A week from today...

Two years ago, I had lists of all the new shows coming out. I evaluated them after the first episode and carefully selected what shows I would continue watching. The new fall tv season was exciting. This year? Meh. I watched Fringe because I happened to catch a promo right before the series premiere. I was unimpressed. Unless it was campy on purpose, I just didn't like it. "Let's make some LSD!" I kept switching back to Jeopardy because the show was getting progressively stupider. It's supposed to be the new X-Files, and I opted to watch a game show instead. I'm like an old lady. If there had been a Law & Order rerun, I probably would have watched that instead.

The only show I'm excited about is Survivor. And I know it's season 75 or something, but I still eagerly await every new season. How many has it been? Borneo, Australia, Africa, Marquesas, Thailand, Amazon, Pearl Islands, All Stars, Vanuatu, Palau, Guatemala, Panama, Cook Islands, Fiji, China, Half All Stars... 16 seasons. Yes, that was from memory. I can also list all of the winners. And the person they beat. My survivor knowledge may be irrelevant, but it is vast. So this is Survivor 17. And I don't care if this show does go on to season 75, I will watch it and I will love it. My first episode I watched was the final tribal council of season 1. I watched it on my first day at BYU, in my room in V Hall, on the tiny tv my parents bought me for high school graduation. Sue gave that crazy rats and snake speech, and the jerk won the million dollars. And I've been hooked ever since.

On notice

Fall is on notice. It's always been my favorite season, but it's about to be demoted. While I love the changing colors and the crispness in the air, I do not love the head full of mucus and the constant sniffling. My skull feels too heavy for my neck and the pressure swirls around inside like floating blobs in a lava lamp. I think I'm especially allergic to mold. Since I've moved to a basement apartment in an old building my allergies have intensified dramatically.

That leaves winter as my new favorite season. Even though I hate driving in the snow, my current situation requires very little driving, if any at all. Ever. I haven't driven my car since March. Jill drops me off on her way to work. If it's hot, I take the bus home. If it's tolerable, I walk.

I stopped driving after getting stuck last winter going up the icy avenues. When I decided to get back behind the wheel, I realized my battery had died. In order to drive my car again, I need to buy and install a new battery, get an auto repair shop to turn off the stupid check engine light (it seems my car has never forgiven me for losing two gas caps in one week), and renew the registration. That's a lot of effort, and effort is my kryptonite.

While I hate driving in the snow, I love walking in the snow. I get to wear sexy boots, I don't get all hot and sweaty, and hardly anyone else is out walking. Not like stupid spring and summer with everyone hogging the sidewalks with their dogs and strollers. I love that winter feels so quiet and still, even when it's snowing. Everything is muted, and it's very calming (as long as I don't have to think about driving in it). And best of all, the snow and ice rids the outside of whatever it is I'm so allergic to right now.

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.

The Day I Wrote in my Blog

I watched Mad Men last night and really liked one of the lines. Four people snuck into their boss's unlocked office to look at his new painting. (It was a Rothko.) Ken, in the elevator afterwards, said: "I could write a story about this: The Day We Looked at the Painting."

It would be a cool story too. It was a neat little scene: suspenseful, funny, and introspective. I forget sometimes that that's all short stories need to be, just an interesting moment. If you watched the episode, you'd realize that while Ken's story would be interesting, it would be completely different from the story Sal would write. Ken's story could be incredibly well written, and expertly capture all of the emotion, but be totally unaware of how enormously different and significant the moment was for Sal.

When I'm in a car on the freeway, I'll sometimes try to catch a quick glimpse inside the other cars driving along side me. I've thought before that there are entire universes existing inside each car, that I am completely unaware of, but driving right next to. That's what that scene in Mad Men reminded of. There were three people in the elevator (one took the stairs down out of fear of being caught). They all just had just done the exact same thing, but each had a vastly different experience.

Literary Love

Jill told me she has a crush on a fictional character. Agent Pendergast, from the Relic series. I've never read those books, but according to wikipedia, he sounds quite crush worthy, especially for an anthropology major like Jill. We toyed with the idea of creating a "Literary Crush" application for facebook. (Unfortunately, neither us know how to code, so that won't be happening.) But who isn't in love with someone fictional? There's Mr. Darcy, Aragorn, Mr. Rochester, and well, I guess Edward Cullen (for some *cough* crazy *cough* people). I had the hugest crush on The Chronicles of Prydain's Taran in 6th grade. When I first read Fahrenheit 451, I definitely like liked Guy Montag. Which literary hero or heroine have you been in love with?

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. :)

The Lion Dream

Occasionally, I have incredibly intense dreams. They are extremely different from normal dreams with mixed up combinations of people from work, things I saw that day, or images of books I've just read. When I wake up from these intense dreams, my muscles are tense, as if I had been straining them all night. And all the sensations I experience while dreaming feel very real. I've actually looked into this a little and think some of these dreams might be experiences of mild hypnagogia, or sleep paralysis. They're never disruptive enough to do anything about them medically, but they do fascinate me. They don't happen often, but I'd like to keep a record of as many of them as I can.

I wrote the details to this dream on 9/26/2006 as a comment on a friend's blog. I'd had the dream recently, but I don't remember how recently.

Once I dreamt I was following a lion around an empty house into a closet with a light bulb that didn't work. I didn't know it didn't work until I closed the door. I couldn't see the lion anymore, but it told me to kneel in the corner in the dark and remain silent and still.

I heard a man try and get into the closet. The lion was gone, but I remembered (even though it never really told me) that I wasn't supposed to look at the door. The man started to chop the door down and I bent over, still kneeling. Like you do during a tornado drill.

It seemed like I was shrinking away from the door, or the door was shrinking away from me. The floor became dirt and suddenly my head was twisted completely backwards facing up towards the ceiling, instead of tucking in towards my chest. It was really weird.

Suddenly the chopping noise was gone and I didn't know where I was. I heard water dripping into a bowl. I felt really heavy, like I was full of water. I knew I wasn't supposed to move, because the lion told me not to, but I really wanted to move just a little bit to get some sense of my surroundings. I remembered going into the closet, but I couldn't even figure out how I was positioned--if I was still kneeling. I couldn't even tell if it was light or dark, though it seemed dark. All I felt was heavy and packed in tight.

I was still being...I guess the word would be "obedient" to the lion's orders to not move, so I tried to remember the sequence of events that led up to this point, rather than feel around to figure out how I got where I was. I started to panic a little when I realized that the last thing I remembered was chopping. So I moved a tiny bit. I instantly felt everything around me. My lungs were filled with dirt, which was why I was so heavy. My neck had been twisted completely around and my jaw broken. My mouth was open and water was dripping into it. I realized at this moment that the man had gotten into the closet, killed me, and buried me near the house. I didn't remember being murdered, though. I knew I hadn't died because I was with the lion who had somehow gone into my body and had been living inside my chest. When I started to breathe, the lion came out of my mouth, pulling me out of the ground, clearing the dirt from my lungs, and twisting my head around back to normal all at the same time.

Whenever I have these weird dreams, I usually have a moment where I fake wake-up and it was at that point that I thought I woke up. I got my Mormon imagery all mixed up with lion imagery and decided I needed to go on a mission and was rejuvenated and so excited about life. I was ecstatic, wanting to run around and bear my testimony of the truthfulness of the lion. Then my alarm went off and I woke up for real. When I realized it had all been one of my intense dreams, I was a little disappointed that my "spiritual experience" was so...creepy. And fake. And cliche. And so centered around the fact that I had recently seen the Narnia movie and that my bathroom ceiling had been dripping while I was asleep.

Public Humiliation at Church

I was reading old threads at this website, and have read several posts in the Public Humiliation at Church thread. It's very entertaining, and I wanted to share my story. That thread is several years old, so sharing on my blog seemed more appropriate. (I wouldn't want to humiliate myself.)

I was in Primary, and it was Easter Sunday. I was still in Junior primary, but in the oldest class. I specifically remember sitting in the back row. The sharing time lesson was on the crucifixion, and as a visual aide, the primary president had brought in cups of vinegar. There were six plastic cups on a tray, and we were supposed to pass them around, smell them, and decide if we would want to drink it.

But I'd been day dreaming (as usual) and didn't hear the set-up. All I noticed was that for some reason, they were passing out drinks! And that I was suddenly really thirsty. I remember thinking it was so unfair that the primary leader only put six cups on the tray. Six! There were around 30 kids in there, and I was in the back row! Luckily, it seemed like no one else was thirsty. Not even Jill and Carly, and I knew they'd never pass up free water. They'd take the tray, smell the water, and shake their head "no thank you." I was suspicious, but mostly anxious that all of the water would be gone before I could have any. I watched as the tray came closer, giddy that no one had taken any of the water. So it comes to me. I lean over the cup as if I'm smelling it (I had noticed everyone else doing that, and didn't want to be different), and nod "yes." Apparently my desire to be the same as everyone else was not overruled by my thirstiness. I go to drink it, and my teacher reaches over and grabs it away from me. I sit through the rest of primary hurt and confused. And a little thirsty.