I Just Want to Want to Have Ambition

I graduate soon, and with that apparently ensues the public's need to find out not only what I'm doing after graduation, but what I hope, (shudder) aspire, (grimace) and dream (wretch) to be and do with my new magical degree in English.  So, here's a list of the lies that form somewhere in my subconscious and somehow bubble out of my mouth.  Usually without my intentional consent.  Notice that each one starts somewhere with a degree in English, and then is tweaked and stretched by each unique person forcing imaginary dreams out of my mouth, despite my claims of really, truly, not knowing what I am going or want to do.    

**Caveat: As soon as the victim (played by me) says 'I don't know' in a conversation and the predator (most people at church and many members of my family) continues to push the questions further, this is defined as conversational rape, and I cannot be held responsible for any lie told after that.  These are all true, fake dreams that I was forced into creating in the last week or two of being at home.

1.  Writer for National Geographic's travel section.  (Aren't they all travel sections?  I don't even know.)

2.  Working at a gym in London and traveling (haha. ha.  haha.)

3.  A writer and editor for NPR. (Yeah, the entire station.  All of it.)

4.  Really... I just want to be a mom! (This one is the pepper spray to my rape allegory.  Stops any more questions immediately.  Only useful in Relief Society though.)

5.  Acquisitions editor for Random House (I've found that the multi-syllable "acquisitions" coupled with credible company "Random House" usually quiets a crowd)

6.  Grad school (followed by where and what program, followed by I don't know, followed by but if you could go anywhere and be in any program followed by Arizona State, literature.  Who knew I was even thinking about Arizona?)

And my personal favorite

7.   Working for the olympics in the 2012 games in London.

I think this conversation was over at 'what's your major.'

I Guess I'm Just That Smart

The other day my mom was talking to my five-year-old nephew about his new hermit crab, Colin.  He said some obscure fact about hermit crabs and my mom asked him where he learned so much about Colin the Crab.  He said, "I just knowed it."

No, I'm sure his dad told him, (credit stealer) but then I realized that adults do the same thing, but instead of the grammatically incorrect "I just knowed it,"  it graduates to, "I read it somewhere"  

Once you give a name to the source of all your brilliance, it's not as romantic, smart, or impressive.  If I for some reason know there are 192 nations in the United Nations and someone asks me how I know that... I'm not going to tell them it was on my cereal box that morning.  Even if I learned it in a class.  Then my genius suddenly becomes my teacher's or school's glory, and I'm just the messenger. Forget that.  I want it.  I miraculously just know that bit of information, ok?  I'm sure it was implanted in my brain after my mind was constructed by NASA.  

So no titles, no teachers,  no episodes of Grey's Anatomy.  This is how I want it:  all my friends and family thinking everything I know to have just spontaneously appeared in my brain because I read so much that I don't even remember where it was that I read it, I just know that I knowed it somehow.  

Greatest Hits

Resurrection is fun.  It's usually better the second time around because we recognized how much (dead item) was missed, and can fully appreciate it.  However high it reaches on the fun scale though, it never lasts as long.  Why?  Because after all is said and done it's old news.

I'm talking of course of Nintendo.  And anthrax.  And The Police (note the caps... I'm talking about the band)

This week I played Super Mario Brother's 3 for the first time in a while, anthrax is back in headlines, and The Police just wrapped up their reunion tour.  Yes I loved the nostalgia that came with dancing palm trees and Bowzer.  Yes I love a reincarnated bio-chemical terrorism story as much as the next girl, and no I can't get enough of teacher/student statutory rape, encapsulated in a song a beautiful song. But, I still had to blow inside the Nintendo to get it started, anthrax didn't actually kill anyone this time (boringgg), and The Police:  you guys are just old. 

So... for now I'll just stick with the new stuff, wait the appropriate amount of time for jokes about them to be funny again rolls around, and appreciate anthrax for the non-threat it ever was, and ever will be.  

When it Rains in Hell

I just wanted some toast.  My mom doesn't eat flour and my dad isn't much of a "convenience" food guy so every time I come home, I have to fish out our toaster from some hidden cabinet.  This time I had to climb to the top of the cupboard-abyss of the broom closet to get myself some delicious, crispy, I-can't-believe-it's-not-buttery toast.  This is

 what happened: 

 

Broom closet:  6'7 tall.  I measured

Maggie:  5'3 tall.  I measured!

Toaster:  Located on that top shelf.

And then THIS rained down on my head when struggling for the stow-away appliance:  Two boxes of garbbage bags, two steak knives and--worst of all--what could only be two million (kitchen floor colored) bread crumbs. This is because that godless trap door on the bottom of all toasters opened up and vomited its bile all over my head.  Needless to even think about, the youngest of all those crumbs were 4 months old:  The last time I was home.

Thanks... YOU guys.

Se7en Things to Do

They're lofty... but I've got SEVEN weeks, to accomplish SEVEN goals, and yeah... it's possible.  Thanks Clark!

1.  Re-create my own moon landing in the desert of Arizona... with Blake... because it was his idea.

2.  Become a conspiracy theorist and an idea stealer... simultaneously.

(Two birds.  One stone. Catch 22)

3.  Watch all 250 TED talks and then give a speech about it.

4.  Finally have an established relationship status on Facebook that shows up on mini-feed for all my friends to see and ask about with the aid of inquisitive (and ever-adorable) emoticons 

5.  Learn Fergies "My Humps" in American Sign Language and then teach it to all the deaf Young Women in my ward as a service project

6.  Drive around town asking as many joggers as I can find if they need a ride

7.  Memorize and entire episode of Friends and, changing only inflection of voice, communicate an entire day by only using the memorized dialogue start to finish... at work.

7b.  Get fired.

Wish me luck.

Linear Tension

It seems like in the last twenty years or so that lines of good and bad, clear and confusing, do's and don'ts have become so blurred that we don't know what is good for us anymore.

After the wall fell down and the cold war had finally come to a close, America had one, maybe two years of blissful peace.  The bad guys and the good guys became friends.  The fear of communism and nuclear holocausts had been squelched.  Why didn't it last though?  Why didn't my generation ever get to experience this?  Why didn't America--and the world--follow the universally heard sigh of relief with decades of happy peace?  Because the clear enemy had been blurred and people got scared. 

For almost fifty years, we--along with most everyone else--knew who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were.  They even had a name:  communists.  It was great.  "You stay over there under the banner of 'bad' and we'll stand over here under our banner of 'good,' we'll flex our nuclear arms at each other (that we both know we won't use) and at the end of the decade, we'll shake hands and call each other and talk about Berlin."  Those were the days.   

Now things aren't quite so easy.  With the consummation of the cold war came an identity crisis for America.  Because what is Batman without Joker?  Nothing.  He's just an overly manicured stud in a ridiculous costume rescuing attractive women from burning buildings.  Well we have firemen for that.  No one likes a good-looking hero unless he is saving the world.

Finding a Bad Guy

So we had to find a new arch nemesis and his name is terrorism, and he's about as abstract as Pollock. He doesn't have a country, or even a clear definition.  In fact, the definition of terrorism stands as "a person who terrorizes or frightens others."  So, by definition, my Professor when she told me the only way I was going to get a B in her class was to get a 100% on my final, was committing terrorism.  Well put campus on code red and invade the Ricks building.  

The point is, is that I miss the good ol' days of the cold war.  Worldwide tension that came served like a chilled drink with a side of better economics.  A world where batman is sexy and useful, but most of all, a world where the lines between good and bad are as clear as a curtain... maybe even one made out of iron or something.  

Blog Tog, Blag Tag

So... I've been "blog tagged" by my friend Jonathan. Here's the mission shall I choose to accept it: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 random facts; 1 girl; 1 blog; no tomorrow.  

3 Joys:  

1. A well-placed f-word (not from me, but maybe in a movie or something)

2. Sweet, sweet revenge

3. Free laundry, otherwise known as the "on your honor" dryer in my house that runs without actually insterting quarters, but instead provides a bin where the "honesty" quarters are kept. I think I found some lint and a couple nickels in there once. (sounding pretty righteous so far. Thanks Jonathan.)

3 fears:  

1. Waking up with a dead centipede in between my fingers... again

2. That I might someday take my blog tag seriously, thus revealing my true, less-likable personality

3. That someone might make me choose between performing an interpretive dance to Vitamin C's graduation song in front of my peers or death and then that I'll choose death.

3 goals: 

1. To find a man who knows my mind as well as Google: no, that's not what I said but yes, that's what I meant.

2. To run again. At all.

3. To be the face that starts World War Three: eat your heart out Helen of Troy

3 random facts: 

1. I don't usually do the dishes unless someone is watching.  

2. When I was younger I went into business with myself selling grocery store candy bars for five dollars to my neighbors. My first client asked me what I was selling them for. I said church. He didn't buy any. I learned two lessons from this entrepreneurial experiment: a. Growing up middle-class with a thirst for tamagotchis turns children into liars and b. lying about church turns neighbors into Anti-Mormons.

aaaaaand...

3. I love Jonathan Griffith!