(the now defunct) Winterberry

Correction.

2011-06-15T06:23:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard, I am no longer broken up but engaged! James is the best and I feel really calm and good. And it's a long story, which I'll post one day.

And. I know this is a little uncouth, but if you are interested in getting an invitation and haven't sent me your address yet, will you? Email me at kjerstinm at gmail?

Lovely.
ke

The end

2011-02-28T17:00:00.000-08:00

Um, breaking up is harder than I remembered/anticipated. I think I was right and it is right but there's a lot of untangling that has to go on.

And I forgot the thing about cars: because he lives in my neighborhood I see his car around. And there's always that couple of months that you're extra sensitive to, like, white Hyundais or whatever, but that CRV was going to be mine once. These camp chairs I need to return were there on the first night I knew he was in and they were going to me mine once too.

Eight months is a long time.

what it feels like

2010-09-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm being smooshed between malignant forces: from the inside, my stomach is turning turning--diet coke and sunflower seeds for lunch. The press is lurching and liquid and smashes unexpected and I think of it carefully as if my thoughts were careful hands and the pressure had spikes.
On the outside, bricks. Rough and square and heavier and heavier. Piled flat both on my shoulders and my lower back, even though I'm sitting up. My jaw resists opening, even, and my neck bending.
I can't I can't I can't.

The solution:

2010-06-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

I've come to dread reading/writing this blog. It's soo draggy and terrible. ("If I didn't know you," Annie said last night "I would think you were very dark and sad." Too true.) So I'm moving here. I may occasionally come back to Winterberry because, let's be honest, there's something super therapeutic about venting online, but hopefully those dark and sad posts will be few and far between. If I were you I would unsubscribe right now and save yourself the drama.

Thanks for following, it's been a party.

Loves,

ke

True Story

2010-06-05T18:42:00.001-07:00

I think I'm going to take a break from blogging.

Hasta.

ke

Melissa-issa-issa

2010-06-05T16:07:00.001-07:00

The part of this post that's about me: I convinced myself last week that I wanted to take up audio editing, and that it was as good a time as any...not like I was having a hard time finding time to sleep, not like I was complaining about how busy I was to anyone who'd listen. I checked out a voice-recorder from the library and recruited my family to put together an audio birthday card for Melissa. My little sister. Whose birthday is today! After collecting anecdotes and well wishes and "I love Melissa because...," I realized that it wasn't latent interest or good will toward my sister that drove me to this project, but a very complicated and subtle mind trying to avoid the business at hand and so I ditched the project. To all of you who helped: thanks. And sorry. To Melissa:

The part of this post that's about Melissa:

Melissa was born during an episode of Heart to Heart in a delivery room that overlooked Biscayne Bay. She spent her babyhood running around blonde and naked and nearly drowning. All day every day. In Kindergarten she would only wear the color purple. In first grade she insisted on wearing her Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Halloween costume/pajamas constantly. I'm not sure if Connie was able to get them off her when she went to school. She was the athletic one: swam like a fish (you know, out of necessity), an early Varsity soccer and softball player.

Melissa is softspoken and unselfish and funny. She loves animals (she and Jill just found and adopted a tiny baby kitten which they named Guy Oliver and feed from a bottle) and kids and art. I haven't seen her sit still for years: she's always sketching or carving, and she keeps getting better and better (I, a dabbler, was taken by surprise by this: "You mean, if you spend hours and hours on a thing, you turn master?") She did, she's so great.

And this thing I've realized: Melissa is the baby of a family stocked gills-high in strong personalities. She might be the most stubborn/determined of us all, for all her quiet solitary ways. Melissa knows what's important to her and she does it and keeps doing it. And so she's an amazing friend. And an impressive artist. And a better-than-natural athlete. And an incredible person.

Anyway. Happy Birthday Melis!

Mercy Killing

2010-06-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

Today I killed a mouse. I noticed him in the shed at one of my parks (breathing heavily, still, tiny and adorable and nearly perfect, caught only, I saw later on, by the toes on his right foot). I stalled. I questioned my logic (maybe he doesn't feel enough to merit a mercy killing? Why does this bother me so much? What would Tom Guthrie do?). I texted a friend who tried to make me feel better by comparing me, I think, to God. I filled up a bucket of water then went to my other park to grab the garbage picker-upper the better to maneuver with then moved the dewy-eyed beast into a shovel and into the water where I learned mice can swim. Just not for long dragging a trap with them and with a foot all broke to pieces.

Coming to terms

2010-06-01T08:38:00.001-07:00

In my head I know that when fellows spout off random (well known) facts in a tone that suggests that they're experts on the subject ("People nowadays use whitewash to paint furniture, then rub it off with a rag or sandpaper to make it look old." Really? Are you referring to a decade-old trend which I may have more access to than you on account of my fulfilling societally imposed gender norms, love loving HGTV, and actually having distressed furniture...) they don't mean harm. They're not, probably, trying to imply that I'm uninformed or unintelligent. They are, probably, trying to be friendly and make conversation. In every nerve and cell and bone, however, I want to punch them in the nose and run the other way.

On the other hand: those of you to whom I've pretended to be expert (and there are a lot of you), gross, and to whom I've condescended (there's no other way to write this! I love apologizing for being a myopic, unfounded, elitist using whom.) I'm so sorry. Thanks for not punching me in the nose? Blech.

Grab-bag

2010-05-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

1.
The best part about not being paid for a day of manual labor is the sitting in layers of my favorite clothes (thermals+sweaters) on the floor by my space heater drinking an enormous mug of chai+vanilla soy milk reading Clint Eastwood film synopses and getting my brain/life in order. And great convo over a lunch that includes lime juice. And that the sun is shining shining.

2.
As of right...now, it is official: I'm running my first marathon in September (Logan) or October (somewhere else?). And to celebrate defending my thesis (or something) I will run this.

3.

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. Isaiah 4:1

I don't love dating at BYU. The old college try notwithstanding.

The why

2010-05-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

I went to Fiddler on the Roof with my family a couple of months ago. It wasn't, like, the most amazing production of anything I'd ever seen (though it was Hale Center Theatre and good, and also my family is so great) but it didn't really matter. I felt myself misting up at the opening number ("The papas! Tradition!") and by "Is this the little girl I carried" and "Do you love me?" I was wasted, weeping openly.

Last night, too, I went to a show. The opening band (Lost in the Trees) opened, I think with this number and it was cooperative musical magic at its best. The french horn/xylophone/accordion player looked like there was nothing she'd rather be doing in the entire world and she kept making eyes at the lead guy--you know, signalling to each other.

That first chord was, and I'm going to overuse this word: magic. I felt all the tension in my brain and back rushing out of me, and I sat back and enjoyed enjoyed myself, let myself be taken up. And band number two (Plants and Animals) was much more raucous--but I danced because I wanted to dance and sort of let go.

And art. I keep trying to undermine the value of this stuff, dedicate myself to more practical matters etc. or convince myself that I don't like shows (loud! hot! mean!) or...whatever. But I need to stop that. The dynamic of people making music and people listening to music, participating together is important and beautiful. For everyone, but for me and my poor worn soul.

Avoiding

2010-05-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

I am avoiding things. I am sitting in my dirty work clothes avoiding showering thereby avoiding leaving the house for job #2 thereby avoiding the rush to Dr. Cronin's house for class thereby avoiding my study date which I'll spend avoiding thinking about a thesis that I'm sort of not avoiding since I've sort of started to think about it which is uncharacteristic but, alas, mostly faking.

I am avoiding making an appointment to get my windshield replaced. Thereby avoiding the calling around I should be doing to price check (apparently Techni-Glass price matches so a little calling around could help) thereby avoiding getting my Safety/emissions done, thereby avoiding paying my registration fees. I still have a week to get this done.

I am avoiding doing some apologizing and some pulling of my head out of my nether-orifices and so avoiding some people I love (hi there) and so spending a lot of time by myself trying not to feel like a terrible person. (Ben and Jerry's. Diet Coke. Napping/wishing I could be napping.)

I am, still and always, avoiding poetry, which has just about taken the hint and left town.

Etc.

Two Questions: balance

2010-05-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

1. Do you think that conflict/contrast/opposition is a part of God? On the one hand of course obviously not, right, God=unity. On the other hand, a sort of fundamental part of our understanding of our purpose here is that there's opposition in all things, right? Good exists only where evil exists? And God exists but so does evil in some form. And they're co-existent. The more I learn/think about patriarchy, though, and the problems that spring from opposition the more I wonder whether opposition is the driving potentially creative force I thought it was. Or if it's just the way our Judeo-Christian heritage teaches us to see conflict and, ultimately, God.

2. When we first met, did you think I hated you?

:)

I work outside

2010-05-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

because it gives me time and quiet to think about things. After a while it would drive me crazy, but for the month, after my first year of grad school, it dulls the jaded edge of things, adds some clarity.

And some things I've been thinking about:

1. I think I'm girlier than I like to admit. I like pink and baking cookies and feeling pretty. Don't hold your breath--I think it's going to take me a minute to figure out how to disinter the princess I buried alive 20 years ago, how to make her a part of me in a way that I'm comfortable with--but maybe things will change some?

This is hard to admit. Because I care a lot about what people think. And on the one hand I've cultivated this intellectual dismissal of tradition and patriarchy and emotion to some extent, and on the other a careful pragmatism that doesn't allow for frivolity or openness of emotion. And that's the other wall I've put up: a measured stoicism, to distance and protect me from any roving betrayal or offense. But. But. I keep falling short of all of these expectations I have for myself and that I imagine everyone has for me. I feel like a fraud all the time and feel like it's better to be hated thank loved for what I'm not (I certainly did)?

And my realization today: I think I tend, naturally, toward the flighty and silly. But I have a life that's done much to stamp that out of me, or, and this I guess is the idea I want to explore, to mold that into something that I can feel really good about and respect. Again, I'm not sure how this is all going to go down, or if I'll change my actions, really, or just my motives, but. It's something.

2. I'm a hopeless, hopeless romantic. I feel like everyone knows this about me but me. But how hard is it to look at my life right now and let myself hope? That those dreams and expectations I've held so near could possibly possibly resemble, in any way, my actual life? And it might turn out that all of those hopes are dashed and crushed or drastically altered or whatever, but it might be dishonest to pretend I don't hold them, that they don't motivate all the things I do.

3. I want to do things. To help people. To travel. In big and important ways (or at least influential ways....or something). This is one of those deeply held desires that I'm not sure how to get done. Another that I've sort of buried.

So. There is my soul for you. Toodles.

Mother's Day

2010-05-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

My life was a pretty normal one: divorce+working mom, and that means that I, by necessity, spent more time relying on and being formed by women who weren't my mom. This was wonderful. Looking back at the women and men who stepped in and stepped up I feel sooo lucky and watched after and blessed. I want to thank those part-time, emergency, and adoptive moms a little, as well as Connie of course, for being themselves. For helping me be who I am. Happy happy mother's day!

Mom #1: Connie. An old pic w/grandkids: her favorite people.

My mom-for-real. The thing about Connie is this: she finds beauty everywhere. Where she doesn't find beauty, she makes beauty. She is a talker-to-strangers, a rescuer of strays, a laugher. Our dining room table, when I was a teenager, was staffed with siblings and in-laws and distant relatives, with friends far from home, with people Connie met on the street or at work. And the table was never that big. Connie works hard. She gardens. She taught me to love good (and beautiful) food and nice clothes and just to love too. And lately she's teaching me scary and important things about repentance and forgiveness. From her I inherited a lot of my neuroses, but also my empathy, my hand-talking, my love of feeding people.

Mom #2 (a tie): Rachel.

Rachel is my oldest sister and she, over the years, has gone above and beyond in looking out for me. Rachel is the most responsible person that I know. She gets the stuff done she says she will, but manages to balance her drive with a remarkable sense of compassion and balance. She does everything she does with taste and flair; she loves modern art and architecture, she loves doing things well. The thing that Rachel taught me though, and continues to teach me is that my life is in my own hands. Through her decisions and perseverance and with her lovely family, Rachel has made herself (is still making herself) into the person she wants to be. If only because she hates being bossed around even more than I do, Rachel has taken her fate and personality into her own hands, has come out a kind and responsible and hilarious and lovely person.

Mom #2 (a tie): Anne.

My other older sister. Anne's a kind of remarkable example, too, of becoming the person she wants to be, and she inspires me all the time to become a better girl. She's a ridiculously hard worker, and as creative and competent as anyone I know. (The things she makes! Her beautiful house!) She's devoted to her family and friends and would do anything for anyone of them. She forgives. She sees the best in people. She encourages me to be temperate and kind and the very best me. She is unfailingly thoughtful and generous and just kind of a hard act to follow/the best older sister ever.

Mom #3: Diane.Diane with her real family, also some of my favorite people.

My foods teacher. My FCCLA advisor (I was the state president of FCCLA, nee FHA, did you know?). Cluff's was the place everyone that mattered to me in high school congregated. It was kind of like that neighborhood house where everyone ate cookies after school, except it was at school. And Cluff fed us and yelled at us when we were dumb and laughed with/at us. I visit now and wonder, sort of, at how she knew me better than I knew me back then and at how she had the capacity to mother all the dozens of us she did.

Mom #4: Becca. Becca was a savior-mom. I babysat for her kids (like Anne did before me and Melissa after) and she her house was always home. Because that was her priority: Becca put, always, her family first and made her friends her family. I went and sat and played cards and ate cupcakes the size of my skull and read and was safe and loved and home.

Mom #5: Becky. I've been writing this for years. Because Becky died suddenly when I was just out of high school and she was such an important person in my life and I've never been able to articulate why precisely. The first time we met I was barefoot and nearly feral and she told me she liked my hand-me-down overalls. And yes I was wearing overalls (and my hair was messy and I had a kool-aid mustache) and no I wasn't living in the backwoods. Becky saw in me (and all the frantic broken souls she collected) our talents and she spoke them. And made them true. Becky told me I was a good writer. And complemented me for liking exotic food (spicy tomato couscous!?! Yes please.) And gave me diet coke and played Ella Fitzgerald and showed me what it could mean to be a smart, confident, loving mother. Amazing, miraculous woman.

Mom#6: Janice was my stepmom only for a couple of years. Once when I was living with them she insisted that I come up out of my room, where I was hiding and reading, and sit in the living room, where my dad was hiding and reading, and have a conversation with each other. It didn't last long, by her iconoclastic attitudes toward my dad shape, still, the way I see him. And I'm indebted to her always for Thievery Corporation, Yo La Tengo, and tofu.

And to the rest of you: amazing. Thanks and happy Mother's Day!

ke

(also, I totally pillaged all of these pics: let me know if you want me to take them down? :))

GLITTER!

2010-04-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

The moment when I knew that Alea and I were going to be friends (or that he wasn't faking, or whatever) was when he called to report on a glitter sighting: "I was at Joann's. There was a lot of glitter. I thought of you."

It's a thing.

Which might be why I'm in love with this.

Or maybe just because it's awesome. Thanks to Amanda for the link. And to everyone who's already seen this on Facebook. Or Gmail. Or whatever. For your patience.

On Fun

2010-04-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

I'm belaboring this. How can I tell? Because having fun is the opposite of sitting in your mom's living room writing about fun. And the opposite of spending all day thinking about what it means to have fun. And spending a good chunk of the evening at the mall trying to think fun. Are those pink+leopard+sequin gladiator sandals fun? Are blisters and accenting my terrible ankles also fun? Do those two things cancel each other out probably?

I, as you may know/be able to tell am not a particularly fun person. (Not asking for validation here. Thanks though. :) ) I've been coming to terms with this for the last couple of years. I'm occasionally funny, occasionally spontaneous (which is the only real way to be spontaneous, right? People who are constantly spontaneous lose something of spontaneity? Anyway), occasionally adventurous, but I'm not the girl people call up when they're looking for a good time (read that how you may).

Today I was talking with a prof about my thesis--informally, waiting for the elevator. He said: Have fun. Have fun have fun have fun. Doing my thesis and this summer and, I think I can extrapolate, just generally. And of course I got all flustered (because that's what serious people do when someone they respect tells them they should be doing something they're not, even if that something is having fun) and set my mind to it.

And then I was on campus and hit with this heavy visceral wave of boredom. I watched five people leave the library wearing khakis and pastel tops. Boring. I bought a book (The Postcolonial Reader. I wish it were more fun.) I said 0 clever things during my class (several smart things, none of them clever).

Attempts at having fun today: Graham Canyon+sugar cone (delicious, but fun?), following a toddler through Zurcher's party supply store. This, actually, was very fun. (Ball! Purple! Yellow!) Dinner with Annie and Simon was fun.

Then I bought mom sandals (Born. Strappy. I am SO boring.) And nothing flairy or fun else. And now I'm here thinking about fun. And what that means. And what it's not. What is fun? What do I think is fun?

Which ties into another thing I've been thinking about which is that my life is now. I keep thinking that at some point my life will start when, in fact, my life is now. I just contributed to NPR because my life is now, and I will probably never be fabulously wealthy. I'm pretending to try and eat right because I'm not going to wake up one day grown up and responsible and healthy. I'm trying to enjoy the things I do (rushing around Utah Valley trying to redecorate my new place) because the things I do are my life. And I'm terrible at this.

Anyway. I'm going to stop writing now because I am soo bored I can hardly keep my eyes open. And if you've stuck with my this long I applaud your endurance. (10 points if you comment with the Joe vs the Volcano quote I'm thinking of. 100,000,000 points if you can find someone to sponsor a makeover complete with steamer trunks and an exotic destination.)

Love, ke.

Dear Moms: (and other fruit snack afficionados)

2010-04-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

Go out and buy these:

They are healthy! And delicious! And there are like 25 pieces (tiny, but delicious) per bag instead of 8--so they last forever! And they don't have gluten. And they're made with 66% fruit ingredients.

I got mine at Target. A 24-pack for $4, which I thought was a great deal.

Thanks for the heads-up Annie. :)

Dear Baby Church:

2010-04-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Right now your dad is picking you and your mom up from the hospital (I'm at your house keeping Scout company while she sleeps). You are a little less than a day old and we're not sure what your name is yet (this seems uncharacteristic of your parents--they are nothing if not planners--but Scout didn't have a name till she left the hospital either. So.)

This is a little bit of your story from my point of view.

Your mom told us you were on your way for Omi's birthday. This is your mom's thing (really great birthday presents) and she's great at it. We were sooo excited. Omi screamed and squealed and all of us were glowy and happy. That night when I was praying I said thanks for you particularly: I was so grateful for you and happy for your parents: we'd all been praying for you to come. Scout wanted a little sibling and your mom and dad wanted another baby and you were a long time coming. For months and months I was happy and excited everytime I thought of you and as I watched you growing.

So. About a week ago we started watching in earnest. Omi and Granpa Dave got stuck in Italy (a volcano erupted! And no flights were going through!) and since I was the only one in Provo, I started keeping my phone on vibrate and running out of Sacrament Meeting when your mom called (I sort of loved this). Omi and Dave got home finally and miraculously and we all started pestering your mom non-stop: how are you feeling? How's the baby? What did the doctor say? Thirteen times a day. She was patient with us all even though she was getting tired and uncomfortable (she's not one to lounge around: the day before you were born she was at my place moving furniture. I told her she should be careful. She said "what's going to happen? I have the baby today instead of tomorrow?" This is the kind of woman your mother is).

The week you were born was beautiful. That Sunday was sunny and warm and all of the blossoms were out. I was so glad for Spring to finally be here I could hardly stand it. Your mom went into the hospital at 4:00 and at 10:30 you were born. Your dad told me the doctor was surprised you were only 8 lbs (+13 oz) because you looked so much bigger, and he said that you were very mellow even from the beginning.

I got to come and see you this morning and all of your grandparents came: you were so fat! And so friendly! And we cooed and pinched your toes and told you you looked like your Grandpa Forsey, which is absolutely true. And your mom and dad were so proud and Scout wanted to hold you the entire time she was there (she might have gotten more presents than you did today). And some other people visited and I'm sure everyone fell in love with you on sight (site?). Ask your mom.

And so you were born.

Some things you should know:

1. Your parents are some of the best people I know. They are hard-working and thoughtful and loving. Your dad is one of the nicest men alive, and so patient and funny and soft-spoken. Your mom has an enormous heart and is always thinking of other people and she does everything she sets her mind to.
2. You are a miracle. We're, all of us (parents and cousins and aunts and uncles and granparents and friends--because your parents are loved by a lot of people), so glad to have you and so excited to get to know you.
3. You're probably going to be a fantastic athlete. No pressure, but the earlier you come to grips with this the better. :)

Anyway. You're adorable. We love you. Go team!

Love, your Auntie ke.

On food.

2010-04-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

I am writing this right now instead of sleeping. Because I'm a genius.

But I've been thinking a lot about food lately. I've been running again. And trying to be more conscientious. And trying to lose some of the "I'M TOO BUSY TO EAT REAL THINGS!" weight. Powdered donuts. Is all I'm saying.

And a lot of food philosophies are kind of conflicting. I have a friend (hi Cherise) who's doing like 17 calories a day, but eats diet butter. I have other friends who only eat real things, but lots of cream, which is real. I have a mom who I love and respect but who did every crazy food thing ever written.

I want to get to the bottom of what I think about food. So, here goes:

What I Eat:

Rule #1. I believe in fruits and vegetables. I try to eat them for every meal. For snacks. I'd like to get as much variety as possible (not just the apple-baby carrot 1-2 punch that got me through college). I think that vegetables are free: no matter what I'm counting, I can eat as many of them as I want.

Rule #2. I believe in real food. This isn't to say I don't love me some cheetos or Sabor de Soledad chili-lime puffs (these are sold at Crest, and I don't remember what their real name is), but when I have a choice and I want to make that choice I try to choose real. I sort of thing that Cisco ruined America. But I'd rather eat butter than margarine, for instance which brings me to:

Rule #3. I believe in delicious fat. What I want is a sucker that tastes like olive oil or gum so I can just taste olive oil all the time. I love the stuff. Butter will always have a place in my heart. Really fantastic cheese, avocado, almond butter. No matter how serious I get about weight loss, I don't think I'll ever really give up delicious fat. Mmmm.

Rule #4. I believe in social eating. That is to say I try not to eat sugar or meat, but I'm going to try and be less snotty about it. Thanks to everyone who's been so obliging. (Rachel. Connie. Anne. You guys are stars.) I love to delight people with my cooking, and why would I take that from someone?

Rule #5. French women don't get fat. I'm trying to eat better, like, do the process of eating better. Slowing down. Putting my fork down. Savoring the stuff. It makes a huge difference in my attitude and consumption.

Rule #6. I believe in Diet Coke. It's so so bad for me. Maybe one day I'll give it up. But I try so hard to be good. And coke is so good.

Before writing this post it felt like there was something more profound to be gotten at. But. ke

I'd just like to publicly acknowledge...

2010-04-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

So you know how I've been complaining about my roommate for the last 8 months (ever since she re-rearranged all the furniture I'd enlisted Anne to help me position precisely)? Particularly since "roommate" became "roommates" when I woke up to a male voice in the next room and he never left? I have been. Complaining. So much.

I'd like to take this opportunity to eat (some of) my words. Yesterday (in the middle of a rainstorm!) I was moving (soo many books!) by myself (by myself!!) and Devon (the bonus roommate) totally jumped in to help. And not grudgingly, and not just a little, and he didn't stop once I'd packed up one carload, or once we'd delivered the books to my new place, nor once I packed up the second carload, nor when--carload 3--I reached the harried "just stuff this in a box somewhere/I'll never buy anything again" stage at 11 or so. He was a rockstar (which his hair suggested the entire time...) and absolutely saved my life.

Anyway. Draw conclusions as you will, I am done with the semester and beeeaattttt.

Do you know what I love?

2010-04-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

Spring is here. More gorgeous by far than I ever remember. I picnicked today and walked outside and let my white oxford dry in the sun and was hit left-and-right by the smell of all sorts of blossoms. Soo beautiful.

And I whined so much. The two months between Valentine's day and tax day are hell for me: waiting, watching, whining, my hopes up and my hopes down and me furious and powerless the entire time. Then spring springs and I sit in awe. And May and June are always better and cooler and greener than I remember--spring lasts and lasts and gives way to lovely summer nights.

But for all my angst about spring coming, I love the autumn. I love that one day is warm and the next raining and then next warm again. And I was thinking about that today, about why the gradual unpredictable spring is such a more terrible transition than autumn's slow fading, and I think an answer is that I love endings of things. Spring is technically the end of winter of course, but it's a happy ending, it's an obvious beginning.

I love tragic drawn-out endings. I like kissing boys when I know I'm going to break up with them (sometimes this isn't as sinister as it seems. Sometimes it is) and the conversation you have when you trade your stuff back. I love saying goodbye to co-workers, last phone calls, last car rides, walking away knowing something's broken and it will never be the same... Everything takes on this heft of meaning when when you're doing it or saying it for the last time. Like that poem--have you heard of this?--that consists of the NY Times the morning of September 11, 2001. Even the weather (winds from the east?) seems heavy with intention.

And it's not that it's not hard. I cry and look back with regret and dwell on might-have-beens. It's just that it's the kind of hard I can handle. A friend of mine (speaking of tragic endings) used to like to poke at her bruises, she liked the feeling; I feel like this is the same sort of thing: pain I seek out, pain that's comforting...I know how neurotic this sounds/is.

And so I'll spend May napping and hiking and deliriously happy. And waiting, really, for the fall.

On Cataclysm

2010-04-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

I'm sort of a drama-fiend. I love scandals and secrets and shouting matches on the streets. I try to pretend that I don't, but I do. Everyone does. Drama is the coolest.

Even more than drama, I love large-scale emergencies. When swine flu was threatening pandemic (what a great word!) I would listen to the radio every day with wide eyes, waiting for the case-threshold to be met. What if it scours the world? What if it changes everything?!

On a side note, I think that this is related to my love for despots and mega-giant corporations. Hugo Chavez has his own TV station, did you know? For its anniversary he did a 24-hour Chavez-athon, to celebrate of course.

This all sounds very heartless. Is probably super heartless. But there's something really invigorating about nature taking over, reminding us that though we imagine we're in control, we are not in control at all. I like the theory that the globe is warming not because of carbon emissions, but because it's just warming. It's coming out of the ice age and it's time to warm up [NOTE: I'm not certain at all that's what's happening. I'm just saying the theory appeals to me in this clearly related way.]

This all being said, the volcano business seemed to me kind of brilliant. The earth is totally messing with humanity! Bahaha. We think we're in control and we are not! But today I found out that my mom+step-dad are stuck in Italy indefinitely and got a little sick/nervous for them. I'm glad for them it's Italy, of course, but where will they sleep? They have to get back to work. Are there ocean liners running or something?

Anyway. Pat ending about cataclysm being different when it's yours...the end.

interventionist god (kind of a poem)

2010-04-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

I was once driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon with a friend. We were listening to Nick Cave and to this song and the drive and the night and the song and the friend saved my life:

I believe in love. And I know that you do too.

This post is about how I believe in an interventionist god. In a really actual and literal sense. I believe in a god that performs big and small and unnoticed and lifechanging miracles every day and all the time.

I'm writing because this week has been full of tiny miracles--miracles I didn't deserve, miracles I demanded, miracles I didn't know I needed, you know?

And I think too, that God knows if you believe in an interventionist god or not, and I don't know that it matters that much ultimately, it matters mostly that you act according to your experience and belief etc etc.

For me, God is there, getting into my business. Answering questions and helping me solve my problems and reminding me again and again that I know so little and am loved so much.

More, later, perhaps on learning how to forgive God and relearning how to trust him. Or maybe not. Night.

My question is this:

2010-04-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Remember the first time you read Catcher in the Rye and it hit you like a ton of bricks and you cried and cried, and then later went back and found it waaaay less interesting/mind-blowing than it was when you were 16? Or when you recommended On The Road to your friend when you were backpacking in Italy in late college and she was entirely puzzled that the book was such an icon? Or trying to reread Rand while studying English (=appreciation for subtlety. =den of liberals. I devoured her books in h.s.)?

I wonder about the timeliness of books. What I'd like to do is compile a list of time-sensitive classics (not Classics, but, you know, titles with some cultural heft) with the age at which they expire. Do you what I mean? Any ideas? (Nod to the impossibility of absolutes: I know that it's different for different people, or whatever, I'm just looking for input.) (Nod to arguers: I'm sorry if you like/hate these books. I'm not really that interested in discussing their merits. These examples, of course, aren't actually referring to you but are really referring to me.)

You may now proceed. :)

The Universe Told Me To

2010-04-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

That Kerouac quote--

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars--

has been running through my head like water this last couple of months. Then, today, I was looking for this commercial (to talk about in 311)

and ran into this

and figured it was too weird a coincidence not to motivate a post.

I hate this quote is the thing. I found it (loved it!) in my high school reading of Kerouac, copied it into my composition notebook, I found a way to work it into a district meeting on the mish, might (conditional here, not evasive) have had it tattooed at one point in my life, but ultimately it's inspired more grief than anything.

I've spent years nervous about saying Commonplace Things and yawning (this is not a joke) and not living/wanting frantically enough. And so I caffeineate and eschew chitchat and rush in an out of parties never settling in one place long enough to learn anyone's name. And there's a certain rush and thrill, and I think that, when I'm on, people think that I seem interesting and that they'd like to get to know me.

But I do say commonplace things. And I yawn. And most days I'm sort of lonely and wish that my efforts to care about people were less stilted-feeling and unsettled and self-centered. And that's all ok. Normal.

Normal.

Matins (pg 25)

2010-04-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

You want to know how I spend my time?
I walk the front lawn, pretending
to be weeding. You ought to know
I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling
clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact
I'm looking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?
As empty now as at the first note.
Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?

Lousie Gluck

(You should go and buy this book--Wild Iris--and read the entire thing. It's very lovely.)

National Poetry Month! Poetry Month!

2010-04-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

I will not post every day, but I thought I'd start today off at least. With Dickinson, if you don't mind:

He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys -
Before they drop full Music on -
He stuns you by Degrees -

Prepares your brittle nature
For the etherial Blow
By fainter Hammers - further heard -
Then nearer - Then so - slow-

Your Breath - has time to straighten -
Your Brain- to bubble cool -
Deals One - imperial Thunderbolt -
That scalps your naked soul -

When Winds hold Forests in their Paws -
The Universe - is still -

2010-03-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

Oh. That patriarchy. Thanks bell.

On Writing. And Anxiety.

2010-03-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Future Kjerstin:

If you're reading this, it means it's the end of some semester and/or you're staring down another paper. I'm going to tell you some stuff which, if you take my word for it, will really help you get through the process. We both know you probably won't take my word for it, because that's how you roll, but, well, here's hoping.

1. You aren't a failure and you aren't bad at this. What will happen, what happens every time, is that you'll start blindly and BS-laced. You hate this, I know, because failure is peeking out from under every stone and around every tree. What, you'll think, if I've lost my talent? What if I'm rusty from disuse? What if I'm not as good as this as I like to imagine? Then page 7 will come and suddenly you'll know what you want to argue and how, all of that research you've been filing away like a squirrel will seem relevant, your thesis will spring from your head fully formed. It won't happen until page 7. I'm sorry, I know you hate that, but that's the way your brain works. And I suspect if you really want to write a good paper (which, to date, I know I haven't done) then you'll have to get to page 7 several times. There's no more efficient way.

2. It will be fun. Your research will include looking up "The Yellow Rose of Texas" on YouTube. You will run into the kind of fascinating trivia that drew you to this field in the first place (in this case, gorgeous, gorgeous poetry)

"Unto Me?" I do not know you—
Where may be your House?

"I am Jesus—Late of Judea—
Now—of Paradise"—

Wagons—have you—to convey me?
This is far from Thence—

"Arms of Mine—sufficient Phaeton—
Trust Omnipotence"—

I am spotted—"I am Pardon"—
I am small—"The Least
Is esteemed in Heaven the Chiefest—
Occupy my House"—

Your mind will work on all sorts of things at once which will help you feel alive and brilliant in that way you love. This is terrifying and sort of impossible seeming, but it comes with brilliant firework-bursts of insight that show you your favorite self.

3. You are in the business of doing, not judging or predicting. Tell the skeptic in your brain (the cawing, harpy one) that you are too busy working to bother with her input just now. Decide and do.

Good luck! I hope you are better at this than I am.

Much love,

Past Kjerstin.

Fashion Query: Neutrals

2010-03-26T19:38:00.001-07:00

Does grey go with beige?

Mantra

2010-03-25T08:32:00.001-07:00

I am a girl who gets things done.
I am a girl who gets things done.
I am a girl who gets things done.

Research

2010-03-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

Susan knows
she is a Siren--
and that at a
word from her,
Emily would
forfeit Righteousness--
Please excuse
the grossness
of this Morning--
I was for a
moment disarmed--
This is the
World that opens
and shuts, like
the Eye of the
Wax Doll--

Yes homoeroticism, also gorgeousness. I'm falling falling in love with Emily Dickinson.

Also falling in love:

I love today.

One Art

2010-03-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

I get touchy when people tease me about losing stuff. Because they're right, I lose stuff a lot, but a) I don't to it intentionally, obvs, and b) 95 percent of the time it works out; I find both the stuff, and that it wasn't really worth stressing about. Also, I've found I have very little control over when things get lost or not--I'm just as likely to misplace my phone during busy scattered weeks as planner-toting, well-rested ones. I've prayed the "item a is lost, help me find it" prayer so often, in fact, that Heavenly Father and I are on a kind of short-hand, I can differentiate almost instantly if I'm going to find the thing (my planner--it's a vaguely panicked calm) or not (my digital camera and all my mission pictures--deep, failure-laced nausea).

My family panics about me, like, going to Europe by myself, that maybe I'll call from a payphone in a mystery city with nothing but my chapstick and not a clue even where I am. They get worried looks in their eyes when I discuss moving to big cities (remember that time when I left my ipod on the lawn after running? All afternoon?), they swallow their anxiety and let me borrow cash when I ask them offhandedly if they've seen my wallet lying around. I understand all of this: I just picked up my planner (with credit cards and ID) at the BYU Lost and Found, walked away only to realize that I'd forgotten my source list at the lost and found (it was there when I went back). They're good sports, and I try to read their stress as caring, which I think it is.

I've learned to compensate. My class work is all filed in manila folders, so I know at all times where, at least, I've lost papers. I have a couple of piles of things, I don't go that many places, I know where to start looking if I've misplaced something, and when I need to start getting frantic.

So: to the Lost and Found, to those of you willing to put up with/pay for me when my debit card has disappeared, to the good custodians of BYU who keep good track of my belongings, to Elizabeth Bishop who's picking up what I'm putting down: thanks. Couldn't do it without you.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Clip-and-Dip Success

2010-03-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

The best part of the evening (or a close 2nd or 3rd) was this recommendation:

Love, Emma.

Thanks all for a lovely evening.

2010-03-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

When You Are Old

William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

(Thanks, always, Amanda)

There will be no other end of the word.

2010-03-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

A Song on the End of the World
--Czeslaw Milosz

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.

When we were discussing feminism in 452 (for just a minute) we played a Prisoner's Dilemma kind of game--boys against girls (men? women? we're adults I guess). The kind of thing that if both groups agree, they get 2 points, if both disagree they get one point, but if one agrees and one disagrees the disagreeing one gets 3 points. And there are three rounds. I may have written about this. In our class, we agreed to agree twice, then agreed to disagree (in part I think because I grew up playing games with Jeremy who is the most strategically ruthless person I've ever, you know, played games with so I insisted that we not let the men in the class to convince us to agree only to betray us). Dr. Muhlestein applauded our success, then told us that the groups rarely tie, that usually the women "trust" the men in the last round and get hosed.

The idea he was demonstrating was this idea of the last round. Both groups were kept honest in the first two rounds because they knew there was another round coming and they needed to seem trustworthy to maximize their points, but in the last round anything goes--there's no chance for revenge. I'm trying to remember what the real-world application of this was: something about property rights and women being subjugated. But I've been thinking about this also in my life.

I've been working really hard to come up with a personal justification for working hard (or at all, depending on the day), based not on threats of punishment or banishment, but on some sort of internal motivation. What this means is flipping around a lot of my inherited conceptions of authority and self-worth and God. I've spent most of my life doing stuff (poorly, actually--just well enough to count it done, right?) so I don't get in trouble I think. And that's of course a terrible way to live.

What I've been realizing lately (as my schedule's loosened up, as my academic success is so much more/less/different than grades) is that I'm waiting for the final round, for the inevitable, threatened punishment. But aside from a kind of hellish couple of weeks last December, aside from the awkward meetings with professors in the halls--because we both know that I was trying to pull a fast one--nothing really happened.

I'm in the same boat spiritually too--trying to push boundaries, to see if God really is so vengeful as he pretends to be. But he's not. He's not that interested in punishing me, and it's no skin off his nose if I waste my life waiting for him to smite me. There is no final round.

Or rather: every day is the final round. I'll fail at this and try again (maybe better?) later, but it comes again to presentness. To doing things well because that feels much better than slacking them off. Because there's no reason not to do them well. Because what else should I be doing right now? Not because if I do poorly I'll be punished but because there is no point in doing something than doing it. My life/education/salvation is today. There will be no other end of the world.

Love=

2010-02-25T21:41:00.000-08:00

I was having a conversation with my friend the other day about love. Her point: there are a lot of emotions we conflate with love, and they change as our relationships deepen or we get older or whatever. The thing that caught my eye/mind though was the tie between love and gratitude.

Backstory:

God. What does is mean to love God? How does God show his love for me? I've been really troubled and perplexed by this lately: uncertain, uncertain, uncertain.

Gratitude: I don't know, I've been working (really hard) to be grateful for what I have. I know that it, like, makes life easier and happier and more hopeful. I'm terrible at this.

And just love in general. I have a group of friends I love and know and talk to regularly, but beyond that what does it mean to care about people? (I've mentioned this: I may be mildly sociopathic. ha ha.)

So. This friend of mine mentioned that she's been just overwhelmed with gratitude for her husband lately, and that that's what love means to her. I related in this: my best of friends are the ones who surprise and delight me with how fabulous/smart/thoughtful/perfect they are. I am constantly reminded how grateful I am for them. The relationships of mine that have died I've smothered with ingratitude: compared the object to others, overlooked strengths, taken the relationship for granted.

There's probably more here to be said. But. For now.

Stories

2010-02-24T18:50:00.000-08:00

Last year I wrote designed my curriculum loosely around the idea of storytelling, and my classes and I came to some pretty interesting conclusions:
1. We got to just bathe in archetypes. I should probably be over how cool these are, but we talked the "are these stories from one original source or do their similarities illuminate something important about being human" issue to death. To no definite conclusion of course. Self-indulgent and lovely.
2. We talked about stories as culture. I think I came to a greater appreciation of Judaism's reverence for the book...the compilation of the old testament started in earnest after the Babylonian scattering of the ten tribes. Putting together a story was a defense against getting lost. I love this idea.
3. I made them read Aristotle and we discussed catharsis--not only personal, but communal emoting and its importance. Moreover, I started thinking about the point of story. We learn that stories have a beginning, middle, and end, so that in the midst of hard times we can look forward to resolution and closure. We read events in our lives this way and it allows us to find meaning in the chaos. The form gives us hope.

In class lately we've been discussing Whitman. Particularly I want to talk about Whitman's mourning poetry. So Whitman was all for the poet-as-prophet figure. He imagined himself as a seer of sorts, that his job was to interpret events for the rest of us, right, and to create a new American consciousness. What I'm wondering is if that's true or even possible. I guess I'm reevaluating the conclusions I came to about stories, or trying to understand the underlying principles.

I was always taught that Christ taught in parables so everyone could understand the truth he was trying to present on whatever level they were ready for. We all read fairy tales when we were little, too, and maybe took some sort of wisdom from them (did we all learn to be the rescuing prince or passive princess at the knees of the Brothers Grimm? I'm not sure...). And I read "Understanding Comics" last year--it has this interesting insight into non-representational comics, that the fewer details a character's face has, the easier it is to insert ourselves into the story, the more universal it becomes (I'm not sure where McCloud was coming from, I'm sure he has a more authoritative theoretical background somewhere...).

So we take for granted that stories teach, that we insert ourselves into stories...but, I don't know, do they? Can someone else's narrative bring meaning into our own lives? And I suspect it's more complicated than this (I just finished reading Lord of the Rings and I definitely related to the characters and imagined myself in the story, but was I absorbing/reaffirming values? Were the emotions I was feeling anything more than entertainment?), that stories are doing something more/different than explicitly teaching point a or value b. But what?

Have you ever had a discussion with someone which you thought went really poorly: that they didn't agree with you at all, that you made no difference in their thinking, but then they end up doing just what you asked them to? Or, on the flip side, gave someone advice thinking they would do precisely what you suggested and that their lives would change, and they seemed to be amenable to your suggestion, but ended up doing not a thing, not changing at all? I wonder if sometimes adults tell stories (particularly didactic stories, parables and fables and things) thinking they're having some sort of influence when actually kids resist the moral, though enjoy (or not) the story?

I don't know, I guess I've always assumed the power of story, the power of the word, but wonder, finally, how to understand it best.

Whitman might have created a new Lincoln, but might not have. I don't know that I feel a need to tell/hear the story of 9-11 (though, to be fair, I might be sort of a sociopath). I do keep telling people/myself the story of, like, failed relationships, trying to find some meaning there.

And. And, in an effort to come to terms with my early life, I've been asking my mom to tell me the story of my childhood. This is important: my family was never one for storytelling. There are entire years of my childhood shrouded in shame and secrecy. And I think I feel the loss. In Gilmore Girls, Lorelai wakes Rorie every birthday with the story of her birth day. Part of me thinks that it's the responsibility of a parent to give their children a consciousness of their childhood through storytelling: this is who you are. This is your story.

The other part of me wonders, still, about the lasting power of any story. (Something in me is feeling resistant to the idea. Not certain why.)

Your opinion please:

2010-02-23T14:58:00.000-08:00

So Annie and I are having a little debate I'd like your help settling. We both think that the music of the 90's was pretty awesome. I think we feel this way because that's when we were coming into our own so it's in our marrow. Annie thinks the music was just empirically better (her very thoughtful argument: most of the best music was available on the radio. Then crappy crappy late-90's pop came into play [sorry to those of you who came into your own a couple of years later than me, so said pop abides deep in your heart], good music had to hide in underground enclaves to be dug out by music lovers and so the indie boom of the early oughts which continues sort of today. So 90's music was both great and popular=better. [Not sure I did that justice, but you get the idea.]

What do you guys think: was 90's music empirically more awesome? Was it just us? For to jog your memory:

(A note on the playlist: I know. These are songs I loved mostly. :) )

Wuthering Heights and Werewolves

2010-02-22T15:12:00.001-08:00

Heathcliffe was a werewolf.

On the weekend

2010-02-22T08:19:00.000-08:00

1.
Remember the time I offered to cook dinner for my ward? And I spent like 16 hours doing it? And it came off smashingly? (At one point there was applause and the chanting of my name which I guess leads me to the conclusion that I don't want to be a caterer, but a celebrity caterer, because who applauds the ordinary caterer?)
The success of the meal was the cream cheese mousse and berry coulis. We used them to dress up Costco brownie bites and cream puffs, and also to snack on all weekend long. (Cream cheese mousse: cream cheese and powdered sugar, whipped, fold in whipped cream. Go. Coulis: a back of berries, some lemon juice, sugar, corn starch. Boil for 1 minute. I blended it at this point and strained it. I was drinking this stuff. Thanks Diane!)
It was soo fun. It kicked me out of the gross depressed malaise I've been wallowing in the last couple of weeks.

Which makes me think: my bossiness and crisis addiction have most certainly ruined parts or elements of my life. But. Is there someway to embrace them? Because, as far as I can tell, they're not going anywhere. Doesn't somebody, somewhere, need someone who's neurotically efficient and loves pressure? Doesn't that sound marketable?

2.
Fun fact: if you've slept too much on Sunday because, like, you lay down for a sec at 4 and then it's8 suddenly, and then you watch "To Catch a Thief" right before you go to bed, you will still sleep restlessly, but it will be Cary Grant who shakes you awake in your dreams, pulling you to urgent champagne parties and dips in the Mediterranean. I.e.: do it. (Also, and this isn't original, can I be Grace Kelly when I grow up?)

Something I'm bad at

2010-02-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

is keeping things in perspective. Like for instance right now I'm grumpy and unmotivated and downdowndownering. And I've spent the last couple of weeks certain that this, finally, is who I am. That I've ruined my life forever, that I will never recover, that I will spend the rest of my years failing at insignificant things and lonesome.
I draw these conclusions regardless of the fact that I draw them every year (Dear February: what did I ever do to you?), and every year, when May comes around and I'm dazzled by the brilliance of Utah in spring (it is waaaay greener that I ever remember and unrelentingly beautiful) and am suddenly highly motivated and all kinds of friendly. Regardless of the fact that everyone hates graduate school. That graduate school is, in fact, a hell on earth, the firey gateway to a very lovely (if competitive, I know) profession and no one likes graduate school. Why I thought I'd be different I'm not sure.

My impulse here is to give me a pep talk/kick in the pants: you are better than this! You can do it! Work your way through it! What the hell are you doing!? But I'm not really in the mood and usually anyway that sort of thing is the opposite of motivational. Instead, I'm going to get another donut, dowse my sorrows in Diet Coke, work on getting the couple of things I have to get done today done, and maybe, you know, read another 250 pages of The Lord of the Rings tonight. (I'm thinking I'm going to skip over most of the Frodo bits. Could he be more dramatic? It makes me want to light myself on fire.)

So. An icy fountain drink toast: to SAD. To May. To me.

On hope.

2010-02-12T14:17:00.001-08:00

Stuff you are worse at without hope:

teaching
learning
writing
relationships

So.

(More eloquent.)

On poetry. Agency in. Me and.

2010-02-10T08:07:00.001-08:00

Do you like how I forgot to finish yesterday's post? I think there was supposed to be another sentence or two in there, and I forgot them.

The complainy part (it's short and there's pay-off): It's getting to the point when my days seems heavy--so much time to fill before I get to go to eat lunch, go to bed, etc. I should be filling days with, you know, putting together annotated bibliographies and charming professors into chairing my thesis. Or something. But instead, they drag. I'm avoiding. I hates it.

The (cryptic) resolve: a poem I wrote--

Grounds

I knew, when I closed the door,

(we’d just painted it the color of a hershey’s bar

and it stuck a little

and was built heavy anyway)

Turned the deadbolt,

Walked straight into the sun,

That the hummingbird I left in the shed

Wouldn’t last the weekend,

Not even the day, probably—

Panicked and shut up in the dark.

According to Wikipedia,

Hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death,

Which is a thing I kind of knew already

(but the internet puts it better than I could).

This morning, gathering sand

and grass clippings

from the corners with a push broom

I found and swept its body (it dried out like a moth,

To almost nothing)

Into a metal dustpan.

I wasn’t surprised. But was—

What?

Felt like I should mourn

A little.

Before I sifted the lot into the trashbin.

It got caught, was the thing.

Our shed’s facing rolling doors—

The springloaded ones,

With chain-pulleys—

Were open all day:

I was driving the mule in and out,

Loading and unloading trash,

Loading hoses, the leaf blower, the air compressor

(we kept our pavilions clean)

It must’ve flown in and up,

Toward fluorescent lights that weren’t the sun,

Buzzing up near the cinder block ceiling.

I tried shooing with a broom,

Tried bright orange sprinkler flags near the doors

(this works with bigger birds)

Even climbed up the ladder

And interfered till I worried for the poor fellow’s heart.

(My sister once scared baby quail to death with a plastic grocery bag).

But birds are dumb,

And my day was through.

So I put the flags and ladder away,

Left a half-dozen wildflowers on a wheelbarrow

And turned out the lights.

I don't love this poem. Later it will be richer, poetically, and shorter, and the tone will be consistent. But the thing is, the criticism that cut deepest because I know it's true and haven't the slightest idea how to fix it, is that the speaker isn't implicated. S/he isn't an agent in this poem, doesn't act. My classmates wished the speaker would've killed the bird outright or something.

And. I've been thinking about poetry and memory: about memory as a defense mechanism (children often accused of lying develop this, no? A preternatural capacity for detail? As if remembering that my mom was wearing her green silk jumpsuit on the day I tripped on a seam in our marble floor and chipped my tooth would prove that I didn't feed the dog purple crayon...). About poetry as a repository for detail/memory. About poetry, then, being a defense, an alibi. Closed and furtive. Passive.

So. I take "I" out of my poems? I look back toward nature (all of my best poems were nature poems. Some biography poems were also good), focus more on observation of detail?

Plan my day, find a project, do the hard thing?

things i like

2010-02-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

Quiet, the most. I'm in the grad lab right now with no one (mmm, Dave just came back in and is tip-typing, but a minute ago, and otherwise) and I've just gotten to campus and I love the sitting in the quiet. It's the kind of thing that slows me down and calms calms me.

Anthony Bourdain. So, I was watching Anthony Bourdain last night. For a couple of hours. He was in Vancouver (smooth, The Travel Channel) where he met up with three good friends/chefs. They fed him delicious things which he described in detail. They bantered. They barbecued together. Then he went to the Hudson River Valley which is so beautiful. I never knew. My favorite part was when he was sailing up the river (or something) and found a floating hotdog stand/boat and giggled like a little girl. Also the bantering, also the amazing food. He's a lush and a total bastard, which I also kind of love.

When I go to interview for jobs and the interviewer was in classes with me. Was, perhaps, one of my Inscape staff. Had, I remember because it's amazing, a denim jacket with a fabric print of Morrissey safety pinned to the back.

That's all for now. My life needs a soak in bleach and a vacuum and several hours of sorting. I'm keeping disorder/chaos/panic at bay tenuously

Minipost

2010-02-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

I sort of love stereotypes. I know they're kind of mean, but there's something very satisfying about being able to put people into categories. Really putting anything into categories makes me happy.

The English grad lab sits between the Swedish-Italian-French lab and the Asian languages lab. I noticed the other day that I have never left before the latest Asian languages students. And I've left plenty late. On the other hand, I've never seen the Swedish-Italian-French lab's lights on after, say, 7.

Kind of warm and fuzzy, right?

Grateful finally

2010-02-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

In all the muss and tumble of this last several months, I have been reminded again and again to be grateful. Because I don't get everything I want all the time. But I get a lot a lot of great stuff.

To wit:

I am consistently surrounded by incredible people. My 10 years at BYU (we'll be celebrating our tin or aluminum anniversary in September--bonfire, anyone?) and beyond (Manna, Jenn and Kristin, sireli hay, I'm looking at you) have been wonderful for collecting really topnotch friends. Really topnotch friends who, out-of-the-blue just-in-the-nick-of-time, reappear with just the words (or handmade prints or pictures of their babies or photocollages or late-night chats) I need. This growing collection is one of my favorite things about getting older.

My family is amazing. Brilliant and funny and hardworking and creative. Unimaginably patient and forgiving and understanding. I'm not sure what I did to get so lucky, but I'm honored to be associated with the lot of them.

I'm learning the value of a good healthy fight. Not so much those cruel ones where you're trying to prove that you're right (if our words were swords we'd be dead) or whatever (though even those I think are something) but of really fighting it out. Caring enough to argue. Being willing to cry in front of someone. I feel like this is the best thing I've ever learned to do.

Heavenly Father is really patient and nice. (On a related note this project is taking off and I wonder sometimes if it might not be/become one of the most important things I'm involved in ever.) This might turn into a bigger post, but I'm coming to see more clearly that waaay more people than look it are questioning big questions of God and are ultimately being disappointed and feeling abandoned. This is hard stuff, any way you look at it and any way you eventually reconcile yourself with it. I like my relationship with God for the most part, I'm so grateful that I get to see him there, but I'm also really grateful for the people in my life who've chosen other paths. I'm grateful for their strength and their perspective.

My students, almost without exception (this semester without exception), are smart and interesting and involved. I haven't read their first papers yet so maybe I've been mislead, but classtime is interesting and they're so nice to each other. My being their teacher notwithstanding I feel so lucky to be a part of this supportive little (tiny. I have 10 students this semester) community.

The world is sort of magic. Spring is coming (it starts in our hearts!). I know there'll be another flurry or two before it's official, I know that March is a terrible awful abstract idea personified, but I smelled mud and grass! Winter will be over! Also: carrot soup. Also: lemon-garlic broccolli. Also: snowshoeing in the canyon.

My body is fabulous. (Don't worry, no more details about my menstrual cycle.) I ran something like 9 miles last week, next week I'll do more. I don't get sick (knock on wood) or tired, much. I am, right now, running on like 3.5 hours of sleep. Which, I think, I'll remedy.right.now.

ke

The Temple of a Thousand Doors

2010-01-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

Purple light passed in slow waves across the floor and the walls of the room. It was a hexagonal room, rather like the enlarged cell of a honeycomb. Every second wall had a door in it, and on the intervening walls were painted strange pictures representing landscapes and creaturs who seemed to be half plant and half animal. Bastian had entered through one of the doors; the other two, to the right and the left of it, were exactly the same shape, but the left-hand door was black, while the right-hand one was white. Bastian chose the white door.
In the next room the light was yellowish. Here again the walls formed a hexagon. The pictures represented all manner of contrivances that meant nothing to Bastian. Were they tools or weapons? The two doors leading onward to the right and left were the same color, yellow, but the left-hnad one was tall and narrow, while the one on the right was low and wide. Bastian chose the left-hand one.
The next room was hexagonal like the others, but the light was bluish. The pictures on the walls were of intricate ornaments or characters in a strange alphabet. Here the two doors were the same color, but of different material, one of wood, the other of metal. Bastian chose the wooden door.
It is not possible to describe all the doors and rooms through which Bastian passed during his stay in the Temple of a Thousand Doors. There were doors that looked like large keyholes, and others that resembled the entrance to caves, there were golden doors and rusty iron doors, some were padded and some were studded with nails, some were paper-thin, and others as thick as the doors of treasure houses; there was one that looked like a giant's mouth and another that had to be opened like a drawbridge, one that suggested a big ear and one that was made of gingerbread, one that was shaped like an oven door, and one that had to be unbuttoned. The two doors leading out of the room always had something in common--the shape, the material, the size, the color--but there was always some essential difference between the them.
Bastian had passed many times from one hexagonal room to another. Every decision he made led to yet another decision. But after all these decisions he was still in the Temple of a Thousand Doors. As he went on and on, he began to wonder why this should be. His wish had sufficed to lead him into the maze, but apparently it was not definite enough to enable him to find the way out. He had wished for company. But now he realized that by company he had meant no one in particular. This vague wish hadn't helped him at all. Thus far his decisions had been based on mere whim and involved very little thought. In every case he might just as well have taken the other door. At this rate he would never find his way out.
(Just then he was in a room with a greenish light. Three of the six walls had variously shaped clouds painted on them. The door to the left was of mother-if-pearl, the one on the right of ebony. And suddenly he knew who he wished for: Atreyu!)

You probably haven't read The Neverending Story. You probably should. :)

Dear 27:

2010-01-11T11:42:00.000-08:00

Live up to the first party of the year, and I think we'll be all right.

Dear 26:

2010-01-06T09:43:00.001-08:00

I'm so over you.

Loves, ke.

On Miracles

2009-12-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

I've been getting more pragmatic about God for the last few of years (normal post-mission/growing up phase I think), but even more notably this last couple of months. I'm a closet mystic, but have come to the point that I can't imagine God as an omniscient micro-manager without feeling micromanaged myself, which drives me totally crazy (in both senses).

The step back has been mostly positive. Rather, it's been enormously positive, but simultaneously sort of negative, so I think the net result is, you know, mostly positive.

Anyway.

Two months ago a woman came to one of my classes to present on her foundation whose purpose is to get pro-LDS content on the internet. I was sort of instantly excited. The inital thought was to get my smart, interesting LDS pals to write short essay on "Why I'm a Mormon." It felt good, and they were in, and it was going to be a kind of content that doesn't have a huge presence. I pitched the idea to my brilliant lovely sister who liked it, who liked it, but proposed that we do something a little less text-heavy. Visual testimonies? It was brilliant and good and right. We recruited my pal Annie (and picked the brains of our talented family and friends) and Hopefully Mormon was born.

Already I've been inspired by the "Reasons for Hope" (what we're calling our entries) that have been sent in. Already we've received really positive feedback and lovely, personal stories. It launches for real on the 1st, but it's starting, already, to feel like it's bigger than us.

Rachel and Annie and I met last week to work through kinks and I felt beyond lucky to be working with them. We have the right skills and the right friends to start this thing. And I'm having a hard time convincing myself that this is a coincidence.

I'm humbled and kind of awed that Heavenly Father would let me be a part of this. I'm certain that this confluence of people and time and information is auspicious. It's enough to poke holes through my pragmatism.

So. Go check it out. Send in a Reason if you haven't--or another if you have :)--we need need your help to get through the first couple of months). It's a great idea, come get involved.

Hard things

2009-12-30T10:39:00.000-08:00

Hard things I like doing:

Backpacking alone
Weeding
Shoveling
Cooking for crowds
Making things happen
Cutting off all my hair
Graduate school (depending on the day)
Teaching high school

Hard things I hate doing:

Making phone calls
Resolving conflict (the process, not the product)
Committing
Taking criticism

I want to elaborate on this last one a touch. Because right now I have a final draft (A-, with an endnote whose first phrase is anbiguous) in my bag and an email from a professor in my inbox,
relating to my final and paper. The final I think I aced. The paper was awful and I turned it in because I'd spent two weeks and hours and hours writing and and it was Christmas Eve and I had to finish, so I finished.

I don't want to read them. They could be super useful, really help me out in the long run, but my stomach feels queasy and my muscles are tight and my breathing a little frantic. I don't want to know. (I've made a deal that I'll read the email when this post is through. It maybe will last forever.)

Once I wrote a confessional email to a friend I'd wronged and/or mislead saying something like we should give us a try. He emailed back, I skimmed it, got the sense that is was negative, and I ignored him for a month. When, after a month, I reread the thing careful, it wasn't, actually, negative, but it had been a month. So.

Writing this out makes this issue sound kind of silly (which was my hope), but the issue remains. And it's kind of a big deal, I think, one of those habits of highly successful people (not one of the 7, but just folk-wisdom generally) is being able to take criticism, right? Eew eew ew.

(P.S. The email was 80% positive. I'm a baby)

Love/Hate

2009-12-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

Writing Papers
Papers are hard. I forgot somehow. The upside: I learn so much. Not about my topic even, necessarily, just thinking that hard opens things up. I forgot that also.

Working Hard
In case you missed it (you probably didn't, I'm not great at hiding this kind of thing), I kicked my trash finishing things up. It was really fun. I'm going to work on this next semester.

Failure
I might not do well this semester. I think that's ok. I don't fail very much (I mean, depending on who you're asking or what you're judging), and I think it's going to be good for me. I'm kind of falling in love with, not failing, but forgiving myself. Turns out I'm human. Dig it.

Music
I'm convinced that I have a music mix that makes you smarter: Thievery Corporation, Mogwai, Ratatatat (Daine. I loves it). It helped so much--the focusing, the white noise effect. The only problem is that the the first phrase any of these songs drives me into panic. Just a little.

Diet Coke.
You know.

Anyway. Go Christmas go. ke

Myth

2009-12-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

I was asleep while you were dying.
It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow
I make between my slumber and my waking,

the Erebus I keep you in, still trying
not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow,
but in dreams you live. So I try taking

you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning,
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
Again and again, this constant forsaking.

Again and again, this constant forsaking:
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning.

But in dreams you live. So I try taking,
not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow.
The Erebus I keep you in--still, trying--

I make between my slumber and my waking.
It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow.
I was asleep while you were dying.

--Natasha Trethewey

(Because it's beautiful, beautiful.)

Forgive a moment of lechery.

2009-12-17T02:57:00.000-08:00

Did everyone see this coming but me?

He's so handsome.

You should probably know

2009-12-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

that the reason your teachers make/let you do creative projects is because they're inevitably heartwarming.

Exhibit A

Exhibit BThis is a Rhetorical Analysis Guide Pyramid. In cupcakes. (Reversed, because that's how PhotoBooth works apparently?)

(ok. my last one and then I'll get back to writing)

2009-12-15T21:07:00.000-08:00

Carrion Comfort NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me	5
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,	10
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins (I'll be fine.)

Good news/bad news

2009-12-15T21:01:00.001-08:00

"Turn it in at your convenience," he says,

"Just make sure it's good."

Was he never a student?

Not a girl student, certainly, with tendencies for perfectionism.

Grrm.

New Post, Short Post

2009-12-15T14:11:00.000-08:00

I just wrote a midterm and feel like my entire body is wrung. I kind of love that feeling.

I love dropping names. Love it. I don't think this is one of my most endearing characteristics, I'll be honest, but do you think it's enough to build a career on? "I am in academia because I like citing Foucault in casual conversation." I hope so. I think this is an adorable pettiness.

Also adorable: new hair.
I have a paper to finish. On Cixous. And Barthes. And sextuality. (I'm so clever. I can't get over it.)

Loves, ke.

Morning Sunshine

2009-12-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

My body is magic. I woke up early this morning with cramps painful enough, obviously, to wake me up. I know this routine, it happens every time. So I got out of bed, found some ibuprofen in the dark (in the mesh pocket of my backpack or the change purse of my briefcase or the basket in my linen closet), lumbered half-asleep to the kitchen where I chugged some soy milk to keep the advil from eating through my stomach lining, and went back to bed. I tossed, I turned, I tried to find a comfortable position and I drift-ed-off-to-sleep. When I woke up 3 hours later, this is the magic bit, I was so happy. My muscle were all relaxed, everything was mildly rose-colored. Once the pills (which I take every 4 hours for 36) have done their work, I'm golden. Golden.

Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence

2009-12-03T15:45:00.000-08:00

I haven't read much feminist theory to this point. I wanted to write about why.

Reason number one: I believe that traditional roles and traditional marriage are important and I always wonder how I'm going to rediscover this conclusion after working through feminist theory. I've done stuff like this before, but it's hard. This is more a matter of convenience and comfort I think.

Second, my mother (maybe because we didn't have money for expensive clothes? I've wondered) (maybe because the competition in our family was/is silent but deadly) taught me early and thoroughly to avoid trends. I didn't listen to the Backstreet Boys. I didn't play pogs. etc. Feminism felt inevitable for me, once I left Provo High where I was actually fairly outspoken, because I'm a smart liberal arts major with daddy issues. I didn't want to fall into cliche.

Third. I had/have this suspicion that being an articulate feminist would disqualify me for marriage somehow. Tragically--almost hilariously--ironic, right? This suspicion is founded on vocal disparagement of feminism by, um, 95 percent of the people in my life, many of them men whom I love and/or respect fervently. And so I'd be disqualified because as soon as I really embrace feminism 98 percent of the men I come in contact with (oh, BYU) suddenly hold views about me that I can't possibly tolerate. Also because I think it will take me a minute to justify marriage again, because I'm going to have to reevaluate its value and the way I imagine me working within it.
This is ironic, too, because I've always had feminist tendencies which have managed to alienate me from a lot of people, I just haven't had the codified theory to explain how or why or to make it seem worth it. (Feeling "condemned to an even more devastating outsiderhood than [my] outsiderhood as [a] woman" (165).)

Finally (I think, at least for now), I don't know if I can do it. Looking over the last sev--oh, my entire life really, I am kind of grossed out by how often the things that I do are decided by/because of men. I feel like a need to please and a privileging of the masculine (masculine ideas, ways of knowing/interacting, etc.) are so inherently a part of my personality that I'm not sure who I would be if I embraced myself as a(n empowered) woman. I look at the really smart, strong, women I know and wonder if I could be that (offense not intended to anyone here--smart and strong are separate, here, from any certain ideological system). And maybe I'm being an absolutist, maybe I could change some small things...

But, we're sort of skimming through feminism for theory. I read Adrienne Rich's article (the name of this post. Attention-grabbing, isn't it?) tonight and devoured it. Not all of it may be true, but so much of it feels true. And feels important. And matches with things I've supposed for ages. I recognize that theoretical traditions probably (our personal worldviews certainly) are formed by so much by our own personal experiences--we find the truth we want to find. And so I can see how feminist theory maybe doesn't appeal to everyone. And I know why (strengths and weaknesses both) it definitely appeals to me.

I'll probably write more about this later. Hopefully a lot. I think feminism is important for me right now--if only because if I keep believing the stuff I do about myself, about men and women, I don't know how I can keep going. Dr Muhlestein said the other day something about "there are some things that, once you think them, you can never not think them again" and I feel like that's where I am. Kind of glorious. Thanks Rich.

Flood

2009-12-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

I woke to a voice within the room. perhaps.
The room itself: "You're wasting this life
expecting disappointment."
I packed my bag in the night
and peered in its leather belly
to count the essentials.
Nothing is essential.
To the east, the flood has begun.
Men call to each other on the water
for the comfort of voices.
Love surprises us.
It ends.

Eliza Griswold

What I love about this morning:

2009-12-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

Did you know Barry White died? In 2003? This seems like something I should've been (maybe was) aware of. In honor of the 65th anniversary of his birth (right, birthday is morbid after the fact?) his people released a new box set. For some reason Barry White is a ridiculous(ly inspiring) way to start out the day.

I used to have a bathroom with a window. A long time ago. My favorite thing was showering late so, when I was drying off, the sun hit my back. The warmest best feeling. I'm sitting right now with my back to the windows of the Memorial Hall with the sun on my neck, and I want to stretch out in it like a cat. Mmmm.

Advice please

2009-11-23T23:26:00.000-08:00

So lately, I'm kind of having a hard time taking myself seriously. Not in the way you're thinking--I'm very serious about how the decisions I make right now are going to affect the rest of my life and how the things I say are very wise. Sort of. I'm not having too good a time (though the Thanksgiving pre-game meal and Sunday brunch and etc etc are so fun) or kissing too many boys or whatever. I just can't seem to believe myself when I have those talks that start "Now Kjerstin, you have a lot to do today (this week, this year)..." and end "then at 10 you'll read in bed, then at 10:30 you'll go to sleep."
I make plans, that is to say, and then I blow them off.
Right now, as you might suspect, I'm avoiding: I have a page and a half left to write for this midterm I'm doing. "Now Kjerstin [ke; am I giving up the game? surprise!], if you'd just write your midterm, you could get to bed, then get up early to go running." Right. Or: "Kjerstin, if you don't do this midterm now, you may never succeed." Smooth. Or: "Kj, do you really need to play with wordle [wordle.net, check it out--so pretty] again, right now?" Yes. I do. Because nothing is ever due and I can probably pull it off if it is and if I keep telling everyone how busy I am than no one will expect anything from me. (Thanks for the backrub, btw, mom.)
It kind of feels like I'm 18 and away from home for the first time and eating donuts and rootbeer for breakfast every day: nauseous, guilty, and delicious.

I suspect that the key ingredient here is a biggy--like Grow Up or Take Responsibility For Yourself or Stop Being So Damn Selfish For A Sec--and if that's your advice, it's noted, thanks. If you have anything practical to add (I don't know, shock therapy?) suggestions are welcome. Thanks.
Love, ke.

a note on faith

2009-11-22T15:30:00.000-08:00

(Connie and Dave--you're only allowed to read this post if you promise not to panic. I'm doing just fine. ke)

So I'm in this theory class this semester and I love it a lot. If we talk in real life we have probably talked about Derrida or postmodernism or Marxism lately--ideas are so fun, and these guys are grreat at them, making them sing and dance. But of course theory is there to shake things up, to put names to the tricks we play on each other and that are played on us, to point out patterns in behavior--to make opaque the generally transparent underpinnings of social functioning. And while I'm good enough at compartmentalizing my Mormon brain and my scholar brain that I'm not crushed and offended by these theories about the way people are manipulated by those in power, it has started me thinking about all this stuff I believe, again.

We talked about how ideologies are reinforced: we believe a things we're taught to, because we're taught to; we somehow don't fit into that thing we believe so we feel guilty; we're taught, when we feel guilty, that we need to believe better, to participate more fully in the thing we believe (ideology), which starts the cycle over again. It's easy to see how, like, capitalist systems do this and how cults do this and how despotic regimes do this, but a little more tender to understand how the church does this (perfectly). I recently reread, um, John? Where it says if you keep the commandment you'll abide in His love? A favorite scripture denaturalized and made sour a little by the things I've been learning.

Plus. Plus. I've been trying to avoid should this past month or so. I've been trying to reframe my relationship with God so it feels a little less like Him bossing me around and making me do ridiculous things and criticizing me for not doing enough, and a little more like he's a loving father who wants the best for me (which, in my heart, I know he does). What this has looked like, practically, is a little distance from church stuff. Not bad distance, I don't think, not angry distance, just a step back to gain some perspective.

What I've found is that not much has changed. There have been friendly ward members and friends who have asked up on where I've been, and I know that God is around because there are nudges here and there toward ideas or people or practices, but no burning bushes, as usual. And today at church I realized this: God is serious about this faith thing. It wouldn't be faith if we had him there guiding us home step by step. On one hand, of course, this sounds like I'm falling back into the ideological system; but on the other hand I am. I don't know why circumstances are the way they are--why I find myself in this state, in this family, having learned the things I did about God--and I'm not sure that it's possible for me to make any decision other than continuing in the church, but I think I'm going to choose to stay. This distance has been good to remind me that I'm choosing this system of belief, I'm choosing to let it tell me how to interpret the feelings I have and the things I read. I'm sad that Heavenly Father didn't send an angel or even spiritual fire to come down and comfort me and set me straight (he did "send" great friends and an opportunity to speak in church and this class to help me reevaluate), but I'm glad he's consistent at least. And that he seems to trust me enough to, in a very real-feeling way, take a glimpse at the alternative and to choose.

Anyway. Great day. ke

Dear Mr. Elwes

2009-11-16T10:26:00.000-08:00

I was channel surfing this weekend, stopped for a minute on Georgia Rules. In the duration I noticed you, playing Lindsey Lohan's smarmy, unlikeable, step-father. Who does that casting director think he is, casting you as smarmy (fat) and unlikeable? Wait, that's the same role you played in Liar Liar, and that Christmas movie...and like every time I've ever seen you. What gives?

Need I remind you of how adorable and likeable you were in The Princess Bride? In case the answer is yes:
Totally adorable. And it was kind of a silly role (=cult classic), but I don't know that it damned you to a lifetime of simpering bit parts.

Luckily for you, I'm kind of great at rejuvenating celebrity careers, and I have a plan.

First: leave Hollywood behind. Just for a minute. Lose a little weight (you don't carry it well, hon), and head back to England.

Second: reestablish some credibility by joining a Shakespeare troupe. Do a little Richard III for depth (put your smarminess to good use, eh?), do a little Hamlet (because that goatee isn't hiding your baby face). Brush up on your acting.

Third: once you've fully purged Hollywood's cheap cologne smell from your lovely long hair, see what you can do about making your way into independent film, on both sides of the pond.

Fourth: you're ready, if you want, to come back to Hollywood--not as a demeaningly cast character actor, but as a force for cinematic good. You'll play historical figures--kings and leaders of rebellions and such. Hollywood loves a baby face with a dark edge, loves an accent. You'll could the next Ian McKellen, if you play your cards right. (Sorry, the next Sir Ian McKellen.)

Just some thoughts. If you're interested in further consultation, feel free to get in touch. (Also, TinTin? Good plan.)

Loves, ke.

Why I Wake Early

2009-11-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

by Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety--

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light--
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

grrrm

2009-10-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

Once in 8th grade I went to the doctor for an ear infection. Hey took his little flashlit looker fellow and peered into my ear and said "Oh my, yes this must be killing you." And I nodded my head puzzled and said, "Yeah, that one hurts a little too, but it's the other one that's been bothering me."

I take pride, that is to say, in not getting/feeling/being bothered by sickness. It has something to do with being the child of workaholic parents with stout western European dispositions (my mom gets sick once every two years. She takes a day or two to sleep it off and then is on her feet and getting twice as much done as your run-of-the-mill mortal).

So yesterday I started sniffling. Headachey a little, nappy a little. I slept through class this morning. I was telling a friend about this as we were walking onto campus and as I ticked off symptoms, she drifted further and further away. She thinks I have swine flu. I think I'll be over it in a day or two.

I'll keep you posted. :)

Time Management

2009-10-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

What follows are the posts I've been composing this week but haven't had time to write. So. Enjoy the binge.

Movie Post

2009-10-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

1. Where the Wild Things Are.

Lovely, right? Also irritating and almost hard to watch?

2. The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

I read the entire thing walking home from school yesterday. Seriously, it took me twenty minutes. And was delightful.

a)
Even if I didn't adore Wes Anderson and run, not walk, to theaters to see anything that has is name on it I would see this film. Mostly based on this adorable tiny knit cardigan. Blow the image up. It's tiny and knit!

b) I wonder about appropriating kids' books for adult consumption. I think that TFMF is less not-really-for-kids than WWTA, but isn't it kind of weasly of us grown-ups, who get all the good entertainment anyway (and the means and autonomy to consume this entertainment as we will) to steal things from kids? I know it happens all the time and has always been the case--it doesn't make it any better.

Furthermore, I wonder about kid's lit. Background: I realize more the older I get that the only difference between kids and adults is that kids believe us when we say we're in charge. There are some physio-psychological differences with little little kids I think, but my 14 year olds were playing the same games and thinking the same way as I was, they just didn't know it.

It's troublesome to me that kids don't really have a voice in their own literature. Adults are constantly telling kids what is funny and what is interesting. We pretend to be able to relate to them and tell their stories, but I remember all the time when I was little thinking "this isn't funny. Why are they trying to get me to laugh at this?" Adults are constantly constructing childhood for kids, and using childhood as a playground for their own existential angst.

And I'm getting a little unclear--if I'm arguing that kids are the same as adults, why would it matter that adults are manipulating entertainment for them. I think our construction of childhood is what's getting in the way. We're treating kids like they're dumb or from another species.

Also a side note: I don't think we should be sitting kids down in front of Silence of the Lambs, or whatever either...we need to protect the fellows.

I don't know. This is the quandry: what does children's lit mean? Why does so much of it suck? Why did I dislike so much of it even when I was growing up? Why are adults constantly stealing it? Using it to forward their own ideological agendas? (and the argument collapses into questions. TaDa!)

Good Morning Sunshine

2009-10-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Carbonated water
Caramel color
Aspartame
Phosphoric acid
Potassium benzoate to protect taste
Natural flavors
Citric acid
Caffiene

Ode on Grey Hair #1

2009-10-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

The old wives say that if I pull you out you'll multiply. And they would know. The rub there is if I don't pull you out you'll multiply anyway. This is the beginning of the end.

I love love love

2009-10-09T19:34:00.001-07:00

This morning I ran! I listened to peppy New Pornographers and was charmed. Then I listened to this song for the first time. Maybe not listened to, but heard at least.

These are the lyrics. Which are amazing:

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify you,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and for ever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

–Michael Dennis Browne

Say/think what you will about the Mormon Tabernacle choir. Go ahead. I love this song and I didn't find a better recording. On YouTube.

Then I ate fried tomatoes and eggs and toast. Which, yes, made me feel a little like a hobbit.

Then I walked to school and I felt the sun like a hand on my face. It was so beautiful.

(And now I'm on my way home from campus to hang out with my sister and bro-in-law. Happy Friday!)

Go Team!

2009-10-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

So the Boys and Girls Club has an event called Sports Hero Day. College athletes come and play games with kids: there's a station for every sport, I think you collect tickets as you go, there's free food, good times for all.
The summer I worked for the club there was a slight change of plans: the cheerleaders, who had their own station, approached the organizers and asked if, instead of teaching kids how to cheer, they might split up and cheer on the other athletes. How could they refuse? So there was a roving herd (collective for cheerleaders? A pom?) of college cheerleaders jumping and dancing for everyone. It was sort of perfect.

Something you may not know about me: I was once verry girly. When someone asked me, before I started school, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told them I wanted to be a cheerleader. The thing that recommended kindergarten above anything else was that my teacher had cheered for BYU. I'm not exaggerating.

A compliment that I keep in a mirrored box and take out when I need a chuck on the chin was paid to me by a favorite professor. He said that I'd be interesting in the classroom, that I'd be a good professor. I've been thinking about this lately in the weighing of life plans, and what this really means.

Because I'm excited by everything and nothing which makes the career of specialized research I'm staring down sort of daunting.

Because I'm much better at wasting time than I ever ever knew.

Because when people tell me I'm good at things I think I'm no good at or scary things it makes me want to change my plans. Every time.

Because I want this couple of years to be worthwhile and foundational and productive.

Because I keep having these fantastic intense dense unwieldy conversations with interesting fantastic people and I think: I'm good at this, this is what I love.

And where does that leave me? Swayed by moods and by compliments and by Facebook? Alternately, everyday, bored and exhilarated by this endeavor?

I bought a book called "Life of the Muses" which I still haven't read and which told the story of some half-dozen inspirational women, the Fanny Brauns in the lives of so many Keats. Keatses? I love this idea and love this story, right? Find me a very troubled brilliant man and I will make him less troubled and more brilliant? (Until he gets too much of either and tosses me out.)

Not brilliant.

Ok. I'll get back to work now. :)

Kids Will Be Skeletons

2009-09-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

So a couple of years ago some friends of mine introduced me to Mogwai specifically and ambient music/postrock/whatever in general. It took a minute for me to catch on but. Especially lately I've been spending a lot of time in the graduate carrels (10-20 interesting and opinionated people sharing an office) and have been listening to a Mogwai-based Pandora station to keep my head in the game. Love. Love trying to winnow out the good stuff from the overly Maxwell-lick-my-ear-beats and campy dancy stuff and etc. (This, btw is something that fascinates me about Pandora endlessly, where musical qualities meet social and cultural mores. Oldies stations are soo hard to engineer, the music is 90% associations and 10% poppy guitar.) Love the band/song names. Love love love the party in my brain and no one's invited but me and maybe, like, Wayne Booth when I'm working on him.

This: what's it called when the music takes advantage of stereo sound and slides its way around my brain? Like a finger around a crystal goblet or (everything here sounds sexual because it's such a sensory experience) something?

Also, I have a thing for repeating themes--the short ones, less than 10 notes maybe--that just keep going and going and maybe changing a little? "Everything in its Right Place" is a good example for me. This probably, also, has a real name. Anyone? Heart.

Sometimes I sit just swooning enjoying this stuff. Thanks for the intro you guys are the greatest.

And, in the spirit of musical sharing:

Call for Mix CDs

What are you listening to lately? Do you want to send me some? Or names and I'll look them up myself (or if you have issues with piracy. Arr.)?

My best stuff always comes from friends always.

Toodles. :)

Better

2009-09-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

(though anxiety dreams?! About Christmas break? Terrible way to wake up.)

Today I ate lunch at the Pendulum Court, which was surprisingly tasty. I waded my way through Bakhtin (mind-buzzing and succesful). I got a giant coke, enjoyed the fall colors, talked to some 2nd years about the impending doom (I got my first papers in today. Doom.) and they told me that probably I'd be ok. That next time will be better. It was good to talk through. I am generally hard on myself and it's hard to know whether this is warranted.

I saw a fantastic episode of the Gilmore Girls (how do they manage to be continually in the fall?)--the one where Christopher's fiancee has a baby. It's interspliced with scenes from Lorelai's life, kind of beautiful.

I made a date to make chocolate-chili fudge.

I wonder about cycles. Like every 24 hours we get to wake up and try it again. And once a week we get a Sunday and a reboost. And once I month I realize, suddenly, why everything seems so terrible (this, btw, was not one of those times) and feel connected to larger ebbs and flows and deeply content. And the seasons let us start over. And years. And whatever. I believe in starting new. In cycles.

But I have a hard time believing in change...or change for the better at least. I feel like I watch relationships fall apart and people miss their potential and society deteriorating (even if postmodernism is fake and we've always felt this way). What do you think? Do things change for the better? Can people change?

I'm not going to lie

2009-09-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sort of over/underwhelmed by my life and I keep feeling guilty that maybe it's spilling into my blog and I'm going to be one of those bloggers...and I really respect those of you who are positive all the time (I keep your blogs to read as a treat when I have a bad day. Or sometimes read them impulsively and they always make me happy and always make me think), but I have plenty to feel guilty about. And if you don't like it, well, there's probably something else you can be doing with your time. :)

I slept in until 11 today. Until noon yesterday. There comes a time (a couple of years ago) when this is no longer acceptable but days are hard to face sometimes. Hard to face that I'm really going to have to learn how to teach finally. Hard to face that I have to win approval from my professors again. Hard to face the fact that sometimes I'm mean and thoughtless and I could probably be better. And so I sleep late. And then watch TV instead of reading scriptures. And then watch Mean Girls instead of reading articles. Articles which should matter. Which, when I do read them--after watching Happy Feet which, again going for honesty here, is a mess of a film, epic Disney fail, really--do end up mattering. Even if I feel like their being assigned is kind of busywork. If I feel like in that way I'm getting a taste of my own medicine (really interesting, btw, going from teacher back to student. I would've hated me).

So I'm trying to think through this because it doesn't seem like a great way to live my life. And I think about how I chose this life. And how I'm super lucky that I get to do this (who are we, students/academians everywhere? Yes we work a lot in a competitive industry, but I have breakfast dates. I can skiv off for things. Ridiculous) and how I love it.

And I'm trying to not care so much about people because they are everywhere and boss me around without knowing it and I'm failing them without being sure how. I've not felt this lost in crowds since my mission maybe when I was supposed to have already mostly learned the language and I wandered panicked and in a fog...

I'm having a hard time finding my focus. Or really believing that my time is mine and I can do what I want with it and no one is making me do anything. Or appreciating the things I have and can do. Or the lovely friends who are there for me always...

Ick ick ick.

On the plus side: I made my first Frog-eye salad. It was lovely and took up sooo much space in my trash can (the making of it--4 cans of fruit, cool whip container, etc. Processed food).
Ken Burn's new doc does justice to America's best idea. John Muir was a madman and a saint and his wife wrote him a letter after a jaunt up Rainier (I was excited and then I was at the top) saved his life telling him to use his life to save the wilderness. (It's so tense in the early years. I keep waiting for Teddy Roosevelt to ride in and toss out the moneychangers.)
My walk home goes through one of the most beautiful corridors in all autumnal Provo (by the duck pond, oh I love it).
A drive through the Alpine Loop didn't leave me stranded without gas on an unnamed backroad.
Pho Noodle House: ok.

Anyway. So much in my head this last month or two. So faily feeling.

Happy Monday?

Dear Walmart:

2009-09-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Those huge bags of candy you've begun selling? What are you calling those? Halloween candy? For those of us who like to keep giant bags of candy unopened and uneaten for a month and a half?

Genius.

ke

What I'm thinking about

2009-09-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

1. When a person's income has been slashed and she can no longer afford her fabulous tattooed hairstylist the question remains: much shorter or much longer? I'm leaning, of course, toward shorter.

2. How much Coke can a grad student choke if a grad student would choke Coke?

3. Appeals to place. This rhetorical theorist talks about how place and time are intertwined--he cites Leslie Marmon Silko talking about storytelling, telling stories about the places where people still live and the things they still see and how place, then, becomes layered--the place we are, the place it was then, or then--and time twines through those layers instead of marching on linearly. I was thinking about how this applies (or not) in the Judeo-Christian tradition: how Judaism was always on the move, and how does that change ideas of progress or time (both). And how Mormons place the Garden of Eden in the Midwest. How Jackson County is Zion. What happens when traditions revolve around actual instead of mythical place? Why have Mormons adopted such a progressive worldview when our beginning and end points are already mapped?

4. Thesis topic candidates--Civil Discourse and New Media: something pithy about humans and computers. Beginning, Middle, End: Narrative, Rhetoric, and Meaning-making. American Lit: Poetry? Feminism? something.

5. Dan Muhlestein. I never took him as an undergrad, avoided him on the basis that his followers (disciples they were, adulating) were dismissive and cynical. Now that I'm dismissive and cynical I love the guy. Love this theory class because it's introductory so is theory when is just sort of nosing toward problematic. But is not actually problematic. (Or maybe I just love it because it's theory.)

6. The fall! Rainstorms and leaves changing and I'm always overwarm because I'm wearing my sweaters already. Love it love it love it.

etc.

Oh yeah, I love this stuff is why.

2009-09-10T20:49:00.000-07:00

So. A note on me and change. I love change. Or the idea of it: I love last days at work and suddenly skipping town (or the country) and signing yearbooks and saying goodbye. When change actually happens, though, I take a long long time to normalize. I go into watch mode. (My favorite line of Dr. Suess from my favorite book: "It's gray day, everything is gray. I watch, but nothing moves today.") I make piles, I sleep in, I'm super introspective, it's kind of mental hibernation. Something I've put together about myself.

BUT. I think I'm back.

School is going great. Great. The transition was hard (Dear graduate school: do you think you could spend a little less energy trying to terrify me and a little more energy on throwing me catered banquets with really exceptional polenta? Thanks.) and I've been go-go-go-ing from the time I throw myself out of bed until I fall back into it 16 hours later. I had a couple of small panic attacks (Connie and Dave: I will probably not be dropping out of school to start a non-profit) but. This is where I am. I'm going to work hard here and see what happens and I'm really excited.

This is where you are.

I wrote about this? In the book Plainsong a teenage girl finds herself pregnant and kicked out of her mom's house and talking to a teacher. She says something like she wishes she could move or go or didn't have to face her neighbors. The teacher says "this is where you are now." I love this. I love this and this is why: when I panic (when we panic?) I tend to look way way outside of myself for answers. I need to move to Mexico. I need to buy a trampoline. I need to run a triathlon. But that's hardly ever the right answer. The right answer is to make where I am the right place.

I was going to write some of the fantastic stuff I've been thinking through (we got to the theory part of my Research in Rhetoric seminar and I'm on effing cloud nine) but it will have to wait till I'm a little more coherent (and not watching Night of the Living Dead. And making zucchini muffins for Good Food Friday in class tomorrow).

Toodles!

Loose Ends: II

2009-08-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

I was right in expecting it: this week I have been lambasted with unresolved issues. Half-finished relationships and all sorts of repressed emotions re-emerging. Even with mental preparation I'm sort of reeling--there is way more stuff here than I anticipated (though in many ways, it's been much easier than I thought and I think I did ok--what do you think, loose ends?). The news, though: I feel totally humbled and happy and hopeful. (Weird.)

The thing I learned: nothing is ever finished. The problems I pretend to bury inevitably resurface. My world is a very small one, granted, but I feel like the longer I live, the more I see that the world is small. We run in crowds, everyone knows everyone, how did I think I was going to outrun this?

My sister pointed out that our life-as-progression is less about defeating an endless series of character flaws (compulsive lying--check, serial murder--check, chewing fingernails--check) than about doing battle again and again with the handful of flaws we've been fighting all our lives.

And so I find myself pulling open festering stitches and pawing through boxes to find rubbing alcohol and neosporin. Letting myself feel and acknowledge the sting.

I'm excited, I feel blessed, because maybe this time I can dig the pebbles out for good.

Errata

2009-08-19T16:19:00.001-07:00

1. Frank McCourt of course is who I mean.
2. I don't hate men. Or anyone (you know, within reason). What I mean to say: I'm done obsessing over what people think about me. I'm done being hurt by thoughtless words or actions. I've spent a long time concerned about these things and I'm tired and I'm done.
3. That bit on love sounded really arrogant and terrible. Of course I want to be completely swept off my feet. But I am starting to wonder if I am even capabale of feeling that ever. I'm certain that you fell in love and it was wonderful. Yeah. Poorly put.

In a minute I'll start posting again for real. Thanks for indulging me. :)

The long and short of...

2009-08-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Costa Rica: I came home early. One day I will go back and explore Granada and the San Blas Islands. I promise.
My brother-in-law asked me for my three best-and-worst moments of the trip and I answered terribly. So my revised list:

Best #1--swimming (as clothed as you'd like to imagine) on our first day. Quepos. Substantial wave action. The sun going down. Me+the ocean and the thrill of swimming fast and far underwater, sort of disappearing there. This. This is why I spent weeks planning and packing and a night on the plane.
Best #2--Gabriel Garcia Marquez's yellow butterflies. Were everywhere. Everytime I saw one I thrilled a little. I think there's something here I'm saying about finally experiencing Latin America, just a taste of it, and hopefully not in an objectifying way. I guess something about wanting to experience more.
Best#3--Becoming a man-hater. This isn't what it sounds like, but has more to do with getting in touch with me and God and our relationship. And with knowing how I feel and with expressing how I feel precisely. And getting comfortable with me. And telling off a bully which was delicious. Teasy teasy teaser.
Worst #1--La Fortuna. Ripped off, bad hostel, no lava. Fail.
Worst #2--The moment when, after driving with aplomb the entire 2 weeks and me admiring in the "there's no way in hell I could pull this off" sort of way, Jennie told me I needed to take back the rental car. We'd driven all night to the airport (getting lost sort of and taking a wild detour) and I'd waited for an hour while she checked in and I was sleep deprived and panicked and I nearly cried. (Great turn-around, btw--fantastically nice people, not a bad drive, a long morning nap in my gorgeous Quaker-run hostel.)
Worst #3--I went to this bonfire at a bar in San Elena. I was talking to these Irish school teachers Donald and someone and we were getting along really well (a balm to a sort of 'you don't fit in at the beach'-roughened heart) and the party was good and mellow. I walked Jennie back to our hostel, then went back to the bonfire and it had nightmared out. The adorable Irishmen were so occupied with their discussion of Costa Rican weed that they didn't notice I'd come back, our California friends had left, and the Costa Rican kid who was chatting with me was accosted by local girls who started calling me puta to my face. Grody.

Seattle. Is a run-down sort of place. Great company, bad city. We did cool stuff--running and a great bike ride and delicious food. A day in Portland which was fantastic. A very mellow vacation.

Frank O'Hara: I love you for many things. Teacher Man was lovely and may have changed my life a little. Your reading at AWP was phenomenal. You seem like a great kid. But Angela's Ashes just wasn't that good. A tragedy I know, and I mean that in all respect for the dead. But really?

Love. I may not believe in it. Or maybe my definition is shifting? I read The English Patient and there's all this inexorable passion. I was listening to something, too, a song or This American Life or something about how it feels to fall in love and I kind of think it's bullshit. Love is hard work and calm joy I think. And there's thrill, but is the thrill so different from, like, getting a raise or having a really good party? Extended? And the thrill isn't really love anyway, right? It's just someone like stroking your ego: You think I'm cool and I think you are too? There's more here, but I've been surprising myself with my own pragmatism lately. I don't think this has too much to do with man-hating, btw.

Maybe I'll post sooner than later. :)

Travelogue: get over it.

2009-07-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

So. Costa Rica. It's been sort of intensely flying by, sorry, those of you who've been wondering, that I've not been super detailed in my report. But it's only been a week. And I've blogged twice. Whatever. (Long too, sorry.)

Sort of play-by-play:
We got into San Jose at like 6 in the morning and rented a car. I am not driving (thankfully/necessarily/duh). We drove down crazy winding jungly hills and learned how to disregard roadmarking/kph signs entirely and Jennie took to it like a fish to water. "There are fewer rules, so everyone does what needs to be done." I know I couldn't do it (not aggressive enough, obv.) but she's a natural. Renting a car was a genius idea: more on this later.

Tuesday we spent with the Bakers in Quepos (three-four hours SW of San Jose, near the coast). We swam in their complex's private pool in the afternoon and ate and went to the beach in the evening.

I love the beach. LOVE. I know I live in the desert and am not one of those water people who shrivels and dies without a Powell/Cali trip every couple of months, but everytime I get back in the ocean a little part of me feels like home. So we swam and got eaten by mosquitoes alternately while the sun set. I made the resolution to skinny dip my way through the country (like 5 and counting? more?) which has changed my life a little. :)

Wednesday was the sloth day. We hiked through Manuel Antonio, a nature preserve (the sloths!) which was incredible. On a turbulent white sand beach we saw a white-faced monkey steal and then return some guy's sunglasses.

Then dinner and on Thursday we took to the road.

Renting a car was awesome--I feel like we've seen so much of the country and been able to go and go and go. A (small) downside: we only have CDs bummed off of 16-year-old Celie Baker, which while fun is also pretty heavily weighted toward Avril and Brittney and screaming screaming boys. Adds a certain something. :) Our car is little, though, and a manual and has been totally thrashed by bumping through stretches of pot-holed, rocky, and otherwise unpaved roads. I'll post pics when I get 'em.

We headed north, up the Nicoya peninsula (beachtowns). We took a ferry across from the mainland (I also love boats. Incredible again.) then down to the tip of the peninsula: Montezuma. Tiny, cozy beach town. We spent the first day relaxing in hammocks out back and swimming. With and without suits. The courtyard behind the hostel smelled vaguely of lotus: 3-12 people sitting quiet staring at the ocean. All day and into the night. Kevin who owned the hostel was all sorts of helpful and adorable. The food was waaaay expensive (which doesn't matter when you're on the beach all day, right? You have like a yogurt for breakfast and a gatorade for lunch and the rest of the time you're too hot to care) and there were tourists, but it was little and fun.

Day 2 in Montezuma was a highlight: Jennie loves waterfalls, so we went waterfall hunting. An easy hike (up the river) in found us in this crazy jungle waterfall. We swam around and under and followed locals in jumping into deep bits, then followed locals up this crazy jungle trail (we were climbing up roots and stuff) to 2 more waterfalls. One was like 40 feet high. We swam and lounged and eventually I jumped off the sucker. Why I do these things I'm not sure, but it was awesome and there are pictures.

Jungle waterfall: vines, moss, everything is green...the water is this deep tealy blue over the dark volcanic rock. Delicous.

Buzz buzz fastfoward to Tamarindo, another, much more touristy beach town. Really cool people, a hostel with a great patio area and totally awful mattresses. I hardly slept here at all. And crazy mosquitoes. We met some really cool Dutch kids (I have such good luck with Nederlanders always) who told me about the San Blas islands in Panama and Chris the Australian who recommended Nicaragua. More on this later.

Then inland to La Fortuna. I will write something about a town named Fate at the base of a volcano (Arenal) whose main income is obviously tourism. I don't really want to talk about La Fortuna. I saw no lava. We were screwed twice (fool me once...). We just left this morning and I'm still pretty bugged. Grr. (Oh, we found this hot spring--it's a warm river right off a bridge and we swam in the jungle in the dark. It was relaxing and delicous.)

But now we're in Santa Elena. I'm on my way to do a canopy tour--ziplines, a 1 km Superman flight. I'm splurging.

Because.

Nicaragua is cheap. And I hear Granada is fantastic. And I'm here anyway, no? Jennie and I will part ways tomorrow and then I'm off--

I'll be careful. I love you. Toodles. :)

Dear Mom

2009-07-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

Do you remember that rrreeealllly bad sunburn I got when I was 15? We went with Scott and jetskis to Utah Lake and wanted a tan so didn't wear any sunblock? And you spent most of the night draping wet towels on me and I didn't go to church because I was shivering uncontrollably? And it blistered and peeled and was a giant gross mess?

I may or may not have that one beat. (We're still in the red-getting-redder phase, I haven't yet been able to assess damages.)

The ocean here (Playa Tamarindo) is beautiful. Entirely touristy, but beatiful.

Loves, ke.

Costa Rica: I'm for it

2009-07-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

(So you know that Office when Michael comes back from Sandals Jamaica all converted by the culture? At this point I still feel a little like that. I'll write more after i get some rice and beans in me.)

a) Miniature things so far: mini tortillas! mini (baby) lizard! in the Bakers' condo!

b) beaches so far: awesome. Salt and sand and sun and I always feel like I'm going home even though I live in the desert. More on this later? We swam in a cove where the water waved up right to the jungle's edge. Mountainy jungle. Fantastic.

c) Sloths! We saw 2 today and they were adorable. We're trying to maybe decide if a trip over to the Caribbean side is worth it--the sloth treatment center that you can see if you YouTube "costa rica baby sloth" is over there. Probably worth it right?

Tomorrow we take up wandering in our rental car. Maybe back here next week for the Surfing World Championship. Awesome. :) ke

vroom.

2009-07-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

So I'm addicted to crisis. This is nothing new to any of you who know me. But this last couple of days I've been in a wild mad dash (I decided to extend my Central American adventure 3 weeks) to get everything done and I've LOVED it. LOVE. Short nights, leaving meetings early, drinking lots of diet coke, making big decisions in intense bouts of critical thinking, packing, moving, shopping, planning. I feel so alive.

I know I know, this is pretty unhealthy behavior and isn't sustainable and isn't even really possible (thanks to: Dennis, Connie and Dave, Anne, Liann, Amanda, Heather, Mary and like a thousand others who have helped by lending or lifting or letting me flake), but after a year of trying really hard to be smart and thorough and stolid, it has felt soo good to let loose and rush.

I'll post maybe. Or see you at the end of August.

Loves, ke.

Yes Please

2009-07-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

(4 days and counting. Getting a little nutty.)

Dear Patrick

2009-07-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

I would like to have your babies.

Annie: I will name them after you.

Much love, ke.

This is me with girl hair. GIRL HAIR! I'm so adorable I might be accidentally seducing you as we speak. Patrick at Shep Salon in Provo. (My roommate Tabitha uses him too.)

sounds so good tonight

2009-07-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

(Bad audio, sorry.)

Bodies

2009-07-05T23:38:00.001-07:00

So I feel like I'm a pretty good communicator. Not, like, in the healthy relationship sense necessarily, where I'm able to be open about my emotions with another person, but I feel really comfortable expressing myself verbally. I've always kind of taken this for granted, maybe. The more I read, though, and meet different people the more I realize that being able to say what I mean is really valuable and not universal. And I remembered the other night what it's like to want to express something and not to be able to.
I was walking up Center St late. It was like 11 on the 4th and cars were still lined up trying to get home from the Stadium of Fire. Someone was playing something hiphop-y and beat-driven really loud and I wanted to bust a move. Real bad. I wanted to dance at them that I felt young and alive and beautiful and I was so glad we all got to share that gorgeous evening. But I couldn't. I felt inarticulate and clumsy and kind of repressed.
Or sometimes the only thing my soul wants is to scream its way through a wild 10 mile run. Run until I'm squeezed dry, until it stops aching or trembling or whatever. And though I'm a pretty good runner, I can't always run until it's time to stop. I half-deal with the problem, then my body gives out and I'm left unresolved.

The running I'm working on.

I took a modern dance class once trying to teach my body the vocabulary of grace. It was mostly mortifying. Our final was a solo that we choreographed: I tried to express the liberation of expansive skies and the open road. I got an A- which seemed pretty generous to me.

This blows my mind.

And not just because it's in Spanish. Crazy hot and dusty and their flinging bodies. AMAZING. When I do approach this kind of ecstasy? And release? So gorgeous and perfect.

I'm a writer not a dancer?

Independence Day

2009-07-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

I.

I worked today. In order to make this seem like it was less of a bad idea I ate lots of crap. Except for the pink lemonade snow cone this backfired completely (in that it made me feel much worse and not better at all). I think there's a lesson here about freedom from addiction? Like wouldn't it be great if I stopped eating salt and vinegar Lays (we need to discuss vinegar because I love it) before I wanted to hurl? Or could just have a little coke. If it's there I'll eat it. If I'm feeling down I'll go and get it. Diet Coke is alternately the best thing ever invented and kind of disgusting.

II.
Dear John*,

Please stop telling me how to do my job.

Love, ke.

III.
*John is my boss. So basically he's paid to tell me how to do my job. In moments of clarity I realize this briefly. Yesterday we were shovelling dirt in the blazing afternoon sun (I learned at Fort Laramie that a military punishment for public drunkenness was digging holes just to fill them in again. Granted, they had to do it wearing a barrel and a sign that said DRUNK, but this has been our project this week) while John sat in the shade or in his truck. He corrected my rock-moving method. I snapped something probably unnecessary. He's nice.
Also, those of you who knew this but knew better than to say anything (because when's the last time I took advice?): I am too old for this job. It has its lovely bits, certainly, but what am I doing taking orders from 19 year olds?

IV.
I am too old to be cynical about the 4th of July. I say take the day to celebrate. Enjoy the screaming and the too much meat and the traffic and the fireworks. Fireworks are beautiful and everyone looks up in unison and awe and they're loud and bright and I love them. These 19 year old boys I work with are soo over the 4th and I want to shake them and order them not to waste this beautiful night. That there are only so many holidays like this. That the summer is almost over and we need to make something of it before it fades and dies. (The Armenian word for celebrate or commemorate is the same as mark, like to mark on a calendar. Mark this day, friends.) (Also, coming to terms with my own disappearing life. My nephew, who was born when I was in high school--I remember getting out of class to go and see him, I remember like it happened last week--is starting 6th grade this year. Which I also remember like it happened a minute ago. I went into the MTC 5 years ago last week. WTF. This may have something to do with my impatience with these kids--turns out they're not lying when they say it's going to fly.)

V.
Boston, July 4, 2000 (ish). I was there for FCCLA Nationals. We were sitting on a long curb, the 30 or so of us from Provo High. We couldn't see the stage, but there were huge monitors everywhere blasting the Boston Pops. We wandered under the trees and bought frozen lemonades and flirted and played and ran amok. When the sun set we watched fireworks to music. The last number was Imagine which is weird I think but the song is so evocative and there were thousands and thousands of people and their faces were lit up and they were all looking the same way and I was overwhelmed with awe and connection. My favorite 4th of July.

VI.
In an interview with David McCullough on RadioWest he was talking about how hard times build patriotism, and not in a "chest-thumping" kind of way, but real patriotism: love of country. I love this country. I love the people and kinds of people the US produces--the cynical ones and the smart ones and the sweet ones and the rash ones. I love the land, the open skies, the mountains and forests and the wild open stretches of nothing at all. I love the art we make--clean lines and bright colors; gruff, broken protagonists, all of it still wide-eyed with possiblity and overwhelmed with beauty.
We're weird and arrogant and pushy and rude and all of that. We make decisions that confuse and frustrate me. We say things I wish we didn't.

I love it.

So. Life plans.

2009-07-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

I don't know how much I wrote about praying and fasting and agonizing over what to do. And how I found some peace with my decision to teach and go to school both. Life was going to be hectic, but also happy. Well. Scheduling got in the way and I had to choose. So I'm dedicating my next couple of years to studying only. Weird because I thought I was decided and thought I was right. Cool because the life of a student sounds soooo appealing right now. I will have to ween myself off of Banana Republic (Gerard knows me by sight. I think he'd remember my name if I went in this weekend. He's fantastic), but I think that not waking up at 6 every morning sounds delicious. And I might have time to run? Yummy.

There's is something to be said about learning how to make good decisions. Bad decision: living in a house with a newlywed couple and no living room because a garden party would be beautiful and I like having a contract signed. (I need to get out of this still, but can and will.) I know this is a bad decision. I'm going to make it right. Bad decision: trying to split myself 17 ways with school and teaching and teaching. I know that I want to teach, but I can wait for a minute, get a little experience, and go back to it. Dedicate myself completely (and most of my sanity) to the project. Bad decision: cinnamon bears+fudge+pretzels+diet coke+meat loaf "sandwich"+13 hours in the car. This is not easy stuff. But. I can choose well and choose happiness.

Also: when I'm making bad decisions, or am undecided, I find myself unable to write. Weird? There's this silent panic in me. Like my soul is constipated maybe. So here I am again. Getting my life in order. Feels great.

America's Best Idea

2009-07-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

Final count: 3 days, 6 states, 1850 miles. :)

Acid

2009-06-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

Today I was listening to a short story called "Emergency" by Denis Johnson. The storyline basically is that an orderly and friend find some LSD (thanks) in a cabinet of the 1973 hospital in which they work, drop it, and mostly imagined hilarity ensues. The story was entertaining and well written, and the commentary before the reading spoke of incongruous events, but about halfway through I started getting dizzy and feeling frantic and sick, and I had to turn it off. My day had been productive, but that kind of multivalent productive--lots of computer work, to and from my car, looking at apartments, etc--where 10:00 felt a lot like 1:00. Dizzy, sick, I had to turn it off.

Shortly after he died, I was reading a collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace. I got to "The Girl With Curious Hair" (also the name of the collection), got halfway through, and the same thing: dizzy, naseated. Had to put the thing down.

The ride home from Scanner Darkly was really similar, a friend talking me down. And I stopped Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which I now own and have still never finished) midstream--I was dozing, sleep-deprived--and had to leave my apartment and walk around the block.

I think I can imagine the appeal of taking acid. Something about getting outside of your brain, about creativity and maybe about giving up control and that being really enlightening. And I think the physiology of drugs is fascinating--it was my favorite unit in Psych, and one of my favorite convo topics when I hung around more with people with experience. I don't know, maybe I would really enjoy a good trip, but the idea of losing control, losing track of time and reality for any period of time terrifies me. Sort of irrationally I think.

I write and want to teach writing. A lot of what I teach is how to pull a reader along an argument--striving toward some kind of logical linearity. A means B means C (or whatever). I know that this is sort of a naive and formalistic understanding of argumentation, but I think that at the level I teach, it works. It feels like I'm teaching fundamentals. But I like finding relationships between facts and arguments. I like putting these things in order.

I had a discussion with a friend (and later with my sisters) about plans. I like plans. I like to know plans. If there's not a plan but there should be I stress out. I don't have to plan, but I need to know there is one or that there doesn't need to be one. I like to print out maps so I don't have to rely on someone else's directions (which I may forget or not be able to conceptualize--you know? when they've listed the fourth turn and "you should turn north along Miller and follow it down the hill" and everything jumbles and you have no idea where you should be? And everyone's waiting for you? Eeeckh), I like to know what other people are wearing (or turn up in torn jeans and feel uncomfortable all night?) or bringing or going to eat. Not because I need people to do what I say, I just feel better if I know there's some sort of defining logic.

So. Does anyone else get jittery around acid? Is this totally neurotic? There's probably something more here...

The things I'll do

2009-06-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

for a free t-shirt.

Dear Loose Ends: (disclosure)

2009-06-09T21:03:00.001-07:00

So I thought I could get away with avoiding you all forever. Or that the loose-endiness would just disappear or I'd grow up or something. Turns out I was wrong and we're going to have to interact. I'm going to have to deal with the all of you. And I'm no more prepared to do it than I was when I ran away the first time.

Instead of, like, living in awkwardness, or confronting each other, what do you say we fight? KE+loose ends cage match? You can all take me on at once, if you'd like, just as long as we can get over this and so my stomach doesn't shrivel and dance every time I see your names?

As far as I can tell, this may be our only shot at normalcy.

You're lovely, all. ke

The less/more cryptic issue is this: isn't it weird the way that we are forced back into situations? I find myself in this weird repeat cycle. Like. I work with 19 year old boys. They're nice and lovely, but I keep doing ridiculous awkward things and then flashing back into the MTC: me+4 elders and all the weird competition and feelings of incompetence and marginalization come flooding back. I still admire those kids, but it sucked a lot. And I didn't know what to do or how to act and I hated it.

And BYU. I thought I'd left all the drama behind because I left. But no. It's there still. Waiting for me.
And knowing that it's all in my head doesn't really help, actually. It would be better if everyone knew because at least then my inexplicable behavior would make sense and everyone could be awkward together and realize that it's not that I'm socially inept (entirely) but just that there's weirdness and the weirdness is chasing us and threatening to eat out our innards while we watch, screaming. Maybe I should make t-shirts or something:
There is Residual Weirdness.
For No Good Reason I Haven't Forgiven You.
What is Your Problem?

Aaach. In all honesty I feel trapped by all these emotions that I hate and am not sure how to overcome.

Too much honesty probably. Mom: you don't need to worry, I'm just venting. Loose Ends: I'll figure it out, no worries.

Summer Part 2/Book Recommendation

2009-05-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

Today was awesome. Again. And it's only 3:30.

Part of the awesomeness: Plainsong by Kent Haruf. Have you guys read this yet? How did I miss it? It was a National Book Award finalist and is just good. Deep down to the bones good. I have no words.

Relatedly: I've been thinking about competence lately. For a second I was claiming that I love me a competent man, but really I am attracted to the ungendered trait. I started thinking about it in terms of Cormac McCarthy (I will have new classes in the fall and will stop harping on Mr. McCarthy I promise)--his protagonists are all great with their hands. They can fix things and make things and calm horses and do whatever, really, is necessary. So much so that I started wondering about competence and maleness...for reasons unimportant here I feel a lot of pressure to be competent, but I wonder if that's something that we expect more of boys? A sort of defining social pressure?
The idea also come into play with my dad: he's sort of ridiculously competent. He can lay sod and refinish floor and choose good pastry and good restaurants and run businesses and he knows his way around the world...and I don't think this is just weird Freudian hero worship either: my dad is not competent at many important emotional things--I don't suspect he's perfect--it's just that he's good at everything else.
And competence is weird--can we really expect a person to be good at everything? And it's more knowing basic skills, right, and how to use them, or knowing how to learn things. It's more of an attitude than a personality trait?
And it seems like valuing competence is a little dangerous. I lose patience with people who fumble really quickly, which is ironic because I'm clumsy and silly and incompetent-seeming all the time. And I think valuing competence so highly kind of sets me up for that: I'm easily flustered if I make a mistake because I expect perfection. Or something.

Anyway. Plainsong is a about life (lives) in small town Colorado. The men are ranchers/farmers--quietly (undeniably) competent. One of the subplots, too, revolves around a woman coming to know herself--coming to trust herself and attain a very typically feminine brand of competence ("I have Maggie Jones here and she thinks you're right.")

Yeah, and this is where it all comes together, I mean, the feminine (emotional/social) competence in the book is embodied by women who aren't afraid to look reality in the eye and who don't despair over life despite that. They know what needs to be done and why. The men, too, have about them that sort of calm. They can look a problem up and down and figure it out. For Guthrie and the McPheron's it's more a matter of, like, around the farm kind of stuff...I'm rambling. Competence is an attitude born of careful thinking and past success. If you tackle a project thoughtfully and thoroughly, if you've practiced, you're bound to do well. The attitude is as important as the skill...And if you assume competence in those around you they're more likely to succeed? In whatever endeavor you're pursuing.

Anyway. The book was lovely.

Summer

2009-05-29T22:43:00.001-07:00

Today I checked in textbooks, got my yearbook signed, went to lunch with the Type-A Club, went to graduation (where I didn't cry and which I should've been in charge of), went shopping for t-shirts, read a book (Plainsong--what is it that's so endearing/appealing about the idea of curmudgeony old bachelors taking in a teenaged girl?), bought my summer sandals, went for a walk for frozen yogurt, watched Bella (liked it. Mostly a vehicle to fall you in love with this fellow. Mission accomplished.) In a word, it's summer. And I'm stoked.

I may at some point wax reflective/philosophical about my year and about summer and about June but for now I am content. Happy it's done for a sec.

Tomorrow: 10K. Hurrah!

If I May Direct Your Attention

2009-05-25T18:43:00.001-07:00

So, mostly so I keep track of all of this (summer YA reading), I've started a new blog. Miss Evans Reads. I'm open to suggestions on names. Maybe something involving fishnets... I hope it will be a more successful pursuit than other blogs I've sort of started. We'll see. :)