Mary Versus the Trumpeting Legions of Apathy

Santa Claus and Christianity have rather a rocky relationship, don't they? Is he a saint? A decadant example of rampant commercialism? Does he encourage or erode faith in things neither seen nor heard? Are his gifts alms or mammon? It's no wonder that some Christians are rather skittish about the Old Man. Still, I consider myself a great Santa apologist. Here's why: Santa Claus Knows That We're All God's Children. It's funny to think that being poor could have been such a stigma that the singer had to emphasize that Santa will love you even if you aren't rich. We've sort of come to take it for granted that gift reception shouldn't depend on wealth. There are enormous resources to mobilize all and any into providing "a Christmas" for the disadvantaged, and it's no accident that often these organizations are called Sub for Santa, or Santa's Helpers or an equivalent of that. Christian obligation to the poor fits in nicely to the Santa...

I was thinking about it this week and I realized that I'm happy with who I am, but not content. It's a really good place to be in, actually. I adore setting goals. I make New Year's Resolutions. And new semester's. And right now I have three pages of sticker-chart hanging on my bathroom wall. (Yes, one of the rows is for "write in journal/blog.") It's nice to keep in mind the things that I want to do, the person that I want to become. And I understand that, while my intentions may be good and my effort admirable, I probably won't make all of those goals. I might not get to the Serengeti before I turn 30 to cross it off my list. It's getting to the time of the year when I can look at the goals I made for 2011 and realize that I probably won't lose 10 pounds before Jan 1, nor will I pass my prospectus exam, unless the university system radically changes during finals week. And similarly this week there are several rows on the sticker chart that a...

What a great day! I started my morning with my standard run along the island. It's a good thing our island doesn't have any cars, because then it would be harder for everyone of us to go for a morning run. But then, who would be driving? Ha, ha. It was a great run. Guess who I saw? Everyone. Even old man Parkins was out there hitting the pavement, then fluffly grass, then pavement again. Do you know who else was there? Puppies. Lots of puppies. I love the herds of puppies that run around the island. It's so friendly. After my run, I couldn't help but stand around the finish line and watch all the other people come in from their morning run. I clapped and clapped. I'm so proud of them for finishing. Sometimes I don't know which I enjoy more: running and waving to the people behind me, or standing and jumping up and down clapping. When I finally got home, boy was I in for a treat! There was some crazy person walking a tightrope over my building! I kept frantically...

It's funny to me that there are people who hate the genre of the Christmas newsletter. They seem to hate it for two reasons: (a) it's superficial, trying to capture the entire year in MAX, one page, front-and-back, and (b) it's overly optimistic, phrasing even sad events as if they were fantastic ("Frank lost his job this year, which means more time to play with Kitty!"). I think that these are actually interesting genre conventions to work with. Think about it: how often do you write a summary of the entire year in your journal? How often are blogs just grumblefests? I say, bring on the newsletter. So without further ado, and apologies to those of you who will get this twice: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, all! This has been a great year for me, personally, and I hope it's been good to you, too. I'm now in my second year of my PhD program down here in Austin, Texas. I'm getting far more comfortable down here and am getting used to the rhythms of...

During the weeks leading up to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, there was a lot of discussion about changing social attitudes. A law that had been generous at its time for allowing gay soldiers to serve their country was now oppressive because soldiers weren’t as intolerant as once they were; many soldiers in the same barracks as openly gay men have teachers, aunts, friends who are also gay. The law could progress to match social attitudes. There’s another place where Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is still thriving, though: surrounding religion in public universities. One prominent class-discussion scholar calls the discussion of religion in academia “the last great taboo” and one of my professors described admitting her religious persuasion as “coming out of the closet.” Why are we so anxious about the idea that academics can be religious? There’s a persuasive view in academia, like there once was about gays in the military, that all religious people fit an undesireable ste...

Here are some random pictures from the season interspersed with my own October Project: learning new pumpkin-related recipes. Here's the line up. Week one: Pumpkin Curry. My first pumpkin attempt was so nice & tasty that I had it for lunch several days running. It's very orange. (Here's Bastrop, where I got to haul chainsawed trees and sort through ashes, and move rubble. Sad, but nice to see all the people helping out.) 1 chopped onion 1 can chicken bits 1 tablespoon yellow curry 1/2 cup yellow raisins 2 cups chopped carrots 1 raw sugar pumpkin, in big peices (like 1/4 a pumpkin each), seeds removed In a crock-pot throw all ingredients, cook all day. Then scrape the soft pumpkin out of the shell (should be soft now), stir in and heat a little longer. The pumpkin makes the curry less kicky. Tis nice. Week Two: Spice Pumpkin Seeds Party Mix Gretchen says these are like crack. I altered another recipe and made them twice--once for practice and once for our Halloween party...

Two very cool things about this book: 1). Coming from a French and British perspective, it's already a little more "globesity expert" just from situated authority. Even better, while most of the research for this book /has/ taken place in the developed world, Delpeuch is quick to remind us that the obesity epidemic is going to hit the developing world like a freight train. Carrying lard. Old "high energy density" eating habits with new urbanized sedentary lives, plus an increased desire among the upwardly mobile for red meat and sweets create the bizarre world where in one country, in one city, in one household, there could be both radical undernourishment and dangerous over-eating. 2). The answers to the problem are also very European. "Stop telling fat people to be more puritan about food and exercise," this book declares, "and start changing their environments!" Frequently citing how the anti-smoking laws in England cut smoking rates, the ...

Scene: Upper floor Calhoun Hall. One MARY, in a black turtleneck and grey skirt, self-consciously businesslike, is pacing the halls looking over her notes of her field exam and reciting her impassioned introductory speech in her mind. Near ENGLISH OFFICE, a YOUNG MAN, tall, black, in trendy clothing. He appears to be looking for something. MARY: Hey, are you looking for something? YOUNG MAN: I think so, but I haven't found it. MARY: I wouldn't be much use for you. [beat] I barely know this building myself. {nervous laughter} YOUNG MAN: What's that? holds out his hand for papers MARY: Oh, these are just the notes for my field exam. [she hesitates, then hands them over] YOUNG MAN: [looking them over] Hmm, hmm, hmmm..is that the last page? MARY: Uh, these are my notes for my presentation. [hands over the last sheet] It's about, you know, being a specialist and a generalist at the same time. In rhetoric. YOUNG MAN: [still thoughtfully engrossed in the papers, then, looks up...

1: beanie baby chicken 2: brown-and-pink hand-dipped candle 3: external hard drive that doesn't (as far as I can tell) work at all 4: several almost-finished novelty post-its 5: money tree seed 6: little tiny gift box someone gave me a USB drive in 7: henna inking kit 8: pen shells with no cartridges in them 9: foreign coins 10: post-it notes sketching out (far distant) prospectus ideas 11: WWKBD (what would Kenneth Burke do) rubber bracelet 12: Ex Libris labels 13: National Zoo wildlife conservation sticker 14: roll of 200 smiley face stickers (red left only) 15: really cool headphones that only work if the cord's in just the right place

As I go from adviser to adviser at UT as well as BYU, I seem to get two theories of the PhD (and education in general): either you jump through the hoops and get it over with or else you take joy in the journey and let your ideas build and ferment. In economic terms, the first embraces the Spense signaling theory, which declares that getting degrees and letters after our names is just a way of demonstrating WHO we already are (smarty pants), while the latter suggests that education is an accumulation of human capital--you're actually learning something you couldn't have gotten somewhere else. If I buy into the former, I need to graduate as soon as possible, under the bar, to prove myself and then just rush into the career I've been long prepared for. If I buy into the latter, I should take my time. For a long time I was a "long, steady and intense" kind of girl. 18 credit hours a semester. Three semesters a year. I was 3 classes away from a 2nd major in economics ...

I can pinpoint when I started writing online—in the summer between my 7 th and 8 th grade years. I know because my typing scores went from 24 words per minute to 50 or 60. I learned that I had to think, compose and write quickly in the chat rooms on the Microsoft Network (this was before a unified internet when people were either on MSN or AOL) and I also learned that people who judge you based on your spelling and grammar (“If you can’t even spell Freud, you must not know what you’re talking about.”). I also frequented a “discussion board” called The Shout, or something like that. The Shout was a site based in England for teenagers to start arguments from posts titled things like “Abortion???” Even though we often had the same arguments and no one was likely to change their position, I loved the chance to full-throttle argue with someone and I definitely screamed and cried and paced in front of that screen many a time. I hit my most contrary phase around 8th grade. I wasn't b...

I've had a good month for wildlife. BATS! coming out of a bridge--seriously like a cloud. ARMADILLO! I went on a run and I thought, "what a tacky yard decoration" and then it moved! And vultures eating a road-killed cat.

The title of this post comes from one morning after Jamie Z. hiked Y Mt. and stood in front of our apartment, looking up at the Wasatch range humming to herself. The Y Mt. hike is steep and fast (esp. with Gregory S.), so I think it was as hard physically as any time I've climbed Timp. It's also a heck of a lot prettier once you get past the Y and move around to the back of the mountain. This is where I live!

I don't want to spoiler you all, but while James Franco thinks Planet of the Apes is about how evil money is, I think he's just a little biased in favor of his character. Money may be the root of all evil, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A lot of times, we think we're doing good, and I don't just mean tampering in God's domain (although I never thought apes were adorable until last night). I mean sometimes we just go in blind trying to do the best we can. Usually it works out. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it leads to an army of super-apes.

So I've been thinking a lot lately about FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out , supposedly a psychological anxiety increasingly endemic to our society of Facebook posts, photo texts, and, even, blogs like this one. Everyone, it seems, is going around telling everyone, "OMIGOSH, I'M HAVING THE BEST TIME EVER!!!!" and this is making us look around and think, "I thought I was happy, but maybe I could be even happier." "Rebekah Nathan" discovered in My Freshman Year that young people posted pictures of them having THE BEST TIME EVER!!! on their dorm walls and kept trying to one-up each other. Picture of you kayaking? Well, here's a picture of me skydiving. A picture of you fishing down by the lake? Check out my picture fishing for marlin...in Cuba...on a handmade boat...with George Clooney. Facebook encourages this kind of thing even more, consciously or unconsciously, because we need to defend out own way of life, especially those of us who are still i...

So according to a recent study out of Northwestern , minority kids use media 4 1/2 hours more than white kids. Turns out that they're also early adapters--using iPhones' new features--and listen to more music. Is that such a bad thing? I mean, this isn't 1970 when listen to music meant sitting down with LPs. I may be pulling up the average a little, but here was my day when I read about this study: 7:30-9:00 morning weight training, listening to music 1/2 hours, listening to Planet Money and Get Fit Guy podcasts, some shimmying 9:00-9:30 Showering, eating breakfast, reading the news on iPhone, 20 minutes 9:30- 10:30 Bus ride, 1 hr reading 10:30-12:00 Library, 1 1/2 hr reading 12:00-12:30 Lunch break. Also, walking around campus listening to music, 15 minutes 12:30-1:30 Internet--answering email, checking Facebook, looking up a Wikipedia article about Lizzie Borden 1:30-2:30 Library reading 2:30-3:30 Bus ride, on iPhone reading news, getting health tips from Jullian Michae...

I must have texted a dozen people. Easily a dozen. No one, though, wanted to go to Roller Derby. This is partially my fault--I didn't let enough people know about it early enough and I didn't realize that this would be the last game I could go to this summer. But I had just met with M. nee M., who went to UT for her grad work and now is married with two wonderful daughters, and we discussed living the full life, so I decided I could go all by myself. So I took myself on a Saturday date. First I went to the library to return a book. Then I took a lovely long walk down to the convention center (read: was deceived by Google Maps as to its proximity). But on my way I ran into some British tourists, which reminded me to be a tourist in my own city. I witnessed a rally on the steps of the Capital. I read the historical markers. I wandered downtown to flat track derby. It was less like Whip It and more like a cute, minor-league baseball game. People chatted with their beers. Little ki...

There are some books and movies that take you to a dark place. And there are other movies that can get you out again. Sometimes it's correcting a philosophy, sometimes it's just a different perspective. Often it has to be the same kind of story, or an alternative view on the same thing. For example... In Out The Call of the Wild White Fang The Road Peace like a River Night Man's Search for Meaning Whip It An Education Tess of the D'Urbervilles The Silent Partner All My Sons The Moon is Down Does anyone else have suggestions of books, movies, plays that counterbalance each other nicely?

Now I'm not saying that there aren't any other weird times in a person's life. The last ten years of old age when you've already written your will and planned your funeral have to be crazy, as do the middle "Men of a Certain Age" years when you realize that you aren't young in any stretch of the word any more. But young adulthood, real young adulthood, is truly bizarre. For my purposes I'd like to define this period as ranging from the last couple years of one's terminal education until settling down stage. There are probably other indicators, but this is the the strange vagrant period between youth "being on track" (fourth grade comes after third grade, school follows summer, the people you see every evening around you are your family) and adult "being on track" (one year at your job follows another, you acquire seniority and climb the ranks, the people you see every evening around you are your family). We're unsettled gyps...

First you think you don't need to journal because you blog. Then you think you don't need to blog because you write long email. Then you think you don't need to write long email because you Facebook. Next think you know, you're expecting your posterity to go through your planner for insight.

...but you know? No one's eternal life ever rested on a movie or a pop band. In the words of a pop band that thought they were hot stuff but is now part of the cultural fizzle of the 90s: please don't put your life in the hands of a rock and roll band/ and throw it all away. The sublime of art, it can make you feel, but after that? You have to get up. You've got to start doing something for someone. Art can direct us to places we haven't been before, but there's nowhere that says artists have things figured out better than any of the rest of us. Someone's capacity to write a song that yanks out your heart isn't necessarily correlated with their knowledge of perfect truths that will bring you personally the joy you seek. If you meet Bob Dylan on the side of the road, to paraphrase the 70s book, kill him. Art and film will access in you what you already have. Ranking Pixar films with my sister, we had a stand-off over whether Finding Nemo or Ratatouille was t...

Yet another thing to love about Austin: upbeat graffiti! (Love your neighbor) (Never Surrender) (Love the Life You Live, Live the Life You Love) And, of course... It's not Banksy, but it does me good.

Went to CCCC's with my mom again. So much good times. Here're photos! Oh, dorky English teachers! Dessert night at the hotel! And a close-up of that pile of gooey goodness! There were cherries, Baby Ruth bars, cherries and caramel sauce besides the sweet tortillas, ice cream and chocolate sauce. Also, I guess I heard some good presentations on writing...

I thought I was jaded. Maybe I had grown out of it. Maybe I had just been exposed to too much. Or I was out of practice. But the idea that when I was in junior high I would lie on a couch in the dark listening to a song over and over again, or could be moved to reconsider my life because of a movie has seems so far away for a couple of years. I thought I had a good run. I had listened to songs that made me want to be in love, painted several pictures of the lead singer of a band, had actors and directors that I thought really knew me (aside from the ones that actually really knew me). And while I didn't just shrug off the way that I had felt back then, I didn't know if I could feel so strongly right now. I mean, sure I liked Iron Man okay and, to a disappointing lesser extent, Iron Man 2 , and Cage the Elephant . Yeah, I went through a phase where I watched almost all of CW's Supernatural (but on TNT--I'm not an animal). But was I ever deeply moved? Entertained, deli...

After a week-long hike through the charming English countryside with my brother and sister-in-law I had a charming 7 hour flight home. The movie options were somewhat limited, so I watched three movies, two of which were about brothers and sisters passionately loyal to their siblings (the third was Monsters Inc, but that's just good entertainment). In Conviction , Hilary Swank's character believes her lovable nogoodnik brother is innocent of the murder he's been accused of, so she decides to become a lawyer to overturn his conviction. Which means she has to go to law school. Which means she has to go to college. Which means she has to get her GED. (In other debates, I suspect Swank represents the kind of college student who perhaps doesn't need a lot of GE courses...) She never once entertains the idea that her sometimes violently angry brother might actually have committed the crime as she not only goes to school, but suffers economically, emotionally and even loses he...

Okay, so here's me getting bossy again, but I was thinking about how I return from a trip and how to do this best. Here's my free advice, and you get what you paid for. You don't want to be overwhelmed and depressed by coming home, but you want to return peaceful, refreshed and happy to be in your normal life again with such good memories. To ensure this, I think a successful reentry from a trip requires as much planning and care as heading out. That starts even before you've left. Before the Trip: Get someone to feed the pets, get the mail, etc. You don't want to return to disaster. Clean house, including making the bed & having some clean clothes. You want to come back and see your home at its best and you don't want to have to do dishes or pick up before you can rest after a hard day of travel. Clear out any perishables, but have some non-perishable food ready in the cupboard. With airlines being so stingy these days, you'll probably be hungry when...

Far be it from me to use this forum to prescribe ways of living (except when I do ), but sometimes I think we get the wrong idea about emergency preparedness. The point isn't that the world is about to end and we all need several 75 lb bags of wheat in our basements. The point is that we better be careful and prepared to be self-sufficient. My brother-in-law once gave a genius talk about how there are 3 kinds of emergencies: 1) the world is going to end and, honestly, your wheat probably isn't going to save you, so better focus on being spiritually prepared to meet your maker 2) you're in a tough economic place for a long time and really what you need is money and good credit (and probably also some food storage, clothes, gardening and handiman skills, etc.) 3) something unexpected happens and it takes 2-3 days for Red Cross to show up and in the meantime, you and your family needs food, water, diapers (depending on age) and depends (depending on age). This is pretty clever...

There is probably no color in the Crayola box with which I have so complicated a relationship as pink. Hot pink. Blush. Rose. Tickle-me-pink. All of them, really. When I was a little girl (and don't make jokes about a trip to Switzerland, because the emphasis here is on /little/), I had very, very short hair. Oft I was mistaken for a boy. So I clung to evidences like the pink lace on my black hightops (it was the 80s) for a while, but then kind of gave up and went the tomboy route. I could look cool, but not cute. I was the bodyguard, not the princess in make-believe. And I did not wear pink. My mom protested, of course, that I looked so pretty in pink. And the kicker is: I do. I have that blonde hair, the blue eyes, and whether my skin is creamy pale or sun-cancered tan, my complexion looks great in pink. Especially pale pinks. Especially all pinks. But no. No, no, no. I wore a blue prom dress, red t-shirts, even, somehow, an entire palette of earthtones for a season, but no pink....

So I'm about to go home (to Texas) after a nice 1 1/2 month long vacation at home (in Utah) and I'm thinking: it's been dang nice to have my mom made me dinner, and buy all the food, and pick up my shoes, and my dad offers to buy my clothes, and drives me places, and my brother...does stuff for me, too, and shouldn't I be more, you know, independent? I'm 26 and single, which means in my culture that you still sit at the kiddie table. I have a (part-time) job and I go to (graduate) school, so I'm pretty much doing what I've always been doing...so my fam helps me out sometimes. I'm kind of okay with this. Don't get me wrong: I'm righteously indignant when I read about failure-to-launch types who enjoy an extended adolescence free from responsibilities to their parents or a future family, who don't work, really, or prepare for work, who just cruise. I work hard, manage my money, take extra jobs, watch my spending, and try to seek out new friends...