A Little Side Trip

In what world does it make sense that they ship a book from Arizona to Ohio in order to send it to me in Utah? It is about 3,600 miles from Phoenix to Ohio to my house. It is about 600 miles from Phoenix to my house. Is this my book's last big hurrah before it settles into a sedentary existence with me? I feel like calling them and yelling, "I'm an exciting person! I've been to Europe, New Zealand, AND Jamaica! There is NOTHING in Wilmington, Ohio that is as exciting as that!"

Cross Dressing

Have you ever heard the song "Leather and Lace" by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley? I used to get it stuck in my head every so often. I bought it on iTunes a couple of days ago, and now it's stuck in my head with disturbing permanence. It's a very sweet song in its way, but I'm a little annoyed with it. Not just because it's stuck in my head, but because I only know a few lines from it, so I have to repeat those instead of going through the whole song. Since I've listened to it about 40 times I should know more of it, but Stevie has one of those voices which, in addition to being an acquired taste, is not the clearest.

I like it because I think it illustrates an important facet of marriage. I particularly like the lines that talk about differences: "My city, your mountain," and "give to me your leather, take from me my lace." The longer I'm married to Regis, the more I realize that we are very different. Marriage brings a lot of changes, and sometimes it's hard to remember that part of why you fell in love with that baffling person across the table is that he is not you.

This is our favorite Abby expression. Any guesses as to what we're doing to make her pull that face?

Crawling!

Okay, this movie is from a month ago, and she's MUCH faster now. But this is a cute video of my cute baby crawling.

Peas Please!

Abby prefers peas to animal crackers. I'm no longer convinced that we're related.

I have yet to sound her out on bacon, though. That may change my mind.

Bee Yourself

So, I just wrote a post that said this: "I'm a closet drama queen. I re-realized this today, when I was considering writing very bad words on my livingroom walls in black Sharpie." But then I thought that I probably shouldn't post that, since people might wonder why I'd consider doing it and get worried about me.

Don't worry about me too much. My visiting teachers came by this morning, and pointed out that now that I know them by sight, I can get their help if I ever need anything.

I'm so relieved.

Prism! Where is that ending?

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means." --Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

I love to read. When I go to the library and check out books, the librarians give me a speculative look and say, "You know these are all due in three weeks, right?" If all I had to worry about was reading through all those pages within three weeks, there would be no problem. The problem is that it's hard to find books that interest me. It's even harder to find books that interest me and make me like them.

I'm not one for intellectual snobbery. I don't read books to broaden my mind or educate myself. I like mystery novels, with suspense and intrigue and a romance thrown in somewhere. I love reading P.G. Wodehouse's books, with their jolly British wit and silly situations. I like reading Robert Asprin's fantasy "Myth" series. I throw the occasional chick flick book into my library bag.

I've tried including "smart" books in my hoard. My latest attempt was F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. I couldn't bring myself to even read the first page, since I could tell from reading the blurb on the back that it wasn't going to end well. Some of my favorite short stories are by Fitzgerald, but I have to flip through my copy of Jazz Age Stories to find them, passing over the profound but sad ones. I don't handle unhappy endings well. If boy meets girl and they fall in love, boy and girl better darn end up together once the dust settles.

In a high school English class, I always bummed a book off my teacher for our 15 minutes of silent reading. He was really into a series by some famous fantasy author, so I started reading the first installment. I think the author actually died a few years ago before finishing the final book, but his thousands of fans were overjoyed that he left instructions with his son to finish it. I really don't care whether there is a last book or not, because the first book was the last of his that I'll read. It was the most depressing story I've ever read. There's a bad guy and bunch of good guys, and the bad guy just keeps killing them off or enslaving them and stealing their powers, which makes him more powerful so he enslaves more good guys. I kept going to the end, thinking, "Man, whatever the good guys come up with to finally beat him has got to be awesome, because I don't see how they'll do it!" And you know what? They don't. The bad guy wins. Now, I realize that there are about 346 more books in the series, but just that first book was probably 500 pages long. Why on earth would I want to waste my time reading more of that kind of thing?

Obviously, not everything in life turns out ok. Sometimes, the guy and the girl don't end up together, or they do but don't stay together. Sometimes disaster is not averted, and the bad guys don't get punished. Sometimes the narrator dies in the middle of his or her story. But that's why Miss Prism and I are hanging out in the fiction section--we're holding out for the happy ever after.

What is that sound?

I love my landlords. This is mostly due to the fact that they are my parents, but let's not let that diminish the fact that they're great as landlord and -lady. Last Thursday, my landlord took me down to the appliance store and bought us a brand-new dishwasher. I don't know that I can adequately communicate the joy we feel at not having to wash our dishes before we put them in the dishwasher (which we had to do with our lousy old one). As if that were not enough, this dishwasher has enough settings to turn an astronaut's head. It tough scrubs, sanitizes, auto-cleans, heated dries, deep cleans the oven, changes Abby's diaper, gives head massages and I don't know what all. And if THAT is not enough to impress you, get this: I have to go look at the thing to make sure it's on. This is the quietest dishwasher since the invention of water. When we first installed it and turned it on to make sure it was connected, Regis, my landlord and I all looked at each other and gave a collective "Ooooo! That's quiet!" Then, the instructions instructed us to install a further piece at the bottom that made it even quieter. "Ahhhhhhh! So quiet!" Then, we were directed to install one further piece. And we were stunned. We were as silent as the dishwasher.

Seriously. It's beautiful.

Dad and Regis also installed a new in-sink garbage disposal. It's clean and shiny, despite the fact that we throw junk down it for it to grind up. Dad also fixed our closet door, which has been broken, I think, ever since my brother and his wife lived here over 3 years ago. So, apart from the fact that I've been commanded to, I have plenty of reasons to love my parents.

Pondering

I had a visit from the Relief Society presidency of our new ward a couple of days ago. We had a nice little chat, and afterwards the president asked if I was prepared to be a visiting teacher. I have to wonder . . . what would happen if I'd told her no?

Sneak sneak, giggle giggle

Soft and Squishy

Hooray! I finished a pillow. And I think it's quite lovely. We actually threw away the old pillows that went with our couch, because they were pretty nasty. The couch used to be Regis's grandma's, and it saw a good amount of service, which is why it's got a slipcover. We decided the pillows were too gross to just cover up, though, so I chopped up an old pillow and here's the finished product!

Foiled.

My sister is the muse of domesticity. Having spent many years in her company, I have developed certain of the domestic arts: I cook, I knit, I sew, I quilt*. I made an egregious mistake a couple years ago. My mother asked if I thought I would need a sewing machine, because she'd found a great deal and was buying one for herself and for Amber. I said no, I didn't think I had a place to put it. This was a stupid move of epic proportions. Those machines are awesome. Instead, now that I have need of a sewing machine, I have inherited Mom's old machine, which, as I recall, stutters and shivers when it is used. I have to reach back in my memory, because although I possess the machine, I do not possess its power cord, and therefore cannot ascertain whether it still shivers, or even if it still works. This is depressing, because a few weeks ago I paid an enormous sum for some gorgeous fabric, thread, and fluff in order to create drapes and a quilt for Abby's room, and pillow covers for our couch. All that good stuff is now sitting on various pieces of furniture, being clutter instead of couture. So now I must wait for the cord to arrive in the mail, and then I must plead for the muse's indulgence so that I can finish my crafts.

*This reminds me of Spanish classes. Cocino, cocinas, cocinamos . . . :)

The Frumious Bandersnatch

Well, this is a little embarrassing. Not long after I wrote the previous post, I opened up the Word file with my story in it, just to look it over. To say goodbye, maybe. I should have been on my guard, but thinking of it as I did, as a terminally weakened and feeble creature, I blithely clicked on the file. It pounced. With all the indignation of a jilted prom date, it gnashed its teeth on my feeble excuses. Declaring its place as a legitimate child of my brain, it insisted that if I couldn't place it in its proper seat in the pantheon, I at least had the obligation to shape it with enough strength and suppleness to allow it to claw its way up as best it could.

I babbled agreement and retreated, shaken, leaving it to prowl filepaths and snarl at the occasional typo. Every time I opened my laptop, it would slink in the background and make sly, suggestive gestures. Whenever I gave in to temptation and tentatively typed a snatch of dialogue or a dribble of description, I felt better knowing that I hadn't yet consigned my story to the limbo of unfinished tales. It's coming together better than before. Maybe all I needed was a break.

A Deferential Dream

I love playing with words. I used to think I should major in English, but then I had to read and evaluate The Scarlet Letter for a high school English class. I'll bet that book has turned off more English majors than anything else. It's not that I hated the book. It wasn't my favorite, but the thing I hate hate HATED was having to analyze the so-called symbolism. I don't hate symbolism. I DO hate being forced to extract it from a place where I don't think it exists. What does the door symbolize? Well, heck, I'd guess it symbolizes a door. And the rose? Well, I think by that the author intended to make us think of a rose. Maybe I'm just a shallow reader.

My revulsion for English classes only intensified when I took AP English my junior year. I hated reading "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield, and I've refused to read anything she's written ever since, even though I like short stories and New Zealand.

I took a creative writing class at BYU near the end of my college education. My teacher seemed to really like my writing. She left comments like "You're a great writer--don't stop!" on my papers, and I did very well on all the assignments. That's why I was so surprised when my grade showed up as a C-. Turns out I'd misunderstood her instructions on ONE assignment at the end of the semester. She was going to bump it up to an A-, but decided all she could do for me was a B+.

So when I think of "A Dream Deferred," I think about being an author. I think I've wanted to be a famous author all my life. I love to read, and I read fast. I can't even begin to estimate how many books I've read in my lifetime. I remember what I read fairly well, but I love to go back and read books again, even when I remember the ending (which Regis can't understand at all). I constantly make up stories in my head, too, and like to imagine "What would happen if I said X right now, or did Y?" I would like to think that I would make a good writer.

I started writing a book at the beginning of this year. I loved it. It felt great. I had a wonderful time envisioning the denouement, creating characters, inserting jokes and playful conversations. I think I told every member of my family that I was writing a book.

I'm not writing it any more. I had fun writing the fun parts, and slowed down when I realized I'd have to trudge through filling in all the details. Regis got tired of having ideas bounced off him and analyzing potential scenes. I let my sister read what I'd written so far, and felt disheartened by her criticisms and intimidated by her questions. I don't think I'm cut out to be a writer--I need to have somebody care about what I'm doing before it's done, and that, I think, is even harder with a story than with any other project. Stories are to a large extent superfluous. I believe mine will die a fairly natural death. You could say I'm neglecting it, but since it hasn't even the dignity of humanity, I don't think I can be held responsible for its passing if it doesn't have enough ambition to be self-sufficient.

A Dream Deferred

By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

We're Back!

Boo-hoo, we're back from Jamaica. (This was originally "Hooray! We're back from Jamaica" but I rethought that one reeeeeeal quick.) What? You didn't know we went?

We had a funtastical time, meeting up with my sister Brook and her husband Jake and staying at a snazzy all-inclusive resort. There was a nice beach, swimming pools, water slide, restaurants, free drinks (we stuck to the virgin daiquiris, although Regis was suspicious when I got pretty giddy one afternoon), and other good stuff. It was lovely to stay in such a lush, warm, sunny place. It was not so lovely to come back to snow.

Abby was very well-behaved throughout, even during the flights. She was a scandalous flirt at the resort, and bestowed come-hither glances liberally. I'm frequently amazed at how bold strangers are about touching other peoples' children, but she sure asked for it that week. I'm sorry that she won't remember how much fun we had, but we did take a lot of pictures. And Regis and I enjoyed the heck out of it, which is why we went anyway. Our favorite parts were probably climbing a waterfall and eating yummy food. It was always funny after the meal when we'd all sit there and wait for the check until someone remembered that we wouldn't get one--all-inclusive, guys!

My least favorite part (besides coming home) was probably when Brook dragged me into the gym and proceeded to beat my muscles to a jiggly pulp. :) Okay, that wasn't so bad. The smokers were worse.

Thanks a whole lot, Brook and Jake, for a fun vacation!

(Pictures to be added later)

*&#^%$ it!

Things that make me want to swear:

Bad drivers
Trying to get Abby's car seat out of the car
Realizing that I have to "unstitch" nearly a whole row of my knitting
Having to get out of bed on freezing cold Utah mornings

But I only swear inside my head. That makes it better, right?

Where does the time go?

Abby will be seven months old tomorrow. Has it really been that long?

I keep looking at her and thinking how big she's gotten. Her head is bigger, her hair is much fuller, her legs are so much longer . . . and her feet are still tiny. Ha! It's awfully cute, but kind of disappointing, since I bought a bunch of really cheap, cutesy wutesy baby shoes that I was excited to put on her. She has yet to fit into the smallest pair. Heck, I can probably send these shoes to college with her.

In a lot of ways, I love that she is so much like her dad. She sleeps beautifully. She's very "chill" generally; really willing to try new things. She has yet to exhibit any stranger anxiety. On the other hand, it makes me a little sad that I can't see much of me in her yet. She even looks like Regis. She's got his skin tone, his eyelashes. Regis has tried to convince me that she must have my body type by claiming that he was a real fatty when he was a baby, but I've seen the pictures and I don't believe him.

At least she's got my style.

Now what?

Regis is graduating in April. We're very excited.

We're also scared. What the heck do we do now? He likes his job well enough, and it has a lot of great potential, but he doesn't know if he wants to stay there. He's applied to a lot of places, but nothing has panned out. I'm not sure what that means.

Part of the reason for being scared is that there are too many options. The company Regis works for is all over the place, so technically we could move anywhere. So where do we go? I've said for so long that I don't want to live in Utah that I'm not sure I really mean it any more. As Mom says, anywhere is livable unless it's Mojave or Barstow. :) But I'm not sure I can handle year after year of Utah winters. Every time it starts to turn truly cold, I slink back into myself and howl.

But if we don't stay here, where do we go? My sisters have each recommended that we come live near them, one in L.A. and one near Houston. I love living near family, and it would certainly mean more visits from Abby's doting grandparents, plus babysitting exchanges. But I have no idea whether we'd like it in those places or not. I think that's part of what scares me: I've only made one significant move in my life, from hometown to college town. Obviously SOME people enjoy living in other places, or they wouldn't be populated, but then some people apparently enjoy living in Utah.

Toothy

Abby has got to be the best baby ever. She has two little teeth now, and despite all the dire warnings about teething troubles, it was really not bad. She did wake up a few times during the night, but I thought it was because it's so dry here. MY nose and throat are painfully dry when I wake up, so I figured maybe hers were too. Sneaky baby, or clueless mommy? Well, it pretty much amounts to the same thing. I'm in pretty sad shape if I can be outfoxed by a six-month-old.

I found out a few days ago that my grandpa is probably dying. It feels strange. He is the only great-grandpa Abby has still living, and hearing that he is not doing well made me wonder what Abby will feel when she eventually learns that her grandpa is not well. I wonder a lot about whether she will feel the same things I have felt growing up. I hope she will escape some of them.