Tone

Pantone's colors of the year for 2021 are Illuminating and Ultimate Gray. I love yellow and gray together; they remind me of a pencil or a classic yellow and chrome bicycle. I spent some time browsing through the #pantone2021 tag on Instagram and saved a few of my favorite images.

@havesomelaur.en

In writing, you create tone with imagery and metaphors. Because Pantone selects their color of the year at the start of the year, the shadow of the year before casts itself over the outlook for the year ahead.

@ alittleseashell

@ayellowmark

2020 was a year that will ripple through at least the next decade, and I don't think we are in a place where we can see how profound its effects have been and will be. There is a lot of apprehensive optimism pinned on 2021. We know any normal will be new. We know the first half of 2021 will look a lot like 2020. We will continue managing the fatigue of cautious distancing but with a new, fragile glimmer of hope.

@dc.soluciones.integrales

Pantone doesn't often choose two colors as "color of the year," and these two colors almost feel like opposites. Not just gray, Ultimate Gray—a total light-blocking curtain and an oversized weighted blanket wrapping you in heavy stillness. A gray that forces us to fold inside ourselves. And then, Illuminating—a wintery yellow with a call-to-action name.

@tsikevich.kristina

@style_icon_0514

I see these colors and feel sunlight beaming through a frosted window. While 2020 was an uncomfortably dark year for me, I hope I will appreciate the insights (and illuminations) I earned in my discomfort. I hope I can feel warmth from the sunlight that flickers out from the dark clouds still on the way. And I hope that all of you have a beautiful 2021.

@serenellicarolina

I went to Disneyland

And Jill took pictures. And wrote blog posts. You should go read them.

Japanese Garden: When Koi Fish Attack!
Aquarium of the Pacific: Invasion of the Field Trippers!
Disneyland: Rides, Raves, and Rain!
Everything Else: Things Not Worthy of Exclamation Points!

Crash and Burn

You ever start listening to a song over the restaurant speakers or at a store in the mall and get this overwhelming feeling I know this song. Not just realizing you'd heard it before somewhere, but knowing that this song was significant to you on some emotional level, many many years ago. It overwhelms you like some potent, long-forgotten aroma. You can't figure out the name or or the artist, but you can sing along to all the words. Then you get embarrassed, because the song is super cheesy, but you know at one point in your life, you truly felt that this song really spoke to the anguished depths of your teen-aged soul.

Jill and I were eating at Red Robin when this song came on (link to youtube video), and we both shared that similar moment. And omg I just watched the video and he does sign language. Remember in high school and seminary when adding sign language was really the super special cherry on top that launched a musical performance from dab-your-eyes spiritual to so-uplifting-that-I-would-be-terribly-ungrateful-if-I-did-not-share-my-testimony-with-you-right now! (Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. But I blame my aversion to overt spiritual manipulation on the girl who taught relief society lessons in college using Enya songs and clips of the World Trade Center being attacked.)

Once we figured out what that song was (is it from a Disney movie? is it used in some epic amv? why do we both instantly react to this song?), we laughed over our awkward sentimentality:

Jill: I do not want to tell you about the memory associated with this song, it's too embarrassing.
Me: Was it about Adam or Chad?
Jill: Neither. It was about Jesus.
Song: When you feel all alone / And the world has turned its back on you / If you need to crash then crash and burn / You're not alone
Me: Yeah, I can see that.

Disclaimer: I still kind of love that song, and may have watched the music video more than once today.

Something to read

I love this post. (I love most posts by this author, but this one is especially nice.)

I just wrote a book

In less than five minutes. Well, the premise to a book, but with a premise this strong, the book pretty much writes itself. Here it is, tell me what you think. (Be honest, but only if you think it's awesome.)

In a neo-noir one-way spaceflight, a young techno-obsessed geek stumbles across a time-traveling soldier which spurs him into conflict with a profit-obsessed corporation, with the help of a shape-shifting female assassin and her reference book, culminating in wish-fulfillment solutions to real-world problems.

You can write one too. Just go here. Or if you are really lazy and less concerned about the details of your book, go here. My favorite bad guy? Computer viruses made real. I don't know why, but that sounds like the coolest villain ever. How did they get real? What do they look like? What happens when they infect humans? (I didn't pick it for my story because I have an artistic hyphenated-word theme going on. It's a metaphor for the way the characters feel about each other, or something.)

You should read my sister's blog

Especially the most recent post. Here's the link to her blog.

Crisis of Twitter

Who do I believe? The church or Wil Wheaton? WHY would twitter make me choose?

My eleven-year-old self may have been in love with you Ensign Crusher, but I think I'll have to go with my religion. Despite its unimpressive, over-generalized proof. *gulps down third can of Dr. Pepper*

Apprehension, wealth, and number two

I often want to blog about religion, but I'm apprehensive. It feels inappropriate to discuss the scriptures and my testimony on the same site where I talk about poop. (Maybe I should just stop blogging about poop. Yes, these links are all unique posts concerning poop.) I've thought of starting yet another blog devoted solely to religious topics, but religious experiences are meant to be shared. And I'm lucky enough to have people that actually read this blog. I have mentioned church before, but there have been many moments where I've wanted to share an insight or an experience, and have held back. How do all of you other bloggers feel about this? Does any body else share similar reservations about publicly blogging about their testimonies? I think community is a vital element of testimony (I'll expound on that in another post), so I'm going to try and overcome my apprehensions and post more often about religion.

(Even though I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this knows me in real life, here's some brief background. I was born and raised in the LDS church. I went to BYU. Since college, I've been sporadically active and am trying to change that "sporadically" to "regularly." Regardless of my activity level, I've always lived a Mormon lifestyle and have a very strong testimony of the church.)

I'm going to start out slow. I LOVE Mormon blogs. My absolute favorite is Feminist Mormon Housewives (site not working currently, see here for now), though By Common Consent is a close second. Earlier today, I was reading a book review on Times and Seasons. It reminded me of several other excellent posts I have read on various bloggernacle sites about wealth and prosperity. For a couple of highlights, see here, here, and here (especially Amri's comment 17).

Each of those posts resonated strongly with me. Not because I think I'm wealthy (though I know compared to the rest of the world, I really am), but because I see a lot of wealth in my family. My family is very conservatively Mormon. They are very generous with sharing their wealth. But they subscribe to the idea that wealth is a result of righteousness and hard work. I think hard work often (but not always) relates wealth, but I firmly believe that wealth is largely obtained through luck. There are plenty of evil lazy rich people and even more good hard-working poor people. Prosperity (as defined in terms of dollars and assets) comes from being dealt a really good hand and knowing how to play it. I don't like conflating it with religion and righteousness.

I remember a family vacation, at my uncle's lake house. I was sitting with my dad in the upstairs living room, overlooking the lake that was just outside the back door. My dad asked me if I ever look at all this and wonder why I wasn't born into this family. Why I had the bad luck to be sent to my dad instead of his more prosperous younger brother. My dad was acknowledging the luck aspect of wealth, but still assigning it more importance than I think it deserves.

Whether I like it or not, ideas of wealth and prosperity are heavily infused into our religious culture. It's an interesting and often emotionally-charged discussion. Is wealth good or bad, or is it more complicated than that? For those of us lucky enough to be wealthy (and really, all Americans should be considered wealthy), what are righteous uses of that wealth? How much of that wealth should we be sharing? Where do we draw that line between want and need? While I'm not exactly sure how I feel about any of it, but it is definitely a discussion worth having.

I know that's kind of a cop-out ending. But if I felt like I had to have draw persuasive mind-blowing conclusions every post, I'd never talk about anything but poop. And thus ends this installment in Jamie Tries to Talk About More Religion. (This doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting about silly things. In fact, look for another one of those obnoxious Survivor posts coming soon.)

All that Bet Red / Tomato Nation / Donors Choose stuff I've been tweeting about

So I've been spamming all my social networking outlets with links to the Donor's Choose: Bet Red (Tomato Nation) contest. The couple of people who have responded to my links seemed confused as to what I was talking about, so here's some further explanation. And another shameless plug.

First of all: Donors Choose. It's one of my favorite charities, along with Kiva. With Donors Choose, teachers post funding requests for a specific need their school or classroom has. They outline all of the costs, explain why they need what they are asking for, and submit it to the website. Donors can browse all of these projects and chose to donate to whatever project they want. Like Kiva, it puts the donor in (almost) direct contact with the recipient. It's all fairly anonymous, for safety reasons, but you - the donor - have complete control over where your money goes. It's a lot of fun. You get to help buy band instruments, or help beef up the sci-fi section of a library, or buy math games, or even an air conditioner for a classroom in Texas. (Could you imagine going to school in Texas without an air conditioner?) There's a lot of variety. Browse through the projects, I'm sure you'll easily find something that resonates with you.

So what is Tomato Nation? Tomato Nation is a blog I like to read that encourages its readers to donate to Donors Choose during the month of October. You can read more about it here. "Bet Red" is their slogan for 2009. It's great if you donate at all, but donating through Tomato Nation's contest page has definite advantages. For example, earlier today, Sars (the tomatonation blogger), informed her readers that a particular donor was willing to offer a matching donation once our total donations reached $90K. At the time, we were at $83,106. If we met the goal by Friday, the match would be $4K. By Thursday, $6K. If we got to $90K by Wednesday at midnight, they'd donate $8K. At that point, I posted links on facebook and twitter, hoping some people might chip in a few dollars, if they could. (Jill did! Thanks Jill!) Turns out, we got to $90K before midnight TODAY. With 25 hours to spare! I think that's pretty awesome. Besides matching donations, Sars offers lots of fun mini-prizes along the way. Check her site regularly for more details on those.

So while the urgency for this particular deadline is gone, I still think it's a great charity and a great contest. You can search by state and donate locally, or search by subject matter and donate according to your passion. Excited About Encyclopedias! was the project where I chose to contribute. It's in Utah, and it's in the language/literacy category... both of which are important to me. Their goal is not yet met, so if you want to donate, this would be a great place to do so. I'd really love to see them get what they need, and the finish line for that particular project is within reach. And if you can donate through the Tomato Nation "Bet Red" link, that would be even better! (If you want to pick another project, through Tomato Nation, you can use this spreadsheet to sort by state and subject. And if you want nothing to do with Tomato Nation at all, but still want to donate, that's fine too... use this link.)

If you have questions about any of this, check out one of the billion links I put in the post, or just ask me in the comments. :)

Holy good tv, Batman!

Great tv this week. One very promising series premiere, a season premiere from an old favorite, and a mid-season episode that was truly jaw-dropping.

Community- Thursdays, NBC, after The Office (8:30 Utah time)

I missed the initial premiere and didn't watch it online until last night. (Thanks insomnia!) This show is funny. Better than The Office, better than Friends... we're talking 30 Rock / Arrested Development level funny. I had just seen The Informant! (don't forget the "!") the night before, which also stars my tv boyfriend, Joel McHale. In The Informant!, it was really odd to watch McHale act. I don't know if his character was too bland, or if his tv personality (from The Soup) is too hilarious. Either way, it was hard to watch him pretend to be someone else. He's supposed to be making fun of skanks and Ryan Seacrest! Not interviewing Matt Damon. But Community did not have that problem. McHale's character is a raging douchebag with an enormous ego, no moral compass, and a ruthless sense of humor. That's not too many steps away from his "real" personality on The Soup! Perfect fit! Plus, the supporting characters are also funny and full of interesting potential. Watch this show! You can still watch it free on hulu.com!

Best line (that I can remember... it was 3 am): "If it's serious they should call it meningitis."

Survivor- Thursdays, CBS, 7 pm (Utah time)

If you don't already love this show, you probably never will. I don't think I can ever not love this show. This season, it's in Samoa. It was one of the most interesting season premieres that I've seen on this show. After a ridiculous amount of seasons (18? 19?), one player comes up with a completely new strategy for winning the game. If you watched it, you know who I'm talking about... Evil Russell (not to be confused with Leader Russell). He's secretly sabotaging his tribe (pouring out water, burning socks) in order to create stress and drive everyone to discontent. His plan to is to put his tribe on edge, sit back, and watch them destroy each other. I think this plan could work, but not with Evil Russell. He can't sit in the background. I think it's only working now because at this point in the game, everyone's strategy is "vote out anyone that isn't me." Once alliances form, and people spend a few more days together, he will be gone. (Hopefully.) Just when I thought no one could be worse than last season's Coach, the very next season proves me wrong.

Person I want to win at this point (after one episode): Betsy! (Female cop with good instincts, yellow tribe... I think)

Mad Men- Sundays, AMC 8 pm (Utah time)

I've raved about this show on here before. It is my favorite show currently on tv. This week's episode was really something. The entire series is fantastic, but this episode was a definite stand-out. I'm not sure I can really comment on it- I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it and I'm not quite done processing it just yet. I may have to watch this one again in the next couple of days.

Quote of the episode, probably quote of the season, and possibly quote of the series: “That’s life: One minute, you’re on top of the world; next minute, some secretary’s running you over with a lawn mower.”

If you like tv and have time to watch it, check out those shows. While my rambling recommendations may not be useful, I made them all very linky. And hyperlinks are always useful.

The Half-Blood Prince

Movies in 15 minutes - Harry Potter: HBP recap is up at cleolinda's blog. If you didn't see the movie and want to know what happens, or if you did see the movie and want relive it again and again, or if you are bored and want to kill 15 minutes, I recommend reading it.

I've seen the movie twice, and there are a couple of things I'd change. I'm not going to write a list of how the book was different/better than the movie OMG, because I get that movies based on books are going to be different. Unless it's Watchmen, where the only difference is the addition of awkward sexy porno music.

The most egregious difference between the movie and book was probably the "1933- The Great Depression blah blah blah bankrobbers blah blah John Dillinger" text at the beginning and then the scene where Johnny Depp gets out of a car and shoots up a prison. But then the movie theater people realized they were playing Public Enemies and switched it back to Harry Potter. Not fast enough to anger a theater full of angry Mormon families whose children were no longer pure, having been exposed to 3 whole minutes of an R-rated movie. How crude.

The most annoying actual difference between the movie and the book, in my opinion, was the blah-ification of Ginny Weasley. She's awesome in the books. She's hilarious, smart, pretty, loyal, protective, and you totally get why Harry would like her. I am grateful that we never heard anything about that stupid "chest monster," but I didn't need to see superfluous shoe-tying scenes.

The only other difference that bugged me was replacing the electric Snape/Harry confrontation after Dumbledore's death with a night-time hiking trip through the woods that ends up getting a little tense. There was supposed to be shouting! Unforgivable curse attempts! Snape totally losing it after being called a coward! But nope. It's: "Oh btw I'm the half-blood prince, bbl!" I read somewhere that JK Rowling originally wanted Tim Roth to play Snape, and I think I would have liked him better. I think Alan Rickman totally looks like Snape, but I think his performance is always a little subdued. He's supposed to be this intense, angry, desperate, remorseful man and Alan Rickman's Snape seems so disinterested and tired.

Even with those complaints, I really liked this movie. It's the only Harry Potter I wanted to see in the theater more than once. The look of the movie is gorgeous and the three main kids have a lot of good interaction. Easily my favorite out of the entire film series so far.

Highlights

This is not my first blog. The first blog I updated regularly was on Xanga. I tried livejournal for a bit before finally settling on blogger. Conversations with co-workers reminded me of those blogs, and I went back and read a few of the old posts. I'm surprised at how open I was with a lot of things. I wanted to have a central place to look at old notable (to me anyway) blog entries, so I now have a new "Highlights" box on my side bar. These highlights contain old creative writing, travel memories, and a lot of pointless but honest ranting. Feel free to read them.

There's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

How to be an explorer of the world.

It's stuff I've discovered and been taught many times before, but it's always good to go over it again. Plus, I like the chicken-scratch journal look of it.

The same blood flows in my veins.

I just read this post on By Common Consent: There is an End to Race. As a teenager, I was fascinated by the doctrines concerning lineage. In seminary we'd learn things about being the lineage of Ephraim and how someone adopted into that lineage literally had their blood changed. Now, we learned a lot of things in seminary that ended up not being true, but that literal blood change thing is based on a quote by Joseph Smith: “the effect of the Holy Ghost upon a Gentile, is to purge out the old blood, and make him actually of the seed of Abraham.” I remember hearing from a friend that their friend's brother's roommate's cousin's step son (or something like that) found out that in their patriarchal blessing that they were from the tribe of Dan. We had a Young Women's lesson with the stake patriarch where someone asked if siblings could be from different tribes. He said that it was possible, and compared it to hair color or eye color. I remember thinking that was so cool, and being a little jealous that I, like everyone else, was the tribe of Ephraim. From the article I just read:

... one of the most significant findings of the Human Genome Project: that human beings have only (approximately) 20,000 genes.

Let’s do some math. You share exactly 1/2 of your genetic material with either of your parents. Move to an individual a generation back, and that person shares only 1/4 of your genetic material with you. You see what’s coming? How many generations back do you think you have to go before you pass the 1/20,000 threshold? The answer is that you share virtually no genetic material with your ancestors who were contemporaries of Christopher Columbus. Let me repeat that in more general terms: you are no more genetically related to your distant ancestors than you are to any randomly selected individual from anywhere on the planet. On the other hand, you do share an astonishingly high (compared to other species) percentage of your genetic material with virtually every person now living or who has ever lived.

So what does this mean in terms of tribal lineage? The blog writer draws this conclusion:

This means that being the literal, biological descendants of Abraham, or Noah, or Ham, or Seth, or Cain, or Adam is meaningless. Meaningless in the sense that, well so what — everyone else is too; and meaningless in the sense that you are not any more genetically related to any of them any more than you are to anyone else.

So really, we're all the tribe of Dan and the tribe of Ephraim, genetically speaking. Now if you read the entire article (which I highly recommend), you see that these conclusions don't automatically mean OH NOES! THE CHURCH ISN'T TRUE!! You really have to draw your own conclusions, but I like where the blog author goes with this. It makes the sudden blood transformation I pictured when I first heard this doctrine a little less dramatic. But it allows for a lot of 'what if' speculation that people like me love to think about, and most gospel doctrine teachers dread.

So what if that stake patriarch from my Young Women's class was right, and lineage really is like hair color or eye color? If we really are genetic descendants from every tribe (that has descendants), what determines dominant and recessive "tribe" genetics? Does that give new or different meaning to the literal gathering of Israel? I will quickly expose the limit of my knowledge on lineage doctrine and genetics pretty quickly if I keep going with the what ifs, so I'll stop. I guess this whole lineage thing still fascinates me, and this article just renewed my interest in it.

Better than CliffsNotes

Read Pride & Prejudice through facebook updates.

You've probably seen it before, but I thought it was cute. (I also liked Facebook Hamlet.)

NoMoNaMos

In the course of one day, I have heard of three different goal-oriented month-long events. They all sound like a name or place from Star Wars.

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month
NaNoReMo: National Novel Reading Month
NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month

I like that they each become less and less ambitious. My Star Wars name? Jamsa Mupro. (First 3 letters of First name, First 2 letters of Last name, First 2 letters of Mother's Maiden Name, First 3 letters of Birth City.)

I propose we add NoMoNaMos: No More National Months. It lasts all year. Or maybe I can keep getting even more ambition-less with NaBuSitMo: National Butt-Sitting Month. You must sit on your butt for an average of 15 hours a day, for an entire month. (Sleeping doesn't count!) When you go grocery shopping, use those disability carts. Don't cook, order pizza. Borrow your grandma's mobility scooter. 450 hours of butt-sitting! You can do this!

As the vampire sparkles...

So I've been reading the now "officially" leaked Midnight Sun. I enjoyed Twilight as a fun quick (if slightly disturbing) page-turner, but one book inside of Bella's head was enough for me. The premise of Midnight Sun as Twilight from Edward's pov was intriguing, and what else am I going to do all day? Work?! I got through about 50 pages of Edward describing Bella as a furious kitten and how "the sound of [his] name on her lips did strange things to [his] body" before giving up and reading cleolinda's funny recaps (part 1 and part 2) instead. I should not be reading these at work, they make me laugh too much.

Some moments that made me laugh (from the recaps):

[Quote from book]: A word I'd never said before in the presence of a lady slid between my clenched teeth. [end quote]

Given the "curse words" in the other four books, I'm going to assume the word is "dang."

**

I don't know where Carlisle is, but he's probably off being compassionate somewhere.

**

It's kind of like a sparkly teenage version of "Bad Blood." "All I had for breakfast this morning was half a mountain lion with cream cheese, and it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was LIGHT cream cheese! I DO IT ALL FOR YOU, BELLA!"

If you feel compelled to be updated on the wide world of sparkling vampires, but find it difficult to stomach Twilight's unique "outrageous flavor," I highly recommend reading the recaps linked above. They're available for all of the books. Warning: If you do read the recaps, they have real curse words. Not just the mere mentioning of curse words too delicate for our lady brains.

Why are you so quiet?

I'm quiet, and an introvert. Notable times when people have tried to "cure" me of that:

1. U.S History class, 8th grade. I had just moved to a new school. It was the first day, 5th period. The boy assigned to the desk behind me (let's call him Ted) was the obvious class clown. His favorite prop? The quiet shy girl that sat in front of him. Ted even wrote a song about me (and sang it outloud during class). It was actually quite tender and went something like, "You need to let your feelings out..." It would fit in with any of Kermit the Frog's biggest hits.

2. Literary magazine staff, junior year of high school. The class of about 12 was a mixed bag of crazy drama students and AP English nerds. A kid in the class (let's call him Fred) occasionally tried to "encourage" me to be more expressive. One day, while working on a writing prompt, Fred stood up, walked over to me, and pointed his forefinger right at my forehead. He didn't say anything, he just stood silently over my desk pointing straight at me. If he was sure I'd be forced to stop being so quiet and respond, he greatly underestimated my introversion. I continued writing as if he was invisible. It became some sort of perverted staring contest. Eventually he gave up and sat back down. I won.

3. Working at the library during sophomore through senior year of college. One of the supervisors (let's call him Ned) thought it his duty to save me from my shyness. He didn't compose songs or perform awkward demonstrations. He just asked, at least once a week, some version of "Why are you so quiet?" I'd have loved to answer, "Why are you so loud?" or maybe "Why are you so tall?" but I didn't. I shrugged and mumbled something.

I get that question, "Why are you so quiet?" or variations on that question all the time. I'm never sure what to say besides the shrug and mumble, but I found this article today that lets me know at least I'm not alone. It's called Caring for Your Introvert. I may forward it (quietly, over email) to the next Jen, Ben, or Gwen that tries to solve or cure my introversion.

It isn't a disease or personality flaw. I don't secretly hate you. On any given work day, I might be staring at my keyboard, gazing out the window, or looking at nothing. I'm usually lost in thought or deep in focus, but I don't need rescuing. No nothing is wrong with me, and yes I'm okay. Now leave me alone. :)