A Place For the Genuine

We just started a poetry unit in my ENG200 class. {Yuck.} So while I sit back and impatiently wait for it to end, I am going to take slight pleasure in these two poems, because, hey- I'll take anything that can help me get through Shakespeare's sonnets in one piece. {Double yuck.}

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
--John Berryman

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against "business documents and

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
"literalists of
the imagination"--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
--Marianne Moore

Staying Away

Well. It's been awhile, for two reasons. 1) My computer broke and is now tragically wasting away behind a desk at Geek Squad. 2) I went away for the weekend. One of these events was fabulous, one of them, not so much. I'll let you sort which is which.

I am currently killing time in the computer commons on campus, and as much as I thought I would use this time to write, that's not really going to happen. Because I don't feel like it. It is gorgeous and cloudy outside and I would rather be out there.

I am going to leave a song however, and I would ask you to listen to it with your eyes closed if you aren't a Twilight fan. {The song is good, I swear.}

strike.

do you remember vacations?

the real kind that last longer than two days?

the kind that suspend reality for just a little bit so you don’t have to worry about school or work or money or drama or to-do lists?

yeah, neither do I.

but that is what I desperately need right now.

i guess ward summit this weekend will have to do until Thanksgiving. {geez}

hopefully it will be enough to get me through the next month without another breakdown/freak out. {although I doubt it.}

because if it isn’t, I see a strike in my future.

a strike against all of the things I don’t want to deal with.

starting with school.

and if my strike started tonight, I could forget about studying for this geology test.

but I am going to attempt to stick it out through this weekend, and see if a couple of days at Camp Lo Mia isn’t exactly what I need right now.

i’m keeping my fingers crossed.

and I am just praying I can make it to Friday.

p.s. if i do strike, you are all welcome to join me. i swear the world will continue to spin even if we don't.

Sunday Morning

"To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books."

-- The Secret Teachings of All Ages

A Mid-Month Check-Up

- Go to a corn maze
- Eat candy corn & candy pumpkins until I am sick to my stomach
- Spend one night as someone I’m not
- Go to my very first Haunted House {ok, that’s a lie}
- Turn twenty
- Go to the state fair {fingers crossed}
- See leaves that have changed
- Break out my fall clothes
- Attend my family ward Fall Festival. {Even though it is lame I still kind of love it.}
- Drink hot chocolate
- Watch a scary movie {maybe}
- Carve pumpkins and eat their seeds
- Enjoy myself as.much.as.possible.

It looks like I still have some work to do. This month is going by incredibly fast.

In other news, the Black & White party last night turned out to be a ton of fun, and I am entirely glad I went. I was seriously considering not going, partly because by the time Friday rolls around every week I am so thoroughly exhausted that I feel marginally ill and would like nothing better than to curl up in my pajamas and sleep the entire weekend away. Luckily, though, the girls were able to convince me to go to the party, and a couple of hours making myself pretty, a couple of hours helping the girls in 632 decide what to wear to make themselves pretty, and then finally a couple of more hours dancing the night away were the perfect cure for my fatigue. Unfortunately, however, I woke up this morning with a splitting headache that pretty much lasted all day, so I spent one whole day of my weekend lounging around and sleeping anyway. I guess there is no avoiding my end of the week exhaustion. Maybe from now on I will be able to hold it off until Sunday, allowing me to take complete advantage of my built-in day of rest.

And, upon re-reading that last paragraph, I just realized that I sound like an 80-year-old lady, not a 20-year-old college student. Such is life I guess.

In an attempt to somewhat conceal my lameness however, I won’t write about how I spent the better part of my evening watching a Halloweentown marathon on Disney Channel with my two little brothers.

{Oops.}

A {Candid} Black and White Picture For A Black and White Party

P.S. These are the boots.

Little Letters {Part II}

Dear Boys,
Being a creeper ain't a good look for you. Trust me.

Dear Red Robin Guests,
Stop coming into the restaurant and saying it's your birthday. Because it probably isn't. And I hate singing to you.

Dear ENG241 Midterm,
Even though you are tomorrow, I may or may not have studied at all. {Hint: I didn't.}

Dear B&W Party,
I'm not so sure, anymore. I'm not so sure.

Dear Fall,
Please bring on the weather that allows me to wear boots and sweaters and scarves, because I am on the verge of wearing them anyway in this 90 degree weather.

Dear Candy Corn,
I think we need a break. It's not you, it's me. But it's only the 13th, and I will definitely be back before long.

Dear ENG200 Professor,
Thank you for the belated birthday gift in the form of an A on my first paper.

Dear Corn Maze,
I'm coming! I swear. Provided I find someone to come with me. Because this really is not the type of thing you can do alone.

Dear Miley Cyrus,
I absolutely loathe myself for not absolutely loathing you USA song. But that doesn't change the fact that I still loathe you the most.

Dear Room,
If I had one wish right now I would wish for you to clean yourself. That's how desperate this situation is. You have even been put before my burning desire to be super stretchy.

Dear Discount Tire,
You saved my life today. Or, less dramatically, my bank account and therefore my sanity. I owe you!

Dear Sandy,
You best come home for Thanksgiving! Seriously though. You better.

**UPDATE: Apparently my Candy Corn letter was mostly a lie, because less than an hour later here I am watching The Office and eating the sweet corn.

Inutile Loveliness

The next time someone asks me why I deign to love the Midwest {it happens more than you'd think} I am simply going to pull out my copy of Lolita and read them this passage:

"By a paradox of pictorial thought, the average lowland North-American countryside had at first seemed to me something I accepted with a shock of amused recognition because of those painted oilcloths which were imported from America in the old days to be hung above washstands in Central-European nurseries, and which fascinated a drowsy child at bed time with the rustic green views they depicted- opaque curly trees, a barn, cattle, a brook, the dull white of vague orchards in bloom, and perhaps a stone fence or hills of greenish gouache. But gradually the models of those elementary rusticities became stranger and stranger to the eye, the nearer I came to know them. Beyond the tilled plain, beyond the toy roofs, there would be a slow suffusion of inutile loveliness, a low sun in platinum haze with a warm, peeled-peach tinge pervading the upper edge of a two-dimensional, dove-gray cloud fusing with the distant amorous mist. There might be a line of spaced trees silhouetted against the horizon, and hot still noons above a wilderness of clover, and Claude Lorrain clouds inscribed remotely into misty azure with only their cumulus part conspicuous against the neutral swoon of the background. Or again, it might be a stern El Greco horizon, pregnant with inky rain, and a passing glimpse of some mummy-necked farmer, and all around alternating strips of quick-silverish water and harsh green corn, the whole arrangement opening like a fan, somewhere in Kansas."

And then, this person, recognizing magic when they hear it, will inquire about Lolita, asking first what it is about. And I will answer {possessing none of the magic Nabokov has} that it is about 30-something Humbert Humbert who is in love with 12-year-old Lolita. And then, understandably disgusted, they will never read it, which is a shame, because it is one of the most beautifully written novels I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Birthday Success

Who would've guessed? My birthday was lovely. Quiet, but (and?) lovely. I have a few really good friends, and I am grateful for that. I have a really good family, and I am grateful for that. And I now own a pair of really fabulous black suede Steve Madden boots, and I am oh-so grateful for those :)

The whole "birthday weekend" thing turned out to be a bigger success than I anticipated. I didn't even cry {a terribly birthday tradition of mine}. I did very minimal amounts of homework {and none whatsoever of Sunday}. I definitely ate terribly for 3 straight days {Saddle Ranch, Olive Garden, Oregano's}. And a few lovely people pretended like it was my b.day even when it was not. I am only now realizing that this might make next a year a bit of a disappointment when I can no longer claim 3 days as my own. But we'll cross that bridge when it comes.

Now that the weekend is over, I can concentrate all of my attention where it belongs. Not my Computer midterm tomorrow, or my Early American Literature midterm on Wednesday, or my ENG 200 midterm on Wednesday (?) and Friday, or my Geology test next Monday, or my Early American Lit. class discussion next Friday, but instead: Halloween. That's right. I have my priorities strictly in order. I'll be brainstorming costumes and celebrating fall in full force from now on. If there is anytime leftover, maybe I'll do some studying. If not, I am not going to stress, because who has time to stress when there are pumpkins to be carved?

twenty.twenty.

Starting 12:40 pm tomorrow, it is officially my birthday weekend. {!}

My twentieth is not actually until Sunday, but I am claiming the whole weekend on account of the fact that Sunday birthdays have historically been the worst.

{Ask anyone.}

A “birthday weekend” is really just my excuse to eat terribly for 3 days straight and not do a lick of homework, by the way. I am not going to force people to worship the ground I walk on for the entire 3 days.

That starts Sunday.

Just kidding.

It starts 12:40 pm Friday.

Have a charming weekend! See you in a few days.


P.S. I have never been of the mindset that it is tacky to call just a bit of attention to your own birthday. I’ve seen Sixteen Candles {mostly}. That ain’t gonna be me. Besides, I love everyone’s birthday, not just mine.

So there.

Justification over.

Mo' Money Mo' Problems?

Today I was supposed to go to the bank in order to deposit my hard earned tips, a fail safe way to avoid spending my money too quickly. {I didn't.}

And then I was supposed to go to work and earn more tips.

Instead, I went to school and paid $8 to park because I was too stubborn to remain enrolled in my Tuesday institute class.

On my way home from school I went to Costa Vida, and spent $7.84 on a delicious lunch/dinner as a pre-reward for the as-of-then undone homework I knew I would have to spend my entire night doing.

And then I gave away my shift at work in the optimistic hope of finishing my English paper early so I could actually get all of my homework done.

And then I took a nap.

The good news is, I actually finished my paper {a particularly fabulous one on Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat"; read it and thank me--the story not my essay}, but the obvious news is that I ran out of ink, which is how I found myself walking around Walmart in my Christmas pajamas at 11 pm.

Oh how it made me miss Natalie.

So I spent more of my un-deposited cash on computer ink.

And some adorable orange sunflowers to put in my room. Naturally.

{Who needs a man when you can buy yourself flowers? The fake kind that don't ever leave, and the kind that I can spray with my perfume so they smell their own kind Britney Spears great.}


And finally I bought myself some mascara.

And some eye liner.

And now I don't need to go to the bank anymore. Problem solved.

Think About It.

{P.S. I am about 98% kidding.}

Lead Thou Me On

For the second Friday in a row my English 200 class has been canceled. Instead of returning immediately home after my English 241 class I decided to take a small detour to my alma mater. Before you judge me too much for hanging out at my old high school on a Friday afternoon, however, you should know I really just stopped by my old seminary to say hi to my teacher. We visited for awhile and he talked about Seminary General Conference which had taken place the day before. I reminded him of how he made me bare my testimony without warning during April of my senior year, which for some reason ticked me off beyond belief. I guess he had “promised” me I wouldn’t have to or something, and then when he did, I was outraged. I went to the podium, bore my testimony, and then immediately walked to the back of the room, picked up my stuff, and stomped out of the building. {Not before stopping by his office to give him a dirty look, however.}When I remembered that, I couldn’t help but laugh at myself for being so dramatic and marvel at myself for being so unnecessarily upset.

“I can be stubborn.” I remarked laughing, and he just laughed even more.

I guess stubborn is an understatement.

I turn 20 in one week {which in reality means very little but in my mind means a heck of a whole lot} and I cannot help but wonder if I am every bit as obstinate as I was as a senior and high school. And then I get to stop wondering because I am sure the answer is a resounding yes.

When prompted, I let people know that my two favorite hymns are If You Could Hie to Kolob and I Believe in Christ, respectively. More recently, however, I have become fond of and even grown attached to Lead, Kindly Light, which chronicles the pleas of someone 100 percent the opposite of me. We sang it in relief society the other day and I was so touched when the song ended that I immediately copied down the lyrics into my notebook. I have since taken to looking at them multiple times a day and listening to the song every chance I get.

Lead, Kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep though my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene- one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now,
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.

So long thy pow’r hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on
O’er moor and fen, oe’r crag and torrent, till
The night is gone. And with the morn
Those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

I think these lyrics are so beautiful to me because even on my best days I am never this good. I have never been in possession of the kind of faith and humility it requires to trust this fully. The kind of faith it requires to say: Look, I don’t need to know everything, I don’t really need to know anything, as long as I know what You would have me do next. And not only that, but I have always been of the mindset that I am going to make decisions regarding my future all by myself. Occasionally I relent, and ask for help, but usually only after months of struggle. When I sing this song I recognize so abundantly the faith I am lacking, but rather than make me sad it gives me hope. Hope that one day I can be like this. Hope that today I can be like this, even if I wasn’t yesterday and even if I am not tomorrow. And just as importantly, this song serves to remind me that it is ok that my future is sometimes one big black hole of scary. He can see everything, and that is good enough for me. Or, at the very least, it can be good enough for me, if I let it.

I guess this post is my roundabout way of saying that I am glad I had the chance to watch General Conference this weekend. I had already made up my mind not to post about it, but it seems I cannot help myself. I am sure over the next days and weeks plenty will be said about Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk, and I hope all of it is esteeming because in my opinion it really was the most powerful {and my favorite} talk of the weekend. I am sure I will post a link to it as soon as I find on, if only so I can visit it whenever I please.

Song(s) Of The Day

Because sometimes one just ain't enough.

Paper Planes, because I watched Slumdog Millionaire in bed this morning and loved it. And because I have had this song stuck in my head ever since.



Someday, because sometimes {albeit not always} this song feels like an anthem for my life. And because I have been listening to this all week. The weathering is finally cooling off enough to {comfortably} drive with the windows rolled down, and this has proved the perfect soundtrack. Thanks you, Steve Earle, circa 1986.

First.

I have 2 favorite months, and one of them is October.

I have a second favorite holiday, and it is Halloween.

I have a birthday, and it is on the eleventh.

I have a favorite season, and it is fall.

I have this anticipation for October, and it is epic.

This month I will:

- Go to a corn maze
- Eat candy corn & candy pumpkins until I am sick to my stomach
- Spend one night as someone I’m not
- Go to my very first Haunted House {ok, that’s a lie}
- Turn twenty
- Go to the state fair {fingers crossed}
- See leaves that have changed
- Break out my fall clothes
- Attend my family ward Fall Festival. {Even though it is lame I still kind of love it.}
- Drink hot chocolate
- Watch a scary movie {maybe}
- Carve pumpkins and eat their seeds
- Enjoy myself as.much.as.possible.
Please let me know if you would like to join me in any {or all} of these endeavors. They won’t be nearly as much fun alone, but I will do them alone if I have to. I am going to do October right. No matter what.

And now, I am off to eat the candy corn I bought today as celebration.