The Mad Dreams for an Insomniac

I've Got No Time I Wanna Lose To People With Something To Prove

2011-10-21T13:23:00.006-06:00

But good golly sweet Moses in the name of
all carbonation that just shouldn't be allowed.

I have the sneaking suspicion that my entire personality has been slowly eroding from the obsessive waters of
Symposium
GradSchool
Symposium
GradSchool
HeyLookShiny

boringness. I'm attempting to counter this very real trend with a blog post, but I understand if my efforts are less than perfect. Please allow some room for error.

A note: I've noticed that my recent blog habit has been to mostly post about small things that annoy me. I'm not actually that big of a sourpuss, I just find that fixating on small irritants helps me shrug off the potentially debilitating stuff. Well, that and obsessing about how unlawfully attractive Richard Dean Anderson is during my nightly Stargate episodes, but my Richard time is just for me, and you'll probably thank me for not sharing too much about that one.

So, who doesn't love Weezer? I maintain that their Blue Album shies away from the Platonic ideal form of a debut album only because they failed to write "Perfect Situation" for another eleven years. Well, that and the fact that Weezer arbitrarily decides to take a pretty offensive attitude towards women in their song "No One Else." Now, the song is obviously about a girl who has issues with fidelity, but I still take umbrage with the extremely catchy chorus:

"I want a girl who will laugh for no one else.

When I'm away, she puts her makeup on the shelf.

When I'm away, she never leaves the house.

I want a girl who laughs for no one else."

Seriously, guys? Have you been holed up in your garage planning for the day when your music makes you attractive for so long that you've completely warped your idea about what you want? I talked to Wes about my frustration with the sentiment in this song and he said (without endorsing the behavior) that it was catering to a very fundamental need/want/desire/insistence that men feel desired by their partner. All I gotta say is, this instinctive need of men is rather vomit-inducing. I would never want to be with someone who keeps their personality carefully pressed and in the bureau, only to be pulled out for special occasions when their main squeeze is around. I would want to be with someone who has wide-ranging interests, acquaintances, and things to laugh at. Regardless of who is present. The whole possessive quality of the chorus, wanting someone who doesn't even have enough self worth to look good just for herself when no one else is around, makes me want to smash birdhouses. Maybe even with the birds inside.

Yes, I realize I just flipped out about a Weezer song that was written when I was seven years old and was probably intended to be rather tongue-in-cheek. But, dude. It bugs.

Speaking of bugs, let's tackle something completely different. I just realized that that sentence was a perfect setup for me to start a discourse on insects. I am now scrabbling, trying to work up some righteous indignation about any many-legged creepster. I'm coming up empty. Ah, the torture of imperfect moments! Anyways, back to the subject on hand, which you are no doubt on tenterhooks to discover:

Art. I know, big surprise, Mary wants to talk about art. As if co-hosting a podcast wasn't enough time for me to nerd out. But this topic doesn't really lend itself to a podcast discussion. Scenario: I either a) mention I'm going to pursue graduate work in art history, b) reference any work of art, regardless of time period, in a common conversation, or c) look at interest at any piece of modern sculpture that is in front of my face. The reaction to any of those behaviors has been almost singularly unchanging as of late. Whenever any of these apparently 'trigger actions' occur, I feel like I'm constantly on the receiving end of a lecture masking as a benign comment from near strangers and pass acquaintances alike. The formula continues, with my unwanted conversational partner passionately rambling about how they saw X exhibit in Y respected gallery/museum/public area where all it was was just a jumble of mutilated Peeps at the foot of a grandfather clock whose face has been colored in or whatever. They then pause, look at me significantly, with a challenging gleam in their eye, and say "Can you believe anybody would show that? I don't care who you are, that's not art." It's at this point when I smile politely, nod, and consider all the different ways I could jerryrig the Tootsie Roll Pops and assorted bobby pins in my backpack into a weapon that can put me and/or them out of my misery.

Here's the nutshell: it's doesn't matter if you think it's art. No, that's not me being snotty and saying that my opinion is higher than yours, because the truth is it doesn't matter if I think it's art, either. What matter is that somebody, some curator, some group, some social sub-group, assigned it the label of art. That's what I study. I study what people see as art, and I study the why behind it's creation, the reaction it receives. What everybody is responding to when they see an exhibit that they don't enjoy is personal taste, which is something I will always respect. Personal taste is by handy coincidence with it's moniker, not very applicable on a wide scale. But while I will always be interested in your personal taste, and in fact part of what I study is the taste of individuals and how that influences the cycle of art being put out there, I will never feel pressured by your personal taste to excuse or dismiss or ever yield to your definitions of what art is.

Because it doesn't matter, not one bit, if we differ on what is art. So stop thinking you're scoring some deep insight when you get hung up on it. Also, putting down pieces you don't consider valuable is a deeply negative and straight-up boring subject. It sorta just pushes itself into a corner and festers on it's own outraged sensibilities. There's way too much good art out there to get your panties in such a twist over the ones that don't speak to you. Now, if you want to talk about how an artist who has gained some recognition and reverence is in your opinion lacking in some areas, be it skill or thematic material, that could also be interesting. But it always needs to be based on the understanding that while you don't like it. you respect the personal taste of others that dictates them to disagree with you. So, can it. You bug me.

Now, back to the recurring theme of Little Boys Who Spend Their Time Writing Music Instead of Talking To Girls Have Creepy Misconceptions. Who here loves Death Cab for Cutie? I would do quite a bit to have Ben Gibbard's babies, personally. Going to their concert with Becca was an ace in the hole for me having a good time. And before I tear apart Death Cab, it should be admitted that the first song I'll be criticizing was the band's opening number, and it has one of the top three sexiest bass riffs in it, and I cheered and danced and got excited along with everyone else. That said, based on these songs, Ben Gibbard's courting style leaves something to be desired.* Allow me to demonstrate with a selection from "I Will Possess Your Heart:

"You reject my advances and desperate pleas.

I won't let you let me down so easily.

You gotta spend some time, Love.

You gotta spend some time with me.

And I know that you'll find, love

I will possess your heart."

So. Not. Ok. First off, the persistent tone of the chorus makes you wonder if Ben Gibbard is completely married to the metaphorical meaning of the phrase "possess your heart." If you resist his affections long enough, is he just gonna settle for an "I told you so" when he rips the vital organ out of your chest? I listen to these lyrics and just start vehemently shaking my head in the negatory.

And if you think this guy would at least be sensitive to the imbalance of affection, and how it feels to be the one who cares more, think again. Allow me to introduce you to the tender message behind "Someday You Will Be Loved:"

"I once knew a girl in the years of my youth with eyes like the summer, all beauty and truth. In the morning I fled, left a note and it read: "someday you will be loved." I cannot pretend that I felt any regret, cause each broken heart will eventually mend. As the blood runs red down the needle and thread, someday you will be loved. You may feel alone when you're falling asleep, and everytime tears roll down your cheeks. But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet, someday you will be loved. You'll be loved, like you never have known. The memories of me will seem more like bad dreams, just a series of blurs like I never occurred. Someday you will be loved."

Translation: We hooked up, I wasn't feeling it, instead of breaking up with you I left you a note with vague promises of future of happiness that of course I have no control over. I then proceeded to feel really deep and justified about the fact that my actions really have no impact on you, because . . . well, I didn't love you. That's like home base in tag, right? Freebie?

Yeah, Ben Gibbard, you sorta suck. Stop being so good at making your general cadness so catchy.

Ok, I feel rather cleansed after this exercise. Tune in next time, when I plan to air my feelings about sundry issues like Ron Paul fanatics.

In the meantime, I'm going to listen to Billy Joel's "Vienna Waits For You," cause it tends to calm me down a bit when all I want to do is sprint for the nearest puke receptacle. Which is occuring on multiple occasions per diem, with the symposium looming closer by the second. But don't you worry, Billy makes it all better.

*It should be noted that I consider "Summer Skin," "We Will Become Silhouettes," "Transatlanticism," and "Twin-Sized Bed" to be great examples of Ben Gibbard using his rhetorical powers for good rather than evil.

Instead of Actually Completing My Grad School Applications . . .

2011-09-27T10:09:00.006-06:00

List of Things That Are Going To Be a Tough Sell To Strangers When I Move to A Strange City for Grad School (which I currently obsess over):

-Yes, that's my real sneeze. No, really.

-Yes, I love Star Trek. And Stargate. And Battlestar Galactica. And The X-Files. And Buffy. You like video games? Dude, you're such a dweeb.

-Yes, I'm wearing this American flag kerchief. Unironically.

-No, I don't see a problem with having "Tearing Up My Heart" by *NSync and "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies on the same mixed CD.

-Yeah, I said mixed CD. As in still not on board with the mp3 shindig.

-And by not on board I mean deeply terrified of electronics and other storage/computing systems whose brains I can't see.

-Yes, I went on a thorough grocery shopping trip and returned with 3 tubs of Greek yogurt and 64 cans of Diet Coke. No, I don't see the problem with that.

-I swear I'm going to stop talking about my past achievements once I get more comfortable and no longer think I need to persuade you to like me. Should happen any month now.

-Yes, that's my real cough. Yes, I've heard the Zoolander "black lung" joke before. No, sadly, while that's enough incentive for me to want to change my cough, I'm afraid I'm not the one in charge here.

-Yes, I'm politically conservative. It's because I hate poor people. And bunnies. And myself, cause I'm a woman. Gross.

-No, you can't have any of my barbeque chips. Step off.

-I am currently working on a plot to destroy Oprah.

-Yes, I'm always going to think I'm smarter than you. I'm well aware of how unattractive this is. Nothing has helped so far.

-No, you may not talk to me while the Olympics is on.

-I find talk about settling down and buying the dream house to be alienating from women and a turnoff from men.

-If you get all 'sharey' and dump your completely legitimate and complicated emotions on me I'm going to smile sympathetically, pat you gingerly on the elbow, and run for the hills.

-Yes, I really do like Bill Pullman that much.

-I totally use the fact that I can make my eyes imitate Bambi in immediate danger of being decapitated by evil smoke monsters to my advantage.

-Yes, I'm that nostalgic about entire sections of the past that I didn't live through and don't necessarily agree with.

-Yes, I'm typically this hostile and dismissive of all women in my program until you prove yourself. And by prove yourself I mean cold-fusion level prove yourself. As in, you better be an art history genius who has also literally discovered cold fusion, because otherwise I'll remain unimpressed.

-Yes, again, that's my real sneeze. Yes, I have noticed that I sneeze after every meal. No, you are not living with or associating with a cartoon character. Don't believe all the hype.

-Yes, I really do watch Reality Bites this often.

-Yes, I'm secretly a prude. You just have to dig real deep to get to it. No, that in of itself was not a dirty invitation.

-I bawled through the entire last ten minutes of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I will hit you very, very hard if you make fun of me about this.

-Oh yeah, but the way, I hit people. Pretty frequently. And keep on thinking it's a term of endearment, despite the vehement protest of peers.

-If you ask me to go fishing I'll wonder what plot is afoot to destroy me.

-Yes, that's a bottle of spf 105 sunscreen. Apply liberally.

-All those jokes about how paranoid I am--yeah, they're not actually jokes. That humor there is what we call a Coping Mechanism.

-Yes, I understand that my punkish influenced clothing and my abject fear/respect/obeisance to authority figures is a wee bit of a contradiction.

-Yes, I'm a complete fraud. Anything funny I say was stolen from a movie, TV show, or a funnier friends' facebook status.

-Yes, that's my idea of fashion. I'm so sorry.

-I've had an ongoing sneaking suspicion since I was eleven that I am actually not smart/liked at all, and that I'm living in an elaborate Truman Show-esque world where my parents bribe actors to carry on the delusion. No, your jokes about how you're still waiting for their check in the mail are not funny.

-Yes, that was my attempt to flirt. No, there's nothing I can do about the toe-twisty-head-tilty thing. Any efforts to control it can only be sustained for about a five minute conversation, in which I won't say anything coherent, because my attention will be so fixed on the toes and the head angles.

-No, our budding friendship will not recover if you negatively go off about Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, or Disneyland.

-I'm only .05% joking about my animosity towards whales.

-Yes, I love Katy Perry. Why would that surprise you?

-I genuinely have the hots for David Bowie. In Labyrinth specifically, but also in general. I listen to "As the World Falls Down" alone and pretend he's trying to seduce me by hiding from me in a magical bubble.

-Yes, I'm that avid of a supporter of Turkey, our oft-maligned friend.

-No, I never actually recover from missteps in common repartee. If I once misidentified a piece of art and was corrected in the conversation, I will carry that shame to the grave.

-Yes, I really do take myself this seriously. Don't let the self-deprecating laughter fool you. The fact that I can explain most of my likes and dislikes with a four-point analysis reveals the lie of the laugh.

-I understand that my chances of being a rock star, buddies with Velvet Underground, present at a Toy Dolls concert, an agent of an intelligence agency, or a protege of Joey Ramone are dwindling by the millisecond, if they aren't already impossible. That is a handful of many, many reasons why I will truly be less than satisfied with my life.

I Stumble and I Sway

2011-08-19T16:08:00.002-06:00

An hour into my shift I was asked to stay late at work. I don't mind staying late--I love helping out overworked peers and I don't object to money--but I unfortunately have a streak of non adaptive throwback genes that wants to sit down and cry every time I'm not giving my preferred twelve hour notice that helps me wrap my head around the extension. Turns out I'm not remotely evolved or sophisticated, I hate breaks from patterns just as much as the most backwoods Ozark yokel.

In the spirit of making as many distractions for myself in this time of cushy paid hardships, I have crafted a list of:

The Top 15 Best TV Dads

I figure musing over father figures that would respond to my whining over extra work by telling me to rub some dirt in it will be the best possible coping mechanism.

Methodology

The types of fathers being highlighted here are very specific in nature. First off, let's establish that I myself have an awesome dad. He sang me Irish lullabies and songs about girls named Mary every night when I was little, switched that out for nightly readings from books like Huckleberry Finn, The Chosen, and Last of the Mohicans after I got too old for songs, and patiently waited out my tendency from age twelve to twenty to hate his guts while in his house and avoid any visits from him in college. Nowadays he just reads my term papers and tells me I'm brilliant, politely declines to read my blog or be friends with me on facebook so that I don't have to censor myself, and doesn't give me any grief for being single other than occasionally abusing the general male gender on my behalf. He's not my friend, he's my dad, and I appreciate the attention to the distinction.

Like I said, great dad. So in the spirit of respect for fatherhood, there will be no representations of clueless dads who are roundly abused by spouse, neighbors, and children alike, such as Tim Taylor in Home Improvement. Also, any TV show where I have the "oh, yeah, he's a dad" moment is sort of an automatic disqualifier, like Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy. TV characters who are beloved and eccentric and truly terrible fathers also did not make this list--I'm looking at you, Red from That 70s Show and George Sr. from Arrested Development. Also, I will not even dignify Homer Simpson with the title of father. The number of online lists that cartoon gets onto makes me shudder. Also, and this is completely unfair, but when I find out too much about an actor's off-screen behavior while filming, perfectly likeable father characters like Danny Tanner from Full House are no longer palatable or listable.

An addendum to the methodology: We didn't have TV after I turned ten years old, and even when we did it was basic channels and closely monitored. If any glaringly obvious classic father figures are missing from the list, it's because I never got to watch the show. But I'm sure they're very nice. Put them on your own list, this one's mine.

And now, with plenty previous ado, we begin the countdown with

#15: John Schneider, Smallville's Jonathan Kent

Mmm. Floppy haired goodness. I'm allowed to check him out--he's not my dad.

Let's not kid ourselves. Being the dad of an alien would be hard work, even if he wasn't an indestructible god-like force. And being the dad to an indestructible god-like force would be a cake-walk if that same 'roid pumped snot face wasn't a broody little misfit who has a thing for the wrong girl almost as consistently as he's seduced by the dark, bald side of the force. Jonathan Kent pulls off moralisms with minimal fuss, is believable as a hay bale-throwing Midwesterner, and is . . . just so, so pretty. Wish he still had the The General Lee around, I wouldn't object to being taken for a spin.

#14: Jason Bateman, Arrested Development's Michael Bluth

I'll never be able to listen to "Afternoon Delight" with any kind of reverence. Not that I really could before

Michael has a lot on his plate. He has the most grasping, needy, neurotic extended family in the universe, and having his jailbird father squirrelled away in their faux home doesn't make things easier for him. And while his son, George Michael, is a peach, he's the type of pale, pudgy, hairless, cousin-lusting peach that repulses most normal people. But Michael Bluth loves him anyway, and even frequently has old-fashioned Opie-Andy moments that warm the heart.

#13: Nathan Fillion, Castle's title character

O Captain, my Captain. Mine.

Let's face it, Rick Castle--mega rich novelist with the emotional maturity and instinct for play of a fifteen-year-old boy--as your legal guardian and moral compass would be a dream. He is the epitome of self-indulgence and good humor, like a soft serve ice cream double dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with money. In fairness to the other dads, it must be acknowledged that he sorta caught an epic break by having a daughter so grounded and self-disciplined that I suspect government brainwashing. However, his handling of boyfriends and body image demonstrates an instinct for unconditional love that earns him his spot on the list.

#12: John Spencer, The West Wing's Leo McGarry

O.G.

Leo is a fantastic example of a much more realistic school of Dad. While he excels at his job, he's crazy awkward in his home life. The way he deals with this is by frequently growing petulant and dismissive with his daughter Mallory while simultaneously trying to keep her close. He barks at Mallory much more often than he opens up to her, but he still finds ways to express his affection and protectiveness, even if she'd probably prefer to flirt with his staff in peace. Gruff around the edges and incapable of make a straight statement of love, Leo ranks high in the category of adored yet off-putting patriarchs.

#11: Michael Landon, Little House on the Prairie's Charles Ingalls

If you're starting to notice the trend of Magnificent Locks, this is not happenstance. And you ain't seen nothin' yet.

He's Pa. The infinitely kinder, wiser, more practical version of his wife, one who understands Laura's high spirits and doesn't discourage his daughters from thinking they can do absolutely anything they set their minds to. Always struggling to make ends meet, he infuses their desperately poor existence with magic, protecting his children from wild beasts and Nellie Blye (synonymous?) with a tireless concern for their welfare. And then there's the hair, which I could probably dedicate a whole section of this list to. Pa is not to be beat.

#10: Andy Griffith, The Andy Griffith Show's Sheriff Taylor

Even his ears seem kind. And law-abiding.

I couldn't claim the title of red-blooded American if I didn't acknowledge that Sheriff Taylor is the essence of Manliness. He's an officer of the law, he's a hulking figure of a man, he enjoys fishing, shootin' breeze at the local barber shop, and keeping Barney Fife in line. And above all else, he's the kindest, gentlest father to itty-bitty-Opie that anyone could ever hope for. Really, I think he could have accidentally squished him into oblivion if he wasn't so conscientious. He's the type that I'm sure cries every time he accidentally steps on a caterpillar. Except that Andy Taylor's are simultaneously so manly and so sweet that they produce harty maple syrup for his flapjacks.

#9: Peter Gallagher, The O.C.'s Sandy Cohen

Those eyebrows could kindly conquer continents. And my heart.

If pressed to reveal how I know about this character, I will claim that I am gathering only from hearsay. That is all I have to say about the matter. But seriously, Sandy is, like, the best dad ever. Coming from a wild background, he pulled himself into a position of respectability and wealth, but never lost touch with his roots. He devotes himself to his family and helping the unfortunate, never losing his idea of right and wrong while simultaneously having boundless faith in the potential of people society has written off. Also, he surfs and loathes yogaletes. Which just seals the deal.

#8: Fred MacMurray, My Three Sons' Steven Douglas

Coiffed curls and cleft chins=trust

I have a mildly shameful loyalty to the show My Three Sons. It's unabashed agenda somehow circumvents any shakily constructed cynicism I may have put up and gets me absolutely pumped about how perseverance, optimism, hard work, virtue and a good hair gel can really keep the universe on an even keel. Mr. Douglas' backseat approach to parenting is comforting in that he is always interested in his boys welfare, but equally committed to allowing them to find their own path and passions. Corny it may be, but that doesn't make it less enviable.

#7: Avery Brooks, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Commander Benjamin Sisko

This kind of dapper demeanor must be passed from father to son.

Here's a man who devoted his life to the job without sacrificing his son's upbringing. Instead, he used his position as the commander of a far-flung space station to enrich his son's thinking, exposing him to new cultures and ways of life that helped boy Jake become a phenomenal writer. Even the initial struggle Sisko had with his son choosing a career so completely different from Starfleet was handled admirably, as Sisko relinquished the idea that his child should operate as a miniature perfection of himself. And, above all else, Sisko achieves this high rank of Fatherhood through his devotion to the greatest of sports--baseball. Jake was given every advantage, including superior taste in leisure activities.

#6: Enrico Colantoni, Veronica Mars' intrepid Keith Mars

Look at them twinkling brown eyes. Songs could and will be written.

Keith plays on multiple themes touched on by fathers lower down in the rankings. A father whose job is the absorbing task of pursuing truth and justice, Keith also recognizes and focuses on his child's potential. Ex-Sheriff Mars never tries to dissuade daughter Veronica from demonstrating her brilliance and resourcefulness, and strikes up a partnership that allows her to flouish. He may occasionally set traps of spraying ink when she starts to snoop into areas best left alone, but that's really more in the attitude of a rival colleague than an overbearing parent. His affection and faith that his daughter will develop into a truly remarkable person is never shaken, and his personal struggles never color his treatment of people in trouble or pain.

#5: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Supernatural's John Winchester

. . . there are no words. Well, yes there are, but they'd probably creep y'all out.

Ok, yeah, so maybe he slightly abandoned his sons for periods of their childhood in his one-man quest to capture the demon who killed their mother. And maybe he's a textbook case of the non-communicative, ever demanding, praise and affection witholding type of father. And maybe when I gaze into those eyes and contemplate his scruffy jawline I find I don't care in the slightest. No, but really. John Winchester had his flaws. But he had an iron grip on the difference between good and evil, and more than that, he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his son's life. Eternal burning, the whole nine yards. I find I can forgive quite a bit in the face of that level of devotion. Basically I just need to be in the face of his face and I am completely persuaded of all his virtues.

#4: Edward James Olmos, Battlestar Galactica's Commander William Adama

I'd be perfectly fine with this being prominently placed on currency.

Now, if I were this estimable hunk of honor, grit, and smarts, I would have considered my duty to humanity complete when I realized that I had contributed my DNA to the creation of the Sun God:

Feel free to linger over this image as long as you wish.

But was our inestimable leader of the remnants of civilization satisfied with that? Not in the slightest. He proceeded to be a truly remarkable father. While reticent and closed off at times, he sees the end of the world as a second chance, an opportunity to reach out and give all of his worldly wisdom about the value of human life. He clings to the best parts of mankind, never letting despair and bitterness overcome him or those in his command. The best part? He didn't just do this with the above godly hunk of flesh who had a genetic claim on his concern. He became the father of the entire fleet, never tiring in his duties to each of them in turn. Now, go back and stare at Apollo again if you need to. I know I do.

#3: Victor Garber, Alias' Jack Bristow

Such terrifying loyalty.

Jack brings to the table at levels of Certainty no one ever could (or should) rival. There is no force in heaven or earth that could sway Jack from his core purpose in life, which is keeping his daughter Sydney safe. Jack is unhampered with any feeling of individual significance, nor is he distracted by any semblance of a personal life outside of his daughter. Jack truly considers that his only point of worth, the sole contribution he can make to the world, is in using his particular set of skills to ensure that Sydney lives. Did we mention that this skill set involves warehouses of currency, munitions, and instruments of torture? Jack doesn't care how much he has to compromise himself. Sydney is all that matters.

#2: William Henry Cosby, Jr., The Cosby Show's Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable

Dad is great! Gives us chocolate cake!

Dr. Huxtable brought you into this world, and he can take you out of it again! Not only is he wisecracking and silly-faced, Dr. Huxtable demonstrates an inspiring level of love and tenderness toward his brilliant wife. As a team the Parents Huxtable encourage their children to pursue their strengths wholeheartedly, kindly expecting them to see obstacles only as challenges that they will soon conquer. The level of common sense he teaches and tender affection he shows to all his children is a marker that few will ever reach, let alone surpass.

#1: Kiefer Sutherland, 24's Jack Bauer

Mr. The Bauer, Sir. My Liege.

Here it is. The epitome of what it is to be a dad. Also, the final proof that it really doesn't matter how much you suck, everyone deserves a great dad. Kim can go ahead and spit everything her father gives up for her back in his face, but Jack still walks through fire, bombs, terrorists, torture, more bombs, incompetent world leaders, and sleep deprivation to make sure you're ok and able to continue living your sucky life. But Jack is untouched by Kim's untreatable level of lameness. He rises above it all, the perfection of filial duty, love, and bad-ass gauntlet-throwing defiance. I love my dad, Jack, but if I could trade him for you . . . I'd have to think about it. If your hair was floppy I'd already be sold.

My Emotions Wrapped in Vines

2011-08-15T15:49:00.006-06:00

Ok. I just finished up my 16 credits that I in a fit of ambitious vanitas thought would be a great idea for my summer vacation. I have precisely two weeks until my 20 credit fall begins, I'm still in the note-taking-research-gathering stage of my symposium paper, my friends are fleeing the area like krill evading humpbacked whales, they still haven't re-released chocolate cherry Diet Dr Pepper (it's like drinking a Tootsie Roll pop! The nation is being robbed of that tantalizing taste bud treasure!), and my haircut refuses to be as punked-out-Zooey-Deschanel as I would like. In essence, today I am a crank. And in the spirit of sloughing off personal improvement for my brief two weeks of academic freedom, I am going to sink into my crankiness. It's going to be like when Mowgli is falling asleep and Kaa makes him the bed of tree leaves that perfectly fold over and snugly ensconce Mowgli into a bed of green bliss, except this time the leaves are discontent and glowering resentment. So, as an outward expression of my momentarily ill-tempered soul-klavier, I present:

THREE WILDLY OVERRATED THINGS*

1. Raisins

Hey, here's a grape. A grape that we deliberately sucked all juice and flavor and delicious grapeness out of. Essentially, the raisin is the bottled water of California. They're just baffled, bemused, and boozing it up over the fact that we keep on paying them for this product.Wanna put it in hot cereal, so that it's withered, dusty, dry skin can get sorta wet and become a mushy insult to grapeness instead of a leathery one? Or hey, you could put it in bagels. Delicious, dense, shmear-covered bagels, which you would typically take luxurious bites of at will, but now you're held up every few minutes by the fact that you're not positive if you just ate an ill-fated potato bug that inexplicably made it into the bagel dough, or a dehydrated fruit whose presence is equally mysterious.

What an alarming way to start the morning.

Or, if you're feeling particularly vicious, you can use these ravaged once-refreshing morsels to trick your friends into thinking that they're about to enjoy a bite of carrot cake or cookie. How sad, how foolish of them to think that you actually liked them and wanted to give them chocolate. That'll show them to try and look after you when you're sick. They've received the message--you return favors by feeding people grapes that have been tortured and violated until they're a mockery of their own form.

Speaking of soulless pretenders to much greater things, let's move on to the second subject on our list:

2. Iron & Wine

First things first: only the best of the best can pull off having a band name for a one-man-show. Take a wild guess on whether I'd put you in that best of the best category. Also, if you notice that most other bands can only pull off having one or two tracks per album that reach your level of mellow non-music tinkering on the banjo, it's because they've discovered that if they pursue that level of non-dynamicism for all their songs people will mistake them for hack jobs who want you to fall asleep quickly before anybody notices that their music really isn't that good. And Samuel Beam, I really can't stress this enough: You must stop whispering. If you don't stop whispering each and every one of your mediocre melodies in a tone that implies that your sub par, vague lyrics carry the secrets of the world, I may have to attack your larynx with the ragged edge of my Diet Coke can. I think it would improve the sound. And maybe provide you with a brief glimpse into an actual range of emotion for your music.

An addendum: Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel should be permitted to take turns flossing your teeth with their mandolin strings for having to suffer the indignity of their immortal "Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping" being compared favorably with your vastly inferior "Have I found you? Flightless bird, jealous, weeping. Or lost you? American mouth. Big pill looming." Sheesh. No wonder Kristen Stewart picked you for the Twilight soundtrack. Ohhh, burn.

3. Harry Potter movies

The number of times I read "My Harry Potter journey is coming to an end! *sob*" and various other forms of the same sentiment when the final movie came out made me want to rip my hair out. Well, most things make me want to rip my hair out these days. My hair sucks. But this one made me also want to rip out other people's unsuspecting hairs. And eye teeth. Apparently if I were a serial killer I'd be the type to collect trophies. Not unlike Voldemort. Which brings me back round to my point. You wanna know when yours, mine, and everybody's Harry Potter journey ended? July 21, 2007 when the last book was published. I remember getting off my shift at the greasy spoon diner I was carhopping for that summer, driving directly to Barnes & Noble, and buying two copies so that Alan and I wouldn't sabotage each other to read it first. That was the end of the journey. Cause Harry's scar hadn't hurt for nineteen years, and everything was all right. Finito.

If we were talking about film adaptations that reached the caliber of book adaptation of The Lord of the Rings and The Godfather, I'd be more willing to negotiate. But no director with a sweeping vision or love of the deeper themes of the story came in and crafted an interpretation that stayed true to the characters and narrative while taking liberties that brought out the sweetest notes of the underlying message. The Harry Potter movies are crass commercialization, a capitalization on a truly delightful world of possibility and imagination that got shoved unceremoniously through a thirty-year-old carbon copy machine, emerging smeared with ink and stretched until the paper itself was almost translucent from wear.

Instead of picking apart the entire series, I will highlight one character to make my point: Hermione Jean Granger. Brilliant. Passionate. Idealistic. Loyal friend. Bitingly sarcastic. Feisty. Impatient. Know-it-all. Socially awkward . . . . Hot? Pouty, whimpering, girly? Ew! Stop it. I feel betrayed by the movie franchise. Hermione was the example that people could still like you, that you could be valued on a totally different bar graph, that smarts really did stand alone as a value, that all of these elements were so much better than not having buck teeth and frizzy hair.

Am I over identifying here? Of course I am. Which only makes my criticism carry more weight, because I'm the key part of the demographic who had the most to lose in the movie's desecration of Hermione. If there is so much as one single "but she's hot" comment on this post, I will annihilate you with rubber bands. I don't care how long it takes. I will find a way.

I'mma gonna go watch Some Kind of Wonderful now. And listen to a lot of Heartless Bastards. But not at the same time. That would make no sense.

* I am perfectly aware that I am mortally offending some of my dear friends right to the quick with this list. Know that I still love you, see the above paragraph about how cranky I am, and . . . get over it? Too harsh? Kisses!

If We Weren't So Alike You'd Like Me A Whole Lot More

2011-07-13T14:42:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I just really wish that my world had more properties of a claymation film. I'm not wild about the gross teeth and the creepy blinking that are inevitable byproducts of the claymation process, but I do think it would be hugely useful in the aspects of the consequence-free self mutilation and dramatic punishment of others.

For instance: the next time I get a migraine as bad as the ones I've had the last few weeks and some brutal soul decides that that's funny, I think the world would be a better place if I were free to wrestle that person to the ground, spear them through the ears with twin apple corer peeler slicers, and just start turning both instruments in opposite directions, letting their skin peel off in delicate spirals and their flesh be sliced into precise, concentric circles. If I could do this to someone without the actual gore, I'm pretty sure my head would feel much, much better.

And if the next time I'm subjected to being within earshot of a conversation with my boss's boss--the one whose voice has a throaty, dull, moist quality that feels like two rotting, mushy pieces of wood smacking against a rubber buoy--I was able to pull my skin away from the corners of my mouth and use my entire face-flesh as an appropriate cushion between my ear drums and the voice, I'd be better able to get through the day. See? Being mutable clay would have its advantages sometimes.

I can say with some certainty that the hands down best way to start off a day is to enthusiastically freak out to "Twist and Shout" in the middle of a gas station with one's big brother. Although it didn't hurt that we got to pass all the hot air balloons rising off the field with graceful majesty right before the fortuitous tunage. Yes, there is such a thing as a majestic thirty-foot-tall inflated Smoky the Bear head. The only one who surpassed our benevolent guardian of the forest was the sensuous yet dignified Coke bottle.

When you take a moment to look at it objectively, hot air balloons as an enterprise are just uncommon strange, even before you branch off into shapes.

The other day Jason, Rosemary, and I were discussing the environment when I used the phrase "don't shit where you eat." Jason was in Jason-like hysterics (meaning he laughed) for the next five minutes, saying that hearing that folksy-type phrase coming out of my mouth was just jarring and ridiculous. So let's clear something up, here and now:

My grandparents were farmers or the children of farmers. Half of them come from Canada, half from the exotic County Weber. Sugar beet factories, bee farms, truck driving, alcoholism, and spinning wheels figure heavily into my very near and dear history, as do the early loss of teeth and the tendency to view with deep suspicion people who pay for a hair cut. We don't be fancy folk. Which I enjoy immensely, it makes family reunions much more entertaining. Also, despite the fact that I've been talking everybody's ear off about my symposium in Savannah and how I'm going to be the most sophisticated world-travelling art historian since Brad Pitt (re: Mr and Mrs Smith), this does not mean that I don't get/want to pepper my talk with more savory phrases. There's only so many times you can use the word "aesthetic" in a paragraph without needing to go have a vigorous game of horseshoes with the second cousins to help regain a personality.

I've spent the last two months living on a raw, raggedy edge; my nerves have been laid open like an exposed wire, reacting with violent sparks and sputters to every fluctuation in mood or routine, bound to blow at the very next encounter with any hint of friction. I'm twitching around haphazardly, trying to keep my glazed focus on something--anything--all while I swear even the ends of my hair are shredding at a faster rate in order to keep up with my mind.

That said, I think the very nature of this chaos has helped me suck out the marrow of what summer should be whenever I've gotten the chance. Even while most days I've been so wrapped up in my own head that I've been about as useful as a screen door on a submarine, there have still been the nighttime croquet games. Hour-long games of catch, moments stolen sitting with friends on the curb in a summer thunderstorm, treks at midnight to the cheap taco stand, all have been made that much sweeter and Epic in contrast. I have the bug bites to prove it: my half-gnawed carcass is evidence that despite the fact that my brain has been like a turtle on Prozac, I'm still living life.

A symptom of my constant frenzied state of brain has been my abuse of Bush's "Glycerine" on my playlists. I don't know if that is due to the song being almost chewable in it's melancholy angst, or if I just feel better every time I compare myself to Gavin Rossdale. My life may lack a certain panache, and I very likely will flunk the GRE, but at least I'm not a washed-up one-album-wonder who married Gwen Stefani in a mutual sell-out that has lead them down the path of paired lameness ever since. I'm no Gavin Rossdale. It's become a mantra.

I Ain’t Been Home To See My Baby In 99 And One Half Days

2011-05-24T12:56:00.004-06:00

Due to a complex and uncontrollable course of events, I don’t have shoes to wear at work today. And I’m trying to see if I can make it to one thirty without anyone in the office noticing that I’m wearing mismatched striped socks and nothing else. This to my brain seems to have been translated into a creeping, pointed-toes-first sort of saunter that is certainly the polar opposite of stealth.

Luckily my path to and from the printer is largely unobserved. I’m already psyching myself up for my trek to the break room when this can of Diet Coke runs out. That route is a veritable minefield of bored workers who might take it into their head to closely observe all trans-offices pilgrimages for any deviations from routine. I believe the neurotic fool who overcompensates for a lack of rubber-soled footwear by prancing like she could launch into a pirouette at any moment would provide too much fodder for them to handle without a shovel.

I’ve decided that 60s rock-blues is the perfect accompaniment to this drizzly, dank, droopy weather. Joplin, Velvet Underground, and Jimi have been very heavy in my rotation of albums at work the last few weeks. And since Janis has been such a sweetly melancholic balm while the sun refuses to shine, I was more than a little appalled that they named the weather pattern that has killed over one hundred people Tornado Joplin. Too soon, guys, too soon.

Yes, I do understand that I’m fairly screwed up for devoting more attention to a critique of tornado naming than I do to worrying about real people being hurt. I’ll work on getting worked up about that.

I’ve been having my typical spring-induced burst of eloquence/need for attention, but I haven’t been able to channel this into blog form. Every time I log in and get ready to type I get overcome with a guilt complex about not doing my math homework. Due to this overreaction of mine, I am now three sections ahead of where I need to be, and I think I’m going to keep up that pace until I just obliterate the whole course, because nothing brings on the crazy like math.

I’m not going to elaborate how much of my mental powers I daily devote to the argument that my ability to divide polynomials is going to have literally no impact on my career/life/endeavor to become an interesting person, but trust me, it’s a subject I dwell on with some passion.

But much more troubling than my futile sophist arguments against systems of equations is how quickly math slickens my grasp on reality until is slips out of my minute yet tenacious grip. I don’t know why my mind wanders from the task at hand so quickly—probably the lack of adjectives—but usually about forty seven seconds into my first math problem I get bogged down in the philosophical inquiries that the presence of math naturally hazards. For instance: is the assertion that the rules of math have been proven in nature just another example of man imposing a law of order onto an uncompromisingly anarchistic universe? Do we find the proofs for geometric laws because they’re there, or because we crave to see them? In other words, is 4 really divisible by 2 independent of man’s consciousness or influence, or is 4 divisible by 2 because we need it to be?

See, there’s a reason why I stopped taking math after Pre-Calc sophomore year of high school. I argue that my judgment to stop the madness there should have been respected.

I was totally gearing up to dive into the various difficulties that come with making new acquaintances and friends. I’m fascinated with how much I can completely misrepresent myself while making only truthful statements. But every attempted sentence related to this topic kept on coming off either self-congratulatory, self-loathing, or creepily detached. Which I suppose means we best shelve that discussion for another time.

It should be noted that tonight I am finally gaining some closure on a nine-year-stale grievance. Tonight, I shall see u2. Bono shall serenade me. More importantly, The Edge will rock my soul. My parents better cross their fingers that those irascible Irishmen still have their groove, because if this concert doesn’t blow my concept of what is legendary, they’re never getting off the hook for denying me the chance to see their Elevation tour back in 2002.

I know, how leftover teenage angst of me. I should just bust out the Slim Fast and Daria and call it a Nostalgia Tuesday. Maybe if I feel super rebellious I can watch the copy of Moulin Rouge I used to hide in the shoebox under my bed, cleverly concealed beneath my ballroom shoes between the layers of tissue paper.

Some Things Need To Be Said

2011-05-03T13:58:00.000-06:00

I’m about to blow every shred of my carefully accumulated, ferociously guarded street cred. In this blog, I’m going to dispel for all of my liberal friends and associates the meticulously nurtured conception that I, I am their conservative friend who cannot be dismissed out of hand, for (even though I profess unashamedly to being conservative) I have never stated anything particularly outrageous. Through my careful nonspeaking about political matters, I have been identified as reasonable by those who I disagree with. This is of course typically achieved by not voicing much of anything at all, but I’m going to break this tradition and destroy all these years of hard work. I feel like I’ve earned a good ol’ freakout.

It all comes down to this quote:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."

This has been attributed (falsely) to Dr Martin Luther King, and has spread like wildfire over the webbytubes via Twitter, blogs and facebook statuses less than 48 hours after it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been found and killed by US Special Forces.

Here’s where I’m going to offend a lot of people.

How nice it is, how very comfortable, how open-minded and accepting and sensitive of us to choose the highest of high ground regarding bin Laden’s death. How much is speaks for my generation that we have taken this of all moments as the time to claim our philosophical position, to use this moment in history to demonstrate that we are above the maddening crowd. It’s so enlightening to see my peers view the reaction to the death of a mass murderer with idealistic eyes, to watch them weep sophist tears of pity and condemnation for those whose more base instincts took over and compelled them to gather at Ground Zero to savagely toast the continuation of barbaric acts. I’m sure my peers are all very proud and satisfied with themselves.

I, on the other hand, I am enraged.

I have had reason to be embarrassed by my generation in the past. I have seen (and admittedly participated) in a movement of apathetic materialism. I am fully aware that our canon of behavior dictates that our reaction to any overt display of emotion, patriotism, or reverence for tradition must be consistently one of arch, jaded bemusement. As the information age has expanded and the social network revolution spiraled on, the people of my demographic have responded with the dichotomy of a self-absorbed urge to document everything while remaining aloof from any true commitment of passion, conviction, or action.

To you all, I have this to say: responding to bin Laden’s demise with a catchphrase concerning the sanctity of life does not demonstrate your depth. It showcases your debilitating naïveté. You have become so ensconced in your comfortable distance from reality that you now embarrass yourself in your complete lack of context or scope.

Osama bin Laden was by all accounts a quiet man of measured tone, intelligence, and reason. He was no mad man frothing at the mouth. This makes it all the more sickening that his lines of logic lead to the calculated conclusion that the violent destruction of life was to be his life’s work. He calmly determined that those who lead lives in a manner contrary to his own radical teachings had no value, and that it was not only his duty to murder them, but to do it in such a way that even survivors would feel the threat and fear hang over them in their daily life. He was not my neighbor who slighted me and who I should in the end find it within me to forgive and mourn. He was the mastermind behind a force who is seeking to eliminate me and mine.

I rejoice that his potential for evil has been cut down in the most final of ways. I mourn that he is not alone in this perverted world view, but I celebrate that his individual capacity for wicked works is at an end. I believe that the fact that he prevailed this long after his attack on New York City was psychologically damaging to us, the survivors. I consider it essential that we be able to see that in the end those who perpetrate mass acts of hate against us will be brought down and stamped out. And I resent the proliferation of people who hand down judgment on me for responding this way to his death, who aim to paint me as one with a Neanderthal-like grasp on ethics, or just too absorbed in my mundane existence to pull above such ‘savage’ responses.

I celebrate that the very pluralism of society that allows me to offend all my comrades as much as they deeply upset me is the same society that bin Laden felt to be so offensive that he wished to obliterate it. Better luck next time, Osama. I relish the very contradiction of terms, and am exultant that a threat against all I consider holy has been neutralized.

God bless the troops who performed this righteous deed, and our President for having the conviction to follow through on an unpleasant but necessary task.

Who Are All These Strange Ghosts Rooted To the Silly Little Adventure of Earth With Me?

2011-03-29T12:35:00.002-06:00

Free Willy was a lie. Or rather, Free Willy was a partial and misleading truth. We shouldn’t let the whale back into the wild because it’s our friend and a sensitive, gentle creature. We should let the damn whale back into the wild (whether it was born in captivity and has the resources to survive or not) because if we don’t, they’re going to attack us by our ponytails, drag us to the bottom of their tank, and hold us there until we drown. Whales are not friends; they’re hostile prisoners of war.

Yes, I am talking about the Shamu franchise at Sea World. I get periodically worked up about this, it’s like how I sporadically and with no exterior stimulus go into rages about how Louisa May Alcott fails as a writer by selling us the Laurie-Jo relationship only to renege and trying to convince us that the Laurie-Amy marriage isn’t one of the more creepertastic developments in all literary history. But I digress. Back to how we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes concerning the proper course of whale-human relations.

From a criminal justice perspective, the consequence for throwing the human being who feeds you back and forth until she loses consciousness and drowns should not be a spectacular light-and-water show and the adoration of thousands of children. That is, unless you put forward that forcing the whale to perform inane tricks in a tiny habitat is a fitting punishment, but then it would inevitably be pointed out to the judge that the risks to innocent civilians is only increased by this cruel and unusual imprisonment. So, we either gotta let Shamu out of his plea bargain or set him to cracking rocks, because this is just ridiculous.

I blame the marketing blitz that the whales, with the help of their well-paid cohorts, have implemented—I’m looking at you, MJ. Did your conscience burn with a pain akin to your erratic, struggling heart as the end neared? Did you contemplate how you had lent your compelling vocals to this campaign of misinformation? (Aww, too soon? Don’t look at me like that.)

We need to return to a Melville-heavy perspective, make Ahab a tragic hero who is doing his part for mankind to eliminate massive water-born killers. This blatant propaganda full of calm violins accompanying those majestic underwater film shots that the human-hating National Geographic fascists keep shoving down our throats is confusing our children, distorting the justice system and our God-given sense of preservation. I’d enlist the Disney juggernaut in this media counteroffensive, but they showed their true colors with the Fantasia 2000 segment where they cannibalized Respighi’s Pines of Rome. Flying whales? What new devilry is this?!

It should be stated here that penguins and dolphins are still adorable and still deserve our friendship. Also Professor Bhaer is a perfectly nice man, yet is found infinitely wanting.

Ok, children, here is the maiden voyage of our hopefully semi-annual Magnificent Woman tribute. Today’s recipient is a Surrealist photographer and writer; she would have won me over solely for being an influence for my favorite photographer that ever breathed (Cindy Sherman), but she tips the scales into uncharted awesomeness by doing two of my favorite things: creating a space for women in the misogynist Surrealist movement, and fighting Nazis:

Claude Cahun, as she was known, intentionally selected a sexually ambiguous name to replace her birth name of Lucy Schwob. Cahun's life was marked by a sense of role reversal; her works pointedly challenged the public's notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Surrealism is rooted in Freudian psychology, a branch of thought that displays women as incomplete versions of men, driven largely by their jealousy of what men are and an unconquerable sense of incompetence based on their essential womanhood. Cahun’s presence provided a counter to this predominantly male Surrealist art, with their primary images of women as isolated symbols of eroticism, and strove to epitomize the chameleonic and multiple possibilities of the female identity. In tandem to her photography, Claude worked on a series of monologues called "Heroines," which was based upon female fairy tale characters that intertwined traditional stories with witty comparisons to the contemporary image of women.

In 1937 Claude and her partner Marcel settled in Jersey. Following the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion, they became active resistance fighters and propagandists. The two produced anti-German fliers, many of them snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazi's crimes, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey, strategically placing them in soldier's pockets, on their chairs, etc. Also, fliers were inconspicuously crumpled up and thrown into cars and windows. In 1944 they were arrested and sentenced to death, but luckily the war was ended before the sentences were ever carried out. However, Cahun's health never recovered from her treatment in jail, and she died in 1954.

She was totally nuts. Look at those crazy eyes staring at you out from the mirror. I absolutely love it.

To complement this tribute, and to satisfy the requests of some of those who attended my symposium lecture a couple of weeks ago, I’m including excerpts from the Riot Grrrl Manifesto that was published by the Bikini Kills:

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own moanings.

BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary "reverse sexists" AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.

Don’t some of those sentences make you want to smack your lips with pleasure and satisfaction?

I hope I never end up being a Cameron Diaz. Pretty much all she can contribute to the film industry is the occasional movie where she Doesn’t Suck. I would hate to have my high points be defined as just Not Sucking.

And speaking of films and the relative level of suckage, let’s get something clear once and for all: I don’t care what film and television reviews say. And I certainly don’t consider viewership to be relevant to whether I’m going to be entertained. But most importantly, I’m never going to consult a review before seeing a film that has already sparked my interest, and when people forcibly parrot to me what they’ve heard of a movie—either before I’ve seen it or as a counter to my impressions when they still haven’t seen it—I become massively irritated. Twitchy, seized up muscles, creepy calm face and dead disingenuous eyes irritated.

Ye have been warned. Yonder there be treacherous waters.

A Desperate Attempt to De-Legitimize Myself

2011-03-08T13:08:00.003-07:00

Ned is a fabulous whistler. Ned is the jolly very deaf old man who occupies the corner opposite from me in our basement, plodding along at his mysterious accounting responsibilities which after almost two years I still haven’t quite been able to identify. He also takes long and very contented-looking naps in the break room. I get jealous every time I go in there to get yet another Diet Coke. But above all, Ned whistles. He whistles in a fashion I would not have considered possible for someone so very deaf. His whistle trills, thrills, and sings. He also does that, by the way. Sings. Full-throated old-man sings. It’s great. More than a little bizarre, but great. All of this adds a little much-needed color to the homogenous crowd that is the accounting and payment services departments.

That is, it did. Until yesterday.

Beginning March 7th in the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven, Ned has persistently, consistently and quite accurately whistled “On My Own” from the seminal classic Les Miserables. Which is just dandy, except that once upon a time I was an overly delusional/emotional eleven year old who latched onto that song with a fervor and devotion unparalleled by anything except parasitic organisms. I really couldn’t tell you why I seemed so determined in fifth and sixth grade to identify with songs and sentimentalities that were so obviously out of my depth. But I was passionate about how much those types of songs “spoke” to me.

Me, the chunky eleven year old with glasses biting into her chubby cheeks and a sneaking suspicion that Santa maybe could still exist. Who was so far removed from the adult themes of those songs that a year later I bought a condom from a woman’s bathroom dispensary and still had no idea what it was. And I didn’t even have good taste. Sure, I though that “On My Own” spoke to me (because no one gets the pain and torture of lonely, beaten down women in the throes of unrequited love like prepubescent girls, right? Right?), but I also almost wore out Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You” album and I tuned into Delilah’s radio show every night on KOZY.

Yeah. You read that right. I’m pretty sure I’ve never owned up to that until this very moment. Ohh, the hours I spent listening on the most maladjusted, dysfunctional, selfish people pour their hearts out to the always sugary, always banal Delilah! I blame her for my hypoglycemic condition as much as I do the unfortunate seventh grade diet of Slim Fast and Diet Coke. But it’s been enough time, and I’ve so very assiduously made up for it in the decade since, it feels right to come clean about my thoroughly lame use of time.

This confession also explains why even to this day I shy away from overly demonstrative emotional displays. Because in my experience, eleven year olds who are fascinated by things they don’t understand are the only ones who behave that way. Which is incredibly unfair to many of my much more emotionally developed and comfortable friends, but it certainly is a clue to my reserved manner in matters of sentimentality.

Pretty much this entire line of thought is Ned’s fault, because he won’t stop whistling that beautiful but damned song, and I can’t stop cycling through my conflicting memories of appreciation and disdain.

This should also explain why I take such perverse delight in blasting “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith. It’s one of the emotion-junkie songs I didn’t really listen to until recently, and glorying in the ridiculously overwrought vocals is sorta therapy, some positive connections with something similar but not identical to that magnificently mortifying part of my childhood.

It hurts my soul when Pandora lets music group profiles be written by people who really don't like the band. I’ve come to terms with people having different music tastes than me, and I don’t mind healthy criticism, but I do protest the time and place for such snarkiness. When you’re listening to your station on Pandora and click the group’s tab to learn more about them, it feels a little mean spirited and guerrilla warfare-esque to have every line full of little jabs at their authenticity or message. Take your aggression out on youtube comments like a normal person, for crying out loud.

As is typical, this blog post is happening because I’m fairly openly terrified that I won’t have my stuff together for my symposium presentation on Friday. I could easily just do a twenty minute rant about the disenfranchised, voiceless modern woman, but I don’t think that would win many points with my professor. Or my mother. Or any of my male friends that might show up.

Ghaa, growing up and doing what you’ve dreamt of doing for years is just the worst.

You Can't Talk To A Psycho Like A Normal Human Being

2011-02-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Snide People: When you talk about the American Dream with air quotes and derisive comments you are only demonstrating your own ignorance and misinformation. The American Dream is the concept that you can arrive at Ellis Island with nothing but the clothes on your back and through hard work, perseverance, a firm sense of reality and clear eye on your goal you can pull yourself up to a social standing where you are respected by your peers and able to care for yourself and family with comfort. The American Dream far predates ideas of ‘fame’ in the modern sense through youtube or reality programs. The American Dream even predates the concept of someone being a millionaire—nobody but heads of government had the ability to amass that kind of capital until the late nineteenth century.

The American Dream is almost solely about a land of opportunity where if you demonstrate ability and work ethic, you can be recognized for your achievements. No one will care about your upbringing or past acquaintance with squalor or ignorance. I actually think that this dream is enduring into the twenty-first century. So enduring that my definition probably appears to be far too simple, or even taken for granted by most. Modern America is very far removed from their immigrant forefathers who came from countries where caste and class ruled supreme, and where your position at birth truly dictated your choices. Of course the struggle to pull yourself out of a more obscure, resource-poor area is going to be more intense, I’m just saying that the American Dream promises that it is possible if you want and work for it hard enough.

The American Dream hasn’t been lost by this generation, it has merely been abused by rhetoric so that the definition is almost buried by disdain and smarmy remarks by media and intelligentsia who want to demonstrate their superiority to grasping lower individuals. I repeat: a pop star rocketing to the top of the charts with an inane, manufactured album is not achieving the American Dream. Neither is winning the lottery or becoming the new “It” fashion girl. It’s about an achievement-based society where you are given the chance to work your ass off and keep what you worked for without anybody looking down their nose at your efforts.

Ok, I’m done, that’s been bothering me for years. Those who have been holding back your sarcastic comments may now release your worst.

Alrighty, I’m going out on a limb this year. In an effort to sabotage any later attempt I may make to pretend that I had predicted the outcome of the entire Oscars, I’m putting my guesses/wishes out two days before the event. Note that I have eliminated the categories that I am either apathetic toward or lack knowledge about. Also be aware that I will be making it a personal effort to use the phrase “when I saw it at Sundance” as frequently as possible. Feel free to assume that I will be using my stuffiest tone.

Best Visual Effects: Inception. They made a city fold into a cube. And it was cool.

Best Cinematography: Black Swan. The paranoid space of most of the show was such a fantastic contrast to how they filmed the dance sequences.

Best Art Direction: True Grit. Yup.

Best Song: Toy Story 3’s “We Belong Together.” Any animated film that could make me cry that hard was obviously doing something right, and I think that something was partly Randy Newman.

Best Documentary: Restrepo. I’d be thrilled for Exit through the Gift Shop if by some miracle they won, but I doubt it. I don’t believe the quirky value or what they address about the nature of contemporary art is “deep” enough for The Academy. I saw Restrepo at Sundance last January; not only was it well made, the subject matter was much weightier in ways the self-important Academy likes best.

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3. As if there was ever any real competition for this one (I’m in the process of founding a non-profit to encourage the Toy Story makers to go and save Bo already).

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network. Aaron Sorkin is a god and should finally be recognized as such. The Cohen brothers are already established deity; they’ll be fine without it. Also they had more fertile material to work with in the first place. Aaron magicked the analytical introspectiveness out of basically nothing.

Best Original Screenplay: Inception. Breaking into Chris Nolan’s brain should be Leo’s ultimate goal.

Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Stanfield from True Grit. I get that she probably won’t win. But she should. Almost as much as Jacki Weaver from Animal Kingdom should, but I know she has even less chance. When I saw her performance at Sundance last year, she was the terrifying character that I carried around in my brain for weeks afterward. There’s something so sinister about grandma-seeming softness disguising a moral code that would make Mussolini blush.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale in The Fighter. This is the category where I am blatantly hedging my bets, since he’s swept everything so far. I truly wish John Hawkes in Winter’s Bone would win—when I saw the movie at Sundance it was his intensity and inscrutability that captured my imagination and fascination. Also, the fact that he was able to be that terrifying while being named Teardrop was proof positive of his craft.

Best Actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan. I’m most likely never going to watch that movie again, but good ol’ Nat completely immersed herself into the madness of that role, it was heartbreaking and stressful to watch.

Best Actor: Colin Firth in The King’s Speech. He. Has. To. Win. I’ve always adored Colin Firth, largely because he has ever been so comfortably Coliny. In contract, this is the role of his lifetime. This is character where he pushed himself to the limits, and I want to celebrate how un-Darcy like he was from the rooftops.

Best Director: Darren Aronofsky of Black Swan. This man’s pysche lives in a dark and thoroughly unwholesome place. I’m genuinely worried about what drives him to take the audience to the emotional places that he does, but I can’t deny the fact that he is successful with every single attempt. So, bravo.

Best Picture: The King’s Speech. I really loved some of the other contenders, but as a complete film I felt like The King’s Speech was not only masterfully executed, it really had a soul. They captured an individual’s struggle and made it a deeply emotional journey for everyone watching. Truly enduring and important filmmaking was happening there. So I want it to win.

I feel like our culture is too preoccupied with our own sense of history. This isn’t peculiar to this century; most time periods that are richest in art and monuments were peopled by civilizations with an acute knowledge of how their own lives might influence their descendents. The problem I see with this particular brand of societal self-awareness is our inability to discern between mundane and truly important and far-reaching decisions.

This issue has been niggling at me with an increasing level of irritation, because I realize that I am a prime example of this problem--trust me, the irony that I'm discussing this on my blog is not lost on me. I feel the same urge to document, display, and decode the minutiae of my life as if my personal feelings about last week’s episode of Community or what color my hair was at my birthday party is somehow significant and hidden with potential nuance and depth. It’s a fairly abhorrent system when everybody is constantly behaving that way. I believe that the fixation on preserving a record of everything, on providing a running commentary for each day, actually inhibits our ability to be fully present.

The sad part is that I’m still going to feel compelled to update my status every day on facebook, even when I know that that very act will only highlight how thoroughly I’m already filtering my reactions and feelings through a historically compact and bloodless mechanism.

Your Legs Feel Like Sandpaper, You Can't Do Anything Right

2011-02-18T13:01:00.002-07:00

From 1725 to 1890, the Salon de Paris was the academic organization which selected the subject matter, artistic execution, and categorization of all art that was to be exhibited publicly. In 1863 avant-garde artists rebelled against the Salon de Paris, declaring that the jury of the Salon de Paris was too conservative and inhibited true expression, experimentation, and advancement in the visual arts.

To appease them, Napoleon III established Salon des Refuses, where Jury rejects could be shown to the public and given a shot for recognition. From this stemmed the Impressionists’ independent salons in the 1890s, and since then there has ceased to be any kind of academic or government control over what art could become the next big splash in the western world. In essence, the control of art was removed from the institutionalized few and instead given to the masses.

And look at what a mess has been made of that. I don’t want to blame the masses; I want to blame my very favorite and always deserving punching bag: the press/PR world. The media has successfully disemboweled people of any inherent taste or discernment in the art world. The same people who gave us the blown-out controversy of Pastor Terry Jones and the Quran burning last September, the classy classy folks who prey upon people’s disgruntled feelings and vindictive tendencies in order to get fodder for their next cash-cow scandals, these same Masters of Hysteria and Hounds of Hell-bound Controversy have demolished the simple dream of an artist placing his creations in a gallery and allowing those interested to peruse the work for an image that appeals to them.

I may or may not have watched Exit through the Gift Shop last night, and it could or could not have caused this bitter diatribe on the fate of contemporary art. It shows how pervasively this grasping, leering façade of “being in the know” and the It Crowd has choked off individualism of taste or cognizance of preference. Bah, I banish all of you.

I’m going to take a beat and step away from the hair-pulling frustration to talk about one of my longest living loves: Anne Decatur “Poe” Danielewski. Poe has been one of my touchstone music artists ever since Daisy Krakowiak introduced me to her eleven years ago. Poe grew up in Provo, was an incredibly angry oppressed female rocker in the mid-90s with her first album, and in her second she exhibited an achingly eloquent full set of daddy-never-understood-me issues. She’s pretty much everything that is good and pissed off in this world.

And yes, eleven years is a long time to stay excited about only two CDs and about 25 songs, but hey, it could be worse. I could be thinking that Avril Lavigne is legit. At which point you’d all be forced to leave me in a room paneled in bad pop art rip-offs and pipe in mediocre local whiny bands until I promised to behave myself in a more circumspect fashion. But that isn’t necessary, because I know what company I keep, and my friends Fiona, Joan, Bjork, Janis, and the ever present, ever fabulous Poe would never let me down.

I’ve come up with a very fragmented theorem about friendship. Jason and I were talking the other day about levels of intimacy in relationships—strictly platonic ones—and I think that one of the key frustrations many people have (I’m going to keep this discussion to single people, because it’s the only first-hand experience I have) is linked to their mistaken idea of the permanency of friendships. I’m not talking about dramatic circumstances with people turning crazy overnight and deciding to put Nair in your shampoo instead of going to the movies, I’m talking about the impermanence of intimacy levels in friendship. Because in the end there are always two people involved, and people are inconstant in their commitments and how much they wish to open up.

It’s like there are a million planes of familiarity within a friendship, starting with the surface and moving on down as confidences are shared and favors are given and taken more freely. I believe that friction within friendships starts when one party bumps another up a few planes back toward the surface end. Because everyone is out there thinking that intimacy levels are like staked-out territory in the Wild West—once it’s been seen and mapped out and claimed once, it’s there forever, you can mine away at your leisure or run off to another ranch for six months and come back and it’ll still be there. When in reality I think it’s more like trying to set up a claim on a wet patch of beach and fending off the sand getting pulled back into the surf by putting your hands up as barriers—there are far too many dimensional ways that everything can slip back to where it originated.

So when one person is having a bad week or an anti-social moment or a shift in priorities, the other is left infuriated by this withdrawal but without the vocabulary to express the frustration because the basic understanding of how friendships work doesn’t operate in the reality of vacillating behaviors, it’s constructed in an ideal world of cemented landmarks on the road to deepest friendship. I don’t know if that made any sense, I’m going to have to tweak this some more, I’ve just been musing on the true impossibility of bringing two people together in any kind of fortressed battlement of deep friendship—one of them can always desert their post without malice and still bring ruin to the whole operation. I’d like to think that if people got a better perspective of how changeable all of this is, there’d be better communication and fewer feelings of betrayal: it’s so infrequently intentional, this separation, but it’s even less frequently fully understood.

I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about this, I guess it has something to do with my preoccupation with the fact that I’m the Bad Guy in somebody’s story. Ok, let’s not kid ourselves, probably many more than one somebody. But that realization is still just a few years old, and it’s a painful one to accept for a control freak like me who wants to be able to dictate that everyone understand the method and motivation for my actions, and when those still make me look like the Bad Guy then they should also take into account my larger life situation at the time, and when that still doesn’t justify it then the wronged party should just assume that I feel really really bad about it and leave it at that.

See? My expectations are ridiculous and even more absurd when you hear my own woe-is-me-for-once-he-wronged-me-greatly tales. It’s at these moments that I just take a deep deep breath, consider holding it forever, and finally exhale with the momentary acceptance that there are some people who won’t like me and I can let that go, followed immediately by another attack of nerves as my controlling nature bucks against the idea of surrendering to bad opinion.

In the end I’ve found that a cocktail of Poe’s “Beautiful Girl,” “Dolphin,” and “That Day” keeps the craziness at bay just as competently as anything else.

The Terrible Shrew

2011-02-02T12:45:00.002-07:00

Continuing on my nerdy self-obsession with blog stats, I’ve noticed that in the last three years of blogos-ity I have had a very disappointing turnout in January postage. I’m trying to determine if this is in reaction to cold weather making me hibernate, my commitment to avoid reflections of last year or goals for the next, or my personal fixation on my own birthday that consumes the majority of my emotional quota and mental fortitude. The not so sneaking suspicion is that the latter carries the brunt of the blame.

Does anybody else walk around or lounge about while purposefully adjusting one’s optic nerves so that you see double vision? It’s my go-to way to deal with fatigue, boredom, and/or a passionate desire to be able to deny having actually seen what was in front of my face—be it a roommate making out with her boyfriend, a bill, awkward people trying to flirt, or faux “impressionist” paintings from local artists of the 20th century. Plausible deniability and the shielding of my retinas from too many searing images is key to my already shaky mental soundness. Although I’m sure I look like a veritable brain trust sitting there with a glassy, unengaged look on my face.

The inevitable Sundance Reflection: (Sorry, I wish I could dispense with this necessity, but the movies this year were just really good, guys. I’ll do what I can to only talk about one of them.) Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles was the documentary we saw. I’m going to do the blanket recommendation while sailing past the synopsis, because I’ve come to discover in the four days since seeing it that that this film is unsynopsisable. I am choosing to make it a personal goal to use that newly invented word at least once a conversation. Suffice to say, the Toynbee Tiles documentary was touching and intriguing and strangely personal in a way that makes you feel almost alien to your fellow viewers. Now, on to the aspect of the film I want to talk about.

The Toynbee Tiles movie made me look at the ideas of advocacy and determination and devotion in a completely new light. Every story that we love about people like Thomas Moore, Galileo, Ghandi, Churchill, Sidney Poitier, Monet, Alexander Graham Bell, Louis Pasteur, Joan of Arc, Susan B Anthony, stories about people with conviction to an ideal that nothing—including the general ridicule and oppression of their peers or authorities—could shake, every story that is a success at least in an historical sense, all of these inspirational moments that are currently getting debased to greeting card levels, they are all indicators of hidden masses—of thousands of other individuals who believed as passionately, persevered as boldly, and ultimately sunk into obscurity. I’m not addressing the validity of these failed ideals or projects; I’m addressing the psychology of what that kind of bone-crushing, nerve-deadening, peel-your-skin-from-your-face agony it must be as an individual to possess so much conviction but only grow old and rust away in tandem with once-iridescent dreams of how the world could be changed. I find that suggestion to be haunting, and I no longer disbelieve or fail to grasp why bright, ambitious minds can be twisted into inconsolable and cankerous madness.

Something that’s been waiting to get off my chest: Stephanie Meyer’s writings are to literature as rap is to contemporary music—except that rap actually has some creative merit. The day that becomes an SAT question, including the qualifier about rap, will be a day of glory, for it will signal that an era of duped, delusional, and degrading women’s roles has been ended. All kidding aside, kids, listen to your very very cool and intelligent Auntie Mary when I tell you that the relationship archetypes present in the Twilight series are genuinely toxic. The female character defines herself almost entirely by her relationships with men, openly admits to not knowing who she is without them, considers herself to be a grey, limp, and wholly unworthy adjunct to her counterpart, subjects herself to a mindset where she is cowed and apologetic for trying to establish friendships outside of her relationship, and on top of all this she has the personality of an uncooked dried-out wrinkly old lima bean. Our heroine of the 21st century, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the age of gender equality and respect. Being thoroughly convinced that you are wholly inferior to your partner as well as helpless to stand on your own two feet isn’t romantic. All of this makes me want to shake my limbs until they flop off as an expression of discomfort.

As for rap, I actually have developed a secret but savory liking for the stuff. But I can’t get around the stereotypes of women either being sexual objects to be dispensed with at will or the malicious and treacherous saboteurs of the male psyche and success. I don’t understand how it came about that such a large percentage of one musical genre decided to shove half of humanity into such one-dimensional interpretations, but in the end I find that I cannot stomach much rap, no matter how much I may love the flow and poetry of it all. So there you have it. Eminem and Stephanie Meyer are joining forces to combat the progression of the American female. Have your lighters ready to burn them bras, ladies, I think Steph is going to be the far more formidable foe.

But wow, I hope it doesn’t result in actual bra burning, I like mine far too much.

We're Just Two Old Souls Swimming In A Fish Bowl Year After Year

2010-12-31T16:01:00.001-07:00

There's something uniquely satisfying about having the first song of the day be an extremely angry chick-power song. I don't care that I have no reason to identify with it, I choose to be empowered. I've drunk from the Kool-Aid for so many years; I might as well reap the rewards of Poe furiously condemning men's narrow conception of women's place, capabilities, and potential. Rock on, angry feminists, I'll pretend I have a real reason to be this vindictive and righteously outraged if your music meets me halfway.

So, I've been working on this blog for the last couple days, but haven't posted. Why, you ask? Does it have anything to do with a desire to put out a truly polished, well formatted and intricate posting? Sorry, wish I was that interested in your reading experience being pleasant. It has everything to do with the fact that so far this year I've written 19 posts, and that's a prime number and therefore awesome. Even numbers are to be avoided at all costs. Odd numbers are cool, but prime numbers? Shoot dang, that's the prize. But I've been pulling these nine hour (odd number!) days at work, and the stir craziness has been too much to bear--blog I must. I considered postponing the posting of said post (oooh, that was fun) until the New Year, therefore preserving my darling 19. But as soon as I had entertained that thought, I felt cheap. I knew I no longer deserved 19 posts with such cheating heart tactics as that. However, I comfort myself that this will be my 39th post ever (odd number!) and when you divide 39 by the 3 years I've kept up this blog is equals 13--not too shabby, I'm only two degrees from a prime number! That's like barely off-beach property. Quality stuff.

Shit. I just took the precaution of recounting my posts and this will only be the 38th. Epic fail. I really don't know if I can handle the reality that I've annually posted even numbers of posts. And then I couldn't even count it right. Sigh. I've already walked myself through the whole accept-your-numbered-fate; it's far too late now to rejustify my actions.

And yes, I do realize that I just gave a terrifying peek into how my brain relates things that may leave some of you scarred for entire minutes of your life. Shrug. Peoples is peoples.

Here's a serious question: Did Keith Richards and Mick Jagger get what they wanted, or what they needed? I'm almost a little terrified to find out the answer to that either way, but the query intrigues me.

So I sell my plasma for extra cash. It leads to lots of killer prostituting-myself jokes and is a great way to stretch from one paycheck to another. But my absolute favorite part of my twice-weekly visit to the plasma center is that I have a large and fervent following amongst the male phlebotomists.

I'm not delusional, I don't mistake their excitement at seeing me and quick tussle to get my chart first as the final indicator that I have Arrived as the hawtest piece on the market. I understand that this level of devotion to me has a lot to do with the fact that the majority of plasma donors are men, and the few others who are women tend to look a little more . . . how shall I put this . . . "rode hard and put away wet" than I do. But hey, supply and demand being what it is I'm willing to supply my fresh-faced smile in exchange for some of shallow fawning my ego demands.

Unfortunately, there is one aspect of the plasma donating process that ruins this illusion of hyperactive flirtation every time. The last step of screening, before the organization graciously agrees to stick a hollow needle in my arm for an hour and suck out my lifesource, is a routine battery of questions between me and one of the phlebotomists. These questions include "Have you ever had sex with a man who has had sex with another man, even one time, since 1977?" "Do you have hepatitis or have been in close contact with someone else who has hepatitis?" "Do you participate in high-risk behaviors like prostitution, recreational drugs, or needle sharing?" and, my very favorite question, because it always always includes a flickering glance at my stomach after I answer in the negative: "Have you been pregnant in the last six months?" Yeah, I dunno, maybe I'm just awfully sensitive, but being interrogated concerning your potentially criminal and wild sex life by someone you were shamelessly flirting with two minutes ago is a pretty big buzz kill. I just thought my meaningless flirting with people whose last names I don't know would be a little more . . . special.

I think I find the name Brock to be offensive to my soul. Either that or I really like it, without a tangible reason why. I can't decide--all I know is that I have a visceral response to the name Brock, and I'm beginning to doubt it can be entirely blamed on the Treetop-apple-juice-toting lactose-intolerant boy in my second grade class who everyone called Brockoli. So if I end up having a kid and naming him Brock Cobain, don't look too surprised. I may have to name a kid Brock just so that I can objectively figure out if I hate the name or not. Just sorta sucks for him if I come down on the side of hating.

I read Steve Almond's Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life last week. It was a lovely little read, except for the fact that I kept on having the thought "Wow, so I have really never had an original thought on my blog. This guy says everything I've ever touched on, and with infinitely fewer apologies or run-on sentences." But aside from my own insecurities, the book was great. Its main focus was delineating, defending, and demarcating what it means to be a 'Drooling Fanatic' of music. Not a rock star, just the people who are obsessed with said rock stars. I certainly am firmly entrenched in that sad little hole in the world.

So, of course, while reading this book I about how Drooling Fanatics are the wannabe parasites of the music world I frequently escaped reality by envisioning what kind of rock star I would be if I somehow got in a horrible accident that shredded my vocal chords to a pleasing growl while simultaneously giving me that brush of death necessary to get over my paralyzing primness while performing.

I quickly discarded that I would be an Epic rock star, let alone of the Timeless variety. I love Janis and Joan and Freddie way too much to consider myself worthy of the pantheon. Instead, I determined that I would be a rocker like The J. Gells Band or K's Choice who talk about finding their homeroom crush in the centerfold of Playboy or how people need to get off their backs for smoking. I'd glory in the mundane, find some humor in a daily encounter, all while getting to wear all the outfit combinations Becca won't let me wear in the real world and shredding the air guitar (the idea that I could ever actually become skilled on the real guitar is even further off in dream world than me being a rock star).

Maybe after years of perfecting my observational humor lyric-writing Grandness I could hook up with a genuinely imaginative mind and we could write something in the grey outer edges of the magnificent world of songs like The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." That, indeed, would be the peak of life achievement for any red-blooded American.

But sadly, I think if I ever went down that road I would, as has so often happened to me before, get bogged down in the minutiae. I'd try to write a song about eating in a restaurant alone and watching strangers or how people need to back off my soda addiction and would end up writing a whole stanza about the napkin that looked like a mutated platypus and the song would get away from me. The loyal fans would try to finds the deeper significance of me devoting half an album to metallurgy, but in the end would just have to conclude that I'm someone who really likes shiny things. Ah, such is the fleeting mistress we potential failures call Fame.

How much street/life cred would I lose if I admitted my discovery that Timbuktu and Kathmandu were real places in the world wasembarrassingly recent? For some reason I had some elaborately designed explanation for how those names were just nonsense words from Lewis Carroll's writings that denoted exotic locales. I don't know why I didn't take it a step further and decided Jabberwocky was really the name of a charming suburb nestled in the Swiss mountains, but my brain continues to elude even me.

Ultimate Spinach Rules.

I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well

2010-12-15T19:50:00.001-07:00

I just spent seventy minutes writing feverishly about the rise of secularist subject matter in Germanic art, and what do I feel like doing? Writing more. Cause, you know, the fun. Actually, I consider it of anthropological interest to document my state of non-mind immediately post my final final.

Warning, this post is going to be scattered with lyrics, both with or without context. Specimen one, from the immortal and underrated Harvey Danger: "A shooting star is a little piece of cosmic debris desperately wanting to fall to earth. It doesn't get too far, it's not a real star, it's hardly even worth footnotes in your memoir . . . it's just a surrogate connection, leaving you all alone." I'm just saying, that's fairly impressive wordology for guys whose big hit was "Flagpole Sitta." But they were in Seattle in the 90s, and therefore they are gods. Right? Right.

My work installed a new Big-Brother soul-crushing fun-sucking anal-retentive internet filter. The end result, other than my general misery: no Pandora for Mary. It's pretty horrific. To compensate for the lack of bass beat to accompany my always rhythmic mad 10-key skillz, I've had to dig up my massive stack of mixed cds that are cryptically worded with phrases like "Sweet n Low" and "Why Not?" It's quite the adventure, sticking in a cd with less than the slightest hint of an idea as to its theme or content.

There have been some delightful side effects to this state of affairs. For instance, I have rediscovered a) I know all the words to Savage Garden's "I Want You," and therefore b) I am just the awesomest. That was sooo worth the better half of a semester three years ago when Alyssa and I methodically mastered each verse with brief bursts of enthusiasm every time we got to say "chic-a-cherry-cola."

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't tip my hat to Mary nine-point-seven (there are many, many versions of Mary, I'm thinking I"ll need to break it into Eon, Era, and Epoch soon) for glorying in the poetic grandness of the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. Rock these lyrics:
"It took 6 whole hours
And 5 long days
4 all your lies to come undone.
And those 3 small words
Were way 2 late
Cause you can't see that I'm the 1."
Did you see what they did there, with the numbers and the word play? Bloody Shakespeare, that's what that is.

The crazy aspect that keeps me up at night concerning how much I loved/shamefully still love things like Josie and the Pussycat is not my possibly terrible taste, but rather how it pulls into relief how trapped everybody is their immediate reality. I look back at Mary 9.7 and immediately become guilty of historian no-no numero uno: I apply my contemporary philosophies, morals, and expectations to my past self. Which means even though it was me doing all those stupid things, I still can't really tell you why it was that I was/am/will be such a mess. I'm in the best position to recall enough to sketch out a detailed outlined of my past actions, but I feel like I have no more of an upperhand in actually dissecting and predicting my own motivations than any stranger would.

It's like all the circular conversations in my International Organizations class. We discuss again and again the options for peacekeeping, sanctions, regional organizations, but when it comes right down to it we fail to come up with anything innovative or at least mildly better than this mess of an anarchic globe because we cannot fundamentally comprehend what it would be like to live in a world that was structured differently than what we got.

The occasional writer might get all Utopian on me, but I normally find that irritating. A current global political structure without the United States as unipolar power is too essential to our understanding of the underpinnings of our life for us to really "get" multilateralism or a balance of power set-up. Our parents couldn't conceive a world without the Soviets breathing down our necks, and now that we got it we don't know where the hell we're going to go next. It's like we keep on tripping into a new scenario where we pause, straighten, orient ourselves, and then promptly forget everything that had come before. This is the fragmentory, fleeting world we live in, and it's the state of my personal psyche as well.

But back to the important meaty issues. I'm pretty sure that the reason Poison is one of my top-all-charts best-studying/living/breathing/showering/make out-music ever is because it taps into my Inner Mullet. Everybody's got one of them inside--either an Inner Mullet, Inner Trailer Trash, Inner Hillbilly, they all correlate with a seriously mediocre genre of music that creates a bliss factor far beyond their own chord-progression power (I won't disclose what matches up with trailer trash and hillbilly, I don't wanna get in trouble).

But regardless of the causation, Poison is my happy place. And luckily, love-ily, it is now also irreconcilably linked in my brain with the road trip I took with my sister and her mess o' kids for the previously blogged and lauded Denver Trip Of King Tut Mind Melting Goodness. I think I'm just going to have to make Poison my life long culture-journey theme music. Which will totally discombobulate the minds of my future art history students when we go on summer trips to Europe. Ohh, I like this idea even more now. Almost as much as I like G. Love and Special Sauce. Man I should have been in my twenties in the nineties. The music was so much better, and the technology wasn't sophisticated enough to make me as paranoid as I now am. Stupid bunch of Android Cylons.

Oi!! Quick rant. I love me some Hieronymous Bosch. I really do, and it's not his fault that he's a product of his people's preconceptions and indoctrinations, but in "Garden of Earthly Delights" the Garden of Eden panel depicts the creation of Eve as being instantaneous--and in fact synonymous--with the creation of evil. Those kind of historic visual gems genuinely make me want to hurl my cookies across the room every time. It's been noted by wise people that the only type of content in films that I genuinely cannot sit through is the debasement, marginalization, and subjugation of women by men, especially when those men are supposed to be their partners, lovers, and sympathizers. I get so tense it takes me days to wind down just thinking about it.

But when I do need to wind down, this is what I listen to:

I don't wanna be a rusty suit of armor
Or a tumbledown forgotten castle in your mind
I just wanna be a twisted willow
So I can leave your shallow thinking far behind

I can feel the darkness in your shadows
And the melting of ice behind your troubled eyes
And the discoloration of all the words you're saying
As you're hunted without mercy by your lies

I've flown so high I'll never return
And I've been to the bottom of the dregs of your troubled soul
And I've basked in the sun of your revelations
But I guess you and I, we have different goals

So go and slay your dragons in blind amusement
And topple imagination with a song
At the moon, it plays little mind games
So you'll wonder where all the stars have gone

You have spoken to me about nothing
And you've shown me fantasies in a crystal ball
And you've promised me the world for my asking
Don't you know that to me it means nothing at all?

Because I know you'll leave me a burned out matchbox of forgotten roses
Inside a get-well card I had to address by myself
But that's not what I need from another stranger
So I guess I better do things without your help

Ultimate Spinach, y'all. So glad something went right in Boston in the 60s.

I know, posting lyrics is lame, emo, and lazy. So sue. I just freaking schooled finals.

I just re-read this and it's possible a little bit of my essay/paper-writing vocab snuck in there. Profuse apologies.

Twelve hours later I re-read it again, and man there are some pretty interesting spots of grammar going on there. I'll preserve them as an homage to taking school seriously (it's a first!).

Feeling Like You're Constantly on the Brink of Having a Heart Attack Has Its Perks

2010-12-03T14:00:00.006-07:00

Quick background: My roommate Rosemary works as a reading tutor in a high school and also has a close relationship with one of the English teachers. This teacher decided today to have some fun and mock her in front of his rather large class, accusing her and our friend Joseph of having a secret passion for each other. I have a passing acquaintance with the teacher, so I decided to defend Rosemary's honor. I sent him an e-mail that reads as follows:

Master Rutter:

I am here to provide a ground-zero perspective/defense of the implied romantic entanglements of Rosemary Larkin and Joseph Moore.

But before I dive in, I can't allow your abuse of power to pass without a stern reprimand.

Presenting your version of the Rosemary-Joseph love affair to your students, in an environment where you as instructor wield significant credibility, is an argument style that is beneath your persuasive abilities. Also, the inclusion of teenagers in any accusation of affection is tantamount to whipping up a mob against evolutionary biologists at a Wednesday prayer meeting in the South. Even before this Twilight Generation, teens have had a long history of being constantly on the brink of hysteria, and they certainly don't need your muckraking to push them over the edge. Think of those poor, excitable kids, Rutter, and restrain your need to be validated in your wrongthinking.

And now to the meat of the issue: Joseph and Rosemary. Watching TV. K-I-S-S-I----No. Absolutely not. I've known Joseph since we were married in the fourth grade play, and I've alternately loathed from afar and lived with Rosemary since we were twelve. From that unique position of expertise, I can say--without a shred of doubt or wishful thinking--that Rosemary and Joseph have as much of a chance of getting together as I have a shot at the Heisman. This is not something to mourn over. My heart isn't broken over the lack of another shiny paperweight, and I can assure you that neither Rosemary or Joseph are nursing any melancholy wishes for "what-might-have-been."

How dare I speak with such authority concerning other people's inner feelings? Observation has provided me with enough information to consider my findings conclusive. After 15 months of witnessing the movie nights, soda runs, early morning rides to work and break-up talks, I can declare without any outlying data that Rosemay and Joseph have the combined chemistry and sexual tension of a mis-matched pair of oven mitts. The kind of oven mitts where one was crocheted for you by your senile great-aunt and is slowly devolving into a singed mass of unravelling yarn and the other is large, serviceable, but with shiny yellowed stains of questionable origin that make you relieved to take them off as soon as the tray has been removed from the oven.

Kindly take this into account before you choose to take another flight into the charming but unsubstantiated realm of Blind Man's Bluff Matchmaking. And don't beat yourself up too much over your mistake--it isn't entirely your fault. You simply must remember that you are severely handicapped as a Happily Married Man. Married Persons suffer from dating amnesia, meaning when they look at two people of a legal age they can't remember why that isn't enough to equal a couple. Also, as a Happily Married Man, you've had your best friend as a spouse for so long that you no longer recall that while you may have both in one person, correlation does not indicate causation.

Enjoy your day,

Mary Shurtz

I know. I'm hilarious. Really, I take my own breath away. He responded very quickly, and while the response was funny, it couldn't touch this masterpiece.

So, the moral of the story is: when your brain is being pulled in twelve directions at once, that is when you have the most potential to be the most creatively dynamic you've ever been. Yayyy masochism as a lifestyle.

I Make the Best of It, I'm An Extraordinary Machine

2010-11-30T13:34:00.001-07:00

My brain is a mystifying object. It's like it has the microscopic/telescopic quality of a van Eyck. I just typed that am already deeply ashamed that I've become that art history person. I wish I could make it up to you. But instead I'm going to continue with the simile, because it's a fairly apt analogy. Judge away. In van Eyck's paintings every piece of the painting, whether far away or right at the front of the scene, is executed in excruciatingly minute detail, without any haziness or blurred lines to indicate distance.

I can remember with equal clarity the piece I read in the news yesterday about the Mossad pulling crazy Bond/Bourne stunts to assassinate Iranian nuclear physicists and my lines from our fourth grade production "Of Mice and Mozart." The minutiae of daily life don't really get sifted out of my brain. Ever. I can typically recall first conversations with new acquaintances, kids from my second grade class, and what outfits other people wore six months ago with such a stunning level of recall that the inevitable consequence is that I frequently come off as the creepiest mass stalker on the planet. This grieves me at times. More people just need to believe that in my brain it isn't a signal of obsession that I remember the clogging performance my friend's little sibling's friend is having if I'm in the room to hear about it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't typically find such behavior to be red flags: there are real creepers out there, and they act just like me. I'm just the exception that proves the rule.

But my creeperesque mannerisms are actually a demonstration of how singularly inept my brain is at releasing it's deathgrip on pretty much any shred of "knowledge" that floats within its vicinity. It gets so bad that sometimes I play dumb, pretend I don't remember huge tracts of information just to avoid the wary gleam in the other person's eye, like an alert gazelle that is beginning to suspect that that waterhole might not be so refreshing after all.

Fret not; this is not an aimless ode to my brain, or even an extremely circular route to complimenting myself. I was merely providing the background information that is necessary to understand my complaint about my brain's fatal flaw. So, to summarize so far: Mary's brain is tenacious to detail, but not creepy. This does not mean one shouldn't be vigilant against mouth-breathing uncomfortable-level-of-eye-contact skulking types as a rule; in fact please do, just cross Mary off your list as an anomaly. And now for the fatal flaw:

I can't prove anything, mostly because I don't care enough for science to try, but I'm pretty sure there's something sinister about the barometric pressure in winter which inhibits certain synapses to fire at all, leading me to lose all memory of what it is to step outside and be warm. It happens quickly, this mental block, usually within moments of the first truly cold walk to the bus stop. But even now in my almost temperate basement office, I couldn't tell you what it feels like to step outside and not ready myself for breath-stealing braced-back cold.

I don't mind the cold in of itself, I'm even considering getting my masters in Milwaukee, a city to which no one I have shared my plan with has anything of interest to say except "Milwaukee--it's a cold place." Thanks, guys, for the razor-sharp insight with its limits-pushing subtext.

No, I really don't mind cold. But I do object to brain damage. And this complete loss of a basic sensation I have a solid six months of every year feels like deliberate and malicious damage on my brain. I guess I could try and re-read my blog post about when the AC broke, but I resent that necessity to read my own pale, amateurish attempts to describe something as basic as being meltingly hot. I live in the desert, for the love of DDP.

I think Utah Valley girls watched way too much Anne of Green Gables growing up. Only individuals with that particular kind of handicap would think the sloppy ponytail/bun-ish thing on the very top of the head was remotely attractive/aesthetically appealing. You, my dears, have been exposed to one too many pompadours in your day. Next thing you know you'll all be sporting puffed sleeves so large you can't walk through the door. I have luckily escaped these fads. In exchange, though, I have huge hangups because my inner psyche is waiting for a Canadian farmboy with brains, ambitions, and infinite patience for crazy girls. Yes, Mom and Dad, this is the most recent theory for why you're going to have a cat lady for a daughter.

This blog is happening because I would rather insert tiny razor-sharp pieces of glass into my fingernails than re-read, edit, and finalize my art history paper that I spit out in rough form Sunday. I'm truly terrified to read what it says--I dosed myself with chocolate at around 11:30 Sunday night so that my hypoglycemic self would crash into a sugar coma and I could actually sleep. The flaw in this sly, ever so crafty plan? I still had a page and a half to write. Which I did write. But I have no memory of it.

You see my conundrum. Ah, well, might as well face my psychosis head on.

An Ode

2010-11-16T11:59:00.009-07:00

I've only been on the right road to being a Person for approximately three years and five months.

I've been a lot of things in my still-short existence. Many of them have been contradictory; the punk ballroom dancer, the overachieving malcontent, the socially incapable aspiring actress, the khaki-wearing rebel, the physically violent shy girl that ducked behind her feminist maxims. But something that was constant in all these interpretations and perspectives was my fundamental discomfort with the all-encompassing truth that is me.

As I flipped around like a beached whale from one definition of self to another, the running commentary in the back of my head was always heavily laced with panic, anxiety that someone would point out a piece of me that didn't fit my newest reinvention and this whole Jenga game of let's-pretend would come crashing down. I speak flippantly about it now, but it truly was a crippling kind of mindset, a fundamental discomfort with myself and my own thoughts, tastes, interests, background.

June, 2007: one of my brother's best friends from high school calls me up. This isn't that peculiar, he had been in the habit of doing that from time to time since he got back from his mission. Back when we were both in high school--he the wise and benevolent senior and I the freshman in the throes of yet another identity crisis--this guy was the epitome of Cool. In the time since, very little had changed in my perception of him. The guy was so Cool he even occasionally kept in touch with his friend's little sis who, I'll admit, hero worshipped him more than a skosh. But we had once in the good ol' days bonded over a pomegranate, and this guy wasn't one to disrespect the memory of ritualistic dining on mythical fruit. That would be Un Cool.

So he remembered to keep in touch, this time with an invite to run up to Salt Lake City for dinner and a movie. I needed a friend even more than usual, and a hangout with the essence of Cool was just what the doctor ordered. We had the normal warm but mildly stilted greeting, got in his car and headed off. He tossed me a huge binder of CDs and informed me I was in charge of music for the trip.

This was terrifying. Someone as insecure as I was knew all too well how quickly you could step wrong with a poor music choice. I thumbed through the selection with almost reverent care, occasionally using a finger to mark a possibility, refusing to commit until I knew I had picked something completely acceptable and perhaps even inspired. In short time all of my spare fingers were occupied with marking places. I was beginning to have another panic attack--his music was so varied and so so Cool, I didn't know how I was going to pass this imaginary test.

Thankfully I was near the back of the binder now, wiggling my thumb in a painful sideways movement in order to turn the plastic pages without losing any of my precious potential selections. I turned to the last page and stared at what I saw. He owned *NSync's original album and "No Strings Attached." I was so at a loss for an appropriate reaction, I promptly fumbled the binder and lost all the places I'd been saving.

Some background: all through sixth and even bleeding into early seventh grade I had loved *NSync. JC Chasez had been my one true love. My mother not letting me go to their concert in sixth grade had broken my heart and lead to weeks of door slamming and a point-blank refusal to eat her lasagna. But then I had discovered Kurt Cobain: without a moment's pause or guilt I trapped any tender, positive feeling I had for that adorable boy band in an airless compartment, threw away the key, and never looked back. I denied them many more times than thrice in the subsequent years, completely willing to risk my soul as long as no one knew I ever had such a Shameful Secret. And here I was, with the Coolest guy I knew, being confronted with the worst kind of transgression he could commit--publicly displaying something so very, very not cool. Didn't he realize people could now "out" him? How could he be so careless?

I was inwardly appalled for him, but to the naked eye, my reaction wasn't of that nature. As only the truly insecure can, I pulled a 180 and turned on him my most venomous voice of judgment. I used all my most derisive vocabulary as I mercilessly monologued about his taste in music. How quickly the rabidly self-loathing turn on their heroes.

But then the most surprising thing happened, marking the turning point in my odyssey toward Personhood. As I drew breath for another spouting wordfest of malice, the victim's inherent Coolness showed his real stripes once again. Without bothering to take his eyes off the road he just casually shrugged. "It was early high school. It was fun. Why wouldn't I want to keep that around, for those times when I'm reminiscing? Those were good times; I don't have a problem with it."

I was stopped in my tracks. And I was so, so mortified by how I had reacted. Once again, I was far from Cool. I wanted to sink right through the upholstery, I wanted to hide in that space under the seat where tic-tacs and sunglasses go and never return. Since that wasn't an immediate possibility, at least not until we hit another stop light, I instead focused on what was in my hands. I studied the album art of those two nefarious CDs, and thought about how often Ashley Beutler and I used to watch their music videos, learning all the dance moves and fighting over who was cuter, JC or Justin. I couldn't believe how completely I had buried those memories. I tentatively inched the original album halfway out of its sleeve with my fingernail and looked beseechingly at the driver.

Mr. Cool, who of course was completely oblivious to the existential crisis that was occurring two short feet away, smiled and agreeably nodded in consent. Lickety-split in went the CD before I could change my mind for the both of us. "Tearin' Up My Heart" blasted enthusiastically from the speakers. It was too infectious for words. I started my incredibly suave seat-dancing, coming in spot on for every vocal cue, breaking off for the harmonies. Quicker than I could have imagined I realized that the album was over and we were in Salt Lake. My enabler had endured the entire cathartic exercise with remarkably good grace, and after the movie and restaurant even gave in to my pleas that we continue on to "No Strings Attached."

Luke N Lewis brings up that trip from time to time with a good-natured moan at my instance to car-dance to two full albums of *NSync, having no clue of how huge of a day that was for me. Through his own example, he gave me the room and permission I needed to settle into my own skin with a greater degree of comfort than I had felt since elementary school. And it only could have been Luke. There wasn't anybody that could have played surrogate in that experience, no amount of persuasive speak could have talked me around to beginning to like all past and present versions of me. Luke was the one who had to be there, because he was the only person I admired, respected, and blatantly aspired to be like on such a monumental level.

And that sentiment shouldn't be placed in the past tense--I don't know if many of you have had the opportunity to become best friends with your hero, but from that night onward it's been the best aspect of my life. I don't think scientific instruments exist that could measure the magnitude that Luke's willingness to be my Person for these last three and a half years has shaped, influenced, and liberated me. I wish I could think that I had the capability to give as much back to Luke, but I'm afraid this friendship has been a tad uneven--I've been reaping the greatest rewards because I was the one who needed the most help, and Luke in his benevolence was always more than ready to be the rock, the reassurance, the fun mind-expanding influence.

And now this freakin gem is getting ready to marry a girl that is totally worth every bit of him, and I wanted to get a jump-start on the teary tributes to all that is Luke. Love you. Let's eat pomegranates again soon.

Fine, Fresh, Fierce, We Got It On Lock

2010-10-31T18:43:00.004-06:00

We're going to spend the majority of our time talking about this fabulous individual. But first things first, I gotta get this nerdiness out before I explode:

Northern European Renaissance art is SO COOL! Of course I remain in awe of the monumental feats of the Italian Renaissance; the grandiose scale of their accomplishments is unparalleled. And technically speaking, the Italians were much more advanced as far as the mathematics they uncovered for accurate perspective and anatomy. Which is why the contrast of what was going on Up North is so appealing to me. Each artist was a lot more out on their own, feeling their way towards a style they liked, no real over-arcing purpose or message present in their works. It's just all so . . . idiosyncratic. Yes, that's exactly the word I'm looking for. The artist's whims or predilections had so much more room to exhibit themselves in the Burgundian north. See here a detail from Geertgen tot Sint Jans's Nativity:

Just look at the angel in the bottom right corner! Isn't he just the most joyous, overwhelmingly rapturous little guy you ever did see? Especially in comparison to the angels around him, who are so static, so flat, so unmoved by the Christ child's birth. The norm of Northern figures leans much more toward those more complacent figures, but I adore that tot Sint Jans snuck this little dude in there. I was completely distracted during the lecture on this piece, absorbed with the idea of what went through his mind when painting these disparate figures. And then there's my slightly stranger reaction to this detail of Geertgen's The Burning of St John the Baptist's Bones (how could you not love that title!)

Note the guy in brown on the far right, his gaze going off into space. I'm weirdly into to this guy. Ya, I know, sort of a creepy overshare. But this guy and Michelangelo in Raphael's School of Athens? I find them attractive. I can't help it. Maybe in this image it's his nose, I've always had a strange thing for the larger-nosed men--Michael Vartan, James McAvoy, Adrian Brody, Jason Schwartzman, all dreamy. I understand that as an art-historian-in-training I should keep more distance and objectivity with my subject, but my first reaction to this piece was not to examine any of the details that would get me an A on a paper. Instead, I zone in on that guy and say "Dang. Oddly attractive." I'm not going to seek professional help yet, I figure I can keep it under control if it stays at this level.

But nevermind my weird crushes on oil-on-wood characters, back to what makes Renaissance art cool. Item numero three: grisaille, or the art of painting a scene so that it looks like stone. This is Throne of Grace from the outside panel of the Flemalle Altarpiece by Robert Campin. And it is so, so incredibly awe-inspiring. Sculpture is possibly my very favorite medium of art, but by its very nature there is significantly less of it, and what does survive the centuries rarely is in primo condition. Which is why images like this sorta help fill the void. Sluter basically left behind only one enormous well and an intricate tomb, so it's nice to see his contemporaries emulate his style in their paintings. And just when you were about to pass out from the dry scholarly torture-talk, let's refocus again on my favorite gal-pal-in-waiting:

Katy Perry. Is. The. Bomb-diggity. I, Mary Shurtz, professed rocker-grrrl extraordinaire, have a girl-crush on pop goddess Katy Perry. I know this is inherently problematic. And to start out, I have to say that I owe my devotion to KP completely to my roommate, Cassie. Cassie and Katy have a lot in common, at least in my head. They have an eager, unapologetic love for life, color, and choosing to giggle at all that is ridiculous in life instead of rolling their eyes condescendingly.

Katy is a bit more of an exhibitionist than Cassie is, but that appeals to my own favorite things. And despite the fact that Katy's hits deal with layered subject matter such as regional archetypes, adolescent fantasies and superficial displays of various sexual orientations, she delivers each song with such exuberance and inherent humor that I find I don't mind when I spend a whole day humming about my futuristic lover's cosmic kiss. Ya. Right there, this is why I adore her. I know some of you now are feeling like I would deserve to have my band posters and rocker-queen status stripped from me right this second, but I must protest with two points: One, what is more rock-n-roll than making the excesses of life a point of celebration and satire all at once? And two, I have no moral issue with biting and kicking to keep my Ramones poster where it belongs. Street rules only.

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go commune with Katy about how "It's Not Like the Movies."

I'll Be With You When The Stars Start Fallin'

2010-10-22T14:02:00.000-06:00

I'm at a heart-rending crossroads, torn between two dreams. I'm entrenched in my indecision, uncertain of which goal I should pursue, desperately crying to the gods to show me my future, to reveal which path will lead to the greatest contentment. Let me break it down for you; show you how impossible the decision to chase one ideal over the other is:

Situation 1: I'm being interviewed by the History Channel as the leading expert in the (fill in the blank liberal arts area) field of study. They have me seated in front of a minimalist dark background which flatters my tweed jacket piped with red that I wear over a band t-shirt and accent with silver jewelry that, on closer inspection, is comprised of a complex labyrinth of interlocking skulls. Eccentric and unconventional? Yes, but no one at my (fill in respected university, preferably one within driving range of a lighthouse) cares in the slightest, I'm too passionate and brilliant a scholar and teacher to have them be bothered with standards and practices. And the History Channel people just adore it; it's so much more interesting than their usual somewhat dour and owlish guest experts. I'm poised, confident, funny, and engaging, and I get asked back again and again on related projects. Eventually, they find the funding for a complete series around my sizeable collection of published scholarly articles, which conveniently address subjects all over the world, necessitating that I travel to all said places to get shots of me walking in various ruins while discussing opposing interpretations of such and such. In combat boots, fishnets, and the everpresent tweed.

Situation 2: I get to be one of the partial-face black-and-white split-second-shot people in those crazy-ass Levi commercials, the one with old scratchy recordings of stuff like "O Pioneers." Think about it. It'd be epic.

So, you see my conundrum. They sure sound equally rewarding to me. Both have their drawbacks--on one hand, I don't think I'd be really primed for being able to support myself after the commercial (I'd be far too drunk on fame), but on the other hand, what if I get hot in all that tweed? Sigh. This period of my life is just too fraught with the tough decisions.

I've been closely following the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, both to indulge my nerdiness, distract me from work, and for my Middle East class, and I swear, if they just had more people who looked like Omar Sharif in either leadership I think the possibility of gaining sympathy from the global community and really getting things done would increase one hundred fold. Just two minutes of looking into that man's soulful brown eyes and I'd be ready to sign over the Golan Heights and throw in my addiction to Diet Dr Pepper just to demonstrate how much I want him to stick around. Those eyes are the designer hot chocolate that keeps me from freezing straight through when I watch Doctor Zhivago.

I should be doing homework right now. Any moment that I'm not actively committing to memory verbs, rock types, regimes, or theories of global structure, I fall behind. But I knew my public needed me, so this continuing homage to moi is really all for you.

A brief explanation for why I choose bravado over self-deprecation as my mainstay humor style: I feel that false modesty already pervades our culture to an alarming degree, to the point the self-deprecating humor normally falls flat due to people believing that a) you are actually fishing for compliments, or b) you actually believe that you are that terrible at everything. Neither of these options is at all desirable. I find option b particularly troubling, because I consider this society-wide emphasis on never admitting to your genuine strengths and talents to be toxic to one's notion of self-worth. Once you fall into the pattern of brushing aside praise or focusing only on areas in which you stumble, it can become a boa-constrictor like creature that squeezes all potential or ambition out of you.

So, as a general statement on the world and because I think it's funnier to constantly consider myself the cat's meow, I pick bravado every time. Which I know disconcerts any new acquaintance, but I figure the worst that can happen is that a) the occasional casual introduction goes badly, but I can always make up for that in overtime, b) I fall flat on my face every once in a while, which isn't necessarily at all bad because physical comedy is also underutilized ever since Jack Lemmon went out of style, or c) I could actually convince myself and others that I'm fairly fabulously awesome. Things could be worse.

I'll Sprechen Your Deutschland

2010-09-14T15:19:00.004-06:00

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could pull an Inception-style hijack on the world’s brain and dictate which words get to be used to describe us? I think if I had that power—or more accurately, when I have that power, mwahahaha—the adjective that hopefully isn't entirely out of my reach to achieve on my own that I wish to be used to describe me is "electric.” In fact, if I had my way nearly as often as I ought, I think electric is the one word that would be absolutely synonymous with the conception of me.

Yes, the choice of that word may have more than a little to do with my obsessive attachment to Oasis’s song “She’s Electric.” On top of that positive association is the slightly more bizarre childhood love I still have for the way John Travolta exclaims “it’s electrifyin!” in the high-brow favorite “You’re the One That I Want.” And yes, Joe, this whole section of this post was inspired by you drawing a flattering connection between me and MGMT’s “Electric Feel.” Way to be.

But aside from my permanently fabulous music and friend taste, I want that word to equal me because I think it encompasses so very many things that I consider valuable in a person: vitality, excitement, stimulation, bombastability, dynamicism (just made that word up), galvanization, a general idea that lying flat and letting life go by just isn’t an option for an electric person, and that anyone in contact with said person would be either shocked or energized by their presence.

So, there it is, the goal: not just to team up with Leo and take over people’s minds while having his babies, but to keep on gaining static stores from the daily friction I encounter in classes, work, and the five minutes of ‘life’ I get every day until I can be an absolutely electric personality. I may be a little weak on the physics of that analogy, but I think I have enough of a working understanding of people to implement it.

And now, for the main attraction, the best example I have of what kind of experiences I think really juice up the wires on the road to a truly electrifying presence/mind/soul: Seeing beautiful, wondrous, and life-changing art.

That’s right, I just said that my visit to Denver’s King Tut exhibit was positively life changing, and no, I don’t think that that hyperbole is too grandiose for the event--in fact I would argue that it isn’t a hyperbole at all.

I have, in the past, future, and present, waxed pretentious about art. This is not news. But I have reserved the right in the midst of my massive superiority complex to loath people who try to be more/differently pretentious than me. For instance, I have always have a twitchy semi-Tourette's reaction to those who pompously declare that you “simply must see it in person, dahling, or else you just couldn’t understand what the piece really is.”

This bothers me because it often is in conjunction with a long braggish description of a recent trip to Europe from people who don’t really know how to tell stories. Also, I believe my intellect and capacity of understanding can fathom a painting even if I wasn’t in that little nook of Eastern Europe. And I still stand by that. But now I’m amending my previous position just a leetle bit: because when it comes to ancient Egyptian art, you sorta really have to see it in person! Go ahead and hate me for that reversal and lack of integrity of approach.

Or maybe it was just me that had to see it in person to get completely swept away in what they were able to accomplish. In all my art history classes I enjoy the Egyptian section, but inevitably find myself comparing their works to the Greeks, and since Greece is later in time and in fact builds on what the Egyptians were doing, Greek art is undoubtedly more advanced in realizing the human form in a naturalistic setting. So, in short, Egyptians=cool, Greeks=Egyptians plus extra strength awesomeness.

And then there I was, staring up at a fifteen-foot bust of Akhenaton, completely enthralled with the stylized shaping of his ear for a good twenty minutes. I couldn’t get over it, I couldn’t contain or express the awe I felt for all that had been done four thousand years ago. The muscle and tears and sheer inspiration these people used to grind and coax and compel unyielding rock into holding a piece of their culture, their souls, their sheer stubborn insistence that people remember that they were there, not just doomed to fade away into the sand.

I'm sure I was a sight to see at the museum, a little girl of indeterminate age with my pigtails and combat books making me looking like a combat-ready Rebecca of Fort-Sumter Farm, dashing about from statue to stoneware, a look of part glee/part incomprehension/part geek-out of unchartable proportions on my face.

In fact, as I scurried from the bust of Hepshetsut to a tiny but lovingly formed statuette of Imhotep a security guard stopped me in my tracks and asked "What is it?" I was confused and just stared at him. He elaborated: "What is it that you're reacting to right now? Which piece?" I was the least articulate person on the planet in that moment. I finally spit out a befuddled "Wah--wel---Everything!!" and got back to what I wanted to be doing, which for once didn't have anything to do with the people immediately around me.

There were many quiet moments, usually as I looked at the smaller pieces of statuary and the inlaid jewelry, that tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn't tell you exactly their source, there seemed to be a lot of confusion in my brain, but I know at least part of it was an overwhelming feeling of kinship and love with these people who cared for beautiful things in a way I am still aspiring to.

One thing is for sure: as I walked out of that gorgeous museum, I was positively crackling with electricity.

I Don't Want Some Pretty Face To Tell Me Pretty Lies

2010-08-31T18:09:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking about all of the impressions I give, and how much thought and worry I put into them.

Not just first impressions, although it has been fun to watch the new roommate's face as she tries to navigate the murky waters of my past personalities only to discover the contradictory facade that is today's partially actualized M. R. Shurtz, or her soon to be anagrammed pen name, Tzar Hurt-My-Rush.

No, I have been thinking about my daily exchanges, and the great lengths I go to in order to have a stranglehold control on how I present myself to oldest friends and newest acquaintances alike.

The fact that I've been ruminating on this won't surprise any of you. I've made a joyous career out of applying my obsessively analytical brain to the study of other's reactions to their environment, and to my presence in their habitat especially. The fact that my favorite movie in high school (and a recently revisited obsession) was "SLC Punk!"--a manifesto on the culture of the outsider and its effects on society--is also not an accident.

So why even address it anymore? The subject should be worn out by now, there's only so many ways I can make neon signs that say "Don't pigeon-hole me, you close-minded automaton!" And you're right, that bitter diatribe is tired at best and meaningless at worst. Instead, what I've been focusing on is the somewhat more subtle and definitely more willing changes I make in order to soften/accentuate the impressions I make on my peers, families, and peoples with authority.

I, despite my clinging to my band t-shirts, am exceptionally adept at this type of self-reinterpretation/censor. An example that comes to mind is when I compiled a calendar of my favorite poems as a Christmas present for my parents. I know, I'm adorable. And broke, but whatever. A conscious decision I had to make while putting together that selection of poetry was eliminating roughly 74% of my favorites and replacing them with what I considered to be lesser cousins to the greats.

Why, you ask? Because the subject matter of most of my favorite poems is of a fairly dark, melancholy nature. And I knew that not only were my parents not of a temperament that would enjoy those poems, but more significantly, if I included even a handful of verse that was written from a negative perspective, my parents would attribute those themes to my mental state and would worry/fret/bother me with frequent visits to snap me out of it.

Let me emphasize, those are not my favorite poems because I am perpetually in a deep dank dark dungeon of depression. They're my favorite poems because they are well-written monuments to some of humanity's strongest emotions. I believe that the greatest amount of trash and genius has been written about love and despair because those two themes are what pierce us to the soul, and drive individuals to find an outward way to express it. This applies to poetry, music, art, film, sky diving, any medium of self-expression.

In relation to this, I also censor myself on an almost daily basis. When I'm too lazy to think of a witty comment for facebook, I generally choose a song lyric fragment and post that. Some are meaningful; some are arbitrary, all from music I love. I have almost never allowed myself to post lyrics from my very favorite songs, for fear of misinterpretation or a bad impression.

Some of them are very angry, most of them are incredibly romantic, and none of them are about situations I am currently in. But I'm not a creature who really needs music lyrics to speak to me in the humdrum, literal narrative sort of way. If all my song lyrics were a play-by-play of my daily emotions and events, it would be the flattest, most non-committal changeless bunch of hooey you ever did see.

Songs become my favorite because an artist or lyricist's message was so sharply in focus to them that it reaches out and grabs me. I wish I was less afraid to share those moments, but I have this self-imposed paranoia of leaving the impression that I'm 'emotional.'

How ridiculous is that? Of course I'm emotional. I'm part of the human race, we have souls and communication and history progresses because we have more than the basic animal instincts to feed and procreate.

Well, most of us do.

So why on earth should this be something I shy away from so resolutely? Couldn't really tell you. It'd be easy to blame it on our post-modern 21st century cynicism, where no display of feeling is real or without cliche unless $50 million is spent on post production. But I sometimes sit in fearful contemplation that my abhorrence of personal display has a lot to do with a very singular disconnect that I have within.

On an unrelated note, school is incredible. It's also facing me off like a prize-winning sumo wrestler, testing to see if it can smother me and remain the undefeated champion. But I've carbed up and am ready to roll with it. Ewww, roll with it. Bad choice of words for this piece of imagery.

I will be victorious.

Also, I guarantee my next post will be frivolous fluff in an effort to slyly distract you from this post.

You Just Put Your Lips Together And... Blow.

2010-08-10T13:26:00.002-06:00

My parents have ruined my ability to be a normal woman who is satisfied with her position in life.

Bless their dear little hearts, they really didn't mean anything by it, but the fact remains that I am going to blame them and only them. And no, I don't think my own neurosis should be taken into account in this manner. I believe nurture champions nature every time when blame needs to be assigned.

And like most things related to my family, the parental unit didn't see conventional tactics as an interesting enough way to mess up my brain. I got plenty of hugs as a child (and a few of spankings, but I'm pretty sure I was a really bratty kid). No, instead my parents chose to go a different, more subtle way.

My parents destroyed my chances at contentment by indoctrinating me with classic films.

I know, it's a rough existence, being raised in a home that strives for a level of culture and understanding of all art mediums. It's even worse when it's accompanied by a desire to keep the children in their home from being exposed to the crudity of modern entertainment at too young an age. I'm so oppressed.

But I will say unequivocally that saturating me at such an early age with the archetypes of the winsome ingenue and the mysterious femme fatale has permanently stunted my level of personal satisfaction. Essentially, classic Hollywood set up the most unachievable paradigm of womanhood possible for a gal like me.

I would kill to be mysterious. I would sacrifice half of my caffeine consumption to be ethereal and aloof. I'd give myself a papercut in the eye every day if it meant that I could carry around with me an aura of mystery, allure, and a hint of troubles past. Lauren Bacall could totally pull off the accompanying eye twitch of a perpetual eye paper cut and make it look incredible.

But I could never be any of these things. I like hugs. And sticking three gumballs in my mouth to see how big of a bubble I can get. When the occasion calls for it, I've been known to giggle. It's true that I've dealt with what sometimes feels like more than my share of early adulthood troubles; but much to my consternation, I keep on bouncing back and trying to make the best of it.

I truly wish I could look world-weary before my time. Instead, people walking their dogs when I'm on the way to my bus stop ask me if Provo High has already started up for the fall. I yearn to have a laugh laced with bitterness, to be the lovely heroine who is racked with troubles but confides in no one. I confide in everyone. I love the sharing, the storytelling, the insights in my youth that might explain why I am who I am.

I'm an oversharer, I couldn't be enigmatic if I tried. I'm quirky, I'll give myself that, but I'm not even aloofly quirky. One of my quirks is that I love to cross examine and explain the mind process and physical manifestations of my quirkiness (ref: this blog).

I'm not even sufficiently vulnerable. I'm small, which is a plus, but I'm also sturdy. With a tendancy to laugh when I get hurt. And a certain air of 21st-century-woman competence. Damn feminism. And no man is ever going to sweep me up in the classic neck-cracking kiss, because they'd have to bend over too far to reach me at that point and it would just create a very awkward silhouette.

My existence obviously isn't that horrible, but let it be known (since I can't seem to keep myself from sharing) that I will always and forever feel like my life in it's totality was a little bit flatter, a shade less shiny, because I was never the woman who's large-brimmed-hat-profile in the deeply shadowed restaurant made anybody go "Who is that woman?" I'll never be described as intoxicating, glamorous, dangerous, or unknowable. And that makes me a tiny bit sad.

Just not sad enough to be awesome.

From What I've Tasted Of Desire

2010-07-28T13:17:00.005-06:00

This specific post is for posterity. I feel like my roommates and I have gone through something traumatic: and even though it is now blessedly only a bad memory bordering on the edges of a hazy sun flare-filled dream, the journey should be documented. Those few harrowing days took a lot out of everyone involved--even casual visitors to the scene were impacted; they'll remember how dreadful it was almost as long as the poor persecuted residences of the house will. Let the week of July 19th go down in infamy as the Time Our AC Broke.

Don't you dare laugh, even though that entire paragraph was set up to induce a chuckle. It was terrible. If there was an instrumental expression of the kind of oppressive, gummy, muculent atmosphere we were trying to swim through, it would be layers of thrumming didgeridoos, sending out walls of white noise in waves that simulate our own deadened world of endless malicious heat. Overlaying that would be a group of discordant basses getting sawed to bits by their players, much like our minds were rapidly being shredded by the fiery gasps of air we desperately tried to eek out of our infernal atmosphere.

It was bad enough that we tried to eat, talk, move, and entertain in our stifling surroundings, but sleeping was just out of the question. I did everything short of actually dismembering myself to insure that my limbs wouldn't accidentally touch any other part of my body and through that contact be the last bit of friction between me and spontaneous combustion. Not that the conflagration of my fevered extremities would be spontaneous--it was almost inevitable.

You'll notice that in my efforts to capture this atmosphere, not once do I use the word "sultry." This is because any positive connotations present in that word have no place in the airless, bleached-out world that was our house. Sultry is a word you use to describe eating seafood outside while swatting away a cloud of mosquitoes, Peggy Lee's "Fever," or the crowded amphitheater of an outdoor summer rock concert when everyone's enthusiasm for the music makes the press of bodies and slick bare skin only a supplement to the experience.

All of these enticing, amiable nuances were banished from our ravished perception of the world until Jose the AC guy came on Friday and brought back to our scrambled minds the words draft, cognition, moderation, breeze, and animation.

God bless speedy repair service and controlled climates.

I Could Blow Through The Ceiling If I Just Turn And Run

2010-07-21T13:43:00.006-06:00

The answer stands in the ink. No, really, the ink explains it all. I've been feeling ridiculously uninteresting the past couple weeks--all beige and washed out and socially camoflagued, but no longer. This morning my investigative skills, keen intellect and burning curiosity (all courtesy of many hours devoted to Indiana Jones) have paid off.

The facts are these: at work when my last pen met its demise--ran out of ink or disappeared into that damn crack in my desk, I can't remember which now--I was in a rush to complete my task and just grabbed the closest one to my desk, a standard blue Bic pen.

This is the root of my drab month. Not only did I continue to use this pen, I used it until it ran out of ink. This is the danger of accepting mediocrity, even for an hour of wire logging: once you temporarily compromise yourself to blandness, you lose the will to assert yourself again (ref. the last two years of my high school career).

I am not a blue Bic pen gal. I'm not much for blue ink ever; I prefer black and red with the occasional green to mix things up. But if it's blue, it had better be smeary and inky and automatically make my messy boy handwriting look more interesting by bleeding everything together into pleasing Rorschach designs. To accept less is to lose the spark, to drop the torch of proclaimed personality in favor of the sputtering penlight of whatever-is-in-front of me. Let that be an inspiration for everyone reading: with enough dedication, neurosis, and sleep deprivation, you too can discover the meaning of life, the universe, and everything by a pen choice. You're so lucky.

Through a couple of mild and honest dissings on my lack of comprehensive knowledge of current bands and the frequent blank looks I have to give my roommate Cassie when she references a top 40 song, I've begun an examination of my music emphasis and the "why" behind it. I demonstrate that I have the patience, interest, and motivation to do a fairly thorough investigation of popular music (with an emphasis on jazz and rock and complete disregard of disco) from 1920-2000, but when the millenium hits I have an inexplicable drop in interest/retained information.

Why is this? I don't hate modern music, Postal Service, The Darkness, Muse, The Killers, Death Cab, The White Stripes, they're all top notch. I just don't have the breadth of overall knowledge or interest that I do in bygone days. Which initially troubled me: am I already one of the old people who just call music today noise? No, that can't be it, I'm the Spirit of Youth personified, how dare I even think such a thing. But I still fretted about the implications until I struck upon an elegant explanation that also works as a description of the motivation for my chosen career/education plan:

I am very interested and intrigued by what is going on currently in music. I really love some specific bands, but there are quite a few trends that I'm equally repulsed by. This can be mirrored in my passion for and Bachelors-in-progress major in International Relations. But in both academics and recreational music, the nature of current events and radio hits is that information is always incomplete. Data is still be collected, subterrainial trends could emerge at any time and upset my whole concept of what I do and do not like about what is going on. Essentially, they lack a clear context by being current.

Now let us turn to music of past decades and my chosen career goal of getting a Ph.D. in Art History. These two are closely linked. I like both music and art on an aesthetic level, but what makes me love them is the understanding of where the artists came from, why and how they chose to change the status quo, how that affected everything around them forever. I need the history to come into play, just a good ten years of perspective, before I get firmly attached and opinionated about what is going on around me. I'm so glad I found an occupation that'll facilitate that over-the-shoulder-longingly look of the world that I have.

I just realized I spent four paragraphs essentially saying that I'm a nostalgic person by nature. Oh well, brevity isn't that great. Also, "All Along the Watchtower" is to Michaelangeo's David in that they're both heavily referenced but worth every moment. Conversely, most songs by the Rolling Stones are to da Vinci's Mona Lisa in that the hype was largely self-perpetuated until the masses were duped into caring.

I think it's cleansing for the soul to at times attempt to be "smooth" and fail utterly. I adopted this philosophical perspective after yesterday's debacle: as I passed my coworker walking in the opposite direction with receipts that belonged to me, I made the motion to snatch them playfully out of her hands without breaking my stride. But I stopped 85% of the way into the action with the concern that maybe that would startle her/we aren't there yet in the playfulness. Unfortunately, she had already correctly read the trajectory of my intended action and tried to hand off said receipts, which I subsequently fumbled in my surprise and then stumbled into a nearby desk.

Like I said, this is all cleansing for the soul--it puts what is important in life at the forefront, like office shoes with just a leeetle traction. It's just too bad that the price for my catharsis was my coworker discovering that I am fundamentally incompetent.

You Want Everything To Be Just Like The Stories That You Read But Never Write

2010-07-08T12:17:00.007-06:00

I'm back! I had a very selfish month of obsessive, trivial thought patterns of the circular nature. Don't worry, it's over. But out of loyalty to my loving readers and to avoid later re-reading a post two weeks later and loathing myself (ref posts from 2008), I put a moratorium on blog posts until I had something to say for myself. Essentially, I sent myself to my room to think about what I'd done.

This has been a frustratingly long week of post attempts. I open the page every day, jot down a couple keywords for incandescently brilliant discourses that are already half-formed in my head, and then . . . I get onto xkcd.com and spend five hours clicking the "random" button. This is the final proof: it's out there, innocently lurking on a random server, enticing me with guarantees to delight me again and again. My digital kryptonite has been discovered. For someone as low-tech as I generally am, I didn't believe there was a temptation on the webbytubes strong enough to distract me from something so enthralling as this site that is solely commited to continuous minute examinations and sideways praise for myself. But by the sheer volume of links I have shared from that website in the past week, I've had to face the facts. I, too, am a vulnerable, easily impressionable, obsessive compulsive mortal who has an ever growing appetite for little nuggets of wildly nerdy and sarcastic observances.

Sometimes I pity my future children for the influences their parent has been under in her youth, and how that is going to inevitably damage them. Sometimes. Mostly I just think about the ridiculous names I'm going to stick them with just to make sure they're required to develop a personality to pull it off.

So, Canada Day was last Thursday. And I love me some Canadians--my dad's one, many of my favorite relatives hail from there, visiting there has been some of the best times I've had. Alberta could take Quebec any day of the week, by the way. But with that all said and done--and while you'll frequently hear me say that I'm half Canadian in an effort to obtain some distinctiveness--I'm now going to have to trash them.

Not to say that they aren't a nice little country. But when you put Canada up against US for sheer balls-awesome history, US takes them in a single 20 year period. Because the story of the revolt of the colonies under British rule and subsequent successful establishment of themselves as an independent nation? Freakin sweet. I've read an embarrassing number of biographies and historical accounts about the founding; nothing gets me as riled up as North America in the late 18th century. And that's all before you factor in the musical 1776, which aids by adding a snazzy soundtrack to the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

And Canada? Not a catchy tune to be found about their gradual and respectful steps towards autonomy from their benevolent and still revered ruler. There just isn't anything very stirring about a series of treaties that released the United Kingdom from the obligation of keeping Canada financially solvent and permitted Canada to take control of it's destiny after it ever so politely and docilely requested it. So, yeah, love western Canada, but USA all the way!

And if any of you humble readers take from this the opportunity to post a snarky, condescending and/or sardonic comment about the founding fathers/US history at large/the despicable naivete of those who get so excited about such a failed nation, I swear I may go Cujo on you. I was speaking in a deliberately histrionic display of my real patriotic feelings because as a political science major I can never ever get away from those who validate their puny, grasping existence by making cutting and belittling remarks about events of the past. I'm not saying that as a citizen you shouldn't be informed of the real history of any time period, quite the opposite, but I do say that I find nothing wrong with taking positive lessons from my history and choosing to emulate admirable moments of imperfect lives. Ok, that's all for the venomous lashout at all past classmates that equated intellectual superiority with how little idealism they personally hold on to.

Do you know what I love? Really fantastic science fiction writers. Like our comrade Isaac Asimov. The singular quality about great sci-fi writers and great sci-fi shows (shout out to Star Trek, word to your mother) is that they take the world, throw it lightyears into the future, and bust the restraints of human potential right open. In the future, nothing is outside of humanity's grasp. Former ethical, social, medical, and technological shortcomings have been tweaked, twiddled with, and resolved into neat little packages. It's such a refreshing outlook on the ever-present-but-forever-in-the-future "what comes next." My friend Grant reminded me of this love of mine by having me read Asimov's essay "The Last Question," and my mind has been cycling around my admiration for the strength of his optimism ever since. I also maintain that it's only the true storytellers, like Asimov, who choose to give ultimate power to Thought instead of a more mundane tactile force.

On Friday I was reminded of yet another long-lost love of mine. It was an incredibly high-stress day at work: everything that could go wrong did, and even though I had my own specific task relatively in hand I was feeling the pressure of every coworker's stressed-to-the-limit auras. Laugh all you want, but put that many panicking individuals in cubicles and try telling me that there isn't an almost visual presence of their collective freak out. So anyways, I'm buckling under the pressure, blood is pumping far too fast and vessels in my eye sockets are bursting under the strain, when I was inspired to add an opera channel to my Pandora station.

Wow, what a moment of clarity. It's an even better match than listening to hard rock when you're in a rage or country when you have a fit of unbearable melodramatic cheesiness. Not only do the vocal expressions in opera emote on a scale no tiny individual could ever achieve alone, the orchestral arrangements sweep whatever messy emotions you've been unsuccessfully dealing with right out of your system. Crisis averted, I typed up my little wires in a bubble of serenity while lovers were betrayed, fathers perished, and villains triumphantly travailed in my headphones.

I'm going to close with this beautiful parody of Forrest Gump. Not because I agree with the sentiment--my world view has far too much bounceability to be so exquisitely cynical--but because it's a quality bit of writing by my close personal friends of the X-files 'verse:

"Life... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So, you're stuck with this indefinable whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast, the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits, filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, and if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box, filled with useless brown paper wrappers."

Tubular.

A Sign That Says: It's Free, And I Hope You Have More Luck With This Than Me.

2010-05-27T14:20:00.001-06:00

I had an unusual experience last night—I went to an entertainment event that had roughly 85% women in attendance. Since I don’t enjoy Twilight, listen to David Archuleta, or ever make it to Women’s Conference, this was a pretty unusual occurrence. But I didn’t have a moment’s hesitation on whether or not my sister and I were possibly mistaken in our chosen amusement, because Stars on Ice is the best thing since double-stuffed Oreos.

And while I traditionally disdain any efforts of sisterhood bonding unless it has something to do with a book club study of The Awakening, I had no problem feeling solidarity with everyone else there who was ridiculously excited and solemnly up-to-date on the techniques that go into triple axles, death spirals, double-toe-loops, and Sal chows.

Most of us can’t even skate backwards, but that’s beside the point. We are committed to the marriage of art, athleticism, and sequined men’s trousers that is figure skating. So, for today, I will look fondly on the female gender as a whole in a rosy spangle-influenced air of well-being. Until somebody walks by in sweats rolled down at the waist, raggedy ponytail, and perfectly applied makeup. This just happened. Goodwill officially rescinded.

X-Men has ruined my ability to pronounce the name of my coworker Xavier correctly. I’m pretty sure every time I’ve seen his name on the caller id I’ve answered it addressing him like he’s Patrick Stewart's character. It doesn’t matter how many times he tells me the X has an ‘h’ sound, I inevitably screw up the next time. Mortifying.

I’m starting to get stir crazy to the point where my skin might just rip off my body and head for the hills. Gross image, but it’s what it feels like. It’s gotten to the point that I don’t think a vacation is going to fix it, even if I do still think that my life will be incomplete until I go to Denver for a Rockies game and a viewing of King Tut’s tomb artifacts.

I’m 23, I have a year and a half left of school, and if I’m not out of the state within a month of my graduation date you’ll know that despite my best efforts I died inside before reaching the finish line. Ew, now my skin is gone and I’m dead inside, that just sounds like all kinds of unpleasant cleanup for you guys that are still around, picture sacks of decaying flesh and the stripped flesh of wasted ambition. Yuck. Guess we better hope for the best, then, hope that I get into a grad school in New Orleans or St. Paul or the like so that I can escape before I look like something from the aftermath of a comic book fight.

Let me share with you the best family moment of the decade:

A couple weeks ago I crashed a Sunday dinner my parents were having with another couple in their neighborhood. I was the loose cannon at the dinner: I only lived in that area for two years and have rarely returned in the last five years, so the gentler folk of Sandy suburbia approach me with all the caution I would give a particularly paranoid porcupine with projectile quills.

But, surprisingly, it wasn’t my presence that made the quiet Sabbath gathering go sour—the guests committed unwitting social suicide all on their own. Everything was going more than pleasantly until the visiting wife responded to a reference of Mary Poppins with the comment “Oh, I’ve always hated that movie. She’s a real witch; I can’t see how anyone could like her.”

I swear those words echoed as a hush fell over the room. The temperature plunged into the arctic zone. The air pressure tripled. I tried to catch a look at my parents’ expressions without drawing attention to myself, and my dad—the man who prides himself in his superb hosting skills and even tempered conversation—had a frozen look around his eyes, his brow a mass of creases as he attempted to cope with that faux pas of epic proportions. Their guest’s faces lengthened in tandem with the sustained silence, their mouths opening occasionally in aborted efforts to save themselves, only to snap shut in a dejected manner before a single sound escaped.

Dad’s ears gradually lost the ruddy quality that had abruptly flushed up his face, and he took a few slow breaths, reaching over to enclose my mother’s tightly clenched hands in a reassuring manner. But time was still being pulled along like salt water taffy, my mother’s mouth was still pinched and downturning, there seemed to be no escape hatch in sight. I was having the time of my life.

Eons later my dad finally rallied with a boisterous “And the most aggravating thing about the Japanese people is their complete refusal to believe than anyone not Japanese can have any skill or understanding of their language.” An awkward transition, but no one was criticizing technique at this point. The dinner concluded shortly after, the guests still seemed to scurry within their slow even tread; their faces were still apologetic as the door closed firmly behind them before they could retrieve their tupperware.

It’s possible, just possible, that that event may be highly colored in my mind based on how well I know my parents. But whether or not that vein in my mother’s forehead was really as prominent as I remember, I maintain that having a family that reacts almost violently to any criticism of Disney’s live-action masterpiece is as cool as having a jetpack of my very own. It’s also one of the best demonstrations that despite all other proof and/or skepticism, I do share DNA with the most noble and ancient house of Shurtz.

Withholding The Rest So I Can Be For You What You Wanna See

2010-05-19T13:58:00.003-06:00

I have an insatiable hunger for pie this week. But instead of spending too much time whining about it, I have the situation in hand and will be devoting the majority of my Friday night to repieifying the county. I am particularly suited for this monumental task, since I make even better apple pie than my grandmother. Shhhh, she can never know. I don’t know if she would cry or kill me if she found out she had been knocked off the pedestal. She’s old now. She doesn’t need that kind of information to burden her twilight years.

I’m starting to talk like a coward. Or, worse, like I’m too nice. Either way I’m giving the impression that I care too much about what other people think to say what I really want to. It’s been a growing problem that has rapidly escalated in the last nine months.

I’m not liking the trend, so I feel the need to justify it in high-falutin language that makes me look like I’m really the next step in our ethical evolution by doin what I do. So, here goes. The reasons for my appearance of cowardice fall into two camps:

1. I can’t control the crazy people I say things to--no amount of force can make them accurately interpret/portray what I say. Essentially, when I’m talking to someone I know to be overly dramatic, self-involved, a bibbling idiot, or just plain hostile, I’ve learned over time to just save myself the trouble of carefully crafting anything of note to say to those kind of people.

Because no matter how brilliant my syntax, and let's not cut corners, I bandy words with the best of them, I have learned from painful experience that you can never underestimate a person’s ability to turn everything and anything into a sentence that makes them look wonderful/like the victim and myself into a horrible, dark-slime-of-the-earth-like-in-Fern-Gully type. I’m not even talking about how they would twist my words when relaying a conversation to others, I’m saying they have some sort of horribly constructed camera obscura right in their frontal lobes that turns something like “Hey, roommate, I really like this guy, could you do me a solid and give us some alone chat time?” upside down and inside out until they’re narrating real-time “And then Mary head-butted me, called me fat, and said the next time I opened my mouth around her boy—like she owns him, gosh, she’s so possessive—she would key my car.”

Don’t even get me started on how much worse it gets if I ever allowed myself to talk politics with anyone my age—yes, I know, I’m a Poli Sci major--I must talk politics at least occasionally. That line of reason is entirely false. If you think I actually volunteer to discuss anything with those nimrods in my program, you’re crazier than me. I think it’s my constitutional right to refuse to give my peers fodder that they can flip into “And then Mary confided in me that she is a racist profit-driven oil whoremonger who would prefer nuking Beijing to discussing gun control.”

So essentially, in these scenarios I’m not a coward, and I don’t care what they think necessarily, I’m just tired. Just plain tuckered out, drained of any motivation to keep on hitting my head against the wall of another’s determination to misunderstand me.

You could easily turn this into symptons of a myriad of trust issues that I seem to be avoiding, but I’ve been burned often enough that I’m going to stick to my guns on my cautious, guarded manner. Also,

2. I don’t need to be forthright at the cost of making civilians a part of the collateral damage. Unfortunately for my rep as someone who cares more about telling it like it is than her own personal popularity/safety, the harsh truth is that about 90% of those people that I want to give a verbal dressing-down have either a blood or friend connection with someone who I actually like. And too often in the past I have disregarded that fact, with the inevitable result that the shared third party gets dragged into it and either has to choose between us, mediate, or sit there uncomfortably and try to juggle us.

Unkind. Unfair. I can sacrifice the natural high I get when sticking it to someone if it means at the end of the day I still have the highest stats of people who still like me and consider my friendship to be low maintenance.

So, in this case, I do care what someone thinks or feels. It’s just the man behind curtain number three, not the one I want to chew out for choosing to make a break-up or mourning period more about them than the people actually involved.

It’s a crippling new part of my character that I’ve come to a point where I can no longer accept innocent bystanders as acceptable losses in my expeditions to take the crazies down a notch or two. My mission has been severely compromised by this change in my mandate. But there are enough people in the world right now who are with full legitimacy still pissed at me, so it had to stop some time.

I’d like to think that all of this prudence comes from a place of growing maturity, but let’s not get carried away here. It has a lot less to do with how wise and awesome I am and lies mostly in the blame column of how much other people suck. But at least you can come away feeling warm and fuzzy inside if I verbally berate you—it means I think you’re not one of the crazies. If I seem typically polite in a manner reminiscent of Stepford, you better watch yourself.

Someday I'm going to be granted a wish from a genie and I'll have a voice like Mayer Hawthorne or the Temptations for a day so that I can sing the soulful blues in the manner a little pasty-faced chick like me will never be able to do unaided.

I Got Cutter Spray and A Healthy Sense of Worth

2010-04-29T13:06:00.007-06:00

Ok, we have a lot to fix in this world and there isn’t much time, so let’s skip the pleasantries this time (if "Four Minutes to Save the World" just popped into your head, you are not alone).

Item 1: How are the loyal-inspirational-tear-jerker-animal movies still being made? You know, the ones about the dog who waits at the train every day expecting his master even years after his demise and the whole town rallies and talks about how this dog is their hero.

Ok, there was a little breakthrough in psychology called classical conditioning where Pavlov used a dog to show that through repetition, a significant stimulus will evoke an innate, often reflexive, response. Essentially, the dog doesn't know what it's doing.

And don't get all surprised or defensive about that statement. It's a dog, for crying out loud. I find the idea that people call an animal that licks its own genitalia their hero a little offensive.

Anthropomorphism is all grand and dandy, heaven knows I think my stuffed animals from my childhood are still pissed at me for leaving them in Sandy, but when push comes to shove Lassie can save Timmy from the well as many times as she wants but if she gets rabies or even just humps my leg I'll be the first one to grab the rifle.

Go get real heroes, people. There have been some pretty awesome individual humans out there. Maybe you like to make dogs your heroes because then you don't have to worry about unpleasantness surfacing, like your favorite world leader miraculously turning out to be a flawed person who's a tool to the serving staff. Well, it may be safer, but I'm still going to judge you for giving all glory laud and honor to something that regards plastic bags caught in the wind as real threats.

Without ruining the validity of my argument, I want to make clear that none of this criticism applies to White Fang. He's the balls.

Item 2: What is with the proclivity dough boys have of growing out their hair so that it hangs around their shoulders in an unkempt tangle? To clarify, dough boys is a term I've assigned in my head to men who have thin flyaway flaxen hair, are over six feet, three hundred pounds, and have the unfortunate pasty and splotchy coloring of a Celt.

You're already fighting battles on three different fronts, boys, don't compound your problem by emphasizing the unfortunate color and texture of your hair by letting it run wild. You don't look bad ass. You look sloppy and potential molester-status.

I know I frequently appear as the champion of nonconformity and doing-what-expresses-you-with-your-appearance-without-a-reference-to-others, but I'm truly just at a loss to see what your endgame is with this act. If I can't tell what your statement is, that means it was a complete communication failure and you should try something else now.

And yes I recognize that I am quite the coward, shouting at you from the anonymity of my screen since you could literally squish me into a little squawking puddle with your thumb. But how about we redirect your energies and not do that--instead, let's cut your hair.

Item 3: The ending scene of The Wizard of Oz is the biggest cop-out in cinematic history. I make it that strong of a declarative statement because this film, unlike most movies who back away from their potential, gets assigned Classic Movie status. And it is a classic. I still expect apple trees to start throwing their fruit at me, and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is truly the song of the century. It's a fabulous piece of storytelling. With an ending that honestly wouldn't make sense to anyone at all if we hadn't grown up with it.

What is up with the answer that Dorothy gives Glinda about what she's learned on her adventure? "If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with!" What kind of un-American jibber jabber is that? Is she saying that we're not supposed to dream big, reach far, achieve things that no one has even imagined yet? What is this, some kind of police state where the region you were born in is doomed to be the only place you're permitted to explore? We already have enough people in the world who are living that way without pushing it further through brainwashing Hollywood techniques.

And that really wasn't what the movie was about up to that point! It was about finding inner strength to overcome huge obstacles, believing that even if you aren't fully equipped for the journey (i.e. no brain) you'll still be able to find the gumption to push through if you have a goal worth fighting for or if there's a real evil out there that must be thwarted.

When you think about it, not only is that ending a betrayal of L. Frank Baum's vision (don't even get me started about how they have it all be a concussed dream. So not how it went down in the book.), it's actually a demonstration of the protectionist values that Americans were embracing in the 1930s--don't worry about the bad that's going down out there in the big scary world, stick to your backyard, you'll learn to like that everything is the color taupe.

It comes down to this: how can you take the quote at the end and rationalize it with "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I?" I refuse to cancel out the song in favor of the conclusion.

And yes, if you must know, I am searching for ways to fix the world because I have a final in two hours I don't want to study for and I would rather tackle impossibly large problems than attempt to study and fail. But who are you, the homework police? Ohhh, burn, I just went fourth grade on your ass.

On a much happier note, when I was actually successfully studying last night for this final I flipped open a library to the exact page of Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Still #35 (seen above). I have been mildly obsessed with this piece since my Introduction to Art History class five years ago. And somehow I had forgotten the name. And now me and good ol' #35 are reunited again. God bless finals. Ish.

Livin' Just To Find Emotion

2010-04-21T12:47:00.004-06:00

Recent news: I had a near death experience. My head almost snapped off my neck completely. This was largely due to a week of where I attended four different concerts up in Salt Lake. Epic, but it had a price.By the time I was at Passion Pit (concert number 3), I was forced to sedately step-and-snap to the music, since my head was already at such a precarious state that I was a perpetual bobble head. Oh wow that just created an awesome tongue twister in my head: “At Passion Pit my pate was perpetually placed precariously.”

But in reaction to this brush with my own mortality, I feel compelled to confess to something. It’s a shameful secret, something that has been gnawing at me for some time. But even now as I’m on the brink of telling all, the Radiohead I’m listening to right now seems to be shouting me (or angstily scolding, as is more their style) into silence. But if being close to becoming a dashboard novelty has taught me anything, it’s that above all you must be true to yourself! Well, that and if you’re going to head bang, do it more with your entire back folding forward, but that is not the point we are going to focus on right now. The truth will out me one day, might as well do it myself:

I enjoy the music group known as Train. I thought it was a fluke, that “Meet Virginia” was a one-time delightful bouquet of clever nonsense lyrics and a swingin tempo, but I’m afraid it’s much worse than that. The percentage of their tunes I find myself gleefully bopping along to unfortunately confirms that Train and I have a game show love connection we can’t deny. I know, I am way too cool-hipster-obscure-groove-reverence-for-the-classics to be this person!

And yet it remains. I like Train. Which if you look at it a certain way, it’s a pretty cool demonstration of the wonders of music—how personal an individual reaction can be, and how unpredictable what chord progression is going to sing in your bones and what epic classics are going to leave you saying “meh.”

Yes, I did just try that hard to make my fanness of Train cool and philosophically significant. And if you’re judging me or considering cutting me off as an acquaintance because of this revelation, consider two things: A) ever since I informed Pandora of my Train love it has clogged my station with all sorts of sentimental twangy crap. I believe that is sufficient penance, and B) that’s insanely lame of you to not be ok with what other people like.

Other confessions that have been crawling stealthily out of the suppressed area they were supposed to stay in: I appreciate Led Zeppelin but never listen to it for pleasure, I think Zac Effron was hot in Hairspray, I’m going to see “The Jonses” even though it looks pretty crazy lame solely because it has David Duchovny in it, I still know every word and musical cue for Alanis’ album “Jagged Little Pill,” I’ve read a Nicholas Sparks book or two—although now that he’s publicly stated that he’s a better novelist than Cormac McCarthy I solemnly swear to never read another—and I cried through the first twenty minutes of “Up” and at the end of the Glee episode when she sings the Rhianna song (she’s so sad!). There. Whew. That felt good. It isn’t even close to the amount of dirt I have on myself, but at least the load has been lightened. Marginally.

To conclude, let us focus on two songs I’ve been currently obsessed with: The Door’s “Hello, I Love You” and Velvet Underground’s “Rock and Roll.”

The Doors rock, even though I have to be in the mood for their more self-indulgent nine minute songs—not that I’m against those epic recordings as a strict rule, but because even the greatest musician in the world could learn from the three-minute pop song format. There’s a reason why The Beatle’s became gods of the earth with “Help!” and “She Loves You.” You gotta earn your “Revolution No. 9.” This means you, pretentious local bands. That’s awesome that you can turn your back on the audience and rock out without hitting anything discordant. No one cares.

The key point to “Rock and Roll” is the lyric when Jenny “couldn't believe what she heard at all. She started dancin' to that fine fine music—you know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll.” Does anybody else have that moment in their life when they really listened to rock and looked upon it and found that it was good? For me it was when Royden and Jeff were rocking out to “Foxy Lady” by Jimi Hendrix. I must have been about 12 or 13. And I couldn’t have told you it was Jimi singin’ to me, but I know we played that song eight or nine times straight, taking turns spinning and jamming on the slick hardwood floor in our kitchen to the gutsy guitar riffs.

And then I’m pretty sure Randy came in and was a complete buzzkill. But still, my life was changed by rock ‘n’ roll.

Simil-aphors Taking On Their Own Lifeforce

2010-03-31T17:28:00.011-06:00

I was walking out of my class when I crossed paths with one of the most peculiar creatures that I have yet to see out there in the wild.

The specimen was male; approximately 193 cm tall, with a lean fit that clashed terribly with the blockiness of his facial features and the absence of neck. But the striking part was not his unfortunate meathead cutout, it was his body language. His lips were pursed into a smirk that I know only a male peacock could ever have the vanity to sport, if they were ever so blessed as to have lips. His head was turned so that he was looking in a direction roughly 90 degrees away from the direction his shoulders were squared, and he took long leisurely strides without once blinking or diverting his head to check what obstacles might trip him up.

Up to that point I was grinning like an idiot, amusing myself by considering how he looked like a particularly ugly ostrich, an ungainly square-headed flamingo at best. But right as I was chortling away, he made eye contact with me and leveled me with a stare as he made his way into the science wing. Now that strange unchanging smirk made everything seem much more sinister. Sinister like a pterodactyl. Yes, thank you Jurassic Park, you made a creature that is still the epitome of things that would make me avoid industrial kitchens.

So, in case you weren't able to keep track, this was a peacock-flamingo-ostrich-pterodactyl man beast with an almost hoot-owl/exorcist twist to the head. Terrifying. Only way it could have been worse/better is if he had been French. Hope I run into him tomorrow.

Life can sometimes seem like a game of Tetris, when the game keeps on giving you only one type of block, trapping you into building a huge tower up the middle of the screen, until you crash and burn and fail out altogether because you're not adept enough at transforming the sameness you're given into a strong multi-faceted foundation.

That frustration may explain why sometimes when I'm in a semiconscious state I catch myself playing the Perfect Tetris Game in my head, obsessively conjuring up the utopian pattern of varying blocks and building up a solid base without any maddening unfilled spaces and missed opportunities.

That last paragraph wasn't a flight of fancy; I really do go through that Perfect Game constantly through my head, another borderline compulsive behavior that has cropped up in the last few years. Please, if you love me don't ask me how many penstrokes the word totalitarianism has. Cause I'll know.

I love being in an overly warm room sometimes, just so I can pop the tab on a perfectly chilled soda can and let it change my life. Rest the side of your jaw on the cool aluminum, take a sip and hold the liquid back by your molars for a minute, so that you can hear the fizz both from the outside by the can and from the inside by your ears. Close your eyes and let yourself get confused about whether you're there in the warm room or actually just full-on swimming in the cool carbonation. And then that rare huge gulp, when you can feel the coolness spread down your throat and course past your collarbone, spreading the refreshment while making you paranoid since you never pay attention to the way it feels to drink normally, so you may be worried that your esophagus is somehow leaking, but it feels good enough that you shrug your shoulders and take another sip.

Man I must never ever ever try alcohol, if I like drinking DDP this much I can only imagine the disastrous effects the stronger stuff would do to my addictive personality.

I feel like more people need to know about the band Nada Surf. I've been talking about this song a lot with various peoples of note in the last week, so indulge me as I impart some of my favorite lyrics of theirs to you:

"Watching terrible TV, it kills all thought, getting spacier than an astronaut.
Making out with people I hardly know or like--I can't believe what I do late at night.
I wanna know what it's like on the inside of love--I'm standing at the gates, I see the beauty above.
Only when we get to see the aerial view will the patterns show, we'll know what to do: I know the last page so well, I can't see the first, so I just don't start.
It's getting worse, I can't find my way in, I try again and again: I'm on the outside of love, always under or above. Must be a different view, to be a me with a you.
I wanna know what it's like on the inside of love, I'm standing at the gates, I see the beauty above.
Of course, I'll be alright. I just had a bad night."

There you have it, further proof that I can be just as sappy as everyone else. If not more so.

I got some great new CDs, featuring some live performances of artists like Cream, Janis, Jimi, high quality. And as I've adjusted to the pacing of a 16-minute live interpretation of Sunshine of Your Love, I now hypothesize that it's that specific type of improvised jam-session rocknroll that is the secret to successful deep space travel. Once I finally let myself listen to the process instead of impatiently wanting to hear the next track, I swear I felt my heartbeat slow dramatically, to a level where my vitals were barely taken care of. I could almost feel my circulation withdraw from my extremities and my brain waves slow and flatten, causing a second to take up a year of contemplation.

No, I have not inhaled anything illegal or generally frowned upon. I just like my tunes. And Star Trek. And if NASA was as serious about making the world of Jean-Luc really happen as I am, I don't think a little Swlabr would hurt.

Abandoning The Plan But Continuing To Scheme

2010-03-25T19:05:00.004-06:00

Roll the shoulders, rapidly and smartly smack the cheeks, quick crack of the neck, flexing of the fingers, here we go.

I simply have to make myself type something that doesn't sound remotely like a scholarly analysis of anything. Because if I keep it up with this passive voice I might soon conclude that the merits of repeatedly applying extreme force against a rough graveled surface with one's cranium might be the biggest contribution I can give to the soon-to-be-formed Society for the Selective Elimination of Useless Academia Leeches.

So in case you've been worried about my absence from the blogosphere these past two months, the answer is yes, I really did lose any will or ability for free thought. Thus the lack of lingual throwup on this aesthetically pleasing backdrop.

My pictures certainly are pretty, aren't they? I pretend it's almost the same thing, being able to create timelessness and just having timelessly good taste. Helps me sleep at night.

I just went through an intense "friend" purge on facebook, which was highly satisfying. The only people left now are a) people who I actually care to talk to/passively view their life and b) people who are too crazy and I fear the repercussions of dropping them even more than I yearn for the relief of not having to think about them ever again. And if you're having even a moment's doubt about which category you belong to, it's undoubtedly b. Don't watch me while I sleep. Again.

People have an insane--emphasis on the word choice insane, picture double italics if that's possible--way of projecting/altering what they want in a mate onto whatever is in front of them. Believe me, this judgment is being passed (and it is a judgment, let's not kid ourselves) with a lot of empathy, cause heaven knows I'm neck deep in the situation. But it's surprising how even when I've determinedly ignored all the flashing signs saying "no chance in hell are you two compatible" with equal vigor in the past, I still feel violated and get very frustrated when it happens to me.

Ah well, I always said I could even make hypocrisy look good.

Why I fell in love with the opening act for the Vampire Weekend concert I went to last week: She was strange, her music wasn't my thing, I'm never going to listen to it again, but there was a quality about her, quite separate from the rich flexibility of her voice, which was magnetic. The quality was that she was, in every category that exists out there, incredibly strange. And awkward. She stood up there with her microphone, no band, singing while doing strange jerky movements with her arms, and legs, looking like an anteater that had taken it into his head that they were born to be an exotic dancer.

But what made it all ok, what made it all alright and strangely entrancing and loveable, was her self-awareness. She wasn't awkward in the way that makes the viewer self-conscious--you know, when you're pretty sure that that dweeb up there is trying to be cool, is miserably failing and you keep on having a strange urge to call the paramedics or their mother, trying to save them? No, that wasn't what was happening at all.

She was very aware that her style of performance was not polished into the absurd grandstanding that the audience has come to expect and require. She was aware, and she didn't care. She had the self-determination that everyone is given but so few exercise, and with that she made a performance about her own interpretation of life and what about it makes it fun. It was like watching a kid running like a maniac, all limbs akimbo, before they've watched too much TV or made too many friends that are far too ready to point out that they look ridiculous. It's magical every time I get to see that.

Ok, I'm talking in paragraphs still. Must de-structure even more. It's good for the soul. Decompile that twisted psyche. Cut it up into a pretty countdown chain, rip off a bit every once in a while for closer examination.

I've just spent the last fifteen minutes searching for a concluding image for this blog. I think I'm feeling a little stretched out right now, I'm craving clean lines and very little texture--just long horizons and wide expanses of filled-in space that I won't have to worry about.

I rediscovered the decible at which music is supposed to be played. I lost it for a while, mostly because I'm just the most thoughtful roommate ever (any roommate who wants to contest that, I welcome you to make your objections by destroying my stuff, just keep the comment off my blog). But I had some quiet alone time in an enclosed space--I'll let you draw your own conclusions on what I'm referencing--and I remembered that unless you can feel the music, you aren't hearing it. I'd rather have my teeth shaken out of my head prematurely if that means that me, Lou Reed, Joey Ramone and Jack White are all on closer terms. Besides, basically the only fond memories I have of my slightly evil great-aunt involve her whipping out her teeth and scaring small children. I could be that lady.

Someone should look into a more portable version of peanut butter, something that doesn't require utensils. I would avail myself of that product fairly frequently.

Wikipedia-Based Chaos

2010-01-15T13:02:00.005-07:00

Ok, there are two things in the world that just really grate my cheese.

First off, the US of A has in its infinite contrariness decided to not have its 300th birthday until I’m 89 years old. As if we didn’t all know that I would so be the life of that party if I had both of my hips. Or was alive at all, since my soda consumption hasn’t declined in response to any of the building evidence that it’ll probably gently enfold me in the sweet carbonated kiss of death-—or cause me to grow a third eye.

The second plague on my life is the unfortunate truth that the color green has no real inherent poetic qualities in the sound it makes as you speak it. It’s too harsh and Old English. And the majority of objects you could compare green to in order to add some zest and romance to subjects of note (like my eyes, which I personally think are worthy and in fact demanding to have some poetry dedicated to them), are things like grass and moss and mold and various other growths on this planet. Highly unsatisfactory. I don’t want to ever picture--or have others inflicted with the image of--my eye sockets bursting with verdant biological wonders.

I’ve determined something monumental that I think a trained sociologist should gather some data to support, since I can’t be bothered with such mundane detail work. My analysis from my myriad of office jobs is that there is always and without exception one (1) coworker per office who feels some sort of biological imperative to share every detail of their life with anyone and everyone around them. Perhaps they are the modern-day descendants of the ancient storytellers and chroniclers, people who feel the physical pull to pass along the essence of life verbally, continuously, in excruciating detail. I should also mention that a correlating piece of the puzzle is that these people are invariably suffering from some sort of complex and rare disease, hypochondria, or both.

A tangent on this current study is the discovery of how e-mail forwards have adapted to survive over a decade of derision, society-wide cynicism, and next-gen junk mail filters. Forwards have, in their wily wisdom and sense of self-preservation, latched themselves like a symbiotic life form onto the servers of businesses everywhere. They have accurately concluded that office workers would rather have their eyes be crusted over with superglue than continuously apply themselves to their occupation for a full workday. Based on this, the forwards have determined this demographic to be their most likely chance of survival. Because one of the new truths in this century is that Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 drones will continue to read about the girl’s puppy who rode a bicycle to the nearest fire station when she got stuck in a tree with a wildcat in order to avoid work. If only the dodo had had such sophisticated adaptive skills.

Did you know that the woman who originally created and marketed the Barbie doll had to get a mastectomy later in life due to breast cancer? I’m not so much of a monster to say that that was deserved, but you must admit that there’s a certain amount of irony being dished out with a generous hand.

Apnea

2009-12-23T19:22:00.004-07:00

Ok, someone needs to help me figure this out, because I swear that I’m not a math nerd. 

It’s physically impossible—I haven’t even taken a math class in almost seven years: I was always proficient, but it’s not like I really got math. When I had to take the compass test at UVU, I couldn’t for the love of Dr Pepper remember the slope formula.

In fact, anytime I want to put myself into a there-is-no-spoon existentialist dilemma, all I have to do is think about the 360 degrees in a circle and wonder why the hell some Greek guy came to that conclusion and somehow brainwashed humanity into thinking it was a truth (360? Could there be a more random number?). 

I have a delightful sense of humor, I listen to rock n roll, in many cases I believe that the form of something is infinitely superior to any function. I’m able to carry on interesting conversations with others. All of this points to the conclusion that I am nothing akin to a math nerd. 

I should be more comforted by this, but there’s unfortunately some more information that I haven’t disclosed that might leave you less than persuaded of my innocence.

Like the fact that when I was counting up my spare pennies to turn them into larger coins for soda consumption, I did things that no self-respecting non-math-nerd would do. 

First, I sorted them into piles according to the decade they were minted. I then recorded the number of pennies in each respective pile. Before I even added them all up for my grand total, I first found the percentage increase of pennies per decade (i.e. there is a 600% increase of pennies minted in the seventies compared to those minted in the sixties, but only a 50% increase from those minted in the eighties compared to the seventies). It was only after I had crunched the available data in every conceivable form that I got around to finding my grand total of pennies and turning that total into soda purchased.

Do you understand the significance of that? I was more intrigued by the stats than I was in replenishing my soda supply! I’m gravely concerned.

Do not, I repeat DO NOT ever bite down on a big chunk of peanut brittle with your front teeth. They just weren’t built for that kind of abuse.

In my down time at work I was reading someone’s reflection on Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” (my favorite of her novels) and my eyes started to well up. 

I was alarmed, thinking a) I cannot start crying at work, that's both awkward and unseemly. Plus I work with women who would probably try to, I don't know, talk it out with me or something. And that is not the Shurtz women way. b) this is very disconcerting, I feel like I'm having an out-of body experience, because I don't feel particularly sad for Anne and Captain Wentworth's plight right now. Am I that out of touch with myself that my physiological responses are this drastically out of sync with where my mind is?  

Then I realized that the welling of the eyes was due to the fact that I needed to sneeze. Emotional crisis averted.

When Doves Cry

2009-12-18T12:01:00.006-07:00

Rick Springfield is such a sex god. He successfully rhymed "cute" with "moot." He could wine and dine me anytime.

Ok, so I started this blog to rant about music, but then I ran out of steam about three sentences in.

Suffice it to say, I believe that people who think that my love and appreciation for artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Nirvana is a demonstration of my degenerate nature and hints at hidden desires to die of an overdose or drown in my own vomit are horrendously off base.

I believe in knowing the history of the music I claim to be a fan of, I think it’s important to know what statements artists were making in the cultural context of their times, and I’m not naïve enough to think that their lifestyle had no effect on their creations. However, just because I know all these details of their personal life, I don’t consider that a reason to either a) stop listening to their music or b) follow their example and shoot up. I would think that all of these tragic early deaths in the music industry would serve as deterrent enough.

What it comes down to is that I don’t consider rock artists to be different from masters of any other art form—they are people, messed up more often than not, who have an ability to create something that transcends their own small context as an individual: what they create speaks to people that the artist has never met, have little in common with, and who in the end will be alive much longer than they will.

Despite my scholarly desire to meet any of the great artists of the past, when you get right down to how I spend my life and my priorities other than art, I doubt I would have much to do with Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Mozart, Poe, Dali, Beethoven, David, Dickinson, or Rossetti.

Except Edna St. Vincent Millay. I bet we’d be buddies until she started hitting on me.

But that’s besides the point.

All of these past masters have histories of mental instability, difficulty in and with society, immoral behavior, and other eccentricities—if eccentricities isn’t too mild a word. And they certainly aren’t the only people in the world to have such messed up lives. But, each one of them possessed a gift of creation. Instead of condemning those creations to obscurity as a statement that I disapproved of their personal choices, why wouldn’t I treasure them as a sign that even in a dark and troubled mind there is still a spark, a glimmer of genius, a way for someone to rise above what would be a life of insignificance and despair and still say something. This presence of creation in such a hostile environment should be celebrated, not looked upon disapprovingly.

So when I’m wearing my tattered Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze t-shirt, I don’t think it is beyond the potential of my peers (and more significantly my parents) to believe that I am not peddling a lifestyle of crack and promiscuity. I’m honoring the fact that Jimi combined rock n roll guitar with blues to create a sound that is both stirring and profound, soulful and adrenaline-pumping. I’m wearing it to say I'm glad that he lived until 27 so that his works could influence the works of other serious musicians for generations. Also, it’s a colorful and aesthetically pleasing graphic, why wouldn’t I wear it?

Hey, look, I didn’t run out of steam after all! How fortuitous for all of you, you didn’t miss out on being lectured and sneered at. By the way, Poison is just one of the best things that ever happened to the 80’s. Anyone who can sing the lyric “look what the cat dragged in” and follow it with a feline yowl is just golden in my book.

Also, my first real exposure to the season this year was from the proprietor of Osakas who last week handed me my take-out order and in her warbly old voice and broken English startled me right out of my bad mood with a sincere, simple, and painfully enunciated "Merry Christmas." It was beautiful.

The Denial Twist

2009-11-04T14:04:00.006-07:00

Possible indication that I’ve been watching quite a bit of Heroes recently: I quickly stood up from my desk and through whatever strange combination of how I moved my head and the drafts in the basement I heard a very quick whoosh and felt a bit of pressure on my eardrum. My immediate thought? Oh my gosh! I bet there’s an invisible person in this basement who had to move out of the way so that I didn’t run into them! The only thing that convinced me that that maybe wasn’t the first possibility? I realized that if someone could be invisible there is no way they would hang around at a credit union. Unless they wanted to use my system to wire loads of money to their various bank accounts . . . oh no, I’ve started it off again.

As an awkward sidestep away from my neurosis, I’m going to abruptly change the subject.

I’ve been contemplating the subject of simplicity for a week now, ever since Zach and I went to a concert that featured the King Singer’s performance of the Shaker’s Hymn with it’s opening lines “It’s a gift to be simple, it’s a gift to be free/It’s a gift to come down where we ought to be.”

Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of the song or the sentiment—mostly because the very idea of ever being identified as simple has been abhorrent to me. I’ve always considered the key feature of myself and other “interesting” people (yes, I consider myself interesting, someone has to) was how complicated we are. I like peeling back layers of sentiment and motive, and one of the things I love best about myself is my clashing and confusing lists of interests and priorities.

To a certain extent, I still stick to that attitude. It’s sorta left over from my teenage obsession and present latent reaction to anyone trying to “label me.” But for the first time, during that concert the idea of the gift of simplicity really stuck, and I think for the very first time I paid attention to the next two lines as well.

Because it really would be a gift to know where you ought to be and to be there, and it would be so freeing to be “simply” yourself: no need for subterfuge, justification, or long long blog posts overanalyzing every corner of your psyche. Isn’t the definition of freedom the power to determine action without restraint? (It is, cause I just looked it up). So based on that, it really would be the greatest gift to live life simply, to react honestly to news and people, to pursue what makes you happy whole-heartedly, to shun things that repulse you without apology.

Just to clarify, this is not me throwing up the white flag and surrendering the quirky aspects of my personality. I would never be the spokesperson for slapping a coat of paint over the tiny details and intricate graffiti that individual experiences have left on our souls. Far from it. What I’m talking about is a conceptual foundation for the utopia I will someday build, a world where contradicting terms within a person don’t provoke anger or dismissal but are "simply" accepted as a part of one’s unique makeup. Someday, in this perfect world, people are going to find that niche in the world where they should be and throw their hands up in a rock fist of joy and celebrate the gift that simple clarity and honest acceptance of our strengths and weaknesses have left us with.

So to reassert what I’m talking about, I am not campaigning for the abolishment of nuance or the banning of individuality and eccentricities. I’m promoting the idea that the ideal to strive for is honesty of purpose and candidness of motivation. To truly know thyself, and to trust that same duty to everyone around you, to not take it upon yourself to pin others with what it is they should want/be. The dream is to be so certain in your own place that the wants, expectations, and demands of peers and parental figures don’t buckle you down or make you doubt that what you are is worthwhile.

That was a little more abstract and high-falutin' than I usually go for, must be all the Aimee Mann that has been popping up on my Pandora station. I’ll kick back with some Portishead and decompress.

"Though They May Gang A' Kennin' Wrang, To Step Aside Is Human"

2009-09-23T11:52:00.004-06:00

I am a Koala bear. Here me roar. No, but really, there are some startling parallels going on. About a year ago Patrick told me that of all the animals in the land, I looked the most like a Koala bear. I liked that comparison--they're small, cute and cuddly, so I really had no reason to argue with his astute assessment. But now the similarities have become so much more than skin deep! I will now include an excerpt from wikipedia’s page on Koala bears, with only a few minor adjustments in wordology in order to illustrate my point:

"The Koala lives almost entirely on Diet Dr Pepper. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since Diet Dr Pepper is low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contains compounds that are toxic to most species. Koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. An average Koala eats approximate 4500 g (140 oz) of Diet Dr Pepper each day. The liver deactivates the toxic components and the gut is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrients from the poor quality diet. The Koala will partake of a wide range of diet sodas, and occasionally even some non-diet sodas such as Dr Pepper and Mexican Coca-Cola Classic. However, it has firm preferences for particular varieties of diet soda. Koalas that are disturbed during their resting state are known to be violent, their teeth and claws capable of causing considerable injury to others."

I rest my case.

And you know that even if Koalas don't actually roar, they would totally sneeze like me.

I had an uneasy experience last week on the bus home that is prompting me to make an apology and a promise. I solemly swear, with a hand upon my bosom to show my sincerity, that I will make the utmost effort not to hum in public ever again. Because despite my belief previously that it was a harmless habit coming from boredom or happiness, it turns out that when you don't know someone and you're in a public place, it's just downright creepy.

Roommates: don't hold your breath, this does not mean that when I take my occasional leisurely afternoon shower that I will stop belting out arias and torch songs. That's just too much to ask for, and besides I'm sure you already find me creepy to some extent or another.

Sometimes the Universe just hates you. And when that happens, the Christian maxim of “turn the other cheek” should be the very last option you consider. Cause when the Universe sucker-punches you, the only rational response should be to punch back whatever way you can. My most recent tactic has just been to scream as loud and as long as my substantial opera-singing-trained breath support will allow.

This is facilitated by the fact that I live off of Geneva Road now, which is possibly the perfect pastoral setting for verbally gutting oneself of frustrations. It's best to be in a car while doing this: partially because feeling your breath get whipped out of your mouth by the raging wind adds to the experience, and also because then if the 3.87 people living in the area look up from their cinderblock-bound trucks to see what's going on, you're already out of the area.

But, if you are frequently carless, or the Universe decides to smack you down while you are in the comfort of your own home, I can now testify that it works just as well to scream your bloody guts out in a standing position.

Because when I dropped on the floor my entire helping of yet-unsampled-over-processed-deliciousness-still-slightly-steaming bowl of mac n cheese on the floor, shattering the bowl and sending pasta everywhere, I just let out a rebel yell. I wasn't quite crying 'more, more, more,' though, it was more of a barbaric yawp or bellow of disdain for everything the Universe stood for when they picked my midnight snack as their target.

Speaking of barbaric yawps and our own Mr. Whitman, my favorite part of that quote is actually the line just preceding: "I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslateable/I shout my barbaric YAWP from the rooftops of the world" Untranslateable is a narcissistic but appealing concept, the idea that you are so much an entity unto yourself that you can't be dissembled by the passing examinations of your peers.

And I would rather walk across hot coals discalced than allow the thought stick that I am 'tamed.' I know I'm fairly normal in most respects, I follow the rules of hygience and some of the nods toward social graces, but it's incredibly uncomfortable to apply to yourself a term that can also be applied to a parakeet or a pit bull.

And yet all the same I have no trouble at all proudly proclaiming that I am the epitome of Koala bears.

Post-Mortem Modernism

2009-09-09T11:44:00.003-06:00

Nature shoved its face into my world, uninvited, and I didn’t like it one bit. I popped into the break room to grab my morning Diet Dr Pepper and after I had put sixty cents into the machine, there is was. Staring at me. Twitching it long inelegant limbs, twirling its antennae. Mocking me with its very presence, daring me to do something drastic, like move at all. A bloody huge white praying mantis was in my break room, crawling up the side of the soda machine and making its way to the buttons on the front.

No, I didn’t have any sappy reactions, like being struck by it’s alien beauty, and the sight of nature and the cold office world side by side didn’t make my lifestyle seem hallow. No no no, I was thinking what the hell is this doing anywhere near my perfect, pristine, not-remotely-tied-to-nature world? Except that sentence had a lot more profanities in my head.

What I did next is a pretty telling statement about my personality—don’t ask me what it tells, but I’m fairly certain it’s significant, whatever it is. What I did next was: nothing. I didn’t squish it, I didn’t gently catch it up in a cup (yeah right, like that great beast of an insect would have fit) and set it free, I just slowly pushed the Diet Dr Pepper button (with my extended toe, keeping hands and face as far away from the machine as possible), grabbed my soda, and ran—well, stumbled rapidly down the hallway in my heels—back to my cubicle, telling no one of what had happened.

I’m sorry, but I couldn’t touch it! If I had, I would be completely incapable of working right now. I’d be going through some sort of weird cleansing ritual over and over, or trying to scratch off the top layer of my skin, either way making myself like unto an insect. If you touch them you become like them, and that’s what they want!! I had to stand strong.

As a sidebar, the effects of this encounter are insidious in their far-reaching impact. As if it wasn’t hard enough to keep my legs smooth after shaving when I wear a skirt to work in a frigid basement, after this morning’s invasion I’ve just given up. The prickly legs aren’t going to be stopped, what with me thinking about that unholy praying mantis (pun partially intended) and every time getting covered in goose bumps by the thought. Also, I'm quite caffeine deprived.

This entire incident is reminding me of the X-files episode “War of the Coprophages.” David Duchovny and I had very similar thoughts on bugs. Mmm Mulder is so my man. That epic X-files marathon I had this summer has possibly done some permanent damage to my brain. Nothing serious, I just go weak at the knees if the combination of a strong jawline and a vague conspiracy theory presents itself.

I don’t know why I’m suddenly becoming more prolific on this here slice of the blogosphere. Maybe it’s the oncoming of fall that is restoring rigor to my blood and brain. Maybe it’s the books I’m reading. Or maybe it’s the so-early-morning-it’s-late-night two hour commute to work that gets me so bored I’m forced to think of abstract subjects to distract myself. That's right, thought other than motor functions has apparently become a last resort.

But this schedule is pretty much opposite of what my life was like all summer—sleeping in until four, realizing the time, showering just in time to show up at the diner, work until I’m stupid with tiredness, watch TV until dawn, sleeping again. Didn’t really leave much room for ponderings or philosophizing, which is how I got into the bad habit of allowing the status quo to rule my head.

But that's all changed now! Once again, I think everything that passes through my consciousness has a kernel of profundity and even if it doesn't, how can we be sure until we've shared it? I’ll let you decided whether or not that’s a good change.

Or maybe we can blame all of this on the return of Becca to Provo! Maybe she’s my muse, like Xanadu! Except she doesn’t have cankles like Olivia Newton-John. I can guarantee that Becca would be very embarrassed/distressed if she knew I was accusing her of being my muse, but that’s what a best friend gets when she takes a stand against ever ever reading my blog. What a punk of a muse.

The world needs order! In this chaotic time of strip searches at the airport, an economy crashing around our ears, a political climate about as friendly as the surface of Mercury, and a decade that seems entirely bereft of my favorite childhood snack (graham cracker Dunkaroos with the chocolate frosting), I cling to any semblance of a Grand Plan. And I promise you, if there is any grand plan, not only would it have me swimming in a lake the Dunkaroos frosting, The Plan would make sure that my box of paper clips would not constantly be meshing together to form one huge net of paper clip bunches.

When I have a deadline to get wires out by the end of my shift and I still have twenty different papers to collate and send hither and thither, the very last thing I need is to try to detach eight different paper clips from each other in order to finish my job. We aren’t making office jewelry, people! If we can split the atom, then we as a society can get the right people on the job to figure out how to store paper clips in a way that they won’t be tempted to join together and, I don’t know, mate or something. Maybe that’s why my paper clips always come in assorted sizes, they’re self-perpetuating. Gross. Paper clip sex.

Sackcloth and Ashes

2009-09-01T14:16:00.005-06:00

Damn you Joseph, this is all your fault.

The subject is: Art and the holier-than-thou approach that actually perverts only your own soul and experiences, and saves no one.

Scenario 1: First day of a college-level art history class, the teacher puts up a slide of “The Rape of Persephone” by Giardon. The teacher then procedes to inform the class that the human figure is so paramount to the development of art that even BYU is not going to have a curriculum that doesn’t include some nudes. A few students stand up and leave the class immediately, shaking their heads and hiking their self-righteousness up higher onto their shoulder.

Scenario 2: An art history book is bought second-hand at the bookstore for a class and, after it’s brought home, it’s discovered that on every applicable page of the book various cartoon stickers (obviously left over from someone’s scrapbooking project) have been placed on prints of masterpieces wherever “offensive” bits of anatomy are being displayed. When the new owner flicks to the title page again to find out what the hell is going on, they find that in addition to the title “Art Through the Ages” there’s a neatly written subscript just below that says “edited by Paul’s mom, because she loves him.”

You should be aware that when both of these scenarios occurred, it produced a strange physiological reaction from me. Lots of sputtering and fist smacking and red-faced evil eyes, with half-formed words spewing out of my mouth. It wasn’t pretty, it was even humorous to some, but most tragically it wasn’t a coherent way to communicate. This will be my attempt to provide a more structured demonstration of my frustrations, in hopes that I can let you understand why I react so violently.

Nudity is not always about sex. Even when it is in reference to sex, this does not make it automatically pornographic. The Greeks devoted themselves almost exclusively to the depiction of the nude because they believed that they were formed in the image of the gods, and that to carve out a perfect model of the heroic physique was to celebrate all of the beauty and gifts the gods had given them in life.

Renaissance artists who revisited the nude form pinpointed a place in history when man’s mind chose to shun the medieval belief that this life was only a trial to be endured, and instead became open to the infinite possibilities of mankind’s potential: embracing our time on earth as one of discovery and knowledge. The flat depictions of medieval art gave way to vibrant anatomically accurate forms that showed an arrival of perception, and a hope for growth. The use of the nude at that time demonstrates a celebration of man’s own great potential, and it was that attitude that made the Renaissance one of the single brightest moments in our entire earth’s history.

The nude (and let us be clear here that there is a difference between nudes and naked people) is important. More than that, it’s beautiful. It evokes emotion, it gives clues to the ideals and dreams a civilization had, and it’s mastery is the highest level of skill an artist can demonstrate. And if people refuse to--or are incapable of---being able to distinguish between the intent behind the creation of The Discus Thrower and a Playboy pinup, not only are they showing a shocking level of ignorance and lack of judgment, but I genuinely believe that they are causing themselves irrevocable damage to their souls and their outlook of the world.

Because if you can’t discern that one photo is exploitative and an ugly distortion of the human form while the other sculpture is a celebration of the strength and capabilities of man, then you are bringing ugliness and perversion into the world. It cuts both ways—thoughts are as powerful as actions, and when you see ugliness where there is none, you have made yourself a darker place to reside in. You have shut out potential enlightenment and inspiration, and instead remain sullenly determined to view only the worst intentions in people.

So go ahead and glory in how much more ‘sensitive’ you are to evil influences, how you are just so much more pure because your constitution can’t handle such crudeness, because all you have flaunted with that attitude is the sad state of your rapidly spoiling mind.

The Gaps And The Spaces

2009-08-28T16:24:00.003-06:00

Of the many beautiful marvelous and of good report movies out there in the universe, one that particulary stuck with me was "High Fidelity" starring John Cusak. Oddly enough, the main struggle of the film wasn't a draw for me at all. It was all about Rob Gordon (John Cusak's character), and the fact that he was the closest any character has ever come to being me.

His obsessive analytical approach to everything resulted in scads of "top five" lists that he had scattered throughout all of his monologues. So in the spirit of Rob Gordon, I have a completely random list of "top threes," just categories that I've been making up throughout the day while I wait out the end of my extended Friday shift. I'm going to expound upon and explain some of my choices, and some I'll be deliberately enigmatic about.

So you'll just have to deal with my selective vagueness. Not that you'll mind, you'll probably do a dance for every time I actually just let my initial words speak for themselves without the over-explainer muscle coming in to my writing.

And don't worry, these lists will in no way resemble anything you could find on facebook in people's "notes."

Top 3 Songs I Want Used to Woo Me At Some Point In My Life:

-"My Funny Valentine" sung by Frank Sinatra
-"Something In the Way She Moves" by The Beatles
-"Talk Dirty To Me" by Poison

Top 3 Female Rockers Who Made Me Face The Fact That I Will Never Rock:

*Joan Jett
*Janis Joplin--she just makes me want to live off whisky and cigarrettes so that I can sound like her
*Pat Benatar

Top 3 Foods That I Indulge In When I'm About To Have A Nervous Breakdown:

+Sour Cream and Onion Chips
+Haagen Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
+EatMores

Top 3 Attributes That I Like Least About Myself (subject to today and not an all-encompassing scrutiny):

^My inability to admit I don’t know something.
^My callousness toward awkward boys who like me.
^My tendency to rationalize all of my actions into a moral-free zone.

Top 3 Songs I Listen To When I Want to Wallow In My Discontent

~"That I Would Be Good" by Alanis Morissette
~"Paper Bag" by Fiona Apple
~"That Day" by Poe

Top 3 Songs I Sing In The Shower

#"Guess I'll Hang by Tears Out To Dry" by Sammy Cahn
#"Summertime" by George Gershwin
#"O Mio Babbino Caro" by Giacomo Puccini

Top 3 Irish Songs I Sing In The Shower (yes, they earned their own category):

"O Danny Boy"
"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"
"Molly Malone"

Top 3 Authors Whose Writing Style I Wish I Had

>J.M. Barrie
>Ralph Waldo Emerson
>Charlotte Bronte

Top 3 Women In History Who Kick Serious Ass And I Want To Emulate

=Eleanor of Aquitaine--ok so yeah she was a horrible person but her ambition, wilyness, dedication to education, and strategy just make me want to be her one child that she actually liked.
=Abigail Adams
=Elizabeth Cady Stanton--my home girl.

Top 3 Poets

-Edna St Vincent Millay
-Robert Burns--My overly romantic Scottish side.
-Edgar Allen Poe

Top 3 Paintings That Changed My Life And Perspective On What Art Is

*Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grunewald
*Improvisation #28 by Vasily Kandinsky
*Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya

Top 3 Sculptures That Expanded My Belief In Man's Potential

+Bird in Space by Constantin Brancusi
+Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna
+Nike of Samothrace

Top 3 Kinds Of People That Make Me Want To Rip Them To Shreds Even If I Love Them

^People who can’t keep their lives in perspective and so inflict their moods on innocent bystanders
^People who instead of sympathizing always try to one-up the person who is venting and put the focus back on themselves.
^People who think that someone having a different opinion than their own makes them stupid.
^Honorary Mention: People who don't think I'm funny

Top 3 Things That I Believe Are Destroying This Society

~Reality TV--not because it's immoral. Because it makes us stupider.
~Digitality--the fleeting nature of objects freaks me out! Sure have a digital camera is awesome but it also means that everything you hold dear can be wiped out by a magnet. It keeps me up at night. Ish,
~Twilight. You laugh, but it's like five big steps backwards for women. She doesn't even know who she is seperate from this boy. Gross. Sure, yeah, let's not spend time developing our own talents and personalities, let's just become the perfect mate. Don't get me started, this could be an entire blog unto itself.

Top 3 Aspects In Life That Upset Me To The Point That I Usually Cry Because I Don't Know What Else To Do

#Anything that has to do with the elderly losing their ability to access their memories and think clearly.
#Women in an abusive, subjugated situation. I can never watch "Revolutionary Road" again because of it. It makes me physically ill.
#Veterans who have lost limbs.

That's all. It's a rough draft but I bet it stays more true if I don't polish it.

Hyphenated Altuisms

2009-08-24T12:35:00.012-06:00

I’m surreptitiously blogging at work. Go ahead and judge me, but I really put myself under the pressure cooker to look busy at all times, and sometimes there really isn’t anything to do! This is a pretty unfortunate occurrence less than half an hour into my work day. So in a desperate move to keep my nimble fingers going I pulled up a “compose new message” tab in my Outlook to disguise my hopefully much more consistent blogging habit as a legitimate business venture. That’s right, I deal in smoke and mirrors, I’m a dangerous element to society, and I am so very very tricksy.

Alas and alack, I am no longer cool-hipster-sleep-all-day-late-night-waitress-in-funky-fun-diner-bohemian-spunky-babyface-crummy-jeans-old-skater-shoes-with-completely-eroded-bottoms-that-I-still-stubbornly-wore-awesomeness. I am now slacks-skirts-solid-colors-jewel-toned-tops-minimal-makeup-no-big-jewelry-up-and-at-the-bus-at-half-past-Satan’s-hour-sensible-flats-office-paper-pusher-slug.

It’s a little unnerving, and it’s been quite a switch. But I’m at heart a grasping, money-grubbing, soulless capitalist, so I content myself with rolling my eyes at all the frumpy women in my office and dyeing my hair as bright a red as I think they’ll allow. Plus, being in front of a computer all day can only do good things for my pristinely alabaster (some people would just call it freakishly sallowly pale) skin.

Most of the systems that we use in my office require that all data be entered in on a Caps lock, which is all very fine until someone sends me a friendly little inter-office e-mail and they forget to take the Caps off. So about four or five times a day I shrink into my chair a little further, feeling thoroughly shrieked at and persecuted by questions such as SEND ME THE GL FOR THAT OUTGOING WIRE. SO HOW ARE YOU DOING SO FAR, HUH? DO YOU LIKE WHERE YOU ARE? ARE YOU FIGURING THINGS OUT? I’M GOING TO USE THIS STAPLE REMOVER TO GENTLY EXTRACT YOUR EYEBALLS FROM YOUR HEAD COMPLETELY INTACT AND MOUNT THEM AS A TROPHY IN THE BREAK ROOM NEXT TO THE LEAN CUISINE. Ok maybe that last one hasn’t been sent (yet), but it’s certainly implied. In order to soothe my rampant paranoia in these cases I’m starting to develop the capability of squinting my eyes and tilting my head a little to the right (akin to how you look at those ISpy 3-D images), to try to pull the harmlessness into the forefront of the image.

People don’t like facts that don’t fit. This is going to sound like a teenage rant against the system, but I’ll try to avoid the clichés like “you don’t know me!” “I’m not just a cog in the machine!” “I’m under no obligation to work for the system!” and “people don’t fit in boxes!” and try to actually address the real issue that bugs many more people than just self-centered teenagers searching for a cause.

Because truth be told, people really don’t like facts that don’t fit, and they despise outliers of uniqueness that interfere in the way that they view a person. They don’t like it, they try to reject it when they can, and when those stray marks inbetween their columns stubbornly won’t be erased away, that is when words like “weird” get thrown about in great earnest.

In fact, I would almost argue, with absolutely nothing to back up this supposition except that it appeals to my poetic nature, that words like weird were invented solely to give a quantifiable position to attributes in people and the universe that are otherwise unattached to any line of reasoning.

People don’t like to see friendships with odd and indefinable dynamics, they don’t like to see a pretty girl that has never been kissed, they don’t like the kid with pink hair to be politically conservative, and they hate to have in-depth conversations about jazz and early rock and have one of the enthusiastic contributors to concluded with a shout-out to Justin Timberlake. I usually use this weakness in people for my little home-job laboratory experiments—I’m like a little kid with matches, and usually nothing is more entertaining than watching someone else’s brain explode from a lack of comprehension of complex personalities—but there are moments when I get so thoroughly exasperated with the awkward look of shock in the other person’s eyes that I want to shake them until all of their supposedly perfectly fitting pieces break loose and get jumbled up somewhere around their knees so that they can be just as confused and confusing as the rest of us without throwing out label lassoes into the primordial soup of contradiction and trying to snare others to pull them out and stick them into their “weird” categories.

Because how arrogant, I almost want to use the word ignorant, is it to suppose that in a universe of infinite possibilities and combinations of events there is any measurably predictive way of how an individual will develop? Of course there are trends, you can pluck patterns out of sheer chaos, but doesn’t the law of large numbers, or some other equation that I’m completely ignorant of but like to reference anyways because it makes me sound smart, provide for the possibility—even the requirement—that every person is going to collect stray bits of likes and dislikes that are uniquely their own?

Whew. There. Was that angsty enough for you? I almost deleted it, it was far too dramatic for my usual blogging fare, but I figured you readers were up to something a little more substantial after such a long fast. And besides, now I can segway into my next rant because I just used the word angst.

My generation is more than a little messed up. Not that there is any generation that doesn’t have their own baggage, but I don’t know if we are fully aware of ours yet. Ex: Luke and I were watching Reality Bites (one of my favorite movies ever) and when Ethan Hawke with no real prompting announced to a table of strangers that his dad was dying of prostate cancer, Luke laughed, because he assumed it was a joke. Because who would randomly volunteer that information? And who wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to proclaim something epically terrible in order to get a gut reaction from their audience, only to retract it moments later as just a ruse?

Don’t get me wrong, the movie also demonstrates that the early 90’s had an overdose of angst and a tendency to take themselves far too seriously, I’m not so far gone to be yearning for that dramatic of a setting. But I don’t know that we really take anything seriously. I know that I personally feel like I need to have a long preamble declaring my sincere intent any time I want to actually discuss something serious, that if I just dived right in I would make the person I was talking to very uncertain and uncomfortable.

And nine times out of ten I revert back to sarcasm or hyperbole moments after an emotional moment, just to escape the consequences of actually settling into a highly charged environment, full of messy things like earnestness and conviction and . . . feelings. Shudder. You see? I just did it again. It’s quite distressing once you put it on your radar. Maybe we do this as a society in reaction to the “emo” minority. We want to be so far removed from that subculture that we have resorted to the gameplan of “nothing is sacred.” We are becoming victims of our own flippancy, not even exercising the contra posting muscles.

People should be aware that when I walk down a hallway or through a room, even if I am ambling along at a regular innocuous pace (well, regular for me, I always do walk crooked), I am actually mapping out all the different ninja moves I could be doing at any given moment with the furniture around me as my obstacles/assisters. This is mostly harmless, or it was harmless until I told all you people about it, but the reason I’m confessing is that for the last week straight every time I’ve walked from my cubicle to the printer I’ve had the almost uncontrollable urge to do a cartwheel.

I’m pretty sure this would be ill-advised. There are many many readily apparent issues with executing such a whim, namely I’m often wearing a skirt, and sometimes heels, and I haven’t tried to do a cartwheel in roughly six years, and I’m supposed to be working on dispelling any uncertainties that my coworkers have about me and my work ethic/sanity. But the impulse isn’t going away!

If you’re calling me “weird” in your head right now, read the above paragraphs and be ashamed of yourself. And then listen to “Li’l Red Riding Hood” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Just because it’s a first-rate song.

Inbetween the Lines of a Sane Monologue

2009-02-23T02:02:00.002-07:00

Winter sucks. I've been it's defender, it's champion, it's constant companion for so many years, but we've had a final falling out, and the truth must be revealed: winter is a sorry excuse for a season. It throws off my concept of time so that since I never wake up before 11 I get about five hours of daylight, it chaps my lips and face and hair and hands so that I'm not nearly as cuddleable, it makes me an incredibly tiresome mooch to all friends with cars because I just can't bear the idea of being out in the elements, it ruins all of my jeans with the mud streaks from the slush, and I've fallen down on the ice so much I think my butt is getting as misshapen as my head already is.

And to add insult to injury (literal injury, I wasn't kidding about how often I've fallen down), now winter is doing a strip tease that's going to last for at least three months. Friday was an absolutely incredible day; the sun was shining without excess glare, the temperature actually matched the appearance outside my window, the air felt clean and crisp, pretty much there was a rip in the veil between this life and the next and it resulted in that day.

But it is freaking February 23rd. And despite the fact that we kne that that moment in time was pure bliss, we also know with even greater certainty that we're going to have at least 5 more snow days. To this I say humbug. I should now post the disclaimer that my bitterness toward the season probably wouldn't be so pronounced if I had the money to go skiing.

Oh, how I wish I had put my former days of leisure to better use. Says the self-important girl of 22 years. I spent my time in early adolescence doing all sorts of crazy things that I'm glad happened, but the thing that makes me cringe and hate myself is the soundtrack that my life was set to back then!

To this day, I can sing every lyric and provide every musical cue for the original *Nsync album. Pretty crazy embarrassing. But even worse? I could do the same for both 98 Degrees CDs, plus the first albums of Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears. Painful, shameful, hateful, it's true.

That was when I had both the time and inclination to sit in my room after dinner and just listen. The inclination is still there, and with my slacker status intact is quite often indulged, but this used to be part of my routine, for crying out loud. And I used to sit and pompously ponder about how these lyrics really spoke to me! Yeah, because a 12-year-old has so much life experience that relates to "Genie in a Bottle."

I just wish that I had had the wisdom in my sinful youth to focus on The Smashing Pumpkins, The Rolling Stones, The Who, AC/DC, or at least a band that I could name without preemptively rolling my eyes. Hell, at this point I would take The Offspring, at least that had a little edge.

Woe be me and my misspent hours memorizing all the wrong tunes. That, kids, is one of the many many reasons why I today have such a complex about not being cool enough. It's a Shurtz family trait already, but the wayward ways of the teeniebopper only serve to torment me all the more.

I was idly texting Jason yesterday and ended up articulating what I believe is my problem with finding datable guys much more succinctly then I ever had before: I'm too messy for the good guys and too principled for the bad eggs. Doesn't actually lead to any solution to the problem, but at least I have it defined now, which helps my brain rest a little bit.

So a few weeks ago I was down and out sick, so sick that the idea of drinking Diet Dr. Pepper was reprehensible to me. Basically I was at death's door. And no it is not a good idea to try and infect me with the flu just to keep from drinking. So put down the syringe and just keep reading.

From this bout of flu I have discovered that I am attached to my beloved DDP in more than one way: not only do I get headaches from the lack of caffeine, but I think I have added an emotional component to my habit as well. Basically, to my twisted brain, DDP=comfort. Because I really wasn't craving the taste, and I was too drugged up to feel the headaches, but I missed the sound. The kuh-shhhhhh of a newly opened can of perfectly chilled soda.

I have been a soda junkie for so long that I now rely on the consistency of my consumption as a crutch for the mess that is my day-to-day life. Yes, I did notice the crazy-awesome alliteration going on in that last sentence, and it made me very happy. Just not as happy as I would be with a Diet Dr. Pepper in my hand.

This obversation of mine may explain why I get really defensive when people jump all over me for how unhealthy this habit is. Because my brain doesn't interpret criticism as an attack on aspartame or phenylalanine, instead it sees it as an attempt by others to take away my portable mug-shaped safety blanket. So if I snap the next time you remark on my excesses, please take into account the fact that I'm a crazed person who thinks her best friend is a wholly unnatural liquid. No offense, Becca.

Bubbles of Plasticine

2009-02-17T15:06:00.002-07:00

I have always heard people reference or complain about living/working under florescent lights, about how it makes them feel sickly or tense, and I just want to tell them to man up and accept this new century. I mean, I've been living in cheap apartments largely lit by florescent tubes for three and a half years. But then there is the rare occasion when I have been up all night and my vision becomes like a horror movie based on the flickering of a bad home video--everything shifts slightly to the left and then back into place at an average of 2.7 milliseconds. That's when I want to go old school and pull out the gas lamps like unto the nightlights that ineffectively watched over the Darling children's sleep in Peter Pan.

Sorry, that reference is probably a little obscure. It's possible I've gotten to that scary place where I could recite that book backwards now that Becca gave me a classy hardcover copy for my birthday. It's too pretty not to read! Plus I really hate homework, and where else would you want to escape other than Neverland? They have ticking crocodiles AND natural light!

I've had a few weeks of searing lyrical moments. Wow could I sound more ridiculous? But that's how to describe it. I've been listening to the old standards once again, to my nearest and dearest friends of 30's-50's jazz, but this time I've been skipping my favorite songs in order to appease my inner weighing system of fairness to give all the songs the same "chance." Which when you think about it is rather ridiculous, it's not like these songs have feelings. But that doesn't really hold much sway with my inner dialogue (yes I meant to put dialogue, not monologue).

And the result of this experiment? I have new favorite songs. It's incredibly strange, but when driving home from work one day--it ought to be clarified for my tough girl persona that this was close to four in the morning after a double shift--and the song "A Kiss To Build A Dream On" made my eyes well up. The wistfulness and simplicity of the plea totally got me! I blame the overt sentimentality of the season. It turns us all to mush--that and the eternally slushy streets that get my jeans wet up to my knees after two minutes outdoors can make one rather easy to squish down.

Walt Whitman said "I celebrate myself." I don't know if I know how to do that. Or if I do celebrate myself, it's from a sideways approach. Basically the way I celebrate what I am from day to day, whatever that may be in the moment, is by celebrating my friends. Because they are by far the best part of me.

Seriously, I know some of the coolest cats in town. Some of them--not Becca--don't even mind my archaic slang that makes me sound like I should be in a movie with Bob Hope (dude that would have been so awesome why oh why wasn't I born in the 20's?!).

Jessica makes fun of me for having all of these little pockets of friends, little groups that stay within their own universe, unaware of their close quarters, with me as the only point in the Vinn diagram that pretends to have anything in common with all of them. But isn't that how it should be for someone like me who on average goes through an existential crises every .6 months? If I can dye my hair for every mood, why can't I have enough corresponding friends to call to make fun of each different color?

I would say that every single one of the friends whose company I seek out regularly have only one thing in common. They can be warm and friendly, socially awkward and hugely judgemental, alienating or clingy, their interests and humors can be all over the map, but the one thing that they all share even if they don't know/like/pay attention to/care for each other is their complete comfort within their own skins. They are all, without exception and regardless of massive difference of behavior, the most unabashedly individual people I know.

And I love it. I love it, I want it, I crave that specific quality from everyone I get close to. So here's looking at you, kids, your self-confidence makes it that much easier for me to pretend that I really mean the "what you see is what you get" attitude that I throw in everyone's face.

And after that little tribute to friendship, I am now going to alienate all three people reading this by saying something that is going to sound incredibly arrogant: Is everyone constantly thinking, or is it just me?

Ok before you click out of this page with a roll of your eyes at my level of self-importance, let me clarify that I did not say I was better at thinking than anyone else. Far from it. Everywhere you look are people who utilize their brains and thought processes to much greater effect than I do--Andy Samberg, Demetri Martin, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are just a few prominent examples (ha, you totally thought I was going to be get all stuffy and name off a bunch of philosophers and authors, didn't ya?).

So the idea is not that I'm the best thinker in the room. The concern is that I can't turn my brain off, and it would be comforting to know that that is a common malady. But empirical data based on my own observations suggest otherwise: i.e., the look of bewilderment from most friends when I launch into another incredibly detailed analysis of why this type of breakfast cereal is better suited for munching on while watching cartoons than the other. I don't know where to stop! My brain isn't a finely tuned machine, it isn't an instrument to be applied with surgical skill, it's an often misfiring constantly running blob that consumes anything and everything in it's path. My brain is the villain in a fifties Armageddon film.

So are there people out there who really have times of non-thought? Not a lack of brain activity, those are people in comas, but do people go through the day and just watch things happen without applying a motive or seeking to deconstruct it's machinations? That sounds like it would be a cool thing to be able to do on command. Perhaps opium is the answer.

The Plaid and the Aspens

2008-11-12T02:44:00.009-07:00

So this post is actually inspired by a line from a TV show, which makes me feel lame. Because it demonstrates how much TV I watch, which can get into some pretty extreme numbers sometimes, I am just waiting for the day when I'll turn down a date because "mah stories" are on. I'm guessing that day will come about in approximately 1.3 years. Ok, that's a joke, because who am I kidding? I don't get asked on dates, so I wouldn't have the opportunity to turn anyone down.

Wow that sounded a lot more bitter than I intended, please forgive that, I swear I am not one of "those" girls. Honestly, I would probably just roll my eyes if most of the lovely boys of my acquaintance were foolish enough to think we were compatible.

Anyways, you are about to kill me for not telling you what the line from the show was, aren't you? It was used as a description of a character, and said "she wears her individuality like a shield." Immediately I felt like that had struck a little too close to home. I swear I looked over my shoulder to make sure someone in the room wasn't talking about me. My secret was blown!

I started to do this downward spiral of analysis: is that what everyone subconsciously thinks about me, or am I the only one that knows that I do that? And if they know, do they find it annoying? Do they think they have to be constantly muscling aside what I am trying to push into their face in order to find the real and intensely ordinary me, or do they just wave me aside as the perpetual weirdo?

And if they do wave me aside, should I be happy with that? Doesn't my behavior support that response? Am I ok with being the weirdo, or am I wearing that individuality in a desperate attempt to filter through everyone who is never going to get me no matter how much time is invested so that the few who see ME and immediately want all this big mess that put together equals Mary are easy to find?

Ok I just surpassed myself on difficult to discern sentences. I don't know if my two fans have noticed (love you, Kristen and Luke), but commenting on my grammar is my favorite way to step away from an intense paragraph.

By the way, the title of the blog comes from a promise to Melanie to have that be my next heading, since she used that concise wording to great effect in an attempt to describe my least-favorite family picture. For the record, establishing permement evidence of just how hideous and awkward and in need of orthodontia you were in fifth grade should be a federal offense. And accentuating that professionally framed monstrosity with the family in matching lumber-jack type apparel and highwater jeans with the legs tucked into sneakers should add another five years to your sentence. Also 19-year-old blond model-looking sisters shouldn't be allowed in the same frame as their 11-year-old bucktooth-rabbit frizzy-haired genetic counterparts. It's just inhumane.

So I think my name is keeping me from reaching my full potential. Not my last name--dude, it's an article of clothing but with a z, you can't get better than that--but my first name. This came to me as I was helping my roommate's boyfriend with his art history homework (a favor he probably thoroughly regrets asking for considering how nerdy I got about the whole situation and how lovingly I looked over his textbook).

During the Renaissance, all of the truly great artists of the time knew they had reached their pinnacle of fame when they became know by their first names only: i.e. Michaelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, the very best of the TMNT. In essence they were the rockstars of sixteenth century Italy--Madonna, Bono, Prince, etc.

So, based on that, I am doomed to mediocrity. Because some inconsiderate 2,000-year-old chick already stole first-name-only rights from me, and I will always need to be two-name gal for clarification. And just in case some smart-aleck tries to post a comment about my middle name, I'll just get it out there now: it's Ruth, so same basic issue. I guess I'm pretty much done then, I have reached the glass ceiling of achievements, my life will never amount to anything because I will always be a two-named gal just like the rest of you losers. How sad.

Wow, my mind just went on this amazing tangent where I was picturing people saying stuff like "Man, did you check out that depth of field in "School of Athens?" It was beyond tight, like mind blowing stuff, dude. And you still haven't seen the musculature in The Creation of Adam? It's totally wicked." Yeah, that's right. I am just that nerdy. And in my tangent the speakers were vaguely British. I couldn't tell you why.

I just realized that unlike most times when I have blogged, I have no music to put up there that I've been listening to. No wonder I feel like I have done nothing and have nothing to say, I didn't have a cool soundtrack to go along with it, so I didn't notice! I will definitely fix that, I hate when I lose track of important things and accidentally go on a music fast. Although, I did go to a Joshua Radin/Missy Higgins concert a couple weeks back and that was tight. It was a very chill evening, no basses booming so loud and low they could jumpstart my heart (which is they way I usually like my music), but their individuality and passion for what they were doing really came through in that tiny venue.

Also, I put on some Ella Fitzgerald music the other day and that was like coming home. It's really as easy and as soothing as breathing deeply for me to listen to that stuff. When Jessica came home to me chilling to "Sittin' and A Rockin'" she made the very astute observation that "this is music you listen to when you want to feel classy." And it does just that.

Plus the lyrics of those times really just knock my socks off, I don't know how people like Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, Lorenz Hart, Iriving Berlin, and Ira Gerschwin did it. Lines like "your looks are laughable, unphotographable, yet you're my favorite work of art" and "Or will this dream of mine fade out of sight, just like that moon growing dim on the rim of the hill in the chill still of the night" make my stomach knot up in a painful joyous way.

Go ahead and compare those lyrical gems to Backstreet Boys' immortal "I Want It That Way"--my go-to example of the most meaningless lyrics ever, I'm pretty sure the "it" that is referenced in the title changes at least five times--and throw up your hands as a sign that you, too, give up on humanity. My old voice teacher Flora was right, I was born in the wrong generation, I really do belong in the 40's. I would have rocked those little hats with the veils.

I'm gathering my strength for a complete rant that I already have worked out in my head, but I'm saving up so that it can have it's own post, so I won't be silent for long.

With that I will close with a quote from the best movie in theaters at the moment, Rocknrolla:

"If someone won't do what you want, give 'em a slap. If they still won't co-operate, cut 'em or pay 'em, but keep the receipt, this ain't the mafia."

A Need For Needless Restriction

2008-10-13T12:09:00.002-06:00

So I have all kinds of rules for my blogging.

I can't blog two nights in a row, it doesn't matter how insightful I think I am in the moment, I'll just look way too nerdy and obsessed with my blog.

But I am really nerdy and obsessed with my blog, and I should be myself and own what I am, so that isn't really a good reason. So we'll chalk it up to I'm trying a "moderation in all things except Diet Dr. Pepper," and that's why I can't blog two nights in a row.

I can't blog too extensively about what is actually going on in my life--I can spend at max two paragraphs describing a concrete experience that has happened in the past week, but other than that no go.

Which is kind of weird since storytelling is one of my favorite things to do, I don't know how many times I've girded up my pretension and scolded the person I've been talking to (or at) for interrupting the 'narrative flow.'

But yeah that's a rule because if I obsess too much over what is happening in my day I'll just get dragged down by the minutia and be yet another whiny blogger.

Also in those two paragraphs that I am allotted, I'm not allowed to talk about anything big that is bugging me. Because it probably won't bug me tomorrow and once again we've accidentally returned to the same page of my own choose-your-own-adventure book, the page that says "you're a ridiculous whiny blogger."

And if it still is bugging me the next day? Then I should have probably kept my mouth shut, because if anything affects me for more than 24 hours then that means it's an actual big deal, and blogging about it where the wrong person could read it would look accidentally passive aggressive.

Wow, accidentally passive aggressive? Has that ever been achieved before or am I just that uniquely neurotic?

Related to the limit personal experiences rule is the rule about discussing one's "feelings." This is a huge no-no.

I am allowed be incredibly passionate about an inanimate object, such as the James Dean cardboard cutout or my lovesac (or as Jordan accidentally dubbed it, the "mansac," longer funnier story that doesn't fit into my parameters of no sharing real stories), but feelings towards people or about myself? Ewww.

And I don't think that one really even needs an explanation for that rule. Except that I'll explain it anyway: Introspective feelings or reactions to people are frequently fleeting and always an unoriginal way to express oneself. It's all about showing who you are through oblique rants, not by actually telling everyone on the internets how you feel. For that would be too easy. And it would have the horrible side effect of making my posts much much shorter.

I think that's it for the rules I have, but there are a few principles that are a little sticky as well.

Such as the principle that telling everyone to read your blog is lame, but then again so is posting blogs that no one reads. That should be in every student's Intro to Philosophy textbook. We would call it the Shurtz Paradox. People could write term papers on what they think should ethically be done about it. I'll probably just give in to the need for approval and put it as my status on facebook that people should read my blog.

I am so pathetic. But at least I'm self-aware of how sad my state is. Somehow that must be better than being unaware of my social suicide. Suicide of any kind should have some real pondering behind it.

I am feeling an intense resentment toward all rock formations right now, hopefully that'll go away soon considering the landscape of Provo, UT, but if it doesn't and you hear some rumblings coming from Squaw Peak that's just Mary and her tiny fists of fury taking care of some unfinished business with those bloody mountainous masses.

Geology exams suck.

Rankling Under My Skin

2008-10-07T18:18:00.002-06:00

I've lost my words. No, really, my ability to communicate has been all over the place the last few weeks. My jokes are coming off mean, it's like I can't control my inflection any more, that muscle keeps spazzing out and putting more hostility into everything than what was intended. Also, I'm misreading everyone's intentions because they're responding to mildly emotionally retarded Mary and everything is getting garbled. Is there a verbal chiropractor that I could see that could realign the spine of my intonation so that I can stop being a social pariah?

A concurrent conversation with my blogging has made me want to throw in the random comparison me and my friend Adam came up with: taking a relationship really slow can be nice-- you don't want to rush things like a guy on crack, you want to take it slow like a guy using weed. The benefits of this approach? It allows you to really enjoy the simple small things in life that are making you happy or just blow your mind for their pure genius. In short, the relationship is more chill, contemplative, and slightly psychedelic. Yeah I should probably go to sleep more often. But this kind of relationship really does sound nice. For the record I have never actually done that, unless you count the slow relentless decay of my self esteem during an unrequited crush, but I really do think theoretically that a slow relationship would be awesome.

How come men in media can get a close-up on their face and the lines around their eyes only make them look even more distinguished and handsome and individual? I mean my genes are pretty good in the wrinkles department, I'm going to look like I'm underaged for the rest of my life and by association make my husband look like a cradle robber, but it's the principle of the thing. Women so often find guys attractive who objectively could only be called "interesting-looking." Men? Kinda picky little buggers.

I don't have an iPod. Is that at all weird? I had a little mp3 player for short trips for about three years but accidentally washed it a couple weeks ago (sorry Kristen I was pretty bummed about that) but I have totally not embraced the iPod sensation. I'm still in fact addicted to mixed CD's.

And before you think that is incredibly arcane just realize that everyone should be pretty psyched that I've even moved past mixed tapes--it was the blisters I would form from keeping my fingers primed and ready on the play/record combination that finally cured me of that one.

But I am just not responding to the whole idea of having all the music you own ready at your fingertips. My argument against it? It makes things too easy. It makes you just want to push "shuffle" and be done with it, and then you're assaulted with music from entirely opposing genres that don't settle you down at all but just wind you up tighter and tighter in emotional response confusion.

Yeah I know everyone's next point is going to be that you can make playlists on your iPod but I just don't buy it. The playlist does not exist to me the same way an overheated CD with my horrific chicken scratch handwriting on it does. I guess that makes me a rather narrow minded person if I can only comprehend things that I can literally grasp. How shallow. Ah well who really wants to be deep anyway, creepy underwater beings live in the deep dark places of the world.

I found out about a month ago that a kid that I went to school with 4th-10th grade was put in prison for attempted murder. He tried to kill his parents. We were desk buddies for three years due to the imprisonment of alphabetical seating. But I never minded sitting next to Clark. He never really paid attention to the teacher, which was mildly horrifying to my ten-year-old self, but he was always nice to me and kinda stuck up for me sometimes. But it's true that even back then you could tell he was one of the troubled kids, the ones who acted out and came to school smelling like alcohol and never sounded like he liked his parents very much. It's just so incredibly sad the way that worked out.

By the way, the picture accompaning this blog has no real meaning. Well, I mean it has meaning, it's a huge internation icon, has a rich crazy history and all of that jazz, but it doesn't really mean much in the context of this blog except that it is one of my favorite photographs. Ever. I literally just now stared at it for twenty minutes. Again, I should probably sleep more.

I get a kick out of posting my momentary obsession music, so I'm going to do it again:

You're Fit But You Know It--The Streets
As The World Falls Down--David Bowie (yes it ABSOLUTELY is from Labyrinth)
Sex and Candy--Marcy Playground
Fully Alive--Flyleaf
Helter Skelter--The Beatles
Every Rose Has It's Thorn--Poison
Satisfaction--Rolling Stones
In Bloom--Nirvana
Walk Idiot Walk--The Hives
Open Your Eyes--Snow Patrol
Romeo and Juliet--The Killers
Sour Times--Portishead
All I Want Is You--U2
Wild Horses--The Sundays
Time After Time--Quietdrive (cover)
Love of the Loveless--Eels
My Doorbell-White Stripes
The Bitch Song--Bowling For Soup
Lake of Fire--Nirvana
Fix You--Coldplay
That Day--Poe
Instiutionalized--Suicidal Tendencies
Zero--The Smashing Pumpkins

Don't read too much into what's going on there musically, I'm actually trying to get hardcore back into practicing my arias, so it's just really there for contrast from my rehearsing. I wish I hadn't slipped to the point where I suck at singing now.

Dusting Out the Corners of My Mind

2008-10-02T00:54:00.002-06:00

I think I must look really vulnerable when I'm first waking up, because it is the only time of day when Becca consistently hugs me of her own volition.

There is something incredibly trashy about white-blond hair when it has even the slightest hint of roots. No, really, once that happens start wearing the sports bra under the tank top and only buy at GenX, just embrace what you are.

When the girls that were in my first grade class use facebook as a medium to swap tips on where to pick out the cutest hair bows for their toddlers I pretty much just want to move to a nunnery to avoid the constant shock to my system. As long as this nunnery had cable I think I'd be good. Becca could come too.

Great quote from Joe Slinker today: "Hey, a gay Heath is better than no Heath at all." I'm debating whether or not I should give you the context or just let you puzzle it out. Guess which one I decided on.

I shoved a guy on the bus today. Hard. No, really, I did. He was looking me over for a while and then told me I had beautiful eyes. I awkwardly thanked him, people have said that before but I never know how to take it. But he was insistent that I understand what he meant: "No, seriously, if you put those eyes on another body . . .you'd be a knockout." Not the most mature thing for me to do but in my defense a) he's an asshole and b) I'm just incredibly sick of people deciding that I need to know how dissatisfied everyone is with my appearance. I think my scrappy spunkiness is coming back. I like it, it's been a while.

I'm pretty sure if I could get Jones Soda to accept a picture from me and put it on a bottle I would count my entire existance as a success.

Sometimes I take myself so seriously I just want to sucker-punch myself in the mouth.

Top Ten Songs I Am Currently Obsessed With: (in no particular order)

Bullet With Butterfly Wings--The Smashing Pumpkins
Love Song--The Cure
Paper Bag--Fiona Apple
Talk Dirty To Me--Poison
Good Enough--Evanescence
Build Me Up Buttercup--The Foundations
I'm So Sick--Flyleaf
I Want You (She's So Heavy)--The Beatles
Dance Karate--Chris Merritt
Take Another Little Piece of My Heart--Janis Joplin
Reign On Me--The Who
Paper Planes--M.I.A.
Something In the Way She Moves--The Beatles
ABC--Jackson Five
Alone--Heart
Different Situation--Athenaeum
Sci-Fi Wasabi--Cibo Matto
Solitude--Evanescence
You Shook Me All Night Long--ACDC
The End is the Beginning is the End--The Smashing Pumpkins

Yeah I know that ended up being twenty instead of ten, but whatevs. Man that is a schizo list.

I really want to go grab some of my amazing cream cheese wantons from the fridge but my roommate is entertaining a gentleman caller and I really don't want to ruin the magic.

I'm pretty sure hell is going to consist of me being stuck in the friends zone with all the incredible guys I have met in this life.

I have got to lay off the intense movies for a bit--in the last week I have watched The Fall, Serpico, The Air I Breathe, The New World, Macbeth, Scent of a Woman, and Memento. And Scarface is coming tomorrow. Ohhh now my weird mood is so starting to make sense!

What Is This Quintessence of Cotton?

2008-09-29T14:02:00.002-06:00

Do you ever get that feeling while in the middle of a massively intense and long essay-based test that you are SO in the zone and everything you're writing is brilliant? Most people do. But the extra-special Mary aftertaste is the paralyzing rush of paranoia that maybe you've just been at this so long and had so many Diet Dr. Peppers while working on it that at this point you're writing jibberish but you're too out of it to know it.

So yeah, long story short I rocked my take-home Shakespeare test. I think.

But all I could think about while doing the test was how much I wanted to blog about Al Pacino. I know, I'm insanely lame. But I felt super strongly about it! So to make myself finish the test and not blog about how much I loved Scent of a Woman I went down the street to Denny's at one in the morning and stayed there until almost five with my Shakespeare materials and was the weird girl in the corner and loving it. So now I can do what I please.

Except now I don't want to talk about Al Pacino. Although he is basically a god. Hoo-rah. Instead I want to talk about my hoodie.

This hoodie is the essence of all hoodies. It does what every hoodie aspires to do: protect and serve. I was my guardian angel and safety blanket on my way home from Afognak Island. It deserves a blog devoted to it.

I was stuck in Kodiak for a full day before my plane left at 7 pm, and I had nothing to do but wander the streets for five hours before it would even be worth it to arrive at the one-room airport. Since I was too young to even chill in the bars I was stuck on the one little tourist strip looking at all the pieces of driftwood. And it was there that I picked up my little unwanted friend. We'll call him Doped-Up Fisherman Boy.

He was a 23-year-old hard core drug user right out of rehab ("It's all good now cause I just smoke weed now") who was working the fishing boats to try and stay out of trouble for the summer. And apparently it had been a slow couple of weeks cause he had washed ashore here in Kodiak and didn't have much to do except follow me around and try to convince me to come and check out his vessel. Pretty sure there was some tricky double talk going on there.

The leering was starting to get majorly out of control, as was the accidental brush-past moves, but I really had nowhere to go or even anyone to look imploringly at since it was drizzling and I was the only shopper in most of the stores. I had already had a terrible couple of weeks and I felt like if he looked down my shirt one more time I was going to scream.

And that's when I saw my hoodie. Size XXL made for mountain men out to kill the bear and eat heap big fish, it was soft and hung down to my knees and stretched out so far on either side that the slightest hint of a curve was completely obliterated. Plus it had a nice deep hood that I could pull up so that there was no hair and hardly any face to prove I was female. It was sixty bucks, way more than I even spend on jeans, but I bought it in an instant. Doped-Up Fisherman Boy did not approve, especially when I said I didn't need a bag and just pulled it over my head.

The hoodie brought me comfort, and I think it had enough wiliness inherently in the fabric to find a pay phone and call a taxi while DUFB was getting crazy fascinated by something shiny. Yeah I was at the airport four hours early, but the hoodie made the seats comfortable enough to sleep on. Since then the hoodie has been my constant sleeping/vegging/snuggling companion, and I hope one day to submit it for display at an office for a good cause, like the Castration of All Leering Fisherman Institution.

PS I know that I'm not supposed to post during the day but since I was only allotted a two hour nap while working on the test it still feels like four a.m. so please let this slide. Al Pacino is the man.

I Am In Love With Al Pacino

2008-09-29T01:19:00.002-06:00

More to continue in a couple hours once I make a dent in this take-home test.

The Waves Are Headed In Three Directions At Once

2008-09-24T03:53:00.002-06:00

Do you ever just lay on your hard floor, sink into your two-millimeter-thin carpet, stare at the ceiling and just blast a whole CD without doing anything else? People seem to do it all the time in the movies, but I don't think I've done it since junior high, and that listening experience was just me playing "I Knew I Loved You" by Savage Garden on repeat for a whole summer because I danced to that song with Kylen Zibetti at the end-of-year dance in seventh grade.

If questioned about this I will deny everything without a blink of an eye.

But anyways, the point is (aside from me remembering now that my carpet back then was wayyy thicker and I wish I could stand my parents just to live in such luxury again) that despite all the iconic images and the cliche nature, it really is a phenomenal way to live music.

Or maybe the point is that I'm a geek that takes herself too seriously and tries to squeeze out some meaning from a day where I barely left the apartment.

But regardless of the motivation of my musing, soaking in music like that just rocks. Listening can be a really intense experience when it isn't in your roommates car or as you're walking the halls trying to decide if you can show your face in your ethics class when you don't have the paper to turn in.

And while my roommate may think I'm absolutely insane to be doing this at three in the morning, at least it drowns out the fact that she is constantly and creepily talking to herself under her breath, even in the midst of her brushing-teeth-for-seven-minutes-straight ritual (and yes I did time that).

I highly recommend late 70's rock or out-to-prove-how-shallow-the-world-is 90's. Both have great layered melodies that can kinda blow your mind when there's nothing in there already to diminish the experience.

Also go for the late late late night listening if you aren't into illegal stimulants, I hypothesize that it's the only way people like me can really appreciate the full wonders of The Who without inhaling.

Oh, and kids, stay away from too much Dashboard. It just makes you really whiny in the morning.

Coming From A Strange Synthesizer Place

2008-09-22T02:08:00.002-06:00

I'm musing about setting a rule for myself that I can never start blogging until after two a.m., I think it'll produce the most entertaining tidbits this way.

I've immersed myself in a huge music project--not huge in the groundbreaking, contributing to the progression of art and therefore society way, just huge in amount of time and brain matter I've squeezed into the making of one lousy "mixed tape."

Don't worry, the mix is for myself, it isn't intended for a specific audience (well, I'll force it on Becca but like that's news that she is has to endure everything that passes through my head), so I'm not about to make some awkward and stomach-turning declaration of any sort. That kind of behavior is so two months ago. I simply haven't been able to sleep for the last two nights, and this seemed at the time to be a worthwhile effort.

The fact that I have my first exam in almost two years just might have contributed to this crazed devotion to my newest burnt CD. But I will not tolerate such a speculative line of questioning.

But my past academic delinquency and unconfirmed current nerves have nothing to do with this epic music search. I have for two straight days been trying to find a copy of the song "Different Situation" by Athenaeum (for free because I am the cheapest scam artist you have the pleasure of knowing) and it has still eluded me! Bollocks. But I will not be defeated! I will find my passive indie rock song AND learn that the Ordovician period comes before the Silurian by the end of this night or pull my earring out in the attempt.

Sidenote: (new piercing+stressful times)^how little I have slept=always fiddling with it, aka getting a little shiver of pain every 2.5 seconds. Kinda feel like I have a trendy inconspicuous cilice on my person. How wristcutters of me. Or devout, take your pick.

Ha! Victory! While multi-tasking I was finally able to make a breakthrough (now that Queen song is stuck in my head) and "Different Situation" is all mine! What bliss, what a landmark achievement that is now forever recorded on the information superhighway.

Hmm maybe I should have tried to be a little more profound on my first post.