Welcome to The Internet

Rules:

1. Any opinion that doesn't agree with mine is biased and judgmental.

2. Any discussion board that stays up long enough will contain a post in which one participant calls another a Nazi.

3. Every interactive site will eventually feature a cat video.

4. The more trivial an issue is, the more likely people are to get upset about it (and start calling each other Nazis).

5. Any reference to religious convictions is, in fact, an attempt to violate the separation of church and state.

6. All discussion boards would be, if they adhered to the MPAA system, rated R.

7. Online service agreements change approximately every time you decide to use the service. Or more.

8. It doesn't matter how cool the interface change is, if it happens on a social media network, it will be complained about. Usually accompanied by expletives.

9. No matter how bad the fanfiction is you're reading, it can always get worse.

10. A lot of people blog so they can feel like they did something useful with their time, rather than recognizing it for what it is. Using the internet is practically like pulling that string in the story about the little boy who gets a magical string that controls how time passes in his life. Time, and life, are gone before you know it.

* I'm thinking of deleting my blog again. If you just read this post, the why is self-explanatory. But before I do, feel free to share additional rules.

In Celebration of My Return to Nerd-dom

Except, who am I kidding?, I never stopped being a nerd.

This post is a prelude to one I have in the works, with the temporary title, "Most epically bad glasses ever."

When I was sixteen I decided I was so ugly I would do anything short of robbing a bank to improve myself. My first step was getting rid of the huge, nasty, obnoxious glasses I had worn under protest since first grade. No, I did not get contacts (my family couldn't afford the kind of contacts I needed and I didn't have a job yet). I just stopped wearing the glasses. The other kids I knew always thought my parents were so authoritarian. Nope. I doubt they ever forced me to do anything (irrelevant tangent: when I was seventeen, I asked them to give me a curfew). And in high school they don't give you a yellow dot for leaving your glasses at home, so there were no negative repercussions to this decision. There were, however, plenty of positives. People, myself included, began to see that my appearance was rather more than tolerable.

Vanity wins every time.

However, recently I discovered that I would need to foray back into the vision-enhanced world. I just said hello to functional depth perception, and it just so happens that this occurred just shy of two years after my graduation from library school.What better way to celebrate librarianship than by purchasing a pair of hipster glasses?

Now, where's my frumpy cardigan?

Joyeux Noel

This Thanksgiving was a little weird. It seemed that there was so much to do every day the entire week, what with baking pies and trying to spend as much time as possible with my nephews, who were in town but stayed at their other aunt's house. I think I will never be their favorite aunt, because their other one is just so cool, and she has a trampoline, and she has other kids for them to play with. Much cooler than a waffle maker and a rocket launcher.

But, favorite or not, this little man is awesome.

And this one.

Oh, and these two.

When they left, I was sad. And very tired. I went to bed around 5:30 pm and didn't get up until nearly 10:30 the next morning. Then I didn't feel like doing anything, and even if I did, there isn't much to do on holiday weekends when you don't have family around, so I watched a Christmas movie. I have lots of favorite Christmas movies, and here they are in no particular order:

* Love, Actually

* Mickey's Christmas Carol

* Miracle on 34th Street

* It's a Wonderful Life

* Joyeux Noel

We love the French. They always make such depressing profound films. I hate French films, except when I love them. And I love Joyeux Noel. It think it is well nigh impossible not to love a story where music dissolves fear and hatred and gives grieving young men a chance to figure out that the person they thought was their worst enemy was just a friend in disguise. Instead of writing a silly review of it, I'm just going to link to the song in the credits, which doesn't do the rest of the story justice entirely, but is a very sweet song regardless.

Stuff

The real reason I don't get my hair cut more than twice a year: it's embarrassing when every woman in the salon talks for the entire hour about how they wish their hair was as awesome as mine. And I was really hoping to avoid the extra attention this time, because the girl who cut my hair the last time I went was right there, and I had someone else. They never like it when you do that, but she was booked solid when I called, and the girl today did a better job.

Here's a photo for your visual enlightenment. I'm sure you can tell as clearly as I can that this is a superior haircut.

On another note, I dreamed last night that I bought a pair of boots so audacious my imagination broke. This is difficult, because every time I go to the shoe store and look in the clearance section for big feet, there are some pretty darned audacious shoes. It's like they think just because we're tall we want both lots of attention and lots of potential to biff it. And shoes that couldn't possibly go with anyone's professional wardrobe (the less said about possible professional wardrobes some of these shoes would go with the better). Some of these shoes are so tall it's difficult to wear them and accelerate while driving. Wait, though. In my case maybe that's a good thing.

The ones in my dream were patriotic boots, and they morphed as I put them on. It was a long, grueling process, but by the end, they were slick and shiny red and blue, up to mid-thigh, with slits down the middle so they could show enough skin to be all three patriotic colors. They had buttons and laces and zippers and hooks, and the heels were something like six or seven inches. In the dream it was too appalling to laugh, but now I find it very diverting. Butter my butt and call me a biscuit.

And, to change the subject yet again, it is getting down to the wire with my annual reading list. Less than two months to go, and my "To Read" list is still longer than my "Already Read" list. Unless you count all the books I've re-read this year, which is up to at least 17.

I'm trying to finish Beau Geste. This is because at one point I met a really nice guy who said it was his favorite book. This experience may have enabled me to give him a list of a dozen books I think he might like, including The Four Feathers, The Last of the Mohicans, and maybe even Dracula. I imagine he has already read Lord of the Rings. Some guys have a thing for action/adventure books that may or may not be well-written. I can't explain it, but it doesn't bother me unless they make fun of me for reading The Brontes. You take your life in your hands if you say anything derogatory about Jane Eyre in front of me.

On Books (Part Eleven) ... I Think

Perhaps I should title this "Sometimes I read books over and over" instead.

Because I do. Read books over and over, I mean. But only if they're good. Harry Potter, for instance. I've read the entire series at least four times since its completion with the publication of The Deathly Hallows. But I re-read the entire series at least every time a new book came out since I was introduced to them after the publication of The Goblet of Fire. That means that if I totaled all the times I've read a book with Harry Potter in the title, the sum would be over 50. I don't know if I should be concerned or not, considering that they are my "happy" books—I read them when I feel overwhelmed and need an escape.

I have probably written before that it irks me a little that people claim reading fiction is only for escape. Sometimes it is, obviously. But more often than not, for me at least, it's for some other reason. Sometimes I read to be cool for somebody (yes, I will admit this ... more on that later). I read because reading a book is just as good as having a conversation with someone, with the added bonus of zero awkwardness because you don't have to go through any small talk or idle chit chat before you get to what they're really all about inside. Rather pathetic, really.

The problem with escapism is that it inevitably ends. As long as the Harry Potter series is, it is always over sooner or later, and then you're left bursting with emptiness because for so many days/weeks you were immersed in another world and have to come crashing back to your own. Always alone.

Sometimes I don't want to read anymore because of that. But I have to keep my mind occupied. Giving up reading is unthinkable, no matter how torturous it is to finish a book and wander around a small apartment with no one to talk to about all the emotions just experienced by being a temporary observer of another universe. I might be able to get along without books if I had hundreds of intellectually stimulating acquaintances who interacted with me on a daily basis.

No, on second thought, I couldn't. Books don't demand anything from you. You can pick one up and read just a sentence before discarding it, and it never knows the difference. And how often have you started a conversation with someone that you wanted to last for one sentence that ended up lasting an hour or more? Yes. People are great, but the very fact that they are people and must be treated with common courtesy makes them too energy inefficient.

This post begins to make me sound cold, so I think I will end it here. The next book I'm reading for my book group is called Pope Joan, which originally I was not thrilled about, then warmed a little to, then finally got less excited again after finding out it's merely a novel. I imagine it will be something like Ophelia, by Lisa Klein, which I read several years ago and which was, as indicated by the title, a back story for Hamlet's tragic love. I gave up on historical fiction years ago, but I'm going to be a good sport and read Pope Joan anyway. I will probably hate it, as I have hated or been indifferent to almost everything we've read in this book group so far. But I think one point of a book club is to read stuff you hate so that you don't get a skewed perspective of how great the literature market actually is. Well, that and you have people who are going to talk about it with you. Liking is always a possibility, and when you don't choose it yourself, there is always the surprise factor. Besides, there are few things more difficult than reading a book you absolutely love only to find out that no one you know has read it and you will spend the rest of your life convincing others that they need to read this book and wishing, wishing you had someone to discuss it with. Until you finish another book, that is.

Slaughterhouse Five

I know it is supposed to be a literary classic, etc., but I didn't like it. But then, I didn't expect to. I'm not a fan of gritty, black humor as a vehicle for saying "War and any other form of killing people is dirty and ugly and wrong, and it will scar you for life." I already know that. It's possible that whatever about it that is supposed to be so "funny" must have gone over my head, but I'm pretty sure I saw all the jokes and didn't appreciate them. I understand the structure and the reasoning behind it—but I think sometimes people are in too much of a hurry to say something is good or genius just because it's edgy, irreverent, and shocking. There isn't any particular merit in doing something no one has ever done before if what you're doing isn't ever going to do anything to contribute to anyone's happiness. I don't say this out of dislike for Vonnegut—I've read one of his short stories and loved it. However, I do think that if you're going to get credit for writing something groundbreaking, it shouldn't always be for something depressing and vulgar.

I'm certain that any hard-core librarians out there would throw rotten fruit at me for calling a book vulgar, but what else is there to call it? I obviously don't believe in "banning" books—and by that, I mean taking them off the shelves of public libraries—unless they are actually illegal. But if I were a parent I would object to my child being assigned to read the book, and I would probably protest it as age-inappropriate in a school library below high school level.

I suppose one of the best things about going to a book club is that if you are wholeheartedly involved, you are forced to read things you normally wouldn't, so it makes your rating system a little more "real". I don't often finish books that I only give one star.

Pizza and Cough Drops and pre-Halloween Candy

When I look at the ads for Dominoes weekly specials, I think I kind of miss the days when you could order pizza for someone as a prank and no-one would ever know it was you (oh, and for the record, I never did that, thanks ... hehe). But now when you call, they automatically know your name without you even telling them. This world is a different place than the one I grew up in.

For another example, back in the 80s, no one would expect validation to come from anywhere but another person. Now it's all over the place. Billboards, chocolate wrappers, and my new favorite--cough drops.

If Halls weren't the only one to have grapefruit flavor, I would switch to another brand. I don't think I need validation from a cough drop wrapping.

And, to continue this disconnected post, I will confess that one of the pitfalls I find in living alone came along today: I had to convince myself that it is not acceptable at any level to have candy for dinner just because I don't feel like washing the dishes.

I was reasonably convincing, I think, because dinner is now on the stove, but I think I will still have candy afterwards.

Finally, I like the ring of my title today. You could use it to replace the first line of Julie Andrews singing "My Favorite Things."

Have a lovely evening, y'all folks.

Redneck Parade

I heard a rumor that some friends were going to a dance tonight, so I texted one of them and invited myself. It turns out that plans change, and it was decided that we would go to a rodeo instead. Cool. I'm always up for interesting times ... because this was not just any rodeo. This was the Mule Days Festival Saturday Night Rodeo. Little did we know...

I really think half of the state tried to make it to the rodeo at the same time we did. Traffic was absurd. We gave up after driving about half a mile in half an hour, because some of us were really hungry, the rodeo had already been going for an hour without us, and we just weren't having the fabulous times everyone else seemed to be having. It was fabulous, no joke. But all the other people were sitting in the backs of pickup trucks. Flying Confederate flags. I wish I had been brave enough to take photos, but it was dark and they might have had guns.

In our attempt to escape the rodeo traffic, we ran into a redneck parade, with even more trucks and flags. The whole town must have been out, because Main Street was mobbed with them, as well as spectators. I never knew driving a truck, full of people in shorts with their cowboy boots, and flying a redneck flag was a spectator sport. But it is in Benson, where the population of hipsters seems to equal one.

Even better were the official signs along the side of the road prohibiting equine traffic. What is this place?

When we finally got out of town, we found a place that made authentic Eastern barbecue. Pork sandwiches with cole slaw and hush puppies, drenched in vinegar sauce. I think I might have just seen a snapshot of the real South.

On Dreams

I just realized that I have been having a recurring dream, and I'm pretty sure it has been going on for years. I dream I get in cars and nearly back into things because I can't get the brakes to work. And by "things", I mean everything from parking lot blocks to people. Yikes.

Just for fun, I went to an online dream dictionary, and there it was. Dreaming you are driving a car means that you are in control of your life. Dreaming about braking means that you lack stability. So, in essence, I am in control of a chaotic mess that disconcerts me in my sleep (and, might I add, in my awake as well). That sounds like me.

But I still think dream interpretation is a bit hokey.

On another note, I have this awesome friend who loves to tell me how awesome I am. If you've ever seen the episode of The Vicar of Dibley: The Handsome Stranger, this next bit will be very funny to you. If you haven't seen it, you need to. Trust me, you are missing out on one of the funniest television events in the universe.

So, my awesome friend told me that I am not "on the shelf"--I am in the special display case. In other words, he thinks that whoever marries me will have won the figurative lottery.

That's a sweet sentiment, but I'm afraid that winning the lottery comes with a lot of strings attached. Yes, but he assures me that winning the lottery and paying the associated taxes, etc. is still preferable to not winning the lottery. I think that playing the lottery is gambling, and I don't find that attractive. But I also think I'm overthinking, as usual.

I Win

I don't tend to win very much. Not at games, not at races, not at raffles. My luck ran dry after that time in fifth grade when I accurately guessed the number of M&Ms in the jar at my class Christmas party, and I haven't won much since. I'm okay with that, usually. It's almost as fun to see other people win, and then I don't even have to worry about winner's guilt or trying to figure out how to gloat gracefully.

But lately I've been feeling like a loser, and like the last person picked for the soccer team. Instead of making a loser list, I'm going to make a winner list. This is another one of those self-indulgent, somewhat narcissistic posts, where I assume everyone who reads me is as interested in me as I am.

Here is what I won:

I won a get pale in the summer contest I declared against myself after the fact. I didn't think it was possible for someone to get paler than I already was, but I was wrong. I think there is no longer a shade of makeup pale enough for me ... and I ought to know after the effort it took to find the previous color.

I won at going out on another first date. He might think I'm totally weird now and will probably never talk to me again, but at least we went out once. And I had fun even if he didn't.

I won at not passing out on Monday evening when I got suddenly light-headed, dizzy, and nauseated. Never mind that I never should have got sick in the first place and that after I narrowly avoided passing out, I lay on the floor trembling for a good half hour, called my mom even though she's terribly stressed and there was nothing she could do for me anyway, and then had my friend come over because I couldn't even walk to the kitchen for my own drink of water.

I won at finishing the book for my book club in just 2 days. I should have been drinking lots of water and sleeping, but I finished the book instead. If reading were an Olympic sport, I would win.

And...

I won today because I started it so early! Everyone says it's best to have an early start. I was so ahead of today that I woke up for it yesterday. I didn't go to sleep last night, but what does that matter when you can be early enough to work that only one other person is there and most of the lights are still out?

Please excuse me if it isn't funny. This is a desperate attempt to be lighthearted in the face of a brutal couple of weeks.

More Books!

I just wrote a very intense post, but I'm saving it for later because it needs editing. So, I'm doing another book review. Earlier this week I finished reading the latest of Connie Willis' time travel books. And, for those of you who are worried about spoilers, I'm pretty sure I've left them all out.

Titles (it was a two-part book): Blackout, All Clear

The setting: Oxford, England. Year 2060. Mr. Dunworthy's history department is in chaos. Too many historians are going through the net to too many critical times and places, and everyone's having trouble keeping calm. Wardrobe, research, scheduling, and operations are all flying by the seat of their pants. And a Japanese historian has come up with a set of equations that might prove that time travel is destabilizing everything ... dun dun dunnnnnn.

Main Characters:

Polly Churchill, a World War II specialist whose enthusiasm takes her to London, to work as a shopgirl during the Blitz.

Merope/Eileen, another WWII historian whose first assignment lands her in the country residence of Backbury, serving as a housemaid whose employer is taking in about a dozen evacuated children from London's East End (the dodgy part).

Michael Davies/Mike Davis, traveling to Dover to research unsung heroes and covering as an American reporter.

Colin Templer, who first showed up in Doomsday Book as an incorrigible twelve-year-old with a mania for the Crusades, is now seventeen and desperately in love with Polly—desperate enough to try to convince her that he can use time travel to catch up to her in age, if only she will wait for him.

There are lots of other characters, but I won't mention them because the list would get too long and it would mean major spoilage.

Connie Willis writes like no one else. Other readers have complained that her books could benefit from tighter editing, but oddly enough, I disagree. I feel that just about everything in these books belonged. The suspense got really bad a few times, and because I was reading the second one on Clive, I couldn't skip ahead without losing my place. Aargh.

There were several points where I felt like things dragged, but it was a bit like the forest part in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It just had to be there.

The most beautifully-developed theme of the story didn't become clear until the last page, even though the lead-up was all there. And then it sort of hit me in the head and left me feeling a bit desperate. Like I did when I finished the last book in the Bean series. Like I did when I finished Doomsday Book.

It's funny, because I felt like religious tone of Doomsday Book was intentionally ambiguous, as well as very satirical. It was powerful, but it left me a bit worried about the author and the characters. To Say Nothing of the Dog had no religious message whatsoever. Blackout/All Clear was different. The message was cleaner, and very sweet.

I suppose if I were to find a flaw in the writing, it's that none of the characters have any background. They all take place explicitly in the present (past?), and while they're developed well enough for action heroes, they don't have much depth beyond being intelligent, resourceful, creative, good-hearted people. This has to be a deliberate decision on the part of the author, and it does make sense. Why worry about a character's personal past when the story is about traveling back in time to do research on the past of the entire human race? They have to retain a certain Everyman quality for it to work, I guess, but I do think the characters would be more enjoyable if they had more individuality. In spite of Eileen's fascination with Agatha Christie and the fun nicknames some of the characters came up with for Polly and Mike, the only one who had a personal past was Colin, and that mostly because he was in a previous book.

Additionally, it's obvious that the main characters are just there to be juxtaposed against the "contemps". These books are more historical fiction than they are science fiction. I'm not a particular fan of either one of them as genres, but they work really well together.

Mama's Girl

A friend asked me one time if I'd ever been in love with a man who wasn't fictional. I think I might have mentioned this on a blog post before. Well, actually, I've never been in love with one who was. But if I were, it would be the Virginian.

Read it. But if you don't read it, at least watch High Noon. It's sort of the same. Sort of. Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly could have been the leads, at any rate. I'm sad that the movie versions of The Virginian all look so awful, particularly the most recent one from 2000. Bill Pullman would not be on my list of choices to play a mellow-voiced, tall drink of water, manly-man cowboy, and I read the synopses for three different versions. They all scramble the story around until it's unrecognizable.

But the real story was therapy for a wounded soul after having read a terrible, terrible book club pick.

What does it say about me that the Virginian trumps Captain America, if only slightly, as an archetype? I am proud to announce it means that I'm a lot more like my Mama than I ever thought. I may have certain derogatory opinions about John Wayne's acting ability, and I may never be able to sit through an episode of Gun Smoke without my eyes and ears bleeding, but I actually do love Westerns. The good ones. Peace Like a River? Loved it so much I bought like 6 copies just to give away to people and share the love. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Silverado? I challenge you to a quote war. I even liked the remake of True Grit (minus that one part ... you know what I'm talking about). Add The Virginian to my list.

On Teaching

People keep asking me why I ended my teaching career, and it's a difficult question to answer. Most of the time I feel I have to justify it, because obviously the only reason someone would quit teaching is if he/she were no longer altruistic enough to put up with the unpleasantness of the profession for the good of the children. As if the fact that I quit means that I no longer care about the future of America's kids or something. I will explain in allegory, in order to avoid the negativity attached to specifics.

One day I was walking down an interstate. There were lots of people, and I was pretty confused. I saw a bridge with some of the railing broken off, and below it was a very large lake, in which a multitude of kids were noisily splashing around. It looked kind of like swimming lessons, so I jumped in.

But pretty quickly I realized that the splashing around wasn't playing or swimming. Off to the side there was someone working with a group of them on synchronized swimming and water aerobics, but most of the kids were drowning, having been crammed into a bus driven by a drunk driver that sent it flying off the bridge and crashing into the water before I got there. My first instinct was to drag all the kids out of the water so they wouldn't drown.

Some people yelled at me to teach them to swim, but I looked down and saw that someone had tied my hands behind my back. The best I could do was bob around, gasping for air when I surfaced, and hold my breath when I was under the water line. Most of the kids were in a similar situation. Some of them knew how to swim, so they were okay, but there were a lot of them stuck in water too deep for their heads to surface.

I asked the people standing on the edge of the water—they must have been lifeguards—if they could help, or at least untie my hands. They told me all I had to do was teach the kids how to breathe underwater and everything would be fine.

Yeah. That's what it felt like.

In spite of the media claim that teachers are leaving the profession in droves, I haven't seen much of that. The only other former teachers I know are the ones who got advanced degrees and went into academia--and they are still teachers dealing with offshoots of the same issues.

Maybe it's true that all those "veteran" teachers are more altruistic than I am. Maybe they really do care more about the kids of America's future. Maybe I just wasn't strong enough to persevere in a good cause. Maybe I have a martyr complex and felt more responsibility than I should have. I am idealistic, but I'm not an idealogue, and I don't find fulfillment in devoting myself to causes in which I am given accountability disproportionate to my authority. It was four years I will never get back, and while I don't regret it, I can't do it again. I'm glad I did it because I learned so much, and I really hope that I was a positive influence on my kids as well. I sure did try to be. I'm even more glad that I was blessed to be able to change careers, and that I can go to work and live my life without that crushing, demoralizing anxiety and guilt I used to feel every day.

Kazuo Ishiguro

It seems Ishiguro's most famous book is Remains of the Day, mostly because Merchant Ivory made a movie out of it—starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. You can't go wrong with those two. And actually, the cast was a lovely list of the finest actors and actresses England has. It was a good enough film that I wanted to read the book, which I did, several years ago. It was a brilliant portrayal of a stuffy English butler. English? I thought this author was Japanese. Well, he is. He seems to have this thing for World War II England, though.

I just finished reading When We Were Orphans. It was a trip. I really do enjoy the whole unreliable narrator thing, especially when said narrator isn't too far off base. I've experienced the Roger Ackroyd effect, as well as The Sound and the Fury, and it's unsettling to be put inside the mind of murderers and the mentally handicapped. I think it just might be more unsettling to be put inside the mind of someone who is sometimes insane and sometimes not; someone who is so haunted by his past that he mixes things up to the point that you really think he's dangerous.

The narrative centers around the investigation Christopher Banks, a young English gentleman, is putting together to find his parents, who mysteriously disappeared when they all lived in Shanghai, when he was nine or ten years old. When it became clear that his parents were not coming back, officials sent Christopher to England, but he grew up believing that if he could become a brilliant enough detective, he could figure out what happened and save his parents from captivity, and at the same time fix the mess China was in at the time (the fight between Chiang Kai-shek and the communists, and the invasion from Japan). At the same time, he mixes up his memories of the events surrounding his parents' disappearance with some confusing things going on with his best friend. His half-hearted love affair with a London friend, Sarah Cummings, and his adoption of an orphan named Jennifer deepen the theme of the lost, confused child who can never manage to pick up the pieces of the past.

The most striking thing about the story is the obvious portrayal of the incompleteness of a child's comprehension. Our perceptions of the world are shaped during childhood, and misconceptions become hard-wired. I find myself remembering very small things that happened when I was little, that have had a deep and lasting impact on my life. It only makes sense that something as big as having one's parents disappear, and subsequently being sent to a boarding school on the other side of the world, could be unsettling enough to send one very near the edge of insanity, where all it takes is a little trip into a war zone to tip the scales.

It wasn't as depressing as I make it sound. There is some resolution, though not the sort to make for a happy ending. And I would never, ever attempt to make it into a movie. Certain scenes would be too gruesome. The book is finely written, and I would recommend it (not for everyone, of course) but I will never read it again.

I Am Legend

For some really strange reason, when they started advertising the movie, I was all about it. I watched all the trailers, I talked to my students about it, and I tried to find friends to go see it with me. No one wanted to.

What's not to like about a zombie apocalypse movie starring Will Smith, a German Shepherd, and lots of badly-designed CG monsters? Not to mention all those weird mannequins.

When I was a child, I happened across the old version of the story, which was called The Last Man on Earth and starred Vincent Price. Of course. It scared my socks off—but not any more than the Will Smith version scared me when I finally did watch the dvd with the siblings, several months after all the hype was gone. I was lying on the floor in the dark, trembling. Gingey can call me a pansy all she likes, but that doesn't change much, I guess.

I think it's because, almost like my annual cravings for hot dogs, sometimes I have an uncharacteristic desire to be frightened, but only in a way of my own choosing. There's a big difference between the tension you feel when Will Smith is driving around singing Bob Marley to his dog and the tension you feel when Vincent Price is wandering around plunging stakes into the undead.

And what brought all this on? The book. I went to a friend's house last weekend and we spent the better part of the day watching episodes of The Twilight Zone. He was convinced that I would love it, and he wasn't far wrong. In one of the stories, a man passed a display rack of the 1950s version of the story—re-titled, apparently, to the Vincent version. Before I judge, I should probably make sure that wasn't the original title, but it appears to me that the original title is actually I Am Legend. After all, it is the last line of the book.

I got ahold of the book last night and decided to read it. For variety. Too many princess books is bad for the intellect, and everything else on my immediate reading list is massively long. That, and I'm sort of on a sci-fi kick right now. We read A Wrinkle in Time for my book club, and I recently watched In Time (an okay movie if you can get past Amanda Seyfried's fringe ... well, actually, I liked it a lot. Not in a "that's such a mind-blowing concept and a great movie!" way, but an "it was mildly interesting and even a little bit sweet, and I guess Justin Timberlake isn't so bad" way).

The book, though, was rather a surprise. It wasn't anything like the Will Smith version, which makes Robert Neville much more noble and ends much more happily. Must be the difference between 1950s and turn-of-the-century media. We tend to like happy endings more these days. Aside from the depressing ending, however, it was a really great book. It's hard to describe the style, but it was somewhat like these more modern writers such as Cormac McCarthy and Norman Maclean. A lot of it reminded me of The Road. The movement by movement detail created a beautiful tension, rather than boredom. It referenced Shakespeare, great Classical music, and other great stuff. I especially liked the parts where he made fun of Dracula (a really dumb book).

I could quote a lot of impressive passages, but I will leave with one of my favorites: "Was there a logical answer, something he could accept without slipping on banana skins of mysticism?"

A Short List of Awesome Things

1. When Adobe suddenly decides, for no specific reason, that your document needs to be in Cyrillic instead of English

2. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes

3. The hot cocoa dispenser at work

4. Attending my third meeting of a book club, several members of which actually seem to have read more books than I have

5. We're going to Boston ... and so is Heather!

6. Being outside at night means almost always seeing frogs, rabbits, and deer

7. Admitting to myself that 5 am is not a sustainable start time for the day

8. Never feeling professionally obligated to read another paranormal romance, ever again

9. Blisters turned into calluses

10. My three-minute commute

If I wore bright red lipstick like Peggy Carter, maybe I could date Captain America.

I went to see The Avengers this evening with some friends. Movie ticket prices are outrageous, but I'd still say it was $10 well spent.

Oh, and on a side note, I fell in love with Captain America on Monday night while making a pie. I have got to get me one of those. The 'ceps are nice, but I turned all mushy when Tommy Lee Jones threw the grenade and Steve ran, curled around it, and shouted at everyone to run away. It seems to me I always get a crush on the little guy--because he's always the bravest and the smartest. But then to take him and turn him into a Buffster without losing the brave and the smart. Wow. Do they make 'em like they used to?

I don't usually care for super hero movies. I only saw Captain America because a friend told me I should see it before seeing The Avengers. And I only wanted to see The Avengers because Joss Whedon was in charge. Well, I must confess that the hype had something to do with it as well. I don't conscientiously avoid trendy stuff, but I do make sure it's trendy because it's good and not just because people are lemmings.

Everything about The Avengers was good, except maybe the last line. It was so bad it might have spoiled an otherwise good film, but this film was, fortunately, enough to fight it ... and the extras in the credits helped. Well, there were a few other things that made it less than perfect, such as a few unexplained holes in the plot. But one expects that and doesn't mind when everything else is so well executed.

Just as I had decided that every movie has to sacrifice something major, that it can't be a balance of good in all its elements, I am proven wrong. It actually is possible to have a good cast of characters who work as individuals and as a team, with a good story (and an excellent script, not always the same thing); expensive, showy special effects; and beautiful set design and camerawork.

On that note, I will end, because I don't like spouting spoilers, and I've run out of intelligent things to say. Thus, I will end with a quote.

"You're walking on tiptoes, big man. You need to strut."

Room mates

I like to think I'm equal opportunity when it comes to who I let live with me. I don't discriminate based on species.

So I watched a spider roam around my kitchen during General Conference a little over a week ago, and while I kicked the caterpillar out of the dining room, I left him outside the patio and wished him well. Beetles are left to bumble undeterred. But.

Roaches are not welcome. They are specifically excluded from the equal opportunity policy. Period. It must have thought it could get away with loitering in my lavender and tea-tree oil-scented home, but it thought wrong. The solution to the game: Me, in the bathroom, with the library book. I disposed of the remains rather messily, so I'm sure if someone comes to investigate they will find evidence in the form of roach guts but hopefully not smeared on the walls after I took a disinfectant wipe to them.

I had this awesome room mate one time. She asked me the day after I moved in if I liked to kill bugs. I believe the answer is now a decided no.

My Plant

I have this horrible fear of killing plants. Perhaps it's because I've never managed to keep one alive ... until now.

Almost 2 months, and my basil plant is alive and well. This is a record worthy of public rejoicing (yay!). Look how pretty it is there, sitting next to the artificial tulips.

Maybe now I can get another plant to keep it company. I don't know. I might worry about them getting along while I'm away at work. Basil might be a bit fiesty, or even territorial.

Welcub to Dorth Carolida

It's snowing! Oh, wait. Snow isn't yellow. Um ... (epic sneezing session ensues).

Check it out.



Okay, so the pollen man is a bit of an exaggeration, but not the rest of it. This morning, we woke up to what looked like a fog—but it wasn't moisture, it was pollen. I took a few photos of my car, but they don't capture the craziness anywhere close to the comic strip. Every outdoor surface now has a protective layer of yellow film.

Also, I wish I knew how to safely take good pictures of scenic views while driving—because my route to the temple is a slice of heaven. Trees, meadows, log cabins, a vineyard, family farms, plant nurseries, a gorgeous lake, and a few picturesque ponds. It sure beats 635 during rush hour. The temple itself is rather nice as well.

I love it.

:D

Some days I'm so overjoyed by the privilege of being alive, it's unreal. I took a walk on a nature preserve near my apartment and I shopped for curtains. Nothing special about that, except that I'm alive.

Do you ever think about how you felt in the pre-existence about what your life would be like once you were born? There's the scripture that talks about all the sons of God shouting for joy, and I wonder how that joy compared to the kind of joy you can feel on a good day on earth—especially when it's a day that's good just because it's good and not because anything amazing had to happen.

I Love Food and Food Loves Me

Eat clean. Do it because it tastes so very good. I mean, it's nice to go to the grocery store and be told by the person behind you in line that you eat really healthy. Then it's not so nice to get your bill, because fresh is always more expensive than packaged, even when you don't buy meat because you only eat it on special occasions. But then you get home and have these kinds of meals:

Cauliflower soup
Rutabaga and potatoes sautéed in olive oil and garam masala (I made that one up myself)
Cucumbers in lime juice
Red peppers dipped in edamame hummus
Spaghetti squash with tomato-barley sauce
Green salad with four kinds of lettuce, shredded cabbage, and cilantro
Butternut squash soup, in vegetable stock

And finally, do it because it feels classy to eat a meal of vegetables whilst sitting in a clean apartment decorated with glass vases full of purple flowers.

That's what I do. I don't have a social life, but I sure have a culinary life.

On Moving

Because I know there are so many readers out there who are avidly awaiting an account of my move, I will give one.

I drove 19 hours to my new home, passing through 7 states and stopping 4 times (three times to refuel the vehicle, once to sleep).

The southern states are quite picturesque, so I will give a somewhat detailed account of each one:

1. East Texas. What’s not to love? There’s a great Texas icon on the East side of Dallas. I, however, had seen it all before, so the most exciting part was how quickly I got to Louisiana.

2. Louisiana is much prettier than I expected, based on the view from I-20. Most of it was dead trees (it was January) and fields, with the occasional boggy swamp. Some of the cities didn’t smell too nice, but we won’t hold that against them. I stopped in Shreveport, and the girl at the cash wrap called me honey.

3. Mississippi was more of the same.

4. I was advised that when I got to Alabama I should just keep on driving without a stop, however, I ran out of gas and was really, really hungry. The drivers were friendly, but the people at the filling station weren’t. They ignored me at the sandwich shop, which was just as well, because I’m not crazy about food obtained from filling stations. I’m sure it’s sanitary, but it doesn’t seem like it could be.

5. It took so long to actually get to Georgia that I began to wonder if I had missed the “Welcome to Georgia” sign. I was feeling pretty good, to the point that I almost decided not to stop in Atlanta for the night according to my plan. But I hit a wall as soon as I passed through. The drivers all seemed really rude, and the bright lights of downtown started to blur together. So I did the intelligent thing and found a hotel. I am beginning to wonder if it is common in the South to have a limit on how hot the shower water can get, because in Georgia, as well as here in NC, it’s plenty warm, but not warm enough to turn my skin red the way I like it. Scalding hot showers are the only reason I survive winter anywhere. Anyway, after about 4 hours of sleep, shower, and a free hotel breakfast, I got back on the road bright and early.

6. South Carolina was the prettiest to look at, from the 20 anyway. So many rivers. I never realized it before, but I love being able to drive over a river. People back in the day didn’t have that privilege, so I have decided not to curb my enthusiastic enjoyment of it.

7. Then I got to North Carolina, and everything since then has just been a big blur.


Here are a few fun (or commonplace) facts:

If you tell people in North Carolina that you just moved from Texas, they want you to A) decide on the spot whether you’re for Duke or UNC, or B) display your outrageous Texas pride by procuring a flag or a twangy accent. Sometimes both.

Air mattresses are cold.

Trees are everywhere!

Trader Joe’s is a great place, especially if you don’t have any cookware or utensils. Eating baked potatoes with your hands after cutting them up with scissors is pretty cool once, but not for a whole week. I recommend the butternut squash soup, although the stuff I make myself is much better and doesn’t have sugar in it.

Don’t move Back East without a GPS or a handheld device with a google map. Even with one of said devices, you will probably get lost.

You can’t always trust the Meetinghouse Locator on the Church website. I went to the wrong ward on Sunday. But then I went to the right ward, and we have a Singing Sunday School class and a seriously cool bishop (he invited me to have dinner with his family and the missionaries, and afterwards, we all played their 8-year-old daughter’s Roboticized Uno game).

You can seriously buy a huge bag of collard greens cut up and ready to go, just like spinach back home, but I won’t … partake.

When the photographer took my photo for my work ID badge, it actually came out rather nice. How often does that happen? We'll see how the driver's license photo does ...