A trivial epiphany.

It occurred to me, two days into the ad nauseum coverage* of Michael's Jackson's death, that Michael wasn't trying to look like just any white person -- he was trying to look like the Disney Peter Pan! Did everyone but me figure this out long ago?

How did I miss this?? It's so obvious, given his known Peter Pan obsession:

1) the increasingly upturned nose that everyone assumed was a surgeon's mistake or some sort of cartilage disintegration

2) the unnaturally high and sculpted cartoon eyebrows

3) the grotesquely opened-up eyes with permanent eyeliner to make them pop out just like Peter's cartoon eyes

And he didn't have to change his eye color, because the Disney Peter Pan has brown eyes.

Whoa. I guess if thousands women can go under the knife to be Barbie, who am I to single Michael out for scorn, especially given his traumatic upbringing? It was just so difficult to look at him without laughing or crying....I hope wherever he is, he's at peace with his former face. It was a nice face. A warm face.







* I loved the dude's music, but no one deserves that much coverage -- not even a dead pope.

No true prude goes unpunished.

My friend Amy once told me about the physical exam she underwent at age 21, just before departing on her LDS mission to Brazil. The doctor was going to prescribe a drug that would be harmful to a developing fetus, so she explained to Amy that she'd need to perform a pregnancy test on her just as a precaution, even though Amy had declared on her pre-exam paperwork that she was not pregnant. Amy explained that there was absolutely no way she could be pregnant. The doctor insisted on the test, pointing out that even with the best modern contraceptives you can never be 100% sure about such things without a pregnancy test. No, Amy repeated, there was absolutely no way she could be pregnant.

"Do you even know how babies are made?" asked the doctor.

I guess Amy, being of a literalist Christian bent, should have been more openminded about the pregnancy test and allowed for the possibility of immaculate conception? Surely it's easier to fathom than a 20-something voluntary virgin. Might as well claim to be the Tooth Fairy.

Where am I going with this?

Here's where: I think all of my not-yet-sexually-active female readers (and all my female readers who are no older than 26 years old) should schedule an appointment to get the HPV vaccine. Soon. This month. Here's more information on the whys and the hows. Of course, if you're over age 26, they might be less eager to give it to you, or they might charge you more. Why? Because by your late 20s you've already introduced the possibility of HPV exposure into your life, so the vaccine dose is more likely to be wasted on you.

What's that? You say you're 35 and you're 100% sure you've never been exposed to the HPV virus?

Doctor: "You know that HPV is sexually transmitted, right?"

You: "Yes."

Doctor: "You do know what the word 'sex' means, right?"

I swear. There's no end of punishment to this celibacy deal.

But even if you're over the age guideline for the HPV vaccine you should still try to get it -- I'm going to. Even if I have to pay extra and swear on the Bible that I've never played Song of Solomon with anyone. Ever. They will then throw out the ol' Bible method and administer a polygraph test:

Them: "Never EVER???"

Me: "Never ever."

Them: "Well, she THINKS she's telling the truth, anyway. You do know what the word 'sex' means, right?"

Perhaps you are saying to yourself that this is all pointless in your case. Perhaps like me you have never and never plan to sleep with anyone who is not your exclusive, til-death-do-you-part partner. Even if we are true to our half of that ideal (and I hope we are), a single past or future indiscretion of your partner can introduce the virus into your otherwise safe relationship, unbeknown to either of you. Or, heaven forbid, you could be raped. Or you might make a mistake yourself. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual struggle to recover from any of these sad scenarios is plenty; no need to add cervical cancer as a tragic coda straight out of some depressing art house flick.

So I think I'll picket at the local clinic for my right to get this vaccine. Anyone want to join with me in this historic moment of peaceful rebellion? Revolt of the Ripe-ish Retro-moralists?

Ideas for signs:

Down with ageism!
Down with prudeism!
Vaccines for veteran virgins!

We must get this shot, because it's the wise and responsible thing to do.

We must do it because we are optimists, looking forward to a brighter day -- a day when we can no longer speed through the blood bank's list of "sexual contact" questions in 1.6 nanoseconds.

We must do it to signal to the Universe that we ABSOLUTELY DEMAND that one day we get our chance at an...um...experience....in which it would be technically possible for us to contract HPV.



Please, dear Universe. Pretty pretty please.

The great American stay-cation.

About six years ago my bro and I grabbed a couple last adventures together just before he shipped off on his two-year LDS mission to Pennsylvania.


Adventure #1: We drove off to California on two hours' notice just to catch a concert in Pomona (this was boring Marie trying to pack an entire lifetime's spontaneity into a single weekend to compensate for being such a dull teenager).

Adventure #2: We snuck/sneaked/snook* into the LDS Church Archives and looked at an old journal we weren't strictly entitled to handle.

I know. Gasp. If this is the best I can do for rebellion, I should just pull my knobbly shawl around me and hobble into the sunset. Humor me -- I'm going somewhere with this.

Anyway, this Forbidden Journal we read through was the journal of our great-great grand uncle Moses Thatcher that he kept while on an 1883 LDS mission to the Crow Indians in Yellowstone. We were giggling (veeery quietly, of course!) as we sat in the Archives reading of Uncle Moses's meeting an Indian named Chief Two-Belly. Yes, you read that right: Chief Two-Belly. It was an interesting little book, but I was especially taken by one of Uncle Moses's rants. He marveled at the natural wonders of the Yellowstone area and then noted in frustration that many Amercians considered vacationing in such a place to be inferior and instead would continue to spend their life savings traveling to Europe and other distant places considered more Cultural or Historical or Important. Uncle Moses's opinions were of legendary strength.

Let it be said that I love to travel. If money and time were no consideration I would give the last layer of skin off the soles of my feet to visit the world's wonders and people. I feel very fortunate in the chances I've had to travel to far-off lands and that besides being fun and giving me occasional delightful feelings of superiority these experiences were educational, enriching. I'm also banking that the memory of my adventures will keep me sane one future day as I'm changing diaper #17,286.

(Yes, I just wrote that, and what's worse: I MEANT IT. Forgive me, Susan B. Anthony.)

But do you think there's something to Uncle Moses's rant? Is it possible for a modern person to be openminded and well-informed and world-wise and completely happy without wandering very far afield from their home?

The couple I stayed with in England were avid travellers. They had been to Australia, Greece, Italy, the United States, and many other places. "Holiday" for them always meant leaving England. I told them I really hoped to visit Scotland while I was there. Scotland? We've never been to Scotland. Why would a person want to visit Scotland?

There's an amazing rock formation on the border between Utah and Arizona. I've never visited it, and I don't know any other Utahns who have, either. However, it's famous in Germany. Germans will fly all the way to Utah just to visit that one rock formation.

Is it just that we crave novelty, or is it more than that? Can library card + curiosity + vivid imagination take a person wherever he needs to go intellectually? Or is there something vitally important that we absolutely can't get anywhere except on Mount Kilimanjaro or in the Valley of the Kings?**

I really really need you to tell me. Because it's spring, you see, and I've never been to Paris....




* Okay, we didn't have to SNEAK. We wanted to be sneaky, but really anyone can go in the Church Archives.

** If so, why am I sitting at this computer? Why are you sitting at your computer? We need to sell our computers and buy plane tickets!

Flight of the Easter* Vultures.

On my way to church Easter Sunday I saw ten deer. Happy Easter! they seemed to say as they paused all full of life and spring, a-fattening themselves on lush cemetery grass fed by the dead. I don't think the dead minded, except perhaps the ticklish dead.

On my post-church Easter Sunday walk through the city cemetery I saw that brightly-colored lollipops had been stuck in the ground around one headstone, like candy flowers. I walked over for a closer look and saw that enterprising ants had determined to not let all that sugar go to waste. Happy Easter! they seemed to say as they swarmed over the sweet engraved face of the baby girl, eating her treats. I don't think she minded -- those ants were pretty fun to watch.

On my way home from the cemetery I saw ten huge birds gliding in a whirlpool formation. I followed them as they drifted eastward, silver wing feathers shining the evening light. Noble eagles! I thought. What a glorious and inspiring Easter vision!** I eventually tracked them to two huge trees in the yard of a stately home. Vultures. The original ten vultures plus seven more of their vulturey friends. I'm not sure why seventeen vultures chose to ominously descend upon the richest part of the richest neighborhood in town, but I do hope that whatever individual at 1288 East 3rd Avenue is dead (physically or otherwise) provided a splendid Easter feast for those magnificent birds. I don't think he minded, whoever he was.***

The Moral (yes, my child -- everything has a moral):

The death of one feeds the life of another; all things in nature are types of Christ and his cause. He puzzled the faithful and scared away the faithless with his talk of cannibalism, but cannibalism is what he demands we believe in: every Sunday he puts us at the top of the spiritual food chain, lays himself down on the table, and dares us to believe that we eventually are what we eat. All death gives life, however undeserved. The purest death, offered as a gift, gives the purest life, however undeserved.

Jesus loves the deer and the ants and the vultures, and so he feeds them on you. But most of all he loves you, and so he feeds you on himself.

Happy Easter.





* So I missed the boat by a couple days: computer's still possessed. Apparently the universe wants me to spend more time taking walks through the cemetery and spend less time blogging about it.

** I still am occasionally guilty of confusing patriotism with religion -- embarrassing, but true. I tried to have it surgically removed, but it appears that they missed a bit.

*** 'Tis economical, if nothing else. You gotta sell your soul for a plot in that cemetery – far more costly than a stately home in the Avenues (these days you can't even give those away).

Call me Paula Revere.

Is it just my imagination, or are three out of every four Financial Experts called in by PBS and NPR to comment on our current national shame ENGLISH? Has anyone else noticed this strange phenomenon?

At first I joked about it, but it's now officially spooky. I understand that the English tend to be quite well educated (and even when they're not, that accent makes them sound well educated to the American ear), but why this glut of English experts on United States finance specifically? Could it be that just as the Japanese in recent decades have sent hordes of friendly spy "tourists" to photograph every square inch of the U.S., the English have slowly been tickling us with their charms, waiting for us to giggle, roll over, and expose our soft financial underbelly?

(Maybe we can convince the world to blame them for this mess???)

And don't get me started on how all the good American characters are now being played by Englishmen and -women. I'm pleased as punch to see my beloved Hugh Laurie become a household name hereabouts, but is there truly no cranky American actor good enough to play that cranky American character? If so, 'tis sad. 'Tis burnin' Rome, circa A.D. 64.

('Tis a conspiracy???)

Do economic downturns/meltdowns/crunches/crises/recessions/depressions ultimately trigger cultural and educational renaissances*? Let us pray that they do. In the meantime, it's high time we turn a leery eye toward the English among us -- I'm not usually a lynching woman, but I think they might be up to no good.



* Is "renaissances" even a word? Help? Lena?

Plus pain, minus muse (or: someone find me a rhyming dictionary).

There once was a patron o' lim'ricks
Who knew that her friends were no dim hicks
........Yet due to brain rot
........Her contest forgot
And now she's trying to come up with another rhyme for "limerick" that conveys her profound despair and self-reproach, but to no avail.



Help me.

Steal this picture.

Over the years I've swiped the artwork of so many people in illustrating my blog, it's high time I give back. I created this little graphic for a baby shower that never happened, so in an effort to make use of it and also to smother a bit of my copyright infringement guilt, I'm offering it to my fellow criminal cheapskates, wherever in cyberspace they may reside.

Take it!
Don't credit me!
I promise not to sue!

And they're giraffes, in case you couldn't tell. Giraffes without tails. Forgot the tails. Oopsie.

Oh well. Consider it my artistic widow's mite.