Confessional

Edited

Lady Jane and I finally got together to purge away the semester from hell tonight. One laughable-plot movie, seven Diet Cokes and half a sandwich later, we have discussed everything from students with crushes (mine) to students who plagiarize (hers) to what music we want on our wedding videos. . . wait, did I actually say that?

So here it comes, from a rather exhausted mind that should be asleep right now:

1. The Book of Love by Magnetic Fields
2. My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors by Moxy Fruvous
3. Sink to the Bottom by Fountains of Wayne
4. Such Great Heights as covered by Iron & Wine
5. Someone to Watch over Me sung by Ella Fitzgerald
6. something Bollywood

All of these excerpted, of course, and supplemented by future beau's music, provided his taste in doesn't consist solely of showtunes and country.

empty nest

Okay, yes I do know that in order for me to be feeling the pain of empty nest syndrome, I'd actually have to have a nest, but stay with me here.

LaLa and Jeremiah are finally on their honeymoon for ten days.

Roommate is leaving for England and her orchestra tour on Friday.

Substitute Roommate was supposed to move in next Tuesday or so. Now it looks like she's not coming. All because of a dog.

So now, if you will allow me to hijack a phrase that won't apply to me for at least 30 years, I'm stuck in this empty house, most likely at my computer or considering cleaning the kitchen.

Save me.

emBrace me

So the last 617 class--the one held at India Garden--was about vocabulary, about how once you can articulate something, you can navigate it.

This intro, of course, could segue into at least a dozen interesting topics, but I'm afraid only one interests me tonight: my health.

You see, I went home today to visit with an ortho about my shoulder. What about my shoulder? Have you never heard the grinding and popping that occurs when I, oh, move it? For the longest time I didn't realize that it wasn't normal for shoulders to sound like that. But then it started hurting and I started complaining. That was eight years ago. Since then I've been told it's a side effect of carpal tunnel and a shallow socket. Fine, whatever. But since grad school started, the pain has gotten worse, so we finally went to the mattresses. . . I mean, went to a specialist.

After about five minutes of x-rays and five more of having me move my arms in different ways, Dr. Pepper (I'm so serious) diagnosed me with "snapping scapula." Snapping scapula and carpal tunnel. The good news is that surgery isn't the first step--anti-inflammatories and physical therapy are, and a brace for the carpal tunnel (I know you were impatiently waiting for how the title works). If that doesn't work, long needles stuck into the tissue. And if that doesn't work, surgery that will take four months to recover from. I don't have four months to spare.

Damn

Yes, it really is 4:40 a.m. No, I haven't slept tonight. Apparently my body and brain now think that they need to pull an all-nighter every other night. I've spent hours in bed telling them this isn't the case, but they wouldn't listen. The only solution I can come up with that I haven't tried yet is to crash on the couch. I think I could fool them that way. But first. . . ten things I love right now right now.

Pier 1. I suppose I should come up with something generic and/or predictable, but I love going to Pier 1. I can't decorate my house the way I want to yet, but a girl can dream. Or she can buy accent pieces from the Pier, steal/beg/borrow from relatives, and go to

TJ Maxx. Most of my picture frames come from here. I'm an addict. Picture frames, jewlery, and clothes. You have to dig, but it's fun and worth it. I even found Mr. Cogneur a tie there once.

My mother. I can't link to this one, but I'm going to mention that she's the one who taught me how to shop, which in her world means hunting out bargains with the occasional splurge. And since I can't link, let's go with an Easter photo of the family that has everyone except Dad (who was taking the photo) and Sven, speaking of. . .

Educating Archie. This was first a music mix and then my brother Sven's blog. I was messing around this week, trying to avoid paper writing, and I happened to check his blog only to find he's been posting while in the mission field. Somehow I connect better to him in the blogosphere than through email, so I'll keep checking back. Especially for rather interesting thoughts like these.

RomComs. So today my students had their final where they have to present--in groups--what they learned this semester in 115. One of the groups played "Family Feud." They had a question along the lines of "What are [editorgirl]'s favorite kinds of movies?" They said that they were looking for genres. Bollywood was the first answer the class came up with, followed by Divine Comedy, and "John Cusack movies." Maybe I should have taught them how to use a dictionary. . . Anyway, I do love my romcoms (romantic comedies), embarrassing as it is to admit it, although not as embarrassing as admitting that I've spent the past week singing along to

Rascal Flatts. I don't love every song, but there are enough that keep me stealing LaLa's CDs. They're one of my guilty pleasures, along with

tofu.
Rob Thomas, in all incarnations.
Scrubs.
and movies starring Julia Stiles.

And yes, those last four were cop-outs, but the couch is finally calling my name.

Commit me

This should be a post of celebration. And the celebration will come--I promise, cross my heart, etc. But tonight I've been thinking (a dangerous concept / I know).

Everyone. . . okay, every romantic comedy. . . seems to talk about "fear of commitment." Yeah, I don't have that. In fact, I seem to have a flaw in the opposite direction: I overcommit, refusing to back away once I'm committed, regardless how harmful the situation might be.

But everyone must have a fear, right? What else prevents relationships, etc., from happening? (There are other things in life, but why talk about them?) Tonight I realized, in that kind of delayed reaction that makes me really bad at video games, that I'm afraid of rejection. Because rejection means that there must be something wrong with me. I only risk when I'm pretty sure I'll win/succeed or when I'm completely apathetic, or at least can pretend to be.

I'm 99.9% sure you're rolling your eyes at me, but this is the moment in the blog where I hit myself upside the head, so stick around.

I was at dinner last night with my 617 class. The professor zeroed in on me and asked what I wanted to do with my life. . . maybe the question was a little less grandiose, but that's what it felt like. I told her I wanted to be her. . . maybe the answer was a little less grandiose, but that's what I meant. I want to teach and research and write. And she pointed her finger at me in a rather grandiose way (that was real and not for effect this time) and told me I needed to start sending my poetry out, start trying to get published.

I'd like to time out for a second to point out that her first attempt at publication was accepted by the New Yorker and endorsed by Mark Strand.

I'd also like to point out that she's right--I have to try. Even though it means being rejected. Even though Kim was first published in the New Yorker and has this to her credit (and yes I linked that because it's brilliant and I think you should buy it, or at least ask to borrow my copy), she said she still gets rejected at least 70% of the time.

Wait, didn't I say this post was about relationships? Well, that part is much shorter. After five years, I think it's time. Really time. I just wish I knew what that meant.

answergirl

For those of you who are confused, go here.

For those of you who don't care, go here.

And I know it's currently rather sloppy. Forgive me. It will be cleaned up later tonight.

FOBS, Honorary and Not

Master Fob: very expert at passing things off to others (1)
Editorgirl: one girl made angry red marks on a paper with a pen (2)
The Marchioness: the reading girl (2)
Edgy Killer Bunny: I got in trouble once for trespassing and shooting the neighbors rabbits with my BB gun (4)
A. A. Melyngoch: an orange Winnie the Pooh (1)
Queen Zippergut: the sad tale of a queen who had lost her life and her bowels as a result of a number of unfortunate circumstances (5)
Th.: modified the word thanatos, viciously truncating it to two letters(1)
Petra: a large purplish rock (5)
Weed: the weeds (5)
Foxy J: an attractive bluejay (3)
Lady Steed: Lydia, named for one of the characters in The Work and the Glory (4)

Friends I Frequent

Emilie this friend who helps me out in a lot of the dreams I have (4)
Singing Cicada the faint sound of insects (5)
Pieces of Me I'm falling apart (4)
Freelancer I do some freelance work (2)
Sethillama a thick Peruvian accent & “Eet ees like my home in the Andeez. Zee mountains, very famous for zee tourists” (4)
El Veneno Plant had died something less than the good death (5)
The King of Ice A cup of water with a small crown of ice cubes (3)
The Fox Still a fox. (5)
Mr. M. G. I'm Michael Green, the proprietor (3)
The Bard I'm a bard of sorts (5)
Scobberlotch Skaa--brrl--aw--tch (5)
Gilmore Guy Gilmore Girls. (2)
Venerable Ryo bow to the rye (3)
SkyLark a single bird was singing (5)
Mr. Mafia run by organized crime (4)
Special K a box of cereal (1)
Wandering Shepherd a confused-looking shepherd (3)
Yancy play an cyan piano (5)

The Blue-Beta Crowd

Physics Chick one girl frowned as she punched physics equations into a calculator (2)
Eleka Nahmen under a witch's curse, a bad omen (2)
Grad School Guru a graduate student who lives here that goes to every game. A fanatic, of course, but people say he's smart.(5)
Jessica Benet Elizabeth Simpson (4)
Thirdmango a single mango (1)
Cinderella the Cinderella story (5)
Duchess lesser female royalty (6)
Squirrel Boy one of the guys says there's a nest of squirrels in the tree (5)
Brinestone as hot as hades (4)
Ambrosia the food of the gods (4)
Bawb bleed blue and white (5)
Leibniz Leibniz would tell you (2)
Uffish Thought obviously lost in thought (3)
Saule Cogneur one willow tree waving wildly in the wind (3)
Asmond as Monday (4)
Redoubt to doubt again (4)
Naiad Later that night (nocturne) (6)
Miss E Ensign (4)
Morning Glow morning sun was still vibrant in the sky (2)
La Bamba a Ritchie Valens song (3)
Optimistic optimistic thoughts (2)
Photogenic Very photogenic (3)
Azurerocket a blue rocket (3)
LauLau L'ow! L'ow! (4)


Them Whom I Would Like To Meet

Becca: Come avec á mi.” Her Spanish accent turned the vee sound into a b. (4)
Kirsa: a witch’s curse, a bad omen (2)
TK: Turkey King (5)
Rachel: ewes (3)
The Walrus: two tusked walruses battling on a sheet of ice (3)

Whotta Fambly

Bassercussionist I used to play the bass and the snare (5)
The Hurds a herd (3)

The result of pulling an all-nighter, plus the possibility of a second all-nighter, plus almost 2 liters of Diet Coke

I want to take Polish 101 next fall, schedule permitting.

How to write a 20-page paper in one day*

* not recommended for amateurs

11:00 a.m. Finish teaching first-year writing; head to office in order to isolate self from distractions and begin writing paper

11:07 Remember that you need to give Tolkien Boy a new mixed CD

11:08 Stop by Writing Center computer lab to give aforementioned CD to aforementioned boy

11:10 Run into thesis chair in hall; talk to thesis chair about rest of committee

11:14 Stop by graduate offices to check email, shoot the breeze

11:53 Make it to office; open book; see block quote from important source; realize that you don’t have important source; return to grad offices to check library catalog

12:14 Library has book; leave student appointment a note saying that you’ll be right back

12:36 Return to office with book, plus four others, quite pleased with self; begin reading again

1:02 Woken by student knocking on door

1:16 Finish conferencing with student; decide isolation is dangerous; head home to computer

2:30 Sister agrees to wake you so you can take 20 minute nap

6:10 Sister remembers to wake you

7:00 Take bath to wake self up

8:00 Check email; blogs; blue-beta; blogs again; email again

9:45 Decide brain food is needed; run to Pudding on the Rice for an all-night supply

10:00 Decide caffeine is also a good idea; stop at Albertsons

10:03 Recognize happy and recently engaged couple from high school; return to beverage aisle to avoid them

10:06 Decide it’s safe to purchase Diet Coke and leave the store; wind up behind couple in check-out line

10:07 Exchange pleasantries; discuss grad program with Gyn while Guy pays for groceries

10:15 Walk out of Albertsons feeling good about single status

10:16 Single status leads to thinking about SA boy leads to thinking about SA boy leads to thinking about SA boy

10:35 Still thinking about SA boy

10:52 Write thesis by hand; need break—rice pudding and Diet Coke. . . and first few scenes of Clue

12:00 Mr. Body and the cook are dead. Didn’t remember Martin Mull, but he’s funny. Oh, and my paper. . .

12:49 First paragraph!

12:52 Stupid song stuck in my head, thanks to TB, who finally hit his stride. I’m still waiting. . .

1:13 Decide to stop blogging and write the damn thing.

back to the future

I know, I know. Little Miss Blogging Fiend up and disappeared. Well, it's finals time and my life is not my own. Not that it ever has been--at least not for a good long while. So to tide you over, here is the past few days in review and the next week in. . . not review.

Thursday: Happy birthday to me. A good day, with little fanfare and much eating. The family came down for an early dinner at Olive Garden, and then friends came for fondue (thanks for all the help, Brozy). It was an interesting assortment, but a good one, and I felt loved, which I think was the whole point.

Friday: Road trip! to SLC with Saule and Tolkien to meet up with Cindy to. . . what else?. . . shop. Although I think I was the only one to buy anything, and what I bought was books (by Milosz--I highly recommend both Second Space and Road-side Dog). An excellent dinner at Thaiphoon, ran into the Jester and his posse, and did I mention that we were at one of my favorite places ever? I don't know why I love the Gateway in SLC, but it probably has something to do with shopping, eating, and the fountain that scared TB.

Saturday: Date with SA boy. Um, yeah. Have I mentioned that he's the kind of cute that continues to surprise me each time I look at him? And then I'm surprised because he seems interested in what I have to say and that I'm comfortable just chatting with him. . . for hours. We ate at Gurus and then met up with TB and TB's friend for Divine Comedy. Which was brilliant (I'm writing a review and will post that in the near future). Thank you to everyone who coached me through my first date in, oh, a really long time.

Sunday: Church (where I kept my radar tuned to SA boy). And then Easter dinner in Bountiful, with the family and TB and Lady Jane. It was fun, and there will be blackmail pics available in the very near future. And now I have a stack of 115 papers to grade. Yuck.

Monday: Last 115 class of the semester. Write 20-pager (yet to be started) to be turned in on

Tuesday: Last 590R of the semester. Turn in 20-page paper. Last 218R of the semester. Listen to student excuses.

Wednesday, Thursday: Reading days that will be spent preparing for

Friday: 8:00 218R final. Take 590R final (on contemporary poetry of belief) before driving to SLC to turn in a 15-ish page paper articulating a theory for my own writing. Gulp.

Saturday: 2:30 p.m. 115 final.

The nice thing is, after Saturday, I'm done with finals. And during the week I'm planning on supplementing my insanity with trips to Gurus and Pudding on the Rice. . . rice pudding. . . yum.

turning

I've been approaching this week with no small amount of fear or guilt or exhaustion or joy. Tomorrow is not one of the milestones--I'm still a few years away from joining the quarter century club and this birthday will not offer the promise of dating or a driver's license or drinking legally. And I'm aware that I'm a "baby," to quote, oh, everyone. . . everyone until I talk to my youngest sister who is 11 and who, when her Florida- and Rome-bound friends ask her where she's going for spring break, says, "We might get to go to Provo."

Brian Doyle wrote an essay titled "Credo," in which he considers the reasons he is Catholic. I've been mentally composing a similar essay, not about why I'm Mormon, but why I'm me. Tonight seems a good time to throw out some of those ideas, complete with the necessary "end without end, amen, amen, and amen."

I love. I am unabashedly and abashedly passionate about things that do or don't matter, including prayer, the Muppets, modern art, dictionaries, picture frames, earrings, music, dark chocolate, London. But I also love people, a concession I am less eager to make, because admitting that I love people is admitting that I am willing to let people hurt me.

Writing. It was a hobby--a passionate, carefully and carelessly recorded hobby. And now it is one of a few things I refuse to subtract from my life. But it's interesting to see how it winds itself around all those things that I love, including and especially people. April and Fob and inscape and my students. I love a person I've only met a few times in real life because of her writing and her intensity and her brilliance, which you can't ignore. And I love the people who've patiently watched me write to fill the silences I seem to sense without recognizing them as silences.

Maybe this is actually about love, because this paragraph follows on the heels of the other two. I love the arts, not just writing, but the arts I can't enact myself. My writing is necessarily ekphrastic because I can't divorce myself from the movement and color and sound of the world. I love film and theater and theatre and modern art and music--and I've started repeating myself. Which must mean it's important.

Okay, the last thought, I promise. We are whatever we're supposed to be right now. I'm always pushing for the next thing, the next moment. I desparately want to be in a PhD program right now and even more I want to be a professor. Add to that this damn maternal twitch I can't seem to shake, and there's a number of places in life I'd rather be than here. But being there would mean missing out on all the things I just wrote about loving. And in the end, I think love is really all we have. Love in infinite forms. . . end without end, amen, amen, and amen.

half a decade

John Cusack movies I own
Grosse Pointe Blank
Must Love Dogs
Runaway Jury
Say Anything
Serendipity
Sixteen Candles (Oh, he's there.)

John Cusack movie I owned until Sven's roommate disappeared it
Better Off Dead

John Cusack movies I need to own in the near future
Better Off Dead
High Fidelity

There are more lists that belong here, but after that, is really anything else important?

Say What?

Say Anything has a date for Saturday night.



And so do I.



What are the odds?

poor editorgirl indeed

There are some days that are so perfect I don't want them to end. That is so cheesy and Hallmark, but it's the truth. Yesterday was one of those days. I woke up late (11:00), washed my hair (yes, I'm still obsessed with my hair), and met up with Tolkien Boy for the BYU Ballroom Company's "Capture the Magic." Okay, so they need someone to come up with better titles for them (I suggested this to TB as possible post-graduation employment for him), but the dancing was beautiful. I get caught up in the music and the movement. . . maybe not as much as TB, but enough to make it a good few hours. Top it off with a late lunch with Saule and Cindy, and then Arsenic and Old Lace at the Pardoe, and I don't remember being that happy. I kept trying to put off sleep so that the day wouldn't end.

And then I woke up--11:00 again--with an hour to get ready for church. Skirt from LaLa's wedding, a Lauryn Hill song (that woman's voice is the most beautiful sound in the world), and shaved legs. But I was still nervous about church. All those people. Usually I sit with TB and we hold our own meetings of sorts, but today he was teaching--which is always a good thing, but it means I have to behave and listen and stuff.

So I sat with a row of girls during Sacrament Meeting, entertained and disturbed by the homosocial activity in the row in front of me. And then the break. Did I mention TB's parents were there? They were, and they sat in front of me for Sunday School. I choked when TB called on his mother by saying, "Sister Mom." But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's still the break and we're settling into our seats when I look over and see Say Anything boy across the aisle. There's a bit of a conflict here, because the roommate and I are both interested, but something took over me (hormones maybe?) and I guestured him over to our row and the seat next to me. We chatted for a second and there was a moment when I turned to say something (Say Anything?) to him and I was struck by how cute he is. Anthony Rapp cute.

No way to end this. Actually I know the perfect way to end this.

*turns on Lauryn Hill*

*perfect weekend victory dance*

All Lies

I told everyone I was going to grade post-campus today. I did not. Instead I:

• gave full credit for a bunch of rushwrites
• slept
• listened to Miseducation (which should be required listening--none of this silly paper writing--listen to real music, people)
• read back issues of Writer's Chronicle
• spent two hours at the library reading Kenyon Review and checking out books NOT needed for the research papers I have to write next week
• rented Sons of Provo (on Foxy's recommendation) and Prime (on no one's recommendation, but it's about sex and the guy looks cute, which is all I care about)
• discovered roommate watching her second movie of the day
• resigned myself to watching snippets of Some Like It Hot and reading more Writer's Chronicles
• researched PhD creative writing programs
• panicked

I'm currently still in the panicked state of mind, which I'm hoping my nightly dose of meds will cure. Why couldn't I just stick with the plan and get married young and make babies the rest of my life? But no, I had to be educated and intelligent and want a BA, MA, and PhD. Silly eg. PhDs are for men.

I am now going to go watch my cute-guy movie while my roommate is asleep. That Kirby Heyborne is just so hot.

[insert your favorite line here]

So I've been spending my days--and nights--with Allen Ginsberg. No need to call the Honor Code office. To quote one of my classmates, "It wasn't women Ginsberg was keeping awake at night." Although. . . well, that's a tangent unnecessary.

The reason I've been hanging out with AG and his seminal (pun intended) text is, of course, why I do everything: creative writing theory. The assignment this time around is to "theorize" a text. In other words, to look at what they're doing and how they're doing it and why they're doing it. And I, of course, have written two-and-a-half pages out of the six-to-seven due, oh, Monday.

It's not that I haven't been working on my paper. I have. I've read and read and read. I've taken notes. I've marked passages with post-its. And I listened to/slept through conference, went shopping with my sister, went to dinner with my sister & co., went to Borders (where I bought The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Grosse Pointe Blank--and I rather desparately want to listen to TMoLH, but I don't want to associate it with Howl for the rest of my life, which is what will happen).

I'm being driven mad looking for any social interaction that will exempt me from writing this paper and then tonight I realized this was a paper that I cannot write in silence. Nope. It's going to require music blaring--which I unfortunately cannot do because people want to sleep. And it's difficult to figure out what music best complements Howl. Too bad I don't have much jazz in my collection.

"Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies, we are going through hell." WCWilliams intro to Howl

straight to the point

Do not read Howl before going to sleep. It's a bad idea. (Well, it was either Howl or the combination of Diet Coke and Reeses Peanut Butter Cup cereal.)