Call me Paula Revere.

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

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

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

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

('Tis a conspiracy???)

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



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

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

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



Help me.

Steal this picture.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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"

...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

Thanknesses II.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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..." ;)

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.

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.

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...

...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.

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.

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....?