grrrm

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

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

Movie Post

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

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

Ode on Grey Hair #1

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

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!

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. :)