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.
16 comments:
I think (cuz I don't want put words in ppls mouths) Jason's favorite line in It's a Wonderful Life is "Hotdog"!
You are NOT an old maid. I do think you are brave to head back into the world of girls who think you need to be married by 19 or you are destined to be a spintsy (see Seriously So Blessed). I spent one year in Provo after I had graduated and all I got was "well it will be okay" looks and comments. Crazy!
You are a power woman! You know it and I know it.
Plus, New Fongs is kind of weird don't you think? When I come up we'll go to OLD!!!! and Original Fongs.
Yes, New Fongs weirds me out.....It's Main Street Fongs or no Fongs for this girl! I can't wait for you to come visit!
Gilz, I want to come reminisce with you down every corridor of that campus!!! Mill Hollow?!?! Aaahh!!! I loved that place! We used to walk down the road from the Snow whenever we got tired of being cooped up in those tiny practice rooms. What a beautiful release. I'm suddenly craving one of those hot sandwiches as I sit all bundled up next to the window...peeling the tin foil away from its baked goodness. Dang it. Now I want to go to Rexburg. :) I give all those students one month to fall deeply and madly in love with you. In an educational as well as individual sense. Err...whatever THAT means. :) And we need more Jimmy Stewarts in the world. Yes, I want the moon. For crying out loud! I can't wait to come up there and track you down from the hillside. I hope you really have those buckskins. :)
For crying out loud, indeed! Dee, when you come up we WILL have those tin-foiled hot sandwiches with frozen yogurt to boot.
I have to say I'm a bit jealous! I kind of pictured myself returning to Rexburg to teach at BYU-Idaho, and just hearing your descriptions of the area took me back too.
Yikes! I can't get too nostalgic! Sometimes that incapacitates me!
(By the way, why would my dressing like Santa Claus for the ward party make me lose my values???)
Haha, Trev, you are asking the wrong lady. That was all Sharon. I think it must have roots in Walt Disney stealing our souls and the like. I wouldn't worry. I think your soul is fully intact and blooming. It isn't the same without you here!
Another memory that hit me last week: remember when you, me, Joe, and Serena went to the haunted swingset with pirate tattoos and gummy sharks and then watched Pete's Dragon? Those are the memories that incapacitate me!
Here's the thing -- I don't have a thing. But I also saw "Dances With Wolves" for the first time recently. I tried to be enthralled. I tried to even be interested. But for the most part I was just making bets as to how often I'd see Kevin Costner's white nekked buttocks. Why is it that Kevin Costner's and Mel Gibson's have these contracts that dictate their hiney gets a close-up in the buff every movie, but we never get to see Anderson Cooper's bum? I don't expect him to drop his pants on the news, for crying out loud, but he was on "The Mole" for long enough to gain some, ahem, exposure. I want to see hott bums, not saggy, old white bums.
Have you noticed that, that we always see the wrong bums? Harry Potter shows his bum (in a different gig, of course) but how often do you see Alan Rickman's bum?
Oh, wait. You know whose bum I really want to see? Conan's. Yes, I know it's the whitest of saggy, old white bums. But I've got to have it. Someone find me a clip on YouTube or I will die from unmet expectations.
Yes, this really is a comment to your post. It really is. Your word verification is uridisi, and I must say that you really are a disi. And that's why I love you.
Over and out.
Heeheehee, Jade, you are so much better than spam any day. I'd like to grab Conan's bum before seeing it. And Costner's nakedness I actually didn't mind--I didn't like looking at it, particularly--but I appreciated how real it made the movie. I mean, if I was all alone, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a lake and a horse and crappy little fort....I would totally be naked all the time. Except for when I sat on hay. Or in front of a spitting fire. Any sunny afternoon with a pleasant climate and an easy breeze? Buck stark naked, man.
I forget we both love Alan Rickman. Tee hee! I don't know how attracted I am to the naked butt. I definitely am attracted to butts in good pairs of jeans. But only if I've kissed the guy. Until I've kissed them, I don't really notice. Naked though....I think I'd just feel mooned.
I love this post. I have so much to respond to! I cried like I always do at "It's a Wonderful Life this year." So glad that I never saw it till I was older and could properly appreciate it.
Moolawchy Achey-Lake. Mulaki-Ay-Wo. Tuhonny Lakey Hay-Haw.
That is the phonetic spelling of the Lakota Sioux phrase that Wind in His Hair says which you quoted. (Holy clauses, Batman!) Um, I was a camp counselor for two summers. Fake "Indian" legends and all.
[I have a lot of things to say about wretched Kevin Costner. My worst performance of his is the entire movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." Why am I not surprised that everyone is speaking with a British accent (maybe because it's set in England, and Robin Hood is a British tale???), and then Kevin Costner opens his big dopey mouth and says, "Hello, Marion," like a pimply fourteen-year-old who would probably turn his r's into w's if he treid to do a British accent. His ONLY good performance was in Silverado.]
Millhollow was the scene of my first (blind) date with Allen. Oh yeah.
Love the Old Maid observations, especially your qualifier/disclaimer: kissing hot men. Sa-weet. And "the same way you can tell your puppy peed"--so gifted a writer you are. Reading your blog is a fresh of breath air. And an air of fresh breath.
About your analogy at the end: have you been to Vegas lately or something? :) And have you seen the old "Manchurian Candidate" with Angela Lansbury? Just curious about your Queen of Spades fixation . . . :)
PS- Do you really have an OFFICE?
PS- Jade, are you feeling alright?
Ahahaha, yes Manchurian Candidate with Frankie Sinatra and Angela Lansbury is so choice. "Wouldn't you like to play a game of solitaire?"
Doesn't a guy tell him to jump in a lake when Sinatra is hypnotized, so he walks out the door, down the road to the closest body of water, and walk off the pier? Fabulous movie.
That Angela Lansbury. She is so talented.
I should have known you'd be able to pull out the original Lakota phonetics. They almost pulled Wind in his Hair because he couldn't get the Lakota language down. He got extra lessons, though. They had to keep him because he is so hot and has a great holler.
Oh, also, the surreal tea party scenes......it's been years. I need to buy that movie. Oh, Lansbury.
I completely agree that Kevin Costner is a terrible, terrible actor, but I have yet to see a movie he's in that I didn't like, and Robin Hood is definitely in my top 3. And I love Alan Rickman, though as for seeing his butt...I don't know.
The best part of Robin Hood is when Kevin Costner asks Marion if she'll undertake a dangerous mission for her king and she says no. Costner gets this dopey, confused look on his face and super-fox Maid Marion says, "I'll do it for you," then steals a kiss. Their first kiss! What a woman.
The orchestra immediately begins wailing the "Everything I Do" theme, and after that, Duncan says, "He fancies you, miss. I may be blind, but some things I can still see." Ah, the wisdom of the feeble.
Ah, "Everything I Do".......I had many a preteen moment fantasizing about someone singing that to me and accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar.
Also, Grover, I'm glad you aren't completely unsold on seeing Rickman's nether region....I'm getting a kick out of that ambivalence....
It's strange that I knew of you but never knew you. We ran in similar circles. Might have been at the same events. We have all sorts of strange connections besides uncannily similar taste in music.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to return. I envy you and am scared to become that person, too. You know what I mean? Obviously by your post I do.
Say hi to Sharon for me. I'd love to spend an afternoon shooting the breeze in her office talking of whatever. And don't give in to New Fong's.
i miss the years. i hope my ghost is more mellow than I ever was.
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