Just life and stuff...or whatever......

It has been brought to my attention (by someone other than my mother, amazingly enough), that it has been rather a long while since I last updated my blog.  I usually try to update at least once a month, but time seems to have gotten away from me.  Guess I just didn't have anything to say.  I know I had a request to review The Host, but unlike most of you, I actually kind of liked that movie, which doesn't really make for a particularly entertaining review.  But maybe I'll still work one up one of these days.

The fact is that I still don't really have anything in particular to say, but if people are asking you about your blog, surprising as it may seem, it would appear that at least that one person is interested in reading stuff you've written.  So I guess I'll write some stuff for them to read.

Dear Bill Waterson...is this an illegal use of Calvin?  If you feel that it is,
please email me and let me know. I'll take it right down...

Let's see.  Last thing I was talking about was the beginnings of the car hunt.  It seems anti climactic to just say "Well, I ended up buying a car."  But I did.  I bought a car guys!  It is actually really exciting.  I mean, I've had the car for two and a half months and I still think "dang I love my car!" every time I see it.  Because guess what.  Remember how I said that my dream car that I would never ever ever be able to buy because it would be crazy times out of my price range was an '09 Honda Fit?  Well, after careful perusing of KSL and several disappointments I came across an orange '09 Honda Fit for exactly how much I was willing to spend!  Downside?  Turns out it was so cheap because it was a rebuilt title.  Right at the same time I came across an '06 Scion XA for about the same price.  There was some serious (and I do mean serious...I was giving myself stress headaches worrying about it) debate between the two.  But in the end, after taking him to the Honda dealership and getting him checked out by their mechanic, I settled on the Fit and promptly named him Chester.  And we've been ever so in love ever since.

The next big problem for me to solve was Sharry Baby.  What was I going to do with this now superfluous car that was cluttering up the street in front of my house.  Though my roommate's boyfriend offered to sell her for me, I decided to give it a try on my own.  Through keen and penetrating reasoning I decided to list her for $1000.  I needed to get $800 for her and I figured I should give a little room for people to barter so they could feel good about themselves.  If you're friends with me on the fbook then you may have seen my post about a rather insulting text I got from someone who was mildly interested.  While I posted the text because I appreciated the humor of the situation, I must confess, it was not a little upsetting being treated like that.  Not to mention discouraging.  Especially as that text was the last response I got for several days.  I was starting to worry it was a no go, when I got a text at work asking me if I still had the car.  The highlights of the story are as follows: car wouldn't start, guy says he's a mechanic and can fix it, I pick guy and his buddy up, guy and his buddy tell me all about how they just got out of prison where they both found Jesus, guy magically makes car start, me and guy and guy's buddy go on a very extended test drive, guy buys car for $900, parents express a lack of enthusiasm that I'm hanging out alone with two ex-cons (they were actually super cool guys, albeit a little unorthodox).  And that is the story of how I managed to sell Sharry Baby for $100 more than I expected to.

for some reason this felt like the right thing to put here...?

Let's see...other news I guess would be that I spent a couple of months seriously considering altering my living circumstances.  For a while I was going to move in with Kara and one other mystery roommate.  That didn't pan out because Kara works in Salt Lake and I work in Payson and there's no way to split that commute so that both people are happy.  So I guess Kara and I will have to live together another time.  But that then got me started thinking about how, now I'm not a student, I have no actual reason to stay in Provo.  So I started looking in to finding a place a little closer to my job.  I did find an adorable place down in Payson with a really nice guy for a landlord.  But it just didn't feel right...as amorphous a reason as that is (especially for me).  Part of it was the fact that I really really love my bishop and ward here in Provo.  I think that Bishop Pickering is exactly the right bishop for me right now.  He heckled me today because I haven't come in to talk to him lately and he said the reason he likes me so much is because I give him so much crap.  His words.  Yeah, we get along well.  But anyway, I decided to stay here in Provo at least for one more winter.  Perhaps after that I'll move down to Payson, or somewhere else entirely.  I can't deny that the idea of having my own place really appeals to me.  But now isn't the time...

this is 100% what it would really be like
pic from Pretty Bland Comics

I went home twice in the last month's time.  The first visit was for my grandma's memorial.  It was just too inconvenient for all the family to come up back in January for the funeral, so it was decided that we'd have a big memorial later in the summer.  My grandma's death has been the first time I've really actively mourned for anyone and it has been harder than I ever expected it to be.  I was hoping by the time the memorial came up it wouldn't be such a big deal, but I'll admit, I spent a fairly significant part of the service crying.  A few days after the memorial Jesse and Grandpa were going to be driving down to North Carolina, so I also was dealing with the realization that if I don't make it down to visit Jesse and Erin relatively soon, it is likely that I won't see Grandpa again.  Suffice it to say, it was an exhausting weekend

Just a few weeks later Kara was heading up for her nephew's notfarewell and she invited me to join her.  I thought it would be nice to get to visit mom and dad with a little less stress so I decided to go.  It ended up being a lovely visit.  And while we were in LaGrande one day we passed by my favorite little bookshop.  I don't remember if I wrote about how I realized at Christmas that what I really really want to do, like for real, is to have my own little bookshop that has tons of personality and can get you whatever book you want.  I also don't remember if I mentioned that Sunflower book is the inspiration for that dream.  I found out at Christmas that it was up for sale and would be closing soon if no one bought it.  When I saw it again a few weeks ago it was all closed up and I think it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen.  The owners, who decided to retire, just never could find a buyer.  But it started me thinking.  I started to wonder just how crazy it would be for me to.....buy it.  Right now.  See, when I decided I wanted to own a bookstore in my head it went something like this: stay in Provo and work for Caleb for a few more years while I pay off all the debt and get my feet under me, so to speak, as an adult; spend a few more years saving money; in about 10 years when I'm rather more solvent and prepared, apply for a loan and open my store.  But here's a sobering thought--in 10 years I'll be 37.  37!  That's nearly 40!  And who are we kidding?  I totally plan on being married with at least one kid by then (well...plan is maybe a strong word...I really hope to be married with a kid by then).  The point is that 37 is not really an age you think of when you think "crazy decisions to take major risks".  Nope, see, that's the kind of thing you're supposed to do when you're young.  So suddenly I'm looking at this empty store and I'm thinking "What if I did it now?  What if I tried to open my bookstore right now when I have student loans to pay off and absolutely no idea what I'm doing or how I'm going to do it?"  Even just thinking about it like that, like it was an actual possibility, was absolutely, physical-response-inducing terrifying.  See, the thing is...I'm not exactly a risk taker and I'm not exactly an efficient, get-a-million-things-done-a-day person.  But then I started wondering if maybe the very scariness of it wasn't a pretty good reason why I should do it.  I started to wonder...is my plan to stay here in Provo and work for Caleb really a good solid plan?  Or is it a nice safe plan?  Much as I love my job (and you all know how much I love my job), do I actually love it for the right reasons?  I mean, how much of that love is actually just a love of comfort?  This is a job that doesn't challenge me at all.  It allows me to sleep in and set my own hours and just hang out with one of my best friends.  These are all great things, but what if I could be doing something even better but I'm too afraid to inconvenience myself to discover it?  When I try to look objectively at my life I cannot say that these are not reasonable worries.  So what if I decided to...well, to completely ignore my personality and dive into the scariest possible (realistic) adventure I can imagine?  I'm nearly 27 years old.  There truly will never be a better time for me to take that kind of risk than right now.  If I crash spectacularly and burn my life to the ground the consequences will be so much more manageable right now than they ever will be any other time.

um...this picture actually feels freakily applicable...

Explaining this all makes me get all anxious and excited about the idea again.  Thinking about the "what if....?"  But sadly, it isn't so easy to ignore one's personality.  Your habits of behavior exist for a reason.  Usually it is because you've spent a lifetime cultivating them.  So even though I can rationally think through why it might actually be the perfect moment for me to dive into a nausea inducingly terrifying adventure...I just don't think I can do it.  It is too scary.  Scary seems like such an insufficient word to describe the feeling that envelops me when I think about the idea.  C'est la vie?

And...I guess that's it.  I'm not sure how I feel about these "this is just a big update of what's going on in my life" updates.  They feel so...narcissistic.  But then, my great long philosophical treatises are just plain boring, so maybe this is a step up?  I don't know...

How life is these days...

I was asked to write a review for the movie The Host, and I will.  But first I'm feeling like I ought to post a general update on my life and things.  Sort of a philosophical update though, cause this is me we're talking about.

First for the update part.  Most momentous update of my life is that I will likely be graduating either in August or December.  I will be taking one final gen ed class (an "advanced writing" class that is completely unnecessary but required...bleh) through independent study and then I will be done.  This means that I will have my Humanities degree, but no minor.  It also means that, for all practical purposes, I am basically done with school right now.

The other major thing in my life is my recent decision to really get serious about buying a car.  It is a thing that I am putting a lot of time and thought into, going so far as to spend actual time physically in the library researching the best used cars.  My ideal purchase (with reservations as I've not actually driven one) is the 09 Honda Fit

yes, I am aware that it looks like a baby mini-van...

I didn't really imagine that my college career would end quite so...anticlimactically.  I expected I would take my last year of classes like any normal student and I would walk out of the testing center from my last final and I would feel that lifting of the weight of school I get at the end of every year, but multiplied several times as I realized that I wasn't just done for the year, I was done forever!  I'd have a big graduation and I'd send out invitations and my parents would come down and go to the ceremony and it would be a great moment in my life.  That's how I imagined it.

I did not imagine that I would be in school for 7 years.  I didn't imagine that I would be graduating due half and half to a lack of money to continue and to an intense (and I do mean intense) aversion to continuing.  I didn't expect that my student experience, rather than ending with a definitive bang! would trickle down like a faucet with a weak nob.  I didn't imagine that, by the time I finally did graduate I would be so sick of school and tired of the entire stress of it that I would want nothing more than to let the bloody event pass with as little notice as was humanly possible.  No big graduation ceremony, no invitations, no family gathering.  I just want it to be done already.

just stop.

Ironically enough, my own apathy about the entire process makes me sad and kind of makes me wish I still wanted to do it all up proper.  College is the last possible bastion of juvenile life.  Sure, they say it is supposed to be your first steps into adulthood, but really it is your last steps as a child.  You're still in a highly structured environment over which you have only some control.  You still have a host of precautions in place to catch you just in case you crash and burn.  Perhaps this sense of extended adolescence is exaggerated due to the fact that I went to a Mormon school, or perhaps it was just a different sort of adolescence (no one will ever convince me that drinking unto shit-facedness is a mature thing to do, which is the only stereotypical college behavior I can think of just now).  The point is that when you finish college you theoretically are really and truly and for once and all stepping out on your own.  You're to get a "real" job and buy a "real" car and finally have a "real" relationship.  All the things are suddenly becoming real.  That transition deserves to have at least some sort of deal made over it--big or otherwise.

But I find that it is happening very gradually.  Last year was supposed to be a year of working and earning money to go back to school.  It wasn't supposed to be my first "post-college" year.  But that is exactly what it was.  And now, here I am, having made the decision to be done with the whole thing.  I'm looking at my life and slowly grasping that it is no longer divided into 4 month segments, after each of which my schedule and the entire structure of my life gets jiggled around.  I'm not "working till I go back to school" now.  I'm just....working.  It's both liberating and frightening.  On the one hand, I have always struggled to commit to things in my life when I know that in a few weeks or a couple of months I'll probably have to ditch it to accommodate a new class schedule or whatever.  That is no longer the case.  My schedule is pretty much set for the foreseeable future.  But that in itself is quite scary.  Now, if I get bored it's not just "well, you can hang in there through the next two months and then things will change."  If I want something to change in my life I will have to actively change it.

But most of all, I am noticing a gradual but distinct change just in the way I view and interact with the world in general.  Last night I actually said the words "well, and I'm sort of in a different part of my life than you" to my roommate Karissa...and it was quite obviously true.  I think I always sort of filed phrases like "different part of my life" and even "adulthood" into a folder clearly marked "married and making babies".  That has always been the great life event that changes my relationship with my friends--that makes me feel like we're no longer in the same part of life and we have less in common to talk about.  I have one friend in particular--she has been married now for 6 or 7 years; she lost one baby, and another spent the first couple of months of his life in the NICU; she has bought and sold a house; she is living a completely adult life.  When we get together I ask her all about her life and she tells me about her husband's job and her kids and what she is doing to utilize her talents and skills as a mother and it is a completely different world.  So when she asks me what's new in my life (she always does, she is always interested in what I'm doing) I feel absurd.  She just told me how incredibly difficult it has been for her to deal with the death of her child and I'm now going to tell her how hard it was for me to...what?  Get over a boy who didn't like me back?  Her life contains deeper sorrows (and thus deeper joys) than I am experiencing yet and I simply can't help but feel the contrast.  So I usually just say that there's not really anything new with me (which is usually true) and turn the conversation back to her.

That has been my perception of true adulthood.  Things are more serious, more poignant.  But last night I was talking to Karissa about buying a new car.  She is also looking to buy a car.  She wants something cheap that will get her from home to work.  It doesn't need to be pretty, or even run especially well.  It just needs to get the job done.  I, on the other hand, am looking for, as she put it, "a grown-up car".  I'm ready to have a car that I can count on, one that is going to last me several years without ever once refusing to start due to high or low temperatures.  In the most pragmatic of terms, I'm ready to buy a car that I can't simply pay for straight out of pocket.  I'm going to have to get a loan and have a monthly car payment.  Like you do when you're an adult.  This is an idea that I wouldn't have even considered while I was in school.  There was just no way.  But the prospect of working full time...full time (not just for four months of summer) changes things.  It quite literally changes the way I look at my life.  I'm no longer looking a maximum of four months ahead.  I'm planning now without an enforced deadline.

I may not have moved to the part of life that is being married and making babies.  That level of adulthood is still before me.  But I am done with school now.  I am finished with the very last days of my adolescence and I have, without quite realizing it, stepped fully into the murky waters of being grown up.  The wait for my life after college is over and I'm now living it.  It is both scary and wonderful...

Gatsby? What Gatsby?

How could I not write a review of The Great Gatsby?  It's Baz Luhrmann for heaven's sake and we all know how much I love him (I love him about five heaps...just in case you didn't know).  It is safe to say that The Great Gatsby is the movie I've been most excited about for the last six months (now that it is out Ender's Game officially takes over that job).  But how could I not be?  Look at this trailer!

Alas....I will say that the trailer is just a shade more satisfying to a certain aspect of my Baz Luhrmann love than the movie.  See, what I've always loved about Baz's movies is their passion.  They don't go in for restraint or subtlety, when Baz does passion it is explosive and vibrant to the point of nausea and I absolutely love it...probably because it is exactly the sort of experience of emotion I am unlikely ever to have in my own life.  And that trailer?  It is positively dripping with classic Baz Luhrmann passion.  The movie?  Surprising as it may seem, I think I could say that it was his most restrained film thus far.  Which is not to say that there isn't plenty of emotion there, nor even plenty of over-the-top visual gluttony.  But those emotions were restrained, veiled, veneered over and divorced from the orgy-like party scenes.  Thematically it is a brilliant move that reinforces the central idea of Luhrmann's adaptation of this specific story....but it did leave me a little bit disappointed in terms of a Baz Luhrmann movie experience.

This is the sort of heavy-handed passion I'm talking about.  This

is one of my favorite scenes of all time...

But never fear!  If I felt a little disappointed in terms of the blatant emotions of the film it was more than made up for in the casting of it.  I have long argued that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the best actors we have today and I don't think he's ever given a better performance than as Jay Gatsby.  Of course, we all knew he would.  I don't think I have talked to a single person who didn't share the same moment of "of course!" as soon as they found out he was playing the central character.  Once you think of him as Gatsby there is absolutely no one else who could have played him.  And Leo didn't disappoint.  I am one of the few people who didn't study the book in high school (I studied a grand total of one complete book in my high school, and it wasn't till I made it to AP english my senior year...hooray for The Scarlet Letter!) so the first time I read this book was the end of last summer I think (or possibly it was fall?).  I didn't really connect with Gatsby when I read it.  I didn't understand why Nick would come out of this entire experience and say that the only person he didn't loathe was Gatsby...he seemed to be just as degenerate as the rest of them to me.  No, it wasn't till I watched Leo's twitchy, nervous, and intensely anxious performance that I came to connect with the character of Jay Gatsby.  He was magnificent.  I mean, right down to the smile that I thought couldn't exist as per Nick's description of it:

He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.

And when DiCaprio turns smiling to the audience in his big moment of reveal...smiling right at me so it seemed...suddenly I knew exactly what Nick meant.  But that was just Gatsby.  Though Karissa and I agreed that Tobey Maguire is possibly tied with Michael Cera as the most awkward human on the earth, I think he absolutely nailed Nick Carraway.  He has this knack for hilarious expressions that say 50 times more than any amount of dialogue possibly could.  I read an interview with Maguire about how it was difficult trying to find a way to play Nick that captured his role as outside observer whilst allowing him the space to be a character who actually did things. I think that trick of expression was a major part of that balance.  As he gets drawn into an Epicurean afternoon with Tom and his entourage his face expresses that dissociated observant quality in the midst of his own participation in the whole thing.  And even though Maguire seems to have somehow become ridiculous in pop culture (I still love him and think he is terribly under-utilized) I think he carried his darker more dramatic moments wonderfully.  Carey Mulligan, too, was magnificent.  She caught that breathy, melodramatic way of speaking that you somehow just can't help but associate with flappers.  Even more amazing was how in moments she could appear bored--old and almost haggard.  Carey Mulligan.  Let me remind you what Carey Mulligan looks like

seriously...so damn adorable

She was great.  But then, every single person in the movie was great.  The greatest triumph of this film was its casting.  

Slightly less great were my constant flashbacks to Moulin Rouge.  As Riss and I discussed on the way out, Moulin Rouge was based heavily on La Traviata and the Orpheus myth.  Now, if you were to read either of these stories your first thought would not be "Wow, this is just like The Great Gatsby!".  But the way Luhrmann decided to play the story I was constantly reminded of his earlier film.  First you have a conservative somewhat naive young man who moves into a new environment of excitement and indulgence.  He is caught up in this hedonistic world and is consumed and nearly ruined by it.  He slowly rebuilds himself afterward by growing a stubble and writing it all down.  There is an ephemeral and unattainable beauty who glitters brightest in this world of color and excitement and all men worship her.  Despite all the best efforts of her true love to win her and take her out of the artifice and corruption he fails (though in this case he is the one who dies rather than she).  The party scenes gave off the same frenetic energy as those in the dance hall. This recurring deja vu was mildly irritating, but on the other hand...this is a Baz Luhrmann film.  I can't blame him for returning to the same themes that appealed to him in a previous movie.  After all, Spielberg and Burton and any number of other big directors have been making the same movies for years.  We can't help that certain stories appeal to us.  

But similarities to Moulin Rouge aside, this was a remarkably true adaptation of one of the most famous works of American literature in existence.  One of Baz's trademarks is also the trait that makes his movies so divisive; either you love him or you hate him.  I'm talking about the willing suspension of disbelief.  This is a principle you talk about in humanities classes--it is the implicit request of the author or director or whoever that you the audience member suspend your awareness of how the real world really is and you instead step into this story and accept the rules that exist here.  Most movies cultivate this in their viewers.  They attempt to make it as easy as possible for the audience to invest in and submerge themselves in their fictional world.  Baz, on the other hand, strives actively to reject it.  This is what is so jarring to people who don't love his movies.  The fact that things seem so very insincere and theatrical and just plain contrived.  Isn't he aware of it?  The answer is yes.  Yes he is.  He did it on purpose.  See, the very idea of movies and acting is about playing pretend and building and fantasy between the actors and the audience.  At least, that is what it is to Luhrmann (I'd link you to the interviews with him where he basically explains all this but I don't want to hunt them down).  So he wants his audience to be aware of what is happening.  He is constantly reminding them that this is all a big show, a big game of pretend, in the effort to force them to get involved.  They are watching a grand play and their reactions to it are an important part of the overall production.  I am one of the people who absolutely love this aspect of Luhrmann's movie-making.  And I think that his willingness to acknowledge the falseness, the facade of it all, is what made him possibly the only director who ever possibly could have adapted this specific book--widely deemed "un-filmable"--into a successful movie.  Of all its strengths, the text and Fitzgerald's gorgeous use of the English languages is arguably the greatest the book offers.  And Luhrmann is the one director who is capable of stopping in the middle of the film to just straight up put that text on screen.  Because none of it is real why not acknowledge that the whole thing is coming out of a book?  I thought it was fantastic.

As I said, I didn't study the book in high school.  I just read it on my own last year.  I didn't have anyone forcing me to analyze the symbolism of the book so, while I could see it was there, I didn't really care about it.  Obviously the green light was symbolic and probably there were some others and they probably meant something and it was probably really deep and interesting but I'm not picking up on it right away and I just don't really care.  When I invited Ben to come see the movie with us he confessed he hadn't read the book and he asked "Is it really such a classic?  What is so great about it?" and I'm not going to lie, I told him that to me the reason it is worth reading is solidly the aforementioned elevation of English to true art.  I mean, some of the sentences in that book literally made me catch my breath.  Like, I had to stop and reread them several times just to luxuriate in their craftsmanship.  I told him that was why it was worth reading.  The themes and such were fine, but nothing amazing.  I know.  This is shameful for a literature person like me to admit.  Especially when I follow it up with the confession that watching this movie completely changed my mind.  Suddenly the symbolism and the allegory and the significance of the thematic development was engrossing.  I'll definitely need to watch it several more times to work through it all.  And sure, I feel the appropriate shame that I needed the rather heavy hand of Luhrmann to pick up on these things.  But on the other hand, I'm going to blasphemously argue that this adaptation, true though it was, actually opened up some new and different analytic options.  If nothing else, watching actors color the characters with their own takes on motivations and reactions forces a reevaluation of the characters in this new light.  My point is that watching this adaptation opened up the original text to me and I am ok with that.  

So what is my final opinion?  The Great Gatsby is pure and unadulterated Luhrmann.  If you don't like his style then you're not going to like this movie any more than you've liked any of his other films.  If you do like his style then you won't be disappointed (equally you won't be surprised...he's not really breaking any new ground).  As I've said before, Baz Luhrmann is truly the master of the post-modern pastiche and surrealism.  While Moulin Rouge remains my favorite of Baz's movie thusfar, I still can't wait to add Gatsby to my collection.  

My thoughts on the ordination of women

My former roommate Andria has been getting deeply involved in the political sphere.  Pretty much every day my pinterest is flooded with her pins about equality and feminism and all sorts of good things.  She keeps a feminist blog.  She was recently featured as a guest blogger on youngmormonfeminist.org.  She was addressing the current debate about the ordination of women to the priesthood.  Here is the link to her post.  

As I was reading her ideas I came up with some of my own and I wanted to share them.  

Andria is firmly in favor of the ordination of women.  Her post systematically addresses each of the most common arguments against it.  First she addressed the claim "if God wanted women to have the priesthood then they would already have it."  I think she makes a valid point when she says that there have been very clear moments in the history of the saints where God has waited for us to ask before he has given us greater knowledge or light.  She says that perhaps God is waiting to grant women the priesthood, but he is waiting for us to be ready and to ask for that gift.  

As I said, I think she makes a fair point.  And I would look at Elder Holland's talk in this weekend's conference to confirm the principle of asking and questioning that I think many people often forget is fundamental to the LDS faith  (tangentially, just everyone please go and watch that talk again because it was one of the greatest talks I think I have ever heard).  But I think that there is a corollary that comes with that idea that Andria doesn't quite address.  As she says, sometimes the Lord is just waiting for us to be ready.  But...what if we aren't?  What then?  I think Andria would say that that is what the Ordain Women movement is all about.  Getting us ready so it can happen already.  And I can understand that.  But I think it is important to remember the balance--that is, no matter how ready you think the world and the church and the people are, if you truly believe that the Lord is in charge and that the Presidency are abiding by His wishes and it hasn't happened...well...then it isn't time.  I understand how defeatist that might sound.  I don't mean it that way.  All I mean is that, again as Elder Holland said, you have to keep perspective and remember what you do believe.  Don't abandon something you know to be good because it is not yet perfect.  I guess that is what I'm trying to say.  Don't get frustrated if things don't happen as quickly as you want.

Andria addresses men who dismiss the Priesthood as busy work and women who dismiss it as just another responsibility to add to their already maxed out schedules.  I'm slightly bemused at how she tells men who belittle the duties of the Priesthood that they deeply misunderstand the fundamental nature and significance of the authority they wield, whilst simultaneously telling women to calm down because it's not such a big deal in terms of the commitment required.  Be that as it may, I think I can respect at least the hesitancy of women on these grounds.  When I think about the possibility of adding priesthood duties to my life I literally think "awesome...another aspect of my life to feel guilty about for failing to maximize my potential..."  Perhaps it is petty of me to feel that way, but that is, unfortunately, the way I feel.  I don't think I'm "lame" for this.

And lastly, she addresses two points which I am going to combine.  She talks about the "men and women are different but equal" argument and the "men have the priesthood and women have motherhood".  Both of these are, to me at least, essentially rephrasings of the argument that men and women have different strengths and different roles to fill.  She asserts that if women are equal then they should be equally able to care for themselves or their families (or visiting teachees) if they do not happen to have a man handy to take care of the blessing and the household running--as many women do not.  She says that motherhood is not a true compliment to priesthood.  Fatherhood would be the true compliment of motherhood, and priestesshood of priesthood.  She very interestingly points out that motherhood is more a physical ability (no matter how nurturing a man might be and how rejecting of gender stereotypes...he simply cannot bake a miniature human within his lower abdomen; there is no oven there) and priesthood is a spiritual gift and discipline (a woman is absolutely capable of humbling herself and making herself in tune with the spirit).  I think that is a really fascinating distinction that I personally haven't really heard addressed before, and is definitely worth considering further.  

But this was my thought as I read her comments on these issues.  It was actually prompted by my dad and step-mom teasing me.  My dad texted asking me if I wanted the priesthood and I texted back absolutely; eventually we'd manage to excise men from the church entirely.  And I realized that that was actually an important thought.  

I'm going to go all historical on you now and take us all back to high school.  Do you guys remember Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education?  These were two of those landmark cases you learned about in your social studies class that shaped the history of America.  Specifically, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education dealt with the philosophy of "separate but equal" during the time of segregation (were gonna go ahead and pretend that time is past, despite this slightly gratifying (they're forcing change!) and simultaneously vomit-inducing (they even had to have this fight in 2013????) story that recently came to my attention...I just can't get side-tracked by that issue just now).  Essentially, in Plessy the courts legitimized segregation, claiming that as long as everything was equal it was totes fine to keep them dark kids separate from them light kids.  This was in 1896.  60 ish years later, Brown overturned this legal precedent, famously asserting "'Separate but equal' is inherently unequal".  Integration painfully ensued.

Those words.  "Separate but equal is inherently unequal."  I think those words have sunk deep into the American psyche since 1954.  I think they have really been at the heart of the seemingly endless struggle for equality for all the people (all of them...women, gays, blacks, immigrants, whatever).  See, we look at something like Plessy v. Ferguson and we can see exactly how awful that decision was.  There was no equal.   "Separate but equal" meant "We get the nice stuff and you get the shitty reject stuff."  During the days of "separate but equal" everything was horrible.  During the days of "separate but equal is inherently unequal" things started to get better.  And we've spent the last 60 years drilling that into our minds.  If it is separate, distinct, or apart then there is an inequality there.

At the same time, however, somehow that idea has paradoxically been fused with a sort of obsession with personal independence.  Equality has come to mean that every person is able to do every thing for themselves.  If you are dependent on another human being that means that they hold power over you and must therefore consider themselves superior to you.  Sometimes, of course, this means opportunity if not actual ability--"I could definitely learn to be a mechanic if I wanted.  I simply choose to invest my time elsewhere and pay this fellow to mechanic for me."  You get the point though.  Everyone must know they have the option to do everything for themselves if they wanted to.

So when I joked with my dad that ultimately we feminists were going to get rid of all the menz in the church and get things done ourselves it suddenly occurred to me that maybe we should think about that.  The Ordain Women movement is, as Andria said, about granting women the ability to take care of their and their families' priesthood needs themselves.  Which is good, right?  Equality is being able to take care of yourself by yourself.  You don't have to depend on anyone else; no one else has power over you.

Except I can't help but think about the idea of a community of saints.  That is the ideal toward which we are working, isn't it?  A loving, close-knit community of saints who care about and serve each other.  That is the goal.  If we are all striving to become fully independent so that no one needs anyone else, somehow that just doesn't feel like a loving community to me.  So let me ask you this.  What if the reason that women don't hold the priesthood has absolutely nothing to do with their abilities or the lack thereof?  What if it is all about teaching us to come together?  What if the whole point is that you can't do it alone?  Even that single mother.  Maybe the gift she needs isn't that she can bless her children herself; rather it is that some brother in the ward has the opportunity to come serve her and strengthen the bond between them.  

It requires a fundamental shift in perspective to look at the "gender" rolls of the church in this way.  It is a shift from viewing male and female interaction as competitive and antagonistic to complimentary and constructive.  I can understand why such a shift may well be impossible for a lot of women.  I don't think I will ever become a true feminist (a fact which I am completely ok with) because I will never see the battle in every day life like they do.  And I'm glad that they do.  Their efforts have materially improved my life.  But I think that this is an idea worth considering.  "Separate but equal is inherently unequal" may or may not be the great truth we believe it to be, but I submit this: "different but equal" is not the same evil as "separate but equal".  As some banal YA book once said: a key and a lock look completely different to the point that if you knew nothing about them you might never believe that they were companions; indeed, each serves a completely separate purpose.  Yet neither can fulfill that purpose without the other.  Sometimes differences bring us together so that we can combine our strengths and abilities and become better than either of us were apart.  Better than we ever would have suspected had we insisted on doing everything alone.

It is important to understand that I don't have any sort of fundamental problem with the idea of women being ordained to the Priesthood.  I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of lobbying the leaders of the church to affect changes we think are necessary (aren't we supposed to believe that they're inspired?) but I appreciate the importance of having the debate.  If the first presidency ever comes out with an announcement that women are to be ordained to the priesthood I will not have a problem with that, though I understand many likely will.  But I wanted to share my thoughts on this topic because they feel true and important to me.  I hope they do so to you.

Some thoughts on the terrifying world known as dating

So.  Here's what's going on in my "love life" as they call it.  I met a guy.  He's a really nice guy, taller than me, attractive, clever, interesting, and I just like him.  Cool.  But now we enter the strange nether world that is gender dating dynamics (bonus! at BYU!).  See, I like this guy so my thought is "I should ask him out!"  You know, dates? That really awesome way you can spend some prearranged time with someone you think is cool to learn more about them and decide if you want to spend even more time together to the point where it isn't even prearranged anymore.  And they are learning about you and deciding the same things about you too.  Dates are cool!  Smooches might happen!

Pretty much every guy that I've ever discussed the issue with has come out strongly in favor of girls asking guys out.  They complain that girls have it easy, they don't have to deal with all that rejection and stress and pressure.  They just get to sit back and let all the boys come to them.  And then, of course, they hold all the power.  Who isn't familiar with "nice guy" syndrome?  It's become a very popular topic of conversation on the internet lately.  Nice Guys feel that women are just constantly shutting down perfectly decent dudes because they don't think they're attractive enough; they think they're "creepy" (a catchall word women have basically just turned into an excuse not to go out with a guy); they're just too dang picky; or my favorite...they guy is just too nice and secretly all women love douchbags.  In short, maybe if women started shouldering their fair share of the burden of asking out then they'd realize they need to start giving more guys a chance.

All of this adds up to a pretty clear vote in favor of me asking him out, right?  Oh but wait...

See, I've always been in favor of pretty blunt honesty.  The few times in my life that a bloke has really struck my fancy I generally have been pretty up front about it.  I'm not good at subtlety and I don't like when there's something everyone knows but no one is allowed to talk about.  So if I want to spend time with someone I have no problem being the one to do the asking.  I should be every man's dream girl, right?

But do you know what happens?  I invite a guy to watch a movie or grab dinner or whatever and he gets all kinds of awkward.  Suddenly I'm that freaky, over-aggressive girl who is socially awkward and a little stalker-ish.  Everyone knows one of those girls.  It's like Caleb said today when I asked him how he feels about the girl being the one to do the asking.  He said "I'm ok with it...as long as I like the girl."   Cause see, when guys say they want girls to ask them out, what they really mean is that they'd really like the girls they're interested in to ask them out.  When the girls they aren't interested in ask them out then suddenly it's "Whoa!  What is she doing?  Why is she asking me out?  I never gave her any reason to think I was interested in her.  Why is she forcing me choose between being a jerk and being polite?..."

The thing about that reaction...it's exactly the same thing that is going through a girl's mind when a guy she isn't interested in asks her out.  But what's funny is that guys don't have to deal with it nearly as often as women, so they a have a much poorer response.  It doesn't occur to them that it is possible for them decline politely and kindly.  Instead they freak out, get insanely awkward, and make the offending girl feel like a troll.  (Admittedly, some girls do this too...)

There is some merit to the idea that everyone should be willing to give nice people a chance.  You may not be initially attracted to someone, but I can attest to the fact that you can also find someone more attractive the more you get to know them.  But there's also both a book and a movie called "He's just not that into you"   for a reason.  Because the fact is, if you don't fancy someone you don't fancy them.  Don't be a Nice Guy (or a Nice Girl...they exist).  People are allowed to just not be into you and it is ok.

What I'm saying is this.  Guys, if you want girls to take some more initiative then maybe try to let go some of the stigma that get's associated with an assertive girl.  If she asks you out that doesn't mean she's "aggressive" or a stalker.  I mean, she might be, but the fact that she asked you out should not be the only evidence you have.  And this last bit applies to everyone.  Just calm down.  Asking someone on a date does not need to be such a big deal.  It doesn't mean anything at all besides the fact that someone thinks you're kind of cool and would like to get to know you better.  Which shouldn't be a bad thing.  It should be a compliment.

Some thoughts on a Saturday...

My friend Jenna posted this video today on a friend's wall

I have so many thoughts about this video.  So many.  And, as the good Humanities major that I am, I am sitting here writing all those thoughts down in a blog post.

First and foremost is just...dang.  It's straight up funny.  I mean, completely and unequivocally funny.  Go ahead and laugh and don't feel bad.

Next, this video brings back all my fascination with the human impulse to exhibitionism.  How many videos or pictures have you seen of someone doing something crazy simply for the sake of being seen?  So many I can't even begin to count.  What is it about human nature that so craves attention that it is willing to do bizarre things like dance around in front of people nearly naked to get it.  That almost diminishes it, though.  To say that some of these people are just seeking attention.  Sure, some truly are.  But others, like this gentleman here I think, or like Amanda Palmer in her street performing days, or like certainly many others...some of these people are seeking connection, or love, or truly just to make people happy.

I'm referring to just the beginning of her talk here, but please listen to all of it as it is wonderful

Or perhaps they simply want to express themselves and themselves is an exuberant, demonstrative person who simply cannot be contained in one single self but must bubble over in dance and song and action.  Whatever the reason, I am constantly fascinated by these impulses.  Trying to decipher those reasons, trying to understand why this expression, simply enjoying their moment...

Then I think about this specific man.  Regardless of his reason, he was brave enough to display his, shall we say "less than ideal", body quite fully.  In fact, it seems as though he makes rather a habit of doing so.  You could say that, for this specific gentleman, clearly it does not actually require courage to dance around in a speedo.  But I disagree.  Even if this man couldn't care less about parading his physique naked in public...that doesn't change the significance of the act.  It doesn't make him any less brave.  It remains inspiring to me.

This is where it comes back to me.  It's my blog so I'm allowed.  Anyway.  Remember how I've hinted a couple of times at a project I was thinking about for a while that didn't work out?  This project I was thinking about was to become a model for the art department for the drawing classes.  For those of you who don't know what that entails, it would boil down to me striking various poses in front of rooms full of strangers for a couple of hours at a time...wearing nothing but a bikini.  Anywhere but BYU it would be completely naked, but we gotta maintain our standards here at the Lord's university.  But the point is that I would be stripping myself down almost completely and exposing myself to people.  Nothing between them and all my imperfections, my fatness, my awkward shape and movement, and my blemishes.  I literally cannot think of any more socially terrifying activity.  It didn't happen in the end, not because I chickened out, but because I'm not taking enough credits this semester to qualify for a campus job.

I just have to remember that it's ok that I don't look like this.  This is
a profile picture for this model

I wasn't going to strip down just to satisfy my own exhibitionist impulses.  I don't really have many of those.  They got lost in some box with my mob mentality.  I thought it would be good for me.  I have a couple of friends who do this and they've told me a little about the experience.  The people drawing you are not evaluating your attractiveness or relative levels of physical fitness.  They're viewing you as an art.   They are de-personing you in the best possible way.  In the process of drawing your body simply becomes a thing, neither good nor bad, to be captured on paper.  And the end results can, and often are, beautiful.  Letting someone draw you and then looking at that drawing is a way for you to dissociate from your mental filter and see yourself through someone else's eyes.  Not to mention, you're standing there in front of them for several hours...I can think of no more effective means to metaphorically throw your body image and self-confidence into a lake and let it swim or drown.

Which leads to my last thought about that man.  Yes, we're getting back to the rotund dancing fellow in naught but a speedo.  Scroll back up and watch him again for a few minutes.  Look at how happy he is.  Feel the confidence that flows out of him.  You watch him for a while and suddenly....you forget that it's funny cause a fat guy is dancing naked.  Suddenly you're watching a happy, wonderful man be happy and wonderful.  His physicality is peripheral.  His enjoyment of the moment overwhelms our impulse to judge and in the end we love him, even think he's beautiful, because we see happiness and vitality rather than a contrived social construct of beauty or ugliness.  You don't care that he's "gross".  You don't care that he keeps missing the changes and doesn't know the moves.  How could you care?

This is the best lesson this video teaches me.  Simply be happy and be confident.  No one cares if you screw up while you're trying.  No one cares if you aren't perfect.  No one cares about any of those negative things. What they care about is that you're happy and you're sharing that happiness with everyone around you.  Because you are happy, they have become happy as well.  If you can give that to people then no matter what you look like you will be beautiful in their eyes.

So I shall endeavor to stop worrying and simply dance.

The distorting properties of the inner looking glass

Those of you who read my blog (all 3 of you) know I've sort of been on a little bit of a theme recently.  A self improvement theme.  If you missed them, here's the first and second post.  I'd like to continue on that theme today, but from a slightly different angle.  This post is about my mother.

I have been suffering recently from a lot of frustration with my mom.  It's not what you're thinking.  I'm not talking about your typical teen/young adult parental angst.  I haven't lived with my mom in years, I'm pretty much done with all that angst.  No, I'm talking about something else entirely.  My mom is brilliant, extremely gifted, and beautiful.  My frustration stems from her absolute inability to accept those facts.

Let's start with a description of my mom.  My mother is beautiful.  She has brown hair and brown eyes and a uniquely lovely face.  I have always felt like she looks like a real-life Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painting.  

something much like this painting by John Williams Watherhouse 

She has these beautiful delicate hands and long wrists that, odd as it may sound, have long been my great envy.  As for her abilities...

My mom was strong enough to separate from my dad when he abused their relationship.  She was strong enough to forgive him completely and take him back, and then to leave for good when he abused that relationship again (I respect her for every single one of those decisions).  My mom raised two very young children singlehandedly.  She worked incredibly hard at some very menial jobs at first and then essentially created the need for a completely new position at the local boys and girls club in New Mexico for herself.  She then packed us up and moved us up to Oregon ostensibly to help my great aunt who was, at that time, taking care of my great grandmother whilst also dealing with a newborn.  However a large part of her motivation was nothing but her faith in a prompting she received that she would meet her future husband in Oregon.  She did  meet the man she ended up marrying; she then committed to this man with significant and sometimes frightening baggage of his own.  She has remained committed to him for the last 18 years and poured herself into their relationship.  And in the last couple of years she took the entire weight of caring for her own mother throughout the progression of grandma's dementia with no help from any of her siblings.  

My mom is an excellent cook and baker.  She decided there was no reason to pay exorbitant prices for store-bought chocolates so she taught herself how to make her own hand-dipped gourmet chocolates.  Her children wanted absurd and impractical birthday cakes so she taught herself how to make them.  She created extravagant costumes and dress-up clothing for us purely through trial and error--she didn't have patterns or Pinterest to tell her how to make a crown or a scepter or an entire Native American costume complete with teepee.  She taught herself how to paint and draw and sing and play the guitar and piano.  She makes cards, and hand-made boxes, and face pins, and Ukranian easter eggs, and  so many more amazing things I can't even remember them all.  She writes songs and makes her own jewelry.  She has created a beautiful, calming space in our front and back yard.  She has recently started writing a story.

these are nothing compared to some of the ones my mom has made

I haven't even mentioned my mom's ability to empathize with people, her sincere concern for others, her commitment to her responsibilities, her ability to understand and help people, or her determination to put others before herself.  Truly, the list of my mom's achievements, abilities, and gifts is a long one.  

But do you know what she'd say if you asked her to list her own gifts?  She might say something about her proclivity for counselling (the vocation she's always dreamed of), but almost immediately she would start telling you about anything but her positive qualities.  She might tell you about her sister and how much greater Vicky is than her.  She might tell you about her husband or her kids.  Or she might start telling you about all her own failings and faults and flaws.  This is because she legitimately does not see all of those amazing things that I just told you about.

You might say my mother has anorexia of the mind.  Just like an anorexic girl looks in the mirror and sees an obese delusion rather than the slender (often even unhealthily so) reality, my mother looks at herself and rather than the capable, creative, beautiful reality she sees an ugly, incompetent, stupid, inadequate illusion.  

No matter how many times you tell the anorexic that she's crazy; she isn't fat; she has to eat something because she is quite literally wasting away...she will not listen.  She cannot.  She can see herself right there in the mirror and she can see how fat she is.  So it is with my mother.  No matter how many times I or my aunt Vicky, or everyone else in the world tells my mother that she is smart and talented and able; no matter how many times we tell her that she can do things; we tell her that she is hurting herself and those around her...she will not...she cannot believe us.  Can't she see for herself how untrue all of that is?  Can't she see how inadequate she is?  

I cannot remember a time when my mother was happy with herself--with her weight or her appearance.  And I have a remarkably good memory.  My entire life I've been listening to my mom say that she isn't smart enough for this or that; she's not skinny or young enough to wear that dress or those earrings; she's not talented enough to play that song.  She is never good enough.  Never.

It could be argued that what divides us from the "lesser" animals is self-awareness.  But, like so many things in this life, our great blessing and strength is also our great weakness.  There is no more vicious voice of criticism, judgement, and critique than the one inside your head.  Because you are aware of exactly how often you fall short of the mark.  Outsiders don't have the benefit of seeing our expectations, intentions, and goals alongside our actions like we do.  So they don't know just how often those actions are actually pathetic, half-assed failures.  At least, that is how it seems to us.  Because that mark you're falling short of?  It is self-imposed.  It is your mark, not the rest of the world's.

So when people tell my mom that she is wonderful she looks at her self and her life and her plans and she sees that they aren't what they're "supposed" to be so she says "it's all fine and good for them to say that...but they don't know what's really going on."  

How do I know this is what is going on inside her head?  Well, I suppose I don't for sure.  But I'm pretty confident.  Because she passed this right on to me.  

came from this guy's pretty awesome blog here

Kara came over last night to visit.  We had a really great talk, during one point of which she said to me "We've both turned out to be pretty great.  We're both confident, smart, capable women."  Do you want to know what my instant mental response was?  Something along the lines of "hell no I'm not confident!"  I am terrified all the time of every single thing!  I don't feel capable of dealing with things, I don't think I am particularly good at much.  I think I'm smart, but I'm constantly worried that I'm about to discover that that is not the case.  I assume people don't want me around or they don't like me.  I believe that the man I marry will have sacrificed being married to a woman he finds physically attractive to be married to one with "other qualities".  I am not exaggerating.  These are the constant refrains inside my head.  

Where did I start this?  I said I am frustrated with my mom.  

My mom has told me that she is convinced that her children hate her.  She thinks that my brother and I hate her.  Our mother.  And that is why I am frustrated with my mom.  Because her self-loathing and self-doubt are reaching crippling levels.  And there is nothing I can do to shatter that mental mirror that is showing her such a lie.  There is no way for me to communicate to her that that inner critic is lying.  That her children love her.  That she is brilliant.  That she is creative and capable.  All she can see and all she can hear are her own perceived inadequacies.  Every conversation, every interaction, is filtered through the distorting lens of her insecurities so that it inevitably comes out supporting her negative opinion of herself.

As I struggle through the process of conquering my own issues, dealing with my own self-doubt and self-loathing I keep looking at my mom's life and that is what keeps me motivated.  Even before I started this project I can see that I have been doing some of this.  I am trying desperately to not be my mother.  Not because I don't love her and not because I don't think that she is amazing...but because she does not believe she is.  And that is what I don't want to emulate.