I'm a lover, not a luver

I was released from my calling in my ward's Young Women presidency a month-and-a-half ago, only to be called right back into the organization last week, this time as assistant camp director. Don't know why, but it seems this is where I belong, with the teenage girls. I wasn't the most successful one myself, so I wonder what these 'leventy-million opportunities to work with kids have been about, lo, these past thirteen years. 13! One of my lucky numbers!

Tonight, at least, I am persuaded that this latest opportunity to serve came in small part so that I could introduce the concept of sexism to one of my Laurels, our sweet self-appointed sophisticate, our diva-in-process. She recently loaned me two books (for which just a tad of sleuthing around on this page will produce the twin titles). I spent the next few days in a heavy bipolar funk and these fat best-sellers supplied me with enough low-investment busywork to keep me somewhat distracted till I made it out of that dark place. About all I did during that time was read. Did I enjoy them? In a way. I certainly got through them in a hurry—over 1000 pages in far less than 72 hours. But I had many residual beefs, and tonight, when my beloved Opera Miss finally quizzed me about my take on the books, I gave it to her gently and broadly, but straight. Judging from her reaction, I think that she isn't fully aware of the meaning of "sexist," but I'm pretty sure the word lodged neatly in her brain and will stick there till her understanding grows. She did, however, seem to get it when I said that the books' heroine was weak because she allowed, and even relied upon, another person—a boy, of course—to call the shots, set the standards, draw the limits, etc., and that she was willing to trade everything—her family, her life, her future, her ability to contribute to her world, ad nauesum—for love, or rather, for LUV. I took issue with the points that nothing is more important than LUV and that LUV conquers all. Of course, love is at the heart of everything good, but it ain't necessarily at the heart of LUV. I told her that this wasn't my idea of true romance, or a great character, or real sacrifice. I did say I often thought as I read the books how glad I was that "our girls" are making better choices. (What I didn't say was that I am concerned that this may not continue to be the case for some of them.) I did smile a wry inward smile when, in the middle of my requested book report, which was received in a feeling-after-adulthood quasi-knowing style, lovely Opera Miss interrupted me and girlishly asked:

"So, who do you like better? Edward or Joseph?"

Um . . . the vampire? or the werewolf? Hard choice. How about no more steady boyfriends till you figure out "sexist"?

I didn't enumerate my more minute criticisms, which include but are far from limited to:

•Don't lie to your family.
•Don't use people.
•Learn to be secure in yourself—without a boyfriend, already!
•Don't have your boyfriend stay with you at night on the sly or otherwise, and especially not in your bed.
•When you get a bad feeling about something, trust it instead of fighting against it.
•How come a homegirl from BYU isn't writing more moral strength into her female character?

I swear, I didn't get up on my soapbox. I just answered my young friend's question because she wanted to hear what I thought. But I do know when to quit. When I did we went cheerfully back to our ongoing hammock-making project with the rest of the Tuesday evening group: ripping old bedsheets into strips, sewing the pieces together, and winding them up into fat fabric yarn balls. Teamwork. In two weeks I'll bring the wood supports and introduce the girls to power tools.

Nicely, my Opera Miss and I discovered that we both adore Cyrano de Bergerac, and twittered on about that a while, in a totally different, giddy, gushy tone. You see? I do loves me a good love story.

Silver white winters that melt into springs

These are a few of my favorite things (from today):

•mercifully not having the early church schedule this morning after I (a) stayed up too late last night and (b) forgot it was the weekend to spring forward the clock
•reading in bed
•the big debut of my "new" thrift store dress (most of the world didn't notice, but Rob liked it)
•little floods of ideas
•Opera Miss came to church today after a long hiatus and we got to laugh with her and her mom
•Opera Miss was accepted to the music program at the U, natch!
•being the recipient of a partial gum wrapper manicure during the Young Women lesson
•watching the first two bees of 2008 dive head-first into our yellow crocuses and vigorously throw their whole buzzing bodies into the work of gathering pollen
•watching Rob give his favorite new tie to his dad because his dad really liked it (an even bigger deal because Rob very rarely buys new ties)
•three extended family dogs enjoying a friendly reunion, and dancing around and around each other till their leashes were tightly braided and they turned themselves into a barking three-headed beast
•reminiscing about the time Oscar(ina), our old neighbors' pathetically affectionate and emotionally neglected backyard Bassett Hound, wrapped about a mile of leash cocoon-style around the little girl who always teased him/her, and nearly dog-kissed the kid's screaming face off before her parents rescued her
•having our first sit-down visit with our newest next-door neighbors
•driving to the lake to find out if the spring peepers had started up their love songs yet (nope)
•taking the back way home, stopping to visit some horses in a field, and introducing them to shelled pistachios and peppermint Altoids (big hits, both)
•parking on a dead end road and listening to an exquisite sunset
•the moon's smile, even more slim and sly than it was last night
•kisses without whisker puncture wounds
•after receiving a particular email, getting a favorite song from my childhood stuck in my head, and then finding this version of it on YouTube (I'll post the lyrics for Lois since she has has dial-up):



I'd do anything
For you, dear, anything
For you mean everything
To me, I know that

I'd go anywhere
For your smile, anywhere
For your smile, everywhere
I'd see

Would you climb a hill? Anything!
Wear a daffodil? Anything!
Leave me all your will? Anything!
Even pay my bill? One hundred bucks?!

I'd risk everything
For one kiss, everything
Yes I'd do anything (Anything?)
Anything for you!

Would you lace my shoe? Anything!
Paint your face bright blue? Anything!
Catch a kangaroo? Anything!
Go to Timbuktu? And back again!

I'd risk everything
For one kiss, everything
Yes I'd do anything
Anything for you!

You know, it's really true what they say about not eating after five o'clock

—it makes for better sleep. So do flannel sheets, in my wintertime opinion. And the best dream helper of all (aside from a clear conscience)? A great bed. I do not live in an expensive home, but friends and lizards, this pea-detecting princess has a right fabulous mattress to retreat to each night, or in the wee hours, as the case may be, next to her loverly sleepmate. After too many years on a lousy futon, I am a convert to comfort.

Tonight I did all the right things: early dinner/hungry but not ravenous, check; evening walk, check; happy feelings, check; flannel sheets, check; turned in at a decent hour, check; cushy mattress, check; husband beside me and allowed his free five minutes of back sleeping before entering Deep Snore (whereupon he is urged onto his side), check . . .

So, how come I can't sleep? It doesn't feel like an insomniac night.

Actually, I know. It's because I have not been writing. About anything. And my brain is begging to journal and blog and compose stories—it's telling me so all the time. And it's screaming at me now. WRITE.

But I need to sleep. I'm worn out from recent events involving extended swings of emotion and little rest (e.g., family wedding, beloved out-of-towners, friend's funeral, more beloved out-of-towners). Can we strike a compromise, brain? Just for tonight? A few notes and then please can I rest, and you can trust that tomorrow I will be able to remember how to fill in the details, somewhere? Let's at least try.

Cryptic, but for the sake of sleep:

• I edited Opera Miss' recordings and made her an audition DVD for the BYU School of Music
• iMovie drives me nuts
• Pandora.com = internet music heaven
• I was a living voodoo doll in Pleasant Grove for the love child of Gene Wilder and Harpo Marx, and then I hugged him
• Sixty bucks and a Savers' coupon = fall wardrobe
• If I want to wear it then who says it's out? (See above)
• Best potato pancakes of my culinary career and maybe my life
• Sewing plans with the French General
• Advent—a day late and a candle short
• Tribulation—patience—experience—hope
• "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" has great chords and they sound even better when we play them together
• Pero and juicy ripe pears while reading a Leslie Norris story aloud
• Our December traditions
• The Passion Players, maybe?
• Going for a downtown candy window walk, and at a nice clip(-clop)
• Learning to keep my big fat flappin' mouth shut
• Old linen from Gary of the Tiaras
• Being able to smile at myself in the mirror
• Skirts are taking over my life

It's funny what keeps folks up at night, isn't it? Before you question my lack of profundity, ask yourself, "What keeps ME up at night?" At least for me it wasn't bad brain chemistry, this time.

Y'all schlaf gut now, y'hear?

Off to catch the next train to Slumberland,
Geo

It's comin' on Christmas

Thank heaven for:

•a brain and two feet that got themselves and the rest of me out of the mall, tout de suite
•the nice candy lady (not Lois, unfortunately—guess it wasn't her shift) who helped me choose an exciting assortment for she-whose-name-I-drew-for-Christmas' advent calendar
•keeping my head and resisting temptation when the intoxicating scent of deep chocolate filled my nostrils
•online Christmas shopping when I can't handle crowds and besides can't find what I'm after locally
•clean sheets on the bed
•coming up with a simple alternative to the handmade gift I was about to overwhelm myself making
•talking to my older friend Iris, the one who's got terminal cancer, and her telling me what she says to God every night: I think you ought to reconsider. You're really not gonna want me up there. I'm not gonna just show up and say, "Welp, whuddya want me to do NOW?" I'm gonna be a real pain in your a••!
•beautiful skeins of yarns that feel as good as they look
•praying to find some jeans to fit me while I'm fleshed out and can't fit my real clothes, then finding some good ones second-hand
•coming to terms with the fact that my body is something of a shape-shifter, which means I need to store my full range of sizes rather than annually give the fat clothes the boot for those few minutes when I fit comfortably into smaller numbers
•helping lay out Opera Miss' voice recital program
•wordplay
•allowing myself to say no when I don't feel well
•the bittersweet joy of another close family member announcing a pregnancy (current tally: 3 little chickens in the incubator and 1 just hatched out)
•offering "Coach" my early morning hair-fluffing services gratis, in the women's bathroom at the Fieldhouse Salon
•the prompt and lucrative sale of our old stockpile of beautiful art papers, many of which are no longer produced (sick and wrong!)
•learning that Kitty's pneumonia isn't so horrible that she can't come home from the hospital in a day or two
•old Stargate SG-1 episodes that aren't dogs, unlike the one we watched tonight
•sleep
•mirrors that are kinder than others
•this song (and the fact that "the best baby that I ever had" stuck around):