in the year twentytwelve

This is my 795th post. Since I started this blog in 2004 I have graduated three times. I have moved five times. Two siblings got married, two nieces and one nephew were born, and both brothers went on missions. I went to London twice. Lived in Provo, Bountiful, Chicago, and Evanston. Worked ten different jobs. Had fifteen roommates. (All numbers subject to my English-major inability to count.) We won't even begin to consider how many movies I've seen, how many books I've read, how many papers I've written, or how many times I've put my song-of-the-day on repeat to become white noise.

Maybe I should just be looking at the past year instead of the past seven. 2011, you were something else. Or you were just like every other year. I'm not sure yet. I think you have to put considerable distance between a time and yourself before you can start to understand what it meant. All that being said, I'm going to talk about now. 11:30 p.m., January 2, 2012.

I'm sitting in my new bedroom, which is in Provo. Good old awful Provo. For the first time in three years, I have a dresser. And for the first time in four years, I have roommates. (Real roommates. Not pay-the-rent roommates who live with their boyfriends.) I'm excited and terrified by the idea of living with people who are not family, who don't have to love me even when I'm me. I've spent the night figuring out what will make this room mine--a rug, a bedspread, a lamp. Rows of movies and a few strategically placed cake stands. A family photograph, a map of Chicago. So much of me, but I'm still not sure who is living in this room.

I want 2012 to be landmark year, but we always say that, don't we? We want this year to be the best year. But what will make it the best? That's what I can't answer just yet. I want to go to my Relief Society answers--which may or may not be what you think they are--but I don't think that's it. I don't think events are what make the year. Maybe it's people.

Here's the first landmark of the year--and maybe it came before the year officially started, but I don't care. Seth and I were sitting on the bed in "my" room at our family's home, trying to figure out his school schedule and online banking. Mom looked in on us as she passed by the door, and stopped, surprised at the sibling resemblance. All five of us have similar eyes, similar smiles--if you put us in a line up, we're definitely related--but I've never been told I look like Seth or that Seth looks like me. For whatever the reason, that was a connection I needed.

The next landmark, of course, was playing Mario Kart with Seth and Maryn. But that's a story for another time.

damn you, mr. darcy

Is it (the blog) too cute? It might be. But I kind of love it. And I think the cuteness will offset the occasional cursing rather nicely.

I wonder how many times I've written this post.

I have a love/hate relationship with Jane Austen and her men. Darcy, Bingley, Edward Ferrars, Colonel Brandon, Edmund, Mr. Knightley, Captain Wentworth, and, of course, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Colin Firth. These men are not real. I know this, you know this, and we love them anyway.

I just checked, and the last time Mr. Darcy was referenced on my blog it was 2006. I'm not sure what happened there. Am I regressing? Maybe.

That last post (five years ago?!) was about how I tend to like imaginary men over real men. I have a new theory as of late: I approach all men as if they were imaginary. And by "all men," I mean "available men" or "unattached men" or something like that. The men who I should be considering or hoping that they consider me, they're not real. They're. . . they're Mr. Darcy.

There is a part of me that is insanely frustrated that this seems to be the eternal conversation on this blog. Or in my life. I spent Friday night (a) swooning over HHS's production of Aida, directed by my genius friend,  and (b) apologizing to my (other genius) friend that I was talking about a boy. A boy who is a man who is not Mr. Darcy.

I wonder if all this is my real frustration. Because I have a long list of them right now. Maybe not that long. I'm tired of being alone, but the aforementioned genius friends have alleviated that to some degree. I kind of love my genius friends. I want more of them. I should just clone them, keep them in my linen closet.

So more genius friends. The other frustration is the (lack of) writing and sending writing out since I graduated. I know that there is an easy solution there, but I just haven't been able to produce anything I'm happy with since I left Chicago. I miss that more than Mr. Darcy. I want to write and I want people to read my writing and I want to be a writer. I'm not sure I can say I am one right now.

Oh, the self-doubt. I want to shake it off, go to work tomorrow without anything holding me back. I don't think that's going to happen. But at least I have a cute blog.

blogging and the beast

Hello world. I haven't blogged in over a month, but I've been thinking a lot about blogging.

I had a professor who would ask me why I blogged. S/he thought it would take my attention away from my academic and creative writing. I tried to explain that blogging was a different kind of writing, that it's a way of sorting through ideas, that it's fun. The prof didn't get it at first, but a few years ago, s/he started blogging.

I started blogging in 2004. Seven years ago this month. Go team. I started because Kristen started, and Kristen started because Jeremy started. Nothing like peer pressure. But really it was about a conversation. For a few years, I was part of two groups of writers who all blogged. It was another way for us to create our community. There weren't a lot of other types of blogs out there yet--the only blogs I knew were "writer" blogs.

Now I follow over a dozen blogs. There are still writer blogs, but there are also art blogs and home blogs and wedding blogs and the all-powerful mommy blogs. It's not the same activity. My own blog went from being part of this small, almost exclusive, community, to a travel blog when I was in London, to a way of letting my family and friends know that I was still alive in Chicago.

All this just leads me to this (overwhelming) question of what this blog is now. Do I stay here? Do I start a new blog? Do I blog at all? I've toyed over the years with starting separate blogs for my not-so-secret wedding/event obsession. More recently I thought about a writing blog modeled after an exercise we used at NU that was usually successful. Or even a blog to chronicle my thoughts on religion, scripture, etc.

I'm not the same editorgirl who started this blog seven years ago. This blog is a record of how I've become who I've become. And I love it for that. But I don't know if I belong here anymore.

this is in my head

"He looked like an angle mostly because the inside was so dark and it was sunny outside creating a shine behind him, like I would imagine an angle would look like coming out of heaven."

also

"The souls of my shoes started to melt." This student also "concurred a beast."

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Listening to Adele again. I know it's not healthy, but at least this time it's "Set Fire to the Rain," which is pretty much the best song I've listened to all day. It might be the only song I've listened to today.

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I was teaching today, with this exercise where students write questions down about the current assignment, but because I've usually already answered these questions ten times, I have the class answer as a "panel" of "experts." It's a good use of a class period, if only because it makes them realize that they know what they're doing--at least in theory. And it went well today. Very well, even. Until I completely lost it when a nice, unassuming student was answering a question. And by lost it, I mean that I laughed. Hysterically. Turned red. No reason, really. Just wild, lovely, manic laughter at the worst time possible.

At least I didn't swear at the kid.

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I've realized, once again, that I am a lonely person. The problem with being lonely is that you get bored, fast. I actually tried to watch "Extreme Couponing" today, but that might be what brought on the aforementioned hysterical laughter. So I need friends. Angles need not apply.

someone like you

I've been listening to Adele. On repeat. Mostly track 11. Which is this song.

This cannot be healthy. In addition to messing with my emotional well being, it's preventing me from coming up with a solid lesson plan for tomorrow.

We're starting the "Problematizing a Significant Event" paper, which is UVU speak for the personal essay. This is the paper I live to teach, where I can bring up every crazy bit of creative writer in me.

I'm a little worried that the creative writer in me has left the building.

I love teaching. Want to do it for the rest of my life. But I'm missing the other parts of my life. I'm missing the other people in my life. I forget to turn off the teacher, and find myself on autopilot two hours after classes are over. And don't even get me started on the days I don't teach.

I'm missing talking about poetry and literature and language. The things I love, the things I want to be teaching. I'm trying to decide if it's worth one more run at PhD programs. Listening to this song makes me think that maybe rejection isn't a bad thing. Maybe it's beautiful. Maybe it's an invitation to try again.

Maybe it's rejection.

it's a Utah

The view from my parents' front porch is ridiculous--and one of my favorite things in this world. It looks out over the Salt Lake Valley, which is always bright with lights. On either side are the mountains, and in the forefront are trees that break across the skyline. Tonight there was wind and I sat on the front porch steps, watching the trees bend in the wind, watching their silhouettes change the shape of the lights in front of me.

I wasn't meaning to write a metaphor, but it seems rather appropriate for what I've experienced in the six weeks I've been home. I've jokingly called it a Utah-induced coma--maybe not so jokingly. I love Utah. I love the view from the front porch. I love being home with my family, knowing where I am and who I am in relation to these people who love me even when I'm being me. I'm excited for Seth to come home and Lauren to come visit, and the world will feel complete. But then the wind will blow, and the shapes will change, and I'll need to decide what it is I'm looking at.

A few important things have happened in the past six weeks. I interviewed for (and was offered a job!) teaching English 1010 at Utah Valley University. I'll be there starting at 8 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I am not a morning person, but I am a teacher, and I'll do anything to teach.

The next thing came out of the blue--or maybe not so out of the blue as it seems. I've been told to throw as many darts as possible, in the hope that one or two might stick. After many many many rejections (I should probably throw one more many in there), I found out that I'm a finalist for the 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. Which is bigger than any other dart I could have thrown at this point in my career. I'll find out on Sept 1 if I'm one of five winners, but being a finalist is enough for tonight.

Don't laugh at the last thing, but I went on my first blind date. Maybe you should laugh. Maybe I should laugh. After an email from him, and an email from me that was designed to scare him, he suggested an evening I couldn't say no to. And I'm glad I didn't. It was a slow, comfortable date that led to another date, and maybe to another. Whatever it was, or is, it helped me get over some of my fears and anxiety about dating. At 28, it's about time.

Which reminds me of a short story, which will bring us full circle to my parents' front porch. A few weeks ago the doorbell rang. I was the only person around, so I slowly pulled myself away from the book I was reading and walked to the front door. I saw a little person looking in through the clouded glass. She backed away as I opened the door, and I saw two little girls, one nervously holding a note in her hands. She looked at me and asked if my husband was home. "My husband doesn't exist," I told her, "but my dad lives here. He's not home right now, but I can give him a message." She solemnly handed me the note and asked me to give it to my dad. I thanked her and started to close the door, but not before I saw her little sister lean over to her and ask, "Why doesn't her husband exist?"

path(s)

O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name. 2 Nephi 9:41

I don't usually write about church, or about scripture, or about spiritual things on this blog. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I don't talk about them very often. But this scripture has been stuck in my head since Sunday. They used it in Gospel Doctrine to talk about the straight and narrow way we must take to come to Christ. It was a good lesson, but there was a phrase that seemed more important to me, at least right now: Remember that his paths are righteous.

Paths. Plural. Multiple paths. There is only one way, but there are multiple paths. Because God has multiple children, individual children. He's not going to set us all down the same path. He's going to give us our own righteous path.

I just said good-bye to four of the most important people in my life, people that I didn't know three years ago. They're the four poets I've been in workshop with the most. Three years ago, I was still mad that I wasn't in a PhD program, mad that I was living in Chicago, mad that these poets weren't the poets I had worked with before. And now I can't imagine my life, my writing, without them. Tonight we sat in my apartment, ate pizza, talked, and read poetry. It was a perfect night--even with the humidity and the thunderstorm and the flickering lights and the sirens going past my window. It was a moment when you know that this was the path you were always meant to be on.

I've said it many times on this blog--I don't know what comes next. But I can see where I've been, and I know that my life has become amazing. I can only hope that this path continues forward.