And Now For Something Completely Different

I don't have much time today because I need to pack up my life. I'm moving to Claremont tomorrow.

Yes - another change has come to La Casa De Liz. As it turns out, God wasn't finished rearranging my Life Furniture. Right after I said goodbye to Bianca and before Lauren left our next door neighbor/property manager/owner of our adorable House on the Hill's daughter/drug addict decided that it was time to turn her crazy up to 11. I'll spare you all of the White Trash Weekly worthy details but the bottom line was my roommates and I, though we loved our house and loved each other, felt that it was time to leave. My dad, legally speaking and for safety's sake, thought it was a good idea too.

Through the amazing Mormon Network I've taken a room in a house in Claremont, CA. I love Claremont. I spend a lot of time there in fact so I'm hoping that I will be saving a lot in gas money and angst taking a room there. I'll be 2 blocks from the Claremont Colleges so I'm determined to find a job there now because I REALLY like the idea of walking to work like Atticus Finch. Have I ever mentioned that I'd like to name a possible future-type proverbial son "Atticus" but I'm not sure the world is ready for that much awesome and nerdism in one package. He'd come home with black eyes - I know it.

I've got a lot going on and truly have to go but what I wanted to share was that one of my favorite musicians/songwriters - Mr. Joe Pug - was on "A Prairie Home Companion" on Saturday. He was amazing and it was a phenomenal show. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when Garrison retires. He's a fixture of my psyche. Like, I know the world is going to be OK and that we're not devolving as a species because Garrison is on the radio and beloved.

So take a listen and know that despite drug addict/insane neighbors/clueless property managers and having to leave a home you love, that there is still some goodness in the world and it's worth fighting for.

tootles

Invincible

Part I

I think that there are a few moments in every life where you're shown of what you are and are not made. This is my accounting of one that I had last week.

Growing up a Long/Dees it's very easy to feel, well, a bit super human. School and anything cerebral comes fairly easy. On the Long side, we're rarely sick, and if we ever are we usually just power through it. Sports come fairly easy, anything physical actually. When I was playing water polo and regularly lifting weights I put muscle on so fast I couldn't keep up with how strong I was becoming and Lennyed more than one hole in a wall and broken door frame. For the most part, people believe what you say, laugh at your jokes, seek your advice and value your company. As much, you grow up not really being affraid of anything. You can either think around, charm, or power through whatever situation you find yourself. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty damn awesome, most of the time.

As such, I begin to think that nothing can really hurt me until I realize that because I see things differently, I feel things differently and typically more extensively and I realize EVERYTHING can hurt me and regularly does, but typically I'm strong enough to bear the blows. I remind myself that it's imperative to feel feelings, but to let them pass through. They do not control me and that I'm strong enough to take it.

That all being said, last week while shopping for drain-o at an all but empty Lowe's after a church activity as I'm wandering the overwhelming isles of wrenches, drill bits, lawn chairs, carpet rolls, and weed killer I start wishing there was a 3D Google contraption that could let me just find the bloody drain-o. This particular task does not high-cogniative levels of problem solving so my mind starts wandering into girly places, inventorying the recent pairings and/or interests of my friends and the local boy club and realize that, for about the umpteenth time, I'm sans partner/interest/pursuer.

Everyone (in my Looney Toons mind) is about to gallivant paired into the sunset and I, again, am left at home, broom in hand, by myself.

This idea starts to upset me and instead of the familiar sting of tears at my eyes the focus is lower, in my chest. It starts to tighten like an asthma attack and I can only manage short shallow breaths. My heart starts pumping like a captured field mouse but I don't get light headed, I don't feel compelled to sit down, I don't want to cry, I just can't breathe and I don't know why and my heart feels like it's being dribbled against my sternum.

Being the Long I am, having assigned myself to a task, I take the physical discomfort, shove it aside, and continue on my drain-o search. I try to keep a steady breath, yoga breathing fixes everything right? Oxygen, the fastest way to detox the body. I finally find the drain-o, properly compare potentices with price and container size, get through the self check out (yoga breath, yoga breath, yoga breath), and make it to my car.

Tasks being completed, I turn my cartoony brain to the most pressing matter at hand, my insane body. I don't really have time to play Dr to myself but my body was demanding attention and if I know one thing its don't poo-poo anything that has to do with the chest/heart/ lung region.

So I sit there in my car, I inventory my racing heart, mentally cross referenceing it with other accounts from remembered NPR articles and friends' stories and my slew of Medical School friends running medical dialog. I rewind and review conversations, picking out pieces of information that seem to apply, come to a conclusion that I don't like at all but one whose evidence I can't refute. I sit there for a few minutes longer, rerunning my experience, the evidence, my existing knowledge of possible explanations and I realize I need more data to be sure. I reluctantly text my friend who has mentioned similar experiences before:


What does a panic attack feel like?

























Replies come confirming all this weirdness. I realize the trigger, feel helpless and silly but that I cannot dismiss these feelings. They're demanding time and attention. But I have no idea how to explore them. Talking about them with anyone of my afore-mentioned friends and/or family would just trigger the route "Don't be sillys" and "You know you're wonderful" and "He'll come around some day" that never seem to make me feel better. Ever. If anything, they spray gas on the fire. I think they never comfort because that's never been the issue. My raw and unaddressed fear isn't a life without love, it's a life alone. I know I'm loved. That has never been an issue, but being left behind, being left out - that's what closes the shutters on my rationale.

Flashes of being on the tree-line Provo street of my child hood and having my big brother purposefully get his friends together in front of me and then ride off on their bikes while yelling behind him that I can't come along, that I'm weird and a pest, that I'm not invited and I'll get beat up if I try to follow. Family reunions where my cousins flitted off to the mall without even considering me. Those come crashing in and for a tic I feel a shudder go through out my consciousness, destabilizing things for a moment and I'm not sure if its a layer of delusion being stripped away or a layer of foundation being ripped out.

I look over at the drain-o on my passenger seat, remember the pressing task of a clogged bath tub at home, wipe the tears away to see straight, take a few more yoga breaths, decide I need to air this out later, start my car, shove aside my weaknesses and just keep going. That is the only thing I know how to do.

I'm not sure what to make of this new info but it'll keep for another day when I'm feeling stronger and a little bit less alone or maybe when I've got my red boots and bullet proof bracelets back on. Nothing can harm me then.

Checking In -

Dear Blogosphere,

I've been absent of late. I realize it and I'm not apologizing. The truth of it all is, I haven't been doing well. I've had a cold and a sinus infection and all that but that's not what I mean.

I've been fighting the reds and the blues and the doldrums and the shakes and everything else more than the norm. I don't know if it's that in my weight loss and 2010 goal to Simplify and SLOW DOWN that I've just been getting more honest and I'm seeing myself and the world around me more clearly and it's pretty rough.

I'll be even more honest, I'm weary to talk about it here or anywhere frankly because, well, my blog readers are people I see and talk to rather frequently. I don't have the comfort of knowing my thoughts only exist for nameless people to whom I'm only marginally accountable. And frankly, those that I consider close don't really have an ear for me when I'm not doing well. They either don't know what to do with me or only know a fairly congenial Lizzie and are angsty at a change of scene more than the fact that I'm in pain or they think it's another hyperbolic rant and poo-poo whatever I've had to say in some polite-make-a-joke-quote-something-to-forget-it way.

There are a choice shimming few (you know who you are) who I can openly weep in front of and say that sometimes I'm so lonely it presses on me like a humid night or that I'm terrified I'm stuck where I am for the rest of my life and feel pretty powerless to change either. I can talk about that in front of you.

So for the most part I could just post quirky videos on here or jokes of pictures of my adorable nephew that makes me happy but also reminds me of how much I don't have and most likely, at this point, won't and now I have to hide those tears too.

But they run close to the surface, poking through at inopportune moments. Crying at kung fu cartoons about flying air bison or recounting a film about gorgeous clothes, poetry and love to someone just isn't normal.

Life has still gone on for me though.

I've paid off my car.

I've found some adorable dresses for my Year of Feminine Divine as seen:

here

here

here

here
and
here.

I've turned a corner and have actually fallen in love with a few designer purses; namely Gucci.

You know - having good taste can be very inconvenient. Especially when, for some reason, all of the purses you've every really loved or bought have all come together and coagulated into the glory that is Gucci's Classic Joy Handbag.

I know I'll never spend that kind of money on a purse but I'm really comforted to know that it's out there and that there is a bit of a reason for the Designer Handbags maelstrom of silliness.

I will be moving out at the beginning of June to live with a few friends for a few months. Both of them will be heading out to the wind come December but we'll be able to share this cute yellow house on a hill in Pomona for a season or two. I'm excited and have had fun preparing to have my own space again. I'm leaving a lot of things here so I've picked out a few new furniture pieces and some new bedding. It's been super fun. Jaqueloeen has made a few appearances. I've finally found the vanity of my dreams in my price range
and I've found a duvet comforter that makes me happy every time I look at it, which is it's job, and goes perfectly with my favorite Mucha I plan on putting up.



I'll take pics once I've got the whole thing laid out etc. I've even inherited some paint from all the construction at work to beautify things if we're allowed to paint.

I decided not to go to Coachella this year. My singular Coachella compadre (the rest of my friends list have utterly let me down in this regard) got called away on a business trip to Australia and the idea of camping and attending on my own sat well for a few weeks but got scarier as the time approached. I've admitted that my life is going to be one land mine after another so I Craigslisted my ticket and am trying to walk away graciously. I don't think I'll do a very good job of it. In fact, there is a good chance I'll be crying all weekend.

I've recently become obsessed with purse accessories too. Strange, I know but useful too. I've carried handkerchiefs around since I was 18 and have had an engraved cigarette case be my first aid kit since then too but I wanted a real mirrored compact and lipstick case and pill box and perfume atomizer and all that stuff you'd find in a Lady's purse from the 20's -50's. I've come across a LARGE number of accommodating sites with many engravable and adorable possibilities.

So far I've only scored this lovely black with clear crystal flower compact mirror, lipstick case, key chain set. Nothing too extravagant or silly. Not yet at least.

My hair is cute. My friend Mari and cousin Amber did me up well. Put in an adorable angled bob and colored me red again. It's a source of smiles for me.

But for the most part - that's it. I remain a pretty lonely, mediocre, non-grad schooled and undistinguished Lizzie that can't even bring herself to watch Lost or finish a book.

All the best for you,
Liz

Trouble! That starts with "T" and that rhymes with "P"

and that stands for.... Perfection.

So I know my proverbial Shelves are quite dusty. I've been gone for a month bring busybusybusy and always thinking. I've had a number of things I've felt were writing worthy (read: "blog-worthy" but I hate that phrase) and a few things that were just fun.

I have had a few profound thoughts about Muppets and traffic patterns and I have a new fashion crush that I'll get to. I'm instituting a new weekly staple: Fashion Friday! Many frivolous and totally uneducated but enthusiastic opinions to come. You've been warned.

My time going from funny thing to funny thing on the webbernet has been cut down drastically by this new concept called a "job" so I've been running thin on material but I'll do my best to keep Wednesday Giggles going as well. Have no fear.

However for today - there is something that I feel the need to be bloggy about. Its something I've felt a serious contempt for lately. More than I usually do too and it is the irrational Culture of Perfectionism I've been a personal witness to (read: victim of) as an American, as a woman, as a member of my family, and as a member of the LDS faith. I truly eschew it. I find it to be more debilitating than any behavior modifying medication, illegal, or abusive substances. Its horrible and its a mental game that we've all bought into.

Preemptive disclaimer: LDS-wise, Christian-wise, I am actively choosing to be a follower of Christ. He was perfect, is perfect. In every sense of the word. He invited me to be like Him, or in otherwise perfect. However - what I seriously overlook sometimes is that, for ME, its a process. Its a day to day effort of trying to be better, of practicing excellence. I whole heartily embrace that concept and hold it VERY close so please don't mistake my rants on here as me defending lethargy, laziness, thoughtlessness or selfishness. Quite the opposite. I've found the more I've prayed to see, work, and react to my world in love, in Godly love, that the stronger these ideas grow in my mind.

The gist of it is - we totally don't get it. We don't understand Perfection. We think we do but we have no clue. ESPECIALLY how to get there.

I think that our concept of perfection is cantankerous. It is something that eats at us, breaks us down, discourages us and defeats us before we ever start anything. It is an arresting concept to us.

A bit of background;

I'm a dyslexic kid. I always have been. I had to learn a lot differently than the rest of the world and I did so by learning to listen very close to what people said to me and to recognize patterns. In turn these default mental settings have helped me to become a fairly perceptive (and introspective) adult. As much I've come to realize that I was also surrounded by a lot of excellence as a kid.

Let me clarify terms here too.
Perfection is basically a 4 letter word to me. Its alienating and just conjures up frustration. It instantly inspires disappointment and inaction. I'm not an inaction kind of girl.

Excellence (to me) is a quality that chases a moment or is made of a bunch of little moments that string a beautiful something together. Its a much more obtainable thing, for me at least. Its a concept thats possible to made into a habit, to be learned, that incorporates a process of thinking, action, reaction, assessment, modification and reapplication. I love it and find it a much more healthier governing value.

I will be using those terms to explain myself from here on.

This all may be disjointed and far too long of a post but bear with me.

I'm surrounded by a lot of perfectionists, family, friends and what not. I don't like what it does to them. I don't like who it makes them become. They become ridged, severe, censuring people. This isn't necessarily expressed and lashed outwards. Its worse. These people ruthlessly beat themselves up because they're not perfect despite their best efforts. Because they're not successful, wealthy, ruthlessly sought out by the opposite sex, Olympic athletes and American Idols they're a failure. They beat themselves up and worse, they stop trying. They stop trying to be better, to think harder, to take a different angle on something. They give up because they've bought into this air brushed, pedestaled ideal of "how its supposed to be" and if its not that way it doesn't count.

I flat-footed and bold-faced rebuke that idea.

When did it become a mortal sin to fail at something? I've heard failure regarded as the last great American taboo. We won't talk about it. We fear it. We hedge up our entire lives avoiding it, denying that it even exists. Well - its here, its real, its an everyday reality and most importantly its NOT our enemy.

I may be an absolute fool but failing at something isn't a crime. If you only stay on a meal plan for 2 weeks or if you fail a class or if you lose a game or declare bankruptcy. That's not the worst it can get. Those aren't good things by any means, but they're not the worst thing either. GIVING UP is a much greater offense. Not trying again, not learning, not growing, losing love for yourself - THAT is greater sin. That is what my prayer is that we can shift our cultural disgust for that character flaw.

Its a delicate insanity that we even subscribe to this perfection thing because we're all human. We all make mistakes. We all get angry. We've all skinned our knees. We've all broken someone's heart or drove by someone that needed help. We've ALL cursed at one point or another. We all have scars. And you know what, all that to me is beautiful. All of that is a lived life. And the fact that people are still getting up, are still saying their prayers, are still attempting to tell someone that they love that they love them, to love themselves. THAT is excellence. That is real courage, to not be defeated by the mistakes you made yesterday.

I mean, where did we even pick up this idea that we have the luxury of giving up? Life doesn't stop because of one defeat, one disappointment, even a string of defeats or disappointments. Life is a 90/10 game. 90% of our day is muck, it's struggle, its heartache (and believe me, I'm carrying a very heavy heart right now), its inconvenience and dirt. But 10% is pay off, is getting it right, and getting it right the right way (that does mean something and makes sense. Just think about it a little), and you know what. I'm OK with that.

I know I have a good many regions in my life that I need to improve, that I've failed at, but you know what? I am not my defeats. I am the string of small moments after those defeats that gets back up and tries again.

And - well - thats all I have to say I guess. Be nicer to yourselves and keep trying.

The Grumps

I've got a pretty bad case of them right now and I don't know why.

I've been trying to figure it out as well as the people around me I regularly have to deal with. Mom did her best by so artfully and discreetly asked me full voice in Target the other day "Are you going to menstruate soon?" The answer was no. These are legitimate grumps.

I don't like being grouchy so I've been trying to shake it off and nothing is working. My first move is almost always hanging out with friends but they've just ended up annoying me more. Next move was Disneyland. That almost always does the trick but the day ended up being a barely contained bitch-fit on my part. Movies typically trigger some endorphins but all I've been getting are bad dreams.

I had one the other night where I was in my old house in Pasadena and my brother tried to kill me so I had to flee but we were living in this apocalyptic warfare state and I couldn't get to Kansas to safely be with my best friend. We got mugged along the way and my computer got stolen and I was convulsively crying and rocking over my empty laptop case in my dream when I popped awake thinking note to self - do not watch Matrix movies AND Terminator movies in the same week. Too may post apocalyptic scenes in the noggin.

I think that the stress of looking for a job, interviewing for a job and just being unemployed is weighting on me so much that its exhausting all of my other energy that is typically put towards stuff like Patience. So as a result things that typically don't bug me are really getting to me.

Like the broken water temperature lever in the shower, typically I just deal but I almost put my hand through the shower doors the other day. Getting violent? Over the temperature of water? Who am I?

Maybe the NBA Finals has upped my aggression towards the world in general. This is why I backed off of water polo. I'm not a naturally competitive person so the only way I could rise to the water polo occasion was to get aggressive in the angry kind of way and it started to leak into every aspect of my life and I didn't like it.

I can be a very severe, critical, impatient and over baring person if left to my own means. You know how when a yard goes unchecked and tended that it gets all overgrown and brown and snarly? I become a raging demanding diva if I go unchecked. I don't like being like that at all. No one likes dealing with someone like that so I decided to change. However, dealing with this latest trial has left a lot of things go unchecked and I'm not quite sure to get a handle on them.

Like, I almost fired a friend the other day because we were on the phone and he was venting about this class hes taking with this scattered teacher that I had had before. He said he was venting to another person as well who had taken the class that I might know and then he started to attempt to describe her to me. She apparently was tall and bigger built much like myself and he didn't know how to describe girls to girls because unless they're anorexic they get super sensitive about anything you might say but I'm not too hard on the eyes because hes still talking to me right?

.........

I literally pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it like "what on earth...."

I had no response but an overwhelming desire to bring the conversation to a close and possibly erase his number when I was done.

Maybe I need a day at the Huntington. Sadly, a few hours with a punching bag sounds much more relaxing at this moment. Who am I?

I kind of want to go find a dude ranch in the middle of Montana and take a job as a cook and leave all of the stupidity of YSA life and urban living and post-grad pressures to the birds. The older I get the less I care about all of it. All I want is a dog and a garden and a nearby mountain to hike. The rat race is NOT WORTH IT! Its pointless insatiable agony for agony's sake. I can deal with hardship if I know *why*. War time is agony but you're defending your family and country. Childbirth is agony but its for your kids. This totally doesn't count for anything.

My birthday is coming up too and that's never a relaxing time for me.

I'm broke and I have all these places I want to go and people I need to see, like my very pregnant sister in law that is moving this weekend and needs help putting a nursery together and guess who can't come to Salt Lake to help? That's right. Me.

I haven't seen my best friend in a year. That is difficult.

Everything is just difficult

And feeling sorry for myself doesn't help or change a bloody thing. I know.

Things aren't all bad. I have a lot to be grateful for.

- despite the fact that I annoy them or they annoy me, I have an amazing family and group of people who love me and who I desperately love
- I'm healthy (relatively) and disease free. Getting cancer or something could put a damper on things I realize
- The Lakers are in the NBA finals
- my nails are growing in nicely
- my laptop didn't get stolen, it was just a dream
- I've got a safe and warm place to sleep
- There are no machines after me trying to kill me. Not yet at least
- I have an education
- I have a car

I have a lot to be grateful for. I'm just doing my best to shake grumps. Wish me luck.

April is Possibly a Perfect Month

General Conference
Coachella
Spring at the Huntington
Easter
Baseball Opening Day
The NBA Playoffs

and new starts in general.

I know that I've been a bit absent as of late. I've had a number of things going on so I'll try to cover them all with as much accuracy that my 3 tps of wit allows. April has been a rather amazing month.

I've glossed over my Coachella experience already.



* I started a job last month that kind of takes up A LOT of my time. More than it should. I have a lot to say about my job but the first rule of blogging is don't blog about work so I won't. Nevertheless, remind me when you see me for an update because - well - lets just say I feel like I'm in a REALLY bad comedy sometimes.



* Its finally starting to warm up and I find myself a bit sad. I kind of like crispy, clear-aired weather but I love sun too. I went to the Huntington the other Saturday, found a patch of welcoming grass in the rose garden (which is in full bloom right now) and just thawed. It was lovely. It was also kind of funny because my brother called me mid-grass stretch and we started talking about the playoff game the day before. There was a couple sitting on the bench a few feet from me. They weren't conversing at all, she was enraptured in the garden and he had that bored-to-the-point-of-pain look on his face. My brother and I were in a animated Kobe vs. LeBron conversation and I noticed him listening with pointed earnest from a far. I found it rather funny.



* Its the playoffs. The Lakers are in the Conference Semis right now and winning very well. Not at this exact moment, the Huston Rockets are dirty little mean players and have drawn blood more than once. I hope they're all in ace bandages and eye patches when we finally send them home. Grrrr



* I had a lovely random Thursday this last week. Random because I found myself in Hollywood at my favorite music joint with a Facebook friend. I wasn't sure how I knew him or met him, he was a CalPoly person so I thought maybe we had had a class together and I just didn't recognize him but apparently he just was searching for people with similar interests and found and befriended me. We've been in loose communication for a while and this The Rescues concert was coming up at the Hotel Cafe so we decided to go together. He had been kind of flirty online for a bit and then he changed his tone and started saying he felt like I was his "long lost Mormon Little Sister". How guarded can you get? I don't mean to be a brat, but between my real brothers and cousins I have as many male relations as I think I can handle. He had just broken up with someone so I get that space is kind of necessary. I think I'm wholly date worthy so getting this kind of pussyfooted emotional circumlocution not just from LDS guys but non too was a bit of an annoyance. I didn't want to miss out on the concert so I decided to go anyway.

Hanging out was weird enough, but he brought another "friend of his" that hes "sweet on" to the concert half way through. He told me he had wanted her to come but she didn't buy tickets or anything so I just thought we were going to hang out. But low and behold, I became a third wheel and the "little sister" to someone I barely know as well as with people that I've known forever. It was all just weird but I was determined not to have my night ruined. The people were cool enough and the music was AWESOME so I felt the night was a win, I don't think we're going to hang out again though. Not impressed. Not at all.

However, everyone that reads this blog needs to go check out The Rescues right now. They're phenomenal. I think I found my next album to be addicted to.

Sara Ramirez (Callie from Grey's Anatomy) was there and introduced the group and so was Mayor Villaraigosa. Yup - I met the mayor at a rock concert in Hollywood. Only in Los Angeles. He is a tiny little man and was quite drunk. When he shook my hand he grabbed my elbow with his other hand to steady himself. It was quite an experience. So yeah - if I were to sum up the night it would be "Awkward guys, garden burgers, transformative music and the Mayor".



* While watching the Laker game this last Monday I got a call from my bishopric member asking me to speak in two weeks and to speak on Elaine Dalton's talk from the Oct 08 Conference called "A Return to Virtue". He also pointed out that the theme for the ward this year is "Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly" so essentially the bishop has passed off the quarterly chastity talk to me. I'm laughing like a loon to myself. How funny can it get. Asking the hippie's daughter to address Chastity? I CAN'T WAIT to have a podium to talk about. I'll probably be sorting out some of my thoughts on here and asking for feedback sometime this week so you've been warned.



*I went to the Ren Faire last weekend for the first time and it was magical. I ran into a few people I was hoping not to but what can you do? We saw an amazing joust and our knight was pretty hot. He was one of the good guys too. We didn't stay for the Death Match at the end of the day but I'm sure he won. He has a really friendly horse too. Wendy got us all garbed up and we were all proper maids, scallywags and belly dancers. We had the munchkins in cloaks and spend the day throwing axes and eating turkey legs and listening to hammered dulcimers and watching nobles parade about and play blinds man bluff and got flirted with and harangued by the royal guards. Just a typical day at the Faire. I loved it. And taking in the Faire with your former professor who is a medievalist and her chemical engineer husband, ridiculously brilliant children and old classmates/bosom friends is a rare and glorious thing.

It's been a pretty amazing month. I'll keep you posted better in the future. I promise. Once things start balancing out.

Post Secret Night

So I'm a sucker for meaty lectures and I've been looking forward to this event for a while.

The creator of Post Secret, Frank Warren, will be giving a lecture at the University of Redlands on Tuesday the 17th and I'm going. Anyone that wants to come is welcome. It's a public event, it's free and its going to be amazing.

I really appreciate the ethos behind Post Secret. Frank was carrying around a secret for decades and started this blog where he invited people to anonymously write down their secrets on a single postcard, send them to him, and he would post them. His thought was that secrets weigh us down and keep us from being ourselves so when we share them and give them away we liberate ourselves. Its turned into this remarkable nationwide community art project. He has had exhibitions everywhere and over 4 different books published consisting of these amazing postcards.

I think Frank is an original and would love the chance to listen to him for a few hours.

I'm a bit of a nerd in this respect actually. I frequently stalk the CalTech's Public Events series too. Learning is awesome and heck! Its free. :)

And its Made All the Difference

I graduated from college on Saturday.

Well - not really. I finished my classes in December and my degree says "seventh day of December two thousand and seven" but June 14th was the date of commencement. That's when I turned the tassel and shook hands and walked the line so that makes it official.

I initially didn't want to walk and deal with all the hoopla but my mom wanted me to. Life kind of exploded for our family in December. Jonathan got married, Nick went on his mission and I finished my undergrad. Needless to say we decided to postpone graduation festivities.

I was just as feet draggy when it came time to walk for my AA back in 01, I just wanted my piece of paper and to slip off into the night but my friends were adamant about me walking with them and when I was sitting with them, robed and standing up in front of my leaders and community I really appreciated them forcing the issue. There is something very important about ceremony, about recognition of accomplishments, that I had forgotten and that I had forgotten was important to me. I worked and cried and bled and agonized over this degree and I earned the right to walk the line, so I did.

It's nearly impossible not to be nostalgic and reflective around times like this. You naturally take inventory of the time you spent and the people you knew and the person that you've become that's all reflected in that little piece of paper.

My college experience has been varied and beautifully singular, just like everyone else's. When I first went into college in the fall of 1996 I started work on a two year degree. I only saw music in my future. I loved to sing, I was good at it, it brought me joy so what else was there right? I declared myself and Opera major and all was right in my world for a month or two. It didn't take me long to learn about the dense and dysfunctional political world surrounding music and theater and that I didn't have the stomach for it.

I was focused on going on my mission at the time so I left music and played water polo, tennis, threw myself into student government and took a regular load of Humanities courses until I went on my mission. I left for Washington DC in Aug of 99.

After I got home in Feb of 2001 my hopes of immediate marriage and family didn't materialize so I applied to CalPoly Pomona, the local 4 year.

I wanted to teach and I wanted to keep the Spanish I had learned on my mission so I applied for "Liberal Studies bilingual option". Orientation was exciting and we were about to get our tutorial for how to register that night and the man said "if you want to teach on the secondary level you need to declare your subject and then credential in that". Well Humanities is just a fancy way of saying "English" so off I went traipsing the strange and hilly CalPoly campus looking for the English building. I was registering in a matter of hours and we had priority and the list of classes I had just planed the next 2 years around had just become obsolete. I needed to find the English Dept office, get a new sheet of required classes, figure out a schedule and get on the phone all within a matter of hours. After 2 hours my pace went from a traipse to a saunter to a frustrated strut to a full on panic jog. I couldn't find the bloody place, no one was on campus to ask and the map they had given me was looking more like Orange county's farm land than a college campus. However, I did find the biology building (it was pratically a crystalline castle that you could see from space) and biology was my second choice (that's a blog for another day) so I took it as a sign that since I could find that building that was what I was supposed to do. So for a whole year I was a declared Micro-biology major. I loved it, we got to do some fun genetic research and I felt awesome and empowered. I had taken the course completely different from either one of my parents. Mom was an English major with a Theater and Art History minor and dad was an Accounting undergrad.

Go me. I was original.

But I wasn't too happy. I was working full time. I've worked full time since I've gotten home from my mission and all the lab time and study time was leaving me with about 3 hours of sleep a night.

Then funding changed. My income disqualified me from the grants I was riding on and the student loan option came up and even though I was working on a very lucrative degree I was hesitant to go into debt over it.

I had kept an English class in my schedule every quarter just to make sure I didn't burst from logarithms, percentiles or DNA sequences, so I had racked up a good amount of English Lit credits, enough for a minor. So randomly one day, while driving around looking for a parking spot (a regular tedious activity at CalPoly) the thought occurred to me to flip my major and my minor and finish faster thereby avoiding unnecessary debt. English major, micro-biology minor, and for some totally irrational reason, all the reservations I had about going into debt totally disappeared with that thought. Even though it was a less marketable degree I was more OK with it. Content even

So I thought, If I'm more willing to go into debt over this degree I'll probably be happier dedicating my life to it.

I'll never forget it, the day I made that decision I found a parking spot and went to my Organic Chemistry class, which is a fancy name for "torturous calculus for no good reason at all". WHO CARES about the percentages of where an electron will be and in which orbital on a molecule? I mean, really... Anyway, I listened to my professor for exactly 5 minutes, got up, and found my way to the English building (which I later learned we shared with the Music, Theater and Foreign Language departments and it says "Music" - thats why I got confused that first day) and just marched into the first class I saw and sat down and breathed easy for the first time in a year.

It took me that long to figure out that part of who I was, admit it, and have the courage to do what would actually make me happy instead of what I thought would glow on a resume.

Its been the best thing I've ever done and I haven't looked back. Not once.

In the English department I met people who have changed my life forever, both students and teachers. The people I shared Chaucer, Milton and Calvino with are now some of my dearest friends who I don't know what I'd do without.

But what I fell in love with more than my fellow students or the text was the Faculty.

This is my Alison. Dr. Alison Baker. She's a lot of people's Alison but she's mine too. This woman is a miracle and probably the reason I made it through. She is our Medievalist on campus and taught 8 of the 20 Core Lit classes I took. Milton, Chaucer, Renaissance Lit, the Capstone, Early European Lit, Epics, Folklore etc. All the really complicated daunting stuff that you need to know but hardly know how to approach. Alison not only knew her stuff backwards and forwards but she made it fun and applicable. She made me read the ENTIRE Canterbury tales in the Middle English and made us memorize the first 10 lines of the Prologue in the Middle English. She pounded me through all of Paradise Lost and ALL of the Inferno. Things I never thought I'd be able to do. We talked about Norse myths alongside the Smurfs and Odysseus along side HeMan. She was first one I saw off the stage that night, the first hug, the first picture and the first tear while saying goodbye. I owe her more than I can possibly ever convey and she is more than I could hope to be.

This is Dr. Kramer (left) and Dr. Rocklin (right). We're on stairs, Dr. Kramer isn't 15 feet tall. Dr. Kramer was my Lit theory professor and he was able to teach me Deconstruction where so many people had failed. Derrida actually meant something to be besides another Frenchman that knew more than I did. That was a miracle. He was also my creative writing teacher and I hear his voice in my head every time I go back to my book I've been pecking at for years. I brought in my first chapter one class and he said "well I want to read the rest of it!" and that had kept me going.

Dr. Rocklin is another one of the coolest professors ever. You see him from 100 yards and you just know - that's a Literature professor. The fedora, the elbow patches on the blazer that rarely match his slacks, the dilapidated car that probably had Nixon on its radio at one point. He lives the dream. He is our Shakespearian and a master. He was one of the few who really made me rethink what a question was an why do we ask them. He doesn't believe in any kind of boxes or thinking inside or outside of them. There is just meaning and it's different incarnations. Whether its a prop in a play or an intonation in performance or a posture or an aside or a comma. What it means is what matters. I've never been able to stomach Hamlet or MacBeth but I ate them up under Rocklin's instruction. He is a genius in so many respects. He's changed my mental landscape forever.

This is Dr. Corley and I don't think I can respect a man more than I do him. Dr. Corley is our Americanist. He made his way through Berkley on the GI bill and is still on reserve in the Army as a corporal (I believe). He's been to Iraq 3 times and let us all know that he'll go back if asked at the beginning of the quarter so there was always that lurking possibility that we could loose him. So, not only has this man put his life on the line multiple times in defense of America, but he has dedicated his life to the study and teaching of it's art. I took him for American Literature and learned Whitman at his feet. Whitman lived through the Civil War and wrote most of his best stuff during that time. Have you ever heard a soldier's poetry read by a solider? I have, and its unspeakably moving. I cried. Right there, in the middle of class. The only time I was ever moved to tears by a teacher's reading was in Dr. Corley's class reading Leaves of Grass. He is a giant among men. I really hope every guy that took his class took MANY pages out of his book to paste in their own. A knight without armor that one is.

I probably won't realize the full extent of their influence till I'm in front of my own class and I hear myself say "It's all connected" or "What is X? What does X mean? What does X do?" but for now I'm sitting pretty warm and fuzzy and light years better for being where I've been and seeing what I've seen and finally making it through.

That night after all the insanity when mom, dad and I were nestled in at The Melting Pot dad asked me what were some of my best memories of college and I only saw faces of people. It took me forever to get to CalPoly and to the English department to be guided and shaped by these amazing people. It was road less traveled and it has made all the difference.

Laundry Lightbulbs

I love doing laundry.

Yes - it can be a bit tedious, repetitive and has this nasty habit of taking all day to do.

Sort, iron, hang, match-fold, match-fold, match-fold. Sort, hang, sort, hang, fold fold fold.

But what I love about it is that it's something that only requires just a smidgen of focus, brain power, and physicality. It mobilizes all of the lower brain and motor functions just enough to loose to top of your head to go where it will so I find that it's marvelous pondering time for me.

I've had a few major "ah-ha!"s before during the laundry hour and this week was one of them.

In the face of uncertain Grad School opportunities and thinking about suitable Plan B's (ie: Peace Corps, making a go at the novel writing thing, doing freelance journalism, attempting freelance journalism, staying where I am and waiting out the recession with a cushy 401K and health insurance...) I found myself bemoaning the fact that I didn't feel very good at anything.

Like I've always wanted to be REALLY GOOD at something. Like so good it was undeniable and doing anything else with my life would be unthinkable. It would make Plan As and Plan Bs much much much easier. Also, after reading this article by one of my favorite LA Times columnists last week I felt even more inadequate.

How I'd love to have Mozart that melts hearts come pouring out of my fingertips or be such an amazing writer that "it was just a matter of time" instead of a "Hail-Mary shot in the dark" kind of operation. Like - why am I not singularly passionate about one thing - like cars, clothes, aerobics, water purification, shoveling or dinosaurs like so many are? Why am I just very interested in almost everything and know and have talent enough to hold my own in a cocktail party conversation or a road show?

I was feeling ordinary and undistinguished most of the week and pretty much just hoping for the best. It wasn't the best headspace I've ever been in, I'll admit. Later in the week I was listening to my BYU Talks Podcast. I was on one President Hinkley gave in September last year called True to the Faith. In it he quotes the Fortune article "What it takes to be Great" by Geoffrey Colvin and turned my whole previously constructed paradigm upside down.

"An article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine indicated that we will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. . . . The good news is that [our] lack of a natural gift is irrelevant—talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. . . Nobody is great without work."

"the good news is [our] lack of natural gift is irrelevant - talent has little or nothing to do with greatness"

Well that was the best news I've heard all week. My problem isn't the fact that I'm not talented, just lazy, and that is entirely within my control. It may seem like a censuring comment but I can't tell you how strangely liberated I felt. Stuff Calvin and his Calvinism. I had just heard it, from the mouth of a Prophet, it’s about the time and effort, not the talent.

This wasn't something that I hadn't heard before or once believed not to be true. I've been intimately acquainted with the virtues of hard work. But this week, with the ideas that were taking root with melancholy and defeat, these ideas shattered them all like ice on a rosebush.

My mediocrity is my own fault only because I would not take the time, efforts, pains or make the sacrifices to be great and when I went back and reread that article about Robert Gupta I realized he was just a bundle of hard work too. There was talent in there as well, but it was mostly his heart never giving up.

So there I was, hangers in hand, realizing (without self deprecation) that my life is totally and completely within the grasp of greatness. I just have to claim it, and the only currency they take at the entrance is grueling hard work.

I'm still mulling over the different avenues in life that I feel are worthy of the kind of sacrifice and commitment Mr. Colvin and President Hinkley are talking about, but I feel much more confident and empowered this week. Hard work doesn't scare me, it never has, and I have had tastes of what 100% passionate commitment to something can bring. Missions are very useful in that facet.

I may never end up on Oprah, but I'll sure as heck deserve to be by the time I'm done. Just you see.

Decisions:

I think I'm at one of those cross sections thingies in life.

I just graduated. (yayay Liz :D)

And I'm getting ready for Grad School but I have a little bit of time and a few options. There are a lot actually - there are so many "what ifs" it makes my head hurt so I think I need to write all this out and down to get some clarity. Advice welcome...

Objective
A teaching position in an English Program at the College or University level.

Needed items
A graduate degree, knowing someone in the program, and teaching experience

Grad School Game Plan

-If I get accepted to a PhD program at the U and am offered that Fellowship I will start teaching and taking classes there in August.

-If I don't get accepted at the U I'll go on with the Master's program at Cal Poly also starting in August and start working my way around the local Junior Colleges looking for entry points into their English Programs.

Option 1)

With my youngest brother reporting to the MTC and my older brother getting ready to move closer to his job I could move home to save money and keep a better eye on my rapidly aging parents, continue in my current employment which has healthy benefits, is close to home, would be a great position if I go to Grad School at Cal Poly, but consists being inside a grey life sucking cubicle in a morguely silent office, in front of a computer screen with - uh - "characters" for superiors.

Pros- Option 1:
- Save scads of $ and pay off car thereby entering Grad School completely debt free
- only drive 7 minutes to work thereby feeling properly green and less exhausted.
- If volunteering time at a JC is necessary I would be financially OK going part time to free up my schedule
- downsizing of stuff with the move home would facilitate a possible jump to SLC

Cons - Option 1:
- Packing up my entire existing apartment into storage/Goodwill/or Craig's list
- Figuring out how to live with my mother again
- Moving back out once Grad School starts (either here or there) and loosing the sweet deal I have on my place right now (that I love love love)

Option 2
Don't move home, keep working at the same job and wait to hear from the U.

Pros - Option 2:
- Keeping my own apartment, space, time, and privacy a healthy distance from my amazing and devoted family

Cons - Option 2:
- loosing the opportunity to get financially ahead
- continue to drive almost 45 mile a day commuting

Option 3
Take a job cleaning celebrity Hawaiian Villas on Maui for $35/hour till August and then come home when Grad School starts.

Pros - Option 3:
- Living in Hawaii
- Getting a chance to recharge my batteries from my Bachelors before I start Grad School
- Learning to surf
- Fulfilling my lifelong dream of seeing tropical water
- Getting to write on the beach on my days off
- Having a job that is active and plays to some of my greatest joys in live (IE: cleaning)
- Being paid nearly twice what I'm making now and having cost of living be the same as it is here.

Cons - Option 3:
- Having to pack up my existing apt in to storage/Goodwill/Craig's List
- ........

So whats the call? I'm so very tired...

Paper Snowflakes and Pipecleaner Stars

Introspection is a Hydra of a virtue.

And the meatiest food for it are times of transition. It's a scientific principle. Activity on the surface of a body of water causes all of the particles or impurities settled at the bottom of the system to surface and I feel like I'm in a wind storm.

Graduation
Grad School preparation
Realizing that I have to take the GRE in 6 short weeks
Looking at transcripts

I feel like everywhere I've tread lately I've had to look pretty intensely at myself and I have to say that I have found myself very *sigh*ordinary. This is the one thing that I've always wanted to avoid. There is very little luster and excitement in being ordinary. And its a bit of a shock because I've always thought I had a little bit of amazing tucked inside my back pocket. Some sparkly diadem that I kept in the corner of my character and that I could pull out and remind myself that I have a Queen's name and a Hero's destiny. And to a small extent I think I still do. I know there are contributions that only I can make and that I fully intend on making, I always just thought I'd be in a sparkly ball gown making them. But the more I've honestly looked around me lately I've realized that I'm not walking through life in one of Carol Channing's best, I'm in my standard by flip flops, jeans and a tee shirt and always have been.

I'm not the first person all of my friends call to hang out. I'm probably not even the second or third. I'm not the one people talk about when "who they want to be like" comes up. I'm not "statuesque" and I'm not the girl they want their brothers to marry. Not their first choice at least. There isn't someone across the room that has been hopelessly in love with me since childhood. I don't have a wild romance just waiting for me somewhere and it's just a matter of time till I find it or it finds me and I'll probably never have stories of suitors crawling underneath the doors and in the windows like mother does. I know I'm lovable and that I will settle down with someone. It just won't be on the jumbo tron with a Tiffany ring.

I used to think I was funny - like the hilarious kind. Like it was only a matter of time till people were writing down my every twist of phrase for publishing and YouTube glory. But I've come to realize I'm not. I'm not a bore but I'm not really funny. I'm not even the funniest in my group of friends. I do have downright hilarious friends though. Like, I wonder why they're all not famous and hope they'll remember me when they are. And don't even get me started on how amazingly hilarious and witty my family is. I can hang, but I'm not leading the pack.

I used to think that my life was fascinating. That if people didn't want to hear my stories then they were just too boring to understand. But as my blog has given me evidence I am not a journalist documenting my efforts for peace in Israel, I'm not an amazing mom raising a fascinating child, I'm not a vogue editor keeping a blog to satirize my insane world, I don't have a THING in my life that is so all-encompassing that I can find enough material and thought for a whole blog. I've just spent way too much time at the movie theater and in my own head to realize that, to see anything beyond the end of my nose.

I used to think that I was brilliant. And, honestly, I have had a few moments where my professors have sat down with paper and pen and asked me to repeat what I just said and told the class to do the same. But I've come to understand that it's not a general condition and it never was. It was a moment. Just a moment where I was my best and other people were there to share it with me.

Tyler Durden says that a moment is all we can ever expect from perfection and that we're not unique snowflakes and to just lose hope in everything because that's the only way to ever be free. I can't even tell you how much I don't agree with that. But I do agree with this -

"We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. "

The boys get pissed off and they want to fight each other and bleed like Brad Pitt to vindicate that they don't feel in control of their lives and destinies. Us girls have watched the same shows and commercials and we don't want to beat up other people, just ourselves. Because, honestly, its my fault. It's my own fault that I'm ordinary.

I mean - doesn't every saucy English Major have a spot on Oprah's couch? Do I need to get through school without limbs and a weight problem to qualify? Well I'm half way there I suppose.

I think I'm a very lucky girl because I am surrounded with the extraordinary. I live in the best place in the world. I have one of the world's most brilliant and good looking families. I have magnificent friends and good books to read and tons of places to explore. I have a laptop and Google to help me find them and amazing people to take with me. I've got this blog as my own little corner of the universe to pour my brain out into. I have plenty for the B student that I am and I am fully aware of it.

Will I ever rid the ocean of trash? no - Do I still want to? Absolutely
Will I expose the true perpetrators of 9/11 and bring them to justice? Probably not - Do I still think I should? Absolutely
Will I ever be on Oprah's speed dial? Probably not. Is it still an awesome idea? Of course
Am I going to turn 30 and be everything I feared to be when I was 18? Probably. Is that necessarily a bad thing? The jury is still out.

It's still out on a lot of things and a life can change in the blink of an eye. So for tonight, right now, this is were I am. This is who I am - and frankly ordinary isn't half bad. And I hear those sequin gowns are really uncomfortable anyway.