...And Satifaction Brought It Back

There is no cure for curiosity. I have yet to find any sort of twelve-step program to help me rid myself of my obsession with being the back-stage know-it-all. Oh, I don't like to let everyone know that I know it all. That I know their darkest secrets, their middle names, how their pet Willy the goldfish died last week, or any of the odd assortment of interesting facts about people that you pick up when talking to other people about them. You would be shocked the things people will unknowingly divulge to a listening ear that doesn't react like their news is any surprise. Honestly. The best way to get stories out of a person is to pretend like you already know everything they are saying, to not give them any sort of fantastic reaction from their traded bits of fluff that they've pulled from the lives of others. It makes them want to tell bigger stories, greater secrets, more shocking intrigues, and basically just more interesting information. How I came to be aware of this fantastic trade secret is a bit of a sad tale I fear.

Most children dream of becoming something important, someone who is idolized by the others around them, or accomplishes a great deal of good in the world. Doctors, Firemen, Lawyers, Presidents, Senators, Police, Public Performers and Millionaire's. Even Dentists. But because I am my mother's daughter and well, just a bit of an oddball, I had a desire from very early in my life to break out of the norm. I was going to be the worlds most clever international spy. Mind you, this is before the popular Spy movies began dominating the cinematic scene and long before I was ever allowed to watch any movie even alluding to the indomitable James Bond. I began my career training very early. I taught my young friends and cousins my cunning tricks of discovery. We snuck around corners, read secret correspondence (left on countertops), snuck taboo items from their hiding places (generally food), analyzed dust specks and left strings of hair and yarn over drawer openings so we would know when someone unwelcome had entered (a trick I picked up from the very authoritative and credible Mary Kate and Ashley Detective series). I was on my way to insurpassable success.

It was after reading a rather stupendous spy novel in my early teen years that I stumbled upon the secret that would both make and break my sensational lifes-work. Simply talking to people, this book suggested, is the best way to discover the inner workings of their lives. And so the gossip gathering began...

You will never hear me deny it, gossip is poison. It has caused me more problems, more unnecessary strife in my life than I even want to consider. Don't worry, I will not here detail the many incidents of indisgression on my part or that of my compatriots. I have simply to say, the picture of the girls passing black goop from hand to hand in the Mormonad passed around in seminary is a rather extremely accurate visual representation.

After a particularly nasty incident of gossip reaching the wrong ears in High School I was reading the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet on a challenge from a young women's leader whom I am sure was incredibly sick of dealing with the outcomes of mine and my dear young friends' drama. Gossip, I read, is bad. It is destructive and evil and a disciple of Christ will not participate but will draw in those they feel the least charitible towards and learn to love them. Ok, so that's not really what it said, but that's the basic lesson I picked out of it.

Well crap. There went my greatest source of power, my secret weapon, the ability to sow ultimate destruction! I determined then that being a disciple of Christ was simply more important to my life than being able to hold secrets above the heads of my peers and manipulating them to do as I wished. BUT I thought, aren't there characters in the Book of Mormon who accomplished great feats by knowing the minds of their enemies and even their kin, even saving hundreds of lives? The answer: OF COURSE THERE WERE! My dream was reborn! A true spy, I concluded, will hold their secrets, will use the information only for good and will be selective of the sources which they will pass their gathered secrets to.

Okay okay okay, I know-I still have horrible trouble with gossip and you all know it. I'm sorry. But at least you know now, I am working on it ;)

Old habits die hard, and I seem to permanently be the honey that draws in information-holders and screams, vent to me! Tell me all your secrets, let me be your confidante! You will invariably find that no matter where I go, or what kind of social group I associate myself with, I will very quickly become bestest friends with the Gossip. The public know-it-all. The magical person who everyone else comes to to confess all their greatest misdeeds, hidden passions and unbridled desires. The trusted confidante of nearly everyone else. They even oft-times become my own confidante. But I'm not going to lie to you, I love it. I love hearing peoples' stories, I love hearing people analyzing their own lives and the lives of others, I just love the idea of people (though the reality is sometimes a bit unwelcome, I'll admit).

This is probably why I am a history major. Everyone knows History Professors are nothing more than Professional Gossips. They analyze not only the people in their own lives but all the people throughout all time! A History Professor is someone whose curiosity never dies, someone who wheedles people, places and artifacts into telling their stories so that we can cast it in iron and project it to the whole world! We are the sneakiest spies in the world! We fish out the secrets of people and civilizations that have been dead for centuries, we tell the world in hundreds of shows, books, scholarly journals, accounts and diaries, and yet NO ONE EVER REMEMBERS WHO WE ARE!!! For example, How many of you know who Howard Carter, Leopold Van Ranke, Edward Gibbon or even Herodotus are? How many of you just went to look up those names? *insert raise of the right eyebrow*

Anyhow, my point is simple: Historian=Gossip=Awesome High Tech Inter-Civilization Over-Centuries Time-Denying SPY

Our Mantra: Curiosity Killed the Cat, BUT SATISFACTION BROUGHT IT BACK!!!

From Rock-a-Bye Baby to a Goddess of Chaos

Okay, so I was watching Sinbad today with my little sisters Traci and Annie and my brother Johnnie. We had a grand old time of it, laughing at the wily puns and the occasionally racy joke, getting way too into the romance between Sinbad and Marina, and enjoying the full adrenaline rush of the adventure as though we were actually in the story. If you have ever watched a movie with my family, you know this is really standard procedure. What is the point of sitting and watching a movie for two or three hours if you're not going to get ridiculously excited about it and quote lines to each other forever afterwards while rehearsing your favorite scenes? Anywho, Sinbad I have to admit is my very favorite animated picture of all time. Even better than Aladdin. I know, you are shocked. Why though, you ask? Is it for the dashing hero with the irresistable voice of Brad Pitt? Does my deep love of history and mythology make the tale so personal that it is absolutely enthralling? Am I intellectually enchanted by the contorted dichotomy of good vs. evil?

Well, perhaps all of these things combine to make it a marvelous movie, but what I truly love, the reason I can watch this movie ten thousand times over and never get bored, what enthralls and enchants me so thoroughly that I have to stop reading or writing whatever I am doing whenever someone turns it on, is Eris: the Goddess of Chaos. Unless you have known me for too long to ignore the evidence, or you have actually lived with me for any amount of time (though I believe some of my poor roommates at BYUI still believe in my innocence) you probably haven't yet realized that I am a horribly addicted, insanity loving, mind warping trickster. A prankster of the first class, truly, because NO ONE ever blames me. Though my dear sister BriAnne and my best-friend of eight years Chelsea have cried for years that I am the true mastermind behind the terrible pranks and playful tricks they were blamed and punished for during our youth, they have not yet managed to convert anyone other than my parents...who I think love me anyways, and who only believed them after I confessed to inspiring a few rather odd spectacles. The trick is, to get someone else to do the dirty work. You have to find someone brave enough, tricksy enough, and entertaining enough to keep them around long enough for you to inspire them. Eris, you see, is the ultimate example. She frames, she manipulates, she teases, she tortures, she inspires. And she is beautiful, frightening yes, but beautiful. I loved her character from the moment I saw her.

Alright, you say, how is it possible that a little mormon girl raised in a home filled with the spirit, constantly reminded to love one another, can be full of such spite? Well first, I'm not spiteful, honest. I try not to do anything that will hurt another person (though I confess I have definitely managed to do this before) or cost anyone huge amounts of money to repair (also, must confess that I have accidently managed this before) or will damage another person's pschye to haunting and traumatizing levels (ok yes, I confess I have managed this one too-the point is, I didn't do it on purpose). But do I think something must have been done in my youth to twist me into such a strange chaos-loving creature? I'm not sure. Maybe I love it so much because it is what I can never really be, it's my alter-ego so to speak, my closet self. Maybe my mother's love of character and spunk sprouted into something a hint more devious when planted in me. But I think the most likely reason of all (my heart is just the right size, thankyou) are the lullaby's, the fairy-tale's, the cryptic stories and yes, even the Disney movies that I so loved as a child.

Please read the words to the following nursery rhyme/lullaby and then try to tell me it is not one of the creepiest things you have ever heard in your life.

Rock-a-bye baby,
in the treetop,
When the wind blows,
the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks,
the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby,
cradle and all.

Ok people, we are singing this to our children, as they are falling asleep!!! No wonder we all have so many issues!

First of all, Why the HECK is the baby in the tree? Further more, why did the bough break?! We are giving our children a weight complex before they can even talk! THE CRADLE WILL FALL AND DOWN WILL COME BABY CRADLE AND ALL?!?!?! What in the world?! The psychiatrists are all trying to tell us that dreaming about searching for something means there is something missing in your life, dreaming about running means there is a fear in your life you are not confronting, dreaming about falling means you are overwhelmed, insecure, unstable and feel you are not in control of your life. But you know what the truth is? We are all so mentally and emotionally scarred from the lullaby's we were sung as children that we are still having nightmares about it!

So I looked up Rock-a-Bye Baby on wikipedia, wondering if there was some sort of logical explanation to the madness. There is a brief argument that the words we now sing come from an early American who witnessed Native American women tying their children up in slings in tree's and letting the wind rock them to sleep. I garuntee you those women were not singing to their little babies about being shot out of their slings to the ground! This explanation was not satisfying at all. The creep factor was still in. So I read on. The original lyrics, said the history, had nothing to do with babies being knocked out of tree's at all! As a matter of fact they were charming! Though I cannot figure why it should matter to the child one whit that their cradle is green. That's just kind of strange. The original lyrics were as follows:

Rock-a-bye, baby,
thy cradle is green;
Father's a nobleman,
mother's a queen;
And Betty's a lady,
and wears a gold ring;
And Johnny's a drummer,
and drums for the king.

So the barbarism developed! It is recent generations, OUR generations who changed the cute little lullaby into a horror story to be sung to innocent children. Why?! To terrorize us away from the tree's? A method of keeping your kids out of things you don't want to deal with? I know that is the method of the horrifying Grimms Brother's fairy tale's that I simply cannot believe people actually read to their babies!

It is these same fairy tales that Disney tries to spruce up into happy-go-lucky stories with cute little talking animals that somehow always manage to help the often brainless heroine's on their way into trouble. What would Snow White or Sleeping Beauty be without their hordes of dancing forest animals? Where would Ariel be without flouder, scuttle or sebastian? How would Cinderella have managed without her little rodent friends? THIS is what we are telling our daughters to imitate? This is what we compare them to, what we dress them up as for parties, playdates and even, horrifyingly, halloween? Do you know what happens to girls who actually speak to rodents? I do. Want to know why? Because I am one, and the result of speaking to a rodent is no fairy tale, let me tell you.

I do not lie. I even have a recent incident of exposure, though thank heaven I had only one witness. A young man who lived in the men's apartments behind my apartment at University. He stood innocently on his balcony watching the sunset as I whistled my way down the street and walked home through the break between apartment buildings just below him. A squirrel stood off to my left. The bushy little rodent tried to cross the opening at the same time as me, and when we noticed each other we both stopped. I stopped whistling. I did not notice the boy, watching. "Excuse me," said I to the squirrel, "were you trying to pass?" His beady eyes were steady, his tail twitched only once. "Well then, by all means," I finished, "after you." I flourished my hand in the appropriate motion and the squirrel very graciously took me at my word and crossed the opening and scampered up his tree. A startled laugh escaped the boy above me and I looked up with surprise. My cheeks flamed red as he burst out in open laughter and I hurried through the pass myself and briskly shuffled the rest of the way home, the boys laughter ringing behind me. Embarrassment, and not enchantment, is the only thing that resulted from the encounter. So far I have been one of the lucky ones, and no one has actually locked me in cell with all the other nuts.

This may be only a manifestation of their own self-conciousness however, at being just as crazy as I am. Who, after all, could grow up watching E.T. or Alice in Wonderland and not be just a little bit traumatized for the experience? Nightmares still plague me of gigantic pink bunnies with red eyes and claws, aliens with hammer shaped heads poking out of my closet, dressers and bookshelves, and don't even get me started on my fear of going into a bathroom without the light already being on or reaching to the ground next to my bed for an extra blanket when it's cold. Most of the time, I'd rather just shiver. I reach my hand around the corner of the bathroom door at night and flip on the light before I can completely open the door. I honestly pick up a baseball bat or a piece of metal shelving before answering the front door any time after about ten o'clock. Are these things normal? I don't know, because I have a deep seated fear about talking to anyone about them, because I have been raised on conspiracy theories and often wondered as a child if I was really some sort of mythical creature grafted into a human family for my own protection.

With all these terrors and upsetting romodels bouncing around in my head, is it really any wonder that I am inspired by a powerful, cunning and manipulative Goddess of Chaos? At least if she's causing the chaos she has some control over it!

I'm still watching you friend

I'm watching you friend. I'm watching your standards crash around you as you dance. I'm watching your dreams be crushed under your own mincing feet and I'm screaming for the dance to end. I'm watching you die a little with every step and still you will not listen. I'm watching you laugh at the blood you see trailed along the path of your twirls. Blood is fashionable these days. I'm watching you friend, and I can see the pain your dance is causing. I'm watching you wince with every movement, gasp with every breath. I'm watching you and I'm crying for you to let someone hold you, let someone love you. I'm watching you friend, but I do not think you see me. Why can't you see me friend, why don't you listen? I can see the tears roll down your face as you beckon for a dancing partner. I whisper to you friend, and I try to take your hand, but you're still dancing. You're still dancing, and I cannot dance this with you. But I'm still watching you my friend.

Multiplicity ;)

I have been thouroughly hasselled by multiple sources for not posting on my blog recently...and so I am posting a snippet of all the various activities in my crazy life for your perusal ;)


Anywho. To start I shall say, I have become a nocturnal creature. For some reason, I find that I have supremely horrible trouble trying to sleep since I have come home to Washington. I generally don't go to bed until at least 2AM and often not til 4 or 5. This is somewhat of a problem, since my wonderfully spiritual family wakes me up at 7:30 for family prayer. Even if I stay up from then however, I cannot sleep at bedtime. It is a conundrum. There are many different theories as to why this is. One: I didn't go to sleep til midnight or later at school after doing hours of mind numbing history homework and now when I go to bed my mind is still so fascinated by all the interesting things I have filled my mind with, instead of history, that I cannot sleep for thinking of all of these. Somewhat distressing, since history is supposed to be my life's mission. Hmmm. Since I have begun to dream in scenes of the story I am writing, combined with weird drama's from YSA, and the odd horror incidents mixed in (don't know where those are coming from...anxiety perhaps?) I am rather convinced that this is the prime reason for my nightly discomfort. Second: I enjoy the quiet of dark hours uninterupted by all but the crazy paranoid neighborhood cop and the occasional taxi dropping strange looking people at the house accross the street-a more common occurence than you would suspect, which makes me suspicious. Unfortuately I had already made it to bed the other night when the nosy policeman (ok-I know he's being nice mom, I'm just being facetious ;) knocked on the door and got my mother out of bed to tell her the garage was open-for the umpteenth time. At least he didn't bang on the windows and scare the crap out of me and Traci this time though. Last time I think we answered the door with a baseball bat. Third: I have not been running at night like I do at school and when 8 or 9 PM rolls around I suddenly find myself with this burst of manic energy that I do nothing with-but write. Everyone else has gone to bed, it's dark and scary outside and the treadmill is possessed, so what else can I do? Then I try to go to bed and I'm jittery and buzzing with unused physical energy, so of course I can't sleep. Fourth: Possible sleep apnea? Fifth: A case of extreme fear of abandonment. This is the first time I have EVER had my own room in my life, and not hearing another person breathing in the room scares me to peices. I have begun to play music while sleeping. Sixth: Lack of faith? Seriously-if it's fear keeping me awake, is my faith not strong enough? How do I fix this? I don't seem to be able to talk myself out of it. Reading scriptures only makes the strange dreams more complicated, because then I'm adding characters in from them. Example: The other night I think Katie Gerke went out with Nephi but the main character from my story showed up at the restaurant and tried to steal him away from her when suddenly a character from the book I'm reading showed up and exposed her to be a spy. Then I suddenly was her and I was running for my life and ended up jumping off a cliff. But of course I woke up before I hit the ground. Did I evaporate? (only funny if you've read the story-sorry) Am I now in the eternal kingdom? I don't know.



Well, that segways into a few other key parts of my life for the past month. The first, obviously being YSA. I've been having a lot of fun with the YSA here and love being back with old friends. There have been games, late nights of craziness, easter egg hunts, temple trips, portland trips and bonfires. I can't wait for the beach trips to begin :D I have only two pictures though, and they are from the week Hannah Zabriskie came home to visit. We (YSA group) were all at a Music Comedy thing after a temple trip. It was a blast. Hannah took these two pictures and then I played with them :) the left is just me haha and below is me and Katie Gerke.




I also must say I had a fantacular time when Bri and Grant came to visit a few weeks ago during the break in semesters. I knew they were coming but to everyone else it was a surprise, and I must say, I kept the secret very well. Bwahaha. Bri took some pictures that night and I messed with them too, so I'm posting them.




As for what I'm doing in terms of a job...I'm looking lol. Probably not as hard as I should be, but I will look much harder after coming home from summer vacation to Bear Lake I think-I'm very upset at the prospect of missing it. I had a close thing with Panda Express but I think I was over qualified...when she asked about me speaking Chinese and knowing Sign Language she looked at me like I was nuts and said "why are you applying here?" Ya. Not a good sign. I really just need to make money, I don't care where and I don't have time for a huge commitment-I'll only be here for a year and 3 months and then I'm off on a mission :) Yay!

Lastly, I will put a teaser on my blog. For the story, of course. It's about an international double spy with special abilities, but that's all I can tell you. I'll put the prologue on, and hopefully eventually publish it as a book and then anyone can read it ;)

Eye

Prologue

The steps are stone. I know they must be frigid in this icy weather, but I do not feel it. I am colder.

Blonde today. Like the beam of morning sunlight peeking through the oppressive black clouds above me, I am supposed to give the impression, the promise, of warmth and welcome. Like that deceiving ray of light, I am naught but an illusion of hope to the people who will meet me today. Behind the sky blue irises that lend interest and vulnerability to my expressions, my eyes are black. Completely, wholly and unerringly black. It is fitting.

They call me Eye. It is a multifaceted pun. First there are my eyes, which I am told are striking. I do not know if it is meant that they are beautiful or simply that they are truly disarming. This may not have earned me the nickname, had they not also become my trademark tool. They can be used for such marvelous deception. Eyes can evince laughter, fake fear and tears, portray innocence and play with the heart. No one who has watched me work could deny that they are my sharpest weapon. Secondly is of course a reference to my being a spy. The irony is that both sides use versions of the same silly epithet. However, the third and most likely reason for my title is that I am the Eye. I am that false belying calm that is found after one believes the chaos and terror to be over. I am trusted and welcomed, cherished and praised for the hope I bring. They send me in to comfort, tease and trick the way to an astucious victory. It is impossible to consider me the traitor, the source of the sudden downpour found after my disappearance. I was the hand of friendship, I laughed with you, cared for you, even loved you. Obviously, you are wrong about that. I was merely a magnificent mirage that you will never discover. I am the Eye of the Storm.

Enough introspection. I must remain focused, my task here is imperitive. Not only to the Americans and their hopeless quest for...well, whatever it is they want, world dominance perhaps, but to my own security. If I do not convince these politicians to accept the ten year peace pact I carry, I will have failed the most essential assignment given to any covert dispatch in the last century. In the service of this country anyhow, my career would be ended. Half my income, up in smoke.

Would I be a loyalist then, if I worked for only one master?

NO. Never. I feel the iron wall slam down on the thought before it is even fully formed. I will belong to no one. I have no alligiance. They are right to call me the Eye. No man can tame a storm. A twisters' winds are impervious to human emotion, to the millions of voices screaming for its ceasing, to the suffering and destruction left in its wake. All one can do is enjoy the beguiling calm of the eye. To bask in the breif glimpse of the sun the eye allows you. You are a fool to believe the eye will protect you though. The peace will end with the coming of more bitter times than you have yet known, and the eye will move on to other victims. It does not feel, it does not care, and it does not remember. I do not have a heart. I cannot have a heart.