even the embers have eyes

Act 4

2009-05-16T18:09:00.002-06:00

A new phase of life calls for a new blog: Act 4. I guess that makes even the embers have eyes act 2 and Las entrañables misericordias del Señor act 3.

Mission Blog

2008-04-03T18:40:00.002-06:00

Updated weekly by my mother dearest:
http://entranablesmisericordias.blogspot.com

How I spent my last day alone

2008-04-03T18:31:00.003-06:00

Walked around the house in my underwear all morning. (Because most companions won't let you do that.)
Listened to my gothic playlist.
Finally recycled the Seventeen collection that had been sitting in my closet for years.
Spent three hours getting dressed.
Had my picture taken by a (male) long-haired Medieval enthusiast who reminded me of my Utah cousins.
Signed a release for one of the portraits.
Heard my mother in my head, "But I can't see your pretty eyes in that picture!"
Drove an hour roundtrip back to the photo studio because I had left my journal.
Joined up with my family.

Perspective

2008-03-31T12:30:00.003-06:00

On Saturday it was snaining pretty hard as we drove up, so the temple didn't look quite so perfectly situated. They probably took this picture on one of the two annual nice-weather days allotted to Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Yesterday at church we learned about LDS Family Services. The presentation really put things into perspective, for I had been feeling sorry for myself because I developed another opportunistic skin infection in another bizarro place (not private, just weird). LDS Family Services is great, I'm sure, but I couldn't help feeling inexplicably lucky for not needing to go there. I thought, how come I don't have to worry about depression, abuse, adoption, addiction, same-sex attraction, or premarital pregnancy? What made me so special? And how come I could go to the temple on Saturday when so many people can't? What did I do to deserve being this happy? Then our closing hymn was "Count Your Many Blessings". I feel like saying, "Okay, God, I get it—we didn't need the song. And, thanks. I couldn't have done it without You; actually, I didn't do anything at all—You did."

Latest news

2008-03-28T10:14:00.002-06:00

Someone from the MTC called yesterday—I'm going to be in intermediate Spanish! She did not say whether that meant I can leave earlier.
It's been snowing here for hours. We haven't had snow like this (1) all this winter, and (2) in late March since 1951.

Five Things People May Not Know about Me—unashamèd plagarism of Christa's idea that she stole from someone else

2008-03-27T21:48:00.001-06:00

I truly believe that one day I really will instant-win $10,000 from a box of frozen waffles.
I may be the only woman in America who is happy with her body because if I weren't, I'd have to exercise or go on a diet or something.
I love to share my ice cream with my cat. In fact, I'm doing it right now.
I have daydreamed about England and the States going to war so that I could claim asylum in the UK and never have to go back.
I sometimes have really deep thoughts about salvation and the meaning of God's omniscience and stuff, but I rarely even write them here. When I brought up one of them in my talk on Sunday—that I used to feel guilty for the blood Christ spilled for me when I was sick or had done something wrong because even when I recovered or repented I still couldn't put it back—my mom was really shocked.

How'd you like that watching each and every bite go into your mouth?

The end of Plead/Cleave

2008-03-25T18:18:00.002-06:00

My 57,444-word YA romantic adventure novel Plead (which I wrote in high school) evolved over the past few months into the just-finished 45,760- word semiromantic novella Cleave. (What an adjective string!) I wrote the ending last night, and this afternoon I cleaned it all up: standardized the chapter titles, gave all of the chapters epigraphs from Three Sisters, and brought all the text up to date with my latest version. As always, the biggest problem with the whole story is that, even with all the cutbacks I made, it would never really happen.

The ending is no cop-out, for everything I could have written between chapter 24 and the epilogue/foreshadowing prologue has already been written a thousand times. Readers can easily fill in the three-month blank, so it would be silly for me to write something so clichéd.

Mostly, I am proud of myself for finally getting this inane story out of my system. I am also proud of myself for deleting so much, leaving things about the characters out because they weren't important. I used to think that everything I ever invented had to go into the story, but I've gotten over that.

Book Review: The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

2008-03-24T14:39:00.006-06:00

Hmm, I don't know where to start. My mom picked this up at the library because it's Washington State's book of the year or something. Then she said she had other stuff to read but someone in the family should read it because the government told us to, so she gave it to me. On the one hand this is a very ambitious first novel, and the research behind the setting is truly phenomenal; on the other hand, the fact that it is a first novel shows a bit. Perhaps I've learnt so much about deconstructing and analyzing texts that I cannot read anything without finding a flaw.

Or perhaps the book world is so flooded with 'luminous', 'intoxicating' books full of 'mystical lushness' that some neominimalist will soon have to build an ark. Don't get me wrong, it was nice at first. But the introverted, brilliant Victorian specialist in a rare field who is sent to a faraway land? Been done. The feverish dream-reality? Been done. The repressed middle-aged man in a second youth? Been done. The artistic temperament against a harsh, cold world? Um, been done. The confusing alliances and sudden, penultimate-page inversion of all your preconceptions? It used to be shocking, now it's been done. The exotic, but partially Westernized, beauty who nearly causes a man to forget the beloved wife at home? Been done. The gentle, barely sexual longing that comes close to consummation but never gets there? Been done many, many times. Unnamed emptiness? et cetera.

Slightly pedestrian, this book is Girl with a Pearl Earring and Falling Angels with piano strings instead of paint—maybe it should have been titled The Well-Tempered Clavier. It is Easter Island with a male star. It is Mason & Dixon to the Anglo-Burman wars. It is Invisible Man with the violence in the background. It is 'Interpreter of Maladies' without the realistic bits. It is The Dogs of Babel without a reason for the quest. It is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with Asians. It is a bunch of books I plucked from the local library's New shelf in a high-school search for Reality but have now forgotten. In short, it reads like an Oprah's Book Club selection (which isn't bad, East of Eden was my favorite book before she made it a bestseller, and she couldn't have chosen better).

While my frustration with the tired-out genre of what James Wood calls 'hysterical realism' does not necessarily mean that The Piano Tuner is actually poorly written. It's not. The descriptions of Burma are wonderful and probably accurate since Mason wrote most of the book while studying malaria on the border of Thailand and Myanmar. His prose is restrained and precise. The flaw lies in Mason's piano tuner, yet it's hard to put a finger on the problem. He thinks too much. A man frightened by the tightening in his stomach when he meets a beautiful exotic-but-not-too-exotic woman would not think about it at all. Not in words. He would not decipher his feelings for fear that he wouldn't like what he found. For a man whose emotions are songs, he sees a lot more of the countryside than he hears it. The moments when Mason remembers to have his protagonist notice sounds in the landscape are forced, few, and far between. The piano tuner also lacks baggage. His past is a few vignettes, though even a boring man has plenty of memories to color his experiences by the time he's forty-one. He dreams always of mystical things he's never seen, never of old friends and old places. He has few physical needs; his mind exists in a perfect body.

Now I'm tired of this book and of trying and failing to exactly place the déjà vu it recalled.

Can we talk about the racial undertones?

2008-03-23T07:37:00.000-06:00

This has been bugging me for months, but then I'm bugged that it bugs me because the picture is so cute and my bishop told a great story about how the model for Jesus turned his life around after this trip to Africa. Still, though.

McCain 2000—Another Reason

2008-03-20T13:20:00.004-06:00

In 10 Downing Street today, John McCain talked to Gordon Brown about the problems of climate change. Add that to his desire for meaningful immigration reform, and you've got a candidate who ignores right-wing emotional outbursts in favor of sense and compromise. Oh, yeah, and he didn't talk all nicey-nice about China just because we owe them money. How different would the country be today had he won the Republican nomination in 2000? Or if primaries and parties didn't exist, and candidates didn't have to please the partisan pit bulls before they could ask the general population for their support?

Luckily though I've finally realized that John McCain doesn't have to be president to influence American policy. He's been working on that for years.

What my sister says I asked her last night at 02:59

2008-03-20T10:38:00.001-06:00

I was just wondering who was in place of God, and who told you to wear that outfit.

Freak-out shifts into third gear—asks Bethylene, 'are there more gears?'

2008-03-18T05:35:00.004-06:00

Canceling my cellphone yesterday afternoon, while I did not notice at the time, has initiated final-stage Bethylene anxiety mode (the Johnson enduring legacy). I haven't slept all night. I just came back from a wee-hours snack of cheese, crackers, and Hershey's syrup mixed with a little milk. My joints hurt. My heart's pounding.

This is really going to happen. I really am surrendering my financial independence to my father, King Pennywise-Poundfoolish of Guilttrip Land. I really am spending two months in a place that's exactly like prison—a prison without the usual television, library, adequate sleep, and free time. I really am facing eighteen months of speaking like a very small child—something I quit well before my third birthday. I really am going to be five-foot-aught in North Philly. I really am going to advertise my huge waist-to-hip ratio (83%!) because I have to tuck in my shirts. I really am never wearing my slinky silk dress with the wide neckline ever again.

Because my head doesn't already contain enough useless information

2008-03-14T00:56:00.006-06:00

Quite Interesting

I haven't made a list in a while.

2008-03-06T16:17:00.002-07:00

Stuff I've been pondering lately:

Prince Harry's tour of duty in Afghanistan—he says he hates England because he is restricted by who he is. We may not all be royalty, but we all are born into certain responsibilities and restrictions. For example I was born in the US to American parents, and I can't easily relocate to another country (like the UK) simply because of my birthplace. I was born a woman, and at least here in the Pacific Northwest, I won't be accepted into the adult population unless I've had a child. Women here who can't or don't have children are certainly reminded of their responsibility. I was born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I won't be socially accepted into the adult population of its congregations unless I'm married (single members of the Church are also reminded of their responsibility). I have to support my family even when they're irrational. I have to pay FICA even though I probably won't get any Social Security when I'm old. People just have to do certain things, Harry. That's just the way it is.

President Hinckley was an English major. I knew I always liked him! This explains the six Bs sounding so much like a lesson from Writing and Pedagogy.

Jonathan Creek should be broadcast on Mystery! because it's so funny and brilliant. If I get stumped, they're not your typical mysteries.

Hmm, there was something else. I can't remember.

You know your anglophilia is downright unhealthy when

2008-03-05T11:44:00.001-07:00

you start streaming House of Commons debates through BBC News.

Leap Day and Life Goals

2008-02-29T10:34:00.005-07:00

Today is the first twenty-ninth of February I've spent with my blog. Yay.

In other news, I have a new goal. My old goal was to receive my mission call. Now that I have, my new goal is to spend as little time in the MTC as possible. Accelerated Spanish class, here I come!

You see, the MTC has cafeteria food, which is a great way for me to lose those last fifteen pounds that are keeping me from being truly emaciated. But cafeteria food is nothing when compared to the other evil of the MTC: gym class.

(I haven't seen this movie, but Billy Bob Thornton is about the most terrifying gym teacher I can imagine.)

I can see it now, the inevitable volleyball game at six in the morning (if sisters' PE is still either at 6:00 a.m. or 10:00 p.m.): Quickly fading into the background while some women who are actually good at volleyball duke it out. Someone says, "We should let Sister Bethylene have the ball!" With heavy heart, I move to where I think the ball will be; the ball hits the ground five feet to my right. No one passes me the ball for the rest of the class. The gym teacher takes me aside, worried that I'm not participating, but I already have formed a Utah-style indirect retort: "Gosh, Brother Gym Teacher, if my hand-eye coordination and depth perception will determine my success as a missionary, then I should just give up now, right?"

Plus I hate being sweaty. Plus I don't like to lie on hard gym floors to do crunches and feel grit chafing my back through my shirt to complement the tailbone pain. Plus somewhere deep down I don't like doing stupid stuff like run in circles around a gym just because someone with a whistle told me to.

I'm a girl! An old-fashioned, pathetic, horrible-at-sports girl! My mother hates that she missed Title IX, that her only chance for athleticism was on the drill team. My high-school sport adventure was one year on the no-cut badminton team, in which I was the lowest-ranked player.

On being a single female relative.

2008-02-27T11:04:00.003-07:00

As I like to exclaim many times while reading Jane Austen, the world hasn’t changed very much in two hundred years. For example, ever since I turned sixteen, I am the one called to attend when a relative is sick. My aunt and uncle did take me to Mexico as a reward for one such fulfillment of duty, but still. One of my male cousins is certainly more independent and probably more capable, but he easily refused to spend a week ‘beside a bed of pain’—no guilt-trip-of-the-century calls from North Carolina for him. And I’m feeling guilty about feeling annoyed, for the real reason I don’t want to help this time is because my grandfather might die. And even though I said a couple months ago that I thought I could handle watching someone die better than last time, I don’t want to test that theory. I don’t really want to discover my real potential through adversity—sorry, God, you’ve got the wrong woman.
It’s also hard to watch a strong, brilliant professor become an infirm, confused eighty-year-old. Because that’s what he’ll be like if he survives the surgery, at least for a while. And if he dies I’ll have to be strong for his wife. I became hysterical at my bishop’s viewing! How could I handle seeing Grandpa dead? Arranging the funeral? Guiding the paramedics through a maze of antique junk to his body?
Plus I’ve got to memorize a whole bunch of maps of Encinitas and San Diego so I can drive confidently. In a car with a pillow on the seat so I can see over the dashboard.

But why am I complaining? What am I here for if not to help as many people as I can? Isn’t that what I say I want?

The 20€ in my purse keep getting more valuable.

2008-02-26T14:55:00.002-07:00

BBC: Dollar falls to record euro low

More Weird Things My California Bar–Member Mother Says

2008-02-22T10:15:00.005-07:00

None of your beeswax! (She says this a lot.)—None of your business.
What an onry face!—I'm mocking your frustration.
That's enough from the peanut gallery.—I didn't ask for your opinion.
This place looks like a hurricane hit it.—Our house is too messy.
I'm oooold and decrepit (at least since she was 32).—I'm frustrated with myself.
Boy, you're falling apart!—Your long list of aches and irritations sounds hypochondriac.
The girls said (something).—One of my two daughters said this, but I can't remember which one.
She's just a crotchety old lady. (Thanks Christa!)—(Um, I'm not really sure what it means.)

Psalm 63

2008-02-15T23:55:00.002-07:00

"David thirsts for God, whom he praises with joyful lips."

Matisyahu- Tzama L'chol Nafshi
Uploaded by iisraelsionisme

Punctuation References in Music

2008-02-13T16:09:00.004-07:00

I Hear the Bells – Mike Doughty
(I actually heard this song on the second season of Veronica Mars, but I didn't think to mention how amazing it is until now.)

Jane Austen Men

2008-02-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

Rereading Jane Austen's novels has made me aware that Jane Austen's male leads are not the romantic heroes they are portrayed to be in the film adaptations. Neither are they the romantic heroes of her close contemporaries: they are not Vincentio Vivaldi, nor are they Lord Ruthven or Heathcliff.

No, Austen's men are deeply flawed. We love them because the heroines love them, for none of them have any extraordinary goodness or tragedy to recommend them. Edward Ferrars is a dilettante—he has neither "abilities nor disposition" to make something of himself, and he really would have starved in the gutter after his mother cut him off if Colonel Brandon had not offered him a living. Colonel Brandon, himself, falls in love with a seventeen-year-old at the ripe old age of thirty-six. And Marianne doesn't love him. Fitzwilliam Darcy's pride softens a bit to win Elizabeth's good opinion, yet even the epilogue shows that he still never forgives or respects her silly relations as a truly kind man should. And what he said about Elizabeth's family really was very, very mean. Charles Bingley seems likely to forget Jane again should they ever spend a week apart. Edmund Bertram, well, marries his cousin, and I never can forgive him for being so taken in with someone so fake. He also switches allegiance pretty quickly to Fanny for all his speeches about his enduring love for Mary Crawford. George Knightley rules over Emma like a schoolmaster, and he performs some of the same matchmaking activities that he scolds Emma for. Henry Tilney, while equipt with an admirable wit, wastes it on an ignorant girl who can only stare at him in awe rather than picking a woman who can actually appreciate and participate. Captain Wentworth, I think, comes closest to the romantic ideal with his undying devotion but manly resentment. The penultimate chapter of Persuasion, however, reveals that he could have written to and married Anne in 1808—and spared them both "six years of separation and suffering"— had he not been "too proud to ask again." As I said, I'm glad that the heroines gained the men they loved—except for Marianne, of course—but I don't understand why we say "Jane Austen Men" and mean "male perfection".

All in all, Elizabeth Gaskell's heroes are more heroic. For example, Roger Hamley is more perfectly suited to Molly, and his unlikely release from his ill-advised engagement to her stepsister has more romance and less reality in it.

A Perfect Storm

2008-02-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry John McCain, your brutal honesty excites me, but a Clinton-Obama ticket is unbeatable. When I told my mother this, she said, "But I would never vote for them!" at which point I wished I could better control my verbal impulses, as my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Go, put it.

Of course the party faithfuls on both sides will vote for their candidates—there's no Ross Perot or Ralph Nader this time. But elections are decided by the people who don't care or are unsure about the issues the candidates have been pushing. A huge number of people will vote for a Clinton-Obama pair just because a woman president and a black vice-president is novel. (It's silly to reduce two whole, complicated people into "a woman" and "a black", isn't it?) Voting for them would be making history simply because of the factors Clinton and Obama can least control.

But it would be kinda fun. Even if it means that we'll have presidents from the same two families for at least 24 to 28 years. That's historical in itself.

On Why I May Not Like Arguing as Much as I Thought I Did

2008-02-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

I've said many, many times before that I like to argue about politics and ethics and other murky stuff. However I'm not sure my idea of the word arguing is the same as some people's. I like to hear other people's opinions. I want to know why people think what they think. It's fascinating. Depending on their reasons and their delivery, I may privately respect or despise them; whether they agree with me really does not affect my respect/despise decision (e.g. there are some seriously dumb reasons for supporting green initiatives). To be ungenerous to myself, I also like to tell other people my opinions, and I am perfectly willing to hear theirs if it means they get to hear mine.

And I like to pass on what I learned. For instance, my hippie aunt who works with very poor single mothers as a social worker once told me all of her reasons for supporting broad abortion rights. I didn't agree with everything she said, yet she made some very good points. One day at BYU, someone said in response to my assertion that both sides of almost every argument have good reasons, "But what about abortion? How could anyone have a good reason for killing babies?" After explaining to this poor sheltered young woman that prochoicers are not satanic baby-killers but are genuinely concerned about the well-being of babies and mothers—with quotes from Aunt Alice—I felt like I had opened a door in her mind. I didn't convince her to start up an abortion clinic or anything, I just pointed out that most issues are grayer than political commentators want us to believe.

After taking turns expressing ourselves, if we find common ground or wiggle room or that one party has no strong opinion about something but is interested, I like to keep talking.

On the other hand, if one person, like my mother, just starts to repeat herself over and over, her voice rising louder and louder, and she will never convince me and I will never convince her, I like to change the subject. What's the point? She's not saying anything new. The subject rarely will personally affect us anyway. If that fails, I walk away. I don't like being yelled at. I also don't like being guilted (actual quote: "You always walk away when I'm talking to you. You've done it two or three times in the past month! I listened to what you had to say, so would you please listen to me now!") into spending over an hour repeating, "Yes, you think isolationism would help the economy, and I think it would hurt it, even though you're right that it would be more 'fair' if our guest engineer policy was the same as Singapore's. We disagree. I don't think either of us is going to change our minds," over and over. My head hurts. So do my shoulders. After an hour and change I got up and said, "Okay, we've been over this a thousand times. Can I please go now?" Then I stood up and walked away. I guess I'd finally been attentive enough to be allowed to leave without rebuke.

She did get in the last word though, "But it's unfair!"

Southern Appeal?

2008-02-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Both of my readers live in Louisiana.

P.S. I already feel stupid about my last post.

President Hinckley's Funeral

2008-02-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

It's finally real for me.

I rarely write about my deeper emotions on my blog, for it somehow cheapens them. A little bit of irony always creeps in. . . . And it looks like I'm still not going to get into all that.

Anyway I was in Encinitas when I heard about the prophet's passing. My grandpa got off the phone: "Your dad said that the president of your church died this afternoon."

Not knowing what to say, I answered, "Oh, I know one of his grandsons. He must be so sad right now. Should I send him a card?" I haven't, by the way (too weird—I don't want to send him a card just so I can feel like I've done something, just to give myself closure), but it didn't really sink in until I watched the funeral today.

I feel like little ol' me doesn't have the right to be sad that he's gone for now. His family does because they'll miss their father, but I don't. He was very old, and more important, he missed his wife very, very much. And I love President (of the Quorum of the Twelve) Monson too. His style is so different—pathos to President Hinckley's ethos, but his message about God and about love is the same. I know that Jesus Christ is the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I know that the Church will continue to do God's work on earth no matter who is the earthly president. President Hinckley himself, now reunited with Marjorie, will live and work on in a higher sphere. President Hinckley's many teachings will stay with us. The temples he built will stand for centuries. His genuine love and respect for his friends all over the world from all different faiths and backgrounds will (I hope) grow in the hearts of people in the Church and outside it.

I feel a little connected to Alwi Shihab, who made the first call of condolence to Elder Packer, because I saw him speak at BYU, and I would have spoken with him in an intimate Q&A session if his schedule hadn't changed. From his speech, I learned that he holds the same moral and logical sense of compassion and the same deeply held conviction that God loves all of His children as President Hinckley does. If this perfect love continues to spread throughout the world, then we, the people of the earth, will bring on the Millennium ourselves. Perhaps that's how the Millennium is supposed to work anyway.

Hmm, maybe I did get into my deepest emotions. Guiltily rejecting my shallower feeling of sadness is what's really going on in my head and heart. Maybe it's wrong, but that's how I feel.

On Being the Hottest Chick in the Room

2008-02-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Motivated by a massive guilt trip from a woman at church, today I volunteered to help cook and serve lunch at the Sharehouse, a homeless shelter in the area. About an hour into my shift the community service workers showed up. Some of them took their sentence more seriously than they took their jobs, but one good-looking young man (I'll flatter myself and say early twenties so I don't have to consider than he could have been younger than that) was especially lazy. He spent most of his time text messaging. Anyway he went straight for me when he showed up:
"What are you in for?" he asked.
"The love of my fellow man," I answered.
"Huh?"
Before he thought too hard about that one, I told him I was volunteering with other women from my church. They were the women who didn't smell like smoke (I didn't say that part). He didn't say what he was in for when I asked, which made me wonder what he did. Was he really embarrassed to say he was there for marijuana possession like everyone else, or did he do something else? Was it really bad or really stupid?
For some reason, when I moved to a new task, he just happened to want to do that task too. To be more accurate, he happened to want to sit and watch me do that task too. It was pretty funny. He wasn't in love with me or anything, he just wanted to be as close to the hottest chick in the room as possible (fragile ego). He worked harder to make me laugh than he worked to keep his relatively cushy community service gig.
Which boosted my own ego. When surrounded by old women and hobos and when there is no threat of commitment, I am the hottest chick in the room. Under the right circumstances, good-looking young men are willing to be painfully obvious about flirting with me.

Biannual Review

2008-01-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've now been on Blogger for over two years, so I thought I'd go back and review.

First post ever: I don't care if you're gay—get your hands off my breasts!
Shortest post: The roses are dead.
Longest post: The Rise and Fall of the Artificial Breast
Freakiest multimedia link: Sex and Metamucil
Best multimedia link: Travel the world in the comfort of your own dorm. and Supercool History of Religions Map (tie)
Best photograph: Happy Halloween
Best list: Ways to make my life interesting enough for me to be truly literary:
Best treatise: Should I take a chance and spring for the buns?
Best news item: Real-life Superheroes
Best aphorism: Then comes heights, corpses, and vermin
Worst poem: (oh, so many to choose from!) Sonnet #2
Most colorful post: "Each new day a bullet—each victim someone's son"
Most venomous post: Dear exboyfriend,
Most melodramatic/PMSy post: Dear Jake Barnes,
Most pictures in one post: Sevilla and Report on the Decemberists at the Crystal Ballroom (tie)
Most scathing review: I Cry for the Children of the Eighties
Most quotes: Pearls of Wisdom from My Extensive Collection of Virginal Make-out Music
Most idealistic post: The Perfect Man
Concisest imagery: Lightning cracks the sky, revealing the white-hot heavens above

Report on the Decemberists at the Crystal Ballroom

2008-01-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

If the Grateful Dead were the Decemberists, I'd be a Deadhead.

On Wednesday night my sister and I went to the Crystal Ballroom to see the Decemberists' second Portland show. The tickets were a birthday present, and I don't think I've ever received a better one.

Since my life has been pretty boring so far, I'd say those two hours when they were on stage are in the top experiences of my life. The Decemberists sparkled (or to be more literary but less lyrical, they coruscated). Who needs pyrotechnics when you can play Guess What Instrument Chris Funk Will Play Next? Who needs costume changes when the harmonies shine forth from the stage with power of their own? Who needs one-name singers when you know the characters in the songs better than you know yourself?

They played all of my favorite songs except "The Legionnaire's Lament." Colin Meloy has a beard. Jenny Conlee played four instruments at once unless she was on the accordion, sometimes playing a glockenspiel with one hand and a keyboard with the other. Her amazing abilities made me regret what I said about her singing, and she sang better in person anyway. Nate Query plays the cello, the string bass, and the guitar, and he looked like Anthony Howell in his vest and tie. People have a strange fascination with Chris Funk.

John Moen stayed in the back most of the time. Oh yeah, and Laura Veirs herself sang "Yankee Bayonet" with Colin Meloy! "Sixteen Military Wives" was dedicated to Mitt Romney. (I hope this isn't a Jerome K. Jerome–like prophecy.) The audience sang along to most of the songs, though it was a little embarrassing when Colin Meloy turned the microphone for the crowd to shout, "sixteen military wives!" and then he kept the microphone out through the confused mumbling of what should have been, "thirty-two softly focused, brightly colored eyes."

There were some problems, like the drunk dancing girls who elbowed in during "The Mariner's Revenge song," and the incredibly and olfactorily unwashed couple nibbling each other's fingers in front of us. And my sister was, I think, embarrassed at my enthusiasm. But I don't care.

Future Plan #679

2008-01-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

When I return from wherever my church sends me on a mission, I think I may open a stationary and office supply store in Camas or eastern Vancouver. The need is definitely there: the closest office supply store is a very ghetto OfficeMax way down Mill Plain. I could use my design skills to create résumés, wedding invitations, and fliers too. My mom already has a bunch of insanely practical ideas about whom I could go to for help (who knew there was a organization of retired small business owners just waiting to advise people like me?) and what kind of loans would be best. My dad thought it was a dumb idea (shock of the year!).
I could call it the Necessary. Maybe that's too glib.
Anyone wanna give me business tips?

There Is Hope for the Youth of America

2008-01-17T01:18:00.001-07:00

I Cry for the Children of the Eighties

2008-01-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

Last night I decided to watch Flashdance to see how exactly it defined the generation of people who've turned forty recently. Unmoved by a long string of bizarre modern interpretive dances which are supposed to be exotic dances at a lower-working-class bar (lower-working-class guys want simplicity—scantily clad girls wiggling around—not a strobe-lighted interpretation of the modern condition), I tried to focus on the story. There isn't one.

An eighteen-year-old girl who works as a welder in the most dry-ice and flashy-light infested job site I've ever seen and as a dancer in a bar starts sleeping with her thirty-six-year-old boss (the owner of the construction company, not the bar) and then auditions for the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory. That's the story. There is no arc. The characters do not change in any way. They are like cardboard cutouts. Jennifer Beals and Michael Nouri actually look like they are kissing cardboard boxes when they kiss each other.

When the scene switched to a nude girlie show, I turned it off. It was too ridiculous, and nothing had happened in the first hour of the movie to recommend the rest of it. In fact nothing at all happened in the first hour of the movie.

Dry Socket

2008-01-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

I thought I had a dry socket, so I searched the Internet for pictures of a dry socket to compare with the stinking hole in the back of my own mouth. I couldn't find any. Therefore I will describe to the best of my ability what a dry socket (for that's what the stinking hole turned out to be) looks like so that other recent victims of wisdom-tooth extraction will know whether their extraction site has become a dry socket. It was bluish white and wormy looking, with a dark gaping hole to the side. When I squirted water on it to wash some food away, it stung. In short, it was gross. The dentist put a packet of nasty tasting herbs in the hole, and he says that will make it better.

Everything I read on the Internet said that a dry socket should cause screaming pain, but mine just ached a little when I thought about it. Either they don't always hurt, or I've inherited my mother's high pain tolerance. She didn't take any pain medication when she gave birth to me and my brother because she said it didn't hurt that bad: "Well," she admits, "when you actually came out, that kinda hurt, I guess." When my sister was born, my mom took some Tylenol.

Also for women to remember is that estrogen slows clotting, so we should have our teeth extracted during the blank-pill part of our cycle because birth control pills really increase the risk of dry socket. My dentist did not tell me this. I might not have a stinking hole in the back of my mouth right now if he had.

John McCain 2000

2008-01-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Watching the debates on Saturday made me slightly regret the print work I did for Mitt Romney's campaign at the beginning of last year. I just thought it would be a good chance to network, but it wasn't; furthermore his performance in the debate proved him to be both pandering and irrational—a bad, yet common, combination in politicians.

I was specifically appalled at his proposed strategy to deal with illegal immigrants: "Those people should be invited to get in line outside the country with everybody else who wants to come here. But they should not be given a special right to stay here. . . . One, it says to those 12 million people they do not have the right, as they would under the final Senate plan, to receive a Z visa which was renewable indefinitely. That meant these people could stay in the country forever." His plan to deport twelve million people is completely impractical, yet he proposes it to please his fellow irrational neoconservatives. Where does Romney plan to get the money to find and deport twelve million people? Does he plan to pay for it out of his own pocket? Essentially his plan supports the status quo—undocumented workers remain so, the silly wall just makes illegally crossing the border slightly more difficult, and nothing happens.

John McCain, on the other hand, braved the indignation of the self-righteous and acknowledged that completely sealing the Mexican border and deporting twelve million people is impractical. While acknowledging that we did not want so many illegal immigrants here in the first place, his plan accepts the fact that they are here now. His plan to document all undocumented workers is good for everyone except the people who profit from undocumented employees working for substandard wages and benefits.

Mitt Romney's squirreling answer to Fred Thompson's question about mandating health insurance (which may not be a bad idea—we already mandate car insurance) also disgusted me. Say what you believe, Romney!

Since John McCain (visibly shaking on camera) is now too old for me to accept him without a very good running mate, I propose that Republicans invent a time machine, travel back to 2000, and nominate McCain. He would beat Gore by a bigger margin—let's face it, by a margin—and he would have dealt with the past eight years far better than Bush has.

Life Lesson from One Who Knows

2008-01-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

Never, ever get your wisdom teeth out the same week you catch a stomach bug. Vomiting is bad for the clots, apparently. In fact, if you can possibly help it, just don't get your wisdom teeth out.

It's over!

2007-12-20T23:40:00.001-07:00

Émile Durkheim was so wrong about mechanical solidarity only being a function of traditional and small-scale societies. Many of the relationships I have are completely mechanical, and when our homogeneity disappears, so does the relationship.

Almost . . . there!

2007-12-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

This morning it rained, and as I walked to work the trees dripped on my head. I saw a car with a bike rack and a white license plate with an evergreen on it. It parked and a man stepped out—a very pale white man with very dark brown hair and a brown anorak. I smelled pine. For a moment I thought I was home and all of this university stuff was just a bad dream.

Morbidity

2007-12-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling really morbid lately, like I want to watch someone die. (I'll be a lot more mature about it this time.) Like I want to be swallowed by Faulkner's fish. Anyway Pushing Daisies, Bryan Fuller's latest too-good-for-the-general-public television show, is perfect for my mood. So is the rain I can hear with my open window and my new playlist, which includes the aforementioned southern gothic pieces and the following from the Decemberists:

Eli, the Barrow Boy; Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) [Really, all of my playlists include this song. I can't live without it.]; Shankill Butchers; The Island [especially "You'll Not Feel the Drowning"]; The Infanta; The Bachelor and the Bride; A Cautionary Song; We Both Go Down Together; Leslie Ann Levine; Shanty for the Arethusa; The Chimbly Sweep; The Legionnaire's Lament [another must-have]; The Tain; and

Sold! To the Nice Rich Man – Welcome Wagon
You Know I'm No Good – Amy Winehouse
Down and Dirty – Shannon McNally
Afterlife – Rosey
Falling Away with You – Muse
Crooked Teeth – Death Cab for Cutie
Someday You Will Be Loved – Death Cab for Cutie
The Funeral – Band of Horses
Bleed like Me – Garbage
Lazy Eye – Siversun Pickups
Gone for Good (single version) – The Shins
Your Heart – The Triangles
Strange & Beautiful (I'll Put a Spell on You) – Aqualung
A Perfect Sonnet – Bright Eyes
Love Will Tear Us Apart (cover) – José Gonzáles
Mad World – Gary Jules
Everything Reminds Me of Her – Elliott Smith
Put Us Back Together Right – Headlights
Mouth – Bush
From a Voice Plantation – Guided by Voices
shopping for blood – Franz Ferdinand
Pablo Picasso – Citizen Cope
Sideways – Citizen Cope
Lord Raise Me Up – Matisyahu
Late Night in Zion – Matisyahu
Bones – The Killers
Each Dollar a Bullet – Stiff Little Fingers
Hurt (cover) – Johnny Cash
White Trash Beautiful – Everlast
We've Never Met – Neko Case
Days Go By (acoustic)
Mona Lisa – Grant-Lee Phillips

Jumpin' on the Folk-Gothic Bandwagon after All the Cool People Left

2007-12-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

I've created a new genre of music in my digital library: southern gothic. So far the category includes the following amazing songs (with many thanks to You Ain't So Picasso):

Pepper – The Butthole Surfers (Why do they have to have such a juvenile name?)
No More Workhorse Blues – Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Black Comedy – Bright Eyes
All Your Kitchen Ghosts – The Color Bars
I Will Follow You into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie
Sixteen Maybe Less – Iron & Wine
He Lays in the Reins – Iron & Wine
Dead Man's Will – Iron & Wine
Naked as We Came – Iron & Wine
White White – Ivana XL
Hanky Panky Knowhow – Miracle Fortress
Look for Me (I'll Be Around) – Neko Case
Things that Scare Me – Neko Case
White Chalk – PJ Harvey
Pickin' Up Rocks – Sharon van Etten
Let the Bombs Fall – Shearwater
Turn Your Transmitters Off – Shearwater
Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up that Old Gang of Mine – Shearwater
Whipping Boy – Shearwater
Seventeen Devils – Starlight Mints
Marianne, You've Done It Now . . . – Vandaveer
The Streets Is Full of Creeps – Vandaveer
The Black Angel's Death Song – The Velvet Underground
Sweet Bloody Murder – Wax Fang

Of course over half of the Decemberists' stuff would also go in this category ("The Infanta"'s a good example), but I already have a literary rock genre for them.

P.S. I'm suddenly smitten with Vandaveer. How did I not notice his songs in my library for so many years? He's amazing.

Last Class

2007-12-13T19:17:00.002-07:00

I can't believe I left my last undergrad class today at 12:45. It's too bizarre.

The Perfect Man

2007-12-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

Christa has posted a list of the qualities of her perfect man (though I think she really should have included something about looking good with facial hair, since she talks about bearded hotties all the time). It's a good idea, so I think I will emulate it.

If I could stumble onto the perfect man, he would
a. have dark hair (his skin can be any color as long as his hair's dark);
b. teach political science;
c. believe in God's love rather than God's punishments;
d. want 2.5 children;
e. be a little reserved in company;
f. strive for high ideals like truth, equality, sustainability, and harmony;
g. speak at least three languages;
h. have a best friend;
i. appreciate Iron & Wine on summer evenings and Carlos Montoya on autumn ones;
j. love me to pieces;
k. kiss really, really well;
l. understand my need for a 1920s gingerbread house; and
m. know that arguing can be healthy.

So if Christa wants a five-year-old, I want a fifty-five-year-old. Awesome.

Adulthood

2007-12-09T17:46:00.000-07:00

In a recent survey, 93 percent of college students between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five said that being financially independent from their parents was a requirement for adulthood. Only 73 percent of college students' dads said that was necessary. Similarly, while 53 percent of college students said being settled in a longterm career was an important part of adulthood, only 31 percent of their dads agreed.

Where do these parents come from? And why, even though I am financially independent of my parents (until I go on my mission), do I not consider myself an adult? Is it because I'm surrounded by frustrated postadolescents? Or does adulthood require something more permanent than half a bedroom?

And the Award for Most Gothic Bollywood Film Goes to

2007-12-09T01:28:00.000-07:00

Devdas (2002)
violent desire, unconsummated love, childhood sweethearts, consumption, fallen women, perfect sons, dark nights, supernatural splendor, frantic midnight carriage rides, icy marriages, alcoholism, clandestine meetings, tempests, fate, scars, prophecy, jealousy, flames, faithful servants, fog, delusions, veiling, unveiling, and keysThis Bollywoodized Wuthering Heights has it all—with musical numbers. Someone needs to tell the professor of Women and the Gothic Tradition in Nineteenth-century Britain.

P.S. The driver of a dark gray sedan with Kansas plates DWV 157 (I think) nearly ran into me Saturday evening at the intersection of 700 East and 700 North. Nearly as in I jumped back, slipped, and ended up falling onto the car, staring at the driver through his fogged-up window. He was probably thinking, How dare that pedestrian cross the street when she has the signal? What an idiot.

Report on Iron & Wine at the Great Saltair

2007-12-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

Iron & Wine last night were wonderful, even though Sam Beam had a cold. Christa and I met up with two of our former London buddies, who told us about being cool Americans at the O2 Wireless Festival this June. Oh, if I only had money!Anyway, Iron & Wine was better in person. Or at least, in person they were so different from the albums that they can't be compared. I was especially entranced by Paul Niehaus on the pedal-steel guitar; he looks like my sorta-uncle Jerry who makes his own mead, and the steel guitar was fascinating. Over all, I felt so folksy that I wanted to burn my bra, wear a kaftan, and go live on a commune. Except that I was born in the eighties, and we don't do that. We have cellphones.
Also featured in my musings last night was the wouldbe faded splendor of the Great Saltair—the Coney Island of the West. In the early twentieth century, it was the greatest attraction west of the Mississippi. When my grandparents went on their first date there, it was a romantic dance spot. Now the interior's stripped and decorated with nineties black paint and blue lights. Bring back the gothic-picturesque ruins celebrated in Carnival of Souls! They would go so well with Iron & Wine's southern gothic music.

Things I'm Not Gonna Miss about College

2007-12-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

Pollution
Snow
All-nighters writing a ten-page paper on something I don't care about
Busywork
Upstairs neighbors
Stupidhands
OOPPS in religion—and other—classes
Heart Attack Hill
Walking to the grocery store two and a half miles roundtrip
Walking to the doctor's office four miles roundtrip
Choosing between food and medication
Only eighteen hours of work a week with no benefits
People who get offended about everything
Bad radio stations
Commercials for LDS Living
Postadolescent boys who throw snowballs at my window
Frantic dating
No pets allowed
Utah drivers' Bowling for People nights, mornings, afternoons, evenings

One Naked Second

2007-12-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

Today I betrayed myself in Doctrine and Covenants: he was behind me, and I-don't-know-what made me turn and smile. Smile as if to say, "I'm completely smitten with you—let's make out." He was smiling too, and our eyes locked, and it was all over in a second, but it was one second too long.

Darn men with their darn scruff and their darn knitted caps and their darn warm brown eyes and their darn aloofness.

Supercool History of Religions Map

2007-12-03T20:11:00.001-07:00

"We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly."

2007-12-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

Emma Clarke, voice of the London Underground, has been sacked. She taught me to speak English!

Thoughts on the First Snowfall (excepting that weird flurry in September)

2007-12-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

All of those little rips in my Keds are suddenly more than just an aesthetic problem.
I'm amazed that I still remember which corners on the way to campus have the treacherous six inches of icy water covered in deceptive street-level snow.
If the mountain passes between Washington and Utah are too snowy the weekend before Christmas, my dad's gonna leave me here until they clear. Today this seems more likely.
Drivers are much less likely to stop at stop signs when there's snow. Even when a short young woman is crossing the street right in front of them.

The roses are dead.

2007-11-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

Bob & Rose

2007-11-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

I just started watching the weirdest show on GUBA—Bob & Rose. The premise is a little far fetched, though it is based on a true story, but the characters are so real that it almost hurts to watch them.

Proof that God Loves Us

2007-11-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

Moons like ours are a cosmic rarity, says BBC News.

Men Stink

2007-11-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

The Indian-Peruvian One's boyfriend has been at our apartment so long and so often watching Friends and Prison Break that the whole place is starting to smell like man.

Reading for Pleasure

2007-11-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

We have talked of Joseph Sedley being as vain as a girl. Heaven help us! the girls have only to turn the tables, and say of one of their own sex, 'She is as vain as a man', and they will have perfect reason. The bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette in the world.

—William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

Astrology Is True

2007-11-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

This is from a piece about dating a Sagittarian woman:

In order for her to stay, you have to keep her happy. If she gets unhappy or bored, she won't bother to fix any problems, she will just walk out and never look back. Fortunately, it is not that difficult to keep her happy. Be her friend—she does not take love too seriously anyway. . . . Let her have her freedom, flirt with her and take the relationship slowly, do not rush her. . . .
Keep your emotional distance, and they will be attracted to you. Easy. . . . These are the easiest people to get a date with but don't think that this is written in stone; they are the biggest commitment phobe of all zodiac signs. Enjoy the time you've spent with Sagittarius and be prepared to move on or at least share them with others because they will be doing the same. All in good fun.

Sound like anyone we know?

Nostalgia

2007-11-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

Today at the grocery store I heard a beautiful British man speaking to his wife. Then I came home, and the Australian guy in my ward had sent me an email:

It's going to be a tonne of fun!

I miss England!

Post 200: I-may-die-of-chocolate-poisoning Brownies

2007-11-11T15:27:00.001-07:00

Passover friendly and gluten free!

Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C). Grease 8×8" (20×20 cm) pan with butter and rice-flour bottom.

Combine in a medium bowl:
4 eggs, beaten
1½ cups (335 g) white sugar
½ cup (85 g) brown sugar (use C&H or another real brown sugar)

Add:
1 cup (225 g) melted butter
1¼ cups (275 g) Hershey's Special Dark cocoa, or ¾ cup (175 g) dutched cocoa and ½ cup (100 g) regular cocoa
2 teaspoons (10 ml) vanilla
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) sea salt or kosher salt
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) xanthan gum
¼ cup (38 g) rice flour
¼ cup (38 g) potato starch

Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 40–45 minutes until center does not jiggle when you move the pan. Let cool completely on a wire rack before eating.

© Bethylene, 2007

Bad Ideas

2007-11-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

Pirates of the Caribbean sequels (but Mark Kermode's critique is priceless!)
The impossible-to-use angled USB ports on mid-aughts Dell computers
Building split-level apartments with one apartment's living room and kitchen above another apartment's bedrooms
Grāpples
Preemptive strikes (they don't work; see also Doctrine and Covenants 98:33–48)
Breeding teacup dogs that are too small to maintain core body temperature and just shiver all the time
Carbonated yogurt

Divergence

2007-11-06T20:25:00.001-07:00

This is it. Up until this last chapter, Cleave has paralleled Plead the entire way—Cleave is set at BYU while Plead took place in high school, and Cleave features Three Sisters rather than Plead's Much Ado about Nothing, but the plots and a lot of the dialog 'til now were nearly identical. I hope I can keep writing when I don't know where I'm going anymore.

If I have nothing else, I do, at least, have a title for the next chapter: ‘Crumbs of Happiness’. It's from one of Masha's lines in act 4 of Three Sisters.

Sophistication

2007-11-03T12:31:00.000-06:00

It's so exciting that I can make cornmeal mush (corn grits) and corn pone now and call it polenta.

Reza Aslan's Rare Common Sense

2007-11-02T17:00:00.000-06:00

Reza Aslan, the brilliant and articulate author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, (which is the Kennedy Center book of the semester) spoke to a full house in the JSB auditorium this afternoon. As a well-read and well-accredited scholar of religion and sociology and also an Iranian-American (he actually said Iranian instead of Persian), he was very qualified to speak about Iranian-American relations in his lecture, "Revolution, Reformation, and Regime Change: Contemporary Iran."

It was fascinating. For instance, he recently visited Iran to do some research and visit some family. When she heard he lived in the United States, one woman asked, "What's it like to live in a theocracy?" So the misunderstanding goes both ways, as he says, "Iran is no more a theocracy than America is." However, since America has begin to threaten Iran, the clerical regime has grown stronger—in the name of national security, of course—and Iran has become paranoid. They think American missiles may rain down on them at any moment.

I'm not doing the lecture justice. I'll post a link to the video version when/if it's available. Basically, Mr Aslan's thesis was that, since thirty years of US sanctions against Iran have only strengthened the clerical regime, employing the China policy is the only way to break the regime. "Revolutions are undertaken by the middle class," he said. "No middle class, not revolution. No middle class, no democracy." Since Iran already has a democratic infrastructure, the transition to true democracy would be quick and relatively easy.

During the question and answer session, a man named Ben from my history and Arabic classes asked Mr Aslan why his book took such a "different approach towards Islam." Mr Aslan kindly explained that the moderate voice of Islam is not the minority, it is not even close to the minority. However, extremists make better TV, so they are featured frequently on American media. I was happy to be one of the ten people in the entire auditorium to raise their hands when he asked who had heard of the recent letter from a representative of every Islamic sect to the Pope and the Christian world. "If you are still looking for the moderate voice in Islam, and have not found it," he said, "you're not looking very hard." We are no longer spoonfed information by the media. We have the capacity to find out things for ourselves.

(So I don't want to attract from how brilliant Mr Aslan is, but I can't not mention how attractive he is: very.)

New Life

2007-11-01T20:11:00.000-06:00

I pass an overgrown rose hedge every day on my way to campus. This July, the roses were pale and parched from the weeks and weeks of 110° weather. A few weeks ago, our first frost killed the last remaining flowers. Now, the hedge is covered in fresh, dark pink blossoms. I mean, anyone who knows anything about plants knows that these rose bushes shouldn't be producing anything; the bushes are completely neglected. Yet hundreds of delicate flowers bow to me as I walk to work, class, and church. I wish I showed so much grace under adversity.

Restaurant Review

2007-11-01T12:32:00.000-06:00

One World Everybody Eats at 41 South 300 East in Salt Lake City delights both the gastronomic and the altruistic senses. The fresh, organic menu (with vegan, vegetarian, and meat options) changes daily. Also, customers choose their own portion sizes and their own prices, so they never feel like they are wasting food. Customers can also volunteer an hour of work for a meal if they cannot pay. The staff are friendly, and they know their stuff.

When I visited this neohippie delight, I chose from among the free appetizers quinoa and vegan miso soup. This was followed by some beautiful mixed greens, a delicious and filling lettuce-free salad, some oil-based coleslaw, and stuffed acorn squash. (I had the plain squash, but my companions loved the stuffed squash.) For dessert, they offered delicious pumpkin pie, made the way my family makes it—from the pumpkin up. Everything was delicious, and the southeast-Asian/contemporary-art décor is fun, especially since we could seat ourselves. I felt like I had finally eaten my five-a-day.

Their mission—that everybody eats—is wonderful, and they have wonderful food to back it up. I highly recommend this café.

I ♥ Hemingway (in the 1920s)

2007-10-31T23:08:00.000-06:00

I remember the first time I discovered the Decemberists: I was reading the arts section of the Sunday Oregonian (which we buy on our Saturday trips into town), and the review of Her Majesty, The Decemberists jumped off the page, grabbed me by the throat, and shouted, "Your life will never be the same again!" Most intriguing was the review's mention of their song "The Legionnaire's Lament" on Castaways and Cutouts. Anyone who sings about legionnaires, I decided, must be the most brilliant songwright in the world since Joachim Neander. And I was right.

In other news, I am now reading A Movable Feast, about Ernest Hemingway's adventures in Paris with Gertrude Stein and Shakespeare and Company, the descendant of which the Artiste One visited this summer. What happened to him? He started out with such wide-eyed promise, producing the beautifully sparse, yet heartwrenching, The Sun also Rises and other masterpieces, and then he just turned into a drunk, womanizing, hypermasculine, killing-obsessed misanthrope who wrote about old men battling mackerels. And then he killed himself. Sad.

For more information about the below, see

2007-10-31T18:02:00.000-06:00

The Other Drummer: President Hinckley's face carved into a pumpkin

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T13:14:00.000-06:00

My coworker Joseph Hinckley (as in the grandson of the man above immortalized in gourd) sent me this picture from a man in the ward of another man who works with Joseph's dad.

My Upstairs Neighbors 2

2007-10-30T14:53:00.000-06:00

Three elephants lived in the flat above mine,
whose friends were a large herd of kine,
they loved pogo sticks
and shouting for kicks
on Sundays for hours past nine.

My Upstairs Neighbors

2007-10-29T23:38:00.001-06:00

Three elephants lived above my house
Who knew a pack of jersey couse
They partied at night
Thumping with might
Until I blew them to tiny bits with a bazooka and their brains looked like souse.

And then I went to sleep.

Report on Architecture in Helsinki at In the Venue

2007-10-28T11:16:00.000-06:00

The Decemberists and Architecture in Helsinki are both quirky indie groups who use about five times as many instruments as they have band members, including the elusive glockenspiel. However, while the Decemberists may be as left-brained as a band can be, Architecture in Helsinki is so right-brained that I can see the music rising and shimmering before me: changing colors with pitch, changing pattern with rhythm. It looks kind of like the macrophotography effects in The Fountain:

Or maybe that was all because of the vast amounts of marijuana smoke permeating the overheated air.

Psalm 116

2007-10-27T12:38:00.001-06:00

I love the Lord,
because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

Because he hath inclined his ear unto me,
therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me:

I found trouble and sorrow.

Then called I upon the name of the Lord;
O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
yea, our God is merciful.

The Lord preserveth the simple:
I was brought low, and he helped me.

Return unto thy rest, O my soul;
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.

I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

I believed, therefore have I spoken:
I was greatly afflicted:

I said in my haste,
All men are liars.

What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?

I will take the cup of salvation,
and call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

O Lord, truly I am thine handmaid, and the daughter of thine handmaid:

thou hast loosed my bonds.

I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and will call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people,

In the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem.

Praise ye the Lord.

Things I've Learnt at College

2007-10-24T21:40:00.000-06:00

I can write two (double-spaced) pages an hour with sources early in the morning.
Putting the lid on the pan really does make water boil faster.
Being male and an idiot gives one an inalienable right to speak up in class at every inopportunity.
Being female and an idiot gives one an inalienable right to lots of first dates with intelligent men who think dumb women just need a little missionary-style encouragement to be smart.
Two jobs at once is a bad idea.
Pop·Secret Homestyle is excellent for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
TV shows download much faster around two in the afternoon.
In winter, failing to rub Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream into your hands at least three times a day will cause your knuckles to bleed.
Pantene Pro-V Relaxed and Natural intense moisturizing conditioner is the best.
Monday evening is the busiest time in the laundry room, for everyone forgets to wash their clothes on Saturday and gets really desperate on Sunday.
Don't ever ask a group of Latter-day Saints to talk about things they've learnt from people in other religions.
Dancing is related to sex, so guys who dance like total weirdos (lots of head-bobbing independent from their bodies) and ignore pesky details like rhythm turn me off to the point of nausea.
Many, many white people don't know that they're white.
Men with scruff are devastatingly attractive and devastatingly self-absorbed.
The uglier you look, the more people whom you know will be dying to talk to you.

Please, Professor, let me wake up.

2007-10-23T19:38:00.000-06:00

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man disturbs me more than any book I've ever read, and I've read disturbing books before: 1984, Lord of the Flies, The Yacoubian Building, The Bell Jar, Night, Rebecca, The Fortress of Solitude, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Okay, I guess I haven't read too many disturbing novels. But at least I enjoyed the ones I have read.

Invisible Man is a hyper-vivid, hyper-violent, hyper-voluptuous nightmare. It's like a memory that's too real to be true. Like hallucinating responses from ten senses instead of five. Like paranoid psychosis on acid. Like waking up one day and the entire population of the world is torturing you mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually.

I want to stop reading, put the book down, and never pick it up again. I'm not even drawn to it just to find out how it ends; I just want to forget I ever started it. The only reason I keep reading (very slowly, I started reading two months ago, and I'm just now halfway through) is because the stupid book was assigned to me. Reading it makes me sick, makes me loathe humanity.

Where are you, Gareth?

2007-10-22T23:42:00.000-06:00

Whilst watching the original The Office once again, I suddenly had an urge to contact my childhood friend, Gareth. (He looked and acted like Tim, but Gareth on the show has his name.) He was half Welsh, half English, told great jokes, and figure skated. He's probably gay now. I was so in love with him.

Man, 24, loses 82-year-old wife

2007-10-22T18:00:00.000-06:00

Again, from BBC News:

An 82-year-old Argentine woman who attracted media attention last month when she married a 24-year-old man has died as a result of heart problems.
Adelfa Volpes was admitted to hospital soon after she and her new husband, Reinaldo Waveqche, returned from their honeymoon in Brazil.
She died in a sanatorium in Santa Fe, the city where the couple were married.
Ms Volpes had rejected criticism over the age difference with the groom, who is the son of one of her best friends.
"I don't want to resign myself to the idea that I lost her," a disconsolate Mr Waveqche told EFE news agency.
The couple were married on 28 September in a civil service after several years of engagement, and later walked through a local church surrounded by reporters.
Their love is said to have blossomed when Mr Waveqche went to live with his future bride after his mother's death, when he was 15.

I feel a little sad for the guy, first his mother died, then the old woman he went to stay with comes on to him, then they got married, and now he's a widower at twenty-four. I hope they were happy together.

One kitchen gaget I crave above all others:

2007-10-21T09:15:00.000-06:00

an electric kettle.

Tired

2007-10-20T00:27:00.000-06:00

I am so, so, so tired. I've hardly slept all week.

I want to talk about Benazir Bhutto, I want to talk about The Queen, but my brain is cold peanut butter.

Now the cows upstairs are slamming the furniture around.

Truth in Comedy

2007-10-18T17:13:00.002-06:00

My question is this: . . . Is English capable of sustaining demagoguery? . . . I mean highly charged oratory; persuasive, whipping-up rhetoric. Listen to me, listen to me. If Hitler had been British, would we, under similar circumstances, have been moved, charged up, fired up by his inflammatory speeches, or would we simply have laughed? Is English too ironic to sustain Hitlerian styles? Would his language simply have rung false in our ears?
—Stephen Fry, in episode 2 of A Bit of Fry and Laurie

Chuffed to Bursting

2007-10-17T20:17:00.000-06:00

Why, oh, why are Britons so much funnier than Americans? Do they have a better sense of humour, or does their accent make everything they say funny?

This afternoon I discovered A Bit of Fry and Laurie, featuring Stephen Fry, of recent Harry Potter audiobook fame, and Hugh Laurie, now playing Dr. House on Fox. It's a little like Monty Python's Flying Circus, but it has more (relatively) high-brow wordplay. I'm just surprised that I can still find British comedies that delight me after the disappointment of Little Britain.

La Vida Bellísima en México

2007-10-16T23:55:00.000-06:00

In June 2005 my aunt and uncle invited me to spend a month in a colonial town in Guanajuato (wa-na-wha-to), México with them. Guanajuato is a beautiful and prosperous state in central México, nothing like the dry pockets of desperation in places like Sonora. Above all else, I noticed how happy the people were.

And why wouldn't they be happy? Every afternoon, the abuelas bought several kilos of warm golden corn tortillas hot off the press at the local tortillería. Every Tuesday, the tianguis outside town was full of warm red and yellow mangoes, loads of fragrant spices, at least five kinds of bananas, fifteen kinds of beans, and every other wonderful thing one could possible desire. In the evenings, people met their friends in the plaza and then later gathered to set off fireworks in honor of one saint or another. When a small town finally got cobbled streets, there was much rejoicing. Few people looked hungry or sad, but also few people looked lonely.

I don't know much about Nigeria. In fact, I just realized that I've never knowingly met anyone from Nigeria. I do completely understand why México rated second in self-reported happiness. People there take setbacks in stride and treasure their families over nice cars and huge houses. Though they may have less than some (U.S.) Americans, they are a lot happier.

New Beth

2007-10-16T17:57:00.000-06:00

This summer, I created the New Beth. She is underhanded, she is indirect, she is oh-so nice. She can better deal with BYU culture than could Old Beth. For example, New Beth dealt with the four-hundred-pound, combat-boot-wearing, screaming people upstairs:

Upstairs Neighbor. Hi?
New Beth. Hey, I'm Beth, from downstairs. Hey, cool! My bedroom's right below your living room—weird, huh?
UN. I'm Sarah. Do you want to play with us?
NB. Oh, that sounds like so much fun, but actually, I'm getting ready for bed. I just came by to see if you were okay.
UN. Uh . . . Yeah, of course we're okay.
NB. Gosh, I just heard so much pounding that I thought someone must be hurt up here. My walls were shaking! I'm so glad no one's being murdered!
UN. No one's being murdered, but I'm sorry you were worried about us. See you later!

This is what Old Beth would have said:

Upstairs Neighbor. Hi?
Old Beth. Hi, I'm Beth from downstairs. Did you know my bedroom's right under your party?
UN. Nope.
OB. Well, it is, and I'm trying to sleep. Please keep it down a bit.
UN. Whatever. (Shuts the door on Old Beth.) Can you believe that chick?! She's spoiling all of our fun!

This is how New Beth dealt with the manager when the toilet broke:

Manager. Hello?
New Beth. Well, I plunged and plunged like you told me to, and I still can't see a clog. Gosh, I just don't understand enough about toilets and plumbing and stuff. What should I try next?
M. Don't worry about it. I'll come right now.
NB. Thanks!

Old Beth's method:

Manager. Hello?
Old Beth. Well, it's been an hour since you said you'd come look at the toilet . . .
M. Did you try plunging?
OB. Yes. I missed a quiz this morning because I was plunging the toilet. I'm pretty sure that's not the problem because I had to turn off the valve to make the water stop running all over the floor. Water ran into the heat register. Could you come now?
M. Okay, whatever. I'll be there in the next few hours.

Here's an actual conversation between exboyfriend and Old Beth last spring after he hurt her best friend and she decided to tell him the naked truth:

exboyfriend. You've been pretty quiet. How are you?
Old Beth. Y'know, I used to think that we could still be friends, but now just looking at you makes me violently ill.

Here's New Beth's method of dealing with exboyfriend in front of her best friend after he continues to torment said best friend:

New Beth (knowing his lack of work experience and the great competition made his chances for said job approximately zilch). Did you get that job at the optometrist's that you were talking about?
exboyfriend: Uh, that didn't work out.
NB (knowing that he wouldn't get a job even though he's nearly 26, and that he continues taking undergrad classes full-time after graduating this April to avoid getting a job and paying off his massive student loans and MasterCard bills). Oh. So, where are you working this semester?
ex. I'm just going to school, y'know. (Trying to change subject.) My little brother just got a really good raise, though.
NB. Oh, I get it! Does your brother give you money, then?

See, New Beth is much better suited to the saccharine climate of her surroundings.

Too bad I hate her.

Socialism Is Funny

2007-10-15T19:00:00.001-06:00

Wonderful blog that I've been following for a while: A Soviet Poster A Day

For a long time I had a Franco-era poster on my wall; it said, "En él que sabe de la grandeza de nuestro mañana, no cabe el pesimismo," in front of a burly, salt-of-the-earth man and a burly, salt-of-the-earth woman looking forward with determination. I'm not sure why socialism makes me so happy.

Today in Middle East History to 1800, two people behind me were arguing about school vouchers. I was considering turning around and supporting the antivoucher guy, but then he said, "Well, that's socialism, so we can't do it," to provoucher gal. What?! Like the entire public education program isn't based on a socialist ideal!

In other news, the happiest populations in the world live in Nigeria and Mexico.

The Cynical Romantic's Lament

2007-10-14T22:29:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of smiling when my head hurts, of attending activities I dislike, of pretending to be interested when I just want to go home. I'm tired of the games I'm supposed to play—of flirting with purpose and of remembering names. I'm tired of "Sorry!" I'm tired of being so nice that I nauseate myself. I can't even say the word nice without hissing, without afterward swallowing the tiny bit of vomit that came up with it.
Tonight I was chatted up. I should have responded; I should have giggled and patted his arm and asked about his interests. Instead I answered a few questions, then flipped an excuse and headed back to my couch.
I like my couch, even if it does reek of cancer-causing flame-retardants. It does not stress me out. My couch does not voice expectations from our cuddling sessions. My mother does not ask me about my couch.
Yet with all that, I can't purge myself of the idea that somewhere out there is someone who will make me feel real and alive instead of fake and dead. If I could just get rid of that nasty expectation, I would be so much happier.

Twelfth Night Idea

2007-10-13T22:26:00.000-06:00

I just came up with an amazing idea for performing Twelfth Night: Viola and Sebastian are from modern Greece, sailing the Aegean when their ship is wrecked on the shores of (also modern) Turkey. Malvolio is an obnoxious strict Muslim; Toby Belch is Olivia's drunk uncle; Sir Andrew Agucheek is the playboy Toby's trying to get Olivia to marry; Feste is a wandering acetic Sufi.
Culture clashes, misunderstandings, and hilariousness result. Am I brilliant, or what?

When they are learned they think they are wise

2007-10-11T14:21:00.000-06:00

"Everyone gets their wisdom teeth out these days," the hygienist told me as she committed me to $797 of dental work, which I can't pay for, before the dentist will sign my mission papers.
Why do we even have wisdom teeth if everyone gets them out? How on earth do people in the UK and other less-teeth-obsessed countries than the United States live with their wisdom teeth? Why are they not all writhing in pain and dying of infection? Why can't I just let my (straight, healthy) third molars grow in?
I can understand that some people may have problems with their wisdom teeth as some people have problems with their appendixes. But everybody? That doesn't make any sense. I'm guessing that the dentist wants me to pay six hundred dollars (the other two hundred is for cavities) for a precaution.

If life never is better than this moment

2007-10-10T23:51:00.001-06:00

I will always remember
thick sweet orange juice from the bottom of the pitcher
in a tall square glass
after watching Sequins

Weird Things My California-Bar-Member Mother Says

2007-10-10T19:06:00.000-06:00

¡Ábrete la boca!—Open your mouth!
ar-kaan-saww (said with a lilt)—Arkansas
boob tube—television
favor-īte—favorite
turkey—troublemaker
goomy bears—gummy bears
rain galoshes—rubber Wellington boots
I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.—
I love you lots.
It woulda bi'cha if it were a snake!—It's right under your nose.
You're bored outta your gourd.—You're bored stiff.
Hold your horsies.—Be patient.
You've got ants in your pants.—You can't sit still.
Go stand on your head and stack BBs.—Please find something to do besides bug me.
You're cruisin' for a bruisin'.—You're bugging me on purpose. (These last five usually came at me in this order when I was little.)

Pain in the Neck

2007-10-07T17:59:00.000-06:00

If I sued the Graduate Records Examination Board because my neck hurts after bending over their subject test for three hours yesterday, would I get a higher score?

Dear Jake Barnes,

2007-10-06T17:26:00.000-06:00

I wish I could tell you how much I crave you, how I go through withdrawal every time you leave me, and how I stare at my pillow at night worrying about you. I wish I could hold you instead making my back stiff like the wall between us. I wish I could be close to you without hurting you. I wish I were a better person. I wish I knew whether I loved you, or whether I'm like Brett, who "only wanted what she couldn't have."

I know I could be everything you want from a woman, but I don't know whether I should be. I want to solve your problems as your aide-de-camp, your sponsor, your helpmate. I wish life weren't so complicated: I wish I could be yours and you could be mine forever and ever.

Jake's parting words in The Sun also Rises are so like us:

"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Maybe someday I'll get over you, but I'm not sure. I may still wait for you on shores of the sea of glass. You, unknowing unripe one, have part of me.

Dear Stupidhands,

2007-10-03T20:04:00.001-06:00

You are the sickest piece of near-humanity to ever crawl out of the primordial slime. Please crawl back—soon, if possible.

Thanks!

Bethylene

Good Hair Day

2007-10-02T16:31:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling very beautiful-and-tragic today, but no one is here to see.

EU Constitution Take 2

2007-10-02T16:25:00.001-06:00

Personally, the only reason I'm opposed to the European Union is because it took away most of the super-cool local currencies and coins. I can also understand why the UK is less than excited about the EU, for they are slightly non-European in ideology, Zeitgeist, and economy. But I'm interested to see what will happen next for the EU reform treaty.

First Will and Testament

2007-10-01T20:07:00.000-06:00

I, Bethylene, being of relatively sound mind, do hereby make my first will and testament, so that I will not be embalmed if (due to some extraordinary circumstance) I die.My workable organs I leave to whoever needs them most.

I want to be cremated, and I absolutely refuse to have a viewing. Viewings are probably the sickest ritual to ever spring from some psychopath's morbid fantasies. I will not have viewings for my parents either; I want to remember them and to be remembered alive, not as made-up, preservative-laden shells. Why on earth would anyone think that pickling and painting their relatives' dead bodies was a good idea? I don't get it.
From a religious standpoint, I do not believe that resurrection is hindered by cremation or anything else. God's power is infinite, and it would take just as much of His power to reanimate a rotten corpse as it would to raise a burned corpse.

As for everything else, I leave the $3.95 in my bank account to my brother's trust fund. He also shall inherit my heavy Revereware pans, my pan lids, and my laptop, so he can look at star charts for hours without bugging everyone else who wants to get on the computer.

My sister gets my cat (whom she must care for tenderly), my DVDs, and all the books on my shelves that she actually wants. She can have my dishes, mismatched silverware, measuring cups, and jewelry if they are not too ugly for her.

My mom gets Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, my coin collection (which is hidden in several different places), and any of my clothes that she would consider wearing. She also may reclaim all the books that I have stolen from her over the years. The lacy full-length slip and a lot of the socks in my underwear drawer shall also be returned.

Grandmother gets my books about Byzantium and the Crusades.

My dad gets my battered scriptures, in which I've scribbled many answers to my prayers. I am very sorry if I leave unpaid medical and phone bills when I die; please understand I did my best to pay them off, except I died.

My diaries and Plead should be either burned or published, whichever is the most feasible. I like to believe that the piles of mementos I've collected (including the souvenirs on my wall) will be kept and cherished, but I think I'll be okay if they're tossed out.

The Seventh Roommate gets one copy of The Reporter, since it may change his life as much as it changed mine. He can't let it depress him too much, though.

The Disney-obsessed One may search my computer for photos she wants to keep. She may also have my gold bangles, for gold looks very good on her, and they would fall off my sister's slender alabaster wrists (I'm not jealous).

Man, 24, weds 82-year-old bride

2007-09-29T11:18:00.000-06:00

This is from BBC news:

A 24-year-old Argentine man has married a woman 58 years his senior.

The groom, Reinaldo Waveqche, told reporters after the ceremony in Santa Fe, northern Argentina: "I've always liked mature ladies."
Mr Waveqche added: "I don't care what other people say." He and bride Adelfa Volpes, 82, are planning to travel to Rio de Janeiro for their honeymoon.
Asked if the marriage was purely spiritual, Ms Volpes laughed and replied: "There is going to be more."
The couple were married in a civil service after several years of engagement, and later walked through a local church surrounded by reporters.
Their love blossomed when Mr Waveqche went to live with her after his mother's death when he was 15.
He said he admired his new wife's zest for life, and emphasised how special she was to him.

I been to Georgia on a fast train, honey

2007-09-29T01:58:00.000-06:00

My new fascination: Georgia. The country, of course, although Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil really made me want to see Savannah at least once before I die.
Georgia has the coolest script! This is Georgia (Sakartvelo) in Georgian: საქართველო. Awesome, huh? But I already knew that. It took a recent BBC report that Georgians are rallying against their possibly corrupt and murderous leader to get me to dig deeper. Georgia is beautiful! Just look at these pictures from Wikipedia!

Hormones Don't Get the Best of Me (for Long)!

2007-09-27T23:28:00.000-06:00

Horrible days that start with accidentally leaving oatmeal uneaten on the breakfast table, continue to watching someone who is paid nearly twice as much as you are struggle to insert Greek characters in Microsoft Word, and peak with bursting into tears at the health clinic reception desk when they tell you to reschedule, can still conclude on a very happy note with Tall Flirtbuddy's return, stories of Stupidhands's stupidity, and the Disney-obsessed One's triumph. I'm going to have to name her triumph: Farmer 'Fro? Hmm, I'll work on it.

Stop the car! Where the heck are we going?!

2007-09-27T10:50:00.000-06:00

Today in American Modernist Literature (with the passionate Edward Cutler), we discussed the twentieth-century counterculture movements that became mass produced and middle class:

1900s—sentimentalism
1910s—classical aestheticism
1920s—sexual rebellion
1930s—hedonism
1940s—supercoolness (Humphrey Bogart, zoot suits)
1950s—rock and roll
1960s—rebellion
1970s—hedonism
1980s—supercoolness
1990s—alienation (grunge, Friends, Dead Poets Society)

Then Professor Cutler tried to name the mass-produced postcounterculture movement of this decade. He couldn't. One student in the class suggested quirkiness, Atlantic Monthly's postulated movement of our era: a postulation supported by Napoleon Dynamite, Hot Rod, underground indie music, messy hair, retro everything, quasi-political blogging. I can see it.

But how mass-produced is this movement? Is it still taking off? Will quirkiness be the middle-class aspiration of the 2010s?

My question stems from watching the movie and television industries, as they are very good indicators of middle-class sentiment. They are all over the place, yet they are always very safe: romantic comedy, bloody action, monstrous horror, bathetic tear-jerker. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Are they afraid to ask? The retro-everything I think comes from a fear that new things may not succeed, so we should go with what has worked in the past. Looking backward is historically un-American. Edward Bellamy even wrote Looking Backward: 2000–1887 in 1887 about 2000, so it was really about the (socialist Utopian) future.

Under all the 2000s safety lies fear. Even through the Cold War, America was certain of its power, its morality, and its economy. We no longer are sure about anything. We have no unifying middle-class movement because we are afraid. The Internet is full of drifters. We blog about nothing, and we wish our posts meant something.

W is for Wimp

2007-09-27T00:22:00.001-06:00

I wimped out. Okay, so I felt sick today, even left work early though I'm desperate for money, and so I did not execute Operation Vixen. Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow. In the meantime, I came up with another reason why I should go after the shy guy: it's a lot more fun to convince an awesome shy guy that he's awesome than to pretend a cocky jerk is awesome when he's not.

Egypocrites

2007-09-26T14:58:00.000-06:00

Egypt, one of the United States' closest allies in the Middle East (for which the United States pays "billions of dollars in aid") has some human rights problems. Just read The Yacoubian Building (عمارة يعقوبيان) by Alaa Al Aswany to learn all about that. Recently, the United States has made a statement about the situation in Egypt. For what? I doubt that the United States has much moral high ground to stand on after keeping thousands at Guantanamo Bay without trial for years. We also still allow trade with China even though it is rife with human-rights violations. Of course, I am a staunch supporter of human rights, but sometimes I wonder how the United States dares to say anything about them.

V is for Vixen

2007-09-25T22:07:00.000-06:00

Some friends' recent successes have made me reevaluate my no-approaching-guys policy. I used to think that a man would not love me as much if I had chased him. That's why I sit around waiting for guys to come on to me. But I don't like settling for the only guys brave/stupid enough to approach me. They usually don't understand me, which is why they aren't intimidated by me. Maybe I should just go for the man I've been crushing on for twelve months now. I'm pretty sure he's crushing on me, and if I'm wrong, then I'll be in southern Chile or wherever soon enough.

More Happy Stuff

2007-09-24T20:07:00.000-06:00