M

The university foreign film club was supposed to play Seven Samurai tonight, but they didn't get the copy of the movie down to Salt Lake to have it filtered to a PG rating in time (I know, I know, but at least they are showing foreign films here). Instead, we watched Fritz Lang's 1931 horror/comedy film, M. I was hooked from the opening scene with a group of small children chanting a grisly nursery rhyme (any movie that begins or ends with groups of cute small children doing something horribly creepy is bound to hit my list of favorite all-time movies--why is this?). M was one of the first talkie-movies (and way cooler than the movie-within-the-movie from Singin' in the Rain), and it's German, so we got to hear a lot of danke schoens and unts and achs.

But what really made the movie blog-worthy was Peter Lorre, who played the child abductor and murderer. I had noticed Lorre from watching Casablanca and wondered if he hadn't been the creepy bug-eyed fellow from those old Looney Tunes episodes (and weren't the super old and unethical Looney Tunes the best ones?). Peter Lorre in this film is horrifying--I'm hooked. If anyone is interested in having a Peter Lorre film festival with me, come to Idaho soon. I'll be having it the weekend after I have my Fritz Lang film festival. We can celebrate several nights of film noir....film noir nights.......naughty needed nights of numerous film noir. Peter Lorre, I'll see you in my nightmares. You and your bush baby eyes.

Quick Catharsis, General Update, Please Don't Judge Me Too Harshly For This Post

I have to finish my lesson plan on Alexander Pope tonight for my 9:00 class tomorrow. This is something I must do. I just got broken up with on the phone. It's okay, he didn't have a choice. That's the thing with long distance relationships. He didn't want to make me wait. He really is a very decent and kind man. I'm a bit heartbroken right now, kind of shaky. The thing is, really, that I'm by myself in my room and it's very, very cold outside and I guess you could say that I'm not sure how to have a decent catharsis to calm down my brain to help me focus on the work at hand.

I just read part of a book tonight about a Mormon pioneer woman who gives birth in the woods while she is looking for medicinal plants for her sick son. She had it way worse than me.

And I just saw this movie Terminal for the first time and Tom Hanks had it way worse than me.

I'm really trying not to make light of this. The truth is, I'm weeping like a dumb little kid right now. I've never been good at the breakup thing. I don't know how to let go. I feel like I've failed. Seriously, how long can a girl keep at this, you know? How many times do I have to go through this kind of pain before I find true love? I try not to be jealous of my young students and their pure, light loves and early marriages, their rings by spring. I'm really trying not to be jealous.

My heart is heavy, but I went to a talk once by Elder Holland when he came to a stake conference in Mesa, Arizona. He told us that Heavenly Father loves broken things. He said that from broken sky comes rain, from broken earth comes grain, and from broken grain comes bread. He says Heavenly Father just loves broken things and when we bring Him our broken hearts, he takes such good care of them on his altars, he is so tender with them and if we sit really patiently and let him work with our broken hearts, he sends us off with a stronger heart than the one we had before it broke.

Ah.........seriously, there is no worse feeling than this. It just echoes and mirrors all the broken places and scars from before. But it does feel a bit good to cry quite a bit. It feels cathartic, not depressing. I'm going to read Pope's poem about Eloisa and Abelard, they had it way worse than I do. Abelard got castrated for crying out loud and Eloisa became a nun.

If my ex-fella is reading this, thanks for letting me down easy. I've never had a phone breakup before, now I know that I hate them. I don't feel any kind of closure except that now I've posted it on the world wide web and maybe that helps me make it real. Darren is a good man, and he'll be great for some girl, somewhere.

And I am going to try to not feel like a failure and just breathe in the air real easy and watch for those little perfect moments, you know? When I was a missionary, I always saw butterflies when things got hard. Even then, I realized how cheesy that was. But they were heaven sent, I'm sure of it, and every time I felt low and a big black and purple butterfly did a quick circle around me and flew up to make me notice the sky, I sure felt damn good. I think all the butterflies in Rigby are dead or hibernating or flew south or whatever they do, but I'll be on the lookout for something tomorrow, and I'll let you guys know if I see anything really beautiful.

Sorry for this confessional post. I think I can finish my evening's work now.

Two mondo posts in one day.......I don't think I'll need to blog again for a week at least.

The Office Grand Tour

My office is starting to look legitimate, so I thought I'd post some pictures and give you all the grand tour. This way, those of you who still think I am sharing a custodial closet with four other one-year hires can be schooled in the ways of truth and reality. Let the rumors cease! (I kid....I know you all have better things to do than gossip about how much bigger my office is than yours.)

Okay, my first brag: Brother Samuelsauce is letting me borrow one of his watercolors for the year I am here. He let me yoink it from the halls of the English Department and I felt like Carmen Sandiego, running out of there with a huge framed artwork under my arm. The bandit mask I was wearing at the time didn't help, either. This photo doesn't do it justice. It's a columbine flower and it's beautiful. You can't see half the colors in it from this picture.

I know the sling looks stupid right there but there was a nail in the wall right there, and I had this sling, and anyway I'm just hanging it there until I find a better place. I'm proud of that sling. I refuse to drawer it. What if I need it?

I'm pleased that I can almost fill my bookshelves. I should also add that every time I go home, I'm bringing up more books. Also, I have posters coming. But I can't resist showing off that I have an actual office with actual books on actual bookshelves. Many thanks go out to Chandler and Sharon--Chan for helping me carry in my many books from my car to the my office in 10 degree below zero weather and for Sharon who stayed in my nice warm office categorizing the books and deciding who should sit by whom (she was appalled that I even thought to put Faulkner on the same shelf as Dickens).

Please note my nerdy cross-stitch in the upper left corner. You want a close-up? That's right. It's a cross-stitch about books. I made that. Are you going to judge me or are you going to pat me on the back? That's linen, man. I'm a crazy cross-stitcher. I have the seeds of a homemaker in me yet and don't anybody accuse me otherwise.

Here's a close-up of my favorite corner of my bookshelf. I'm quite proud of that antler, even though it's pretty puny compared to the antlers my wilderness therapy friends have found on the trail. The week I found it was a good week and I tied it to the top of my pack every day to carry it home with me. I was going to cut it up and make a knife handle out of it, but I'm sort of glad I never got around to doing that. The Korean bracelet was a birthday gift from Konrad a few years ago and I made that little bird dish at the primitive skills gathering in Boulder, Utah. I let it oxidize black and the small bits of coloring on its stomach and eyes are from minerals we gathered and crushed into paint. It isn't my best piece--I gave that one to my mom.

The spoons are from the trail. I made the large one from juniper and a small dark one from cottonwood bark. Price made me the red one from manzanita and he also made my remembrance pouch that you see hanging there. The arrowhead was a blanket trade I made with my fine friend and mentor, David Holladay. He had been working on it all day and offered it for a small clay pot I had made. I definitely got the better of the deal. The leather bracelet I made with a boys band once and the wooden girl was a gift from my mom. Let me also point your attention to my wicked cool copy of Lord of the Rings and my illustrated Hobbit.

I can't go anywhere without my Grover doll so he's relaxing up there on the top shelf next to my folders and my Yellow Submarine lunchbox (I have far cooler lunchboxes than that cheap hardly-retro Beatles box, but I like to leave that collection at home. I don't think people would take me seriously if I had a whole row of children's 1970s and 1980s lunchboxes filling up a shelf).

I'm going to do a lot more to this wall, but this is how it looks so far. I've clipped some articles about Anasazi and wilderness therapy programs in Utah--the debates surrounding wilderness therapy intrigue me to no end. I really could spend my life talking about the ideas, stories, and legends of the business. It's really pulled me into Native American lore and the writings of Whitman, Thoreau, Ed Abbey, et cet. I'm hoping if I fill a wall with inspiration I might be able to contribute my own writings to the conversations abounding in outdoor magazines and mental health journals about the camps. Or whatever. I don't know. I'm just a kid.

My view. It's basically an immortal gray sky, snowy ground, and a construction trailer. I'm not bashful at all about staring down construction workers walking around out there. I'm more than pleased that all the equipment I can see is Caterpillar equipment. I always feel like Grandpa Ted is somewhere up there admiring them with me. Oh, also, I'm getting blinds for my window soon (though chances are I'll never close them), but they say the blind guy is in Mexico for another week or so. They sent me an email that said just that. "The blind guy is in Mexico for another two weeks." I thought it was a riddle or something. Some riddle where the punchline goes, "Then he picked up the hammer and saw." Wasn't there a riddle from elementary school like that?

This tablecloth from Iran is a new installment. I had an Iranian student at Utah State a few years ago and he had brought it for me after going home for Spring break. I think it's beautiful. It probably doesn't mesh with everything else going on in my office, but hodge-podge has always been my general decorative theme, hasn't it? If only I could find my old Glen Campbell "Rhinestone Cowboy" blanket. That would look awesome stapled to the ceiling (I kid, Jen, I kid).

Here's my last close-up. A picture of the fam, a "BELIEVE" tin sign from my mom (I couldn't figure out if it is more a "Believe in Santa" or a "Believe in Christ" sign, but then I stared at it so long I just thought, yeah, BELIEVE! Just the vibe of believing....I really dig that), a water gourd that Matt Howard gave me, and a talking stick my good friend Melody made for me on Cherry Creek. I love that stick. She etched my trail name onto it--that seriously must have taken a whole Sunday layover. I used it in all my favorite fire circles, and it has passed through the hands of the finest youngwalkers and trailwalkers who fiddled with it while they spoke their hearts. It has magical properties to me, laugh if you will. I say it straightfaced.

Oh, and right, my desk. Here it is. It's a mess. The screensaver came with the PC....I haven't figured out how to change it and I haven't decided what I'd want to change it to anyway. Every once in a while a unicorn picture and a dolphin picture shows up on it and that makes me giggle every time. Another unicorn is found on my pencil box--on the other side it says "EMILY IS BOSS" in pink paint. One of my favorite New Haven girls made it for me. She had been hard to win over at first, and I cherish that unicorn pencil box. I also found that pack of invisible cards in a box I rummaged through at home. It has some nostalgic properties, too, and I like to mess with them when I am waiting ten minutes nervously before class (I never get nervous in class, just in the ten minutes before).

Well, hey, thanks for visiting my office. It feels cozier now that I've had old friends visit.

Clear Moon Full Night and her Vision Quest to the Past, Wintertime

I haven't unpacked my camera to take any pictures of New Old Rexburg but I'll post this one of Wind in His Hair because I just saw Dances with Wolves for the first time and enjoyed the spiritedness and hooting/hollering of Wind in His Hair. I'd like to make him my role model as I attempt to recreate myself in these northern deserts. In other words, if any of you roll into town, I'll be the one up on the cliffsides in my buckskins and war paint, shaking my weapon of choice and screaming down at you between hoots and yelps, "I am Clear Moon Full Night! Do you see that I am your friend?! Can you see that I will always be your friend?!" Then we will eat buffalo heart together after a great hunt. (Remind me to blog later about all the parts that bug me in Dances with Wolves, bless Kevin Costner's heart.)

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I should put something new up here but my life is still a scramble. I'm living in and out of suitcases, and I can find my car in the parking lot at night because I have a roll of toilet paper in a small orange snow shovel next to the dirty leather bag I made at camp lying on the speakers behind my back window. The three-day weekend should help me finalize myself in my new/old digs at Sharon's place. I am not as sorely nostalgic as I formerly feared. Oh, you ghosts are still there, I'm not discrediting you.

I found Jen and Trevor at Fongs and I haven't dared try Mill Hollow yet. Going down the road to American Manor gave me chills but it looks so different now my chills got confused and ended halfway down my spine. I see Serena in Sharon's living room and sometimes Joe joins me when I'm driving around Rigby just for the sake of driving around Rigby. Zufelt surprised me in the Taylor--remember when we always used to run into each other between classes there? I had my cloud bag at the time and you always complimented. Jade and Garmon met me in the foyer of the Smith--Jade was scoffing at the Scroll and marking it up in red pen and Garmon was wearing flared polyester pants and a vintage pearlysnap. Jen's ghost came with me to the pink-tiled bathrooms on the 2nd floor of the Smith because it still smells like spices and Bath and Body Works and I still don't know if that's because of some unseen automatic air freshener or if it is because the air is diffused with the aroma of dozens of perfumed and lotioned LDS girls who charge the bathrooms each hour on the hour.

Three of my classes (and my office) are in the Smith and I have one class at the Clark (2nd floor with the culinary arts...it smells so good up there...torture). Since I dress in business-garb and thick churchy stockings, no one has mistaken me for a student. It is strange. I remember walking the halls of the Smith in complete intimidation of all the older boys and pretty girls and now I feel like I'm visiting my old Jr. High. The tall cocky good-looking fellows treat me like their grandma and it feels natural to me, too. I thought this would depress me, but I'm actually quite empowered by the feeling. I feel like.............Professor McGonagall. Oh man, that would be so sweet if I could turn into a cat.

Old maid. Some of them wonder if I am one. They haven't asked me but I sense it the same way you can tell if your puppy peed in the house before you see where. There's a couple more of us old maids in the Smith and one of them approached me and asked if I was okay. I said, yes, I love my students! And she pulled me aside further and said when she first came to teach here she had become depressed and that if that happens to me, I should come talk and relate with her. It wasn't weird or horrible at all that she did that. I'm not saying that. It's just.......I don't know. I keep thinking of the cartoon Old Maid from all those old card packs when we were kids, how it was so funny to point and giggle at the person who got stuck with her at the end of the game. I feel more like giggling than crying. Maybe that's because it's hard to feel like an old maid when you're still kissing hot men.

I like to think of myself more as the Queen of Spades in Hearts. All these guys with no guts are afraid of me and want me out of their hand as soon as possible. But the bold, sneaky, twinkle-eyed man who is the type to shoot the moon ("What is it you want, Mary? You want the moon?") is going to want to trap me and hold me with all the hearts in the game until everyone realizes what they've let happen and they stomp and jeer while we live happily on our pile of collected love and our substantial increase in game winnings. Okay, admittedly that was a lame analogy and I'm ready to end this post. I just wanted to nod my hat to you all and confirm that I am still alive and well in these gray, muted horizons of south-eastern Idaho.

Renovations: 2009

First and foremost, Happy New Years to you all. Allow me to gloat about my lavish and sexy (without the sex) New Years celebration from the high rollers' rooms on the top floor of the Rio's Ipanema Tower in Las Vegas. It was an adventurous few days with not a little drama--fortunately for me I was on the outer fringes of the more risque parts of the Gilliland 2009 Family Trip. I saw Chippendale dancers, I doubled my money at the Star Wars slots of Caesar's Palace, I bought a new hat, I ate at the restaurant on the top floor of the Paris and I ate ridiculously decadent room service breakfasts daily. I gained approximately 1,000 lbs.

The hotel rooms were larger than the house I grew up in. The windows took up the entire wall and the lights of Vegas would blaze in carnival glory, blocking out all but the sliver of a Cheshire Cat moon and one lone star dangling like an earring beneath it. We didn't go out on New Year's Eve but watched from above. I'm pleased to say that on that night between the years 2008 and 2009, I, at 26-years-young, received my very first New Year's kiss.

I know this picture is heinous--apologies to D.E. for posting his early morn mug on the world wide web. It's all I've got. I wish I could aptly describe the sheer girth of these hotel rooms. This picture was taken in the banquet hall. There was also a living room, a bar, two bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a strange little bench at the end of a hallway covered in art. The baths were like hot tubs. And there were no doors anywhere--you had to warn people when you were getting naked so they could avoid the vantage points that included the open shower in their periphery. I felt like Gatsby's Daisy. "Even the books are real!" And they were! We had an antique Treasure Island and a first edition Anne of Green Gables hidden on different shelves in the room. Note: The Rice Krispies on the table are for my vegan sister and her vegan friend. Even those mini-boxes were served on silver platters.

Unfortunately this next picture looks like senior Prom, only it looks like I'm a sophomore going with my teacher. A pregnant-looking sophomore. A super hot poet teacher. Darren and I bought a disposable camera (talk about retro) that cost a pretty penny at the Rio gift shop and as soon as we fill it up and develop it I'll see if there are any more worth adding. Developing pictures--this excites me as much as it would have five years ago.

I'm quite apprehensive about this upcoming year. I will be in Rexburg for the full of it. This is certain. This I have promised to do. Everything else is vague and misty. My fella will still live almost a full three hours away until May and then perhaps farther? And I still have no certain plans for 2010. 2010--what a frightening landmark for us 1980s babies. Our third decade. Those days of Square One and 3-2-1 Contact sure seem pretty far back there.

Ah, the past. I get so murked up in it. Thus, the renovations. I'm clearing out the full right side of this here blog. None of you will notice, I'm certain, but this is huge for my heart. I'm going through the first of probably many mid-life crises. I'm frightened of wasting my time (think the cobwebbed wedding cakes of the old dame in Great Expectations). And thus, in place of my dusty pictures, I am keeping that right side there to document what I do in 2009--the books I read, the goals I keep, etc. I need to start living in the NOW. Sucking up today's life marrow.

Okay, I can't get rid of ALL the pictures. I'll keep just the bare minimum. No more than ten.