A-sitting on a gate

Little poem for an Easter weekend.

2011-04-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

MightI

Lord
not withstanding Thee
I stand
still
tousled, and after
shaken, and after
singed, but
I wait upon a rock---
wait upon a whisper
upon wings

Isaiah 40:28-31
1 Kings 19:11-12
Psalms 46:10-11

"The strong, honest, ugly, patient shapes of necessary things."

2011-03-30T08:40:00.001-07:00

I went on a splendid date last week, during which we discovered a mutual affection for G. K. Chesterton: his boundless humor, his faith in the face of depression, his bemoaning the dearth of cheese poetry.*

So a couple days later I was stalking Chesterton online and came across information about his wife, Frances Blogg. They were a very devoted couple and doted on each other until his death. Among the Chesterton relics related to Frances is a letter he wrote to her during their engagement. It is long despite my heavy editing; if you don't have time to read it all, read just the last five paragraphs. It is funny and sweet: even as I laugh my heart melts into a pink puddle on the floor....

* Turns out Chesterton was wrong on this point, as my date then introduced me to the appallingly prolific James McIntyre, Cheese Poet of Canada. This cheese poem was my favorite. Read at your own risk.

Mormon artists confess: kids are harder than they look.

2011-01-16T18:36:00.000-08:00

Today on The Almost-Dead Blog: really old news. (Nothing like stale material to liven things up.)

Over a year ago was the most recent triennial LDS International Art Competition Exhibition. I meant to blog about it then-ish. I didn't.

But now I am.

Fear not: I won't blog about the entire show, though it was for the most part very good. (The exhibitions get significantly better each time, i.e., fewer cheesy Norman Rockwell knockoffs and more quilts

depicting the Orion nebula. Yes, really. See the picture? It was so friggin' cool! Pioneer handicrafts shot warp-speed into the Twenty-Fourth-and-a-Half Century!)

The pieces related to parenthood in particular caught my attention, given how Mormon culture tends to paint children as pure delight and consequently paint parenthood as a sugar-cookie-baking joyride. Not that most LDS parents won't admit to you one-on-one that their experience deviates from this ideal most days, but in public church forums we like to be "uplifting" and focus on the sunny bits of family life with children, as we consider these families to be central to human social organization through eternity. So these public, Church-sanctioned displays of artistic honesty regarding life with little people were a bit startling, and very refreshing.

This is a piece by a Chinese Mormon sculptor. The tree is a representation of a family: the human figures' heads, hands, and feet have been removed -- the torsos and arms of the intertwined father and pregnant mother make up the trunk and two main branches of the tree and the headless bodies of dozens of children weigh heavily on them. There is a real feeling of joy to the piece -- the tree's twigs are the cheerful waving arms and legs of the children -- but you get a sense of the strength and endurance required of the parents to make that joy possible. (And the slightly creepy headless people give the piece an edgier feel than is normal for the LDS International Art Competitions.)

The caption on this piece explained that it was a

depiction of the artist's grandparents as carefree newlyweds. Their joy was later diminished when their first two children were born dead and then they had a severely disabled daughter who required constant care her entire life. The couple's earthly experience with parenthood was dimmed by the burden and sadness of this circumstance, but they looked forward to the resurrection, when their family would be together and physically whole.

The main figure here is a mother and the little people scrambling over her and chasing through her hair (with faces of monkeys, dogs, and other savage critters) are her children. She's a sort of longsuffering Mother Earth, unable to move much because they're twined around her legs. She seems happy that they're enjoying themselves, but a bit weary and frazzled nonetheless. This piece makes me kinda glad to be single, frankly.

This one was probably my favorite of the parenthood pieces. If you look closely, you can see that the mother is slowly unraveling her own pink sweater and knitting it onto her daughter. An honest and rather lovely depiction of the sacrifices of parenthood. Neither of them is smiling and they don't make eye contact -- but the gesture itself is the evidence of love. The mother is intensely focused on her task of giving up comfort for her child, who looks maybe a little cranky and impatient with the process. ("I don't want this lame homemade sweater! Take me to the mall!")

Hooray for good art. Two years to the next International Art Competition -- can't wait to see what they give us next......I hope someone crochets a giant 3-D supernova. And maybe I'll tat the head of Donny Osmond!

Eulogy for a loyal phone.

2011-01-10T08:50:00.000-08:00

I think my trusty five-year-old phone is fading away.

It had to happen eventually, but it still makes me sad. For three years Verizon has been sending me slick "New Every Two" mailings that feature the flashy, feature-heavy phones I can get free or almost-free, but I've tossed them all.

For you see, gentle reader -- those supermodel phones are not my phone. My phone is special, and they don't make 'em like that anymore.

Can I tell you why I love my phone, as part of the grieving process? Yes? Thank you.

1. It is very small and very light (it fits discreetly in my bra when I'm out walking in a skirt that has no pockets).

2. It is sturdy and very tightly constructed (to resist bosom sweat when it's riding in my bra).

3. It has a flashlight feature that I use all the time (does YOUR phone have a flashlight feature? as in an actual lightbulb on the end of the phone? didn't think so!)

4. It holds a charge a very long time and recharges lightning fast.

5. It has exceptional reception and sound.

6. It has a way better speakerphone feature than any other cell phone I've seen. A couple years ago when a group of female relatives were gathered around my aunt's (much newer) phone to hear my cousin's exciting engagement news, we couldn't understand what she was saying. We resumed the call on my homely phone and heard every word crystal clear.

7. Its candybar style means that if you sit on it there is no hinge or sliding panel to break (I would've broken dozens of hinged phones by now).

8. It had exactly what I wanted (and those features were exeptionally well engineered) and because it didn't have a bunch of extra junk it was a reasonable price and so I didn't have to continually fear damaging or losing it.

9. I once stabbed it with a pitchfork (hard) and it kept on ticking.

10. I don't care that I can't add any ringtones.

11. I don't care that it has no picture capabilities.

12. I don't care that it has no camera.

13. I don't care that it can't access the internet.

14. I don't care that it can't do my taxes or direct me back to Kansas or tell me the name of that song, for it is a PHONE, and it does all phone-ish tasks beautifully.

Rest in peace, lil' phone. You have served me well.

(In lieu of flowers, please send chocolate.)

I'm afraid of Jesus.

2010-10-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

In downtown Salt Lake City, in a beautiful old building, is the Hope Gallery. The owners specialize in the Scandinavian masters; they own and display many originals and sell beautiful reproductions. They also have the exclusive rights to sell prints of Danish artist Carl Bloch's moving paintings of the life of Christ, which are great favorites in the Mormon community. I love Bloch's paintings as much as the next Mormon.

Two Novembers ago the Hope Gallery had a sale on all their reproductions of Carl Bloch paintings. My mother requested a print of Gethsemane (Castle Version) for her birthday, and while I was in the gallery I was enticed to buy a canvas reproduction of my favorite Bloch: Casting Out Satan. It was expensive by my standards (over $200, even on sale), but I felt it was worth it. I love that painting. I love how Christ looks fragile and weary from his long fasting, his backlit robe revealing the shape of his slender arm, but his gesture of authority over Satan is confident, powerful. I love how he is removed from the busy context of crowds and synagogues and transported for a moment back to his primal confrontation with the enemy of our souls. I love the bare, rugged montaintop setting -- like my memory of the top of Mount Sinai. When I held my breath and wrote out the fat check I imagined my favorite Bloch painting hanging in a central place in my home for many years and even the cheapskate in me felt it was a good thing.

The particular size I wanted was not in stock, so they told me they'd call when it was ready to pick up. However, during the week or two that I waited for their call, I realized what I'd done -- I'd passed over the Woman at the Well, Christ and the Children, Healing at the Pool of Bethesda, The Doubting Thomas, and all the other warmer, more forgiving scenes. I'd chosen my favorite Bloch painting, but hadn't considered what it would be like to look at it, large, on my wall every day. To every day see a muscular Satan -- beautiful, like my favorite sins, swirling in a vibrant red robe. To feel that Christ's bold gesture of reproach was directed toward the dark corners of my life that I'm not ready to confront. To not be able to close the church magazine and make my favorite Bloch disappear when it became a too bright for comfort.

I still don't know what I'm going to do. The gallery has long since stopped calling to remind me to pick up my print. My only options are to go claim it or take store credit and use it to purchase some other print.

If someday you come to my apartment and see on my wall a fancy canvas print of The Daughter of Jairus or of little Danish girls picking wildflowers, I hope you won't judge me. It's crazy to be afraid of Jesus. NO ONE is afraid of Jesus. Except that I appear to be. I'm working on it.

Pioneer Day: re-smirching the worthy dead.

2010-07-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

I always knew that William P. Smith was my great-great-great-great grandfather. I knew that he was born in England, joined the LDS Church there, immigrated to America, briefly lived in Nauvoo, operated the pioneer ferry across the Missouri River for a few years, and then walked to Utah. I knew that he was a bone doctor and that his first wife, Rebecca Mary Grimshaw, (my great-great-great-great grandmother) and his daughter Alice Smith Done (my great-great-great grandmother) were noted midwives in the Mormon community. I knew that for awhile he lived in the Union Fort area of Salt Lake County. All in all an upstanding Mormon settler, but not, in my estimation, terribly remarkable among the vast host of hardy LDS pioneers.

I assumed he had lived and died a faithful adherent to the church for which he had worked so hard. Why would I believe anything else? His daughter Alice, through whom I descend, was as solidly devout as they come, and I counted that branch of my family the most stoicly faithful of my many pioneer branches (i.e., no known cranks, suicides, drunks....) I had considered it almost boring in its faithfulness – and that is why I rarely looked closely at it. Alice had spent most of her adult life up north in Cache Valley delivering babies and having twelve of her own, and I had assumed that her parents had moved up there at the same time and died near her.

But no – as interested as I've always been in family history, I had somehow never noticed that William P. Smith and Rebecca Mary Grimshaw Smith remained in Union Fort to the end of their lives. I – we – had no idea that they were buried near my parents' home in a tiny pioneer cemetery. For decades we had driven past their graves on the way to the grocery store, oblivious to their silent bones. When I finally took the family there for our first visit a few months ago, we were pleased to find that their graves were among few marked well enough to still be located.

So I was getting intrigued. I went to the Family History Library to see what I could learn about the Union Fort community, and turned up little local history book called A Union, Utah, History. There was William P. Smith's photo, captioned “Union's early doctor and dentist.” Yay, Grandpa! You're almost famous! I read futher: “William P. Smith, a doctor in the fort, was so charitable to the Indians that they referred to him as the 'Medicine Man.'”

I dug around on the Internet and found a great website devoted to Rebecca Mary Grimshaw and William P. Smith – GOLDMINE. Histories collected from their grandchildren, tales of his many years as Union's watermaster, even the recipe for William's special salve:

1/2 pound beeswax
1/2 pound rosin
1/2 pound mutton tallow
1/2 pound lard
Melt all together and add 3/4 teaspoon of white vitrol.

On this website was even more information about his compassion for the Indians. One history stated that a newly widowed Indian squaw had fled from her late husband's tribe, where it was the custom to kill and bury the wife of any man who died. William and Rebecca hid the woman, threw her pursuers off the scent, and then helped her get back to safety in her parents' tribe. In fact, William was so beloved and trusted by the Indians that when Union Fort was completed, he refused to move his family inside it. “Tut, tut,” he reportedly said to the more fearful pioneers. “They [the Indians] will not harm thee.”

Better and better, thought I. William P. Smith is shaping up to be the best Mormon pioneer ever known! Love this guy!

I read further. It started to get wacky. After Rebecca died, William remarried and divorced, then remarried again, this time to a woman named Sarah Pidd Griffiths. She was the widowed second (polygamous) wife of a local man named Griffiths, and even after Mr. Griffith's death she remained close to her former “sister wife,” Ann, who had fifteen children from the marriage, including five sets of twins. (For real – the poor woman is buried in that same little pioneer cemetery, and all the kids' names are listed on her gravestone.) Anyway, Sarah stayed in the house with her “sister wife” Ann after their husband died, leaving her own two children with Ann and the other fifteen children during the day to go out and try to earn money for the large fatherless household. While he was in Ann's care one day, Sarah's little boy was knocked into a vat of boiling soap was horribly burned. The doctor called was William Smith, and though the boy ultimately died, Sarah was touched by the doctor's manner. Once Ann's sons were old enough to help her stay afloat, William and Sarah decided to marry.

Ann, however (understandably) was terrified of losing Sarah's assistance in her household, and followed them to Salt Lake City, where they were to be married in the LDS Endowment House, a requirement for all faithful church members. She caused such a scene at the Endowment House that the Church officials asked William and Sarah to come back another day to be married. William had had it. Already fed up with polygamy (which he disliked) and growing ever more disillusioned with those in his religious community, he decided that he would not wait to be married in the proper Mormon way. They headed east up to the foothills and were married in a non-Mormon ceremony at Fort Douglas, headquarters of the federal government's hated military watchdogs.

This development made the Union Fort Mormons even more suspicious of William (who after the marriage adopted the first letter of his wife's maiden name – P – as a middle initial so as to stop getting mail for all the other William Smiths in the area). I'm guessing the Sunday church chatter went something like this: He hangs out with Indians, he refused to live in the fort, he controls our water, he married secularly, and he took his wife's name. He's nice, yeah, but he's trouble. He and Sarah were ostracized by the Union Mormons and sometime during this period allied themselves with the Joseph Smith III clan (the Reorganized LDS Church) and were excommunicated by the Brighamite Mormons. Some Brighamite Mormons of Union Fort began to threaten them, and one history states that they were afraid to go out after dark after a mysterious shooting incident.

In 1885 Joseph Smith III (son of the Prophet Joseph Smith) came through Utah, attempting to win converts away from Brigham Young and bring them back to the Midwest and into his version of Mormonism. And who was housing Joseph Smith III on his journey and convincing the Union Fort Mormon bishop to let him speak to the “Brighamite” Mormons in their church building?

Yup. William P. Smith. He is even mentioned by Joseph Smith III in his account of the trip to Utah, and Joseph Smith III gave a eulogy at William's son's funeral (his son was murdered by an angry local).

At this point it was clear why these stories never trickled down through our straightarrow branch of the family – William P. Smith was a real wild card, and he got CENSORED by his own posterity. Curses upon their tidy little history-mangling souls.

About the same time I was learning all this, I saw a documentary about the history of black people in the LDS church (I blogged about it a year ago). In one of the DVD special features Darius Gray mentions that he lives near the pioneer cemetery in the Union Fort area and often walks there to visit the grave of Green Flake, one of the most famous black Mormon pioneers (Flake drove the cart in which the ill Brigham Young first rode into the Salt Lake Valley). I remembered that the book about Union Fort history had contained a chapter on blacks in that community, so I went back to read it. Black Mormons were then (and still are) rare in Utah. I learned that the largest settlement of black Mormons was, for some years, in Union Fort, and that there was an integrated school there. I looked up the 1860, 1870, and 1880 U.S. Censuses for that area and sure enough, there was a considerable group of black people living in Union Fort during that time. The book on Union history says that while many black people lived there over the years, the only member of that community that was embraced by most of the white Mormons of Union was Green Flake himself, with his connections to Brigham Young. When Flake left the area toward the end of his life, the black residents of Union scattered -- by the 1900 Census there are no more black people in the area. Green Flake and several other black residents of Union Fort were buried three rows away from William, Rebecca, and Sarah Smith.

I wonder where my cranky ancestor fell in all this. On one hand, he was known as a remarkably compassionate and openminded man. Perhaps he was one of those who made Union seem the most hospitable home for these black Saints, just as he had done for the Indians? Maybe in being a bit of a rebel himself he had a heart for the outsider?

On the other hand, I believe his stubbornness was also a fatal flaw. One history recounts how he would sulk and give Sarah the silent treatment for days when he didn't get his way. And I suspect that, like me, he sometimes took too much pride in being a little bit outside and other, seeing his imperfect fellow Mormons as hopeless hoi polloi rather than as true Saints in embryo, capable of being transformed by the power of the gospel over time. That perhaps his (good) efforts to be more Christian to outsiders ultimately led to a holier-than-thou attitude toward his less openminded fellow Mormons. Perhaps he ultimately rejected his faith because of its flawed members.

None of this is knowledge – simply speculation based on what I've read about him. I'm left to marvel at how much I, Genealogy Girl, didn't about these stories and to fret that I'll never learn the answers to my questions about this fascinating character in my family tree.

Why didn't any of my *&%! ancestors keep journals??

So that is my final comment in this rambling but heartfelt posting: KEEP A JOURNAL OR DIE. Or rather, you will die, sooner or later, so please keep a journal. Save your emails, which are the modern journal. Do something. So I don't have to kill you.

Happy Pioneer Day!

When ambition is gone, there's always terror....

2010-06-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

The other day a Facebook friend was questioning his decision to pursue science as his profession, stating that perhaps firefighting would have been an easier, saner choice.

No surprise there -- firefighter and scientist are great career favorites of the under-eight XY crowd. Probably "Transformer" and "King of the Galaxy" as well.

This made me think of a little kids' book I wrote a few years ago, entitled I Want to Be a Scientist Like Stephen Hawking. Two prior authors had tried and failed to write an acceptable text about Hawking's life, and it was no easy task for me, either. You see, the challenge in selling Prof. Hawking's story to kiddies as inspirational tripe is that 1) he was an enormous slacker who was scared into diligence by a debilitating disease and that 2) no one would be writing books about him if he were an amazing cosmologist without full-body paralysis and a spooky computer-generated voice. On the cover of the book you see his slack-jawed grin and the backdrop of his wheelchair and the subtext seems to be "and if you don't have the spine to make your dreams happen, little child, there's always the WRATH OF GOD...."

I'm all for scaring the kiddies into line.*

* To quote Laurie Anderson: "For when love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom...."

Psychologically unhealthy spinster hobbies, part 1.

2010-05-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again -- the male mallards in the pond on my street have been passionately quacking their views re: why this year's ducklings should inherit THEIR earlobes. (You don't think ducks have earlobes? You clearly don't have ducks living on your street.)

I trust that one day soon a row of paddling puffballs will appear on the water, and when they do, I shall gift their parents with a new-baby mix CD. (You don't think ducks have CD players? Geez, ya snobby urbanite -- you probably think they don't have indoor plumbing or electricity, either!)

Several years ago I sifted my music collection for baby/childhood/parenthood songs to make a mix for a friend, and since then have been forcing these songs upon friends and family as two by two they go off to try their hands at little-person wrangling. (I'm sure they'd prefer a Dr. Spock book or help with late-night feedings, but this is much more fun.)

If you have other songs for my collection please let me know. I'm mostly after positive songs, though if they're not strictly rosy on the topic of parenthood, beautiful or charming will serve as well. Eastery-springy-metaphory also works.

A Little Bit (At the Beginning) -- Joe Raposo with Patti LaBelle and the Abyssinian Baptist Choir

All the Pretty Horses -- Hem
All We Ever Look For -- Kate Bush

Annabelle -- Gillian Welch

Babies If I Didn't Have You -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Back Home Again -- Low

Be Careful There's a Baby in the House -- Loudon Wainwright III

Beautiful -- Paul Simon

Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)* -- John Lennon
Bertie -- Kate Bush

Birth-day (Love Made Real) -- Suzanne Vega

Birthday -- Beatles

Born at the Right Time -- Paul Simon

Born, Never Asked -- Laurie Anderson

The Castle of Dromore -- Cherish the Ladies

Cheerios on the Floor -- Black Eyed Snakes

Cherry Tree Carol -- Emmylou Harris

Child Among the Weeds -- Eliza Carthy

Child of Mine -- Carole King

Circle Game -- Joni Mitchell

Come Little Children -- Donny Hathaway

Creatures of Love -- Talking Heads

Cry Baby Cry -- Beatles

Dance Me to the End of Love -- Leonard Cohen

Danny's Song -- Kenny Loggins

Diamond Day -- Vashti Bunyan

Don't Drop the Baby -- Low

Father and Daughter -- Paul Simon

First Born -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Freedom Hangs Like Heaven -- Iron and Wine

Golden Slumbers -- Beatles

Goodnight -- Beatles

Growing Up -- Peter Gabriel
Happy Birthday -- Innocence Mission

Heirloom -- Bjork

Here Before -- Vashti Bunyan

Hey Girl -- Donny Hathaway

Holly Up on Poppy -- XTC

How Beautiful Could a Being Be? -- Caetano & Moreno Veloso

...I Love -- Low

I Need a Nap -- Kate Winslet & Weird Al Yankovic

I Wish -- Stevie Wonder

Isn't She Lovely -- Stevie Wonder

Kiss of Life -- Peter Gabriel

Kooks -- David Bowie

Lately -- Vashti Bunyan

Little Green -- Joni Mitchell

Little Things -- Joe Raposo

Lord, Blow the Moon Out Please -- Hem
Love That Boy -- Innocence Mission

Loves Me Like a Rock -- Paul Simon

Memo to My Son -- Randy Newman

Mother and Child Reunion -- Paul Simon

Mother and Son -- Babe Soundtrack

Mother Stands for Comfort -- Kate Bush

My Darling -- Wilco

My First Child** -- Nil Lara

New Mama -- Neil Young

New Star in the Sky -- Air

Ob la di Ob la da -- Beatles

The Obvious Child -- Paul Simon

Orphan Girl -- Gillian Welch

Ovary Z's -- Geggy Tah

P. Sluff -- Geggy Tah

Pony Boy -- Bruce Springsteen

Precious -- Annie Lennox

Reaching Out -- Kate Bush

Room for the Life -- Kate Bush

Season Cycle -- XTC

Skip Rope Song -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle, et al.

St. Judy's Comet -- Paul Simon

Stay Up Late -- Talking Heads

Summertime -- Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald

Sun, Son (Shining on the Water) -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Surfer Girl -- Low

Sweet and Low -- Bette Midler

The Sweetest Gift -- Sade

That Was Your Mother -- Paul Simon

Things We've Handed Down** -- Marc Cohn
This Woman's Work -- Kate Bush

Then She Appeared -- XTC

To Zion -- Lauren Hill

Upward over the Mountain -- Iron and Wine

Valentine's Day -- Hem

Waters of March -- Jobim & Elis Regina or Marissa Monte & David Byrne or Basia or Anya Marina or....

Wayward -- Vashti Bunyan

Welcome into the World -- Geggy Tah

What a Wonderful World -- Louis Armstrong

When a Man Needs a Woman -- Beach Boys

When Mac Was Swimming -- Innocence Mission

When I Called Upon Your Seed -- Low

Wiggle Wiggle -- Bob Dylan

Wonderful / Song for Children / Child Is the Father of the Man / Surf's Up -- Brian Wilson

Ye Yo -- Erykah Badu

* Suggested by Sharon.

** Suggested by some dude in a Yahoo Group.

Still geeky after all these years.

2010-03-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

You can mock me (go for it, Emily), but I still love Rick Steves. And this is why.

He proves that any 100% whole-grain boy scout can be an informed and curious world traveler. (Or the geeky, socially backward teenaged me, sitting home most Friday nights watching his "Europe Through the Back Door" TV series and dreaming of all the places I would one day go.)

He's as interested in knowing people as places, and his interactions are genuine, warm, and humble. For all his slouchy, bespectacled dorkiness he never makes me embarrassed to be an American/Westerner as do so many other travel show hosts.

He has special dispensation to make fun of Mormons because his first post-parents European traveling companion was his LDS high school buddy: two teen prudes, 70 days, backpacks, hostels, and a shoestring budget (they did it on $7.35 per day, after airfare!) Take that, hippie gypsies: the dork boys are movin' in! (It's a great read -- you really should click on it.)

He focuses on how to cut out empty expenditure and concentrate your pesos on the richest travel experiences. (Unfortunately, wearing drip-dry wrinkle-proof baggy khakis every day is a part of this frugal vision, but other than that....)

His travel business headquarters is in a Washington town where my grandparents lived, and it has gargoyles over the entrance. Inside is a free library of travel books and videos, open to any and all. Nice fella, that Rick.

He speaks the local languages as much as he can, even though he delivers everything from German to Italian in his nasal and abominably accented tenor.

He's filmed some shows with his wife and kids, demonstrating how families can travel together sanely, economically, and without hating each other by the end of the trip.

He has neither that snotty I-only-do-high-culture attitude nor that obnoxious I-only-go-where-other-tourists-don't attitude that characterizes just about every other travel show host I know of. Any adventure is fair game for the mighty Rick.

His recent travel show about Iran ignored politics, focusing on culture, history, and people. At the same time he managed to provide in easy-to-swallow form what scholars on the Middle East have failed to convince U.S. policy-makers of -- that Iran's population is overwhelmingly pro-Western, educated, empowering of women, and rich in the kinds of "civil society" associations that are a necessary precursor to a truly democratic society. He reminds his audience that the negative turn in our relations with this place is a direct result of our upholding oppressive pro-Western regimes and quashing democracy in order to feed our lust for oil.

Oh dear. I swear this didn't start out as a political rant -- it really was supposed to be about Mr. Steves. I'm still a big fan, Rick! If you ever need an extra person on your travel crew to....iron your drip-dry wrinkle-proof baggy khakis?....I'd be happy to step in.

Will work for exotic cheeses and good, wholesome adventure.

Stale movie reviews (or: don't ask too much of me in February).

2010-02-20T21:25:00.000-08:00

I've been noting how long this blog had sat untouched. The world is doubtless a better place without my binary babble, but I can't help but feel that the blog feels neglected. (Yes, I assign consciousness to my blog and I talk to my cat.)

However, I'm sick and my brain's in a fog and writing something new would surely cause cranial combustion. So I'm posting this short collection of movie/TV reviews that I wrote two Decembers ago. The shows are fourteen months older now than they were then, but I love them just as much.* There, little blog. I hope you feel loved.

********************************

[Written December 2008]

Yeah, yeah, I know. You've got a list of must-read books and must-finish chores and must-eat vegetables and must-run marathons a mile (26 miles?) long and you really don't have time to hear How Fantastic my latest cinematic discoveries are. So just stop reading, Dude. No one's forcing you.

1) PBS! (Yes! I'm a dork!) Two recent science shows on PBS have rocked my world, and if you check your local listings you might be able to find one or both of them in an encore presentation. One was a National Geographic special on stress, and the other was a Nova special on the epigenome. Just when you thought you knew how you were supposed to navigate the universe, public television comes along and plays merry hell with your equilibrium. I love it.

2) An Inconvenient Truth. Yes, I know I'm the second-to-last person on the planet to see this one, and after winning the Nobel Prize, does Mr. Gore really need an obscure Utah blogger to give him one more thumbs-up? But just in case you happen to be that very last person on the planet who's not yet seen it, you should. Even though we all seem to be coming to acknowledge the changes in the winds and what they mean, the movie explains things more clearly and coherently than I'd heard before. Even if you're already converted, see it for the handy factoids that will help you convert others. (Warning: be sure to walk or bike or mass-transit to the video store to decrease your post-movie self loathing.)

3) The Business of Being Born. Thank you, Netflix. This is Ricky Lake's labor (!) of love, an attempt to chip away at the modern American mindset toward childbirth that is robbing families of real choices and the best outcomes for mothers and babies. I watched this one two-and-a-half times before sending it back. Short path to my verdict: Fair-minded, yet passionate about its message. Moving and intimate, had me in tears several times. And it includes clips from one of my favorite Monty Python bits, so how can you go wrong? (Dudes weren't just funny -- they were truthtellers.) I think all potential parents should see the film. It's very good. I like it. Long, incoherent, tangential path to my verdict: Don't click here -- you'll regret it!

4) Almost Strangers. A BBC miniseries written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff. I have a longtime obsession with his earlier offering, Shooting the Past, and more recently learned about this one (thanks for the tip, Sharon!) Like Shooting the Past, I don't recommend it to just anyone. Poliakoff is obsessed with storylines that ferret out the tiny, lost dramas in the lives of everyday people's everyday ancestors, so if you've got any degree of genealogy-itis, you will love both of these films as I do. If not -- probably a three-hour yawn fest. I, for one, have decided that Poliakoff must be my long-lost bastard Jewish uncle and I'm off to England to hunt him down and give him a hug.

5) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Everybody gushed: soooo goooood. But for a long time I couldn't get past the premise -- movie filmed from the viewpoint of a completely paralyzed man who can only blink his eyes. I'm fairly claustrophobic and this sounded like a feature-length panic attack in the making. But still they gushed, so I caved and moved it to the top of my Netflix queue. Now I have joined the gush -- loved it. The film does let you feel the claustrophobia pressing down on your lungs for a good while. And it lets you feel the despair and the anger and the regret, but it gradually gives way to imagination and humor and humanity and even a little redemption. Bless Jean-Do Bubeque for mustering enough hope to blink out his story letter by letter so that we can witness the remarkable journey he made while trapped inside his leaden body. Plenty of tears, but all of them earned.

* I decided to not post them at the time because of the childbirth movie review, which I thought might be a painful read for someone close to me, who had just survived an unnecessarily traumatic hospital birth with an oafish and irresponsible doctor (whose car tires I have slashed dozens of times in my fantasy world). But she's finally close to healed, so I hope she won't mind.....

Take this and swim with it.

2009-11-30T22:25:00.001-08:00

I’ve dreamed up the best TV channel ever, and I’m offering my idea gratis to any entrepreneur out there looking to stake her claim in the Oprah vacuum. It’s a reality show -- but unedited, real-time, and more addictive than heroin. Here’s all you need:

1) one empty TV channel

2) one really long cord with a light and camera attached

3) one seaworthy boat from which to dangle said cord

You lower the camera into the dark, dark depths of the ocean and just leave it there. All day, every day. I promise you that millions will quit their jobs to stay home and wait for those fanged, transparent, glowing, deep-sea Satanic fish to swim by the camera. It may only happen once a week, but they will watch and they will wait. It will be the best horror flick ever: viewer as prey, waiting in a dark alien realm with no narrator or soundtrack warning him when the monster will strike -- just the maddening sound of his own pounding heart hour after hour. Buh-bum, buh-bum, buh-bum.

Or for a more lighthearted direction, you could interview the fishies backstage, learn their heartwarming backstories, do makeovers (lipstick on a lanternfish!), and have viewers vote them out of the ocean.

I'm the biggest cheapskate in creation and I don't like scary stuff, but I would actually pay for TV service if I could get the Evil Fish Uncut channel.

Come on – someone get on this, already.

Thanknesses III: return of a lame title.

2009-11-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

All previous blessedness, plus:

Thanksgiving dinners with complimentary stomach pumping service. Ugh.

Repentance, from gluttony and other failings.

Text recognition software + old newspapers.

Temples, temples everywhere! Coming soon to Rome, and a city near you!

Full beards: finally winning the holy war against goatees.*

The grand feeling of newly-waxed arms. (Don't ask.)

Good, good family. God will surely ask me why I failed to singlehandedly eradicate war and hunger, given my great advantages of birth. I love you, my genetically-similar dearies (and married-into-the-clan dearies).

A long procession of kind and funny and brilliant girlfriends from gradeschool to the present. Not one catty drama addict in the lot. I love you, genetically-dissimilar ladies.

Genetically-dissimilar menfolk, here and there. (Hoping will have more to say on this by next Thanksgiving.)

Bizarre immunity to insomnia. More of a superpower, really: Super Snoozer at your service. I make your problems disappear by teaching you to sleep through them!

Healthy enough to donate blood, but never yet needed any (knock on wood).**

David Brooks, the only newsman I would trust to tell me how to vote. I would also trust him with my infant and the keys to my yacht, if I had either an infant or a yacht.

Triumph, for brilliantly taking on my primary pet peeve, pun intended.

The last person I met at the Halloween party, who was also the first person who understood my costume. Thanks, dude. ***

Googling my friends and finding stuff like this. Yes, I've probably Googled you, too.

Lovely night, and mystic fields with stars bedight.****

* Goatees are the mullets of facial hair, my friends. I'm not saying that a goatee makes you a bad person, but I am saying that you must shave it off for the good of humanity.

** Bloodbanks get desperate during the holidays -- needs go up and donations go way down. Particularly platelet donations, which are only good for five days. So think about it, if you're less than busy this weekend...

*** "Well of COURSE I know what a Jabberwock is! Slithy toves and mome raths and all that. Do you take me for a complete Philistine?"

**** My favorite line from a Thanksgiving song I learned years ago.

In which Cousin Jennifer sends me a boxful of destiny.

2009-11-13T23:45:00.000-08:00

It looks like ordinary beauty cream.

But no!

It is magical. Dangerous. It offers a Choice, and upon this Choice turns the fairy tale.

You all know that if you are walking through the woods and meet a warty old woman who asks for your last dry biscuit, you must ALWAYS give it to her, right? Of course you do -- you all passed Happy Endings 101. Well done.

Well, this enchanted youth cream is from another folk tale trope. In case you’re not familiar with it, it goes like this:

Plucky plebian opens the door of her humble hut and sees a peculiar package. In it are three thingies –

the elixir of youth,

a book of cursings,

and a book of rejoicings.

There is no note explaining the purpose of these three gifts, but no note is needed, for they were forged in the Cosmic Smithy and exist only to reveal the girl's character and assign her destiny.*

Three Paths diverge from the mysterious box.....

PATH THE FIRST: If the heroine ignores that liquid loveliness and reaches first for the book of cursings, if she chooses to giggle over descriptions of twitchy death-by-jimson-weed, she will thereafter hold the power to destroy her enemies in delightful ways. She will become the sadistic sorceress in a thousand bedtime stories.

But hope remains for her despite this dark decision, for one day her up-creeping ugliness might remind her of her mortality. She might have a witchy midlife crisis, pull that dusty box from under the jar of pickled newt spleens, open up the book of rejoicings, and let it transform her into a nice ugly witch. The sort of ugly witch that wanders into other people’s fairy tales, plants herself by the byway, and trades nifty dragon-proofed swords for lousy dry biscuits.

PATH THE SECOND: If she ignores the youth juice and reaches for the book of rejoicings, then she chooses to seek for beauty in the ugly, to wonder in her weakness, to linger lovingly over the shape of scissors and the browning of bread, and her hair will gray into silver and her face will line into labyrinths and she will become the Wise Woman in the Willows. Wannabe white knights, damselbound, will cheerfully drop $39.95 (plus their last dry biscuit) for her self-helpings in hardback.** She might even score her own Oprah spinoff show.

PATH THE THIRD: If she reaches for the seductive elixir of youth (oh, Wail! oh, Doom!), nothing thereafter can save her soul. No power over life nor death will move her, for she will no longer love life nor dread death – she will only prize praise.*** No waking death will frighten her, so long as it wears a lovely face. No tortured life will concern her, so long as its catwalk stride is strutty. The moment she touches the vial of vanity, she becomes a hollow shell.

Nay, worse: a shadowy shell, shallow, sure to shatter.

So I stare into this wondrous box that appeared on my doorstep.

What will I reach for first? What will be my fateful fate? Will my ending be Disney or the grimmest Grimm?

Buzz off, ye Joseph Campbellites! I will not be your cautionary Everychick! This morality tale is going offline til further notice!

Must consult the Oprah^TM Omniscient Oracle Object**** I scored with my last dry biscuit.

Oprah will have the answer. And if not Oprah, then one of her many minions.

Oz?

* And were mailed to her by her sweet and classy cousin who apparently is actually a sweet and classy double agent, hired by the nosy gods to sift her very soul. Why, Cousin Jennifer? Why? ~~I’m~~ She's not ready for the truth, and you know it!

** Popular titles include Melt Monsters with the Power of Positive Thinking, French Knights Don't Get Fat, Passive-Resistant Dragonslaying for Dummies...

*** She might also adore alliteration. Just a jot.

**** In Ostentatious Onyx -- collect all five fabulous finishes!

I prithee.

2009-10-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

Do I have a rich reader out there? A rich reader who wants to do a very good deed? Please buy several hundred cases of Richard Paul Evans's new Christmas treacle-lit.

I don't recommend you actually read it.*

Perhaps if we can come together as a church and make his day job sufficiently lucrative, he'll stop hocking laser eye surgery and nutritional gimmicks between General Conference sessions. Really kills my spiritual high.

* Terrific campfire kindling, if it's anything like his prior offerings.

Pioneer Day: spookier and spookier.

2009-07-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

I love blogging even though I know that most of my posts are read by just a couple dozen people at most. But there's something about these annual Pioneer Day posts -- both my 2007 and 2008 entries have brought unexpected wondrousness raining down on my head, blessings from Good Mother Internet and (I believe) my dear departed deadfolk. I've already blogged about the genealogical adventure in California triggered by the 2007 posting -- here's a little taste of what I received from last year's posting:

Eight months after Pioneer Day a historian named Mr. Calow, who lives in my ancestors' village of Sapcote, England Googled the words "Sapcote" + "almshouse" to see what he could find for a research project. When he clicked "search," up popped my 2008 Pioneer Day post. He emailed me, asking for more information about my ancestors to supplement his research, and I sent him all that I had available. In return for this small contribution to his project he used his expertise on Sapcote history to dig through the local resources at his disposal for anything and everything on my ancestors.

Now, we Mormons are incurable family history nuts (though I'm nuttier than most). Long before my time my family had gathered a lot of information on the Sapcote ancestral branch and I have been very familiar with all of it from childhood: records of major life events, letters and histories written by the more recent generations, and even some wonderful photos. But of course there was more out there waiting to be found, and Mr. Calow found it, and it was delightful. I was giddy for days.

My great-grandfather, Amos Brown Jr (subject of last year's Pioneer Day post), converted to the Mormon church in 1901 and less than a month later emigrated with his wife and child from England to the U.S. One thing that is clear from the letters and history in my family's possession is that Amos loved music more than just about anything. He was an exceptional singer from childhood, learned to play his father's accordion and, though poor, used the money he earned working in the stone quarries to purchase a violin. He then taught himself to play the violin as well and he and a friend became founding members of a string band that played at public events in Sapcote. So imagine how poignant it was to see this 1901 newspaper notice magically appear in my inbox:

April 1901
Bath Street, Sapcote.

J & W Harrold have received instruction from Mr Amos Brown who is leaving Sapcote and going abroad, to sell by Auction on Saturday next, April 6th 1901. A portion of the Household furniture and bedroom furniture, Kitchen and scullery Requisites. Violin and Bow, 3 octave organ, Accordian and other effects.

Far greater sacrifices have been made in the history of the world, but picturing him trading for his new faith the instruments that brought him such joy -- pretty powerful stuff.

That friend with whom Amos founded the Sapcote village band was named Reuben Seal, and decades after the young Amos moved to America, Reuben and Amos still consistently inquired about each others' welfare through the family letters. I had always wondered about Reuben, because it was clear that he and Amos shared a close bond, strengthened by their love of music. Mr. Calow saw Reuben's name popping up repeatedly in the family letters I had emailed to him and he uncovered this little gem -- a photo of the aged Reuben Seal from the local newspaper -- still playing his violin!

Mr. Calow also found a charming photo of Amos's father, Amos Brown Sr, that we didn't have. He's posing with two of his Sapcote buddies. In case you're wondering, Amos Sr is the old fellow with the hat, cane, black coat, and white beard.

We had known that Amos Brown Sr and his wife Sarah Letts Brown both lived long and were the oldest couple in Sapcote for several years. I felt that I knew Sarah well, as she was the main author of the early letters to Amos Jr, but there were no letters from her husband and consequently he was much a much dimmer figure in my imagination. Then another wonderful newspaper article transcription arrived in my email:

17 April 1925

Mr and Mrs Amos Brown celebrated their Diamond Wedding. Both were 83 years old and lived in the oldest house in the village. Mr Brown an old stockinger recalled the time when there were over 100 stocking frames in the village. He himself was a footer working a wide frame which made six at a time. He used to earn nine shillings and sixpence a week which was very good money in those days. He had a family of nine and sixty grandchildren and fifteen great grandchildren.

I can just see him talking to the newspaper man, getting misty-eyed over the Old Days.

I've saved the best for last. This one's much older, from a time when traces of the landless poor are usually limited to brief church records of baptisms, marriages, and burials. My great-great-great-great grandfather Thomas Ellis was born in 1769 and all we knew about him and his family were their names and the dates and locations of their major life events. But Mr. Calow knew where to look for more information and he found a letter to a local landowner from the landowner's employee, regarding the poverty-stricken Thomas Ellis and his wife and six daughters:

Sapcote
2 May 1800

"...I cannot forbear making one request in behalf of that poor Man Thomas Ellis. There is misery enough, no doubt, every where; but think what this poor fellow undergoes in maintaining himself, a Wife, and Six Children, in this dreadful scarcity, by his own hard labour. I am convinced he will not be able to do so long; he will work himself to Death; he swooned twice in his Frame last week, and this week he is so weak as not to be able to get what is necessary for the subsistance of his Family. I have already lent him Nine shillings and sixpence this Week, and I believe I should lend him as much more if he asked for it, he is such an honest Industrious man. He says if he had room to set Frames in, for his Children to work, he should maintain his Family with pleasure. You will recollect when you was last at Sapcote, that you ordered me to build a Shop for him at your expence; this I would have done immediately, if straw could have been found to cover it; but straw is not to be had. I have been talking with Mr. Lovett about it, and he as well as myself, sincerely hope that you will in this one instance consent that he may have a Shop covered with tiles. Consider, Sir, it is not pride that urges me to make this request, it is nothing but real necessity, and the pleasure one has in being the means of bettering the condition of an Industrious man. If you will but grant this, the poor man shall work in his own Shop in less than a Month. He says I am the best Friend he has in the World, but alas! What can I do for him without you enable me. I am to take all the trouble myself in building it; but it is you that must be his best Friend; and I have no doubt but that he has a grateful heart, and will be thankful for what you may do for him. He knows nothing of my mentioning his case to you..."

I'm reduced to tears every time I read it. Thomas Ellis's desperate situation and honest struggle to provide for his family over 200 years ago is likely lost to the world except for this letter. And now I have it. Wonderful. Wonderful that a kindly man took an interest in my ancestor's plight, wonderful that he secretly wrote a letter requesting means to aid him, wonderful that someone preserved and transcribed that letter, and wonderful that someone living thousands of miles away and whom I've never met voluntarily took the time to find it for me.*

The Internet is a miraculous realm, my friends. A glorious, glorious tangle of possibilities. How in the h*** am I supposed to have a social life with these mesmerizing dead people lurking in every corner?

Happy Pioneer Day, my dearest dead! I love you all -- even you cranks.** Send me more flashy genealogy miracles this year, okay?

* He found many other interesting things -- if you are a family member interested in seeing all that he sent, let me know and I will email it to you. I'm also nearly finished scanning, ordering, transcribing, and footnoting the full collection of family letters from England, and I'll post them as soon as they're done. Isn't this why God created spinsters? I hope so, because I love this stuff and I'd rather call it a Calling than an Addiction.

** I'm talking to you, William P. Smith.

In my Father's house are many mansions.

2009-07-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago, I made my first black friend.

Don't judge me. There just aren't that many 'round these parts.

Okay, go ahead and judge me, but please wait for the full story first.

Scene:

Black fella wanders by as I am listening to Quincy Jones's gospel/soul/jazz/rap take on Handel's Messiah, which (as it so happens) is one of his favorite records. Up strikes a conversation, just like that. He tells me of his conversion to the LDS church and how his family thought he was bonkers. About how he moved to Utah to attend BYU, not telling his family that he had decided to serve a Mormon mission until he was already in the Missionary Training Center, so as to avoid endless debate on the topic. He laughs, recalling how they wired money to him in the MTC, stating that they were sure he'd been brainwashed into the mission idea, and explaining that they wanted him to use the wired money to bribe his way out of the missionary cult prison compound thingy. About how he had gone on to serve a two-year mission in Italy and graduate from BYU and for some bizarre reason (I was dying to know but didn't ask), settle in the Provo area. He insists that despite the culture shock he'd experienced in transitioning between life as a South Carolina Baptist and that of a Utah Mormon, the only moments he regrets joining the LDS church are while sitting in a mostly-white congregation each Sunday and listening to us warble the hymns sans fire or feeling.

This is just the coolest thing, thunk I. He didn't seem angry at me for being white -- I was sure most black people must be at least miffed at white people. (I am exceedingly white, to be sure.) And I was mostly able to sidestep the topic of my cushy life as a privileged middle class white girl and how spineless I was by comparison. So far, so good.

Bonus: if there was any question as to whether my prior lack of black acquaintances meant I was racist, here was the answer: I had a Bonafide Black Buddy, folks! I was now certified un-racist! I'm surprised I didn't ask him to pose for a photo with me as hard proof.

He was more than a novelty, though -- he was friendly, intelligent, a storyteller. I started to have a crush on him because, you see, I get gooey over good conversationalists. I'd never been smitten with a black fella before.

Soooo here's where it gets twelve times more embarrassing.

But must continue in the interest of full disclosure.

What follows is the progression in my thinking over the subsequent weeks and months of our acquaintance:

Stage 1: I'm sure he's going to eventually ask me out, and what if we hit it off? And what if it got really serious and we got married? How would I deal with having babies that would probably look really different from me?

Stage 2: Okay, I've embraced the concept of sweet brown babies. But how would my parents respond? And holy Hannah – my grandparents?? They're good people, but they're from those transition generations and they still struggle a bit.....

Stage 3: Okay, I'm pretty sure I could convince my good-hearted elders to embrace the concept of a good-hearted black in-law and sweet brown grandbabies, but WHY WON'T HE ASK ME OUT ALREADY??

Stage 4: Ohhhhh, right. He's a way better person than I am. And he's in really good shape. And he doesn't eat sugar. At all. Ever.

Yes indeed, that was the internal monologue, and it took me several months to realize what I'd been doing. I had seen Quality Human Being and Stellar Latter-Day Saint Who Just Happens to Be Black and somewhere in my subconscious I'd reasoned thusly: I'm not getting any dates with white men because I'm not terribly sexy/sassy/saucy/whatever. Surely this poor man must be as dateless as I due to the fact that he is a black person in snowy-white Utah.* If I can be the Noble One to look past his skin color and grace him with my pasty affection I can get a better companion than I deserve simply because he has the misfortune of living in a land where low-grade pearls generally trump premium onyx (feel free to substitute your own cheesy color-themed metaphor here).

'Twas an icky epiphany. In my feeble attempt to be open-minded I'd failed to realize that it was entirely possible that he didn't see himself as a victim of his situation -- he certainly never acted like he did -- and that, though sincere in his friendship, He Just Wasn't That Into Me (as the kids say). That that possible future I'd toyed with in my head would be a condescension for him, not for me. That he might have his own misgivings about freckled albino descendants with soulless blue eyes. That he might rather remain alone than have to explain to his mother why he'd settled.

I've seen the same phenomenon since I moved to Salt Lake -- but unfortunately it's being played out rather than just imagined. A beautiful and whip-smart black LDS woman I know has been endlessly dating a white fellow who, while apparently not a bad guy, is nowhere in her league (in my not-so-humble opinion). Seems to me that he's stringing her along, wasting her youth. I suspect he realizes, whether consciously or subconsciously, that her skin color means fewer romantic opportunities and fewer romantic opportunities means that she'll put up with a lot more nonsense and a lot less substance than a white girl of lesser spiritual or intellectual gifts ever would have to. Of course, she appears to be the victim of the same thing I was doing all those years ago, so I must stop short of throwing stones at her beau...

Here's where you beg me to shut up and get a journal and/or a therapist.

I'm almost done.

So these dead, bloated memories bobbed back to the surface of my mind a couple weeks ago when I attended a screening of the excellent new documentary Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons.** I knew most of the broader historical information on this topic, but the outstanding element of the documentary was the interviews with black Mormons (African-American Mormons, to be more specific), many of whom joined the church before the priesthood ban was lifted in 1978. These are hopeful, faithful people and few seemed terribly troubled about the ban itself, but many expressed disappointment at how white members of the church often tried to explain the reasons for the ban (or excuse their own racist behavior or that of their ancestors) using false doctrine. They talk candidly of their individual struggles to reconcile their complete devotion to the LDS church with hurtful behavior -- some well-intentioned, some malicious -- of their white fellow-Saints. It is quite wonderful to watch. I get to pat myself on the back for all the stuff I would never do (the nerve of some people!) and confront things I'm still inadvertently thinking or doing that contribute to the problem. Not all of it is easy to watch, but it is clearly a strong step forward; it is cathartic, honest, hopeful.

As I've reflected on the film in the last several days and what it Means in the larger context of a faith that claims divine origins, I've noted that while Joseph Smith revealed many ludicrously forward-thinking doctrines, most of his followers have taken many generations to be dragged (kicking and screaming) onto the spiritual high road he laid out for them. Basic Word of Wisdom compliance took over 80 years and ultimately the threat of exclusion from our beloved temples. Most of us are still eying the radical Law of Consecration suspiciously despite Joseph's explanation that it is an absolute requirement of a covenant people. The seemingly ludicrous enormity of tracing family lines back more than a few generations for the purpose of temple work staggered even the most visionary early Mormons, who fell back on sealing themselves to church leaders until Wilford Woodruff proclaimed that it was time to actually believe what God had said and trust that if we tried to make genealogists of ourselves, heaven would open up technological doors. And though the full racial inclusion that Joseph demonstrated in the 1830s and 1840s*** was officially restored over 30 years ago (after 130+ years of partial exclusion following Joseph's death), many of us still have work to do on our individual hearts and minds, whether we admit it to ourselves or not.

Those who tell their stories in this movie know that we will get there – they know that Zion will happen.

But soonish would be nice, they say.

Amen, my brothers and sisters.

* Where there is still some cultural resistance to the idea of interracial marriage, though this is not doctrinally supported.

** Which I now own on DVD, so if you want to see it, I'm your girl. If you want to own it yourself, you can buy it here. If you're looking to pay less, Benchmark Books might also have a few left at their slightly discounted price.

*** Some great stuff I'd never heard about less-known early black Mormon priesthood holders is included on the DVD's special features. And also a 1954 take-no-prisoners sermon by Elder Spencer W. Kimball on the evil of racism, especially within the Church. My lands, it's fierce and fiery! And there's muchmuchmuch more. You really need to get your hands on this DVD.

A trivial epiphany.

2009-07-03T13:59:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-06-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-04-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-04-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-26T09:10:00.001-07:00

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).

2009-03-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-02-22T18:23:00.000-08:00

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.

In which I see more dead people on my magic computer thingy.

2009-02-15T19:45:00.000-08:00

Who out there loves the Interweb?? I'm a full-on addict, and it's only getting worse. Latest fix:

The Thatcher family has always understood that its patriarch, Hezekiah Thatcher, my great-great grandfather, knew Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the 1830s and 1840s when all three were residents of Springfield, Illinois (Hezekiah had not yet joined the LDS Church and Lincoln was still a junior law partner, just beginning in his political career). I've long wondered if it were really true. Maybe (thought I) they didn't really KNOW each other, but when Lincoln became famous “I used to pass him on the street” suddenly became “we knew each other.” I wanted to know more about this claim, but Hezekiah never kept a journal, so I figured that digging up any details of his association (friendship? rivalry? mutual indifference?) with Lincoln would be an ordeal. Probably involving a trip to Illinois. So I never bothered to try.

Then all the yammer related to Lincoln started in the last few weeks (Happy 200th, Abe!) and brought the question back to my mind. I thought it couldn't hurt to consult my friend Google to see what he might have to offer on my question. “Hezekiah Thatcher” + “Lincoln” took me to a site that informed me Lincoln was one of the lawyers in an 1843 Springfield civil case involving Hezekiah. I then typed the name of the case into Google and up came a website that meticulously archived all of Lincoln's legal papers, complete with case abstracts and scanned images of the original files! And there was my grandfather's name, in Abe Lincoln's handwriting. It was almost as surreal as seeing your grandfather's name written in God's handwriting.*

The Hill v. Thatcher case ended in a settlement rather than a full trial, which is in keeping with a description I recently heard of Lincoln the lawyer – he would encourage settlement and discourage trials whenever possible. Already showing signs of moral greatness at that early date.

So the family story is at least minimally true. The quiet, shy Hezekiah really was personally acquainted with the awkward, melancholy Abe Lincoln at least on this one occasion. Then, little knowing Mr. Lincoln's destiny or his own, he joined up with the Mormons and headed west, adding a whole slew of Wild West credentials to his resume.** Lincoln headed east and.....saved the universe, more or less.***

And now I've got this lead on the Lincoln/Thatcher link, I think I'll dig some more. Maybe I will find, buried deep in the Sangamon County Archives, a Happy 30th birthday card to Abe Lincoln signed

From one hardy frontier fellow to another,

Hezekiah T.

For any family members who want to know more about what I found or see my transcription of the complaint written up by Lincoln, click here for more complete information.

* Of course, there would be no way of knowing it was God's handwriting unless you'd found the Ark of the Covenant and could use the stone tablets to do a thorough forensic comparison. Which would be an unforgivable use of the Word of God that would surely call down a lethal ZAP! from on high.

** Friend of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, pioneer in the first year of the Mormon exodus to the West, polygamist, fearless rescuer of stranded immigrants, forty-niner who made his fortune in California, father of a Pony Express rider, tireless traveller who walked across the USA three times, founding settler and generous financier of Cache County Utah, and on and on and on, gush, gush, gush.

*** Oh, for shame -- you were paying attention in school, weren't you?

Wooing the West.

2009-01-28T19:11:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, Utah was in a bad marriage with Jonas Kage, the Ballet West artistic director. It wasn't that Utah was bad or Kage was bad -- it was just a bad match. Utah liked pretties and tutus and swans, while Kage liked flesh-colored unitards and avant-garde Nazi war ballets. So this was how a typical ballet season looked for years: Sleeping Beauty (condescending pat on head), Nutcracker (condescending pat on head), Echoing of Trumpets (whack 'em up side the head). It got really abusive there at the end. My parents canceled their ballet season tickets.

But finally Utah and Jonas Kage realized they didn't belong together. They parted ways and soon Utah found an artistic director who understood her and was forgiving of her love for pretties and tutus: Adam Sklute, former artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet. He saw that while Utah didn't like watching war crimes en pointe, that didn't mean that she wanted to see the same three classical ballets over and over.* She wanted to be stretched a bit -- she just didn't want to be stretched too far too quickly (which of course is a concept any dancer dude should understand).

So he gave Utah her adored Nutcracker, but with a tricksy Christmas Eve twist. He gave her ballets she'd never seen before that were classically beautiful but stylistically different. He gave her some masterly faux-drunk Sinatra dancing. He may well have loved avant-garde Nazi war ballets, but he realized that he couldn't force Utah from Giselle to genocide in a couple of seasons, or maybe ever. He had to love Utah for who she was and kindly open her to new possibilities. And he did.

And they lived happily ever after. Or at least until the 2008/2009 Ballet Season.

Epilogue:

Come to the Utah premiere of Madame Butterfly, opening this month! Mom and I got to watch one of the studio rehearsals today and it looks like it's going to be fantastic, beautiful, moving. With an invisible strongman lifting delicate butterfly geishas up through stage fog. And if you want to attend upcoming studio rehearsals, contact Ballet West to sign up for their email newsletter. I've been to a handful of the studio rehearsals over the past few years and they're always fun to watch (even when they're rehearsing avant-garde Nazi war ballets!)

*and over and over and over and over and over

Buyer's market, but goin' fast.

2009-01-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

To the scores of eligible* bachelors frittering away their youth on temporary love, longing for the day when they might possibly afford my eternal devotion:

Interest Rates are low! All offers considered! Now's the time, boys! Seize the dame!

I'm a-houseshopping at the moment and if you don't stop me, these childbearing hips will soon come with a 30-year mortgage.**

With much appreciation,***

Marie

* For my purposes this means 1) non-porn-addicted, 2) gainfully employed, 3) not living with mother. Really Good Excuses will be considered, though only for requirements #2 and #3.

** They already come with a cat, but she's unlikely to last more than seven. She's quite naughty and headed for a tragic and mysterious end.

*** Fifteen percent per year guaranteed, plus offspring.

A mensch, a virgin, and a God.

2008-12-22T23:29:00.000-08:00

It's not that I don't love plenty of the devil's music. Heck, when I first encountered George Michael's Faith album in my tweens, I managed to convince myself it was okay to listen to the naughty title track because it was about faith.* And it's been all downhill from there.**

But as for Christmastime, I have zero use for secular music. If someone said we could only have Christmas with Rudolphish tuneage, I'd opt for no Christmas. I don't care about sleigh rides or jingle bells or roasting chestnuts or frosty nose-nippings -- they do nothing for me. They are the styrofoam peanuts in the Christmas package of my imagination – you're not going to get away from them completely no matter how hard you try, but all you can think from the minute you get your hands on the real present is, “What am I going to DO with all this fluffy crap?? And why does it keep clinging to my *&%!! hands??”

That said, as much as I love the most common religious Christmas music, it does get stale pretty early in the season (Messiah excepted). It's not that I tire of the Baby Jesus – it's that there are so many ways and reasons to be amazed by him, I get tired of doing the same amazement over and over (and over and over). Through the years I've collected some lovely recordings of formal choirs singing beautiful, less common carols and I listen to them all season. But over the last couple years I've also been compiling a list of unusual carols and newly composed Christmas songs performed by popular artists. It's hard to find ones that aren't saccharine or just plain bad, but I've found a few. Or at least I think they're great. Much thanks goes to Sharon for giving me a few of them and putting me on paths that led me to several of the others. Here are some I especially love...

Long Way Around the Sea by Low
One Special Gift by Low
If You Were Born Today by Low
The Coming of Jah by Low
All the King's Horns by Sufjan Stevens***
Holy, Holy, Holy performed by Sufjan Stevens
Put the Lights on the Tree by Sufjan Stevens
Carol of the Birds performed by Joan Baez
Down in Yon Forest performed by Joan Baez
Mary's Wandering performed by Joan Baez
Burgundian Carol performed by Joan Baez
Virgin Mary performed by Joan Baez
Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light performed by the Roches
Star of Wonder by the Roches
Sleep, My Little Jesus performed by Ella Fitzgerald
Praise His Holy Name performed by St. Olaf Choir****
Here's a Pretty Little Baby performed by St. Olaf Choir
Angel Eyes by Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris
Man Is an Island performed by Emmylou Harris
There's a Light performed by Emmylou Harris
Cherry Tree Carol performed by Emmylou Harris*****
Mary Had a Baby performed by Bruce Cockburn
Riu Riu Chiu performed by Bruce Cockburn
Down in Yon Forest performed by Bruce Cockburn
Shepherds performed by Bruce Cockburn
Jesus Ahatonnia (The Huron Carol) performed by Bruce Cockburn
Travellin' on for Jesus performed by Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Seven Joys of Mary performed by the McGarrigles (et al.)
Old Waits Carol performed by the McGarrigles (et al.)
Rebel Jesus performed by Lily Lanken and Martha Wainwright
Some Children See Him performed by Rufus and Martha Wainwright
Spotlight On Christmas by Rufus Wainwright
Wise Men by Kate and Anna McGarrigle
The Holy Babe performed by Mahalia Jackson
A Star Stood Still (Song of the Nativity) performed by Mahalia Jackson

I know this list is very gospel-music-poor, and I want to fix that without getting all Aaron Nevilly or cheesy-overwrought-piano. What am I missing? (Yes, I realize that "unusual religious Christmas music sung by popular artists" is a very artificial category, but humor me!) I'd love to hear what you've got. It's never too early to start hunting it down for next year.

Happy Christmas, all. The Baby Jesus loves you. He really does.

* That he'd get more action sometime soon. (Very soon, or he'll lose faith again.)

** Will someone PLEASE sort out the idiom “all downhill from there” for me? I can't tell if it's supposed to be positive or negative, and I've heard it used both ways. On one hand, going down is usually perceived negatively, at least in a figurative sense – a decline, a falling apart, a slumping toward DEATH. On the other hand, going downhill is easy, the reward for having climbed the hill – it can be perceived as well-earned coasting. Which is the correct meaning? Is there a correct meaning? Please don't leave me languishing in linguistic limbo – I need answers! I need GUIDANCE!

*** I also love Sufjan because he shares my obsession with "O Come O Come Emmanuel" – it makes three appearances on his Christmas collection. I love ~~him~~ it.

**** Okay, so St. Olaf's isn't really a popular group. But they know how to rock, so they made the cut.

***** A Holy Family marital spat and a talking fetal Jesus commanding cherry trees to bow down – gotta love those apocryphal baby Jesus stories! But it's not so far from things we know happened, you know -- Joseph was suspicious at first and Jesus looked out for his mother. So listen to this odd one without fear of lightning. Plus it's got banjos and mandolins, and all good Christians love banjos and mandolins.

Dear "friends"

2008-12-17T22:53:00.000-08:00

...who have or are planning to abandon me for life on one or other coast. One day soon the ocean levels will rise, and vast hordes of bedraggled urbanites will flee inland, to the mountains. You will be one of them. Please do not pester me with your pleas for shelter -- for you abandoned me.

Love,
Marie

Dead can hula.

2008-12-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

Tonight on KBYU I caught the first part of a new program produced by BYU about the history of the LDS church in Hawaii, which is one of Mormonism's most successful missionary stories to date. Today there are a large number of Mormons whose ancestors were from Hawaii and other Pacific islands, and in Hawaii the Church has built two temples (Laie and Kona), a university, and the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is the most popular paid attraction in the Hawaiian islands. The part of the KBYU show I saw had very low production values and the hostess was a bit cloying at times, but the content was quite interesting. I hope to see the rest of the show someday....(did anybody record it?).....

I've never been to Hawaii, but this show, as well as the upcoming visit of a friend who's been living in Hawaii, reminded me of a Memorial Day four or five years ago. My ghost-towning itch always gets fierce on Memorial Day.* That evening I decided to head out to one of my favorite Utah ghost towns, the remnants of the Hawaiian village of Iosepa, which was founded in Utah's aptly-named Skull Valley. (There are many other good ghost towns in the Utah west desert -- check out this fantastic ghost-towning website to find ghost towns in a backwater near YOU! But try not to fall down any mine shafts, okay?)

Anyway, in order to have access to a temple before one was built in the islands, Hawaiian converts to the Mormon church uprooted themselves from paradise in the late 1800s and planted themselves in a parched and treeless land many miles west of Salt Lake City. They named their Utah home Iosepa, which meant "Joseph." All that remains of the town is their cemetery -- a real tearjerker -- and a single fire hydrant. Why did they settle there? The white Mormon rank-and-file of the time, many of them racist, had made living closer to Salt Lake City difficult for these transplanted Saints, and so Church leaders had thought it best to settle them at a distance. They lived there, and many died, until the Hawaiian LDS temple was built a few decades later, at which point, not surprisingly, almost every last one of them returned to Hawaii. I expected to get a bit weepy with the dead that night -- tell them that I was sorry they had made so many sacrifices, only to be met with poor land and a cold welcome. (Steer clear of me on Memorial Day -- I get moody.)

But as I approached the place, which had been completely deserted on my prior visits, there was light and music and bright colors. In the middle of nowhere. In the dim evening. I was sure I was hallucinating. As I got closer, I could see dancers and eaters and singers. They were wearing leis. The gravestones were also wearing leis. There was much eating of pork and running of children. I got out of my car and wandered into the middle of the party, one of only a few white people. They welcomed me, and asked which island I was there to celebrate. It turns out they were the members of the BYU Polynesian Club, which apparently was holding its annual ancestral celebration that night. I explained that I had just happened by, that I wasn't part of the club and I hadn't paid for food, but I was welcomed anyway. Sit down, they said. Eat, they said. Sound warm and fuzzy? It was.

Seeing the show about Hawaii and being reminded of the resilience and warmth of these island cultures made me think of that night in Skull Valley. I had more than a couple epiphanies about history and ghosts and regret and healing, but I won't press them on you. You probably already know what they were, more or less. I do love ancestors, though. Especially ancestors who leave behind happy babies who grow up to be happy hula dancers who feed brooding howlie strangers, wandering alone in the desert.

* One Memorial Day I drove to Logan alone just to track down and photograph the gravestones of all of my great-grandparents, then was actually surprised when no one was interested in looking at the photos. This is why you don't want to be my friend. And if you are my friend, dump me before Memorial Day. Really.

Thanknesses II.

2008-11-27T23:10:00.000-08:00

Those who clear a space for Thanksgiving.*

Steel drums.

The cranky squirrel who lives in the tree outside my window.

Living in a place where being overnourished is a problem.

Summer thunderstorms.

Conan in the ascendant (happy shuffleboardin', Jay!)

All my bishops ever.

The families who donated them.

Thrift store victories.

Patient people who listen to me boast about my thrift store victories.

Kind people who laugh at my unfunny jokes.

Dead people who let me snoop around in the corners of their lives.

Hopeful people who think I'll remember to call them back this time.

Undo.

Postcards, and those who send them.

Crow's feet, and those who craft them.

The ghost of Madeline Kahn.

Free public schools.

Free public libraries.

Free public restrooms.

Stacks of clean laundry that didn't require a whole day and a vat of boiling water to produce.

Broccoli.

The person who invented broccoli.

The Person who invented the person who invented broccoli.

[Re-read previous three lines, substituting "cheesecake" and/or "Reuben sandwiches" for "broccoli."]

Space.

Space heaters.

You, who apparently give a d*** what I'm thankful for.

* In their hearts, Lena. There's nothing unthankful** about passing on the pumpkin pie -- more for the rest of us gluttons.
** However, it is unAmerican. Ya socialist.

For my newlywed cousin.

2008-11-09T19:11:00.000-08:00

I drag her to witness double marital meltdown, and still she dares to plunge! For her and her groom and for all my other wedded dear ones, a pocket-sized marriage poem by my (dead) backup fiancé, Gerard.

God with honour hang your head,
Groom, and grace you, bride, your bed
With lissome scions, sweet scions,
Out of hallowed bodies bred.

Each be other’s comfort kind:
Déep, déeper than divined,
Divine charity, dear charity,
Fast you ever, fast bind.

Then let the March tread our ears:
I to him turn with tears
Who to wedlock, his wonder wedlock,
Déals tríumph and immortal years.

(Pretty lovely for a single gentleman, eh?)

Gone postal (or: reliving the gory days).

2008-11-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

It's a hard time of year. The slime creatures have returned to the mothership, all zombie limbs have retreated beneath the sod, and you've stuffed your ex-boyfriend's earthly remains back in the hopechest. You've got that old familiar affliction: the post-Halloween blues.

But you've forgotten one dismal delight that never brightens: the U.S. Postal Service. Your neighbors may be the blandest of Boy Scouts, your workplace may be annoyingly free of horror, but you never know what alarming wonders the mailman might bring, any day of the year.

Particularly if the return address is that of Sharon or Wynne.

Sharon sent me a book that reminds us that there was a time when terror wasn't kept just for October; there was a time when all kitchens were laboratories and all human beings were trembling guinea pigs. And that time was the 70s. I laughed! My dad laughed! My brother laughed! My sister-in-law laughed, dry-heaved, and then went into labor! It's like Mystery Science Theater for your coffee table. All captions are those of the book's author, though these pictures are plenty horrifying without them. Witness:

Once upon a time the world was young and the words mackerel and pudding existed far, far, away from one another. One day, that all changed. And then, whoever was responsible somehow thought the word fluffy would help. Oh, and eggs, too.

Surprise chowder? Oh, goody, because nothing livens up a thick, translucent soup like a sense of uncertainty!

Some freedom-hating soups want to take our spoons away and would have us slurp at the edge of our bowls like dirty foreigners. But these soups don't run! You want them to taste good? What are you, a Communist?

The Soup is Inspiration. The Soup is Love. Smell the Soup. When one first arrives here, one may believe the soup tastes like a**. That is not so, my child. The Soup is Inspiration and the Soup is Love. Your name is now "Harmonia." The Soup is Inspiration, and you do not want to leave. The Soup is Love, and we have an electrified fence. The Soup is Inspiration. And the Soup is Love.

Yes, let's have these in brandy snifters. Let's just tip our heads back and let the chunks slide in. The time you spend eating these is time you'll want back at the very end of your life. That's why they're served with a clock.

Sometimes quotation marks aren't enough. Not when "pie" means "a crust made of toasted bread crumbs, an egg-and-gelatin filling with green and red food coloring, and meringue made with Sweet 'n Low." Seriously, our current system of punctuation can't even begin to convey how NOT AT ALL PIE this "pie" is.

Little is known about the People's Republic of Orienta, only that its people like Chinese knickknacks and canned food.

Sometimes mere adjectives for mackerel are not enough. Sometimes mackerel is mackerel unto itself. Sometimes you just have to let go. Mackerelease yourself. Embrace mackereality.

It was very hard choosing just eight. You must order the book. Let Mister Mailman bring you the Halloween gift that keeps on giving (nausea)!

More horrors the postman dragged in, this time courtesy of Wynne....

Orange argyle skull-and-crossbones socks. They will keep me hideously happy until spring. (And hide my rather advanced leprosy.)

Mr. Metrosexual Happy Skull Pin now lives on the lapel of my Kermit-green jacket. He has won me many compliments in just the last few weeks -- dare me to leave him there through Christmas? He's a pro-aging inspration, so tickled to be dead. "Low-maintenance living!" sez Mr. Metrosexual Happy Skull. "No moisturizing, no plucking -- just Magic Marker some pretty designs 'round your eyesockets and GO!"

This one looked so benign when it emerged from the box.

But it gave birth to THIS. I have dubbed it The Audrey III. In the words of Wynne:

“Have you ever sat down with a glue gun and gone into a trance for an hour or so and then, when you came to, you looked at what was in front of you and thought, 'WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?'”

No, Wynne. No, I haven't. Nor has anyone else here. Please limit it just to glue guns, dearie -- I need you to stay on this side of the iron bars, so you can keep sending out boxes full of....

....Japanese monster pets! Named Domo! Domo's tag tells me that he likes to daydream and watch television. I think Domo and I will get along just fine, as long as he doesn't try to eat my kitty while I'm at work. I'm confident that he will wreak just enough havoc to tide me over until next Halloween.

Or until the next shrieking, oozing package appears on my doorstep.....
lunges for my jugular......

A big bowl of ice cream on every table.

2008-11-03T22:32:00.000-08:00

If you live in Utah House District 51, tomorrow you must vote for Lisa Johnson for the State House of Representatives.

Besides being exceedingly intelligent (fluent in Russian and Korean), populist (down with vouchers, says Lisa!), and level-headed, she's my former babysitter.

She was a fantastic babysitter. She never exercised unrighteous dominion. She never invited her boyfriend over to watch movies. She played with us until bedtime and when our parents told her we could have ice cream she pulled out the big cereal bowls and heaped them up.

So vote for Lisa! Even if she's too ethical to serve up heaping bowls of your tax dollars to every last wailing cause, she's nice enough to really really wish she could. And she'll be happy to read you a bedtime story in exchange for your vote. A short one, of course. She's very busy these days.

Ghost in the machine.

2008-10-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

My normal Halloween blogging glee has been curbed by the evil spirits that have taken over my computer. The pictures I wanted to blog about are on the computer and the computer is possessed. Oh well. I never take down Christmas before January 7, so maybe I'll have an extended Halloween season this year on the ol' blog. It's not like you guys start thawing your Thanksgiving turkey and dreaming of stuffing on November 1, or anything. (DO you?) If my dear bro is able to exorcise my computer in the next few days you will soon read harrowing tales of mackerel pudding; Uncle Wiggly; fearsome daisies that grow out of graves; and Domo, my ferocious Japanese pocket-monster.

However, even from this alien computer I can tell you a little Halloween tale o' horror, in honor of my brother (who as we speak is attempting to cast Legion out of my laptop).

Once upon a time, there was a lovely little sausage called Baldrick. He was made from bits of mysterious and sinister things, but people ate him anyway. And then they died.

The end.

They call me a cradle robber, but he clearly wanted out of his cradle.

2008-10-18T15:41:00.001-07:00

I've been busy of late, loving on my new boyfriend.

I know the world will persecute us. They will say we are too different, that it will never work. But he's a deep thinker. He has an old soul. We were meant to be together -- like fireflies and frost, like Harold and Maude.

So now I have a boy neefew* and a girl neefew. Thanks to my siblings for so thoughtfully providing one of each -- this ought to keep my dad's killer baby cravings at bay a little while longer.**

* Gender-netrual form of niece/nephew.
**The people at church used to get mildly alarmed when he'd pull out his bag of toys and lure their small children onto his pew.

"I never know what to say for these things..." ;)

2008-10-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

So a couple months ago I finally laid my pride on the altar of desperation and signed up for an internet dating site. I thought I was too good for such things. (Yes, I, with a monumentally pathetic dating life. Don't ask me to explain that vanity.)

There is something fishy going on there, though: 95% of the men in Internet Dating Land, no matter their age or girth, want me to believe that they are "very active." They want me to know that they run, they hop, they skip, they jump, they leap over tall buildings in a single bound and they grin as they do so. There need not be a damsel in distress -- it's just, you know, what they do at all times, because they are Active Guys. I know what this is -- it is an attempt to reassure me that while they may be older, they are still virile, cobweb-free. I understand, and I feel for them. (By the same token, none of my posted photos show me sans lipstick or from a bad angle.)

But does it never occur to these men that there are a lot of women out there who don't want to spend their entire dating/wedded lives cartwheeling up mountain trails? Women who are more intent on finding a man who can speak in complete sentences about things besides basketball? If he's a farmer or a rodeo cowboy, I definitely want to know how "active" he is. If he's not, I'd like to know he's intelligent enough to navigate the urban jungle reasonably well. And I'd happily trade that abundant nervous energy they all advertise for a couple sweet spoonfuls of I'm-willing-to-approach-you-and-ask-you-on-an-actual-date-
because-you-seem-to-maybe-kinda-sorta-possibly-be-worth-
the-risk-to-my-pride.*

Oh my......men with initiative. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

* Of course, this all assumes that there are men (man?) currently roaming the earth who have any interest an ol' snarkstress like myself. Again, where does my vanity come from, and can I have it surgically removed? Maybe the indignities of internet dating will burn it out of me -- if so, that's $15 well spent, whether or not it gets me a man.

Because I'm too tired to come up with anything new.

2008-09-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

Today I'm offering up a leftover thought for your consideration. Of course, the particular mental Tupperware I'm dumping into this post contains a wacky idea that has blown the mind of everyone I've shared it with over the years, so hopefully it will be at least mildly interesting to you.* Or at least not coma-inducing.

First some background for those of you who are not Mormons and/or wannabe cosmologists (NOTE: if you're not in the mood for my self-indulgent rambling, just skip the next three paragraphs):

We Mormons, like many other Christians, believe that Christ's atoning sacrifice is infinite and eternal. This means that we believe that the Atonement enables us to be redeemed of all the imperfection in ourselves and in our earthly circumstances and the consequences of those imperfections. I have assumed, like most Mormons, that this meant that my failure to make a good decision when presented with Opportunity A would (if I satisfied the terms of my contract with Christ) still allow for me to receive Opportunity B, though possibly not until the next life. As I imagined it, Opportunity B would most likely not be the same as Opportunity A, but it would be so delightful that presumably I wouldn't mind at all that I'd missed the first boat.

We Mormons also believe that all truth is part of “one great whole” -- that the division between so-called secular and religious knowledge is an artificial one. This is why Mormons tend to enjoy sci-fi – because our religious doctrine reaches into the cosmos, embracing the ideas of other inhabited worlds, the eternity of matter and human intelligence, and a god who is subject to certain foundational cosmological laws that provide the structure upon which his glory hangs. It's not the central thing we talk about, but it is part of our beliefs, and a pretty darned fun part at that.

So about fourteen years ago Stephen Hawking came to lecture in Salt Lake. Actually, he came twice because we were just so excited to see him he couldn't resist coming back to cash in once again on our adulation. I was an uber-geek teenager who had read A Brief History of Time (meaning I'd looked at all the words in sequence and then scratched my head) so I was excited enough to stand in line half the day in the sun for tickets to see him "speak" in the Symphony Hall, and a few years later in the university stadium. It was admittedly quite groupie-esque, but also brain-expanding. If you're not up on Dr. Hawking, he's a cosmologist obsessed with finding an elegant unifying principle to explain every aspect of the universe. His work touches on brain-cramping physical principles that warp reality as we think we know it: alternate universes, black holes, the illusion of linear time, the possibility of reversing entropy, kooky subatomic particles that won't behave themselves. I don't pretend to fully understand most of it, but I love what I do understand and after attending his lectures I found myself trying to connect some of his ideas with principles of my religion (in a lazy sort of way). The most intriguing possibility I came up with was this:

What if Christ's infinite and eternal Atonement is so infinite and eternal that he doesn't just “forgive and forget” your flawed performance and give you positive outcomes in spite of your earlier failings? What if God's forgiveness means that when you comply with his terms for using the Atonement, ultimately all universes will be eliminated except the one in which you actually did perform perfectly at every crossroad and received all the best possible outcomes? In other words, what if successful use of the Atonement literally erases the fact of our failings from reality, and not just their negative outcomes? What if God “forgets” our sins not just because he's a nice guy, but because a property of the Atonement enables him to make them so they never happened in the first place?

I'm probably wrong in this particular speculation, but Joseph Smith taught that truth is way more delightfully mindbending than even we wacky Mormons are ready to accept. That once we have mastered the simpler, foundational truths (love, sacrifice, faith, etc.) we are expected to use them as stepping stones to the equally essential “mysteries.” Not that I've mastered the foundational truths yet, but sometimes one does get the itch to wander to the edge and try dipping a toe in the Mystery for a bit....

What do you think? Am I barking up the wrong B-vector?

If I can get an angelic confirmation of my kooky idea, I'll be sure to let y'all know, so stay tuned. Though I promise not to start a new religion.**

* If you feel your mind about to blow as you read this exceedingly profound post, please type a comment quickly before your head explodes, just to boost my ego. A simple “Pop!” will be more than sufficient to convey both your wonderment and your impending demise. I promise to come to the funeral, as long as it's not open-casket.

** But if I ever did start my own religion it would have a really cool sci-fi name like the United Sistern of the Sacred Stargate. Or the Immaculate Intergalactic Immortals. Or the Apostolic Apocalyptic Astro-saints.

Why I will never be more than a chorus girl.

2008-08-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

We saw a very good local performance of Oklahoma last night at the Thanksgiving Point Barn. I was a member of the chorus in my high school production of Oklahoma, so all through the show I sang along in my head, pretty much word for word, until Act II, scene i, when I realized, in a blinding flash of prairie lightning, that the line I had belted out exuberantly practice after practice, performance after performance, was supposed to be

"Cowman dance with the farmer's daughter, farmer dance with the rancher's gal!"

and NOT

"Cowman dance with the farmer's daughter, farmer dance with the rancher's cow!"

The real lyrics make a lot more sense, but a lot less humor. I like my version better. Now that I think about it, I really did give Rodgers and Hammerstein way too much credit -- I mean, anyone capable of writing an icky stand-by-your-man battered wife aria is of course incapable of appreciating the entertainment value of interspecies dating.

Ten years ago today...

2008-08-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

...I stepped on a plane and it landed me in a realm that altered my reality forever after. My hair was newly shorn into a pixie cut (I wasn't going to waste a moment of my Grand Adventure messing with my stupid hair.) I was quite sure that I would make no friends, but I only half cared.

I thought that I would be studying Hebrew and reveling in the history and traditions of the Jews.

I ended up studying Arabic and reveling in the history and traditions of the Arabs.

I watched a Jewish bris being performed in an ancient mosque under armed guard.

I was mistaken for a man and pulled into the men's dance at a Muslim wedding. It felt more privilege than insult.

I was served Thanksgiving turkey at a Jewish kibbutz. It was garnished with lit sparklers and red, white, and blue streamers, which is only charming when you're on a Jewish kibbutz.

I lived in a date palm grove and gathered white clamshells from the Sea of Galilee. I'm quite sure young Jesus liked to gather shells there, too.

I stood in the ruins of synagogue where Jesus had blasphemed. I finally understood: he was a radical and rebel. It blew my tidy little Christian mind.

I visited a school for orphans funded and run by Palestinian women.

I watched Jewish children sweetly blessed by their parents over Sabbath candles.

I was ushered into a cab by young men trying to spare clueless Americans the violence that was about to erupt in the streets.

I picked a pomegranate from the tree in my balcony garden and ate it while looking out over Jerusalem's temple mount.

I discovered that having to scrub pomegranate juice out of your white Sunday shirt almost cancels out the romance of eating exotic fruits while looking at exotic views.

I rode a camel named Michael Jackson.

I learned that camels, like Las Vegas, are more charming from a distance, though still worth a try.

I met an Egyptian cab driver who only charged once you'd found fun in his city. Told us about his children while we ate ice cream. Wouldn't let us buy him any.

I was henna tattooed in a dimly lit perfume shop by a veiled woman with lean, elegant hands.

I considered visiting a Turkish bath, but chickened out. Don't regret it.*

I failed to master the high art of shofar blowing. Do regret it.

I floated in the thick vinaigrette that is the Dead Sea. "Medicinal" my a--. Ohhh, what a rash.

I almost met George W. Bush. Thankfully he flaked out at the last minute.**

I almost saw President Clinton. He parked his airplane next to ours.

I was told by a Jewish woman that Israel was becoming the same racist, insular menace that the Jews were fleeing after World War II.

I was taught by a Palestinian professor that the minute you think you know who is right in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you know that you don't know the whole story.

I saw the bottom of the Red Sea. It's covered with coral reefs and shimmery fishies. Much prettier than the Charleton Heston version.

I watched the sun rise from the top of Mount Sinai, and craggy eternity caught fire.

And after the fire, a still, small voice.

*My more courageous fellow travelers told harrowing tales of violent exfoliation practices...

**Though I confess I was miffed at the time.

At midnight I turn eggplant.

2008-08-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

It ain't no mean feat finding a reasonably attractive dress that covers all the necessary bits of the she-Mormon physique. That is why when dress-hunting for Rachel's dance party I finally gave up trying on the *&%#!! things in dressing rooms and instead decided to buy every last dress that might conceivably suit and then try them on in the comfort of my non-fluorescently-lit home. By the time I found and fell for this little orange number I had already purchased $500 worth of lesser dresses. (Which will all be returned, of course -- if you have ever worked in customer service I hope you can forgive me this evil, evil shopping stunt -- I never got to go to the prom, so maybe we can call this my delayed Débutante Phase? Please?)

Yes, an orange dress. A shiny, solid orange dress. Stop laughing, you! I like orange. And I would have you know that They are calling orange the new black. Which is funny, because aside from a lady in green and a lady in red, I was the only lady not in black. For once ahead of the fashion curve? More likely fast-tracking to fashion obsolescence. Come to think of it, I found the dress on the clearance rack with some other orange items, so this no doubt means that my Bold Fashion Statement was no such thing. Pooh.

Oh well. I had much fun even though my second-rate fairy godmother allowed me to show up as a dancing pumpkin. That Rachel sure knows how to throw a party, and she knows how to dance, too, as you can see:*

She's a visionary hostess, that one. Great invitations, great choice of band, great job convincing substantial numbers of men to dance. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she also arranged for that lovely summer thunderstorm. A little less wind next time, though, Rachel. Some of us forgot to wear slips under our flimsy orange wrap dresses....

*See the pillar and A-beam behind the dancing Rachel and Kendall? That is the very pillar that Rachel had climbed earlier in the day and the very A-beam that she bravely sidled out upon in order to A) thread the supports for the Chinese lanterns and B) get herself covered in grime. I doubt she'd admit to intentionally getting covered in grime, but I'm quite sure she did, if only subconsciously, because it sure added drama to her Cinderella transformation at nightfall. Cleans up nice, don't she?

Fresh boiled 'nads.

2008-08-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

Information on our upcoming 3-day singles' ward activity at Lava Hot Springs:

"The spring's temperatures range from approximately 102 to 112 degrees."

Ummmmm......we only have about 20 men in our ward, and now we're going to mass-sterilize them? How do I register a complaint....?

Pioneer Day, post script.

2008-07-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Great, crashing waves of baby lust.

Will I ever be someone's ancestor?

Pioneer Day: the unfamous edition.

2008-07-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

My post from last Pioneer Day has led to some...um...interesting developments in my life and family history. What can I say? It's sorta fun to be descended from Important People. But to be honest, I've only become attached to my paternal heritage in recent years -- the stories I grew up on were from my mom's side. The side made up of lowly folk no one's ever heard of.

My maternal-paternal great-grandfather didn't walk across the plains; he converted to the LDS church well after the railroads had been built and he came to Utah in relative ease. And yet I consider him one of the great pioneers of my family, leaving his beloved but unbelieving family behind in England and raising in the Utah desert a his-hers-and-theirs blended family of 15 children so lovingly that they took offense if I ever referred to them as "step-siblings." He was jolly, known for the lovely singing voice that won him the lead role in The Mikado (see photo) at the local college though he had just a second-grade education. He was a self-taught mechanic, adapting to the industrialization that ultimately landed his stocking-weaver parents in the almshouse until their deaths.

Years ago I decided to transcribe the letters his mother sent him from England (the picture below shows her standing outside the almshouse where she lived). We only get her half of the conversation, but in it is a clear reflection of his pain at the death of his first wife and the sorrow of separation from his home. I don't think Pioneer Day should be about flogging ourselves for the pains of those who came before. It's not a celebration of asceticism, but of love -- for faith, for ideas, for children, for the future. Yet how can his choice have always seemed good as he looked back at his poor, sad family? They are together now, and I hope they see me here tonight.*

**********************

Jan 28 1915

Sapcote

Dear Son and daughter

i now sit down to rite a few lines to you once more hoping they may find you all in good health....Well dears i must tell you their is alot of trouble and triles to get along with all throu this dretfull war it is cruell to think about every things is getting so dear we pay 1s [shilling] 2p [pence] abag of coles 1s p bacon 9p lard 1s cheese per pound bread is getting verry dear buter we don't get any meat is 10p per pound and now we must thank you for the nice letter and the contents i am shure we boath are alot better in health for it....we ofton set and talk about you all and say as how we should like to see you all in your homes but that will never be on this earth do yor think so Well dears you must excuse me for not riting sooner we got yours the 4th of the new year so you see i haven't been so long after all father think they may be a chance to come and see you now their is flying meshenes [flying machines] o if we could i do wish we could see you and all of them dear children of yours as well o what a meeting a meeting it would be but we hope to meet in the bye and by....now i think i have tould you all i can this time and I contlude with our verry best love from your dear old mother and father good by

rite again soon

* Of course, if he's really like he sounds in the family stories, he'll find this posting unforgivably maudlin. Sorry, Grandpa. I get this way on Pioneer Day.

I am no wisteria sadist.

2008-07-15T21:18:00.001-07:00

The performance of the wisteria vine I was scoping out for Wisteria Watch was, um, less than spectacular this year (see sidebar). That's why I was dragging the ol' feet. I watch for it to bloom every year, but this was a lousy year. Maybe it's depressed -- I dunno. Maybe its girl took its dog and ran off to Nashville in its pickup.

But to compensate you patient wisteria waiters, here are some slightly better ones I found 'round town. (No extra charge, because I love you.)

Dad, poolside.

2008-07-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

"That cloud up there -- it looks like.............nothing."

[20 seconds of silence]

"The one behind it looks like.............well, it also looks like nothing. Just a different version."

Oh wow.

2008-06-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

My poor, poor neighbor. Apparently some freak in the building can't tell cremains from cocaine?

Other theories?

****************************
7/12/2008

UPDATE FOR YOU DEAR CONCERNED READERS!

Two weeks ago I spoke with my neighbor about his missing mother, and he said she did finally arrive. Apparently his brother miscommunicated when she would be showing up. He said (ominously) that his brother will soon need an urn of his own if he doesn't shape up.

Make your own metaphor.

2008-05-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

I don't understand long-stemmed roses. I mean, some might find long stems aesthetically superior to short stems (perhaps this is akin to preferring long legs to short legs?) Personally, I couldn't care less about the length of the stems. Personally, I think we've decided that we like long stems because they're more expensive to produce and more expensive = better. Personally, I think we've convinced ourselves that if a man spends more money on our roses, he must love us (read: our long legs) more than any woman (or any woman's legs) in the vicinity. And therefore we can trust him with our legs and the rest. Or something like.

But can't we all agree that the prettiest part of any flower is the flower part? And it is a simple law of nature that cut flowers survive longer if their water supply is closer. That is why all long-stemmed roses that come my way are immediately amputated.* This formerly-long-stemmed rose was a half-open bud when I got it twelve days ago. TWELVE DAYS. Look how pretty it is on its stubby little stem...

* If you are determined to convince me that you love me more than Paris ~~lusted~~ loved Helen, skip the long-stemmed roses and go for the short-stemmed chocolate.

I'm a walker. I walk.

2008-05-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

I was out walking the other night and encountered a little old lady shuffling down the sidewalk with her walker. We smiled at each other as we passed and she said, "I admire your bouncy walk!"

I didn't detect an ounce of envy in her face or her tone -- she really seemed just to enjoy watching my healthy chub tripping down the lane. Was my easy stride just one more sign of life for her? Like loving babies and daffodils, even though your own spring is long passed?

I really liked that lady. I want to be her when I grow up.

Game's still on, but....

2008-05-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

....I just gotta say, this Mormons-on-reality-shows thing is getting stale. It all boils down to:

"Dude, get the camera! I just spotted a babyfaced virgin who sings/dances/cooks/survives/eatscockroaches like a heathen!"

It's Britney, circa 1998. And we all know how that ended.

[Shudder.]

Spring is for sillinesses.

2008-04-25T20:28:00.001-07:00

April and Wynne have both requested that we restart the Balderdash game from last year, so here we go! New game, same rules, same gut-busting fun!

If you've never played the game, the point is to make up a fake definition for the word that is convincing, or funny, or both. In the official version of the game you would also get points for knowing the real definition, but that doesn't work well online since it's so easy to Google a word, so we'll just do bogus definitions. Post as many definitions as you like for each word. Feel free to post a definition on any past word that strikes your fancy, even if the person who chose the word has already revealed the true meaning. Also feel free to post your own word once the previous word has had a couple of responses. No points -- just a special commendation to the first player who makes a reader die from laughter.

So give giggles -- the gift that keeps on giving!

P.S. The "Balderdash" link in the sidebar will take you directly to this posting when it's been buried by other posts.

The first new word is.......

RIBAZUBA

Ready......set......LIE!

You know it's time to lose the new profile photo...

2008-04-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

...when your dad, reading your blog, exclaims,

"Marie! What a great new photo! It hardly looks like you at all!"

Sigh.

True.

On the bright side, though, now that I've gone back to my old photo I can once again make silly comments without people wondering if I'm really trying to be ponderous. To illustrate:

That's when the windmill of my mind was skewered on the jousting lance of his delusions and out poured the whole-grain flour of my fury.

vs.

That's when the windmill of my mind was skewered on the jousting lance of his delusions and out poured the whole-grain flour of my fury.

Aaaaah. That feels so much better.

All the pretty little posies.

2008-04-19T22:32:00.001-07:00

Now beginneth the season of technicolor wonder. Here are some of my favorite blooming plants around downtown Salt Lake, though only a few are in bloom at the moment.

Mimosa trees:
--grounds of Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum

Weeping pussy willows:
--235 A St
--4th Ave and B St (NE corner)

Dogwoods (one pink, one white):
--2nd Ave and H St (SE corner)

Pink magnolias:
--south side of Canyon Road Towers apartments (Canyon Road and 2nd Ave)
--567 3rd Ave
--215 B St
--681 3rd Ave
--511 4th Ave

White magnolias:
--inside SE wall of Temple Square (also north of South Visitor Center)
--3rd Ave and H St (NW corner)

Wisteria:
--400 South and 1300-ish East (north side of street)
--south of Relief Society Headquarters
--2nd Ave and D St (SE corner)
--214 A St

Hydrangea (alas, white only -- the colored ones don't do well in Utah):
--bottom of the cascading fountain on Temple Square

Flowering quince:
--220 A St
--4th Ave and E St (NE corner)

The most fantastic-smelling, large-blossomed white lilac:
--1st Avenue along north side of Gateway Condominiums

Great big fluffy bank of forget-me-nots and bobbily-headed English daisies:
--between Joseph Smith Memorial Building and Church Administration Building (along sidewalk)

Do you have any others I should watch for around town? Or favorite plants from your area that I should search for at my local nursery? Also, there's a parking strip in the Avenues planted with nothing but fantastic red oriental poppies, but I can't remember where it is. Anyone know?

Don't believe everything you read.

2008-04-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

It turns out the blog world does intersect with reality. Occasionally.

Y'see, last Pioneer Day I posted about my ances tors, and my great-great Grandpa Hezekiah Thatcher in particular. I told a little about his life of heroism and rebellion as an early convert to the Mormon church, driven west for his faith and then further west for his crankiness. I got a good response from my readers, particularly on the running-off-to-California-against-orders bit. We Thatchers have always sorta prided ourselves on that rebellious streak; we like to be faithful to our creed, but not TOO faithful. You hear the word "maverick" a lot when you sit in a gaggle of reminiscing Thatchers -- you could call it our family myth. We've always assumed that this telling of the Hezekiah Thatcher story was true because 1) we knew that Brigham Young had specifically forbidden his followers to go to the Gold Rush or into mining in general and 2) we assumed that our ancestor must have fallen in the rebellion camp, because otherwise we'd have a family legend explaining his purer motives. Usually family traditions tend to put a positive spin on reality, rather than the opposite. So a negative family tradition is probably true, right?

Then a few months after writing that Pioneer Day blog entry, I was reading about Mormons and the Gold Rush and learned that it was now known that Brigham Young, after telling the general membership of the Church NOT to go to the Gold Rush, took aside a few individual members and asked them to do the opposite: go make as much money as possible in the Gold Rush and bring it back to build up the Mormon communities in the Great Basin.

Oh no, I thought.

I wasn't all that upset to discover that I might have fed my faithful blog readers falsehoods about my family. I was upset to discover that I might come from OBEDIENT stock.

Oh NO.

And not just obedient stock -- super-duper obedient stock. I didn't tell anyone in my family: I feared being stoned for the crime of entertaining heretical historical thoughts. I briefly considered heading up to USU to dig through the Thatcher family papers collection, but when it came right down to it...

I didn't want to know.

Then a few weeks back I'm contacted by a stranger who came upon my Pioneer Day posting from a Google search. He's filming a genealogy show for BYU-TV about great-great Grandpa Thatcher and guess what? It's about this very question. Was Hezekiah Thatcher a rebel or the goodiest of do-gooders?

It would appear that the universe is determined to enlighten me on this point.

They want me to be part of the show: a descendant of Hezekiah to add human interest to their investigation (I'm imagining that History Detectives show, but for the Mormon crowd). So I need everyone to pray for me. Pray like you've never prayed. Pray that at least one of the following will happen:

1) They find nothing new and we Thatchers continue on in blissful crankiness

2) They find an entry in his journal that says, "President Young told me to stick around, and I told him where to stick it"

3) They find out he was acting under orders on the Gold Rush thing but at the same time discover that he was selling national secrets to the Commies (or something equally fabulous but non-anachronistic)

4) They find out that he was nothing but good and obedient and I somehow manage not to burst into tears on camera and/or get banned from all future family reunions

Wishing you and yours safety from the tides of inconvenient history. Over and out.

And you thought BYU boys couldn't boogie.

2008-03-31T20:23:00.000-07:00

Check out our Orange Man on bongos. We were sure his head was going to detach before the song ended. So sad they hid him in the back: I admire the great musicality of these BYU steel drummers, but their hips simply don't wiggle enough.

C'mon, kids -- miss a couple notes and boogie with Orange Man! We're channeling Trinidad, here -- not Vienna!

Death, thou shalt die.

2008-03-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

...My Classics veil their faces,
My Faith that dark adores,
Which from its solemn Abbeys
Such resurrection pours!

--Emily Dickinson

***************************

Is the resurrection irrelevant?

Most people believe in an afterlife of some sort, and that it is at least a niceish destination if you're a non-felon (or something like that). Most of those who do believe in an afterlife don't dwell much on the body-or-no-body issue -- they figure as long as they are still conscious in some realm and that realm is a pleasant realm, they shouldn't fuss too much over the details. Even most Christians have divorced themselves from the idea of physical resurrection. You go from the Hellenic Nicene Creed, in which Jesus is freed from his body.....

....let it stew a few more centuries.....

....and soon we want rid of ours, too.

I can understand this way of thinking, though I don't subscribe to it. To truly believe that this unjust life doesn't end in cold oblivion is quite the feat; to believe that it opens onto a pleasant scene is even harder; to believe that the next life involves actual physical restoration and perfection seems pushing the limits of what the seemingly cruel, entropic universe will allow a sane person to swallow. And whether or not we are part of a faith or philosophy that emphasizes the negative aspects of physicality, we all understand the ugly side of life in a body: the appetites that hurt us and tempt us to hurt others; the weaknesses and indignities; the illusion of control that at some point is ripped away from chainsmokers and health nuts alike. Sometimes the physical aspect of our being gives us more misery than joy and we aren't sure we wouldn't be happier and better beings without it. And even those of us who do believe in a literal resurrection don't really believe that there's no possible happy existence without the taste of physical cheesecake on our physical tongues.

So what's the big deal about the resurrection? Was it just a really great parlor trick that Jesus used to prove that he was the Real Thing, but not something that really mattered in and of itself? Could he just as easily have pulled a unicorn out of his hat? And if Jesus didn't care to keep his body, as so many Christians believe, why should any Christian wish to keep his own?

Again, I understand why people ask these questions. It's baffling enough to accept the thought that a god would spend 33 years living in a leaky, smelly human body in a dank and dirty world, but even more fantastical to believe that he would choose to keep that souvenir from Earth when he returns to a purer space. It can seem like the most laughable example of human beings superimposing their weaknesses on the gods they choose to worship -- we don't like ourselves very much, so we invent a god who's physical like us and thereby feel better about our place in the universe. Then three hundred years later we realize it's ludicrous, not to mention blasphemous, and change our minds.

Mormon doctrine runs audaciously against that powerful current of human self-loathing, however apparently logical. We believe that our faith restores truths about mankind that were lost (and/or rejected) over centuries: The body is not evil, nor is it neutral -- it is ultimately divine, and is the main reason we are on earth. Whether we live 100 years or one second, a body is the single thing we all get from this life. And the reason we wanted incarnation and eventual permanent incarnation, and why both of these have been granted every human being free of charge, is we are embryonic gods and a physical body is standard issue. A non-optional prerequisite.

And it is only that knowledge that makes the resurrection meaningful. Because most people who mourn dead dear ones don't really care whether they will see them again in a body -- they just want to know that they will encounter them again someday, in some form or another. The importance of resurrection doctrine only becomes clear when we understand that is not we who want to superimpose our physicality on God -- it is he who superimposed his physicality on us. It is not just a nice thing to be resurrected and get to wiggle our toes in the heavenly creek -- it is a necessary thing. Because the next life is not just meant to be pleasant; if that were all it was, then Christ's resurrection is just tossing another pretty miracle on the pile. The next life is meant to be expansively concrete.....mind-bendingly, fantastically grand.....grab yourself a body in the Third Dimension and then we're off to the Fourth, and the Fifth, and....

We signed up to be gods.

It is pretty ludicrous, but so is life itself.

**********************************************************************

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.

Job 19: 25-27

Do I have to choose a winner??

2008-03-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

'Cause you're all winners!

Except that there IS an actual winner......

But before I get to that technicality, I must say that you guys really outdid yourselves this year. Click here to read all the entries, and you'll see what I mean. (And be sure tell me in a comment which number limerick you wrote so I can put your name next to it. Any unclaimed limericks will be presumed abandoned. I will then attach my own name to them and enter them in the Deseret News Limerick Contest next year.)

The themes were all highly clever, many of the rhymes were ambitious and goofy, and I wouldn't be surprised if some ol' Irish dude Googling "silly limerick" plagiarizes your work to impress the lads, Friday night down at the pub.

Rhymes that make me woozy with glee:

Obama/drama/karma

Tatooine/Queen/mean

reprehensible/indispensable/vegetables

librarian/au pair, Ian/veterinarian

Tom/'Nam/bomb

out/shout/gout

home/roam/gloam

Other bits that almost got me fired for giggling at work:

She said “if I married”/I’d eat garlic all day and be lazy
(Oh, Maisie -- we are so alike, except my breath is like no daisy God ever made.)

She offered a prize/For the best pack of lies/Bound up in the form that you see!
(I never encourage lying! Ever! Unless it's funny!)

There once was a man named Gerard....
(Way to play to my weakness! I love it! Can I commission you to write a Love Limerick for Gerard? Will you be my Silly Cyrano?)

When making some "Irish Stew"....
("Making Irish stew" is my new favorite euphemism for sex* -- I hope you don't mind, WhoeverYouAre.)

she chased him quite gladly/and captured him, sadly/and now he's a husband - and mad!
(Ha! I like this ending better -- sadder, but funnier :)

She ran off with the manny/And his fantastic fanny
("Don't laugh," I told myself. "That's naughty!" But I did laugh. Oh, I laughed.)

Mayhap I'll be born at gloam
(Do I really know a fetus capable of writing this line? Who are you, little embryonic prodigy? The reincarnation of Tennyson?)

In fact, I laughed so hard reading every one of your limericks that I've decided to send all participants my super-special Irish Mix CD. Not a bad consolation prize, especially since most of the songs bear Sharon's Impeccable Taste in Music Seal o' Approval. (Except for the very last track -- gotta throw in at least one tacky song since she's not here to stop me.) So if you want the mix CD, be sure to claim your limerick and then send me your address using the "Email Me" feature in the side bar ---->

As for the winner of the moolah and the Pogues CD, it was hard, but after much prayerful supplication to the Humor Gods, it was revealed to me that that Greatest of Goofballs, that Viceroy of Verse, that Lord-High Limerick-Smith is the author of......

There was a cute single girl (Maisie)
Who kept her breath fresh as a daisy
It made her quite harried
She said “if I married”
I’d eat garlic all day and be lazy

So congratulations Anonymous #2 [it's Lena!] -- the rhythm was perfect, the rhymes were great, and the humor was apropos of everything. (At least in my world :)

And if anyone feels I chose wrongly, feel free to vent your spleen in the comments. Better yet, register your complaints in the form of a limerick.

Because limericks make everything better!

Thanks so much for humoring me, you guys -- I love ya.

* For the record, when I was trying to imagine the genesis of the term "wedding vegetables" I decided that maybe someone thought tossing a salad was sensual ("you see, Bobby -- when a carrot loves an avocado very much, they come together and..."), but it's all so clear, now -- the slow sexy simmer of vegetable stew....

Prepare to giggle -- the 2008 limerick entries!

2008-03-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

If you entered the contest, please please please leave a comment telling me which number is yours so I can put your name next to it. I'll even link it to your blog so people can find more of your killer wit....

(In order of entry)

#1 (by Lena)

There was a young man called Obama
Who’s created a whole lot of drama
He’s made Hillary mad
But the media glad
And we all think he has real good karma

#2 (by Lena)

There was a cute single girl (Maisie)
Who kept her breath fresh as a daisy
It made her quite harried
She said “if I married”
I’d eat garlic all day and be lazy

#3 (by D'Arcy)

There once was a young man from Tatooine.
When he got older he married the Queen.
Not too much later,
He became Darth Vadar,
Now everyone thinks that he's mean!

#4 (by Jessica)

There once was a lass called Marie
Who on her blog set up a spree
She offered a prize
For the best pack of lies
Bound up in the form that you see!

#5 (by D'Arcy)

There once was a man named Gerard.
Who Marie thought was the bard.
He wrote in rhythm sprung,
While using the Welsh tongue,
Now he rests in an Irish yard.

#6 (by Gawain)

In truth it is quite reprehensible
That an "ingredient" should be so indispensable
When making some "Irish Stew"
There is only one thing to do
Mix in some wedding vegatables

#7 (by Vesper)

Get this freaking baby out
Is what I always want to shout
He's been in there too long
His kicks are very strong
I'd rather have the gout

#8 (by Gawain)

I still live in mother's home
Nowhere to stretch my legs and roam
No friends can I meet
My head's below my feet
Mayhap I'll be born at gloam

#9 (by April)

There once was a vet named Tom
who hadn't had a good poop since 'Nam.
So he sucked on some prunes
til he felt something brewin'
And he shat an atomic bomb.

#10 (by April)

There once was a lovely librarian
Who fell in love with an au pair, Ian.
She ran off with the manny
And his fantastic fanny
Til she left him for a hot veterinarian.

#11 (by Jessica)

there once was a lass liked a lad
who was truly a terrible cad
she chased him quite gladly
and captured him, sadly
and now he's a husband - and mad!

[Version 2]

there once was a lass liked a lad
who was truly a terrible cad
she chased him quite gladly
and captured him, sadly
and now he's a husband - and dad!

Don't pinch me -- I'm Irish!*

2008-03-17T00:47:00.000-07:00

1) Massive Celtic pate,** packed with fiddle reels and naughty rhyming couplets.

2) Green eyes.

3) Freckle.

4) Freckle.

5) More freckles.

6) Freckle. Or maybe zit. (Too afraid to zoom in, and I hope you won't, either.)

7) Pasty, pasty white skin.***

8) Freckle created when pasty, pasty white skin encountered five nanoseconds of direct sunlight.

9) Drab brown hair left behind by the little green men who snuck into my bedroom 28 years ago and STOLE my pretty red pigtails as I slept.****

10) [Undisclosed location] Birthmark in shape of four-leaf clover.

11) Freckles lurking beneath my shirt. Multiplying. Ever multiplying.

* Not true.

** Like an orange on a toothpick.

*** Like the flesh of a diseased potato. Makes ya wanna flee to the New World and marry into pigment.

**** One of the saddest nights of my life. I can only hope my stolen hair was used to make little red wigs for little leprechaun chemo patients.

Don't do it for the cash. Do it for Conan.

2008-03-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

Bzzzzzt! Time's up!

Stay tuned for the exciting results! (I hope you'll be patient -- I must wait for the tears of glee to clear a bit so I can re-read your entries perform the ridiculous task of choosing the funniest.)

And Sophie thought HER choice was hard.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It's that time of year again, dearies -- time to dust off your silly and get Irish in my second annual St. Patrick's Day Limerick Contest! I can hear you all woohooing from here.

I'm upping the stakes, though. No stuffy old books of nonsense verse as grand prize like last year. No, this time around I'm rolling out the cold hard cash. Twenty dollars (plus a copy of the best Irish rock album ever*) to the limerick that makes me laugh the hardest. That's enough green to buy you eleventh class passage to America and a pint on the way over.

The rules are the same as last year with one difference: I don't want to be suspected of choosing based on anything but sheer artistry, so all entries that want to be considered for the prize MUST BE SUBMITTED ANONYMOUSLY. If you accidentally post your entry with any recognizable identity I'll have to disqualify it, so double check before you click "publish" and be sure you've got the "Anonymous" button selected below the comment field. After the winner's chosen I'll repost all the entries, give each one a number, and ask everyone to tell which number limerick was theirs so you can all get credit for your wit.

Here are the rest of the rules, same as last year:

--Contest ends Sunday, March 16, the day before St. Patrick's Day. (But any entry posted by the time I turn on my computer on the 17th will be in the running.)
--Your limerick can be a bit naughty, but not too naughty. Use your own judgment in defining that line.**
--Finding clever rhymes for difficult words will win you extra points.
--Enter as many limericks as you want.
--No matter how funny, a limerick will probably not win if it doesn't follow the traditional limerick meter and rhyme pretty closely. Can't remember what that is? Click here for a refresher course.
--REMEMBER TO SELECT THE "ANONYMOUS" BUTTON WHEN YOU POST YOUR ENTRY IF YOU WANT YOUR LIMERICK ENTERED IN THE CONTEST.

I can't wait! I know you will make all my goofiest dreams come true!

Tell your friends!
Tell your drinking buddies!
Tell that scheming bird who up and married Tommy O'Rourke while you were off at sea!

* If you already have this album, I'll substitute some other fabulous Irish-esque giftie of comparable value.
** I reserve the right to take down any limerick that I think crosses the line. Keep in mind that my mother reads this blog -- she's got a good sense of humor, but she's still my mother, so if you do naughty, make it a nice naughty.

Why my family is better than yours.

2008-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

My aunt sends me text messages like this:

"Just heard a new British term for naughty bits:
.....wedding vegetables!"

Can't beat that. Educational.

You know you're secure in your manhood...

2008-02-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

...when you paint your toenails* purple just because you know it'll make the baby squeal. And man, did she squeal. Like a BYU dolphin who'd just bumped into her long-lost roommate in the food court.

*Yes, kids, he painted them himself!

Through the looking glass.

2008-02-11T21:29:00.002-08:00

I was looking at the post-party self portraits I did the other day (hard proof for my mother that I do on occasion curl my hair and wear contacts, earrings, and nylons simultaneously) and it took a long while to figure out why I so much preferred the long shots I took in the mirror to the ones pointed straight at my face.

Conclusion: I've never resigned myself to the fact that I don't look like the image in the mirror -- that I actually look like the mirror image of the mirror image.

But but but.....in what sick universe would a poor girl's LEFT eyebrow be higher than her right one? If such asymmetry must exist in this cruel, fallen world, it is clearly far better for the right eyebrow to be the higher one, as I'm sure you can see when you compare the highly hot Mirror Me

to the severely lacking Actual Me:

See what I mean?

Reality is a harsh, harsh mistress.

It's not like this whole enterprise hasn't always been self-serving.

2008-02-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged by the lovely Lena, and as I fear her wrath (nah, because I love talking about myself), I have decided to comply. Seven random things about myself that you neither know nor care to know:

1) I am so boring and unremarkable that no one in my immediate or extended family gave me any nicknames. My sister had several nicknames, my brother had heaps, I had zero. When I whimpered about this to my bro a few years ago, he cooked up a couple for me. One of them should have been Pathetic Patsy.

2) I have a massive head, a fact that I think most people notice but always pretend they don't. It is GARGANTUAN, people. No hats fit me, even most of the adjustable baseball caps. My poor mother needed a postpartum blood transfusion, and the doctors thought I was terminally ill with hydrocephalus. This does not translate to more brains, sadly -- just more hot air:

3) The main reason I applied for one of my favorite jobs was that it was three doors down from the office of my entrancing Spanish teacher. Long after he ceased belting "Maria" at me in the hallways and swoonifying me with his swarthy complexion and ice-green eyes, I adored that job. And that is my testimony of doing good things for dumb reasons. Hallelujah, amen.

4) I like soggy things. The Pacific Northwest, toast soaked in cocoa, gloppy cold tapioca pudding, and Life cereal that's been stewing on the counter for at least five minutes.

5) One of my nervous habits is tugging on my Brooke-Shields-meets-Sam-Donaldson eyebrows. One day in sixth grade I was particularly nervous and started attacking my right eyebrow. Later that day my friends informed me (between violent giggling fits) that I'd almost entirely wiped out that one eyebrow. Let's just say the one-eyebrow look is much worse than the no-eyebrow look and that eyebrow pencils are a precious gift from on high.

6) I am credited in the liner notes of my favorite band's third CD. Several of you know this. What you probably don't know is that I was involved in the final editing of the liner notes, and was asked to help them trim the lengthy "Thank Yous" section down to a reasonable size. I had known the band for just a couple months and clearly didn't deserve to be credited at all, but I decided to not cut my own name from the list. Why? Because I'm evil and vain and wanted my future children to think I was supercool.

7) According to Shroud of Turin loonies, I have the same blood type as Jesus. This is why I am better than you.

Okay, now I get to tag seven others. (Don't worry, Wynne, I'll leave you alone.) Howzabout Natalie, D'Arcy, Sophie (are you still there, darling?), Emily, iieee, April, and Gawain & Vesper. I guess this will conclusively prove whether or not any of these people are still reading this blog....

Truly, I weary of your childish games.

2008-01-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

Happy, joy.

2008-01-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

In a quiet corner of the Internet, I found one of my favorite people watching chicks hatch in paradise.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The summer we graduated from high school my friend Wendy invited me to go with her to England, where we stayed with her uncle and his wife, Jean, in a little village in Cambridgeshire. It was their generosity that made it possible for two girls with puny bank accounts to afford the grand six-week adventure. The day after we arrived, Aunt Jean sat us down and helped us arrange our dreams in schedule form, then took us into the city and helped us choose our bus tickets. She made up the guest room for us with fluffy new duvets and sent us out each morning with cheese-and-chutney sandwiches (in case we couldn't afford both souvenirs and lunch).

One weekend she took us on a day trip across the Channel to Bruges where we she instructed us in stern tones not to look at the chocolate breasts in the store windows, for fear our Mormon mothers would think her a poor protector. When I insisted on taking a daylong solo excursion to Leicestershire to my ancestors' village, she rehearsed every bus and train transfer with me over breakfast and then fidgeted and fretted until I reappeared that night. She was patient with the decadent American teenagers when they asked to have their jeans dried in the dryer rather than on the clothesline and made us a traditional English country breakfast so we could say we'd had an "authentic" food experience (mmm! fried pig! fried eggs! fried tomatoes! fried bread! don't waste that fat! remember the War!) She went off to work each day while we played, and demanded very little of us besides helping pull some weeds in her beautiful, carefully tended little backyard garden. She was an affectionate mother hen during my first hesitant steps out of the nest, and we have kept in touch ever since.

Then a few years ago, out of the blue, her husband ran off with their mutual friend. She had had no idea he was having an affair. I was in shock for days after hearing the news -- it was impossible -- they had seemed such a jolly couple. No -- impossible -- there must have been a misunderstanding! Besides the emotional blow, this meant she had to come out of retirement and start over late in life. The ugly news added fuel to my mistrust of malekind and I began to suspect that if a marriage survives, it's only because the husband never got a good chance to trade up before he croaked. How could anyone leave Jean? Such a good and kind and life-loving person? The mother of his three children? Every time I'd think of her alone, working past retirement with no idea of what her future would be like, I'd feel the urge to a) cry or b) go punch an XY.

Then last year she remarried. Wendy said the new husband seemed be a nice man, but (I thought to myself), so had the first husband. I hoped for the best, but I was wary -- both for her and for me -- because if I learned that she'd been hurt by Husband #2, I wasn't sure I wouldn't turn in my dance card and go lesbian. Her Christmas letter this year sounded happy -- I learned that she had moved to the village where her husband lived and she sent me pictures of the beautiful orchards and sheep and wide green spaces that were her new home. I guess we'll see, I thought. Skeptically. Very skeptically.

Then the other day, on a whim, I Googled the name of her new village in hopes of finding more pretty pictures. Much to my surprise I found that her new husband had his own page on the village website -- sort of a lighthearted local human interest commentary. His love for his village, his lambs, his fruit trees, his children, his grandchildren, his wife bubbled up through the casual and humorous prose.* I could almost see his smiling eyes as he described the odd tensions between The Old Ways and The New Ways, how intently Jean watched by the side of the incubator for the chicken eggs to hatch, and how sadness always gives way to new hope. By the end all doubt was burned out of me -- Jean has found a good man, a happy and kind man -- an even bigger garden to fill with pansies and koi and pole beans.

I was sniffling at the public computer as I read, and little chicks started chirping in my cold, cold heart.

*My favorite bit: "Talking of Chick did you see in the paper his bit where he swam thro Cambridge as an old boy in 1951.52, and 53. I know Anne used to do that swim as well, but that had to be stopped cos the water got too polluted. I don’t spose that’s no more polluted now than that was then we’ve all just got softer and there’s all this daft nanny state legislation. We shall soon wrap everybody up in sterilised cotton wool when they’re born. Then when they stink a bit we’ll assume they’re dead and bury them."

If they pollute their inheritances, they shall be thrown down...*

2008-01-16T07:31:00.000-08:00

This summer I attended a BYU alumni conference in Sandy. I don't normally spend my Saturday afternoons voluntarily attending lectures, but I showed up because I wanted to hear a presentation by one of my former professors. As it turned out, the lecture I came to hear was not very interesting, but I wandered into another lecture that really struck me.

The topic was Mormons and Environmentalism. It's not hard to find doctrinal and scriptural support for a strong Mormon environmentalist stance, but I liked that his presentation focused on several reasons Mormon culture has largely shied away from the environmentalist movement. Below I've listed several "reasons" he'd heard offered by church members to explain their disconnect from environmentalist concerns. I had heard all of these myself over the years and even used to believe a couple of them. After each reason I've listed my own response, which in some cases was very similar to the presenter's response.

If you're not LDS, you may not find this interesting. Even you Mormons may find it dull. But too bad -- it's my blog, and I'll drone if I want to.

1. We believe that we are living in the "Last Days" and that at some point in the not-too-distant future the earth will be purged of the pollution (both spiritual and physical) that man has inflicted upon it, and resurrected into its perfect and eternal form. Therefore, why lose sleep over treating the earth well when we know it's headed for its new life anyway? Why fight prophecy?

-- This viewpoint bears a disturbing resemblance to the "eat, drink, and be merry" philosophy that Christ condemns both spiritually and physically. The Mormon doctrine regarding the sacredness and eternal nature of the human body specifically condemns mistreatment of the body during mortality, even though we know that we will all be resurrected into our perfect form one day no matter how we treat our body in this life. Such mistreatment of the body is a sin, we are taught, even though any damage is ultimately reversible. This is because such maltreament betrays a lack of respect for life and the God who gives life, and this is a serious spiritual lacking. To say that the earth is any different from the body is morally insupportable, especially given that LDS doctrine also teaches that the earth is a living thing in its own right, and not just a stage for living things to move around on. As far as the "why fight prophecy" question, there is a logical fallacy amongst Mormons (and Evangelicals and other Bible literalists, for that matter) that if God has said something is going to happen, he is happy about it and wants you to help facilitate it. Hence our embarrassing support for the modern state of Israel, despite its violence and racism.

2. Environmentalists have historically been in favor of population control measures that conflict with Mormon doctrines regarding God's intentions for human life on the planet. (Tangent: Remember how in the silly Saturday's Warrior play/movie from the 80s, what made the evil gang evil was that they wanted to "decrease the surplus population"? Not drugs, not violence -- they were a Planned Parenthood Gang, out to persecute the hero's big Mormon family!)

-- Presenter's response (I didn't have a response for this one): This attitude is much less prevalent than in the past. Environmental studies of recent years have shown that it is not population alone that causes environmental stress, but much more the kind of children we raise. Honest environmental scholars have had to admit that is entirely possible for a family of thirteen to leave no significant environmental damage, so this historical conflict between the environmentalist and Mormon camps is fading. On a side note, he mentioned that it has also been found that divorce tends to have a high environmental impact per capita, what with shuttling children between parents year after year, needing to provide two of everything for the child in his two homes, etc. In short, scholarship on environmental issues no longer condemns large families as a basic part of its principles. Rather, training children to be environmentally responsible is the key.

3. Our prophets have said little specifically over the pulpit about environmentalism. If it were really that important, wouldn't they say more to us and more often?

-- This is possibly because environmentalism has historically been a highly charged political issue, and so speaking of it over the pulpit could have easily violated the Church's efforts to keep leaders from taking overt political stands in church meetings. Admonitions have often been less overt, and have appealed to the spirit of truth that should guide each of us as we seek personal inspiration. However, some prophets have been very overt about our environmental responsibilities (notably President Spencer W. Kimball) and have simply been ignored by most church members. Also, Joseph Smith said the role of prophets was to teach people correct principles and then let them govern themselves, and revealed that we are to use our agency to do good in the world whether or not we've been specifically commanded to do it. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, who consistently focused on the importance of conscious and careful discipleship said, “True disciples would be consistent environmentalists –caring both about maintaining the spiritual health of a marriage and preserving a rainforest, caring about preserving the nurturing capacity of a family as well as providing a healthy supply of air and water...Adam and Eve were to 'dress the garden,' not exploit it."

4. Mormons are largely Republican, and the Republican party has typically ignored or opposed the environmentalist movement, which has typically fallen under the banner of the Democratic party.

-- This is very true, but as the matter becomes depoliticized and more and more thinking people realize that it is a universal concern, political party will likely play a much smaller role in affecting Mormons' stance toward environmentalism. And of course, I think a lot of Mormon Republicans are currently rethinking their party affiliation in light of...um...recent events. A brief history lesson on the relationship of the Mormon church with the two major political parties might also open people's minds, but that's the topic for a different discussion...

5. The word "environmentalist" calls to mind too many extremist images that are not in keeping with the gospel's message of wisdom and moderation.

-- It can be hard for people to get over the negative associations they have with the word "environmentalist." However, in Mormon doctrine we have powerful doctrines and commandments linked to the words "steward" and "righteous dominion" that can help us craft our own vision of how God expects us to treat the earth and its creatures, or at the very least help us not break out in hives when we hear the word "environmentalist."

6. We believe that God gave Adam (and mankind, as his descendants) "dominion" over the earth, which means he wants us to use the earth and its resources.

-- Similar to the last answer; yes, this is true, but again we are taught clearly that moderation and stewardship are the keys in whatever power and authority God gives us, whether it's church callings, how we steer the lives of our dependent children, or how we appropriate the earth's resources. We are also taught that we were given dominion over people and things in this life as a practice to see if we will be worthy to take on greater dominions in the eternities. If we fail to use wisdom and self control in our use of the earth's resources, we will prove ourselves unworthy for greater responsibilities. There are many LDS scriptures that we may skim over (eating meat sparingly, eating foods that are in season, for example) that can be considered ahead of their time environmentally, if we choose to pay attention to them rather than waiting to be spoonfed them by our leaders.

7. The scriptures say that in the earth there is "enough and to spare," so to rein in our consumption is to deny God's statement about the earth and its ability to provide amply.

-- "Enough" means that there is sufficient to meet the basic needs of everyone. We don't know how much "spare" there is beyond that -- it probably depends on how many people there are at a given time on the earth. It has long been clear that if part of the earth's population takes much more than it needs, there is NOT enough for the rest to survive on. To me, that "enough and to spare" scripture sounds like God saying, "don't blame me that there are starving children in Africa -- I've given you what you need to provide for everyone, and if you deprive your brethren through your greed [cringe] or indifference or supporting leaders in your own nation who uphold oppressive foreign regimes and foreign policies, then the sin be upon your heads."

8. I think there was an eighth one, but I can't remember it at the moment.

-- But I'm sure I would've had a really long-winded response to it.

Anyway, I don't have much more to say on this. I'm far from perfect. I'm still addicted to lots of things that I don't need that my children will one day reprimand me for having used in my youth. They'll ask me how I could have done X, Y, and Z, even though I knew that it would make the world smoggier, grayer, and bleaker for them. They'll ask how, as a good Mormon, I could have continued to drive my car to work and produce a bag of garbage per week, and I don't know that I'll have a satisfactory answer for them. But I do want to be able to say that I choose to change before I was forced; that I mulled over these questions and came to my own conclusions based on my own reasoning and the doctrines of my faith, regardless of the tides of my culture. That even if I didn't behave perfectly or go carbon neutral overnight, that I was willing to be inconvenienced in order to start carving out a new way of being so that the next generation will be able to take it for granted that green is the Only Way to Be. I don't care if the cocky little brats get all morally superior with me -- as long as there are still a few polar bears floating around on a few icebergs...somewhere.

* Doctrine and Covenants 103:14

January is the cruelest month...

2008-01-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

I have this longtime deal with God -- if I die a spinster and can make a good case that I tried hard to find a husband, He has to give me Gerard Manley Hopkins in the next life. By the time I check in at the front gate I'm hopeful they will have managed to program the celibacy glitch out of him and I will woo him by reciting his poetry back to him. I currently have six of his memorized, and can deliver them with great feeling. I think we'll go for a short engagement.

I rarely go into a true depression in post-Christmas winter, but every year the darkness and chill always make me think about illness and death and fading youth and I get this bone-aching craving for poetry that I feel no other time of year. The one I reach for most often in my winter mood is by my beloved Gerard:

MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

It cheers me right up. Works me through the fear, looking it dead in the eye, and finding the beauty behind the ache. I noticed just last year that most of my memorized poems are of the melancholy kind. Here's a list of my current repertoire, for what it's worth (this IS my vanity blog, after all!) I'm available for weddings, wakes, and bar mitzvahs.

I always have one or two new poems taped up in my bathroom -- the inside of the medicine cabinet door is ideal, if you have a medicine cabinet. The idea is this: you memorize them as you brush your teeth, and the challenge of memorization encourages you to prolong your brushing sessions. This in turn improves your oral hygiene, making you more attractive, and improving the chances that you will not, in fact, find yourself still a spinster in your 73rd winter, stroking your aged cat and reciting the words of dead poets to an empty room.

Win-win!

Three, two, one.....SQUAWK!

2008-01-01T20:32:00.000-08:00

What do you mean, What are you supposed to be?? Don't you know your Russian fairy tales?

I'm the Firebird, of course! The Fenghuang! The Phoenix!

Can you see it now?

Howzabout now? Say "yes," or I'll peck you to death!

New Year's is a pretty pointless holiday, except when you get to preen yourself to a shimmer, attend a masquerade ball in full Regency attire, and dance the night away with the girls. It had everything but a Austen wedding finale. Ah, well. But maybe 2008 will be the hap-happy year? If I don't save my rose-gold eyeshadow just for dancing days? If I wear red, red lipstick at all times and toss my head confidently like a rare bird who nearly never cries?

Hope springs eternal.

Happy New Year, all y'all. May it be a bright one for you and yours. If you are mated, may your nest be warm with your lovebird. If you are flying solo, may your song hear its echo one day soon.....

The more you know.

2007-12-29T18:11:00.000-08:00

Pssst! I learned some top-secret information about Santa that I think might
serve you well in advance of next Christmas. Hearken, I prithee.

It came to my attention, while attending a recent performance of Benjamin Britten's Saint Nicholas cantata, that our favorite saint is not only a jolly old soul, but that he can resurrect people. Yesireebob! And not just freshly dead people -- people who've been hacked to bits, pickled in brine, and served to unsuspecting pilgrims. It would seem that he was trying to one-up Jesus's remarkable Lazarus miracle.* Cocky fella, that Saint Nick.

So anyway, let this serve as an early warning that if you're veeery good kidlets every last day of 2008 -- if you wash behind you ears and eat your lima beans and call your mother -- you need not hesitate to put Great-great-grandpa Horace at the top of your Christmas list. Or your flat kitty friend buried in the backyard. Or even Elvis.

Go on -- let those sugarplum visions run wild! The ol' boy can deliver!

* Our judges give S.N. a 8.9 on the Wow! factor, but a mere 1.3 on the Inspires-Reverence-Rather-Than-Giggles factor.

Enough, and to spare.

2007-12-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

When I was in high school, two of my non-Christian friends went in together and in lieu of a Christmas present, donated money to a charity in my honor. The surprising thing wasn't how moved I was -- it was a thoughtful thing for them to do -- but rather the realization that none of my overtly Christian friends or family had ever done that for me and that I had never done it for anyone else. I mean, I'd given to charities on occasion, and I know that most other people do as well, but I'd never given to a charity in place of a regular gift, nor asked others to do that for me. Reading and re-reading the card from those two friends gave me a feeling that is often elusive amid all the fa la las -- that my mere existence on the planet had made some positive difference in the life of a person who truly needed it. It was great.

I love to see my little niece smile when she opens her toys (though she most often prefers the ribbons to the toys), and I love to see my mom get the warm gloves she needs for her commute to work. Heck -- I even love to see Dad parade around in his new parrot slippers that I know he'll rarely wear again, except as a joke. If I get the Jeeves and Wooster series on DVD,* I will hug it and kiss it and sleep with it under my pillow and there is no chance in h--- that I will run out and donate it to the local orphanage in a bid for sainthood. But if instead someone gave to charity what they could have spent on Jeeves, I will still live in a warm apartment with clean running water and a comfy bed. I will still have more delicious food than is healthy for me to eat, more DVDs than I can watch, more CDs than I have space for, more books than I have time to read, a car that runs, money for the bus if the car stops running, and enough scented lotions to supply an army of teen girls for a good decade. My greatest trial will still be learning to be moderate and wise when all around me is abundance and overabundance. And I will feel all glowy and gooey and warmy and fuzzy. Maybe even a little fizzy. With a cherry on top.

In the delightfulest [insert additional superlatives here] Christmas movie, Millions, the little protagonist receives regular visits from sundry Catholic saints (who turn out to be much funnier than you might expect). He is saddened to learn that the bag of money that literally fell on him from the sky was not sent by God so he could help the poor, but had been thrown off a train by bank robbers. When Saint Peter appears in his bedroom, the boy asks him if he can still use the money to help the poor even thought it isn't from God. Saint Peter answers indirectly by offering him the "real" story of the miraculous feeding of the 5,000: Jesus is offered a few fishes and a little bread by a small boy, and Jesus blesses them and hands them around to the crowd. However, as it turns out, the crowd wasn't really starving -- almost all of them had food hidden in their pockets, but had pretended they didn't have it so they wouldn't have to share with any of their less fortunate neighbors. But when they see the little boy offer his own food to them, their hearts are softened. When the basket of bread and fishes comes to them, they pretend to take some of the boy's food, but instead just take out their own food and begin to share with their neighbors so that everyone is fed and the basked remains full. And that, says Saint Peter, is how the miracle of the loaves and fishes was accomplished.

I believe that Jesus was more than just a pretty idea or an inspiring teacher. But the miracle could have happened that way, and in a way it would have been an even bigger miracle. A miracle that changes hearts is no small miracle, no matter how it's done.

I hope I will allow my heart to be changed in that way, for good, and even when I'm down on my luck. Not just because it's what I'm supposed to want at my most righteous millisecond in the midst of Christmastime charity fervor, but also because to be comfortable and healthy and safe and educated and still have a lot left over to help others is a luxury very very few in this world have. A luxury that feels as good as any other luxury there is.**

And I am a creature of luxury. Ooooh, yes.

Jeeves -- draw me my bath. With bubbles, please.

*No, this is NOT a hint, Dad. Really. I've seen them all like five times -- why would I need to own them? A framed portrait of Hugh and Stephen will do nicely.

**Including chocolate.

What? You're still reading??

2007-11-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

So the ol' blog is a year old this week. Gootchie-goo! Isn't it cute?

It's grown bored of navel-gazing and has toddled off to taste those chemicals under the kitchen sink. The Drano should make for a FANTASTIC blog entry! And if stomach pumping is involved -- all the better!

NOTE: If the video gets stuck, click on the progress bar just after the marker.

Thanknesses

2007-11-22T22:11:00.000-08:00

Starry nights

Airplanes

Photos of freaky phosphorescent fanged fish at the bottom of the sea

Warm spring soil

Squash, squash, squash

Vaccines

Screamin' orange poppies

People who are required to love me

People who choose to love me

Words

Arch support

Godiva in all its forms, even naked

Seashells

A God who knows me

A God who keeps his distance while I decide what I want

Clean tap water

Funky bass lines

Kevin Kline

A certain revolutionary feminine hygiene product that I'm too shy to name

Air conditioning

Things that are nothing like Ronald McDonald

Extended deadlines

Small children who look into my soul and smile anyway

Freedom to flee the kitchen

The kitchen

This post brought to you in part by...

2007-11-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

Doughnuts.

In recent years my mom's childhood friend has invited us to stay in her parents' beautiful beachfront house on Maury Island, west of Seattle. Her father made his fortune designing and manufacturing doughnut machines, and one of my mom's first jobs was working his doughnut booth at the Seattle World's Fair.

So thank you to Mary for the hospitality and the fridgeful of delicious food, thank you to Mary's parents for letting us stay in their house, and thank you to America for trading your dough for doughnuts. Y'all got happy tastebuds, and we got a lovely vacation. Everybody wins!

Here is the view from the deck of the beachhouse.

Here is the view from one of my bedroom windows.

And here's the view from my other bedroom window.

Are you jealous yet?

Here is the spider who hung out on the deck the whole time we were there. I called him Irving. He looks less creepy when you call him Irving.

The inhabitants of Maury Island (and its sister island, Vashon) have their own angle on life and sense of humor. The island's mom and pop thrift shop won't take unwanted exercise machines and the mainland is only accessible by ferry, so the residents have started a waterfront gym with their castoff hamster wheels, for any crazies who would rather run in place than explore the beautiful island.

The first night I stayed in Bellevue with my wonderful cousin Jen. We went to a funky Seattle costume shop in search of her Halloween getup.

Satan needs a hug!

Murderous warthogs make fun pets.

Does your boyfriend have a weird thing for Hermione Granger? Then here's the costume for you-ewwwww. (On second thought, just dump him -- he sounds like a sicko.)

Sign o' the times, I'm tellin' ya. Sign o' the times.

Formal accessories: for that final touch of upper class sleaze.

Wynne's blog had a link to a page where you can buy these neat haunted portraits. It was fun to see one for myself. (They seem to be super good holograms.)

And on the way home: the spooky Fremont Troll, lurking beneath an overpass.

We spent an afternoon at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, and got to watch the Venetian artist Lino Tagliapietra work his magic in fire and ice.

Is he really the "greatest living glass blower," as billed? I don't know, but he was fascinating all the same.

And with a name like that, you know he has to be the greatest living something.

Outside the museum, on a bridge over the freeway, are permanent installations of Dale Chihuly's glass work: one of his glass ceilings and a wall showcasing some of his funky vases.

Now let's play a quick round of "Spot the Chihuly Transparent Hermaphroditic Cherub Being Eaten By a Sea Creature"!

This one's harder -- can you see it??

Pike Place had all its regular charms, and a few new ones. Or at least new to me. This is the first street pianist I've ever encountered. I wish I'd asked him where he keeps that thing at night. Does he wheel it up the steep steep hills to his apartment? Or just bike lock it to the street sign?

If there's anything funnier than French people, it's American people who reeeeally want to be French people.

We discovered a Russian bakery, Piroshky Piroshky, that was so so yummy. The others got dinner pastries and I got a whole apple baked in pastry and piped with fresh whipped cream. Might as well crawl back into the womb. Who knew Russian food was edible -- let alone delicious?

We even spotted one of those blessed doughnut machines, spitting out hot little spudnuts for the Market crowd.

Yummy sugar.

Yummy vacation.

All in all, a splendid little trip. I could definitely be a Washingtonian.

'Cause when it rains, I look up, not down.

And when the fish hits the fan, I open my mouth.

Sometimes I love spam.

2007-11-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd seen it all, when this little beaut arrived in my inbox. Do you think it could be for real? I don't think they have female exorcists -- or do they?

Someone stop me before I click "Reply"...

Honorable

It is with great honor and pleasure that I the President and Founder of the only Portuguese Association of Exorcists located in Fatima, Portugal, wish to introduce to you our goals and objectives in anticipation of your future collaboration with our organization.

In order to familiarize you with the founder I wish to offer you the following curriculum vitae information which will clearly shows my lifelong dedication to this study and cause.

Your past and present interest in this area is of mutual interest and more so to our organization as it is composed of only international professionals in the area and study of Exorcisms.

As a roman Catholic Priest, ordained in the Jesuit Seminary I have now seeked to establish a society where all members would assist and collaborate towards a common goal of continuing study and practicing of this ritual.

We will be promoting the assistance of priests and other practitioners from all religious and non religious sectors in order to provide this much needed and in high demand service to the needed. The society members will be recommended after properly certification from our Society to perform the ritual as it is requested from all parts of the world.

We further intend to hold an annual convention of practitioners in our headquarters in Fatima, Portugal and would be honored to have your presence in this event to be scheduled at a later date.

The International Society of Exorcists, proudly invites you to become a member of this organization and would be very interested in receiving your reply and recommendations as early as possible.

I wish to thank you in advance for accepting this invitation and we are looking forward to meeting with you here in Fatima, Portugal in the very near future.

Best Regards

Fr. M. Humberto Gama
Founding President

I'm only vain on Halloween. I swear.

2007-11-01T00:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's not the best costume of all time. But I dreamed it up on October 31 during my lunch break, found all the materials on the way home from work, and assembled it before the party. So yes, I'm pleased with myself.

Oh, in case you're wondering what in the *%!!#@ I was supposed to be, I was a Nuclear Disaster. But you can call me Captain Kirk's latest conquest if you prefer.

Of course, I learned a painful lesson with this hurried costume. Turns out the reason spirit gum was invented is that Rubber Cement, when applied to the face, causes intense burning and redness. Cheapskate Marie learned this the hard way, after applying all 20 googley eyes to her forehead, and then having to rip them off, rub off the Rubber Cement in a agonized frenzy, and start over with Alene's Craft Glue (which, as it turns out, does great on skin and comes off easily at the end of the night -- phew!) Hopefully my children won't be born with 20 eyes as a result of this toxic costuming blunder.

Since high school I've preferred these improvised last minute costumes to the more thought-out numbers. No doubt this has much to do with my college-honed talent of last-minute paper writing and the excitement of pulling something mildly impressive out of my head right at the buzzer. Makes me feel all superior. My most successful day-of-the-party emergency costume was the Relief Society Centerpiece* hat, which won rave reviews from my coworkers and made a very popular White Elephant gift the next Christmas. I still get a glow of pride when I think of it.

An eerie green glow of evil mutant pride.

What were you for Halloween?

* Mormon in-joke.

Did I mention that I love the cemetery?

2007-10-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

Halloween is fun because we get to laugh in the faces of Death and Pain and Uncertainty. For one night we stare hard at our fears, tell them they're silly, and go eat some more chocolate.

But sooner or later the doorbell rings and and there they are again, uninvited. We tug on their noses, but those aren't masks anymore. Laugh at them, but this time they don't vanish. They barge in and dare us to believe that we are anything more than highly evolved worm chow.

This is the gravestone of William Wines Phelps, who wrote one of my favorite hymns, "If You Could Hie to Kolob." The inscription is an excerpt from that hymn. It is common for headstones to speak of peace and rest and the hope for future reunion. Conciliatory language. Language of compromise. Death is a decent backup plan if you simply cannot manage to stay alive.

But this hymn inscribed on Phelps's gravestone speaks not of the peacefulness and niceness and white fluffiness of the next life, but of its grandeur, intensity, vastness, excitement. It is the place to be. The beginning of the crescendo. The neverending explosion of newborn colors.

We have seen the Great Unknown, and have found it Great.

(Too Great for a postcard, whisper the dead. You'll have to come see it yourselves.)

Note: As with the rest of the hymn, the term "race" is rooted in the teachings of Joseph Smith. He spoke of all men as being "of the race of the Gods," the same doctrine that gets Mormons tossed in the "non-Christian" bin by some.

Never speak ill of the dead. Unless they're the silly dead.

2007-10-19T23:51:00.000-07:00

I'd like to introduce you to some of my nearest and drearest friends. They're not the life of the party. In fact, they're not the life of the anything. But they're excellent listeners, and they put all your troubles in perspective. Cheapest therapy in town. And you never have to call ahead -- they're always there.

The jokes were dumb enough when they were still alive, but now they're the laughing stock of the entire cemetery. Yeah, yeah. So funny. Never heard that one before. You guys all stink.

I know exactly what the Umpleby family must have looked like. Very jolly. Rosy cheeks. Bowls full of jelly and all that. Sometimes I hear them giggling under there.

Hattie Groo and her husband Virgil Groo. They come across a bit stiff at first, but once they've warmed to you, it's all Latin puns and pâté. Yes, it's impolite to ask if they used their own livers for the pâté.

The bastard son of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. That pot of mums did not die a natural death.

As you can see, Daniel died young, and his skating buddies come by most weekends and leave him empty beer cans and cigarette butts, arranged in neat, reverential rows. Looks like this week he just got some lousy bumper stickers. Sorry, Danny.

Habib here is the cemetery's token Iranian Jew. He gets treated a lot better in death than he did in life, because he clearly has the coolest headstone of all. English, Hebrew, and Farsi inscribed in an open stone book.

And Hirini Whaanga here -- he has the best job title: Maori Chief. (Former Maori Chief.)

I love my cemetery pals, but I might have to stop visiting this fella because he's trying to spook me. He's in a box with a lid, and the lid has a serious crack that's widening every year. A couple more hard winters and we might get a look at his bones...

Come on, buddy -- leave a little to the imagination.

There's a special place in hell for people who torture their children with hideous names. You say an angelic visitor told you to name her after Brigham Young? No, you just ate too much Polish sausage before bed.

When this stone was carved, no doubt many tears were shed. But those who cried have long since joined their babies for a neverending tea party in the clouds, so I hope they won't mind me noting that this stone is really funny. (And true.)

Fairy, Arthur, and Grail Gentry. So Arthur meets the fairy lady in the lake, who gives him Excalibur (!!!), with which he then gets the Grail. What a pretty story.

Freaks.

Hear that? That's the sound of a man turning in his grave.

Babs finally kicked off!*

The silence is golden.

* Make your own with the Tombstone Generator.

Note to self.

2007-10-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

Next time car breaks down, remember that the bus route info line is

BUS-INFO

NOT

1-800-BUS-INFO

It is very important that you not dial that second number. Remember that, Self. Remember the horror.

No...the OTHER football.

2007-10-12T21:17:00.002-07:00

Anyone who's known me for more than five minutes knows that I have a special disdain for the sports world. I've written about why I think this is, and I've still got every one of those Issues I mentioned.

However.....last weekend I attended a Real Salt Lake soccer game, and actually had a good time! Good enough that upon leaving I thought, "I really should do that again."

Of course, I need to admit some things, here.

1. The only soccer rules I know are "DON'T touch the ball with your hands" and "DO kick the ball into the opposite goal." So there is a considerable lack of subtlety in my soccer viewing experience.

2. I went with fun people.

3. The players were very good looking.* Especially #6.

So really it's no bigger a triumph than luring my men-in-tights-loathing grandpa to a ballet performance with promises of elegant ladies and comfy chairs. But hey -- it's a start, right? If I concentrate reeeeally hard and faithfully attend my SHA** meetings, perhaps I can achieve a full-blown sports obsession before I die -- a shiny red cherry on my towering Obsession Sundae.***

* Do the pretty boys all choose soccer so they won't have to hide their perfect tresses under a helmet?

** Sports Haters Anonymous

*** Five scoops of "why don't we consult the Internet?," a thick drizzle of "have you noticed the worldwide conspiracy to swap the meanings of it's and its?," a generous sprinkle of "why, oh why, can't I have the chin of a hairless cat?," and a fluffy dollop of "I can only split dessert if you'll let me move half to my own plate."

Get your loon on.

2007-10-10T22:56:00.000-07:00

What're you doing here? You should be over at Wynne's blog, entering her Halloween contest, Literary Mutations. Take a nice song or nursery rhyme and turn it Halloweeny. Here is her example:

Mary had some leprosy, leprosy, leprosy,
Mary had some leprosy, her sores were white as snow

And every time that Mary tripped, Mary tripped, Mary tripped,
Every time that Mary tripped, off would fall a toe...

It's lots of fun, and if you win, she'll send you a surprise Halloween package. I know from experience that Wynne surprise packages are worth catfighting for. Once she sent me a Fairygodmother Orientation Package, including a game for figuring out my special fairy powers and a bag of pixie dust. It was très cool.

You know you want it, wacko.

There just aren't enough songs about carnivorous vegetables.

2007-10-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I won't be able to throw a Halloween party this year because I'll be out of town the weekend before Halloween. Not that it would be as fun anyway, since my co-conspirator, Little Ghoul*, has flitted off to haunt the Eastern Seaboard. And I probably will miss everyone else's Halloween parties that same weekend. Oh, moan. Oh, howl. Hopefully I can find some hardcore Halloweenies celebrating on October 31...perhaps that den of goths in my apartment building? They seem nice enough. One of them dresses like a goth Pollyanna.

But whether or not I get to party, I must spread my Halloween cheer! I thought spooky midnight prank calls would be just the thing, but then I realized that caller ID would make it way unfun for all involved. Stupid technology.

So instead I shall play Sandy Claws and give you my super-duper-demented Halloween mixes -- for FREE! I figure it's a lot cheaper than throwing a party, and I'll get to feel all warm and oozy knowing that somewhere out there a Halloween party is funnier and spookier (fookier?) because of my generous piracy.**

Anyway, there are two volumes -- the one I made for last year's party, and the one I'd been compiling in anticipation of this year's party. Just use the new "Email me" feature in the sidebar to provide me with your address and I'll send them off to you. (You lurkers, too! Send me a fake name if you like, and your guilty Halloween pleasure will arrive in a discreet brown paper package stamped ANTHRAX.)

Happy haunting, ye ghouls and 'goyles, fraidies and germs, cysts and boils!

* Sharon

** Although most of these are songs I have on cassette, so is that still piracy? (Ummm...don't answer that.)

Fair to middling.

2007-09-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Utah State Fair...

...ya got yer happy porkers,...

...ya got yer funky chickens,...

...and ya got yer agoraphobic sheep.

The geese perform an interpretive dance. "Love."

The ducks plot their escape.

Choose an exciting new hybrid: the wall-eyed goat-cow. Extra easy tipping!

You saw it here first, folks: the best d*** patch of sod this side of Wyoming!

Huh?

A less-known symptom of trichinosis.

"Heeeey, kid! Throw your Twinkie wrapper in my happy happy clown mouth!"*

(Okay, so actually the clown garbage cans were last year. This year they were American flags. Does anyone else find this ironic? Depressing? Especially given that the first thing you encounter upon entering the main fair gate is an army recruiting booth?)

As I was pondering this annual ritual, I remembered the fair I attended years ago in England, on the grounds of the Queen's country estate at Sandringham. As the Utah State Fair is largely a kitsch-fest, I felt this posting could only benefit from some comparisons to the fairs of Old World royalty.

English fair ambiance:

Grand and tasteful gardens, lending a dignity to the proceedings. Honey, cheeses, and flowers sold under simple white tents.

Utah State Fair ambiance:

Crowded buildings full of animals, scantily clad chainsmokers, and "people" in camo and wifebeaters running personality analysis machines that determine your lucky lotto number based on a handwriting sample. Snake oil available upon request.

English fair arts and crafts:

Softspoken, friendly man named Stewart** weaving beautiful baskets.

Utah State Fair arts and crafts:

White wax hand molds, artistically garnished with plastic roses. State-of-the-art fake hair.

English fair celebrity sighting.

The elegantly dressed Queen Mum in a lovely veiled summer hat. The dapper Prince Charles in a double-breasted suit, strolling with his umbrella walking cane.

Utah State Fair celebrity sighting:

Weird Al in a karate outfit, riffing on his accordion.***

I know it's a tad depressing, dear countrymen. But gird up your loins and go drown your sorrows in a nice deep-fried Coke -- it's what makes America great!

* Photo copyright Sharon, 2006.

** I was kind of in love with Stewart. I hoped Prince Charles would knight him right there at the basket booth and we could ride away together.

*** If any Weird Al legal goons wander onto this site, please consider the following before you shut down this video clip.
1) The shaky recording quality, which also indicates...
2) That I have palsy. What kind of monster would bully a poor girl with early-onset palsy?
3) No one reads this blog anyway.
However, if you still feel it your duty to pull my video off the web, just ask nicely and I'll go without a fight, though I may haggle for an autographed glossy of Harvey the Wonder Hamster.

My new favorite car game.

2007-09-17T00:38:00.000-07:00

So I was on this errand down to Provo the other day, and all the CDs in the car were leaving me cold. NPR had moved on to smooth jazz for the night and the drive was looking very bleak indeed. Then my mind wandered to the Weird Al show last weekend. It's sorta burned on my retinas, y'see.

This naturally led to thoughts of Provo (fully as weird as Al, though unintentionally so) and my weird BYU roommate, Mandy. And whenever I think of Mandy, I think of leprosy.

For when Mandy wasn't making UFO sound effects,* she would sing this little four-line ditty to the tune of The Beatles' "Yesterday."

Leprosy...
I'm not half the man I used to be
There are pieces falling off of me
Oh, I believe I've leprosy...

It never failed to bust my gut and I have long intended to come up with more verses. I decided that this would be The Night, after ten years of woulda-coulda-shoulda, that I would finally complete "Leprosy." The challenge: I told myself that I would publish on my blog whatever I'd come up with by the end of my 1 1/2 hour drive -- no revisions allowed. So without further ado, here are the diseased fruits of my labor,** which I now unleash upon the world. (Well, upon the twelve people who read this blog, anyway.)

* She made it sound like the UFO was not only in the room with you, but was whizzing around your head. That girl had mad skills.

** Lest you think me utterly heartless, I would like to submit that I have knitted two leper bandages for LDS Humanitarian Aid and am halfway through a third one. Do 2 1/2 leper bandages neutralize the tackiness of a leprosy song? Here's hoping.