Unicorns are Totally Real

Sometimes I just crave adults. I realize that I am now twenty, which makes that last sentence a little suspect, but true nonetheless. I certainly don’t feel twenty. Twenty(s) is when people get married. They start being mature. They get jobs. They talk about politics.

Friends, I still blow bubbles regularly. I’m about a hundred times more likely to read a food blog than a political article. And a few nights ago, when I couldn’t sleep, I spent a half hour coming up with ten reasons why unicorns could totally be real.

Let’s not be hasty in our application of the term “adult,” huh?

Anyway, as much as I adore being at college, being surrounded by people who are in this thing they call the prime of our life, I sometimes feel like walking up to my teachers and begging them to talk to me. Not about essays, or tests, or anything that has anything to do with whatever it is I study in their class.

No, I don’t want help with the assignment. I want wisdom. I want someone to tell me a story that comes from experience. Preferably someone who has had more than twenty years of experience. I want my English teachers to show me things they wrote when they were my age, and invite me over for dinner. I want them to tell me about their lives and ask me about mine.  I want to go up to them and say, “If you knew me, and knew what was going on with me right now, not only would you not assign this essay, you’d take me out for ice cream and lend me a few really good books.”

But I don’t. I don’t annoy my teachers with my craving for the influence of people—but especially women—older and wiser than me. And thus far I haven’t gone in to talk to any of the school councilors. This is partly because I don’t think craving adult supervision qualifies as therapy worthy, and partly because if it does, I don’t really want to know about it.

So instead I blow bubbles, read food blogs, and wonder about unicorns.

I don’t need therapy.

http://lair2000.net/Unicorn_Dreams/Unicorn_History/modern_unicorns.html

The Irony Department

Have you ever watched any Inside the Actor's Studio? (Youtube it.) It's this collection of interviews with actors. They tell their lives story and talk about movies that they've worked on. At the end of the interview they're always asked the same questions. Stuff like, what's your favorite word? What's your favorite curse word? One of the questions is, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? George Clooney said, "I'd like him to say-- Come on in, Rosemary's singing, Nat Cole is playing piano... they're singing Always."

Now I've thought about this and come up with several answers. First of all, I'd really like a hug. Seriously, if I make it to heaven, I feel like a hug will be in order. I'd also really like to hear, "The library is this way." But recently I've been thinking that, before the library, I'm going to need to go see the Irony Department.

There are irony offices in heaven. Officially they're called the Irony Department, or ID, or (because they just think they're so clever) Id. There are probably different divisions in the office. You know. Like maybe they have one for dramatic irony, one for situational irony. I'm not sure. But I am pretty sure that the offices are largely populated by writers. Because you can't really be a writer without taking thismuch pleasure in other people's pain. (Or THISMUCH. That works too.)

Betcha that Jane Austen is there. And Jonathan Swift. Every snarky writer that ever lived, they all get together and plot about how to make the world poetically miserable.

These are the people who sit up in the clouds on their swivel chairs and say, "You don't like that person? Really? Then you should run into them every single place you go." Or there'll be an intern who'll say, "Hm. Marissa just studied six hours for her test. You know what we're going to do? We're going to have her know everything on the test--but she isn't going to read the directions right, so she'll get a B anyway." And then the guy in the cubicle over says, "Hey, why limit yourself? Might as well have that happen on two tests on the same day, right?" And then they both rub their hands together and cackle evilly. You have to have an evil laugh to work there.

They like to tell themselves that they're in charge of God's sense of humor.

I hate them. I want to work there when I die. But I hate them.

Maybe they already know that I want to work there, and all this stuff, all the irony that keeps popping up, is hazing. They mess with me a ton now, and then when I die, when I charge into the office, and demand to know who thought that was funny, they'll tell me very innocently that all that was just training. You know. So I'd have some idea of what it is that they do there.

I've been thinking about it recently, though, and I'm pretty sure I've found the person who got it worst from Id. Lot's wife is the grand winner. Not just because getting turned into salt sort of stinks, but because the irony wasn't even clear until the Sermon on the Mount. Because, you see, now Lot's wife literally is the salt of the earth.

...Ba-dum ching.

I'm going to go work on my evil laugh now.

Camel Humps

I've developed a sort of fascination with my finger joints. I mean, look at yours. They're a few pieces of bone sewn together with skin and cartilage. And they move so easily! Without squeaking! Which puts them at a definite advantage over many of the doors I've encountered lately.

This is what happens when I go to college. I can't decide if it's because I get so tired that I'm a little fuzzy in my skull or if college pokes the monster that is my curiosity and the beast doesn't like being approached. So I get curious, and interested. In everything. Maybe it's a self-preservation mechanism. I'm being fed all this information and my mind is like, well, as long as it's here...

Listen, say there is a landslide, right? And there are some houses on the land that slid. So House A slid down onto to Land B where House B used to be. Who is responsible for removing the house? Most of the people I've asked roll their eyes at me, especially when they find out that it's purely hypothetical.

Was the Star of Bethlehem literal, or is it a methaphor?

Did they build my school at the top of a hill for the metaphorical value (you know, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid), or was it just general cruelty?

What are camels humps made of?

*http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/dromedary-camel/

Notes From My Phone *typos included in the spirit of authenticity

“Failure is a part of life. Not my life, but, you know, some people.”

“Have you been asking any of your hipster boyfriends if they’re selling a bike.”

“no.”

“but I want a hipster bike!”

“I haven’t had a hipster boyfriend in like two monthes now! I’m going clean!”

Pr 6058 A68828 C 461999

Modernization and tradition, interpersonal relations, and between the living and the debt.

It’s funny how any negative feelings can suddenly become homesickness. Physical pain, anger, lonliness, it all turns into this organ hollowing desire to be laying on the grass in my front yard and hear my calling me in to dinner.

G17X5

Only kings, professors, and madmen use the royal we.

Razors. Olive Oil. Baggies. Beans. Nuts. Tortillas. Canned Soup. Fruit. Yogurt. Feta.

No matter how far the human race advances we cannot seem to get over our obsession with shiny things.

1 c brown sugar

½  sugar

1 T vanilla

1 c butter

½ t salt

1 b soda

My dad wrecked three cars growing up. He paid for one of them. I don’t know if it was the first one or the last one. He spent a summer at Zions in 103 degree weather, digging holes to make up for a few moments of confusion that ended in the dismemberment of two car doors.

Mailboxes, For Your Information

Once I directed friends to my house by telling them that I was the second duct-taped mailbox down the street on the left.

This is no longer true. My neighbors replaced their embarrassment with a more sturdy stone model. My mailbox, however, remains, though the tape itself has been replaced several times. The tape is going through a blue period right now. This is impermanent—Dad says that he’s going to buy orange for Halloween and red or green for Christmas.

According to my mom our mailbox has been on its last leg since we moved here, about seventeen years ago. I can’t remember it then, only its present incarnation--a rusty pole upholding a teetering grey box with a rounded top, covered in tape. My first memory of it is when my little sister’s friend scribbled, Come down and play, on the side of it with a rock.

You can still see the remnants of the writing slanting across its increasingly faded exterior.

Mom bought a new shiny red mailbox, but its still sitting in our garage. As residue from her less feminist days, my mom insists that putting up mailboxes (like stringing Christmas lights) is a man's job and Dad has steadfastly refused to put it up. 

We're unable to determine if that is due to his general disinclination to fix/repair/install anything, or the defiant pride he has in our mailbox's similarly defiant ugliness and absolute refusal to fall to time or weather.

Insecurities, Why I Will Never Be a Heroine... Oh, and a Book List

I was asked for book recommendations a few weeks ago and felt utterly overcome with responsibility. What if you didn't like the books I recommended? Or, like always happens every time I recommend a TV show, I've forgotten something in them that will make you very uncomfortable? Or I leave a book out that deserves its place on my shelf of favorites? And what if I make my favorites sound worse than they are by trying to be honest about them? And what if I'm no good at reviews?

I have overcome these fears by not thinking about them. Which seems to be my new approach to fears and things I don't like in general. What's that you say? Avoidance? So?

Thus, in no particular order, here are my favorite books.

Peace Like a River: 

Told from the perspective of a little boy, Rueben, I love nearly all the characters in this book, particularly Rueben's sister Swede. But I think what makes it one of my favorites is that it's a book about miracles--about the mercy and attentiveness of God--that doesn't get cutesy or preachy. Instead, it's a story in which miracles occur and largely go unnoticed, or freak people out. The downside of this book is that, like so many others, the ending feels rushed.

How to Kill a Mockingbird:

You all should have read this in high school. If you were deprived of that opportunity, go pick it up from the library. If you used sparknotes or intuition to get by on the tests, go pick it up from the library. And if you read and thought, "That was nice," but it didn't make you laugh or cry hard, go pick it up from the library. That's all.

The Elegance of a Hedgehog: 

I adore this book. I love this book. I recognize that this book is not for everyone. It's plot is slow to start, and slow to pick up. It's a book that is largely concerned with people and ideas and, so, will dwell on them for quite a long time. Also, there is this side plot concerning suicide which can be thematically disturbing. And while we're being completely honest about things I don't adore about this book, I have to say that I thought the ending was the product of either a lazy writer or a lazy editor.


Those things honestly sound worse than they are. What I love about The Elegance of a Hedgehog is it's main character who intelligent, funny, and utterly unorthodox in the world of fictitious heroines. I also think the language is soul-stirringly immaculate. Truly, this book is worth reading if only for the vocabulary boost. I think we often read, or participate in any kind of art really, because we want to feel a certain way. When I'm stressed out I listen to cello music, and read this book (and, yes, eat lots of chocolate) and I feel better.

Howls Moving Castle:

This book is nowhere near the quality of the other books I'm recommending. There is nothing in this book that I feel the world at large should become aware of. The language is entirely adequate, the characters funny, interesting, but probably not deep. I'm recommending this book not because I think it is a triumph of modern literature, but because I like it and because I think you can't always be reading triumphs of modern literature.


Howls Moving Castle is a fantasy book about a girl who gets cursed--and turns into an old woman. Which, yeah, pretty much stinks. But instead of buying a new wardrobe of lavender and lace and feeling sorry for herself--which is probably what I would do--she runs away from home and becomes a cleaning lady or an evil wizard. And this is why I will never be a heroine.

The Book Thief:

This is one of those books that I'm pretty sure everyone has heard about. In fact, I think all of these books might be this way. Or maybe I just love them so much it's difficult for me to imagine it's not. The Book Thief is a product of genius story telling, gorgeous language, and brilliant character development. It's narrated by Death and takes place in Nazi Germany. And it is one of two books I have ever read and thought, "That was the perfect ending."

Go read it. Now.

My Metaphor

In US History I read about how some of the founding fathers thought of God as a clockmaker.















You know. Like, He made the universe. Maybe He tinkered with atoms and quarks at His work bench--the God particle came to Him in his sleep and woke Him with a flash of sheer brilliance. He smoothed out the dark satin of space, started the mechanical movement of the stars, compressed and carved a few worlds and then dusted his hands off and walked away. Said, "Well. That was fun. What else do we do around here?"

Maybe He went and created a few other universes. Maybe He took a really long nap. Or went and listened to an extremely long angel concert. But he definitely walked away. Because why else would there be starvation? And war? Why else would children be abused, and families be broken up? Why would politicians be corrupt, and everyday people be nasty?

If God were still around, these things couldn't happen. Or so thought the founding fathers. Their God was a perfectionist, intolerant of anything that wasn't as good as He was.

I thought about this for a long time. Having been extremely sheltered, my experiences with the world's evil and heartache is extremely limited. So I admit to being unqualified to explain why God allows bad things to happen to good people. But, you know, my lack of qualifications haven't really ever stopped me before.

I'll admit that what bugged me most when I read about the founding father's was not, as my friend pointed out to me, that the men who wrote about "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" did not, in fact, believe that God was around. It was mostly that they had a metaphor for how their God worked, and I didn't have one for mine.

I confess it. I'm an English major at heart. (I'm actually trying to decide if I want the rest of me to be an English major, or whether I want to isolate the impulses to my thoracic cavity. Thoughts?)

After a great deal of thought I have come up with my metaphor.

My God is an orchestra conductor.

I don't know if you've ever been in an orchestra. (I haven't. I was in a band--school band. I'm not cool enough to be in a non-school band.)

An orchestra conductor gives you music and says, "Hey, listen, things will work out best for you if you follow this music." He can't make you, of course. But he suggests it. He'll help you out if you come talk to Him, and explain the difficult passages. Sometimes He'll give you hard music just so that you'll struggle with it, learn from it, come talk to him about it.

But sometimes He won't be able to explain things to you. How can He tell you what a violin bow is supposed to feel like in your hand? How can he explain how to speed your breath up or slow it down in time with the music?

He won't fix your problems with the other orchestra members either. Sometimes, in the middle of the performance the brass section will trip, slip, and tumble, messing up every other instrumentalist there. Sometimes there will be one musician struggling. Does he stop the show? Does he kick them out?

Sometimes. But he orchestrates everything and everyone. He is mindful of them all.

That's my God. He's stands at the front and begs everyone to watch, pleads with them to be good to each other, to make each other better. But he can't--or, maybe, he won't--play our instruments for us.