference and all the way around to the bell tower. The grass was warm beneath my toes as I lay back on the lawn to expose my face and calves to some glorious ultraviolet radiation. On another note, what surprised me most about New Orleans was not the hurricane, it was what I learned later about how people there lived before the hurricane. Out in the free-spirited West it is hard to imagine voluntary segregation or arbitrary poverty like that still exists anywhere. Forget about the FEMA reaction months ago and focus on what they are doing (or not doing) now. The problem is, a government agency distributing rent checks and trailers cannot solve the deep-rooted problems that have overshadowed New Orleans since its founding. That takes the people of New Orleans making a conscious decision to change their society.

I am SUCH an idiot.

Someone should shoot me: put me out of my misery.

Note to censor: The above statement is purely facetious. I do not intend to incite violence against myself or against anyone else. Violence, in my opinion, is not good. Unless someone hits me first, in which case the intellectual side of my brain politely turns away for a moment; it re-engages after the offender is on the ground and marked with a bruise or two.

Things I think about while sorting laundry

Today I have consumed one bowl of oatmeal, two aspirin tablets, and three dark-chocolate kisses.

Using the last of my oil and meal last night to fry corn pone was rather Biblical, wasn't it?

Frying things in the kitchen while my blanket is on the couch makes my blanket smell funny, maybe even like jalapeños.

Wal-Mart sweatshirts turn my underwear pink, even on the second washing.

You'd think that a dream about being elected Empress of the World would not involve broken glass in my hands or psycho-killers.

That one American figure skater is so anorexic.

So then, why does she make me feel so inadequate?

"Oh, adhere to me / For we are bound by symmetry"

Well, this morning I awoke in the middle of the night, disturbed by another dream. The Disney-obsessed One sickened yesterday from sharing germy horchata and was coughing all night. The coughing invaded my unconscious, except in the dream she coughed up a baby instead of phlem. It was a gorgeous little thing, like eight inches long with cornflower-blue eyes, and all seven roommates gathered 'round in awe. Until The Disney-obsessed One shrugged and left to take a test. Meanwhile, the tiny coughed-up baby started crying. Good thing we happened to have formula behind the four cans of hot-cocoa mix in the cupboard.
Like I said, weird. I couldn't sleep for hours after that one.
A random guy named Andrew who claimed to work for The Daily Universe knocked around 17:00 and interviewed me about my interests. I don't have any; I'm too boring.
Then I watched the news, and just as I was about to give up on humanity, Brian Williams stopped talking about the ridiculous dock dispute (like the ports are so secure now, really) and switched to a story about the Latvia fans at the Olympics. Yay for small countries!
Oh, and Monty Python…there are no words.Caption: A group of suspiciously-Utahn-looking fans I met at the bobsleigh event four years ago. They were alternating between La Bamba and some Swiss song.

Self-Improvment Plan Revision

So, my old goal for this year was to talk less and listen more. But why should I, when everything I have to say is superiorly interesting and relevant? Anyway, I discovered a new goal while reading The Belching One's psychology text instead of my self-impressed literature text last night (Isn't it amazing that everyone else's textbooks are so much more compelling than mine?): Sleep!
Sleep bulimia, getting very little sleep during the week and then purging on the weekend, is making me stupid. I mean, stupider. Without enough REM sleep after learning new information, research subjects retained less of the information than those who were allowed lots of REM sleep. Assuming that I am no different than a research subject, I need to get enough REM cycles each night or else Arabic and phonetic trascription is never gonna stick in my brain. And the fact that I usually experience many wild, intricate dreams when I do sleep for a long time, something I was so proud of as a storycrafter, just means that my brain is frantically trying to make up for the REM deficiency.
It's fine, as long as I don't have any more dreams about certain people's mothers and heavy rolls of quarters. That was horrid.
Otherwise, I rose today at 6:08 filled with hope. My day became progressively worse from then on.

Amazing Blog I Just Found

Happy Presidents' Day (yes, mother, they did teach us about this holiday in school)! Great music site on blogger: You Ain't No Picasso. Okay, so it's not all British music, but I still love it. Forsake manufactured music! Come bask in the light of originality—here it is warm and inspiring.

Men–money–Women

Guys are always trying to figure out the connection, and all I can answer is that (surprise!) different women are different. For instance, money is very important to some women; that is fine. Some men would rather earn or mooch money than develop a personality in order to get a girlfriend/wife; that is also fine. If women and men like this always ended up together, all would finally be right in the world.
However, other women cannot be bought. One of these women sees more romance in a dandelion picked from the lawn and tucked into her braid than in a dozen red roses obtained from a florist's refrigerator. When she and her man do enjoy an expensive experience, this kind of woman would rather share the cost as an equal than have a ticket magnanimously handed to her. She knows her man by how he treats her, not what he treats her.
In the crowded, dirty market of courtship, I would rather be priceless.

The Daydreamer's Lament

They told me I have lots of potential,
so many gamma-colored ideas and glass-tapestried plans floating around in that head;
and maybe I could make those dendritic connections,
follow the long strands of the stars back to that 10 to the negative 43rd of a second that took all the time in the justexisiting universe after the not there/there beginning of eternity
or
weave gentle sounds to soothe the raw burns of the world

click vocalize flap aspiration click glottal stop.

with all this purported ability I might really do something
if I ever climbed out of bed.
Here is star-printed flannel with me shape and me smell
but me is as fluid as the tears behind my eyelids
loved or hated in conquering, creating, committing.

We parted in Petra and momentarily in Calais reunited under cover of fire and night.
Breathe, blink and do nothing again.

As promised: So that's why weird men keep asking me out!

Okay, so I get that the amazing guys aren't attracted to me. That makes sense. But, up until yesterday I was still wondering why the casino worker/skirt wearer/sword collector/insert-weird-obsession-here type keeps asking me out. What made them think I was interested?
It's the forehead bow! Of course! I am just so short (pity me, please) that every guy over 5'3" thinks I'm giving him this through-the-lashes, I-want-your-trash (yay for Mark's ever-growing list of confusing euphemisms) smoldering look while we talk when all I'm doing is saving my neck from the inevitable crick it would get if I tilted my head back instead. Looking up to people all day kinda hurts, but not as much as high heels skidding on ice, so I'll be doing it regularly for at least another month. Once I can wear heels again, I'll be equal enough with half the girls and a quarter of the guys if I stand back far enough. That's also another problem I noticed—I can only establish oh-so-important eye contact with most people if we are sitting a foot apart or if we are standing three feet apart. Get closer than that and the connexion's gone.
Like I told Jessica, inertia is a lot easier than trying to create a relationship. So is collecting cats and naming them after all the guys I wanted but never touched. Until then, I maintain my right to blame all my problems on my height and to justify any special treatment of women with the fact that women are the ones who have the babies.

Trust

I was going to post a rant about body language (even though Colin is NOT A MONKEY!), but then I went to church and everything changed. Don't worry though, I'm sure I'll get to my forehead bow problems another time.
Where do I begin? It was all so…wow, I'm rarely at a loss for words like this, as everyone knows. Pues, I was watching Errol Flynn play Robin Hood when The Belching One came in around two this morning. She had been outside with this guy (there is a long story here that I am not authorized to tell) for two hours! Members of the opposite sex have to be out of the buildings by midnight, but I doubt the Honor Code wants student popsicles. She spent an hour defrosting while we watched Robin tidily save the Saxons from oppression.
Therefore, this morning I was tired on top of already being in pain. Somehow though, I put together an outfit and rushed off to church. Colin was standing at the door passing out programs, so I thought everyone inside was singing the opening hymn. Uh, no. Sequined skirt rattling, I marched to a front-ish row and was shimmying past people to a seat when the song stopped and I realized the whole room was waiting for me to sit down so they could start the sacrament prayer. Oops.
It got better after that. During sacrament I read about the migrations and prosperity in the beginning of Helaman. Those people seem so happy, yet I know that in a few more pages their content little world will again erupt in pride and bloodshed. Bittersweet and yet strangely familiar. Anyway, I need to get to the good parts of today: The Artiste One accompanied one musical number with her wonderful flautist skills, then three people from my FHE group (including The Screaming One) gave amazing talks about recognizing guidance and comfort from the Spirit—I actually teared up, which is a big deal for me since I do not usually cry in church, then there was another musical number. One of the speakers mentioned Emmaus, which made me think of the song from EFY 2001. The closing hymn was "I Believe in Christ", and I teared up again.
Chrissy taught the lesson in Relief Society, and I had actually read it beforehand. Something just clicked, even though I had heard it before: "The kingdom of God is onward; it is not backward" (p. 28). Of course, every individual has choices to make about what part he or she wants to play in it, but as a whole God's plan is never frustrated. There is a long struggle ahead for the world, but God will win.
Maybe that sounds like an obvious truth to most people; I guess I get so worried about all the horrible things in the world that I temporarily forgot that God is more powerful than all of that stuff. He knows what He is doing. So now I have greater trust in my Father in Heaven.
As I thought about that, I realized something else: God trusts me. He sent me here and now because He knows I am capable of thriving here and now. If I were not, He would have sent me to another time and place in His wisdom because He wants me to succeed. How can I doubt myself when God does not doubt me? At this moment, I could walk away and deny my potential, but it would not change the fact that I was born with the ability to do more.

Have rent money, will buy clothes.

Forget global issues, let's all just watch a thing falling down a hill.

How did I not know about this before?!!

Gregg and Evan Spiridellis are my heroes! I loved their animated commentary on the 2004 election, but afterwards they started to slow down. "Slow down" means they made an Eminem-esque rap about matzah. Luckily, someone in Honors 300 clued me back in to a little ditty about "Big Box-Mart" (I wish I could link to each clip individually, darn streamlining!). Slightly contrived, but poinant.
Unfortunately, I had to give money to Them yesterday because Smith's doesn't sell Neutrogena foundation and The Melancholy One was ultra-amazing and drove me There so I could buy a bottle. I also picked up a box of haircolor (dark warm brown this time, I'm getting out of control!) and a red size 12 boys sweatshirt because I left my PHS sweatshirt at a brand-new Wendy's on the outskirts of Stockton during winter break. Now all I have to remind me of that wonderful semester at private school are two embarassingly-long-because-my-mother-wouldn't-let-me-hem-them-like-the-other-girls plaid skirts at my parents' house. Anyways, They may have my $35.35, but They don't have my soul!

Gotta make this short 'cause The Screaming One and The Melancholy One are having a lover's quarrel in the hallway.

I feel sick when professors bring modern politics into Religion class. Like Brother M. did yesterday, usually I love his class, but on Monday he started soliliquizing about how the government has taken away true freedom of religion, making our country Socialist and ripe for destruction, of course. He was saying there should be a law that makes all actions exempt from punishment if they were done as part of someone's religion. Brother M. cited a case when two Native Americans were fired for using peyote in a ritual. I pointed out that some people in this country have created religions based on child molestation, but I was too angry to elaborate further. Even if some sort of clause about "all religious actions are legal as long as they do not infringe on another person's rights" were added to the law he proposed, the child molesting cults would still be able to rape children if the children's parents, also part of the cult, consented, since children have no rights. Yes, I agree that God said that the ideal government would only insure the freedom of conscience, control of property, and protection of life of its citizens, but I also know that we do not live in an ideal country filled with ideal people. The truth is that, left to themselves, a few twisted people would end up sucking everyone's groundwater onto their land, filling everyone's air with their poison, and taking everyone's money with their monopoly.
Don't get me wrong, Brother M. surely has his reasons for holding the political beliefs he does, but I object to him taking any political opinions and applying them in Religion class, declaring, "Thus sayeth the prophets!"
Our church has a set of core values, but it does not dictate how its members apply those values in their political decisions. Several times here I have added one of my opinions to a discussion and had others step back with worried looks. With all honesty, I do not believe that any of my views contradict what I know to be true. Unfortunately, no one likes to be moderate or logical. Making sense does not incite passionate rallies or fervent campaigns.

Have we changed since Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Growing Up Whitegirl in America

Chapter Three

Sixteen years old – Monochrome:
This new place is so white it’s like TV. Every day a river of pale faces flows by babbling evenly and I feel different because I should feel the same. Sociology talks about our non-race and at home children learn they are normal-American as opposed to abstracted other-American. I shake my head this is not normal America this is strained and bleached America but exchange students come here to learn about our country.
I am white but I am the only one who knows. Instead of that really short white girl suddenly I am that really short girl even though the only black family in town is always called black (they are also all very tall but nobody mentions that). When I mention I’m taking Spanish Drew asks why I want to know The Poor People’s language and I say do you know any Latinos and he tries to change the subject and I point out that all the poor people here in weed-shaded mobile homes are white (I fail to mention that my home is mobile but there are no weeds) and then he gives me a dirty look and really changes the subject. Summertime gunfire is back but we don’t call 911 ‘cause we don’t know our neighbors and I hope it was a coyote and not someone’s wife.
Dr. Brown is an African American man from the East Coast with more education than the trailer people even know is possible for anyone who takes over the presidency of the community college and decides to teach the ignorant white hicks who may or may not be racist but only in theory since there’s no one to be racist against (around here they prefer to discriminate by religion) about African Americans. He comes to my class for a discussion and says that he sees a black man in the mirror every morning. Do any of you see your race every day in the mirror he challenges the vanilla room and I raise my hand high and then realize I am the only one and Dr. Brown doesn’t believe me. I explain that suddenly finding myself homogenous doesn’t remove my consciousness. White is not a non-race I’m not even sure what it means besides that it is not Black or Asian or Pacific Islander or Latina or Native American but no way am I European I’m a very short American girl and white’s just a box I check on forms ‘cause I hate to leave anything blank.

I am stupid but I say I am smart until everyone believes me

Growing Up Whitegirl in America

Chapter Two

Thirteen years old – Bisection:
Mommy said she wanted a bigger kitchen but what she meant was somewhere richer and whiter and where we don’t have to report gunfire to 911 on summer evenings (it was not fireworks I know what guns sound like I have a lot myself Daddy always argues). So we buy a modest house at the foot of a hill pockmarked by four-story estates so we can go to church with people who pay ten dollars an hour to put their kids to bed and watch satellite until eleven-thirty. Behind our crumbling subdivision stretch corn and onion and flower fields where Mexicans come to harvest and sometimes they stay.
I am white and it means something I haven’t quite figured out, like when I sat next to Samantha on my first day and she was nice until she found out my family name didn’t end in ez like hers and I am just white (she wasn’t sure at first, which is weird since I know Korea from Vietnam). Here my friends are white except for the twins Hassan and Hussein who are black from Sudan actually African unlike the five black kids who are Americans from way back so not really African at all and stand under the dripping overhang and I can’t go over because that would be weird. My academic classes are all white except for the Africans and Michael who’s family is Martinez but he’s third-generation and no habla español so I guess the administration decided it was okay to put him where he’ll actually learn instead of with the Mexican half of the student population in the portables with the mice that run across the floor during Super-Silent Reading, like Monique next door who was so smart until a teacher told her she was dumb ‘cause even though her surname doesn’t end in ez it’s impossible to pronounce without a tilde so Monique outlined her lips with brown pencil and never did homework again.
A school bus full of white kids is a Twinkie and you’re not white you’re pink next to my brown well I guess he’s cute for a Mexican we don’t have time to fight you we’ve gotta decide between skiing and boating this weekend while you pick up your primo from the Ranch. Cuídate chato ‘cause Jesús is fourteen with a messt-up bigote and that’s a folded blade on the chain ‘round his thick neck and he just said somethin’ nasty about your mom’s chonies. Mira Jesús I don’t have a boat or skis, my house is cooled by windows in the summer, and my eyes are brown enough and my necklines wide enough to pass for some sort of criolla until you talk to me I understand Spanish but never speak it so po’fabor ignore me in the darkroom while you divorce the paper-cutter from its heavy rusted blade.
Even Mommy doesn’t like this. Her culture is not hatred she saw enough of that in 1968 Arkansas plus she speaks Spanish and thought Monique had potential so Mom volunteers to translate at school board meetings where pale administrators with purple bags under their eyes swear the classes are not segregated but we’ll change it so parents can choose if they fill out this English form that of course was there all along if you only asked. The Footprints finds otherwise when a Latino kid gets detention for wearing the same naked-lady shirt that last week a white kid only had to turn inside out; his parents must be loving if they drive a Navigator. Fast cars with flame stickers and girls take early childhood development so they can see their bebito during the school day ‘cause in America you don’t have to stay with yo’ baby’s momma and there’s no gunshots but knife fights that aren’t as loud and a car horn that beeps La Cucaracha at five in the morning and it doesn’t matter ‘cause all the gringos who couldn’t dance to save their lives lost their jobs to Singapore but people still have to eat and the tomatoes are red balls of concentrated sunshine.

Things I think about while discussing the Harlem Renaissance with clueless classmates

Growing Up Whitegirl in America

Chapter One

Nine years old – Minority Rules:
I am white like I am the shortest in the class and supposed to wear glasses but those have been hidden in the cubbies for a year and a half another week won’t hurt them.
Amy sometimes wears her glasses but she is not short she’s average and she is Vietnamese at least her parents are which I guess makes her Asian but not Asian like Alan who just came from Hong Kong because China gets it next year. He speaks Cantonese and cusses English because John was assigned to him (John speaks Cantonese and English and his hair flops in his face) and taught Alan shit and damn and fart and bitch but forgot good morning and could you please pass the markers.
After chopsticks yet yi som say mm luk we present about our ancestors coming to America. I am just white. I am not white like Gareth who has a Mum and a Da and every summer goes to the mother country where they blow spit out of both corners of their mouths to say a double-el. I don’t really know my people were here in the sixteen- and seventeen-hundreds and before that who knows but I’m basically white and my family’s name is English so I guess I’m from England take a bow sit down. Brianna and Tamara don’t say Ellis Island or grandparents or last week on Air-India either, we already learned about their families in class (not their families specifically but how else could they be here, right?) about the chains and the ships so they’ve been Here a long time too and their families’ names are also English so I guess that makes them African American but not hyphenated like Peruvian-Mexican-American little Angela with her papi who tried to protect his four daughters but one still can’t come home or she'll get shot.
So then we’re all Americans I aks Daddy and he says don’t say aks because that’s how they talk in Oakland but what’s wrong with Oakland that’s why I’ve never taken you there. I’m losing my culture says Mommy and I wonder why because I have lots of culture with two fireworks new years every winter and men in white turbans have sons with mini-turbans and Philippino phyllo and shrimp candies that taste like balloons and black hijab for special occasions and knappy hair the same brown as mine is fun to braid when we’re bored and we can’t wear red or blue and I don’t know how lucky I am.

Not Winning Versus Losing Everything

Bitterness saddens me more than death. So many conflicts in this world could be solved if both sides were willing to give up a little vanity in order to save a lot more anger and blood. The leafless reality is that people would rather slaughter and be slaughtered with and by thousands of their brothers and sisters than let go of the furious entitlement that scorches the inside of their skulls. It reminds me of the little girl who prayed that if she died all her toys would break. Except outside of ditties, girls and boys die for forgotten history, poisoned deserts, imagined slights, corrupted scripture, and attempted superiority. Some fights are not worth winning.
Idealists watch petty quarrels and shake their heads—why can't we all get along? But, the world does not want ideals; they want to pretend they are better than someone else because they forgot they had any worth at all. Idealists never rule.
Many days it feels like it is never going to end, not just bloodshed but a married couple at each other's throat not because he is right and she is physically incapable of repeating the request he forgot but because neither wants to lose. Politicians do not try to pass the best solution for the greater good; instead, they all try to pass the solution that makes themselves look good. In a couple hundred years, everyone who is here today will have nothing but our character. Chances are that our great-great-grandchildren will be fighting the same stupid battles.
At least this is not all there is. A just God would not confine His children to such a flawed existence for nothing and next confine us to an eternity of strumming harps in the clouds. Because as miserable as this world can be, parts of it are wondrous enough to take my breath away, like riptides combing salt through my hair and warm arms around me and books communicating thoughts through arbitrary symbols and tiny people born every minute and the tang of blood in my mouth after I fall. Moonstruck Chocolate's chile varido bar is pretty great too. I suppose I have learnt more about the nature and rôle of my Heavenly Father by living away from Him than I could during an innocent eternity in His presence. It is just like I left my family to learn about life at college—I can still call home.

Travel the world in the comfort of your own dorm.

Last year, when Danielle and I were dreaming about backpacking Europe, an idea which we eventually scrapped in favor of paying for college instead, I searched the Internet for inspiration. The Intrepid Berkeley Explorer is what I found – a post-hippie nearly-expat who taped his impressions of Irish pubs, Japanese temples, Turkish mosques, and such and posted the videos for free. I recommend playing the films at double-time, so his drolling self-impressed-Northern-Californian voice (they all eventually talk like that) goes at a more comfortable clip, but overall it is a great site if you have a high-speed connection.

Patriot

“I’m so proud of you son,”
the sunburned rancher said.
“You shot that pesky sheriff,
behind the barn, he’s dead.
For in this troubled world
of white and black hats
don’t worry, follow me,
mine’s a shady shade of grey; and that’s
my booming war cry—
all I’ve got to offer,
Obey my arbitrary order
to raid the hungry village coffer.
I’m so proud of you son,
so strong, so noble, so hopelessly, blindly loyal,
fight for me and when you die
you’ll have a hero’s funeral.
For your country, for your home,
for the lives of those you love,
your scarlet blood is mine to steal,
I’m blessed by up above.
So venture forth brave warrior,
your tired horse, your father’s gun,
toil ‘til my grudge is spent,
this endless war is won.”

©Bethylene, 2003