Home Alone

It is 5:46 a.m. and I am watching Full House on the only channel I can find that isn't an infomercial. A Boy Meets World Marathon is starting in fifteen minutes. I dropped David off at the airport this morning so he could attend a conference. He won't be back until Sunday night--we are going to be apart for five days.

It isn't like he has gone off to war or into a space shuttle headed toward the moon (and thank goodness, because the recent film Moon, the one starring Samuel Rockwell, has frightened me away from space travel for good, holy moly Moses Nancy), but the thing is, David and I have never spent one night away from each other since we were married last August.

I'm surprised that I'm feeling such separation anxiety because I used to love it when all my roommates would go out of town and I'd get the apartment to myself. It isn't that I disliked my roommates being around, but there is just something magical about watching whatever I want on TV whenever I want while eating macaroni and cheese out of the pot with a wooden spoon.

But somehow I have lost my ability to be by myself. There's Blue Bell ice cream in the fridge, homemade pizza leftovers waiting to be picked at, Lonesome Dove just showed up yesterday via Netflix, and I am only about halfway through the Super Nintendo game Secret of Mana. But do I really want to watch Lonesome Dove without Davie? Would beating the Secret of Mana really be the same without David there to watch me cream the final bosses?

I also have an annotated bibliography to finish, three final essays to begin, a presentation to compose, two books to read before next Wednesday (not to mention a thousand other critical essays to read and summarize), and about 12 hours worth of grading to have done before Saturday. But can I really accomplish all that when I'm so distracted by David's absence? Not only have we never spent a night away from each other, but I've only been home by myself for less than a few hours at a time, and only rarely. Since we've always had the same work schedules at the same school, we've always left the house together and come home together. It makes sense that this brief separation should be healthy because I obviously need to cope with time on my own, but five days? With no training wheels first?

In true Kevin-McAllister-style, first I'm going to get freaked out by the heater (this is not a joke), then I'm going to watch this Boy Meets World marathon until I fall back asleep (Mr. Feenie just got stood up on his date, and is feeling lonely, too), then I'll find a renewed sort of independence at which point I will shoplift a toothbrush and booby-trap my house to protect my own turf. After the creepy old man across the street unhooks me from the back of the neighbor's door, I will wake up Sunday morning to a fresh snowfall just as David steps out of John Candy's Polka van.

Maybe I'll even put on some of Dave's aftershave and scream into the camera a few times. (But in an adorable way, not, like, a weird way.)

I am declaring war on cynicism.

Sometimes I complain and grumble about unimportant things. For example, I used to complain that I wasn't in school. Now I complain about difficult homework assignments. Sometimes I complain that my face breaks out and I'm nearly 30. Sometimes I complain that I'm nearly 30, period. Sometimes I whine about having a pudgy tummy and then I whine about exercising. I whine about grocery stores, I whine about running out of Rain Berry Gatorade, and I whine about how the apartment still smells "weird." And then I complain about people who put quotation marks around words for emphasis. I grumble about it being too hot, I grumble when it starts to drizzle-rain. Sometimes I even grumble about hypothetical things that haven't even happened: "What if my teacher hates my assignment?" "What if this book comes a week late?" "What if my hair gets all nappy and my students don't take me seriously?" Boo hoo hoo pooh pooh pooh.

I've been sort of grumbly in the periphery of my Lubbock days. I think it stems from stress and anxiety. But who cares what it stems from--it's turning me into a Cynical Cynthia!

So here is Part I of my top ten list of lovely things I should think about the next time I start to get a little cock-eyed pessimistic:

10. It's October, which has always been my favorite month. It's a month of Harvest Spice candles, homemade decorations, pumpkin bread, thunderstorms, and Ray Bradbury readathons. The air will soon become crisp and the birds will start to fly into Lubbock. According to the Audubon Society, Lubbock is home to thousands of Sandhill Cranes in the winter. I'm hoping some of the Sandhill Cranes David and I met in southeastern Idaho will come bearing good news from the northwest.

9. A new Professor Layton game just came out for the DS. Davie and I love puzzles, and we also love gentlemen in top hats. Trust me: I used to think the DS was incredibly lame until I played this delightful little narrative game. I had given up on video games entirely since these days they are all about sex and cussing, but the DS has given me new hope. The second best DS game out there is the Ace Attorney series, where you play a defense lawyer. Silly, silly games, but also very wise. They're just as good as Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, and they require about the same amount of reading.

8. This clip of John Ritter playing $25,000 Pyramid. Thanks goes to Dave's friend Dave for forwarding this to us. There's no way he could have known that John Ritter is a longtime crush and idol of mine. This video will convince you why:

7. I'm doing a research project right now on Charles and Mary Lamb. Charles is known for writing essays, creative non-fiction--what my husband writes. Mary is his sister. They lived together their whole lives. Mary had mental health problems and one day, while she was caring for their elderly parents, she had a manic episode and tragically killed her mother. Charles will stick by her forever after that, and there are accounts of the two of them walking together up the road to a mental asylum whenever Mary showed signs of another episode, Charles carrying a straitjacket for just in case. I love the Lambs. I am always touched when I read about the details of their lives. They also wrote literature for children together, and that's what I'm writing about this semester. Charles and Mary Lamb remind me what it means to be the opposite of cynical. They are all hope and endurance to me, even in reading about their struggles.

6. David is probably going to be my number one, too, for whenever I decide to write Part II of my anti-cynicism post, but he's going to make today's list, too. I won't bore anybody with an exhaustive list of everything this man does for me, but I will just mention that whenever I do get grumbly, he never turns on me or tells me to just drop it already. He just listens. And waits. And sometimes he tells me to lie down for a while and he'll cover me with a blanket, bring me a Nalgene full of water, and come back a few minutes later with half a grilled cheese sandwich. Sometimes he'll play soft music on his guitar or turn on Mary Poppins (even though we both agree that Mary Poppins is a twit and pompous jerk. Bert is way too good for her). I'm very grateful for this man, and for how he makes me feel safe. It takes real love to find a way to make your woman laugh even when she is busy being terrified about the very eternities of the universe. The least I could do in return is to stop whining about the details. Life is too short to make any of those complaints worth it.

So! I raise my cup to CHEERINESS, GRATITUDE, and HEARTY HANDSHAKES with LIFE: HUZZAH! HUZZAH! *the crowd goes WILD*

I am declaring war on Jon McNaughton.

Forgive me for this untypically opinionated and finger-wagging post. Some of my readers might happen to like McNaughton. We are still friends. Just know that I will never compliment you for hanging him on your wall.

The man's propaganda is, if I may borrow Huxley's term, "herd-poisoning" the people with the artistic aesthetic of a Thomas Kinkade (had Kinkade painted people instead of cozy cottage landscapes).

(At least cozy cottage landscapes aren't offensive, short-sighted, and self-righteous.)

I've also declared war on Glenn Beck, but at least he's mostly a comic strip character. McNaughton is selling his works to be framed over sofas as religious proclamations (which they are most definitely not). Except instead of being inspirational reminders of our own humility and dependence on God, he has created political allegories that blow into flame whatever ignorant opinions are stereotypical of green Jello culture. Doesn't he realize the riskiness of such overt and shameless symbolism? Does he feel no regret at polarizing complex problems, or refusing to suspend his own judgment long enough to consider other viewpoints as valid as his own?

And how are so many good people fine with accepting his interpretations of God, country, and mankind? Have we lost the art of questioning? Do we believe anything we see if it's been painted with soft lighting, contains familiar faces, and sold at a Deseret Book?

Enough! Propaganda is not art! It's delusive and breeds fear and prejudice. It does not inspire community or brotherhood or self-examination, but rather it builds walls between neighbors and promotes self-congratulation.

I declare war on you, Jon McNaughton. I'm disappointed that a man with access to so much light and knowledge still hasn't learned what it means to think before mass-producing disinformation under the guise of religious art. I've seen your latest, and I'm sick from it. I can't sit down about this any longer.

Didn't President Hinckley teach us that, "There is too much intolerance in the world. There is too much of it in our own society"? In his essay to college students, "Out of Your Experience Here," he says, "How enriched is the individual who, as he or she goes out into the world, knows that all men and women are sons and daughters of God, each endowed with a divine birthright. How beneficial to come to the realization that, since we are all children of God, we all are brothers and sisters in a very real sense." So why paint pictures that are going to turn brothers against brothers with stereotyping and the slandering of people from Charles Darwin to President Obama? Your images are nothing but straw men, but the people look to your work as if you've paved them in brick. Have you no conscience?

If you want to draw a political cartoon, draw one. Make a statement. But don't tout your opinions as if they were gospel. Don't sell them into homes on the premise that it will make their dwellings holy.

I declare war on you, Jon McNaughton.

Ch-Ch-Ch----

I wanted the title to be a classy salute to David Bowie without sounding cliché, when I realized: Bowie isn't the only cat to use the Ch-Ch- intro.

Ch-ch-ch-changes is obvious.

Ch-ch-ch-Chia I had forgotten.

Then there's the cha-cha-cha. This one is important to me because it reminds me of that scene in Real Genius where Val Kilmer makes Mitch "take a step forward...now take a step back...okay, take a step forward...take a step back" and then they're "cha-cha-ing." It's important tonight because when David and I were making huge late-night chocolate chip cookies I started re-enacting that scene until David said, "Quit thinking you're Val Kilmer." (More reasons to love this man. Also, he just gets nervous when I remind him of Val Kilmer because of his not-so-secret man crush on VK.)

Ch-ch-ch-choo choo? Is that where it all derives?

If so, is it also the derivative of "traded in his Chevy for a cadilac-ack-ack-ack-ack?" Perhaps I could get Joel to change it for my post to go: "traded in his caddy for a Ch-ch-ch-ch-Chevrolet!"

Anyway, the point of this post is that I made a big-big move, and I always have severe trauma after big-big moves. Mom drove down with us to Lubbock when we moved in. I was shell-shocked for those first few days; it was great having Mom there, and she and David were champs at keeping me from bursting into tears.

Me: "It smells like cigarettes."
David: "Wow! Look how big this place is!"
Me: "There's disgusting things in the sink. This place hasn't even been cleaned!"
Mom: "Oh, let's get one of those Magic Erasers at Target. They are so cool!" [the Magic Eraser DID end up being successful]
Me: "The shower head only comes up to my chest."
David: "Hey! It feels like we live in Asia again!"

Two and a half days after arriving, we dropped Mom off at the airport, tearfully, and hopped on a plane ourselves to England.

England was lovely. Continental lost our luggage, so for the first two days in York, we were luggage-less (jacket-less, toothbrush-less, etc.). Fortunately, it wasn't too cold. Then, we spent a day up at Hadrian's wall, saw some Roman ruins (live archeological digs!), and then spent five days in the Lake District where we also saw two of my favorite museums ever: the place where pencils were invented, where we also watched clips of that movie about the flying boy and the snowman with the tender music? The one we all loved as kids? Well, the whole thing was penciled with Derwentwater pencils, straight from Keswick. The other museum was called Cars of the Stars. I SAW CHITTY CHITTY BANG-BANG! I saw it! They wouldn't let us take pictures, but I was there! It was the real thing! No gimmick! I saw where Dick Van Dyke sat! We also saw two Batmobiles (Adam West's and Michael Keaton's first one), the Munstermobile, NightRider (the one with Mr. Feeney's voice), the A-Team van, and Mel Gibson's Mad Max vehicle. We wrote down the rest somewhere. Anyway. they were the real deals. From Keswick we went to Stratford-upon-Avon, then down to London for a couple of days, up to Bath (where we took a special tour to Stonehenge before it was open to the public, so we got to walk IN the rocks!), over to see the Glastonbury Tor, and then back to London.

In London, though, I started to feel anxious. This is where my post really begins (but I promise not to make you read much longer). Since coming back to Lubbock, I've had a real mid-life crisis.

I don't want to buy a Porsche, and I'm still very much super in love with my husband, more and more all the time, but I suddenly was very aware at every moment just how mortal I am. I thought a lot about how old the earth is. How long dinosaurs were on it. How loooooooooooooooooong dinosaurs were on it. And how looooooooooooooooong people have been on the earth. I felt like an ant. Like a blink. Like my life was just going to blink away.

And then I started to think about myself as an immortal soul.

And I gulped. And then I wept. And then I stared out the window at all the people and their lives which are very much as real as mine. I felt like Moses after he saw how all the earth went down and how many people were going to crawl all over it. I felt puny. And I thought about all the people that die every day, and I started thinking why shouldn't I be one of them? What's going to save me and keep me safe?

And then I became agoraphobic.

Since school has started, I've begun to normalize myself again.

But it all makes me come down to this: life is so good. It's so good, I want to keep it forEVER. (And that's big of me to say. Those of you who know me know that eternity scares the living pants off me.)

I'm serious, though. I love David so much, I want to keep him in my pocket where I can make sure nothing ever ever happens to him. I want to live in a glass ball, in a secure bubble, in one of those science fiction dome shields that are sort of see-through.

But life doesn't work like that. I can't save the game and then go back to my old files when something tragic happens (psychologists need to start studying the effects of old Macintosh computer games on kids' brains who grew up in the '80s).

I've realized, though, that I surely will miss out on everything if I spend all my time worrying about what-ifs.

So I'm relearning carpe diem. And I'm only going to do and think and say what makes my heart feel big and warm. I once told some kids on the trail that we're all like seeds that got buried in the dirt and we can't tell which way is up or down or right or left. We don't even know that there is a surface out of the dirt. All we know is darkness and worms and sometimes mud. And heat. There's some kind of heat coming from one of the directions of black, and if we lean ourselves toward that heat, at least we'll feel like we're going somewhere. We all know the rest of the story--the little seedling follows the heat until it breaks the surface and realizes that the world ISN'T all dirt and darkness. It's glorious and colorful and bright. And then we bloom or bring forth fruit or whatever kind of plant we turn out to be, we'll do what that plant does. And it's glorious.

So that's all I know right now. I'm getting over this mid-life crisis and throwing away my what-ifs. I'm going to do what feels good. And I feel good. And I have a sickly great life. And David is my best friend. And he watches Val Kilmer movies with me. And I'm glad he still thinks I'm great even when I'm more than a little crazy. I'm so lucky that I get to share this blink of time with him.

P.S. David made us a joint-blog that we'll be using to give family updates. I might just save this blog here for crazy venting purposes. I need to revamp/update this old webpage anyway. Here's the Near—Far link: http://groooover.com/

Rainbow Cake Lunar New Years Celebration Adventure Extravaganza Sports Candy

This post is dedicated to my old friend Serena, in memory of toothbrush bracelets, junk car photo shoots, and army men cakes.

This cake was Davie's idea, pulled from a website one of his friends had found and recommended. I'll post the link here eventually, so it's not a complete plagiarism of someone else's fabulous idea.

All you need are two white cake mixes and a whole box of food coloring. I really wanted to call this the Punky Brewster cake, but David vetoed it. He said the closest I could get was the Rainbow Unicorn Cake. We're trying to devise ways to invent an edible unicorn horn to stick on the top of the cake——any ideas?

Here is me looking creepier than usual, adding even MORE food coloring to the different bowls of cake mix. You can see the edge of our sticker charts poster off to the left there. I drew that carrot. We put a sticker on it everyday we don't eat meat. (We've done it twice. Which is almost more stickers than our "flossing" chart has. But you should see our book-reading chart!)


Here's David, looking less creepy than me but just as sneaky.

Then we poured the cake batters into the pans (for some reason you need two white cake mixes instead of just one, though we did have a half a bread pan's worth of cake batter leftover).

I had to take a picture of the mess because it looked like we'd been cooking with paint. (As a side note, actually eating the cake makes you feel like you're eating playdoh.)

Here they are, fresh from the oven, in muted '70s retro coloring.

David made homemade cheesecake icing (way more effort than I ever would have put forth on my own).

Our cake looked like a rainbow baby swaddled in cloud candy (complete plagiarism of Tim Curry in the earlier mentioned Psych episode—this is a nod to you, Becca). But it really did look like that. We said so repeatedly. (P.S. I iced the cake. Awesome job, huh?)

Adventure in Driggs

I have about twelve blog posts I've been meaning to write. Today it was between an adventure in Driggs or a blog post on our Rainbow Unicorn Cake Adventure. Driggs wins, but just because it is Presidents' Day related and that topic will grow cold if I wait much longer. So, without further ado, here is our adventuring:










Sorry that last one is a bit low resolution. Can you see the bald eagle? I swear it is there, in the tops of the trees. Open it up big and play Where's Waldo. It's evidence that we saw a bald eagle on Presidents' Day (appropriately enough). Luckily, we had brought binoculars and watched him roost up in the tree tops until he took off for a glorious flight. Anyway, we've decided snow-shoeing is great, but next time we're definitely going to make a try for cross-country skiing.

Happy Birthday, Bowie

Dear David Bowie,

My husband and I danced to "As the World Falls Down" as our first dance as a married couple. You're not just glam, you're pure gold. Thanks for all the good times.

Cordially from your fan,
Em G.