In Memoriam

Today is Memorial Day. What does that mean? I could go research the origins of the holiday and spout off the facts of how it got started, but I don't feel like that answers my question. A holiday should mean more than just what you can find on Wikipedia. There should be some sort of personal intersection with your own life, your own heart; otherwise, why are you celebrating?

So I've decided today to sit down for a moment and figure out where Memorial Day intersects with me. I have family who have served in the military, but not many who have died in service (not for 100 years or so). But I have lost loved ones in the regular course of mortality, and I think that merits something, too. This is Memorial Day - a day of remembrance. So maybe it's time to look back at some of the people who meant enough to me that they left a piece of themselves behind when they died.

These are some of the people I carry with me.

Myrna Darleen (Packer) Grosland

My Grandma Grosland. She died of cancer in 2009, just a month or so before my high school graduation. When I think about her, I hear her delighted laughter and see her smile - I can't remember her ever not being happy. She took me fishing, she taught me how to play Skip-Bo and Phase 10, and she always always had good things to snack on at her house (cookies, Twizzlers, Ritz crackers, etc.). But what I remember most is that she loved me - wholeheartedly, without reservations - and that I always felt safe when I was with her. 

Love you, Grandma.

Josephine (Mower) Duncan Conover

I know I had other great-grandparents, but my Great-Grandma Conover is the only one I remember well. She died just before the year 2000, when I was about nine years old. From stories and home videos I know that she was my mother's savior, a safe harbor she could hide in when she wanted to run away from home. For myself, I remember that she was quiet and peaceful, and that love bubbled out of her. She was an angel, so I'm sure the transition to heaven was second-nature to her. 

Thanks, Grandma Conover.

Kevin Holm

He was Brother Holm to me - a man in my home ward, married to one of the coolest women I know. She was loud and vibrant, while he was quiet, so I regret that I did not get to know him better before he passed. But my best friends in the ward, Logan and Eric, knew him very well. He taught them about chivalry, manners, and class. His well-dressed demeanor and stories of "a better time" inspired them to wear suits to high school every day for a year. What he was really known for, though, was the fedora. Through him, a fedora became a symbol for a person of quality, and - one by one - every young man in my ward showed up to church wearing a fedora, until the hat rack by the chapel was full of them. My friends even bought me a suitable lady's hat so that I could be part of the group. 

What we didn't know was that beneath his calm exterior Brother Holm was battling depression. He had been suffering for years, but somehow he never let his pain leak out and stain other people. He used the strength he had to protect other people from his illness; and so eventually he didn't have enough strength left to protect himself. Brother Holm was the first person I knew to kill himself. I was in high school, and didn't know at all how to deal with suicide. I didn't know if it should change the way I thought of him or not.

I went to his funeral, hollow and unsure. As agreed upon in advance, my friends and I all wore our hats. After a deeply heartfelt speech, our bishop asked everyone who'd received a hat via Brother Holm to stand up. Over a dozen of us rose to our feet, and I saw in our witness a monument to his legacy. Brother Holm was truly a good man, and one who inspired others to become truly good men. He died because of a mental illness, not because of a character flaw. I am grateful for his example, both as a man of principles and as a man of suffering, because he taught me better than anyone else that a mental illness is something that happens to you - it is not a part of you.

Rest in peace, Brother Holm.

Jordan Needham

Jordan was a guy in my singles ward. He was cute, so I noticed him, but we weren't best friends or anything. We talked a few times at church, and we goofed around a lot at our ward's volleyball night; that was pretty much all it took. Jordan was friendly, so everyone he talked to became his friend. He was an expert at making people feel important and valued in just five seconds of conversation. He was the kind of guy who lived life at full volume all the time - and so he died young. He was killed while riding the motorcycle that he loved, with no helmet. It's difficult not to be frustrated by that - losing someone you care about because of their own foolish mistake - but Jordan was so generous with himself during his life that I can't seem to hold this one mistake against him.

Happy trails, Jordan.

I still don't know what Memorial Day means. But I know who I remember.

Who do you remember?

Sneak-Sweeping

The worst thing about custodial work is not cleaning toilets. It's not really anything that has to do with cleaning at all. The WORST thing is cleaning with other people around.

Most of the custodial jobs I've had, this hasn't been a problem. I worked early morning shifts, before any of the professors or students got to campus, or I worked after a kitchen crew had left for the day. Now, though, I'm working at a junior high where the teachers tend to linger long into my work hours.
Some of the other custodians don't mind this; they like to chat and make friends. But when I'm working, I like to let my mind wander into other worlds, my imagination galloping off while my body is occupied - so it's pretty awkward to be in the same room with someone else while that's going on.

I learned quickly which teachers I can rely on to race out of the school as soon as the final bell rings, so my strategy is to clean their rooms first, waiting for the lingerers to finish their business. This has been extremely successful, with one blaring exception: a science teacher by the name of Mr. Darcy.

Okay, no. His name isn't really Mr. Darcy. But he's young, and cute. And I am oddly certain that in an alternate dimension we had a torrid (and possibly scandalous) love affair. The tension of our alternate-dimension attraction must be strong enough that it seeps through into our dimension in that one classroom, because I feel it every time I go in there.

Which wouldn't matter so much, except that Mr. Darcy is worse than a lingerer - he's a returner. As I discovered on one particular afternoon . . . .

I had already been in Mr. Darcy's room that day, on my rounds to empty the trash. I'd scrubbed desks and cleaned the windows, and he had been nowhere to be seen; so I'd assumed it was safe to go back with my broom a few hours later. The last thing I do before I leave every day is sweep the science rooms, using the closet-office they all share as a center of operations. I go through each room with a small broom, getting into the corners and dragging everything out into the open. Then I go back with a push-broom and sweep it all up. Easy as pie.

I had finished unearthing the dirt in all of the rooms. I grabbed my push-broom and started to open the door to Mr. Darcy's room when I noticed that all of the lights were on. I glanced inside and - sure enough - there he was, sitting at his computer, his back to me. A jolt of surprise went through me. Why would a teacher - who had already left for the day - come back at six o'clock?

I hesitated, not wanting to bother him while he was working, and then I moved on to one of the other science rooms. I'll just finish up everything I can. That will give him time to grab whatever he forgot, and he'll be gone by the time I'm ready to go in there. My steps were shorter, slower perhaps than was normal, as I swept the other rooms. I took as much time as I thought was excusable, always glancing back toward his room, hoping to see the lights shut off as Mr. Darcy headed home.

No such luck. When I'd finished all of the other rooms, Mr. Darcy was still there. He apparently had no intention of leaving any time soon, either; I could hear music pounding through the closed door, and as I spied through the window, I could see a stack of papers and a grading program pulled up on his computer. He was typing, but it looked like he still had a long way to go.

All at once, the music registered in my mind. It was an 80s love song. A blush coursed through me as I considered other reasons why I wouldn't want to be alone in a room with this young man, my other-dimension-lover. The song, with its beckoning melody, seemed to hint at the possibilities.

I turned my back on him, pacing in the closet-office. Maybe I should just leave, I thought. But then I remembered that I'd already been through the room with my small broom, dragging all the filth out into the open. It looked terrible; I couldn't leave it like that. My only option was to stride in there, purposeful, and just be professional about it.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and pushed my way inside. I looked not to the right nor left, just marching with my eyes fixed on the dirt. When I turned my first corner, I spared a glance in his direction, to see how he was taking my professionalism.

He hadn't seen me.

He hadn't heard me come in, either. The music was much louder in here, and my push-broom slid almost silently across the floor. I stood there for a moment, watching his completely oblivious form. And then I took off, sweeping as quickly as I could quietly manage.

His room is tight, tables jammed at odd angles to each other. I had to navigate a lot of narrow passages, and all the while I kept myself at a hunch, low to the ground, trying to stay out of his peripheral vision. He shifted in his chair. I froze. He stretched, then returned to his work, and I kept on sweeping.

The further I got through the room, the closer I got to him. I started stretching the broom out in front of me, twisting it as far as it would go so that I wouldn't have to walk into his line of sight. Eventually, I was standing right behind him, practically holding my breath as I tried to ease my broom beneath his chair without him noticing.

He started singing.

The love song was still playing, and now he was singing along. I couldn't take it.

In a rush, I finished sweeping the last corner and drove the broom back to the closet-office as quickly as I could, closing the door gently behind me. As soon as I was inside, I ducked under the window. I skittered around the corner, leaning against the door to one of the other science rooms. I could still hear Mr. Darcy's singing through the closed door.

But I'd gotten away.

I laughed, quietly. I shook my head at the ridiculousness of it. But in reality, I had never had more fun sweeping than when I was trying to dodge my other-dimension-lover, Mr. Darcy.

Who says custodial work has to be boring?

Of Spiders and Men

I am afraid of spiders.

Terrified, actually. I am the person they had in mind when the powers that be created the word "arachnophobia." My fear of spiders is transformative; when I discover a spider on my body, I become an entirely different person. I can't remember my name. I stop caring about the well-being of others. I lose brain function, screaming and flailing uncontrollably until the spider is catapulted to a safe distance.

So I probably shouldn't operate heavy equipment in the presence of arachnids.

Anyway, I think about this phobia of mine fairly regularly. (Though not usually at night. Nighttime is when I try very, very hard not to think of spiders.) And when I think about it, I understand that my fear of spiders is completely irrational. I go through all the arguments that I've heard a thousand times from well-intentioned and entirely clueless friends:

A spider is just a bug, like a fly. You're not scared of flies, so why be scared of spiders?

Yes, some spiders can hurt you; but most are harmless.

Spiders are actually very helpful. The world needs them.

That spider is probably more afraid of you than you are of it.

See, the thing about a phobia is that it doesn't have to make sense. Because it has nothing to do with your brain, and everything to do with your instinct to flee. If your body is convinced that the only way to stay alive is to GET AWAY FROM THAT THING, then you'd better believe that's what you're going to do.

I've lived with this a long time. I'm used to it. It doesn't surprise me anymore.

Until tonight, when I realized that I feel the exact same way about men.

Okay, not exactly the same way. I don't have to cringe away from photos of guys or avoid thinking about the creepy way they move. But when a guy becomes romantically interested in me - or if there's even the suggestion that he might be interested - I lose brain function. I stop caring about the well-being of others. I can't remember my name.

And I can't swear that I've never flailed and screamed.

It is ridiculous. Once I've gathered my senses, I'm always embarrassed about the lunatic performance I've put on. Just as with the spiders, I think often about my humiliating fear and the absolute lack of reasons for it. And the same arguments run through my head, rephrased.

A man is just a person, like a woman. You're not scared of women, so why be scared of men?

Yes, some men will hurt you; but most are harmless.

Men are actually very helpful. The world needs them.

That man is probably more afraid of you than you are of him.

But remember the thing about a phobia? It doesn't have to make sense. Because it has nothing
to do with my brain, and everything to do with my instinct to flee.

. . .
. . . . .
. . .

I think the solution is obvious: I need to face both my fears at once.

Clearly, I need to date Spider-Man.

BYU Singles Wards

I have made fun of singles wards a lot in my time. It always seemed to turn church into high school, with all the gossip and dating and goofing around. And it made me feel like a horse in some sort of breeding compound. I didn't like singles wards at all.

Then I came to this new ward (YSA 181st). It's been fantastic. Everyone is really open and accepting of others, and it's so much more laid back than most of the wards I've been in. Going to church with these guys is great, because everyone is so excited about the gospel and just wants to talk about it. In this ward, I feel a lot more like a member of the army of Helaman - we're going to go out there with our gospel knowledge and kick Satan's tail!

So I have come to re-appreciate singles wards. That said, I ran into my friend Jimmy on campus the other day, and he had quite the stories to tell about his singles ward. I thought it was hilarious, so I'm sharing it with you.

Jimmy said his ward was like most singles wards, at first: very date-happy. Nothing new there. But a few weeks ago, the bishopric took it a few steps further - they called and set apart a Dating Council.

No, really.

The members of this Dating Council are in charge of getting people together. Any member of the ward can report to the Dating Council a couple that they think should be set up. The Dating Council, with funds from the ward, will then arrange the date for said couple. It's completely voluntary (aka, you can NOT go on the date if you don't want to) but I imagine it would be embarrassing to back out of a date the entire ward knew was going on.


Then again, I can't see any way this whole process isn't just embarrassing for everyone involved.

But it seems to be working for Jimmy's ward. And I'm sure they're all living happily ever after.

:)

I love my singles ward. But you can understand why the concept still makes me smirk.

Dumped in Dragon Age

I just got dumped in Dragon Age.

Yup. Alistair dumped me. Even after all the work I went through to get him to like me again after the "letting a blood mage kill Lady Isolde" incident. I get him to the landsmeet, fight Loghain for Alistair's right to the throne, and when Alistair finally gets the crown he tells me, "Hey, now that I'm king, I'm gonna need to make a royal baby heir; since we Grey Wardens don't live very long, I'm thinking you're not the best candidate for my kid's mama. Sorry and all that."

Pfft. Jerk. So then I have the option of convincing him to let me be his royal consort. But seriously, that is SO beneath me. So I called him a filthy name and he went off to camp to sulk.

Well, that's that. And since I already turned down Zevran's colorful offer of going back to my tent for an Antivan massage...

...that means my romance options are pretty much dried up. What else is new?

Fortunately, I have my own awesomeness to comfort me. Seriously, could Alistair or Zevran have taken down nine vicious werewolves singlehanded? I think not! (Down you go, Witherfang!)

Here's to my superior strength, giant war-axe, and sheer fantasticness. Why would I need men when I'm already me?

Felíz Día de San Valentín

Everybody is celebrating Valentine's Day, and I'm no exception. I've never had a real Valentine for this holiday (you know, like a . . . boyfriend or something) but I like watching other people doing especially nice things for each other and I like eating lots of chocolates. Also, I like imagining where my future husband is right now, and how excited he's going to be when he finally finds me. (:

I've been thinking all day about this blog post, but I just haven't come up with anything to say. My brain's been a little busy with memorizing Louisa May Alcott's biography, trying to figure out quantum mechanics, philosophizing about the differences between Emerson and Thoreau, and then trying to do it all over again in Spanish. I'm too worn out to think by the time I get home.

But I've already done LOTS of writing on the subject of Love, so I didn't see why I should have to come up with something new today. I went back through my blog post and found a dozen posts about Love in one form or another, and provided the links below. They are as follows, and in no particular order:

The one where Jimmy kissed me

Addam's Family love quotes

The Void between those who have and those who haven't

Valentine's Day 2009

One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song

How to Date a Vampire

Thinking about Love

My very famous short-story "The Voices"

A weird guy from work talks about dating

Rewriting Shakespeare, Writing to Stephenie Meyer

Instant Love

"Zoobie Zombie"

I offer a sympathetic nod to those of you celebrating S.A.D. (Single Awareness Day) and an amused wave to you couples getting all googly-eyed. 

To one and all, crotchety and enamored, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Zoobie Zombie

Because

+

=

WIN

"Oh, Greg, look at how the snow sparkles in the headlights," Jenny cooed, pointing out the window in awe. "It's like being in a snow globe."  This was one of the things Greg liked most about Jenny; she didn't take things for granted, and she saw beauty in everything. He smiled as he drove, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she leaned back contentedly against the seat. "This is the happiest I've ever been."

"Me too," said Greg. Who would have thought that after only five weeks at BYU, Greg would be looking at engagement rings. He hadn't even known Jenny until that first week of church in their student ward. He couldn't imagine how he'd ever lived without her. Greg took a hand off the steering wheel and grabbed her own small hand in his.

A warm silence filled the car, and when he glanced toward her, he saw that Jenny was looking at him with her emerald eyes. A sudden passion swept over him, leaving him gasping. Greg's mouth was hanging open, and he stared at her. He knew it, suddenly, with all his heart: she was the only one for him. "Jenny," he said, for she had glanced back out the window. "Jenny, I love y-"

"GREG!" Jenny suddenly screamed. He barely had time to look forward out the window before they smashed into the flaming wreckage, and the car started to flip.

***

When Greg awoke, he was hanging from his seat belt. He blinked a dark liquid out of his eyes, confused at the scene of wreckage around him. Their car was on its side, turned so he could see the rest of the collision's victims out the front windshield. There appeared to be seven or eight cars in the pile-up, including the two they had hit before flying into the air. No one was moving in any of the other cars. Greg closed his eyes against the splitting headache he was developing. "Jenny, are you alright?" he asked.

There was no answer. Before Greg even opened his eyes, he realized with a jolt that in order for him to be dangling sideways in the air, the car must have landed on the passenger side. And that meant . . .

Greg turned in horror to see Jenny next to him, smashed against the road. Her body was twisted against the side of the car, white against the dark blood pooling around her. She had a huge gash in her forehead, and there was a tiny trail of blood trickling out of her mouth. Her gorgeous eyes were wide open, but they were completely empty. She was gone.

"No...no! JENNY!" Greg howled. He unbuckled his seat belt and carefully got down beside his girlfriend's sad, broken body. He touched her bloody cheek with an air of disbelief. This couldn't be happening! They were going to be together for time and all eternity, and now this?! It couldn't be happening. Greg leaned over Jenny's corpse, weeping softly. He couldn't let her go. He couldn't.

He wouldn't.

The thought came to him suddenly, but fiercely. He wouldn't let her go, that was all. At once his weeping was over, and the education he had sweat so much to obtain finally came to his rescue: he was a biochemistry major in his senior year of undergraduate studies. Suddenly, looking down at his departed beloved, he saw instead a chemistry problem to be solved. She had lost almost all of her blood; could he create a chemical that would perform the same function? Yes, he was sure he could. And if he could do that, then he wouldn't have to lose Jenny at all.

A siren's wail pierced the cold night air. Greg looked back out the window to see that the police had finally arrived. It looked like they'd called out the entire Provo police force. They'd come and take Jenny's body away from him, once they saw her. Greg looked at her battered face for one last moment of hesitation before all of the emotions inside Greg seemed to disappear. A single thought took over his entire being: I can fix this. I can fix this...

With steady but quick movements, Greg climbed out the broken frame of the window, carrying Jenny's corpse along with him.

***

It was good that they had been so close to campus when they'd crashed. It was also good that Greg's job as a custodian allowed him access to the buildings at all hours. He stole into the Eyring Science Center, relieved at finding the building completely empty - not unusual at this time of night, on a weekend. He hoisted Jenny up higher on his shoulders. Nothing seemed to be broken or protruding out of her body, that was a blessing. But he was getting blood everywhere. He'd have to find a mop and clean that all up before morning. He found a small laboratory on the fourth floor, laying Jenny's body on the table. He got out the equipment he would be needing, barred the door, and then set to work.

***

Hours and hours later, it seemed, Greg was leaning over Jenny's continually inanimate body, completely exhausted. He had tried everything he could think of. He'd cleaned all her wounds, stitched up what he could, and replaced her blood with a manufactured compound. He had just finished running the new serum through her body and finally unplugged the IV. He was breathing heavily, watching, waiting . . . . nothing.

Greg let his eyes close, tears of pain and exhaustion welling up behind the lids. After all he had done, could it really end like this? "Jenny," he whispered mournfully.

He felt a soft hand on his lips as she said his name, "Greg?"

His eyes blasted open and he stared down at his one true love, his eternal companion to-be. She was much paler than she had been before the accident - in fact, her skin had a blue-greyish tint to it. Her hair was matted with dried blood, and she had haphazard stitches across her forehead and left cheek, but her eyes were the same beautiful color they had always been. "Greg," she said again, her split lip lifting in a half smile. "Why are you crying? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, Jenny!" Greg said. He pulled her to a sitting position, then kissed her soft, cold lips fiercely. When he pulled away, he caressed her head stitches and said, "No, nothing is wrong. Ever again. Because we're going to be together. Forever." He wrapped his arms tightly around her.

"Forever," she said, happily. Unseen to Greg, her eyes widened slightly, and she sniffed at a delicious smell that seemed to be coming from under his hair...

The End?

(*smiles wickedly*)

In the next part, Greg and Jenny develop their odd romance as they try to figure out the strange new behaviors Jenny has picked up. She will eventually figure out that she's craving brains, and once she loses control, she will spread the disease, becoming the mother of all zombies. And thus it is a biochemistry student from BYU who sets off the Zombie Apocalypse. Tada!

I imagine there's quite a market for this stuff. There's already at least one very famous English Major from BYU who's made a lot of money with this romance-between-the-living-and-the-undead stuff. I'm just jumping on the bandwagon!

Thank you, Ms. Meyer, for the inspiration.

P.S. "Zoobie" = BYU coed

33 Days: Warning - Extremely Cheesy Content

After weeks of my school paper having front-page headlines about dating etiquette, listening to snippets of conversations my peers were having about how the last date they had with a certain someone had gone, and finally having my Fitness and Healthy Living professor make a hint about dating in his lecture, I have decided that I've had enough.

I don't like dating. I never really have. I don't have a problem with the opposite sex, and I gush over the romance in chick flicks, but at dating I draw the line. Dating is usually not romantic. Dating - in my experience - has everything to do with testing the waters, awkwardly feeling our way through this whole "love" thing. And also, I hate the clothing store feel to it: Some guy comes along and says, "Hey, you look like a nice tie. I think I'll try you on for the night. ...Nope, that didn't work out. Well, guess you can live in Walmart for a while longer. Have fun. Oh! Look at that tie!"

(*sigh*) Yes, I know that I have issues. But the idea of dating makes me sick to my stomach. It's all one big guessing game, yes-or-no, trial and failure. (Mostly failure for me.) So I decided to chuck the whole process. I'm no longer bothering with dating, because I have designed a future for myself that skips the whole dating phase all together. I call it Instant Love.

* * *

It was a day like any other, except that it was a little overcast. I was walking with my friends after class, laughing and bemoaning the homework load we all had. Campus was as crowded as ever, and the swarms of people pushed us along like leaves in a rushing stream. One of them was saying something about her landscaping class when it happened: a shiver of electricity ran down my spine and I froze in place. My friends took a couple more steps before looking back, wondering why I’d stopped. I couldn't have explained it; it was as though an instinctive knowledge held me there. A soft gust of wind blew past me, and I turned my head to the left, sure that there was something there I needed to see.

There was a young man standing across the way, who appeared frozen in time as well. His hand was in mid-gesture and he had his head turned, looking right at me. Our eyes met without hesitation, and in that instant a bolt of lightening shattered the sky, hitting the ground between us and making the crowds of students back off, looking scared. As the crack of thunder echoed over the mountains, the previous babble of conversation gave way to utter silence.

We both began to run at the same moment. Everyone in the crowd stared at the surreal scene, but I had eyes for no one but him. His dark hair tossed slightly in the wind and I heard my books fall to the ground; I hadn’t noticed ever dropping them. We reached each other just as the rain started to pour, drenching us instantly. His arms were around me immediately, and I reached up to caress his face as we kissed each other hungrily, as if we’d been starving our entire lives.

It was bliss. It was perfection. Two lost souls finding each other in a moment of purest clarity. We clutched at each other as if terrified the moment would vanish into fantasy. Our lips moved together in a dance that seemed completely natural and yet exotic. We held each other in the torrential rain for an eternity before we broke off the kiss, staring into each other’s eyes. His were a wonderfully warm brown, and shone with happiness. I knew my face must betray the same overwhelming joy; I could feel the smile bursting from me, and I thought I’d never cry again.

At last, he spoke, and his voice was deep and smooth like chocolate. “I found you,” he whispered. He laughed in near disbelief, and the sound filled me with delight. “I can’t believe I’ve finally found you.”

I kissed him again, lightly this time. “After all this time,” I agreed. “I was beginning to think you’d never come.”

“I was always coming,” he said, softly. “I was just afraid I’d never get here.”

“But you did,” I answered. He leaned his forehead against mine. “You’re here.” I said it again, as if to cement it in fact, “you’re here. We’re together at last.”

“And the long search is over.” He took my hand in his. “All that’s left now is eternity. Together.”

“Together,” I echoed.

With the rest of the campus looking on in shock and bemusement, we strode off toward the horizon, still wrapped around each other. His friends and my friends seemed to have gathered together, watching us with a mixture of confused and delighted faces. We waved at them as we continued on our way, my hand on his bicep, his arm around my waist. The rain was letting up now, a bright rainbow was poking through the clouds as we walked confidently into the future together.

And I casually asked, “So, what’s your name?”


Today's Movie: "The Village"

34 Days: Shakespeare and Stephenie

For my Early British Literary History class, I wrote a sonnet today. We've been studying the Renaissance, where the sonnet came into being. In my writing I also included another aspect of Renaissance culture, though one that is not as well known: Imitation. They saw no problem in what we would call "stealing" from another author's work. They viewed literature as more of a community effort in that way, I guess. Each author borrowed from other authors and tried their own spins on old ideas.

Anyway, that's the long, boring explanation for what is really a rather funny poem. It's based off of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, but I've written it basically in response to the ever-so-popular novel Twilight. I hope you like it.


















A Sonnet To Stephenie Meyer

My lover’s eyes are nothing like a gem:

No topaz, onyx tint within them lies.

If stone be hard, his arms have straw in them.

If wit be sharp, his teeth are far from wise.

I have seen stars that sparkle purest white,

But no such sparkles see I in his skin.

He’s never climbed into my room by night,

Nor fear I being eaten by his kin.

He loves to drive my car, yet well I know

His palm could never put a dent in one.

Our kisses never make me swoon; still, though,

I’d think to be awake is much more fun.

So keep your moody, teenaged carnivore

I find a man who’s living offers more.

- Jessica Grosland



Today's Movie: Some Scooby Doo Film

48 Days: You'd think I was making this up . . .

I sighed as I pushed through the doors into the early morning chill. I'd been avoiding him all through the shift, but after taking apart the student commons, learning how to work the extractor, cleaning blood off a chair, and then resetting the student commons, I'd run out of things to do. So I walked through the breezeway and into the South Hall, pausing to grab a newspaper on my way in.

"Jessica!" He was happy to see me. He's always happy to see me, though after I've been giving him the cold shoulder for a week you'd think he'd start to resent me. I looked up at his voice and twitched my lips into a smile. Clark Kent was beaming at me, his hands on the recycling bin. Obviously that's not his real name, but I'd been calling him that in my head for weeks. He was just so farm-boyish.

Clark is a nice kid. Normally I wouldn't mind having to work with him. But he's a little too . . . high maintenance for a four o'clock in the morning partner. I'm only working with him until the boss hires someone new, but just the last four days have been driving me batty. He has a talking fetish; he can't stand to let more than three minutes go by without conversation. And despite the fact that I barely know him, he talks to me like we've grown up together and I'm his very bestest friend in the whole world. Probably after knowing him for a month or so, I wouldn't mind. But on the first shift together? It's a little clingy for my liking.

I join Clark walking down the hall, gathering recycling. My silence lasts for only a few moments before he gets fidgety. He sees the paper in my hand. "What's in the headlines today?" he asks, cheerfully.

I look down. "Um, well, there's 'One in Five Teenagers Suffers From Hearing Loss.' And, um," at the next headline I snort derisively, "There's this one from the etiquette series: 'Knowing Proper Courtship Etiquette.'" I have never been subtle, and I'm sure that something in my voice must be dripping with scorn, but Clark doesn't pick up on it.

"Really?" he asks, sounding intrigued. "What does the dating one say?"

I raise my eyebrow, but reading from the paper is a good way of making him think I'm talking to him without having to come up with my own words. So I start reading the article out loud. If I were with my friends, we'd be having a good laugh about this, but Clark seems genuinely interested in learning about the best ways to ask someone out, the rules for who should pay, and the question of opening doors for women.

I finally get to the end, and let the silence between us swell up like an inflatable wall. But in a moment, Clark pulls out a pin and punctures it. "So how do YOU like to be asked out?"

The air flies out of me. I wasn't prepared for this conversation. I can feel his eyes on me but I keep mine focused straight ahead. I stammer for a minute, laughing feebly, trying to pretend he's not serious. "I wouldn't know about that," I finally say. "I don't have a lot of experience in that area."

This seems to truly shock him. He goes on for a while about how we're so alike, custodians with no social lives and all that. I am glad to have dodged the question with my non-answer, but after another couple of minutes he asks me again. "You didn't really answer the question. How do you like to be asked out?"

More spluttering. I escape by exclaiming, "Oh! The preschool! I forgot to show you how to do recycling in the preschool!" Always eager to learn new things, Clark follows me into the preschool area and watches intensely as I show him where the bins are. After a few more minutes however, when I am convinced that I have successfully distracted him, he asks, "What do you think constitutes a proper date?"

His eyes are searching mine, and I look away, feeling ridiculously awkward and trying to find a way out of this conversation. This boy is far too interested in me, and even talking about dating feels like leading him on. And I have absolutely no desire to lead him on; for one thing, he's like a little kid and I don't want to hurt his feelings, and for another, the guy weirds me out!

"I don't know," I say.

"What do you like to do on dates?" he clarifies.

"Er, well . . . ." He's too patient. I burst out, "I don't think there's a rule!"

"Hm, interesting," he says. He opens his mouth again but by then I've found the bathroom crew and I run over to them, pretending to need to talk to my old partner, Damon. But they have real work to do, and they only provide a few precious minutes' escape. Eventually I'm alone with Clark again, pushing the cart onto the elevator. I look at the clock. Just five more minutes until I can excusably leave to clean out one of the machines.

The elevator doors open and I pull the cart through. While I'm busying fumbling with the heavy newspaper bin, Clark asks, "So why do you think you don't date much?"

WHAT?

This is beyond socially awkward, even for him. I look at him in disbelief, my mouth slightly agape and my eyebrows knitted in confusion. He smiles that old carefree smile at me, but his eyes tell me that he really wants to know. That's the thing with this kid; no small talk. What the devil does he expect me to say? Why on earth should I even know why I don't get asked out? It's not like any guy has ever approached me and said, "I considered asking you out, but you didn't quite meet my standards. Here's a list of things you can improve on."

But Clark won't let me go. He's staring at me, so I push past him with a feeble, "That's a really good question."

"I know, right?" he says, as if it's one of science's most perplexing dilemmas. "But what's the answer?"

I practically throw my hands up in the air, fed up. "Another good question!" I say, through the smile plastered to my face. Before he can say anything else, I shove a barricade of words at him. "Listen, I've got to go clean out the CFR for Chelsea. I used it on a couple of chairs today and night crew left it really filthy yesterday so I'm going to go now . . . and . . . yeah . . ." I've been backing away, and when Clark mumbles some sort of reply I shout, "Great, thanks! I'll see you later!" and run off down the hall.

When I get to the closet where the machine is stored, I lean against the wall and close my eyes. A single thought paces in circles around my head:

I am so sick of BYU and dating!

Today's Movie: "The Haunting of Deck Twelve" (Star Trek Voyager Episode)

62 Days: The Voices

A breeze whips through the trees, ruffling Jessica's hair and whispering something in her ear. She looks over her shoulder in panic, her eyes wide. No one there. She hesitates for a moment, wary, then turns around and keeps walking, faster this time. She keeps her eyes forward, but she can hear the soft, murmuring voices behind her. They're getting closer, their message more insistent. Jessica breaks into a run, her backpack bouncing heavily, trying to escape. But it's futile. Soon the invisible hordes are at her heels, and their words are pounding in her head:


"Marriage. Marriage. Marriage. Marriage. . . ."


She makes it into the nearest building, slamming the door shut behind her. She can hear them pounding on the door, their words slithering underneath and swarming around her ankles. Barring the door, she runs up the stairs, knocking over her fellow students in her terrified flight. She bursts into the women's bathroom and locks herself in a stall, ripping off long pieces of toilet paper and shoving into her ears, hoping to keep out the madness.

When she had started school at Brigham Young University one year ago, she hadn't believed the stories everyone told about "the voices." These voices were supposedly omnipresent, worming their way into the students' heads and causing chemical imbalance that resulted in an insatiable desire to get married. Jessica knew the folklore: women went to BYU to get their M.R.S. degrees; returned missionaries used BYU like a hunting ground, quickly felling their prey. But Jessica had always figured it was a natural result of growing up in the arms of Mormonism, if a bit extreme.

There was nothing natural about this.



It was a craze. Students came to BYU with no unusual background, and within three weeks they were all hooked up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. The relationships usually lasted about a semester at the longest, and if the couple wasn't engaged by the end of that time, they recognized the experiment as a failure and broke up. Then they ran off to find someone else to replenish the earth with. There was no thought except to appease the voices rampaging their skulls.

The professors were an interesting case as well. Most of them were married, of course, but prolonged exposure to the voices had morphed their minds. Each of them was constantly - unwittingly - speaking for the voices in the middle of class lectures. Computer Science teachers spoke of the need to get off the computer sometimes and date. Church History teachers explained how to use your patriarchal blessing to find a suitable partner for eternity. Each professor had their own way of doing it, but they were all working for "them," doing everything but making their students' dating lives worth 50% of their grade.

The students reeked of eagerness. The professors taught classes with sly, giggly hints. The trees, the mountains, even the air seemed to be full of some kind of brain-neutralizing, marriage-inducing toxin.



But Jessica had come to BYU reluctantly, grudgingly. She was not like other students. While her classmates all raced to get friends, Jessica walked between them indifferently, her nose in a book. She laughed when she saw the instant-couples, mocked the quickly-engaged even as she dutifully swooned over their shiny rings. She thought herself above the animalistic drones who scampered around everyday sniffing for a mate.

After all, she was not a huge fan of dating, having proved quite inept at it in high school. She had never had a boyfriend, never had a first kiss, even her hands were untouched. But she didn't really mind. She had plans, goals, ambitions, and lots and lots of books to read. Marriage was not high on her list of priorities. So she had strolled onto the campus without any protection but her own disdain. She believed herself immune to the voices.

She had underestimated them.

The voices swirled around her from the beginning. When she seemed unaffected by their call, they gathered in huge masses and tried sharp, sudden attacks, the pinkish fumes wriggling in through her pores, infecting her blood. She felt the effects after a few months, when her eyes started filtering out everything but her male classmates. If any of them looked at her, she immediately began to feel breathless and lightheaded. She felt sick. She started reading more feverishly, keeping her eyes on the black print and her mind off of the boys.

Soon the voices were with her constantly. They converged upon her when she got off the bus in the morning, and they drilled in through her ears to her brain, eventually driving her to the point of madness. Thoughts, that were not her own, hijacked her mind. In the middle of writing a paper she would suddenly find herself scribbling little hearts in the margins, or breaking off in the middle of sentences to write things like "love is all you need" or "true love's kiss." In lectures, she would be unable to concentrate, finding herself imagining romantic encounters or even a handsome husband, playing with her child.

She was getting desperate. She left campus as soon as her classes were over, breathing deeply the sweaty-smoky smell of the bus, trying to clear her head. Instead of reading on campus, she tried audiobooks, shoving the headphones deep in her ears and turning it up. The voices would not relent however. They came upon her when she least expected it, and it soon led to her sprinting from class to class, trying to escape the rose-tinted atmosphere and the heavily perfumed flowers that grew all over campus and which she suspected of being drugged.

This is how she came to be locked in that bathroom stall, squeezing her eyes shut and humming loudly. The door to the bathroom was opened suddenly, by another student, and she heard the voices cackling as they swarmed inside. She could almost see them crawling under the door to her stall. Screaming, she yanked the toilet paper out of her ears and broke through the stall door in her haste to escape. She ran up a few more staircases, the voices laughing evilly on a wind behind her, until she emerged on the building's rooftop.

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Now there were voices flying at her from all over campus, a great storm of hormones rushing her way. She was surrounded, and she was terrified. After all she'd done, it was going to end like this? There were only moments now. She was feeling faint already. The voices screamed at her now, "MARRIAGE! MARRIAGE! MARRIAGE!" and her body, mind, and soul were just too tired to fight anymore. She swayed on the spot, struggling to maintain control of her conscious mind for only a few more seconds. . .

Then, quite suddenly, she threw back her head and bellowed, "GHOSTBUSTERS!"

They appeared immediately, almost out of nowhere, leaping out from behind fixtures and dropping down from helicopters. They ran forward in their funny suits, the high-tech vacuums on their backs, and unleashed on the voices. The sound was loud, the voices shrieking as they vanished into oblivion, and within two minutes it was over.

Jessica was on the ground, leaning up on one hand as she looked around. The voices were gone. A blissful silence filled her head. She sighed in relief. One of the ghostbusters came forward and pulled her to her feet. "Are you alright, Miss?"

"I am now," she said. She smiled. "Thanks."

"That's what we're here for," the man replied, hoisting his weapon. "If there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?"

She replied with a laugh. "Ghostbusters!"

65 Days: Rag Doll

Some days I feel like a rag doll sitting on a shelf in a department store.

I watch the other dolls leave in the arms of a child and I know that some of them will be colored on with crayon and chewed on by dogs, but I also know that some of them will be loved forever and ever.

At first, I'm really happy for the dolls that get bought and taken to a nice home. I wave goodbye with my stitched-on smile firmly in place, eager for the day when it's my turn, when I'll get to leave the store and finally belong to somebody.

Then the weeks and months go past, and I'm still here, getting dusty on the shelf. Lots of kids come down the row, smiling and laughing and pointing at all the cool toys, but they always leave me here.

And slowly I come to the realization that nobody wants me.

I'm always going to be here on the shelf, smiling and waiting, until the day they clear out the aisle and pack me in a storage box in the back of the store.

. . .

I hate days like this.

67 Days: More Pithy Literature

It started with an innocent kiss.

He tasted like peanut butter.

So I ate him.

94 Days: Thinking

Love is a very odd thing. It's difficult to explain because it is beyond words. It is complex and simple at the same instant. Love can be something that makes you incredibly happy or it can be something that makes you incredibly sad. And the more experience I have, the more I'm convinced that there's not a whole lot about love that is up to you. Sometimes, you just can't change how you feel; once you've loved someone, I'm not sure it's possible to ever really stop loving them.

Oh sure, romance can die, it can fade away or be destroyed, I don't deny that. But I'm not talking about romance, I'm talking about love. The kind of love they talk about in the scriptures: charity and compassion towards another person. When you love someone, truly love them, it has nothing to do with lust or even a desire to be with them. It simply means that they've won a place in your heart. You genuinely care about their well-being, you want things to go well for them, and you mourn with them when things don't go well. And I believe that this kind of love can never really leave once it's found a home inside of you; not unless you or the other person has changed so much that you are completely different people.

If this was not so, why would so many people forgive the spouses who have cheated on them? Why would so many couples stay married for fifty years, working past the fights instead of throwing in the towel? Why would people who've broken up continue to have a friendship?

And love is not something you can control. Lots of people have found themselves full of love when they don't want to be. Children whose parents have abandoned them, brothers who've been betrayed . . . anyone who has been hurt by their love has wanted to be freed from it. Some fight it for years. But in the end, most of them find that their hearts are set, and they learn how to love that person in spite of what happened between them. This is usually when the healing happens.

Now, I don't want any of you thinking this post is about romantic love. Like I said before, it isn't. This is about the pure love of Christ, which we lucky mortals sometimes get to experience in our relationships with our fellow man. This is the love that siblings share, the love that neighbors share, the love that man and wife share, the love that friends share. This is the love that, if we let it into our hearts, could solve all the world's problems and bring us together in peace at last.

All you need is love.

A Bit of Poetry to Pass the Time

bored + nothing to say + too long since last post = A poem from my files that I wrote several months ago.
Happy Reading!

Will You Die For Me?

By Jessica Grosland

When loved, my heart holds deeper shadows still.
I wander hopeless in them and am lost.
Who dares venture into my darkened soul?
I seek only your own soul as the cost.

Give me your life; I thirst for faith and dreams.
I'll sing to you of love - a macabre jest -
And when I've finally won your tender heart,
I'll tear it, beating, from your empty chest.



-
-
-



Iambic Pentameter is the bomb!

How To Date a Vampire

Hey, everyone. Look! I finally figured out how to put a video on my blog instead of making you follow the link. Most excellent!

This post is dedicated to the recent release of Eclipse. There are so many wonderful things we can learn from those lovely books! For instance, did you know that heavy making out and attempting to remove your lover's clothes isn't immoral if you don't actually have sex?

(*cringe*)

Thank you, Stephenie Meyer, for bringing "Mormon values" into the public eye.

Spanish Love Song

Okay, so my life's really boring right now, and I have nothing to offer you except a moment of respite from the insanely stressful world we live in.


It's a video. "The One-Semester-of-Spanish Spanish Love Song." It's pretty much hilarious, though, admittedly, more so if you've taken Spanish and you understand what he's saying. Here's the link,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngRq82c8Baw

Seriously, if you have a minute and forty-two seconds to kill, I'd watch it. I think this guy is awesome. And if that chick he's singing to isn't interested, I hope he comes and sings to me next.






P.S. Here's the translation for those of you who took LESS than one semester of Spanish:

Hello, Miss.
What's your name?
My name is Mike.
My name is MIKE!
Where's the bathroom?
Happy birthday.
What time is it?
What time is it?!
Lalalalala!
I like the library.
I live in a red house.
I have two bicycles.
Many thanks. Yeah, it was nothing.
How old are you?
One moment, please.
It's the one-semester-of-Spanish
Spanish love song.

My mom is pretty.
My cat is very white.
Pardon me.
PARDON ME!
Lalalalala!
One, two, three and four,
Five, six, seven, eight,
Nine, ten . . .
No remembro how to say 'eleven.'
Antonio Banderas!
Large nachos
And cinnamon twists!
It's the one-semester-of-Spanish
Spanish Love Song.

He Kissed Me!

It was Saturday night; my first college date. We were alone in the back seat of a car. He had just told me that I have beautiful eyes, and then - quite suddenly - he kissed me.

Trust me, it was unexpected.

And I know it sounds like another of my crazy stories, but this time it's true. He really did kiss me. Yes: me. Jessica Grosland - terror of boys everywhere - was kissed for the very first time on Saturday.

Perhaps some specifics are in order.

He is Jimmy. Jimmy Moore. He's an RM, so I believe he's twenty-one years old. He lives in the apartment across the sidewalk from me, which means he's about 20 feet away. He has dark brown hair, brown eyes, and is very funny. We have quite a lot in common for two people who only met a month and a half ago, and obviously we get along rather well. We're both nerds at heart, we both talk incessantly, and we both love to sing at the top of our lungs without a care in the world who's listening.

And how exactly did that kiss come about?

Well, you see, he challenged me to a staring contest. For those of you who don't know, I'm awfully good at staring contests. Freakishly good, really. So I accepted at once. Little did I know, however, that Jimmy is also freakishly good at staring contests. So we kept going, and going, and going. Seriously, it was about a four minute staring contest. We were in the back of the car, leaning towards each other for the slightest sign of blink-age, gazing deeply into each other's eyes. (That's when he told me that mine are beautiful, by the way.) As the contest wore on, we grew silent, leaning ever closer . . .

And that's when he cheated by kissing me on the nose!

I blinked. He won. I gasped in indignation.

The guy driving the car freaked out when he heard the smooching and flipped around yelling, "Hey! No kissing in my car!"

Jimmy laughed uproariously while I started shouting, "You cheated! That doesn't count! No fair!"

I tried to glare at him, but the incredulous smile on my face may have dampened the effect. He did, however, concede the victory. Although he continued to look rather smug for the rest of the night.

---

And there you go. He kissed me. It's all true, and my nose is still blushing.




(Tee hee. I made you think we really kissed. HA HA HA!)

Some Love from The Addams Family

"When the blazing sun has turned to mud,
And the moon lies dead in a pool of blood,
And the tom-tom beat of eternity starts,
Whom will I love in my heart of hearts?
Morticia."

- Gomez Addams

---

Gomez: "How long has it been since we've waltzed?"
Morticia: "Oh, Gomez . . . hours."

---

Gomez: "To live without you, only that would be torture."
Morticia: "A day alone, only that would be death."

---

Morticia: "When we first met years ago, it was an evening much like this. Magic in the air. A boy."
Gomez: "A girl."
Morticia: "An open grave. It was my first funeral."
Gomez: "You were so beautiful. Pale and mysterious. No one even looked at the corpse."

---

Seriously, can you find a more devoted couple?







And this would be no quote collection without including the old Addam's Family Motto:

"'Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc'
We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.'"

Why?

You may not have wanted it,
But I gave it to you;
And you treated it like dirt.