The Greatest Sacrifice

Some might say that giving birth and raising a child is the most selfless thing a woman can do in this life. But I think something is getting overlooked here. A friend of mine from London (who is Australian) came to visit me in "Chicago" where I'm from for a few days. I understand that childbirth might be hard, but hostesses are certainly not getting enough credit for being a top competitor on the selfless scale.

You think you are losing sleep because of your newborn? Well try pretending like you're not the kind of American who sleeps until ten. How's that for a disrupted schedule?

Not to mention my social life. Maybe it's hard for new mothers to be able to spend time with their husbands but I have texts to answer! Very important texts from men who don't call or come around so I depend on these texts to provide me with false hope and potential emotionally abusive relationships (fingers crossed). And the life I am in charge of doesn't nap. I had to send the Aussie to find Velveeta cheese in the Super Wal-Mart buying me a guaranteed 15 minutes to squeeze in a few texts (God bless over-sized American warehouse shopping and foreign-to-Europeans synthetic cheese).

Don't get me wrong, I love my guest as much as any postpartum depressed mother "loves" her newborn, but I would like some credit for my selfless sacrifices. Sure diapers are expensive but so is driving back and forth to the airport.

So go ahead, mothers of the world, soak up all the martyrdom while "giving life," I'll just be over here, the silent American ambassador, making peace with the world by driving to Chicago for the third time this week.

When Old Satan Calls: A Tribute

Old Man Winter was right about two things: His clock was broken and his days were numbered.

He died Thursday, December 18, 2008. I went to see him in the nursing home he had checked himself into a couple of days before. Luckily he only had to stay there for about a week because the place stank of menthol and Alzheimer’s. Old Man Winter is better than that. It was different from the stench of his house: sugarcoated bastard with a hint of lemon. I think the lemon because of his dusting solution, and the bastard because of his attitude.

I talked with him for a while and the last thing he ever said to me was: “Dear, I never said any one bad thing to you. Just remember that when ol’ Satan calls” I think it might have been a threat. Actually, this is a lie, the last thing he said to me was, “see if that old lady is still in my living room. She’s been in there all damn day,” but it was the last coherent thing he said to me.

On the day of the funeral I had the flu but I went anyway, infecting all his old, old friends I’m sure in all my Anna Nicole Smith glory. It wasn’t weird seeing him in his coffin. I had seen him look deader in his chair at home. The weirdest part was seeing his estranged brother at the funeral walking around. It was old man winter. I realized it wasn’t Old Man first because the man was smiling, second because I remembered OMW was dead. His brother asked me if I was the girl Old Man had fallen in love with and I couldn’t help feeling one part sad, one part creeped out, but a larger part like one glamorous, not to mention successful, gold-digger.

The service was boring and missing a few key family members (like his only grandsons), but otherwise alright. If my body was capable of shedding tears, I might have even spent one on the day.

As I was leaving the building and before my mom asked if we should put my contact information in the guest book (for purpose of the will), I could have sworn I heard an old, crusty whisper tell me I have hands like a freak-midget for such a husky girl. But it must have just been the wind because like he said: Old Man Winter never did say one bad thing to me.

May he rest in peace, and may the clock shop not spend too much time fixing his clock.

Finding Jesus During Christmas

Yesterday my mom made me make a delivery to my grandma next door. My grandma wanted a nativity set for underneath their tree and my mom had an extra so I took it over. We set up the scene and saw that my mom had given my grandma everything but Jesus, Mary and Joseph. My mom couldn't find them but told me to tell my grandma it was fine.

It wasn't fine.

I was then commissioned by Grams to find a baby Jesus and find him fast the next day. I walked past one, two, three complete nativity sets in our living room alone when I got back home. "She's not getting any of my baby Jesuses! Those are special to me!" --nothing like my mom's Christ collecting (or hoarding) to bring in the holiday cheer.

I went to department stores, thrift stores, and discount stores. I found Jesus in a snow globe. I found him in an ornament. I even found Jesus, Mary, and Joseph rotating in a clear, plastic bubble, but I couldn't find baby Jesus in his manger, with perhaps his mother and father by his side. Not a nativity was to be found this close to Christmas.

Where did I finally find Jesus? Where most people usually lose him: couched in the greedy arms of low-discount, conspicuously consumptive, super Wal-Mart. Yes there was just one baby Jesus, one Mary and one Joesph.** A beautiful, black family just waiting for me to take them home. I bought the set and smiled a little longer at every White Anglo-Saxon Protestant for making this last-minute purchase possible.

I would also like to thank Wal-Mart for overstocking and providing our family with a darker, holier family for the foot of my grandma's Christmas tree... I would also like to thank my grandma's poor vision.

**Shepherd with staff ripped out of his porcelain hand.

BYU-Riot

I'm graduating Friday and there are just a few quirks and idiosyncrasies that I'll miss about this place. Both were coincidentally demonstrated on my way to, and then during my class this morning.

Way to class: Meek girl walking while reading Twilight. The ever-famous dragon series, Eragon was tucked under her other arm and archery arrows were coming out of her backpack.

During class: I'm grading a student's argumentative paper for my teacher about college drinking. His argument was that a national curfew should be implemented into universities nation-wide to eliminate (yes eliminate) college drinking. His sources? His parents and a bartender at Applebee's.

Where else will you find this kind of innocence?

Love Can't Pay Rent... but it Might Pay Your Heating Bill

I've never been in love (other than with term papers and old men) but I don't really feel like I need to experience it anymore with gas prices the way they are. From what I understand about love (i.e. movies, tv shows, pop culture in general) all the same feelings are there:

1. I want to sing when I think about or see the gas prices as low as they are
2. I'm planning lots of extravagant trips and vacations that probably won't happen but still make me feel giddy in the middle of the night.
3. I'm vulnerable and scared because it might go away.
4. I have no tolerance for cynics who say it's crazy and won't last.
5. Even when I try to stop it, the topic still comes up in almost every conversation I have.

So Boyz II Men may have told me by whom to swear my love, and Richard Gere may have showed me that love has no price, but gas prices, you GAVE me love... and everything (good or bad) that comes with it.

Caveat: I think it befitting that writing a blog about something I really know nothing about was explained with an analogy about which I can't truly appreciate since I don't have a car.

Caveat deux: This is my last blog about fake love. I promise.

11 1/2 Page Paper: I Love You

I realized today, the reason that I will never and can never get married while I am in school.

Tonight, after many (not that many) laborious hours in the library, I finished my 10-12 page paper for my African history class. When I printed that piece of joy and stapled it together, I realized that I have never, and probably will never love a man as much as I love that paper.

I looked at it longingly, checking my bag every so often to see if it was still there. I read and re-read its words over and over like poetry. I stared at its clean 11-point serif font with attractive footnotes at the bottom of the page and realized I was in love. Where else am I going to find that kind of love? The kind of love you blog about? The last person I blogged about was Old Man Winter (actually, another good candidate of things I might love more than potential or future mates... there I said it).

So world, if you want me to leave BYU-Idaho betrothed, my qualifications are this: 8 1/2 X 11 inches/ gender: questionable/white/Chicago-style citations. That's all I ask.

Come Join Us, The Punch is Great

Well I went to check in on Old Man Winter this afternoon. (Note *Old Man Winter is the name I have given to the 99+ year-old man I have been taking care of since my freshman year of college. We get along quite well).

After he gives me the standard, "hello's" and "you look like you've gained weight," he tells me almost simultaneously and definitely with equal severity that 1. his heart has given out and his days are numbered, and 2. his clock is broken and he needs me to call the clock shop and take it to get it fixed.

I've heard both of these before, and I have to say, time after time I am more shocked with the broken clock than the failing organs. Buy a new clock already! I suffered five minutes on the phone with the (probably just as old) clock technition, feeding lines directly from Old Man Winter's mouth. "I need this clock fixed. It doesn't matter that you are two months behind. I depend on this to tell time. I am disabled." (It is important to note here that I have considered my loss of dignity and self-respect during this job, but it pays tuition... or as I like to call it, my "body complex scholarship," and thus, so far, is somehow worth it).

So a note to all you 90 pluses out there. I feel your pain (besides the failing hearts and collapsed lungs). I know it must be hard to let go of things when everything else around you has died or doesn't care about you anymore, but embrace the 21st century! When something even looks like it might be breaking soon... buy another one! It's just the American way now, and besides, someone needs to urge the clock-tech to find a real job anyway.